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Nice to see someone including the units! It gets confusing without them.Originally Posted by Justin_Roehm
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You're welcome!
October 6, 2010:
Squat: 175 lbs X 5 reps X 3 sets
Press: 70 lbs X 5 reps X 3 sets
Power Clean: 95 lbs X 3 X 5 reps
My power cleans caught up with my bench today. They are starting to feel a little harder. Next time I will most definitely need the jump to rack them onto my shoulders.
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October 9, 2010:
Squat: 180 lbs X 5 reps X 3 sets
Bench Press: 100 lbs X 5 reps X 3 sets
Deadlift: 235 lbs X 5 reps X 1 set
Today, I finally pulled my body weight with my deadlifts. I felt it too. The bar was hard to pull so I will start to use the alternate grip. Also, I have a little soreness in my lats and traps, so I guess they are feeling the stress now too. I am going to go down to 10 lbs added a workout now, which will keep it 55 lbs above squats for a while. It seems my ratios are pretty good. My squats are around 75% the weight of my deadlifts, and the bench is slightly under 50% of the deadlifts. I just cannot weight until I can bench my bodyweight, squat 150% of my bodyweight, and deadlift twice my bodyweight. Hopefully I can do it by years end or the end of January at the latest.
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October 11, 2010:
Squat: Up to 1 set of 135 lbs X 5 reps
Press: Up to 3 sets of 65 lbs X 3 reps
Power Clean: Practiced form on bar for few minutes
You may notice my lack of performance in my workout today. My back felt like shit. I guess what happened is that I pulled an upper back muscle from the last workout. My theory is that I didn’t warm up enough during my deadlifts and pulled a cold muscle. I feel it right on top of my right shoulder blade. Also, when I woke up this morning I seemed to have irritated or pulled a lower back muscle. In other words, my whole back felt irritated and too sore for a normal workout.
I figured I could either pussy out at home or go for a light workout, so I chose the latter. I warmed up really well on the elliptical and did a decent amount of light sets before doing any lifts. The squat weight was light so it didn’t irritate my back any more, but when I was doing my presses I couldn’t use my back to effectively stabilize myself to allow me to lift as well as I could last week. I just practiced power clean form with the bar, as I didn’t want to pull another muscle from an “explosive power movement.”
As I am writing this my back feels a little less stiff and sore now. Hopefully, by Wednesday it feels good enough to continue regular lifting. I’ll be making sure to do much more warm up sets for my deadlift from now on (I think I only did 2 last time. Duh!)
Also, after much consideration, I think I am going to raise my bench press up by 10 lbs for the next 2 or 3 workouts (or until it feels “heavy”). Right now, all of my other lifts feel “heavy” or “slower” but my bench feels really light. I moved my squats and deadlifts up to Rip’s highest recommended raise (10 lbs/workout for squats and 20 lbs/workout for deads), but kept my bench from progressing as quickly (only 5 lbs instead of 10 lbs). I figure once my bench is at about 50% of my deadlift, then it will probably feel about right. Right now, my bench is 100 lbs where 115-120 lbs would seem closer to where it should be. I’ll just raise it 10 lbs per workout until it feels “heavy” or “slow” like the other lifts, and then I will take it back to the 5 lb jump. I may need to buy fractional plates soon, so I can progress my presses and power clean when I cannot do 5 lb jumps anymore.
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October 15, 2010:
Squat: 185 lbs X 5 reps X 3 sets
Bench Press: 110 lbs X 5 reps X 3 sets
Deadlift: 245 lbs X 5 reps X 1 set
October 18, 2010:
Squat: 190 lbs X 5 reps X 3 sets
Press: 75 lbs X 5 reps X 3 sets
Power Clean: 105 lbs X 3 reps X 5 sets
I didn’t workout on the 13th because my back seemed to get sorer from that Monday’s light workout. I just rested up and continued my workout where I left off last Friday. The power clean seems like it is where it needs to be right now. Hopefully, I can jump my bench to where it needs to be pretty soon. It still didn’t feel “slow” enough last workout. Everything else is progressing smoothly, and I am making sure to warm up plenty before the first work set of each exercise.
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October 20, 2010:
Squat: 195 lbs X 5 reps X 3 sets
Bench Press: 120 lbs X 5 reps X 3 sets
Deadlift: 255 lbs X 5 reps X 1 set
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October 22, 2010:
Squat: 200 lbs X 5 reps X 3 sets
Press: 80 lbs X 5 reps X 3 sets
Power Clean: 110 lbs X 3 reps X 1 set
October 25, 2010:
Squat: 205 lbs X 5 reps X 3 sets
Bench Press: 130 lbs X 5 reps X 3 sets
Deadlift: 265 lbs X 5 reps X 1 set
Last Friday sucked. I made a mistake of eating a big, greasy, spicy meal shortly before working out. Since I have acid reflux disease my stomach felt like it was going to explode. Friday was a good reminder of how it is a very stupid idea to move around hundreds of pounds when your stomach feels like exploding. I thought I was going to barf after each reps of my squats. Somehow I managed to get through them and my sets of presses. The power clean had way too much movement though. I didn’t vomit, but had I subjected myself to one more work set I most certainly would have. The weight didn’t feel too heavy though so I will give 115 lbs a go for my next power clean workout.
Today I got through my workout pretty easily except for the fact that my lower back was sore during squatting. Looking back I think this may be because I was hyperextending my lower back to show my new workout partner how to keep his back in extension. (He has the problem of rounding his back during squats and deadlifts). I’ll just try not to overexaggerate it next time and keep my abs tight. My lower back feels fine right now so I guess no harm no foul. My bench also finally seems to be a challenge. The 5th rep of the 3rd set felt a bit tough. I’ll go back to 5 lb jumps next time. As for my deadlift I had to do the work set twice. I used a double overhand grip the first time and lost the bar midway in the 3rd rep. I decided to switch to the alternate grip and managed to get 5 reps out without any grip problems. I guess that means I did 7 ½ reps of my work set weight for my deadlift today.
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October 27, 2010:
Squat: 210 lbs X 5 reps X 3 sets
Press: 85 lbs X 5 reps X 3 sets
Power Clean: 115 lbs X 3 reps X 5 sets
Everything felt fine today. I kept my stomach tight during the squats so my lower back never felt too sore. I completed my presses alright, even though I thought I felt a muscle pull on the second set, but now my shoulder feels completely fine. I’m not complaining. I did my five sets of power cleans alright, even though last week I could not do 5 sets because of my acid reflux. All in all it was a pretty decent workout.
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October 29, 2010:
Squat: 215 lbs X 5 reps X 3 sets
Bench Press: 135 lbs X 5 reps X 3 sets
Deadlift: 275 lbs X 5 reps X 1 set
Today’s workout was pretty good. For some reason I went through my first 2 squat sets really quickly and easily. Once I started doing my 3rd set though it felt really hard, and I barely made it through the last rep. I probably should’ve taken a longer break between sets. No biggie. I went back to a 5 lb jump for my bench. The weight felt challenging but it was doable. The deadlift felt fine with the alternate grip on the workset. No problems.
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November 1, 2010:
Squat: 220 lbs X 5 reps X 3 sets
Press: 90 lbs X 5 reps X 3 sets
Power Clean: 120 lbs X 3 reps X 5 sets
Today’s workout was fine. I noticed when I started to do my squats that I had the wrong shoes on. I had on cushy-bottomed sneakers instead of my usual old pair of converse all-stars (nice hard flat thin soles great for lifting). I still got all the reps out even though the 5th rep felt tougher than usual. The presses and cleans were both challenging but doable.
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