ReStarting Strength: My SS log

[The Brute]

Monday, October 11, 2010

Squat 265 x 5 x 3
Bench 200 x 5 x 3
Clean 150 x 5 x 3
BW Pullups x 8,7,4

Squats felt good today, I think on my last set I was hitting really good depth(not so far that I lost tightness and not too high) so I'm gonna try and find that sweet spot sooner in the future and stay in that groove. Bench felt really good, bar speed got pretty slow third set, but never looked like it was going to stop. Cleans- Yeah. These are hit and miss. My first two sets I noticed a couple reps where I arm-pulled the bar, I know because my left elbow bitches at me like no tomorrow when I do. Third set felt much better, I think I was more conscious of keeping arms straight as long as possible and each rep sailed up much easier, plus no discomfort in elbows. I take that as a good sign. I'm working hard on the cleans, I wanna get good at them. I might switch to 3's soon, but haven't totally decided yet. Pullup numbers were good, I put a little bit of a kip on them(not tons, but enough to get started into each rep from a dead hang). I think I may have pulled my right lat a tiny bit tho, its not feeling too great. Oh well, rest, ibuprofen, plenty of food and fish oil- the R.I.P.F.F.O protocol as I'll call it lol, should fix that up.

On another note, this weekend was Canadian thanksgiving, yay!!! So I got plenty of great food in my belly to help my recovery, so looking forward to a great week of training. PWO meal today: whey shake, followed by a big slice of pumpkin pie with ice cream. Boo yeah!

[The Brute]

Today's "workout"

squat 270 x 4

Yeah. So my lower back and my right elbow(primarily) are giving me issues. At four reps into my first work set I decided to call it, because I felt I was going to be making these pains worse, and only prevent myself from continuing smoothly on the program. My brachialis has been painful and easily irritated ever since my last time on the program I'm pretty sure due to arm pulling in the clean. Pullups last session added to the irritation/inflammation. As for the lower back this is probably a trickle down from letting my back round a little last dead session. I'm pretty frustrated right now. I'm thinking i'll do some light recovery work- brisk walking, stretching, BW back extensions for a couple days and hopefully be back in action on friday.

[gamedog]

Today's "workout"

squat 270 x 4

Yeah. So my lower back and my right elbow(primarily) are giving me issues. At four reps into my first work set I decided to call it, because I felt I was going to be making these pains worse, and only prevent myself from continuing smoothly on the program. My brachialis has been painful and easily irritated ever since my last time on the program I'm pretty sure due to arm pulling in the clean. Pullups last session added to the irritation/inflammation. As for the lower back this is probably a trickle down from letting my back round a little last dead session. I'm pretty frustrated right now. I'm thinking i'll do some light recovery work- brisk walking, stretching, BW back extensions for a couple days and hopefully be back in action on friday.

That happens sometimes. Don't be frustrated.

I remember a while back I was really, Really, REALLY making awesome progress with my meditation practice (I'm a Buddhist). It was great! I was having visionary experiences at night while I slept, I could, at any moment relax into a complete and total out-of-body-feeling experience at will, and my waily meditation sessions were incredible. And then my in-laws showed up for a visit o.0 ... This might not seem like a bad thing, but they wanted to go out and Do Stuff. Like take us sailing, go to the movies, go visit cool sea food restaurants, stuff like that. So there I was, bitching about all this to Em, my teacher, telling her how frustrated I was that my practice had been disrupted for a few days because of the guests. All I wanted was to retire to my room and sit on my cushion in front of the alter. And she told me "Go sailing. Have fun. DON'T FORCE YOUR PRACTICE."

Of course, she wasn't telling me to be a slackass about it... She wasn't saying I adopt the attitude of some folks, the people who constantly talk themselves out of hard work at the gym or whatever, she wasn't advising me to be like that. But she was telling me "Hey, sometimes it's not possible to practice, things that you can't control have gotten in the way for a day or two, don't sweat it, just pick it up again the next day. Be dedicated, do your best to always practice when you're supposed to BUT, if you find yourself indisposed at work, or you're sick, or you're suffering from lack of sleep, it's okay to miss one."

It does us no good to get frustrated. I learn this time and time again. If your lower back and elbow said "No!" then yield to your body for a day. It's okay. Just try again the day after the day after that and do your best to stay dedicated and you'll be fine.

[spiderman]

I totally agree with Gamedog.

If you are going to lift weights or exercise someway for the next 50 years and try for at least three days per week that whole time then you need the long view that occasionally there will be setbacks. That is part of the process. You are wise to listen to your body and miss a few days now than miss three months starting two weeks from now after you have really screwed things up.

As far as the injuries go, have you ever had some really painful massages like active release or rolfing? That is the only thing that has ever worked for me and about half the time it works really, really well.

[The Brute]

@ Game and Spiderman

Yeah, the frustration waned pretty quickly after that workout, I posted directly after my workout and was in the initial phase where I was disappointed to have the same injury problems popping up again. Anyway, I'm committed to seeing what I can do right now without aggravating my(albeit mild) injuries.

@ Spiderman, I had a little bit of active release massage when I was in physiotherapy before(first time for biceps tendinitis, second time for brachialis/brachioradialis strain). I've never done rolfing. I would like to look into some form of soft tissue massage work, and since wednesday I've been foam rolling daily.

And thanks to both of you for the advice/input!

[The Brute]

Friday's workout:

Today I just messed around with some different moves to see what I could do without pain.

I did some light high bar squats, some shrugs/power shrugs, and deads(I guess rack pulls?) off of the lowest pins in my rack.

The shrugs are something I'm considering swapping for cleans in my program until my elbow heals. As far as the other stuff I was doing, since my back strain/sprain, I've been considering that I still have some hip tuck when I hit parallel in the squat, and am having some trouble keeping my back fully extended in the deadlift(which I think is a result of not being able to squeeze down fully into the bottom position). I did the low rack pulls to get the feeling of pulling with my back fully extended and rigid. I think paying more attention to having chest up will help significantly.

Oh I also did some chins which felt fine thankfully. Pullups are definitely out for the time being since they hurt my elbow like a bitchy bitch lol. But chins seem to be fine since biceps takes the work away from brachialis and brachioradialis. I'm concentrating on keeping full supination while I perform them.

Judging from past experience with these injuries, I think my back will be less of a prolonged issue than the elbow, in which case I will probably do the following until my elbow is feeling better:

Workout A Squat, Press, Dead

Workout B Squat, Bench, Shrug, Chins

[spiderman]

What part of your elbow hurts? If it is tendonitis it probably means some muscle is tight. For examples, when the pointy tip of my elbow hurts it means my triceps are tight.

[The Brute]

Well, its not the elbow itself persay. But the brachialis muscle primarily, and less so in the brachioradialis. Tightness may be an issue, but I'm not totally sure what to stretch to help that?

[The Brute]

Monday, October 18, 2010

Well, well, well.

Squat 270 x 5
Press 170 x 1 PR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!(This is my BW btw, so I have now achieved a bodyweight press!!! Yay!!!)
Press 185 x .4 LOL

So today I went into the gym(my home gym that is) with lots of hope and not a lot of time. I wanted to work on the squat and see how my back felt, but didn't have time to do all my work sets. Anyway all the warmups felt great and so did those 5 reps. My lower back felt pretty good. Right now I can feel it a tiny bit, but nothing major. Anyway, for a little bit I've been interested in seeing what my max was in the press, and since I didn't have time for 3 worksets I decided to just do a little warmup and then work up quickly to a max. 155 felt really easy, and I got myself pumped up to try 170(1 x BW). I got all psyched up, picked up the bar, tightened everything, took a huge breath and....bam! The weight sailed up with no problemo!! I couldn't believe how easy it felt. Needless to say I quickly got a little PR drunk and loaded 185 on the bar, why not I thought?? Anyway, I pressed it to forehead level where it stayed for about 3 LONG seconds, then crashed back down to my shoulders. Oh well. The press PR has made me super happy, plus the fact that I was able to squat. There's nothing like a PR to beat the blues it seems.

Next workout I intend to squat 270 for 5 x 3, press 140 x 5 x 3, Dead 315 x 5, and move on from there.(that was the workout I was supposed to perform before I strained my back last week). Let's do it!!!

[spiderman]

Well, its not the elbow itself persay. But the brachialis muscle primarily, and less so in the brachioradialis. Tightness may be an issue, but I'm not totally sure what to stretch to help that?

Yeah. "Elbow" doesn't mean much once you start analyzing the problem. More meaningful things are things like "bicep insertion", etc.

If your actual muscle bellies are sore then you can stretch and massage them. Even if your tendons are sore, stretching the muscles will likely relieve the tension irritating your tendons.

Stretching the back of the forearms is possible. Stand up. Put your sore arm straight out in front of you. Arm horizontal with your palm down. Keep your arm straight out and rotate your arm and hand 90 degrees so your palm is facing out. Bend your wrist 90 degrees so you palm is towards your elbow. You should be able to see your palm near your pinky and your thumb is on the floor side. With your other hand apply more pressure to the back of your hand to push your palm more towards your elbow. Rotate the bad hand up towards the ceiling more too to increase the stretch. Then hold that tension and start bending your elbow and bringing the back of your wrist towards your chest to intensify the stretch. Wiggle it around until you feel the stretch in the back of your forearm.

Massaging the backs of the forearms is easy. Put your arm on a table, desk or counter. Put a little skin cream on your thumb. Crush the living daylights out of your muscles with all your upper body weight on your thumb. You can do active release with your hand dangling off the edge of the table.

Effectively stretching the biceps muscles seems difficult and self massage is harder than the forearm. Experiment and see what you can come up with. Otherwise and active release thearapist might be able to help or get someone to use a rolling pin on the sore muscle.

Congrats on the bodyweight press!