43M SS newbie log

[bongoman]

All roads led to SS for me as a 43 yo male with no prior barbell experience.

Bodyweight: 77kg
Height: 6'5"

First workout:

2011-01-10: Workout A

Squats 40kg 3x5

Bench 45kg 3x5

Deadlift 80kg 1x5

--

Felt good. Squats are low esp. re deadlift?

Warm up consisted of 2 x 5 empty bar for squats and bench plus 2 other sets building up to working weight. For deadlift, 2 x 60kg, 1 x 70kg warmup.

[Subsistence]

All roads led to SS for me as a 43 yo male with no prior barbell experience.

Bodyweight: 75kg
Height: 6'5"

First workout:

2011-01-10: Workout A

Squats 45kg 3x5

Bench 45kg 3x5

Deadlift 80kg 1x5

--

Felt good. Squats are low esp. re deadlift?

Warm up consisted of 2 x 5 empty bar for squats and bench plus 2 other sets building up to working weight. For deadlift, 2 x 60kg, 1 x 70kg warmup.

Don't worry about squats seeming low right now. You just started, give it some time and everything will start to balance out. Your starting numbers look pretty normal to me.

[spiderman]

I'm 6'5" and started a SS-like program with 80 kg bodyweight and about 40 kg for both bench and squat. Almost four months later, my lifts are now in better proportions to each other.

The Basic Strength Standards show bench being slightly heavier than squats for an untrained person.

http://www.crossfit.com/cf-journal/WLSTANDARDS.pdf

The standard warm-up template for squats, bench, press is

bar x 5 x 2
40% x 5
60% x 3
80% x 2
100% x 5 x 3 (the three work sets)

[bongoman]

2011-01-12 Workout B

Squats 45kg 3 x 5

Press 30kg 3 x 5

Hang Cleans 35kg 5 x 3

----

Felt good - I was a little hesitant about attempting power cleans without a coach, but have watched everything I could find online and of course in the SS book. I took it pretty easy and actually did hang cleans as I was only using 10kg plates on each end and so was too low to pull from the floor.

35kg felt about right for the hang cleans for now.

Moving up 5kg on the squats from 40 to 45kg felt right and working the press at 30kg felt right too.

[bongoman]

Friday 2011-01-14 Workout A

Squat 50kg 3 x 5
Bench 50kg 3 x 5
Deadlift 85kg 1 x5

Realised today that the bar in the squat rack is different to the one on the bench - seems that the latter is the full 20kg bar whilst the one in the squat rack is presumably a women's 15kg bar. Shit.

Today's figures reflect the discrepancy. I suppose now that I'm aware of the difference I can add weight accordingly in the future taking the difference into account.

Right shin is getting busted up my deads - blood seeping through my sweat pants after some warmups but only the right side - wondering what this means about my form if only one shin is getting scraped?

Approached by someone in the gym who recognised I was doing SS so was good to connect with him, although he was a little devastated when I pointed out the 2 different bars in circulation at this particular gym here in regional Australia. Fucked with his numbers a bit, that did.

[bongoman]

2011-01-16 Workout B

Squats 55kg 3 x 5

Press 32.5kg 3 x 5

Hang Cleans 40kg 5 x 3

---

Squats were hard @ 55kg.

Went to 40kg on the hang cleans which was OK.

[bongoman]

Workout A: 2011-01-18

Squats
20kgx5x2
30kgx5
40kgx4
50kgx2
60kgx5x3

Bench
20kgx5x3
30kgx3
42.5kgx2
52.5kgx5x3

Deadlift
60kgx3
90kgx5

[bongoman]

Workout B: 2011-01-21

Squats
20kgx5x2
30kgx5
42.5kgx3
52.5kgx2
62.5kgx5x3

Press
20kgx5x2
25kgx3
32.5x2
35kgx5x3

Power Cleans
30kgx3
40kgx3x5

Weighed myself and body weight has increased 6kg since Christmas and 3kg over the last fortnight! I can't quite believe these numbers.

Only just made the final rep with the squats - they are feeling heavy and I think I may have made too many 5kg jumps early on. Will reset a little when I get back from a ski trip.