Sync and Spouse Training Log(s)

[synchronicity]

So, today was our first full workout in almost a week, and with proper coaching, finally. To say I was excited is an understatement. Wife and I were able to go together, and it was superb.

We went at it from the "assume we know nothing" start. First, squats. He has us do them with no weight, get the lesson on hip drive, then it's starting with the bar. My back sense does, in fact, suck. As to other things...
A) I was DEFINITELY holding the bar way too low before. Apaprently I took "low bar squat" a little too seriously.
Along the same lines: 2) I have short legs and long torso, so squatting should be easier for me, as I can keep a more verticalish back angle than most people (which is how I could hold the bar WAY too low before and still squat OK)
c) I need to do supermans almost every day, because I have serious troubles arching my lower back.
d) also, I lead with my chest too often rather than exploding with my hips out of the hole.
And last, both wife and I tend to "stop" at the bottom rather than just go down and spring back up.
My wife doesn't keep her back angle straight, she explodes up with her hips but then bends forward (kinda like a "good morning" when coming back up)
We're both generally good with our depth, and we both do a pretty good job keeping our knees out. Wife does have a habit of going forward on her toes rather than staying flat.

As for weights/reps
Wife 22 5x2, 32x5, 42 5x3
Me: 45 5x2, 65x5, 75x5, 85 5x3

Next, press. I'm apparently kinda unusual in that I LUV me some press. Rip's recent article struck home as really, picking the darn thing up and getting it over my head. Love it.

Last time, my wife had lots of problems doing the press, and she still did. Note I say "did". Our trainer finally got it to click for her, that she needs to push it straight up, just get her head out of the way. She did tend to push it back a bit (apparently many people do). She still has some work to do, but was generally doing well

As for me....

I just didn't understand the SPEED that it should be done at. I'd been doing it kinda slow, and a good press is FAST! Like, explode up into the ceiling and push it through it fast. I did "shrug" upwards, but not with the kind of FORCE one should

As for the hips forward then snap them back and chest forward - he explained it's like a bow. That resonated (there may be a pun there) with me. I did a few slower, then got it. From that point on it was just timing. Oh, and NOT letting my elbows drift forward, and holding the bar correctly. And all those little things

I tell ya, doing it right is just a REALLY good feeling. Of course, I also did it wrong a lot. And again, getting good coaching on it is a godsend.

Weights:
Wife 22 5x2, 27 5x3
Me: 45x5, 55x5, 65 5x3

Next came deadlifts. I can't arch my effing back very well, but did OK for a newbie. Sadly, my wife started to feel soreness in her thigh, so she stopped early on the deads.
Weight
Wife: 42x5, 32x5 (yes, we went DOWN on those. I'm sure she'll do those again at higher weight, as it wasn't "too heavy")
Me 88x5, 110x5, 132x5 (40, 50 and 60 kilos). Damn, didn't think I could do that. I'm a little stronger than I thought. STILL need to do supermans regularly for the damn lower back.

Then a break. About 10-15 minutes of shooting the breeze with our trainer and with another person there. Very nice people all around, a great experience.

Then the bench. Pretty straightforward, it's a bench. I was NOT arching my back enough and had that drilled into me, along with little bits on hand position and proper position of the bar. Wife was ready to bench too, so we went:

Wife: 22x5, 27x5, 33x5, 38 5x3
Me: 45x5, 66x5, 88x5, 99x5, 110 5x3

Last was cleans. Yes, a long day. wife did not do those, but I tried. We did not do power cleans (from the floor) but trainer tried to get me to do hang cleans (from the waist up. First, the rack position. I tried and failed miserably. So we worked at it, and within about 5 minutes I could FINALLY GET MY ELBOWS FORWARD ENOUGH!!! HOORAY!!!

So, rack position, did it, sort of. So, empty bar, get to hang position. Drop down to waist, long arms, bend knees, shoulders back, big chest, and UP....no, no, don't curl the bar, try again....

(repeat above)

And JUMP!

Me: "YAARGH" (catch bar with open hands out of abject terror of flying bar)

Trainer (looking at me with "WTF was THAT?" look): "uh, what were you doing?"

So, apparently I DID get the bar up properly, so the RIGHT thing to do would be, you know, to RACK it. Since THAT'S WHAT WE'D SPENT THE LAST 15 MINUTES GETTING ME TO FINALLY DO!

Ah, yes, have I mentioned I'm stupid?

So, let's try again. Hang position bar down, long arms, bend knees, shoulder back chest up big chest and JUMP!

And kinda sorta catch bar and well, have arms back and keep getting elbows forward and seemingly 20 seconds later have bar sorta "racked"

I swear, the fact the trainer didn't just sigh in disgust was a sign of superhuman effort.

But, again. And again, and eventually it kinda sorta started resembling an actual hang clean. After about 8 tries total it was time to stop.

And he put another 20 lbs on the bar, as the good news is that I was getting the darn thing UP high enough.

OK, try again, and SWING THOSE DARN ELBOWS AROUND, FAST! And hey, it resembled a clean. I'm (er) getting the hang of this! (sorry!)

3 times, rest. OK, I'm TIRED.

And another 10 lbs on the bar....

All right, here we go. Concentrate. Focus. I'm...really tired by now. But it's only 3 more, and the bar is still going up high enough, let's get this form RIGHT!

ONE!
and drop, and down, and run through the whole position check, and TWO

And a third. And done.

For the record, that 45 8 times or so, 65x3, and 75x3. Good news - weight is not an issue, the bar is still flying plenty high, it's all technique.

So, now onward we go. We'll pay to use (*sigh*) the Gold's near us, hope we can get a house down here soon (and GET OUR EQUIPMENT!), and yes, we'll get more training, as it was WELL worth it. Wife had a wonderful time, although she was ready to sleep after it was over. I was...strangely energized, actually, although a little light headed driving afterwards. (safety tip, next time wait another 5-10 minutes before driving out)

And immediately after we were done we went and bought some burgers. MEAT!!!!

[synchronicity]

Great, another partial day. Not to mention the continued unsettledness of everything else. Meh, could be a lot worse.

Bad part - we got to the gym late (8:30). Good part - they let us work out there today. We ran out of time before we could finish, AGAIN! Yeah, yeah, I know, make it an effing PRIORITY.

Anyway, Squats. I've started reading other logs here so I'll just list weight and reps for each set.
Me 5/5@25, 5@40, 3@60, 2@75, 5/5/5@90
Think I shoved my knees too far forward on one of my work reps, right one feels a tiny bit off. Think I was leading more with the hips coming up (as I should) rather than chest, wife said I had good form but we're both newbs and all.
Wife 5/5@10, 5@20, 3@30, 2@35, 5/5/5@40
Not bad, but had problems maintaining back angle on the last few reps of the last 2 work sets.

Next, Press. Can I say again that I just damn well LUV the Press? That ff-TANG when you spring forward and the weight explodes upward. Love it.
Wife again had serious problems understanding how it works, even going slow at 10 lbs (empty 5kg bar, again I know it's really 11 lbs, OK?), but kinda caught back on by the third warm up set.
Me: 5/5@20, 5@35, 3@45, 2@60, 5/5/5@70. Need to really make that final shrug up on the work sets, lost it a few times. Better at keeping elbows forward, timing is getting decent.
Wife 5/5@10 (down slowly, I KNOW it should be an explosive movement, but as said, she needed to "re-learn" it), 5@15, 3@20, 5@25 (my mistake, she should only have done 2) then 3/2@30. She just couldn't do 5, and we had to leave before we could do the 3rd set. She may try a 3rd set in the apt (the press is one of the few exercises we can do outside of the gym).
I was supposed to do deads (was going to warm up to a workset of 135), but ran out of time.

Dunno what next week will bring. Wanted to see about another training session, but it looks like spouse wants to travel instead, so we may be Out of Town for the next couple weeks. We'll see how we can squeeze some training in there. Where there's a will.....

[synchronicity]

Short post - we've been traveling, and for various reasons I haven't done any strength training. (at least I've walked a bit, but...).

But now, I'm at fancy schmancy hotel for work (seriously, it's the sort of place that makes you feel like you're one of "the 1%" or whatever). Said hotel has a Fitness Center, that is all fancy schmancy, so much so that there are apparently people who are JUST members of the hotel fitness center even without being guests of the hotel.

So I ask, and oh yes, they have free weights, yadda yadda.

So I get up there, and at first glance, they have a squat rack! Yay! Except....wait, what is this?

You guessed it, it's a smith machine.

No, they don't have a squat rack. They have no barbells, save for the "thing" attached to the Smith machine, which is some sort of faux barbell-type stick o' metal that is stuck in an effing smith machine.

*sigh*

But they DO have nice fluffy expensive little towels all lined up, and your free headphones in a nice cloth bag, and little fancy bottles o' water for your convenience. And the obligatory 18 cardio machines and some sort of "free squat" machine or something (I didn't ask for details). But, ya know, no barbells.

At least I scored a free small fancy bottle of water before going right out and back to my room.

[synchronicity]

DTFP.

Today:
Squat: 45 2x5, 55 1x5, 65 1x5, 75 1x5, 85 1x5, 90 3x5
Press: 45 2x5, 55 1x5, 65 1x5, 75 3x5
Deads: 65 1x5, 85 1x5, 115 1x5, 135 1x5

Short explanation - back into it after over a month off (3 weeks of vacation and other random stupidity). Started squat and press with an empty bar, added 10 until it felt "kinda heavy". Brought my 10 lb bumpers, so started at 65 on Deads then worked up.

Yeah, I'm sure my form sucked - I'll reread the book and will watch the DVD when I get it out of the mailbox (it apparently arrived today).

Don't know if my wife will get back into it or not (my bet would be no, but maybe she'll surprise me).

[Gene61]

I've been working out with my wife for a couple of months. It's a great activity to share. Really enjoyed your Log. I hope our wife continues. One thing that really motivated my wife was we went biking after a couple of months of SS. She was amazed at how much stronger she was on the bike (and her lifts are no bigger than your wife's.) Does she have a sport or other physical activity that she enjoys? Get her out to do it before her SS gains are lost (without her knowing your motivation), she'll be amazed at how easy it is compared to before SS. See my post here http://startingstrength.com/resource...ghlight=Gene61 for more comments on keeping the wife happy in SS.

[xcardiobunny]

I've been working out with my wife for a couple of months. It's a great activity to share. Really enjoyed your Log. I hope our wife continues. One thing that really motivated my wife was we went biking after a couple of months of SS. She was amazed at how much stronger she was on the bike (and her lifts are no bigger than your wife's.) Does she have a sport or other physical activity that she enjoys? Get her out to do it before her SS gains are lost (without her knowing your motivation), she'll be amazed at how easy it is compared to before SS. See my post here http://startingstrength.com/resource...ghlight=Gene61 for more comments on keeping the wife happy in SS.

No kidding, I did SS for 4 months before a ski trip, and it made a huge difference. The year before just walking around in the boots felt like a workout, and no way could I ski 2 days in a row. After SS I was fine to ski for days.

[synchronicity]

I've been working out with my wife for a couple of months. It's a great activity to share. Really enjoyed your Log. I hope our wife continues. One thing that really motivated my wife was we went biking after a couple of months of SS. She was amazed at how much stronger she was on the bike (and her lifts are no bigger than your wife's.) Does she have a sport or other physical activity that she enjoys? Get her out to do it before her SS gains are lost (without her knowing your motivation), she'll be amazed at how easy it is compared to before SS. See my post here http://startingstrength.com/resource...ghlight=Gene61 for more comments on keeping the wife happy in SS.

Thanks! Read thru that thread. On our end:
A) Like your wife, my wife just will not read SS. At All. She picked it up once and read...almost a whole page. *sigh*
However, the DVD should be sitting in my mailbox (arrived yesterday), so hopefully she'll watch that. I don't care HOW she learns to do this correctly, as long as she does. I want to set up another training session and will see if she can accompany me.
2) This likely will be one of those things where I lead and she follows. If *I* commit to this, she'll come along for the ride, as it were. Especially if I show visible improvements. She likes the idea, and once she's AT the gym she'll do the lifts, it's just the getting here there. Downside - I've already told her that we'll have to work out often on different days and/or different times (scheduling issues). Also, I'm the one who does all the calcs of what to lift and such. Makes things tricky.

Hopefully, as she does more she'll "own" it and can listen to her body re: progress.

Oh, one comment re your thread (which was great to read, BTW) - DEFINITELY get fractional weights for micro-loading. I went all out and got the Iron Woody fractionals (all the way down to 1/4 pound each side for 1/2 pound increments [of course that means the OTHER weights one is using better be consistent]), but even just a pair of 1.25 lb weights are a big help. (FYI- The Iron Woody's are pairs of 1/4, 1/2, 3/4 and 1, and the whole set costs $50). For the press she'll have to go up in maybe 3 lb increments. 5 lb just ain't happenin'.

Thanks for the link to your post! Also saw your recent thread re: training for older peeps, and I do have to be careful with my left shoulder as it often gets sore when I squat (lack of flexibility, I'm working on that). A lot of good info on these forums.

[Gene61]

All so familiar: won't read the book, thinks she isn't really working out since we aren't doing aerobics other that the 6 min warm up on the exercise bike, will take just "so much" coaching and then doesnt want to hear another word out of me, is happy to stay with the same weights every workout, expects me to do the calculation of warmups and weight increases, doesn't like working out without me (actually I understand that one, as I'd rather have her along too, but I won't miss a workout just because she can't make it, but she will), cares a lot more about losing some weight than improving her health and strength.

However, it's great to have her along at the gym, she making some slow but real progress and delights in discovering that she is indeed stronger, and I expect that even though she nervously watches the scale to make sure the SS doesn't make her heavier, I suspect that if she losses some inches off her waist (she measures that too), she'll accept that she is "replacing fat with muscle."

Got the micro- weights. Turns out I need them too, on the press.

Best of luck to you both.

On the shoulder issues, I continue with the Trigger Point massage every day, and recently I started to stretch every day by putting a broom handle across my back with my arms and wrists in the right squat position. I do it for 5 seconds, then rest and again for 15 seconds, then rest and again for 30 seconds. My shoulders are slowly getting more flexibility.

[Gene61]

Oh yeah, the other thing she does that drives me nuts: she bounces out of the gym afterwards, full of energy, while I drag my tired old body home and collapse on the couch with a smoothly! ;-)

[synchronicity]

All so familiar: won't read the book, thinks she isn't really working out since we aren't doing aerobics other that the 6 min warm up on the exercise bike, will take just "so much" coaching and then doesnt want to hear another word out of me, is happy to stay with the same weights every workout, expects me to do the calculation of warmups and weight increases, doesn't like working out without me (actually I understand that one, as I'd rather have her along too, but I won't miss a workout just because she can't make it, but she will), cares a lot more about losing some weight than improving her health and strength.

However, it's great to have her along at the gym, she making some slow but real progress and delights in discovering that she is indeed stronger, and I expect that even though she nervously watches the scale to make sure the SS doesn't make her heavier, I suspect that if she losses some inches off her waist (she measures that too), she'll accept that she is "replacing fat with muscle."

Got the micro- weights. Turns out I need them too, on the press.

Best of luck to you both.

On the shoulder issues, I continue with the Trigger Point massage every day, and recently I started to stretch every day by putting a broom handle across my back with my arms and wrists in the right squat position. I do it for 5 seconds, then rest and again for 15 seconds, then rest and again for 30 seconds. My shoulders are slowly getting more flexibility.

The positive for my wife is that she does think that strength training is "really" working out (doesn't have that silly tie to "aerobics", thank goodness), and so far she's OK with me coaching her but let's just say we haven't stretched that envelope yet. She does have some of the issues about weight, but we'll see how that goes.

If I stick to it and progress, that'll likely be the biggest motivation to get her along.

Meanwhile, I've sent in my entry for the November 3 meet in Wichita Falls, so that's a very powerful motivation to stick to it for at least the next two months. Gotta get my totals up from "embarrassingly bad" to just "bad".