Sync and Spouse Training Log(s)

[synchronicity]

OK, this is way too wordy for someone who JUST started, but I’m a chatty bastard, so here goes.

I’m a 45 year old pudgy guy who has spent way too much time sitting at computers and not enough moving around. In spite of this, years ago I convinced a gorgeous woman to marry me (must be some character flaw on her part), and we have a 7 year old daughter who fortunately got most of her genes from her mom. I’ve had a lot of changes the last couple years but generally all for the better, so life is good.

However, I’m hitting That Age at where extra weight around my middle will Do Bad Things. Also, my wife may not look it but she’s getting older (is there any other direction we’re going?), and is worried about osteoporosis (oh, and her weight, too. As if). Since strength training is great at combating that, she’s Totally On Board.

A friend started weight training several months ago and mentioned a few sources including Starting Strength. Did a little research, then bought SS and Practical Programming, read them cover to cover and keep reviewing various sections. Of course until one tries to LIFT something you don’t absorb the important details. I’ve also been going through the videos on this site and scouring here and other places for information on equipment (loved the barbell video), and proper form (watched the one on bar position on the squat, for example).

SS appeals to me for a number of reasons (aside from the fact that Ripp knows what he’s talking about and lays it out in great detail that even an idiot like me can understand). I’m generally a fan of “progressive” training where you consistently set benchmarks slightly beyond current ability, work to exceed them and then set new ones. I’m a numbers guy so setting up a proper training program with objective, easily quantifiable goals and logging them is right up my alley. Oh yeah, and IT WORKS!

Although it’s stupid to purchase much equipment before getting with the program…well, I’m stupid. I bought a 5kg Olympic training bar and two pair of 10 lb bumpers so we could start and/or warm up below 45 lbs and do deadlifts (and hopefully cleans in the near future) starting at the proper bar height at lower weight.

My main issue now is to find a trainer who knows what they’re doing to coach us in proper form for a few sessions. I’d rather do this very early (when we’re still blank slates) rather than later after we’ve ingrained bad habits. It’s one thing to read/watch a video/see a picture about how to do a low bar squat (for example), it’s another to really *feel* it correctly. (FYI- I called WFAC yesterday and Rip [I assume it was him, sure sounded like him] gave me a name and contact number for someone local [and Rip, if I didn't properly thank you, my apologies and I'm doing so now. Thanks very much). I called that person but their voicemail was full, found their professional website and email online and sent a message, haven’t heard back yet but it’s been less than 24 hours. We’ll see what happens).

Spouse and I went to a nearby Gold’s Gym (free 7 day pass). I know, I know, but they DO have substantial free weights, benches, and half racks. The manager did the usual job of walking us around the whole facility (look at all the cardio, including the theatre!* Look at all the machines that work specific parts of your body!) and tried to sign us up and buy sessions with a personal trainer. I’m a little leery, for obvious reasons. Maybe one session and if the trainer tells me that squatting below parallel will blow out my knees, I stop and ask for my money back.

OK, enough chit chat. Today was our first “real” SS workout, and it went.

Me:
Squat: 1x5 bodyweight, 1x5 10 lb.**, 1x5 30lb, 3x5 45 lb
Press: 1x5 10, 1x5 30, 3x5 45
Deadlift (done at apartment***): 1x5 30, 1x5 50.

Squat form is meh. Head position was OK, wife said I was at least hitting parallel down, but my knees were too far forward. Don’t have a good feel for proper bar location (yes, even after the 25 minute video. Yes, I’m a moron), may be putting it too low. Also, I have NO SHOULDER FLEXIBILITY; my grip on the bar is very wide and elbows don’t go far back, but at least wrists are pretty straight

Press form is bad. I tend to move the bar forward of my face when lowering it back down rather than properly move my torso. Lockout position (over spine/back of head) is good. Elbows start in front of bar, but can’t rest it on my delts to save my life. Seriously, not even close, no idea how to do it. This kinda precludes cleans in the near future.

Deadlift form seems awful. Starting position is OK, not afraid of the bar, but not sure if arms at close to 90 degrees from lats, if hips are correct, or if back is OK during lift. That last, of course, is REALLY important.

Wife:
Squat: 1x5 bodyweight, 1x5 10, 3x5 20.
Press: 1x5 10, 3x5 20
Deadlift: 1x5 30

Lots of form issues. I tried to help based on my limited knowledge and hopefully did a little good (or at least not much harm). For some reason she holds the bar on a diagonal (forward/back) on squat and press – the left end of the bar is probably 4 inches in front of the right). Tried to help correct that but every time she reverted.

Well, first workout is done. Looking forward to going back Friday. Currently thinking a Tuesday/Friday/Sunday schedule (less people there). And I hope that person gets in touch with us.

*- really? THEATRE!!! REALLY?!?!?!
**- we brought the training bar. I know that 5kg is really 11 lb, but am rounding down.
***- still in the relo process. Hope to have a house soon, at which point we can get our own rack and some real weights, assuming we stick to this.

[synchronicity]

OK, a few random thoughts.

On listing sets and weights - reverse the 3x5's and 2x5's and all. If anyone actually read my first post, you probably guessed that I meant three sets of 5 reps, not 5 sets of 3 reps. That said, neither of us are really doing the sets without brief pauses during reps. I'm guessing these are common newbie mistakes.

Speaking of which, we're super newbies. The very few times in the past I've done any weight work has been on universal machines. My entire history of barbell training is probably one set of about 10 incline presses back in college. I'm not sure if my wife has ever lifted a barbell before.

Back in my early 20's, when I did essentially circuit training on the universal machines (yeah, well, I was young and even stupider than I am now), my body responded very well to it in just two months. But yeah, long ago, far away and 70 lbs lighter.

I'm thinking through our options once the free seven days are up. Haven't heard a thing from the trainer that was suggested, so unless we can find someone else I'll have to accept the fact that we're going to pick up some bad form no matter how much I read SS before attempting a lift.

As for the gym...It's $13 bi weekly per person, and since we DON'T want a full year membership (we ain't staying in this place another bleeping year), it's an extra $50 per person up front. For $126 I could buy a standard 300 lb "weights and Olympic barbell" set off of Craigslist - hey, it's tolerable to get us started. The "pay a full year up front" deal is $319 per person...for that much I could buy a darn good barbell from Rogue (I was thinking the B&R one as it seemed the best price/value match for SS, but then read some of the complaints on the forums), 250-300 lb of iron weights, and have money left over. But we're in an apartment and don't have the room for a power rack yet (plus, being on the top floor of an apartment, can't exactly do many deadlifts without downstairs complaining).

Also, I know that normally on SS one would start with an empty bar and go up in reasonable weight jumps until form suffers, but we're newbies, we're weak and our form stinks anyway. I could probably squat or deadlift more, but deadlifting with a rounded back is great way to stop one's training Real Quick.

I'd vent about the whole relo process and how I expected we'd be in a house by now, in which case I'd have a whole room set up with a good rack, a platform as described in SS, and an elliptical for some off day light cardio work as well as some warming up on lifting days, but most people have to deal with a lot worse all the time, so I should quit griping that my life ain't perfect yet and just do stuff.

Enough bandwidth wasting for one day.

[synchronicity]

Oh and goals should be obvious, but to summarize...
Me: 5'7", 230. Goals - learn what the heck I'm doing, build up some semblance of strength, get rid of much of the excess fat I'm carrying around, get my BP numbers down and stop marching towards possible type II diabetes. Get with the program and stick to it until my "newbie gains" run out. Once I reach that point and have to reassess "intermediate" training...well, that will fall under Such Problems One Should Have.
Wife: 5'3", 150. Goals- develop some upper body strength and increase lower body strength, help stave off osteoporosis and likely look (even) better in the process. Oh, and learn how to do all this properly.

[synchronicity]

Workout session two -
Me
Squats - 15 5x2, 25x5, 35x5, 40x2, 50 5x3
Squats felt much better, getting a better feel for the bar on my back and the feeling of it resting properly with my shoulders not loose (the "resting on the shelf" feel)
Bench - 45x5, 55x5, 65x5, 75 5x3
need to reread the chapter in SS, but I THINK my form was tolerable. Could possibly have gone over 75, but preferred to err on the side of caution.
Deadlift - note below

Wife
Squat - 10x5, 15x5, 20x3, 25 5x3
figured out why the bar was going forward on the left - she was gripping it off center. Duh. Simple explanation, but I'm a noob so it took me awhile to notice.
Bench - 10x5, 15x5, 20x5, 25x5, 30 5x3. She could probably have done more than 30, too.

Deadlifts - we haven't done them yet today (which, I KNOW, means "we're NDTP"), and here's a possible big issue. Per the lovely signs at ye local Gold's Gym, chalk use is NOT allowed, and one should not drop the weights. I'm gonna guess that they just might consider putting the weights up and down on the floor during deads "dropping" the weights. Also, I did not see anyone doing deadlifts, nor did I see any space where one easily COULD do deadlifts.

We ran out of time anyway (stupidity in planning on my part), and we can do deads at low weight amounts in the apartment, but...well, that and 50 cents won't get you a small cheap coffee from MickeyD's. If I can't do deadlifts at that damn gym, then why the eff should I pay any money to be there? Heck, to quote from SS "if your gym is one of those that do not allow chalk...you need to reevaluate your choice of gyms". No chalk and no deadlifts means no reason to be there.

So, our quest for a gym (and a trainer) continues. What I DID do felt darn good. And yeah, I know that my squat should exceed my bench. I attribute it to hardly working my legs over the last umpteen years (and the squat being an unfamiliar exercise) as opposed to lifting groceries/small child/other random heavy-ish crap.

[synchronicity]

Should add - did deads later. 1x5 40, 1x5 60. Lifting it up isn't a problem, but putting it back down my form feels terrible. Wife did 1x5 40.

[jillingworth]

I was in a similar boat. A large, too doughy guy, married to a soon-to-be-retired ballerina. Anyway, we got into kettlebell training first and spent about a year on that (actually, it was the wife that started that). I got more and more into lifting heavy things and stumbled on Starting Strength while trolling the internet. I actually got my wife to start training with me and we've been doing mostly power lifts since then.

Just coach each other (you'll figure out real quick what your marriage is made of!!!) and film. You'll figure it out.

[synchronicity]

I was in a similar boat. A large, too doughy guy, married to a soon-to-be-retired ballerina.

Score for you! Sounds like you, too, "outkicked your coverage" in landing a spouse.

Anyway, we got into kettlebell training first and spent about a year on that (actually, it was the wife that started that). I got more and more into lifting heavy things and stumbled on Starting Strength while trolling the internet. I actually got my wife to start training with me and we've been doing mostly power lifts since then.

Just coach each other (you'll figure out real quick what your marriage is made of!!!) and film. You'll figure it out.

Thanks! I'm the "person-what-researches-the-heck-out-of-things" in the marriage, so coaching on form is just what I can glean from constantly referring back to SS and watching the videos here. We've got some scheduling issues but should be able to do 2 out of 3 each week together.

Mainly now it's frustration that A) don't have a house yet to set everything up at home, so I'm forced to pay a bunch of money to a gym rather than on equipment for ourselves, and 2) the whole "lack of a coach to get us off on the right foot with a session or two on the lifts" thing. But since most people put up with far worse, I should STFU. And what's my excuse for having a cr@ppy diet for the last decade?

And hey, we've got cell phones, we can record video to check form. So what if it's laughably bad? "It has to start somewhere; it has to start sometime; what better place than here; what better time than now."

Good to hear you're doing well. You're right, we'll muddle through.

[Sevag]

Well you're certainly doing a thorough job of learning the lifts and getting started on the best possible footing. Hopefully the coaching thing works out.

[synchronicity]

Well you're certainly doing a thorough job of learning the lifts and getting started on the best possible footing. Hopefully the coaching thing works out.

Thanks. I feel like I'm not being nearly thorough enough. Then I read some questions and posts on the forums, and think "really, isn't this covered IN DETAIL in the books?" And I don't know cr@p.

I'm also thinking "gddammit, why the heck didn't I get into this 25 years ago?"

Ah well, life doesn't have a rewind button.

[synchronicity]

Other random bit - equipment. Whenever we can set up stuff in a house (I feel like I'm in a play called "Waiting For Chateau"), the racks I'm looking at are either one of the ones from Rogue: http://www.roguefitness.com/strength...ower-racks.php (R-3 would be more than sufficient for us) or possibly one from these guys, unpainted to save $250 - http://www.texasstrengthsystems.com/powerracks.html Been spending WAY too much time drooling over fancy equipment and all when for now we just need to learn WTH we're doing, but hey, it's fun to windowshop as long as one doesn't get carried away (and like cooking, it's stupid to drop top dollar on, say, All-Clad if can't boil an egg yet and aren't willing to put in the time and effort to do a lot more than that).