Turning 30, time to get strong....

[AdamToomey]

Thank you, bubbafat. Today was a bit of struggle. Reallllllllllllllllly felt the weight on my back today. That being said, my power cleans really turned the corner today. I tried slightly widening my grip and everything just felt fluid and on point. I am going to make it through this week on squats, but starting next week I think it might be beneficial to throw in a light squat day on Thursday.

Sets x reps (including warm ups this time)
Squats: 45 - 2x5; 95-1x5; 135-1x3; 185-1x1; 225-1x1; 270-3x5
Bench: 45-1x5; 95-1x5; 135-1x3; 160-1x1; 187.5-3x5
Power Clean: 95-2x3; 110-1x3; 120-5x3

[Mahendra]

I agree - a light squat day might be a good idea around now. I originally didn't put one in, and ended up stalling and had to reset.

Great progress!

[AdamToomey]

Speaking of stalling and having to reset....hahaha. Today was my first crap workout on the program. Hit one set of 275 on my squat and had absolutely nothing left to give. Then for deadlifts nothing would budge. Food has been great. Sleep has been great. My guess is that the stress of 270 on Monday was a little too much too soon for me to recover from in 48 hours. I'll reset my squats by 10 percent. Once I get back up to 260, I will throw in a light squat day. As for my deadlifts, I am going to try for 330 on Tuesday. They have been coming along very nicely and I believe that Monday's squat just impaired them. I will reassess a reset for them after that. To end on something positive, my Press reached 120 today. That essentially means that I can press my fiancé for 3x5. I'm pretty stoked on that. Onward....

Sets x Reps
Squats: 275 - 1x5; 275 - 1x0; 220-1x5
Press: 120 - 3x5
Deadlift - 335 - 1x0; 330 - 1x0; 325 - 1x0 ::Throws in the towel::

[AdamToomey]

Actually, after lurking the forums quite a little bit, I am going to increase my calories over the next two days and give 275 another go before considering a reset. Looking at my food log, the past two days I have consumed 4500 calories (down from an average of 4700). I am going to up that to 5100 today and tomorrow and see if that will get me where I want to go.

[lacertosus]

wow pretty good job, keep up the great progress.

[AdamToomey]

I am so stoked on the workout today. I am glad I didn't over react to Thursday's terrible workout. I ate about 5300 calories the last two days and 275 went up surprisingly easy. However, I also tweaked a few things on my squat form. First, I used a belt. I also noticed that my stance was a little wide and my toes were angled outward a little excessively. For this workout, I narrowed the stance and pointed my toes ever so slightly outward. This made it a lot easier to hit correct depth and my hip drive felt dramatically improved. Power cleans today were a chore. Just when I thought I had turned the corner with these things, my form became largely inconsistent again. For the next session, I am going to keep the weight at 125, but I am going to switch to 10-15 singles with a one minute rest in between. I know it's a little early, but I also might do 2-3 pound increases from here on out rather than 5. This should slow things down a bit, and hopefully it will lead to more consistent results. Lastly, my bodyweight is still not budging from 185 which is kind of irritating. I have been eating nearly 5,000 calories a day and it has remained steady for the last two weeks. I eat very clean....high carb, high protein, low fat. Macro breakdown around 50/30/20 respectively. Not sure if that is the cause or not. I am going to add a peanut butter sandwich or two and see how that works. Here is the workout:

Sets X Reps
Squat: 45-2x5; 95-1x5; 135 -1x3; 185-1x2; 230-1x1; 275-3x5
Bench: 45-1x5; 95-1x5; 135-1x1; 160-1x1; 190-3x5
Power Cleans: 95-2x3; 105-1x1; 115-1x1; 125- an ugly 5x3

Until Tuesday....

[Mahendra]

Awesome to hear. I started using a belt at 245lbs on the advice of Mac Ward. Makes a huge difference.

[AdamToomey]

The belt definitely helped a ton. In hindsight, I probably should have went with one sooner.

[AdamToomey]

I hit the wall with deadlifts. I deloaded by 10%. Minor setback. Squats were great. Press was awesome. On Thursday, I will be throwing in a light squat and adding some bodyweight chins.

Squat: 280-3x5
Press: 122.5-3x5
Deadlift: 325-1x0; 290-1x5

[AdamToomey]

I was going to add some chin-ups today along with the light squat; however, I tweaked my ribs at work. The only thing that was particularly painful to do were chins so I decided to skip them. Nevertheless, I had a pretty good workout. I switched to 15 timed singles (one minute rest) on power cleans to see if it would help me keep consistent form. It did. I really got in a rhythm with these today. We'll see how it continues. Until Saturday....

Sets x Reps
Light Squat: 225-2x5
Bench: 193-3x5
Power Cleans: 130-15x1