Bingley's Bumbling Along

[Mr. Bingley]

In my youth I was a distance runner, ran a few marathons, etc., and never ever had a lick of upper body strength. Haven't really run for 30 years as my knees and hamstrings are a mess after all the thousands of not-gentle miles I put them through. My back has always been rather squirrely (which runs in the male line of my family), so now at 51 I've decided to try and get in some semblance of shape so I can hopefully teach a golf ball a lesson or two.

I sort of started SS last summer on my own, and advanced too fast and tweaked my back something fierce in early Dec (right before going on a two week vacation with the family which scored my BIG points with the Chief), so I took a solid 2 months off and completely deloaded, and more importantly spent a good long afternoon with Adam Skillin who very very patiently showed me proper form and set me on a schedule that fits my life as best as possible. Like I said, I'm 51, 6', 215lbs, spend several hours a day crammed into a seat commuting on a bus back and forth into Manhattan, and if I'm lucky I probably average 5 hrs max of sleep per night, so I'm Not Doing The Program in several areas but I do have the eating and drinking covered.

Adam set me on a 3 times per week plan:
Tues: Light Squats/OverHead Press/Chins;
Thurs: Med Squats/Dumb Bell Press/Chins ;
Sunday: Heavy Squats/Bench Press (which I'd never done before)/Dead Lifts

So here we go

Sat Feb 5 session with Adam
SQ 135
DL 155
BP 90
OHP 50
i have very poor shoulder flexibility, so I have the bar very high. with Adam I held it as low as possible and my shoulders ached like bloody hell. have to work with the broomstick to stretch them out as much as possible.


Tues 2/10/15 light day
SQ 125 2x5
OHP 65 2x5
Chins 2


Thurs 2/12/15 med
SQ 155 2x5
DBP worked up to 60 2x10
Chins 3


Sun 2/15/15
SQ 165 3x5
BP 100 3x5
DL 185 1x5


Tues 2/17/15
SQ 135 3x5
OHP 75 3x5
Chins 4


Thurs 2/19/15
SQ 155 3x5
DBP 70 3x10
Chins 2


Sun 2/22/15
snow, spent the day shovelling


Tues 2/24/15
missed, life kept me from gym


Thurs 2/26/15
SQ 175 3x5
DBP 75 33x10
OHP 65 3x5
DL 125 2x5
a stressful few days made me really just want to do a ton of work on Thurs, so I did the OHPs and light DLs but it felt REALLY good to slam the iron into the ground on the DLs


Sun 3/1/15
SQ 185 3x5
BP 105 3x5
DL 185 1x5
felt good, I didn't want to jump up too much given that I had missed a session or two in the previous week.
so far happy with progress but i need to keep my increases slow and steady and not try to do too much too soon. It's a marathon, not a sprint.

[bubbafat]

...
DL 125 2x5
...
DL 185 3x5

Welcome back.

A few hours a day on a bus? I couldn't do it, man.

I noticed that your number of deadlift sets increases as your weight goes up - did your coach talk about why that was the case? Rip normally suggests a single 1x5 working set for deads.

[Mr. Bingley]

Argh, good catch, that was a typo on my part! the 185 was only 1x5! the 125 I did another set to burn off steam; it was light enough that I figured I wouldn't hurt anything.

Yep, a long commute crammed into a very-non-orthopedic bus seat just causes all kinds of aches in my back and knees. But that's life unfortunately.

[peez]

Many friends and neighbors in my town have the same commute to Manhattan. You have my respect for your dedication to your job!

If only you could do the workout on the bus. The DOT might frown upon the use of barbells on 95 (or route 1, or any of the other fun roads from NJ to NYC)

And welcome to the forum - good progress so far!

[Mr. Bingley]

It's more dedication to my bills! lol

thanks!

[carson]

Welcome. Heavy Squat and DL on the same day seems excessive. However, if it works more power to you. I will follow your logs.

[Adam Skillin]

Welcome. Heavy Squat and DL on the same day seems excessive. However, if it works more power to you. I will follow your logs.

Well, it's a pretty standard HLM kind of set-up. 1 kind of systemic all-out day, then allowing the light and medium workouts to do their job of avoiding detraining, accumulating a little bit of volume, and providing lots of reps to nail down the motor patterns at weights that are manageable with near-perfect form. If "heavy" day gets to be too much, I agree that it would make sense to consider moving the deadlifts to a lighter squat day, but that bridge can be crossed at a future date. Right now, Mr. Bingley has quite a bit of genetic potential still ahead of him, so I don't believe this is going to over-tax his resources in the foreseeable future.

[Mr. Bingley]

Tues 3/3/15 light day
SQ 165 3x5
OHP 85 3x5
chins 3
Pendlay Rows 75 3x5
I threw the pendlays in there after reading about them here, really like them. I was frankly worried that i would have trouble at 75 since that was the lightest full-size plates i could put on the bar but they came up pretty easy. we'll see how it feels tomorrow but if ok then i'll do them on the tues/thurs non-dl days.

[Mr. Bingley]

Thurs 3/5/15 medium day
7" and counting of snow, gym closed, spent an hour wielding the snowblower.

dammit.

[Mr. Bingley]

fri 3/6/15
pretended today was thursday
SQ 185 3x5
DBP 80 3x10
Pend Rows 85 3x5