IE's Log

[CimmerianInTraining]

How are you coming up with your warmup sets? I use an android app called starting strength. To get to 370 it gives me 45x5x2, 135x5, 225x3, 315x2, 350x1. That might not be enough if you are used to more warmup, maybe add a few singles between 315 and 370, where ever the easy barbell math breaks or so.

[coleossus]

How are you coming up with your warmup sets? I use an android app called starting strength. To get to 370 it gives me 45x5x2, 135x5, 225x3, 315x2, 350x1. That might not be enough if you are used to more warmup, maybe add a few singles between 315 and 370, where ever the easy barbell math breaks or so.

I used the example warmup in SS and made my own spreadsheets with percentage breakdowns, the 2 rep set is usually my last warmup. What I detailed in my last post wasn't warmup, it was me getting two sets into my 3x5 and thinking "I can do more", loading the bar up, getting two more sets done and thinking "I can still do more", before loading it again and doing three more sets of five.

[DeriHughes]

Seven sets of five is a lot more stress than three sets of five.. Are you planning to just go to 375 or 380 x 5 x 3 for your next session and then progress from there?

Good job working through the issues you're having - lifting is a thinking man's game.

[coleossus]

Seven sets of five is a lot more stress than three sets of five.. Are you planning to just go to 375 or 380 x 5 x 3 for your next session and then progress from there?

Good job working through the issues you're having - lifting is a thinking man's game.

Seven sets of five is a lot more stress than three sets of five.. Are you planning to just go to 375 or 380 x 5 x 3 for your next session and then progress from there?

Good job working through the issues you're having - lifting is a thinking man's game.

Not sure when I'm lifting next - debating whether I need to rest more, or if I'm being a pussy.

Whether today, tomorrow, or later I'm going to load up 380 and see how the first rep feels. Difficult? Rip out my 3x5 and call it good. Easy? Might load it heavier. I did 405 last Tuesday, and while I've changed gyms and corrected form since then, I find it hard to believe that I've lost 25 lbs of squat strength from leakage in my squat, as 'tightness' has been my problem rather than depth. If anything the form corrections should make my squat easier by eliminating sloppy moment arms, I would imagine, but I'm still green. 370 was really difficult on Monday, but at the time it didn't occur to me that those 2 sets apiece at 315 and 345 had zapped most of my energy.

I have my form corrections down (though, like I said, will be posting form check videos regularly now), and with 35 to 40 workouts before the meet in October, I see no reason I can't regain my lost ground and truly exhaust my LP before then. Even if I just make 5 lb jumps it's something like another 200+ lbs of gains. My goal is to stop trying to figure the optimal way to make big jumps back up to 440, and to focus on regaining my LP until it's exhausted and hopefully get some TM in before the meet.

[coleossus]

Log Note: Click on Squat or Deadlift to see video. Accidentally fucked up my OHP video, so no go on that this time. This entry is for my workout on 7-18-15.

Squat:

• 45x5x2
• 130x5x1
• 215x3x1
• 295x2x1 (belted)
• 380x5x3 (belted)

OHP:

• 45x5x2
• 75x5x1
• 105x3x1 (oops)
• 130x2x1 (belted)
• 160x4x1 (belted)
• 150x5x3 (belted)

Deadlift:

• 135x5x1 (hook grip)
• 230x3x1 (hook grip)
• 320x2x1 (hook grip)
• 410x4x1 (belted, mixed grip)

Squats: These felt good, but I'm not happy with the video. Depth is mostly acceptable, but there's a few times I bail out too early. The bar path is super diagonal and messy, and I'm starting to think it might be because I'm too fat to have good anthropometry for the movement to be as fluid as it should be. I can also see how I'm changing my back angle. For some reason I feel like I'm not getting low enough, so I'm collapsing my back angle at the bottom, which is responsible for that diagonal path. Then I'm uncollapsing it on my way up, getting stuck a little so it ends up a bit like a Good Morning until I pop out of that, and continue back up. This was my first lift since the beginning of the week and it's kind of new information, so I'm going to give it a few more lifts (with video recording) to see if I can correct it.

The good news is that it feels like I've gotten control of the bar now. I've yanked in my arms, pushed my elbows back, and found the shelf on my delts or mid-traps or whatever muscle it's supposed to be - it feels secure. Now I just need to fix that ugly-ass path and the angle issues. We'll know my bar is back in control when I get back up to 405 without tendinitis, because that's right where it started.

OHP: I ruined the video for these somehow (overwrote the video file as it was open in Kinovea), but I watched all three sets a few times beforehand. The angle wasn't great and the bar disappeared over the top of the camera at the peak, but path seemed good, and I don't think I was push-pressing or anything naughty, but I don't really know if it was competition quality form. I'm also suspicious I may have not been hitting as deep as I should be at the bottom. We'll inspect again on Wednesday.

Deadlift: Form for these looked fine, maybe a teensy bit of rounding upper back, but I was in a turbo-rush because the gym was closing so I just wanted to slam out my set. Of course my buddy who was counting my reps told me 5 when it was only 4, so it was a waste of time anyway. At least no big disappointments here. Next video I'll get a better shot of my lockout for clarity, but it looked like it was fine to me from what I could see this time. Forgot to take my shoes off again, though... Huh...

In retrospect over the last week I feel pretty secure in my judgement that I was feeling some nasty overtraining. Since my last lifts earlier in the week, I just started eating wildly and going to bed at like 9 pm to catch up on my sleep and recovery in general. I feel back to normal now and will probably be resuming my previous macros, just ensuring not to inadvertently double my volume this time around and see how it goes. I may have to readjust my macro counts to give myself a little more, but I'm going to wait to see if my 3000/2700 cycle was acceptable and if the problem was strictly that extra volume I was sneaking in.

I'm going to continue filming all of my work sets, tracking the bar paths where appropriate, and uploading them for public consumption to help prevent me from backsliding into the jam I got myself in last time. If I can't figure out the form issues I've outlined above, I'm going to cash in on a coach. Already communicated with a local one and have a bottom line on pricing for a 2 hour session. Just wanting to make sure I do my due diligence before shelling out for coaching, shit's expensive - for me, anyway. I find investing in tangible products that I can use over and over again a lot easier than paying someone to come and watch me move around for an hour and tell me how I'm doing it wrong before going home and never seeing each other again unless I want to shell out more money. Sorry, that's just how my mind works. Not doing it until I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that I'm incapable of solving my problem on my own.

Speaking of products, I got tired of trying to manually track my HIIT with my shitty stopwatch, so I found a cheap interval training watch. It's neat. Looking forward to hitting the Prowler tomorrow with it. Tracking that 20s on 140s off was proving to be way more of a headache for my tiny brain that it should've been.

EDIT: Forgot to mention cross-posted the videos into the Technique sub-forum for a form check, and will continue to do this until my form is as perfect as I can get it, regardless of whether I end up getting coaching or not.

[coleossus]

This entry is for my workout on 7-20-15. I look super cute in a singlet.

Squat:

• 45x5x2
• 130x5x1
• 220x3x1
• 305x2x1 (belted)
• 390x5x3 (belted)

Bench:

• 45x5x2
• 85x5x1
• 125x3x1
• 160x2x1 (belted)
• 200x5x3 (belted)

Deadlift:

• 135x5x1 (hook grip)
• 235x3x1 (hook grip)
• 325x2x1 (hook grip)
• 420x5x1 (belted, mixed grip)

Squats: The tips I got from Nick in the technique forum - specifically remembering to keep my upper back tight and to stick my ass/hips out - went a long way to cleaning up my bar path and fixing my form issues. In the video I recorded three warmups along with three work sets, one of each from a 45 degree rear angle to see my improved bar placement. I can tell a definite improvement in my form in these videos, except I got really messy/lazy on my last work set. Just a lapse in attention on the lift and being really tired. I'm confident we'll see further improvement, though.

The videos also, most importantly, confirm for me the idea that I'm leaning back at the top of my squat to use the bar to counter-weight my gut to take the weight off my back. If I stay leaned forward to facilitate a straighter bar path going into the squat the bar combined with my gut pulls pretty hard on my back and fatigues me, leaning back at the top lets me lock and counter-weight everything so I can rest properly. I'm going to try leaning forward BEFORE going into the squat tomorrow to get in a proper position over my mid-foot and see if that fixes the rest of my form alongside the "tight back, ass out, chest up" mental cues. The important thing, psychologically speaking at least, is that I can see improvement - because that means I have correctly assessed and correct what I'm doing wrong - and that I managed my 10 lb jump with acceptable form - which means I didn't just waste all my time working up to 440 beforehand.

Bench: I tried to take better angles so you could see my elbows hitting depth, but I did a poor job of it. I waited like half an hour for the other racks to open, but everyone was busy texting or instagramming or whatever they do between sets so I just went to the other rack. The problem with that one is that finding the right spot for the support bars is tricky and I have to be very diligent about my back arch and keeping my chest up, otherwise the bar hits the supports and I lose tension. I managed pretty well this time, bar path didn't look too messy to me except one one of the reps, and my depth looked and felt good from what I could see. I'll try another angle when I do these next.

Deadlift: Made my 10 lb jump, despite only getting 4 reps at 410 on Sunday. Kind of surprised myself there. The 45 degree front angle confused me because at first I thought I wasn't deep enough, but I compared this to Sunday's video and I'm pretty sure it's just an odd angle thing. I feel like I ought to have sat my ass down to level out my thighs to parallel. I'd take feedback on this one if anyone thinks it looks bad, though. Hard for me to say. Oh, and don't look too hard at the video. I'm smashing my junk real good with the bar.

My confidence is returning now that I'm able to record without feeling silly, and after seeing considerable improvement in my Squat form. I'm fairly certain I'm going to keep up this trend of recording all my lifts from now on, if for no reason other than to prevent repeating the same problem before and to keep an unblinking eye on my form for all my sets.

I'm going to move forward with the same plan (I think) I suggested before: continuing these 10 lb jumps until I'm back where I was or until I experience rep failure or considerable degradation of form. Assuming I don't have to halt my progression to deal with form corrections, when I hit rep failure or return to my last PRs I'm immediately introducing light days for squat and deadlift and bringing in chins/dips on those light days. My new gym has these neat elastic bands the owner showed me last night that provide support but don't steal away all the stabilization that the assisted machines do for you - I'm going to try these and see how they feel. I'm feeling pretty confident that I should be back on track within a week or two and back to setting new PRs for at least a little while longer.

If anyone wandering by my log would like to provide input on my form, I would love to hear it - especially on my squats, since those have been fussy for me. I feel like I have a good handle on what I'm doing wrong, but that doesn't mean I don't want to hear what other people think.

Thinking a little in the longer term, I'm considering going on a simple maintenance program (lift once a week to prevent strength loss) when I exhaust my LP and doing some hefty cutting (caloric control and HIIT overload) to drop my fat to improve my anthropometry. Well, that and my general health, I guess, if I have to.

Things are starting to look up! I'm excited again!

[coleossus]

So I discovered today the true horrors of HIIT. I had done my HIIT a few times on the C2 Rower, but that experienced compared to HIIT with 2 plates on a Prowler was fucking horrible. I did pretty good considering the shape I'm in, but I felt like dying and throwing up afterwards, in that order. Took me forever to cool down and summon the power to get off the couch and walk back to my car to make the drive home. I think I did the workout fasted, which made it rough.

Now I understand why most people aren't consistent with their HIIT. Oof.

[coleossus]

Gave myself some painful shoulder impingement tonight. Couldn't get anything done. This happened because I've continued to be told the bar needs to get lower, but due to my obesity I lack the flexibility necessary to do this, and am comitting other sins with my form due to anthropometric compensation habits to make up for the effect of gravity on all the extra fat padding all of my body - particularly my shoulders in this case. I tried to force it a little too vigorously, got hurt, and really fed up tonight.

I'm done spinning my wheels here for now, I'm going to cut down to a healthy bodyfat level. Moving my log over to the General Training for the time being. I'll come back here once I'm done with my cut, hopefully within 6 to 8 months.

It was fun, folks. I plan to be back to this thread (relatively) soon. New log can be found here.

[peez]

Good luck with the cut & continued training, man - you've come amazingly far already - keep it up!

[coleossus]

Squat:

• 45x5x2
• 210x5x1
• 210x3x1
• 280x2x1
• 350x5x3 (belted)

Press:

• 45x5x2
• 80x5x1
• 80x3x1
• 110x2x1
• 140x5x3 (belted)

Deadlift:

• 230x5x1 (hook grip)
• 230x3x1 (hook grip)
• 305x2x1 (hook grip)
• 380x5x1 (belted, mixed grip)

Squats: Mostly fine. Got a little loose during the second set, but depth was good so I'm not sweating my first time back in a month.

Press: Nothing special here.

Deadlift: Made sure to drag the bar up my legs and keep my back angle right, instead of doing it stiff-legged.

I'm going to spare everyone a long, meandering explanation and sum up the last four weeks like this: Watching someone else get divorced, grandmothers getting severely ill, work getting overwhelmingly busy, and recovering from injuries all in a short time frame totally blows.

I spent the last month not only recovering from my shoulder thing, and all that other crap, but also doing my homework on how to best achieve my goals, and what exactly those goals were going to be. I ran off and made that cut log, and since then I realized a little later that was turbo stupid and that I'm much better off getting over the stress of encountering obstacles like injuries instead of getting all mopey and overreacting to them. The drop my BMR would experience from what I was thinking about doing wouldn't have done me any favors, and I need to stop looking for short cuts.

So I'm just going to get back on my LP. Honestly, for a month long break, I'm not terribly upset with where I was able to come back at. I'll resume videos next time, I didn't plan my workout tonight very well, I just decided I was done being a pussy about it and went to the gym without too much thought. Used the SS app thing to calc my workout breakdown, which is why they depart from my usual format.

Tomorrow's DOMS is going to be fun to deal with. I was sore by the end of my squats alone, let alone what it's going to be like when I wake up tomorrow.