Obese middle aged guy's journey to get in shape

[jjazbec]

I have the same issue with the shoulders, takes me five minutes to warm them up before even starting my squat warm up. I found digging my thumb into the deltoid at the point where it hurts and applying some hard shear on it helps with loosening it up.
I also suggest you don't just stop at 265, run out the linear progression until the end, which shouldn't be more than four months from the start anyway. Then you'll officially be an intermediate and wil need to include conditioning in your training anyway. Getting stronger will do much more for your body composition than cardio or caloric restriction.
See YouTube

[jrickner]

Aug 20 work sets
Squat 245 x 5 x 3
Bench 145 x 5 x 3
Deadlift 255 x 4 x 1

Failed to get 5 deadlifts reps. On my last rep, my lower back started to hurt so bad that pushing through felt unsafe. As a family man, I'm a bit more risk-averse than I was in my twenties. Years ago I would have pushed through the pain just to see what happens. I'll continue to progress the other movements next workout and then carefully repeat the same deadlift weight on my next session. It may be time to start progressing in increments of five rather than ten pounds.

The shoulder stretches seem to be opening up the range of movement in my shoulders. This workout took far less time to get comfortable in a low bar position and I've even managed to narrow my grip a bit. I've found that I experience far less pain and shoulder-stress if I slowly *pull* my neck and shoulders to the bar with my lats (kind of like a wide grip behind-the-head lat pull-down, but the bar is stationary in the j-hooks and my body moves toward the bar) rather than use my legs, arms and lower back to *push* my arms and shoulders into position. I can almost relax my body and focus on pulling my shoulder blades to meet the bar and this makes getting into the correct position way more comfortable. I'll pull a little bit, relax, pull a little further, relax... Rinse and repeat until I can pull all way into a low bar position. Once my back finds the bar in the correct position just under the spine of the shoulder blades, I adjust my feet to get under the bar, and carefully lift the bar off the j-hooks to begin the set.

[jrickner]

I also suggest you don't just stop at 265, run out the linear progression until the end, which shouldn't be more than four months from the start anyway. Then you'll officially be an intermediate and wil need to include conditioning in your training anyway. Getting stronger will do much more for your body composition than cardio or caloric restriction.
See YouTube

I may end up stalling before or after 265. 265 is where I estimate my squat LP is going to start to plateau, based on how intense the workouts have become. First 10 workouts felt like almost the exact same intensity regardless of increasing the weight on the bar. But these past few workouts have seemed progressively harder, requiring a more intense effort to complete.

I'm not certain if going straight into an intermediate program will be the best course for me given my current state of morbid obesity. I'm seriously leaning toward re-programming to just maintaining the LP-related strength gains while losing excess fat mass. Perhaps I'll lift twice a week and not progressively overload- just focusing on form with the same weight while doing more LSD cardio and further calorie reduction. Once I can lower my body fat percentage to somewhere well below "morbidly obese", cycle back into proper SS LP programming and then on to an intermediate program.

If my goal was merely to get stronger, then I wouldn't even be worried about the excess fat and would let the strength programming sort out the body comp on its own. I've certainly seen evidence that that will happen, though not in people as overweight as I. I really need to be a lighter weight person in addition to being stronger in order to participate in sports and activities that I aim to do again. They all involve a high risk of falling down at speeds at or near running. Force equals mass times acceleration, so every unit of mass I can lose will divide (not just subtract from) the force directed against my bones and joints when impacts occur.

[jrickner]

...so here's the catch-up post...


Aug 23 work sets
Squat 255 x 1 x 1
Press 100 x 5 x 3
Deadlift 265 x 1 x 1

Lower back (aggravated my bulging disc) wouldn't let me get into my work sets on squat or dead lifts.

Aug 28 work sets
Squat 225 x 5 x 3
Bench 150 x 5 x 3
Deadlift 245 x 5 x 1

Been caring for my back:

• Sitting with lumbar support and focusing on good posture
• Focusing on maintaining a neutral, flat lower back while moving and while at rest
• Taking lots of NSAIDs to reduce the inflammation around the irritated disc and nerve
• Reducing the weight of my work sets for squats and dead lift
• Taking my time and lifting safely while setting up weight on the bar
• Only going up 5 lbs each workout instead of 10

Sep 03 work sets
Squat 230 x 5 x 3
Press 105 x 5 x 3
Deadlift 250 x 5 x 1
Chin up (with 220 lbs of assistance) 12 x 3

Added chin ups to my A workouts. I'm using a machine that counters your body weight. I'll continue to progressively reduce the assistance provided until I can do chin ups without the machine's help.

On my first post I mentioned,

On July 3rd (before SS), I used my globogym's high-tech electro-zappy-gizmo-scale that said I was at 289lbs and 42.7% body fat with 94.8 lbs of skeletal muscle mass. After my 12th-15th SS workout I'll ask to use that machine again and see if my body fat% and skeletal muscle mass numbers are moving in the right direction.

Today I used that InBody gizmo again. It said I was at 280 lbs and 36.8% body fat with 101.6 lbs of skeletal muscle mass.

So if I was 42.7% body fat at 289 lbs, that would be 123 lbs of fat on 7/3.
and if I was 36.8% body fat at 280 lbs, that would be 103 lbs of fat on 9/4.

So it appears that in 2 months I lost about 20 lbs of fat and gained 6.8 lbs of skeletal muscle. So it says I'm down 20lbs of fat and up 7 lbs of muscle (13 net pounds lost), but I only lost 9 lbs total according to the scale. So I'll take these readings with a grain of salt because there's a 4 lb degree of inaccuracy (at least).
But these readings seem consistent with how my clothes are fitting and how I am feeling. Starting Strength coupled with good amount of sleep and a slow carb, high protein diet with a daily ~500 caloric deficit have provided a pretty good start on my road to getting in shape. My plans are to continue LP using 5 lb increments and then reassess my training needs once LP has run its course. My ultimate goal is to skateboard with the other old guys at the skatepark and be strong enough to take a fall. After LP, I think my focus will split into strength, conditioning, and fat loss rather than only strength and fat loss.

[positronbomb]

I'll skate with you if I make it to the USA

[jrickner]

Sep 05 work sets
Squat 235 x 5 x 3
Bench 155 x 5 x 3
Deadlift 255 x 5 x 1

[Adam Levine]

Default
First, great job. Just catching up.

Given how things are going, I think you should get away from doing deadlifts on every workout. You're way beyond NLP phase 1, and may be closing on phase 3 with a light squat day. If you don't want to do power cleans, do chins. That might fix your recent deadlift issues.

Second, if you want to estimate body fat, try the US Navy formula and a tape measure. Its as accurate as BIA machines, and easy to administer at home. I use it in my training logs. A minute a week to estimate body fat.

Also sanity check any body fat measurement with visual. I like this site:Estimating Body fat percentage (bf %) | Largest collection of Body Fat percentage Pictures | Know your Body fat % | Lean Body Mass | Fat Mass | Fat Free Mass | Body Weight | Lean body weight .

All body fat estimates are just that - estimates, and some are WAY off. A visual sanity check to see if the number should be believed is useful. For example, according to a set of accumeasure body fat calipers I bought on Amazon, I'm 7%bf. That's pretty clearly dreamland... Bia machines, us Navy formula, and visual pictures all have me pegged near 20%.

[jrickner]

Sep 07 work sets
Squat 240 x 5 x 3
Press 115 x 5 x 3
Deadlift 260 x 5 x 1
Chin up (with 210 lbs of assistance) 12 x 3

Sep 10 work sets
Squat 245 x 5 x 3
Bench 160 x 5 x 3
Deadlift 265 x 5 x 1 Finally killed 265 after failing it before due to lower back pain!! :-)