Kevin's SS training log (insert witty title here)

[KGThree]

Squats:
265x5x3 - No wrist wraps or belt, focused on form, control, and breathing

Bench Press:
225x5x2 - No problems
225x4x1 - Got a cramp or pinched nerve, felt like it was between my leg and hip, tried to press through it but was far too distracting
225x1x1 - Racked the weight, walked the leg thing out and did my last rep

Rows:
140x8x3

Bicep Curls/Pushup Supersets:
Started with 45 pound dumbells for set of 7, then follow it up w/ 10 pushups. Work my way down from 45 down to 10 pounders with 10 pushups in between

Just to add a little something extra to these logs, I was thinking I'd start posting my meal plans as well. Perhaps it'll help inspire some folks in the kitchen?

Breakfast: (786 calories)
5.2oz Top Sirloin
2 whole eggs
60 grams of Special K protein cereal
6oz 2% Milk
2 slices of Whole Wheat (Light) toast w/ reduced fat butter

Pre Workout: (413 calories) - 1-1.5 hours before workout
2 slices of light Whole Wheat bread
1 TBSP Strawberry Jelly
2 TBSP Natural Peanut Butter (No sugar)
1 sliced banana
1 Scoop of Cellucor preworkout mixed with 16oz of water

Post Workout: (485 calories) - Within 1 hour of the end of my workout
1 Scoop of BCAA Celucor mixed w/ 12oz of water
16oz 2% milk
1 Chewy Bar

Lunch: (651 calories)
Street Cart Chicken and Rice (Mediterranean spice blend)
Grilled Chicken - 8oz
Basmati Rice - 1 serving
Summer Squash (Zuchini and Yellow Squash)
Kontos Whole Wheat pocketless pita bread

Dinner: (Calories TBD)
Spaghetti w/ Meat Sauce and Meatballs
Garlic Stick x1

[KGThree]

Met w/ Adam Skillin today for the first time in a few months. Definitely had some things to correct but overall things were better than I expected.

Squats:
305x5x1 - Adam wanted me to lower the weight and work on form so this is where we landed for working weight. Depth wasn't consistent so we dropped to 285 for the remaining work sets
285x5x2 - Got a good feeling for depth and I'm switching to a slightly narrower stance

OHP:
137.5x3x5 - My press 2.0 is inconsistent but the weight felt easy today, need to work on form

Deadlift:
355x3x1 - Still issues with rounding, Adam recommended resetting to 315 to work on breathing, bracing, extending, etc etc. I'm rocking forward onto my toes to much, need to focus on mid foot, butthole back, chest up.

Bench:
185x5x1 - Just wanted to get a form check, overall happy with things here, will continue LP at 227.5 next week.

Don't have time to add more at the moment, but overall a productive session!

[KGThree]

Squats:
290x5x3 - These felt harder than I expected. Limited rests to 5-6 minutes. Main focus was on getting depth

Bench:
227.5x5x2
227.5x4x1

Note: Didn't rest enough between sets 1 and 2 and didn't feel like I could handle a 5th rep on set 2. Set 3 was fine for 5 reps w/ 2 extra minutes rest

Deadlift:
315x1x5 - Did 5 singles focusing on Adam's form correction from Friday. All of these felt fucking hard. My ass and my hammies are killing me right now. think I'm going to stick w/ 315 for the next session just to make sure I can get 5 reps in 1 set rather than 5 singles.

[carson]

Just curious. What advantage do you find in not wearing a belt during squats?

[KGThree]

Just curious. What advantage do you find in not wearing a belt during squats?

Psychological more than anything. That being said, I'm not going to be doing that anymore for the foreseeable future.


Today's Log

First "light" day since I started "starting strength"

Squats
3x5 - 265lbs

Overhead Press
5x3 - 140lbs

Chinups
Set 1 - 7 reps
Set 2 - 6 reps
Set 3 - 6 reps

Chinups felt bad today, body weight only. I'm up to 213 and I haven't done them in over a week so maybe that contributes?

Overhead press felt good. 140 was no problem and I think I could be doing 3x5 rather than 5x3 BUT I do think I'll be able extend LP longer with 5x3 so I'm sticking with it.

Diet has been adjusted down to 3200 on working days and 2800 on rest days.

I'm also going to add in some conditioning on Fridays and some dedicated ab work throughout the week. Don't expect either to heavily impact my training but going back to the first part of this post, I'm drastically under aware of my abdominals and I think a little extra work on the mind-muscle piece of my abs might help me brace better during squats and DL.

[KGThree]

Fucking killed it today - kind of.

Squats felt bad
2x5 - 295lb - Second set was rough
1x3 - 295lb - last set sucked. Second rep sucked my soul out, and the third rep was high. I lost my bracing and just decided to rack it

Squats felt heavy, but this felt more psychological than fatigue

Bench Press
1x4 - 230lbs - didn't have a 5th rep in the tank w/o a spotter. I actually switched to a wider grip today and the lift felt much easier but the muscles didn't have the endurance to keep going
1x1 - 250lbs - easy and a PR for me
1x1 - 265 - hell of a grind, had a spotter who jumped in too early so I can't count it as a PR - definitely doable though

Deadlift
1x1 - 315lbs - easy
1x1 - 365lbs - easy
1x1 - 385lbs - moderate - PR
1x1 - 405lbs - moderate - PR

FUCKING GOT IT. Applying the form differences and actually engaging my hamstrings and glutes made this feel easy

[KGThree]

The last couple of weeks have been filled with great accomplishments but something has been bugging me. I've really been enjoying the strength gains and overall feel as if I'm getting close to being a little bit strong. At the same time I'm getting fat. Rewind to my first post and you'll see that I was like 285-295 a little over a year ago. Between medication, dieting and exercise I managed to drop down to 179 at my lowest. Keep in mind that I am 5'9. 180 at 5'9 would be nice if I was like 12-15% body fat, but at that point I had lost a ton of muscle mass and a lot of fat. I started "Starting Strength" at the beginning of May of 18 weighing in at 185. As of today I weighed in at 216.7. That being said at 216.7 today I look a lot more muscular than I did at 217 the first time around. However, after having put on nearly 40 pounds - I think it's time to consider some diet changes. I want to keep getting stronger, but not at the expense of my wardrobe (again) and obviously not at the expense of my overall health. I don't care about ABBBZZZZ or anything like that. I really just care about keeping a sub 35 waist measurement - ideally closer to 30-32. Right now I am on the fence between 39 and 40 inches. I spent all weekend thinking about this and trying to come up with a plan. Currently I'm aiming to cut back down to 200lbs and then re-evaluate at that time. Ideally I'd like to limit my weight loss to about 1-2lbs per week.

To start I'll be cutting my calories to an average of 2750 per day. This will stay the same for the first two weeks. After two weeks I'll re-evaluate calories and add/subtract 50 calories per day until I find the sweet spot. Programming will still the same as it is currently until it is not sustainable - at which point I think I'm going to switch to an HLM type program. 17 weeks puts us roughly at the end of the year so my hope is that I can hit about 200 by end of the year.

Todays Log:

Squats:
3x5 - 300lbs - Felt good today, didn't rest enough on the weekend but was surprised at how easy things felt

OHP:
5x3 - 142.5lbs - Weight is still easy which is great. I'm hoping to drive this up to 155 regadless of the weight loss.

RDL:
3x8 - 185lbs - Used straps which made focusing on my gluts and hammies easy.

Did 5 minutes of steady state jogging at the start to get my blood flowing and ended with 2x5 chinups, 2x8 pushups, and 2x6 roll outs.

[KGThree]

Log:

Squats (Light day)
3x5 - 265lbs

Bench Press:
1x5 - 230lbs
4x5 - 205lbs

Deadlift:
1x5 - 355lbs
1x1 - 410lbs


Overall good day, felt strong =)

[KGThree]

Another week down and I'm pretty happy w/ the results.

LP is definitely starting to run out on the upper body lifts. I just don't have the endurance to go for 3x5 on Press or Bench after a certain point and I think I'd be better off switching to intermediate programming on those lifts.

Squats:
3x5 - 305lbs - Nothing special here, squats are feeling good. Started focusing on getting my knees into place faster and keeping them there, seems to be helping alot. 305 was easy today

OHP
1x5 - 145lbs
1x4 - 145lbs
1x1 - 155lbs
1x1 - 165lbs
1x4 - 135lbs

Notes: Tried to switch back from triples to 5s today. First set was tough, but the last rep on set 2 wasn't gonna happen. More rest between sets and I'd have had it. After I missed it I decided to test some heavier loads just to get used to grinding OHP, not unhappy with a 165 OHP at this point - still room to grow though.

Deadlifts:
1x5 - 135lbs
1x5 - 225lbs
1x3 - 275lbs
1x2 - 315lbs
1x1 - 365lbs
1x1 - 405lbs
1x1 - 425lbs

Man, I used to hate deadlifting but figuring this form shit out has really helped. 1RM has gone from 365 to 425 in under a month and there is still more in the tank. That being said, I don't think I should keep pulling heavy singles like I have been. Time to get back on the LP grind.

Thinking about moving upper body to HLM style programming next week. Squats are still on ADvanced-Novice progression, but the rest are moving to HLM.

Monday (Heavy)
Squats - 3x5 @ 310
Bench - 5x5 @ 205
Deadlift - 1x5 @360

Wednesday (Light)
Squats - 3x5 @ 265
OHP - 5x5 @ 130
Chin Ups - AMRAP @ 7min
Dips - AMRAP @ 7min

Friday (Medium)
Squats - 3x5 @ 315
Incline or Close Grip - going to pick the WEAKER of the two and focus on that for probably 6 weeks, then reevaluate
Stiff-Leg DL - 3x5 @ 275

Plan is to start by adding 5lbs per week to each lift until I stall, reset and then microload.

[KGThree]

First week with my modified HLM/LP program

Squats:
3x5 - 310lbs - Felt good, bar was moving quick today

OHP:
5x3 - 147.5lbs - No problems here

Deadlifts:
1x5 - 360lbs
1x1 - 405lbs

Nothing super special today, everything felt good. Week 1 at my reduced calories @ 2750 has been working well. Workouts are still productive, waist is down half an inch, no complaints =)