Hello. I am 27, almost 28 years old so I’m past the peak testosterone years. I am 5’11" and only weigh 145 lbs. I work in a physically demanding job that requires both strength and cardio endurance. I’m not bad at the running but am generally weaker than most of my peers. After having some embarassing experiences I intend to fix this. I decided that the program Starting Strength would be best for me because right now I just want to get strong in as little time as possible and don’t care too much about aesthetics. I bought the book and read it although I admit I skimmed over a lot and mainly just paid attention to how to do the exercises. I started training last Monday…and stalled already so I decided to log my sessions where other people can view them and offer advice. Here are my current stats.
Squat 205 lbs for 3x5
Bench 160 lbs for 5,4,3 (those are all the reps i could do for my 3 sets)
Deadlift 235 lbs for 1x5
Overhead press 85 lbs for 3x5
Power clean 125 lbs for 5x3
So as you can all see I’m pretty weak. The squat bench and deadlift stats are from earlier today and the other two are from Monday.
My squat has been stuck on 205 since last Friday. I actually managed to do 3 reps of 210 on Monday but was completely done after that so it didnt count. I tried again today but felt like I got weaker and 205 was my limit again so I struggled to finish 3x5 with that weight for the second time.
Everything else has been going up slowly so no complaints yet. I guess I should be eating more? I plugged everything i eat in a day into the myfitnesspal app and it was less than 3000 cals so I’m more than 1000 short of my 4000 goal. I hate being an ectomorph! And GOMAD is not an option for me. I tried it and crapped straight liquid for the rest of the day.
The only supplements I take are c4, whey, and a test booster. I probably might not even need that last one but I am a bit past the peak testosterone age so whatever. Tomorrow is an off day so I’ll be posting meals that I eat and their calorie value. And I’m probably gonna do some cardio tomorrow because my job does require it.
These two things have nothing in common. You did not eat enough to hit your daily goal. The moment you eat 4000 calories does not change your somotype. Do whatever it takes to eat 4,000 calories.
The test booster is a waste of money. Put simply, they don’t work.
As got physical job if do the ‘Hardgainer’ template can drop the dips/pull up assistance on squat and deadlift day if shoulders get.beat up.
Drop the test booster just focus on getting extra sleep, if want to spend on supps get creatine (especially newer krealkalyn ones) and take bcaas midworkout. Dont take the C4 more than once a week or the strong stims will burn you out. Ideally just replace with with caffeine pill/strong coffee etc
Thank you all for replying. Today I saw solid proof that eating enough can make a difference. I made myself a meal plan and set alarms to go off every 3 hours so I could meet my calorie goal for yesterday and today I was able to go up on all my lifts. These are now my stats.
Squat 210 3x5
Overhead press 90 3x5
Deadlift 235 1x5. I was actually supposed to power clean but totally forgot and deadlifted instead but it went up so whatever.
So I checked out the 531. Before I completely drop the program I’m on I want to at least make sure I’m doing everything right with the eating and the sleep. I figure I can’t really blame the program if I’m not doing those things. Anyway I don’t know why this log got moved to the beginners forum. Maybe the mods made a mistake. I’m going to make a new thread in training logs. Thanks guys.
Keep on with it for a few more weeks then, most people hit a wall with Starting strength sooner rather than later so when that happens just move on to 5/31
Just got back from vacationing in Paris last night (Saturday Sunday Monday). I tried my best to eat as much as I could but I had no way to count calories since my app needs specific measurements. These are my stats from today.
Squat 215 for 3,2,3,2,1 reps. After failing to do 5 the first set I thought I’d try 5x3 to get the same volume but failed to get 3 every set.
Bench 145. So after reading some articles on here I realized I was benching the wrong way (elbows flared) which is bad for my shoulders in the long run so I tried benching with my elbows close to my body and couldnt lift as much weight.
Deadlift 235 I couldnt deadlift my best today because they closed off the part of the gym with the round plates leaving only the weird octogonal plates that cause the bar to move every time I put it down so I had to move my feet after every rep.
I’ll continue to focus on eating enough and get enough sleep.
Ok… I think the mandatory physical training I do for my job is making it impossible to PR every single workout. We always do that stuff first thing in the morning too. Im always burnt out by the time I lift later in the day. Anyways Ive been stuck again for like 2 weeks now… Starting Strength seems like its for someone who only lifts 3x a week and does nothing else to get in the way of recovery. I dont have a choice about the other shit that I have to do. Its part of the job. However most of the time they do lower and upper body workouts on separate days. So maybe I should switch to a program that doesnt do full body workouts every time. That way I wont have to squat the day that I did sprints or bench after doing a ton of push ups
I decided to switch to 531 because each main lift is done on a different day which makes it more adaptable to my units PT schedule. That way I don’t have to set a new PR for my squat when I did a bunch of hill sprints in the morning.
These are the 1RMs I lifted on Sunday. Squat 230, bench 170, press 105, deadlift 255. 90% of those numbers are: squat 205, bench 150, press 95, deadlift 230. These are the training maxes.
On Monday I did squats.
Squat 2×5 @ 135, 155 lbs, 1×7 @ 175 lbs
Lunges 3×10 with 30 lb dumbbells
Leg curl 3×10 @ 55 lbs
Today morning I benched.
Bench 2×5 @ 95, 115, 1×10 @ 135
Dumbbell bench 5×10 with 35 lb dumbbells
Dumbbell row 5×15 with 35 lbs
I was surprised by how easy 2 out of 3 sets for the main lift are. I was only supposed to lift 65 and 75% of my training max which itself is 90% of my 1RM and they count as a work sets? That feels like a warm up. The last set in which you try maxing out on reps was the only one that felt hard.
My last program I never did any assistance exercises. So I wasnt sure what weight to pick for the volume that I was doing. I think I could have gone heavier for lunges and dumbbell bench.
