Corrmhona Takes Flight

Bigger Stronger Leaner Over 35 Lifter
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I thought I would start an actual log as it will help keep me honest about my diet/workouts if I start posting them. I have a few weeks back in now, and while I havenâ??t been as consistent as I would like, I am getting a feel for where I am at. It is time to just grind it out for a while and see what happens.

I have decided deadlifts are so far ahead of squats, and I am squatting such a trivial amount that I can afford to lead off both workouts with squats until they progress a bit. I want to try and get my Olympic lifts back down, but I think I am better off concentrating on limit strength for now.

So I am going to continue with an A and B workout, alternating three times a week.

Workout A:
Oly lift practice, just enough weight to work on technique.
squat 5x5
bench 5x5
DB row 5x5

Workout B:
Oly lift practice, just enough weight to work on technique.
squat 5x5
press 5x5
pull up 5x5

I plan on adding at least 5#/workout to each lift until I plateau.

For diet I am looking at 4000 kcal a day. I have lost 10 pounds over the last 5 weeks at 3300, so I need to bump it up. The switch to 40% protein, 30% carbs, 30% fat has helped me feel stronger, but I am still apparently running at a big deficit. Iâ??ll tweak this a bit. Iâ??m drinking a gallon of water a day as well.

Lack of cardio is killing me, and Iâ??m watching my blood pressure creep up at the moment. Iâ??m finding the half hour walk to be strain. I tried walking with my wife, but I canâ??t get her to slow down my pace, so Iâ??m just strolling on my own. It is at best slowing down my deconditioning. I have a new and better doctor who is actually getting me a stress test and some heart monitoring, so maybe something will shake out soon.

For goals, In the long run, Iâ??m looking to weigh in at about what I do now, but at 10%bf. I am at 22% now, so that is a fairly big change, but I think doable. Right now I am focusing on pushing more weight, and I wonâ??t worry about anything else unless my %bf starts to go up. I am expecting to put on more muscle than fat, so the % should be going down a bit as I gain.

Wish me luck!

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First!!!

Welcome, Corrmhona. Good luck!

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Thanks!

So Monday’s workout went like this:

Wife: My writer’s group friends are coming over on Friday, and you said you were going to finish tiling the entryway and the kitchen…you already tore up the old tile.

So 4 hours of tiling Monday and again Tuesday. I do need to get my test checked though… :wink:

Today was better:

Forgot to do my oly’s and started off with squats. Didn’t really feel too perky after squats, so next workout. Widened my stance and they are pushing ahead, I feel like I am holding back rather than pinned. Need to work on my flexibility I think. Years of karate stretching isn’t carrying over.

Squats: 150-5x5

My elbow is better enough that I can straighten it unloaded with out pain, so I added presses back in. With weight it got tweaky after the third rep. Just did three little sets, and will stick at this weight for a workout or two until it is 100%

Overhead Press 147.5 - 3x3

For pullups I’m going to stick at bodyweight until I get the swing out of my pulls.

Pullups Bodyweight - 5x5

Dietwise I hit my 4000 calories and 40-30-30, though it took chicken wings to do it. If I don’t at least stop losing weight at 4000, I’m thinking my thyroid meds are dialed too high.

Out for the half our stroll…in the rain.

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Well, missed my godawful amount of water today and my workout was sluggish…say I told you so!

Power Snatch from the Hang 6 singles 120 - just getting my groove back, pulling about 3 miles from my body- goal for next time 2 miles.

Power Clean from tha Hang 6 singles at 120, can’t catch without the elbow twinging

Squats: 4x5x145 and because I felt my groove back 1x15x145 - gong to pump up the weeght for next workout. It is fun being a noob again1

Bench: 4x3x170 then 1x5x170 Doing threes on pressing until my right elbow is better, but I had to sneak one 5 in.

DB Rows 5x10x75

Went down back for my walk. Our 3 acre spring/wetlands has spread to about 20 acres in the rain. Fortunately just pasture I won’t need for a month yet. Found my old throwing area, and started thinking maybe next year. Found my caber and my height bar trees, but can’t find my trig. With all the rain the critters aren’t keeping up with the grass though.

Choked down all 4kkcal again, weigh and measure tomorrow to see how that is working for me.

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Well, that one wasn’t a keeper…

Squats went great 185-5x5 I’m hitting my groove

Went up to 145 on the OHP, I figured my right elbow was good after benching Friday and 2 days off. 3 reps in popping and paining. Did a second set and decided discretion was the better part of valour after 2 reps… I am thinking it is the start of the movement when I have the bar “shelved” after I clean it. I don’t fold my arm up to as tight an angle in the bench. I’m going to try and switch it up next press workout, maybe switch to DB’s.

I decided to take it easy on elbow and do cable pulldowns instead of pull ups. Did 5x10 at 200#.

Going to relax, and hook my arm up to my tems unit and watch a vid.

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Oh good, I can read about more oly lifting from another log

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My oly lifting is purely comic relief at the moment…

I distinctly remember I used to be able to do the lifts…but I fear it may just be dementia setting in. :wink:

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Ha, that’s ok I prefer people who don’t take themselves so seriously anyway. Humour is good!
When I get back into I think I’ll have to practically start from scratch myself.

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corrmhona,

I may have missed it but what’s your age, BW and height?

Did I see that right; 4000 cal and 40% protein? Quick numbers have that at 400 grams of protein a day. I have a heck of a time getting a little over 200, wow!

Ow one last thing; I saw the 3x3, get rid of it, I’d hate to see you hurt.

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Ug, the kids brought home some horrible illness…headache AND stomach cramps. Anyway, back in the saddle yesterday.

I didn’t actually play with the oly lifts yesterday. My two younger kids showed up while I was setting up and I decided to walk them through pulls again. My daughter (11) lines up over the bar trying to leave her butt up in the air. I get her to push her hips down and she makes a wimper noise and doesn’t lift. I ask if she is hurt, and she says no. So I have her line up again. Same result. So I have her little brother (7) line up, he lines up better than I do, as his hip flexibility is better, and pounds out three then throws in a clean because he knows that is what is next. So I have my daughter try again and she lines up and makes the little noise and stops again. “What’s wrong?” I ask, as we have done this before a few weeks ago when I was first playing around and deciding how to start lifting again. “Crouching is creepy!” she tells me and decides to go play…I think I have lost another one. There is still my youngest boy.

By then I decided to head into my main workout.

Squat 4x5-190,1x13-190
Still ramping up nice and fast, will make a bigger weight jump for Monday.

Bench 4x5-175,1x7-175
Wider grip and elbow is fine. May also have been the extra couple days off curled up praying for death. Will try wider grip for the presses and see how it goes.

DB Rows 5x10-80
Going well, each time I don’t think I’m going to hit 10 next session, but I’m keeping up for now.

Went shopping with the wife for my walk. Was more than 30 minutes. She walks to fast.

doublelung:
I did a separate intro question post before I started the log and it is buried now. I’m 41, my cardio capacity dropped to just above 0 back in January, doctors have no reason for it. I’m 6’4" and 240. Used to throw highland but lost a bunch of weight and spent much of the last decade doing karate, but lack the capacity to keep up the pace for a class now. I am getting way too much of my protein from powder, but I couldn’t get 400g it in any other way.

The diet is working. At 3300 kcal I was losing 2-3 pounds a week. Something screwed up my metabolism and I put on 20# Oct-Dec, but it cleared up around May right around when I started playing around with weights again. I’m hypothyroid and on pretty much full replacement with monitored TSH levels so I don’t know what happened there. Now I am up to 4000 kcal, and put on a couple pounds the last two week. It looks like it is more on the chest/shoulders and not on the waist. I’m aiming for 1-2# a week unless my waist starts to balloon faster than the measurements I want to go up.

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PS I rate that last workout: Got the baseball bat out, looked at it, waved it around a bit, but didn’t quite make contact.

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[quote]corrmhona wrote:

Squat 4x5-190,1x13-190
Still ramping up nice and fast, will make a bigger weight jump for Monday.
[/quote]

Squats are King in my book. I will say from experience it’s going to be hard to do the heavy squats and hard cardio like running. I did it and paid the price with an injury. Having to do it all over again, what I achieved was worth the price for me personally.

Thanks for confirming the protein intake.

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Cool, another Oly log!

With the whimper thing… I feel like that when someone cues me into the proper position for planks or the start of an oly lift when I’ve got my hips properly low, or most things. Because doing it properly involves muscular tension and your body doesn’t understand why it would be wanting to make it hard for itself. She just needs some encouragement that that ‘creepy’ feeling means she is doing it right. She can learn to seek it, but you need to be reassuring… Easy to confuse that feeling with an injured feeling since the body is kinda saying ‘don’t do that’.

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doublelung:
Fortunately for me hard cardio is out so I can just squat! Soon I will be up to bodyweight… :expressionless:

Alexus:
I don’t think I count as an oly log. Maybe a wannabe oly log. Perhaps a hasbeen oly log, though as I said earlier I am not discounting false memories considering how my lifts look at the moment.

I found the coolest thing about the oly lifts was they gave me the best flexibility of my life. I have been doing karate for much of the last decade and spent a lot of time stretching, but I am really pretty much where I was when I first started learning the oly lifts seriously. By the time I could do a squat snatch I was quite flexible. I want that back.

With the kids, I’ve been trying to make a game of it, and trying to keep it fun, so if they show up when I’m starting to work out we do a couple of lifts and maybe some pointers on some partials. Then I try and explain that they can’t just pile on the plates and grip and rip… Any tips are appreciated, as I have four kids and the older two are already teenagers and aggressively disinterested in lifting. They’ve turned into a fencer and a dancer, and all cardio-phylic like their mother. My daughter has been talking triathalon and her older brother told her she’ll look like Schwarzenegger if she lifts weights, so I am worried her conversion to the dark side will soon be complete!

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Just dropping in for the first time. Hi.

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hel: Hi back. I see you throw! I started lifting again thinking of getting back to it. After 8 years I can no longer hear Scotland the Brave on the bagpipe when I close my eyes, so it is time to hit a games.

Worked out with the kids to warm up. My daughter is back, and convinced she want have to start talking with an Austrian accent if she lifts weights with me. I switched it up and had them do full lifts and working on one thing, rather than just partials. Better. Then I ran them through their tumbling and considered myself warmed up.

I decided to see where I was with the snatch and just ramp up. After running through a bunch with the kids I was pulling within arms length of my body instead of the usual 2-3 miles. I thought maybe I could start practicing the full lift again, at least the power version until I get my flexibility up a bit.

I don’t know about the rest of you but I have a very small sweet spot between too light and too heavy to practice properly. I started at 40, where my daughter is working, then ramped up 70, 90, 120, and at 140 the heavens opened up with light and angles sung the snatch to completion. I even managed to half squat on the catch! I tried 160 and the world turned away in disgust and cried “What is that thing!”. I caught it overhead though.

After that, my big jump in squats to 220. 5x5.

Overhead press: I decided to go wide grip, elbows flared out, and seated. Dropped it down to 70#. 5x10, no elbow pain. Next time I’ll add a little weight.

Pulldowns 5x10 at 200. Biceps pumped almost to the point of pain.

I rate this workout tapped hip and thigh with a baseball bat. Glutes aren’t feeling it enough for kicked in the ass…and fortunately no knee capping.

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Ug, travelling for work all week, and living off of sanwiches…but finally broke 20% BF if the scale and tape aren’t lying and had a good workout when I got back. Still at 240. I get to see a cardiologist tomorrow, as the new Dr. thinks asymptomatic angina is what is killing my capacity to do any sort of sustained workout.

Overhead Press + 3 Behind the Neck Presses at the bottom 10 times at 40#
Powerish Snatch (getting a 1/4 squat in…) 5x3 - 130# - I’m finding I can do the first pull, or the second pull, or put a pause in. Getting closer though
Squat 5x5 - 225#
Bench 5x5 - 180#
DB Row 5x10 - 85#

It seemed much longer when I was doing than when I typed it there…

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Well with the possible condition it appears your doing really good work and hanging in there well. Hope the doc can do something for you. No worries on the advice given, I’m being as cautious as I will allow my self to be.

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[quote]corrmhona wrote:

It seemed much longer when I was doing than when I typed it there…
[/quote]

Yeah that happens sometimes to me too.

I hope the Dr has something constructive advice to give you! Take care

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Thanks guys!

41 is a little young for heart problems, but I guess I’m an early adopter. We’ll see. I’m fine as long as I let my breathing catch up, so things could be worse. It would be good to know.

Speaking of catching up…went out and tried to throw. I am weak! Ants ate both my caber’s, so no sticks to play with. I fired off:

3x28# weight for distance…though not a lot of distance
3 x16# stone throws
3xugly 25# overweight hammer (I used to use it for turns to build muscle, I didn’t lift much in season, just threw and some field exercises…it has a 25# head and 50" of rigid high pressure steel pipe for a handle)

Decided the 56 was entirely out of my current league, and the rain was starting up so I headed in. I never thought I’d see the day when my oly lifting form was better than my throwing, but I think it will have to wait a bit as my shoulder will start to grieve if I go at it full tilt now. I’ll need some “No money’s” and face pulls ahead of getting back into it seriously.