Illwerral's Rippetoe Log

Training Beginners
1

Alright folks… I’ve decided that since I’m God’s gift to everyone and everything, I’ll bless T-Nation with my own UBER ADVANCED training log; I sincerely hope that everyone can learn a thing or two about becoming massive and strong through this thread of mine!

All kidding aside, TheDudeAbides sold me on this program almost effortlessly by directing me to his log. I’ll be starting right around where he did, and I would love to make similar gains. I’m coming in with 1.5 years of beginner experience, initially with lifts of:

<----basement gym---->

Fall 2006
Bench: 120x6
Deadlift: 150x6
Squat: didn’t have a squat rack/was a pussy
Bodyweight: 215

Moving to Spring 2007
Bench: 185x6
Deadlift: temporary break, ran out of weight
Squat: still a pussy
Bodyweight: still 215

<—gym membership is acquired----->

Moving to dumbell benches and barbell squats by the present:
Bench: 85x5
Deadlift: 315x5
Squat: 205x7
Bodyweight: still 215

I feel like I’ve made progress, but not as much as I possibly could have. Time to do better.

I was on a 5 day split, Mon-Fri; since I’m impatient, and also I think it’d be a good idea to get a workout that’s not during a school day I’m gonna start tommorrow and go every second day with Fri/Sat off.

Initially I probably won’t be so religious with logging my nutrition, because it’s pretty much always the same thanks to my cafeteria:

Breakfast: 5 boiled eggs and an orange, 2 cups of skim milk
Lunch: tuna wrap, plate of vegetables, 2 cups of milk
Supper: same as lunch
Post-WO: 2 servings of Optimum Gold Standard whey protein
Random Snacking: Kellogs Special K, green tea, V8 juice.
Supplements: Fish oil and Met-RX Tribulus at each meal

Total Macronutrients: generally just short of 2500 calories, ~200g protein, 80g fat, 200g carbs.

So, that’s where I’ve been and where I’m at. Where do I want to go? I want to go down from 215lbs to 195lbs and see how I look; once I’m lean I want to go back up to 215 and stay lean. I want to see my military press go up significantly, I was using 55lb dumbells on my last workout for sets of 7 and feel I should be doing better.

I want to see progress resume on my deadlift, which has been stalling on me for a couple weeks. I want my squat to be in proportion to the rest of my lifts since I started it late.

I’ll probably also bitch about things that bother me, as I happen to be an angry angry person who’s also generally long winded. Bad combo :stuck_out_tongue:

So there it is… I can hardly wait to start lifting heavier and looking lighter.

2

Oh… two questions regarding this:

Is the Rippetoe program assuming that I do some warmup sets first, or do I not do warmup sets?

Secondly, given my goals of fat loss with strength gain is it advisable to do some cardio on non-lift days?

3

i dont know allot about the ripptoe program (but everyones talking about it, so i will read up and see if it suits me :D) but i would have thought just doing the weights for a good couple of months would be the way to go… build some good hard lean mass up without exhausting calories through cardio… then start some light cardio and maybe try some HIIT if you want to start losing any fat surrounding your new, bigger muscles…
i’m a newb, but this is what i’ve gathered from the more experienced :-s

4

[quote]illwerral wrote:
Oh… two questions regarding this:

Is the Rippetoe program assuming that I do some warmup sets first, or do I not do warmup sets?

Secondly, given my goals of fat loss with strength gain is it advisable to do some cardio on non-lift days?[/quote]

read this:

5

Just what I was looking for… thanks!

6

[quote]illwerral wrote:
Oh… two questions regarding this:

Is the Rippetoe program assuming that I do some warmup sets first, or do I not do warmup sets?[/quote]

Yes and no. Nothing is written in stone. I like to warm-up, rather ramp up the weight to my working set. It gets me more mentally prepared. I do 1-3 reps of varying weight levels. For instance bench:

5x135
2x185
1x205

For squat
3x185
2x205
1x255

Absolutely. I try to get my cardio in everyday but it doesn’t always happen. That’s why I’m still, chubby. You can even do 20-30 minutes of moderate cardio after your work. I’ll be honest though. The first week, maybe two, are going to be tiring. Squatting three times a week isn’t for the faint of heart.

7

BTW, your lifts are pretty good. Of course mine were similar and I wasn’t satisfied either … so they aren’t good enough :stuck_out_tongue:

8

I was actually thinking to myself how cool this program’s gonna be because I’ll be squatting 3 times a week and benching/deadlifting twice a week! I loved each day of my 5 day split (although arm day not so much as the others), and wished I could do them more :stuck_out_tongue:

That warmup sounds like a good idea… I’m always afraid of overexerting on the warmup but I guess I was simply using excessively heavy weight (like 20lbs less than the work set).

If I can find the self discipline I might get back to my 6am wake up to do cardio schedule. I think I’ll hit a treadmill at the gym though… I was doing hour long walks and that’s just miserable in downtown Toronto during winter. I actually preferred jogging in the -20 back home just because the ground was solid snow rather than slush and the traffic was non-existent. -8 in Toronto is simply crap compared to that, but I digress.

I was thinking of a rowing machine for my cardio, I’ve heard they’re an intense workout for the time you put in…

9

The program was designed to have all work being done with a BB not DB. So i don’t know if i read wrong or if it really way that you are doing your presses with DB, you have to change to Barbells as soon as possible, that is if you are following the program to stone.

10

[quote]TheDudeAbides wrote:
BTW, your lifts are pretty good. Of course mine were similar and I wasn’t satisfied either … so they aren’t good enough :P[/quote]

ooooo…them’s fightin’ words, only I can say bad things about my lifts :stuck_out_tongue:

I’ve found that squat/deadlift are naturally easy to progress for me in general, I guess my upbringing was just conducive that sort of strength. Bench press, being the standard question it seems, has always presented my with a psychological barrier just not present with the others. I feel like by now I should be doing low-mid 200s on the BB, but I’ll be starting at 185 which is exactly where I was 7 months ago on the BB. DB seemed to have no such issue though, I started at 40 to 50lbs in the summer and have grown with it just fine. I guess I’m just fucked :stuck_out_tongue:

In response to Matso, I will be going back to the BB for every exercise. Part of my choice to use DB was my choice to workout alone, but it seems I’m going to have a WO buddy starting tommorrow so BB should be fine. Of course the whole spotter thing is more of an appearance thing… I hate the guys at my gym who throw weights after every rep on the olympic platform, or the dumbells after every single set. So of course at home I would just bring the BB onto my chest, slide it down to my thighs and stand up, lifting it off myself. I think I’d look like a clown doing that in a real gym, so I’m not about to become what I hate so to speak.

11

This is exactly why I started Rippetoe.

There were students at my school (I’m a teacher) technically benching more than me. Not good. We don’t even have a football program.

“Hey what do you bench?”

“Oh, I don’t know. I really don’t do max lifts anymore. I can do X for X reps though.”

I’m trying not to think about next week when I will quite possibly hit 250 on Friday. Whew.

12

Some of those lifts have to be taken with a grain of salt… there was this trio of high school kids back home who would periodically work out at the same time as me. Being local hockey players and general “athletes”, they thought they were pretty good. The fifteen year old in the group was “benching 260”. It was a 3 person effort, but I’ll be damned if he didn’t “bench 260” :stuck_out_tongue:

What’s interesting/scary are the ones that are exactly as the person says… like my buddy who’s 185 and can bench press more than my weight. I knew only a couple guys like that in high school, the rest were posers.

13

Alright! First day of the Rippetoe program, and it’s feeling good.

I decided to go with 185x5 on the bench press since I had a good warmup and that was my last weight when using the BB. I should have rested longer, I think. Since I was spotting my buddy and showing him how the lifts go (he’s a new guy), I kind of rushed on my bench. So I did 185x5 for two sets, but the last set was a nut buster, so I figured I’d push it back to 175 and only got 3 reps in; I did an additional 3 at 175 to fill the gap.

Now I know that was a poor showing with respect to sticking to the program, and I’m going to be doing longer breaks between sets. And on Sunday apparently the gym closes at 5, so I’ll leave myself more time by going earlier. I plan to own 185 on the next workout, then up the weight.

Squats were next, and after warming up I loaded up for 215 and popped out 5 deep and not too brutal back squats; I repeated that twice for my planned 215x5x3.

Deadlift was a tough one for me, the grip is still getting up to par, and I damaged a callous today. I’ll treat my hands nicely and hopefully be up to full form again in time for the next deadlift workout; otherwise I’ll have to man up and endure some pain :P. After warmup I pulled 315 for 5, and plan to only add ten pounds for next time. In less words, today was:

BB Bench Press: 185x5, 185x5 <-nut buster, 175x3, 175x3 <—inadequate rest IMO

Back Squat: 215x5, 215x5, 215x5

Deadlift: 315x5

I feel good!

Today’s bonus (making the best out of things): the girlfriend “wants to be friends” now… more time for the gym!

14

Take the weights up slowly or you will stall out too soon. Remember that you’re starting out stronger that the audience Rippetoe wrote this for.

You’ll get the third set of 185x5 next time.

Stu

15

Best of luck to you, our lifts are pretty similar. I just started my log up not doing Rippetoe, but oh well. Will be interesting to see how our results compare. Keep us updated, and lift heavy.

16

Alright! So I wasn’t sure how my workout would go today since I totaled about an hour of sleep last night in order to study for a test today, but I skipped classes this after noon and took a nap so I think I was reasonably fresh.

I started with the bent over barbell rows, which I haven’t done for a very long time (and haven’t ever done with proper form until now I don’t think). I pulled 145x5 for all three sets. Next up was my back squat, after vacating some clowns from the squat rack that is. I loaded up 225 and knocked off 5 reps, but next set I only hit 3. I had proper inter set recovery time, however this could be due to my poor choice of bedtime today or it could be due to the fact my body hasn’t squatted this much in a week before.

Either way, my last set was 220 for 5; I’m going to nail 225x5 for three sets on my next workout. My last lift was the military press. Now I haven’t done this one for a while, and I actually used to be stronger on it (but not much); I’m sure that’s coming back in a hurry and then some. I nailed 105x5 for three sets.

So, for summary:

Bent over BB Row: 145x5, 145x5, 145x5
Squat: 225x5, 225x3, 220x5
Military Press: 105x5, 105x5, 105x5

Aside from being tired, it was a great workout. It felt really good to do military presses again, I think I prefer them to dumbell shoulder presses. In fact, I prefer all my lifts with barbells as opposed to dumbells and it’s nice to be using them again.

Just as an interesting aside, since getting back into lifting after the Christmas break I now have one more extra hole in my belt and I weigh a couple pounds less. If my lifts are still improving that can only be a good thing!

Anyway I’m out for now… I can’t wait for my next workout, this whole “every second day” thing is brutal!

17

Alright…another workout today! It felt great to do some more lifting, I was going crazy yesterday with no iron!

I started off on the bench press, and as expected I cleaned up at 185x5 for three sets, then I took care of deadlifting 335 for 5 (yay progress on the DL again!). Lastly I squatted 225, but unfortuantely the second set I actually broke into two closely spaced sets totalling five. Last set was five in a row though so I think it could have been a recovery time thing. Or a not putting my all into it thing. The last rep was brutal, so I think I’m only going up to 230 on Sunday. Bench press was also a nut buster so I’m going up to 190 next time, but deadlift was a solid set so I’m hitting 355 next time!

Bench: 185x5, 185x5, 185x5 <–tough!
Deadlift: 335x5
Squat: 225x5, 225x3+2, 225x5 <–tough!

This rippetoe program is really nice because I’m actually making scheduled progress to some degree, whereas before although I had a plan and I aimed to beat the previous numbers I never really consciously chose extra pounds or extra reps. Now the numbers are already going up and it’s only been one week. I’m really excited to see where I end up in a month, or a year!

18

Nice job! There’s nothing wrong with 5 lb increments. The program almost shames you into jumping 10-20 lbs on the lifts. I don’t think its possible. Rather, it is possible, but you will stall very quickly. I don’t like stalling. Slow progression.

I don’t know if it makes a difference, but I do deadlifts last. Deadlifts take so much out of me. Plus, your lower back will be less fatigued if you squats before dls.

19

First workout of the second week! Fun stuff… I had a great workout except for a pathetic showing on the military press. I started off with squats, and I knocked off 230x5 for three sets; I really enjoyed these three sets because I had more weight than last time and I didn’t break my middle set into two mini-wimp sets this time. Next up was military press, and I figured I’d tackle 110 since I could do 105 last time (but it was tough). So 110 kicked my ass… I got five reps the first set, then 4.5 the second set, and then 3 for the last set (supplemented with some push pressing to get the five reps).

I’ve never really concentrated on progressing my shoulders for the past few months, and maybe I’m just asking them to do something they’re not used to… I’m going to start eating more and I’ll stick to 110 for my next workout. I hope to see some progress here.

Last up was the barbell row, I brought it up to 155 and completed the entire 3 sets x 5 reps. I don’t quite feel it too much in my upper back compared to lower/middle, I wonder if this is a form issue or just the way it happens to be? Like I said, I’m least experienced in this exercise.

Recap:

Squat: 230x5, 230x5, 230x5
Military Press: 110x5, 110x4.5, 110x3+pushpressing
Bentover BB Row: 155x5, 155x5, 155x5

[quote]TheDudeAbides wrote:
Nice job! There’s nothing wrong with 5 lb increments. The program almost shames you into jumping 10-20 lbs on the lifts. I don’t think its possible. Rather, it is possible, but you will stall very quickly. I don’t like stalling. Slow progression.

I don’t know if it makes a difference, but I do deadlifts last. Deadlifts take so much out of me. Plus, your lower back will be less fatigued if you squats before dls.[/quote]

Shame is certainly a good word to describe the feeling of not going up the full amount (especially while lifting with a newb… “Hey I just added 20lbs to my squat, is that OK?” Of course it’s fucking OK! I wish I could do that!). But the stalling is what I’ve had in the past by being overzealous, so I guess it’s just about self-control and ego-swallowing!

As for the order of my exercises, I also prefer to do DL last. However I basically walk into my gym and look around to see what’s free so I can get to work with minimal waiting around. Oddly enough the power rack and squat rack tend to be full of people these days so I often don’t lay claim on one until the end of my workout.

The most irritating part is seeing the squats most of these jokers are doing… half squats with those little plastic things to make the weight easier on your shoulders! Arrrrrgghhhh I just want to break their stick-like legs so they don’t bother my workouts anymore!

I’m out for now… biting my nails for two whole days till the next lifting session!

20

No shame :slight_smile: I do the same thing for military. I don’t remember reading anywhere to do push press when strict form breaks down, but its a good idea. I stalled two weeks ago on military, used push press, and got all reps last week. Must work.