Thanks brother! And yeah, I’m progressing, very slowly, but very surely!
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Update for Sept 6, 2018
Workout: Week 3 Day 3
Warm up: Ran to the gym 10 mins.
Main Lift: Deadlift
23 x 5
26 x 5
29 x 5
23 x 5 x 5
Accessories:
DB Incline: 4 kg in each hand x 2 x 10, 6 kg in each hand x 1 x 10
Rows x 4 x 10
Ran Home 10 mins
Had to cut the accessory work short because mom was telling me to get home quick.
Now for the fun part! Check out my new 0.5 kilo plates! The lowest my gym has are 2.5 kilo plates so I could only increase weights in 5 kilo increments. This didn’t allow me to do the percentages of 5-3-1 properly. So I dug out some leftover plastic blocks from the college machine shop and fashioned myself 8 plates, 0.5 kilos each! Now I can go up in 1 kilo increments and follow 5-3-1 much more closely.
Eating:
Breakfast: Bread, liver curry, beef, egg
Brunch: Banana
Lunch: Rice, shrimp curry, veggies, Beef
Pre-workout: Beef-cheese sandwiches, egg
Post workout: Milk, Banana
Dinner: Rice, fish curry, veggies, Beef
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Way to be resourceful man, that’s awesome.
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Great work on those plates, man. Seems simple but so many people, especially beginners, wouldn’t put the time in to do something like that.
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Thanks @mr.v3lv3t and @flappinit. I love to do my own machining and fabricating. Getting free access to the college machine shop was a blessing. And when I encountered this problem, I knew what I wanted to do. Could’ve ordered smaller plates online, but chose to get my own unique set of plates, free of cost!
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Nice! You should try making some strongman implements now haha
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I have plans of welding up a sled when I manage to save up a bit of money and buy some scrap metal from the local junkyard haha. I’ll get the nice guy from college shop to lend me the welding kit
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Nice! That sounds like it’ll be fun. Make an SSB too!
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An SSB might be a bit too expensive for my broke wallet as of now. Getting the bar is simple, but getting the solid metal blocks to machine the sleeves from will be costly. You can’t find something suitable to make sleeves from in a junkyard. Will have to go to a proper metal seller to get the good stuff. But I’ll try. A sled is my next target though 
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Nice! Which school are you in? Do you go to BUET?
No I’m in Dhaka University. That’s why I have free access to the machine shop. Students from BUET use their shop all the time. But nobody in my college uses it. Not even the employees. They usually just sit around and gossip. I go and do my own thing. They mostly leave me alone. And they can’t wait to give away the stuff they pile up to throw out lol. But one man’s trash is another man’s treasure 
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Nice job on the improvisational mini plates. When I was doing small increments like that, I bought some baseball bat weights, the sell them at 20 oz, which gave me 2.5 lb increments, and they fit on an Olympic bar perfectly.
Also, your curry for every meal eating description has made me very hungry.
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In for the log. This is one of the few times I’ve seen this forum band together. Fantastic work, keep smashing it, were all watching!
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Thanks! Baseball bat weights would be perfect indeed, but sadly I can’t get my hands on them at the moment.
The person who’s probably the happiest to see me eat and gain weight is my mom. Now that I badger her for food every 4 hours, she cooks with great enthusiasm. And the end results are mouthwatering 
Thanks, I will! And this thread is a very fun part of my training. I look forward to coming home and posting updates as much as I look forward to going to the gym and lifting haha
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Haha it’s great the appetite my training brings home. I moved my parents in with me because they’re getting old and needed my assistance, and it really helped me because they cook so well, and it was key in making progress. Although I’m only 10lbs bigger than when they moved here, I’ve since put nearly 200lbs on my total.
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I suspected once you got really working hard in the gym that your appetite would go up .Good work young man. ( no disrespect I call anyone that ,when I’m old enough to be there father… Yeah I’m old)
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Update for Sept 7, 2018
Workout: Week 3 Day 4
Warm up: Agile 8, Lunges x 10
Main Lift: Overhead press
12 x 5
13 x 5
15 x 5
12 x 10 x 5
Accessories:
DB Incline: 4eh x 1 x 10, 6eh x 4 x 10
Rows x 40
Lat Pulldowns x 30
Glute Ham Raises x 2 x 10
Eating: I didn’t eat well today. Not proud of it. Will eat more tomorrow to compensate for today.
Questions: Here are my questions that I jotted down during my first cycle of 5-3-1. Please take a look at them.
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If I don’t get sore from my workouts, does that mean the session wasn’t effective? Aside from deadlift day, I didn’t get sore from the workouts this week. Am I doing too little or is this normal? Do I have to increase accessory work?
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How can I stop my knees from caving inwards during squats and deadlifts? When I start to get tired near the end of the last few sets, my knees start wobbling and cave inwards.
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I can’t find the “stretch reflex” or “bounce at the bottom” when I squat. I go down deep but I don’t feel any stretching or resistance from hamstrings/glutes. Is it because I am very flexible? The only time I feel any kind of resistance is when my hips hit my ankles. I have to stop the downward momentum with my quads. It takes a bigger effort to stop the weight than it takes to push it back up.
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Is it normal to get a sore back from deadlifts? Am I hurting my back?
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I can’t keep my shoulder blades pulled back when I bench. How do I keep them back when I am pushing a weight out and away from the chest? I consciously try to keep the shoulder blades pulled back but as soon as I start the push, it rotates out involuntarily. I can’t seem to be able to solve this mystery.
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I am supposed to tighten my back and lats, and try to bend the bar when I squat. But when I try to do these, the tightening of the back and lats pull the bar down to a very low position and I end up holding all the weight up with my hands. This hurts my elbows which are already bent backwards quit a bit. What can I do about this?
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My right shoulder is about an inch lower than my left. I noticed this when I deadlift. I made sure to hold the bar in the middle. Later I took some pictures to confirm it. What can I do about this? I don’t want to have lopsided shoulders
@SOUL_FIGHTER, @flipcollar, @flappinit, @bulldog9899 please help me to clear up these confusions. Thanks in advance!
Thanks! And don’t worry about it. I’m only 23, and I’ll call myself an young man till I’m 40. It’s an honor to be mentored by veterans like you. In all honesty I’m inwardly relieved for all the experienced guys even taking my attempt at getting bigger seriously. “Good work young man” is a praise I’m all too happy to get
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I respect anyone whom is willing to put in the work and dedication towards their goals.
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I’ll go one at a time with these questions and other people may have other/different input:
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I don’t think you need to be sore to have a good workout. But if you feel like you may be going overly light on accessory, it wouldn’t hurt to pick it up a little bit.
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I warm up with hip circle walks. You can also do banded walks for this. I also seen some people use a hip abduction machine (bad girl machine):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=if_MbHiy87w
(^mostly walking sideways)
Also focus on cues like “knees out” and “spread the taint”. A cue that works for me is “Knees out, show your crotch” -
I’m also really flexible and have the same issue unless I’m with heavier weight. You’ll have to feel this out. But there will be a point where you can’t go deep without losing tightness. For tightness, try some bracing drills:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VcY3YSW9vX4 -
Hard to tell unless we see a video. I always get lower back soreness on my deadlifts and it’s largely because I’m not bracing hard enough. If you’re concerned, dial back and/or invest in a belt.
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Retract AND depress the scapulae (like a reverse shrug). Facepulls and/or band pull aparts may help, so will working/growing your back muscles. Try to keep your elbows in a safe position when you descend. I’d recommend controlling the weight down. I’d also be curious to see how you bench to see how much degree of arch you do. Arching will help if you have the mobility.
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This can be tough. Back and Trap musculature will do it’s own job to hold the bar, but you may not have this yet. I’d try some things - experiment with different grip widths, maybe try pitching forward slightly (my physical therapist has me doing this to prevent that elbow position you experience), or go high bar for a while. See if you can get a hold of some chalk as well (put it on the back of your shirt - I personally wear A7 bar grip shirts and you seem like you can make one if they don’t sell them in your area). I believe the compound is magensium bicarbonate?
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I think the muscle balance will even out overtime as you train (this also applies to 5 and 6). Do you use mixed grip? If so, stop early and look into double overhand, hook grip, or lifting with straps. I personally do all my working sets with straps. If grip is an issue, chalk will help as well.
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