Ogre Strength

Training Over 35 Lifter
1

Am 37, been lifting again for about a year, after a 12 year lay-off. Did a Wendler run last year for 4 months, and about to start it again, and hopefully go longer this time. Was in the Army, and lifted for a period of about 2 years, back then.

August of 2009, I was 275 lbs, around 33% bf, now I am 228 lbs, around 15% bf. For now, I just plan on getting stronger, without getting heavier. Been eating around 3k cals a day.

For assistance I will be doing not the triumvirate, but rather what I call the Quartet, heh. It’s probably a cross between what he puts as Dave Tate’s periodization bible, and the triumvirate, but instead of using triceps work after bench and press day, I add more back work. Have an arthritic shoulder, and if anything, I know I am more front dominant, and should work to strengthen the upper back a bit more to even my shoulders up. With my plan, I should end up with around 120 reps of pressing, and close to 200 of upper back assistance(including w/u sets). Also, since I will most likely be going to the gym with the wife, I am not going to do the 5x10 sets Wendler suggests, cut them down to 3 or 4x10 so I wouldn’t keep her waiting on me too much, hehe. She’s hot as balls at 40, and worth my suffering.

Squat day:
5/3/1 Squats
3x10 GM’s
3x10 Hack Squats
4x15 Weighted Crunch

Bench Day:
5/3/1 Bench
4x10 Lat Pulldown
3x10 DB Incline
3x20 DB Rows

Deadlift Day:
5/3/1 Deads
3x10 Leg Curl
3x10 Leg Press
4x15 Leg Raises

Military day:
5/3/1 Press
4xAMRAP BW Chin-up - not too strong on these yet, can only get about 8
3x10 Weighted Dips
3x15 Face Pulls

Using computed maxes from some of my recent workouts, and they are mostly conservative, the deadlift number is really a guess, as I haven’t DL’ed since I stopped Wendler last year.

Squat: 275x5, or 320
bench: 225x5, or 262
Dead: going with 310x1, did 315 for 2 back then.
Press: 150x4, or 170

Moved over to a new gym last week, its a 'fitness center', but it's better than the hole-in-the-wall gym I was at before, with only 2 racks of any kind, 1 being the smith variety.  Also, as an aside, had back surgery to correct a badly herniated L5-S1, in Oct of 2008.  Years of being an ammo guy leaning over inside the back of 5 tons and deuce and a half's throwing ammo boxes did a number on me.

Well, enough background. Will start posting my workouts in here on sunday.

2

Hi, Ogre, glad to have you here. You’ll like the people. We’re just a bunch of old geezers who like playing with big, hard things. Wait, let me rephrase that…

3

Welcome to farm where nothing makes sense - at least according to recent visitor…

4

Welcome.

5

Welcome aboard. Looks like you have a lot of the same history I do. Good look and remember its not a race.

6

Welcome Ogre

7

that’ll do donkey, that’ll do.

Welcome.

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Thanks for the warm welcome, guys.

[u]Sun, 2/20[/u]

10 min on treadmill = w/u

Squats, 5/3/1- wk 1
w/u - barx12, 95x6, 135x6
185x5
215x5
245x10, had 2 or 3 more in me, easy, felt nice.

Arched GM’s
w/u - barx10,95x6
115x10,10,10 - haven’t ever done too many of these, will slowly work the weight up, while making sure my form stays tight

Hack Squat - weight plus whatever the plain rack weighs. It’s a 45 degree, reclining Cybex Model. Going down to just past parallel, mirror to the left, so easy to watch depth here and there. I think I will enjoy these much better for my quad work, than extensions of any type. Didn’t have a hack machine at the old gym at all.
w/u - 50x10, 90x10
140x10,10,10

4x15 of various weighted crunch moves. cable/rope, x2, machine x2

Felt good, and felt like I had much more in the tank on everything, will ramp up intensity as the weeks progress, along with the 5/3/1 sets.

9

[u]Mon, 2/21[/u]

Today seems to have been socialization day, everyone came to the gym to talk, and clog up the works. Had to do my Bench press at the end of my workout, as thats the first time someone closed their mouth long enough to get up off their ass and let someone else have a bench.

10 mins on bike

WG Lat Pulldown
w/u- 50x10, 80x10
100x10,10,10,10

Incline DB Press
w/u- 40x8
65x10,10,10

DB Row
w/u - 35x10
50x25,20,20

Bench 5/3/1
w/u- 135x6
155x5
175x5
200x6 - had 1 more, got my minimum, even though doing it at the end, and in between db rows as well, since I had to jump on the bench after 1st set of rows, so was pretty much supersetting with db rows on these.

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^ Thats why I spent the $3000 to build a garage gym. Sucks to lift alone but I dont have to wait for a bench or rack.

11

Welcome Ogre.

I have this strange habit of associating the person with their avatar. So until you post a vid I will think you look like that!

12

I hate to be the one to tell you Oger. Now of days most Gyms and I use that word loosely aren’t meant for anyone who wants to take there lifting serious. Best advice would be to set up a home gym.

13

Heh, I will eventually post a couple of vids, not only to show some of my work, but to see what my form looks like from the outside as well. Just a matter of syncing up a not too busy day in the gym, with a squat or deadlift day, and have someone who will hold the phone, or find a spot to sit it.

As for looking like that, take off 99% of the hair( pretty much all except the 5 o’clock shadow), throw on some glasses and there you go

And about the home gym, we tried it before, ended up selling a treadmill, and bench/squat rack combo and 300 lb of weights because they were collecting dust. I just could never get motivated to keep working on it when it was at home. I am much more motivated to ‘go to the gym’ than go downstairs in the basement and workout.

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I would have gone with Booger, much more talented. Welcome.

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[quote]hel320 wrote:
I would have gone with Booger, much more talented. Welcome. [/quote]

Hehe, yes, he most definitely is more talented.

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I moved this over here, so I wouldn’t crowd up Farmerbrett’s log with my novella.

Going back to the squat stance thing you guys talked about a few days ago, wide/westside, etc. When EFS put out the 1st 2 parts of the “So you think you can squat” with Matt Wenning, I noticed I was squatting differently than their style. I was more upright, and using mostly quads, with my knees going out in front of my toes. I have seen yours do this as well on a couple of vids, I figured, well, as long as I am maintaining arch, and tightness in upperback, not a big deal, but I had a problem with my right knee caving. Of course this supposedly means my ham/glute area isn’t strong enough. So I started trying to sit back more, so that my shin was almost straight up and down when I was on the bottom, instead of leaning forward over the toes, the only problem with this is, to do that, you have to lean forward at the waist to keep the weight over the feet.

Anyhow, to make a long story longer, my knee doesn’t cave doing squats with a hair wider than shoulder width stance, and sticking my ample ass out more in the back, while leaning over more. I tried this in a normal workout, and felt weaker with it, of course, and was figuring, if I wanted to start doing this all the time, I’d have to back off a bit. Well, after the last 2 squat days, I feel like I am stronger with these, than with my old style. I think it just took doing them a few times to get it down. The squat number on Wendler might be even more conservative, sunday on my squat day, it really felt easy from the 1st rep to the last. I will see how many I can do in the 2nd and 3rd weeks, won’t stop til I have to.

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[u]Wed, 2/23 - early[/u]

Went and did my 1st early morning cardio, took it easy

15 mins of ~110 bpm
4 tabata cycles of 20 sec on, 10 sec off
10 mins at ~125 bpm

I’ll work up into more tabatas, would have this morn, but was in a juicy chapter of the book I was reading, so was in a hurry to get back to it, also its deadlift day, so I can use that as an excuse not to blow my legs out.

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[quote]Ogre21793 wrote:

[quote]hel320 wrote:
I would have gone with Booger, much more talented. Welcome. [/quote]

Hehe, yes, he most definitely is more talented.
[/quote]
For shame!! how can you over look this performance

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[quote]Ogre21793 wrote:
[u]Mon, 2/21[/u]

Today seems to have been socialization day, everyone came to the gym to talk, and clog up the works. Had to do my Bench press at the end of my workout, as thats the first time someone closed their mouth long enough to get up off their ass and let someone else have a bench.

10 mins on bike

WG Lat Pulldown
w/u- 50x10, 80x10
100x10,10,10,10

Incline DB Press
w/u- 40x8
65x10,10,10

DB Row
w/u - 35x10
50x25,20,20

Bench 5/3/1
w/u- 135x6
155x5
175x5
200x6 - had 1 more, got my minimum, even though doing it at the end, and in between db rows as well, since I had to jump on the bench after 1st set of rows, so was pretty much supersetting with db rows on these.[/quote]

Ogre, you’re old enough to know that Monday is International Bench Day in commercial gyms. It’s a law or something, look it up.

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[quote]hawkcapt1912 wrote:

Ogre, you’re old enough to know that Monday is International Bench Day in commercial gyms. It’s a law or something, look it up. [/quote]

Heh, yeah, you’re right, along with being international bicep curl day as well, and I do remember reading somewhere that they are celebrated on tues, wed, thurs, fri, sat, and sunday as well.