Ready to Go: Goodfellow's Log

Training Bodybuilding
1

As some of you may know I started up a log titled ‘my own ‘clinic’’, all went well for the first 5 weeks and my shoulder started to bother me more and more. Knowing I needed to get it fixed, I saw a chiropractor who told me to stop training.

The problem was with my upper back, tensions in the muscles were different in both sides, this leaded to other sides super compensating for one another. It resulted in poor flexibility in my shoulders (each shoulder worse in a particular plane of motion) and my left pec being super sensitive and my right pec never receiving any stimulation.

The problem is not 100% yet but I can now contract my right pec and ‘squeeze’ it to feel it more in chest movements, hopefully this brings it up to size with my left pec.

My left shoulder is still quite poor in flexibility but it’s something to work on.

Ok so onto the training:

Mark rippetoe’s starting strength.

Diet:

Big breakfast - 5+ eggs, weetabix, bananas.

Big lunch - 8oz+ chicken, lots of pasta or rice / sometimes 2 sandwhiches

Big dinner - 10oz+ steak, potatoes / sometimes what the mum cooks and lots of it.

Before bed - 3 eggs, 1 cucumber.

in between I’ll have a protein shake with either peanut butter or macadamia nut oil in it, or a protein bar.

Not drinking any milk because it gives me bad acne.

Rippetoe’s training in detail:
workout 1:
Squat - 3x5
Bench - 3x5
Deadlift - 1x5

workout2:
Squat - 3x5
Military Press - 3x5
Weighted pull up - 3x5 (shoulder width pronated grip)

Rotate between these workouts, I will be training on wednesdays, fridays and sundays.

Note: If my shoulders/chest start bothering me again I am going to drop bench and replace it with:
1x5 standing db press
2x5 seated cable row

And here’s whats happening today:
Breakfast: 3 weetabix, 1 banana, 4 eggs.

Training, going gym in an hour:
workout 1.

2

todays workout:

squat:
warm up -
2x8 with bar
1x6 with 30kg
1x5 with 40kg
1x3 with 50kg

work set -
3x5 with 57.5kg

bench:
warm up -
2x8 with bar
1x5 with 30kg
1x5 with 40kg
1x3 with 50kg

work set -
3x5 with 55kg

deadlift:
warm up -
2x8 with bar
1x6 with 40kg
1x5 with 50kg
1x2 with 70kg

work set -
1x5 with 90kg

Also to point out is that my hip, scapula and shoulder are lower than the right because i carried a 15kg bag around on it to college for a month, which has caused all the problems.

Because of this my right hip is hurting, i didn’t do much moving around when i didn’t go to the gym so i guess sitting down on it made it hurt.

Does anyone know any stretches & exercises I can do to get my hip, scapula and shoulder level again? I don’t have any money to go to a chiropractor or physiotherapist.

3

Hip pain is quite bad today, it’s most noticeable after i have been sitting down and then stand up, then i get shooting pains down my leg.

I’m going to stretch out my hip flexors and see if that helps, does anyone have any ideas how i can fix this?

4

Welcome back Goodfellow, I hope you manage to get everything sorted out and can start making some real progress on your new prog. Have you tried posting your question in Eric Cressey’s locker??

5

Good idea i’ll post those questions in his locker.

A good plus is that my hip doesn’t hurt when I squat, just when i stand up out of my chair/car

6

I think you’re missing something in your B day routine. Starting Strength also has barbell rows. Are you not doing them because of your shoulder injury?

7

And please describe weetabix.

8

haha, weetabix must be a british thing then I guess:

http://www.weetabix.co.uk/

I’m not doing barbell rows for two reasons:

  1. From a lot of rippetoe logs i’ve read, people’s form seems to break down when the weight goes up on the barbell rows.

  2. I would like to progress with weighted pull ups in a 3x5 manner, and I found that doing chin ups/pull ups helps my shoulders quite a bit.

9

Stolen from Australia :stuck_out_tongue: Weet-Bix - Wikipedia

10

Welcome back Goodfellow! Glad to see your problems have cleared up enough for you to resume training, as I enjoyed keeping up with your other log.

11

training for today:

squat:
warm up sets -
2x8 bar
1x5 30kg
1x5 40kg
1x3 50kg

work sets -
3x5 60kg

military press:
warm up sets -
2x8 bar
1x5 25kg
1x5 30kg
1x3 35kg

work sets -
3x5 40kg

chin ups:
warm up sets -
1x3 bw (150lb w/ shoes, clothes etc.)
1x2 bw (150lb)
1x1 bw (150lb

work sets -
3x5 w/ 10kg added

12

training for today, 17th feb

back squat:
warm ups -
2x8 with bar
1x5 with 30kg
1x3 with 45kg
1x2 with 55kg

work sets -
3x5 with 62.5kg

bench press:
warm ups -
2x8 with bar
1x5 with 30kg
1x3 with 40kg
1x2 with 50kg

work sets -
3x5 with 57.5kg

deadlift:
warm ups -
2x8 with bar
1x5 with 40kg
1x3 with 70kg
1x2 with 80kg

work sets -
1x5 with 92.5kg

13

update and recap on my problems:

Main problem is that when walking around and doing normal lifestyle activities, I am always aware of my left pectoral and try and maneuvure my shoulder around to make it feel the same as the right. It’s annoying and uncomfortable.

No one is certain, but the common consensus is that this is due to muscle tension imbalances and spinal deviations which was caused by me carrying a very heavy bag on one shoulder to college to every day, along with training my chest too much with not enough back work.

It is not as bad as it used to be, and occassionally i can feel comfortable, but most of the time I am still aware of my left pec over my right which is very frustrating.

I have came up with an exercise which helps alleviate this problem for half an hour or so:

Rotational twisting:
Put hands out directly in front of my body, and rotate my arms as far to the side as possible without moving my head at quite a fast speed. I try to do this 50-100 times each side.

Usually this results in an incredible pump in my right pec (the one that i am not usually aware of) after some cracking of my spine in the first several twists, the pump then fades after about a minute and for the next half hour I feel quite comfortable.

However on some occassions I get a pump in my left pec and I get very UN-comfortable =/

Vigorous stretching on both sides of my upper back helps a lot too, and massages from my girlfriend when I can get it :stuck_out_tongue:

The flexibility in my left shoulder is quite poor compared to my right, I am trying to fix this and stretch them regularly (trying to connect my hands together behind my back).

My shoulders now seem to be level too aswell! Which is good, and since being level my problem with my chest is much less intense.

My hip on my right side was quite painful the other day, after the first day back of squatting from a month abscene. However, lots of stretching on my glutes and hip flexors with a thorough warm-up before squats has completely got rid of this problem.

Hopefully from me reporting about my shoulder problems and things I do to try and fix it will help others who have this problem (I have seen lots of people post about only being able to ‘feel’ one pec working in chest movements and there seems to be no one who replies in how to fix it).

Summary:
Chest/shoulder/upper back tensions/flexibilities have improved and the feeling of ‘eveness’ between both pecs is starting to return.

To help fix this I have took a month off training, had regular intense upper back massages, did lots of chest/upper back stretches (reaching for ceiling as an example) and recently I have discovered that speedy bodyweight side-bends and rotational twists for high reps has helped considerably.

Problem is still not fixed however, I’d say out of 10 it feels at about 6.