Skinny Fat, Out of Whack Training Log

Training Over 35 Lifter
41

Jon and Cathy? Now there’s a great idea. Not sure if Garfield would have got along with her dog, though.

Columbo’s first clue that something was amiss was the barbell. It was 180 lbs, and the victim was too flabby to have got it up in the first place. There was no rack on the bench. The killer was played by Robert Conrad, in excellent shape. Episode was called “Exercise in Fatality”. My sister, by the way, lives in LA, writes mystery stories herself and met the guys who created the Columbo series. They’re like gods to her.

Oh - just one more thing . . .

42

Today is “The Press” day on a “1” “wave” of 5/3/1.

110 @ 45 lbs
17 @ 50 lbs
15 @ 60 lbs
15 @ 70 lbs
13 @ 75 lbs
17 @ 85 lbs (1RM calculated to be 105. Not too bad. I think this is a PR for 85 lbs, so Im happy).
3*10 @ 70 lbs.

Arm curls: Decided to try sets across with 70 lbs. 10, then 7, then 5. A little tricky to use good form, but I’ll keep at this.

Then the Dumbell Bench Press. I’m finally getting used to setting 50 lb dumbells on my thighs and rolling them up in position: 1 X 10 @ 40 lbs, 1 * 10 @ 45 lbs, then 1 * 10 @ 50 lbs. It was tricky keeping them stable, but much improved from last time. The guy next to me was pressing 100lbs dumbells. Damn. But then again, he looked to be about 19.

Dumbell Rows: 10 @ 40 lbs, 10 @ 45 lbs, 10 @ 50 lbs. Maybe could have done more, I just didn’t want to push it. Ive pulled something on my back doing these before.

Tried to do dips, but my shoulder hurt, so I stopped.

Trying something new in my regimen. Ive read an article here that Anaerobic Interval training (like running fast, then resting, running fast, etc) is the best for losing fat. But knowing my loopy biochemisty and how easy it is for me to lose muscle I think these may do more harm than good, so I am going top try a light jog for about 20 mins every Mon-Thurs night, after a few hours have passed from my weight training. This is just a three month or so test to see if this helps me lose a little weight (hopefully all fat) without losing strength. This may not work but Ill give it a try. Suggested from a book Im reading from Chris Aceto, who judging from his picture looks like one of dem’ body builders.

Breakfast: 9 egg whites, 1 egg yellow, 1 cup oatmeal with bluberries.
Lunch: green salad with about 1.5 cups of beans
15 oz Gatorade before workout, 2 scoops protein powder after with 2 pieces of fruit.
Dinner: a good chunck of turkey lasagna, and I think Ill eat a half chunk of spinach lasagna to refuel from a good work out today.

43

Today was Squat Day – on a “1” “wave” of 5/3/1

17 @ 50 lbs
15 @ 60 lbs
13 @ 70 lbs
15 @ 90 lbs
13 @ 105 lbs
17 @ 115 lbs (1 RM calculated to be 142). Then,
3*5 @ 70 lbs (next time raise this to 80 lbs, too easy).
That’s a 1RM, but my form was not great…didn’t go quite as far as I did with the lighter weights; also, felt unstable/wobbly. Just a lot of weight on my back I’m not used to. I think what I’m going to do is not increase the weight for a cycle or two until my form is better with the heavy weights (110 lbs and up). Probably need to strengthen the core–more sit ups probably needed.

Did 4 * 5 of Hang-Clean Presses with the 45 lb bar. I aspire to be an olympic weightlifter, so I need to start somewhere, right?

Keeping with the DT’s PB assistance template, I did about 30 knee tucks and 30 reverse crunches. The 20 push ups. Need to do more.

I’m adding in the Leg Press, Wendler suggests this as an assistance with the DT assist template, so
1 @ 10 @ 150 lbs
1 * 10 @ 170 lbs
1 * 10 @ 190 lbs.

Could have done more, but Ill slowly increase this with time.

Breakfast: 9 egg whites, 1 egg yellow, 1 cup oatmeal with blueberries.
Lunch: green salad with about 1.5 cups of beans
15 oz Gatorade before workout, 2 scoops protein powder after with 3 pieces of fruit.
Dinner: I’m breaking bad and having a cheese burger and fries.

44

Planks and pushups should be good for core work. Just concentrate on keeping body straight and stable.

Weirdly, since I’ve been pounding on squats and deads, my abs have just strengthened like crazy. No abs exercises at all, yet couple of weeks ago decided to try crunches on pulley machine. I ended up doing the whole damn stack and still could have done more.

Have done DL’s to knees only, and that just fries my abs for some reason.

Keep up the squats - the weight feels lighter in time.

45

[quote]cavalier wrote:
Planks and pushups should be good for core work. Just concentrate on keeping body straight and stable.

Weirdly, since I’ve been pounding on squats and deads, my abs have just strengthened like crazy. No abs exercises at all, yet couple of weeks ago decided to try crunches on pulley machine. I ended up doing the whole damn stack and still could have done more.

Have done DL’s to knees only, and that just fries my abs for some reason.

Keep up the squats - the weight feels lighter in time.[/quote] All good advice and its nice to hear your anecdotes. I really hope the weight feels lighter on my back because right now its pretty damned heavy. Hard to believe the guys who do 225 lb squats on up. They must have really strong cores.

46

[quote]srpres wrote:
I missed today with the attitude. groan. I can see now half of weight lifting is attitude. That will man you up.
[/quote]
This is very true with DL since there’s no true eccentric portion to set you up for the lift.

[quote]srpres wrote:
I know Ill probably never be able to do an unassisted pull up, but it would be awesome if I did.
[/quote]
Whyever would you say this? Of course you’ll be able to do an unassisted pullup someday if you keep training hard.

I think it would be tremendously valuable to post vids of your lifts and get feedback. You can’t believe how much help you can get to improve your form.

47

[quote]cavalier wrote:
Planks and pushups should be good for core work. Just concentrate on keeping body straight and stable.

Weirdly, since I’ve been pounding on squats and deads, my abs have just strengthened like crazy. No abs exercises at all, yet couple of weeks ago decided to try crunches on pulley machine. I ended up doing the whole damn stack and still could have done more.

Have done DL’s to knees only, and that just fries my abs for some reason.

Keep up the squats - the weight feels lighter in time.[/quote]

It’s that “hoop strength” thing. You brace your abs hardest at the bottom of the deadlift to counter the shearing forces. If you held the weight somewhere between your ankles and your knees for a 3 count I bet you’d really feel it.

Once planks on the elbows become easy you can start moving your hands out past your shoulders. The increased distance of the hands from the center of gravity really hits the abs.

48

I don’t hold the bar at my knees, I lower it. But if you’re doing touch-n-go deads, floor to knee to floor is just amazing. It feels like someone’s punching me in the belly. Try it and see if it isn’t a die-hard ab exercise.

Oh, and Srpres, if you had seen me for all those years as a hopeless puny geek, you’ll know nothing is impossible. And you probably don’t have scoliosis like me, lucky guy. Keep doing the squats, they’ll toughen the core.

49

Today was the Bench Press. Im on a “1” “wave” on 5/3/1
15 @ 65 lbs
15 @ 85 lbs
15 @ 105 lbs
15 @ 125 lbs
13 @ 140 lbs
18 @ 160 lbs (1 RM calculated to be 203) This was good. The best Ive done with 160 was 6 times, so its a PR. Ill take it. Then,
3*5 @ 135 lbs

Dumbell Military Press
1 * 10 @ 35
1 * 7 @ 40
1 * 4 @ 45
A better day on dumbell MP. Hard to get 45 lbs into position, but Ill get used to it

Incline Bench Press on 5/3/1
15 @ 50 lbs
15 @ 60 lbs
15 @ 70 lbs
15 @ 90 lbs
13 @ 105 lbs
19 @ 115 lbs (1 RM calculated to be 149) Putting Incline Bench on 5/3/1 turned out to be a good idea. Its still going up. Im pretty happy with this.

Lot of trouble with dips today, my shoulders still hurt for some reason. Im taking a different approach and putting more weight on the assist and just being more careful about how far I go down. If I go too far I think it strains my shoulders.
I tried: 5 * 4 @ -35 lbs. Ill keep experimenting with this. I like dips and I want to do these without an assist someday.

Breakfast: 9 egg whites, 1 egg yellow, 1 cup oatmeal with blueberries.
Lunch: green salad with about 1.5 cups of beans
15 oz Gatorade before workout, 2 scoops protein powder after with 3 pieces of fruit.
Dinner: Maybe going for the cheeseburger again.

Anyway, Ms kpsnap suggested that I get filmed in what will prove to be compromising positions (doing squats and dead lifts). So my gf will come down to the gym and film me tonight.

Film at 11.

50

[quote]srpres wrote:
Film at 11.[/quote]

Looking forward to it.

A word of caution about 1 RM calculators. They may or may not be accurate for you. I find that they tend to inflate my bench max and underestimate my squat/DL max. I’d be curious to know what other people’s experiences with these calculators are.

51

OK, here I am with a 1 * 5 @ 135 lb deadlift. All critique welcomed:

52

And here I am with a 1 * 5 @ 85 lb squat. All critique welcomed:

53

Im skipping weight lifting today. Normally this would be a rest week with some light work on the Dead Lifts, but I am taking a break today. MY back has been somewhat sore since my ill-fated Dead Lift pull of last Sunday, and the bit I did Friday night has seemed to make my back even a little more sore.

I expect setbacks to come. I think the best think to do is to skip dead lift for a couple of weeks, until I dont have any soreness in my back. Also I probably need to get a pair of weight lifting shoes.

54

[quote]srpres wrote:
OK, here I am with a 1 * 5 @ 135 lb deadlift. All critique welcomed:

I’m sure there will be no shortage of advice. Here’s mine:

  • Your form needs a ton of work so, for now, concentrate on doing one rep at a time. It’s to hard to keep form with sets of 5.
  • You can use 135 but do something like 20 singles instead of 4 sets of 5 or whatever you are doing now.
  • Start each rep from scratch; stand up, back away from the bar, walk up to the bar, get in position, etc.

A few positional things:

  • the bar is 6 inches from your shins
  • when you are ready to initiate the lift, the bar should be touching your shins or pretty close
  • at the start get you butt down lower, arch your lower back as hard as you can, head up, drive the bar off the floor with your legs
  • don’t think about lifting the weight, think about powering it off the floor with your quads
  • once the bar passes your knees your legs are largely out of the lift and you need to bring your hips through
  • pull the bar back toward you rather than lift it up in a straight line

Once you get this sorted, you are good for a lot more weight. As it is, your low back is at risk.

55

[quote]srpres wrote:
And here I am with a 1 * 5 @ 85 lb squat. All critique welcomed:

Similar to the deads, you need to start from square one on the squat. Your low back is at serious risk.

If you look at your bar path, you will see that it seriously drifts forward at the bottom. You absolutely need to fix this. From the start to the finish of the squat, the bar should travel in a straight line down and up.

Rather than get into a lot of technique detail, I would recommend:

  • doing many single reps with just the bar and video tape them
  • the objective is to make the bar path straight and keep it over your center of gravity
  • review the video and adjust
  • keep doing this until you are consistent, the weight on the bar is unimportant at this point.
  • this will require you to get your body tight, arch your back very hard before initiating, sit back (like your sitting on the toilet), continue to arch your back very hard and keep your head up.
56

Well done on posting the videos, as a fellow beginner i certainly won’t be critiqueing anything .

If your back is injury prone (mine is as well) form is super important and there is lots of value in working on back/core strength as well.

57

[quote]big nurse wrote:
Well done on posting the videos, as a fellow beginner i certainly won’t be critiqueing anything .
[/quote] Thanks. Beginners are welcome to critique too, but understand if you dont want to.

58

[quote]srpres wrote:
Im skipping weight lifting today. Normally this would be a rest week with some light work on the Dead Lifts, but I am taking a break today. MY back has been somewhat sore since my ill-fated Dead Lift pull of last Sunday, and the bit I did Friday night has seemed to make my back even a little more sore.

I expect setbacks to come. I think the best think to do is to skip dead lift for a couple of weeks, until I dont have any soreness in my back. Also I probably need to get a pair of weight lifting shoes.[/quote]

You are going to surprise yourself with how much weight you can lift safely when you nail your form. It might only take a couple of weeks of practice to have a huge impact.

59

[quote]giterdone wrote:

[quote]srpres wrote:
OK, here I am with a 1 * 5 @ 135 lb deadlift. All critique welcomed:

I’m sure there will be no shortage of advice. Here’s mine:

  • Your form needs a ton of work so, for now, concentrate on doing one rep at a time. It’s to hard to keep form with sets of 5.
  • You can use 135 but do something like 20 singles instead of 4 sets of 5 or whatever you are doing now.
  • Start each rep from scratch; stand up, back away from the bar, walk up to the bar, get in position, etc.

A few positional things:

  • the bar is 6 inches from your shins
  • when you are ready to initiate the lift, the bar should be touching your shins or pretty close
  • at the start get you butt down lower, arch your lower back as hard as you can, head up, drive the bar off the floor with your legs
  • don’t think about lifting the weight, think about powering it off the floor with your quads
  • once the bar passes your knees your legs are largely out of the lift and you need to bring your hips through
  • pull the bar back toward you rather than lift it up in a straight line

Once you get this sorted, you are good for a lot more weight. As it is, your low back is at risk.[/quote]

This is 100% correct.

60

Good advice from Git. My feedback largely overlaps his for both lifts. I would advise squatting to a box to learn how to really sit back and keep your chest up.