Workout A - 5/17/16
Squat (3x5): 195
Bench (3x5): 175
Cable Rows (3x12): yup
Ab Machine (3x12): yup
Cardio: 20 minutes on elliptical
As you can see, I bojangled out on my Workout A last week and move it to this week. Not off to a great start.
The good news is that the weights felt very easy and smooth. Shoulder seemed to cooperate a bit better under the bar for squats and for bench, which is encouraging.
Probably going to go up 10 pounds on each lift next workout as well.
Is this thing still on?
Yeah
Nice! Back when I made those few posts in 2016, I noticed my log was not bumping to the top of the most recent posts. I inquired to the admin about it and was told my log was too old and the new way of doing business here required me to instead create a new thread…because reasons. Glad to see smart people started running the place again!
Got a lotta updates coming (for anybody that cares). Stay tuned!
I will be following
Well, as teased back in November, I am finally getting my updates into this thing.
Where to start? Up until April or so of last year, my training has been very sporadic, disjointed, uninspiring, and lacking in any sort of goals, structure, or progress since…2014 if I am being quite honest. There have been periods of starts and stops along the way, trying to get my weight under control and improve athleticism. I just haven’t stuck with anything for any measurable time period.
The closest I came was when I did the year long Precision Nutrition program from 2019-2020. I was working out pretty consistently, but had some nagging injuries that kept flaring up. And then COVID hit and everything shut down with about 4-5 months left on the program, and they didn’t really make any meaningful adjustments, so was not really impressed with that.
I made a commitment in 2021 to get strong again, and so far have been successful. I am finally in a routine that I enjoy and am reaping the benefits.
So, the next shitload of posts are going to be about my progress on three primary routines:
-5x5 Program from March - June 2021
-Starting Strength from June - August 2021
-531 from August 2021 - Present
So without further ado…
This 5x5 Program was something I put together that encompass a full body workout 3x per week with a focus on improving the 3 main lifts (which were done in 5x5 fashion) with accessory work for the other main body parts (quads, hammies, chest, back, abs)
Week 1
3/27/21
Squat (5x5): 185
RDL (3x8): 165
Incline DB (3x10): 65x2
DB Row (3x10): 65
Ab Wheel (3x8)
Week 2
3/30/21
Squat (5x5): 195
RDL (3x8): 170
Incline DB (3x10): 67.5 x 2
DB Row (3x10): 67.5
Planks (3x): 50s, 50s, 45s
Felt good and strong
4/1/21
Bench (5x5): 185
Box Jumps (5x6): Body
BB Hip Thrust (3x8): 65
Lat Pulldowns (3x12): Orange Bands
Side Planks (2x): L-35s/40s, R-35s/40s
4/3/21
Deadlift (5x5): 225
Seated OHP (5x5): 115
Inverted Row (3x): 10, 8, 8
DB Split Squat (3x8): 10x2
Planks (3x): 55s, 45s, 40s
Pretty good week. Started out low on all exercises to give myself some runway to get back into the right form and begin rebuilding the base.
Week 3
4/6/21
Squat (5x5); 205
RDL (3x8): 175
Incline DB (3x10): 70x2
DB Row (3x10): 70
Ab Wheel (3x8): Yup
Not sure why but I didn’t do my Bench or DL workouts this week
Week 4
4/20/21
Deadlift (5x5): 235
OHP (5x5): 120
Inverted Row (3x10): Yup
DB Split Squat (3x8): 10x2
Planks (3x): 50s, 40s, skipped 3rd due to cramps
4/22/21
Squat (5x5): 215
RDL (3x8): 180
Incline DB (3x10): 75x2
DB Row (3x10): 75
Side Planks (2x): L: 45/40 s R: 45/40 s
4/26/21
Bench (5x5): 195
Box Jumps (5x6): Yup
Hip Thrust (3x8): 65
Pulldowns (3x15): Orange Bands
Ab WHeel (3x10): Yup
SKipped the prior week (don’t remember why) and started back strong this week. Everything felt good.
Week 5
4/28/21
Deadlift (5x5): 245
OHP (5x5): 125
Inverted Row (3x10): Yup
DB Split Squat (3x8): 10x2
Side Planks: Skipped
5/4/21
Incline DB (3x10): 77.5 x 2
DB Row (3x10): 77.5
Ab Wheel (3x10): Yup
BW Squat (3x8)
BW RDL (3x8)
I had pulled my hammy on 4/30 so just easing back in this workout
5/6/21
Bench (5x5): 200
BW Squats (3x10):
BW Hip Thrust (3x10):
Pulldowns (3x12): Orange Bands
Planks (3x): 50/45/40 s
Week 6
5/10/21
Deadlift (5x5): 255
OHP (5x5): 130
Inverted Row (3x10): Body
DB Split Squat (3x8): Body
Ab Wheel (3x10): Body
5/12/21
Squat (5x5): 225
RDL (3x8): Bar
Incline DB (3x10): 80x2
DB Row (3x10): 80
Side Plank (2x): R-46/45 s L - 46/45s
Hammy was good enough to squat but not ready for loaded RDLs
5/14/21
Bench (5x5): 205
Box Jumps (3x5): Body
Hip Thrust (3x8): Bar
Pulldowns (3x12): Orange Bands + Red Bands
Planks (3x): 60/40/45 s
Week 7
5/17/21
Deadlift (5x5): 265
OHP (5x5): 135
Inverted Row (3x10): Body
Skipped Split Squat & Ab Wheel
5/19/21
Bench (5x5): 210
Box Jumps (5x6): Body
RDL (3x8): 135
Lat Pulldowns (3x10): Didn’t mark
AB Wheel (3x10): Body
No leg pain this workout. Left shoulder pain during benching
5/22/21
Squat (5x5): 235
Incline DB (3x10): 80 x 2
DB Row (3x10): 80
Skipped hip thrust and side planks due to time
Week 8
5/24/21
Deadlift (5x5): 275
OHP (5x5): 140
Inverted Row (3x10): Body
DB Split Squat (3x8): 5
AB Machine (3x12): Done
5/27/21
Bench (5x5): 215
Box Jumps (5x6): Body
Hip Thrust (3x8): 75
Lat Pulldown (3x12): Orange + Red Bands
Side Planks (2x): L-50/45 s , R-50/45 s
6/3/21
Squat (5x5): 245
Skipped other accessory. Everything felt heavy and I had some bad right hip & knee pain
Week 9
6/8/21
Deadlift (5x5): 285
OHP (5x5): 145
AB Wheel (3x12):
Skipped row & split squats
6/10/21
Bench (5x5): 220
Box Jumps (5x6): Body
Hip Thrust (3x8): 95
Lat Pulldown (3x10): Didn’t mark
Side Planks (2x): Didn’t mark
Skipped the squat session this week. This was also my last week doing this program. After 9ish weeks, I was finally in a routine again but wasn’t really enjoying the workouts. 5x5 for the main lifts and the accessory exercises I was performing were beginning to not feel fun. And the full body 3x/week was starting to wear on me.
Since I had established a not awful strength base at this point and managed to not get appreciably injured, I made the decision to switch to Starting Strength to focus on improving my strength.
STARTING STRENGTH
SS is the program I first cut my teeth on way back in 2009 (wow) when I began this quest for strength. I had just come off the V-Diet and was much less fat, but weaker than all hell. Starting Strength changed that and helped me establish the strength base that I would carry forward. It worked well then with beginner gains, and I had been out of the game for so long that I was pretty confident it would help me regain a lot of what I had lost, through muscle memory and just general strength improvements.
I was not disappointed…
Plan was to run SS for 8 weeks and see where it would take me and also to NOT GET INJURED. Lots of focus was on warming up appropriately, including getting my hips nice and loose with a combination of lax ball rolling, banded clams, and banded hip bridges. I’ve found this is a good warmup routine to prepare me for squats/deadlifts
4 warmup sets were performed for each exercise. First is the bar. The remainder are 50/70/85% of the working weights for the day all performed for 3-5 reps.
1A - 6/13/21
Squat (3x5): 245
Bench (3x5):225
Deadlift (1x5): 295
1B - 6/15/21
Squat (3x5): 255
OHP (3x5): 150
Power Clean (5x3): 95
I set my weights as a continuance of the 5x5 program I had been doing in the months leading up to this. It proved to be a solid base since most of these lifts were only 3x5 (albeit with more frequency) when I had been doing 5x5 (with lower frequency).
Power Cleans hadn’t been performed in a while so I started ridiculously light to get my form down.
2A - 6/18/21
Squat (3x5): 265
Bench (3x5): 230
Deadlift (1x5): 305
2B - 6/22/21
Squat (3x5): 275
OHP (3x5): 155
Power Clean (5x3): 105
OHP felt heavy, PCs felt light
3A - 6/25/21
Squat (3x5): 285
Bench (3x5): 235
Deadlift (1x5): 315
Squats were super hard. Bench aggravated my left shoulder, which had been giving me some trouble off and on for some time. Deads were easy
3B - 6/27/21
Squat (3x5): 295
OHP (3x5): 160
Power Clean (5x3): 115
Squats felt much better today
4A - 6/29/21
Squat (3x5): 305
Bench (3x5): 240
Deadlift (1x5): 325
4B - 7/1/21
Squat (3x5): 315
OHP (3x5): 165
Power Clean (5x3): 125
Good all the way around
