adamr's training log

[adamr]

Hi,

I've been doing the stronglifts5x5 for 8 weeks now and I thought I'd post my thoughts and progress. I've kept a short note after each workout so I'll post all of those, and then update after every few workouts.

I'll update with some goals and a bit more about me if anyone is interested.

[adamr]

I currently weigh 125kg and am just over 6ft tall. BF is well, not sure, but I think plentiful is a fair description. I had been lifting for quite some time so my starting weights for the program are as follows:
Squat 60kg
Bench Press 60kg
Overhead Press 40kg
Deadlift 80kg

Here are some of my thoughts post-workout for the last few days:

5/06/2009 - Squat 5x5 130kg - Overhead Press 5x5 70kg - Deadlift 1x5 140kg - Chin-ups 3xf - Prone Bridges 3x30sec
All workouts are hard from here. Got through the squats no probs. Overhead press was good for first 3 sets. Sets 4 & 5 were hard with almost failure on reps 5. Deadlift was good, grip only concern. Pull-ups finally improving. Did 3, 3, 2 and some negatives. Prones are coming along nicely.

As always, tips, advice, comments, all welcome!

[adamr]

10/06/2009 - Squat 5x5 135kg - Overhead Press 5x5 72.5kg - Deadlift 1x5 - 150kg Chin-ups 3xf - Prone Bridges 3x30sec
First 2 squat sets hurt my neck a lot. After some more vigorous stretching it felt fine. The next 3 sets were good. Form improving, getting deep and pushing the weight. Overhead press is now too heavy to get the full range of motion. Not sure whether to keep increasing weight or stay at this weight and improve form. Deadlift was good, the weight ok, but my grip failed on the 5th rep. Had 3 attempts but could not get it. Realized only after that I should have changed my grip and ripped the last rep. Oh well next time. Will attempt 150kg again. And also, now I know why only 1 set of deadlift and not 5. Much better on chins today. Did 5, 4, 3 which is by far my best effort. Finally it feels like I have made some progress here. It seems to being paying off to stick with it.

[adamr]

12/06/2009 - Squat 5x5 140kg - Bench Press 95kg - Inverted Row 3xf - Dips 3xf - Hanging Leg Raises 3x12
Squats felt much better than my last session, and my bench felt much stronger than my last bench too. Not sure why it has improved, but even though the weight went up, it felt easier. Not sure why, my diet has not been very clean. Inverted rows suffered a little from the extra weight I think. It seems as the weight goes up I give it all on the first couple and the body weight stuff suffers a little. Switched from push-ups to dips today. Man dips are hard. Will be good to keep at them though. Switched from reverse crunches to leg raises. This is good for my grip and extending my back after squats, so hopefully will help deadlift and chins/pulls. Also was 4C this morning, makes it real hard to get up, but felt kind of good too.

[adamr]

15/06/2009 - Squat 5x5 145kg - Overhead Press 5x5 75kg - Deadlift 1x5 150kg - Pull-ups 3xf - Prone Bridges 3x30sec
This workout was hard as hell. Every bit felt hard and heavy. Got through my squats, although a few reps were pretty average form. I've stalled on the overhead press. I still got 5x5 but my form was shoddy in the last two sets, plus my first set was only 60kg as I was doing a form check. Which was good at 60, and got progressively worse at 75kg. I will attempt 75kg 2 more times before deloading. My deadlift was good. With the alternate grip I got the 150kg that I missed last week easily. Will have to keep using the alternate grip from here on out. I will try to use the straight grip for the first rep or 2 each time to improve that grip, but I will use the alternate to ensure I finish my set. My chins are starting to come along. Even though my arms were totally gassed after the workout I managed to grind out a few chins that are starting to look like chins. Got 5, 5, and 4 and most of those looked ok. Not quite full ROM, but certainly an improvement, and good enough to motivate me to stick with them after finally seeing some steady progress.

[adamr]

17/06/2009 - Squat 5x5 150kg - Bench Press 5x5 97.5kg - Inverted Row 3xf - Dips 3xf - Hanging Leg Raises 3x12
Was quite distracted this workout. I developed a rather big infected thing on my wrist in the time between last workout to this one. This thing affected my concentration and balance just enough to make the workout seem like a chore. I found the squats really hard going, and it seemed that I had not really recovered from Monday's squats. I can feel the horror of plateau approaching, which is as annoying as hell as 1.5xBW is just around the corner! Did ok on the bench, aside from my left shoulder feeling like it was ready to dislocate at any moments. Managed to tighten my technique and not be so hard on the joint. Got every rep without issue. Was surprised with my effort on the inverted row. I did much better than I thought I would with the extreme fatigue this infection was making me feel and the now throbbing shoulder. Was quite happy with 12, 10, 8. Dips were hard on my shoulder but I pushed through and gritted out 4, 3, 3 ugly partials. Probably 2 or 3 were full reps and the others were between 1/2 to 3/4 ROM. Not so bad, only my second attempt at dips. Pretty happy with hanging leg raises. I like that it stretched my back. My grip held right up until the very last rep when it finally gave out. Now to do some serious recovery so that I can be more effective on Friday.

[adamr]

Turns out this thing on my wrist is a nasty staph infection. Hope the antibiotics don't affect my training tomorrow. We'll see.

[adamr]

19/06/2009 - Squat 5x5 155kg - Overhead Press 5x5 75kg - Deadlift 1x5 160kg - Chinups - Prones
The staph has started to heal. Still zapping my strength though. Got a new personal best of 155kg for 5x5 on the squat. I have squatted 160kg before but only for 2 reps, so I imagine that I would be well past that if I can get 5x5 at 155kg. Haven't gone for a max yet, not really interested to be honest. More keen to just stick to the program and keep improving my form and strength.

My overhead press has improved. Managed 3x5 with good technique and probably 75-80% ROM for each rep. The last two sets, whilst I punched them out, really were technical fails. I'll attempt this weight one more time before deloading.

New PB for deadlift. I had previously lifted 160kg for 2 reps, but got it today for 5.

Chins improved, managed 6, 5, 4 (swinging like a gorilla though!).

Looking forward to getting the health back on track and seeing what I can do next week.

[adamr]

22/06/2009 - Squat 5x5 160kg - Bench Press 5x5 100kg - Inverted Row 3xf - Dips 3xf - Reverse Crunches 3x12
Managed to get out all of my squats. Didn't get the full depth on maybe one or two reps, but the rest were good. I feel like I made this weight. Bench was hard. My shoulder is playing up big time, and I almost lost the bar just unloading on the 5th set. I racked it and started again and managed to get all of the reps.

Inverted rows went ok. I did 12, 8, 6. Dips were affected by my shoulder which was throbbing by this stage. I managed 6, 4, 2. Only a couple were the full the depth and the rest were partials. I think this is still an improvement however. Had to revert back to reverse crunches today instead of leg raises as my shoulder could not support my body weight. Hopefully it will have recovered by my next work out. Does anyone have any tips on how to assist joint recovery?

[adamr]

24/06/2009 - Squat 5x5 165kg - Overhead Press 5x5 75kg - Deadlift 1x5 170kg - Chins 3xf - Prones 3x30sec
Got all of my squats done to set a new PB. It took almost everything I had though and the rest of my session suffered as a result. I've failed 3 times at 75kg on OHP and will be deloading next attempt. I managed 5/5/5/3/2 which is not too bad, but it is my third attempt at this weight. I really struggled with deadlift too at 170kg. I feel like my deadlift is dragging behind. Most peoples dead it seems is miles in front of their squat. I must be doing something wrong.

I'm still on antibiotics, so I'm still really struggling with energy and power. Hopefully back to full strength soon. With chins I managed 6/4/3 which is technically a step back, yet I feel like my form is improving. My shoulder felt ok today compared to Monday, which is good. However, my back pinged pretty hard during my squats today so I will have to be careful of that next time.

[adamr]

My back has steadily deteriorated from the ping this morning. Off to the physio soon to get it checked out, make sure it's nothing serious.

[adamr]

Apparently I have a vertebrae with an extended range of motion. This means that when my back bends it bends excessively on this point like a pivot. This puts too much pressure on the vertebrae below this point that essentially remain straight which is then the wrong position to be bearing load and the result is a strain.

I got the physio to check my hip mobility in case this was a cause, and my mobility was well above average and not a contributor.

So I'm pretty sore again today and will just wait and see how I feel for tomorrow's workout. I think a deload and a form check session my be prudent.

[adamr]

26/06/2009 - Squat 5x5 170kg - Bench Press 5x5 102.5kg - Inverted Row 3xf - Dips 3xf - Reverse Crunches 3x12
Like an idiot I didn't back off one bit. My back felt ok this morning, so I tested it after some warm-up squats with 2 warm up sets of 5x140kg. No problem, so I thought, heck lets go for the 5x5x170kg I'm due to lift today. And no probs i got through it. I was pretty surprised I must admit. My back is actually not too bad. And is in fact much better than it was yesterday.

So I got 5x5 at 170kg but not each rep was perfect. There was at least 3 that I can recall that I did not get to parallel. I'm still pretty stoked. 1.5xBW is not far away now, and I've proven to myself I can train around injury!

Bench was solid today. I seem to have a bad bench session one day, and a good one the next. Not sure what is going on there, but weight still going up so I'm pleased.

Inverted rows coming along nicely did 13/9/8 today which I think is my best effort so far. Dips have improved, I did 6, 5, 3 today with increasing range of motion, and improving technique. Did 3x12 hanging leg raises as well.

That's week 9 of stronglifts 5x5 done, now for two well earned days of rest.

[adamr]

29/09/2009

Squat
2x10x20kg
2x5x100kg
5x5x175kg

OHP
5/5/5/4/3 x67.5kg

DL
1x5x140kg

My back was pretty bad all weekend, but felt ok this morning so I thought I'd go to the gym. It held up ok and I completed my squats with mostly good form, only failing to get as deep as I wanted 2 or 3 times. On to the OHP which I have had to deload from 75kg to 67.5kg. My back started to really fail towards the back of the fourth set and I failed the last rep. The last set was also bad only managing 3 reps.

Attempted 180kg DL twice but my back was having no part in it by this point. Decided to deload, hopefully just for today, and work on form at much lighter 140kg which I did 1x5 no problems. Chins were also affected, 6/3/2, which is not too bad for me however.

Overall despite getting a new PR for squats, not real happy with this workout. I guess we all have a bad one from time to time. I'm hoping I can get this back sorted out and get back on track. I am away next week and will miss 4 workouts, so hopefully this rest will give my back the time it needs to recover and I can continue the march to 5x5xBW.

[adamr]

1/07/09

Squat
2x10x20kg
1x5x100kg
1x5x140kg
5x5x180kg

Bench
2x10x20kg
1x5x60kg
5x5x105kg

Inverted Row
14/12/8

Pushups
24/14/12

Reverse Crunch
3x12

My back has improved, but is still giving me trouble. My left shoulder is also problematic. It seems to take forever to warm up and tends to shoot a pain up into my neck when I first get under the bar for squats. It gets better as it warms up though.

Very happy with my squats today. 180kg is a new PR and is fast approaching my goal of 5x5x1.5xBW. I got the right depth on most reps, with again just missing a few. Scary thing happened though. The very first squat I did with this weight my legs buckled underneath me and I lost the bar. This was the first time this has ever happened. This was a blessing in disguise though, as once this has happened to you and the rails catch the bar and you slide out under the bar with no damage done you find (well I did) a new confidence in the equipment where I can push the limits and not worry about failing. Despite the failure on the very first rep, I loaded back up and got right back in there and nailed it. I think I might have underestimated the weight on my first attempt or my footing was wrong or something. Maybe just a moment of lost focus, I'm not sure.

My shoulder hurt like crazy during bench and I missed enough of the last set to consider it a stall. I got 5x5 but the last couple of sets 4 and 5 were pretty hopeless moving maybe 3 or 4 inches. I'll try 105kg again next session.

Dip/chins machine was busy today so I did pushups and crunches instead. Pushups were tough with the shoulder problem, especially after stalling on the bench too.