Ava's training log

[clavelle]

Might I suggest a variation when it comes to the bridges? Take a Swiss ball and either a box or a bench, lock elbows on the ball and place feet on the bench/box and hold for at least 1 min for 3 sets, if you still do not feel anything the you can hold this no problem for up to 1 min 30 bump it up one more time. Take a 4 kilo medicine all (at least 10" in diameter) and place your feet on the swiss ball and your hands on the med ball and hold. When this become easy you are ready for a one legged version of the prone bridge. You can switch to a one legged prone bridge right now and hold each side for a min of 45 secs. Just because you do not feel the burn one way does not mean you will not feel it another way. I know all these are just prone bridges, but all of my ideas work the core the same way. Try the swiss ball and med ball, if you can hold that solid for 1 min 45 for at least two sets then you are making gains. A small variation to some of the lesser exercises is okay. IE... Push ups, pulls ups, prone bridges, revers crunches.

Let me know how they feel, Christian

[Ava]

Today:
Front squat: (1x5 @ 75, 1x5 @ 85) 5x5 @ 95
Bench press: (1x5 @ 55, 1x5 @ 65) 5x5 @ 75
Inverted row: 9/5/4
Pushups: 12/10/5
Reverse crunch: 3x12

Squats - Halfway through doing these, I felt my right knee give a wet pop, and now it hurts if I tense it or bend it a certain way. It doesn't hurt just walking though, and I was able to finish out the rest of the sets. The distraction from my knee was enough to keep my mind off how much my hands still hurt; we'll see if it all still hurts by tomorrow.
Bench press: These felt good. I am pumped that today's 5x5 was ten pounds higher than my 1 rep max was before I started training.
Inverted row: Went well. There's not a lot to say about these.
Pushups: By the time I got to the pushups there wasn't a lot of gas left in the tank. Still managed to crank out almost thirty though.
Reverse crunches: Don't feel like they're doing much, but I'm guessing it's a combo of tiredness at the end of the workout + poor form. I'll work on these.

[Ava]

@clavelle: Thanks for your suggestions! I did one-leg prone bridges for 45 second reps today, and I could definitely feel the burn.


Today:

Front squat: (1x5 @ 85) 5x5 @ 100
OHP: 5/2/1/2/1 @ 65
Deadlift: 1x5 @ 135
Chinups: 3/1/1
Prone bridges: 3x45 with one leg

Squats - These were pretty awesome. My knee twinged a bit at first but otherwise felt fine. I am pumped about getting to a hundred pounds. 2/3rds of the way to body weight!
OHP - These were *hard*. I'm probably going to have to deload on this one before long.
Deadlift - This was also awesome. The weight was heavy but doable, and my form has improved quite a bit so now I am lifting more weight with better form. Only 15 pounds from bodyweight.
Chinups - My lats and forearms are weak and need some strengthening up. Other than that not a lot to say about these.
Prone bridges - Did these for 45 seconds each, with one leg. My shoulders burned a lot and I could also feel it in my abs.

[Ava]

Today:

Front squat: (1x5 @ 95) 5x5 @ 105
Bench press: (1x5 @ 75, 1x5 @ 90) 5/4/4/3/4 @ 85
Inverted row: 8/6/4
Pushups: 15/10/10
Reverse crunch: 3x12

Squats: At some point I'm going to have to dig up the money to either get a squat rack or join a gym that has one. The weight is too heavy for me to power clean anymore, so I've rigged up a bar to hold it so I don't have to power clean it to my shoulders. Once the weight gets much heavier I don't think that will continue to work, though. Other than that the squats went well, and I'm still pumped about breaking the 100 pound barrier.

Bench press: Tried to see if I could bump my work weight up to 90, and maybe catch up on some of the increases I missed when I took time off for Thanksgiving, but such was not to be. Bumped the work weight down to 85, and hit failure and got stuck under the bar on the second set. Had to tilt the bar off my chest and get one end onto the floor in what looked like some kind of bizarre Steinborn lift, so that I could stand the bar straight up and un-trap myself from the bench. It probably would have looked pretty funny had anyone been there to see me.

Inverted row: These felt easier today, even though the numbers haven't really changed.
Pushups: I was pretty wiped out by the time I got to these, thanks to the bench press debacle.
Reverse crunches: I googled a youtube video of how to do these with proper form, and realized that I have been doing them horribly wrong. They have been my least favorite exercise out of the whole program, but now that I am able to see what I was doing wrong and fix it, I feel much better about them.

[Ava]

Today:

Front squat: (1x5 @ 75) 5x5 @ 110
OHP: (1x5 @ 55) 1/1/0/1/0 @ 65
Deadlift: 1x5 @ 145
Chinups: 3/1/1
Prone bridges: 3x45seconds, one leg

The overhead presses sucked. Did the warmup set fine, then hit the work weight and crashed and burned. I'll be deloading on this one if I fail on the next workout.

[clavelle]

Good numbers girl!!! Do not worry about the OHP, this has been the hardest one for me to increase in, but each time I deload and work my way back up it gets easier and easier every time. It is very true what you read here in the order you stall, OHP, BB, SQ, and DL. And thank you for the comments on my log, always feels good to get a pat on the back...and be careful with those killer bench bars!!!!

[markg]

Reverse crunches: I googled a youtube video of how to do these with proper form, and realized that I have been doing them horribly wrong. They have been my least favorite exercise out of the whole program, but now that I am able to see what I was doing wrong and fix it, I feel much better about them.

Hi Ava,

I've just been reading a bit of your log. Looks like you are moving some similar weights to me at the moment. I can sympathise with you on those OHP weights. Gets tough all of a sudden doesn't it? Live clavelle says, I'm sure the deload, if it happens, will have you storming back past that weight in no time.

I'm not sure if the you tube video you linked to is showing you the same version of reverse crunches that Mehdi recommends. Have you watched Mehdi's video of them?

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=MQM2HDYyr ... re=related

...they look totally different. I'm sure both versions work ok though.

Keep it going,

Mark

[Ava]

Hi Markg. Mehdi's video does look very different; the one I googled looks almost like a beginner's version of the one Mehdi is doing. Not sure which way is better, or if they're about the same. Thanks for pointing out Mehdi's video, though, maybe I can test out both styles and see which one seems to work better.

[Ava]

Today:

Front squats: (1x5 @ 75) 5x5 @ 110
Bench press: (1x5 @ 55) 5x5 @ 85
Inverted row: 9/4/4
Pushups: 15/15/11
Reverse crunch: 3x12

Felt pretty sick today. I took longish breaks between sets (normally I take about 1 minute between sets, today I took about 5), and had difficulty breathing since my nose is all stuffed up. Didn't realize till after I was finished that I should have done 115 on the squats instead of 110, so I guess my mind was a little out of it also.

It's been hard for me to eat enough; just now doing a quick calculation it looks like I've eaten about 1600 calories so far today. Trying to force feed myself when I'm not hungry feels like trying to choke down cardboard, so I need to find some calorie-dense foods where I can eat a normal portion but still get a good amount of calories. On the bright side, my diet is much better quality-wise than it used to be; I'm eating real food now whereas I used to eat 90% fast food.

[Ava]

Forgot to add that I weighed in at 148 this morning, for a net loss of two pounds. Since I'm trying to gain mass this is kind of bad (especially since I suspect it's just water weight, although without fat calipers I can't measure whether it might be fat, but I'm guessing it's not since I look the same. At least I'd assume there'd be notable differences if I had lost two pounds of fat).

The only conclusion I can draw from this is that since I'm eating the same amount of calories as normal but exercising more, the calories spent is exceeding the calorie intake, which is bad since I am trying to gain muscle and I can't do that on a negative calorie balance.

[GoinThruIt]

Great training Ava. Keep at it!

[pagangoddess]

Forgot to add that I weighed in at 148 this morning, for a net loss of two pounds. Since I'm trying to gain mass this is kind of bad (especially since I suspect it's just water weight, although without fat calipers I can't measure whether it might be fat, but I'm guessing it's not since I look the same. At least I'd assume there'd be notable differences if I had lost two pounds of fat).

The only conclusion I can draw from this is that since I'm eating the same amount of calories as normal but exercising more, the calories spent is exceeding the calorie intake, which is bad since I am trying to gain muscle and I can't do that on a negative calorie balance.

Don't be too hard on yourself. Mass is difficult for women given the low amounts of testosterone. It's taken me 7 years to gain what little I have. But I've also added fat in the process so now it's time to get rid of that.

Good luck and keep training hard.

[Ava]

If only weight were as easy to gain eating healthy as it is to gain eating McDonalds and donuts.

[Ava]

Missed Wednesday because of work (retail in the holidays sucks). Today:

Front squat: (1x5 @ 85) 5x5 @ 120
OHP: 5/5/5/4/2 @ 65
DL: 1x5 @ 155
Chinups: 3/2/1
Prone bridges: 3x60seconds

Squats: I felt lightheaded halfway through these and my heart had this weird stimulant-induced squeezy feeling, but it got better as I went on. The weight was heavy, but doable, and I could really feel it on the 4th and 5th rep of each set.
OHP: Did better than last time, but will be deloading to 55lbs next time.
DL: BODYWEIGHT! Oh yeah.
Chinups: The numbers haven't really changed much yet, but chinups and pullups have both gotten much easier for me to do. I find myself doing pullups at random times just for the hell of it, simply because I like doing them.

[pagangoddess]

Congrats on the deadlift. BW is impressive.

OHP is hard. I did mine yesterday with 50 lbs and struggled to get all sets and reps in. But 65 lbs is still something to be proud of.