Essmitty's Log

[essmitty]

Hello!
I'm so excited to have found Stronglifts.com! I've trained off and on for years. My father was always very much into weight lifting, and I always wanted to be strong like him, however, all my previous attempts did not yield the results I expected and hoped for. I have a feeling that Stronglifts 5x5 will. I'm excited about the focus on strength and that building muscles is just a by-product. I feel that Medhi's approach to increasing weight and deloading if stuck is sound and will work. It's funny because I never did squats in any of my workout routines before. I had recently come to the conclusion that this is what was missing in my previous attempts, but I didn't really know of a good solid plan to integrate them... then I found Stronglifts 5x5 and my sentiments were echoed. It gave me the motivation to begin again!

Bio:

Age: 35
Height: 6'
Weight: 192lbs
Body composition: I'm guessing around 25% - 30% body fat. I'll update when I get some calipers. My physique is "skinny but fat". With clothes on, no one would guess that I'm overweight and out of shape, but I know I am, and I don't feel good about it.

I consider myself an outdoorsman, however I don't have the physique to boast it publicly. I love hiking, swimming, camping, etc. I have a desk job, so I'm sitting most of the day. I'm married with 3 children and spend much time with the family also. I enjoy hard work, it's just a matter of getting the time to do it. Then, when I am engaged in some difficult manual labor, my body can't handle it. I just passed my 35th birthday and recently was reminded that age is catching up to me when I pulled some muscles in my back while lifting something heavy during yardwork. I didn't seriously injure anything, however it took much longer to heal than I feel it should have. I decided that if I don't get into shape and keep myself there, I'm really going to lose my joy in life. I have an excellent supporter in that my wife is interested in strength training also. She is slightly overweight and doesn't feel good about herself either. She also has "bad knees". They pop and grind when she squats. Our chiropractor took some x-rays on her knees and said that much of her cartilage is worn. "She has the knees of a 50 year old" he said. (She's 33). I've shared the Stronglifts 5x5 program with her and we are going to do it together. She's concerned about stressing her knees out. She was excited when she tried doing some squats with a wider stance, and kept her knees out as Medhi suggests. She felt no pain in her knees. Still, she'll take it slow and see how it goes. She may have to resort to substituting deadlift for squats, but we'll see.

Goals:
190 lbs.
10% - 12% Body fat
OH Press: 150lbs
Bench Press: 200lbs
Squat: 300lbs
Deadlift: 400lbs
I'm hoping I can reach these goals in one year. (by May 1, 2009) Is that reasonable?

Schedule:
M-W-F workouts at 12:30PM during school year.
We'll probably change to morning workouts (7-8 am) during summer when the kids are home from school.

I'm starting TODAY! We joined a gym over the weekend. We've prepared ourselves mentally for following the Stronglifts 5x5 program. I'm off to workout now! I'll tell you how it goes!

-eric

[essmitty]

Well, we just returned from our first workout. We had a GREAT time. I felt really good about it, and so did my wife.

My wife's legs were sore from experimenting over the weekend with squatting, so she couldn't quite complete 5x5 by herself. She also had trouble because she can't do one dip. I'm proud of her positive attitude, though. If she keeps it up, she'll be doing dips in no time.

-eric

[mjh]

I have bad knees too, after a serious injury to one and several dislocations of both. Squats have been the best thing I have ever done for my knees, and they're stronger than they have ever been. Leg machines have always been very uncomfortable for me, but I've had no trouble at all with free weights. Tell your wife to take it slow on the squats, do lots of bodyweight squats for warm ups, and keep those knees out.

[essmitty]

MJH,
Thanks for the response. I'll be sure to share your experience with her, as I know she'll be encouraged by it. She's very skeptical about being able to continue as she's afraid her knees will not respond well. She says she'll have a better feel for it after a month of trying this routine.

She's already noticed that keeping her knees out has made a huge difference. She's never been able to do squats before, especially going down past parallel. She was very pleased to find out that keeping the knees out enabled her to do this without pain. She's still apprehensive about being able to continue, and she doesn't want to get her hopes up too high... give it time, I'm sure she'll be able to keep going.

[MysCat]

Welcome essmitty and congratulations to you and your wife for getting into the gym. You can encourage and support each other which is great. That's awesome your wife is just practicing doing the squats. I used to have a lot of knee problems which was only aggravated by the leg extension and leg press. Since doing squats, I have no knee pain whatsoever. I started by doing dumbbell squats and then moved up to using the fixed barbells and then finally onto the olympic barbell in the squat rack. As long as she takes it slow, her knees should get stronger. There's no reason to rush it. Looking forward to seeing your progress.

[essmitty]

Thanks, Myscat!
Your experiences are similar, too. She cannot do the leg presses, however, she said that the extensions haven't bothered her in the past. I have a feeling that they would have if she started a regular routine with them.

She's just starting out with bodyweight squats, not even using dumbbells yet. Since her knees have always given her problems, she's never really worked out her legs. As a result they are very weak. She has trouble doing 5x5 with just bodyweight. I think that this may have something to do with why she has trouble with keeping her body fat percentage down as well. She has very little muscle mass which results in a slow metabolism. She's not by any means a lazy person, and she gets very discouraged when she can't keep her body fat low despite doing cardio 3-4 times per week and eating healthy!

Anyway, she's taking it slow. Once she can do 5x5 with her bodyweight, she's planning on moving on to dumbbells up to 40lbs, then start the barbell. No rush, just keeping her form good so as not to aggravate her knees.

[oi_joe]

good luck with the training, i hope your wife ain't nothing like my girl friend becuase if she is, she'll stomp around and kick and scream if she doesn't get to be able to do those dips soon lol.

[danmarmu]

essmitty,

Looks like we started on this journey together and you and I have similar goals. Good luck.

[essmitty]

5 min warm up on treadmill and another 5 minute stretches.

Squat
40 lbs 5x5
Felt good. Weight was light, but I'm really working on form. My lower back rounds a bit when I hit the bottom of the rep. Medhi has posted articles about that. I'm trying to do stretches and strengthen my lower back to keep that from occurring.

Bench Press
40 lbs 5x5
Feels light. I focused on keeping my shoulder blades tight. That's something I've never done before when I used to bench press on other routines. I know the weight will get heavy soon enough.

BB Row
60lbs 5x5
Felt awkward. I didn't do them right. When I got home, I looked them up and saw that I'm supposed to put the weight on the floor after every rep. Trouble is that my hamstrings are so tight, I can't bend down far enough to do that without rounding my back. This will force me to squat pretty deep so I can reach the barbell on the floor. That wouldn't be a problem, except my legs are fatigued from the squats. I'm doing lots of hamstring stretches to solve that problem. Until then, I'll just have to let my legs suffer.

Dips
bodyweight 6x3
I could have done more than 6, but I was afraid I'd be too sore. In retrospect, I should have pushed myself to do more anyway.

Total time, about 30 minutes. Great workout! I feel good about it, though it was a bit light, I know the intensity will ramp up quickly in the next couple weeks. I'm looking forward to Wednesday!

[mackanno]

Welcome both to the community! every opne is great and I hope you two will obtain great things, so keep at it and don't forget to write down your workouts!

[essmitty]

Exercise B

Warmup
5min treadmill + 5min stretching

Squat
40lbs 1x5 (warmup)
50lbs 5x5
Felt great! My butt still rounds at the bottom of the rep. I hate that. I did squat stretches and good mornings for hamstrings 3x30sec prior to starting my routine today.

OPress
40lbs 5x5
Felt REALLY good. I've always hated shoulder exercises. I've done overhead presses with dumbbells and barbell before, but sometimes it would hurt my shoulders. Funny what a good dose of proper form can do for you! Repeat "elbows forward, torso forward"!

Deadlift
70lbs 5x5
Dunno about this one. It still doesn't feel right when I do it. Also, I know my butt rounds at the bottom just like when I squat. Uh oh, I just realized that I was only supposed to do 1x5!!! Oh well, I need the practice anyway.

Chin ups
9/5/3
Those get hard fast!

Overall, I feel good about it. This "B" set is certainly harder than the "A" set, of course that could be because I did 5x5 on the deadlifts... I feel tired today. Looking forward to Friday, though!

[MysCat]

Great chinups! Wow! It's good to practice the deadlift at a lower weight and that weight is going to go up really fast. At the higher weights you really feel your legs/glutes working to push the weight up and your back/core working to keep stable. Good workout, essmitty.

[danmarmu]

Great Job Essmitty.

Your chin-up totals are impressive considering your weight. It must mean you are "STRONG like bull"(cheesy accent added) .

Keep it up. Do you have any tips on how to do the pull/chin ups since I can't even do 1.

[essmitty]

Thanks for the encouragement Myscat and Dan!

Dan, I don't have any advice other than keep trying! I've always been able to do pull-ups since I was a kid, so I don't have any sage-like wisdom to pass from experience. My wife can't do 1 either. She's working at it, though. She started just hanging on the bar and "reverse shrugging". She's getting stronger at that. She's also doing "assisted chinups" by jumping and trying to slow her descent. 3x6-8 of those. If you keep working at it, you'll get stronger and eventually be able to do it! Don't give up!!

[essmitty]

Great workout!

5 min treadmill
5 min stretch

Squat
40lbs 1x5 warm up
55lbs 5x5
Squat is getting harder. Funny how that extra 5lbs can make a difference! Still did 5x5 with no problem, but this time, I might be a little sore tomorrow. The good thing is that my form is getting better. My butt isn't curling under as much at the bottom of the squat. I did some glute activation exercises a little before I started, I wonder if that helped any?

Bench Press
50lbs 5x5
This is still very easy for me. I'm going to continue going up by 10lbs until I feel it.

BBRow
65lbs 5x5
This exercise felt much better than when I did them on Monday. I did them wrong last time. I felt much stronger, too.

Dips
BW 15/12/7
I'll have to see if they have a ruck sack at the gym to add weight. Made me feel good though, because I've always thought I had weak triceps.

Overall, it was a great workout! My wife is doing well, too. Her squats are getting stronger, ever so slightly. She's not as sore as she was on Wednesday, but she still wasn't quite able to do 5x5. I'm sure she will be able to by week 3 if not next week.