Foxybass Training

[Foxybass]

Thursday 19 February

Soft tissue work, hip & glute stretches.
Squats 77.5 kg: 5/5/5/5/5
Overhead Press 40kg: 5/5/5/5/5
Deadlifts 72.5kg: 5
Prone Bridges
Supermans

Squats – Form wasn’t good enough so I’ll do this weight again on Sunday. It was real hard work but I’m thriving on the challenge of them. Everything felt safe but a couple of reps were just too poor.

Overhead Press – I was hoping that this would feel light. First two sets seemed heavy but the last three were light – strange. Form was great throughout.

Deadlifts – No problem.

I felt totally drained after and since the squats have got heavy (relatively heavy for me!) I’ve noticed that I have slept a lot better. The squats are really testing me physically and mentally. I’m getting into a routine before each set and if something isn’t quite right I sort of lose it a bit - am I becoming a loon? I don’t know how I’d manage in a gym with the presence of other people.

Good food and rest now for a couple of days and hopefully I’ll be hitting 80kg on the squats next week.

[guru]

Good work as usual, Foxybass.

I know how you feel about the squats. They really test you physically & mentally. As for OHP, the first set is almost always hard for me, as is the last.

[Foxybass]

Sunday 22 Feb

Soft tissue work, hip & glute stretches.
Squats 77.5kg: 5/5/5/5/5
Bench Press 75kg: 0. 70kg: 5,5,5
Inverted Rows: F,F,F

A bad workout.

Squats – They felt so hard. Form was terrible and at one point dangerous and it all took too long. I thought I would have nailed this weight today.

Bench Press – During warm up sets I got to 70kg and they felt so hard. After the crap squats I wasn’t mentally right for 75kg and time was starting to run out. I quickly blitzed through 3 sets at 70kg and they felt so heavy – what was wrong?

Inverted rows were just rushed. By this time I was well pi##ed off.

After the workout I felt totally drained; even walking up the stairs was an effort. I have to admit, my diet hasn’t been brilliant for the past week but nothing too different from normal. The worst thing is the wife reckons I look tubbier and I’ve been off the beer! Ahhhhhhh. I know I’m going to put a little fat on but when fat increases and you can’t lift heavier it gets demoralising. I can’t be arsed measuring fat on me. I just go on how my clothes feel and my trousers/jeans do feel tighter around the gut at the moment.


Ok, so the sky was falling in on me on Sunday morning! Now that I’ve come to post the workout I’ve calmed down a bit. I’m back in the work routine now after a week at home so that means that the diet will be at least 90% good. I’m hoping this workout hit me on an off/weak-day. I’m taking a little encouragement from the fact that I lifted 77.5kg 5x5 on a bad day - I didn’t give up – although I thought I should have especially after I nearly rolled over coming down during a squat. I’m going to hit 77.5kg again tomorrow morning (3rd attempt) and see what happens. If I can’t progress then I’ll go to 70kg and work up again. I’m a little ashamed that I’m even thinking of deloading but I guess my legs/core are very weak.

[Foxybass]

Tuesday 24 February

Soft tissue work, hip & glute stretches.
Squats 77.5 kg: 5/5/5/5/5
Overhead Press 42.5kg: 5/5/5/5/5
Deadlifts 75kg: 5
Prone Bridges
Supermans

Squats – Form was much better and most of them felt solid. I even thought that some of them felt easy - what a difference a few days make. I’m sticking at 77.5kg though as a couple of reps were not good enough. I really found some rhythm during the 4th and 5th sets – it’s the first time I’ve felt this and things seemed to just happen naturally.

Overhead Press – These felt so easy. Ok they were hard work but it all felt perfect. Guess I was on a high from the improved squats.

Deadlifts – No problem.

It was a great workout and I wasn’t so knackered after. I’ve learned a lot about myself over the past week or so. I shouldn’t let bad workouts get to me. Also, I shouldn’t get down about not increasing the squat weight every workout. I’m better off increasing the weight weekly’ish depending on form. I must focus on form and stay injury free.

[holvoetn]

Great workout.
Keep'em coming

Re: staying injury free: make sure to do proper warm-ups !
I had early January a reappearance of a 10-year old injury on the right quadriceps and only THIS week I was able to do real squatting again without any pain.
The injury happened at 117.5kg, I completed 5x5 100kg yesterday, 'pain free' being the main qualifier for completion. Can you imagine where I would have been without the injury
Then again my deadlift benefit from it

I make sure to include 5 minutes of rowing before each session now. Once I set up my home gym I plan to do a lot more BW squats or working with light weights before hitting the real stuff.

[Foxybass]

Cheers H - I'll take your advice on board.

It already takes me 45 mins warming up before I'm at the squat working weight. This includes soft tissue work, Mehdi's recommended stretches and ample squat warm up sets. I think I'll try adding 5 mins walking on the treadmill at a gradient to really get warmed up and focused. Also I can use the 5 mins on the treadmill to mentally prepare for what's ahead.

I'm way off 100kg on the squats but I'm hoping sometime later this year. I'm getting on a bit (40 this year) and after 15 years of abusing my body I'm going to take things slowly. It's taken a few months to really settle into this way of thinking - at first I wanted it all (muscle gains, fat loss, improved flexibility etc) now now now. I still get frustrated every now and then but reading the stuff on Stronglifts gets me back in the zone.

Thanks again H

[holvoetn]

Said it before, will say it again (and yes, I also stole it somewhere else ):
"Weight lifting is a marathon, not a sprint"

Take your time, one step after the other

[Foxybass]

Cheers H

Thursday 26 Feb

Bad nights sleep. We think our 4 month old daughter is teething. She’s so restless at night. Anyhows, during the night I needed a slash. Paid my visit and thought to myself “must be around 2am – 2 more hours sleep then its workout time”. Hell was it; it was 1 minute to 4am – time to get up. Body ached but within minutes my mind was focused on the workout.

Soft tissue work, hip & glute stretches, 5 min walk on treadmill
Squats 77.5kg: 5/5/5/5/5
Bench Press 75kg: 4,3,0
Inverted Rows: 8,7,7
Prone Bridges: 3 sets @ 35 secs

Squats – Excellent form apart from last reps in sets 4 and 5. Because of that I’m only increasing the weight to 78kg for the next workout.

Bench Press – I still felt fresh after the squats but these felt way too heavy. Had a little think and decided that from the next workout I should go down to 70kg and work on form, speed and reducing rest time between sets.

Inverted rows and jeff bridges were great.

After the workout I felt great. Felt on a complete high. I’m so focused now and have a clear idea of what I want and how I’m going to do it; slowly and consistently though. No more throwing my dummy out of the pram just because I have a shit workout. The squats are really coming on. My overall flexibility is improving and I feel so strong.

[BLUEBLAH]

Yeah, we're on similar lines. Will keep an eye on your log, but please go slow on the squat!

Bad nights sleep. We think our 4 month old daughter is teething.

It's so hard when you don't get enough sleep. Congrats on not letting it stop your workout.

Squats – Excellent form apart from last reps in sets 4 and 5. Because of that I’m only increasing the weight to 78kg for the next workout.

I think you've got the right idea. I'm going to deload and do the same.

[Foxybass]

Sunday 1 March

Soft tissue work, hip & glute stretches.
Squats 78 kg: 5/5/5/5/5
Overhead Press 42.5kg: 5/5/5/3/2 (1 min rest in between sets)
Deadlifts 77.5kg: 5
Prone Bridges: 36/36/36 secs
Supermans:30/30/30 secs
Chin Ups: 6/5/3

Squats – Form was good but not good enough to increase weight. No major issues but I feel that if I increase the weight form would suffer. God I’m boring.

Overhead Press – Decided to stop messing about and get more out of my workout so I reduced rest time between sets. Don’t care if I have to drop the weight a lot – if I do I work on form and speed. First 2 sets were good but during the 3rd the form went.

Deadlifts – No problem but it felt heavy.

Another great workout. I got more done and I felt pretty knackered after. Flexibility is really improving. I got intimate with a tennis ball on Saturday for an hour or so for some soft tissue work. My shoulders and legs feel great.

Roll on Tuesday.

[guru]

Squats – Form was good but not good enough to increase weight. No major issues but I feel that if I increase the weight form would suffer. God I’m boring.

In that case I'm boring too.

Overhead Press – Decided to stop messing about and get more out of my workout so I reduced rest time between sets. Don’t care if I have to drop the weight a lot – if I do I work on form and speed. First 2 sets were good but during the 3rd the form went.

Your decision, but personally I feel that if you had rested 30 sec. more you would've got those reps full.

Flexibility is really improving.

Nice to read this.

[jlang]

Nice posts here. You are a good month ahead of me and it amazes me how much the weight changes in a 30 day period. Anyway, keep up the hardwork and clean eating- I really think this is the key to it all.

Jason

[Foxybass]

Cheers Guru and Jason for checking up on me.

Tuesday 3 March

Bad nights sleep. It wasn’t the kids that kept me awake though. I woke up at 3am and couldn’t get back to sleep. All I kept thinking of was my squats!

Soft tissue work, hip & glute stretches, 5 min walk on treadmill
Squats 78kg: 5/5/5/5/5
Bench Press 70kg: 5,0 then @ 60kg (1 min rest in between sets): 5/5/5/5
Inverted Rows: 7,6,6
Pull Ups: 2/1/0

Squats – Form was a bit all over the place. I couldn’t get into a rhythm. It didn’t feel that heavy it was just shit form. I’ll try again on Thursday and see what happens.

Bench Press – Thought I’d reduce the amount of rest time in my workouts. I feel that I’m resting more than lifting. First set @ 70kg was way too heavy. I couldn’t even move the bar on the next set. Decided to go down to 60kg for the remaining sets and work on form and speed.

Inverted rows felt hard as well and I had nothing left for the pull ups.

Think this was a bad workout but I’m mentally upbeat; I’m looking forward to the next good workout.

[markg]

Hey Dave,
I'm with you on the whole, 'resting is boring' thing, if I can put words in your mouth...

It is so tempting to just get on with the next set after a short breather, otherwise the workout goes on for hours and you spend most of it doing nothing. Unfortunately, in order to progress on the weights, I find that I have to force myself to wait it out and let my body recover enough to get the next set.

You may find the deload and work on speed thing does it for you, but I suspect that, as the weights get heavier, everyone ends up with about 5 minute breaks between sets. The good news is you can switch to 3x5 when you reach the intermediate stage (I think)...

Keep up the good work fella,
Mark.

[Foxybass]

Cheers for popping in Mark. I'm sure you're right - those effing weights don't deal in mercy.

Thursday 5 March

Bad nights sleep again. This time is was our eldest daughter that kept us awake– she was having crazy nightmares. Scary. I woke up at 3.30am couldn’t get back to sleep so I got up.

Soft tissue work, hip & glute stretches.
Squats 78 kg: 5/0. Reduced weight to 70kg: 5/5/5/0
Overhead Press 42.5kg: 5/5/5/5/4 (1 min rest in between sets)
Deadlift 80kg: 5
Prone Bridges: 37/37/37 secs

Squats – I’m a lucky man; I could have really hurt myself this morning. I worked through the warm up sets but when I got to 70kg they felt heavy. I thought nothing of it and started my working sets. Hell it was heavy and form was screwed. I thought it just may have been a bad first set and I’ll be ok on the 2nd. I got set up and then I just mentally lost it. I was arguing with myself – my mind said “You can’t do this Dave” but then I said “Yes, you can… you big tart”. The weights won of course. My body wouldn’t even start the first motion of the squat. I knocked the weight to 70kg and worked through 3 sets – it was tough. Then I came to the final set. I was having the same arguments with myself again. Thinking that it was a lighter weight I just went for it. Big mistake. My legs just gave way. I don’t know what I did wrong or what happened but I ended up on the floor with the loaded bar in front of me. I stood up, gathered my thoughts and called myself a “to##er”. My squat form has gone down the pan just like Aston Villa’s form. Lesson learned – time to move on.

Overhead Press – It was time for revenge. I’m quite satisfied with my upper body strength – I feel confident with the overhead press and bench press. I wasn’t too far off from getting 42.5kg 5x5 with one minute rest in between sets last attempt so this time I was going to get it. First 3 sets flew up, 4th was tricky but form still good. I thought I had it, then the b#st#rds got me on the last rep. Lesson learned – time to move on!

Deadlifts – No problem and felt quite light.

No excuses – yes sleep has been pretty bad but I’m eating the best I ever have. I’m never hungry and Mon to Fri it’s perfect quality; I relax a little during the weekend but nothing major and I’m still off the beer. I had a similar incident during my first time on Stronglifts. This time I’m not wussing out – I’m going to dig in and stay the course. So my short term goals may be slip back a while. So what, it will hardly impact on my long term goals. I think my problem with squats is recovery and the fact that I’m trying to do a difficult exercise that’s new to me with weights that are just too heavy for me; form is suffering. I’ll be honest; I’ve struggled like hell the last 3 weeks. My legs and hips have been so sore – but that’s all part of the deal. I’m seeing some of you guys in the forum blitz through squatting bodyweight and I’m thinking why can’t I? I picked up something on one of Cleave’s posts and can relate to it. I abused my body for around 15 years and carried way too much fat – I can’t change this fact overnight. I’m going to lighten up with the squats a bit over the next few weeks and work my way back up. Like I say, I’m a lucky man – I could have been writing up about an injury.

Stay Safe.

Dave