Kendall's Training Log

by **Mehdi** on Wed Mar 05, 2008 11:14 pm

any lower leg pain/injury -> start with hip and ankle mobility and glute activation. Then trigger point therapy (tennis ball, check lauren's blog linked in last friday's post). Usually knees will hurt if your ankle/hip lack mobility. and if you have lack of hip mobility you usually have dormant glutes. So start with all of that for several weeks and see if it improves. Meanwhile be conservative with the weights.

by **khildahl** on Thu Mar 06, 2008 5:17 pm

Thinking back on my workouts and where I felt the pain it looks like it's a combination of a few things... My knees are buckling inward (just reread your post on correcting this), I've gotten lazy with my glute activation, and my right foot seems to want to rotate out farther than my left while I'm not paying attention. I think this put more weight on the inside of my right knee and I've done something to either my MCL or ACL. Probably the MCL.
Considering that I'm still walking around and I only feel it when I put weight on it while the knee is bent (at around 90 degrees, and this is more a feeling of pressure than pain) I'm pretty sure it's a minor strain. If I still feel it tomorrow I'll skip doing my squats and get it diagnosed; I don't want to make it into a serious problem by ignoring it.

by **khildahl** on Tue Mar 11, 2008 3:06 am

Various excuses for not getting to the gym for 5 days; none of them are particularly good ones but I think the extra rest helped my knee recover. I was really surprised at how well this workout went after basically a week since my last one.

03/10/08

Back Squat - 45lbs warmup - 2x5
55 lbs - 5x5
- Dropped the weight 10lbs from last time to focus on technique.
- This felt really good, no pain in the knee, knees did not buckle in at all during any set. Felt my glutes engaging more and nearly hit the floor at the bottom of my range of motion during the last two sets.

Overhead Press - 45lbs warmup - 2x5
55lbs - 5x5
- Last set was hard, left shoulder and tricep feel weak. I think this lift will always be my hardest.

Bent-over Row - 45lbs warmup - 2x5
75 lbs - 5x5
- Had a little trouble getting the bar to my chest in the last set. Back to 5lb weight increases on all lifts starting next workout.

Dips - bw - 3/2/2
- May have overdone it on these... Literally falling off the dip bars while trying to force out another rep on all three sets. My arms are going to kill me tomorrow.

by **khildahl** on Thu Mar 13, 2008 2:15 pm

03/12/08

Front Squat - 45lbs warmup - 2x5
55lbs - 5x5
- Felt good, wrists are starting to feel better on this.

Bench Press - 45 lbs warmup - 2x5
80lbs - 5x5
- Starting to feel pretty heavy.

Deadlift - 95lbs - 1x5
- Felt good. I'm a little concerned about my technique when lowering the bar, though. I feel like I'm using my lower back a lot when getting it down to my knees.

chinups - bw - 3x1

by **Mehdi** on Thu Mar 13, 2008 7:00 pm

deadlift: hip go back first, then flex at knees when bar is below knees

by **khildahl** on Sat Mar 15, 2008 2:18 am

03/14/08

Back Squat - 45 lbs warmup - 2x5
60 lbs - 5x5

Overhead Press - 45lbs warmup - 2x5
60lbs - 5x5
- Every set was easier than the one before it. Left arm still feels quite a bit weaker than the right, though.

Bent-Over Row - 45lbs warmup - 2x5
80lbs - 5x5
- Having trouble keeping my back from rounding on these

Dips - bw - 4/3/2
- I'm hoping my pullups and chinups start to improve soon like these have.

by **khildahl** on Mon Mar 17, 2008 7:35 pm

03/17/08

Back Squat - 45lbs warmup - 2x5
65lbs - 5x5

Bench Press - 45lbs warmup - 2x5
85lbs - 5x5
-Getting quite heavy

Deadlift - 95lbs - 1x5
- Focused on using hips properly on the way down, felt much better.

Pullups - bw - 2/2/1

Turkish Get-Ups - 5lbs - 1x5 (left & right)
- These actually felt okay. I was expecting to have issues with them.

by **khildahl** on Thu Mar 20, 2008 5:26 am

No workout today due to circumstances beyond my control, getting up extra early tomorrow to sneak in a workout right after the gym opens. I've been thinking about dropping the front squats and doing back squats every workout. I was doing front squats initially as the reduced weight once per week was easier on my back; but my technique feels really good right now and the midweek deload feels kind of unneccessary. The other side to this is that I know I'll eventually hit a point (probably not anytime soon) where squatting three times per week won't allow enough recovery and I'll need to do something like front squats midweek; and I don't really like the idea of starting over to do what I've already been doing. Thoughts on this?

by **Mehdi** on Thu Mar 20, 2008 11:33 am

Best is to do back squats yes.

by **khildahl** on Tue Oct 27, 2009 5:23 am

Many things have happened since I last used this log... I did continue lifting without logging it for some time until life conspired to keep me from working out for a couple months and laziness kept me from getting back to it when I could. I finally got my butt back to the gym today and restarted Stronglifts 5x5 from scratch.

All weights include a 45lb bar:

10-26-2009

Squat: 45lbs warmup - 2x5
45lbs - 5x5

Bench Press: 45lbs wamrup - 2x5
45lbs 5x5

Deadlift: 95lbs - 1x5

All lifts felt quite easy, which was surprising since I haven't done any of them in a very long time. While technique was good and the weight wasn't hard, it did fatigue me quite quickly. I'm glad I decided to start with the empty bar instead of picking a heavier load; I think I'll appreciate the easier recovery for the first couple weeks.

It was a little hard to focus on recalling my squatting technique with the roid-monkey at the rack next to me making porno sounds while doing his quarter-squats, though. I forgot how entertaining the gym can be.

by **khildahl** on Thu Oct 29, 2009 2:18 am

10-28-2009

Squat: 45lbs warmup - 2x5
50lbs - 5x5

Overhead Press: 45lbs warmup - 2z5
45lbs - 5x5

Bent-Over Row: 45 lbs - 5x5

by **khildahl** on Sat Oct 31, 2009 4:31 pm

10-30-2009

Squat: 45lbs warmup - 2x5
55lbs - 5x5

Form was really wobbly on the first three work sets. Got it mostly nailed down for the last two.

Bench Press: 45lbs warmup - 2x5
50lbs - 5x5

Deadlift: 100lbs - 5x5

by **khildahl** on Tue Nov 03, 2009 4:11 am

11-01-2009

Squat: 45lbswarmup - 2x5
60lbs - 5x5

Form felt much better.

Overhead Press: 45lbs warmup - 2x5
50lbs - 5x5

Bent-Over Row: 45lbs warmup - 2x5
50lbs - 5x5

I lift a little to fast on the row and keep smacking the bar into my ribs. Need to settle down a bit.

by **khildahl** on Thu Nov 05, 2009 2:37 pm

11-04-2009

Squat: 45lbs warmup - 2x5
65lbs - 5x5

Bench Press: 45lbs warmup - 2x5
55lbs - 5x5

Deadlift: 105lbs - 1x5