nio's training log

[nio]

Hi.

I am a Swedish male, soon 25 years old. I am 179 cm tall and weigh 80 kg. I don't know about body fat.

I have the usual story with an office job and a growing belly. Previously I've had very little exercise, only some walks in the woods now and then. Before SL, I'd been at the gym maybe ten times.

Goals
Get more energy in my daily life
Avoid computer related strain injuries
Become stronger
Reducing girth of waist

I want to be hale and hearty even as I grow older, so I picked strength training because it's something I believe I can keep doing for my entire life, and wherever I live there'll be a gym or I can get a power rack.

I also like cooking, and I want to be able to eat tasty food without always being too picky about what's healthy and not. I like both cream and pasta, so neither low-fat nor low-carb diets fit me. However, I very rarely eat fast food or preprocessed food.

I have now been on StrongLifts since 1st of October (but with some unfortunate sickness in between), and I have just had my first couple of failed sets.

Because I do the workout during my lunch break (I have flexible work hours) I want to keep the entire session below 1h. As the weights increase, the rests get longer, so I have now removed the ab exercises from my weekly program. I do them occasionally at home instead.

These are my current stats:
Squat: 75 kg
Bench Press: 45 kg
Overhead Press: 40 kg
Deadlift: 90 kg

I am a nerd, and I like keeping stats, so I have a graph:


I am very satisfied with the results so far. I already feel much stronger in daily tasks, and my hurting shoulder (computer strain injury) is almost completely fine again.

My initial plan was to do SL5x5 until 2010 and then evaluate. Now I've decided I'll do it until I can squat 1.5 x body weight instead.

After today's training, I've tried pressing 42.5 kg two times and failed, so now I'm going down to 37.5 kg again.

[nio]

Today was a good workout. Since it's Sunday, I had time to do 10 minutes of cardio and some reverse crunches after lifting. In the future I will workout Tuesdays, Thursdays and some time during the week end, with cardio and ab work only on the weekend session.

I also started consuming free form essential amino acids (EsaPro EAA) prior to workout.

I filmed myself squatting, but I will probably only use it to study myself, and instead post another video later.

[saukkis]

Another Scandinavian in SL! Welcome addition if you ask me.

It's good that you've got graphs, it makes tracking your progress (which in your case is really good) easy.

[nio]

Thanks for the comment! I've also added a form check at http://stronglifts.com/forum/newbie-form-check-t21656.html

[ulbonado]

Hey nio, I'm a nerd too, I like your graphs. I didn't keep track of what I was doing from early enough, so I don't have all that data for myself. But your progress looks great, keep at it!

[Concojones]

Great squat progress, straight up to 1xBW with no hesitation. 40kg OH press is pretty decent, too. Seems like we're both stalling at the same 40kg level. Let's see who crosses it first

[nio]

Thanks.. I just had a real crap workout, since I was out drinking beer yesterday. I really felt I had to go the gym anyway since it was 5 days since the last workout and 9 days before that one, because of first a real bad cold, and then Christmas celebrations with relatives etc. In the supermarket after the workout I nearly had to run out to puke, the sweat was dripping from my forehead, but I found a chewing gum in my pocket and felt a little better.

During the sickness I basically was in my sofa for one week, so I felt really weak and deloaded on squat and deadlift. So today I squatted 72.5 kg, but I kept increasing the bench press since I haven't had any problems with that one, at 50 kg now, feels like I'm closing in on my first deload there as well.

I also started doing some mobility exercises (bird-dog, fire hydrant, leg swings) from Magnificent Mobility, mainly to improve my squats.

[nio]

I added BW and BWx1.5 to my chart, since BWx1.5 is my long term goal for squats. My current goal is of course squatting BW but I'm nearly there.

[nio]

I have bought a couple of Adidas Ironwork III shoes which might alter my movements a bit, and since my squats were also nearing stall I decided to deload to 60 kg this Tuesday.

I started with 30 kg Barbell Row and today I did 32.5 kg without any problems and my back feels great.

There were not much people around and I didn't have any spotter for the bench press today, so after 2x5 @ 55 kg I decided to lower it to 50 kg because I almost failed the last rep. At least I did 25 reps total. Next time I will bench in the squat rack if I don't have a spotter, and try to reach 55 kgs, I don't think it's far away. Hopefully BBR will help there as well.

I feel a bit weaker over all though that this autumn, I think it might have to do with smaller breakfasts. I've cut down on the eggs, mostly by coincidence, but today I'm going to the grocery store and buying lots of them, will try to eat about 3 eggs a day.

[nio]

[Concojones]

Keep it going. I am quite sure you can improve your BP by a lot. Maybe you can check your technique or try a wider grip if your elbow angle is not 90 degrees. I stalled at 60kg but once I broke through it went up swiftly again (now 65kg) rather than stalling immediately again. OHP has been the total opposite and I've been stuck at 40kg for eternity (but I suppose it will go up too one day).

[nio]

Hi, I tried a wider grip on my bench press today, and focused more on keeping a vertical bar path. I managed 55 kg but barely. With the wider grip I also nearly slipped, so I bought a bottle of liquid magnesium today. Will try to get a spotter next time to check my technique and push me to get to 57.5 kg.

I also increase the squat with 5 kg instead of 2.5 kg since I felt strong. I ate a bigger breakfast + a banana and an espresso 1 h pre workout, I think it might have helped.

[nio]

Today I decided to begin increasing the OHP every third lift or so instead of every time, because it's better for motivation to manage 5x5 well even if I didn't raise since the last workout. I forgot to pack socks to the gym, so I had to deadlift in my squat shoes, so I only did 80 kg. Squatting is good and pullups are about 3x3.

[nio]

I had a spotter today, so I went for 57.5 kg bench press and made it! Feels great. Next workout I will try heavier weights on the OHP, allowing myself some push pressing if I have to.

I have also replaced 3xF pullups with alternating 2xF chinups and 2xF pullups. So this is my current schedule:

A
Squat 5x5
Bench Press 5x5
Barbell Row 5x5
Dips 3xF

B
Squat 5x5
Overhead Press 5x5
Deadlift 5x5
Pullups 2xF
Chinups 2xF

[saukkis]

Good progress on the bench. While you've had to deload on the deads and squats it's not bad as you worked both to your BW in just a few months.