One Year of Stronglifts by Mark G

[markg]

Introduction

Some of you may have seen my log mark-g-s-training-log-t12220.html
which I started at the end of October 2008. Seems like a lifetime ago now.

When I started Stronglifts, I had been going to a local gym for a couple of months, using some of the machines and some dumbells, without having any kind of plan or routine. After a recommendation from a friend, I decided to try the Stronglifts beginner routine. I had no experience of squats, deadlifts or any barbell exercises except bench press.

My Starting Stats
Height 5' 9'' or 174cm approx.

Weight
11st 4lbs or 158lbs or 72kg

Neck 14.5'' Chest 38'' Waist 36.75'' Arms 11.5'' Thighs 21.25''

Starting Goals (from log)
My weight goal is to reach 12st 7lbs within 1 year - so the deadline will be 31st October 2009.

My lift goals are: -

Squat (5x5): 80kg
Bench (5x5): 60kg
Deadlift (1x5): 80kg
OH Press (5x5): 60kg

Most Recent Measurements
Measuring Day - 20th Sept 2009

Weight 12st 6lb (+16lb)
Neck 15.25" (+0.75”)
Chest 39.25" (+1.25”)
Waist 38.5" (+1.75)
Leg 22.5" (+1.25”)
Arm 12.5/13.75 (+1” arm straight)

Lifting PRs

5x5 PR: Squat 77.5kg · Bench 62.5kg · OHP 47.5kg · DL 1x 5x 105kg

Workout Schedule
I planed to workout twice a week, alternating workouts A and B. Several weeks and quite a number of odd workouts were missed over the course of the year. I would hope to be more consistent this year.
I have just spent about 20 minutes trawling through my log to count up the number of workouts I did during the last year and the grand total is 75 workouts. That's about 1.5 a week on average. Not great, but leaves plenty of room for improvement.

The Lifts
Squat: So, this is it, the main event, the exercise that starts every workout. I take this to be the main sign of progress with my lifts and am only partially satisfied with my progress on this one. I started with just the bar (20kg) and increased in 2.5kg increments. I have added quite a few increments over the last year, but a year is a long time and I just missed my goal by 2.5kg. The goal should have been easily achievable but form issues prevail on this exercise.
I was unwittingly doing high bar squats for many weeks, reaching about 60kg before someone pointed this out after noticing how far forwards I was leaning at the bottom of the movement.
I also have shoulder flexibility issues, which I tried to fix with shoulder dislocations. I now have a fairly wide but stable way of gripping the bar in the low position. Could improve flexibility and narrow the grip with some effort but it is not an immediate priority.
I also got some elbow pain, mainly when squatting but also benching and pressing. I fixed this by using a tennis ball to roll out the knots, after seeking advice here on the forum. Worked a treat.
I believe my form to be as good as it has ever been now and I feel confident I should be able to get to 100kg 3x5 in the next year, hopefully much sooner.

Press: I have always been okay at doing overhead lifts and made some good progress with this exercise, before stalling when attempting 50kg. I hope to get into the 50's with this one before too long. Various little form points help when this gets heavy, including breathing at the top of the movement, tensing everything from the floor upwards, squeezing glutes, chest up, grip the bar hard, keep the bar close to your face etc.

Deadlift: I did manage to get to 105kg on this one, which was quite impressive for a skinny chap but I haven't been there for months now. Need to get consistent and move on up the weights here. Rippetoe's SS DVD has been helpful for all the exercises, including this one. Recommended! Things that helped me so far are: -
Get the starting position right! Rippetoe basically gets you to position feet half-way under bar, grip the bar with legs straight, bend knees til shins meet the bar, then get your chest up to straighten out the back. And..PUUUULLLL. Easy. You could also watch one of mouse's world record attempts in his log

Bench: This was the last exercise to switch from 5x5 to 3x5. Once my squat got to BW and I found myself stalling on press all the time, I began cutting things down to 3x5, to continue increasing the weights (that was the plan anyhow...). I cut them down as they each stalled, rather than doing them all at once. Bench was still going strong at 5x5, with two attempts at 65kg under my belt, but I will make this 3x5 from now on. Hopefully I can get up into the 70kg area now.
There are many more points of form with the bench than you would imagine. It is also the case that different experts recommend slightly different things and that you need to choose the method that suits you and your needs. I have found some benefit in getting shoulders back, arching back, trying to use leg drive, keeping bar low on chest, not flaring elbows etc.

Dips: surprised myself with progress on these. I had tried to do one years ago when at my old gym and got nowhere near.
Managed to get into double figures on first set at one stage.

Rows: Started these fairly recently after finding progress on inverted rows was crawling to a halt. Yet to get past 50kg so far. More to come!

Chins: Tough exercise. I have managed 3 chins in one set before but could probably not repeat that feat now. Have just started doing these on the Smith machine with L-shaped torso/leg position and feet on bench. Hopefully this will help me progress. I do have a chin bar at home which I could use more often to grease the groove.

Ab work: I used to do some of this! Started with prone bridges, gradually increasing time from 30secs to 1 minute. Also did reverse crunches and then turkish get ups. This is the first exercise to be dropped if time is short or motivation is waning....

Shoes: Found a pair that has thick, firm soles and allows me to comfortably reach the racking point on the squat rack. The bar rests on fixed points on the squat rack at our gym, so shoe height is surprisingly important here

Diet: I have discovered that I am amazingly good at losing weight
If I eat how I naturally want to, the pounds just fall off. I need to force myself to eat lots, all the time, in order to make gains. This is one of the most important areas for me to concentrate on during the next year.

My thanks go to all the people who have helped me with advice and encouragement on my log, including, at the very least, all these good folks: -

Mehdi, Vlad, Seth, Foxybass, Blueblah, AD69, DaveT, amaeland, rere, helm, Leanstrong, guru, mouse, mackanno, KIB, groundskeeperwillie, nburge, pagangoddess (and all the staff at the Nob Hill Bar & Grill ), plus anyone I forgot!

Overall thoughts: I love the stronglifts program and the community on the forum. I probably would have missed even more workouts and possibly given up altogether by now if I wasn't keeping a log on here. Despite making only moderate size and weight gains, I am considerably stronger and feel much healthier and generally better than this time last year.

I have learned a lot about diet, exercise and my motivation levels( ) over the last year and will take this knowledge into the next year. My new goals will be posted into my log in the near future and another year of progress will begin. This time it's serious!

Thanks to all and good luck with your goals.

Mark.

[Mouse]

Excellent write up Mark (my eyes are now bleeding having read all that).
Tackle the next year with the same enthusiasm and you'll be golden.

[nburge]

Nice write up Mark - it covers quite a lot and is well worth someone reading who wants to get involved. In spite of your 1.5 sessions per week and challenges with eating you have still managed a considerable (16lb) weight gain and some phenomenal increases in strength - especially on the DL. Oddly enough most of what I've learned whilst doing this programme is not about how to pick up a heavy weight - more of it is about how I respond to stress, to shit happening in my life that gets in the way of ideals, to the ability to control these events - all of these are really important not just in lifting but elsewhere in life too. I hope you do keep up the motivation and power on through 2010, but even if you don't go 3x per week all year you're still going to make the most out of every workout by doing squats, deadlifts and presses.

I look forward to tracking the progress through year 2! Thanks for keeping us entertained on the logs....

[guru]

Well written Mark. All that statistical information highlights your progress really well.

Added you here.

[rere]

Glad I could help mate. It's been a long and hard battle, you still came out on top though. You reap what you sow and you have reaped the benefits of a great many more years to come. Keep battling away my friend.

Peace.

[atypical1]

Very solid write up. Knowing what you do now, what do you plan on changing over the next year?

james

[markg]

Very solid write up. Knowing what you do now, what do you plan on changing over the next year?

james

In the short term I plan to eat anything I can get my hands on. I know I can lose fat easily enough by reverting to the diet I am on now. The hard part is put weight on and keeping it on, so food, food and more food is the motto. Doing it may be tricky, as I have obviously tried to eat plenty during the last year.

I am going to buy the food I need every week. Buy things I like to eat, with plenty of calories and plenty of protein. Train twice a week come hell or high water, whether it means going to the gym alone, going at the weekend, whatever. Only holidays and planned breaks are allowed from now on.

I think by concentrating on those two things, I will have a good platform to work from.

[pagangoddess]

pagangoddess (and all the staff at the Nob Hill Bar & Grill ),

One of these days I'm going to eat there just to say I did.

Nice job Mark. We may have provided the encouragement but you put the work into it. Looking forward to next year (& more nob jokes).

[nburge]

Mark - do you like pork scratchings? Buy those and eat them regularly - they taste awesome and are packed with fat, protein and calories. Mmmm. (they may have something to do with my gut too)

[AD69]

Good review Mark, and I also like your attitude now that you won't miss a workout just because your training partner does. You should use this to your advantage - if you are consistently adding weight to the bar, he'll get jealous and stop missing sessions. Good luck in the next year.

[nburge]

Good plan AD - why don't you and your brother arrange twice yearly bare-knuckle fights to the death (well, near enough) as an incentive to get stronger? If you're not up for that you could just try your own family powerlifting meet....... a bit of competition can be a wonderful thing.

[markg]

A twice yearly fight to the death....yes...I'll give that some thought.

I suspect if I eat too many pork scratchings, the death part will take care of itself.

I do see where you're coming from guys (a nuthouse somewhere down south...) but I'm not honestly comfortable with being in competition with anyone but my old PRs. My bro-in-law has different goals as he is trying to basically stay active and lose some weight. He can't squat at the moment due to an injury, so the competition would be a little unfair already.

Any more great ideas are welcome

[nburge]

Sounds like you'd trounce him at both the powerlifting contest and the twice yearly fight to the death! Why aren't you more keen???

I guess the ideas depend on what motivates you. Are you driven to go to the gym by the shame you cast upon this group of stronglifters when you miss a session? If so, we'll mock you for underminig us. Are you driven by the desire to get showered in praise with every workout you nail? If so, we'll fill up your log so fast with encouragement that you'll run out of time to read all the comments. If you're driven by rewards, think up something you really want and award it to yourself when you hit certain goals. My dad got me to learn my times table by giving me a walnut whip for every one I got right (oddly enough as a kid I was skinny... but those walnuts get you over time!!!)

My desire to train come-what-may has slipped recently. I'm trying to turn my own mindset around to make it top priority again - which is another element of weight training that you have to teach yourself. If you think up any great ways to keep at the iron please do share them around....

[AD69]

I like Mark's attempts to impress the girl in the calendar at dips is a good motivation technique.

I, too, would like to see Mark and his bro fight to the death - kirk v spock stylee, especially if he posts footage on here.

[docmartin]

Introduction

I was unwittingly doing high bar squats for many weeks, reaching about 60kg before someone pointed this out after noticing how far forwards I was leaning at the bottom of the movement

nice write-up but this threw me off. it's the other way around: a high bar squat results in an almost vertical upper body whereas a low bar squat necessitates leaning forward. Look at the starting strength cover and you get the idea.