SUseb's Training Log

[SUseb]

Personal Stats:
Gender: Male
Age: 19
Height: 1,79 m
Weight: I have no idea to be honest, my scale is broken so I can't weigh myself
BF%: again, no idea about.
Country: Belgium

Background:

Sometime last year (I think around march) my friend who's been lifting weights for over 3 years convinced me to go to the gym with him. He'd discovered a site called stronglifts.com, sent me link and got me interested so I decided to join him. Now I have to say I wasn't really into it back then, I'd go to the gym once or twice per week and do some exercises in the stronglifts program, usualy squats, upright rows, benchpress and overhead press (all in the smith machine because there was no free barbell in that gym) but didn't really make an effort and quit after a few weeks.

After my exams in june I decided I wanted to try again: it was summervacation so I had alot of free time and I wanted to get rid of my not-so-great-looking body once and for all (I've had a belly since I was like 7 years old, all efforts not withstanding ) I remember alot of the exercises I used to do during the schoolyear, so I just did those again, the only difference was that I benched with a free barbell (During the schoolyear I'm in another city, Leuven, and they have a gym there that's cheap for students but it's just machines. There's a 'powerlifter'-room there with free weights but I'll get to that.) Also, I decied that this time I wanted to train for bulk instead of strength so I did everything 3x8 instead of 5x5.

Anyway, after 1 month (we're at the beginning of august) I started reading everything on the stronglifts website and Medhi's writing convinced me, I was going to 5x5 again: I didn't really want to be all that big, it's more fun and being strong feels really good. Now I have to admit I'm not following the 5x5 program religiously, I don't do every exercise (for example, I HATE deadlifts, they make my back hurt ALOT) and I squat only 3x5 (5x5 squats is just to taxing mentaly and physicly for me), but I've recently moved from smithsquats to free barbellsquats. (They're not only better, they're actually fun while I hated squats in a smith)

So I've been doing stronglifts for a couple months now and I'm very pleased with my results, strengthwise and bodywise.

TL;DR:

I started lifting, I did it wrong, started stronglifts but not perfectly.

Strength Stats:

I'm posting the stats from my last workout, I'm going to use these as "baseline".

- Chinups: 5x1

I've only recently included chin-ups in my rountine and I'm not very strong at them yet so I do 10x1 but I spread it across my workout. Don't know if that's a good idea.

- Squat: 3x5x70

This is fairly low, but I blame this on the smith machine .. :p I am able to 'squat' 90kg but I asked my friend today to do a form check and he says that I really bend my lower back, so I lowered the weight till I was comfortably able squat without bending my back.

- Bench: 5x5x72

- Chinups: 5x1

- Military Press:: 4x5x50kg; 1x3x50kg (I failed on the last set )

Normaly I do dips too, but I was completely exhausted, my friend just finished his last set and I just said fuck it.

Goals:

- Bodyfat .. I can't imagine what 10% or 12% or 15% bodyfat looks like .. I'd just like to have flat stomach, a six-pack is not a real goal but not something I want to avoid either :p

- Strength: I only have 2 goals: 100kg benchpress and 120kg squat for 1 rep. I have these goals because during the week I'm at university in another city and the gym they have there doesn't have free barbells. Now to be allowed in that powerlifter-room I mentioned you have pass a test: 1 rep of each: 100kg benchpress and 120 squat.

So that's everything I have to say right now I'm looking forward to contributing to the forum and to receive feedback on my workouts ^^

[holvoetn]

Welcome and a wise decision to have started a log

One piece of advise:
if you hate an exercise, it's usually because you suck at it. Better get working on it so you can improve.
Squats, and deadlift too, are the bread and butter of this program. Get better at these two and don't be surprised to see all the rest advance as well

What are you studying ?

[SUseb]

Yeah I know I should do them. Everytime I walk out of the gym I tell myself "Next workout I'm going to include deadlifts!" But I never do

The reason I hate deadlifts isn't so much the exercise itself as the pain I get in my lower back. Before I lifted weights, whenever I had to bend over for more than 10 seconds my back would feel 'funny'. If I than lied down flat it would hurt alot. It's the same feeling I get from deadlifts: my back doesn't really hurt but feels a little weird .. Untill I lie down on the bench. I have to let my back rest for 3-4 minutes before the pain has decreased enough to allow me to be able to bench. So after a workout or 5 I stopped I stopped doing them.

Do you think if I did deadlifts this would go away or could it be an actual problem with my lowerback(spine or maybe pelvis) that can't be fixed just by having stronger muscles?

Last year I studied social & political science, but I've changed courses and am now studying pharmacy (which I find more interesting ^^)

Thanks for the reply !

[holvoetn]

If your back hurts from doing deadlifts, most likely your form is not good.
See if you can make a video so we can check.

[SUseb]

Dips:

-1x12xbodyweight
-3x5xbodyweight + 5 kg
-1x5xbodyweight + 8 kg
-3x5xbodyweight + 10 kg (i was damn proud of myself :p)

Dumbell overhead press:

- 3x5x20 kg

chin-ups:

-5 sets of 1 rep and 5 sets of 2 reps.

Not a very heavy workout today but I'm at uni and the gym here is all machines and some dumbells and very busy. I feel my chin-ups are progressing nicely since I've been able to do 1 full rep ^^

[Vlad]

Welcome to the forum!

I think you should post your deadlift vid to check your form. Deadlift is not bad for the back if done properly. I know this for sure. My lower back was so bad at one time that bending over to put on shoes was next to impossible. I started to do deadlifts for my back reabilitation, and it worked very well.

[SUseb]

Saturday I can deadlift, i'll upload a video!

[SUseb]

I payed alot of attention to my form today and I noticed I wasn't doing a couple exercises properly so I dropped the weight to achieve a good form.

Squats: 3x5x80kg

I concentrated hard on making sure my back didn't round and it went surprisingly well. Only the last rep of the second set turned into a goodmorning, the rest was all straight back. I was able to add 10kg and still have a good form because I'm breaking parallel instead of going ATG now. The one rep where I did a goodmorning was the one were I went ATG. (I only went ATG because I went down to quickly and couldn't stop right below parallel )

Bench press: 5x5x70kg

I dropped the weight to 70 because with 72,5 I couldn't do 5 reps with the bar touching my chest.

Military press:4x5x50kg and 1x4x50kg (failed on the last rep, went only halfway up )

I've noticed my grip is wider then my shoulders, is this a problem? My rightwrist kinda hurts after the overhead press but the pain goes away after a few minutes though.

Chin-ups: 8x1 (always 1 chin-up between reps of other exercises)

I was only doing 3/4 chin-ups so I made sure I was hanging completely dead before doing them and it was alot harder But form over reps I guess so it's all good.

Dips: 3x7

I was so tired after my workout I forgot to do dips I came home and did them between 2 chairs but only managed 3x7. BP and MP destroyed my triceps

All in all a good workout. I did forget my camera though so couldn't film my deadlift I'll try to remember that next week because it'd be nice to include a deadlift too.

[holvoetn]

Nice workout

Good call to deload once you notice form is sloppy.
I had to deload from 75 to 60kg on BP before summer holidays because of the same reason

[SUseb]

Yeah it's never a nice feeling to take weight off the bar (hurts the manly pride :p) but it's better in the long run.

And ouch, 15kg deload is quite alot

[SUseb]

Not a very awesome training today .. stupid lack of barbells sucks :p

dips, leaned forward:

- 1x12xBW
- 2x5xBW + 8kg
- 2x5xBW + 10kg
- 1x7xBW

dumbbell shoulder press:

- 4x5x22kg (22kg dumbbell in each hand)
- 1x4x22kg (failed on the last rep of the last set )

chin-ups:

- 10x1

Push-ups:

- 2x15

I can usually do around 26, but my triceps were dead after the dips & the shoulder press


I feel like i've totaly neglected my chest this workout, even though I was leaning forward on the dips .. Do you guys know any good chest excercises that don't require a barbell (and preferably don't tax the triceps to much) ?I'm guessing the dumbbell fly or the dumbbell press?

[holvoetn]

Fly for sure.
Wide pushups with your hands on some books (to get more range of motion)

[SUseb]

Workout was .. strange. Some exercises were disappointing while others were great :p

Came into the gym and walked up to the chin-up bar: 3 consecutive deadhang chin-ups: WOW! I've never been able to do that so I was very happy

After that it went a little downhill though

military press:

1x5x50kg

Went smooth so I decided to raise the weight

1x5x52,5kg
1x4x52,5kg (failed here, so decided to deload again)
2x5x50kg


1 chin-up .. Couldn't do 2

Squat

1x5x50kg warmup
1x5x70kg went easy
1x80kg (was to hard so I deloaded)
1x3x75kg (still to heavy .. decided to quit)

2 chin-ups

Bench

2x70kg went easy so decided to raise the weight
1x5x72,5kg
1x4x72,5kg (couldnt do the fifth rep, deloaded)
3x4x70kg (that sucked hard )

2x2 chin-ups

After reading H's log, I decided to try complex exercises, but I couldn't remember the Evil-8 routine so I just made up my own ^^

- 10kg, 5 reps for every exercise,

powerclean, upright rows, front squat, overhead press (=> lower body, upper body, lower body, upper body)

This went easy so I raised the weight

- 30kg, 5 reps for every exercise,

powerclean, upright rows, front squat, overhead press

- 30kg, 5 reps for every exercise,

powerclean, upright rows, front squat, overhead press

I failed on the last set on overhead presses, I managed to do 2, then I dropped the weight, fell on my knees and panted like a dog. Felt great !

So all in all, the workout wasn't that great but I'm still satisfied ^^

[atypical1]

If you're missing lifts I would think hard about adding complexes into your program.

james

[holvoetn]

The second fail on chins I can understand after doing 3 the first set and since you never have been able to do that.

But why the deload on all the lifts ?
Do the sets and try to get the maximum out of it for the 5 sets.
THEN you can add some sets with lower weight if you really want but try to get the 5 sets with the working weight.
How else are you going to assess progress ? How else can you make sure the relevant muscles have really been worked to their max for that weight ? How else are you going to learn to push through that mental barrier when you THINK it is heavy ?

2 sessions ago you completed 3x5 with 80kg on squats. So why back off now ?
Let me tell you, when doing 5x5 on working weights the first set is usually harder then set 2. Then it gets easier until set 4 (for me it mostly goes like this). But then you only need to do one more set to make it full

Same comment on complexes. It is mostly cardio, not for strength (at least not that much).