Hi!
I’m posting for the first time on T-Nation forums though I’ve been lurking and soaking up information for a while now. I decided to have a serious go at lifting weights about 6 months ago and started with Stronglifts 5x5.
After stalling and hurting my lower back a few times I realised it might be a good time to jump ship and start with something that makes more sense. I have no idea what my lifts were when i first started out here are a few approximations from before I began 531. I weigh 82kg and am 175 cm tall.
Squat: 130 kg
Deadlift: 155 kg
Bench: 100 kg
Overhead press: 60 kg
These were my lifts after my first cycle of 531 with BBB assistance work:
Squat: 8 x 100 kg (ORM: 140 kg)
Deadlift: 8 x 125 (ORM: 168 kg)
Bench: 5 x 85 kg (ORM: 101 kg )
Overhead press: 9 x 50 kg (ORM: 64 kg)
I also do a bit of judo so my current goal is to get as strong as possible at a bodyweight of 81 kg. I started my second cycle of 531 with the new 3 times per week full body template and will post mondays and todays workout a bit later.
Yesterday I did a bit of hang and power cleans. I managed 2 singles at 60kg. My technique sucks dog’s balls. After that I went and did 6 hill sprints but I felt really slow compared to last saturday.
Let me start out by saying last nights ne-waza session was brutal. Some of that stuff felt more like MMA than judo but it was all good fun. Surprisingly I woke up feeling great. That is until I put the warmup weights on my back. I was barely able to get the required reps in.
So I’m going to either switch monday and Friday since I can usually still deadlift well even when I’m not at my best or move Friday’s session to Saturday. Probably going to switch monday and Friday around first because I can’t stand the weekend warrior crowd stealing plates of my bar.
Anyway … Today’s lifts.
I switched Monday and Friday around and proved to myself I was just too tired last Friday to do anything except the required reps. I’ll see how I do on deadlifts this Friday and decide whether any further changes are necessary.
An old foot injury’s giving me some trouble when walking so I’ll have to take it easy for a few days with conditioning. Some complexes and judo should still do the trick I guess.
My bench press feels weak compared to other lifts. Any ideas how to fix this? Would adding let say a hundred push-ups ever other day help?[/quote]
Welcome to the boards.
If you want to get your bench up, there are a couple thing you can do. 1) add some chest or tricep assistance work on your non-bench days. 2) throw additional chest/tricep work on bench day and blow the hell out of those muscles, 3) do some benching with deload percentages as a warmup for your non-bench days.
In the end, it’s a marathon not a sprint. The thing that will improve bench the most is consistency with training AND DIET.
Thanks for the advice and the welcome scj. I’ll throw in some dips on my non-bench days and do more assistance work on bench. I’ll see how that goes and adjust accordingly.
Monday - 5.9.2011 - 1. day 3. week of 2. cycle
I must have screwed something up when I was calculating this months program so I ended up with a bigger increment on my overhead press then on my squat. So I will take a bit off and go from there next cycle.
I’ll start doing more pressing immediatly and see if I respond better to more volume and for the next cycle I’ll take first cycle’s percentages. I try to think of it as taking one step back so I’ll leap forward later but it sucks because my lower-body lifts seem to be progressing fine.
My foot feels fine again so it was time to dedicate a wrokout to some cleaning and conditioning.
One arm kettlebell swing 10x12kg
supersetted with
one arm clean and press 10x12kg
both sides.
One arm kettlebell swing 10x24kg
supersetted with
one arm clean and press 10x24kg
both sides.
Two arm kettlebell swing 10x32kg 10x32kg 10x32kg
Hang clean 5x20 5x30 5x35 [5x40 5x45 5x50]
And to finish off in a puddle of sweat a Complex consisting of: 1.Deadlift, 2.Romanian deadlift, 3.Bentover row, 4.Hang clean, 5.Front squat, 6.Push press, 7.Back squat and 8.Good mornings
I used 30kg and decreased the pauses and reps after every cycle.
7 [35s] 6 [30s] 5 [25s] 4 [15s] 3 [5s] 2 [0s] 1
Metabolic pair or whatever these are called: 4x(12x40kg Clean, 12x Burpee, 2min pause)
Didn’t fell like doing complexes today so I did this. I’ve got to read up on this stuff for the next time the janitor locks me in and I’ll have time to kill.
Considering I felt like shit when I got to the gym I’m not completely devestated by the fact that I got one rep less on the last set than on my first cycle at the same weight. If I grow a pair of balls by the afternoon I’ll go do some hill sprints.