Josgood's Rippetoe Journal

I’ve spent the last six months weight training consistently for the first time in my life. I dabbled throughout college, mainly doing bodybuilding mag crap, and saw little progress. Decided to finally get strong as a New Year’s resolution and so far so good. In February I started doing Rippetoes and made pretty good progress.

I swapped it out a couple months ago for variety but have decided to go back to the basic template with a couple variations. I will be doing parallel box squats instead of free squats and bent rows from pins in the power rack instead of pendlay rows or cleans. Here is workout A from Thursday night.

Box Squat: 155 x 5 x 3
Bench: 135 x 5 x 3
Deadlift: 205 x 5 x 1
Dips: BW x 8 x 1

I started very conservatively on all lifts as I have been feeling pretty burned out lately. The weight felt light on everything and I’m looking forward to increasing on all lifts. Heading to the gym right now for workout B. Will post results when I get back.

Workout B completed today

Box Squats: 165 x 5 x 3
Bent Rows: 135 x 5 x 3
Military Press: 95 x 5 x 3
Chinups: bw x 5 x 2

Everything felt light and easy. Btw, stats are 28 yrs old, 5’10, 170 lbs.

So I tweaked an old injury in my lower back over the weekend while working as a bartender. This thing has literally flared up several times a year since I was fifteen. I’m currently seeing a chiro who specializes in ART but I’m not sure it’s doing much good.

This is obviously extremely frustrating as it will keep me from doing any real lower body work for a while. Does anyone know of a good pt/ doc in the kansas city area who specializes in lower back rehab? Any and all advice would be appreciated.

Workout A(modified due to lower back injury)
Single leg squats off low box: 4 sets of 7-8 (bodyweight only)
Bench: 145 x 5 x 3
Natural GHR: 3 sets of 4-6
Dips: BW x 8 x 1
ab puldowns with static hold at bottom: 100 x 5-7 x 3

Bench still felt easy, and I could have cranked out a couple more dips, but what really kicked my ass today were the GHR’s and ab pulldowns. Gonna continue to do those, along with the SL squats until my back feels good enough to squat and deadlift properly. Hopefully not more than a week or so.

Workout B from Thursday

single leg squats: BW x 6-8 x 2
Squats off low box: 135 x 5 x 1
Bent Rows from pins: 155 x 5 x 3
Military Press: 100 x 5 x 3
Ab Pulldowns with static hold: 105 x 4-6 x 2
Natural GHR: BW x 4-6 x 2

Single leg work going well. Did the set of box squats with plates to see how the back would hold up. Felt ok but I think I’ll stick with single leg work until next week. The other lifts went well and were pretty easy. Got all sets and reps no problem and came up with a new way to perform the GHR’s that I’ll post a vid of if anyone’s interested. Looking forward to tomorrow’s session.

Forgot to add I also did two sets of five chinups yesterday before the ab work.

Workout A from today

2 sets of sl squats and a few wall squats for warmup

Bench: 150 x 5 x 3
Box Squat: 185 x 5 x 3
Dips: BW x 8
Ab pulldowns with static hold: 100 x 8

Left out Deads today to save the back. Actually didn’t think I’d be doing full squats today either but the warmups felt good. Plus, I saw some guy doing maybe quarter squats with 185 so had a little motivation. They actually felt pretty easy, too, as did the other lifts. I think my body is really appreciating the low volume Rippetoe approach. When my back is 100 percent I’m looking forward to pushing the weight up. Should clarify that I’m not really doing a Westside style box squat. It is there just to make sure I hit depth. Come to think of it, I should probably measure the box. Try to do that on Tuesday.

Workout B this afternoon

Squat: 195 x 5 x 3
Bent row: 160 x 5 x 3
Military Press: 105 x 5 x 2, 105 x 3 x 1
Chinups: BW x 4 x 2
Ab pulldowns: 110 x 5 x 2 (extra long static hold today)

Weights are starting to get heavy. Stalled on the military press first, no surprise. Had to push press the last 2 reps of the third set. Try again Saturday at the same weight. Squats still pretty manageable, and bent rows ok too. Chinups were a little weak today but I attribute that to heavy rows and being a little tired in general. Hopefully they will go better on Saturday.

Workout A from this evening

Bench: 155 x 5 x 3
Squat: 205 x 5 x 3
Dips: BW x 8 x 2
Deadlift: 235 x 5

Tweaked my back again. Too early to tell if it’s gonna be bad or not. Probably should have laid off the deads, but really wanted to try them. 235 didn’t feel all that heavy but when I racked it I could tell something was wrong. The squats felt surprisingly light, which I’m pretty happy about. Moved my hand spacing in a little bit and my upper back was extremely tight. Bench was very doable but I think I’ll stall on it in another week or two. Pretty pissed about the back but I’m used to it and it’s not gonna stop me from going heavy. Just need to do more rehab/prehab/mobility work for it.

Workout from yesterday afternoon
Squat: 135 x 5, 185 x 5, 205 x 3, 225 x 3
DB Rows: 60 x 5 x 4
DB Military Press: 35 x 5, 42.5 x 5, 45 x 5
Natural GHR: BW x 5-7 x 2

Had to get in a quick workout yesterday. Didn’t feel like doing any single leg stuff and thought “Fuck my back I’m gonna squat anyway.” Worked up to an easy triple with 225 and decided not to push any farther.

The rest of the workout was spent trying to keep pressure off my lower back. Nothing special really but a pretty solid afternoon. I’ll try to get back to regular programming next week, minus deadlifts.

Workout A from this afternoon
Bench: 160 x 5 x 3
Squat: 215 x 5 x 2, 215 x 3
Dips: BW x 8 x 2
Back Extensions: BW x 10 x 2
GHR: BW x 5-7 x 2
Ab wheel: BW x 5-7 x 2

Bench is pretty heavy at this weight but I got all the reps with good form. My back started to really tighten up after the second set of squats and five reps wasn’t happening on the third. I stopped at three even though I could have gotten a couple more. Didn’t want to risk it. Hopefully I can get all three sets on Thursday. I did the light back extensions and GHRs to hit the same muscle groups as the deadlifts while getting a little blood flow to my sore back. The ab wheel felt pretty easy even with a static hold at parallel.

Workout B from this afternoon
Squats: 135 x 5
Front Saquats: 135 x 5
SL Box Squats: BW x a bunch
Bent Rows from pins: 165 x 5 x 3
SA Barbell Press: 50 x 5 x 2 each arm, 50 x 4 x 1 left arm
Ab Pulldowns: 110 x 5-7 x 2
Natural GHR: BW x 5 x 2

Ok so my back is really starting to piss me off. Went to the chiro today and she said I was so stiff that nothing was “moving.” She gave me a couple exercises to do and I hope they help. Anyway, the back was barking at me a little during the warmup set of squats so I switched to front squats. They weren’t any better so I did some single leg work. Rows went fine though at this weight I feel like I’m starting to cheat a little.

Single arm barbell presses are the shit and I’m going to keep them until the back feels better. Ab pulldowns were tough cause my abs were still sore as hell from Tues (so much for the wheel being easy). GHRs are a bitch.