Liftin Weights and Beatin Breaks

Well I’ve been doing full-body workouts 4x/week, gained some good weight/strength, but it looks like I hit a stall so it’s probably a good idea if I start an actual workout program. I started 5/3/1 today, on 7/11/11.

Body measurements:
Weight: 140
Height: 5’10"
Waist: 29 1/2" (YEEEEEEAAAAAAW UNDER 30" WOO)
Chest: 34 3/8"

Current 1RMs:
Overhead press: 95
Deadlift: 210
Bench press: 125
Squat*: 200

Goals:

7/29/11 - I did the farmer’s walk down and back in my gym with 70s. - Accomplished

8/19/11 - I did one full pull-up, that is, my chin went over the bar. - My chin touched the bar.

9/10/11 - I held a handstand for three seconds. - Accomplished

9/17/11 - I held a handstand for five seconds. - Accomplished. Updated late, oops :confused:

9/24/11 - I can walk around on my hands while doing a handstand. - Accomplished. I can ‘save’ my balance if I step somewhere with my hands. Late update.
9/24/11 - I can also nail one-legged air swipes with ease. - Accomplished. Late update.

10/1/11 - Showtime! - Accomplished. Worst waste of $10 ever though. Late update.

Before 7/11/12 - I did the farmer’s walk down and back in the YMCA with 100s.
Before 7/11/12 - I did the farmer’s walk with my bodyweight split between two DBs for 6 trips across my HS gym (~50 yds).

7/11/12 - I spent the workouts of this week on working up to a 1RM with my core lifts:

OHP: 160
Deadlift: 340
Bench press: 190
Squat*: 275

Not going to be eating anymore with intent of gaining weight. Occasional excess in protein is fine; who can resist a big steak or chicken breast?

Eating about 2800 calories a day, C/P/F is 300/170/100 about.

*Now squatting on an actual free weight squat rack.

go with 5/3/1 or Bill Starr 5x5. 531 is not for advanced lifters but for everybody, so do it, its a lot more reasonable than SL5x5. I guess you havent read the 531 manual that you say its for advanced lifters, its oriented strictly for RAW amateur lifters. Wendler has yet to publish 531 for professionals, i guess its still in progress.

SL 5x5 is a load of crap, it is just Bill Starr’s program stripped off its most important rules, periodization cycles and warm up advices. Extremely simplified bullshit. In other words its a stolen program and some Mehdi guy makes money on it, he takes approx 300-400 dollars for ONLINE COACHING, this shit is just hilarious considering the fact that he knows LITTLE about lifting.

Additionally, he squats like 120-130 kg, the guy’s pathetic and tries to sell someone else’s invention. Look, for example, at what he advises; do SL5x5 and then, when youre intermediate, Madcow’s 5x5 while Madcow’s 5x5 is just intermediate training cycle which was originally created for guys who accomplished Bill Starr’s 5x5 beginner’s training program.

Do not believe his claims, he’s a swindler.

Oh. Alright. Thanks.

Cycle 1, Week 1, Day 1
BB Overhead Press
5x55
5x65
9x70

DB Overhead Press
5x10 with 15s

DB Tricep Extension
3x10 with 15s - Planned on doing 5x10 but on the fourth set my triceps were already ‘pumped’ and I couldn’t even do one more rep.

I also noticed that this workout took, like, 30 seconds to do.

Cycle 1, Week 1, Day 2

Deadlift
5x120 (Felt a little emasculated I didn’t even get to start out with one plate)
5x140
7x160

Power clean
3x10 with 65 lbs

Pendlay row
3x10 with 65 lbs

Planned on doing 5x10 for the assistance exercises but the extra two sets felt like they would just be boring, mindless reps instead of useful work.

I noticed I’ve been under-doing the rest between sets. I’ll probably perform better if I make sure to get my 3 or so minutes in.

Cycle 1, Week 1, Day 3

BB Bench Press
5x75
5x85
10x95 (to be followed by another man twice my size knocking down the same amount of reps with 225)

DB Bench Press
3x10 with 30s
2x10 with 25s
1x10 with 30s (my ego would have it no other way)

Farmer’s walk with 40s, about 50 feet. One day, my grip will be strong enough to strangle a bear.

Thought I typed it, but it didn’t show up. Oh well.

Cycle 1, Week 1, Day 4

Squat
5x115
5x135
5x155
Edit: Yeah, it was only 5 reps. Resting in the middle of a set is hereby banned in my workouts.

Front squat
1x10 with 75 lbs
1x10 with 80 lbs
1x10 with 85 lbs

Bulgarian split squat (1 set of 10 means I hit both legs for 10 reps)
2x10 with 25s
1x10 with 35s

Farmer’s walk with 45s, same distance as last time. I think I got some weird looks from the guy doing his ninth set of bicep curls.

Today (Sunday) is measurement day. All measurements were taken right out of bed, after using the bathroom. Nothing was eaten, and Saturday had sodium intake as low as possible to minimize water weight so it could all be as accurate as possible.

Weight: 138.5
Waist: 29"
Chest: 34 3/4"*

Waist went down, which is good I suppose. I don’t know what to think about the weight as it as been going up and down the past few weeks. The general trend has been going up. Every week it alternates between rising by 2-3 pounds and staying the same or falling by 1-2 pounds.

*Changed how chest is measured. Tape goes around the tips of the shoulder blades and comes around the front and down to touch the nipples. This gives the maximum chest measurement possible, not for my ego, but for scientific accuracy in later weeks.

Cycle 1, Week 2, Day 1

BB Overhead Press
3x60
3x70
6x75

My right shoulder got hit with a pang of some kind during the second set. I should have warmed up.

DB Overhead Press
3x10 with 15s
2x10 with 20s

DB Tricep Extension
1x10 with 15s
1x5F with 20s
1x10 with 15s

Farmer’s walk with 50s. I think at least a couple people gave me a look, like “Is he going to curl those?”. Anyways, it felt easier today than the 45s did on Squat day. No, not Friday. It’s called Squat day now.

Cycle 1, Week 2, Day 2

Deadlift
3x130 - Was 132.3 when I calculated it, so that got rounded down by this much |-|
3x150
5x170 - Let a dingleberry loose in the middle of the fifth rep. That was some intense glute activation.

I ‘savored’ the deadlifts today more than the OHPs of yesterday, and I think that made me perform better in terms of mental presence and explosiveness. It just felt more satisfying.

DB Suitcase deadlift
1x10 with a 45
1x10 with a 50
1x10 with a 55

Power clean
3x10 with 70 lbs - Really felt it hitting my lats even better than rows. Got a little lazy towards the end and didn’t point my elbows straight out. I will fix it!

Farmer’s walk with 55s - Was very tough given the other grip-requiring exercises of the day, but I pulled through.

Cycle 1, Week 2, Day 3

Bench press
3x80
3x90
8x100

DB bench press
1x10 with 30s
1x6F with 35s
1x10 with 30s

Bench press with 3 second hold at the bottom
1x10 with 55 lbs
1x10 with 60 lbs
1x10 with 65 lbs

I noticed that whenever I fail a bench press, it’s because I’m lacking explosiveness and get stuck in the hole. I think these will help me not only gun it out of the hole, but learn to stay calm in it and not bounce the bar off my chest to get out.

Farmer’s walk with 60s - Easier than the 55s on deadlift day because of little grip-requiring movements beforehand in the workout. I made no effort to hide how badass I thought I looked from the people who were watching me from the treadmills.

Cycle 1, Week 2, Day 4

Squat
3x125
3x145
5x160

Front squat
2x10 with 80 lbs
1x10 with 85 lbs

Bulgarian squat
1x10 with 30s
1x10 with 35s

Decreased the volume on Bulgarian squats by one set so I could do these:

Calf raises (Toes elevated on a 1-2" thick plank of wood)
1x10 with 25s
1x10 with 30s
1x10 with 35s

I figure that when I squat 405 one day, I might as well look good in shorts, too.

Farmer’s walk with 60s - Left hand’s grip failed about a foot or two away from the final destination. This is alright. As long as I progress by 5 lbs every other workout with this exercise, I will succeed with my goal on 8/12.

Will be on vacation for part of next week. If the hotel I’m staying in has an acceptable fitness center, I will still do the workouts. However, I might update this log late. If the hotel does not have an acceptable fitness center, I’ll still do what I can to work out on workout days and then repeat week 3 the week after my vacation.

Measurements!

Weight: 140
Waist: 29 1/2"
Chest: 35"

Been bouncing around 137-140 for about eight weeks now according to my spreadsheet on excel. If I don’t gain any weight in two weeks then I’ll start eating more, probably fats because I’m only taking in 80g of the 100g that I thought I was eating. I’m in no rush. As long as I keep knocking down workouts with 5/3/1 then I’m happy.

Cycle 1, Week 3, Day 1

I made sure to warm up very well before this workout, and I felt a lot better while doing the core lift.

Overhead press
5x65
3x75
7x80 - I was absolutely thrilled. I only had to do this for one rep but I just kept banging them out.

DB overhead press
2x10 with 15s
3x10 with 20s
Progressed here by doing one of the sets with 15s and doing it with 20s instead.

DB tricep extension
2x10 with 15s
1x3F with 20s
I made it to rep 5 last week, this time my elbows buckled on just rep 3. I’m not sure about how much ROM to use on this exercise. I’ve been going with full ROM, but it seems like it’s straining my elbows, too.
I’ll pick another tricep assistance exercise to do instead of this one and see how that works out.

Farmer’s walk, all the way, with 65s. However, I noticed that my pinky and ring fingers gave out immediately, causing the back end of the DBs to fall, which made the front ends of them rotate upwards and jam into my wrists for the entire trip. Next time I’ll grip the DBs differently to keep that from happening.

Tuesday

Did a circuit session today because my hotel had no weight lifting equipment at all, not even just a bar and some plates.

Pushups - 5x10, supersetted with…
Squat jumps - 5x10 (went to failure often here)
Wall handstand for 15-20 seconds (would’ve done at least two minutes but I got bored)
20 face-level kicks with TKD
3 kip-ups

Wednesday

Cycle 1, Week 3, Days 2-3

There was a YMCA gym nearby, and it was raining, so my dad found the heart to let me go train for 30-45 minutes. Since I knew I wouldn’t be able to go on Thursday, I did deadlift and bench press on the same day and cut out an assistance exercise from each one so I could focus on the lifts and get out.

Deadlift
5x140
3x160
5x180 - Earlier, I did 5x160. So I’m pretty happy with myself.

Bench press
5x85
3x95
9x105 - Another impressive (to me) PR.

Farmer’s walk with 65s - Not sure if same distance because of different gym. Looking forward to doing it with 70s today.

Power clean
1x10 with 70 lbs
2x10 with 75 lbs

DB bench press
2x10 with 30s
1x10 with 35s

As for diet, it was mostly very good except for two obvious ‘forced’ cheats - the filling of a slice of cherry pie and a burger at Culver’s, both of which tasted very bad. Also, I was only able to have 3 meals a day, so that meant eating nice big breakfasts and lunches.

Friday

Cycle 1, Week 3, Day 4

Squat
5x135
3x155
5x170

I noticed that when I did the all-out set with the squat, I felt immensely drained, more so than the all-out set with any other exercise. My entire body from head to toe was recruited in moving the bar up, not just the legs. This I found to be really cool.

Front squat
1x10 with 80 lbs
2x10 with 85 lbs

Bulgarian squat
2x10 with 35s on each leg

Calf raises (Toes elevated on a 1-2" thick plank of wood)
2x10 with 30s
1x10 with 35s

Farmer’s walk, down and back in my gym with - drumroll - 70s! I’m happy I conquered that goal.

And heeeeeeeeere’s the numbers.

Weight: 142.5 (up by 2.5#)
Waist: 29 1/8" (down by 3/8")
Chest: 35 1/4" (up by 1/4")

Gained weight without having to increase food consumption, and the directions of waist and chest measurements at least seem aesthetically pleasing.

On Monday, I will do what is known here as IF for a month (but I call it Ramadan). I hope my parents will let me eat 2800 calories in one sitting at the end of the day. >_>

Cycle 1, Week 4, Day 1

Had to do this workout at home where we have a 10 lb bar instead of the gym’s 45 lb bar.

Overhead press
5x35
5x45
5x50

DB overhead press
3x10 with 15s

DB tricep extension
1x10 with 15s

Easy peasy.