Skinny Fat, Out of Whack Training Log

Always a good idea to keep form good, even if you feel you could have gone higher.

So this week I am in the “3” phase of a 5/3/1 cycle.

The Power rack was full, so I tried some dumbell bench presses as an assistance on “The Press” day. I got some advice from Chris87 and fl0 something something on how to get heavy weights in position for this lift: place them on the knees first, while your chest is up. Then just roll your back down and your knees up, and the weights are placed into position. This really does seem to work (!) at least until I got to the 50 lb dumbells. That is a weight I am just going to have to get used to.

1 * 10 @ 25
1 * 10 @ 30
1 * 10 @ 35
1 * 10 @ 40
1 * 10 @ 45
1 * 2 @ 50 (!) The weights were pretty heavy, and difficult to hold steady. Next time, I’ll start at 40 lbs.

The Press: I decided to lower my 1RM 85% (like I am doing for the Bench Press) and hope that my assistance work catches up.

110 @ 45 lbs
1
7 @ 55 lbs
15 @ 60 lbs
1
3 @ 70 lbs
1*7 @ 80 lbs (1RM 0f 99–I was hoping for more, but I did do some dumbell Bench first, which may have fatigued me a bit.

Arm curls:
10 @ 60 lbs, 10 @ 70 lbs, 2 @ 80 lbs–Next time, Ill go ahead and start at 70 lbs. Probably can do more of the 80 lbs if I start with 70 instead of 60 lbs.

Dips:
110 @ -18
1
9 @ -18
1*6 @ -18 (negative because Im on the assist.)

I like doing dips, because this is the one of the three (dips, chins, pull ups) where I am close to not needing the assist. Dan John says to do something you like every day…I dont know if I can do this with dips, but twice a week is a start.

Dumbell Rows. Not my favorite exercise, but Wendler recommends that as an assist.
10 @ 40 lbs, 10 @ 45 lbs, 10 @ 50 lbs. Could have done more, Im just worried about pulling something. Will push these up next time.

15 min light jog at hopefully the aerobic metabolizing range.

Breakfast: 9 egg whites, 1 egg yellow, 1 cup oatmeal with blueberries.
Lunch: green salad with about 1.5 cups of beans
15 oz Gatorade before workout, 2 scoops protein powder after with 2 pieces of fruit.
Dinner: a good chunck of spinach lasagna with roasted vegetables.

Got to figure out how to get more protein. I like meat, but its not so good on the digestion at my advanced age. With the diet that I have, my poops look like a coiled snake. A little scatology for your Tuesday.

Today was the dreaded Squat Day. One of the things Im beginning to notice is I feel it in the pit of my stomach as the weight gets heavier on my back—Squats intimidate me somewhat. I need to “Man up”. Anyway:
110 @ 50 lbs
1
5 @ 60 lbs
15 @ 70 lbs
1
5 @ 85 lbs
13 @ 100 lbs
1
8 @ 110 lbs I did this, and felt dissapointed I could not do 1 or 2 more. Then I looked back at my records and figured out I broke a PR (previously 16 @ 110) and raised the 1RM to 139. Works for me.
Then 3
5 @ 70 lbs For good measure.

Next, I’m trying to play around a bit with the power bar to learn how to do a Power Clean. All I’m doing right now is holding the bar in hang position and then I jump and try (operative word) to pop the bar on my deltoids into rack Position. A few times that is where it goes but sometimes it lands against my throat. Anyway, today I added a press to this, and that was fun. so I did this about 20 times. Ill keep playing with this. My dream is to one day do a Snatch. Just one.

Next, did about 30 knee tucks and 30 reverse crunches.

And then 1/8th of a track’s worth of lunges–I wimped out.

Breakfast: 9 egg whites, 1 egg yellow, 1 cup oatmeal with blueberries.
Lunch: green salad with about 1.5 cups of beans
15 oz Gatorade before workout, 2 scoops protein powder after with 3 pieces of fruit.
Dinner: a good chunck of salmon with roasted vegetables Yep. No turkey lasagna today.

Today was the Bench Press.
15 @ 65 lbs
1
5 @ 85 lbs
15 @ 105 lbs
1
5 @ 115 lbs
13 @ 135 lbs
1
11 @ 150 lbs (1 RM calculated to be 205–this is the first time I have ever broke 200.) Then,
3*5 @ 135 lbs
This maybe just a temporary spike, but Im pleased I broke 200. But I was worn out after that.

Dumbell Military Press
1 * 10 @ 35
1 * 6 @ 40
Had a lot of trouble with this today…worn out after BP.

Incline Bench Press on 5/3/1
15 @ 50 lbs
1
5 @ 60 lbs
15 @ 70 lbs
1
5 @ 85 lbs
15 @ 95 lbs
1
10 @ 105 lbs (1 RM calculated to be 140)
I tried to push the bar up for an 11th time, but I couldnt make and had no spot, so the bar softly crashed on my thighs. Looked around, saw that no one saw this, and quitely rolled the barbell off me with a red face. Ha.

19@-17 (negative because its an assist machine)
1
6@-17
1*5@-17

Hoping for more but just couldnt quite get it today, but I am doing dips twice a week, so that is cool.

Then had a light jog for 15 minutes, keep the jog low to keep metabolism mostly aerobic.
5 mins of rowing.

Breakfast: 9 egg whites, 1 egg yellow, 1 cup oatmeal with blueberries.
Lunch: green salad with about 1.5 cups of beans
15 oz Gatorade before workout, 2 scoops protein powder after with 3 pieces of fruit.
Dinner: I think Im hitting the troughs at a local Chinese restraunt to celebrate that I broke 200 on my Bench.

Congrats on moving more weight on your bench!

[quote]OldGoat wrote:
Congrats on moving more weight on your bench![/quote]

Thanks! For a geek/weakling like me, its pretty exciting.

One thing Im seeing is that I may be better off without a spot on the Bench Press. Not to be too critical, but when I get a spot, the spotter tends to help me to much. It maybe that Im better off without one and take that chance that 200 lbs lands on my thighs. It’ll make me tougher I suppose.

http://train.elitefts.com/exercise-index/so-you-think-you-can-bench-parts1-7/

http://train.elitefts.com/exercise-index/so-you-think-you-can-squat-parts-1-5/

Okay watch all of these video’s. If you are sticking points make sure your accessory lifts are actually helping your lift.

Are you doing dips and pull ups? Sorry just jumped to the end and didnt read through all posts yet.

If I may interject.

You need to eat more food if you want to gain any muscle or get stronger. You need more meat, more beans, more salad, more everything.

With lifting stats so low, you could benefit from simply doing pushups and trying to be able to do a chinup. For example, push ups will also require tightness in your core, which is probably a weak point considering your issues with the deadlift.

Also, one of the things I think that helped me progress from beginner to intermediate was stopping having a spotter on bench/etc. I decided that if i couldn’t bench it to my chest and back up without anyone touching the bar, the rep didn’t count.

If you attack your gym time with a purpose, and aren’t scared to eat food (real food!), you will make gains. And don’t be scared to deadlift if your form is good (i.e. maintain your low back arch), I’m 6’1, and have deadlifted 425, have always pulled with no belt, and have never injured myself lifting.

keep up the hard work

[quote]Derek542 wrote:
Are you doing dips and pull ups? Sorry just jumped to the end and didnt read through all posts yet.[/quote]

Doing dips on an assist (Im that weak.) I was doing chins and pull-ups on an assist, but stopped. I plateaued on those and gave up. I know that chins and pull ups are some of the best possible exercises you can do though. Probabaly need to add those back in.

[quote]get-it-done wrote:
If I may interject.

You need to eat more food if you want to gain any muscle or get stronger. You need more meat, more beans, more salad, more everything.

With lifting stats so low, you could benefit from simply doing pushups and trying to be able to do a chinup. For example, push ups will also require tightness in your core, which is probably a weak point considering your issues with the deadlift.

Also, one of the things I think that helped me progress from beginner to intermediate was stopping having a spotter on bench/etc. I decided that if i couldn’t bench it to my chest and back up without anyone touching the bar, the rep didn’t count.

If you attack your gym time with a purpose, and aren’t scared to eat food (real food!), you will make gains. And don’t be scared to deadlift if your form is good (i.e. maintain your low back arch), I’m 6’1, and have deadlifted 425, have always pulled with no belt, and have never injured myself lifting.

keep up the hard work[/quote] Basically agree with everything your saying, and its good to hear from someone with a fantastic deadlift. For me, eating more is tricky. I can only do it if Im expending more effort with the lifts (“attack” is a great word that you used) Years ago I ate more without giving a solid effort lifting and I got fat. So the food intake has to be tightly coupled with my effort.

Good observation you made about pushups and core strength, what you say makes total sense. I stopped push ups because I had injured my wrist in raquetball but it seems to be better recently and would like to bring them back into the routine. I agree with your assesment of my poor core strength. I have trouble even doing a plank.

I’m also fighting poor genetics, but they are not so bad such that I have not improved my strength over the year.

When i started in on the lifting i couldn’t do a single standard press-up or pull up, by starting out with press ups from kneeling and progressing to just a couple of standard press ups, the going to sets of 5, 8 and 10 i am now at the point 8 months in where i am pumping out sets of 8 decline press ups with good form and a much tighter core.

Great thing about the push ups is that they really are a ‘martini’ exercise ie anywhere anytime anyplace !!.

Have even found that i can do them in the stairwell at work by putting my feet up on the 2nd or 3rd step of a flight of stairs and pressing from the floor level.

I was also very nervous about the deadlift (history of back injuries), only last week nearly broke the ‘300’ barrier, close but not quite.

there is hope for us all !!

[quote]big nurse wrote:
I was also very nervous about the deadlift (history of back injuries), only last week nearly broke the ‘300’ barrier, close but not quite.

there is hope for us all !![/quote] Agree about the hope. It took me 6 months to figure out how to a squat reasonably correctly. Also worried about the deadlift as well, so I dont really push it too much here. Some guys on Rippitoes forum have injured themselves with it. Even Rippitoe says you probably shouldn’t do heavy sets across with dead lift (like 3 seta of 10, just do 1).

I can right now do about 2 sets of 10 push ups on a good day, but I agree that I need to put them back into the routine.

Glad you’re making progress. I’ll have to disagree on one issue, though. Don’t know how much experience you have with bench press, if it isn’t much, you might not have the skill right now to know what you can handle. If you experiment with higher weights, I really recommend a spotter, because if you guess wrong and no one catches it, it can really ruin your day.

Sorry you’ve had bad experience with spotters. The spotter has to understand not to touch the bar at all unless it just isn’t moving.

Also, core work really helps with bench, too. You need to tighten everything to make it work.

[quote]cavalier wrote:
I really recommend a spotter, because if you guess wrong and no one catches it, it can really ruin your day.
[/quote] You’re probably right with that. Wasn’t so bad when 105 lbs landed on my thighs the other day but 185 lbs on the chest or gut could hurt.

First, I like to thank everybody for the great advice I have received. It does help.

Dead Lift:
15 @ 75 lbs
1
5 @ 95 lbs
15 @ 115 lbs
1
5 @ 145 lbs
13 @ 160 lbs
1
4 @ 180 lbs Very dissapointing, just didn’t have it in me today. I’m beginning to see as the weights get heavy for me on the Deadlift (and that’s like 150 lbs and up), I need a lot of precise intensity. Have to be very focused, and pull it up exactly right. I missed today with the attitude. groan. I can see now half of weight lifting is attitude. That will man you up.

After that, I like to do a short easy set of squats.

Squat
110 @ 45 lbs
1
7 @ 65 lbs
15 @ 75 lbs
1
5 @ 85 lbs

Decided to take “get-it-done” (great name) advice and go back to doing push ups, and did 2 sets of 10. These felt pretty good, and my wrist did not hurt. I want to do these twice a week.

Also am bringing back in Pull ups (suggested by Derek542):
10 @ -86
6 @ -78
4 @ -70

On the assist. I know Ill probably never be able to do an unassisted pull up, but it would be awesome if I did.

Did 1/8 track of lunges: had better form.

Ran about 17 minutes at a very light jog.

Food:

Last night: went to the troughs at the Chinese restaurant and stuffed myself on meat. Wasn’t so hungry this morning.

Breakfast: 5 egg whites,
Lunch: almonds and grapes
15 oz gatorade, 2 servings whey.
Dinner: will be a good chunk of salmon and roasted vegs.

Deadlifts are tough for anyone, give it time.

And here’s a cautionary tale for those lifting without a spotter:

[quote]cavalier wrote:
And here’s a cautionary tale for those lifting without a spotter:
[/quote] That’s pretty funny. Come to think of it, I kind of look/am built like Jon, except my eyes are not quite as buggy as his.

Wow, this is weird. Just after I posted that, I turned on the television and watched an old Columbo episode. It’s the one where the killer is a health spa owner. He strangles his victim, then made it look as if he had been benching and accidentally dropped the barbell on his throat. Creepy.

(And I hope you’re better than Jon at getting dates.)

[quote]cavalier wrote:
Wow, this is weird. Just after I posted that, I turned on the television and watched an old Columbo episode. It’s the one where the killer is a health spa owner. He strangles his victim, then made it look as if he had been benching and accidentally dropped the barbell on his throat. Creepy.

(And I hope you’re better than Jon at getting dates.)[/quote] Yea, we are of the generation that can appreciate a Columbo episode.

I always thought Jon of “Garfield” and Cathy of “Cathy” should have been dating, instead of Cathy with that Irving dweeb.

I’m lucky enough to have a gf, but I did go through my “Jon approach” phase. It lasted about a decade.