The FNG ... hope you'll have me

hi, everybody

been lurking the forums for a couple days now, working out a few kinks in my head over in my intro thread (One Armed Row and Bench Critique - Beginners - Forums - T Nation)…now that that i got that cleared up, it’s time to start tracking and learning

a couple basic bits about me:
44…45 in january
5-11 @ 224lbs @ 24% bf
lifts are super low…gotta start somewhere

won’t go into a ton of details on my past experience except to say i’m very much new at lifting…i’ve done some SS…i started this week with 5/3/1 + Triumverate

i definitely can’t do all the assistance moves currently…but, i figure i gotta start somewhere if i expect to be able to ever do them…chin-ups/pull-ups, hanging leg raises are currently fail for me…i do have a pull-up band, so that’ll help there…not sure what i can do for the hanging leg raises other than keep trying

for leg presses, they are right out as i don’t have a leg press machine in my garage…i’ll have to come up with something to fill in (lunges maybe?)

a couple goals are in order, in no particular order:
** i’d like to get down to 190-200lbs; so, my diet will focus on 2400 cals/day with 170-200g both protein and carbs, fill in with clean fat…depending on how fast/slow the weight comes off, this could be my mid- to long-term goal…just not sure how quickly, or not, the weight is going to come off
** focus on starting 5/3/1 safely and not rushing things by working on form before weight
** do the assistance lifts and stretching/warm-ups every day…going all-in for the program

i have had a number of things happen these past few years that have combined to screw my head up…time to get back to the basics

i’m looking forward to learning a lot from everybody

thanks for your time

Erik–

Welcome…personally if you are having some issues with assistance work, why not start with a linear program such as madcow 5x5, where all you really do are the main lifts plus some rows and Incline and or OH work. I tend to fall back on madcow or the periodization version at least once a year. I wish I had done madcow from the very beginning.

Recap of this week, Mon - Thursday

Monday 11/10/14
military press
10 x 45
5 x 55
5 x 60
10 x 70

dips
10 x 3

i’ll add chin-ups/pull-ups w/band next week


Tuesday 11/11/14
deadlift
5 x 95
5 x 115
3 x 140
5 x 155
5 x 175
11 x 200

good morning
12 x 3 x 45

need to figure out what to do about the hanging leg raise because i have 0 range of motion once i’m hanging there


Thursday 11/13/14
bench press
10 x 45
5 x 60
3 x 70
5 x 75
5 x 90
12 x 100

dumbbell bench press
15 x 5 x 20

dumbbell row
10 x 5 x 20/arm

Thursday felt really good … i can definitely see how the assistance lifts will help with my BP form and my grip/back strength…if my DBP is wobbly odds are my BP form is going to be a little wobbly, so to speak…and it is

my safety bars are about 1/2" or so above my chest; so, often i hit the bars on one side or another because i’m not keeping a clean path/form needs fine-tuning

squats on the docket for this evening

Erik–

edit: cleaned up gibberish – i hope

Good luck Erik. I’ll be following. Everyone here has a ton of experience, and I’m sure you’re going to get plenty of tips.

[quote]ErikM wrote:

need to figure out what to do about the hanging leg raise because i have 0 range of motion once i’m hanging there
[/quote]
Welcome.

Can you lift your knees up at all? There’s a natural progression with these if you have access to an assisted dip machine, which it sounds like you don’t.

I’m of the ilk that assistance work is assistance work. It can be switched up and substituted with something else without derailing the trajectory of your core programming.

[quote]MattyXL wrote:
Welcome…personally if you are having some issues with assistance work, why not start with a linear program such as madcow 5x5, where all you really do are the main lifts plus some rows and Incline and or OH work. I tend to fall back on madcow or the periodization version at least once a year. I wish I had done madcow from the very beginning.[/quote]
no real reason other than wanting to try something new…spent the past 2yrs or so, on and mostly off, with SS…i like it a lot…but, i also like lifting more days/week than the 3 allotted for SS

but, yeah, no real reason one way or the other that i decided to try 5/3/1 vs SS

[quote]kpsnap wrote:

[quote]ErikM wrote:

need to figure out what to do about the hanging leg raise because i have 0 range of motion once i’m hanging there
[/quote]
Welcome.

Can you lift your knees up at all? There’s a natural progression with these if you have access to an assisted dip machine, which it sounds like you don’t.

I’m of the ilk that assistance work is assistance work. It can be switched up and substituted with something else without derailing the trajectory of your core programming.[/quote]
yeah, next time i’m gonna work on bringing my knees up at first…that’ll be enough of a challenge for now

to answer your other question, re: dip machine, no, i workout in my garage and don’t have access to anything other than a bench, a powerrack, a preacher curl doohickey and leg attachment…my current dip setup is 2 regular kitchen chairs and dropping myself between them with legs extended some bit…after that, i have some taller chairs that i’ll be able to play with

[quote]Crippler56 wrote:
Good luck Erik. I’ll be following. Everyone here has a ton of experience, and I’m sure you’re going to get plenty of tips. [/quote]
thanks for the warm welcome, everybody…i appreciate everybody’s input/feedback…as a beginner, i’m going to need to lean on the experience of others

just finished my workout for the night, well i should prolly hit up the foam roller again in a few – when i can actually move to use it

squats:
45 x 10 x 1
95 x 5 x 1
110 x 3 x 1
130 x 2 x 1
140 x 5 x 1
160 x 5 x 1
185 x 12 x 1 – for numbers 10-12, i wasn’t sure i was going to get them…i’ve heard of people throwing up or whatever under extreme physical stress…wasn’t sure if i was going to throw up but my whole body had this weird “what the heck are you doing?” feeling

leg curls:
80 x 3 x 10

lunges:
3 x 10/each leg

very much gassed right now

gonna go throw some food down my gullet

oh, one thing i did want to check/ask…are there many others in the Denver area? i think i saw kpsnap and some others mention being in the area?

Erik–

[quote]ErikM wrote:

oh, one thing i did want to check/ask…are there many others in the Denver area? i think i saw kpsnap and some others mention being in the area?

Erik–[/quote]
I think I’m it in terms of the regular O35s. Where are you located?

[quote]kpsnap wrote:

[quote]ErikM wrote:

oh, one thing i did want to check/ask…are there many others in the Denver area? i think i saw kpsnap and some others mention being in the area?

Erik–[/quote]
I think I’m it in terms of the regular O35s. Where are you located?[/quote]
hey, kp… I’m up north, 120th & Colo blvd

I think it was in your thread I saw a few folks talking about some meet or whatnot in Denver/Aurora

it’d be sweet to go to a meet and see what real strength looked like

anyhow, question for folks, re: assistance work… how often should I look at doing some kind of assistance work?

I don’t want to interfere with recovery… I thought I read something in 5/3/1 where he mentioned doing some things 3-4 times a week, etc

so, today being Saturday, other than smoking a pork shoulder and staying warm, should I do anything?

I just picked up an ab wheel… was thinking practicing with that and some standing side bends with some amount of weight (25-45#)… and then again, sitting around doing as much of nothing that I can get away with doesn’t seem that bad of an idea either

the iron is hot and I want to strike it while still hot

thanks,

Erik–

does anybody have any suggestions where i can buy some 1.25lb oly plates?

looking online returns: $19/pair incl shipping from roguefitness, $35/2 pair on ebay, and $20ish incl shipping from biggerfasterstronger

local craigslist has nothing

thanks,

saturday check-in:

starting weight (11/1/14): 224.4
weight: 222.5 this was after morning bathroom visits and before i ate/drank anything – except the pint or so of ice water i drank when i first woke up

that’s down 2.1lbs from 2 weeks ago

this morning was my cheat meal…breakfast burrito and a donuts at bible study…back on track now

eating has been pretty well what i setup for the week…i think i might have had a few more cashews than i wanted these past couple days…i left the avocados off the menu to compensate for the extra cashews

not overly worried, at this time…my daily cals * weight, etc is only 11cal/lb, which puts me at 220*11==2420…that’s kinda low but i really want to drop 30lbs

i’ve upped the carbs so that i recover and have enough energy for each day of lifting…might drop carbs back down under 150g/day…we’ll see how things go with 180(ish) grams a day…i’ve always done better with weight loss with carbs < 100g/day; but, i’ve not lifted this hard/often…i want to make sure i’m not derailing my lifting plans by not eating enough carbs…protein is generally 170-200…fill in with healthy fats

just put the pork shoulder on the smoker…trying to find the wind direction but it’s pretty dang calm right now

/shakes fist at the calm weather

anyhow, hope everybody has a great day/weekend…gonna play with my new ab wheel a little and maybe some standing waist bends, just for gits and shiggles

Erik–

late sunday update

assistance work: abs
ab wheel - 1 x 15 … yesterday 3 x 5 just felt plain ol’ bad; but, this morning’s 1 x 15 felt better…not getting very deep/parallel, just starting

185 x 3 @ 10seconds…put 185# on the bar and racked it…held it for 10seconds each

standing side bends - 45 x 3 x 8/each side

crazy thing, my abs are feeling it tonight…whoulda thunk it

foam roller -
IT bands – seriously, ouch
quads – ok, i thought the IT bands hurt, which they did; but quads, man that hurt
back – love feeling the pops as i roll back and forth

20-40 oz water between now and bed, eta 30min

Update: 11/17/014
cycle 1, wk2, day1

warm-up:
stretches + 25 jumping jacks * 3

main lift:
OHP
45 x 10 x 1 (wu)
50 x 5 x 1 (wu)
55 x 3 x 1 (wu)
60 x 3 x 1 (5/3/1)
65 x 3 x 1 (5/3/1)
75 x 8 x 1 (5/3/1)

assistance:
assisted chair dips:
5 x 2
7 x 2

assisted chin-ups
6 x 2
5 x 2

ab wheel
1 x 15

standing waist bend
45# x 10 x 2/each side

rack stand:
185 x 3 @ 10seconds each

no idea what to call this, but basically standing with the weight on the bar, holding it in the rack position…rack stand…i guess

cool-down:
foam roller

/shudder

as good as it feels on my back it hurts that much on my IT bands and quads…i’m sure it’ll get better, but it’s not right now

oh well, gotta do it

dinner and lots of water coming up

Welcome to the forums, Erik. I keep a log in the Training Logs section.

About fractional plates - I also train at home and picked up some adjustable ankle weights. A couple of 2.5 lbers will cost you about $10. You can remove half the little sand bags and get 1.25 “plates.” Wrap them around the end of your barbell. Not super accurate, but it gets the job done cheaply. Other people use really large washers, but this is cheaper.

[quote]LiftingStrumpet wrote:
Welcome to the forums, Erik. I keep a log in the Training Logs section.

About fractional plates - I also train at home and picked up some adjustable ankle weights. A couple of 2.5 lbers will cost you about $10. You can remove half the little sand bags and get 1.25 “plates.” Wrap them around the end of your barbell. Not super accurate, but it gets the job done cheaply. Other people use really large washers, but this is cheaper.[/quote]
I bought a set of fractional plates from ironwoodyfitness.com. I must say that I love them and use them all the time.

[quote]LiftingStrumpet wrote:
Welcome to the forums, Erik. I keep a log in the Training Logs section.[/quote]
Thanks for the welcome

[quote]LiftingStrumpet wrote:
About fractional plates - I also train at home and picked up some adjustable ankle weights. A couple of 2.5 lbers will cost you about $10. You can remove half the little sand bags and get 1.25 “plates.” Wrap them around the end of your barbell. Not super accurate, but it gets the job done cheaply. Other people use really large washers, but this is cheaper.[/quote]

[quote]kpsnap wrote:
I bought a set of fractional plates from ironwoodyfitness.com. I must say that I love them and use them all the time. [/quote]
i happened to have 2 5lb ankle weights in the basement…took 4/5 of the bags out and together they came up to 2.6lbs…BOOM!

i will check out ironwoddyfitness.com though…i’m extremely, shall we say finicky, about things like this and not having some kind of real plate is going to drive me bonkers eventually

pathetic, i know

thanks for the suggestions

Update: 11/18/014
cycle 1, wk2, day2 (5/3/1 + Triumvirate)

warm-up:
stretches + 25 jumping jacks * 3

main lift
DL:
95 x 5 x 2 wu
115 x 5 x 1 wu
140 x 3 x 1 wu
165 x 3 x 1 5/3/1
190 x 3 x 1 5/3/1
212.5 x 11 x 1 5/3/1
oh boy, that was pretty brutal…had quite the head rush when i finished that last set…took me a few min to recover from that…is that bad to be pushing it like that?

assistance lifts:
hanging knee lifts (instead of HLR)
5 x 1 — had a bad grip that didn’t last long at all
9 x 2 — put my thumb over the middle finger and things were much better
to wrap this up, i did a single set just hanging with my knees up for 10 seconds

side bends:
45 x 1 x 10/ea arm
35 x 2 x 15/ea arm
grip on the 45# plate wasn’t very good, so cut back to 35# and upped the reps

front squat hold:
185# x 1 x 10 seconds

at this point, it occurred to me that i might be over-training here…so, my question is, is it? i had 2 more front squat holds planned and then was going to come inside and hit up the ab wheel for a couple sets of 15

in theory, i am doing 5/3/1 + triumvirate, which i thought was supposed to be limited to the main lift + 2 assistance lifts

i feel like i have so much to accomplish that i want to add extra assistance work (ab, back, grip work, etc)…but, is that too much?

i’ve never pushed myself doing something like this, so sometimes i feel like i stop too early, not knowing what it’s like to have to push through

so, is all that extra stuff more than what i should be doing?

after all i’ve been through with stupid injuries and such, i think i might be a just a tad bit overly cautious

but, i really don’t know any better

i’m not saying being cautious is bad (live to lift another day FTW)

anyhow, yeah, that’s what i’m wondering this evening

Erik–

[quote]ErikM wrote:
i will check out ironwoddyfitness.com though…i’m extremely, shall we say finicky, about things like this and not having some kind of real plate is going to drive me bonkers eventually
[/quote]

Welcome to the forum, i have the ironwoody plates and they are good. I tried linking you to a guy that makes them in his spare time, very good quality, good price, maybe violated forum rules by linking to another forum. If you google, microplates dan miller, you should be able to find them.

Good luck.

welcome Erik-
youll find some very knowledgeable and helpful people on this board