AB's Happy Smiley Thoughts journal

[anotherbutters]

Ok, no more depressing posts from me about my leg/back being injured. I'm officially fixed and these are now officially happy times

This is a 6 week HST journal that I'm going to use to take me from practically just the bar, back up to as close to my PRs as I can get. This week will be minimal weights, since I haven't squatted, deadlifted, OHP'd or rowed for about 4 months and I want to be 100% sure I'm good to go. I'll be following the 5x5 exercise selection, but with HST reps:

Mon: squat, row, bench
Wed: front squat, dead, OHP, chins
Fri: squat, row, bench

I'm trying rows before bench to see if I can pull them up a bit (pun intended ). I'll increase weights from workout to workout and increase reps from week to week. Reps: 15, 12, 10, 8, 5, 3. I'll do back-off sets with the 3's. I'm not sure how the 5x5 and HST combination will work, so comments and suggestions are welcome. I'll be doing core stability work throughout.

I could do with cutting a little, but I'm not going to starve myself, so if my bodyweight stays the same and I recomp a little, then that's fine by me. Whatever, once I'm back up to PRs, I'm bulking.

Today's workout:

Week 1, Monday: 15's

Bodyweight: 79kg/174lb

1. Squat (kg) - yay, squats!
(warmup: bar x 2 x 10)
30 x 15
30 x 15

2. Row (kg)
bar x 15
bar x 15

3. Bench (kg)
(warmup: bar x 10)
35 x 15
35 x 15

Negligible weights, I know, but this is a test. My back feels 110%. This is it, I'm back! I'll post the core work once I've done it.

 

[Introspective]

Congrats to you for starting squats again.

 

[Guinness5.0]

I'm thinking this may be way too easy - you could probably drop the fronts and deads and do everything M/W/F, 'cause as it is, that ain't a lot of work.

You could do more sets to compensate. Just my thoughts though.

 

[anotherbutters]

I was wondering about the volume too. I hadn't put a great deal of thought into it to be honest. I wanted to use the 5x5 exercises to get me used to them prior to running another SF 5x5, and I wanted to use HST because it's a know quantity in terms of ramping weights up from low to high.

I'd really like to keep the deads, although they do kind of feel in the way. Maybe I should drop them and not try to do everything at once, even though I'm starting light.

Maybe squat, OHP, row, bench would be better, with chins as accessory.

 

[Guinness5.0]

It's gonna be tough to do any sort of pulling in the 15's and tens. Maybe just add 'em when you ge to the fives.

 

[asdfzxcv]

So glad to see you getting back into lifting 110%. I hope your back stays strong so you can have a really good run and make up for the lost time.

 

[blut wump]

I've always found that GMs go nicely with fronts. The combination seemed to strengthen up my back and core quite a bit when I was doing them just after the Korte last year.

Congrats. It's great to see you back on the road.

 

[anotherbutters]

Thanks asdf.

G5, thinking about it, I'm not sure what to do now. One of the reasons for the very light weight is to re-learn the groove, so very light 15's and 10's for deads might be beneficial for that purpose. Kind of like accessory deads

Hmm, I've just seen BW's post. I forgot about GMs. Excellent idea, thanks! I'm like a kid in a candy store

I was going to go to 3x12 next week on my original plan, so volume wasn't necessarily going to be low. I'll have to have a think.

Edit: An A-B-A (week 1), B-A-B (week 2) routine will keep the frequency of each exercise up. I could use GMs instead of deads and worry about re-learning deads later.

A: squat, row, bench
B: front squat, GM, OHP, chins

With enough sets/reps to give me decent volume. Yes?

 

[mojaz87]

Congratulations on the healing AB, hope you do well in this "warmup" and then it's on to bigger and better things (SF 5x5). I am having a little injury trouble, mostly with my knees being a bit achy, but I hope to get back into things in a couple of weeks. I look forward to seeing how this workout goes for you so that when I'm finally ready to go I might try the same thing. Good luck!

 

[Cynical Simian]

After the false starts in the old journal, I'd decided to reserve congratulations for your progress on the core work until I saw "squats" in a workout entry, so now I can say it. Congrats!

Nice title. Like I've said before, you're approaching Guinness in terms of wordplay, and now you can get started catching him on squats as well.