GSP's Better late than never 3X5...

[Jim Ouini]

Nice work squatting. I don't seem to have the intestinal fortitude to be able to push out those blood and guts reps.

 

[anotherbutters]

If you were in the UK, 220lbs would be 2 plates, since we use 20kg (44lb) plates

Congrats again on the progress so far. Squats up from 175lbs (1x5) to 220lbs (3x5)! Not sure how many weeks you've been on this. Not sure about what your deadlift max was when you started either. Could you draw up a quick summary of your progress for the record?

 

[GSP]

Not sure about what your deadlift max was when you started either. Could you draw up a quick summary of your progress for the record?

It's difficult for me to chart my progress against a previous max because I've never actually done any of these exercises so I have no baseline. Not the free weight version anyway, I've done some machine work, LOL (except for squat which I've done reps at 175 to parallel or just above- though ATG has proven to be an entirely different animal as 175 would have crushed me at that depth).

So Starting from the beginning, I began progression on Standing Press, Deadlift, and Pendlay Rows on 3/1 (17 weeks) @

Standing Press: 90 lbs
Deadlift: 150 lbs
Pendlay Rows: 95 lbs

And added progression on Squats and DB Bench on 4/12 (11 weeks) @

Squat: 115 lbs
DB Bench: 120 lbs (total)

Current top weight:

Standing Press: 137 (+47 lbs)
Deadlift: 275 (+125 lbs)
Pendlay Rows: 175 (+80 lbs)

Squat: 220 (+105 lbs)
DB Bench 155 (+35 lbs)

Holy Shit, I've made just shy of 400 lbs. of progression on my core lifts! How much of that had some carryover from previous machine exercises? I really can't say. Though I can say with certainty that a year on machines had far less of an impact on my body than a few months of this type of programming.

Body weight: from 175/177 to 192/194

Note: this is not an official summary as I'm expecting another PR or two in the very near future

 

[Mercere]

Incredible progress, congratulations!

 

[GSP]

Incredible progress, congratulations!

Thanks man. I see you're jumping into the 5X5 right now. I'll be following along, Good luck!

 

[djeclipse]

Very nice progress, congrats!

 

[Cynical Simian]

Holy Shit

Agreed. Great work, and like you said, you're not done yet.

Be sure to make a really nicely formatted "Summary of Progress" post when you finish this run. That should make the decision of the guys who're thinking "Should I do Rippetoe's routine or the Jay Cutler one I saw in Flex?" a bit easier.

 

[GSP]

6/30 - Workout A

Squats (3X5) 135
Bench: Did not attempt
Deadlift (1X5) 280 PR

Comments: Feels like I'm falling apart. Today it was my left shoulder on Bench, just with the bar. Perhaps I hurt it a bit failing on OHP? Who knows. Turns out my hip is pretty painful right now too from my first squat workout after my week of legs. I think I got off balance and strained something pretty good. As I think about it, I've now gone 17 straight weeks setting PR's on my upper body lifts, I may need a little bit of a deload soon.

Did the squats nice and slow with a 3-4 second pause at the bottom to get a nice stretch and some blood flowing into the area.

Deads went well as they have every workout so far.

I'm going to spend the next few weeks shedding a little bit of fat, maybe 8-10 lbs. or so over 4-6 weeks. I'll hopefully be able to continue to set some PR's, even if only a few pounds each week.

 

[Mercere]

You've certainly earned that deload. Good luck on your weight loss goals. I'll be following along. It may be a good change of pace. Can't hurt to look a little leaner, now can it?

 

[Protobuilder]

Protobuilder: If you're browsing this, the 'How I learned to Squat' thread you posted earlier got me these sets. Corny as it sounds, I used the mental image of that old guy cranking out his reps to finish out my last 2 sets!

I am reading! You've made awesome progress. This really is a cool journal to read. You're doing it exactly right and it seems to be working. This isn't rocket science -- follow a smart program, don't do anything stupid, and your lifts go up (for most people). Nicely done.

Pleasure and pain for this one. Nailed the 3 sets across on squats, but it literally took everything I had. I had no chance on the rest of the lifts, I was spent.

That's awesome. When you're in PR territory, you gut it out however you can. Over the past week, from reading your posts, it's clear that you're getting kind of beat up. I'm at that exact spot myself. I've taken an "easy" week this week. Tried to catch up on sleep, dropped some lifts (which means dropped volume) and just did a handful of heavy sets on the big lifts that count. I'm having similar aches and pains too after 8 weeks of pushing.

I feel as if the first phase of my journey into strength training is beginning to wind down now. I don't think I'll hit another PR on other lifts on days when I squat PR (except with Bench), but we'll see.

No worries here, man. At some point, I just don't know how realistic it is (and MC2 said the same thing) to expect to set weekly PRs in each and every lift. This whole cycle for me has been a learning experience. I pushed everything the best I could but know that I sacrificed some in the "lesser" lifts (bench, pullups, OHP) in order to keep succeeding at squats & deads. Some weeks I'd get 'em all . . . some weeks I"d only get squats & Deads. And I was OK w/ that b/c I wanted the string of PRs to keep going. So, just as an example that might be helpful to you, when I started getting stuck in bench and things were getting hard all around, I went from 5x5 to 3x5 on bench and started pushing that PR rather than all 5 sets. That gave me some more gas for other things. I did the same thing on pullups (worked pullups rather than rows this time around). And there was a week or two where my shoulders were toast so I'd just do a 1x5 on bench or keep 3x5 from last week and not worry about the PR. Additionally, depending how I felt, I'd add/drop backoff sets, which can cut into recovery pretty signficantly if you're pushing 'em hard. Just some examples of how to handle not hitting PRs in everything each and every time. I feel like adapting on the fly is helpful so long as you don't lose control/get stupid.

Anyway, don't sweat making this week an easy one. Many Oly guys train 3 hard weeks/1 easy week, regardless of how they "feel."