Ryan's Journal

In the Press and Power Clean I'm seeing some good gains. When I started a month back doing 20kg Presses, that really was work for me, while for most exercises I've started out with what I know to be well-below my 5RM's. What I have noticed is that for most exercises, the difficulty of each lift doesn't seem to be increasing, and squatting on Mondays is usually easier than squatting on Fridays.

I haven't been in the gym during this trip, and I really look forward to getting back in there either on Thursday (the day I get home) or Friday. I did, however, go for a 40min jog 2 evenings ago with my girlfriend and a mutual friend (who's actually responsible for my girlfriend and I meeting a year ago), played frisbee for about an hour yesterday and plan on going to the beach tomorrow afternoon.
 
I have an analytical mind...forgive me for I need to indulge it. No pun or offense meant by all of this...

Monday, your glycogen, general glucose levels and energy levels are higher. Most likely because you do not work, workout and exert as much physical effort during the weekend while maintaining a calorie upkeep. Your glycogen and energy levels become heightened and replenish and, Monday, it's easy - as it should be because you are addressing rest and recovery properly. This is why you like Monday's.

Translation: Your not getting enough upkeep and rest during the week and by Friday, exhaustion catches up to you. Increase low glycemic or complex cars into your diet in the morning or evening depending on when you workout, if you care or want. Wether you like being exhausted or not is your choice, after all.

Exhaustion = stress = thing that slows down recovery and gains (amongst many other things.) down to a halt. Yes you are getting gains, but, and I know I'm being a hard ass, but you're exhausting yourself and causing yourself to fall back, slightly - maybe a little more.

I'll just say it:

I haven't been in the gym during this trip, and I really look forward to getting back in there either on Thursday (the day I get home) or Friday. I did, however, go for a 40min jog 2 evenings ago with my girlfriend and a mutual friend (who's actually responsible for my girlfriend and I meeting a year ago), played frisbee for about an hour yesterday and plan on going to the beach tomorrow afternoon.
Click to expand...

This is all you need to do to have the level of fitness you really want.

I mean if just being out and about while being physically active and meeting a young woman you love all at the same time the result is this:

You connect with your intuition, lose weight, meet a lover and spend time enjoying life - all while being active and working out through fun activities instead of depleting yourself, entirely with huge compounds that cause you to be exhausted by Friday and hold you back from having an energy filled weekend. You don't get exhausted by playing Frisbee because that is a two plus player game and interacting with others gives us the kind of energy that doesn't get depleted. This, by logic, reason, emotion and every other variable is way more efficient than compounds. :D

Why do we workout excessively again? :D
 
Oh yes, I do know that over the weekend I get twice as much recovery, thus squats feel easier. I see training M/W/F and finding M always feels lighter than F to be like microcycle periodisation. You build up, you build up, you build up, and then you recover and build up some more. But I know that if I went 72 hours between every session, I'd make far less significant gains, as experience all last year has taught me.

I actually happen to really enjoy strength and power training. I do it because I love it. I don't love exercise, per se (doing things purely for the sake of breaking a sweat just pisses me off, while being active in a leisurely way, be it swimming at the beach or lugging massive weights around, makes me very happy), but I love training for specific goals. As an interesting sidenote, as far as I'm aware, because we're meant experience physical stresses, the physical stress of training (provided you don't overtrain) causes destressing. To the best of my knowledge, stress is a natural function that helps with getting food. When I am stressed, I usually want to do something hard and fast, such as a round of boxing, sprinting or some power exercises. While light, fun activities generally aren't stressful, it's the physical activities that are which seem to actually have very positive effects on destressing myself.

This morning I did actually end up going into one of the gyms here. I didn't enjoy all the rust on the ends of the barbells, but sometimes you have to make do with what you've got. It's just as well that I went to the gym this morning, because it's looking like swimming this afternoon might not be an option...but we'll see.

Wed 28/04/10

Squats
2x5x20kg
1x5x30kg
1x3x40kg
1x2x50kg
3x5x57.5kg

Press
2x5x20kg (felt noticeably light, which is very rewarding considering how recently this was a difficult work set for me)
1x5x22.5kg
1x3x25kg
1x2x27.5
2x5x30kg
1x4x30kg missed the last rep (did get the bar up, but technique was shocking; I probably should have just left it at 4 reps), so I'll try and hit it next time I do Press, which I'm sure will be a success.

Power Cleans
2x3x20kg
1x3x25kg
1x3x30kg
1x2x35kg
3x5x37.5kg
One good thing I can say about the gym I used is that their power rack is adjustable so that the bar rests as if there were 20's on each side, which is the perfect position. Go higher and you don't get enough movement to generate full power; go lower and it's harder to get technique right. Anyway, my cleans today all felt very natural and rather easy to perform. I look forward to being able to clean 60kg in the future, which I think will seem easier than 57.5kg because of the mechanically efficient position. But I don't expect to be able to do that for another 10 weeks or so.

Chin Ups
The assisted machine made things way too easy for the weight it claimed to take off. There was an arch in the movement of the machine, and it meant that it all felt about 20kg lighter than what I'm used to.

2x5x-25
1x5x-20
1x3x-15
1x2x-10
1x2x-5
3x5xbodyweight
 
Fri 30/04/10

Squats
2x5x20kg
1x5x30kg
1x3x40kg
1x2x50kg
3x5x60kg

Bent Over Row[.b]
2x5x20kg
1x5x25kg
1x3x30kg
1x2x35kg
3x5x42.5kg

Bench Press
2x5x20kg
1x5x30kg
1x3x40kg
1x2x50kg
3x5x55kg

Deadlifts
2x5x40kg
1x5x50kg
1x3x60kg
1x2x65kg
1x5x70kg

I'm thinking of modifying things to save some time while training. Mainly, since rows and chins are accessory exercises, I'll put less emphasis on them.

I'm thinking on Deadlift Day, I'll do my 5 warm up sets and 1 work set of Deadlifts, then 1 warm up and 3 work sets of Rows. On Power Clean Day, do 1 set of bodyweight chins, then all 5 warm up sets of Cleans, then a second set of bodyweight chins, then all 5 work sets of Cleans, then a final set of chins.
 
Working out today in a couple hours. Monday was a public holiday (there's been at least 3 Monday public holidays since I started on Starting Strength; one for Easter, one for Anzac Day last week which was also my girlfriend's birthday, and yesterday was Labour Day) so I didn't get into the gym. But I'll be in today (Tuesday), Thursday, and for a long time on Saturday, doing SS in the morning and then spending 11am-4pm in the first class of a course I'm doing for 6 weeks on Pilates Matwork Instruction.

I'm continually getting more and more psyched about the program I'm doing. Come next week I'll be squatting the most I've ever done for a full squat, I'll be deadlifting weights I haven't lifted in ages (and then some), I'll be bench pressing close to my 1RM from last time I tested it, and I'll be beating my PR's for press and power cleans.
 
Looking through all the resources I've got that didn't originate in TAFE, I realised that I've been calling chin ups pull ups, and vice versa. I've decided to include both in my program now. Today I did my first sets of chin ups (supinated) in years. Gosh they're easy compared to pull ups. I'll still need to work on keeping my back out of excessive kyphosis; I think I cheated a couple reps throughout the day by using kyphosis (this cheat increases activation of the pecs at expense to normal spine position).

Tue 04/05/10

Squat
2x5x20kg
1x5x35kg
1x3x45kg
1x2x55kg
3x5x62.5kg
Chin Ups 1 x 7 x bodyweight

Press
2x5x20kg
1x5x22.5kg
1x3x25kg
1x2x27.5kg
3x5x30kg -- The last rep of the first two sets was very difficult, but I made it. Either the 3rd set was actually easier (better resting), or I miscounted reps. I'm hoping the former. I'll be moving up to 32.5kg on Saturday.
Chin Ups 1 x 9 x bodyweight

Power Cleans
2x3x20kg
1x3x25kg
1x2x30kg
1x2x35kg
5x3x40kg
Chin Ups 1 x 9 x bodyweight
 
Hamstrings are sore today. And traps (the whole darn thing, top to bottom). And lateral head of triceps. Squats are starting to become an intimidating lift. But I'm determined to get stronger.
 
I take that as a big compliment. Thankyou.

Thu 06/05/10

Squats
2x5x20kg
1x5x35kg
1x3x50kg
1x2x60kg
3x5x65kg
Pull Ups 7xbodyweight

Bench Press
2x5x20kg
1x5x30kg
1x3x40kg
1x2x50kg
3x5x57.5kg -- It felt good getting through all those working sets and reps. I had one of my friends there to spot me in case I needed it, but it turns out I didn't, which is always rewarding.
Pull Ups 8xbodyweight

Deadlifts
2x5x50kg
1x5x60kg
2x3x70kg
1x5x75kg
Rows
1x5x40kg
3x5x45kg
Pull Ups 6xbodyweight

It seems that since returning from Bundaberg, my pull up strength has shot up, since when I was there on my holiday the other week and couldn't add any weight to my pull ups, I still struggled to get through 5 reps. Then this week, I've peaked at 9 reps for chins and 8 reps for pull ups. I have a good feeling about this. I used to be able to do 13 pull ups. That's a record I want to meet and beat.
 
This morning I decided to measure my breakfast to work out how much I'm actually consuming, and it added up to about 600kcal. I'm happy with that.
 
Sat 08/05/10

Squats
2x5x20kg
1x5x35kg
1x3x50kg
1x2x60kg
3x5x67.5kg -- I made myself proud doing this. It actually felt slightly easier than when I did 65kg 2 days ago, and I'd been worried that I'd have problems when reaching this weight. If you'll look at the first page of this journal, you'll see that I previously had only reached 3x3 at 67.5kg. Needless to say, achieving 2 more reps per set, for a total of 6 extra reps at this weight, and feeling like I could have done a little more, is very rewarding to my ego.
Chin Ups 9 x BW

Press
2x5x20kg
1x5x22.5kg
1x3x25kg
1x2x30kg
3x5x32.5kg -- Right after my first set I tried correcting form on a couple meatheads who think an assisted bicep curl is a power clean. They didn't take kindly to my attempts to help them out, which aggitated me, but perhaps I should thank them, because suddenly the next 2 sets of press were much easier. Nothing like a little anger to convert into aggression against the bar.
Chin Ups 8 x BW

Power Cleans
2x5x20kg
1x5x27.5kg
1x3x35kg
1x2x40kg
5x3x42.5kg
Chin Ups 8 x BW

Then I rushed off to my first class on Pilates Instruction, which had some postural assessments, basic core/pelvic floor activation and a Pilates matwork session delivered by the teacher.
 
Mon 10/05/10

Squats
2x5x20kg
1x5x35kg
1x3x50kg
1x2x60kg
3x5x70kg -- For full squats, I'm pretty sure that's a new PR.
Pull Ups 5 x BW -- Probably should have waited more than 10 sec after finishing my squats before doing pull ups; would've done a couple more reps, most likely.

Bench Press
2x5x20kg
1x5x35kg
1x3x45kg
1x2x55kg
3x5x60kg -- Pretty sure that's a PR, as well. Furthermore, I didn't have any spotter to help me out in case of emergency. The last rep of the last set came up slowly. Just had to remember to tell myself: "Even if you think the bar's stopped, it hasn't. Just keep on pushing." As I recall, the last time I did 60kg for reps, I got up to 4 reps. It was very strange after training today when I sat down and thought about it, and realised I only have two more bench press sessions before I reach my goal for this stage of the program. And I think I might actually reach 3x5x65kg in those next two sessions, too, which would be very rewarding.
Pull Ups 7 x BW

Deadlifts
2x5x60kg
1x5x65kg
1x3x70kg
1x2x75kg
1x5x80kg
Rows
1x5x40kg
2x5x47.5kg
1x3x47.5kg -- I'll stay at this weight next time I do deadlifts and rows.
Pull Ups 8 x BW

Valsalva Maneuvre makes it hard to tell how much more you can lift, at least when you've spent so many years inhaling on the eccentric and exhaling on the concentric. It's something I've only ever used for 1RM's in the past, so I find myself in the second or third rep thinking "How can I possibly do 2 more of this?!" But then I do 2 more, anyway, often feeling like I might have been able to do some more on top of that. I'm tending to feel lately like my strength is at a point where if I'd gone up in weight a little higher, that would be the weight I'd fail on. I train each day so that I'll be able to get through the next workout. And I like it like this.
 
Wed 12/05/10

Squats
2x5x20kg
1x5x35kg
1x3x45kg
1x3x50kg
1x2x60kg
1x2x65kg
3x5x72.5kg
Chin Ups 1x8

Press
2x5x20kg
1x5x22.5kg
1x3x25kg
1x2x30kg
2x5x35kg
1x3x35kg
1x2x35kg -- Couldn't make it through the last set of 5, so when I missed 2 reps, I rested and did the remaining couple reps a few minutes later. I'll be doing 35kg again next time I press.
Chin Ups 1x7

Power Clean
2x5x20kg
1x5x27.5kg
1x3x35kg
1x2x40kg
5x3x45kg
Chin Ups 1x6
 
Fri 14/05/10

Squats
2x5x20kg
1x5x35kg
1x3x50kg
1x2x65kg
3x5x75lg
Pull Ups 7

Bench Press
2x5x20kg
1x5x35kg
1x3x50kg
1x2x57.5kg
1x5x62.5kg
2x4x62.5kg
Pull Ups 7

Deadlift
2x5x60kg
1x5x70kg
1x3x75kg
1x2x80kg
1x5x85kg

Pendlay Rows
1x5x40kg
3x5x47.5kg
Pull Ups 7
 
Had Pilates again today. It was an enjoyable lesson. We went through about half of the modified Pilates moves (most purist Pilates exercises cannot physically be achieved by most people because of the tremendous flexibility requirements), taking turns at instructing each other and correcting faults. My body's feeling fine after yesterday.
 
Mon 17/05/10

We're out of Weet-Bix. Ryan's can't train properly without their Weet-Bix, as the following entry will demonstrate.

Squats
2x5x20kg
1x5x40kg
1x3x55kg
1x2x70lg
3x5x77.5kg
Chin Ups 9 x BW -- So far so good. Alas, things started going downhill from here.

Press
2x5x20kg
1x5x22.5kg
1x3x25kg
1x2x30kg
3x3x35kg -- That's Strike 2
Chin Ups 9 x BW

Power Cleans
2x5x20kg
1x5x27.5kg
1x3x35kg
1x2x42.5kg -- Got a wave of dizziness on one of these reps
47.5kg -- Could not clean the bar; only reached a couple unco high pulls
1x2x40kg -- More dizziness; decided it's not worth trying to do power cleans like this and decided to do some Pendlay Rows instead, which actually weren't so bad and felt good

Pendlay Rows
2x5x40kg
1x8x40kg

In some bright news, though, I checked my emails before coming on here, and have been sent the contract and job description from a gym I've been wanting to work at, so I might be employed in a few weeks.
 
^ It's almost always a good thing.

Wed 19/05/10

Squats
2x5x20kg
1x5x40kg
1x3x60kg
1x2x70kg
2x5x80kg
1x4x80kg -- It wasn't the full 3 sets of 5 I was hoping for (I think I just wussied out of the very last rep...should still be fine to progress on Friday), but it's the weight I'd set as my goal for squats. I was very happy after completing the first set.
Pull Ups 1x9

Bench Press
2x5x20kg
1x5x40kg
1x3x50kg
1x2x57.5kg
3x4x62.5kg -- Still need to get those extra reps out each set. Strike 2.
Pull Ups 1x9

Deadlift
2x5x60kg
1x5x70kg
1x3x80kg
1x2x85kg
1x5x90kg -- Goal met :D
Pendlay Rows
1x5x40kg
1x5x50kg
2x4x50kg
Pull Ups 1x8

There's a competition coming up at the gym in 3 weeks, I think. I'll need to start incorporating 1rep Bench Press as well as vertical jumps or Jump Squats into my training for the competition, as well as focus on specifically improving my pull ups. I think the following adjustments might be appropriate:

A:
- Squat 3x5, Vert Jump 1x3
- Bench Press warm up to 1 rep at 1-3RM, then 2x5
- Deadlift 1x5, Vert Jump 1x3
- Pull Ups 3xAMRAP

B:
- Jump Squats 3x5, Vert Jump 1x3
- Press 3x5
- Power Clean 5x3, Vert Jump 1x3
 
Fri 21/05/10

Today was the very last session I had planned out in advance.

Squats
2x5x20kg
1x5x40kg
1x3x60kg
1x2x75kg
1x4x82.5kg
2x3x82.5kg -- Guess I wasn't as fine to progress from Wednesday as I'd thought. I decided to strip some weight off so that I could at least do 1 set of 5 and get all the reps I'd planned for.
1x5x70kg
Chin Ups 1x7

Press
2x5x20kg
1x5x22.5kg
1x3x25kg
1x2x30kg
3x5x35kg -- Glad I finally made all reps at this weight.
Chin Ups 1x8

Power Cleans
2x5x20kg
1x5x30kg
1x3x35kg
1x2x40kg
2x3x45kg
On the third set, I lifted the bar, but didn't successfully clean it, and dropped it straight to the floor. I felt far too trashed from what I'd already done so far in the session to justify more power cleans, so I decided to do the same thing I did last power clean work out, and switch back to rows. So...
Rows 3x5x45kg
 
Mon 24/05/10

Squats
2x5x20kg
1x5x40kg
1x3x60kg
1x2x72.5kg
1x5x82.5kg
2x4x82.5kg

Vertical Jump 1x3

Bench Press
2x5x20kg
1x5x40kg
1x3x50kg
1x1x60kg
1x1x65kg
1x1x67.5kg
2x5x62.5kg

Deadlift
2x5x60kg
1x5x70kg
1x3x80kg
1x2x90kg
1x3x95kg -- Will try for 5 at 92.5kg on Friday

Vertical Jump 1x3

Pullups
1x10x0
1x9x0
1x6x0
 
I've been sick since Tuesday, ergo no updates in a few days. Today I had Pilates, and instructed about 10min of a class. Still not healthy.
 
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