TimM's Starting Strength Log (Rippetoe)

[TimM]

Tuesday April 10:
Weight: 226.4 lbs.
Body Fat: 32.5%

Started today. My gym has four squat racks and four flat bench presses, none were in use at the time but it was not very busy this afternoon. For some reason in the last week they got rid of their one power rack, so I just did the bench presses with no spotter on the regular benches. Should be fine for now while I'm at low weights - and they are pretty low, at least I have room to move. My BF% is very high, I need to get this down. I used this Estimated Calorie Requirements calculator and got a much lower number, some 500 calories less, when I used body fat instead of height.

Workout A:

5 minutes warm-up on recumbent bike.

Squat:
45 x 2 x 5
65 x 1 x 5
85 x 1 x 5
95 x 3 x 5

I need to work on form here, particularly balance and staying on heels. I thought I was having failure on some early reps of the work sets until I got back on the heels and it was fine. Knees were OK, some clicking and popping though since I'm old. Also need to get some flexibility in my arms and upper back as it was pretty painful to hold even the empty bar in position.

Bench Press:
45 x 2 x 5
65 x 1 x 5
95 x 3 x 5

Was OK except I should have done an 85 x 3 x 1 in there somewhere. I was going to do that with the 95 but it was hard enough so I made it the work set instead.

Deadlift:
45 x 2 x 5
95 x 1 x 5
135 x 1 x 3
165 x 1 x 5

I used the squat rack with and removed the pins for this, so that the unweighted bar would be off the floor. I'll probably just start at 95 next time and later 135, it's easy enough.

7 minutes HIIT (30 seconds "jog", 30 seconds "sprint") on recumbent bike. One minute to be added per week.

Now that I have some idea what my target weights will be, I will try to add and taper off my warm-up sets as recommended. I was in and out of the gym in less than one hour today. I won't bore you guys with updates every single workout, after Thursday when I do Workout B for the first time. My main concern is to get that BF% down and that's going to take time.

[kyleb]

Looks good man. Best of luck!

[Thremp]

Usually sets X reps is the typical lingo.

Good luck.

[TimM]

Thanks guys...

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Usually sets X reps is the typical lingo.

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Doh, fixed now.

[Spellmen]

I might start my own log, but there are a ton of Rippletoe logs going on right now so this question is probably appropriate here. Right now even with the day of rest I'm typically still pretty sore from squats. It seems pretty stupid to do squats while I'm still sore, so will probably only do them Mon/Fri right now and add in Wednesday when my legs start getting stronger (pretty pitiful right now). Any suggestions on what to add until then? Currently doing military press, pendlay rows, and pullups

[TimM]

http://forum.bodybuilding.com/showpo...mp;postcount=8

[Spellmen]

Ok, for some reason I thought it was strongly recommended not to lift through soreness

[skunkworks]

Spellmen, as long as it does not affect range of motion and does not impact performance greatly, you should lift through soreness. If your hamstrings and glutes are super sore and tight because you lifted too much too fast, then I would recommend you take it easy. Experience will help you determine when to push through it and when to ease up a bit.

If you're past the first month of working out where the soreness can be crippling, then I suggest finding ways to make it a light but productive day. For example, if my legs are beat up, I'll usually squat either a bit lighter than my normal work set (225 -> 205 for example) or I'll do 3 work sets ramping up (205 -> 215 -> 225). I prefer to ramp up because I rationalize to myself, "At least my body will have a better chance of remember what it feels like to do my normal work set."

Edit: Just wanted to add a little more info about why it might be a bad idea to lift when super sore. (I prefer to explain things rather than just assume everyone accepts it as canon.) It increases the risk of injury because:
1) Muscle fatigue can cause you to do stupid things to your form, thus injury.
2) Compromised range of motion can lead to bad form, thus injury.
3) Fatigued stabilizing muscles may not be able to support that much weight. (Ever notice you're more likely to sprain your ankle playing ball when you're tired? Yeah.)
4) Plenty of muscle pulls occur when pushing already-fatigued muscles past what they can give at the moment.
5) In general, injury are likely to occur when your muscles are cold, fatigued, or tight. We can control cold, and sometimes we can control tight, but we can't always control fatigued.

[Thremp]

Active recovery FTW

[theblackkeys]

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Active recovery FTW

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go on...what are some things we can do to speed up recovery?