"A" is for, "Hay! What happened to 'B'"?

I got sick and so I missed two days of running and one day of lifting. I felt better so I got back into in today. And boy was it a good day.

Squat 3x5 190

DB Bench Press 60 4/5/4

Deadlift 1x8 200, 1x5 205

Dips 3/2/2

Curls 3x5 32.5

Oh man, I did not fuck around in the gym today. It took me about 50m to be done with the entire routine, including the extra set of deadlifts. I felt good.

On squats I just pounded them out. For the first time in a while I wasn't focusing on form and just got under the bar and pushed the fucking weight. As a consequence I had my best form since early December and just blew through all three sets with at most 3m of downtime between each set. I don't know what it was about today, but it felt great.

DB Bench Press was the only lift where I didn't meet or exceed expectations. I did 3x5 at 60lbs with Jeff on Sunday, but just couldn't do it today. No real worries. As you can't increment by 2.5lbs each time I'm expecting days like this. That said, it still felt great doing the sets and I think the failure was mostly due to not taking enough rest between my warmup sets and my first work set.

I have reached nirvana on deadlift. They just felt great. I was supposed to increment to 195 today, but pushed it to 200 since I was feeling so damn good. I blew through the warmups and then just didn't feel like stopping at 5 on my first work set so I did 8. Then I bumped the weight up to 205 just because. I even did these fine and the only reason I didn't do 210 is because I still have shit to do today and wanted to be able to walk.

Dips felt great. Getting that third dip in on the first set put me at half-mast for the rest of the workout. I almost expected to bottom out and just get one rep on the third set, equalling my volume on Sunday, but HTFU and got two in.

Curls were curls. After next week I think I'll bump up to 35lbs DBs.

"A" is for "Awfully Glad to Make Progress Again"

Squats 3x5 190

DB Bench 3x5 60

Deadlift 1x5 195

Dips 2/2/2

lolDBcurls 3x5 32.5

Woo! I made progress on everything except curls today and I'm very very happy about it. Part of it might have been showing Jeff the ropes so I was on my A game, but I think most of it came from eating properly beforehand. I had a banana and a whey shake with milk instead of water before lifting and I think having a solid meal helped a lot.

I'm tired as fuck now, so sleep time.

Why "Starting Strength"? A Squatting Introduction.

The questions are inevitable: "Yo man, why aren't you doing a bodybuilders routine?", "Why do you go so low when you squat?", "Why do you only do a 3x5 on everything?", "Why not more benches and curls?", "Don't you know you can't get heeeyyyuuuuuuuge doing squats? You gotta do lots of upper body work!"

I can answer all of these questions, and more, but bear with me while I explain a bit about "Starting Strength." The title is fairly self explanatory. Starting strength is a program designed to put the most amount of mass/strength on a person in the least amount of time, considering the given that they are a newbie to weight training. The good news about being new is that you will make an incredible amount of progress in a short time if you put work in. The bad news is that most people have no idea what to do in the gym, and need some direction and help.

The core of the routine is the squat. You do it first thing, every time you work out. This is important for a few reasons. First of all, a great deal of the mass you want to build, is right in those skinny ass legs of yours. They have the most growth potential out of all your muscles. (Do you want to look like that the rest of your life?) Second of all, the squat serves as a great general warm up. After a good squat session, you should be breathing heavily, sweating, and asking where all the lights went. Thirdly, put your ass under the bar and start squatting already.

The squat is done DEEPLY. In fact, if you have to ask "How deep?" then you aren't going deep enough.; you want your hips to be below your knees. You drive from the heels, and push the bar as hard as you can from your heels, and your hips. You stay on your heels the entire movement. The back remains in a neutral position all the way down and all the way up. Yelling is optional, but entirely understandable given how hard it gets to do this when pushing some serious poundage.

Increase the weight ten pounds every single workout until it becomes impossible to do and you have de-loaded three times. After that you should be at roughly 1.5 times your bodyweight.

Any other questions or concerns about the squat you would like me to address? Bar placement (protip: rear delts or traps are both acceptable places). I would be more than happy to answer any and all questions in the comments section.

W4D3: Success and On to Week 5!

So I did 22 laps in a bit less than 21.5 minutes, meaning that I cought up with the time/distance numbers for week four! So it's on to week 5 now.

Situps 10lbs 15/15/9

Hyperextensions 3x8 22.5

"A" is for "Alex Slacked On Updating"

So as I sit here morose having consumed a crappy PB&J sadwich, I feel I should catch up before heading up to the ARC to finish week four of C-to-5k.

So here's Tuesday's "A" workout:

Squat 3x5 185

DB Bench Press 3x5 55

Sumo Deadlift 1x5 190

Dips 2/1/2

Squats: Continued frustration

DB Bench Press: Felt great

Sumo Deadlift: _)_)======|) ~o ~o ~o

Dips: I'm glad to be doing more than one rep on more than one set again.

Nothing really to note except that the gym was in a particularly bad state of douchebaggery. I don't even have the will to type out about how bad it was. I take solace in that one of the guys who work at the gym is a kindred spirit to Joe and I. After three years of working at the ARC he's basically fed up with all the fuckers who roll 100lbs dumbbells into the corner for someone (him) to go pick up after them.

You might be hearing more from him soon!

Here's Wednesday's W4D2 of C-to-5k:

22 laps in 22 minutes. This is still a little slower than the time it should be taking, but I tightened it up a bit in addition to getting in  bit more distance. I'm also fudging by half a lap here, but as my backpack weighed about 35 pounds all day I'll excuse it.

Sit-Ups 10lbs 15/15/10: Oh god I finally made some progress. See above reaction to Sumo Deadlifts for an accurate portrayal of how I felt.

Hyperextensions 3x8 22.5lbs: I decided to cool off by two reps on this. I think the ten reps might have been a little much on a primarily lower-back exercise.

Thursday was "B" for "Bitches Leave Dumbbells Fucking Everywhere":

Squat 3x5 185

DB Overhead Press 3x5 42.5

DB Bent Over Row 3x5 70

Pullups at 76lbs assist 8/7/5

Squat: I think the running is killing my progress here, but oh well. I care more about that then squats right now.

DB Overhead Press: Actually with dumbbells my feet have been pretty close together so it's more like a true Military Press. This continues to be hard, but it feels good.

DB Bent Over Row: Jesus Christ doing three sets at 70 pounds is hard. I was very much cheating at the end of the sets, especially on my right arm. I'm going to stay at the weight for at least a week since the next increment is 75 pounds.

Pullups: Sweet, sweet progress.

W4D1: And Hello Pain

Week 4 is this:

• Jog 1/4 mile (or 3 minutes)
• Walk 1/8 mile (or 90 seconds)
• Jog 1/2 mile (or 5 minutes)
• Walk 1/4 mile (or 2-1/2 minutes)
• Jog 1/4 mile (or 3 minutes)
• Walk 1/8 mile (or 90 seconds)
• Jog 1/2 mile (or 5 minutes)

In doing the time I ran 1.82 miles. So I failed pretty hard on actually keeping up with the workout :( Hopefully by the end of the week I'll be doing better, if not I'll stay at week 4 until I can do 2 miles in 20m. I might have made it since I lost track of how many laps I did twice, but I don't think so. I'll try and do better counting them next time.

Accessory work was exactly the same as it was in the last entry.

"B" is for, "Busting Out Rows"

Squat 3x5 185

DB Overhead Press  3x5 40

DB Bent Over Rows 70

Pull Ups 8/5/3 76 assist

Squats are actually starting to feel good again and I was happy to get through a full working set at 185. I'm going to stick there this week and start incrementing up five pounds each week on Squats.

Press was tough, but it always is. Not really all too much else about it.

Rows are where the real story is today. Joe and I have been switching everything over to dumbbells and how far we went with rows today was just fucking stunning. At about 35lbs the dumbbells started to feel heavy, but when you're spending a day finding your weights you keep incrementing up until you actually fail during a set. I predicted around 45 and Joe concurred. We went to 70. Jesus Christ. This doesn't just mean we managed 70, this means we did about 55 reps total on each arm. So basically it was 1x5 like this: 22.5, 30, 35, 40, 45, 50, 52.5, 55, 60, 65, and finally 70. Eleven goddamn sets. So ya, we're both feeling a combination of amazement and exhaustion. I just can't describe how awesome it felt picking up a dumbbell that is the same weight the barbell was when I first did rows. Really. Wow. It was just amazing.

As a consequence, Pull-Ups didn't go as well as they should have, but who cares?

Nothing else really exciting except to say that doing Dim Sum with Willa, Chammara, Anthony, Andrew, and Joe was totally amazing. That's the first time I've had Dim Sum and it was delicious. Chicken feet are tasty, but a bit too much work for the "meat" and tripe is....eugh. Both flavor and texture just did not do it for me. This was more than made up for by the rest of the meal which was amazing however. I'm really looking forward to more foody experiences with Willa, Andrew, and Joe.