A Weak Squatter's Road To Redemption

[GinjaNinja85]

Hi there,

I've been lifting regularly since August 2011 after a couple of years off. I'm still a novice but I've picked up some decent knowledge from this site and Mark Rippetoe's SS and PP books. Anyway after a run of self made splits I've now committed full bloodedly to Rippetoe's Starting Strength. Time for REAL gains!


I'm following Kethnabbs adjustment from the official SS FAQ thread. It replaces the clean with row and does deadlift on the same day as bench. Minor details. This is an approved Rippetoe variation by Mark Rip himself so yeah, here it is...

Workout A
Squat. 3x5
Bench press. 3x5
Deadlifts. 1x5

Workout B
Squat. 3x5
Military press. 3x5
Pendlay rows. 3x5

I started on Feb 28th. Here are my previous 5rms...

Squat 70kg 155lb
Bench 80kg 175lb
Deadlift 112.5kg 247.5lb
Press 55kg 120lb
Row 55kg 120lb

I started conservatively, aiming to hit my 5rm on all lifts around the end of week 3, apart from my squat. I had done only parallel squats at 200lbs before so I found my 3x5rm in my first workout and adjusted from there. I'll post my first 3 weeks progress plus a pic over the weekend. Here goes!

[GinjaNinja85]

I'm from England and our plates are measured in kilos over here. For the sake of time and my sanity, I'll post in kilos. (1kg=2.2lb)

Feb 28
Squat 5,5,5 70kg(PR) was tough this so I'm dropping down a bit to nail the form
Bench 5,5,5 70kg
Deadlift 5 102.5kg

Mar 1
Squat 5,5,5 65kg this felt better. Start conservatively.
Press 5,5,5 45kg
Row 5,5,5 45kg

Mar 3
Squat 5,5,5 67.5kg
Bench 5,5,5 72.5kg
Deadlift 5 105kg

Had to find my feet on the squat, but otherwise, this felt easy. Which it's supposed to.

[GinjaNinja85]

WEEK 2*

Mar 5
Squat 5,5,5 70kg this now felt easy
Press 5,5,5 47.5kg
Row 5,5,5 47.5kg

Mar 8*
Squat 5,5,5 72.5kg(PR)
Bench 5,5,5 75kg
Deadlift 5 107.5kg

Mar 10
Squat 5,5,5 75kg(PR)
Press 5,5,5 52.5kg
Row 5,5,5 50kg

I wanted this week to begin feeling challenging so I increased the press more as it felt too easy. The press is usually the 1st to stall so hopefully I don't regret this. Feels good so far though, can't wait for it to get heavy!

Measurements (updated from 22 Feb)
Arms up 3/8" to 15 3/8"
Chest up 1" to 42"
Legs up 1 1/2" to 25"
Waist up 1/2" to 36 1/2"
Weight up 2.5kg to 90kg

Very happy with this progress. Alot of this growth is because of my previous split, especially the arm growth. Legs however, is down to squatting 3x a week, well impressed!

[GinjaNinja85]

Progress pic after 2 weeks on SS

http://imagecdn.bodybuilding.com/img...m1xBY0074.jpeg

[GinjaNinja85]

Mar 14
Squat 5,5,5 80kg(PR)
Bench 5,5,5 80kg
Deadlift 5 110kg

Mar16
Squat 5,5,5 82.5kg(PR)
Press 5,5,5 55kg
Row 5,5,5 55kg

Mar 18
Squat 5,5,5 85kg(PR)
Bench 5,5,5 82.5kg(PR)
Deadlift 5 115kg(PR

This week was all about running at my previous PRs so I bumped the bench and deadlift up a little quicker. I feel ready to blast through all my previous records. It shouldn't be hard though, they're not exactly large. I'll be setting press and row PRs next workout. The great thing about SS, or any real program for that matter, is it leaves you no choice but to add weight. Thou must progress!

[mrmrbill]

subbed. good work so far!

[GinjaNinja85]

Thanks man!

[GinjaNinja85]

Mar 20*
Squat 87.5kg PR
Press 57.5kg PR
Row 57.5kg PR

Mar 22
Squat 90kg PR
Bench 85kg PR
Deadlift 117.5kg PR

Mar 25
Squat 92.5kg PR
Press 60kg PR
Row 62.5kg PR

It's getting tough, especially bench & press. I found by tensing my body tight and snarling towards the end of the set I can push out the presses. It's not making me look very approachable round the gym though. I'm now having to hold my breath to stay tight during squats. Rows are getting easy so I've increased the jumps. I hope I don't stall on the press or bench next week...

My chest is up 1" to 43". Legs have stayed the same but glutes are rock solid! Arms are shrinking slightly. I'm also struggling to keep my chest up during squats so to counter all this, next week I'm gonna start phasing in light good mornings, chins and dips. Here goes...

Edit: Scrap the good mornings, I'm just gonna concentrate on form

[Drufeus]

Great work so far. Reading through SS right now and am thinking of doing the program to really get my form down pat on these core lifts and then continue on with GST after a while.

[GinjaNinja85]

Great work so far. Reading through SS right now and am thinking of doing the program to really get my form down pat on these core lifts and then continue on with GST after a while.

Thanks. The book is great for learning form. I posted videos in the exercises section for advice and that helped me alot. Good luck with SS, keep at it til it stops working.

[GinjaNinja85]

Now I know this isn't the smartest idea when a program get's tough, but the waistline is too much for me to tolerate. 37" is new territory for me and I don't like it lol. I'm gonna cut on a 2600 calorie diet til the end of April and start eating in a caloric surplus then. This is sure to affect my progress though.

[GinjaNinja85]

Mar 27
Squat 5,5,5 95kg(PR)
Bench 5,5,5 87.5kg(PR)
Deadlift 5 120kg(PR)
(Weighted decline sit ups 1x8
Dips bw 2x8)

Mar 29
Squat 5,5,5 97.5kg(PR)
Press 5,5,5 62.5kg(PR)
Row 5,5,5 67.5kg(PR)
(Hanging leg raises 1x8
Chin ups 2x6)

Apr 2
Squat 3 100kg. 4,4 97.5kg
Bench 5,5,5 90kg(PR)
Deadlift 4 122.5kg

Aaargh!!! Killer week. The cut has destroyed my energy levels due to me starting at 2200 calories. Gonna up it to 2600 calories. I was too tired to do the assistance work on the last workout, I felt completely drained. On top of that, I have a nagging pain in my arm that's been getting worse over the weeks. Everything hurts. The squats going backwards. It's gonna do me a favour if I can reset on something. Roll on next week, uh oh....

[GinjaNinja85]

Apr 4
Squat 4 97.5kg

That's all I managed this week. I pretty much collapsed in the gym because of muscle pain in my arm. It was quite unbelievably painful, and I have a decent pain threshold. Anyway after the adrenaline of the pain subsided and I'd slept off the muscle trauma, I decided to not go near a barbell, or anything heavy for that matter, until a couple of weeks has passed. I cannot afford to screw my arms up any more than they are now. I'll post new measurements when I resume working out, I should have lost some weight and waistline by then.

[LiftingObjects]

Good progress so far man & nice to see a UK bro around.

Your press & bench is looking really strong, I'm jelly! these 2 are definitely my weakest point. hope you can get back on it soon.

[GinjaNinja85]

It's so frustrating to injure yourself when your setting PRs every workout. My press and bench have been worked alot more than my squat, in true bro fashion. I've seen the error of my ways :-)

[GinjaNinja85]

I'm f***ing itching to get back in the gym. My brother's started SS cz he's jelly of my progress (must sound laughable to half you guys here with my 200lb bench) and I've challenged him to a race to a 3 plate squat.

I'm gonna do cardio today, tomorrow and Saturday then on Monday the muscle hustle is back on. Gonna reset the weights a little bearing in mind the injury and keep the ab and arm work. Might do a workout by workout update too to keep this bumped.

[mrmrbill]

Did you do something to the muscle itself, or is it more tendon/joint related?

[Filmbuff81]

Did you pick an arbitrary number to cut at or did you figure your your TDEE?

You should try cutting VERY slowly and don't anticipate very quick strength gains.

I would also consider eating at at least maintenance on your lifting days or a couple hundred calories over maintenance.

Then on your off days eat a bit under maintenance so that's more of a "culk" than straight cut.

Keep in mind that if you stall it is based strictly on the fact you are not eating enough food.

Eating lots of meat, fruit, veggies would be more advantageous than cutting so you can build muscle, which in turn will burn more calories and will help you maintain or build some strength.

Anyway basically saying don't drop your calories too far otherwise all kinds of bad can happen.

[GinjaNinja85]

Did you do something to the muscle itself, or is it more tendon/joint related?

Hi Bill, I'm sure it's muscle related. The source of the pain seemed to be about an inch above the elbow tendon at the side of my bicep. That was the source, but weirdly both my arms hurt. I was pretty deleriously in pain for about 2 hours, definitely one of the most painful feelings I've ever felt! My bicep was twitching, just felt like what I'm guessing is muscle trauma.

I think it's cause I pulled it about a month or so ago, floor pressing a guy I met while drunk. Arm wrestling that night didn't help either. Then I just trained through the pain for 3 weeks.


Do you think I'll be ok to train after 2 weeks rest?

[GinjaNinja85]

Did you pick an arbitrary number to cut at or did you figure your your TDEE?

You should try cutting VERY slowly and don't anticipate very quick strength gains.

I would also consider eating at at least maintenance on your lifting days or a couple hundred calories over maintenance.

Then on your off days eat a bit under maintenance so that's more of a "culk" than straight cut.

Keep in mind that if you stall it is based strictly on the fact you are not eating enough food.

Eating lots of meat, fruit, veggies would be more advantageous than cutting so you can build muscle, which in turn will burn more calories and will help you maintain or build some strength.

Anyway basically saying don't drop your calories too far otherwise all kinds of bad can happen.

I took an educated guess by using the formula in the nutrition stickies, something like 34kcal/kg of body weight -500kcal putting me at 2500kcal.

I posted a thread about this and now I'm making sure I keep within 10-20% of my maintenance. Good point though on the workout day thing. I noticed my energy drop so much while cutting, makes the lifts so hard!

I'm gonna cut til the end of the month and then bulk again. Things are so much easier on a bulk. I can't deal with a long slow cut.

[mrmrbill]

Do you think I'll be ok to train after 2 weeks rest?

I should think so. Ice and compression may help, too. If the intensity level of the pain doesn't subside quickly, get it checked out.

No more floor pressing strange men.

[GinjaNinja85]

If the intensity level of the pain doesn't subside quickly, get it checked out.

I don't know about the doctors in your country, but in mine you can go for an appointment with a dozen different ailments and you'll get the same advice each time - take a few weeks off, have some anti inflammotories, oh, and stop drinking and smoking. Thanks doc.

No more floor pressing strange men

Haha. AKA no more drinking.

[kwokky]

subbed back! best of luck on the program man, hopefully you recover from your injury asap

[idofxeno]

Subbed.

Never did SS myself, I kinda got pulled into the lifting thing by a friend of mine I met at work who used to be a big time powerlifter. He's certainly strong and knowledgeable, but I wouldn't call him a very good personal trainer :P

Injuries are the worst. I've had a couple of shoulder injuries myself, and right now am struggling a little bit with a tweaked muscle in my forearm. The forearm thing is kinda weird for me because if I grip the ****ing piss out of the bar, it doesn't bother me, but as soon as I release the grip the pain shoots through my forearm like a goddamn harpoon. Anyway, as far as your situation goes, as long as you go easy and stay away from curls, it should heal up pretty quickly.

Oh yeah, and I definitely can relate to the doctor thing. Seems like they always default to the safest, most surefire way to prevent you from getting injured/re-injured even if that's not necessarily to your benefit ("it hurts when I run // "you shouldn't be running, walking is good enough" -__-). When I broke my rib my doctor told me no weight lifting at all period, but he said I could go to work (I've got a pretty physical job, which I explained to him -- he didn't care). Ended up just staying off the leg press for a couple of months then I was good to go. Doctors just seem to take things out of context a lot.

Keep up the good work

[GinjaNinja85]

subbed back! best of luck on the program man, hopefully you recover from your injury asap

Thanks fella, welcome aboard!

[GinjaNinja85]

Subbed.

Never did SS myself, I kinda got pulled into the lifting thing by a friend of mine I met at work who used to be a big time powerlifter. He's certainly strong and knowledgeable, but I wouldn't call him a very good personal trainer :P

Injuries are the worst. I've had a couple of shoulder injuries myself, and right now am struggling a little bit with a tweaked muscle in my forearm. The forearm thing is kinda weird for me because if I grip the ****ing piss out of the bar, it doesn't bother me, but as soon as I release the grip the pain shoots through my forearm like a goddamn harpoon. Anyway, as far as your situation goes, as long as you go easy and stay away from curls, it should heal up pretty quickly.

Oh yeah, and I definitely can relate to the doctor thing. Seems like they always default to the safest, most surefire way to prevent you from getting injured/re-injured even if that's not necessarily to your benefit ("it hurts when I run // "you shouldn't be running, walking is good enough" -__-). When I broke my rib my doctor told me no weight lifting at all period, but he said I could go to work (I've got a pretty physical job, which I explained to him -- he didn't care). Ended up just staying off the leg press for a couple of months then I was good to go. Doctors just seem to take things out of context a lot.

Keep up the good work

Yeah, my doctor told me no running when I strained my knee ligaments. No running EVER. Not "how can we get you running again". Unless your dying or your growing an extra bollock, doctors are over rated. Personally I think they should all take up a sport and break their f***kin legs so we can say, see doc, you should've just stuck to walking. Rant over.

I appreciate the injury advice, back in the gym tomorrow morning. I feel like a kid just about to go to Disneyworld. :-D

[GinjaNinja85]

Tomorrow I'm going to resume SS and get over this injury lay off. I've been cutting and I've lost some size so I'll reset the weights a little. I weighed and measured myself though and was a little surprised...

Measurements - 16th Apr
Waist - 35" - down 2"
Chest - 41 1/4" - down 1 3/4"
Arms - 14 1/2" - down 3/4"
Legs - 25" - same
Weight - 92kg - down 0.5kg!
BF% - ~17% - down ~4%

Now I've either been sold some dodgy scales or something has happened that I don't quite understand. I've lost mass from everywhere on my body except for my legs but my weight has remained the same. I feel and look leaner, my body fat has gone down, I've been eating in a calorie deficit, yet my weight has remained the same. Baffled. If anyone can shed light on this please do. I've had a cheat day about once or twice a week but I've not gone well over my macros. I figured that my waist was shrinking so I'd treat myself to a drink and burger every now and then. All I've been monitoring really is my waist size, not my weight, maybe that's where I went wrong. Who knows? I'm gonna aim for ~15%bf and start a clean bulk.

[GinjaNinja85]

2 pics. These will be good to judge my progress from in the coming months.

[LiftingObjects]

Hope to see you back on it soon man.

Perhaps buy some new scales? 0.5 kg does seem quite low but there's definitly a noticable difference between your profile pic and the pics you've just uploaded, looking a lot leaner.

[GinjaNinja85]

Thanks LO. Scales were out, the gym scales I've always used say 86kg so I've lost 6.5kg, which is what I thought. Anyway, 1st day back today. It felt tough and I missed reps on all exercises. I'm not too fussed. I'm cutting til the end of the month so I need to train as heavy as possible. Worked out at 5am to get a quiet gym. Gonna make this a habit.

Squat
85kgx5
85kgx4
85kgx4

Bench
82.5kgx5
82.5kgx4
82.5kgx4

Deadlift
115kgx4

My arm hurt from squatting in the low bar position. I'll probably need to either get tips on flexibility techniques or change to the high bar position. Aiming to add reps next workout.

Any tips on flexibility are very welcome!