Squats

• 2x5x45 (warmup)
• 1x5x90
• 1x3x135
• 1x2x180
• 3x5x225 (work)

Whoo hoo! 2 plates. 🙂 If you don’t know what that’s about, the bar weighs 45#, and then I have 2 45# plates on each side of the bar, for 225# total. 45# plates are the typical “large plate” you see (there are larger) in the gym, so it was kinda cool to be squatting 2 large plates (well, 4). 🙂

Used my belt for the first time too. I’ll comment more below.

Press

• 2x5x45 (warmup)
• 1x5x50
• 1x3x65
• 1x2x80
• 3x5x95 (work)

The more I press, the more I like the exercise. At first I didn’t care for it, but I am growing to enjoy it.

One thing I found myself thinking, since I hit a “plate milestone” on the squats was that here I was doing 2 25# plates, which is something in and of itself. I did the math on how long until I’d be pressing 135#… 40# increase, if I can keep up 5# per workout that’s 8 workouts, and if everything stays steady and good, that’s mid-August and I’ll be pressing 45# plates over my head. Kinda neat to think about because I never imagined I could or would be doing such a thing. But then I remembered something Jim Wendler said about goals:

It’s always been one of my goals to standing press 300 pounds. In the summer of 2008, I did just that. When someone asked me what my next goal was, my response was simple: “305 pounds.” If you bench press 225 pounds and want to get 275, you have to bench 230 first.

And so, I put my dreams of “1 plate” in the back of my head, and finished out my last set at 95# because I have to get through that set first. 🙂

One day at a time, one workout at a time, one set at a time, one rep at a time. You can so easily get caught up in where you want to be and the dreams of tomorrow, but to do this lift you have to be right here right now and in this moment and not caring about the next rep until the next rep is the current rep.

Deadlift

• 2x5x95 (warmup)
• 1x3x115
• 1x2x165
• 1x5x195 (work)

I wore my belt here, but I knew it would be a little different due to the body position so I figured to wear it on my warmup sets just to get the right feel. Well… as soon as I got into position over the bar a sharp pain shot up the left side of my back and into my left arm. I think I pinched something due to the belt and the fact I had to really bend over to get the bar (remember, it’s using 25# plates so the bar is much lower to the ground). I think it was just too much angle and so a nerve got pinched. I took off the belt and waited a few minutes, it died down, I lifted and used the belt only on the last 2 sets since those were indexed by 45# plates and thus created a better angle.

Commentary

Another strong workout. PR’s continue to happen, tho there’s no question I can feel the weights getting closer to limits and things are slowing down. That’s fine, that’s to be expected.

The belt will deserve a blog posting of its own, and I’ll get to that once I’ve got a few more workouts under my belt (pun intended). However, initial results are good. It feels strange tho… I’ve lifted with belts in the past but it was alway the “commercial” stuff where it’s 2″ in the front and 4″-ish in the back, which I now learn are kinda pointless because it’s your abs that need to push against something so why the little tiny 2″ wall up front… doesn’t give you much to push against. There’s no question there’s more wall here. The belt is mighty thick and doesn’t flex much, so it is a little uncomfortable, but as I found a groove it wasn’t bad. That will be what I have to do over the next some workouts is find the positions and tightnesses that work for me. I can already tell that the buckle position needs to be rather centered for my squat, but it needs to be a little to the right for the deadlift so the fold of the leather that holds the roller bar is more centered and doesn’t poke into my stomach when I bend over. Squats are tighter than deadlifts. Squat ends up with a fairly even positioning (tho I’ll play with getting it higher or lower, wherever there’s best abs push it seems), but deadlift wants a low in the front and high in the back position… and I really have to push it into that position (and the one-notch looser than squats helps).

All cool.

While I’m sure I’ll be on this novice-style program for many more months, I find myself starting to think about intermediate programs: Texas Method? Starr Method? Greyskull LP? Madcow 5×5? Wendler 5/3/1? Something custom to my needs? I’m not sure and certainly not making any decisions just yet, but I want to be read on the topic so when it’s time I can make a decision and just keep rolling along. I will say that I’m wanting to keep my strength but I will want to try dropping some body fat. Everything else…. we’ll see when I get there.