Tuesday: (8-31-2010):
squat 200 lb 5x5
bench 165 lb 5x5
barbell row 155 5x5
dips 25, 17, 12
hanging leg raise 15, 15, 15
EZ curls 80 lb 3x5

Wednesday:
Incline treadmill (before dinner) 20m

Thursday:
Elliptical (before dinner) 30m

Friday:
squat 200 lb 5x5
overhead press 95 lb 5x5
deadlift 250 lb 2x5
chin-ups 9, 5, 5, 7, 5, 5
prone bridges 60s, 60s, 60s
tricep press-down 180 lb 3x5
dumbbell shrug 140 lb 3x10

Weight (Tuesay, 9-7-2010): 188

Notes: Slight movement on weight despite a holiday cheat for mom-made brownies.  The next few weeks should have fewer tempting gatherings, so I'm hopeful for more movement.  I'm feeling a little weaker in the squat, but I'm not sure if I've made my form stricter and that's costing me "strength", or if I'm having trouble maintaining strength with a caloric deficit.  Deadlifts still feel fine, so I'm hoping it's just better form.

Edit: My wife reminded me that I spent yesterday in a squatting/sitting/kneeling/bent-over position prepping a room and then putting in a vinyl floor in my basement.  It's possible that I was just a little sore from that.  Also, this is the blog entry for last week's workouts, when the squats felt okay.  I was remembering how today's felt, which concerned me enough to mess with my perception of space-time.

Posted by: leoncaruthers at 07:19 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Tuesday: (8-24-2010):
squat 195 lb 5x5
bench 165 lb 5x5
barbell row 155 5x5
push-ups 36, 18, 16
hanging leg raise 15, 15, 15

Wednesday:
Incline treadmill (before dinner) 60m

Thursday:
Elliptical (before lunch) 30m, (before dinner) 30m

Friday:
squat 195 lb 5x5
overhead press 95 lb 5x5
deadlift 245 lb 2x5
pull-ups 8, 5, 5, 5, 6, 3
prone bridges 50s, 50s, 50s
tricep press-down 150x5, 160x5, 170x5

Weight (Saturday): 190

Notes:  No movement on weight yet, but I've recovered from a pretty bad cheat day last Sunday.

Posted by: leoncaruthers at 09:04 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Tuesday (8-17-2010):
squat 220 lb 5x5
overhead press 110 lb 5, 5, 5, 3(f), 1(f)
overhead press 95 lb 6, 6
deadlift 240 lb 1x5
chin-ups 10, 6, 5, 7
prone bridges 50s, 50s, 50s

Weight (Friday): 190 lb
Notes: This ended up being my rest week after meetings and an emergency vet visit curtailed trips to the gym. I feel like the last few months have done me pretty well for increasing my strength, and I've got a great deal more muscle - and denser muscle, at that - so now is probably a good time to try and get lean.

My plan for that is to pare back my strength training to 2 days/week, and add 2-4 cardio sessions (ugh) each week, along with some dietary restriction on non-strength days. I'll also be deloading squat, bench press, and overhead press by ~10% so I can work more on my form now that I've seen the Starting Strength DVD.  I'll also be adding weight more slowly, 5 lb every other time I hit the exercise.  The point right now is to maintain muscle while cutting fat, not to add muscle, so aggressively increasing my loads wouldn't make a lot of sense (and would only make me hungrier).  I'm hoping to drop about 10-15 pounds before I start bulking/building again.

Posted by: leoncaruthers at 08:57 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Monday (8-9-2010):
squat 205 lb 5x5
bench 175 lb 5x5
barbell row 165 5x5
dips 26, 16, 12
hanging leg raise 15, 15, 15

Wednesday:
squat 210 lb 5x5
overhead press 105 lb 5x5
deadlift 235 lb 1x5
pull-ups 10, 7, 5, 7
prone bridges 50s, 50s, 50s

Friday:
squat 215 lb 5x5
bench 180 lb 5x5
barbell row 170 lb 5x5
push-ups 30, 20, 20
hanging leg raise 15, 15, 15

Weight (Friday): 191 lb

Notes: Another good week, though rests are going very long (2+ minutes) so I can handle the weight.  I was a little surprised that I didn't stall on Friday's squats.  I'm planning to go one more week, then take a week off to rest.  I need to change things up a bit after that, but I've not yet decided in which direction to take my training.

Posted by: leoncaruthers at 09:05 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Monday:
squat 190 lb 5x5
overhead press 95 lb 5x5
deadlift 225 lb 1x5
pull-ups 10, 5, 5, 7
prone bridges 45s, 45s, 45s

Wednesday:
squat 195 lb 5x5
bench 170lb 5x5
barbell row 160lb 5x5
push-ups 32, 20, 18
hanging leg raise 15, 15, 15

Friday:
squat 200lb 5x5
overhead press 100 lb 5x5
deadlift 230 lb 1x5
chin-ups 11, 6, 5, 7
prone bridges 45s, 45s, 45s

Weight (Friday): 190 lb

Notes: Pretty good week.  Hit all my targets, minimal soreness and joint pain.  I feel like I'm eating a lot more lately, but my weight's staying pretty steady.  I'm definitely adding muscle mass, and gaining some abdominal definition.  I should probably do a waist measurement soon.

Posted by: leoncaruthers at 03:02 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Monday:
squat 175 lb 5x5
bench 160 lb 5x5
barbell row 150 5x5
push-ups 35, 16, 12
hanging leg raise 15, 15, 15

Wednesday:
squat 180 lb 5x5
overhead press 105 lb 5, 5, 5, 4 (f), 3 (f)
deadlift 220 lb 2x5
chin-ups 11, 5, 5, 6
prone bridges 45s, 45s, 45s

Friday:
squat 185 lb 5x5
bench 165 lb 5x5
barbell row 155 lb 5x5
dips 24, 16, 12, 16
hanging leg raise 15, 15, 15

Weight (Friday): 190 lb

Notes: Cut most of my rests down to 1m to try and shorten the workouts somewhat.  Failed on overhead presses at 105 lb, planning to just deload to 95 lb on Monday and maybe add some reps (5x6?) to build up shoulder endurance.  Squats are a lot easier this time at 185 lb than they were in week 5.  Deadlifts continue to be challenging but do-able, though I might drop back to the recommended single set, as I'm noticing more stiffness in my back since I added the extra set.  Bench presses are finally starting to get difficult, but I'm managing so far.  Prior to this program, my typical visit to the bench would be a warm-up at 135 lb for 15 reps, then 10 reps at 155 lb, then 5 at 175 lb, sometimes I could do 5 reps at 185 lb, but it was tough.  I'm stronger now than I was then, but it remains to be seen just how much.

Posted by: leoncaruthers at 09:45 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Tuesday:
squat 165 lb 5x5
bench 155 lb 5x5
barbell row 145 lb 5x5
dips 29, 16, 13
hanging leg raise 15, 15, 15

Friday:
squat 170 lb 5x5
overhead press 100 lb 5x5 (!)
deadlift 215 lb 2x5
pull-ups 10, 6, 5, 7
prone bridges 45s, 45s, 45s

Weight (Friday): 191 lb.

Notes:  Finally got to 5x5 on 100lb overhead press.  Had to miss Monday for an all-day meeting, so I opted for Tuesday and Friday weightlifting to get the most possible rest in the week.  Seems to have helped.

Posted by: leoncaruthers at 09:49 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Wednesday:
squat 155 lb 5x5
bench 150 lb 5x5
barbell row 140 lb 5x5
push-ups 36, 19, 15
hanging leg raise 15, 15, 15

Friday:
squat 160 lb 5x5
overhead press 100 lb 5, 5, 5, 4 (failed), 4 (failed)
deadlift 210 lb 2x5
chin-ups 11, 5, 5, 7
prone bridges 45s, 45s, 45s
overhead press 85 lb 2x6

Notes:  Abbreviated workout schedule this week so I could recover from laying floor last Saturday.  Tried again on 100 lb for OH press, and I'm still failing, so one more try and then I deload to 85lb or so.  My assistance-work rep totals seem to have stabilized after a bit of a drop, likely due to greater fatigue from primary exercise.  I may or may not do a full 3 workouts this week.  My Monday and Tuesday work schedules have me tightly constrained.  Might be another W-F week.

Posted by: leoncaruthers at 11:04 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Monday:
squat 185 lb 5x5
overhead press 95 lb 5x5
deadlift 200 lb 1x5
chin-ups 10, 7, 5, 8
prone bridges 45s, 45s, 45s

Wednesday:
squat 190 lb 5x5
bench 145lb 5x5
barbell row 135lb 5x5
dips 25, 15, 10
hanging leg raise 15, 15, 15

Saturday:
squat 200lb x5, x5, x3 (failed), 195lb x5
overhead press 100 lb x5, x5, x5, x4 (failed), x5
deadlift 205 lb 1x5
pull-ups 10, 6, 5
prone bridges 45s, 45s, 45s

Notes:  I screwed up with Saturday's (would have been Friday's) squat number, it should have been 195 lb from the get-go.  In any event, my form is suffering, and bad form leads to joint pain/injury, so it's time to deload that, maybe by as much as 40 lb so I can start coming up fast again and build some power.  My overhead presses are going slower as well, and I caught myself giving a leg boost to a couple of reps, so I'm going to give 100 lb a couple more tries, then deload that if I'm still failing.  I burned out a lot of my bend-over and squat muscles putting in a vinyl floor on Saturday after my workout, so I skipped today's scheduled workout, planning to just do Tuesday and Friday this week.

Posted by: leoncaruthers at 04:50 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Took this week off to let my joints recover, just realized I'd missed posting to that effect on Friday as planned.

Happy Independence Day!

Posted by: leoncaruthers at 09:51 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Monday:
squat 175 lb 5x5
bench 135 lb 5x5
inverted row 18, 12, 11
dips 27, 14, 12
hanging leg raise 15, 15, 15

Wednesday:
squat 180 lb 5x5
overhead press 90 lb 5x5
deadlift 195 lb 1x5
pull-ups 10, 6, 5, 8
prone bridges 45s, 45s, 45s

Friday:
squat 185 lb 5x5
bench 140 lb 5x5
inverted row 17, 12, 10
push-ups 32, 24, 12
hanging leg raise 15, 15, 15

Friday weigh-in: 191 lb, 24.3% body fat.

Notes: My squats are hard enough now to require a full 2 minute minimum rest between sets, same for most of the assistance exercises.  This means that even without cardio I'm up to a full hour for each workout, so I haven't been able to tack a cardio session onto the end.  While this should have meant I hit the treadmill or elliptical on my off days, I found myself time constrained.  I'm pretty close to stalling on my squats and overhead presses.  The barbell work is also getting hard enough that my sets to failure on assistance exercises are ending a little sooner.  I'm also trying to be more strict with myself on what constitutes failure.  Prior to this past week I was likely being much too lenient on poor-form reps at the end of some of the sets.

Since I've now been in the gym for 7 weeks since my last rest week, I'm considering taking this next week off.  It'll have to depend on how my knees feel tomorrow morning.

Posted by: leoncaruthers at 08:04 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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190 lb today, 24.3% body fat.  Today's the final entry in this category.  I managed to lose somewhere between 30 and 35 lb.  20-25 of that was in the first 3 months, and 5 of that was in the past five months.  I've been in the gym very consistently in those 5 months, and I've had a considerable amount of re-composition, so it's not all bad news.

Anyhow, I didn't hit my original goal (140), and I didn't hit my revised goal (160), but I ultimately didn't do too badly, either.  My legs are made of iron these days, my arms and shoulders are a lot stronger than they were, I can at least see the hint of some abs with my shirt off, and what little is left of my gut doesn't have dunlap disease any more.

My motivation has changed a lot, too.  Training for strength these past 4 weeks and counting has really made me start to shift my priority to that, to just getting stronger.  My weight loss or lack thereof has become a lot less important to me than how much iron I can push, pull, and press.  I suspect that's a good thing.  If I lose more weight while I pursue that goal, great.  If I get stronger, that's even better.

Posted by: leoncaruthers at 01:18 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Monday:
squat 160 lb 5x5
overhead press 80 lb 5x5
deadlift 165 lb 1x5
pull-ups 10, 6, 5, 7
prone bridges 45s, 45s, 45s
elliptical 23m

Wednesday:
squat 165 lb 5x5
bench 130 5x5
inverted row 18, 12, 10, 8
push-ups 38, 20, 16
reverse crunch 12
hanging leg raise 15, 12, 12
elliptical 24m

Friday:
squat 170 lb 5x5
overhead press 85 lb 5x5
deadlift 185 lb 1x5
chin-ups 11, 6, 6, 8
prone bridges 45s, 45s, 45s
no cardio (time constraint)

Saturday:
15 min walk, slow-paced.

Friday weigh-in: 191 lb, 27% body fat (didn't shower first; I lose 3% body fat if I shower, crapass instrumentation).

Notes:  Planning cardio for Saturday with a post update.  Tried reverse crunches on Wednesday and decided I get more out of hanging leg raises.

Posted by: leoncaruthers at 12:22 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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191 lb, 24.2% body fat. I'm reading Lyle McDonald's The Ketogenic Diet and he mentions -- with citation -- that bioelectric impedance generally works poorly for people in or near ketosis.  The electrical properties exploited to measure body fat are different enough when you're low-carbing that the results can't really be trusted.  I'm not about to spring for DEXA or immersion testing, so I might have to break down and get some calipers eventually.

Or just keep looking in the mirror and pinching.

Posted by: leoncaruthers at 09:29 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Monday:
squat 145 lb 5x5
bench 120 lb 5x5
inverted row 17, 14, 10
push-ups 33, 16, 12
hanging leg raise 15, 15, 12
elliptical 20m

Wednesday:
squat 150 lb 5x5
overhead press 75 lb 5x5
deadlift 160 lb 1x5
chin-ups 10, 6, 5, 7
prone bridges 40s, 40s, 40s
elliptical 21m

Friday:
squat 155 lb 5x5
bench 125 lb 5x5
inverted row 17, 14, 10
dips 24, 18, 14
hanging leg raise 15, 15, 12
elliptical 22m

Friday weigh-in: 191 lb, 24.% body fat.

Notes:  Back up a little bit in weight, maybe down in fat, hard to say.  My legs are a lot more defined, and my abdominal fat pinches a lot thinner than it did a few weeks ago.  Some lingering pain in my right shoulder; I'll need to watch that.

Posted by: leoncaruthers at 03:12 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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190 lb, 24% body fat yesterday (didn't weigh in before work this morning).  So I'm up a pound from Friday, but no worse off than last week at this time.  We'll see what next week brings, I guess.

Posted by: leoncaruthers at 09:22 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Monday:
squat 120 lb 5x5
overhead press 60 lb 5x5
deadlift 130 lb 1x5
chin-ups 10, 6, 5, 6
prone bridges 40s, 40s, 40s
elliptical 18m

Wednesday:
squat 135 lb 5x5
bench 115 5x5
inverted row 14, 10, 8
push-ups 30, 16, 12
hanging leg raise 15, 15, 12
recumbent bike 19m

Friday:
squat 140 lb 5x5
overhead press 70 lb 5x5
deadlift 155 lb 1x5
pull-ups 8, 5, 5, 7
prone bridges 40s, 40s, 40s
no cardio (knees were bugging me)

Saturday*:
elliptical 40m

Friday weigh-in: 189 lb, 24.6% body fat

Notes:  Knees were bugging me on Friday, and I needed to get back to work, so I cut that workout short with the intention of doing some long cardio on Saturday.  I'm pleased to see I've dropped to the 180s finally.  My diet is finally fully dialed in, and I seem to be losing fat slowly again, even with the poor quality of sleep I've experienced lately.

*Updated later.

Posted by: leoncaruthers at 03:47 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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190 lb, 24% body fat today.  I'm sleeping badly due to some work-related stress, so I might have lost more otherwise.  Hard to say.  My diet has stayed clean despite the stress, so that's something.  I'll have another training log on Friday.

Posted by: leoncaruthers at 09:00 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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As noted in this week's weigh-in, I've started doing a strength-training protocol called StrongLifts5x5.  As it's the first time I've done actual strength training as opposed to body building (there's a difference), I'm going to be keeping records of my progress so I can be sure I'm actually making some.  I'm substituting hanging leg raises for reverse crunches, and alternating push-ups with dips

Anyhow, the mee.nu table editor is user-unfriendly, and I don't feel like re-learning table html right this second, so here's what the first week's workouts looked like:

Monday:
squat 90 lb 5x5
bench 90 lb 5x5
inverted row 12, 10, 8
push-ups 30, 25, 20
hanging leg raise 12, 12, 12
elliptical 15min

Wednesday:
squat 100 lb 5x5
overhead press 55 lb 5x5
deadlift 120 lb 1x5
pull-ups 6, 5, 4, 5
prone bridges 30s, 30s, 40s
elliptical 16min

Thursday:
treadmill 30min

Friday:
squat 115 lb 5x5
bench 95 lb 5x5
inverted row 12, 10, 9
dips 20, 12, 10
hanging leg raise 12, 12, 12
elliptical 17 min

Friday weigh-in: 191 lb, 26.3% body fat.

Notes: So far, the program feels pretty good.  I'm not as sore as I would be in a body-building week, but I also lifted much lighter weights (although much faster than usual).  Right now, going light early on means I can get my form and pace (much faster when you're training strength) squared away, so as the weights go up, I'll be able to endure the progressive overloading.

Posted by: leoncaruthers at 04:48 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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191 lb, 29.2% body fat per the scale. I'm pretty sure the latter number is nonsense, because my abs are distinctly more visible this week than last.

I've switched gym protocols from my normal 3-way bodybuilding split (chest/tris/delts, back/bis/traps, quads/calves) to StrongLifts 5x5, which is a strength training routine rather than bodybuilding.  That means full-body workouts, 3x a week, adding 5 lb per big lift every workout.  It also means you start pretty light so you can adapt to the volume before the weights get very large, which means this first week I look pretty silly in the gym with my 100 lb squats.  But hey, I'm doing them 3x this week, and next week, and the week after that...

We'll see how it goes, but there are plenty of folks lifting this way, and the eBook was free.

Posted by: leoncaruthers at 06:18 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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