Ok, cool.. :)

Friday, Sept 12/08.

Weight after breakfast and BM= 208

Calories for the day: 3100, 250g of protein.

My first day trying the the starting strength excersizes.

My form will be terrible, but I'm trying to get all I can from videos and the starting strength book..

Workout A

Squat:

2 x bar x 5
2 x 50 x 5
1 x 70 x 5
3 x 80 x 5


Wish I had a video to show you guys.. But it FELT ok..

Was weird but I felt it more in the glutes than the quads..

Tightening up the traps really worked.. No pain in the back at all..

My rotator cuffs however were begging for mercy!!

Bench:

2 x bar x 10
1 x 30 x 5
1 x 40 x 5
1 x 50 x 5
1 x 70 x 5
1 x 90 x 3
2 x 80 x 2

Some bad form on my last set of 80 made me want to go down in weight and do 2 more sets with good form.. Was pretty spent after those.. :)


Deadlift

1 x 50 x 5
1 x 70 x 5
1 x 90 x 5
1 x 110 x 5
1 x 130 x 5

Felt good, though my form was pretty bad, I imagine.. Made sure to scrape my shins going up, lower by sticking my butt out, more than bending over.

Abs

3 x incline crunches with 25lbs on chest.
45 x 2 reverse bycycles

Both of these hurt my hip flexors after those squats, so from now on I'll just do regular crunches

Can someone suggest good warm-up progressions to my working sets, now that I've zeroed the starting set weights?

Good! :)

For a push or pull movement, I warm up doing several sets of unilateral pushes or pulls with a resistance band. Then I will do a set with just the bar (10 reps). Then I add about 70% of my first working set to the bar and do a set focusing on form (8 reps). Then I'll do a set of 4-6 reps at 80%. Then I typically do two sets for weight acclimation at about 90% & 95% for 2-3 reps. Sorry, those percentages are confusing me too. I'm just trying to get the point across of what I do. I'll list out some weights so you have an idea that might be more clear. This will probably be my next heavy squat workout:
2 sets of 10 BW squats A2G
135X5
185X5
225X3
245X2
275X1
Working sets: 3X5 @ 305lbs

Check this out: http://www.t-nation.com/readArticle.do?id=1778726

Ok, that helps a bit, thanks!

Drop the crunches. Crunches suck. Start in with prone planks instead. And do side planks. For flexion try ab pulldowns or janda situps if you can get someone to hold your legs or rig it somehow, saxon side bends (db overhead side bends), cable woodchops, russian twists. Not all on the same day, lol :)

Bar rollouts or a regular ab roller would also be a good thing to do.

Watch your shoulders. If it hurts so much it may be that you are holding the bar wrong during squats.

I would think about taking out the middle squat ("wednesday") and putting in a single leg variant of some kind. Maybe static split squats to start with. This will be of great benefit and allow some recovery, help train the hips and cut down the chance of injury. Also reduce some of the total stress to make it easier to handle the workload.

If you're doing the A-B-A format...I say don't. It's stupid to set it up so that the stress changes form week to week. Deadlifts are going to be the most draining. Deadlifting twice some weeks is just going to result in bad mojo. Just go A-B-C...

If I had my druthers, I'd want you to not even start the program right now but instead give yourself a honeymoon period with the lifts. The things a true beginner is going to get stronger pretty much no matter what. Just a few weeks of learning the movements, honing in the movement patterns, etc., will produce noticeable improvements in "strength". To say nothing of improvements in recruitment.

Planks.. Ok.

I've been doing those with my former work-out routine..

Not side planks, though..

Rotator pain I'm sure is due to lack of flexibility..

I'm sure they'll come around..

No pain at all today.. Just the lower back a bit..

Will go for a run today..

I only did a 10 minute warm up jog yesterday, as per the advice on cardio that I got..

I'll start with the flexibility stuff next time..

As for messing with the formula/programming..

Isn't the mantra:

Don't mess with it!! don't add, don't subtract!!

:02:

So what should I do, if not the starting strength?

well like eric said...ditch the heavy squat on wednesday...and replace it with a single leg movement. i liked to deadlift only on wednesday when i ran it...and then i would just rotate everything else...

so...

monday:

squat, bench, row

wed:

deadlift, single leg, mp

fri:

squat, bench, row

week 2:

monday:

squat, mp

wed:

deadlift, single leg/nothing, bench, row

fri:

squat, mp

Doug, those guys who say "never change it"...I never see them in the journals :D

Wonder why?

What would be a single leg excersize?

Lunges?

I would start out with what is called a "static split squat". So that is like being in the lunge position except you remain stationary..no lunge of any kind. That is still a very good exercise and allows you some time to work on balance, range of motion, etc..

Then from there there are options for progression. You can static and elevate the back leg a bit..working up to a "bulgarian split squat". Or you can go to reverse lunges then onto dynamic lunges. You don't have to do the same one the whole time. You can switch as you become more proficient and as you stop making progress. The good thing is that you can increase the difficulty without necessarily increasing the load. Step ups are also a great option for later on.

Heck, these changes are nothing. I would do something quite different if I were training a novice depending on the person.

BTW, it's important, I think, to think of the warmup stuff as MOBILITY rather than flexibility. There will be some flexibiltiy stuff in it but the emphasis in on movement and the range of motion of the joints.