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October 4, 2010:
Squat: 170 lbs X 5 reps X 3 sets
Bench Press: 95 lbs X 5 reps X 3 sets
Deadlift: 215 lbs X 5 reps X 1 set

I think I finally found the optimal position for the bar on my back for low-squats. The bear is right under my bone and held tight by my forearms. I cannot really grip the bar with my hands like this so I just hold the bar in place with my forearms and throw my hands over the bar (some guy did this in the Starting Strength DVD). The load felt really heavy today (maybe because I am still getting the mechanics down of the low squat). I hope I can get the form down completely without having to reset.

On the other hand, the bench and deadlifts felt fine. I am making good steady progress on both of these lifts. I finally got my deadlift over 200 and it still feels like I could go much heavier.

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October 6, 2010:
Squat: 175 lbs X 5 reps X 3 sets
Press: 70 lbs X 5 reps X 3 sets
Power Clean: 95 lbs X 3 X 5 reps

My power cleans caught up with my bench today. They are starting to feel a little harder. Next time I will most definitely need the jump to rack them onto my shoulders.

October 9, 2010:
Squat: 180 lbs X 5 reps X 3 sets
Bench Press: 100 lbs X 5 reps X 3 sets
Deadlift: 235 lbs X 5 reps X 1 set

Today, I finally pulled my body weight with my deadlifts. I felt it too. The bar was hard to pull so I will start to use the alternate grip. Also, I have a little soreness in my lats and traps, so I guess they are feeling the stress now too. I am going to go down to 10 lbs added a workout now, which will keep it 55 lbs above squats for a while. It seems my ratios are pretty good. My squats are around 75% the weight of my deadlifts, and the bench is slightly under 50% of the deadlifts. I just cannot weight until I can bench my bodyweight, squat 150% of my bodyweight, and deadlift twice my bodyweight. Hopefully I can do it by years end or the end of January at the latest.

I would keep using the double pronated grip as long as you possibly can. It's a good way to train your grip which is important.

Good luck with your goals.

IW

That's good advice. I will do that. Also, I will probably use assistance exercises eventually to make sure my grip stays strong even after a double pronated grip is not useful for standard deadlifting anymore. I'm thinking of shrugs, rack pulls and other lifts. That might be more of a necessity once I get back into intermediate lifting though.

October 11, 2010:
Squat: Up to 1 set of 135 lbs X 5 reps
Press: Up to 3 sets of 65 lbs X 3 reps
Power Clean: Practiced form on bar for few minutes

You may notice my lack of performance in my workout today. My back felt like shit. I guess what happened is that I pulled an upper back muscle from the last workout. My theory is that I didn’t warm up enough during my deadlifts and pulled a cold muscle. I feel it right on top of my right shoulder blade. Also, when I woke up this morning I seemed to have irritated or pulled a lower back muscle. In other words, my whole back felt irritated and too sore for a normal workout.

I figured I could either pussy out at home or go for a light workout, so I chose the latter. I warmed up really well on the elliptical and did a decent amount of light sets before doing any lifts. The squat weight was light so it didn’t irritate my back any more, but when I was doing my presses I couldn’t use my back to effectively stabilize myself to allow me to lift as well as I could last week. I just practiced power clean form with the bar, as I didn’t want to pull another muscle from an “explosive power movement.”

As I am writing this my back feels a little less stiff and sore now. Hopefully, by Wednesday it feels good enough to continue regular lifting. I’ll be making sure to do much more warm up sets for my deadlift from now on (I think I only did 2 last time. Duh!)

Also, after much consideration, I think I am going to raise my bench press up by 10 lbs for the next 2 or 3 workouts (or until it feels “heavy”). Right now, all of my other lifts feel “heavy” or “slower” but my bench feels really light. I moved my squats and deadlifts up to Rip’s highest recommended raise (10 lbs/workout for squats and 20 lbs/workout for deads), but kept my bench from progressing as quickly (only 5 lbs instead of 10 lbs). I figure once my bench is at about 50% of my deadlift, then it will probably feel about right. Right now, my bench is 100 lbs where 115-120 lbs would seem closer to where it should be. I’ll just raise it 10 lbs per workout until it feels “heavy” or “slow” like the other lifts, and then I will take it back to the 5 lb jump. I may need to buy fractional plates soon, so I can progress my presses and power clean when I cannot do 5 lb jumps anymore.