Fat and Weak

[tehweak]

Age: 34
Weight: 216lb
Height: 5"10

Fat and Weak. Recreational lifter, no plan to compete in strength (or anything like that). I did a half-assed linear progression 3 years ago for four months and got rid of a very annoying back pain. Didn't continue because the gym was far and I wasn't able to fit in the time. Backpain was back middle last year. So why not just lift again?

Started LP in the New Year's and took a break last week for a week long vacation.

Last lifts before break
3x5 185lb squat
3x5 70lb press
3x5 105lb bench
1x5 255lb deadlift
3x5 95lb power clean

Plan is to do the linear progression. Get perhaps to 400lb deadlift, a 200lb power clean, a 300lb squat and see where the press and the bench are at that point. And trying to get the diet right and keep the BMI under 30.

[olekto]

Welcome!

[ChrisMcCarthy1979]

Welcome aboard!

[tehweak]

Okay, day one on the books.
Squat, testing 5RM until form breakdown
1x5 45lb
1x5 95lb
1x5 135lb
1x5 165lb (a bit of knee slide)
1x5 175lb (good form)
1x5 185lb (weight induced breakdown on reps 4 and 5)

Bench press
1x5 45lb
1x5 75lb
1x3 95lb
2x5 105lb, 1x4 105lb. got distracted on last rep.

Deadlift
1x5 135lb
1x5 185lb (double overhand)
1x3 225lb (hook grip)
single 245lb
1x5 255lb

shit, hook grip hurts after a 10 days break.

[tehweak]

Welcome!

Welcome aboard!

Thanks!

[tehweak]

Day two yesterday
My right-side quad was screaming at me - very stiff and feeling sore in the right knee insertion region. Don't know what that was about.

Squat
warm-ups + 1x5 190lb, 1x3 190lb
Was planning to do 3x5 190lb, but on the third rep i went a bit too deep and grinded to recover. My right side quads got very irritated with that. I decided to call it a day. Will do 3x5 190lb next time.

Press
3x5 72.5lb no problems (i'm using microweights under 100lb, don't @ me).

Deadlift
1x5 260lb. Hook grip hurts less and I was able to rely more on it to squeeze the bar during the pull.

Massage on the quads to see if I can get it less angry at me tomorrow. Both the quad near the knee and the IT band were really painful. Also, the lumbar muscles in the right side of my body felt particularly sore afterwards.

[GlasgowJock]

Welcome to the forum.

After a week's vacation and prior to that a lengthy lay off, scale the weights way back and just get sessions in to build up consistency and resilience; you're training at numbers near your peak. Even top pl'ers like Seb Oreb do it after lengthy lay offs. Don't be concerned using 50% of your training numbers.

[tehweak]

Welcome to the forum.

After a week's vacation and prior to that a lengthy lay off, scale the weights way back and just get sessions in to build up consistency and resilience; you're training at numbers near your peak. Even top pl'ers like Seb Oreb do it after lengthy lay offs. Don't be concerned using 50% of your training numbers.

Yeah, we'll see how this goes. I don't know if 50% off my squat would be necessary since that would be 100lbs, but I get your point!

[tehweak]

Day 3

Squat
warmp ups + 3x5 190lb. So that worked out for most part. In the last set, reps 4 and 5 were excessively hipdrahvey (i.e., pretty much a leg extension followed by a good morning). I was also very beat-up after this set.

Bench Press
warm ups + 1x5 110lb + 1x3 110lb + 1x2 110lb. I thought about doing a back-off set just to get to 15 reps volume, but unracking 100lbs made me just want to rack the 100lbs back.

Power Clean
Testing the cleans. Hang cleans (3) + cleans @ 65lb + cleans @ 85lb + 1x3 cleans @95lb. Did 1x 3 @ 105lb but the bar wasn't getting high enough, so my racking was an elbow assisted shit show. I tried 100lb to see if I would rack it properly but I was so beat up (mentally?) that the bar was too slow at the jump position. And I just can't hang clean 100lb.

[tehweak]

For the lurkers of this log, two questions:

- Any experiences with the BBM Press Plugin? Sounds like the volume to drive hypertrophy theory they have makes sense for me and the top set LP would keep driving intensity up. The difference between the last warm-up single and the first work set is imense in terms of bar control during the movement.

- Somewhat similar Q for the squat, but here is more about form and not hypertrophy. The heavy workset causes some form deterioration and I'm pretty much uncoached (I train with my wife and we give each other pointers, but none of us is a professional). Does it make sense to have a "light" 5x5 day every other day without allowing any form creep or is this too much work? I am thinking something like, for example, for the next session: 3x5 195lb, 5x5 190lb, 3x5 200lb, 5x5 190lb, or something like that?

I might add the Press Plugin in the next session, I'll keep the squat vanilla LP for now.

[tehweak]

Also, a minor rant: for the love of god people stop using NLP as "Novice Linear Progression" because for me it reads non-linear progression.

[GlasgowJock]

Have your wife film you doing a workset for squats and you'll get some feedback on your form.

Similar age and weight/ height to me so a high-200s to low-300s for sets of 5 isn't unrealistic tbh... Perhaps a lighter session as you've went too high too quickly after the lay offs and you're simply just "fatigued"? Do you have a sporting/ athletic background?

[tehweak]

Have your wife film you doing a workset for squats and you'll get some feedback on your form.

Similar age and weight/ height to me so a high-200s to low-300s for sets of 5 isn't unrealistic tbh... Perhaps a lighter session as you've went too high too quickly after the lay offs and you're simply just "fatigued"? Do you have a sporting/ athletic background?

I do film already to do auto-diagnosis once in a while and, even when I don't film, my wife can give me pointers. I'm lacking feedback during the movement, though, because we're still developing the queues with each other, specially during the heavy set.

No substantial athletic background - I played table tennis player but that's just reflex and quick thinking.

[GlasgowJock]

I do film already to do auto-diagnosis once in a while and, even when I don't film, my wife can give me pointers. I'm lacking feedback during the movement, though, because we're still developing the queues with each other, specially during the heavy set.

No substantial athletic background - I played table tennis player but that's just reflex and quick thinking.

Sorry I was being obtuse, I meant record you squatting so that you could host the video on this forum for others to assess.

I've misplaced my blue book but off top of my head for LP:

You're simply tired and or detrained from your lay offs:

1)Take an extra day or two's rest and keep adding 5lb to your fahves.
2)Do a light session then resume business as usual (keep adding 5lb to your fahves, duh).
3)Reset a little; resume your LP from e.g. 180lb, adding 5lb working under the assumption you've detrained a bit as I reckon you should be able to LP to 270lb easily (that's a conservative though arbitrary value regardless).

The consideration of alternating light days, top sets and back offs (fahves) and triples work is if you believe you've hit your LP fahves ceiling for sets across.

[ChrisMcCarthy1979]

My guess is you've simply started too heavy...if 175 was the last set you had good form, I'd start there (again)...or maybe a little less.

[tehweak]

Sorry I was being obtuse, I meant record you squatting so that you could host the video on this forum for others to assess.

I've misplaced my blue book but off top of my head for LP:

You're simply tired and or detrained from your lay offs:

1)Take an extra day or two's rest and keep adding 5lb to your fahves.
2)Do a light session then resume business as usual (keep adding 5lb to your fahves, duh).
3)Reset a little; resume your LP from e.g. 180lb, adding 5lb working under the assumption you've detrained a bit as I reckon you should be able to LP to 270lb easily (that's a conservative though arbitrary value regardless).

The consideration of alternating light days, top sets and back offs (fahves) and triples work is if you believe you've hit your LP fahves ceiling for sets across.

I will post videos. I think you have a point about me being tired or recovery limited, but I'm thinking the issue is associated with my diet. I lost 1lb between Saturday and today. I just checked and today and have been eating under 2000kcal/day. I adjusted my diet to hit about ~200g of protein but I'm doing like 100g of carbs and clearly not enough fat. I'll fix that.

Also, I think you misunderstood my lay-off - probably because I did a poor job explaining. Before the New Year's, I have been out of the gym for 18 months. From New Years until late January I did an 4-week LP "cycle" starting with 45lb up to 190lb (a bit agressive early on, but it wasn't a grind at all). After that I took a week off for travel. This log starts after that. So I don't think I'm detrained.

[tehweak]

My guess is you've simply started too heavy...if 175 was the last set you had good form, I'd start there (again)...or maybe a little less.

Possible. The thing though is that it was the first two sets at 190lb were fine all the reps. The third set was the one where reps 4 and 5 had degraded form. Going by the book, this means I didn't rest enough, right?

[ChrisMcCarthy1979]

My guess is you've simply started too heavy...if 175 was the last set you had good form, I'd start there (again)...or maybe a little less.

Possible. The thing though is that it was the first two sets at 190lb were fine all the reps. The third set was the one where reps 4 and 5 had degraded form. Going by the book, this means I didn't rest enough, right?

You did a test a week ago, right? I'd start there.

[tehweak]

That test logged up was after a weeklong layoff, not a first test at the beginning of an LP. I started this LP with the empty bar. Then I took a week off (see my answer above for more details).

[GlasgowJock]

I will post videos. I think you have a point about me being tired or recovery limited, but I'm thinking the issue is associated with my diet. I lost 1lb between Saturday and today. I just checked and today and have been eating under 2000kcal/day. I adjusted my diet to hit about ~200g of protein but I'm doing like 100g of carbs and clearly not enough fat. I'll fix that.

Also, I think you misunderstood my lay-off - probably because I did a poor job explaining. Before the New Year's, I have been out of the gym for 18 months. From New Years until late January I did an 4-week LP "cycle" starting with 45lb up to 190lb (a bit agressive early on, but it wasn't a grind at all). After that I took a week off for travel. This log starts after that. So I don't think I'm detrained.

Regardless of whether it was consistent or not, can you recall your numbers from your previous 4-month LP?

Don't fall in to the "first three questions" trap mate with your nutrition and rest in between sets (how many minutes rest are you getting between sets btw?). Your original post was good in relation to this; you and I are both overweight and imo we should eat taking this in to consideration (I'm on a slow cut btw). I eat ~2'000kcal myself and it fuels my sessions just fine. 2.5-3.5min rest periods I find sufficient for for squats and dead lifts as well.

Perhaps you're not detrained (this could be a simple 10% drop in performance btw as Chris alluded to as realistically you've only accumulated ~2 weeks productive training if that) but you've certainly not hit your ceiling either. I would have dropped my numbers 10% after a week's vacation just to ease back in to it during my LP. Nowadays after a week's holidays I'll drop as much as 30-40% across my lifts for a couple of sessions as I will have detrained slightly (my hamstrings are always tight getting back in to it).

I'm waffling again. Next week you'll be LPing just fine having got back in to the swing of things.