Credos's starting strength journal

[Credos]

Ok so I finally hitting the gym again.

I weigh 155lbs and am 1.85 meters big (hate converting to a system I don't use, I'm only converting weights so it's easier to follow for you guys).

It's been a while since I did any sport, except swimming once and a while last year (every two weeks once?). I drink quite alot of booze and eat quite unhealthy.. However it never seemed to take it's toll on my body as I've alwayse been told I still look very fit. Before I cracked a rib about a year ago, I did do gentlemens gymnastics (bridge, rings, bar and pommel horse) aswell as rugby.

I alwayse wanted to start doing gymnastics again but we don't have a decent gym to do so, because the good gym requires you to have a level that I don't yet have. The other gym: I did handstand in the rings, my legs hit the ropes, which was unprotected steelcable and yeah I was pretty well cut.

Anyhow, fast forward to now: been lazy for the last 1 year so it's finally time to bulk up a bit. I mainly going to have to eat alot more carbs. As supplements I started taking creatine and adding all whey powder. I'm thinking about taking creatine just for a month or so. I remember when I used to hit the gym that I hated all those machine moves and switching exercise so much, so I'm just gonna stick with: Squats, benchpress, deadlifts, powercleans, press and some extra abs exercise, I don't know the name but I'm sure they work. I saw Jitterburg adviced this to AAAgent, so I'm gonna give it a go (Starting strenght book). Hitting the gym 4 day's a week with a friend of mine. Going for a minimum of 3 months, then I got some traveling etc to do for school so can't promis anything in that period. Wish me luck !

 

[Credos]

Yesterday: day 1

(noting in: set x reps - just making sure I'm not confussing, the numbers might be confusing, but we work with the kg instead of lbs, I'll convert them to lbs for you guys)
-empty bar: I presume that the bar weighs about 45 lbs


Squat:
5x5: 55 lbs
3x5: 66 lbs
5x5: 77 lbs

Bench press:
5x5: 55 lbs
3x5: 77 lbs
1x5: 100 lbs
2x5: 110 lbs
3x5: 121 lbs

Deadlift:
1x5: 55 lbs
3x5: 77 lbs
3x5: 100 lbs
5x5: 122 lbs (I was overdoing it)

abs:
5x10

 

[Credos]

Damn, my legs hurt , squating is clearly doing me good! Before I went to sleep all I could think was: "Argh... So... Much... Burning... Pleasure... In... Legs..."...

Day 2:
Squats:
5x5: 55 lbs
3x5: 66 lbs
5x5: 77 lbs
Press:
5x5: 55 lbs
7x5: 77 lbs
Powercleans:
3x5: 55 lbs
1x5: 66 lbs
5x5: 77 lbs
Abs:
5x10

 

[Credos]

Nevermind, it was a stupid question

 

[Credos]

Ok my muscles are still sore so I'll wait until I'm healed. I'm really looking forward to working out . Warmup week is over so now I'm going to change my reps.
I'm also gonna clear out press cause I fear injury, and I have to pay extra for advice from the trainers (I'm kinda low budget atm, I'm a student). Same goes for powercleans... I guess I should stick to Anthony Ellis his program. It worked for pook, so it should work for me.

 

[Credos]

my dieet:

meal 1:
2 slices of bread with 3 teaspoons of peanutbutter:
cal: 422
prot: 19
carb: 28
fat: 24

meal 2:
2 scoops of whey powder and water, 1 egg
cal: 309
prot: 50
carb: 8,6
fat: 8

meal 3:
7 oz chicken
1,5 cup of rice
cal: 572
prot: 62
carb: 69
fat: 10

meal 4:
same as meal 2


meal 5:
3,5 oz of dry pasta
cal: 367,5
prot: 14
carb: 70
fat: 1.75

meal 6:
same as meal 1 with an extra one scoop of whey powder and water


Total:
cal: 2827;5
prot: 287 gr
carb: 224, 6 gr
fat: 85,25 gr

 

[Fuglydude]

Dude why are you eating that few calories? Based on your numbers you're 6'1" - 155. I'm not sure what your body composition is like, but that's quite thin in my books.

I'm 5'8" - 190+ at 12% bodyfat. I've been doing this for over 10 years. I've been a high performance athlete, a male stripper and now I'm a competitive bodybuilder. I'll tell you right now if you wanna get results like jitterbug and see results you're gonna have to eat more calories!

Your diet is planned out well with respect to meal separation and protein content, but I'd make the following recommendations:

1. More whole foods. Whey is fine, but I think you'd fair better with around 6-8 oz of ground beef or some other red meat instead of whey.

2. Obviously more carbs and healthy fats. Add in yams, oatmeal, brown rice, etc. Low GI carbs. They're invaluable for getting bigger. Remember you're doing a pretty demanding work out program and your body will require the carbs for fuel and growth.

3. What are you supplementing with?

Hope this helps.

 

[Credos]

I just sticked to the diet suggested by Anthony Ellis... Supplements are whey powder and creatine... The dieet suggested a specific amount of cal/prot/carbs/fat so I tried to stick with that, because else I would have pumped up the carbs with 100grams more ...
True I'm missing out 12gr of fat according to the dieet

So you would suggest to eat even more? Lemme see what I got:
Carrots/mais/chicken
eggs
salad
still got whole bread
brown rice
dry pasta
Milk
apples
banana's

Need to get more stuff tomorrow if that ain't good enough...

 

[Fuglydude]

I just sticked to the diet suggested by Anthony Ellis... Supplements are whey powder and creatine... The dieet suggested a specific amount of cal/prot/carbs/fat so I tried to stick with that, because else I would have pumped up the carbs with 100grams more ...
True I'm missing out 12gr of fat according to the dieet

So you would suggest to eat even more? Lemme see what I got:
Carrots/mais/chicken
eggs
salad
still got whole bread
brown rice
dry pasta
Milk
apples
banana's

Need to get more stuff tomorrow if that ain't good enough...

Just add in more brown rice or pasta, and replace either meal 2 or meal 4 with a whole food protein source like chicken or a red meat. Anthony Ellis's diet is great for promoting lean muscle mass. However, I guess I'm a bit old school in that I think it can be more productive to add in more carbs into your diet as they are protein-sparing. You won't stay as lean, but you'll be bigger and stronger.

Everyone has a unique metabolism so you're gonna have to experiment and see what combo works for you. Just stay consistent. If you stick to it, there's no reason you can't gain 40-50 lbs in a year!

 

[Credos]

365 days of chicken, eggs, pasta, red meat and rice...
that's gonna be painfull...

 

[Fuglydude]

365 days of chicken, eggs, pasta, red meat and rice...
that's gonna be painfull...

haha, yeah it sucks, but I actually enjoy the austerity. After about 15-16 weeks of eating the same crap I start to get almost some sort of food aversion to it. Eating ground beef and yams would make me gag intermittently... it was embarrassing to eat in public sometimes!

You need to have a list of 4-5 "equivalent meals" prepped for when you get sick of eating the same shiit.

 

[Jitterbug]

Don't get too excited and do too many sets & reps mate. The goal is to increase the weight on the bar, and if you go by Starting Strength, it's quite considerable each week.

Eat more. Eat a truckload more. Right now you're enjoying the novice effect (see Starting Strength) and literally that's better than even using steroids for muscle gains, so you need to make use of it by giving your body enough fuels. Get big & strong first, worry about the fat later. Don't worry, if you're eating natural whole foods and excluding processed foods and calorie-rich drinks (alcohol for example), you won't put on much fat.

As for your "boring" diet, as long as you commit to eating at least 90% of your meals correctly (I prefer hitting 95%) - that means if you eat 6 meals a day, 42 meals a week, you need to have 38 meals right - you will reach your goal. You can enjoy a little freedom with the other 4 meals, but try to avoid crap.

 

[Credos]

So it seems like I'm gaining boys ... gained 2 lbs in 7 days... Though strickly taken I only started my dieet on friday

Yesterday: Benching went really bad, I must probebly haden't recovered properly yet. I got overconfident and couldn't lift the weight I tried, screwing up the exercise. Really stupid...

benchpress:
2x8: 45 lbs warmup
1x8: 77 lbs
1x6: 100 lbs
2x2: 121 lbs (it was too heavy, really stupid of me to lift this much)
1x10: 77 lbs burnout

military press:
2x8: 45 lbs warmup
1x8: 77 lbs
1x6: 88 lbs
1x4: 88 lbs (stayed at the same weight cause I knew i couldn't get 4 reps with more)
1x2: 100lbs
1x8: 77 lbs burnout

Question about shrugs: I was shruging with 80 lbs in each hand and still had no problems... Was I doing it wrong or what?


However, today went great.

I got my squats upto to 132 lbs and could go even higher, though I'm gonna do that next week.

changed my reps for squats to:
2x8 warmup empty bar
1x8: 88 lbs
1x6: 110 lbs
1x4: 121 lbs
1x2: 132 lbs (probebly can go to 150 lbs - my legs are pretty weak I guess, gotta start somewhere though right , getting beter fast though IMO)
1x12: 88 lbs: burnout

and pumped my deadlifts upto 202 lbs
2x8: warmup: 70 lbs
1x8: 115 lbs
1x6: 136 lbs
1x4: 158 lbs
1x4: 202 lbs
1x12: 70 lbs burnout

I did calve raises but we don't really have a good machine for it at our gym, any different way to specificly train those?

I gotta say about the dieet: It's making me real sleepy, I'm currently trying to study aswell, normally I'm up till about 4 am or later, but since the dieet I'm sleepy at about 1 am. The dieet is also taking more time than I thought it would, though I'm not gonna make excuses, I'll keep on going!

 

[Jitterbug]

If you're doing Starting Strength, do the bloody program.

 

[Credos]

Yeh I'll stick with the program don't worry

Got my deadlifts up today to 97.5 kg... (maybe I'm doing it wrong? It's alot of weight for somebody of 73,4 kg who's in the gym his second week) - 215 lbs
squats up to 70 kg - can still go up a little - 155 lbs

I went friday for training right, at sunday, I couldn't move my left arm more than 90 degrees, it was stuck between 180 degree and 90 degree... I was walking with my arm in a L shape... It was still sore today so I'll bench tomorrow, I can fully move it again though.

I must say that my own weight constantly switches between 73,4 kg and 74,5 kg atm. (I started out at 72,5 when I started my diet) - (I guess it's kinda normal I weigh more at the end of the day once I had all my meals? though it makes me doubt how i can really know if I'm gaining or not?)
Today before training it was 73,4... My body is already much fitter, but I'm not sure if it's really growing or not. 1 kg the first week isen't so much. Anyhow I just gotta learn to be patient

I'm currently eating 3000 cal a day, though the weekends are hard to get my numbers because my parents are against me dieting (people hate change right... annoying). I took some protien powder with me and an extra bread/peanutbutter to fill in the cals, but I'm probebly not getting the right amount of protiens during those days.

Is that a problem?

 

[Jitterbug]

Looking at your previous logs, you're not doing Starting Strength at all. You're fvcking around with the reps, sets and even the exercises. Your diet isn't quite what the program asks for either. If you're not gaining as you should, then keep that in mind. And as Rippetoe himself would say, YNDTFP (look it up).

97.5kg deadlift is nothing even at your bodyweight and for a newbie. Don't worry. IIRC I pulled 110kg for sets of 5 in my very first session at around the same bodyweight (~76kg).

Weight changes don't happen overnight. Fluid fluctuation can be a few kgs easily. Last competition I did, I dropped over 3kg of water in 2 days to make my weight class, and that's without even really trying. Don't obsessively weigh yourself like girls do. If you are doing the program, have some faith in it, trust that it will work, and weigh yourself maybe once a fortnight or even once a month. Combine that with photos or checking with the mirror.

 

[Credos]

I know man, it was stupid, but don't worry I'm sticking with it now.
Thanks for smacking some sense in me again though... You're absoluty right Jitterburg

About the diet:
What should I change? Except for drinking more milk, which I was

 

[Jitterbug]

I know man, it was stupid, but don't worry I'm sticking with it now.
Thanks for smacking some sense in me again though... You're absoluty right Jitterburg

About the diet:
What should I change? Except for drinking more milk, which I was

It's easier to diagnose where you're going wrong when you stick with the program.

Nothing particularly wrong with your diet, but again, the hardest thing about diet is sticking to it, and that requires discipline as well as complete control over food sources, preparation and packing. When you're depending on people who have no idea about diet and couldn't care less about your goals, you are not doing yourself any favour.

Regarding the shrugs, there's a Rippetoe's video on shrugging on StartingStrength.com. Look it up. You're shrugging way too light. Shrug works best with heavy weights, the same or exceeding your deadlift max. When I used to do shrugs, I used my deadlift 1RM for 3x10 (pulled it off a high rack, obviously, not the floor). It's not a terribly useful exercise anyway. Why are you doing shrugs? It's not in SS for a reason.

You always want to do every rep in an *explosive* AND controlled manner. Slow lifting creates slow athletes.

 

[Credos]

just posting worksets here:
3x5 squats 70 kg - 155 lbs (annoying they don't have 2,5 lbs weights at my gym here... if I add 5 lbs ill be in inbalance, should I avoid that or not? its just 2.5 inbalance on a total of 157.5) - the starting strength suggests I add 5lbs each time

3x5 press: 32.5 kg - 70lbs; could surely add 5 lbs next time but again same problem with inbalance...

3x5 powercleans 32.5 kg - 70lbs: first time I really did them decently so, still building that up aswell

 

[runner83]

just posting worksets here:
3x5 squats 70 kg - 155 lbs (annoying they don't have 2,5 lbs weights at my gym here... if I add 5 lbs ill be in inbalance, should I avoid that or not? its just 2.5 inbalance on a total of 157.5) - the starting strength suggests I add 5lbs each time

3x5 press: 32.5 kg - 70lbs; could surely add 5 lbs next time but again same problem with inbalance...

3x5 powercleans 32.5 kg - 70lbs: first time I really did them decently so, still building that up aswell

]

Do you mean, you need to add 5 lbs total, but there are no 2.5 lbs at the gym (which you need 2 of because a barbell has 2 sides)?

So you thinking of only adding a 5 lb to one side of the barbell?

Personally, I would avoid that, and just add 2 x 5 lb (one each side), for a 10 lb total increase.

If your diet is right and you have enough rest in between, at this stage of your progress you should handle that pretty easily.