New to 5X5 :-)
Hello all,
I am 51, with back/shoulder/neck/elbow :-/ issues, 5'9, about 20 pounds overweight and just started back in the gym this past fall, but with this, that and the other, found myself not getting into the gym as much as I liked. When I was in the gym, I was doing splits, I was in there for like 2 - 3 hours, it was getting to be waaaaaay too much & I was afraid that I would just start saying, eh, I am not going to go to the gym, because it was taking up the whole morning or afternoon.
I started doing some research and came across full body workouts, ooooh I thought, I like this, get everything done in one workout! Between bodybuilding.com and the rest of the internet I made up my own program, but it wasn't great, it still took too long, still not really progressing, was kind of just floating around without a real plan.
I found 5x5 Stronglifts and was really excited by it, I thought this could really work for me, 3 moves and adding a few isolation moves, this is good. I downloaded the app, put myself in as a beginner, ( which I pretty much am) got my numbers and went into the gym on Saturday for my first "official day" of 5x5. According the the app, I should start at 45 lbs, for program A, squat/bench/row. (Right now I am using a different gym (just for this month) so have to do it with dumbbells, but since it is just for the month I am not going to delay starting this program because of that) Anyway, I did the bench with 22 lb DB's, now usually with the bench, even with just the olympic bar, I struggled, struggled to get even 10 reps in, before the pain started to be really bad in my shoulder. I thought no way will I be able to to do 5x5 with the 2 22lbs DB's, well I did it and I felt fine! Squats were good, did them with the DB's on my shoulders, only thing was the rows, I have to do incline chest rows because of my lower back :-/. I guess it is because of the low number of reps, but it works and I am not in pain and I wasn't in the gym for hours, I like it!
I am glad to have found this group, as happy as I was to discover 5x5 SL, there wasn't much info about women using it, so when I stumbled across you all on google, I thought yes, a good group of women, who lift, this is just what I need to get me going and stay on track and get involved in! :-)
