The august ladies' August check in and chat
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Would love any advice on how to increase on the OHP and BP. My left arm/shoulder is noticeably weaker than the right and that is keeping me from advancing weight.
You could do some dumbbell exercises for assistance work and focus more on the left side. You could also use fractionals and increase the weight a little at a time and see how that works out. You could also add in extra reps at your current weight, and when you can hit all of those, bump the weight up and see if you can do them. The last method is what enabled me to finally hit all 5 reps on all sets of my rows.
Lifting tonight after work since I was too tired to go yesterday and too lazy to go on my break. The gym should be nice and quiet. :drinker:
Oh i missed this. Great advice. My personal trainer suggested the dumbell method when i want to increase the BP, because he knows i'm working out alone. Didn;t think to use it for other moves... duh. THanks a bunch.0 -
Hi everyone. This is my first time posting, which is exciting! I'm looking forward to getting my squats back in check this month. The Smith machine (bad, bad idea) ruined my form unfortunately. But I'm hoping to get my own weight set this weekend so I can start over with my squats and really get the form down. I will conquer the squats! Everything else is progressing nicely though!
Also, I can't wait to get to know all you lovely ladies
Hi Storm!
I don't post here too often either, but I'm going to commit to posting my workouts.
How exciting for you to get your own set of weights. Is it like a whole Barbel set? A squat rack too? You will be squatting great in no time.
After all the reading i did here, I knew to use the smith machine only to get the hang of doing a squat and getting a feel for the it, Soon after i was in the Rack.
Glad i'll be able to follow your progress here.
:flowerforyou:
For now I'm just going to get a barbell and plates, but I would love a squat rack someday! My boyfriend can just lift the bar onto my back for the lower weights, but I'll need to get a rack eventually if all goes well lol. My gym (Planet Fitness unfortunately) only has one free barbell so I used the Smith machine because it was all that was usually available. They don't have a rack either :ohwell: I'm hoping my university's gym does so maybe I can use that during the school year if need be. Thanks for the interest! Nice to meet you!0 -
Hello....Happy August. I know I'm looking forward to my kids getting back to school late this month, they are driving each other and me crazy because they are starting to get bored and restless.
Also looking forward to the end of detassling season because all the young males are in the gym at 3:30/4:00 am because they have to be in the fields by 6. But, it will be done in the next week or two and I'll be back to being the lone person in the gym early mornings most days.
Took 4 days off of working out and came back stronger, I think.
Squats: 115 5x5 with good form and all the way down. Tried to go up by 5, nope, not yet.
OHP: 80 5x5 w/good form, wobbly on the last few of set 5. (I had been stuck at 75 FOREVER)
BP: 105 5x5, very wobbly on the last set, but I managed it.
DL: Back down to 185, kept hurting my back at 190, so I'll stay here for a little bit and do some extra reps, I guess.
BBR: Form was iffy at 105, so went back to 95 to work on that again.
I am not sure how I feel about the rows. They feel strange and awkward when I'm doing them.
I feel like I'm not progressing fast enough, but any progress is good, right?0 -
I backed off to 2 heavy lifting sessions + 1 cardio/bodyweight session per week and the inches finally started falling off again. I felt like I was overtraining (again...).
1" off the pooch, 1/2" off the boobs!
DL: 180#, good form except on that first pull.
Squat: 125#
Bench: haven't benched in a while actually
OHP: 65#0 -
Thanks! I have been checking out this group for a while but thought, geez I should actually participate. 0
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Thanks! I have been checking out this group for a while but thought, geez I should actually participate.
Okay I am not good at the quote/reply/aaahh whatever!0 -
Hollywood - what are your knees doing at the bottom of your squats? Make sure that they are tracking out over your toes. You want your hips, knees and ankles all in a line - turning your toes out a bit helps make this happen. You can also try to visualize ripping the floor apart with your heels as you come up out of the squat, and this will help keep your knees from falling in (which may be what is causing your trouble).
So many new folks - You are all ripping it up and getting all RAWR! WTG!
Bikergirl - We are always happy to hear about your awesomeness with the weights, no matter how far from SL you get!
Ok - can I just say I LOVE Fridays on the Texas method! No better way to feel like a BAMF all day than to set some PR's.
Squats 1x5 @185. YEEEHAW! These were super tough and required mad focus. When I was done a gentleman asked if I was a powerlifter. I told him I was trying to be, and he said that he had grown up on a block in Brooklyn that had 8 powerlifters, so he knew one when he saw one. So, yeah, my day was pretty much made at that point.
Bench 1x2 @ 117.5 I had thought I'd go for 3, but 2 was pleeenty.
Power cleans 5x3@65 - dropped back a bit to focus on the drop from the clean to the hang. But getting better at the rhythm, and man oh man - you do these at speed and they are their very own cardio workout!
Push ups to failure - 26. Slow but steady increases here. I'm sure if I did them before everything else I could do more, but it's fun to see what I can push out after a full session.
Farmers walk/waiters carry around the gym.
Then I finished everything off with 15 minutes on the stair master. That thing is a demonic torture device, but I kinda like it. In small doses.
Have a great weekend, all!0 -
I'm exhausted just reading that lol!0
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I actually weighed the bar we have at home (I usually lift at the gym at work during a late lunch break). It was 30 lbs (and not 45). No wonder my deadlifts and OHPs were on point!:blushing:
Finally getting some good gains. July was a big travel/vacation month for my family so I deloaded for my first sessions after coming back, so progress has been a little bit on the slow side, but it's getting there!0 -
Happy to be a part of this group of amazing women! I'm inspired every time I read about what some of you are pushing and pulling around. I started July 12 with dumbbells for everything. Progressed to here:
85lb squats - will probably stall here as I noticed my form starting to collapse. May even deload or take up auxiliary to strengthen core and back
110lb deadlift - I'll probably only increase by 5lbs each week, this **** is heavy!
70lb bench press - very wobbly here, so staying put a while
55lb OHP - damn, these are HARD! I do feel like a BAMF with that bar all the way over my head, though
65lb lat pull-down - well, I really dislike the BBR so I'm doing these instead. BBR is just so awkward
This week I started using the empty bar to warm up but I think I'll also go back to doing some calisthenics and planks, too. Push-ups really challenge me. I'm totally in awe of PP upthread who can do 26 in a row!0 -
^^ THat's great progress, and when I started in March, I could maybe do 2 pushups in a row - lifting for the win!0
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I started the month with headaches and fatigue (road trip recovery), I have two trips planned for August and I start a new part time job. I plan on lifting 2-3 times a week to finish the month, then maybe switching to Body Weight exercises for a month before going back to SL. Not sure though.0
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I ordered Starting Strength yesterday, hope to have it by next Wednesday and be back in the gym shortly!
I am doing a mental "deload" in preparation for some real serious lifting.0 -
Did my 3rd lifting session tonight, Workout A. I made it through a week! I haven't had any DOMS or pain of any kind, which is really shocking to me. My muscles have felt tired, but strong. It's a nice feeling to use muscles you didn't know you had. :-)
Squats: Increased from 45 to 50. The squats themselves were a little harder, but I really felt it after! My legs are like jelly!
Bench: Increased from 45 to 60. Kind of cocky of me, and probably kind of dumb. But I did it. And I did it pretty solidly.
Row: Was stupid and didn't check my stats from Monday, so I did 60 lbs thinking I'd done 45 on Monday. Nope, I'd done 65 on Monday, so I've actually already deloaded. Kinda pissed when I realized my stupidity!
I took video of one or two sets of each lift tonight and will be posting it momentarily.0 -
I'm exhausted just reading that lol!
Yep, pretty much.
I'm gonna get my Nia Shanks on this month and am doing a BB-ish program with 2 main lifts 3x5 and 1x10 plus planks plus elliptical.
Not that I'm losing any weight no matter what I do, so my scale is now at the bottom of a deep bin in the back of the closet and I'm just done with that stupid thing.
Gonna lift all the weights, stride all the ellipticals, do all the yogas and eat all the foods. If I'm not gonna lose anything, might as well get stronger and gain endurance while I'm at it. :drinker:0 -
Would love any advice on how to increase on the OHP and BP. My left arm/shoulder is noticeably weaker than the right and that is keeping me from advancing weight.
You could do some dumbbell exercises for assistance work and focus more on the left side. You could also use fractionals and increase the weight a little at a time and see how that works out. You could also add in extra reps at your current weight, and when you can hit all of those, bump the weight up and see if you can do them. The last method is what enabled me to finally hit all 5 reps on all sets of my rows.
Lifting tonight after work since I was too tired to go yesterday and too lazy to go on my break. The gym should be nice and quiet. :drinker:0 -
Would be nice if I posted a comment! Sorry about that, LOL.
Thanks for the advice. I plan to try it out tomorrow.0 -
I like your puns. And we are august :drinker:0
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Hey, thought I'd post in here too, think I'm into my third week of stronglifts, noticing changes already. Squats are improving well, however my overhead press is not really progressing past 44lbs. Any tips for this? Loving the squats though!0
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I hate hate hate bench pressing... is there any other alternative exercise? :laugh:0
