Stage 6 Questions (optional stage)
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Finished my final Stage 6 workout today! Don't really feel much stronger after this Stage, especially since I couldn't go up in weights very much, but I'm going to attempt a pull-up/chin-up this afternoon, so we'll see. I really did enjoy this stage though.
Karen - Welcome! I think you'll really like this stage!0 -
Karen, I'm starting 6 on Monday too! I finished 5 last Friday, but haven't been able to workout this week due to dental work, so starting 6 on Monday, and I'm a bit nervous! I don't have a clue how to start with the negative chin-up business!
Edit- we're almost the same weight too, thought that was funny:)0 -
The negative chin ups are a bit intimidating, but I'd really suggest just jumping up there and trying one. On my machine at home, I can only do about 85lbs on the lat pulldown, but I was able to do a negative chin up for about 10 seconds and I weigh almost double that amount at 150lbs. Then if you think you need to use the assist machine, go ahead. But you don't know what you can do until you try.0
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Finished my final Stage 6 workout today! Don't really feel much stronger after this Stage, especially since I couldn't go up in weights very much, but I'm going to attempt a pull-up/chin-up this afternoon, so we'll see. I really did enjoy this stage though.
Karen - Welcome! I think you'll really like this stage!
Thanks -- I'm dying to know if you were able to do your full pullup or chinup last week?The negative chin ups are a bit intimidating, but I'd really suggest just jumping up there and trying one. On my machine at home, I can only do about 85lbs on the lat pulldown, but I was able to do a negative chin up for about 10 seconds and I weigh almost double that amount at 150lbs. Then if you think you need to use the assist machine, go ahead. But you don't know what you can do until you try.
In my gym - I'm not sure how I'd get myself up to the handles without the assist machine. They're at the top of the cable station, and maybe I could slide a bench under there? But I think at least for this week, I'm going to try using the assistance machine with as little assistance as possible. I tried it Friday just to get the hang of it (no pun intended) and was able to do chin-ups with 85 lb. assistance, so maybe I can do the negatives with less assistance?
I overslept today, so I guess I'll find out tomorrow.
Avalynsmom - that is a funny coincidence that we weigh about the same. Good luck starting S6 today!
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Sorry, I forgot to report back on my chinup attempt - I wasn't able to do one from a full hanging position. I did do one with my arms starting at a 90 degree. I'm definitely going to keep working on it.0
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Well finished workout B today, man I am SO sore this week! I don't think my upper body/torso has ever been this sore! I don't think it helped that I took over a week off from working out entirely, but that was unavoidable, as I've had lots of dental work done lately!
I did full on unassisted negative chin ups on Monday. The assisted machine at my gym is weird and doesn't have any "normal" positions for my hands, so I figured using the smith machine with the bar at the top was my best bet. I took about 10-13secs to get down, it was HARD! That whole workout was rough and I'm still sore!
Today's workout was tough cause I was so sore from Monday, but I did 30lb dumbbells for everything, 25lbs held out for the back extensions, and had the incline bench at about 30 degrees for my situps. The hardest to finish with the push press, reps 8-10 were HARD, but again, still so sore from Monday, and playing catch up from missing so much working out!
Overall, at this moment, I think I kind of like this stage! I do like that it's shorter, I overslept 30 mins this morning and still got out of the gym at "normal" time! I add 15mins of treadmill intervals at the end of my workouts:)
GL to everyone still trucking along!0 -
Jennie -- congrats on the chinup from 90 degrees! That's awesome!!!
Avalynsmom - I did B today too. I definitely like A better, but my arms were like jello yesterday, and still noticeably sore today. It definitely made the push presses & 1-shoulder reverse lunges tough. I had an easier time with the rows though. I am in AWE that you can do back extensions with 25 lb. held overhead. I can do 12.5 lb. for 4 reps, but had to drop back to 10 lb. to get 10 reps out. Even then, I had to pause after 5 reps.
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Good morning - I just have a silly question about stage 6 for anyone who might see this. In Workout A, there are barbell split squats. If I understand them correctly though, they look & feel to me like stationary lunges, but with a barbell on my shoulders instead of dumbbells in my hands. So why on earth is it called a split squat & not a static lunge? Am I doing them wrong? What am I missing?0
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Hi Karen...
I think the main difference is the position of your back leg.... the static lunge is on the floor... split squat (bench height) should be much higher. This question was also brought up in Stage 4... static lunge rear foot elevated (which would be on a step).
Yes... I'm already lurking in here.... :laugh:0 -
Hi Karen...
I think the main difference is the position of your back leg.... the static lunge is on the floor... split squat (bench height) should be much higher. This question was also brought up in Stage 4... static lunge rear foot elevated (which would be on a step).
Yes... I'm already lurking in here.... :laugh:
Michelle - I love that you're lurking here. I lurked in Stage 7 last week. :happy:
And I completely understand your answer as it relates to the *Bulgarian* split squat, where the rear foot is nice & high on a weight bench for stages 2 & 4. But for stage 6, the *barbell* split squat shows both feet on the ground, more like the "static lunge, rear foot elevated" from stages 2 & 4 -- only without the elevation. So I'm left confused why the stage 6, workout A move isn't just called a "barbell static lunge" - see what I mean?0 -
OH..... maybe Alwyn just wants to make sure you use a BB instead of DBs?????0
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B2 today. I like it, but push presses kill me. I'm still @ 50 lb. total (25 lb. DBs), which I should have blown past in stage 2. I don't know why these are so hard for me. I hit 37.5 on the 2-pt. row though, so I'm going to try 40 next time. 0
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A3 today,and I went from 30 lb. assistance on the negative chins (only got 18 sec. last time) to 25 lb. assistance (lasted 20 seconds), and then 20 lb. assistance (lasted 20 seconds on that, too!). Hooray! I'm thinking I might try no assistance next time, even if I can only last 5-10 seconds, and then I can build on that.
These are so bizzarrely & twistedly fun for me.
I had to go down on the lat pulls from 120 lb. after 2 sets to 115 lb. for the other 8 sets. The 30 seconds rest for those was brutal!
Up to 75 lb. for the barbell split-squats though, and managed the 4-second pause pushups on the Smith 5th peg. I'm scared for the 6-second pause though!0 -
Hi Karen... great job on your progress. I went on a business trip last week, so it was good timing for rest week. My trainer took measurements on Saturday and I lost 9.5 inches all over... and get this... increase 1/2 lb in weight... but my BF% is up by 0.1% (lost some muscle too)... but I'm attributing that to no workouts and horrible eating while on my trip. This also includes the 24 day Advocare cleanse challenge.
I'm hoping to keep the momentum and actually lost fat for Stage 6! I'm planning on starting that tonight. Any advice? It's so hard to find just the right balance.0 -
9.5 inches is fantastic!!!
Hmmm, advice for stage 6? Keep a bottle of Advil close by? It's so upper-body intense that after almost every workout so far, I'm sore all over. Shoulders, lats & chest especially.
For the negatives, I don't trust myself to count slowly enough in my head, so I turn my watch so it's on the inside of my wrist, and I watch it as I descend. If I count in my head, I think I'd count too fast & cheat myself. Other than that, good luck & go for it!0 -
I think Stage 6 is the reward for making it through the LONG Stage 5 workouts! This stage has been so much fun, my favorite yet! In my third A workout, I got to 20 seconds on the chin-ups, so next time I’m putting weight plates in my backpack. I can only imagine what my husband will say if he walks and sees me hanging from the bar with my hiking backpack on and my stopwatch out—I’m laughing just thinking about this spectacle!!
I’ve seen some posts on here about what to do after NROLFW. My two cents--I think I will spend a couple months doing Ripptoe’s Starting Strength to keep making progress on the big lifts (in the way of both form and heaviness). Next, I’ve already got the NROL book (for men) and I’m working on selecting a series of workouts from that book to last for a year. A lot of it’s pretty similar to NROLFW, but the workouts are different enough to keep things interesting.
Good luck ladies!!!0 -
Well... mother nature and my body had different plans for me, I guess.
I was doubled over in pain the other day.... diagnosis: Ruptured ovarian cyst.
Hoping I can get back into working out soon... not sure what to think lately... if it's not one thing, it's another.... SHEESH!!!0 -
whiskeysister - LOL that stage 6 is the reward for bearing through the long stage 5 workouts! I agree 100%. Even though I'm still not loving workout B. I like all the moves in it, but I figured out this morning that doing shoulder/push presses back-to-back with 1-shoulder reverse lunges is killing my ability to make progress on them. In my first set of 1-shoulder reverse lunges this morning, I was able to do 30 lb., and might have even been able to do 32.5 lb., but by the 4th set, I'd dropped to only 25 lb. My new name for Workout B is "crazy shoulder day".
Michele - OMG, I'm so sorry you had a ruptured cyst. I hope you're OK and have a speedy recovery. (((hugs))).0 -
A5 is in the books. I'm not thrilled with my "results" but progress is progress. I still need 10 lb. assistance on negatives, but they ranged from 15 - 20 sec. each today. I tried an assisted chinup afterwards, and I still needed 60 lb. assistance.
On AMRAP underhand lat pulls with 120 lb. (my weight from A2), I could only do 5 reps. I also wasn't sure whether I was supposed to use a 4-second return still? I didn't, and still only got 5 reps.
2 extra reps on barbell split squat (which I still think is more like a static lunge) were tough, but do-able (65 lb.), and AMRAP for my elevated pushups without pausing (Smith 5th peg up, bar just above my knees) were 12 & 15 reps.
I'm trying to tell myself it's still a lot better than what I could do when I started in April, but I would be lying if I said I wasn't hoping to have made *more* progress by now.0 -
Finally did my first workout over the weekend.... I do like the length of A1... though I was just as sore if not more.
Karen, I think I finally figured out the difference in the lunge and the split..... (1) it's the size of the step out (so the split). usually I try to do two 90 deg angles with my legs... with the split, just the front leg. (2) with the split, I stayed in that position the whole time instead of resetting.... maybe??? LOL
The negative chin-ups were HARD. I tried it first with 45 lbs assist... the thing didn't budge downward... so I tried 15.... whoa.... TOO FAST... the next plate was 35 - weird.... so I had to stick with that.... not as difficult. probably could have stayed with 22, but it's not there... so I"ll work my way to 15, somehow.
UH lat pulldown... starting with 80... got confident 90... oh... now too bad... 100.... OUCH!!! ok too much... back to 90... heavy all of a sudden... back to 80.... :sad:
BB Split squat... just the bar... the split is definitely a neat variation... I'm usually very good with lunges and such... my inner thights were screaming.
Push-ups... on the floor (T-position). There is no way I can be holding this for the next workout. I'll probably use the Smith for raise myself up a bit.
My ARMPITS are sore!!!
I will attempt B1 tomorrow 0
