Well, tonight's lifting is brought to you by homemade chocolate semolina! maybe not as effective as ice cream, but not bad!!

45kg 5x5, just have to remember to concentrate on form, my depth was awesome though! movin' on up next time, I'm looking forward to hitting 50kg again but with good form soon

Bench press - stuck at 35kg, and ground out 5x5, think this needs repeating as the last lift in the last couple of sets wasn't pretty... much much much much much better than a week ago though!

Pendlay rows - from looking at the video of pendlay, I think I was squatting too much. This is going to be an issue for me as a tall gal (6ft) until I'm on much bigger weights, it was supposed to be 45kg, so I loaded up the ladies' oly bar with 15kg each side. with my new technique (only bending knees enough to get back flat, wider grip as per the video) this wasn't happening.. so I dropped down to 10kg each side, stuck them on the discarded 15kgs and that was easy peasy, so added 2.5kg each side and ground out some decent sets there. bashed my knee on the way up on one of them, so I'm sure my form isn't great, but working on going for stomach rather than boob height and keeping back flat.. just not a terribly pretty exercise at the piffling weights I'm on.

However after last week I'll take 3 exercises at 5x5 with joy!!

@xidia.....this sub of rack pull/RDL for DL to work on hammy and low back is incredibly interesting to me as my deadlift is lagging (IMO) from where it should be. She your PT give you any other information on it? Please keep me posted on this as I'm super curious if it might be something that could work for me as well....if not as a full on sub but even as accessory lift!

Do you have the Starting Strength book? Rippetoe talks extensively about assistance work for DL, and these two exercises are a part of the discussion -- along with others.

I do. I shall read that bit again, thanks.

Finished my 3rd workout and my 1st week!

Squat: 60lbs 5x5
Bench: 50lbs 5x5
Row: 70lbs 5x5 (last rep was HARD but I got it!)

I am so fired up for next week!

PS this has been so good for my confidence. I attacked my husband last night!:smokin:

I just did a quickie scan over the last few pages. You guys are amazing!! Huge numbers!!! Fish sorry about your injury! Makes me cringe. I love all the ice cream discussion and resulting incredible workouts! I am still just plugging along. Nothing extraordinary to report about me but I do have something exciting to tell you! I got my 15 year old son to do the whole 5x5 workout...A? B? it was the one with the bench press and the rows! he did Squats with two 10lb dumb bells, Bench and rows with the bar!! He has Asperger's and aside from aikido is not really an athletic guy. He was all worried about not being able to do the bar so we had a long talk about how we all work at our own pace and if something doesn't feel right then we deload and just progress from there. Then I used that analogy to say that that is a good way to do life. When things get overwhelming in life sometimes you just have to deload and progress from there. We don't have to stop doing things that are uncomfortable we just have to deload and progress from there. I have to tell you I felt like a pretty BA parent! I think he was pretty pleased that he completed the workout.

You are my new hero parent - what a great way to talk about life with your son!

Hey ladies! I know I'm not on everyone's fl here, so I just wanted to say after my recovery from my OHP shoulder injury,I was afraid to get under the weights again. I started Zumbaing like crazy and I realized that my body was not changing the same way it was with weights, so with new found courage I'm back! I'm going to do SL but in a 3x5 format. I really like dancing, but I also want to avoid neglecting the weight training so I think this is a happy medium. In my last progression, the sessions were getting really long and I wasn't looking forward to it the way I did in the beginning, so I really want to stick it out for the long haul this go round.

Tonight I did workout A:
Squats 60
Bench 45
Rows 65

Cheers and I look forward to lifting with y'all again :flowerforyou:

@fish...I've taken a couple of breaks from lifting, the longest 2 weeks for a trip to St John in March, and have always just started back where I left off.

All the talk of running made me a little nostalgic. I used to LOVE to run, even better if it was in the rain (weird, I know!), but after 2 stress fractures I decided to go with lower impact cardio. It is still something I love (again, yes, I'm weird!), but it's not running.

Nothing new to report on my 5x5....next lifting day is Sunday and I'll hopefully be putting those big plates on for squats for the first time!

Ok so lifting the day after taking a muscle relaxer for a muscle spasm in my jaw made all my muscles go to rubber and my lifts go to *kitten*. 10-day prescription means I'm going to have to do a forced deload. Grrr. Beats being in pain though.

I went to my first ever power lifting meet, and watched a guy in his late 60s deadlift 635 pounds.I was awestruck. The whole meeting was awesome. Looking forward to going again next year !!!!

Happy weekend, and happy Mother's Day to all our moms in the group. :flowerforyou:

Fish - I totally agree. You are one BA Momma!! It is great that a simple lesson in training can be used to help every day life.

Dani - Hopefully the spasm calms down so you can get your muscles back!

Kellie - I'm glad you still enjoyed the lifting session!! It may be hard, but now you can look at people and say, "It was hard, but I did it." Always a good feeling knowing that you are doing something that is hard in order to improve yourself! Makes the benefits well worth the work!

lwoodroff - I lift in a "barefoot" shoe by Merrell. I know a lot of people lift in a cheap pair of Chucks. I think the training shoe issue is the soft sole in that it has too much give. I have been happy with the shoes I have as I can also run in them so they are my "everything" shoe.

Back to A day for me....and this time I got video of my bench and row. I'll post them on the Eat, Train, Progress form check thread if anyone wants to check them out. I can say this for doing a video, if you have any questions about how you personally do a lift, seeing it for yourself helps a lot.

Squats: 1x5 @ 90, 100, 110, 120, 130. So I had a loading plates brain fart on the 110 and loaded one side for 110 and the other side for 120 :noway: Stood the weight up and one side started tipping over. Glad I decided to re-rack to figure out why it felt imbalanced.
Bench: 4x5 and 1x4 @ 115. I keep bouncing between being able to complete all reps and then missing a rep here or there. Today it was the last rep and I got stuck in the down position :grumble: Thankfully another guy was nearby and had just finished his set. I was able to call for a spot and he came over and helped me get the bar up. Nothing hurt but my ego. Lesson learned though that at this weight if I don't think I can complete the next rep, don't attempt.
Row: 1x5 @ 110 4x5 @ 95. After reviewing the video at 110, I decided to deload and check form at 95. Better, but I'm still popping up as the reps go. So I will stay at 95 until I get my upper body stable.

I tacked on the barbell complex that I did Tuesday as well. And then did 2x8 toes to bar kicks to finish out. My whole body is really feeling the week and I'm happy that tomorrow is my rest day. Good Mornings are no joke when it comes to hitting the hamstrings, by the way :laugh: I think the foam roller and I are going to have a long date tonight :bigsmile:

B lift today, just waiting for the huz to get back from his run (and my pain au chocolate, greek yogurt and banana to slide down!). Been checking the rippetoe video on deadlift setup, will retry that today! Supposed to be 90kg.. will give it a go with improved (we hope) form, otherwise will drop back down to work on it. OHP 27.5kg yet again... and hopefully good form at 47.5kg squat. I'll let you know how it goes!

Squats - 85. Starting to get challenging! I've noticed that my shoulder blades are kind of sore/tense after these. Am I squeezing them together too hard, or am I just not flexible enough there yet?
OHP - 60. Last workout's 55 lb didn't really feel hard... it's funny what a difference 5 lb makes! I'm going to count this as a fail and repeat it, as I felt I was arching my back on the last few reps of sets 4 & 5 to get the weight up, and I was shaking a LOT at the top. First time I've ever had to wait the whole 3 min between sets.
Deadlift - 90. Not finding these hard yet... Is that normal?

re your squats and your shoulders, you can try different things and see what works best. I had a more narrow grip at first, and the bar sat consequently sat higher on my shoulder blades. At some point I widened my grip, the bar sat lower, and my form was better as a result, so I stayed with that. It's OK to experiment a little bit, especially when the weights are low.

I didn't feel really challenged by some of my lifts for a while. Just enjoy easy deadlifts while you can, and focus on your grip, your breathing, your hip hinge, etc. They'll be very hard soon enough!