Had a long shift today but got to leave a little earlier than usual, so that was kind of nice. Made it to the gym by 10 pm instead of 11 and that made it easier to get some jogging in after lifting.

33 - Upper Power

bench 3x3 @ 105 - heavy but managed, plus much better than when I could barely get 1 set before vacation when this was my "working weight". Still going to be hard to increase from here.
db incline bench 3x8 @ 35 - so heavy. Finally tried the 35's and managed but it was a challenge.
bent row 3x5 @ 100 - didn't use the fixed weight bar this time, tad challenge by end.
lat pull 3x8 @ 80 - still tough
OHP 1x3 and 2x4 @ 80 - challenging but managed a little better this time
bar curl 1x5 @ 50 and 3x12 @ 40 - 50 was too much so back down to the 40 still
skull crusher ez curl bar plus 10 3x10 - challenging still

22 minute jog plus warm up and cool down.

kimiuzzell wrote: »

Yup.... it was a case of just making sure all awkwardness was avoided by making it seem a perfectly routine *thing*.

if it's done right, that's actually pretty nice. neutrality instead of a creepy-vibe thing.

i had a looooovely, deserted-sunday-afternoon afternoon in the gym. am never going to figure out what the rush patterns are. i was in there for three hours at least and i had the rack one hundred percent to myself the whole time.

in consequence, did far too much stuff.

squats: not a traditional workout. i'm doing mad obsessive focus on abdominal bracing, and 95 was too heavy for that. i know i started with the bar, warmed up in 10lb increments until i tried 95 and quit after only two reps. after that i backed down to 90 and did my 5x5 there . . . i'm pretty sure. thing is, after that i just kept taking off 5 of 10 pounds and doing another set of five each time, so i kind of lost track after a while. i did a whole bunch of squats, i know that. my BUM had a pump when i went outside for a while to get away from their music choices.

ohp: same kind of thing. i did get 60 pounds, but it was heavy and i could only hold form for a few reps at a time. so i did it in 5x3 instead of 3x5. after i'd done that i calculated how much actual weight 5x5 would have been (1500lbs). subtracted 900 for those 15 reps that i'd already done, and that left me with 600 to do. i did them in sets of 3x5@50, which took me a little over. the warmups were 5lb increments from 2x5@45. press went well, for whatever reason. and i can say: after you press 60lbs, 50 feels like nothing for quite a while. so i got to really dial in tight on the form for thos sets.

in between ohp work sets, prepped my lats and back with sets of 12 on the cable pulldown machine. it seemed to help a lot, and i went heavy enough with strict enough form to feel like i could just call that my 'rows' for this workout, and have done with it.

did a bunch of stretching afterwards but i don't think anything is going to save me from the results tomorrow.

Just another day with a regular shift. Spent a good part of it putting up new sales tags as we had to do both weekly and monthly but also did a fair amount of photo orders, in particular christmas cards. It's that time and we'll be pretty busy until christmas with all of the picture orders that come in. Decent gym session though had a math issue on deadlift, well more of just a weird distraction fail. I was going to do 200 and after 185, I was adding the other weights and actually thought "make sure to get the 5 before adding the 2.5" as I was getting the clip thing off. And well, I ended up doing a lopsided set of three with the left weight more than the right. No idea what distracted me either but fail. Fixed it and got the sets in at least. Tuesday I meet with trainer guy for caliper body fat assessment just to get a general idea as December is back to focus more on nutrition and seeing where I can get the scale to move down to as I work towards my June goals.

34 - lower power
squat 4x3 @ 170 - It was heavy but I managed.
deadlift 1x3 @ 195, 3x3 @ 200 - okay, though lockout felt a bit off tonight. My right elbow was bugging me so I kept to the same switch grip instead of mixing up which one is under instead of over.
sumo deadlift 2x5 @ 155 - fine though still unsure on sumo but it's getting better I think. Keeping to both overhand on the grip too, so not bad as these are after the heavy regular ones.
leg press 1x8 and 2x10 @ 225 - decent so increased reps on the last two sets.
leg curl 3x9 @ 70 - tried 80 but too much struggle so brought it back down to 70, these are hard to increase on.
standing calf 3x8 @ 90 - eh, calves...

So much to do still. Have just under 30k on NaNoWriMo and one day to write so guessing I won't hit 50k but still can make progress. I get the next two days off so yay, laundry, writing and maybe some online stuff. It's almost December and still so much to do.

So I've just finished my third workout on 5x5 on Saturday. I've only been doing the prescribed lifts for each workout day so far, but it looks like most everyone on here does some to a bunch of other lifts in addition to the 5x5 stuff. For those who do extra credit lifts, when did you start doing them? I was thinking I would give the 5x5 workouts about a month at the bare bones of 3 types of lift per day. Then, if I'm comfortable with what I'm doing (form is good, etc.) I might start adding 1-2 extra credit lifts per workout. Does that seem reasonable, or should I wait longer (or less long) to try that?

I took last week off to try to let the knots in my back un-knot and rest my elbow. I feel so much better!

Yoga today, still had to take it easy on certain poses due to my elbow/wrist. Bah. Back to SL tomorrow and I'm looking forward to it!

Ariadnula wrote: »

Hi @BethAnnieT ! I've been doing 5x5 for a couple of months. Mostly I just stick to the compound lifts - to be honest, with all the rest periods, I don't have time for more! And theoretically they are enough

Having said that, I'm looking to work in some other stuff, maybe from Strong Curves, to keep things interesting. Maybe on my non-gym days, as the things I'm looking at only need body weight or dumbbells and I have those at home.

So, after that ramble, I think you're right to just do the 5x5 lifts for now and focus on getting form right and increasing weight. And resting between sets. Man, I seem to spend my whole time on rests!

Thank you! I think I'll wait a while before I add anything. I'm mostly scared I will overload myself (task-wise, not weight-wise) and then not want to go to the gym anymore. I like the idea of 5x5 being so straightforward. It makes it more approachable. On my off days I do volleyball, spin class, and hot yoga, so I'm kind of tired all the time anyway.