January 1st, 2019

Richard E. Lindner YMCA

StrongLifts B

Squats: 5×5 @ 285 lbs.
Overhead Press: 5×5 @ 102.5 lbs.
Deadlift: 1×5 @ 285 lbs.

Body Weight: 200 lbs.

Notes

If you’ve been following along, you notice that I have not updated this log in about a month. That’s not because I haven’t been training! Instead, the first week of January saw me visiting relatives in New York City, and after that, classes started again at UC, so I’ve been a bit preoccupied. But whenever possible, I have been uploading my training videos to YouTube, and I an just now caught up. So, it’s time to update the log.

Unfortunately, the apps I am using to program and track my chinups and pushups don’t tag data points by date. Instead, they use days since I started. In principle, it is possible to convert these values into dates, but in practice that is more trouble than it’s worth. Moreover, these logs record the total number of reps and not reps per sets, which I find more valuable. Because of this, I am going to omit these exercises from my reports, at least while I am playing catch-up. Maybe I will include them in the future, maybe not. Maybe I’ll just present the results of my “tests.“ I don’t yet know. Meanwhile, enjoy my progress with the bar.

December 19th, 2018

Richard E. Lindner YMCA

StrongLifts A

Squat: 5×5 @ 260 lbs.
Bench Press: 5×5 @ 137.5 lbs.
Barbell Row: 5×5 @ 157.5 lbs.
Power Clean: 5×5 @ 85 lbs.*

Pushups: 5×1 @ BW
Chinups: 5×1 @ BW

Bodyweight: 194 lbs.

Notes

*This was supposed to be 100 lbs. However, the 2.5 lb plates vanished at the gym! To compensate, I settled for an uneven loading by hanging a 5 lb plate on one side of the bar. Thus I expected the thing to not balance at the center, but instead slightly closer to the heavier side. However, this displacement turned out to be significantly greater than I anticipated, resulting in some awkward lifts. Despite this, the pulls seemed to be a bit too easy.

So then in hindsight, it was blatantly obvious when I put the weights away that what I thought was a 25 lb plate on the side without the extra 5 lbs turned out to be a mere 10 lb plate instead. Oops. Unfortunately, by that point, the gym was closing, so I had to go. (My rush to get out of there explains how I could have made such a mistake in the first place.) So, I will do 100 lbs for real next time.

At least I figured out why the balance point was 2/3rds of the way down the damn bar.

December 17th, 2018

Richard E. Lindner YMCA

StrongLifts B

Squat: 5×5 @ 255 lbs.
Overhead Press: 5×5 @ 95 lbs.
Deadlift: 1×5 @ 265 lbs.

Pushups: 5×1 @ BW
Chinups: 5×1 @ BW

Bodyweight: 198 lbs.

Notes

I am switching up my assistance exercises. Chinups are an important assistance according to Starting Strength, and pushups seem like a good idea, too. Instead of following StrongLifts’ built-in program of doing pushups only with the A workout and chinups only with B, I am doing both each time I am at the gym. Moreover, I am following the program I found within a couple of apps: 100 Pullups and 200 Pushups. Hopefully these work.