gemst10

Looks like I'm not going to hit goal #2 afterall. Going to take a week off from the gym. I did something to my shoulder yesterday while trying to stretch and it's not feeling too grand. Going to see where it is Monday and hopefully get back on the horse. If it's still hurting I might have to take an extended break and go see a doctor. I might adjust my goals for taking 2 days off from the program.

Yeah, I might just skip out on the points for the time being. Week 1 went well. Had a couple slips on diet but did pretty good on sleep. I also stalled on overhead presses in Stronglifts so I'm not going to hit that number. Hopefully I can get through the plateau and get back to adding weight.

Mehdi did an interview with Kelly and sent it out. Some good tid bits of information for beginners and a good overview of his general thoughts on form and function. He lays out his squat recommendations towards the end. Pre-ordered his book on amazon after listening to it. http://stronglifts.com/becoming-a-supple-leopard-kelly-starret/

Oh, and thanks for the perspective Steve. Just need to keep my eye on the prize.

Been doing SL for about 3 weeks. My first attempt at a real lifting program. I've been going to the gym for 2 years but just to run on the treadmill and half-a$$ some dumb bell workouts. I basically have zero upper body definition. If you looked up "skinny fat" in the dictionary, my picture would be beside it. My arms are looking better but I feel like my midsection is looking worse. I think maybe because I've really increased my calories to about 2500/day. I've also been doing cheat days once a week per 4-hour body, but I'm planning on cutting those out for the next 6 weeks. What I'm really trying to accomplish is to look lean and improve my build. I don't really care if I can lift a VW or if I have a 6-pack. I just want to feel better about being on the skins team next time I go play some ultimate frisbee. Guess I'll just keep at it, lower my calories a bit, eliminate cheat days, and adjust diet if I feel like I'm stalling out on SL.

Thanks for the direction guys. I guess I'll stick with stronglifts and just try to find a balance between caloric deficit and still having enough in the tank to get through the workouts. Found a calculator for caloric cycling. Might give that a shot for a month and see where it gets me. Or maybe I'll just reduce my calories and eat clean and see if that helps.

Been relying on my body fat scale to measure my bf% which was giving me readings around 17%. I figured that'd put me in a good position to maybe lose some fat while building muscle on stronglifts. Out of curiosity I ordered some skin fold calipers and discovered today that I'm actually around 22-23%! Dang. Now I'm questioning if I should continue with stronglifts or start hitting the treadmill on a daily basis.

Does anyone have a link to a mobilitywod posting where Kelly talks about comprehensive squat form? I've been trying to find info on squat form on that site and most of the posts/videos are bits and pieces of things but nothing comprehensive. It's almost like opening an anatomy text book halfway through and trying to figure out what's going on. Something I just watched seemed to indicate that he recommends keeping your feet straight, not at an angle like Rippetoe. So confused.

Here we go... 1) Stick to a paleo diet for the full duration. Allowable deviations: rice, quinoa, red wine 1 day/week. I really want to make this happen. My idea for grading is based on the number of days that I'm able to maintain a paleo diet. I'm also going to grade each day according to how I eat. So for instance: Eat full paleo - 1 pt Minor cheat - 0.75 pts Major cheat - 0.5 pts At the end of the 6 weeks I'll add up my points and grade on the following scale: 42 - 38 pts = A 37 - 34 pts = B 33 - 29 pts = C 28 - 25 pts = D <25 pts = F 2) Progress with Stronglifts program to planned weight increases. Planned increases: Squat: +90 lbs Bench: +45 lbs Rows: +45 lbs Dead Lift: +90 lbs Overhead Press: +45 lbs I'll grade based on the percentage of the planned gains I make in each exercise then take the average of all percentages. 90% - 100% = A 80% - 90% = B 70% - 80% = C 60% - 70% = D <60% = F 3) Get 8 hours of sleep every night. I'll just take the average of the hours of sleep I get at the end of 6 weeks. I'll give myself no more than 9 hours of sleep each night. For instance, if I sleep 12 hours I only get credit for 9. Don't want to tempt myself to cheat and sleep an entire Saturday away just to make up for a bad week. I'll then calculate the percentage of my average vs. 8 hours and grade on the same scale as in goal 2. 4) Practice guitar at least 1 hour each week. I've been dabbling with different instruments for a year or so and ignoring my guitar for several years. I've decided I still like the guitar the most and really want to work on developing my skills. Plan on learning some new songs and maybe some technical stuff. May pick up a lesson or scales book to work though. I'll add up my hours at the end of the challenge and use the percentage of 6 hours with the same scale in #2 and #3. I don't come from an RPG background so I'm a little perplexed by the points and categories to assign to each of these, but I'll do some research and update my post later with those numbers.

The way I see it it just depends on your goals. If you're just looking to "trade some fat for fitness" there are countless numbers of ways to achieve that end goal. The relative "healthiness" of each of those options is debatable. If you're concerned with gut health, autoimmune disease, insulin resistance, cancer prevention, etc that opens up the debate on what diet is best considerably. I would suggest you read "The Paleo Solution" by Robb Wolf or one of Dr. Cordain's books on paleo and come to your own conclusions. But even with Paleo I feel like there's room for occasional indulgences. I don't know if there's one diet that is ideal for every person but the most compelling case I've encountered definitely is with Paleo....so far.

I know my form is probably on the sloppy side as I'm still basically learning this movement which is probably a large part of my problem. I'll see if I can somehow set up my phone at the gym to get a video of my form.

How do you do this? The smallest plates my gym has are 2.5 lbs.

I'm eating around 2500 calories/day with at least 180g protein each day and I'm 5'11", 168lbs. Yesterday I was at 60 lbs. I started with the empty bar on March 27. My other lifts have been fine. Squats are starting to get just a little challenging at 80 lbs, bench is easy at 60 lbs, rows are slightly challenging at 80 lbs, and dead lift is fairly easy at 125 lbs. What do you mean by trying more "volume"? mrRed - Thanks for the detailed advice. 3 things you mentioned stuck out. I can definitely get my head more into it before getting under the bar. I could very well be a little sloppy in form and not going into "beast mode". I probably also need to get more sleep. I've had a couple 6 hour nights this week which probably isn't helping anything. If those things don't help, I'll probably try resting at least 3 minutes between sets and potentially dropping my increments to 2.5 lbs. Well I definitely don't feel so bad for stalling at 60 lbs after week 3!

So I'm in week 3 of Stronglifts and yesterday I had a really hard time getting through my press sets. I was able to maintain form but was resting 3 minutes between sets by the last 2. I'm wondering if this is typical with this exercise. I've read that the press is one of the harder exercises to make gains on. But it seems extreme to be considering de-loading by week 3. Any thoughts?

Got through my ohps without any pain today. Guessing maybe I pinched a nerve last week. Thanks for all of the advice. I checked out all your links and tried to implement a lot of it and it looks like it helped.

Are you sure you're not thinking of soy milk? I've read about phytoestrogens in soy milk and that almond milk can mess with iron absorption, but never that almond milk has phytoestrogens.

Just an update. My shoulder hasn't bothered me at all since briefly Satruday morning. Been doing some occasional dislocations and "air" OHPs, just making the motion with my arms. No pain or discomfort. I little scared to get back to the gym today. No OHPs til Wednesday though.

I just asked because whenever there's a form question everyone always defaults to Rippetoe. What you're saying makes sense about the weight more or less being in line with the forearms though. Not sure about lifting a bar above my head with a false grip though...that's a little frightening.

Doesn't Rippetoe say to keep your wrists vertical under the bar?

So I was doing some OHP warmups yesterday with very light dumbells and my shoulder started hurting. Almost like a dull pinching pain in the top outside of my shoulder. I worked through my OHP sets on the bar with some minor discomfort. Got home last night and the pain was still kind of nagging. Not very intense and only during certain movements. So I found a post by Medhi about shoulder dislocates and gave it a shot. Did a few of those and my shoulder felt instantly better. No pain for the rest of the night. So I woke up feeling fine until I started making breakfast and reached for something on a high shelf. Same pain started again. Did some more shoulder dislocates, and pain went away. Reaching above my head just seems to make it recur. Any thoughts on what this could be? Like I said pain isn't very intense, just a nagging dull pinching feeling. I'm 2 weeks into Stronglifts and just starting to build momentum so I'm hoping it's not serious so I don't have to stop.

Good call. Although I currently have a request in for some bumper plates so maybe I should wait to see if those show up before I bug them about anything else.

So I set the bench up again last night and even with my back arched the safety bars are still too high. I used some 5 lb plates as shims though and that seemed to do the trick. I'm still paranoid about tearing the rubber on the plates though so I may make some plywood spacers. I'm sure they wouldn't mind if I left them at the gym.

I try to arch my back per Starting Strength but I might not be doing enough. I'll check my form tonight and see if it makes a difference.

I'd just be afraid of tearing up the rubber with the feet of the bench is all. Maybe I'm just being paranoid.

I thought about using plates but wasn't sure if they'd be stable enough. Also didn't know if the gym would be cool with me using plates like that, especially since they're rubber coated.