Jimbo's Battle Log

[Jimbo]

July 23, 2014

5/3/1, Cycle 2, Week 3

 

I took a couple extra days off because my knee did not feel right and, more importantly, my wife had a bad fall walking the dogs, broke her left arm, and banged up her ribs and a knee. She's in a lot of pain and has need of my nursing and chauffeur skills, such as they are.

 

#1 Squat

5x100 lb.

5x130

5x155

5x190

3x215

1x240 PR (albeit only a single)

 

followed immediately by

 

#2 OHP

5x55 lb.

5x70

5x80

5x100

3x115

1x130 PR (albeit only a single)

[Jimbo]

July 25, 2014

5/3/1, Cycle 2, Week 3

INDST

#3 DL

5x120 lb.

5x155

5x185

5x230

3x260

1x290 PR (albeit only a single)

 

I was wary of the last one, so I took a couple of extra breaths in preparation (5 instead of 3) ... and then almost hyperventilated when I pushed with my feet. I won't do that again. In any event, I made it. I have some soreness in my R forearm, but it is opposite to the area injured a few months ago, so it is probably good soreness, not bad overuse.

[Jimbo]

July 28, 2014

5/3/1, Cycle 2, Week 3

 

#4 bench

5x75 lb.

5x95

5x115

5x145

3x160

1x180 PR (albeit only a single)

 

#5 row

5x70

5x85

5x100

5x130

3x145

1x160 (not even close to a PR; I did 9 of these when I was screwing up my R arm)

[Jimbo]

I think I'm going to skip this next challenge and just keep on doing what I'm doing, which is pretty much the same as the last challenge, trying to avoid re-injury while continuing to make progress with 5/3/1.

 

July 30, 2014

5/3/1, Cycle 2, Week 4

#1 squat -- deload

#2 OHP -- deload

#3 DL -- deload

 

The plan for the next cycle is squat and OHP on Monday, DL on Wednesday, and bench and rows on Friday, with two days off each weekend. I was initially thinking that I would increase all lifts by 5 lb. only, but if Wednesday is DL only, then I should probably increase DL by 10 lb. I'll have to think about that some more.

[Jimbo]

August 2, 2014

5/3/1, Cycle 2, Week 4

#4 bench -- deload

#5 row -- deload

[Jimbo]

August 5, 2014

5/3/1, Cycle 3, Week 1

 

#1 Squat

5x105 lb.

5x130

5x155

5x170

5x195

5x220

 

followed immediately by

 

#2 OHP

5x55 lb.

5x70

5x85

5x90

5x105

5x120

 

It felt good to start a new cycle.

[Jimbo]

August 6, 2014

5/3/1, Cycle 3, Week 1

INDST

#3 DL

5x125 lb.

5x155

5x185

5x200

5x225 (oops! should have been 235; I forgot some plates)

5x265

[Jimbo]

Too much has been going on to summarize and, besides, I don't want to dwell on the negative. The good news is: (1) my wife recovered from her broken arm, sustained while walking two hound dogs alone, with no impairment of her ability to play violin professionally; (2) after two years of unemployment, followed by two years of part-time work, I finally converted my part-time job into full-time, i.e. I'm working full-time again for the first time in 4 years; and (3) today, I restarted my weight training with SL 5x5 at about 50% of my 5RM. I lost a lot of ground in the last few months and consider myself a beginner again. I know more than I did the first time around, but I have a lot of work to do to get back to where I was before I overdid it and injured myself.

[Jimbo]

Getting close to where I was with SL 5x5 when I switched to 5/3/1 (and everything went to hell from overuse and hammering nails). The R wrist and arm problems seem to be resolved. I'm dealing with a R knee issue, but that's probably from my weight and almost certainly not from lifting.

[Jimbo]

Well, I was wrong about my knee. It appears to be hamstring tendonitis. It seems that my body begins to rebel with tendonitis before I actually fail a lift at a given weight. This means that if I am going to avoid injuries, I need to make a switch before I fail a lift AND before I develop tendonitis.

 

Part of the problem is that I weigh almost 300 lb. My knees are already lifting 100 excess lb. before I pick up a barbell. If my knees could talk, they would probably say that squatting 210 lb. feels like 310 lb. The other part of the problem is that I turn 55 in June. I'm not quite as invincible as I used to be.

 

I've been forced to take a break from squats and deadlifts. Squatting became impossible for at least a week due to acute spasms in the knee. (This is tantamount to failing all my squats, so, clearly, I need to change the squats.) Deadlifts were not helping the tendonitis. However, I've been able to continue with rows, bench, and OHP. For now, therefore, I will continue rows, bench, and OHP at 5x5.

 

Deadlifts are always 1x5, so I will stick to 1x5. However, since I have not deadlifted for a while, I will need to deload when I restart deadlifts.

 

Excessive squatting VOLUME was probably a major factor in the tendonitis. 5x5 (i.e. 25 reps) is too much for me at a work weight over 200 lb, given a "crunchy" knee in the first place. I will take the tendonitis as a reliable sign (y' think?) that I need to switch to 3x5. I will likewise need to deload when I restart squats.

 

How much to deload on the squats and deadlifts when I restart? 10 lb. for each week missed seems reasonable to avoid a recurrence of the knee tendinitis.

 

P.S. I will probably switch squats from 3x5 to 1x5 very soon after reaching my actual (i.e. not calculated) 5RM. When I'm back on the program, SL will have me squatting 3 times per week and also doing either deadlifts or rows, so 1x5 squats should be sufficient along with the warmup sets. Frankly, I'd rather do less and continue lifting than do more and need to stop lifting - again! - due to an overuse injury.