Dposey's Rippetoe Journal

[Dposey]

Monday 2/27/06 - Week 3 - Day 1
Workout A (Power Clean)

Squats:
Bar x Warm-up
95 x 5
135 x 3
170 x 5
170 x 5
170 x 5
Not as hard as last time, but still pretty damn hard. I'm positive that my back arched a bit on the last rep.

Bench Press:
Bar x Warm-up
95 x 5
115 x 3
140 x 5
140 x 5
140 x 5
Got them all fairly easily.

Power Clean:
Bar x Warm-up x 2 (Hang)
95 x 3
95 x 3
95 x 3
95 x 3
95 x 3
These went well, I'm pretty sure I got the form down. My traps are hella sore.

Needsize Crunches:
BW+20 x 5
BW+20 x 5
BW+20 x 5
BW+20 x 5
BW+20 x 5

Comments:
This was a pretty good workout. I'm now in week three of the program and everything seems to be progressing except the squats. I'm up a pound to 179 since starting, but I have been eating around maintenance level at 3200 calories a day. My bench, push press, deadlifts, pull-ups, and power cleans are all going well. The squat is the thing giving me problems. I drop down into that hole and a lot of the time it's a fight to get up without compromising my form. Any suggestions? Should I switch to front squats or lighter back squats on Wednesday? Should I reset? Trying to do this program as intended but getting all 15 reps at 175 isn't looking likely on Wednesday.

 

[Anthrax Invasion]

Uhm, arching isn't a problem with squats. Did you mean round?

 

[Dposey]

Yeah I meant rounding. I'll be down in the hole, and then come up driving off my heels and it's so hard to push up that one or two times my back will round a bit. Every rep after 2-3 is like a grind to the top.

 

[Anthrax Invasion]

Don't let that happen - you can seriously hurt yourself. Maybe back the weight off a bit, work on increasing the weight once a week on squats. In short - try a single factor 5x5 run instead. Rippetoe's program is something that's probably best left to him in person, where he can supervise you.

 

[Dposey]

Yeah, I didn't want to say anything because I really wanted this program to work, but I think my weights are getting a little to high for the Rippetoe program (In the squats at least) with me not eating as much as the program calls for. I'll finish out this week with lighter squats on Wednesday and go for 170 again on Friday, and start a SF 5x5 Monday. Any other advice?

 

[Anthrax Invasion]

Nothing much. Just keep an eye on your squat form. Are you doing high bar oly squats, or the style Rippetoe advocates, the generic power squat?

 

[Dposey]

The bar usually sits on my traps and my feet are about shoulder width apart (Maybe a bit wider). I'm not sure which category that will fall into.

I'll finish out this week to get the gains on push press and bench, and then start a SF 5x5 on Monday. One question: Should I set all my lifts so that I'll be in PR territory in week 4, even though I've only stalled on squats? Or should I just set the squats like that and go on with my other lifts?

 

[Anthrax Invasion]

Do you sit back and down or do you sit straight down, knees flexing forward?

PR territory in week 4 sounds okay, you'll obviously have to scale back if you're hitting PRs right now, which may bore you a bit. You can just do a two week ramp instead, and hit PRs around then.

I'd treat each lift seperately, honestly. If you're progressing on one lift, I see no reason to make the others suffer. That goes under the same catergory as taking innocents along for the ride in war, just 'cause they were in the wrong place at the wrong time. At times, it's unavoidable, but if you don't have to go that route, why bother?

Basically - scale back the squats, ramp back up, keep pressing up the other stuff. A great part of this will be that as you stall on your other stuff, your squats will get heavier, and you'll be scaling back on other lifts. This allows you to recover better, on the whole, because you're not running on all cylinders on every lift. Get what I'm saying?

 

[Dposey]

Yeah I see what you're seeing. I'm pretty much treating each lift differently. While one lift is recovering, the other will be progressing, so I won't be completely dead all the time with all the lifts recovering from PR territory. Wow, I almost confused myself again...but I get it.

My current 5RMs after Friday, if all goes well, will look like this:
Squat: 170
Bench: 145
Deadlift: 155
Power Clean: 95
Push Press: 90

I'll try and add 5 pounds a week to Squat, Deadlift, and Power Clean. I'll get some microloading chains and try and add 2.5 pounds a week to Bench and Push Press once I can't add 5 pounds a week to them any more. How does this look for Week 1?

Monday
Squats
95 x 5
110 x 5
125 x 5
135 x 5
150 x 5
Bench:
85 x 5
100 x 5
115 x 5
130 x 5
145 x 5
Power Clean:
55 x 5
65 x 5
75 x 5
85 x 5
95 x 5

Wednesday
Squats:
95 x 5
110 x 5
125 x 5
125 x 5
125 x 5
Push Press:
50 x 5
60 x 5
70 x 5
80 x 5
90 x 5
Deadlift:
95 x 5
110 x 5
125 x 5
140 x 5
155 x 5

Friday
Squats:
95 x 5
110 x 5
125 x 5
135 x 5
155 x 3
125 x 8
Bench:
85 x 5
100 x 5
115 x 5
130 x 5
150 x 3
115 x 8
Power Cleans:
55 x 5
65 x 5
75 x 5
85 x 5
100 x 3

Look about right? Or shuld I set my other lifts back one week just to make sure I recover? This is assuming I hit my goals on Wednesday and Friday's workouts this week.

 

[Anthrax Invasion]

That looks good to me man, you've got this single-factor thing down.