young_squatters Single Factor 5x5 Journal

[anotherbutters]

Your Starting Strength book will help you with squats when it arrives. When you start the squat, your knees will go forwards initially. Your height and limb lengths will determine how far that is. But once they've gone forward a bit, they should pretty much stay there. The rest of the movement is done with your butt going further back and down. In the book, he demonstrates teaching this by putting a tall block of wood (chair, whatever) a short distance in front of your knee. Let your knee go to that, then stay there.

Also, try to get the weight towards the middle/back of your foot, not on your toes.

 

[young_squatter]

Your Starting Strength book will help you with squats when it arrives. When you start the squat, your knees will go forwards initially. Your height and limb lengths will determine how far that is. But once they've gone forward a bit, they should pretty much stay there. The rest of the movement is done with your butt going further back and down. In the book, he demonstrates teaching this by putting a tall block of wood (chair, whatever) a short distance in front of your knee. Let your knee go to that, then stay there.

Also, try to get the weight towards the middle/back of your foot, not on your toes.

Thanks man, My knees dont go that far in front of my toes, But I do have long legs so they do go across a bit.
Also I do have the weight towards the back of my foot.

Also I just emailed mark about the diet, and this is what he had to say.

Mark Rippetoe,
If you gain 30 lbs. of muscle and 5 lbs. of fat, your bodyfat percentage goes down. When you can see the sense of this, then you're okay. Until then, you will never make gains in muscle, because an excess of calories is required to gain muscle, and if you're worried about "getting fat", you will never eat enougfh to gain muscle.

Stop worrying and start eating and training heavy. Worry about your strength, not your appearance.

 

[Anthrax Invasion]

Well, he makes a good point in relation to diet. Real simple stuff, like it should be. Of course, you can toy with macronutrient ratios all day to try to optimize things, but that's no fun.

Glad to see he's this helpful. From what I understand, you're supposed to perform 3x5 with a working weight for the listed exercises. Before that, you use warmups to work up to it, correct?

And he suggests you push the weights up for squats by 10 lbs. every session? That's 30 lbs. a week. I would think that'd stop after two weeks, tops.

He said to drop back 20 lbs. when you plateau. Is this on all lifts, first off? Second, how often does he recommend you add weight back to your squat in those 5 lb. jumps? Weekly from that point, after your first stall? And, once you stall in the other lifts, do they go up every workout or do you start upping it only once a week?

Sorry, just trying to clarify things.

 

[young_squatter]

Well, he makes a good point in relation to diet. Real simple stuff, like it should be. Of course, you can toy with macronutrient ratios all day to try to optimize things, but that's no fun.

Glad to see he's this helpful. From what I understand, you're supposed to perform 3x5 with a working weight for the listed exercises. Before that, you use warmups to work up to it, correct?

And he suggests you push the weights up for squats by 10 lbs. every session? That's 30 lbs. a week. I would think that'd stop after two weeks, tops.

He said to drop back 20 lbs. when you plateau. Is this on all lifts, first off? Second, how often does he recommend you add weight back to your squat in those 5 lb. jumps? Weekly from that point, after your first stall? And, once you stall in the other lifts, do they go up every workout or do you start upping it only once a week?

Sorry, just trying to clarify things.

Yes I warm up for the 3x5 before I do them with 3 sets, like for squats today I warmed up with 95x5, 135x5, 165x2.
He said I should try to up my squat 10lbs a session but im going for 5 because im on a bodybuilding diet. When he said drop back 20 lbs that was just if i stalled on squats, then I would work my way back up, for the other lifts I would drop like 10 lbs because there not as heavy. This is pretty much a deload and he said I should be able to make gains again. He said if I do this program correctly that it will work for 6 months to a year. He said when it stops working that he will costimize the routine so it started working again.

So this is pretty much what he recommends for novice lifters. Im pretty sure that after I stall for good on this program that he will tell me to do the original SF routine where im make PR once a week. Then after that routine stops working he would most likely tell me to switch to dual factor and so on.

 

[anotherbutters]

I assumed you'd get to the SF or something very similar within the first 3-4 months. I can't imagine anyone being able to raise their squat more than once a week for more than 3-4 months, even if you have to back off and ramp up again a few times.

I'm not saying you won't, and I hope you do. I just thought the initial quick gains would slow down after 3-4 months. It'll be interesting to see how you get on.

 

[Anthrax Invasion]

Even in Starting Strength, he says adding about 10 lbs. to the bar every workout for 3-4 weeks is as far as that usually gets. From there, a trainee can back off and ramp up again, and also begin making smaller jumps in weight.

 

[Anthrax Invasion]

Nevermind, we discussed this on AIM.

 

[young_squatter]

Thanks anotherbutters, I thought the same thing, he told me eventually I said I would probably stop adding that much weight when I get to 265 lb squat and im at 200 squat right now, so thats about right, then im sure ill move into the SF routine I was going to do before.

Also the only problem I have with the routine he recommend is he told me not to do barbell rows? But that means that my back is not getting work, do you guys think I should add barbell rows in here somewhere?

Workout 1
Squat 3x5

Bench Press 3x5

Deadlift/Power Clean
(alternate the two) Deadlifts are pyramided to a top set of 5, Power cleans are 5x3

Workout 2
Squat 3x5

Press 3x5

Hyperextensions 3x8-12

Chins 3 sets to failure

 

[Guinness5.0]

Power cleans are fantastic back work, as are deads. Bench will work your lats plenty (if you bench properly - and since you're gonna read SS, you will )

EDIT: Did he recommend the chins or did you add 'em? I ask b/c in the program he outlines in SS he doesn't mention them.

 

[young_squatter]

Power cleans are fantastic back work, as are deads. Bench will work your lats plenty (if you bench properly - and since you're gonna read SS, you will )

EDIT: Did he recommend the chins or did you add 'em? I ask b/c in the program he outlines in SS he doesn't mention them.

Alright thanks Guinness that help a lot, I was worried that my back would be lagging if I didnt do barbell rows. Which I dont want to happen.

Yes he recommend that I do chins.