Reevaluations

By some standards, this was a disappointing month. But first, let me explain what I've been doing for the past week, and a little spiel on Rippetoe's books.

As I said in my first post, I'm taking some time to do powerlifting and eventually weightlifting (olympic). Why? They interest me, and I would also like to build strength and explosive power. I feel it's something that I lack. I'm going by a modified version of Rippetoe's novice program highlighted in both Starting Strength and more in-depth in Practical Programming. Both are very good books. Starting Strength provides a concise analysis of the major lifts: the back squat, press, bench press, deadlift and power clean. Now, the book is geared towards teaching others the lifts, but this is not to say that you cannot learn the lifts yourself if you are a beginner. They can be somewhat technical in nature; if you're used to say, Dan John's writings, which might say "do this", Rippetoe's books will say "tell your trainees to 'do this', but this is why you are really telling them to do it". Pick it up though, you won't be disappointed.

So, I wanted to get into the lifts, and still do a little CrossFit. We have a Saturday park WOD, and I'd like to work in a "girl" once a week. Rippetoe's novice program (it feels a little weird being a novice) involves 3 workouts a week, back squats every workout, and cycling through bench press, deadlift, and overhead press. You wind up doing 3 exercises per workout, with some sort of pull-up or chin-up supplement added on for good measure. For squats and presses, it's 5x5, for deadlifts, 1x5. That's not his only program, but that's the general idea for his beginner program. Progress for the novice is linear, the stress is so large that adaptation happens quickly. Weight will go up every workout, 5 or 10 lbs depending on the exercise.

In order to accommodate CrossFit into the program, I took the powerlifting down to two lifts per workouts, and I took the bench press out of the equation. Rippetoe, Rutherford, and many others will say that the bench press doesn't transfer well into overall fitness or athletics. And really, I don't like the bench. I worked in pushing supplement instead. So here's what 2 weeks of my program might look like:

Week 1
M: Squats, Press, pull-up ladder
T: "Fran"
W: Squats, Deadlift, ring push-up burnouts
R: Rest
F: Squats, Press, 3 efforts of max pull-ups
Sa: Byrd Park WOD
Su: Rest

Week 2:
M: Squats, Deadlift, ring dip ladder
T: "Helen"
W: Squats, Press, weighted pull-ups
R: Rest
F: Squats, Deadlift, plyo push-ups
Sa: Byrd Park WOD
Su: Rest

I started out with fairly low weight on everything, moving up 5 pounds on the press, 10 pounds on the squat, and 15 pounds on the deadlift per workout.

Here's my previous max efforts:

Press: 115
Squat: 305 (poor form, more of a quarter or half squat)
Deadlift: 340 (rounded back, again not great form)

So, I recently went for my max effort on squats after a month into the program. I expected a new PR. I warmed up, working up to 185. Easy. 235. A Joke. 275. More weight!
305. Oh shit. Coming out of a deep squat, I hit a wall somewhere around parallel. After being helped up, I went for 300. Again, no dice. So what's the deal? I've been at this for a month!

It seems that it's time to reevaluate things. Not necessarily my goals. But maybe they need to be refined, so I'll state them here:

Press: 160
Back Squat: 355
Deadlift: 425

I'm a long way off, so my little weightlifting experiment will take a little longer than expected. 16 weeks? Can I even put a time frame on this. not really. So I have to keep plugging along. Sometime you don't reach your goals as quickly as you would like. Some days you'll be sick, tired, stressed, or over trained. But with good programming coming from research and experience, you'll improve. Today, I'll pick the bar back up and once again start working towards my goals.