So. P90X anyone? (Misery loves company)

[Yoru]

In that case, those are actually REALLY good numbers on the bench and squat, and quite respectable on the others.  You weigh around 65 kg?

Yep, 65-67 depending on the day. I'm a lanky motherfucker.

[Cyrrex]

Anyone squatting two plates a side for reps is doing more than the vast majority, even the bigger guys I see.  So good on yer.

For my part, I set PBs the last two days in the deadlift (217.5 kg), the squat (172.5 kg) and overhead press (85kg x2).  It is amazing how fast the presses get so hard by just adding a little extra weight.

[bhodi]

That's crazy strong, you guys are awesome.

I've done precisely jack and squat since I've moved in Feb. No local gym and no gym buddies to lift with, so I'm on hold! Don't really have the discipline to do stuff on my own, long term. Don't climb as much, since the indoor gym is an hour away now, either. Grr.

[JWIV]

So I did a half on Sunday.  It wasn't my best time (1:57:09), but given that my training was shot to shit between tendonitis in my right foot and multiple rounds of sick, I'll absolutely take it.  Especially since it was my first long distance race in huaraches.   

Shockingly enough, my feet are completely fine, and unlike my previous halves, I managed to avoid my usual issue of my calves cramping at mile 10 and having to run/walk the final 3 miles or so. I had one warning sign at 11 1/2 when I tried to step up my pace, so I took a quick stretch and slowed my pace and my legs settled back down.   The only real problem areas this time around would be my quads (probably lack of training and the change in form) and my chest since the tape I had put on to protect my nipples fell off sometime during the race and I've got some awesome chafing going on.

[Cyrrex]

and my chest since the tape I had put on to protect my nipples fell off

I know why you do it, but I still laughed when I read this part. 

Good job on the race.

[JWIV]

and my chest since the tape I had put on to protect my nipples fell off

I know why you do it, but I still laughed when I read this part.  

Good job on the race.

I laugh about it every time I do it. It's goofy as hell.

[Yoru]

Anyone squatting two plates a side for reps is doing more than the vast majority, even the bigger guys I see.  So good on yer.

For my part, I set PBs the last two days in the deadlift (217.5 kg), the squat (172.5 kg) and overhead press (85kg x2).  It is amazing how fast the presses get so hard by just adding a little extra weight.

Inspired by your posting, I realized my deadlift felt a bit easy, so I slapped on more weight. 120kg was still easy, and that was my previous peak. Slapped on more. Managed to do two full sets of 5 at 130kg after a 110 set, and 2x120.

Fuck yes.

[Cyrrex]

Awesome!  That's almost double your BW for 5 reps, which is officially well into badass territory.  Have you tried a one rep max? 

[Yoru]

Awesome!  That's almost double your BW for 5 reps, which is officially well into badass territory.  Have you tried a one rep max? 

Not yet. My gym doesn't have any floor mats, it's all shitty carpeting, so I'm leery of doing something that's going to make me drop the bar.

Gonna work at 130 until I can do 5x5 cleanly and then push on up to 135-140.

[Cyrrex]

I also workout in a place that has carpet on the floor like that.  My experience has been that when your grip starts to slip, you simply end up putting the weight back down a little heavier than normal.  I've never actually dropped a deadlift. 

And I cannot stress enough how beneficial doing singles is, especially for deadlifts.  I almost never do anything for reps above 140kg.  Occasionally I will do 170 or 180 for 5 reps just to keep things honest and make sure that I still can, but other than that I focus on heavy, heavy singles.  That seems to be the recipe for deads. 

(it helps my squats to a similar degree, but with those I try also to do more reps at heavy weights as well)

[Cyrrex]

Squatted 175kg for a single today.  Not sure if I hit the depth I needed (someone was standing in front of the mirror I use as a visual cue), but I think it was close enough to count.  I am more and more astounded that climbjtree can do this, and more, for 5 reps.  Anyway, I think I will hover around this max weight for a while, and see if I can work for more reps at slightly lower weights.  Would like to do 155kg x 5, which should be manageable very soon, and work my way up.  This approach has been working amazing well recently, but I have a feeling that I am getting close to the wall again.  Which is fine.  I never imagined I would be squatting this much weight ever, so it's all gravy.

[climbjtree]

Well, after being transient for a bit I've finally made it home... and glad to be here! They've retooled some of our gyms for conditioning/olympic lifting, so that's awesome. I'm going to try and jump from a powerlifting base into the world of Oly lifting and try not to fall flat on my face. I've already seen how important technique is, so hopefully I don't have too much trouble getting proficient.

Glad to see y'all are getting after it too! When I have some more time I'll catch up on the posts I haven't read.

[Cyrrex]

Well, after being transient for a bit I've finally made it home...

I am trying to remember - were you not in Afghanistan or something?  Or are you just a wandering hobo?  I was kinda wondering where you got off to, and something tells me you are active military.  Super Duper Special Forces or somesuch thing.  Anyway, good to hear from you and have fun with the Olympic stuff.  Pretty sure I will never get into it myself, if for no other reason than lack of facilities.

Edited to add:  I did manage to pull off 155 x 5 squats the other day.  That was hard.

[Cyrrex]

More updates!

Did 160kg x 4 squats a few days ago.  I think 5 reps is just around the corner, but I am a little wary because my form broke down a bit on the last rep and I think I tweaked my back a little.  Didn't notice it until the subsequent set (140x6).  Was scared for a while that I had re-fucked my disc again, but a few days later the pain was more or less gone.  Still, semi-lesson learned...need to be careful with form here.

Went to the gym yesterday not feeling terribly energetic, and it is deadlift day.  Also a little nervous about my back acting up, as a result of the above.  And then demons possessed my body and I absolutely ripped 220kg off the ground, a new best.  5 plates a side!  Not sure what came over me.  I would have had 225 or even 230 had I tried (which I didn't).  Went over to the rack with it after that, then worked up to and ripped 255kg off of the rack, another PB.  Then I did it again.

So I am now rather convinced that, despite the "experts" saying otherwise, there is definitely some carryover from the rack deads to the regular deads.  In my case, I think it is because when on the rack, I try to explode the weight up quickly because I have less fear of doing so...which has led me to begin doing the same from the floor.  And another great benefit of the rack deads is that you can do shitloads of really heavy ones. 

[Cyrrex]

I am going to start doing Wendler's 5/3/1.  All of my lifts kinda have stalled, partly because I am somewhat over-reaching anyway, and partly because I am woe to pack on too much more weight at this point.  Need to change things up.  Mostly want to see if I can get my bench numbers up in earnest, as they haven't really gone anywhere in quite a while.  Also going to start trying think a bit more aesthetically with the accessory lifts.  I am very clearly starting to take the shape of a power-lifter in some ways, and I don't want to go too far down that path.  I have a pretty good base of strength now, and I think I want to try to begin leveraging that into building better muscle mass.

Haven't tried this program before.  It initially seems to start off rather slow and look rather easy - at least compared to what I am usually doing (to be honest, I probably need to learn to back off a bit).  We shall see!

[climbjtree]

I can contribute two things to your 5/3/1 experience.

Firstly: www.strstd.com  - Strength Standards is basically a site that will compile your workout for you and if you log in, it will track your developments. It has all the basic variants of 5/3/1, i.e. Boring but Big, Bodyweight, etc.

Second: I am of the opinion that you start at 90% of your max weight to calculate your working weights. The whole idea behind 5/3/1 is that you don't have to operate at your max in order to continue your gains, so this is right in line with the basic tenets of the program.

That is all.

Oh, and this: Two Crossfitters One Chalk Bucket

[Cyrrex]

Heh, I am pretty sure I myself have quoted www.strstd.com at least a few times in this thread    (though I never noticed you could log in and use a tracker...will have to check that out).  I am using 90% of max weight as you suggest.

Anyway, after 1 day (squat day), I can see what about this program that makes it tough.  The last working set where you are doing something like 85% of your max (the reduced max) until you can do no more is a killer.  I am not used to attempting that kind of volume at that kind of weight, and the last two reps had me quite wobbly at the top starting position.  And then the cool down sets after that, which I put at 50% of real max...damn.  It was a good reminder to me that lighter weights can still clobber you quite nicely if you let them.  Felt a bit like GVT at the end.  Will be fun to see what it feels like for the other three lifts.

Edit: Doing some more reading, it looks like I might be doing the "Big But Boring" part of this program a little bit wrong.  First, I guess I wasn't supposed to max out my last actual working set...I was supposed to stop at 5 to make sure I energy left for the BBB part (5 sets of 10).  Secondly, I was doing those last sets at 50% of my actual max, instead of 50% of training max.  I think I have to fiddle with this a bit to figure out how to incorporate the BBB part.  I mean, it was fucking hard, but it didn't kill me.

[MrHat]

So I started swimming again for fitness since there's a pool with lanes nearby and I love being in the water.

Last week I was all proud because I can reliably swim 4x400m.  Was taking me about 45-48 minutes and I'd be dead tired at the end, so I felt like I was getting awesome exercise and doing it in decent time.

So I went looking online to see what is a good time for a mile swim.

Which caused me to stumble on that Total Immersion technique.

Now I feel like I broke swimming, as I just did the same swim in like 38 minutes and got out of the pool and felt steady.

I'm not sure what this means for swimming as fitness.

[DraconianOne]

Timely, thanks for the link. I read about TI a couple of years back but I don't do a lot of swimming so didn't do anything with it. But, after being told this morning that my foot still isn't fully healed (recap: broke it three months ago) and that it's going to be the best part of another three months before I'm back running, I figured I'd work on my cycling and swimming if I can find a decent pool nearby.

Next year could see me doing Triathlon for the first time.  

[Miguel]

Loved this thread for all of the advice.

Starting last December, I joined a local weight management class offered at our local Kaiser:  it is a medically supervised meal-replacement program.  When I joined I weighed 285 lbs (and I'm 6'5").

They cut me down to 900 calories: essentially 6, 150 calorie meals, which were the in the form of powered shakes with water or dry bars:  no other food allowed other than water!  This program lasted for a full 20 weeks and ended March.  Over those 20 weeks, I dropped 65 lbs, went from 37% body fat down to 17%, all with no exercise. ;)

However now that I've transitioned back into regular food, I need to start a regular fitness regimen.  I have done this in the past, and have always enjoyed body weight-based training, so I've decided to construct a program based around the Marine Corps fitness requirements, as I figure they have abusing the body to top performance down to a science.

It's been literally 10 years since I've done any sort of basic fitness, so I'll be starting from scratch.  I'm planning on starting by working towards passing the Initial Strength Test, which is:

1) 2 pull-ups
2) 35 sit-ups in 2 minutes
3) A 1.5 mile run in 13:30

I'm pretty close to passing 2 and 3 already, however I've never been able to do a single pull-up:  I really need to work on my upper body and back strength.  Any ideas for how I can begin training this (keeping in mind I don't have easy access to any equipment)?  I have heard that "negative" pull-ups are a good place to start.

Behind my building at work is a 1.5 mile "Parcourse", which does have pull-up bars, situp blocks, etc, so I can make use of those.

Ideally, I'd like to train up to a maximum score in the Marine Corps PFT, which is:

1) 20 pull-ups
2) 100 crunches in 2 minutes
3) 3-mile run in 18 minutes

I'm starting with a stretching program every morning, and plan to begin in earnest in the next few weeks. 

Any other ideas?

[K9]

That's a really great achievement with the weight loss though, well done! I imagine it was dull as hell, but the good thing is that keeping it off isn't hard if you're half-smart. I'd be pleased if I could cut 15 pounds, let alone 65.

I'm pretty leery of crunches as a measure of general fitness, but as goals to aim for I'd say those are solid, they're nice and tangible, and all eminently doable. For the sake of balance, I'd toss in a pressup goal too, since ideally you want to balance pushing and pulling motions. As a general rule, a good bodyweight workout would include two pulling type motions, and two pushing, but that's a very general idea.

With respect to chinups, the easiest way to get into them is to use a seated cable machine at the gym. Lacking that, doing negatives and bodyweight rows will get you on the path. A negative chinup would be where you start at the top of the motion, and try to lower yourself as slowly as possible. Lowering under control does almost as much work as the actual pulling motion, so if you work on those you should get chinups in no time. If you have a good place to do chinups (ideally some sort of fixed bar) place a chair or box under it that you can use as a step, get up to the top position, then lift your legs off the step and lower yourself down. As you get stronger, you will find that you can jump up to the top position from the ground, pulling the last 15% or so, then lower, and soon you'll be able to do the whole motion.

Bodyweight rows are where the bar is lower, and you pull your chest towards it with your feet on the ground or resting on another object. These are decent, but hard to get a good range of motion on, so they won't last you once you can do chinups.

Here is a decent (albeit long) FAQ, and here is a list of basic bodyweight exercise progressions

Other exercises I would consider adding into the mix:

Static hangs (will help grip and forearm strength, as well as shoulder flexibility)
Handstands against a wall (just holding these will help build your shoulders and upper back, which will translate into assistance for chinups)
Burpees (hateful exercise, but they will get you fit)

[K9]

Oh, and never do kipping pullups. It's something that Crossfit has popularised, but they will do you no favours, and you will look like a tit.

[Shannow]

Burpees (hateful exercise, but they will get you fit)

This. (mind you I did 50 today...gaargh)

[Cyrrex]

Oh, and never do kipping pullups. It's something that Crossfit has popularised, but they will do you no favours, and you will look like a tit.

I would make a slight modification to this statement:  If you are basically unable to do a single pull-up, a little bit of kipping in order to complete the motion for a rep or two is okay (too much kipping = you're a retard).  But only do so until you are able to complete it without any kipping motion.  Also using a slight kip (like bringing your knees up a tad) to finish a set is probably okay as well. 

[Cyrrex]

Have started my third week of 5/3/1.  The program is making more sense to me, and it will be interesting to see where it will take me a few months down the line.  There is no doubt that this is going to help my deadlifting to some degree - at least for grip and for doing reps in the 70-90% range.  The first week, my forearms were burning like a mother, so I think this combined with the heavy kroc rows I do as an accessory lift are going to help my grip.

Squats seemed on paper to be easy, but in practice they are a MOTHERFUCKER in this scheme.  You work up to that heavy 6th set, and then just keep going to near failure.  Really requires some fortitude, especially on week three.  And then you follow it up with 5 seemingly easy sets at like 50%...and these turn out to be a bitch as well.  Ye gods.

The pressing days, Bench and Overhead, are not really what I consider hard at all, even though the concept is exactly the same.  I think this is probably because they are not taxing the full body in the same way.  Probably also because I seem to be really good at pressing at sub-maximal weights, and have trained in a way in the past that gave me a shitload of endurance in the 70-90% range.  I am not sure if this will lead to new breakthroughs for me like I think it might with squats and deads, but I will see how far it can go.

The accessory work...if you are using the right amount of weights for these, they are actually quite a bitch.

Overall, it is a nice change of pace for me, and is showing me how I needed to mix in more hypertrophy work for the deads and squats.

[Yoru]

So I need a temporary replacement for the deadlift for 1-2 weeks. I scraped the living fuck out of my shins by drunkenly tripping over a knee-high concrete car-barrier thing last weekend. Even lightly dragging a bar up along my leg ain't gonna be pretty and will probably get blood everywhere.

Ideas? Rack pulls? (They seem like showoff douche deadlifts to me.) MOAR SQUATS?

[K9]

Do you have a Trap Bar at your gym?

If not, I'd probably do stuff like good mornings, hack squats, and suitcase deadlifts to get around the shin issue. Rack pulls are a good lift, and they have the advantage that you can go heavier than usual. If they were all you do I'd call shenanigans, but like box squats they can be something you work in for short periods to push yourself over your max to great benefit.

[Nebu]

I'm pretty close to passing 2 and 3 already, however I've never been able to do a single pull-up:  I really need to work on my upper body and back strength.  Any ideas for how I can begin training this (keeping in mind I don't have easy access to any equipment)?  I have heard that "negative" pull-ups are a good place to start.

Any other ideas?

Get some exercise bands.  They look like a large rubber band and effectively reduce your body weight like a more expensive chin-assist machine does.  The bands come in a variety of resistances so you can start with a big assist and decrease the help over time. 

Pull ups with bands.

Start with palms toward you.  This will recruit back muscles more.  Then move to palms away (shoulders) and eventually a wide grip.

Hope that helps.

[climbjtree]

So I need a temporary replacement for the deadlift for 1-2 weeks. I scraped the living fuck out of my shins by drunkenly tripping over a knee-high concrete car-barrier thing last weekend. Even lightly dragging a bar up along my leg ain't gonna be pretty and will probably get blood everywhere.

Ideas? Rack pulls? (They seem like showoff douche deadlifts to me.) MOAR SQUATS?

Put on some tall socks and keep doing deadlifts.

[Yoru]

Do you have a Trap Bar at your gym?

If not, I'd probably do stuff like good mornings, hack squats, and suitcase deadlifts to get around the shin issue. Rack pulls are a good lift, and they have the advantage that you can go heavier than usual. If they were all you do I'd call shenanigans, but like box squats they can be something you work in for short periods to push yourself over your max to great benefit.

No trap bar, unfortunately. I go to a shitty bigbox, where to deadlift I take one of the two benchpress bars off the bench. We don't even have a canonical deadlift area.

Put on some tall socks and keep doing deadlifts.

I was trying to avoid blooding all my tall socks, but I'll just man up and try it. If I get blood everywhere, I'll switch to one of K9's suggestions.

[Ingmar]

Loved this thread for all of the advice.

Starting last December, I joined a local weight management class offered at our local Kaiser:  it is a medically supervised meal-replacement program.  When I joined I weighed 285 lbs (and I'm 6'5").

They cut me down to 900 calories: essentially 6, 150 calorie meals, which were the in the form of powered shakes with water or dry bars:  no other food allowed other than water!  This program lasted for a full 20 weeks and ended March.  Over those 20 weeks, I dropped 65 lbs, went from 37% body fat down to 17%, all with no exercise. ;)

However now that I've transitioned back into regular food, I need to start a regular fitness regimen.  I have done this in the past, and have always enjoyed body weight-based training, so I've decided to construct a program based around the Marine Corps fitness requirements, as I figure they have abusing the body to top performance down to a science.

It's been literally 10 years since I've done any sort of basic fitness, so I'll be starting from scratch.  I'm planning on starting by working towards passing the Initial Strength Test, which is:

1) 2 pull-ups
2) 35 sit-ups in 2 minutes
3) A 1.5 mile run in 13:30

I'm pretty close to passing 2 and 3 already, however I've never been able to do a single pull-up:  I really need to work on my upper body and back strength.  Any ideas for how I can begin training this (keeping in mind I don't have easy access to any equipment)?  I have heard that "negative" pull-ups are a good place to start.

Behind my building at work is a 1.5 mile "Parcourse", which does have pull-up bars, situp blocks, etc, so I can make use of those.

Ideally, I'd like to train up to a maximum score in the Marine Corps PFT, which is:

1) 20 pull-ups
2) 100 crunches in 2 minutes
3) 3-mile run in 18 minutes

I'm starting with a stretching program every morning, and plan to begin in earnest in the next few weeks. 

Any other ideas?

If you have trouble self-motivating like me, look for something structured and scheduled like martial arts. I find the built in goals and the hard schedule help me enormously in actually keeping up with it.

[Viin]

6 minute miles for 3 miles?  I'm lucky to do 9 m/m's for 2 miles.

[Miguel]

Update:  so I've done the Parcourse a total of 8 times over the last three weeks.  I completed 1.5miles running non-stop in about 19 minutes.  I've never run a mile before continuously so this was a big achievement!  The course has three elevated push up bars (think 4 feet off the ground for "easy, 2 feet for "medium", and right against the ground for "hard").  I've worked up to just about 10 reps on the easy bar.

I did start doing negative pull-ups on the high-bar on the course.  The first few times I couldn't manage more than one, and I've now up to about 6 negative ones.  I jump up to the starting position, palms facing inwards, chin above bar, no motion below the waist, and lower myself down over about a 10-second period.  After a few weeks, right at the beginning I can almost finish one "normal" one starting from the arms-fully-extended hanging position, so the negative ones seem to be helping.  Thanks for that advice!

My caloric intake is still pretty restricted:  I've bumped up to about 1600 calories per day (from 900) and my weight loss has tapered off and I'm basically maintaining at this point at close to 70 pounds down.

I was shocked at how much my fitness improved just by loosing the weight:  I guess if you think about it, most normal activities would be quite challenging with 70 extra-pounds of resistance. ;)

6 minute miles for 3 miles?  I'm lucky to do 9 m/m's for 2 miles.

Indeed:  this is a 10 MPH pace sustained for almost 20 minutes...I'm so far from this goal it seems beyond reach at this point.

[Shannow]

Well he did say that was for the MAX score on the marine pft.  Ran 3.2 miles today and was happy not to walk any of it.  Now my legs are not happy

[Chimpy]

I decided I really needed to buckle down and start getting in shape, but motivation is always a problem for me. So I decided to meet with a trainer to get some guidance. He is an independent guy that people I know have worked with who works out of the gym I am a member at (and he is 10% less for hour long sessions than the gym sells 45min sessions for to boot). He got me set up on a basic core exercise routine and a 3 day rotating cardio workout to do for the next month until he has regular scheduled slots open up in August.

I also caved to a friend of mine's father who has been trying to get me to run in the "Crazy K" in September (it is like a 5k tough mudder deal) and since I have never run a 5k (and was never good at distance running in school) I also am going to do one of those self-guided couch->5k 8 week training plans starting in a couple weeks in preparation.

So if I am able to keep with it, I should be able to drop a few more pounds (I am down to 215 which is as light as I have been since high school), build some cardio endurance to run farther in one sitting than I ever have, and with the trainer's help in August get some muscle tone back. If I succeed in all of those endeavors I am going to take up swimming (I will actually have to take lessons as I can swim well enough to save my life in relatively calm water but not well enough to swim laps) in October as my doctor actually recommended I do something like that to help keep my spine straight as it works all the back muscles.