This tall, skinny, lanky dude's HST log

N

nislyj

New Member
I thought it might be a good idea to put this out there for the sake of accountability.

Here's the spreadsheet I'm using to plan out my HST cycle. I have weights and reps pretty well planned out for the whole cycle but I am recording the actuals as I do them in case I find I need to make any mid-course adjustments. I just bold the weight cell of each exercise on my ipad as I do them at the gym which makes keeing things straight really easy.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AltGwMsf2G8bdEoxNFFtRE85TVZ3RmtyeTBoYzF1dmc&usp=sharing

No laughing at the weights. Ok, a little chuckling is alright. ;)

A little bit of back story:

I'm 32, 5'11", and currently weight about 160 pounds. A little more than a year ago I got my sedentary, 30 pound overweight ass off the couch and started running, attending bootcamp and crossfit style classes, and eating healthier. I got those 30 pounds off and my conditioning is pretty decent (ran a 5k in 22 minutes back in October) but I never really put any muscle on.

About a month ago, I decided it was time for a change and started reading up on how to best go about adding some lean mass, and I stumbled on HST. I'm still pretty new to all this but I've been reading voraciously and am really excited about how much stronger I feel already in just two weeks.

I'm treating this first cycle as a bit of a practice run. I conservatively estimated my RM's to give me time to practice the movements and get used to the new routine. Once I finish this cycle, I'll test for all my RM's and really go for it the second time around.

So, feel free to take a look at the routine and tell me what you think. I already have some changes in mind for the next cycle and I can't wait to see what kind of progress I can make.

Thanks for looking!
 
The exercise selection is pretty good, but you are going to overtrain your back eventually.

First off drop the shrugs, these are totally unnecessary as you are working your upper traps with deadlifts. Also your traps are getting hit with shoulder presses, bent rows, and others. the shrugs will just overwork your traps.

Second your lower back is gonna suffer doing squats, deads and barbell rows all in the same workout. You may get away with it for awhile while the loads are low, but eventually you will overtrain your lower back muscles and get hurt. You could alternate squats with deads, or do rows and squats one workout, and deads on the other workout, but doing all three of these three times/week will be brutal.

Other than that it looks great. Hope you make some good weight gain. Make sure you eat plenty of protein and calories. You should be gaining on average at least 1 pound/week or you won't gain much mass.
 
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Thanks, Sci, I really appreciate the feedback.

I have no problem dumping the shrugs right away; they were feeling unnecessary anyway and that's one less grip intensive exercise to do which might help with the hand soreness I've been having.

I'll see if I can finish up this week as is, and in the meantime, figure out how to best go about splitting those lower back exercises starting next week.

The nutrition side of things has been a real head job. I've been in weight loss mode for so long that it's been a real adjustment to try to go the other way. I simply can't believe how much I'm eating and I'm still ending up below my calorie intake a lot of days. I know it takes time to change habits but that part has been a much bigger habit change then I anticipated.

At the moment, I'm shooting for about 2800 kcals, about 170g of protein, then somewhat evenly splitting the remaining calories between carbs and fat, meaning, in terms of grams, I'm eating roughly twice as much carbs as fat.

Is that a decent starting point?
 
I think I might need to switch to barbell bench press instead of DB bench press because I think I nearly injured my shoulder this morning trying to get into position for my DB bench press. I leaned back and swung the weights up for their starting position like I have many times, but for some reason, the left just went over. There was no graceful way to save it without cranking on my shoulder, so I just let it go.

I did the same weights on Wednesday without any issues, but I did have a weird stomach bug on Thursday and most of Friday which meant I was WAY under on my calories for both of those days. I don't have enough experience to know how much of an effect that can have on strength, but it definitely felt very, very different this morning.

I hate to switch exercises part way through a cycle, but moving forward, starting on the pins with a barbell sounds like it might be a lot less risky then trying to swing dumbbells around. Now it's just a matter of figuring out where to pick it up in terms of weight.
 
Drop the DB bench now! Good friend of mine is 210#, black belt, ex hockey player, tough old boy, been working out for years, 18'' arms. 2 years ago tore his rotators and had to have surgery from, you guessed it, getting dumbbells in position to do a bench.
 
Update:

This morning started my third week of fives and I am very happy with the progress I've made thus far. I've gained about six pounds, give or take, I can see noticable differences in the amount of definition and shape of my body, and my back and legs have never felt stronger.

I've switched to barbell for both bench press and shoulder press and I've been really concentrating on keeping my form on track on all the major moves. For form, I've been follow the methods laid out in Rippetoes, Starting Strength 3, for no better reason then it's the most thorough and fully explained resource on the movements I've found so far.

I do have one question, though. As the switch from cardio/running to strength training is still a fairly recent thing for me, I think I'm still in that novice stage where progress can come quickly and for a while before things start leveling off. If, after the fourth week of 5's, I feel like I could still do another two weeks with slightly higher loads, should I go for it? Should I keep going until I plateau and then SD, or would that just be foolishly overreaching?
 
It wouldn't be foolishly over-reaching at all. If your joints are feeling fine then I see no harm in pressing on with the 5s. Don't compromise your form though. No sense in causing an injury. Once you are feeling a bit beaten up you'll know it's time to take a well-earned SD and to plan your next cycle. All the best.
 
Just dropping by to let you all know I'm still at it. I'm up to about 175 pounds body weight, got my squat up to 215 for a set of five, deadlift to 265 for a set of five, and bench to 165 for a set of five which is up from 155, 175, and 135, respectively.

I'm part way through my fourth cycle and still really enjoying seeing the progress. Thanks, everyone, for your help.
 
Re benchpress: it may be a good idea to go over to BB now but dont knock the DB press. I think once you´ve been lifting a bit longer you´ll find that you´ve got much more stability when getting the db´s into place. Neural adaption and all that sciencey stuff.

Now I see you´re on your 4th cycle! Oh well, the advice is still the same.
 
Yeah, I ended up switching to BB for bench and press sometime in the first cycle. In addition to the added stability, I was able to add five pounds at a time compared to the minimum five pounds per hand the dumbells offered.
 
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