Training 9-10-07

Here's yesterday's workout, my first A workout: (if you can't figure out what the numbers mean, scroll down to the last paragraph of this post)

Squat
5 x 185
5 x 195
5 x 205
5 x 215
5 x 195

Bench
5 x 5 x 225

Deadlift
5 x 135
5 x 155
5 x 175

Pullups
10, 8, 6, 5, 5

Decline Bench Situps
4 x 10 x 25

As you can tell, I'm trying to find the weight I should be using on Squat and Deadlift. I think I should be able to nail them down by the end of the week.

Squats felt good up to 205. At 215 I was on the verge of breaking form, but just barely managed to keep my back straight at the bottom. I think I'll start at 195 next time and work up again, just to be safe. Squat is the one exercise I want to be most cautious with until I've found my "happy place." If I overload it or screw up, I could really mess myself up.

Bench was right at my limit. First set was hard, middle sets were better, and my 5th on the final set was definitely the last rep I could have done. I'll try 225 again later this week and see if I can bump up to 230 or 235 next week.

I was worried about form on the deadlift because it's a relatively new lift for me and I've been doing low weight and high reps in order to get the form down. I was surprised that I was able to maintain form all the way up through 175. I felt like I could maybe do 3 sets of 185 next time.

Pullups were good. I need to get a chain belt to attach a weight. I've been doing pullups pretty regularly for a while, and seem to have stalled out at 10 for a first set going down to 5 by the 4th set. Adding weight and going for sets of 5 might help break that plateau.

A quick note on how I record my workouts:

Whenever you see two numbers, the first number is the number of reps in the set and the second number is the amount of weight used. For example, "5 x 135" means I did 5 reps with 135 pounds. When you see three numbers, the first is the number of sets done, the second is the number of reps per set, and the third is the amount of weight used. For example, "5 x 6 x 100" means that I did 5 sets of 6 reps each with 100 pounds. On bodyweight exercises, I just list the number of reps done per set.