ec·to·morph (ěk'tə-môrf')
n. An individual having a lean, slightly muscular body build in which tissues derived from the embryonic ectoderm predominate.
The purpose of this log:
1. To serve as a handy backup to my spiral-bound, paper log, in a format which is both legible and not subject to sweat dripping on it.
2. A place to solicit advice and feedback in the warm and supportive environment that is Sherdog.net. If you bother reading this and see me doing something that you know from personal experience just isn't going to work, by all means, let me know. Constructive criticism is welcome. Open mockery will be returned in kind. Unconstructive criticism will earn you a quick entry on my ignore list, and I'll soon forget you ever existed.
3. A guide or a warning to the next scrawny, weak, total non-athlete on the wrong side of 30 to come wandering in here. Don't get me wrong, there are a couple of guys in my overall size/age/strength bracket that keep logs here, but for the most part, the Training Log subforum is dominated by monstrous SOB's who routinely put up numbers which bear no more relation to my own than, say, the national debt does to the balance on my Visa card. I intend to keep posting this thing for a long time, and with any luck, someone else will come stumbling across the S&P, see this, and think "Hey, I'm not too far from where this guy was when he started, and he's been nice enough to post exactly what he's done to get where he is now." Depending on my results, of course, the hypothetical reader would then be able to either try what I've tried if it has worked for me, or avoid it like the plague if it hasn't.
The goals:
Me, only stronger.
Immediate goals:
1. Full Squat > Bench Press, just like a normally proportioned human being. [Hit on 2/3/2008, lost on 07/18/2008, reachieved 10/10/2008.]
2. Bench Press 1RM of 225. [Hit on 10/05/2007]
3. Deadlift 405. [Hit on 05/25/2008]
4. Bench Press 1RM of 250 [added 10/31/2007, race vs. Old Man, Bubble Boy and Flak, hit on 07/19/2008]
Longer Term Goals:
1. I will remove "scrawny" from my signature line when my bodyweight breaks 200lbs and stays there for two weeks. [Removed 02/17/2007, replaced 05/18/2007, removed again 09/05/2007]
2. I will remove "weak" from my signature line when my Wilks total hits 240. [Removed 06/02/2008]
3. I will remove "inflexible" when I can throw a head-level roundhouse kick without jumping, pulling something, or falling over.
4. I'm still working on a criterion "uncoordinated." Suggestions are appreciated.
5. "Short-winded" is going when I can do a six-minute mile again. Or when I break eight minutes on the 100-burpee challange. Or when I can do both. We'll see.
I tried to make these all reasonable and achievable: 200 lbs isn't particularly large, but even at my height, it can be definitively said that it isn't scrawny. A Wilks total of 240 isn't very strong at all, but I think that it's past the point of being actually weak. I'm looking forward to coming up with new benchmarks and goals after achieving these.
The Methods:
The transition from mindless laps through the weight machine circuit to ill-informed, semi-successful body-building style work to better informed, strength-oriented training is common enough around here that I won’t bother detailing my own variation on that theme.
This log starts with my second trip through
ExRx.net’s
Sample Power Lifting Programs "Basic Power Cycle," with most of the machine-based, isolation exercises for assistance work tossed out in favor of compound lifts. My first two-month cycle on it resulted in a modest 10% average increase for my squat, bench and deadlift. My log here starts with me continuing on that pattern, from roughly September 2006 through June 2007. There were some disruptions here and there for injuries, vacations, etc, but it was all pretty much a three day squat/bench/DL split, with assorted assistance lifts rounding out the day after the main lift was done.
I shifted over to Mark Rippetoe’s
Starting Strength program in August 2007, and kept pounding away at slow, steady gains until January 2008, at which point it seemed like daily gains just weren’t coming any more, and I shifted to Rippetoe’s Texas Method of weekly cycling.
If anyone is really curious as to how well the various methods worked, you can try matching the rough dates above with the recorded maxes shown below.
The short version, though is that I strongly recommend
Starting Strength to anyone beginning on a course of strength training, whether you’re coming from some other program or just stepping into a gym for the first time. If you don’t have the cash to throw down for the book, then find one of the many places the routine has been posted online and go with that. I strongly recommend the book as a resource on form and technique, though: if I’d had it earlier and paid more attention, I could have saved myself a lot of time that I had to spend tearing down my squat and rebuilding it in better form.
History and Current Numbers:
(Please hold all laughter until the end)
As of:
09/21/2008: Age 33, weight 210 (17.6%BF), Squat: 250, Bench: 250, Deadlift: 405
07/19/2008: Age 33, weight 208 (c.16.5% BF), Squat 245, Bench 250, Deadlift 405
06/04/2008: Age 33, weight 208 (16.7% BF), Squat 245, Bench 240, Deadlift 405
02/23/2008: Age 32, weight 210 (16.4% BF), Squat 240, Bench 235, Deadlift 375
07/08/2007: Age 32, weight 198 (12.9% BF), Squat 215, Bench 215, Deadlift 365
04/06/2007: Age 31, weight 197 (c.12.1% BF), Squat 205, Bench 205, Deadlift: 355
01/14/2007: Age 31, weight 192 (13.4%BF), Squat: 195, Bench: 205, Deadlift: 335
09/21/2006: Age 31, weight 193 (11.4%BF), Squat: 175, Bench: 195, Deadlift: 295
MMA Fight Predictions:
Overall: 134 out of 207 (64.7%)
By method of victory: 79 out of 207 (38.2%)
