Skinny guy + food + weights = ???

NotMe

Hey, I'm gonna start keeping a fitness log on here. Stats first:

Age: 25
Sex: male
Height: 5'11"
Weight: 11 stone 8 lbs / 162lbs / 73.5kg

I'm working out at home, doing the Starting Strength program. I started lifting weights in January but didn't start Starting Strength properly until March. In my noobishness I started with just the A workout - doing squat, bench, deadlift for 3 sets of 8, 3 times a week. I started really light aswell, ie with a 6kg barbell and increased the weight gradually each session.
[It's funny, I hadn't done any decent exercise in years. My first workout was 3x8 squat, bench, deadlift with the 6kg bar and I was IN BITS the next day. I haven't had DOMS that bad since.:p]

Yeah so, in March I started doing the B workout too (squat, overhead, press) and changed to 3x5. I got a chinning bar too and started doing chin-ups and pull-ups.

My main goal in January was to put on some weight and bulk up a bit. Now my main goal is to get stronger. Weight lifting is addictive!

(post on diet coming up)

Edwardius

Have you read the book?

NotMe

This was the difficult part. I hadn't a clue. I've always been skinny, I was probably around 10 stone when I was 18 and went up to max 10.5 stone. In my 20s I started slowly losing weight. When I was in college I was getting by on very little food. I'd eat breakfast [2 fried eggs + bread] at 7am, then during the day I have a packet of crisps and chocolate bar. That would keep me going until I got home around 6 or 7pm. Then I'd have my dinner. So it's not surprising looking back.

This time last year I weighed myself and was 9.2 stone (58kg). Borderline underweight according to those height v weight charts. I made a half assed attempt to put on some weight. I tried to eat a bit more and started a crappy workout with my brothers 10kg dumbbells that were lying around. I was just doing bicep curls, tricep kickbacks, lateral raises... a bunch of random db exercises that I found on the web basically. I only kept it up for about 2 weeks.

At the start of this year I decided to seriously make a change. I was 9.5 stone (60kg) then. I bought a bench and barbell set. And more importantly, I read the diet and nutrition sticky on here! I started keeping track of my food on Fitday. I was eating around 1800 calories a day. I started eating 6 meals a day, trying to eat protein with each meal. Got up to 2500-3000 calories a day by the end of Jan. I was taking 1 serving of MassX (~600 cals) a day to help make up the calories but I've been replacing that with food and I'm only using the MassX post workout now. Will get standard whey when this tub runs out.

Typical diet these days looks like:
Meal 1: porridge, trail mix, 2 boiled eggs
Meal 2: ham + soda bread w/ lettuce/mayo, milk
Meal 3: beans, apple
Meal 4: potato, broccoli, chicken
Meal 5: tuna + brown bread
Meal 6: banana, milk

Varies day to day, comes to around 2500 - 3000 cals.

NotMe

Dead Ed wrote: »

Have you read the book?

Yep I got it from amazon a while back. Very useful.

Al_Fernz

Do you squat without a rack?

NotMe

I have a stand but no power rack. I try not to go to failure I have a couple of times and had to dump the weight behind me. It's not ideal but I do plan to join a gym soon enough.

TODAY:

[weight: 73.5kg]

warmup

Squats:
46 x10
66 x5
86 x3
96 x5/5/5


Bench Press:
26 x10
46 x5
58.5 x4/3/3


Deadlift:
46 x5
66 x5
86 x5
96 x3
111 x5

Chin-ups
x6/5/5

stretching

---

Squats were good. I stalled at 93.5kg 2 weeks ago, deloaded to 83.5 and worked back up and got the 93.5 last Friday and 96 today no problem.
Bench was a struggle.
Deadlift is getting tough and.... I've run out of plates! :pac:

Started doing the chin-ups about 9 weeks ago. I could do 4. Now I can do 7 (if I don't do them after a workout). I tried pull-ups last week and could only manage 2! They're much tougher. I have the chinning bar set up permanently so I do a set of chin-ups once or twice a day everyday.

Al_Fernz

You sound like you have a similar setup to me when I started nearly a year ago. I doubt there are too much people out there who have never had the oul' York bench from Argos.

Then I joined a gym. TBH it was one of the best decisions I've ever made. As you said yourself you've run out of weights - I think its the logical step to make. Get yourself a place with a squat rack/power cage, benches and a few oly bars and you'll be laughing.

Good work. I'll definitely be keeping an eye on this journal.

NotMe

28/05/08

warmup

Squat:
46 x10
66 x5
86 x3
98.5 x5/4/3

Overhead Press:
26 x5
41 x5/4/4

Barbell Row:
36 x5
58.5 x5/4/4

Bench Dips
x10/10/10

stretching

NotMe

31/05/08

warmup

Squats:
46 x10
66 x5
86 x3
98.5 x4/4/3

Bench Press:
26 x10
46 x5
58.5 x4/4/3

stretching

---

Bit of a disaster.. I wasn't in the zone or whatever. Squats: nearly failed on 3rd rep of 1st set. I didn't bother deadlifting, did it today instead.

---

01/06/08

warmup

Deadlift:
46 x5
66 x5
86 x5
96 x5
111 x5

Chin-ups x7/6/3

Reverse crunches x10
Crunches x20

stretching

NotMe

02/06/08

warmup

Squats:
46 x10
66 x5
86 x5
98.5 x5/5/5


Overhead Press:
26 x5
41 x3/5/3


Barbell Row:
41 x5
58.5 x5/5/5


stretching

---

Gonna be squatting >100 kgs next day... scary.:D

NotMe

05/06/08

warmup

Squats:
66 x5/5
86 x5
96 x3
101 x5/4/4


Bench Press:
26 x10
46 x5
58.5 x5/4/4


Deadlift:
46 x5
66 x5
86 x5
96 x5
111 x5

Chin-ups
x6/6/5


stretching

NotMe

Last week wasn't great and I ended up only doing 2 workouts. Also managed to lose 2 lbs. :rolleyes:

09/06/08

[Weight: 160lbs / 72.5kg]

Squats:
66 x5/5
86 x5
96 x3
101 x5/4/3

Overhead Press:
26 x5
36 x5
41 x5/3/3

Barbell Row:
41 x5
61 x5/5/5

Chin-ups x5/4/5

---

Thinking about swapping squats for front squats for a while.

NotMe

Thursday - 12/06/08

Squats:
66 x5/5
86 x5
96 x3
101 x5/4/3

Bench Press:
26 x10
46 x5
58.5 x5/4/3

Deadlift:
66 x5
86 x5
96 x5
111 x5

---

Saturday - 14/06/08

Overhead Squat:
6 x5
16 x5
21 x3/4
18.5 x5/5/5

Overhead Press:
26 x5
33.5 x5/5/5

First time trying overhead squats. I was very wobbly - kept having to stand up again before getting all the way down because I was going to fall forward or backwards. I had to use the widest grip possible (hands touching the plates) and I really felt it in my shoulders. They're sore today. I'm going to do them once a week now but maybe not on the same day as the overhead press.

Deloaded on overhead press.

NotMe

This week.

[Weight: 162lbs / 73.5kg] +2lb

---

Tue - 17/06/08

Squats:
66 x10
86 x5
91 x5/5/5

Bench Press:
26 x10
48.5 x5/5/5

Deadlift:
66 x5
86 x5
96 x5
111 x5

RDL:
66 x5/5/5


Deloaded on squats and bench.

---

Thu - 19/06/08

Squats:
66 x10
86 x5
93.5 x5/5/5

Overhead Press:
26 x5
36 x5/5/5

Barbell Row:
46 x5
56 x5
63.5 x5/4/4


Hamstrings are sore from RDLs the last day. Not surprising I guess. Squats are not fun anymore. I find myself looking for excuses not to do them. *

---

Sat - 21/06/08

Overhead Squat:
6 x5
11 x5
16 x5/5
21 x5/5/5

Bench Press:
26 x10
36 x5
51 x5/5/5

Deadlift:
66 x5
86 x5
96 x5
111 x5


Overhead squat - much better today and fun! I really need to start doing shoulder dislocations again though. I was doing them everyday but stopped.

---

*grrrrrr :mad:

NotMe

[Weight: 162lbs / 73.5kg] +0lb


24/06/08

Squats:
66 x10
86 x5
96 x5/5/5

Overhead Press:
26 x5
38.5 x5/5/5

Barbell Row:
46 x5
56 x5
63.5 x5/4/4

---

26/06/08

Overhead Squat:
6 x5
16 x5/5
23.5 x5/5/5


Bench Press:
26 x10
36 x5
53.5 x5/5/5
46 x10/5/5


Deadlift:
66 x5
86 x5
96 x5
111 x5


RDL:
71 x5/5/5

*Was paying attention to my bench press form and realised I had my upper arms out at 90 degrees to my body. I should have them tucked in more.

---

29/06/08

Overhead Squat:
6 x5
16 x5/5
23.5 x5/5/5

Overhead Press:
26 x10
41 x2/2/1
38.5 x3/3/3

Barbell Row:
46 x5
56 x5
63.5 x5/5/5


*overhead squat: meant to increase to 26 ...doh

overhead press: hmm back up to 41kg, deload didn't help much. I felt ridiculously weak. Did 3x5 @ 38.5kg last day but couldn't get more than 2 reps @ 41kg today

NotMe

Progress report:

So I been at this for 6 months now and this is my progress so far:

Weight change graph from fitday.com:


I've been keeping track of my weights on google docs so I have a nice colourful graph of my progress.:pac:


And some poor quality phone pictures:

BossArky

You are definetly making progress. Big difference in the photos. Well done.

NotMe

Tue - 01/07/08

[weight: 162 lbs / 73.5 kg]

Squat:
66 x10
86 x5
98.5 x5/5/5

Bench Press:
26 x10
46 x5
56 x5/5/5

Deadlift:
66 x5
86 x5
96 x5
111 x5


RDL: 73.5
x5/5/5

---

Thu - 03/07/08

Overhead Squat:
16 x5/5
26 x5/5/5

Overhead Press:
26 x10
36 x5
41 x5/3/3

Barbell Row:
46 x5
56 x5
66 x5/5/4

---

Sat - 05/07/08

Squat:
66 x5
86 x5
101 x5/5/5 (yes!)

Bench Press:
26 x10
46 x5
58.5 x5/5/5 (double yes!)

Deadlift:
66 x5
86 x5
96 x5
111 x5

Chins:
x5/5/5

Did 3x12 dumbbell bicep curls yesterday for a laff and have DOMS in my biceps for the first time evar. Which reminds me, I haven't had DOMS in my legs for ages. A while back when I was squatting less weight my legs were sore practically every day.

NotMe

Mon - 07/07/08

[weight: 166 lbs / 75 kg]

Overhead Squat:
16 x5/5
28.5 x5/5/5

Overhead Press:
26 x10
36 x5
41 x5/4/4


Barbell Row:
46 x5
56 x5
66 x5/5/5
** have to deload on this because I know my form is gone to **** and they are turning into deadlifts

Pull ups: x3/2/3
** after rows = hard

---

Wed - 09/07/08

Overhead Squat:
16 x5/5
26 x5
31 x5/5/5

Bench Press:
26 x10
46 x5
61 x5/4/4

Deadlift:
66 x5
86 x5
96 x5
111 ** couldn't do it.. lower back was a bit sore

Chins: x6/6/5

---

My lower back has been sore since last Friday or Saturday. Not really bad but just stiff and sore when I bend over. It wasn't too bad on Wednesday until I started doing deadlifts. I was thinking about stopping after 96kg but I decided to just load up 111kg and go for it. It wouldn't budge, I was feeling it too much in my lower back and couldn't put the effort in.

It's not too bad today but still a bit uncomfortable. I'm going to take it easy until Monday I think.

Queen-Mise

Well done, there is a massive difference in the photos. work is definitely showing