So, here's the beginning. . . .I started NROLFW three weeks ago; will do workout 1A #5 tomorrow, but want to go back and enter my workouts in case I lose the paper copies which are folded multiple times until they are falling apart. Don't want to forget the weights I used at the beginning, so I can judge my progress.
Starting Stats:
Age: 39
Height: 5'4"
Weight: 124-129, depending on diet and workout schedules; pretty good muscle tone from years of semi-challenging lifting; pretty good wind from lots of cardio. Don't know my body fat %, but can tell by looking when I get too much. Have never been able to get completely rid of the ring around the middle, and am sure it's due to nutrition. Am starting to log my food in fitday.com.
Waist: 28" (sometimes 29, depending on diet, water retention, etc.); the bane of my existence that I will never have a 26" waist. Only time I did, I had dieted down to 103 lbs. and was a scarecrow, pre-lifting. I am psyched when I occasionally see 27.5" in the morning, and would love to manage to get 27", but doubt I will. I am built thick-waisted and thick-ankled, get humorous ribbing from my man about my "cankles." As in, "you're about perfect. . . .but are you gonna do something about those ankles?"
Pre-NROLFW, I had concentrated on "high reps, low weight" for upper body "toning" without "bulking up"! I believed all the fallacies, and when I got a personal trainer, she reinforced those ideas. Knew I needed to enlarge legs/butt, so did more heavy lifting there. Could Romanian deadlift from 65-90 lbs., depending on current level of fitness. Never did regular deadlifts. Could squat on the Smith machine with 75 lbs. (I know, I know, I'm off the machine). Could bicep curl 20 lb. bar 10 times with strain. Chest press 25-30 lbs. on cable machine or with barbell. DB shoulder presses 10 lbs. 15 reps was hard. I did all those isolated muscle exercises that Lou scorns in the book. Abs in really good shape, because I LOVE ab exercises. I always did bunches of them before lifting, and am missing them some with these workouts. But, have not done more than the ones in the workouts, because "don't tweak the workouts the first time through, Alwyn knows what he's doing." But it's hard.
Will come back later and enter the workout info. This might be fun.
Took it easy for the first workout; wanted to get form down.
B1 5/21/09
Deadlift: 65/15, 65/15
DB Shoulder Press: 10/15, 10/15
Lat Pulldown: 50/15, 50/15
Lunge: 12.5/15, 12.5/15
Ball Crunch: long lever 8/20, 8/20
Did extra crunches, these are easy for me, lots of practice.
Deadlifts were really hard! I wasn't expecting that; I have never used this form before, and thought it wouldn't be too different from the Romanians I am used to doing. Was I surprised!
Second set squats were hard; now I've read some threads about how to do them, I think maybe I round my back at the bottom. I'll have to check on that next time. Also, might try widening stance some and pointing toes out; I feel more comfortable that way than parallel feet at shoulder width like I've been doing.
Step ups were getting hard second set. Again, I've read more about how to do them, and I'm doing it wrong; bringing down working leg every time, pushing with back foot. Will back off weight some and try them properly; will probably get harder.
Push ups from floor hard on my wrists, as are jackknives; think I have beginning arthritis in wrists/thumb joints. Wonder if resting hands on dumbbells would relieve the strain some. But don't dare use DBs with pikes!
Pikes not as hard as I thought they'd be.
B4 6/4/09
Deadlift: 75/12, 75/12
DB Shoulder Press: 15/11, 15/10
Lat Pulldown: 70/12, 80/12
Lunge: 20/12, 20/12
Ball Crunch: 10lb. plate on chest/20, 10 overhead/15
Was feeling weak for this workout. Shoulder presses REALLY hard, don't know why, unless because workout was after long busy workday. On the other hand, deadlifts coming along nicely. Legs always stronger than upper body. Think I'm doing lunges wrong as well as step ups. watched some vids today, read some threads/links, and realized I tilt pelvis some, putting more strain on quads than should be. Not plantar flexing back foot enough. Need work.
Tomorrow I start A5; three sets, wow! I got used to only doing 2. Wonder if it will seem to take forever.
Holy alliteration Batman! (referring to log title)
From what I could tell (having done a few NROL modules), the ab work gets done with the other exercises - squatting, deadlifting etc all require good core strength, so it's a little more efficient in that regard.
__________________
Tom
No "happy hours" makes for a lot of miserable days. - Mahler
Yeah, I guess that's so about the abs. But I don't get sore in the abs with these workouts the way I do when I do bunches of crunches. I will just trust the workouts, and see what happens.
Yeah, I guess that's so about the abs. But I don't get sore in the abs with these workouts the way I do when I do bunches of crunches. I will just trust the workouts, and see what happens.
Don't tweak anything with it. I did NROLFW last year, and my core got a lot stronger and leaner. It amazed me that I didn't have to kill myself doing crunches, but think about it: to get a better core, you also have to focus on lower-back work and stability exercises to balance it out. And to see that fat loss on your abs, you just have to hunker down and create calorie deficits through diet and exercise.
Deadlifts are awesome. I miss doing those - I haven't been inside a weight room since January (been swinging, cleaning and pressing kettlebells for my strength workouts in the meantime) - and deadlifts are very helpful in developing overall, functional strength.
Funny; I think all my ab exercises were making me lopsided front to back, because I didn't do much with the spinal erectors. Used to hate to do back extensions. Now when I do deadlifts and squats, my lower back gets sore; I can tell it's working more. Haven't been doing a calorie deficit, because my natural metabolism is fast, and I have not needed to lose weight, only fat. What I've done is start tracking my ratios, and found I've been eating too many carbs and fat and not enough protein. Trying to really jump up the protein in a day, and lower the other two. Hopefully this will work on the fat. Although, perhaps I am working at some deficit, because I'm always HUNGRY now!
Good God Almighty! On Stage 1, workout A5 and it was hell! Worked on my form a lot, due to the threads I've been following. My squats were good, better than I thought, paying attention to lower back rounding. I wasn't doing it today, probably because I widened my stance, and that helped. The step ups were HELL doing them the right way! I've been doing them wrong all my life, and here I thought they were wimpy easy. Now I know why; I've been cheating like anything with the back foot, even when I thought I wasn't. I was doing them with 20 lb DBs and thinking it was easy. I dropped to 10 lbs today and tried not to use back foot at all, and I about died. COULD NOT do them more than one rep without push at all, on reps 2-10 I tried "brushing the floor" only with back foot, and it was near impossible. Much more quad and calf involvement; don't know how I'll manage to shift the firing to the glutes until I can do it this way. Maybe will have to lower the step some. Anyway, here's today's workout.
Like I said, hellish. Squats were getting hard at end of third set; had thought about going to 80 for it but didn't, and was glad. Next time I'll up it.
The push ups from the floor really bother my wrists. Today used hex DBs to grip on, it releases some of the wrist angle/tension. That helped, but third set was still hard. I can't keep my elbows close enough in.
Wish the row machine had 5 pound increments; 80 was too hard, I've gone up 10 pounds on each workout, and by the third set today I was having to use momentum from torso to get the weight pulled back. Will stick with 80 for a while until I can do it without losing form.
Step ups are gonna become my bete noire ("something which is particularly disliked or avoided; an object of aversion, the bane of one’s existence." Ok, so I said it was my waist size, now I've changed my mind, it's step ups.) Even dropping my weight in half and doing sets of 10 instead of 12 or 15, it was hard. The first set was hard, by the third I was almost screaming, and having to rest at the top of each rep to take some deep breaths.
Also, my rests between step ups and jackknives were longer than 60 today; more like 120. The pike jackknives I had gotten down really well before today, but after a set of proper step ups, the pikes were hell as well. I aimed to do 15 each set, but only made 12, 10, then last set only 9 in pike position, had to do three as tucks and about fell off the ball after. My heart was jumping out of my chest.
This workout, like the one two days ago, was late afternoon instead of early morning, and I wonder how much that affects me. I also only got 6 hours of sleep last night, which is not enough for me, so I had two strikes against myself. Hopefully next time I do this workout it will fall on a morning day. I am BEAT, this is 45 minutes after I returned from gym. Legs going to be sore tomorrow, I can tell.
You're doing great! Why are you doing your push-ups on the floor if they're giving you pan and you can't keep your elbows in? Why not do an incline instead?
Hmm....I guess because any incline doesn't give me nearly enough resistance. I think I am ok with them from the floor, the elbows only go out on the last few reps, when I'm tired, which means I am challenging myself. Also, just after rows, on the last two push up sets, I'm tired because the rows were too heavy. I need smaller increments on rows. It's an adjustment problem. The wrist problem is arthritis, I think, and it does help to use DBs to grip.
Yes - that's the other reason not to tweak the program because as written, it's balanced. When you wrote about how many ab exercises you do, I wondered how you'd handle deadlifting and squatting. From the sounds of it, you're right - the muscles seem to be imbalanced.
__________________
Tom
No "happy hours" makes for a lot of miserable days. - Mahler
you mention the lat machine not having increments of 5lbs.
Have you looked at the top of the machine? The one in the picture is similar to one at my gym, and there are some small round weights that you can lower to add 5 or 10 lbs to the stack. they are a little hard to see, but if you lower them down they sit right on top of the weight plate.
I discovered these by accident. Couldn't figure out why my usual weight felt so much tougher than usual. LOL
you mention the lat machine not having increments of 5lbs.
Have you looked at the top of the machine? The one in the picture is similar to one at my gym, and there are some small round weights that you can lower to add 5 or 10 lbs to the stack. they are a little hard to see, but if you lower them down they sit right on top of the weight plate.
I discovered these by accident. Couldn't figure out why my usual weight felt so much tougher than usual. LOL
Yeah; I know about those weights, my old gym had them. My new one doesn't. It might be an older machine or something, because the center poles don't have the sliding vertical attachment adjuster either, so you can't move the pulley to the middle, there's only a fixed one at top and bottom. I've thought about trying to jerry rig a 5 pounder somehow for the rows, but can't figure out how to do it. It's a pain not having those nice slider weights.
Deadlifts: 80/10, 80/10, 80/10
DB Shoulder Press: 15/10, 15/10, 15/10
Lat Pulldown: 80/10, 80/10, 80/10
Lunge: 20/10, 20/10, 20/10
Ball Crunch: 10lb. plate overhead hold, feet against edge of weight bench: 10/20, 10/20, 10/15
Three sets of everything sure takes a lot longer than 2!
Deadlifts were easier; I used better form today after watching the video from a site link posted by MissJane. I had been starting with the weight too far away from me, and pulling with my back too much, as well as not gripping hard enough. I could really feel it in glutes and hamstrings today, no strain at all in lower back. Yay!
Shoulder presses still hard on 3rd set, had thought after first set to go up 2.5 lbs. but didn't, and was glad. I think I've been hunching my shoulders up towards my ears; will have to go back and review technique for this in book. Third set focused on keeping shoulders down and neck relaxed, and they were much harder.
Lat Pulldowns: I discovered that widening grip really makes a difference in muscles used. 80 was hard, then on third set I widened grip a few inches, and felt it more in the rhomboids, I think, but it was slightly easier.
Worked on back leg form on lunges. They are still hard, still my least favorite, (along with the dreaded step ups) but quads didn't get as tired with the better form.
Think it was Stingo who said to put feet on a bench for ball crunches. It really does add another dimension of balance control. Easy with no weight on my warmup set, but adding 10lb. plate made it harder. I started with plate on chest, but wasn't challenging enough, so I held it over my head with bent elbows. Knew there was no way I could do it with straight arms, but even bent it was hard to keep from rolling side to side. Only managed 15 on last set.
Exhausted afterwards! Had to take slightly longer than 60 second rests during C1 and C2 sets. Still haven't felt as strong during workouts last three days as I did before. Wonder if that means I'm challenging myself more? Food's been right on ratio, but scale dropped 3.5 pounds between yesterday and today! Same time, same scale, same clothes. What's up with that, I wonder.
This one time I came out of the gym, and walked out with one of the gym dinosaurs. "Workouts make me feel great!" I said. He sortof sniggered and said "Heh, well that will pass".
Food's been right on ratio, but scale dropped 3.5 pounds between yesterday and today! Same time, same scale, same clothes. What's up with that, I wonder.
Well, easiest answer is usually right, right? Scale wouldn't work at all today, so apparently it was dying scale, not actual weight loss. Good in one respect, bad in another; now I need to find time to get a new scale!
I took off an extra two days between 5B and this workout, because I was feeling off for a while, and tired. I thought maybe I've been somewhat overtraining, and could use an extra rest. I think it was a good idea. I haven't even done any cardio.
I checked out a link for squats I found on a thread, and it was very good. I practiced with body weight last night, and I was amazed I could actually do ATG with no back rounding at all. It did make my knees click some, though, but no pain. Then I tried it holding a broomstick overhead like she shows on the site, and I could do it ATG, but it was harder. Today in the gym I did my warmup squats with body weight ATG, then 5 reps with the bar only ATG, and I could do it! Not overhead, but BB on the back. I did 4 reps with 10lb plates on the bar and did 2 of them ATG. Then on my work sets I did not try ATG; knew I couldn't do it with weight. But I felt good today.
Push ups are getting easier. Added an extra rep on last set. Not ready to try T-push ups, though!
Figured out how to add a 5lb. plate to the row machine to make it 75, since 80 last time was too much. Also found out that to add the plate, you have to make sure the pin is all the way in and the plate rests on the knob of pin, or else the whole thing falls out and crashes down on the second rep! Oops. Oh well, live and learn. 75lbs. was just right.
Still hate the step ups, but they are getting easier. I try to do them fast to get them over with but it's hard. Am not pushing nearly as much with back foot now, but still more than a "brush," and I am afraid to add weight on them yet.
Jackknives are still very hard after step ups, I had to take longer rests than 60 seconds on these exercises, and on the last set I just couldn't make 12. I had to stop at 10 in position, breathe, and say, "two more, two more" and did one, then fell off. I was exhausted, had a headache, and felt slightly nauseous when I was done, but recovered quickly.
All in all, a good workout; I felt strong. Back to regular three a week schedule now.
Deadlift: 80/10, 85/10, 85/10
DB Shoulder Press: 15/10, 15/10, 17.5/10
Lat Pulldown: 80/10, 80/10, 80/10
Lunge: 22.5/10, 22.5/10, 22.5/10
Ball Crunch: 10lb. overhead/20, same/15, plate on chest/5, chest/20
Feeling really good today. Deadlifts easier, I've been watching my form and it's improving. Getting the feel of when to straighten with knees and when with hips, so I don't lift with my back. Helps to really grip bar harder, too.
Shoulder presses good; didn't hunch up as much, so I tried more weight on third set, but it was hard. I started hunching toward the end. Will keep that weight one more time.
Pulldowns feel hard when I do them, but I'm not really sore afterwards like I am with other exercises. Guess I'll try to up it 5lbs. next time.
Lunges: still hate these, I get wobbly after about 6 or 7 reps, but they don't tire my legs out like they used to, so I guess I'm getting stronger.
Ball crunches with feet on weight bench. Started with the plate over my head, but then I feel it more in my back than my abs, so during second set I moved it to my chest. Immediately easier to lift myself, but I did feel it more in the abs.
Looking forward to finishing stage 1; getting tired of same old, same old moves. One thing I'm wondering; if it's the Type I muscle fibers that are for endurance, and the Type II for strength, as Lou says in the book, and lifting heavy weights with low reps increases the size of the type IIs, but lifting light weights with higher reps increases the type Is, then doing the special workouts at the end of stage 1 to gauge our progress doesn't make sense to me. Because he has us going back to the lightest weight we used and doing very high reps, (AMRAP), so isn't that just going to tell us how much ENDURANCE we've gained, not how much STRENGTH we've gained? Hmmm.
The fact that you can say it's the lightest weight sort of implies (to me) that there's a strength component in there too. If your starting weight was appropriately chosen I think the idea is more of a "look how much more of these I can do" because the weight's light(er) to you now.
__________________
Tom
No "happy hours" makes for a lot of miserable days. - Mahler
Pulldowns feel hard when I do them, but I'm not really sore afterwards like I am with other exercises. Guess I'll try to up it 5lbs. next time.
Soreness is not indication of how hard you worked, or how challenging the weight it is. If you use your muscles in a new way for the first time (for first few times), they'll be sore. Once they get used to the movement, they probably won't be anymore. This doesn't mean you didn't work hard enough or you're doing something wrong, or that your weights are too light (but by all means, if you can pull more, go right ahead!). It just means you're not sore anymore, that's all.
Wow; I must be really working harder during the first three exercises of this workout than I thought I was, because the jackknives have become really, really hard! I was doing 15 pikes easily before I started doing step ups properly. Now with the step ups being harder, and pushing myself more on the other exercises, the pikes are excruciating.
Squats going really well. I like these. These and deadlifts are my favorites.
Did push ups from floor without DB wrist bracing today. I felt strong. Could do 2 extra reps each set and only got tired on last 2 reps of 3rd set. Might try T-Pushups next time, if only on one set. They are very hard, I know from trying them at home occasionally. Balance is a problem with the twist.
No problem with the rows.
Lowered my step today for the step ups, because they have been so hard with the 18" step. Tried the lowest elephant stand, probably 12", and used more weight. They felt good; still hard, but I could do them with NO cheating. I even upped weight again on third set. Still get a weird pain/pull in my right hip joint on these, but have always had that. Think it's an ortho problem from my hips not being properly aligned. Can't fix that. But it doesn't seem to really hurt me, the pain doesn't last at all, it just feels weird during the exercise. But I must be working hard on these, because.....
Jackknives are hellish! I only managed 15 pikes on the first set, then second set had to do 10 pikes and 5 tucks, and the third set I was so wiped when I started I decided to do 5 pike, 5 tuck, 5 pike. Well, couldn't manage the last pikes. Did 2, hesitated in position, said "three more" and made one more, then gave up I was so exhausted. I sweat so much when I do these, it drips from my face, and my face gets beet red. People are always looking at me when I get off the ball, like "what the hell is she doing? Is she gonna die?" But I'm WORKING OUT! Hard is good, I like it.
While I was at the row machine, doing my 80 lb. reps, there were three guys at the other stands, one was doing lat pulldowns with about 40 lbs. and two were doing tricep rope pulldowns with about 30 lbs. I could see them looking at my weight as though they were thinking "she'll never be able to do that much." Bwaahahahaha! Not only can I do it, but I can do it, do pushups, then do it again! This program ROCKS!
You'd be better off by dropping to BW only on a higher step than to go to a lower step and add weight. By going to a lower step, you aren't getting the full ROM that is intended for this movement.
Hmm, you think? My logic was that if I drop the height, I could focus more on getting my posterior chain to be the driving force in this exercise, instead of my quads. Also, then I could practice not cheating at all with the back foot. But it WAS awfully easy to do them on the lower step. Although, as I mention in the workout blurb, the jackknives were extremely hard after these steps. But maybe that was more due to the harder challenge they had during the first three exercises. (Also, I had to get up at 4:30 this morning to drive to the airport, then worked a whole day, then went to the gym, so hard to know which variable is the culprit.)
It seems like you're really enjoying the programme. I'm in Stage Two and still trying to get the hang of step-ups. All through Stage One I think I did them wrong but now I've kept the height of the bench (probably about 18") but I halved my weights and I think I've improved on technique.
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“It’s impossible...So let’s start working.” - Philippe Petit (Man on Wire)
Hmm, you think? My logic was that if I drop the height, I could focus more on getting my posterior chain to be the driving force in this exercise, instead of my quads. Also, then I could practice not cheating at all with the back foot. But it WAS awfully easy to do them on the lower step. Although, as I mention in the workout blurb, the jackknives were extremely hard after these steps. But maybe that was more due to the harder challenge they had during the first three exercises. (Also, I had to get up at 4:30 this morning to drive to the airport, then worked a whole day, then went to the gym, so hard to know which variable is the culprit.)
No, it's the opposite. Once you drop the height of the step you begin working your quads INSTEAD of what you want to work, which are the glutes and posterior chain. Take it down to BW only on the high step, really work on form, and when you've got it, then you can slowly start adding weight.
LancelotsLover's Lifting Log
I will just trust the workouts, and see what happens.
Oops. Oh well, live and learn. 75lbs. was just right.
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