Week 9 of Starting Strength Continues

I don't think I mentioned it in Monday's post, but we are officially into Week 9!

First off, a few things. A friend in the weight lifting group has unfortunately fallen into a sad situation. I'm not sure when he'll be joining us again in the gym, but for those who know what I'm talking about I just wanted to say that we're all wishing the best for our friend. We'll see you soon man!

So Tuesday came and it was a very difficult beginning of the work week. Long story short, cardio just wasn't going to happen. In fact, it probably won't happen this whole week, and as frustrated as I am with that, it's the right decision. I need to lose weight, I need to do more cardio, but going absolutely insane because I'm trying to fit a cardio workout in on top of school, work, the other work and a jumble of nonsense that has entered my life just isn't worth it.

Wednesday came and first thing I did that morning was my 100 pushups. Of course I'm not at 100 yet, this program is 6 weeks. But I did do my required portion and got 58 pushups in the books: 10, 12, 8, 8 and 20. I was supposed to have 90 second breaks in between each set, but my phone's timer only does 1 minute and 2 minute, so I opted for 1 minute. However, tomorrow's sets are 2 minute breaks, and I might just do the whole 2 minutes.

Wednesday night (last night) we got back into Starting Strength. Everyone's packed on so much muscle in the last few weeks and it's awesome. One guy dropped down about 50 lbs on everything and is now doing sets of 10, and I guess he's doing that for 4 weeks. Another guy is just working in with us but doing his own reps. Myself and a few others, though, are sticking to the plan and building building building!

First off was squats. I did one set at 230, but this time I filmed myself. I was going lower than I thought, but there's definitely room for improvement. I bit the bullet and dropped down to 165. Unfortunately I really don't know if I'm built right to do squats. Even at 165, my body just doesn't feel like it can bend the proper way. My hips point out too far too the sides when I walk, and it makes bending down with my back straight difficult. But I'm going to stay at 165 until I can fix squats, so this may be a few weeks.

After that was shoulder press. I did 3 sets of 5 at 135, and it felt really heavy. I've completed this twice now, but it really felt hard. I'm thinking the pushups that morning were a major culprit. The plan is to finally move up to 140 on Monday.

We finished with deadlifts. I only did 155, but with my change in form last week I actually felt like I rocked this one. 155 felt very heavy though, which is weird, so from now on I'm going +5 to keep my form solid.

The fact that I can do deadlifts well now gives me hope on squats, especially since they're similar. I want to see if I can mimic that form and hopefully I can get squats down soon. The other thing that's crossed my mind, though I have reservations on it, is the idea of switching squats for deadlifts. 3x5 deadlifts 3 times a week and 1 set of squats feels problematic, but I'm going to get some opinions from a strength building forum I'm on.

So that's my story. I've had juices every morning too, so I'm glad I'm sticking with that. I've gotta look into the logistics, but I'm planning October 1 of starting a 10 Day Juice Fast. Still debating though.

Tonight's Thursday, still a hectic week and I'm probably not getting out of the office til late, so I'm thinking no cardio tonight. I'll wrap up Week 9 tomorrow, and Week 1 of the 100 pushups, and Monday I'm looking forward (kind of) to starting the 5K training too.

That's all I've got. I'll keep you posted.

Bring it!