My Mom's SS Log

[Johnnyfondue]

I started helping my mom do SS on monday. I'll use this for her log to keep track of progress, form checks, and other stuff.

She's 51, 5' 10" and about 135 pounds. She is pretty skinny but also has no muscle. I think if I can get her to eat a little extra, get some pre-conceived notions about dietary fat, eggs, etc out of her head, she'll mad good strength gains quickly.

Monday January 25th:

Squats: Not strong enough to squat with the bar so I had her do air squats. She was completely demolished by these. I made her do about 5 sets of 3, and she has enough flexibility to get deep which is good. I told her to do more through out the day, and try a couple sets on her off day, just to practice the motion. I'll be getting her onto the leg press machine (cringe) today until she is strong enough to squat the bar. I'm also going to have her do some plate-loaded front squats to a box.

Bench Work Set:
30x3x5

Had to get the pre-fab bars for this, but she started off at 30. She actually had better stability than I thought she might. She did it fairly easily. I might have her do the bar next time and go in 5 pound increments from there until she has to start making 2.5 pound jumps. We'll see how it goes.

Dead Lift Work Set:
70x1x5

I'm going to try and have her do double over hand for as long as possible. 70 was probably a good starting weight.

I'm glad my family is jumping on board the SS train.

[Mr.City]

You're a good son. Best of luck to you and your mum.

[Johnnyfondue]

Thanks.

Just got back from the gym. I actually have a gym at my home, but until she is proficient at using the bar for everything, I'm stuck going back to the gym where they have smaller stuff. Anyway, here is what we did today.

Leg press machine:
95x3x5
105x3

This machine sucks, I hope she gets strong enough to do real squats in a hurry. She is also super sore which didn't help. I want to give her enough work to get stronger, but not too much so she is so sore that she can't work out.

Plate loaded fronts squats to a box
I gave her 10 ten pound plate and helped her do this for a couple sets. Then I lowered the box past parallel and had he do them without the plate. Her form improves very quick, which is good.

OHP:
24x3x5

She needs to work on getting under the bar more aggressively, this will come in time. I'm not going to worry about teaching her about the stretch reflex and breathing at the top until she gets better at this.

DL
80x1x5

I was actually able to finally get her back in extension. The problem is that when she goes to pull it comes out of extension. Some were better than others, but I think she'll be good at this by the end of next week.

I introduced her to foam rolling which were very hard. I also have her some stretches to do that will help with her back.

Good progress is on its way.

[TrackJunkie]

Maybe this isn't a good question for this particular venue, but if your mother can do worksets of 70 lbs in the deadlift, would it make sense to have her do more sets of deadlifts instead of leg presses? The biggest reason I can remember for not doing deadlifts for sets across is to avoid overtraining, but I think that might not apply here.

[Johnnyfondue]

Good question. All my time researching weightlifting hasn't covered very much of people that are really weak at the beginning and can't squat at all.

Hopefully she'll be able to squat by next week and it won't be an issue at all.

[hbriem]

Good luck with your mom.

I also started my little sister (44 yrs, 170cm, 58kg (5'7", 130#)) on SS a couple of weeks ago.

Despite being fairly athletic, she wasn't strong enough at first to squat with the empty bar for sets of 5. Luckily the gym has smaller, fixed weight 10-17.5kg bars which we've been using.

She can now squat with a 20kg (44 lbs) bar for 3 sets of 5, press the same, bench 25kg (55#) for 3x5 and deadlift 50kg (110 lbs) 5 times.

[Johnnyfondue]

Alright got back from the gym, and besides squats, did made some decent progress:

I had her do the leg press machine, this time she got up to 105. This machine sucks, I'll say it again. I had her do lots of deep air squats and some plate loaded front squat to a box. When I give a 25 pound bar and she gets into the bottom of the squat, she practically topples over losing all tension in her back. This is tougher than I thought it would be to teach.

Bench Work Set:

40x3x5

Pretty easy. We'll be at the bar next time and make 5 pound jumps from there. Ezpz

DL:

Well didn't get much actual work done, but she finally has the form down. She must have dead lifted 30 pounds 30 times before she got it right. I made her do 5 correct ones and that was it for the day.