“Week 4”

• Deload – Deadlift (working max: 285#)
  • 2x5x115
  • 2x5x145
  • 2x5x175
• Asst. #1 – Good Mornings
  • 5 x 10 x 65
• Asst. #2 – Hanging Knee Raises
  • 5 x 5 x BW
• Metcon – jump rope
  • 1 Tabata set – all single hop
• Grip
  • 2x10xT, 2 sec hold
  • 3x3xS, 2 sec hold
  • 1 10 sec hold, No. 1

Again, deload week so nothing special. I did feel a bit nicer on my deadlift form, pulling more “back” than up, so that was cool. I need to keep working on getting my eyes up; they start focused a little too close to the ground, not the best for pulling.

Good Mornings I went deeper on. Let the stretch happen, and yes if it rounds the lower back a bit, that’s fine because I need the stretch. Thus, why I’m using such light weight. I went deeper today, felt like the bar was going to roll over my head, better stretch and by set 5 it felt better, so yeah…stretch is helping, work effort was better. In the interest of time today I supersetted it with the knee raises. I was doing sets of 5×8 but noticing I was peeding out those last 2 sets and not getting quality reps on the last reps so… that’s no good. Take a step back and let’s strive for 5×5 and make them all high quality, full intensity, knees curled up to my shoulders every rep. 5×5 worked well today for that. Since next cycle starts soon, I will probably go 5×6 for quality reps all the way through and see how that fares.

And yes, I have been thinking about the grip work. My current thinking? Let’s try for 2x a “week”. Since deadlift days are so grip intensive as it is, let that act as a “heavy” day. So deadlift, all the hanging raises work my grip well too, so then just continue with a “heavy” work set on my gripping like you see above. Warm up with the “light” gripper for a couple sets of a lot of reps, then work sets with the medium gripper for 3×3 or at most 3×5 across (maybe even going 5×5?), then one final set of hold with the heavy gripper. That plus the work I got during the lifting portion of the workout should be ample. Then on my squat day, I’ll do a “light” workout, probably something like 3×10 with the light gripper. And just try 2x a “week” with this sort of heavy/light alternating and see how it goes. Try this at least for 1 Wendler cycle.