2012-02-01 workout – Wendler 5/3/1 program, cycle 6, deadlift 1

/ hsoi

I’ll take today.

“Week 1”

  • 5 reps – Deadlift (working max: 315#)
    • 1x5x135 (warmup)
    • 1x5x160
    • 1x3x190
    • 1x5x205 (work)
    • 1x5x240
    • 1x10x270
  • Asst. #1 – Good Mornings
    • 5 x 10 x 75
  • Asst. #2 – Hanging LegHip Raise
    • 5 x 5 x BW
  • GPP – Elliptical
    • Tabata style (20 sec. 160-ish strides per min., 10 sec. 100-ish strides per min)
    • 2 minutes slow (warmup)
    • 1 Tabata set
    • 2 minutes slow (cooldown)
  • Foam rolling
  • Grip
    • 3x10xT, 2 sec. hold between reps
    • 3x3x1, 2 sec. hold between reps, 10 sec. hold on the last rep

I can take today.

Deadleft felt fine. I ended up stopping at 10 reps because I was just out of breath… the brain was saying “stop damnit! I need oxygen!” Sure I breathe properly, but still, it’s a lot of exertion. My body felt like it could have done maybe 5 more if I let it. But fine, this is no problem. I’m nicely on track to break 300.

On the raises I opted to keep low reps. I’m working to keep my shoulders tight and “in socket” instead of a total dead hang, which was killing my shoulders. It’s having a nice side-effect of making things more strict and involving a lot more of the body, so this is cool. 5×5 was alright so I can probably go to 5×6 next workout and just slowly work myself up and see how things go. I’m also finding a good “ritual” when coming up to the bar to ensure my shoulders stay happy. I’d rather take 2 steps back and have a healthy shoulder than plow ahead and regret it someday.

On grip… I dunno… off day? or just already pretty exhausted? But I had a hell of a time on the grippers, couldn’t hold the 10 seconds… forearms just said “hell no”. 🙂

All in all, felt alright.

8 thoughts on “2012-02-01 workout – Wendler 5/3/1 program, cycle 6, deadlift 1”

    • Yah. That’s something I got from doing Rippetoe’s program first. Set up, cues like “back straight”, “chest up” or whatever cues I need… lift it up, put it down, reset myself fully, then lift again. The pause might be a second or two; I don’t want it long, but long enough to ensure I fully reset my body. If I don’t, the back gets out of whack and that’ll lead to injury.

      • Then I am truly impressed by your DL!

        When I go beyond 5 reps (of any weigth it seems) my form goes to shit.

        • Thank you.

          Just following the preachings of Father Jim — working to be awesome. 🙂

          If your form is degrading, can you do anything to fix it? Set up a video camera (mobile phone?) and video your form, probably from the side. Record the lift, then watch the video over and over analyzing the form. See if you can see what’s happening. Then next time you lift, give yourself a cue. If you know your lower back starts to round, you now KNOW it and can remind yourself something like “arch the back”. Pause for 2 seconds between each rep and cue yourself, reset your form, then lift again. That could help.

  2. Yeah, I do that at times (though its been a month since last I filmed my sets).

    But I think it has to do with cardiovascular exhaustion (maybe), deadlift just takes everything out of me.

    I did boring but big for one cycle, and when I had 5×10 deadlifts at 50% my form was shit for the last few reps 😛 . Even if it was only 50% of my training max.

    I need to start doing the conditioning work that Wendler recomends, this probably will help it.

    • Ah, I see what you’re saying. Yeah, deadlifting takes a lot out of you.

      Conditioning work should help. There’s a gym at my gym that owns a Prowler, but he stopped coming in the mornings (too early for him) so no more Prowler pushes for me. I have to use the elliptical because my knees were about to kill me… but I’m jacking up the intensity on it as much as I can, increasing it every so often. Hopefully it’s actually working and I’m not lying to myself. 😉

      • My plan was to start up with these activities from the new years:

        -Indoor field hockey on mondays with co workers.
        -Spinning (indoor cycling with instructor, group sessions) on wednesday
        -Morning swim on fridays.

        Part of the reason I switched from Texas Method to 5/3/1 was because I thought 5/3/1 would fit better with this.

        So far all i’ve started is the morning swim on fridays, so I need to pull myself together and get started 😛

        • Sounds like a plan. 5/3/1 should be better in terms of enabling recovery (vs. Texas method).

          Just be sure to rest, and eat lots. 🙂

Comments are closed.