Feels so good to set personal records.

“Week 3”

• 5/3/1 – Deadlift (working max: 335#)
  • 1x5x135 (warmup)
  • 1x5x170
  • 1x3x205
  • 1x5x255 (work)
  • 1x3x290
  • 1x7x320 (PR)

• 5/3/1 – Press (working max: 150#)
  • 2x5x45 (warmup)
  • 1x5x60
  • 1x5x75
  • 1x3x90
  • 1x5x115 (work)
  • 1x3x130
  • 1x5x145 (PR)
• Asst. #1 – DB Rows
  • 3 x 10 x 75
• Asst. #2 – Pulldown Abs
  • 3 x 12 x 70
• Asst. #3 – Dips
  • 3 x 7 x BW
• Asst. #4 – DB Hammer Curls
  • 3 x 10/10/6 x 30

They might only be rep PR’s, but they are PR’s nonetheless. On deadlift, 320 is the most weight I’ve lifted period, but I did it for 3 reps back in cycle 8, so today’s PR is pretty good. In fact, what makes it really awesome is last week I could only muster 7 reps at 305… today 15# more and same reps, and I felt like I had a couple left in the tank. What’s the difference? I’m not really sure. I got a lot of rest yesterday (tho last night’s sleep wasn’t too good because of people shooting off fireworks until the wee hours). I’m also putting some more of Andy Bolton’s suggestions into play, the biggest of which is take that deep belly breath then push your abs like hell into your belt… really really push, not just “tighten up”. That seemed to help and the pulls felt really light. That first rep felt like air and I knew I’d be able to zoom along. I’m thrilled, and next cycle it’ll be pure PR’s.

Press was alright, and I’m happy with the performance today, but I continue to have weird issues with getting dizzy. I get under the bar, I get ready to lift it off, I inhale, lift off, step back, and then my head gets all swimmy and vision “blacks out” if you will. It goes away as soon as I stop holding my breath, but it’s scary when you have all this weight in your hands or on your back. But I started trying what I do when I squat, which is get fully ready to lift off, then breathe, quickly lift off (don’t rush, but don’t waste any time), step back, then stay tense and take another breath, then start the movement. That helps, but it’s hard to keep tight during that breath… something to work on.

On assistance work, I think 12 reps is my groove for pulldown abs. It seems to work stuff because I finally felt some ab work today, but it’s not so much that my elbows get ugly with me. I also moved my hand position to have my palms basically facing my shoulders (hands are essentially as supinated as I can get them, on the rope) and that seems to help a bit too. I also changed up the hammer curls. Until today I did them alternating: right arm up and down, then left arm up and down, etc.. Now I’ll do them simultaneously. Just takes too long the other way and breathing is always funky.

Really nice way to end this cycle.

And yes, it also confirmed my desire to go to 4 sets of assistance work because 3 just gets me there. I may regret it, but I won’t know until I try.

Geez… I’ve been doing Wendler 5/3/1 for 12 cycles now… well, about to start my 12th.

I actually will have been doing Wendler for a year come August, and I’ll look back on that year then. But right now I wanted to look at some current things.

My shoulder/upper back/neck feels better since whatever I did to it on Monday. It’s been a lot of stretching, getting Wife to walk on my back, twisting, Aleve, and every so often getting a pop and crack in my upper back or neck and that makes things a little better.

As I start this 12th cycle, I’m going to bump up the assistance volume a bit, adding a 4th set. I am taking a bit more of a bodybuilder type of approach here, dropping weight down but picking reps up and reducing rest. Yes, work for the pump. I feel like 3 sets just gets me started and stopping after the 3rd set isn’t giving me enough, so let’s try adding a 4th and see what happens. And I think dips are doing wonders for my upper body as I’ve seen an increase in upper body mass from the past few weeks. Sweet.

Because… while I enjoy my strength going up and still wish to primarily focus on that, I think for me to go much further I need to do two things: decrease my fat mass and increase my muscle mass. Increase of muscle mass is primary.

I have been thinking about some sort of increased conditioning, especially since I’m only hitting the gym twice a week. I’d love a Prowler, but 1. the cost, 2. I think running it up and down my street will annoy my neighbors a little too much. So a sled would be cheaper, but I think still have the noise. So I’m wondering about getting a used tire and making my own sled from it, which should be less expensive and while making noise I reckon rubber on pavement will be less noise than a steel plate on pavement. I reckon if I could drag a sled a couple of times a week, keep my diet the same, that should be sufficient.

Just need to see where I can get a good tire on the cheap or free.

I have also been thinking longer term, about switching up the program entirely and trying to have a solid focus on things like purely fat loss or purely muscle mass gain. But, I don’t know. I want to get my strength numbers up higher than they are. I would love to join the 1000# club within the next year — I’m close. And I think I need to stay on that course, and just tweak my program to get me there. So fat loss really isn’t in the cards, just managing it so I don’t pack on the fat and if I perhaps shed a couple of pounds of fat a month, awesome, but that’s more residual than direct goal. But I do think adding some muscle mass will help me get there. There’s been some mass gain of course, but no question the strength-oriented program is making me stronger and not much bigger. I’ve been seeing some mass growth since I changed up to the 2x/week program, and it’s hard to say exactly what of that helped me. But… let’s just keep on the course and see where we can go with minor changes and experimentations to get me where I want to go.

 

You win some, you lose some.

“Week 3”

• 5/3/1 – Squat (working max: 270#)
  • 2x5x45 (warmup)
  • 1x5x110
  • 1x5x135
  • 1x3x165
  • 1x5x205 (work)
  • 1x3x230
  • 1x3x260

• 5/3/1 – Bench Press (working max: 220#)
  • 2x5x45 (warmup)
  • 1x5x95
  • 1x5x110
  • 1x3x135
  • 1x5x165 (work)
  • 1x3x190
  • 1x6x210 (PR)
• Asst. #1 – Chin-ups
  • 1 x 5 x BW
• Asst. #2 – Back Raises (hands behind head)
  • 1 x 15 x BW
• Asst. #3 – DB Bench Press
  • 1 x 10 x 110
• Asst. #4 – Face Pulls
  • 1 x 2 x 80
• Foam Rolling

Today was a mixed bag.

I’ve been reading a lot of stuff from Andy Bolton. He said some things that helped me with the need for being “tight”. So today I was really thinking about “tight” as my cue. It was really good. Every set of squats was being really tight, which was awesome.

Until the last set.

See, I don’t have technique something that’s unconscious to do; I have to think about everything, but I can only think about so much. So focusing so much on tight, and being really impressed with how it was working, paying attention to the feedback my body was giving me well…. I wasn’t able to focus on “head back” and driving my neck into the bar. Consequently on that first rep of the last set I about didn’t make it out of the hole…. it surprised me, then it all hit me, and my concentration was gone. I was able to squeeze out two more reps, but I was leaning badly and had blown all my tightness and everything. FML. Later on I realized what I should have done:

1. immediately rack the bar, rest for a couple of minutes, get my head back together, and do it again.

2. stop trying to think about too many things. It was bad form to try to change things up for PR week. I know better, but I did it because I knew it was something I was already working on so I felt this was just reinforcing, but alas, it became consuming and other things faltered.

Iron teaches you many things.

It was my goal to get 5 reps, and I’d have been happy with 4. But I’ll have to take 3 reps plus some good lessons.

Bench went really well. I have already been working on fixing my foot placement. I think foot placement is better, but now I just need to work the drive into it more, making it one smooth motion out of the hole. But this was a rep PR, so I’m happy about that. 🙂

Alas, once I moved to assistance work things went ugly. I opted to NOT work chins into my squats but instead just do it as a circuit today. I took a wider grip than usual and also tried to ensure a more complete range of motion. Well, that doomed something in my shoulder and after the 5th rep I had pain in a bad way. Kept working my way through, but it only took 2 reps on face pulls to say “no mas”. It was pain in a bad way and I figured it was better to take my PR and go home. I’m not sure what I did, but it feels like if I could just pop my upper back… a little chiropractic work, a little massage, and I’ll be alright. After a hot shower it feels better, and I’ll see how it progresses through today.

I’m not totally happy with today’s results, but there were lessons learned and so I’ll take those and move on. The journey is an interesting one.