I can’t wait for the “3 steps forward” part. 🙂

Wendler 5/3/1 program, cycle 22, week 2

• Work Set – Deadlift (working max: 370#)
  • 1x5x150 (warmup)
  • 1x5x185
  • 1x3x225
  • 1x3x260 (work)
  • 1x3x300
  • 1x4x335
• Assistance – Deficit Deadlift (1.5″ deficit)
  • 3 x 8 x 185
• Farmer’s Walks
  • 5, 100 yard trips, 45# plate in each hand, 10 breath rest between trips
• Assistance – Crunches
  • 1 x 20 x BW
• Foam Rolling

I have to keep reminding myself that the “2 steps back” is good for me. I know it is. I can feel it. It wasn’t just a reset of weights, but also of technique… keeping my back flat, pushing with the legs. I repeat, I have never felt a leg workout like I have since I did this reset and worked to “push with my legs” instead of “pull with my back”. Yeah I can’t hit the numbers like I used to… but that’s the “3 steps forward” I’ll eventually get to after these 2 steps back. 🙂

and I have to say, I am growing to enjoy deficit deadlifts. It’s hard, but it pushes me.

As an aside, I’ve been doing more reading and thinking. There’s a lot swirling in my head, but in short I think I need to add some explosive work. I’ve been thinking about this for a long time. If I did Prowler pushes, that’d probably fill the bill, but alas, no Prowler. But I have been thinking about power cleans for quite some time. I wasn’t able to do them in the past because of gym limitations, but now that I go at a different hour and the population is different, I can do some judicious rearranging and should be able to make the space to do them. I think with the evolution I’m taking to go for 6-week cycles (2 cycles, no deload in between, increase weights across cycles, deload on 7th week), adding more back work superset as you should; less overall exercises per session; etc… well… power cleans may well fit the bill for me. I need to figure out where and just how I want to work it in, but that’s my current thinking. I think it will do me good because well… I’m too slow and creaky and my body could use something explosive.

We all suffer from this at some point: the need to — but the inability to — stick with something and follow through with it.

Really, the only way we succeed in many things is to stick with it, to keep going long after you want to stop/quit/give-up. Of course, sometimes it is wise to stop because you realize it’s fruitless or not taking you towards your true goals. But sometimes it is precisely where you want to go, yet you can’t get there.

One place folks constantly fail on this is “diet and exercise”. We know we’re supposed to “eat better” and “exercise more”, and we try, but after a few weeks or a few months it fades. You see it in gyms every January when people decide to join up, then in February when they all fade away.

I recently read this article on Fitocracy about The Myth of Willpower and ‘Eat Less, Move More’. It talks about the need for a positive feedback loop in order to succeed:

At a high level, there’s only one way to succeed at fitness. All fitness successes and failures can be explained using the following framework.

The only way to succeed at fitness is to create a positive feedback loop.

In laymen’s terms, that means engaging in fitness­‐related activities, and then seeing enough results to motivate you to keep going.

When you decide to start any fitness regimen, there is a certain amount of friction or “pains” working against you – the pain of giving up your favorite foods, taking time to exercise, giving up alcohol, being constantly hungry, etc.

After some time has passed, you will have to determine (consciously or subconsciously) if the results are worth continuing. One week into a fitness regimen, you might ask yourself a few questions:

Did I lose enough weight? Do I look better in the mirror? Do I feel healthier and more energized?

If the rewards outweigh the pain, then the feedback loop is renewed. The strength of your feedback loop can be summed up below:

Strength of Fitness Feedback Loop = Fitness Reward ­- Fitness Pain

Creating this feedback loop is the only way to succeed in fitness. It’s the same way that a business must become profitable to exist. You must create this feedback loop to stick to a healthy lifestyle. There is no alternative.

If you’ve always struggled with maintaining a fitness regimen, it doesn’t mean that you’re a pathetic, weak-willed individual. It means there was a breakdown somewhere in creating this feedback loop: the pain of dieting was too high, you did not accumulate enough reward, or you didn’t measure your progress.

It’s quite right. I never thought about it before, but it is true.

I look at my own efforts. When I engaged in martial arts for purposes of fitness, I didn’t have a direct feedback loop regarding the fitness itself, but the martial arts program did because I would see myself climbing up the belt ranks. That gave positive feedback, and you kept coming back for more.

When I lifted weights in my prior years, I would see some level of positive feedback in the initial stages, but then it waned and I would too. Why have I stuck with it the past couple years? Because I see this positive feedback loop constantly. I may hit a rep PR, or this cycle sets a true PR. I can look in the mirror and see how my body is becoming something I like more than the body I had previously. The program I’m on (Wendler 5/3/1) is set up for constant positive feedback. And it does keep you coming back.

I really don’t care if people want to lift weights or jog for miles. You do whatever it takes to give you the positive feedback. I have a friend of mine that’s right now trying to lose weight and he’s just getting on the elliptical machine every day. It’s not what I care to do, but for him it works because seeing him post that post-workout picture of the elliptical’s readout to Facebook? Positive feedback gets created not only in seeing better numbers each time, but also because there are people liking the picture and encouraging him on. So it’s not really about the particular program, it’s just about keeping the positive feedback loop going in whatever way works for you that keeps you willingly and happily going back for more.

So whatever you goals are — fitness, health, or otherwise. Do you have a program? Do you have something actually laid out to help you along? And does it include some way of having a positive feedback loop? If not, see what you can do to remedy this. It may be just the thing to keep you going for the long haul.

Now with more back work.

Wendler 5/3/1 program, cycle 22, week 2

• Work Set – Bench Press (working max: 215#)
  • 2x5x45 (warmup)
  • 1x5x85
  • 1x5x110
  • 1x3x130
  • 1x3x150 (work)
  • 1x3x175
  • 1x6x195
• Assistance – DB Incline Press
  • 5 x 10 x 50
• All Pressing work superset with band-assisted pull-ups, 3 reps per set
• Assistance – DB Rows (Kroc style)
  • 3 x 10/10/25 x 50
• Superset the DB rows with dips, 3 reps per set

This session felt really really good. Maybe it was all the pizza I ate last night and was just fired up. But I felt really good. By the end of things I felt worked, but not exhausted. In fact, I kinda wished I had worked a little more!

On the work set, I only did 6. I certainly left some in the tank and looking back I probably could have done 1-2 more and still not pushed it all the way. Oh well. I am trying to be conservative and leave enough in the tank now. But to that end, I then didn’t feel all that bad on inclines — I do think I should go up to 55’s. But I also changed form there a bit. I’ve been trying to be nice to my shoulder by letting my elbows come ina nd the dumbbells then turn a bit. I was reading something and I’m took more the approach of acting like the dumbbells were a barbell, in terms of keeping things oriented. That actually pushed my shoulder a little more, which I think it needed in a good way.

I mean, when I did the dips, that sort of bottom-position is precisely what I need for a stretch to my anterior delts, which I think is what they need right now to get over this issue.

But… what I really did that was different? More back work.

See, Wendler doesn’t spell it out, but he tells you that for every pressing set you need to do a pulling set (or two). I just don’t do that. The main reason was when I tried it long ago, my shoulders really hated it. I gave it up because I didn’t want to sacrifice the main lift. But I tried something different today.

First, I went really light. The pull-ups were band-assisted (cause I’m still too wussy to do so much volume unassisted), and I only did 3 reps per set. I will slowly work it up, sets across for now, so next session will get 4 reps, etc..

Second, I am going against the plane. That is, there’s something to be said for doing the push and pull in the same plane. So if you bench, you row. If you press, you pulldown/pull-up. That keeps the motion in the same plane. Well, in the past when I did it, that’s how I superset, and I don’t think my shoulders liked it. But now I’m going “perpendicular”. So my push was benching, so my pull was pull-ups. I’m thinking for my pressing days, then to do something like face-pulls. My shoulders didn’t complain today, but I also didn’t have them under heavy stress. So, we’ll see if this strategy pans out for my shoulders and back.

But also, one reason I chose to do extra work afterwards was for arm work. I mean, I didn’t get enoug bicep and forearm work, right? But now if I do this much extra back work, well, I’ll get a bunch. So I really didn’t bother doing any extra work. But I did think after I did my rows to superset in some dips… just because dips are cool, and I think that stretch may help my shoulder issues right now.

So there we go. Today felt awesome. I liked how it went. and I hope that as I ramp it up more that it’ll pay off more all around.