I am enjoying just “freeforming it” for a bit.

I’m exhausted and burned out. It’s a lot of things in life, from work to sleep issues, and it’s all adding up. And with a few things on the horizon, I’m trying to pace things a bit. I opted to NOT have my leg/squat session on Tuesday and instead just sleep. I also slept yesterday. Felt good. Then today (and tomorrow) it’s, I guess for lack of better phrasing, a bit of deload. I want to get some work in, but not dig my recovery hole too deep.

So I thought what would be fun? Pull-ups! 🙂 Today was all about that. I’ve done this before and enjoy it. Up to the bar, as many strict pull-ups as possible (truly going to failure), rest 1 minute, repeat. Once I can’t get any more pull-ups, switch to chin-ups and do the same. Then I figured once I was done, I’d just do something else for some reps. I opted to do a pyramid up and down of cable rows, then 1 set of shrugs just to have a bit of reps.

It wasn’t overly taxing — I think the only reason I broke a sweat was because the gym was warm and humid. But I got some work in, and feel good. Huzzah.

I also started thinking again about “where to go next” because that’s coming up. I realized one reason I’m flip-flopping between LRB and 5/3/1 approaches is simple: I’m exhausted. 5/3/1 is effective, but it really taxes me and given the state I’m in I am not sure it would be good for me. LRB stuff seems to be just as effective but doesn’t tax the crap out of me. Yet, I feel like I want the workload of 5/3/1, that LRB alone may not be enough. So I don’t know. But I did think that one must-have is only 3x/week, and the other 4 days I just sleep in as much and as hard as possible. And it may be that I do this for 4-6 weeks to get myself some recoup, then afterwards I forge ahead. For example, a simple LRB-style/Strong-15-style approach (e.g. like the “man-maker” template from the SRL eBook) for 4-6 weeks, maybe then a Strong-15 short-cycle, and if I’m feeling awesome after that, then switch to 5/3/1 SST. Basically, I gotta get my body back on track first, above all.

So we’ll see.

• Pull-ups
  • bw x 8
  • bw x 4
  • bw x 3
  • bw x 3
  • bw x 3
  • bw x 2
  • bw x 2
  • bw x 2
  • bw x 1
  • bw x 1
• Chin-ups
  • bw x 3
  • bw x 1
  • bw x 1
  • bw x 2 (go figure)
  • bw x 2
  • bw x 1
• Cable Rows
  • 90 x 15
  • 100 x 15
  • 110 x 12
  • 120 x 8
  • 110 x 8
  • 100 x 9
  • 90 x 10
• DB Shrugs
  • 70e x 20