Nothing like matching your lifetime PR on a lift you haven’t done in a year.

I haven’t done the Press (overhead press, standing press, military press — whatever you want to call it; I’m using Mark Rippetoe’s definition of “Press”) in about a year. I’ve pressed overhead in other forms here and there, but there’s something cool and different about Pressing.

I have no idea where I am with it, so my thought was to just go in and work up to a true max and find out. I knew my all time best was 165, so with that in mind and a desire to still do the 5/4/3/2/1 work-up-rep-scheme I figured start with the empty bar, then 20# jumps followed by singles should be just fine for spacing. Two minutes rest between sets, and let’s just see where it goes.

When 125 went up easily I knew I’d do more. 145 was a little shakey — mostly I could feel that my form was really rusty, but strength was fine. I started to think I should just do 155 but nah — what have I got to lose? I felt the strength margin was still there, just rusty form. Sure enough, the 165 went up mostly fine: again, I my form wavered because I’m rusty, but it was mostly a matter of groove and balance. I did remember the most important thing was to be tight from head to toe. Truly everything. The quads are locked, my butt is clenched hard, I’m squeezing the hell out of the bar (trying to make the bar ooze out from between my fingers), and just tight tight tight. Then explode the weight up. And sure enough it was ok. Again, I have that groove issue with my breathing and Valsalva on the Press, and that came out hard on the 165 — thus I wavered a bit. But it never went down, kept pressing, and boom.

So, it’s cool to tie your lifetime PR on a lift you haven’t done in ages. I looked back at my records and I set that PR back in 2013!! Anything since has been somewhat of decline, due to the Defattening. It’s been really interesting to observe how throughout Defattening my leg strength has vanished but my upper-body strength has increased slightly. Not sure what to make of that, but here we are.

Anyways, that went well. Very happy there.

Dips were dips. I keep reminding myself how not too long ago I couldn’t do 1, but here I am cranking out 25 reps. I did note some work in my chest but not much pump — but I got a lot of pump in my triceps. Something to file away.

I was supposed to do chin-ups (supinated grip), but that’s just a lot of torque on my joints. I’ve been wanting to go back to the close, neutral-grip “v-bar” pullups for a while, so sure why not. I did them from a dead hang and man, that was enlightening. There’s a lot more mid-back work here because there’s a lot more scapular retraction than during say normal pull-/chin-ups (or pulldowns). I didn’t get as many reps, so I did more sets (still 350-Method style); still not 350-rep ranges, but it was good work for what I can do.

DB Rows continue to manifest to me that while I may not care for DB work as much as BB work, DB’s put me through a range of motion and give my muscles work I can’t get any other way. It is good work for me.

But this also makes me feel like this GMM program doesn’t quite give me the volume I need — but I have to temper that. Yes, per session it’s not a lot of work, but over the weeks how does it add up? We’ll see.

Finally, instead of plain DB curls I did them as hammer curls, across the body, alternating. It’s something I got from Joh Meadows — across the body, does it do anything? It did feel a little less stressful on my joints, and I did find I got a good brachialis pump. I think I could get more out of this if 1. I picked a heavier weight (called it bad), 2. gave a really good squeeze at the top.

Anyways, all in all a fine day. Really happy about the Press.

Based on Paul Carter’s “Guaranteed Muscle Mass” article.

• Overhead Press
  • bar x 5
  • 65 x 5
  • 85 x 4
  • 105 x 3
  • 125 x 2
  • 145 x 1
  • 165 x 1
  • 125 x 8 (AMRAP)
  • 125 x 4 (50%)
• Dips (350 Method)
  • BW x 15
  • BW x 11
  • BW x 9
• V-Bar Pull-Ups
  • BW x 5
  • BW x 5
  • BW x 3
  • BW x 3
  • BW x 3
  • BW x 3
• DB Rows (350 Method)
  • 55 x 22
  • 55 x 15
  • 55 x 11
• Alternating, cross-body Hammer Curls (350 Method)
  • 15e x 40
  • 15e x 20
  • 15e x 20

Yeah, this is seeming about right.

Still sore today from Monday’s killer leg session, but workable. In fact, felt better to move around under some load. So yeah, hopefully this every 4-5 days spead of an A/B 3x/week rotation will be just right. Especially when you consider the intensity and perceived intensities are up there due to things like 350-Method.

Today was a little weird tho.

Something happened during front squats — I can’t say what, but it made things unstable for me. Sometimes this happens — something with the belt, how it causes some nerve down the back of my legs to be unhappy, and so when I get down in the hole things aren’t happy. It’s part of why I can’t do things like lay on my back and “flutter kick”. Ah well. All in all it was ok, just a little odd.

That said, I continue to work on my front squat form, keeping chest high, dropping straight down, etc..

The AMRAP set didn’t go as long as I wanted too, as it was my upper body that peeded out before my legs did. Still, that’s kinda the beauty of AMRAP+50%, because it’s 2 sets to push yourself. I did feel better on this than before, so things are improving, but still some ways to go.

Leg presses peeded out sooner than expected. I realized why: that first set went really slow because things are still a little tight and sore (esp. adductors). So with the eccentric going so slow that was a lot more TUT and boom — less reps. But it got me thinking that I may want to go that route — not some sort of 4-0-1-0 type of tempo or anything, but just putting a little more into the eccentric on the leg presses to mimic my squat tempo a little more.

And finally lunges. I’m going to try to change my mentality towards things like lunges, split squats, etc.. I keep saying how much I “hate” them. Well, I really do not like them, but I know they are beneficial for me in many ways, which is why I keep doing them. I’m just going to focus on the benefits and work to get away from the negative mentality. It’s a small thing, but it matters.

Oh… and while I’m enjoying the massing diet, I’m getting a little more bloated than I care for. Gotta watch that.

Music: Clutch – “Psychic Warfare”, “Earth Rocker”, and a few other random songs to finish me out.

Based on Paul Carter’s Guaranteed Muscle Mass” article.

• Front Squat
  • bar x 5
  • bar x 5
  • 115 x 5
  • 135 x 4
  • 165 x 3
  • 195 x 2
  • 225 x 1
  • 165 x 10 (AMRAP)
  • 165 X 7 (50%)
• Leg Press (350-method)
  • 225 x 17
  • 225 x 17
  • 225 x 14
• Lunge
  • BW X 10e
  • BW X 10e
  • BW X 10e
  • BW X 10e
  • BW X 10e

I’m so damn sore. Split squats, I hate you. 🙂

Frankly tho, that I’m still so sore I think is a fair sign that it was a good change, disrupting, and should lead to some growth. What will be more interesting will be to see how sore I feel tomorrow then Friday. Why? Matter of recovery: tomorrow would be indicative of 4x/week and Friday 3x/week sessions. If I’m not recovered well enough by tomorrow, then yeah — I think 3x/week works out better for me. I’m pretty convinced that’s my better modality, so we’ll see.

I also am liking 3x/week because that’s more days to sleep in. I’m a little mixed on it tho, because again it was pretty evident how my conditioning has gone to crap. Even just 30-60 minutes of slow steady cardio helps with conditioning, and part of me wants to do it to get that back. But sweet sweet sleep….

Anyways, as for today, it went pretty well. I did overestimate the weights for my 350-sets, so I would drop the weight as I went along to ensure I got enough reps in. But overall things went well. I have to remember that while it’s not a lot of sets on paper, those 350-sets are 3 high-rep sets to failure, which is a lot of work that will add up. No question that while I didn’t feel that “worked” by the end, I certainly was worked enough.

So anyways, jury’s still out, but so far I’m enjoying.

Bench press – I was surprised to get 15 reps with 185; could have gotten 1-2 more. On paper that says I have a 1RM around 275, but I don’t believe that — maybe the muscle is there, but I don’t have the movement patterns down to recruit everything for a 1RM like that. Still, I find it interesting how my bench keeps going up, even if slowly; whereas I keep struggling to get my squat back up. It makes me wonder if maybe I do this for a bit, a brief strength cycle, then maybe instead of doing any sort of specific programming I spend a few weeks just squatting a lot, not so much to work things but more to explore and experiment and see where and what I can discover — a few weeks of investment and “study” to see what sort of longer term gains I can get.

Based on Paul Carter’s “Guaranteed Muscle Mass” article.

• Bench Press
  • bar x 10
  • 135 x 5
  • 155 x 4
  • 185 x 3
  • 205 x 2
  • 225 x 1
  • 185 x 15 (AMRAP)
  • 185 x 7 (50%)
• Incline Press (350 Method)
  • 115 x 15
  • 95 x 13
  • 95 x 10
• BB Row
  • 155 x 8
  • 155 x 8
  • 115 x 12
  • 115 x 11
• Narrow, neutral-grip Pulldown (350 Method)
  • 100 x 15
  • 90 x 12
  • 80 x 15
• BB Curl (350 Method)
  • 40 x 22
  • 40 x 15
  • 40 x 12

Man, it felt good to be back in the gym after about 2 weeks of essentially no gym.

I had a week being down with strep throat (or something like that), then I was out of town on business. Between the two I was just run down, tired, and in no real shape or mood to work out. Sure I tried a little bit, but rest and recovery was more important. And that I think is a theme as I go forward.

Right up until last night I was undecided as to where to go next. I have a basic idea of course. I want to run a little more hypertrophy for a while. Yeah, I have my strength goals, but I’ve honestly shifted a bit towards wanting to build some muscle. First, more muscle will be good for more strength. Second, after all I’ve lost over the past almost-2-years of loss-dieting, I’d like to rebuild some stuff. Because honestly, I’m enjoying the way things look in the mirror and I’d like to build on that a little bit. Third, the more I read, the more it seems right to cycle things — if you focus mainly on strength, do a hypertrophy cycle every so often; if you focus mainly on hypertrophy, do a strength cycle every so often. It breaks adaptation cycles, solidifies gains, and allows longer-term progress. So it’s been my goal to do one more hypertrophy cycle, then do a short strength cycle, then see from there.

Question was: what to do for hypertrophy for the next 6-8 weeks? I had thought about just another 4x/week bodypart split hitting each major group 1x week. That certainly works OK for me, especially with the setup I’ve been running. But there’s more than enough out there, both literature and my own experience, that tells me hitting a part more often than once every 7 days should actually be better for me. Granted, if I hit it hard enough to require 7 days for recovery, that works out — and I tend to like how those sessions go. When I hit things more often, the sessions need to be lesser so that the cumulative work is what I need, but then each session is a little less than I want. That’s a little hard for me to pull back to do, but if it amounts to better results in the end…

I’ve long been thinking about it, a sort of A/B upper/lower split type of thing. But I wasn’t sure how I wanted to do it. Biggest thing was days. I’ve been on 4x/week because of The Defattening, and while I enjoy the groove of 4x and find that can work alright when I do something like a bodypart split because let’s face it: having an arm day is basically a rest day (compared to say a leg/squat day). But trying to squat 2x/week, heavy work like this 4x/week ultimately kicks my ass. Can I do it? Sure I could — but recovery needs to take a higher priority, and that’s many times difficult for me because of life. I have found that 3x/week works alright for me, and with a upper/lower type of split that’s about 4-5 days between sessions — which may be about right.

So for the past week I was thinking about hitting Paul Carter’s “Inception” again because that seemed right up the alley. But I admit I wasn’t sure how well the 4x/week would do for me. So last night I opted to flip back to Paul’s Guaranteed Muscle Mass program. This is that A/B 1/2 split, it works 3x/week so it takes 4 weeks to fully “cycle” through it. I’ve done it before, about a year ago, but because I was Defattening I ran it 4x/week — and it kicked my ass. But I think about the circumstnaces: 4x/week (program is written for 3x/week), I was defattening so I was low on fuel (and now I’m not), and I’ve got some other things going on right now that well…. I suspect this might work out for me.

So, giving it a shot. I’ll run it for 8 weeks and see how it goes. Yeah, I hate it to some extent — shit like split squats I just hate, but they are good for me and really kick my ass so… here I am.

SO! How about today?

I only had a rough idea of where weights and reps would be for today, so I just picked some things, did what I could, and I’ll adjust for next time.

It felt good to (back) squat again, tho for sure this is the biggest place I need to bring my strength up. I miss squatting in the 300’s and I really want to get back there.

Stiffs went fine, and I think it’ll be good for me — letting my back bend over, get rounded, I think my lower back needs that sort of thing right now. It’s hard to explain, but these days I find myself just bending over and letting my lower back “expand and relax” like that and it feels good. A little too heavy on the AMRAP set, so I’ll adjust for that, but otherwise I was fine.

And split squats. How I hate you. These kick my ass so hard, but they are so good for me. My knees appreciate it and are better for it.

Another note: it’s amazing how quickly you lose conditioning. All these AMRAP sets, 1-minute rest between all sets, man… I was huffing and puffing. If anything, that’s why I gave out “so soon” on my AMRAP sets — conditioning stopped me before anything else. That will come back in time. Just keep working and pushing.

Based on Paul Carter’s “Guaranteed Muscle Mass” article.

• Squat
  • BW x 10
  • bar x 5
  • 135 x 5
  • 175 x 4
  • 215 x 3
  • 245 x 2
  • 265 x 1
  • 215 x 12 (AMRAP)
  • 215 x 6 (50%)
• Stiff-Legged Deadlift
  • 135 x 5
  • 185 x 4
  • 225 x 3
  • 275 x 2
  • 325 x 1
  • 275 x 6 (AMRAP)
• Split Squats
  • BW x 10 (each leg)
  • BW x 10
  • BW x 10
  • BW x 10
  • BW x 10

Another “gotta make do with what you have” day.

Just have a bench and a rack of DB’s up to 40 lb. so you do what you can. It was supposed to be a no-deload-deload week, but what with being down with strep throat last week (hooray for antibiotics!) I figure I ought to do something this week. So nothing intensive, but aiming to get some work in.

Started with good old “pre-exhaust” because 40 lb’s of DB isn’t enough for pressing. But then to help that, I did incline pressing instead of flat. Again, nothing major, just get a little work. Some lat raises, some extensions, and good enough done. LOTS of focus on the eccentric in everything I did today. I did walk out with a nice pump, felt ok, good enough for circumstance.

In other news… I was listening to the JuggLife Podcast with Chad Wesley Smith, Max Aita, and Dr. Mike Israetel. It got me thinking again about where to go next. It’s about frequency. I know that 1x/week is not enough for me, but 2x can be a little much. BUT that’s also older me — I’ve got some things going on now that may help me out and may make 2x work a little better. I’ve been thinking about one more hypertrophy cycle then a strength cycle, and well… putting it all together and I’m wondering about trying Paul Carter’s Inception again. That would be perfect in terms of another hypertrophy then a strength cycle. Yeah, there’s no deadlifting but that’s OK. The frequency is a little much for me — I know from past experience that a sort of A1/B1 A2/B2 type of split 3x week (so spread over about 9-10 days) tends to work well for me. But again, some things are different now and I guess I’m curious if I might be able to pull it off.

Going to think about it this week because come next Monday, whatever it is I’m going to do has to start. 🙂

• DB Flies
  • 12e x 15
  • 20e x 15
  • 25e x 15
  • 25e x 15
  • 25e x 15
• Incline DB Press
  • 40e x 12
  • 40e x 12
  • 40e x 12
  • 40e x 12
  • 40e x 12
• DB Lat Raises
  • 20e x 12
  • 20e x 10
  • 20e x 9
• Overhead Triceps Extensions
  • 40 x 15
  • 40 x 12
  • 40 x 10

No training the rest of this week. I’ve been wanting to but…

Strep throat.

I’ve been on antibiotics since Tuesday and modern medicine is a wonderful thing. Think about how fortunate we are that we can contract something, take a pill, and “by magic” we’re cured.

Anyways, I was staying out of the gym because sleep is more important. I thought about going this morning, but man… I woke up, honestly thought about it, went back to sleep, and slept for another 3 hours. Yeah, my body’s not ready yet.

So while next week was supposed to be a no-deload-deload, I may actually do some light work.

You feel like crap, but you do it anyways.

I’ve got something… not sure if a “cold” or allergies or what, but something. Friday it started to creep in. Saturday I was ok, but beyond exhausted by the time I got home — I couldn’t even finish my supper because the effort involved was too much. Yeah. Sunday I slept a lot of the day. Waking up this morning I feel a little better but still like crud. I debated skipping the day (let the body rest/heal), but 1. I often feel better if I get the blood pumping, 2. I scheduled myself to try something today, 3. this will be the last week on this cycle so, let’s do it.

So I compromised and opted to just do something — let me decide as I feel it while I’m there.

I inclined, and worked up to 225. That’s an all-time PR for me. Unfortunately it was a little scary too. I got to the sticking point, started to grind it, then my head started to feel…. wrong. As if I kept it up, I’d probably black out and have 225 lb. crashing down on my face. So the effort became about just racking the damn bar. I got it, but I’ve never been that scared under the bar before. I attribute it to that “something” that has me. No bueno. Still, a PR so I’ll take it. 🙂

After that, I opted to just do some dips. I haven’t done them in ages and like doing them. I started dipping and my shoulders told me it had been a while since I had dipped! Nothing bad, just very tight in the bottom position. So after 5 reps I stopped and figured it’d be more beneficial to do lots of sets of 5 and get blood flowing there, get the stretch, and that volume and stretch would do me better. After 10 sets, I figured 50 reps was enough all things considered. Finished off with some lat raises and that was that.

Glad I went. The PR was a little scary, but I got it. It feels good going into my deload and then the start of a new cycle where I won’t be BB Inclining, so a nice cap to it all.

• Incline Bench Press
  • bar x 10
  • bar x 5
  • 135 x 5
  • 155 x 4
  • 175 x 3
  • 205 x 2
  • 225 x 1 (PR)
  • 175 x 8
  • 175 x 4
• Dips
  • bw x 5
  • bw x 5
  • bw x 5
  • bw x 5
  • bw x 5
  • bw x 5
  • bw x 5
  • bw x 5
  • bw x 5
  • bw x 5
• Lateral Raises
  • 20e x 12
  • 20e x 12
  • 20e x 12

Who says Friday 13th is bad luck? It was a good day. 🙂

Everything continues to go up. I bumped my weight up on close-grips to a single at 225, but it went up so easy. I thought about continuing to so singles, but nah… not my goal today. Then reps with 185 came on strong. Calculations put my 1RM on close-grips at 265. Very curious where my proper bench now lies, y’know?

The other thing I focused on was eccentrics. I wasn’t as focused on those last week so refocused my effort there. It makes such a difference. Whereas last week I was eccentric just enough to be controlled so I could put all into the concentric, today I was doing like 3-count eccentrics or more — just really slow. I didn’t get as many reps as last week, but oh I got much more work. The pump today was stupid, and like Arnold said: chase the pump. 🙂

One more week on this particular program, then a deload week, then change-up. Thing is, I’m not sure what I’d want to change on my arm day — this is working really well for me. I might do some slight variations, like change the bar used on the pushdowns. I contemplated JM Presses as my main triceps movement but I’m not hip to doing that for heavy singles, so I might swap out extensions for medium rep JM Presses (e.g. 6-12). But really, I don’t expect as much change here as some other days.

• Close-grip Bench Press
  • bar x 10
  • bar x 5
  • 145 x 5
  • 165 x 4
  • 185 x 3
  • 205 x 2
  • 225 x 1 (PR)
  • 185 x 13 (PR)
  • 185 x 6
• Skullcrushers
  • 45 x 15
  • 55 x 12
  • 65 x 9
  • 65 x 6
  • 45 x 12
• V-Bar Pushdowns
  • 45 x 13
  • 40 x 14
  • 35 x 17
  • 30 x 17
• BB Curls
  • 45 x 15 (strict)
  • 55 x 12
  • 65 x 8
  • 95 x 4 (cheat)
  • 95 x 4
  • 95 x 4
• Hammer Curl
  • 30 x 9
  • 30 x 8
  • 30 x 8
  • 30 x 8
• Cable Curls
  • 55 x 18
  • 60 x 12
  • 65 x 10
  • 55 x 10

Back days seem to be the ones I see the least progress on. Not sure why. I did see some progress today, for sure. But it’s just slower.

It is what it is tho. I tried to up it a little bit today, with some “first-set-last” type things for AMRAP. Just a little more volume, because.

I feel stagnant on pull-ups. Not going to sweat it too much. I’ll be changing this up here soon and doing some different sort of “up” — maybe neutral grip, something that’s a little less (torque) stress on my joints. We’ll see what it does. I really want to get over that 10-rep milestone. I also thought that I might change my ups to let the first set be just a crank-it-out set, then all other sets be very eccentric focused — don’t sweat the reps, just put everything under a lot of stress.

I also think I need to lay off the heavy, low-rep shrugs. My spine doesn’t seem to like that compression and that angle.

• Pull-ups
  • bw x 8
  • bw x 5
  • bw x 3
  • bw x 3
  • bw x 2
• T-Bar Row
  • 110 x 8
  • 110 x 8
  • 110 x 8
  • 110 x 8
• Curl-Grip Lat Pulldown
  • 100 x 16
  • 110 x 11
  • 120 x 8
  • 100 x 11
• Cable Rows
  • 90 x 15
  • 100 x 15
  • 110 x 11
  • 90 x 11
• BB Shrugs
  • 275 x 8
  • 275 x 10
  • 185 x 20
  • 185 x 20
  • 185 x 16

I didn’t want to go to the gym this morning. I really zonked out hard earlier than usual last night, and I didn’t want to get up — my body was all about sleep. So it was drag-ass out of bed.

I did go to the gym, but I opted to just have fun as that’s the goal of this cycle, right?

So I did front squats and worked up to a good single. Cool thing? It was a bunch of PR’s today. The app I use for tracking, RepCount, gives stats including personal records. So today I did my best front squat ever, my best 2 rep max, and my best 5 rep max. Granted, that’s basically just looking at the largest weight entered for a given rep count, so the 2 and 5 probably don’t count much. But the 1RM is pretty cool. I could have gone up a little more but figured this was good enough.

When I started my work sets, I dropped the weight, thus the 2 reps. I was in the hole and lost balance, and that was that — dropped the weight. No big deal, but just noting the 2 reps.

Then I opted to just do a little extra work. Just to have some fun and get some work in. I had thought about Jack-Shitting the day, so this was a reasonable trade-off.

I am thinking towards the future, that I might try ass-to-grass front squats. The lower I get, the more I feel it in my glutes and hamstrings. It might be interesting to really lighten the weight and try that and see where it gets me.

• Front Squat
  • bar x 5
  • bar x 5
  • 115 x 5
  • 135 x 4
  • 165 x 3
  • 195 x 2
  • 225 x 1
  • 245 x 1
  • 175 x 2 (lost balance, dropped the weight)
  • 175 x 5
  • 175 x 5
• Leg Extensions (350-Method)
  • 60 x 30
  • 60 x 20
  • 60 x 15
• Leg Curls (350-Method)
  • 30 x 24
  • 30 x 15
  • 30 x 12