Days like this I like.

Back day. I somewhat planned it out last night, and enjoyed what I did today. Just doing what I wanted, with some logic to it, and having fun.

Started with pull-ups. I know I’ve been on a chin-up streak, but I figured the change would do me good. These pull-ups are full dead-hang at the bottom, with about a 2-0-2-0 tempo — not that I’m trying for that, but if I go any faster on the descent I’ll kill my shoulder joint. But for sure I make sure to go all the way down to a dead hang and start with no momentum or anything. So to get 5 out of that on the first set? I’m stoked! Given this whole session was shorter than other sessions, I might extend this next time so that I do like I’ve done before: where I just keep doing sets of pull-ups until I can’t get any more then switch to chin-ups and do the same. We’ll see.

Then I did t-bar rows. Need a good row and I thought these would be a nice variation. I used 25# plates so I could get more range of motion. Put end of the barbell in a corner, 4 25# plates, grabbed the close-/V-grip handle and cradled the bar in it, and away I went. This worked well. Really trying to get that full range, pulling with/from the elbows.

Curl-grip pulldowns surprised me. I did these during Inception and they really surprised me at how well I responded to them, so I went with them again.

Then finally cable rows. Again, full range, very strict, really making sure to pull with the back and not the arms. Really work the shoulder extension and retraction, pull from the elbows, etc..

So the structure here was pretty simple: “big” width exercise, “big” thickness exercise, then a variation on each for higher reps. By then end of that, I was actually feeling it in my back muscles. I’ve been enjoying discovering what my back responds to, and actually ensuring I feel it and get the back worked — not the “rest of the body” as I make the motions. It’s been a cool discovery.

Ended with some BB shrugs. I liked Paul Carter’s approach of a couple heavy low-rep sets, then crank some higher-rep sets.

So that was that. Well, and about 20 minutes on the elliptical.

Good day.

• Pull-ups
  • bw x 5
  • bw x 4
  • bw x 3
  • bw x 3
  • bw x 2
• T-bar row
  • 100 x 8
  • 100 x 8
  • 100 x 8
  • 100 x 7
• Curl-Grip Pulldowns
  • 90 x 15
  • 100 x 13
  • 110 x 8
• Cable Row
  • 80 x 12
  • 90 x 12
  • 90 x 11, then drop set, going down 10# each time, getting about 4-5 reps per drop, down to the 50# selector
• BB shrugs
  • 225 x 5
  • 225 x 5
  • 185 x 15
  • 185 x 15
  • 185 x 15

More experimentation.

So it’s a squat day, but not normal squats — front squats. Simple enough, my quads are weak relative to everything else. Sure, I’m weak relative to everything else, but since you have to do assistance work and have it support where you need improvement, well, front squats are what I need. Thing is, they haven’t been that great for me: I hate them. But I was doing them with my feet close together, heels slightly elevated. I went back and looked at some instructional videos from Mark Rippetoe and Dan Green, and really, just squat.

So I kept my feet flat, fairly “normal” foot positioning. I did work on keeping my chest up and leading with my chest out of the hole. Plus I worked it so the descent was just dropping straight down, not trying to sit/reach back like you do with the traditional squat. Man, what a difference! Today was to be about working up with an over-warmup, then just getting some work sets in. Trying to find technique, figure things out. Really went well. Before if I struggled to keep upright, it was mechanics, not my muscles. Today mechanics just felt natural and good, no fighting things. I did find I was going deeper than I needed to, but I know that’s because with the other front squat form I had to feel like I was going ass-to-grass in order to just be parallel; but here not so much. So I’ll work on that, and other things. But overall, this was pretty good. I could actually like front squats now 🙂

Everything else then was geared as I’ve been wanting to do: just have some fun, chase a pump.

Stiff-legs were trying to get a little “heavy” hamstring work. Frankly I think I got more back work out of it. I may go back to RDL’s.

Leg press was just a work up, then after the last set I did strip sets. I didn’t have 2 training partners to strip off plates for me, but I’d push to failure, rack it, take a plate off each side, then back into the press and crank out what I could. Didn’t really keep track of the reps, just did what I could do.

Extensions and Curls were similar. First, I did them as a superset. Then it was about being slow on the eccentric, getting a squeeze, and on the last set I did rest-pause. Again, didn’t keep track of reps, just a couple rest-pause sets to crank out a little more.

After that, I was pretty spent. I had to do time on the elliptical but just didn’t want to: gassed. But I cranked out what I could, got about 20 minutes, and that’s that.

Not bad day.

• Front Squats
  • bar x 5
  • 95 x 5
  • 125 x 4
  • 155 x 3
  • 185 x 2
  • 215 x 1
  • 165 x 5
  • 165 x 5
  • 165 x 5
• Stiff-Legs
  • 185 x 8
  • 185 x 8
  • 185 x 8
• Leg Press
  • 225 x 10
  • 315 x 10
  • 365 x 10, strip set to 315, 275, 225
• Leg Extensions
  • 70 x 10
  • 55 x 12
  • 55 x 12 (then 2 rest-pause sets)
• Leg Curls (superset with extensions)
  • 25 x 12
  • 25 x 12
  • 25 x 8 (then 2 rest-pause sets)

Time for a change.

Things aren’t going well. My sleep’s been crap. Work’s been beyond stress. I’m not recovering well. Cut diet isn’t progressing at the desired rate. Nothing’s working. So, instead of continuing down the path, time for changes.

First change. Gym work is no longer Basebuilding. It’s good, but it’s simply not the level of volume I need to support the cut. Both in terms of work done in the sessions, but also work during the week. I was going to switch programming eventually anyways, but I just opted to start today.

Basic approach is hypertrophy stuff. Go 4x/week. Chest/shoulders, legs/lower, back, arms. Arms are important not for bro reasons, but because it provides me with a light day; so it’s still a day of work but it’s hardly a level of work compared to a squat session. Start off with something compound and heavy, work up, then everything after aims to be supportive. About 1 minute rest between sets, and yes, chase the pump. Just have fun. And that’s part of it for me — if I find that I want to just chase something, go for it. I’ve done things where I just did nothing but pullups and chinups until I couldn’t do any more. If I want to do that, do that. Tomorrow I’ll squat, and I want to focus on front squatting, and who knows… maybe I’ll want to front squat until I’m blue so I can work on lighter weight but finding the technique groove. And if that’s all I do, then that’s all I do. I want to have fun, chase the pump, get a bunch of work in, and just do whatever to help support the cut diet.

So with that, today went like this.

Hit inclines to start off. Worked up to a moderately heavy single, then an AMRAP+50%. Nice start. DB bench press next, but lowered the weight and focused on a 2(3)-0-1-0 tempo. I really wanted everything to have that larger focus on the eccentric, and it was good. Think muscle, not movement. Flies were a little light, because I found that fast a tempo was harder to hit on that — need to maybe make it like 4-0-2-1 — yes, really get that squeeze and pause at the top. But whatever the exact tempo, more eccentric.

DB Presses went the same: slower eccentric, really let the muscle work. Then DB lat raises. This was interesting because by the end of the presses I started to feel that weirdness in my neck/traps again. I know that with the raises I’ll tilt my head back a little bit — don’t do that. Just “look down” (not really, but have to think of it that way). That helped a lot. As soon as I finished the raises I immediately grabbed a 10# plate and did front raises until I couldn’t.

I shouldn’t have done triceps work, but I was winging it. After the 3rd set I cranked out what I could then ran the rack down to the 15# DB, getting 3-5 reps per poundage drop. Just go go until I couldn’t, crank as I could.

That’s the stuff I want to do. Just have some fun.

• Incline Press
  • bar x 10
  • 95 x 5
  • 115 x 4
  • 135 x 3
  • 165 x 2
  • 185 x 1
  • 135 x 15
  • 135 x 7
• DB Bench
  • 45e x 10
  • 45e x 10
  • 45e x 10
  • 45e x 8
  • 45e x 7
• Machine Flies
  • 70 x 12
  • 70 x 12
  • 70 x 12
• Seated DB Press
  • 35e x 10
  • 35e x 10
  • 35e x 10
  • 35e x 9
• DB Lat Raises
  • 20e x 10
  • 20e x 10
  • 20e x 6, then immediately grabbed 10# plate and did front raises to failure (about 25 reps)
• Overhead Triceps extensions
  • 40 x 20
  • 40 x 13
  • 40 x 12, then ran the rack down to 15# getting about 3-5 reps per drop

Nothing.

Opted to stay out of the gym and rest. I’m burning out (due to work stress and sleep issues). It’s Easter weekend, so I’m just going to try to rest up.

Pfft.

Jack shit, and not even a good one at that.

Felt crappy this morning. My sleep hasn’t been great, work has been a massive source of stress, so I was drag-ass out of bed. Thought about skipping the gym entirely, but no… gotta go through. But I did decide to do a “Jack-Shit” approach (and then reduce my carb intake today) so I don’t dig a deeper hole to recover out of. Just do the squat work, 30 minutes on the elliptical, and call it.

As I started squatting, I felt a little better and thought about working up to my EDM because sometimes you should do that. I really don’t know why I did — I shouldn’t have. I felt bad, poor day, not recovering well, why would I think this was a good idea? Still, I did. And I failed. I put 305 on the bar, hit the hole, not sure I hit depth because I could tell it wasn’t going to happen… started to come out of the hole, got a few inches and just stuck… stuck… stuck… couldn’t make it move… so I dumped the bar. Not happy, but not too upset because I’m not surprised. I had good setup and mentality going into it, but it just wasn’t there physically. I’m not yet going to chalk it up to diet strength loss, but rather just feeling like shit, bad day, not recovering, etc..

After I dumped it I just hit the elliptical. No 5×5 work sets. My back didn’t feel too hot after the bar dump, so why risk more problems for myself

It was what it was.

• Squat
  • bar x 5
  • bar x 5
  • 150 x 5
  • 175 x 4
  • 205 x 3
  • 225 x 2
  • 265 x 1
  • 285 x 1
  • 305 x miss

Today was solid. Saw progress across the board.

Weird that my bodyweight is up… have no idea why. This cut cycle is starting off on a frustrating note.

But as for the gym, went well. Biggest thing I’m happy to report is my shoulder/neck feels tons better. Movement is good, range is good. Still need a little stretching, but recovering well. I had thought about dropping weight and upping reps on the lat raises due to lat week, but nah…. opted to just continue on, and it went fine. Chalk it up to “one of those things”.

• Bench Press (basebuilding model 1)
  • bar x 5
  • 120 x 5
  • 140 x 4
  • 165 x 3
  • 180 x 2
  • 205 x 1
  • 180 x 8
  • 180 x 8
  • 180 x 8
  • 180 x 6
  • 180 x 5
• Incline Bench
  • 135 x 8
  • 135 x 8
  • 135 x 6
• Lateral Raises
  • 25e x 10
  • 25e x 10
  • 25e x 8
  • 25e x 7
• Overhead Triceps Extensions
  • 40 x 20
  • 40 x 20
  • 40 x 20
  • 40 x 16

Solid day.

Deadlifting went well. After I was warm, all the work sets went really well. For sure the speed was up over last week, and I know there’s still room to improve that to make the work sets feel like nothing, which is the goal. Happy here.

Chin-ups… 10 still eludes me, but I’m going to work every set to “failure”. Basically even if that “last rep” was barely chin over bar, still do another rep and fight it — I might get there, but even if I don’t, that extra work will do me well. Make the descent of the last rep really slow, and just keep working it and pushing it since this is bodyweight and tough to (over)load otherwise. I’ll get there.

One thing I thought about today was my quads.

See, I know when I deadlift that I really favor my back. I’m trying to work on that. My deadlift technique is shifting a little bit these days, starting with a closer stance to the bar and trying to really push the floor away from me when I start — get more leg drive into it, trying to keep the bar closer to me, etc.. But I know from looking at, well, everything, that my quads are weak compared to the rest of me (esp. my back and posterior chain). So I thought about it some, and I think after I’m done with this basebuilding session that I’m going to have to focus on my quads more.

For example, while I finish out this diet cut, I wanted to switch to just some freestyle hypertrophy stuff. I’m thinking out a plan for it, but I think a big part of it will be switching to front squats as a main movement (e.g. 5/4/3/2/1 workup, then a AMRAP set with 50% afterwards). And tho I’m thinking about 5/3/1 after I’m done with the cut, while I have been thinking about doing BBB template I may not and instead follow squats with front squats (something like a “simplest strength template” approach). I don’t know.

But I do believe if I want to hit my goals, I really need to bring my quads strength up. I’ve known this, and it just becomes more evident to me over time. Despite the fact I hate front squats, I think it’s time to focus on them for a good long time and work to bring up my quad strength. Probably other things too, like leg presses and one-leg bodyweight work.

Anyways, just thinking out loud.

• Deadlift (basebuilding model 1)
  • 185 x 5
  • 215 x 4
  • 225 x 3 (whoops, should have been 255)
  • 285 x 2
  • 300 x 3
  • 300 x 3
  • 300 x 3
  • 300 x 3
  • 300 x 3
• Chinups
  • bw x 9
  • bw x 6
  • bw x 3
  • bw x 3
  • bw x 3
• BB Rows
  • 135 x 8
  • 135 x 8
  • 135 x 8
• BB Curls
  • 30 x 40
  • 30 x 26
  • 30 x 21
  • 30 x 18 (then a couple rest-pause sets)

Another squat day. Just felt solid.

A few points of note.

That shoulder pain from the other day. My buddy Sam txt’d me and mentioned “levator scapulae”. I do believe that’s it. After much massaging, stretching, a little Advil at night, it felt better yesterday and even more so today. Still don’t have full range of motion, but close. It affected my squatting a little bit since it caused a little neck pain (bar pressure, etc.), but actually by the end of the squats it felt better than before I got to the gym. Huzzah.

When in doubt, crush-grip the bar. It makes a huge difference in everything. Being tight, as much of your body as possible being tight, leads to being stronger.

I am starting to think knee sleeves might actually do something for me (not just placebo). Wore them the whole time, but after the 3rd set of lunges rolled them down. On that 4th set, something in my knees was like “dude, you want the sleeves”. I can’t really describe it, but my knee did not feel as good as it had been and it was as if to say “yeah, sleeves help”. I’ll need to keep playing around, but it was the first actual bit of something to say “yeah, knee sleeves are good things (for me)”.

• Squat (basebuilding model 1)
  • bar x 5 x 2
  • 150 x 5
  • 175 x 4
  • 205 x 3
  • 225 x 2
  • 260 x 1
  • 185 x 5
  • 185 x 5
  • 185 x 5
  • 185 x 5
  • 185 x 5
• Leg Press
  • 225 x 10
  • 315 x 10
  • 365 x 10
  • 365 x 10
• Lunges
  • bw x 12e
  • bw x 12e
  • bw x 12e
  • bw x 12e

All in all, today went well. I got a couple more reps over last week, so that’s proper progress.

The main bummer came with, of all things, lateral raises. I went up in weight. First two sets went fine. On the third set, around rep 4 sudden pain/twinge in my upper trap/left side of my neck. I tried to push through a couple more reps, but no go. It was painful. I dropped weight and was able to do a final set, so nothing major here. But damn if things aren’t hurting, even now a couple hours later as I write this. Something deep in my neck/upper-shoulder area is really tight. Turning my head side-to-side hurts, can’t get full range. I’ll probably be extra sore and tight tomorrow, and it may take up to a week before things are fully normal again. Just LOTS of stretching, massage, etc. throughout the day today. Ugh.

Ah well, shit happens. I don’t think it’s anything serious, but it’s enough to be a bummer. Just have to manage it out. Glad I’ve got my Thera-Cane: should help me work it out.

In other news, I’m still hanging in the 208 zone. This is NOT where I wanted to be 2-weeks into the diet. So Nick has really bumped things: dropped food intake some, and really bumped up the cardio (ugh). It’s now 1 hour walking on my off days and 20-30 minutes on my training days. Geez. I hate it but I really want this to happen AND I want to try to get this all in before the end of May. So if I want it, I gotta put in the work, and crank. All there is to it.

• Bench Press
  • bar x 5
  • 120 x 5
  • 140 x 5
  • 165 x 3
  • 180 x 2
  • 205 x 1
  • 180 x 8
  • 180 x 8
  • 180 x 8
  • 180 x 5
  • 180 x 4
• Incline Bench Press
  • 135 x 8
  • 135 x 7
  • 135 x 6
• DB Lat Raises
  • 25e x 10
  • 25e x 10
  • 25e x 6 (ouch)
  • 15e x 15
• Overhead Triceps Extensions
  • 40 x 20
  • 40 x 20
  • 40 x 16
  • 40 x 14

Good, but not great.

So deadlift basebuilding model 1. Really the day wasn’t bad, but I’ve not gotten the best sleep this week, work is quite stressful right now, and I’m still very sore from Wednesday’s squat session (always 2 days later).

The deadlifts moved slow. Not horrible slow, not grinding, but I just didn’t have the C.A.T. behind it. Things got better as I went along tho. In the end, it’s just a baseline for me to improve upon.

As for everything else, I’m going to continue with the 2-minutes-rest between everything throughout this basebuilding cycle. Only exception will be squats, since the model puts a time constraint. I expect a little more rest will be a little more useful for me.

Chins, 10 continues to allude me, but I’m going to get there.

Curls are supposed to be 100 reps nonstop. I’ve found that doesn’t do much for me, and the “inverse 100 protocol” is alright but again I wanted to try the consistency here with the rest of the program. So I picked a weight, goal is still at least 100 total reps, but crank as much as possible, 2 minutes rest, repeat until total is over 100. That felt a lot better than either 100-nonstop or the inverse protocol. We’ll see where it takes me.

While I’m working this, I can’t help but think forward because I know it’s just one more dietary cycle here then I’m off to achieve other goals. My thinking there continues to gravitate back to 5/3/1 because it’s dead simple and works. So then I think after I’m done with basebuilding and have time until 5/3/1 I may just “do whatever”. Hypertrophy work to support the diet cycle, and frankly just go into the gym, have fun, pull an Arnold and “chase the pump”, and just enjoy that before the work kicks in. 🙂

• Deadlift
  • 185 x 5
  • 215 x 4
  • 225 x 3
  • 285 x 2
  • 300 x 3
  • 300 x 3
  • 300 x 3
  • 300 x 3
  • 300 x 3
• Chin-ups
  • bw x 9
  • bw x 4
  • bw x 4
  • bw x 4
  • bw x 3
• BB Rows
  • 135 x 8
  • 135 x 8
  • 135 x 7
• BB Curls
  • 30 x 40
  • 30 x 25
  • 30 x 20
  • 30 x 19