Not good… in the bad way, not good.

Wendler 5/3/1 program, cycle 24, week 3

• Work Set – Bench Press (working max: 225#)
  • 45 x 5 x 2 sets (warmup)
  • 95 x 5
  • 115 x 5
  • 135 x 3
  • 170 x 5 (work)
  • 195 x 3
  • 215 x 3
  • 225 x 1 (Joker)
  • 235 x 0
• Assistance – Pull-ups (superset between each pressing set)
  • BW (band-assisted) x 5 x 5 sets

Today was not good.

On Saturday, Wife and I were talking about training, first aid, and came around to rescue carries. Wife tried some carries on me, and things weren’t working out. She was pulling hard on my arms, and that did something to my shoulders. In the bad way.

Saturday afternoon I started to feel the pain. Sunday was better, but still problematic. It’s true pain in my shoulder, at the rotator joint. And something radiates down my arm along the biceps, from end to end, muscle and tendon. It feels like a joint issue, that something got strained (tendons?), and maybe some nerve pinching or something? It’s hard to say. But I’m taking Advil to help with inflammation and that seems to help, but I think time is the only remedy.

I could start to feel the pain as I pressed. I stopped doing pull-ups because I was aiming to PR today (235 would have been a PR) and just didn’t want to aggravate the shoulder any further.

Intentionally only did 215 for a triple. It felt good, at least weight-wise. I knew 225 would be no problem, and that was in case. In fact, I was so in the zone that I had no idea I pressed the thing — I was done before I started. It was mentally kinda cool to just rip through it like that. I knew 235 was going to be easy, and even thought I might try 245 if all went well.

I put 235 on the bar, unrack, bar came down, and my body shut down. It was not muscular failure… there was something else. Like my nervous system just didn’t fire. I was suddenly very weak, no ability in my arms, nothing. And yes, this is why I started benching in the half-rack. I was able to set the bar on the arms no problem, tho it was over my neck, no contact, and I was able to slide out from under things.

I couldn’t lift my arms. If I did, my arms/hands were shaking. I could barely take the plates off the bar, I had to wear my belt home because I couldn’t hold it. In fact, after I was done lifting, I sat on the bench with my arms — especially my biceps — in pain for about 5 minutes. Yes, this sucks, and concerns me a bit.

Even now, a few hours later as I type, things suck. Trying to lift my left arm above my head and there’s a lot of pain in the shoulder joint. Something feels weak throughought my arms and hands. At this point, I think we just strained something too much, and Advil and time is all I can do. I’m not sure how the rest of the week is going to go, with deadlift and pressing still to come. I’m just going to wing it. And for sure, my deload week is going to be light and easy. I just have to take this as it comes and see how it goes day to day.

BTW, I’m not mad at Wife nor anyone nor anything. It’s just one of those things. Life goes on.

Achievement unlocked – 300# squat.

Wendler 5/3/1 program, cycle X, week X

• Work Set – Squat (working max: 300#)
  • 45 x 5 x 2 sets (warmup)
  • 120 x 5
  • 150 x 5
  • 180 x 3
  • 230 x 5 (work)
  • 260 x 3
  • 290 x 1
  • 300 x 1 (Joker Set) — PR
• Assistance – Crunches
  • BW x 12 x 3 sets

I squatted 300#.

Never done that before.

I had made up my mind. Because this was the 2nd of the 2-cycle approah, because next up is deload, because I decided to do Joker Sets on these days (the 2nd of the 2 cycles) well… I knew I could work up to 300, at least. And I told myself, just hit 300. No need to do more, and just put all into it… jack shit day, no saving energy for later or whatever.

Previous best was 295 for 3 reps, but I know that was some shitty form. And last cycle was 290 for 1 and I struggled. Well, after making the recent discovery about the torso tightness that made a HUGE difference (see my last squat session), I knew this was going to happen.

I hit 260 without the belt and it was a little sloppy, but I was probably at the limit of my torso tightness without a belt to press against. Plus I was just fired up.

Belt on, 290 was “easy”. I could have done more, but I wanted to save up energy to ensure I could hit the 300. Yes, I cannot deny some fear, some uncertainty, some doubt. But I knew that I could not let this fear conquer me. I knew I could do it. I had to focus on tight tight tight torso and everything would come together. Just move. And if it doesn’t happen, it doesn’t. That’s another part of overcoming the fear and all — so what if you miss? Yeah, dumping onto the half-rack at the gym would hurt because it’s not adjustable and the bars are low and so it actually is painful to dump it, but meh… just let it happen.

And so I did.

Down. Up. Fuck yes!

I actually felt like I could have done 305, even thought about trying again at 315 (3 wheels). But I didn’t want to get greedy. I did what I set out to accomplish. Let’s leave on a high note!

I didn’t video it tho! I had it set up, but I was so focused on the squat I just didn’t bother. I found myself getting under the bar and going “Oh, video!” then just skipping it because I was so motivated, so in the zone, that to break would just deflate too much. Not worth it… I’ll be squatting more than 300 soon enough, so there will be more milestones. I will try better to get 315 on video tho 🙂

Anyways, I figured I did my thing… did some crunches, then bailed.

This is good.

It shows the power of two things:

1. tight torso. I mean, really damn tight.

2. the power of the mind. I was NOT going to miss this. I was going to conquer this weight. I was going to dominate. I was going to do it. I was going to be there, standing above the weight, having vanquished it. I mean, thing big and stupid, but visualize success on a massive scale because… yes you can.

Damn right it was a good day.

Wendler 5/3/1 program, cycle 24, week 2

• Work Set – Press (working max: 160#)
  • 45 x 5 x 2 sets (warmup)
  • 65 x 5
  • 80 x 5
  • 95 x 3
  • 105 x 3 (work)
  • 130 x 3
  • 145 x 6
• Assistance – Press
  • 100 x 10/10/8/8/7 x 5 sets
• Assistance – Seated Rows (superset with all pressing)
  • 85 x 10 x 11 sets
• Assistance – Wide-grip lat pulldowns
  • 100 x 10 x 5 sets

I don’t know why, but today was just great. No mental reservations, just charge ahead.

Maybe taking video of myself made me think to really be on on form — want to look good on video, right? Even tho it’s only for my eyes. Still… mental tricks on yourself.

I also found myself more in a proper groove. I’ve settled on breathing at the bottom. Yes, there’s more setup involved, but it’s turning into a more solid performance. I mean, last session I did 5 with 140, and today I did 6 with 145. I feel good about breaking my all-time PR next pressing session. Finally.

But everything else really felt good and I could really crank today. Weights felt light, almost like I didn’t work myself enough. I’ll just take it as it comes, and rest more. 🙂 I mean, Friday will be 5/3/1 squat day, and I’m looking forward to kicking some ass.

Oh… it hurts. 🙂

Wendler 5/3/1 program, cycle 24, week 2

• Work Set – Deadlift (working max: 390#)
  • 160 x 5
  • 195 x 5
  • 235 x 3
  • 275 x 3 (work)
  • 315 x 3
  • 355 x 4
• Assistance – Deficit Deadlift (1.5″ deficit)
  • 205 x 6 x 4 sets
• Assistance – Crunches
  • BW x 10 x 3 sets
• Farmer’s Walk – didn’t really happen (see below)
• Foam Rolling

I can tell… I need to eat carbs, but too many carbs does bloat me up. Gets away from me on the weekends. *sigh* Gotta watch that. And so, was a little sluggish today.

But at least I remembered to bring a camera! I brought a second iDevice and was able to find a way to video myself from the side. It’s not perfect, propped in a bench, so there’s a little angle and it’s not perfect, but it’s better than nothing.

Maybe because the camera was watching me, I was really on about form. Lifts generally went well. I felt good with the 4 @ 355, and opted against 5 because it would have been bowling shoe ugly. Leave some in the tank, right?

Deficits kicked my butt, literally. Oh, it hurt. My lower back, glutes, hams… just dying. A 5th set wasn’t going to happen.

Then I tried some Farmer’s Walks, but slightly different. I pulled out my Fat Gripz, put them on the 60# dumbbell and started walking, but got 25 yards and stopped. The Gripz had me take an awkward position and there was bad pain in my wrists. I had to stop. If I’m going to keep using the Gripz I probably should start with a much lower weight, find my grip, then work back up. Took the Gripz off, did another 25 yards, but that was it… I had destroyed my posterior chain, so I just wasn’t going to have any more of it. You know… submaximal, never miss, leave some in the tank, so in the spirit of that I just stopped. Even tried the elliptical for a bit, but it just wasn’t going to have it. Heck, even now as I write this a couple hours later, I can still feel it.

But overall, I felt alright. I’m looking forward to next “week”, 5/3/1 week, and some Joker Sets on stuff. Let’s see where I can push myself!

I feel like Jean-Luc Picard there… “captain’s log, supplemental”. 🙂

I wanted to fill in some blanks about my gym sessions that happens every time but doesn’t get covered in the logs because it’s minutia.

I go to the gym in the morning. It works best for my schedule. I’m a morning person, so it works.

It’s about an hour between when I rise and when I start lifting. I found that I need about an hour, at least, for everything to wake up and be firing well enough to lift.

I don’t eat before I go to the gym. Just drink some water. I have tried pre-workout supps, but I think it’s just wasted money. Still, I have some (bought in bulk, still going through it) and am consuming it because I paid for it, might as well. Once it’s gone, I might switch to just taking a 200mg caffeine capsule and like 20-25g of whey isolate.

I walk to the gym. I live close enough that driving would really be silly, since the whole point of this is for my good health. That said, I will drive on occasion of the weather is bad or time is tight. But if I do, I do a little more warm up since the walk is technically part of my warm up and cool down. I just walk. No power walking, no fast walking or anything. Just walk. It’s also a time when on the way there I think about my day ahead and get anything off my brain I need to (so it doesn’t distract me in the gym); on the way home I use it to review the training session.

When I get to the gym, I start my warm up by just loosening up. I move through all my joints, rolling my wrists, some deep-knee bends, twisting, turning. Just get everything moving. I’ll hang from the pull-up bar for a little stretch. I don’t do any static stretching because that actually can make you weaker (go read Thomas Kurz’s books); if I really need it, I’ll dynamic stretch. Recently I picked up doing some rotator cuff work from Clint Smith:

It’s really simple, just 3 movements, 5# plate in each hand, 10 reps each movement. But I can say this has done a lot to help my shoulders. I do this every session, not just pressing days.

After that, I’ll start lifting. Since first thing is always a main lift, I start out doing 2 sets with the empty bar. The first set is never too serious, but mostly helps me get into the groove, so I take it as needed. For example, if I’m going to squat, I might find that first rep doesn’t get me down all the way, so I’ll keep working on getting deeper, maybe staying in the hole for a bit and letting things loosen up. I’ll generally do 5 reps, but if I need more I’ll take it. That first empty-bar set is just to get me prepped. The second empty-bar set is as strict as one can with an empty bar, really getting to work. Then into the lifts.

When I’m doing the main lift, the first few sets are warm ups. I’ll lift, then change weight, and lift again. I work through my warm up sets with only as much rest time as it takes to change plates. When I’m doing the work sets, I’ll take about 5 minutes between sets, but I’ll vary this depending how I feel.

The first assistance work tends to push me too, but there I’ll only rest about 90 seconds between sets.

Any additional assistance work gets about 60 seconds of rest, and these days I’m trying to remember to lift this stuff like a bodybuilder. Work the muscle, feel the muscle, this isn’t about moving the weight but rather working the muscle. Squeeze at the top, don’t slack on the negative. All that good stuff.

Yes, I use a timer to watch my rest periods. It keeps me honest and keeps things consistent and measurable between sessions. I also have to stay on track because I do have to get to work eventually. Plus, it’s one less thing to think about… let the timer on my phone do the work, while I think about other things.

Afterwards, I try to foam roll. Some days more than others, but at least a few back and forths on my spine because it feels good.

Then walk home, shower, eat, and off to work. I don’t necessarily worry about a post-workout shake or anything. I just eat a good breakfast with a lot of protein and the other things I need.

I only consume water during the gym time. No peri-workout nutrition.

These days I try to avoid using the belt, save for the last (heaviest) set. I don’t use any other supportive equipment, like knee or elbow sleeves or wraps. I did use wrist wraps when benching, but I stopped. I used them since I had some wrist pain, but that’s long gone and I don’t use them. Sometimes I pull them out on like the 5/3/1 week heaviest set, but meh.

My stance and form strives to replicate what Mark Rippetoe describes in Starting Strength. I’m not out to be a competitive powerlifter looking to maximize my leverages and squeeze every ounce out. I just want to be generally stronger, bigger, and have better health. I have to remember this is all about improving my health. About making sure that my body is strong and capable as I’m getting older. So my decisions tend to be conservative and not always push myself to death because… why? Injury is not what I need, wearing myself out is not what I need. I will err on improving my health, not destroying it.

So, that’s what fills in the gaps of my gym time. Tends to be this way every session, and plays into the greater picture.

And now you know.

It was a good day.

Wendler 5/3/1 program, cycle 24, week 2

• Work Set – Bench Press (working max: 225#)
  • 45 x 5 x 2 sets (warmup)
  • 95 x 5
  • 115 x 5
  • 135 x 3
  • 160 x 3 (work)
  • 180 x 3
  • 205 x 7
• Assistance – Barbell Incline Press
  • 135 x 10/10/7/7/6 x 5 sets
• Assistance – Pull-ups (superset between each pressing set)
  • BW (band-assisted) x 5/5/5/5/5/5/5/5/4/3/3 x 11 sets
• Assistance – DB Rows
  • 60 x 10 x 2 sets
  • 60 x 15

Overall, it was a good day. I remembered to bring a second device with me so I could video myself, then proceeded to forget to video anything. 🙂 But I did remember to bench in the squat “rack” instead of on the proper bench because I want to get used to that positioning. Mainly, get used to it, so when I try some Joker Sets and push towards 1RM’s, I can better handle fail if it comes to that point. But when I did my inclines, I used the proper incline bench. I’m going to see doing that in the squat “rack” will be more beneficial because as it is now trying to unrack really comes from an awkward position and my shoulders….

Which for all their feeling good and stronger recently, just didn’t feel it today. Maybe it was all the pull-ups, because they certainly made everything feel like crap today. Just felt really irritated at my elbow, at my shoulder. Don’t know why, but the pull-ups seemed to be involved. *shrug*

Anyways, overall I felt good. If I can crank out 7 @ 205, I feel good about striving for an all-time PR during Joker Sets next session.

Tight waist! (rhymes with Ronnie Coleman saying “light weight!”) 🙂

Wendler 5/3/1 program, cycle 24, week 2

• Work Set – Squat (working max: 300#)
  • 45 x 5 x 2 sets (warmup)
  • 120 x 5
  • 150 x 5
  • 180 x 3
  • 215 x 3 (work)
  • 245 x 3
  • 275 x 4
• Assistance – Front Squat
  • 135 x 5 x 3 sets
  • 95 x 6
• Assistance – Crunches (superset with Farmer’s walk)
  • BW x 10 x 3 sets
• Farmer’s Walk
  • 60# per hand
  • 3, 50 yard trips
  • 10 breath rest between trips
• Foam Rolling

Today was awesome.

I’ve been so focused on having a tight upper back, pulling my chin/neck back into the bar (thus working to keep the back/torso upright), and pressing with the legs (instead of bending at the hips then levering the weight up with my back) that I lost one key thing — tight waist.

See, I would think about it. Get under the bar, unrack it, and while I walked out and then stood there to steady things, I would tighten up. But when I went down I would forget about the torso, focusing so much on my upper back and legs, that everything in between lost tightness. Well, I think that’s been a cause for my problems in the hole. I get almost all the way down, and of course your back will angle somewhat forward just due to the mechanics of things… but because I lost the tightness I would come more forward than I should… which would take the bar out of the groove, would change how the levers felt (and thus how heavy the weight felt due to leverage changes with the bar going further from my center), would cause the bar to go low but my hips to remain slightly above parallel… keeping me from hitting true depth and worry of dumping and not able to get up out of the hole… then to come back up I have to lever it back into the groove or it’s kept out there away from my center… and shit falls apart.

Or so I’m hypothesizing based upon some reflection.

But today, all I thought about was keeping my torso tight… like down around my belly-button. Sure, I get set up and tighten the upper back. But I realized if I was truly tight as hell with the torso? it radiates up through the lats into the upper back and all that shit stays tight as it is. And I really don’t need to worry about my legs then, because they’re going to push anyways. And lord, if this didn’t help. All the weights felt light as I worked my way up. And on the 275 set, belt on, really pressing into it and focusing purely on that (and then all my other “cues” fall into place, it seems), down, up, and boy I felt like I was in a greased groove! Recall, I’m doing the same weight as last cycle because I failed to get enough reps, so this is same weight with focus on more reps. Last cycle got 2 @ 275. I hit 2, felt easy, went for 3, no problem. Screw it, go for 4… and I knew that’d be a little hard and sure enough there was a little fall forward at the top, but I still got it. I know I hit depth. I felt like things were riding on rails… it was just great!

So yeah… tight waist! If I really truly work to have that, everything else seems to fall into place.

Front squats, I opted to just go for more weight and tho lower reps, fine. I’m working here too to keep as upright as possible, pause at the bottom for a couple seconds holding everything tight, then going again. Only about 90 seconds of rest between sets. I’ll slowly ramp up on this weight more so maybe it’s just like 3×5 sets (with one light AMRAP set at the end). Fine.

I’m stoked. It got me thinking about my goals again. After this cycle is over, I’ll probably only get 2 more cycles in (only about 10 weeks left in the year, after this cycle ends). I had set a goal to total 1000 before the end of the year, and that probably will not happen. But I know I’ve been progressing towards it, so I can live with that. And really, at this point my biggest win would be squatting 300#. If I can do that, I’ll be happy. I know I can do it before the end of the year. I will do it before the end of the year.

Where was my head at?

Wendler 5/3/1 program, cycle 24, week 2

• Work Set – Press (working max: 160#)
  • 45 x 5 x 2 sets (warmup)
  • 65 x 5
  • 80 x 5
  • 95 x 3
  • 105 x 5 (work)
  • 120 x 5
  • 140 x 5
• Assistance – Press
  • 100 x 10/10/9/7/6 x 5 sets
• Assistance – Seated Rows (superset with all pressing)
  • 85 x 10 x 11 sets
• Assistance – Wide-grip lat pulldowns
  • 100 x 10 x 5 sets

I went to the gym fairly unencumbered mentally, which is unusual. So while I was pressing, my head was…. just there. I was focused on getting my setup and breathing and tightness going that I lost track of what I was doing otherwise! I got to the 5th rep of the 140 and felt that was good…. because I thought it was 3 week and that I just went 2 over the prescribed reps. Then I racked it, entered it into my log, and found myself disoriented wondering what just happened. No, it’s 5 week and I should have gone for more… but I didn’t. In fact, pressing up that 140 wasn’t hard on the upper body, but my lower body was very shakey. I’m trying that “screw my legs into the ground” stuff to get my lower body tight, but I don’t know if it’s working or is feeding the wobbly because it’s not actually stable. I’ve never been wobbly like this, until I tried the ‘screwing’ approach, so…. jury is still out.

Still, I did what I could and the session was what it was.

I also wonder if the back work took a little out of me. I bumped up to 85# and while that’s still not enough to really drain me, I am really focusing on full range of motion, squeezing the shoulder blades together at the peak, and making it a movement about the back (not the arms, etc.). From what I felt, I do wonder if it took a little out of my traps so I couldn’t get lock out well enough. Not sure, but curious. I’m generally OK with that. I don’t want the back work to detract from the main lift, but I really do want the extra back work. So if it’s a cut back in the short term but leads to longer term gains, bigger and stronger back, fine.

Ended off the session as I’ve been doing. Press day sometimes turns into “arm day” too. That after I’m done, I’ll just rip through some light sets of something for a pump. Today I did some front plate raises immediately followed by some db lateral raises immediately followed by some ez-bar tricep pressdowns (full lockout) immediately followed by some barbell curls. All light weight, trying to go for like 8-15 reps. Lift up with no momentum, really go slow on the negative, rest a moment at the bottom to lose momentum, go again. Two quick rounds of that, just for a pump. Nothing worth recording, but it’s there.

I have to admit… I’m thinking more and more about a change up. I don’t know. Is it me? am I not working hard enough? smart enough? Something? Could I be stale? Could something like Cube Method be a kick in the pants after 2 years of Wendler? I poked around at the gym to see what I could do for something like block pulls. There’s really nothing block-wise I could use but…. I MIGHT try the Smith Machine. I tried it and well, no it’s not ideal but it might be better than nothing using what I have available to me. I think the only thing keeping me from jumping on the Cube right now is wanting more information about Cube Extreme just due to the approach that takes towards gym time. I’m thinking about just emailing Corey Hayes and asking….

Ooof.

Wendler 5/3/1 program, cycle 24, week 1

• Work Set – Deadlift (working max: 390#)
  • 45 x 5 x 2 sets (warmup)
  • 160 x 5
  • 195 x 5
  • 235 x 3
  • 255 x 5 (work)
  • 295 x 5
  • 335 x 6
• Assistance – Deficit Deadlift (1.5″ deficit)
  • 205 x 5 x 2 sets
  • 205 x 3 x 3 sets
• Assistance – Crunches
  • BW x 15 x 3 sets
• Foam Rolling

Today was killer. Again, really focusing on keeping my spine “straight” and unmoved as the bar breaks off the ground, drive with my heels. That’s certainly my weak point (not lock-out, by far). And it just took a lot out of me today. My lower back was feeling it pretty hard. As I was doing my deficits, 3rd set? body just said “that’s it”… no way was I going to get that 4th rep without totally breaking down in form. Ah well, I just ensured I did a few more sets to make up for it. But man, that took a lot out of me. I really wanted to do some farmer’s walks, but my lower back and posterior just said “no… you’ve worked me enough”. Better to do a little less and recover well, eh?

I will say, I feel so wussy because it feels like I’m lifting light weights for few reps… I’m coming up off a reset (cycle 21 was the start of a reset… cycle 20 had a working max of 395, and cycle 21 reset to 360). So this cycle somewhat is back on track (working max of 390). I felt off, but looking back at my under pre-reset? I’m doing about the same in terms of weight and reps. So… I’ll actually take this as getting stronger because I KNOW my form is better now than it was then.

I even thought this morning about how PR’s are still cool, but I don’t mind not hitting them every 3-4 weeks. If it’s every 2-cycles… if it’s every 10 weeks, whatever.. I’m actually growing cool with that because I’m feeling a lot more like long-term progress is where I’m at now. It’s of course nice to hit PR’s and see daily and weekly progress, but it doesn’t have to be PR’s as much now as it used to have to be. I can see longer, I can get more satisfaction out of seeing like now… that my numbers aren’t much different on paper, but I know my form is much better so that’s progress, y’know?