I like deadlifting!

• 5/3/1 – Deadlift (working max 265#)
  • 1x5x105 (warmup)
  • 1x5x135
  • 1x3x160
  • 1x3x190 (work)
  • 1x3x215
  • 1x6x240
• Asst. #1 – Deadlift
  • 5x10x95
• Asst. #2 – Hanging leg raise
  • 5x5xbw
• Metcon – jumping rope
  • 1 Tabata set, all single hop

I’m starting to wonder… this is “week 2”, meaning “3 reps” on the work sets. On paper I’m not doing as much volume as I did “last week”, and I don’t feel like I’m working myself as hard. I mean, I do feel work, I just don’t feel as “worked out”… as drained, as exhausted. Is that a good thing? Could it be because of the lower volume? Maybe adapting to the routine? I’m not sure. The question is, should I perhaps be bumping up my assistance work a bit? like instead of 95# on the assistance deadlifts do 105# or something? I’m not sure, but I’m not going to. Assistance work is just that: assistance. I don’t need it to interfere with the main lifts and work, and recovery is still paramount. So, I’m going to leave things alone for now. There’s no hard, fast rule here that I’m aware of — do what works for you, do what you need. But, its my first time on the Wendler 5/3/1 so, I’ll just ride things out and see how it all goes. Long term steady progress is more important.

Anyways, deadlift did feel good. On the last set I have to do at least 3, but do as many as I can (tho not to failure). I told myself to do 5… and then I did one more. That felt about right, certainly left 1-2 in the tank. Very good. I like deadlifting.

On the leg raises, I added a small swing to allow me to work through a greater range of motion, and that was good, but it also didn’t feel as difficult — my abs didn’t feel as worked, tho they did get a greater range. What I think I may do, if I keep the swing (and I likely will), is slowly increase the reps here, so like next time instead of 5×5 do 5×6.

Rope jumping is getting smoother. I’ll keep up the single hop and now work to get my body adapted to that, then increase 1. the speed/intensity, 2. eventually add a second Tabata set.

Good stuff! Feeling good. No where near as drained as I was on the Rippetoe program.

You just keep pressing through the pain.

• 5/3/1 Press (training max 110#)
  • 2x5x45 (warmup)
  • 1x5x45
  • 1x5x55
  • 1x3x65
  • 1x3x80 (work)
  • 1x3x90
  • 1x7x100
• Asst. #1 – Press
  • 5x10x45
• Asst. #2 – Chinups
  • 1 x almost 1 x bw, then 3 negatives
  • 4 x 3 negatives x bw
• Metcon
  • 1 Tabata set, jump rope — all 8 reps single hop

This was an interesting workout. First, it’s “week 2” of the 5/3/1 cycle, so the working weight goes up and the reps go to 3. Overall work volume is lower, of course, but strength feels good… 7 reps at the max work weight for today wasn’t too shabby for me, and as always a couple were left in the tank. Going to the assistance press work, certainly the 60 seconds of rest this time around was better than 30 last time but… is it perhaps because of the longer rest period? is it because the work volume wasn’t as intense? because I’m getting used to things? stronger? Hard to tell for sure right now. Point is, should my assistance weights remain the same during the entire cycle? or should they also increase as the weeks progress? Not sure. I don’t think there’s any formal rule here, just what works for me. My feeling is, it’s assistance work, I don’t need it to exhaust me and impact recovery, so just keep it stable for the cycle then up it next cycle. But we’ll see as we go along… probably need numerous 5/3/1 cycles under my belt before I can say for sure.

Chins… geez… I am a wuss. But I know my shortcomings and am willing to work on them. 🙂 I worked to hold myself up at the top a little longer, at least for a count of 1 before I started my descent… hold myself up high! then lower for a count of 7. But that’s a big bump from last chin session and I’m not sure if that was more stress or what but on the last rep of the last couple sets I just couldn’t… I’d step off the bench and immediately start a controlled drop to the ground, maybe 2 seconds… resisting as best I could but I couldn’t resist much… the muscles were tapped. I’ll keep this up for the rest of the cycle but I am thinking that since my weak point seems to be the last half of the eccentric motion that next cycle maybe I’ll move to using the lat pulldown machine but in a chin-style grip and work it hard to ensure that last half of the motion is worked… I might even only do partial reps from the half-way point to the “chinned-up” point to just work that part out. Don’t know, we’ll see. But if there’s a weak point, that’s what needs to be specifically addressed.

Jump rope was cool. Previously I was thinking to bump this session to alternating single and double hops on each rep, debating if I should start with single (i.e. fresh) or double (i.e. end with a single when I’m pooped). I opted to start with a single so I got things pumping from the get go, but then changed my mind — I did all 8 reps as single hop. That pumped things up for me for sure… my feet and calves and lower quads were hating it (the quads and adductors and such are sore as heck from Monday’s squat workout). My body wanted to quit but no…. I just kept pushing, because it’s all in my head.

That’s really the big thing that’s coming out of so much of this: keep going. There’s so many reasons I want to quit, be it my mind saying “the body is tapped” but knowing that I’m still physically able to — because if I’m truly tapped then my body will stop on its own — to ego things, because hey… when the gym is packed this morning with a bunch of the strongest guys in the gym and you can’t do a fucking chin-up and your muscles are tapped and you don’t want to do that last rep…. you do it anyways, because you have to. Because you know you won’t get stronger, you won’t overcome the obstacles, unless you forge ahead. Like anything in life.

My first squat day on 5/3/1 and it went alright.

• 5/3/1 Squat (training max 220#)
  • 2x5x45 (warmup)
  • 1x5x90
  • 1x5x110
  • 1x3x135
  • 1x5x145 (work)
  • 1x5x165
  • 1x7x190
• Asst. #1 – Squat
  • 5x10x65
• Asst. #2 – Leg curl
  • 1x10x30
  • 4x10x25
• Metcon
  • 1 Tabata set, jump rope.

(Aside, I see why my indented lists are getting screwed up… the WordPress.com editor is inserting the /li after the li line, instead of after the nested /ul… I fixed it manually but let’s see if the editor retains it. And they still keep inserting a div after finishing a ul…. *sigh*)

Anyways, the workout was my first squat day since I started 5/3/1. I wasn’t looking forward to it because I’m not really looking forward to squats right now. Burnout? Relative unhappiness? I don’t know, mixture of things. But I figured this being the “5” week it would work me well but not kill me. In the end, it did feel alright. The weight felt appropriate, enough to make me work but not kill me. I was able to get 7 reps out on the last work set and left a couple in the tank, especially since I could feel I’d only do them if I sacrificed form. The assistance set of squats wasn’t heavy-hard, but it really drained me because that’s a lot of body and muscle involvement… gets you breathing and your heart pumping, especially with a strict 1 minute rest between sets. It’s kinda cool to see the quad and ham pump in the mirror. 🙂

On the leg curls, I had no idea where to start for a weight, so I just picked 30# and figured we’ll see from there. That first set wasn’t bad, but I wanted to make sure I could get through all 5 sets and 50 total reps without really killing myself. Every workout, being as it’s new and higher volume, has left me rather sore. I didn’t want to be so sore I couldn’t walk (Wife still cracks up at the time I worked my calves so hard they were sore for a week and for a couple days I couldn’t walk straight), but I just wanted to be worked. Wendler says to really start light, so I dropped down to 25# and was happy I did. That gave me enough work, the last few reps of the sets required some extra squeeze, but nothing was just balls-out killing me. I wanted to ensure the curls went through as full a range a motion as I could move. So, 25# is good for now.

Rope jumping… ha ha. Hard to do when your legs are tired. 🙂 But you press on because you have to. Certainly wasn’t a glorious session, but I’m trying to amp it up some. Tried to have every 3rd “rep” be a “single hop” set, with the 8th also being single hop. The goal is to add a single hop every rope session or two, so I can work my way to have every rep be single hop. Once I get 4 (single-double, 4x), I’ll start to add the single hops at the rear. So if I have reps 2, 4, 6, and 8 being single hop, then next it’ll be 2, 4, 6, 7, 8, then 2, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, and so on. Put them back when I’m tired, to push me more. For a giggle I tried doing the “jogging” technique on my 8th rep today and just failed hard. 🙂 Not quite ready for that.

So “week 1” of Wendler 5/3/1 is down. Next up, the “3” week. So far, I’m liking the program.

That was easy….

Oh, and I need to find a new format for my data here… either WordPress or this theme or something isn’t rendering the nested lists correctly. *sigh*

• 5/3/1 – Bench Press (training max 180#)

• 2x5x45 (warmup)
• 1x5x75
• 1x5x90
• 1x3x110
• 1x5x120 (work)
• 1x5x135
• 1x11x155

Asst. #1 – Bench Press

• 5x10x65

Asst. #2 – Dumbbell Rows

• 5x10x30

Metcon

• 1 Tabata set, jump rope

This workout was easier than I expected. Maybe I needed a higher training max? When I ended the PPNP my squat had been reset and my press was feeling close to a max, but my deadlift was still going very strong and I felt like I could still move up a bunch on my bench press. So my Monday Press workout felt good. When I was setting up weights for deadlifting I went ahead and ratcheted up the weight and calculated from there. But Bench Press I bumped just a tiny bit. So, this workout didn’t feel all that hard to me… not even a little bit. I mean, 11 reps with 155 and I had more in the tank… but I left them there because I know this isn’t supposed to be a “work to failure” sort of program. In doing the assistance work, 30% would be 55# and that was just going to be silly. I incorrectly remembered my work max at 170 so I refigured a 40% @ 65#…. but even that didn’t make me twitch. Still, I kept good form and worked to dynamically explode the bar off my chest (65# but put in 165# of force, if you will)… but even that wasn’t that great because it still felt way too light, not enough resistance. I thought to myself that next workout I need to go to 75# and yes… now correctly figuring 40% of my actual work max (180#) that ought to work out a lot better.

Nevertheless, if I calculcate “work volume”, today’s work set volume was greater than the total volume (work+warmup) of my last PPNP bench press workout. So, there’s still a gain.

On rows, I had no idea where to really start, but looking at weights I was using some months ago on barbell rows I figured 30# would be a good start. I want to be strict: arched back, back parallel to the floor, no twisting of the torso to get the weight up, go from dead hang (shoulder pulled forward) all the way until the dumbbell is touching my torso and my shoulder is pulled all the way back… pull back as far as I can go… as complete a range of motion as possible. Plus, only about 30-60 seconds of rest between sets since I have to alternate arms and the other arm gets a “rest” while the one is working. And with all that, 30# wasn’t bad. I’m thinking about going to 35# next workout and that ought to be a good work weight.

Rope jumping felt better. I’m thinking less about jumping and I believe that’s helping… as it usually does. Don’t try, just do. I’m trying to put more “single hop” sets in to bump up the intensity level. Next workout is squats so we’ll see how jumping goes after that, but otherwise I’m thinking I want to get more intensity so I might do something like pairs of two: light double-hop set followed by more intense single hop, and repeat that pair 4x.

Not a bad workout, just didn’t feel as worked as I thought I would. But, the program has only begun. We’ll see where I actually end up. I did have the passing thought that if benching even on “week 3” is too easy even with 95% of my working max that instead of bumping 5# I might bump 10# just this once. I don’t want to overdo it for sure, but just keeping myself open to the possibility.

Lots of deadlifting lets you know just what muscles are truly involved in the motion. 🙂

• 5/3/1 – Deadlift (training max 265#)

• Warmup

• 1x5x105
• 1x5x135
• 1x3x160

Work

• 1x5x175
• 1x5x200
• 1x7x230

Asst. #1 – Deadlift

• 5x10x95

Asst. #2 – Hanging leg raises

• 5x5xbw

Jump rope – 1 Tabita set.

Commentary

The nice thing about tracking in a spreadsheet is it’s easy to enter data and run some statistics. Today’s deadlift workset volume was 3485. The perspective? My last deadlift workout on the Practical Programming Novice program (last week), had a work set volume of 120 and a total (including warmups) volume of 2970. So my volume of deadlifting today was WAY higher than I’ve ever done… and that’s just the workset. Add in the warmup, then the 5 sets of deadlifting as assistance work and wow… that’s a lot of deadlifting. Yes, you become very aware of just what muscles are involved in deadlifting. 🙂

Note that my warmup didn’t start like other routines, with an empty bar. There’s no point in that with the deadlift given I need the bar off the ground to get started. Note as well that I did only 7 reps on the last work set. I felt I could have done more, certainly 8 and maybe 9, but I remembered how things went on Monday’s Press workout… just how humbling the assistance sets can be. I knew this deadlift routine was going to be massively more volume than before, so I felt better to be conservative and not push myself too hard.

On the hanging leg raises, Wendler wants you to do them with straight legs so your feet end up over the bar, like this. I can’t do that, not without a LOT of cheating and that’d just defeat the purpose, even if I could do it with the cheating. So instead, I’m doing it with bent knees, rolling my body up to get my knees to touch my shoulders, like this. But even then, I could only get up so far. If my head/arms were at 12 o’clock, my legs down at 6, and my eyes looking forward to 3, then my knees generally only got to the 2 o’clock point *sigh*. Well, that’s why I’m in the gym… to acknowledge my weaknesses and to get stronger, right? 🙂  Put the ego in the back seat and just do it… that’s the only way to get better. I’m trying to be strict, but I fear I may not overcome my sticking point that way… if the top portion is weak, it needs to be worked, and on bodyweight exercises how else can you do it? So… I’m going to add a slight kip, not so much that momentum moves me through it, but just enough to try to overcome the sticking point so my muscles have to get active and involved… plus if it puts me over the line, then even if my muscles don’t get the concentric benefit as much due to the kip, at least a larger range of motion will get the eccentric. I’ll stick with 5×5 on these until I can do them no sweat…. build up the strength.

On the rope jumping, suddenly I was more coordinated today! I didn’t make it all the way to the end without a stumble, but I probably stumbled about 50% less than I have been. That’s great! I’m just working to take it slow and easy to get the coordination down (get about 25-ish hops per 20 second period)… that slow is smooth, smooth is fast thing, right?

I realize that I really do like deadlifting. But that said… after all this volume today? I suspect I’m going to be mighty sore tomorrow. 🙂

To play on Dickens, it was the best of workouts, it was the worst of workouts. 🙂

I’m going to try another way of notating my workout, because WordPress.com’s editor (still) has bugs that have made editing a pain.

• 5/3/1 – Press (training max: 110#)

• Warmup

• 2x5x45
• 1x5x45
• 1x5x55
• 1x3x65
• Work

• 1x5x70
• 1x5x85
• 1x5x100
• Asst. #1 – Press

• 5x10x45
• Asst. #2 – Chin-ups

• set 1 – almost got 1 chin, 3 negatives.
• sets 2-5 – 3 negatives
• Metcon – Jump rope

• 1 Tabata set – 20 sec jump, 10 sec rest, 8x. First 5 sets were “double hop”, last 3 were single hop (faster).

Commentary

As you can see, I changed programs. Today marks my first day of following the Wendler 5/3/1 program, with the “Boring But Big” set of assistance work. That means I’m going to be doing 2 exercises per workout, tho one of those exercises will be done in two different ways. Again, I opted for this route because it’s simpler, it’s a good way to start out, it’ll give me more reps with the core exercises to help with my CNS conditioning. I also am striving for minimal rest between sets. Not only does that help me get out of the gym faster, but I’m trying to bump up my conditioning to help with some fat burn. Thus, rest between sets will vary. During the 5/3/1 warmups, just do what I need to change plates. During 5/3/1 work, at least 2 minutes but more if needed. During the assistance #1, try to keep weight light and the rest about 30-60 seconds.

And we’ll see where it goes.

How was this the best workout? I didn’t have to squat. 😉  Yeah, I burned out on squatting, so it felt good to not have to do it. I won’t do my first squat workout until next Monday, and I will actually look forward to that workout. But for now, the change is good and welcomed. I don’t feel totally exhausted and like my entire body is drained. It was nice to just get in, focus, and get out. I really liked it.

How was it worst? Well, to be fair it really wasn’t bad… just that while I didn’t totally kill myself, I did totally kill parts of myself. 🙂  Wendler says for warmups to just do 1x5x40%, 1x5x50%, 1x3x60%. I opted to add in 2×5 of empty bar because that gives me more form practice, plus I really felt it helped to wake me up and get me in the groove… especially with squats. I may not do that with deadlift, but everything else I will. Things felt kinda easy, but boy… when you hit that last set of the work sets and have to push out as many reps as you can — you can see I got 10 — that gets you. Especially true when I’m not resting 5 minutes between sets.

I just did something. In my spreadsheet, it does a 1RM calculation using this formula: =(C29)/(1.0278-(0.0278*D29))  where C29 is my current max weight and D29 is the number of reps you did at that weight. If I plug in my working max of 110@5 reps it calculates my 1RM at 124#. If I plug in what I just did as 95@10 reps, 1RM calculates at 127#. All theoretical, but interesting.

Then I moved into doing press for assistance work. Wendler says to start out way light, like 30%-40%. In general I want to do 30% so I can keep the rest periods low, but since the bar is 45# I had to go with 40%. Oh man…. that first set is easy but you think yeah, this might be hard by the last set/rep. By the 3rd set I was starting to lose form just to ensure I could get the 10 reps out. I then had to move from 30 seconds of rest to 60 seconds so I could finish out 10 reps per set. Damn! Yeah, 45# is fine as a workload here, tho I’ll probably space it to 60 seconds rest and pace myself a little more.

Chinups. I tried doing one, pure dead-hang, no swing, no kip, nothing. I was almost there but not quite. Oh well, I’ll keep working on it. So, I opted to just do 5 sets of 3 reps of pure negatives. That was intense. Towards the end I was literally dropping, struggling to hold myself up so the negative could last for a full 5 second count.  I also am trying to hold myself up at first. That is, as soon as my leg leaves the bench, don’t start immediately dropping but hold up there, even for a moment. As I went on and was getting more tired, I could tell that yes, my weak point is right at the top of the movement, those last few inches. I might try a “flexed arm hang” as another exercise in this to help focus on the part of the motion. But I think what that will be instead will be just ensuring that once my leg leaves the bench, that I hold for a count of 1 (at least) so there’s no sudden drop of a few inches, and slowly go down from there. Just focus on that area. I will get there!

Then jump rope. I felt good the first couple sets doing double-hops, but I kept getting tangled up. Ugh. So the last few sets I did as just a pure single hop… the rope speed went up, and I was a lot more successful at jumping and not getting tangled. Of course the trade-off was this was MUCH more intense, much more difficult, much more exhausting. It hurt. 🙂  But that’s what I want. It’s going to hurt on squat days (maybe deadlift days too), but I’ll just keep going — that’s how the body will adapt and grow stronger.

So, I like. It’s only one day but if this is any indication it’s going to be welcome and fun. I won’t totally kill my body, but I will totally kill part of it. We’ll see where this goes!

No workout today. I’m taking a cue from my body and just taking today off. Let’s hit it hard on Monday.

But in the meantime I made myself a new Excel spreadsheet for tracking my progress on the Wendler 5/3/1 program. Seeing the actual numbers that I’ll be using, the actual routine that I’ll go through, I think this is going to work out alright for me. It is interesting to see that what was considered “warmup” under SS/PP ends up being “work” under W531. But, that’s all part of how the program works. I’m not expecting the program to necessarily be easier, just different.

I feel excited. Rejuvenated. And that’s a good thing.