That went well.

• Bench Press
  • bar x 5
  • bar x 5
  • 95 x 5
  • 135 x 3
  • 165 x 1
  • 195 x 1
  • 225 x 1
  • 235 x 1

So today was about working up to determine an every day max (EDM) for my bench press.

I haven’t benched pressed in months, and it showed.

First, the incline pressing did not hurt at all. My bench PR is 240, and I know I could have blown by that today, if not for a few things which I’ll detail below.

The 235 went up pretty well, and all things considered, I think it will make a fair EDM. So for the upcoming Strong-15 cycle well… if Wendler did 15# in 3 cycles, I think it’d be fair for me to aim for 245# at the end of the Strong-15 cycle. That will be a 5# PR, and I know I can make it a solid PR.

So what went wrong today?

First, I hate benching like this. When I max out alone, I use the gym’s half-rack/pyramid thing and just put a flat bench in it. At least the catch rails are high enough (low enough?) that if I do fail and have to set things down (or if things came crashing down) it wouldn’t kill me and I do have enough room to wiggle out. But the pegs… one set is too low, I’d be almost half-repping it just to get in position. The other set is maybe an inch too high. I can get things in and out if I roll my shoulders forward, but that really sucks because I can’t start in a tight position — I have to unrack, then settle in, way in, and if I can’t get it right, it sucks.

Second, my grip. When I started doing inclines, I pulled my grip in. I used to bench with my ring finger on the rings. When I started inclines, I set my pinky just inside the rings (so inner edge of ring touches outer edge of pinky). That worked awesome for inclines. Well today I took that same grip, but found as the weight got heavier, my arms in the bicep and elbow region especially, were hurting like crazy. It got to a point where it was almost a struggle to lift a cup of water to my mouth to drink!! That’s not good. Well, upon reflection, it’s the grip. The closer grip, tucking the elbows in, the bar coming lower on the chest… all these things ended up making a more acute angle at the elbow. Now put 200# of pressure on it, and it was like my bicep was a walnut in a nut cracker. Even now as I type this up, they are still hurting. So this took something away. I was mentally distracted, and it was causing enough pain that I think my body was saying “uh… hey stupid! pain! means stop!”. I felt in terms of the lift itself, things were strong and I could have done more… but the pain was too great.

So… I’ll chalk it up as a -10% day. And if EDM is about what you can do even on those bad days, well here we are. Thus why I’m being conservative and only aiming for 245 at the end of the cycle.

Anyways, going to take Friday off and hit it hard on Monday.

305/430 – almost back where I was.

• Squat
  • BW x 10
  • bar x 5
  • 135 x 5
  • 185 x 3
  • 225 x 1
  • 265 x 1
  • 295 x 1
  • 305 x 1
• Deadlift
  • 135 x 3
  • 225 x 2
  • 315 x 1
  • 365 x 1
  • 405 x 1
  • 430 x 1

I’m about to embark on a full-cycle of Strong-15, so I wanted to establish more appropriate maxes. I think I also wanted to see how close I was to recovering the strength I lost this first half of 2014. At the end of 2013, I did lifetime PR’s of 315 in the squat and 440 in the deadlift. So with that in mind….

A few weeks ago I squatted 295 and felt that was good for an Every Day Max (EDM). Worked the past few weeks based on that. So today, I knew I could hit that, and I figured I should be able to do more given I’ve been working. The goal was a quick work up, hit 295, and see how things go. The 295 was solid, so I went 305. The 305 was good. I actually felt I had 315 in me, but to have done that would have been ego. Still, I figure that would have been a 1RM for sure, not really an EDM. So I just stopped at 305 — that’s good enough for figuring. I wanted to leave something in the tank for deadlifting.

I haven’t deadlifted in I guess 5-6 months. I didn’t do much warmup given the squats got me there, but I did some light stuff just to remember the groove. Things went up easily, not feeling it until 365. 405 was fine but certainly I was slowing down. I was actually going to go for 425, but something just grabbed 2 nickels off the rack and threw them on. The 430 went up and was probably close to a real 1RM. Looking back, I’m not sure it’s something I could hit on a bad day. Maybe.

Anyways, there I stopped. So I started to think about how those numbers play, and what to plug in to Paul Carter’s Strong-15 template. What you do is pick a reasonable/realistic goal to hit at the end of the cycle and work back from there. So given that, my goal is 325 squat and 445 deadlift. Both will allow PR’s, and I think they are conservative given what I hit today and then should be able to work over the course of 9 weeks. Part of me thinks I could do a little more given 1. in 5/3/1 land, 9 weeks of work is 3 cycles is 30# jump, 2. what I actually lifted today. But I don’t know Paul’s routine, it may not progress as fast as 5/3/1 or Cube, and I think I can still work things out quite well. If slightly lighter weights mean slightly better technique, I’ll just get stronger in the hole and all those good things. I’d rather underestimate than over, and ultimately whatever… it’ll be a PR, right? Take it, adjust from there, and move on. If I determine I could have taken larger jumps, I’ll know that in the future.

Also, I opted to do today like this because that’s how the template will be: “man-maker”, squatting and deadlifting in the same day. Honestly, I expected my deadlift to have suffered more, but really I just felt warmed up, not worked out. But we’ll see how it goes after actual work days. 😉

All in all tho, I’m happy with how today went, and am excited to get cranking on Strong-15.

Yes, I’m itching to move on.

Based upon Paul Carter’s Base Building – Mass cycle

I know I shouldn’t be doing pull-ups given my past shoulder issues. But I’ve been wondering if alternative grips might help. The gym has a place where you can do neutral-grip pullups… can’t vary the width, but it’s OK for me, slightly wider than my shoulder with. Sometimes I will do one pull-up there just to see (as a part of my warm-up), but today I just kept going. Nothing major, but to me the larger accomplishment is 1. no shoulder pain, 2. no band-assistance. So sure, I only got a handful of reps, but at least it was all me.

Anyways, since I did that on a whim, I adjusted the rest of the session accordingly.

But what really distracted me was thinking about what’s next.

I’m wanting to try Paul’s Strong-15, the full 9-week program. I know at this stage it’s best to do things “as written”. Of course, across Paul’s eBooks, there are 3 “as-written” for the Strong-15, and even then there are more variations. But the main 3 I look at is the one in LRB365, and then the 2 3-day templates in Lift-Run-Bang (“traditional” and “man-maker”).

I like the 2 man-maker approaches because I think it’ll be novel to try squat and deadlift on the same day. But I have to admit, the past some weeks of having a “back day” doesn’t always thrill me — I like the dedication to the back, but I really like having one main lift each day (out of squat, bench, deadlift, press), and that doesn’t happen with a “back” day. So I like the man-maker approach, but one thing I see in that is something I’ve been thinking about for a while: frequency, and the whole adaptation/super-compensation curve stuff. When I was doing 5/3/1, that’s a program designed around 4-days, but you can do it on a 2 or 3 days/week setup, just means that every Monday isn’t bench press day (it will rotate). No problems, really. I tried 4-days/week and that was too much for me (tho today, with my potential ability for more rest, maybe it could work). 2-days did not work at all, and 3-days worked out well. And even tho I only did a particular movement every 9-10 days, I was working that part of the body every 4-5 days. That seemed to work out well for me for making progress.

So back to Paul’s programs. Most of it has things worked once a week, which feels too spread apart for me. But I could do something like the “traditional” layout, with his optional 4th day of light pressing, make it a 3xWeek thing, and could that get similar results?

I have been doing Paul’s stuff for a while now, and I do feel it’s working OK… but I haven’t been doing it on a strength-building cycle. So, I don’t know.

While I am so prone to think too much about stuff… I think what will be best is to just shut up and follow the program as written. I know this. I just can’t help but think about things. Try it out, get more familiar with the way Paul does things, and see how it works for me. It may not work, and it’s better to know that, than to always fall back to the same old thing because who knows — it may work out better!

I will probably follow the LRB365 setup.

So next week, I’m going to adjust my routine to figure out working maxes.

Based upon Paul Carter’s Base Building – Mass cycle

• Squat – working max: 295
  • BW x 10
  • BW x 10
  • bar x 5
  • bar x 5
  • 120 x 5
  • 150 x 4
  • 175 x 3
  • 225 x 2
  • 250 x 1
  • 215 x 11
  • 215 x 6

Jack shit day. Squat, leave.

In other news the new Crowbar album, “Symmetry in Black” is out and is awesome music to lift by.

Not sure what to make of it.

Based upon Paul Carter’s Base Building – Mass cycle

• Incline Press – Working max: 205
  • 45 x 5
  • 45 x 5
  • 85 x 5
  • 105 x 4
  • 125 x 3
  • 155 x 2
  • 175 x 1
  • 160 x 10
  • 160 x 5
• DB Bench Press
  • 60e x 10
  • 60e x 10
  • 60e x 8
  • 60e x 7
  • 60e x 6
• Behind the Neck Press
  • 95 x 8
  • 95 x 8
  • 95 x 5
• BB Upright Row
  • 70 x 12
  • 70 x 12
  • 70 x 12
  • 70 x 12
  • 70 x 12
• Tricep Pushdowns
  • 50 x 20 – rest pause

I don’t know what to make of this. Could it be the lack of creatine? Could it be last night’s horrible sleep? Just don’t know.

But, just one of those days I guess.

I also think I have some boredom. I almost didn’t want to go to the gym, and I did think to myself “screw it, start the Strong-15 now”. So yeah, maybe it’s just wanting to get moving. Next week will be determining working maxes for Strong-15, then a deload week, then into it. I’m really looking forward to that… I want to get back to that sort of lifting.

Based upon Paul Carter’s Base Building – Mass cycle

Actually felt good today. The rep-deaths of the past 2 sessions didn’t appear to be an issue today.

I did try some minor tweaks.

Rows. These are still BB rows, not strict Pendlay Rows, but between each rep I set the bar down on the ground. I kept fairly strict, but just not keeping the bar in the air the whole time. I don’t know why I did this, but I did it and went with it, and it seems better. I felt a lot more worked in my back. I think when I keep it in the air the whole time, my arms bear a lot of the work. But here, I can ensure I come off the ground and really initiate the work with the back. Certainly felt it more in my back than I normally do. Good thing.

On the Meadows Shrugs, I probably went too light because it wasn’t killing me like it was last week. But I played around with my positioning to try to get a better range of motion. What I settled on was DB’s hanging mostly in front of me, tho not strictly as if I’m holding a bar in front of me (they are DB’s, let them rotate a bit to a natural position). Angle the torso slightly forward at the hips, just very slightly (5º? 10º?). Then “turtle” the head/neck forward. This allows the shoulders to get a little higher at the top. Try it. Suck your chin in and really pull your head back. Shrug your shoulders and hold it up there. Now “turtle” your head/neck/chin forward and see how your shoulders move up a little more? More range of motion. So I’ll go with that

I also dropped the reps and increased the weight slightly on pulldowns — why not keep experimenting? That felt a LOT better to me, aiming for 12 reps instead of 15. It just worked a bit better, I felt more worked in my back and not in my arms. So, I’ll keep going with that emotion.

I’m not sure what to make of this.

Based upon Paul Carter’s Base Building – Mass cycle

• Squat – working max: 295
  • BW x 10
  • BW x 10
  • bar x 5
  • bar x 5
  • 120 x 5
  • 150 x 4
  • 175 x 3
  • 225 x 2
  • 250 x 1
  • 215 x 10
  • 215 x 5
• Stiff Leg Deadlift
  • 205 x 8
  • 205 x 8
  • 205 x 8
• Lunge
  • BW x 10e
  • BW x 10e
  • BW x 10e
  • BW x 10e
• Standing Calf Raises
  • 45 x 12
  • 45 x 12
  • 45 x 12
  • 45 x 12

Is it the removal of creatine that’s doing this? I don’t know. I couldn’t squeeze out any more squat reps, and I’m down from last week. But then, I cranked out a full round of stiff-legs, and I did a 4th set of lunges. So I don’t get it. Not really sure what’s up here, but I continue to just press on.

Meantime, I’m thinking during week 5 I’ll try to determine maxes for the Strong-15 cycle, take week 6 as a light deload (still hit the gym, just light weights for like 3×8 or something), then hit it. I admit, I’m anxious to get started… and I’m pretty sure I’ll find out why Paul Carter calls that one template the “man maker”.