Better form makes me happy.

Wendler 5/3/1 program, cycle 22, week 3

• Work Set – Squat (working max: 290#)
  • 2x5x45 (warmup)
  • 1x5x115
  • 1x5x145
  • 1x3x175
  • 1x5x220 (work)
  • 1x3x250
  • 1x2x280
• Spent some time on the elliptical

I went in with a “jack shit” mentality. I wanted to put everything into the work set. I also felt a need to preserve myself because tomorrow I will be on my feet teaching, all day, in 100+ degree heat (with 110+ heat index), with guns. Yeah, I need to pace myself to ensure I can get through tomorrow ok. 🙂

But that’s all good. My cue for today was “depth”. I wanted to ensure every rep was parallel or just below. The work up actually was a little on the hard side. Still no belt. But I was determined to keep my back up, no “hinging” and “falling forward”, push with my legs, keep my head/neck/chin driven back into the bar, and hit depth.

I went down for 1 on the 280 did well. A slight bobble on the way up because I was excited I hit depth. 🙂 Lost focus a bit and lost tightness in my upper back. But still did well. Went for 2, and just didn’t have the upper back tightness… still happy. I was pleased tho overall with the form of everything. I opted to not go for a third because I was pretty sure if I did I would make it but would have to sacrifice form, would fall forward, and would be muscling it up. Not what I wanted, so screw it, rack it.

All in all, alright.

After I racked it, I actually felt like the pause squats would have been perfect to work me out, but again no… I have to save myself for tomorrow. Getting old sucks. 😉

I do think I will take a deload week, and I am thinking about going “carbless” the entire time. That should be interesting. 🙂

There is evolution

Wendler 5/3/1 program, cycle 22, week 2

• Work Set – Press (working max: 150#)
  • 2x5x45 (warmup)
  • 1x5x60
  • 1x5x75
  • 1x3x90
  • 1x3x105 (work)
  • 1x3x120
  • 1x6x135
• Assistance – Press
  • 5 x 10/10/10/8/7 x 90
• Assistance – Face Pulls
  • Superset with each Press set
  • 12 x 10 x 30
• Assistance – Lat Pulldowns
  • 3 x 12/12/10 x 110
• Assistance – Hang Cleans
  • Bar, just playing around

So anyways, I felt good about things. Just a really solid Press workout. Nothing much to say.

I am liking getting back to a proper Wendler approach, of doing a pulling set for every pressing set. Again, I am starting VERY light and trying to use a movement in the opposite plane to see if this makes for happier shoulders. So far so good. The face pulls were almost too light today… I didn’t really feel anything until towards the end, and then I did feel my traps peeding out while assistance pressing. So, all good I guess. But no question to up the weight there.

I also played around with hang cleans. Not full power cleans yet, just holding the empty bar, letting the bar hang down to my mid-thigh, then trying the movement out. This is how Rip starts off in the SS book, so I just played with it a bit. Most routines I see that incorporate power cleans are either full-body style things or tend to put cleans on squat or deadlift days. I think I’m going to try doing it on Press days and see how it does for me.

So my sessions will be something like:

• squat, pause squat, abs
• deadlift, deficit deadlifts, abs
• bench press, incline db press, superset all pressing with pull-ups, kroc-style rows maybe superset with dips
• press, more pressing, superset all pressing with face pulls or some sort of row, maybe some extra back work like lat pulldowns, then power cleans

So it puts more back work in due to the supersetting (like you should), but then simplifies things down to “3 movements” (main, 2 assistance) more or less, which gets back to simpler Wendler 5/3/1 approaches. I only added in a lot of that other stuff to make up for the lack of volume in some respects, but I think with what I’ll be doing here it’ll be more than enough once I find my groove and the right weights.

I can’t wait for the “3 steps forward” part. 🙂

Wendler 5/3/1 program, cycle 22, week 2

• Work Set – Deadlift (working max: 370#)
  • 1x5x150 (warmup)
  • 1x5x185
  • 1x3x225
  • 1x3x260 (work)
  • 1x3x300
  • 1x4x335
• Assistance – Deficit Deadlift (1.5″ deficit)
  • 3 x 8 x 185
• Farmer’s Walks
  • 5, 100 yard trips, 45# plate in each hand, 10 breath rest between trips
• Assistance – Crunches
  • 1 x 20 x BW
• Foam Rolling

I have to keep reminding myself that the “2 steps back” is good for me. I know it is. I can feel it. It wasn’t just a reset of weights, but also of technique… keeping my back flat, pushing with the legs. I repeat, I have never felt a leg workout like I have since I did this reset and worked to “push with my legs” instead of “pull with my back”. Yeah I can’t hit the numbers like I used to… but that’s the “3 steps forward” I’ll eventually get to after these 2 steps back. 🙂

and I have to say, I am growing to enjoy deficit deadlifts. It’s hard, but it pushes me.

As an aside, I’ve been doing more reading and thinking. There’s a lot swirling in my head, but in short I think I need to add some explosive work. I’ve been thinking about this for a long time. If I did Prowler pushes, that’d probably fill the bill, but alas, no Prowler. But I have been thinking about power cleans for quite some time. I wasn’t able to do them in the past because of gym limitations, but now that I go at a different hour and the population is different, I can do some judicious rearranging and should be able to make the space to do them. I think with the evolution I’m taking to go for 6-week cycles (2 cycles, no deload in between, increase weights across cycles, deload on 7th week), adding more back work superset as you should; less overall exercises per session; etc… well… power cleans may well fit the bill for me. I need to figure out where and just how I want to work it in, but that’s my current thinking. I think it will do me good because well… I’m too slow and creaky and my body could use something explosive.

We all suffer from this at some point: the need to — but the inability to — stick with something and follow through with it.

Really, the only way we succeed in many things is to stick with it, to keep going long after you want to stop/quit/give-up. Of course, sometimes it is wise to stop because you realize it’s fruitless or not taking you towards your true goals. But sometimes it is precisely where you want to go, yet you can’t get there.

One place folks constantly fail on this is “diet and exercise”. We know we’re supposed to “eat better” and “exercise more”, and we try, but after a few weeks or a few months it fades. You see it in gyms every January when people decide to join up, then in February when they all fade away.

I recently read this article on Fitocracy about The Myth of Willpower and ‘Eat Less, Move More’. It talks about the need for a positive feedback loop in order to succeed:

At a high level, there’s only one way to succeed at fitness. All fitness successes and failures can be explained using the following framework.

The only way to succeed at fitness is to create a positive feedback loop.

In laymen’s terms, that means engaging in fitness­‐related activities, and then seeing enough results to motivate you to keep going.

When you decide to start any fitness regimen, there is a certain amount of friction or “pains” working against you – the pain of giving up your favorite foods, taking time to exercise, giving up alcohol, being constantly hungry, etc.

After some time has passed, you will have to determine (consciously or subconsciously) if the results are worth continuing. One week into a fitness regimen, you might ask yourself a few questions:

Did I lose enough weight? Do I look better in the mirror? Do I feel healthier and more energized?

If the rewards outweigh the pain, then the feedback loop is renewed. The strength of your feedback loop can be summed up below:

Strength of Fitness Feedback Loop = Fitness Reward ­- Fitness Pain

Creating this feedback loop is the only way to succeed in fitness. It’s the same way that a business must become profitable to exist. You must create this feedback loop to stick to a healthy lifestyle. There is no alternative.

If you’ve always struggled with maintaining a fitness regimen, it doesn’t mean that you’re a pathetic, weak-willed individual. It means there was a breakdown somewhere in creating this feedback loop: the pain of dieting was too high, you did not accumulate enough reward, or you didn’t measure your progress.

It’s quite right. I never thought about it before, but it is true.

I look at my own efforts. When I engaged in martial arts for purposes of fitness, I didn’t have a direct feedback loop regarding the fitness itself, but the martial arts program did because I would see myself climbing up the belt ranks. That gave positive feedback, and you kept coming back for more.

When I lifted weights in my prior years, I would see some level of positive feedback in the initial stages, but then it waned and I would too. Why have I stuck with it the past couple years? Because I see this positive feedback loop constantly. I may hit a rep PR, or this cycle sets a true PR. I can look in the mirror and see how my body is becoming something I like more than the body I had previously. The program I’m on (Wendler 5/3/1) is set up for constant positive feedback. And it does keep you coming back.

I really don’t care if people want to lift weights or jog for miles. You do whatever it takes to give you the positive feedback. I have a friend of mine that’s right now trying to lose weight and he’s just getting on the elliptical machine every day. It’s not what I care to do, but for him it works because seeing him post that post-workout picture of the elliptical’s readout to Facebook? Positive feedback gets created not only in seeing better numbers each time, but also because there are people liking the picture and encouraging him on. So it’s not really about the particular program, it’s just about keeping the positive feedback loop going in whatever way works for you that keeps you willingly and happily going back for more.

So whatever you goals are — fitness, health, or otherwise. Do you have a program? Do you have something actually laid out to help you along? And does it include some way of having a positive feedback loop? If not, see what you can do to remedy this. It may be just the thing to keep you going for the long haul.

Now with more back work.

Wendler 5/3/1 program, cycle 22, week 2

• Work Set – Bench Press (working max: 215#)
  • 2x5x45 (warmup)
  • 1x5x85
  • 1x5x110
  • 1x3x130
  • 1x3x150 (work)
  • 1x3x175
  • 1x6x195
• Assistance – DB Incline Press
  • 5 x 10 x 50
• All Pressing work superset with band-assisted pull-ups, 3 reps per set
• Assistance – DB Rows (Kroc style)
  • 3 x 10/10/25 x 50
• Superset the DB rows with dips, 3 reps per set

This session felt really really good. Maybe it was all the pizza I ate last night and was just fired up. But I felt really good. By the end of things I felt worked, but not exhausted. In fact, I kinda wished I had worked a little more!

On the work set, I only did 6. I certainly left some in the tank and looking back I probably could have done 1-2 more and still not pushed it all the way. Oh well. I am trying to be conservative and leave enough in the tank now. But to that end, I then didn’t feel all that bad on inclines — I do think I should go up to 55’s. But I also changed form there a bit. I’ve been trying to be nice to my shoulder by letting my elbows come ina nd the dumbbells then turn a bit. I was reading something and I’m took more the approach of acting like the dumbbells were a barbell, in terms of keeping things oriented. That actually pushed my shoulder a little more, which I think it needed in a good way.

I mean, when I did the dips, that sort of bottom-position is precisely what I need for a stretch to my anterior delts, which I think is what they need right now to get over this issue.

But… what I really did that was different? More back work.

See, Wendler doesn’t spell it out, but he tells you that for every pressing set you need to do a pulling set (or two). I just don’t do that. The main reason was when I tried it long ago, my shoulders really hated it. I gave it up because I didn’t want to sacrifice the main lift. But I tried something different today.

First, I went really light. The pull-ups were band-assisted (cause I’m still too wussy to do so much volume unassisted), and I only did 3 reps per set. I will slowly work it up, sets across for now, so next session will get 4 reps, etc..

Second, I am going against the plane. That is, there’s something to be said for doing the push and pull in the same plane. So if you bench, you row. If you press, you pulldown/pull-up. That keeps the motion in the same plane. Well, in the past when I did it, that’s how I superset, and I don’t think my shoulders liked it. But now I’m going “perpendicular”. So my push was benching, so my pull was pull-ups. I’m thinking for my pressing days, then to do something like face-pulls. My shoulders didn’t complain today, but I also didn’t have them under heavy stress. So, we’ll see if this strategy pans out for my shoulders and back.

But also, one reason I chose to do extra work afterwards was for arm work. I mean, I didn’t get enoug bicep and forearm work, right? But now if I do this much extra back work, well, I’ll get a bunch. So I really didn’t bother doing any extra work. But I did think after I did my rows to superset in some dips… just because dips are cool, and I think that stretch may help my shoulder issues right now.

So there we go. Today felt awesome. I liked how it went. and I hope that as I ramp it up more that it’ll pay off more all around.

Better, I think.

Wendler 5/3/1 program, cycle 22, week 2

• Work Set – Squat (working max: 290#)
  • 2x5x45 (warmup)
  • 1x5x115
  • 1x5x145
  • 1x3x175
  • 1x3x205 (work)
  • 1x3x235
  • 1x3x265
• Assistance – Pause Squat
  • 3 x 5 x 205
• Assistance – Crunches
  • 1 x 20 x BW
• Farmer’s Walks
  • 4 100 yard trips, 45# plate in each hand, 10 breath rest between trips

I’m a little disappointed that I only got 3 reps @ 265 today. I was hoping for at least 4 and preferably 5, but I got what I got. I think I know why.

First, I’ve been working so hard on keeping my back up and pressing with my legs. Both on squat and deadlift. I can really feel it, and I can tell that my legs are working much more, and there’s less “levering it up” with my back and hip-hinge. So this is good. I also videoed myself today and see that I’m going below parallel, which is also good. But then, it of course isn’t helping me move a lot of weight because I’m directly addressing my weak points. 🙂 So it all stands to reason. I think I could have gotten 4 but when I hit the hole on 3 I realized I had lost all upper-back tightness — I was so focused on keeping up and pressing with my legs, I just lost my upper back… got some slight levering on the way up, and figured to just rack it because the first sign of that sort of thing is my cue to stop because form is degrading. Well, I probably could have stood up, retightened, and hit a 4th, but didn’t really realize all that until I was out from the bar. Oh well.

Anyways tho, if ultimately I’m overcoming weak points, I’ll take it. I’d rather have 3 good reps than 5 sloppy.

And pause squats… damn. Those are killer. I like them because they really force me to be strict and good with my form. You can’t let momentum throw you into something sloppy or break your form. And shit, they are hard.

It was a good session. I really am hoping I am overcoming my weak points here. We shall see next squat session, I reckon. 🙂

Need… carbs….

Wendler 5/3/1 program, cycle 22, week 1

• Work Set – Press (working max: 150#)
  • 2x5x45 (warmup)
  • 1x5x60
  • 1x5x75
  • 1x3x90
  • 1x5x100 (work)
  • 1x5x115
  • 1x7x130
• Assistance – Press
  • 5 x 10/10/10/6/6 x 90
• Assistance – Lat Pulldowns
  • 7 x 10/10/16/10/10/10/15 x 100/100/100/110/110/90/70
• Assistance – Lateral Raises
  • 3 x 15/15/12 x 15
• Assistance – Straight-bar Pressdowns
  • 3 x 20/12/10 x 40
• Assistance – Hammer Curls, 30 rep
  • 3 x 30-rep x 25

I don’t know what it is. Was it the diet getting to me? all the mental, physical, and emotional stress I’ve been under lately? I really don’t know if I wanted it for stress relief or if my body truly needed it. But whatever the reason, my body has been screaming for carbs the past few days. On Sunday I gave in and allowed myself to just eat. I didn’t gorge or anything, but if I wanted something, I ate it. So yeah, a couple ounces of ice cream, a few plums, a piece of the banana bread Wife made (with einkorn wheat), the stew she made the prior night (potatoes, carrots, etc.). Whatever. I just ate.

And yes, I feel better. But I also felt rather lethargic when I first got to the gym. But after the warm-up sets, I felt alright. In fact, I think it was kinda good because I was just lifting. I wasn’t out of the zone, I wasn’t in the zone, I just was. And the lifts just went. I found myself not cuing myself, not really thinking, but I would find myself with a tight body, and really pushing and pressing the way I should. It was pretty cool.

So I worked hard and pushed myself a little further. Shorter rest times between sets, and just moved along. I thought to try doing the lat pulldowns Kroc-style, but then I realized why I hate so many reps. 😉 So I stopped, upped the weight, and did more. Then for whatever reason I felt like my back needed more, so I dropped the weight and did a few more sets. I think it was worth it.

You know… Wendler doesn’t make it obvious, but it’s there if you read. He talks about adding in lots of back work. Basically, for every pressing movement you do a pulling movement (or 2). So every bench/press set, you do something like pull-ups in between. I don’t do that… but yeah, I should. I tried in the past to do it, but my shoulders did not like me. Maybe I should try again. And I thought this morning, maybe do it the same way. So as I work up in my main set, work up in my back set. When I do my assistance pressing with a straight set, then also drop the weight and do straight set of rows or whatever. I dunno, but the key is trying to get more back work in, in a way that keeps my shoulders happy.

I also think if I do that, I can pull back on my other work. So my sessions become just 3 exercises, like the book tends to lay out.

We shall see.

But in other news… the diet.

So it’s been about a month now and I can say I’m probably 8# down. That’s nice, but not really. I lost most of that during the first 10-14 days and have basically stalled. I’m not sure why and what has caused the stall, or what I need to do to remedy it.

But I’m starting to wonder if I just can’t do this. That for my body, my needs, etc… I need to eat a little more, and just wait a lot longer. That is, allow myself some carbs, more than I have. Still try to stick to a mostly carb-less diet, but don’t kill myself. So keep on the same track I’m on, but if I have a piece of fruit with breakfast, fine. So it’s not a major deviation, but just don’t let myself go nuts. I’ve noticed my craving was really bad (and I’ve learned this isn’t just a “want” craving, but my body is truly in need of something). I’ve also noticed things like increased forgetfulness and other problems. So I think my body just was not functioning right. I can’t afford that.

And so, if it means it takes me 12 months to get my body where it is… an even slower approach, but perhaps a more steady and truly changes my lifestyle… well, I guess I should find that for the good, right? It’s more painful to accept if this is the truth of it all, but it may be how it has to be.

I don’t know. I said my next assessment point will be Labor Day, so I’ll see then. For now, I’m going to try to keep to the same approach, tho if my body needs something I won’t deny it. And we’ll see how it goes.

I will admit… this depresses me a bit. It’s not what I’m wanting to hear. But if it’s how it has to be, I’ll come around. 🙂

Weaker but stronger…. I hope. 🙂

Wendler 5/3/1 program, cycle 22, week 1

• Work Set – Deadlift (working max: 370#)
  • 1x5x150 (warmup)
  • 1x5x185
  • 1x3x225
  • 1x5x245 (work)
  • 1x5x280
  • 1x5x320
• Assistance – Deficit Deadlift (1.5″ deficit)
  • 3 x 8/7/5 x 185
• Farmers Walk
  • 50 yards per trip
  • 6 trips, 2 trips, 10 breath rest, 2 trips, 10 breath rest, 1 trip, rest, 1 trip rest
  • 45# plate in each hand

I feel weaker… but I think it’s only in my head. Only 320#? Geez… feels like I should be doing more, right? But this is what a reset is all about. But then, I should be getting more reps, right? Nope. My continued focus on keeping my back up, pushing with my legs… it’s really coming into play. I certainly find myself stopping because my legs can’t do any more, tho my body says I could keep going just with my back.

The past few deadleft sessions, since the reset, since I’ve been focusing more on being upright, pushing with the legs (not pulling with the back). I swear my legs feel it more. I feel a pump, I feel exhaustion, in my quads, hams, and glutes. I get to that “last rep” and find my legs getting wobbly tho my back wants to keep going. And the deficits…. whoa, you can really feel it there. I certainly stop lifting if I even find a hint of wanting to bend over.

So I reckon that’s good.

My ego hates it. But I know my body loves it and in the long run, this is right and better.

I do enjoy doing the farmer’s walks, tho my grip is certainly the weak point there. I wanted to do 100 yards at a time, but after 2 trips of that (and all the deadlifting), my grip was tiring so I could only get 1 trip without a rest. And then after 6 total trips, my grip was done. I am finding posture really matters to do this right. You can’t let the weight sink you — you really have to be upright, good posture, tuck your chin in and head up. It’s cool. 🙂