Wendler 5/3/1 program, cycle 18, week 1
Not much to say. It was a press day. I felt alright, but today was nothing spectacular. Just happy with how things went and that my shoulder didn’t yell at me too much. 🙂
Music you don’t want to hear at the gym: .38 Special’s “Hold on Loosely”
Yesterday when I arrived at the gym, the radio was on the local rock station — someone left it off from last night. No way to turn it off, so I deadlifted with it playing.
This song came on prior to my heavy sets.
When you’re deadlifting, the last thing you want to hear is a cue of “hold on loosely”. 🙂
Wendler 5/3/1 program, cycle 18, week 1
Today worked pretty well. I know 7 reps isn’t tons higher than the prescribed 5, but it’s an increase at 325. All good.
When I was doing assistance lifts, I opted to work on where I was breaking. I sometimes lift my butt before the weight comes off the ground, which isn’t good. So I wanted to really focus on breaking at the knees, getting the weight off the ground, then I could straighten up.
Otherwise, working good.
Felt better today
Wendler 5/3/1 program, cycle 18, week 1
Felt a lot better today. While I matched the same as last cycle (8×200), I did more total work between both work sets and assistance sets. Just the way the calculations and rounding of percentages worked out that I did 200 again. But more workload overall, my head was more into it. All good.
I also played more with my foot position. I started out doing what I thought, being a bit more “out” but my final work set was again that flopping around and no tension. So I tried pulling my legs back. My shins were just behind perpendicular; where if you drew a line from my knees to my toes, that would be perpendicular to the ground. I found myself greatly able to push up and push solidly. A little care needed to avoid my butt coming off the bench, but this might be a position to work with for a little while and see how it goes. I only did it on my assistance sets, and it seems I notice the problem more with heavier sets so… we’ll see.
Back in the gym, and I’m not happy.
Wendler 5/3/1 program, cycle 18, week 1
*sigh*
So I took all of last week off completely. I even found myself slacking a little bit and falling back into bad habits. *sigh* Stress in life is wearing on me. I didn’t return to the gym yesterday due to daylight saving time — body said it was time to go, clock said it was too late.
So back I am today, and it sucked. I kept my squat weight the same from last cycle, aiming for rep PR’s. Well if rep PR’s are the goal, I missed it bigtime. Last cycle I did week 1 255 for 7, only got 5 today. I know I was mentally off, but I think it was physical too.
During the assistance squatting, I really focused on pressing my head back into the bar, and realized with all the falling forward I was doing during the work sets… 1. it’s techinque (I am forgetting to press my head back), 2. it’s weakness in the lower back because my erectors were tuckered out before anything else…. they were really activated from all the head pressing.
So it was what it was. I’m not ready to totally chalk it up to other things… maybe just an off day. Just have to see how the cycle progresses.
I should have gone back to the gym this morning, but I didn’t.
Stupid daylight savings.
I’ll try again tomorrow.
I have decided to go back to 3x week, and I’m going to keep with a true BBB template and see how it goes for me. If I want to change up to something else, I’ll let things evolve back to that.
So this past week wasn’t just a deload week, it was a “do nothing” week.
If I did anything, it was keeping mind of my posture, and stretching, especially in the  neck/shoulder region.
I don’t feel great about taking a whole week away, but my body is physically happier.
I did step back and looked at some things.
Going 4x week I think is really good — if you can handle it. I think my body could take 4x week and make really good gains. I think the timing of when you lift against the recovery and “super-compensation” cycle is perfect here. However, if you are going to do this, you need to be fully dedicated to the process. This means eating a lot, and sleeping a lot. Recovery and all the other support structures really need to be in place. Given my schedule and life, I can’t always get the rest needed. No, not good and speaks to greater life issues to remedy. But for now it is how it is. So, I think I’ll be falling back to 3x and seeing how things go. And really, I think I’m more curious if 4x vs 3x, if it was putting a larger physical strain and demand upon my body and thus contributing to some stress and pressure in life. In part, just the schedule impacts, but more so the energy and recovery demands — if lifting drains me then leaves me with less to deal with the rest of my day, that’s no good. If 3x allows me greater balance in life, great.
Now, when I went to 4x I also simplified back to a true BBB template. I think that made sense given the frequency. But now if I’m going 3x… do I ramp it back up? Or do I keep it the same? I don’t know. I’m a little torn because I also want the assistance parts of my gym sessions to burn some energy. I’m decently in the Carb Back-Loading groove, tho I think that probably needs a re-read of the book and reexamination of my routine. But I’d like more effort towards burning things off.
What I keep gravitating back to is “5/3/1 bodybuilding“. Even Jim admits that deep down inside that’s what we all are — bodybuilders. I don’t want to abandon strength building (that’s still primary goal), but I think some more dedicated mass building is in order. I read about the Cube Method, and that has some dedication to mass building. I have been watching too many CT Fletcher videos. And I can’t help but expect that the increased workload would lend better to CBL. But then, it’s a LOT more work, and will it be too much to recover from, given what I wrote above?
I don’t know.
So I’m presently sitting between 3x BBB template, or 3x bodybuilding template.
Still thinking it through.
Well, still no gym for me today.
My shoulder/upper back/neck pain is still present and limiting movement. It’s a LOT better than yesterday due to sitting in what feels like exaggerated good posture and doing lots of stretching, but I’m not there yet.
I’ve been here before tho. It just takes time and stretching throughout the day.
I’m not.
It is deload week of cycle 17, and give my shoulder issues I was going to take things VERY easy this week and go twice. Something like on Monday do 5×10 squats with 50% weight, 5×10 bench with 50% weight, then maybe finish with 5×10 pendlay rows with lighter weight. And that’d be all. Then Thursday the same with 5×10 deads, 5×10 press, and 5xwhatever pullups. Or maybe I’d go Tuesday and Friday. I was going to wing it.
And wing it I shall…
Last night we were over at a neighbor’s house for dinner. They recently installed a zip line in their backyard for their kids, but it’s strong enough to hold an adult… so I gave it a run.
One run.
All I needed. 🙂
I don’t know exactly what happened… or maybe it started on the drive home from my in-laws earlier that day, sleeping in the car, and my head/neck being in a weird position, then the zip line just broke the camel’s back. I don’t know… but there’s some wicked pain when I try to move my head and neck in a certain way. Lifting isn’t going to happen.
But on the same token, I was stretching my head/neck/shoulder area in the car during the drive and finally got my neck to pop and turn in a way I’ve been needing for a while! I’ve just had some poor posture issues for a while, everything tightened up, and I’m slowly working my way back to being normal. I’m sure that is playing a part.
Anyways, I think today is going to be nothing but some stretching and rolling.
Time to start being nice to my shoulders
Wendler 5/3/1 program, cycle 17, week 3
Despite my shoulder aches and pains, I still Pressed. Getting 5 reps with 145 is acceptable, given I got 5 with 140 last cycle. Looking back over past history, it’s certainly not the best I’ve done, but it’s in line and is progress back to where I started.
Certainly my technique is getting better. “Tight” is the cue I live by here… everything needs to be tight: grip, wrists, torso, glutes, lats, quads, hams… you name it, everything. Helps tremendously.
But that all said, I didn’t do much else today. I did some pull-ups, then a couple very-high-rep sets of pressdowns and hammer curls.
The interesting part? I finished off with a couple high-rep sets with very light weight of lateral raises. Why? Well, again it’s a shoulder thing. I want a little more delt work. I adore upright rows; they’ve always been a favorite, since I was a teenager, because they produce so much in the medial delts and traps (and some biceps and grip too, what’s not to like, right?). But there’s no question that it eventually causes me some shoulder pains. So I’m going to have to give them up, again. And while lat raises haven’t always been friendly to me either, well… I have some greater posture issues that I need to improve upon. If I am standing in a solid and proper posture, the lat raises work out ok. If they start to be weird, it’s a reminder to correct my posture. I think I may well keep lat raises in for a while… just VERY light and VERY high rep.
Next week is deload. Again, I think I’m going to do a heavy-duty deloading. I really want to give my body a rest. I may go only twice, and do like a squat/bench and dead/press thing with maybe like 5×10 with a 50% weight or something… and that’s all…. if even that. Maybe 3×10 or 5×5. Just something for the blood flow and warmth, and keeping the groove. But otherwise, Ir eally want to rest up.
Diet wise too… I’ll be keeping carbs fairly low until the Sunday evening prior to starting cycle 18. I’ll have a little carb after any workout, and I’ll have “normal carbs” with supper. But no splurging or anything and doing “heavy backloads” or the like.
Stuff From Hsoi 