A little good, a little bad. It’s squat day.

“Week 1”

• 5 reps – Squat (working max: 240#)
  • 2x5x45 (warmup)
  • 1x5x95
  • 1x5x120
  • 1x5x145
  • 1x5x160 (work)
  • 1x5x180
  • 1x6x205
• Asst. #1 – Squat
  • 5 x 10 x 95
• Asst. #2 – Leg Curls
  • 5 x 10 x 60
• Metcon – jump rope
  • 1 Tabata set – all single hop

A little good, a little bad.

Physically, the workout was acceptable. Squats felt heavy, the work set was alright. On the 5th rep I was thinking “no way, I can’t stop at 5….” and barely managed to get 6 out and felt that if I even tried 7 I’d barely get out of the hole and dump the bar. But compared to prior work sets getting 1x7x200 and 1x5x210, 1x5x205 feels right in the groove, no increase. *sigh* The assistance squats are better, continuing to use that as a time to focus on form and really tire myself out. I’m getting better at not having to think about cues like “chest up” and “hip drive”, and more working to keep my head “straight” (not chin pointed to the ceiling, nor the floor behind me, just spine in straight alignment) and my eyes up and focused on a single spot all the way through, which means yes I’m looking up when I’m in the hole… keeping “shoulders tight” too. And the leg curls, 60# with 1 min rest after that level of squatting work, works me just fine.

So physically I felt alright.

Mentally I still struggle with squatting. Starting Wednesday after that great bench press workout I knew I had to attack the squat. I kept telling myself that, but I also admit there’s always that seed of doubt creeping in and I have to fight to keep it out… but it’s still there. And it’s there always… that little gremlin. I put the 205 on my back, “damn that’s heavy” with a sprinkle of “can I do this?” *sigh* then as I work along “will I get to 5?” Then I get to 5 and I find myself thinking “holy shit, I barely did this… I need to do more, fuck no I’m not stopping here”. And then I struggle for 6, and mentally think there’s no way I’ll hit 7 and stop. Years of mental blockade to have to chip through here. Sure I’ve started because I am squatting, I’m facing it, I’m not going away from it, but for some damn reason I keep limiting myself this way. Years of mental conditioning are hard to escape I guess…. thanx Mom. 😉 I just don’t know how to totally break through it, but I’ll get there, just can’t give up.

Ah well. Onwards.

Today was awesome.

“Week 1”

• 5 reps – Bench Press (working max: 205#)
  • 2x5x45 (warmup)
  • 1x5x85
  • 1x5x105
  • 1x3x125
  • 1x5x135 (work)
  • 1x5x155
  • 1x12x175
• Asst. #1 – Bench Press
  • 5 x 10 x 110
• Asst. #2 – 1 arm dumbbell row
  • 5 x 10 x 45
• Metcon – jump rope
  • 1 Tabata set – all single hop

Today was awesome. I have been having sleep issues and am actively working to fix them. Given I’ve had a couple nights of good rest, I think that’s playing in here, so I’ll take it.

As mentioned previously, I need to stop caring about “how much work to do”. That is, going back to prior workouts, seeing how I moved a particular weight to ensure that in this workout I do at least that and hopefully more. It really shouldn’t matter. Here’s the weight, just move it. I’ll move it however much I move it, and I can view progress later instead of pre-framing my head around a certain target. The only target should be to move the damn thing as much as possible, attack it, power through it, and strive to be awesome. 🙂

And so I did. A different mental outlook for this workout and sure enough… geez… 12 reps of 175? Last cycle I did 1x11x170 then 1x8x180. So 1x12x175? Yeah, I’d say that’s an improvement. Only reason I stopped at 12 was I knew I still had the 5 assistance sets to do and I didn’t want to tap myself out! I felt like I could have done a lot more.

So with that, the assistance work was strong and good. I’m working to have a slightly wider grip (index fingers on the hash rings instead of ring finger), and ensuring my elbows come in a little bit more. My shoulder seems happier, and who knows if this made enough of a leverage switch to account for the “strength boost”. The 110 was good, but I should go 115 next session.

Rows, another mental shift of not moving the weight or lifting it up, but thinking about pulling the elbow back. Focus on the tip of the elbow and moving it through space. That really helps to make the shoulder work. 45 is good, but I figure I’ll bump to 50 before too long.

And on rope… before I did the proper set I did some more work with the “running in place” stuff. I’d start with no rope, just moving my legs/feet in the air, getting my body aware of the motion, and figuring out what the pace of the rope should be. I did better, getting 4-8 skips before I’d tangle my feet up — same thing, sweeping my leg back with the rope and the foot gets caught. But that’s a slight improvement, so I’ll just keep at it. Meantime, I really jacked up the tempo of the regular work.

I need to bring up the tempo, because it was too slow to be any sort of intense-enough conditioning. See, I’ve beenn fluxing in my eating. At first I was trying to eat rather strict, lots of protein, minimizing carbs, and that wasn’t working too well. Then I spent too much time reading powerlifting stuff and a lot of them have the basic approach of eating like a bulldozer and just shoveling food. There’s a method to all that madness and it’s good, but the side-effect is… it’s making me fat. I’m not enjoying it. But this is just part of it… gotta experiment, swing one way, then the other, and find where things lie. And so, I’m refining again.

My goal right now is to take in about 35-ish grams of protein 6x a day. That’ll get me about 210g and that’s a reasonable number. I’m also not going to totally turn myself off to carbs but be a little more smart about when I ingest them. For instance, I work out in the morning so first thing upon rising, have some protein and some carbs so I can fuel the workout. When I return from the workout, more protein and carbs. Then throughout the rest of the day, try to stay off the carbs in terms of “heavier” stuff like pasta or rice or whatever, but do have lots of veggies and other such things. This is basically where I was in terms of diet some time ago, but I got a little to caught in the powerlifting stuff and need to swing back. It’s not so much that I’m trying to lose fat (tho that’d be nice), but more that I don’t need to be eating so much that I gain fat. Yes not shoveling could mean strength gains are slower, but heck, it’s not like Wendler 5/3/1 at this stage of the game for me is some fast-gaining program. So I think it’ll work.

Frankly, I have also thought about trying to just lose the fat, like trying to drop 20# and specifically target that endeavor for a while. I’m not sure tho, because I’m not at a point where I want to risk the strength gains. But, we’ll see. The bottom line seems to be finding the line where my body gets just what it needs, and no more.

Oh, another note. My “working max” went up 10# from last cycle. Generally the program approach is 5# on bench. The thing is, when I plugged a 5# jump into my spreadsheet, the math worked out such that none of my actual lift amounts changed! It was just an odd thing about the math and rounding off to 5# plates. So jumping up 10# in the working max allowed all the warmup/work lifts to go up 5#. So, there we go. I only went up 10# this cycle due to the math, which actually works out to a 5# jump. Odd how that was, but there we go.

Today’s workout wasn’t good.

“Week 1”

• 5 reps – Deadlift (working max: 285#)
  • 1x5x115 (warmup)
  • 1x5x145
  • 1x3x175
  • 1x5x190 (work)
  • 1x5x215
  • 1x8x245
• Asst. #1 – Good Mornings
  • 3x10x45 (bar)
  • 2x10x65
• Asst. #2 – Hanging Leg Hip Raise
  • 3x8xbw
  • 1x5xbw
  • 1x3xbw
• Metcon – jump rope
  • None

Well, today sucked.

First deadlift day on cycle 3 of Wendler 5/3/1, so it’s the “5 rep” day. Let’s just go over a few things, then I’ll analyze.

On the deadlift, as soon as I picked up the 245 it felt heavy. What’s worse is I felt I could have done at least 2 more reps easily, but my left grip gave out on me. Heck, around rep 6 I stopped for a moment, removed my wedding ring, then kept going because the ring felt like it was getting in the way of my grip. *sigh*

On the good mornings, first time doing it so I didn’t know what to expect. I put an empty olympic bar on my traps (like squatting) and off I went. I’m wanting to do them strictly, like this, knees locked and back is straight, lower back arched and kept that way through the entire movement. So of course, flexibility is a limiting factor. I didn’t get quite to parallel, but almost, and it got better as I worked because of course I was stretching it. So, I will just continue with light-ish weights until I get better… keeping good form until I feel a stretch kicking in, and not just the first sign of stretch, but good stretch such that I can improve flexibility which does mean yes there ends up being some lower back rounding right at the end of the movement, but I have to so I can get the stretch, then back up. After 3 sets of the bar I figured to put a dime on each side and try. That seems to be the right amount of weight at this point, until I get the movement down and flexibility improves. I did not feel all that tired or worked by this just yet, but learning the movement and fixing flexibility are more important right now.

And on the hanging hip leg raise, first, let’s go to 8 reps across (bumping it up from last time). However, I peeded out. Why? My left hand grip… literally died on me, couldn’t hang any more. *sigh* You can see in the EXRX link that the example shows to use those hanging straps. I’m mixed on that, because it will not work my grip, but if my grip is limiting…. and then as well, it could take some strain off my shoulders. Hrm.

No jump rope. My left ankle hates me.

So you can see, this was not the best workout.

*sigh*

So…. thinking about it all.

I’m not 100% sure what to do about my grip issues. Work forearms more? But forearms get worked every single workout I do, which is enough… and perhaps, too much? But what can you do, you need your hands! I may go mixed grip on my last deadlift set to help deal with it. And on the leg raises well… not sure. I really don’t want to use the straps… or maybe use deadlift straps? I don’t want to do either, I want to get stronger, but I also can’t necessarily let a weak-point hold everything else back. *ponder*

I’m also not sure I was totally there mentally today. One thing I need to stop doing is caring about what I lifted before. Before I hit the 245 set I found myself flipping back in my logs to see how I lifted that weight, or thereabouts, previously. I do this because I like numbers, I like tracking progress, and if before I did 5 reps with the weight, then today I better do >5 reps, else there’s no progress. But the thing is, that frames things too much in my head… that I have to hit X and then somehow I mentally limit myself. I need to stop doing that. Just let it be what it will be, because if it’s more, then it’s more, if it’s not then it won’t be. Either way the reps will be what they are and I can analyze it when I’m done. It’s like shooting… when you shoot, don’t worry about going “bang” then immediately dropping the gun to look at the target to see if you hit it; shoot, follow through, and don’t worry until later because holes will be where they will be and won’t change 1 second or 1 year later, so just worry about shooting “right now” and deal with the other stuff later. Just lift, stop thinking so much.

As well, I’ve been having sleeping issues lately. I won’t go into details right now, but the bottom line is not getting enough recovery and I’m sure that’s factoring in somehow. I’m working to fix the problem, tho it will take time. I was poking at the calendar over the weekend doing some long-term planning and it looks like this Wendler cycle will end just prior to Thanksgiving. I might take all of turkey-week off from working out and just try to rest as much as possible and recover. We’ll see when I get there.

Every day can’t be roses… gotta have some crap times to help you better appreciate the good times. 🙂 And life rolls on.

Starting cycle 3 on the Wendler 5/3/1 program.

“Week 1” 5 reps

• 5 reps – Press (working max: 130#)
  • 2x5x45 (warmup)
  • 1x5x50
  • 1x5x65
  • 1x3x75
  • 1x5x80 (work)
  • 1x5x95
  • 1x9x110
• Asst. #1 – Press
  • 5 x 10 x 60
• Asst. #2 – Supinated Grip Pulldowns
  • 5 x 10 x 115
• Metcon – jump rope
  • 1 Tabata set – all single hop

Normally one is to bump press by 5# per cycle, but I opted to go up 10# because when I looked at my performance numbers I think 10# will push me a little bit harder and get me to a place where I’m doing more strenuous work. I think it’ll be alright, because last time I did 110 I managed to crank out 7 reps (and 1x7x115 was my PR from last cycle). Today I did 9 reps with 110 and couldn’t get the lock out on 10th rep, so 9 it is. So yeah, I’m stronger and I think this will push me. It technically puts my “PR set” in “week 3” at 1x?x125, so that’s a good 10# over what I did last “PR set”… may not crank out 10 reps with it, but it should still be a good push for me. I’ll go with it.

The assistance presses, yeah… 60 is a good level. It works me hard and I almost didn’t lock out the last rep. My desire is to stick with 60 but get the form tightened up and get the 5×10 across without the last reps of the last sets being so difficult.

Pulldowns, the 115 was a good bump, as last reps of last sets couldn’t quite get the bar to my chest. I’m really focusing on the squeeze of the shoulders, ensuring they work through their full range of motion. So I’ll stay here a while.

On rope, I want to bump the intensity up, so yes I need to dedicate myself before every session to trying the “run in place” style until I get the coordination down. I started out with no rope, just moving my body through the motion and I could do it: knees went straight up and feet straight back down. But throw in the rope, and suddenly my legs change to a “schoolyard skipping” where I pull my knee up but then as the rope passes my leg sweeps back (still bent) and of course I get all caught up in the rope. Ugh. I’ll have to work to overcome that. 🙂 Another thing is I couldn’t do it for very long because my left ankle was not liking all the impact of my full bodyweight. I’m hoping to just keep at it tho, and strengthen my ankle — that would be better for me in the long run. I just hope that I can strengthen it before I beat it up too much. 🙂 But, after I did that for a bit, I just did the 1 set of “double leg” but picked up the tempo to be closer to what you need to do the run in place style.

A good workout. I felt very worked by it, very pushed.

“Week 4” deload

• Deload – Squat (working max: 230#)
  • 2x5x45 (warmup)
  • 2x5x95
  • 2x5x115
  • 2x5x140
• Asst. #1 – Squat
  • 5 x 10 x 95
• Asst. #2 – Leg Curls
  • 5 x 10 x 55
• Metcon – jump rope
  • Didn’t get far, due to foot issue

And we bring deload week to a close. Brief comments:

I noticed how the past few deload workouts, while the work weight is nowhere near what I can lift, it felt like I was lifting a mountain… just very heavy for some reason. Not sure what to make of that.

Assistance squatting… gym owner noticed and complemented me that I’ve really improved my form. Good to hear. I’ve been working hard on it, the key cue being not just to keep my whole body tight but the #1 cue is “chest up”… sure there’s hip drive, but not at the expense of losing back angle. It’s not lifting with the chest, just ensuring that as the hips drive the chest doesn’t fall. Has made a big difference, and I feel the bar going in more of a perfect vertical path, no rocking forward. I’ll stick with 95 tho because I want to continue to work on form ensuring my knees are not buckling in, that they go outward on the descend, and so on.

Leg curls… jump to 60.

And I didn’t get far on jump rope today. Some years ago I blew out my left ankle and there’s a tendon on the top inside that sometimes gets “out of place” and makes it painful to extend the foot… which happens when you jump! I just couldn’t get through 2 “reps” of the rope jumping. Sucks, but oh well, it happens.

In related news, I did all my medical stuff for the life insurance yesterday, so I’m back on supplements that I gave up (creatine, Jack3d). We’ll see how it all goes. I’m still not sold on the Jack3d, but I’m giving it more time before I make the call one way or the other.

Oh, I should also note this ends “cycle 2” on the Wendler 5/3/1. It’s a slow program, but it’s steady and doesn’t seem to be beating up my body. So I’m OK with it. I’ll start cycle 3 on Friday, going up “prescribed” intervals: 5# on press and bench, 10# on deadlift and squat. I’ll still stay on this modified “Boring But Big” template, changing the deadlift assistance from hyperextensions to Good Mornings, going up on weight/reps on other stuff. Just keep chugging along with minor changes. I do see progress in terms of my strength going up, my weight is up, muscle mass is increasing no question. I’m pretty sure my conditioning is up, tho I haven’t tried to really tax is to see. I donated blood this past weekend and in doing so it generates some health data for me: my blood pressure is excellent, resting heart rate is nice and low, total cholesterol is well below normal (despite all the whole eggs, meat, fats, and “excessive” food intake I have); I’ll have a more interesting bit of results after the life insurance blood/pee tests come back. I’m good with things. 🙂

“Week 4” deload

• Deload – Bench Press (working max: 195#)
  • 2x5x45 (warmup)
  • 2x5x80
  • 2x5x100
  • 2x5x120
• Asst. #1 – Bench Press
  • 5 x 10 x 105
• Asst. #2 – 1 Arm Dumbbell Rows
  • 5 x 10 x 45
• Metcon – jump rope
  • 1 Tabata set – all single hop

It’s deload time, so nothing too thrilling to note.

I did try a slightly wider grip. On the bar there’s a “hash mark” and usually I put my ring finger on that hash. I did this back when I started because Rippetoe was working to try to get the maximum range of motion and from what I could see, that was doing it. However, I’m thinking that may be starting to wear on my shoulder, and so I’m following a bit more of the Dave Tate “So You Think You Can Bench” and trying to get it so my elbows come to about the same level as the bench pad. Not 100% sure if I’m there, I’ll check next time, but for now I wanted to at least try a wider grip and see how it felt. So today I put my index fingers on the hash. Felt like my elbows didn’t go as deep, but it also felt strange, and that’s to be expected.

Assistance bench of 105… felt… really light. But could be merely because it’s deload week. Still, I’m thinking I may go 110 next workout.

Rows. I was doing 40# and didn’t plan to go to 45 until next workout, but someone else was using the 40’s today so why not… I went ahead. This was good. The last few reps of the last few sets were difficult. I don’t want to sacrifice moving the shoulder and fully working the shoulder muscle, so all is good. I’ll stick with 45, and not be so reluctant to jump to 50 if I think it’ll be good.

Anyways, things just chug along.

“Week 4” deload

• Deload – Deadlift (working max: 275#)
  • 2x5x110
  • 2x5x140
  • 2x5x165
• Asst. #1 – Hyperextensions
  • 5 x 10 x BW
• Asst. #2 – Hanging leg curl raises whatever I call them
  • 5 x 7 x WT
• Metcon – jump rope
  • 1 Tabata set – all single hop

Again, it’s deload week, so there’s nothing much to write home about.

On the next cycle I’m going to switch from hyperextensions to Good Mornings. Start slow and almost no weight, ensuring back and legs are straight and as “right angle” as possible. See where it goes.

The leg curl/raises I’m getting better at, almost no swing, more curl up of the knees up to the shoulders, and noticing a lot more full-body activity in bringing my legs up (e.g. my back and arms are getting into it some). This is all good, as it’s not an isolation exercise. I’m feeling alright doing 5×7 across, so I’m going to bump to 5×8 and see how that goes, and just keep building from there.

As an aside… my right knee has been odd for a number of years. Just the way things felt, how it would grind (as older knees do), general motion and stability and so on. Plus I noticed that if I knelt down, resting on my kneecap, I could move just the right way and pop my knee(cap). Well, I can’t pop it any more. In fact, my knee is feeling much different. For a couple of months it was feeling bad… even had thoughts that I’d blow it out. I may still. But recently I’ve been feeling more like the knee is improving, getting stronger, more stable. All stands to reason given the deadlifting and squatting. Sure, I do feel like in all the improvements to my body that I also feel some wear and tear on it, but all in all the body feels stronger… we’ll see how the knee feels in another 6 months.

“Week 4” deload

• Deload – Press (working max: 120#)
  • 2x5x45 (warmup)
  • 2x5x50
  • 2x5x60
  • 2x5x75
• Asst. #1 – Press
  • 5 x 10 x 60
• Asst. #2 – Supinated grip pulldowns
  • 5 x 10 x 110
• Metcon – jump rope
  • 1 Tabata set – all single hop

Ah, deload week. My least favorite. 😉 But it’s good to let the body heal and recover. Not really much to say… it’s deloading, nothing exciting.

One thing I can comment on is a curiousity about supplementation. Since I’ve been looking at life insurance and of course that’s going to require a blood test and pee test, I need to ensure things look good. I don’t ingest anything questionable or illegal, but because of supplementation like creatine, that could make things look bad because insurance adjustors don’t really look at context, just actuary tables. I’m already going to be questionable because I lift weights, have more muscle than the average Joe, and thus on things like Body-Mass-Index tables I’m going to appear obese but I’m not, and obviously I exercise which you’d think is a good thing, but popular conception of “good exercise” is “long slow distance” and looking emaciated. Nevertheless, the insurance broker has been down this road and he suggested I just stop the supps for a bit to bring levels down because otherwise high levels of creatine could raise flags for things like kidney issues.

I’m not convinced my struggles in the assistance pressing today were due to lowered levels of creatine or the fact I’m not taking the Jack3d (mostly because it too contains creatine). But come 3rd set those last some reps were hard, and by the 5th set the last 5 reps were a struggle. It wasn’t this way last Press session, and I was the heavy session, and I even set a PR there. I will say, I didn’t rest the usual 2 minutes between sets during my “work” sets today because the weight was so minimal, so it could simply be that I truly had exhausted things. But it’s just a curiosity. I’m not sold on Jack3d, but I won’t be taking it at all during this deload. Once I finish this tub, I do have one more tub to go through. I’ll assess after that, but so far I’m not totally convinced… I would like to see more real science and not more “bro-science” behind the other ingredients (creatine is accepted, curious about beta-alanine, studies I’ve read are mixed).

No PR today, but improvement (and a realization).

“Week 3” 5/3/1

• 5/3/1 – Squat (working max: 230#)
  • 2x5x45 (warmup)
  • 1x5x95
  • 1x5x115
  • 1x3x140
  • 1x5x175 (work)
  • 1x3x200
  • 1x4x220
• Asst. #1 – Squat
  • 5 x 10 x 95
• Asst. #2 – Leg curls
  • 5 x 10 x 50
• Metcon – jump rope
  • 1 Tabata set – all single hop

No PR today, but that’s expected given the reset I did back on PPNP Novice. And I didn’t do as well as I wanted to, only getting 4 reps. I will say, my form is improving and that was really the big issue that’s been hitting me all along in the squats is my form. I even re-watched Rippetoe’s “Starting Strength” DVD last night, the squat section, to put some cues back in my head. Watching it was useful because I picked up on things that I missed the last time around. It’s also interesting to work to reconcile what he talks about vs. what guys like Wendler, Tate, and Wenning talk about with squats.

Here’s the thing: I have a mental block. I make no bones about not liking to squat, and I think it’s due in part to years of baggage that squats are going to hurt or kill me. The reality is bench pressing is far more dangerous and a failed bench is going to hurt you a lot more than a failed squat. Nevertheless, the mental block remains. I’m getting over it, but like anythin with years of mental baggage it’s going to take a while. I think I could have gotten 5 reps, maybe 6, if I was attacking the weights and didn’t have that shred of mental doubt. I felt my form start to falter, and I should have just went for working the movement, push the weight up even if the form slipped a bit. But I didn’t want to risk hurting myself or dumping the bar (I should care about hurting myself, I shouldn’t care about dumping the bar), and so my brain bailed and that was that… 4 reps, uncertainty killed me. *sigh*

I’m getting better, but I know I’ve got a long ways to go to get over it. One thing I’ll watch to see is how the next cycle goes. I’ll bump to 230 and 230 was where I stopped last time because while I was moving it, my form was horrible so I backed off, then switched to 5/3/1, so it’s been slow to get back. But the slow progress was good because my form, while still improving, has improved. I don’t feel my quads doing all the work, I do feel my hams and glutes and other parts of my posterior chain getting worked hard, so that’s good. I’m slowly finding my groove, where to position my body, how everything should come together. So, slow but sure I’m getting there.

The assistance squatting actually helps a great deal here. I’m glad I went to 95# because it’s working me hard, but not so hard that I slip up on form…. it hurt today at the end of it all, and I appreciated that. Getting more reps, more time under the bar on squats, it’s helping me really track my form.

On curls, 50# finally felt like it was pushing me. I’ll go to 55# next workout, even tho it’s a deload week.

And yes, deload starts. I don’t like deloading, but I know it’s critical so I do it. Just like squatting. 🙂