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.

To borrow from The Eagles… take it easy.

Squats

• 2x5x45
• 1x5x85
• 1x3x135
• 1x2x185
• 3x5x185

As you can see, I really dropped my weight on the work set. I’m overworked on squats. I needed a deload.

Sad thing is, that 185 was hard. Not as hard as the 220 was on Monday, but still hard. I attribute this to mental exhaustion, on squatting.  *sigh*  But, it’s telling. More below.

An interesting thing tho. While doing the warmup sets I noticed that when I was in the hole my right calf started that ache. Hrm… as my thigh contacted my shin, the ache started. Hey… am I going too deep? going below parallel? I had someone watch me. Sure enough, I’m going a little too deep! That explains a lot, including why the weights were feeling even heavier the past couple weeks. I’m trying so hard to ensure I’m at least parallel that I’m overdoing it. This plays into my decision (more below), with how “more reps under the bar”, working my central nervous system (CNS), etc. is the way to go.

Bench Press

• 2x5x45
• 1x5x85
• 1x3x115
• 1x2x150
• 3x5x170

This felt good. Strong. I did notice I wasn’t putting my legs into it as much. As I think about it, it was the calf ache, I wasn’t putting my feet far enough back because that amplified the ache, and so I didn’t get as much leg into it. I still was using it, especially on the 3rd set I really put my whole body into it. I just wasn’t as consistent as I should have been.

Deadlift

• 2x5x95
• 1x3x140
• 1x2x200
• 1x5x240

This just felt good. Felt very strong here. Felt like I could have done another 3 reps (at least) with the 240, or gone up another 15-20# for another set of 5.

Metcon

Forgot to jump rope at the gym, so hustled home and jumped there. Usual thing, a Tabata set (20 sec jump, 10 sec rest; 8x), just simple double hop stuff. On the last set I tried doing faster single hops but didn’t get far. I did do a better job at jumping here. My first 20 second round is always good so I’m trying to pay attention to my form during that set to help mitigate problems… like the positioning of my hands and rope/handle angle and how that affects the rope as it passes under my feet so I don’t get tangled up, keeping my head up and eyes focused on something “eye level”. That helped me do a better job and get further, but I’m still getting tangled. I’ll get there.

Commentary

Feeling this strong on deadlifts and on bench press vs. how I feel on squats? My interpretation of it is overwork on my squats and my body saying “no mas”. I need a break.

I think I’m burned. I’m not sure if the intensity of the workouts is getting to me, or if it’s other things in my life getting to the workouts, or a little of both. Likely both, but I think the workouts are actually more the culprit. So, I need a break.

It was intentional to not do a full squat workout today. Just do something with a light enough load to keep the body working, but treat it like a “deload”. I picked the weights based upon Monday’s workout, but then bumped just slightly to make plate changing a no-brainer. 🙂  Why complicate this?

I am also going to take this coming Friday off. Give my body a little more time to recover (especially since my time off work is ending and I’m back to work on Monday).

When I resume on Monday, yes… I’m going to switch to the Wendler 5/3/1 program. I want to be in this for the long haul, that’s a program for the long haul. I’m not a 18-25 year old, I need to stretch out recovery; this program is better for recovery. I’m looking to bump my metabolism up so I can shed the fat I gained over the past 2 months (plus more!), and I can set up the assistance work in this program to be slightly lighter weights with less rest between sets (everything isn’t geared towards heavy 5 rep sets going for maximum strength). All signs point to this being a route for me to go. I figure I have to stick with it at least for one cycle (6 weeks in my case, since I’m going to do it 3x week) before I really evaluate and consider any changes, be it tweaking the program or changing to another program.

I’m still debating on exactly what I want to do for assistance work: “triumvirate” or “boring but big”. Granted I could do my own assistance work, but I think at first it’s wise to go with an existing program and only customize once I know more of what I want. Part of me thinks I should do “triumvirate” because, if nothing else, it gets me using more equipment in the gym and folks might like me not hogging the squat rack. 😉  But then again, I think only 3-4 other guys at the gym use the rack so, I may get a better less-interrupted workout if I stay there.

One advantage to BBB would be more reps in the same motion. That is, more CNS training towards really getting movements right and down. That will really help form refine and improve. My only fear with BBB is it will be, like it says, boring. I think part of my desire to switch off the current program is I’m a little bored with doing squats 3x week… but that is likely more due to overload than boredom. I do like squatting, but I think it’s just taking a toll and I need to scale back the approach. Besides, Wendler’s book says of the triumvirate:

This is very similar to Boring But Big, but you don’t have to do the same exercise over and over again, and you don’t have to do 5 sets. Just do the 3 exercises you’ve found to be the most effective for your training.

It’s about doing what you have found to be more effective for your training. Really, I don’t know what that is yet. It may do me well to start with BBB and see how that goes, then eventually “find my Kroc Row” (to use his phrase).

Just thinking aloud… don’t mind me.

Assessment

I’ve spent 8 weeks on this “Practical Programming Novice” program. A novice, constant linear progression program.

Here’s how things went:

Squat: — 105# to 230#. 230 was the most I did before I reset and found myself getting burned. Even if we take my reset weight (215), I still put over 100# on my squat.

Bench Press: — 115# to 170#. 55# increase.

Press: — 65# to 107.5#. 42.5# increase

Deadlift: — 135# to 240#. 105# increase.

Chin-ups/Pull-ups: — well, these were always “inverted rows”. But going from only being able to do low-single digit values to breaking into the double-digit range? That’s improvement. I’ll take it. Looking forward to doing full/real chin-ups and pull-ups. I’ll get there.

Those aren’t maxes: those are 3 sets of 5 reps at that weight. My actual 1RM? who knows. I haven’t tested it, and even calculations aren’t going to be accurate since 1. they’re just mathematical estimates, 2. they would require something like a 5RM, not 3 sets of 5 reps where I felt like I could still squeeze out more.

But it doesn’t matter what my actual 1RM is. The bottom line is I’m a lot stronger today than I was 8 weeks ago. I’m cool with that. The program did was it was designed to do: get you stronger. If I look at the “strength standards tables“, I’m not quite at the “novice” level, but that assumes 3-9 months of training: I’ve only had 2. I think I’m progressing just fine.

The reality is, it’s a very intense program. You need to eat a lot, you need to rest a lot, and you need to do little else in life than just lift… nothing else to really tax your system be it other physical activities or things like stress from work and life. If I was a younger man, I’m sure I could stick with this program a bit longer. But I’m not. Still, I’m quite happy with having discovered it and performed the program. I think it has set a good foundation for me to build upon in many regards: hypertrophy, strength, movements, fitness, CNS, discipline, humility, etc.. You name it, it’s really been helpful to me in some way in that area.

If I knew 20-25 years ago what I know now, I would have started lifting in a much different way. I think if anyone is going to start using weights to improve their life, some sort of “Starting Strength” type of program (be it the pure SS program or say one of the PP variants) is the way to go. You want to get strong? it works. You want to get big? it works. You want to be a bodybuilder? it’ll lay the foundation. You just want better strength for life and health, it’ll work. It’s a simple program, it works fundamentals, it lays a good foundation. There’s no bullshit, so long as you don’t overthink it. Just shut up, lift, eat, sleep. 🙂

See? The journey is really what it’s all about.

Today sucked.

Squats

• 2x5x45
• 1x5x85
• 1x3x130
• 1x3x175
• 2x5x220
• 1x3x220

As you can see, I had my first true miss on my work sets. On set 2, I almost got stuck half-way up on rep 5 but powered it out. On set 3, rep 3 was tough, then the seed of doubt was sown in my head if I’d make rep 4… and that seed was all it took. I figured to be conservative, rack the bar. Oh well, it’s how it goes some days.

I’m having that same ache too, tho it’s more localized now, on the outside of my right calf. It feels like my soleus, but not 100% sure as the ache kinda “radiates” up and down and in and out. It sucks, but I know it’s playing into everything… even if not physically making feel miss, it’s messing enough with my head.

Press

• 2x5x45
• 1x5x55
• 1x3x75
• 1x2x90
• 3x5x107.5

Press I actually felt good with. I felt strong and my form wasn’t 100% on the work sets, but still pretty darn good. I was happy with this.

Chins

• 1x10xbw
• 1x9xbw
• 1x6xbw

What happened here? This is certainly a big step back. I did feel stricter… that first set, every rep had my body stiff as a board and pulling all the way chest to bar (well, as much as my shoulders and such would let me). So who knows… maybe that tired me out some. But still, it didn’t feel good to drop like this.

*sigh*

Metcon (for Dave…)

Not sure if I’ll keep calling this “metcon” but for Dave….  🙂

I did a Tabata of rope jumping. 4 minutes; 20 seconds jumping, 10 seconds resting; 8 cycles. Just simple “double hop” schoolyard type jumping.

If you want to feel like an uncoorindated boob, jump rope.

Commentary

Today was just…. off. Not sure why. I did notice a lot of resting this past weekend… sleeping a lot longer than usual at night, yesterday I took a huge nap after lunch and still slept a long time last night. Body is trying to tell me something.

It could be that my diet changes are starting to kick in? As I mentioned before, really working to cut the carbs to nothing but the “raw veggies” (think paleo) and then a lot of meat/protein. I dropped a bunch of overall calories, no question, but feeling it so soon? And then the calf ache….

Maybe it is time to change up the routine. If nothing else, I am feeling tired of squatting. Maybe just a simple change of routine will do me well.

Much to ponder.

Today was generally good, but I need to change things up.

Squat

• 2x5x45
• 1x5x85
• 1x3x125
• 1x2x170
• 3x5x215

I did the same setup as Wednesday’s workout because I wanted to fix my bar speed. It was better this workout, smoother. However, I have this achy pain running down the back-outside-right of my right leg. Not sure what it is nor where it came from, but I do feel it affected my lift. Nevertheless, I feel generally good about this and am going to bump up 5# next workout.

Bench Press

• 2x5x45
• 1x5x80
• 1x3x115
• 1x2x145
• 3x5x165

I felt very strong today. I didn’t need to rest as long between sets, and I was just powering them out. Better form? More leg drive I know. Whatever reason, this felt very good. Another 5#.

Pull-ups

• 1x10xbw
• 1x10xbw
• 1x9xbw

And I could have gotten a 10th out if I cheated on that last rep. Is it odd that I feel stronger on pull-ups than chin-ups? Maybe after next week I’ll be at 3×10 across on both chins and pulls and will start on the assisted/negative real chins/pulls.

Other

Not sure what to classify this as yet… but I did some jump rope Tabata style. I don’t yet have the coordination to do this like a boxer so it’s just simple “double-hop” until I don’t feel as uncoordinated. It’s also far from HIIT, but I have to start somewhere.

Commentary

Overall today was good. Felt strong. Felt good.

I’ve been thinking about changing things up. This marks the end of week 7 on this program. I don’t feel a need to change just because of a time-limit, but I am feeling a need to change due to the packing on of fat. Going along with a desire to shed some of the weight, a program designed to pack on the weight doesn’t really work. But by the same token, I really want to get the rest of my lifts up to the same point as my squat. That is, I’m feeling that my squat is at the limits of what I can really do, so the progress is slow and I can accept that and go with that. Presses feel like I could go with a slow increase too… in fact, if I went to a weekly program I could actually even consider going back to a 5# bump on presses and not feel bad about it, but still slow. However, my deadlift and my bench press still feel like they’re progressing at a pretty decent pace and I’d hate to slow them down.

Besides… I know the real secret to things is getting my diet cleaned up. That’s the hardest part for me.

So here’s my present thinking:

Clean up my diet.

Start adding some HIIT in. Right now I’m going to jump rope and do it just like I mentioned above. As I get more coordinated, I’ll bump up the intensity. I will do this at the end of every workout. Will this be how I continue to do things? I don’t know. I was tossing around the notion of doing something like the Wendler 5/3/1 “boring but big” approach and having the 5×10 assistance set be somehow HIIT-like… maybe doing it 5×10 with 30 seconds of rest, more strict to Wendler’s plan… or maybe doing that exercise but pure Tabata-style. I don’t know… it’s just fresh ideas rolling around in my head, not sure what do to with it yet.

But in general, I know that changing the program is going to be necessary eventually so I can keep up muscular and strength gains, or at least, maintain if not improve… but acknowledge this will slow down if I’m trying to shed fat. My recovery will also be affected, thus a program change. But that alone won’t do it, and changing too much at one time isn’t wise either. Besides, like I said, I want to try to keep my bench press and deadlift gains going as long as I can, even if the other 2 lifts have slowed down.

So, work on my diet, add the jump rope, otherwise keep going, and we’ll see where this goes.

Better.

Squat

• 2x5x45
• 1x5x85
• 1x3x125
• 1x2x170
• 3x5x215

This felt good, better than the past few workouts. Form felt good, weight went up. Win all around. However, I’m going to keep it at 215# for the next workout. I had a little bit of a sticking point near the top of each rep, and I’d like to smooth that out.

Press

• 2x5x45
• 1x5x55
• 1x3x70
• 1x2x85
• 3x5x105

This felt fine. Keep on truckin’.

Deadlift

• 2x5x95
• 1x3x135
• 1x2x190
• 1x5x225

I cannot lie: it felt good to 1. minimize warmup sets with the 25# plates, since the 45# make for a better back angle, 2. 2 plate work set. 🙂

I fixed some back positioning issues, and again the minimization of the 25# plates helped since it gives me more reps with the better back angle. I also continued to use the double-overhand grip. I figure when it comes time to actually go to mixed grip, my grip will tell me. So until that failure point, let’s just keep going double-overhand. Plus, I’m still feeling good with this, so I’ll keep the 15# jump going for now, but I reckon this will come to an end in the next workout or two.

Commentary

I got more rest between Monday and today, taking it easier, a little more couch potato time. I’ve been running around from sun-up to sun-down every day on my “vacation” doing to-do list things and it certainly wore on me physically and mentally. While I still hate farting my day away, I do need to take more time to rest up else I’m just going to be grumpy when I have to go back to the day job. But the rest certainly helped and I felt a lot better today and it showed in my performance.

And I knew sooner or later my deadlift would exceed my squat. Didn’t quite think it would happen the way it did (due to a squat reset), but it’s all good.

Onwards… slowly, but still onwards.

Today was so-so, progressing, but not great.

Squats

• 2x5x45 (warmup)
• 1x5x80
• 1x3x125
• 1x2x165
• 3x5x210 (work)

Yes, I opted to do the same thing for another (third) workout. I’m not feeling it. I’m not sure if it’s recovery or what. I could hypothesize on a lot of things, but I opted to not push myself too hard… let’s see how it goes, then fare from there. This isn’t a sprint, it’s a marathon. That said, I felt good about how this work set went. It didn’t feel light of course, but it didn’t feel horrible. Next workout I’ll go to 215.

Bench Press

• 2x5x45 (warmup)
• 1x5x80
• 1x3x110
• 1x2x140
• 3x5x160 (work)

This felt good. I’m getting more comfortable with the “whole body” involvement, finding better foot position and getting good heel drive. I feel my progress here is still doing fine.

Chin-ups

• 1x10xbw
• 1x10xbw
• 1x8xbw

I don’t know what gives here but since my body just doesn’t seem to want to do high reps fine…. I’ll go with that emotion. I’m going to shift my goals slightly and work to 3×10 across. Besides, I’m tired of doing these “inverted row” things. The way to get strong at something? Do that something. I’m not doing that something, just something close to it. No question it’s helping me get closer to being able to do that something but… I tried today. I tried a dead-hang chin-up. I was almost there, but not quite. *sigh*  Well, I’m weighing about 240# right now (estimated 20% body fat)… if I can keep up with some weight loss too, that’ll help. 😉

But I’ve decided that once I get up to 3×10’s of these inverted rows, I’m going to start on real chin/pulls, even if I can’t do one. My current thinking (and this may well change) is to work to have 3 sets of 5 reps. But what those reps entail will vary. I will always start with a dead-hang and work to get a full chin/pull in. The rep only counts if my chin goes above the bar and/or chest touches the bar… missing it by 1/2″ is still missing it and doesn’t count. I will get as many full reps as I can. If I cannot get a set of 5 full reps, then the remainder of the reps will be done as pure negatives. It’s my understanding they will help towards getting full reps so hey, I’ll try it. So that means if I struggle on the first rep and can’t get it, I then have 5 negatives to do. Once I get a full rep and then struggle for rep 2, that means 4 negatives.

We’ll see how this goes.

And I guess, consider it also motivation for dropping down to maybe 15% or 10% bodyfat. 😉

Commentary

I’m still feeling a little worn out. Recovery? Diet? Not sure what, but I wasn’t feeling gung ho so I opted to do the same squat workout as before. I did feel alright with that set, so I will increase next workout. Trying to figure out why I feel worn, but that will come.

In the end, still happy to be going to the gym tho. My body generally feels good. 🙂