To deadlift again.

I really miss deadlifting, and I’d reason it’s a subtle reason I’m happy to be going back to 5/3/1. Today was pretty light, but it was good. Since I’ve been away for so long, my form is rusty and I really felt it today. I felt very “forward”, with my weight forward, almost more on the balls of my feet than the mid-foot. I had to work to find my groove again. Things improved towards the end, but it’ll probably be another week or two before I feel really dialed back in. Still, that things felt VERY light today was good because I could focus more on getting back into it. I worked up to 10 reps and just capped it — leave it in the tank (tho this was more than 1-2 in the tank; but hey, start very light right?)

Fronts were fine.

Good mornings… I think I hate them because I’m just not sure I’m doing it all right. I just don’t feel anything, other than I’m going to fall over. 😉 That said, my lower back was blown up from the deadlifts and fronts, so I dropped the weight a bit and really tried to work on form. I found towards the end I was doing better at keeping my torso in a good position (I was “slouching”, if you will). That seemed to help. So like just about everything today, too light, but focus on form improvement. So hey, not a bad thing.

As for the hip thrusts, or maybe it’s glute bridges. Whatever — I’m not putting a barbell on my hips, I’m not exploding upwards. I’m trying to find a way to get some hip extension work for my hamstrings, since I have no glute-ham-raise equipment. And I’m sorry, but every time I read about “activing the glutes”, I get some image of “Wonder Twin Powers… activate!” in my head, and the image just goes south from there. 🙂 So I did these, and sure, if I focused on the muscle I could actually feel it more in my glutes, which was pretty cool. And I really do want to keep some sort of bodyweight and unilateral movement around (a Paul Carter holdover). Today was 2-feet on the ground, but I saw this:

and it’s what I’m going to work my way up to. I’ll probably do the normal 2-feet on the ground glute bridges type movement next week as well, just to ensure I’m getting it right with the muscle focus, but I’ll work towards doing the 1-legged raised ones and see how it goes. Who knows — this might wind up being a failure and I find something else to do. But I’m trying it. Hell, I might even go back to long-stride lunges or split squats.

Anyways, today was good.

5/3/1 Simplest Strength Template

• Deadlift
  • 135 x 5
  • 160 x 5
  • 190 x 3
  • 210 x 5
  • 240 x 5
  • 270 x 10
• Front Squat
  • 110 x 10
  • 130 x 10
  • 155 x 10
• Good Morning
  • 95 x 10
  • 95 x 10
  • 95 x 10
• Hip Thrust (really, glute bridges)
  • BW x 20
  • BW x 20
  • BW x 20
• Crunches
  • BW x 10
  • BW x 10
  • BW x 15

Eye-opening for sure.

Wendler says a few things about the “press” days. Things like for every 1 pushing rep you should do at least 2 pulling reps. That in between your pushing sets you should do some sort of pulling, like pull-ups. Basically it’s a way to get a lot of back volume because back is important.

When I first did 5/3/1 some years ago, I didn’t do this. I did some back work, yes, but I didn’t do the above because 1. I couldn’t do pull-ups (fatter, weaker), and 2. I had a wussy attitude. You see, when you don’t have much, every little bit is significant; but when you have a lot, you don’t consider the details as much. For example, I’m tall and when people ask how tall I am I say things like “6 foot something”. My wife is short, so when people ask how tall she is she says “5 feet 4 and 1/4 inches” — that 1/4 is important! And so it was for me back then I was afraid that trying to do back work in between my pressing sets would detract and tire me out and keep me from getting all the reps or getting that weight number — I was weak (minded) and wanted every little bit I could get.

But it’s been a few years, and I know that sure maybe it will detract a little bit — at first — but over the long haul I’m going to be better and stronger for it all.

So this time as I 5/3/1 I’m making sure to do pulling work in between my pressing work, because 1. I finally can, 2. I’m stronger (minded).

How did things go?

Really well.

The pull-ups were very strict — dead-hang, chin above the bar, no swinging, no momentum, fully reset between reps. That worked well.

The pressing? Well, just a few days ago I was benching and my AMRAP set was 195 for 11 reps. Today’s PR set was 195… and I got 12 reps AND had a couple left in the tank. So does pull-ups in between each set detract? I don’t think so. 🙂 Granted it’s not a total apples-to-apples comparison, but good enough to demonstrate that it’s just good for me.

On the pull-ups I generally got 5 reps per set, which was really cool. I’m taking longer rests between sets, and I think that’s going to pay off in terms of better recovery and thus greater volume. Thing is, at the end of the session I totaled up all the pulling reps I did and basically did hit that “twice as many pulling as pushing reps” metric; not precisely, but very close enough. I dug that. 🙂

The wide, neutral-grip lat pulldowns were interesting. Yeah, I got some lat work in there, but I really felt it in my rear delts and that area. It’s been interesting to see how various handles on the pulldowns have hit different things for me. Like the v-bar really hits the middle of my upper back (and my lats). This wide, neutral-grip really hits my rear delts and that outer-upper back (and my lats). Something like a curl-grip pulldown really really works my lats. Quite interesting. Mostly because some time ago when back work still didn’t “move me”, I didn’t feel much difference between the grips/handles. But as I’ve gotten better at really working my back muscles, I’m finding the differences. It’s cool.

The DB rows were “Kroc-style”. I can’t do true Kroc Rows (implies you take the heaviest db in the place and rep it out). But I do the approach of 2 10-rep sets to warm up, then hit the last set for 20-40 reps. Dig that.

I found that my back was worked well, but not killed — that whole “stimulate, don’t annihilate”. My back hasn’t felt like this before; pretty cool.

I actually didn’t feel like I got enough pressing work, but I have to remember the pressing work is of a different orientation, so just roll with the program.

So far, digging the SST.

Music: Metallica, on shuffle…. and hitting “skip” a lot when it comes to particular albums. 😉

5/3/1 Simplest Strength Template

• Bench Press
  • bar x whatever
  • 95 x 5 (warmup sets superset with band pull-aparts)
  • 115 x 5
  • 140 x 3
  • 150 x 5 (work sets superset with neutral-grip pull-ups)
  • 170 x 5
  • 195 x 12
• Incline Press
  • 105 x 10 (sets superset with neutral-grip pull-ups)
  • 125 x 10
  • 145 x 10
• Wide, neutral-grip Pulldowns
  • 110 x 15
  • 110 x 15
  • 110 x 12
• DB Rows
  • 55 x 10
  • 55 x 10
  • 55 x 21
• Overhead Triceps Extensions
  • 40 x 20
  • 40 x 20
  • 40 x 15
• Hammer Curls
  • 25e x 15
  • 25e x 12
  • 25e x 9

Time for a change.

Time to Pursue the (next) Goal

I knew after I finished The Defattening Project that my next big goal was “3/4/5” — bench press 3 wheels (315#), squat 4 wheels (405#), and deadlift 5 wheels (495#). I didn’t start on this immediately after I stopped defattening because I was enjoying the hypertrophy work (still do). But recently I’ve been thinking about it more, and it’s come time to officially start on this journey. Sure, I’m stopping the GMM after only 2 weeks, but I learned some years ago that once you’re certain of something, get on with it else you’re just wasting precious time. So, I’m getting on with it.

Back to 5/3/1

While I’ve really enjoyed Paul Carter’s programming and philosophy, I’m moving away from it. I don’t think I’ll totally abandon Paul’s stuff, and I’m sure someday I’ll come back to it. It’s just that 5/3/1 has proven itself to me in the past, and it’s quite proven “around the world” that it works. It’s simple, it’s got solid foundational principles, and it works.

I also look at what I’ve learned over the past few years, in general and about myself and what I do and do no respond to. I see what’s working, I see what can help me maximize potential, and 5/3/1 should play in that. And since it’s nice to start out with a pre-planned template, I found that the 2nd edition’s “Simplest Strength Template” jives with what I’ve learned and what I’ve been doing. Sure, Boring But Big is proven and was my first choice for how to start off again, but SST may well be a better thing for me right now. The volume is just a hair lower than BBB, but it’s a little more comprehensive to the whole body. I’ve found that a general approach of “3 exercises” with the first being the big compound strength movement, the 2nd being an almost-big movement for more reps, and the 3rd edging towards an isolation movement for even more reps — yeah, I respond well to that: SST takes that approach (more or less). As written, it also uses some of the “big assistance” movements that I’ve been enjoying lately, like front squats. And I gotta say: going back and Pressing again has been fun and I look forward to that.

It’s other things too, like the increased frequency — it’s not 1x/week but 2. It’s a general upper/lower split. With things like the PR set, it requires me to push myself; but there’s auto-regulation and the ability to deal with less than stellar days if you need it.

Really, it should be alright. I really miss how things rolled on 5/3/1, so I’m happy to try getting back to it.

A few things to note

I am going to try 4x/week. In the past I found 4x/week was too much for me, but I also know I didn’t have a lot of stuff on point back then. Could 4x/week still be too much for me? Certainly. If that happens, I’ll fall back to 3x/week. But I want to see how this goes now and take whatever learning I can from it. That said, in the past I’ve also done the 2-cycles in a row before deloading, but I will NOT do that here; I will take the deload on the 4th week. This is an attempt to balance things a bit in terms of the 4x/week load.

I will start out as-written, but I’ll change up as needed, in whatever way that might mean.

I picked my working maxes based on a few things. Some things I flat out had the hard data on, so it was simple math to figure out. Other things I had reasonable guesses on or close enoughs and went from there (e.g. I don’t have straight-leg deadlift numbers, but I did have stiff-leg — so I took the stiff-leg and adjusted downwards a little bit). Bottom line is to “start too light” so when in doubt, round down, underestimate, etc. because in time it’ll work up.

Today

It felt so different from what I’ve been doing. 🙂

I’ve been used to 5/4/3/2/1 on the work up, so doing the same # of reps felt a little odd. Small thing, but still there.

When I was doing the last set, I just kept going 1 rep at a time. When I hit 10 reps, my first thought was to keep going, but I racked it because my brain said “You know, somewhere Wendler wrote that it’s reasonable to cap the 5+ set at 10 reps”. So I did. It was good, because another thing to remember is that you’re supposed to leave 1-2 reps in the tank — this is not going to failure. So much of my work the past many months has been AMRAP and to failure, so I have to break out of that habit and let myself rack it before I get to that failure point. I think 10 was actually legit that point anyways because I know 11 was possible, 12 was a maybe (i.e. make the call after I’d finish 11)… so yeah, good.

Everything else was generally good, but man… I bet I’m going to be so damn sore in my hamstrings, glutes, and lower back come tomorrow. That got a lot of work. So much that while I was supposed to finish with some hanging leg hip raises, I opted to just do crunches so my lower back could be a little happier. 🙂 First day and already calling audibles. My body will get used to things.

I recall last night looking at this thinking that on paper it should be a pretty easy day. And relatively speaking I’ve had tougher days, but it’s a reminder that just because it’s a “5” day doesn’t mean it’s easy and something you can just phone in.

So hey… felt a little strange, but yet, felt good. Happy. Looking forward to where this goes.

5/3/1 Simplest Strength Template

• Squats
  • bar x whatever
  • 105 x 5
  • 135 x 5
  • 160 x 3
  • 175 x 5
  • 200 x 5
  • 225 x 10
• Straight-leg Deadlift
  • 145 x 10
  • 170 x 10
  • 200 x 10
• Leg Curls
  • 30 x 15
  • 30 x 12
  • 30 x 10
• Hyperextensions
  • BW x 12
  • BW x 12
  • BW x 12
• Crunches
  • BW x 10
  • BW x 10
  • BW x 10

Apparently the hardest thing to do in the gym is WIPING DOWN THE EQUIPMENT WHEN YOU’RE DONE WITH IT! Seems some Thursday evening regular has rather (over-)active sebaceous glands, because I always find his/her head-funk on the benches, and today I found his/her leg-funk on the lat-pulldown seat. How fucking difficult is it to wipe down the equipment when you’re done with it?!?!

Apart from that grossness tho…

Today was alright. Yesterday I was doing a lot of pistol and rifle shooting. I had on a long-sleeved Under Armour shirt and had pulled the sleeves up, with the cuff being just above my elbow. After some time I was feeling great discomfort and a weird sort of “weakness” in my arms (I’m sure restricted blood flow). Pulled the sleeves down and things were eventually better. As well, the bottom point of the AR’s buttstock hits my pec just right and really pokes into the muscle and tenderizes it good. So today’s benching was affected. My arms felt that same strangeness, and my pec hurt a bit. I don’t think it was a major problem — I still hit my weights and reps, even having increased things by 10# across the board. So all was generally good, but I just didn’t feel so great.

But weights are better dialed in in terms of getting the proper reps out. Inclines went well. Rows went well. And I have to say — those neutral-close-grip pulldowns on the V-bar… man, really let the arms up and shoulders go forward, then pull “from the elbows” and really sweep the upper arm back until it’s at least parallel with your torso… man… that really works my lats like nothing else I’ve felt. Crazy.

And by the end of the session, my arms felt MUCH better.

This all said, I’m thinking about making some changes. I’ll explain when it’s time.

Music today was a bunch of “80’s metal”, a playlist from Apple Music. Anthrax, Testament, Exodus, Skid Row, Dio, Metallica, Ozzy, Megadeth, W.A.S.P., Mötley Crüe, Slayer, Motörhead, Quiet Riot, Suicial Tendencies, etc.

Based on Paul Carter’s “Guaranteed Muscle Mass” article.

• Bench Press
  • bar x 10
  • 145 x 5
  • 165 x 4
  • 195 x 3
  • 215 x 2
  • 235 x 1
  • 195 x 11 (AMRAP)
  • 195 x 6 (50%)
• Incline Press (350 Method)
  • 95 x 24
  • 95 x 14
  • 95 x 11
• BB Row
  • 155 x 8
  • 155 x 8
  • 115 x 12
  • 115 x 12
• Wide, Pronated-Grip Pulldown (350 Method)
  • 85 x 20
  • 85 x 14
  • 85 x 12
• BB Curl (350 Method)
  • 40 x 28
  • 40 x 15
  • 40 x 13

Oof.

Today was telling, but not for the obvious reasons.

Squats went well. I felt good with the 265. Still hate that I’m in the 200’s, but here I am. I felt like I could have gotten at least 3 reps with it, maybe a 4th grinder. The AMRAP is also something I need to push a little more. I’m not allowing myself to go to true failure (no spotter, and I hate dumping because it hurts my neck/back/shoulders), but trying to get to a point where I can tell I couldn’t do 1 more. I think I may be stopping just shy of that point, but it’s tough to gauge without actually hitting it, y’know? Still, as long as I make progress (and I am), that’s really what matters.

What was more telling was I continue to examine 5/3/1. I plugged in some numbers from today’s squatting and it was telling. I’m generally where I should be, and frankly I figure if I did 5/3/1 that before the end of the calendar year I’d set a new PR on squat. Plus I keep gravitating to 5/3/1 SST and damn if that doesn’t seem to hit everything I’m after. So I have to be honest with myself: as much as I enjoy and appreciate Paul’s work, I think there’s a strong part of me that wants to go back to 5/3/1 because it’s dead simple and ought to give me what I need.

Plus, I think pushing those PR sets will actually be very good for me. I think I need that sort of constant thing to push me further, push me harder. And no question, that sort of “daily feedback” would be useful.

So yeah, I think it’s going to happen. If I’m smart, I’ll finish out this GMM cycle (at least 4 weeks of it). If I’m really smart I’ll do at least 8 weeks, then something like a Strong-15 short cycle. But I also know that sometimes prolonging the inevitable isn’t a wise expenditure of time, energy, and limited resources — so I may just dive in (sooner rather than later, in fact).

Oh… and split squats continue to be…. uh…. looking for a positive word here. Intense. 🙂

Today’s music: Hatebreed. Their new one, “The Concrete Confessional”, plus some other songs of theirs (because their albums are short).

Based on Paul Carter’s “Guaranteed Muscle Mass” article.

• Squat
  • BW x 10
  • bar x 5
  • 135 x 5
  • 175 x 4
  • 215 x 3
  • 245 x 2
  • 265 x 1
  • 215 x 13 (AMRAP)
  • 215 x 7 (50%)
• Stiff-Legged Deadlift
  • 135 x 5
  • 185 x 4
  • 225 x 3
  • 275 x 2
  • 325 x 1
  • 245 x 12 (AMRAP)
• Split Squats
  • BW x 12
  • BW x 12
  • BW x 12
  • BW x 12
  • BW x 12

Nothing like matching your lifetime PR on a lift you haven’t done in a year.

I haven’t done the Press (overhead press, standing press, military press — whatever you want to call it; I’m using Mark Rippetoe’s definition of “Press”) in about a year. I’ve pressed overhead in other forms here and there, but there’s something cool and different about Pressing.

I have no idea where I am with it, so my thought was to just go in and work up to a true max and find out. I knew my all time best was 165, so with that in mind and a desire to still do the 5/4/3/2/1 work-up-rep-scheme I figured start with the empty bar, then 20# jumps followed by singles should be just fine for spacing. Two minutes rest between sets, and let’s just see where it goes.

When 125 went up easily I knew I’d do more. 145 was a little shakey — mostly I could feel that my form was really rusty, but strength was fine. I started to think I should just do 155 but nah — what have I got to lose? I felt the strength margin was still there, just rusty form. Sure enough, the 165 went up mostly fine: again, I my form wavered because I’m rusty, but it was mostly a matter of groove and balance. I did remember the most important thing was to be tight from head to toe. Truly everything. The quads are locked, my butt is clenched hard, I’m squeezing the hell out of the bar (trying to make the bar ooze out from between my fingers), and just tight tight tight. Then explode the weight up. And sure enough it was ok. Again, I have that groove issue with my breathing and Valsalva on the Press, and that came out hard on the 165 — thus I wavered a bit. But it never went down, kept pressing, and boom.

So, it’s cool to tie your lifetime PR on a lift you haven’t done in ages. I looked back at my records and I set that PR back in 2013!! Anything since has been somewhat of decline, due to the Defattening. It’s been really interesting to observe how throughout Defattening my leg strength has vanished but my upper-body strength has increased slightly. Not sure what to make of that, but here we are.

Anyways, that went well. Very happy there.

Dips were dips. I keep reminding myself how not too long ago I couldn’t do 1, but here I am cranking out 25 reps. I did note some work in my chest but not much pump — but I got a lot of pump in my triceps. Something to file away.

I was supposed to do chin-ups (supinated grip), but that’s just a lot of torque on my joints. I’ve been wanting to go back to the close, neutral-grip “v-bar” pullups for a while, so sure why not. I did them from a dead hang and man, that was enlightening. There’s a lot more mid-back work here because there’s a lot more scapular retraction than during say normal pull-/chin-ups (or pulldowns). I didn’t get as many reps, so I did more sets (still 350-Method style); still not 350-rep ranges, but it was good work for what I can do.

DB Rows continue to manifest to me that while I may not care for DB work as much as BB work, DB’s put me through a range of motion and give my muscles work I can’t get any other way. It is good work for me.

But this also makes me feel like this GMM program doesn’t quite give me the volume I need — but I have to temper that. Yes, per session it’s not a lot of work, but over the weeks how does it add up? We’ll see.

Finally, instead of plain DB curls I did them as hammer curls, across the body, alternating. It’s something I got from Joh Meadows — across the body, does it do anything? It did feel a little less stressful on my joints, and I did find I got a good brachialis pump. I think I could get more out of this if 1. I picked a heavier weight (called it bad), 2. gave a really good squeeze at the top.

Anyways, all in all a fine day. Really happy about the Press.

Based on Paul Carter’s “Guaranteed Muscle Mass” article.

• Overhead Press
  • bar x 5
  • 65 x 5
  • 85 x 4
  • 105 x 3
  • 125 x 2
  • 145 x 1
  • 165 x 1
  • 125 x 8 (AMRAP)
  • 125 x 4 (50%)
• Dips (350 Method)
  • BW x 15
  • BW x 11
  • BW x 9
• V-Bar Pull-Ups
  • BW x 5
  • BW x 5
  • BW x 3
  • BW x 3
  • BW x 3
  • BW x 3
• DB Rows (350 Method)
  • 55 x 22
  • 55 x 15
  • 55 x 11
• Alternating, cross-body Hammer Curls (350 Method)
  • 15e x 40
  • 15e x 20
  • 15e x 20

Yeah, this is seeming about right.

Still sore today from Monday’s killer leg session, but workable. In fact, felt better to move around under some load. So yeah, hopefully this every 4-5 days spead of an A/B 3x/week rotation will be just right. Especially when you consider the intensity and perceived intensities are up there due to things like 350-Method.

Today was a little weird tho.

Something happened during front squats — I can’t say what, but it made things unstable for me. Sometimes this happens — something with the belt, how it causes some nerve down the back of my legs to be unhappy, and so when I get down in the hole things aren’t happy. It’s part of why I can’t do things like lay on my back and “flutter kick”. Ah well. All in all it was ok, just a little odd.

That said, I continue to work on my front squat form, keeping chest high, dropping straight down, etc..

The AMRAP set didn’t go as long as I wanted too, as it was my upper body that peeded out before my legs did. Still, that’s kinda the beauty of AMRAP+50%, because it’s 2 sets to push yourself. I did feel better on this than before, so things are improving, but still some ways to go.

Leg presses peeded out sooner than expected. I realized why: that first set went really slow because things are still a little tight and sore (esp. adductors). So with the eccentric going so slow that was a lot more TUT and boom — less reps. But it got me thinking that I may want to go that route — not some sort of 4-0-1-0 type of tempo or anything, but just putting a little more into the eccentric on the leg presses to mimic my squat tempo a little more.

And finally lunges. I’m going to try to change my mentality towards things like lunges, split squats, etc.. I keep saying how much I “hate” them. Well, I really do not like them, but I know they are beneficial for me in many ways, which is why I keep doing them. I’m just going to focus on the benefits and work to get away from the negative mentality. It’s a small thing, but it matters.

Oh… and while I’m enjoying the massing diet, I’m getting a little more bloated than I care for. Gotta watch that.

Music: Clutch – “Psychic Warfare”, “Earth Rocker”, and a few other random songs to finish me out.

Based on Paul Carter’s Guaranteed Muscle Mass” article.

• Front Squat
  • bar x 5
  • bar x 5
  • 115 x 5
  • 135 x 4
  • 165 x 3
  • 195 x 2
  • 225 x 1
  • 165 x 10 (AMRAP)
  • 165 X 7 (50%)
• Leg Press (350-method)
  • 225 x 17
  • 225 x 17
  • 225 x 14
• Lunge
  • BW X 10e
  • BW X 10e
  • BW X 10e
  • BW X 10e
  • BW X 10e

I’m so damn sore. Split squats, I hate you. 🙂

Frankly tho, that I’m still so sore I think is a fair sign that it was a good change, disrupting, and should lead to some growth. What will be more interesting will be to see how sore I feel tomorrow then Friday. Why? Matter of recovery: tomorrow would be indicative of 4x/week and Friday 3x/week sessions. If I’m not recovered well enough by tomorrow, then yeah — I think 3x/week works out better for me. I’m pretty convinced that’s my better modality, so we’ll see.

I also am liking 3x/week because that’s more days to sleep in. I’m a little mixed on it tho, because again it was pretty evident how my conditioning has gone to crap. Even just 30-60 minutes of slow steady cardio helps with conditioning, and part of me wants to do it to get that back. But sweet sweet sleep….

Anyways, as for today, it went pretty well. I did overestimate the weights for my 350-sets, so I would drop the weight as I went along to ensure I got enough reps in. But overall things went well. I have to remember that while it’s not a lot of sets on paper, those 350-sets are 3 high-rep sets to failure, which is a lot of work that will add up. No question that while I didn’t feel that “worked” by the end, I certainly was worked enough.

So anyways, jury’s still out, but so far I’m enjoying.

Bench press – I was surprised to get 15 reps with 185; could have gotten 1-2 more. On paper that says I have a 1RM around 275, but I don’t believe that — maybe the muscle is there, but I don’t have the movement patterns down to recruit everything for a 1RM like that. Still, I find it interesting how my bench keeps going up, even if slowly; whereas I keep struggling to get my squat back up. It makes me wonder if maybe I do this for a bit, a brief strength cycle, then maybe instead of doing any sort of specific programming I spend a few weeks just squatting a lot, not so much to work things but more to explore and experiment and see where and what I can discover — a few weeks of investment and “study” to see what sort of longer term gains I can get.

Based on Paul Carter’s “Guaranteed Muscle Mass” article.

• Bench Press
  • bar x 10
  • 135 x 5
  • 155 x 4
  • 185 x 3
  • 205 x 2
  • 225 x 1
  • 185 x 15 (AMRAP)
  • 185 x 7 (50%)
• Incline Press (350 Method)
  • 115 x 15
  • 95 x 13
  • 95 x 10
• BB Row
  • 155 x 8
  • 155 x 8
  • 115 x 12
  • 115 x 11
• Narrow, neutral-grip Pulldown (350 Method)
  • 100 x 15
  • 90 x 12
  • 80 x 15
• BB Curl (350 Method)
  • 40 x 22
  • 40 x 15
  • 40 x 12

Man, it felt good to be back in the gym after about 2 weeks of essentially no gym.

I had a week being down with strep throat (or something like that), then I was out of town on business. Between the two I was just run down, tired, and in no real shape or mood to work out. Sure I tried a little bit, but rest and recovery was more important. And that I think is a theme as I go forward.

Right up until last night I was undecided as to where to go next. I have a basic idea of course. I want to run a little more hypertrophy for a while. Yeah, I have my strength goals, but I’ve honestly shifted a bit towards wanting to build some muscle. First, more muscle will be good for more strength. Second, after all I’ve lost over the past almost-2-years of loss-dieting, I’d like to rebuild some stuff. Because honestly, I’m enjoying the way things look in the mirror and I’d like to build on that a little bit. Third, the more I read, the more it seems right to cycle things — if you focus mainly on strength, do a hypertrophy cycle every so often; if you focus mainly on hypertrophy, do a strength cycle every so often. It breaks adaptation cycles, solidifies gains, and allows longer-term progress. So it’s been my goal to do one more hypertrophy cycle, then do a short strength cycle, then see from there.

Question was: what to do for hypertrophy for the next 6-8 weeks? I had thought about just another 4x/week bodypart split hitting each major group 1x week. That certainly works OK for me, especially with the setup I’ve been running. But there’s more than enough out there, both literature and my own experience, that tells me hitting a part more often than once every 7 days should actually be better for me. Granted, if I hit it hard enough to require 7 days for recovery, that works out — and I tend to like how those sessions go. When I hit things more often, the sessions need to be lesser so that the cumulative work is what I need, but then each session is a little less than I want. That’s a little hard for me to pull back to do, but if it amounts to better results in the end…

I’ve long been thinking about it, a sort of A/B upper/lower split type of thing. But I wasn’t sure how I wanted to do it. Biggest thing was days. I’ve been on 4x/week because of The Defattening, and while I enjoy the groove of 4x and find that can work alright when I do something like a bodypart split because let’s face it: having an arm day is basically a rest day (compared to say a leg/squat day). But trying to squat 2x/week, heavy work like this 4x/week ultimately kicks my ass. Can I do it? Sure I could — but recovery needs to take a higher priority, and that’s many times difficult for me because of life. I have found that 3x/week works alright for me, and with a upper/lower type of split that’s about 4-5 days between sessions — which may be about right.

So for the past week I was thinking about hitting Paul Carter’s “Inception” again because that seemed right up the alley. But I admit I wasn’t sure how well the 4x/week would do for me. So last night I opted to flip back to Paul’s Guaranteed Muscle Mass program. This is that A/B 1/2 split, it works 3x/week so it takes 4 weeks to fully “cycle” through it. I’ve done it before, about a year ago, but because I was Defattening I ran it 4x/week — and it kicked my ass. But I think about the circumstnaces: 4x/week (program is written for 3x/week), I was defattening so I was low on fuel (and now I’m not), and I’ve got some other things going on right now that well…. I suspect this might work out for me.

So, giving it a shot. I’ll run it for 8 weeks and see how it goes. Yeah, I hate it to some extent — shit like split squats I just hate, but they are good for me and really kick my ass so… here I am.

SO! How about today?

I only had a rough idea of where weights and reps would be for today, so I just picked some things, did what I could, and I’ll adjust for next time.

It felt good to (back) squat again, tho for sure this is the biggest place I need to bring my strength up. I miss squatting in the 300’s and I really want to get back there.

Stiffs went fine, and I think it’ll be good for me — letting my back bend over, get rounded, I think my lower back needs that sort of thing right now. It’s hard to explain, but these days I find myself just bending over and letting my lower back “expand and relax” like that and it feels good. A little too heavy on the AMRAP set, so I’ll adjust for that, but otherwise I was fine.

And split squats. How I hate you. These kick my ass so hard, but they are so good for me. My knees appreciate it and are better for it.

Another note: it’s amazing how quickly you lose conditioning. All these AMRAP sets, 1-minute rest between all sets, man… I was huffing and puffing. If anything, that’s why I gave out “so soon” on my AMRAP sets — conditioning stopped me before anything else. That will come back in time. Just keep working and pushing.

Based on Paul Carter’s “Guaranteed Muscle Mass” article.

• Squat
  • BW x 10
  • bar x 5
  • 135 x 5
  • 175 x 4
  • 215 x 3
  • 245 x 2
  • 265 x 1
  • 215 x 12 (AMRAP)
  • 215 x 6 (50%)
• Stiff-Legged Deadlift
  • 135 x 5
  • 185 x 4
  • 225 x 3
  • 275 x 2
  • 325 x 1
  • 275 x 6 (AMRAP)
• Split Squats
  • BW x 10 (each leg)
  • BW x 10
  • BW x 10
  • BW x 10
  • BW x 10

Another “gotta make do with what you have” day.

Just have a bench and a rack of DB’s up to 40 lb. so you do what you can. It was supposed to be a no-deload-deload week, but what with being down with strep throat last week (hooray for antibiotics!) I figure I ought to do something this week. So nothing intensive, but aiming to get some work in.

Started with good old “pre-exhaust” because 40 lb’s of DB isn’t enough for pressing. But then to help that, I did incline pressing instead of flat. Again, nothing major, just get a little work. Some lat raises, some extensions, and good enough done. LOTS of focus on the eccentric in everything I did today. I did walk out with a nice pump, felt ok, good enough for circumstance.

In other news… I was listening to the JuggLife Podcast with Chad Wesley Smith, Max Aita, and Dr. Mike Israetel. It got me thinking again about where to go next. It’s about frequency. I know that 1x/week is not enough for me, but 2x can be a little much. BUT that’s also older me — I’ve got some things going on now that may help me out and may make 2x work a little better. I’ve been thinking about one more hypertrophy cycle then a strength cycle, and well… putting it all together and I’m wondering about trying Paul Carter’s Inception again. That would be perfect in terms of another hypertrophy then a strength cycle. Yeah, there’s no deadlifting but that’s OK. The frequency is a little much for me — I know from past experience that a sort of A1/B1 A2/B2 type of split 3x week (so spread over about 9-10 days) tends to work well for me. But again, some things are different now and I guess I’m curious if I might be able to pull it off.

Going to think about it this week because come next Monday, whatever it is I’m going to do has to start. 🙂

• DB Flies
  • 12e x 15
  • 20e x 15
  • 25e x 15
  • 25e x 15
  • 25e x 15
• Incline DB Press
  • 40e x 12
  • 40e x 12
  • 40e x 12
  • 40e x 12
  • 40e x 12
• DB Lat Raises
  • 20e x 12
  • 20e x 10
  • 20e x 9
• Overhead Triceps Extensions
  • 40 x 15
  • 40 x 12
  • 40 x 10