Based upon Paul Carter’s LRB-365 and Base Building

BB Rows

• 140 x 8
• 140 x 8
• 140 x 8
• 140 x 8
• 140 x 7

Seated Cable Rows

• 90 x 15
• 90 x 15
• 90 x 15

Shrugs

• 140 x 15
• 140 x 15
• 140 x 15
• 140 x 15

Wide, Neutral-grip Pulldowns

• 90 x 15
• 90 x 15
• 90 x 15
• 90 x 15
• 90 x 15

BB Curls

• 40 x 12
• 40 x 12
• 40 x 12
• then drop set to 30, then 20, amarp

Solid day. I continue to work on having slower, more controlled movements, especially the negative.

Big experiment was dropping my shrug weight down (just used the same weight as the rows, so I didn’t have to futz with the bar). Shrug up, then really slow down. Yeah, that was pretty killer.

I can tell this is about the best my back has responded to work. Heavy-ish weights, higher reps (8-15), slower movement especially on the negative. Yeah, this works.

Based upon Paul Carter’s LRB-365 and Base Building

• Squat
  • BW x 10
  • BW x 10
  • bar x 5
  • bar x 5
  • 145 x 5
  • 175 x 4
  • 205 x 3
  • 235 x 2
  • 265 x 1
  • 185 x 13
  • 185 x 6
• Stiff Leg Deadlift
  • 195 x 8
  • 195 x 8
  • 195 x 8
• Leg Press
  • 160 x 15
  • 160 x 15
  • 160 x 15
  • 160 x 15
• Lunge
  • BW x 10e (5, switch, 5, switch, etc.)
  • BW x 10e (5, switch, 5, switch, etc.)
• Standing Calf Raises
  • 35 x 15
  • 35 x 15
  • 35 x 15

Happy with today. Weights and reps are going up. My work-capacity seems to be improving too. All this leg work at higher reps (with heavy weight, relatively speaking) is really killing me. Plus, I only take about 1 minute of rest between sets, so I never fully recover. It all adds up. But every week I get a little better, so it’s all good.

Just going to keep going, slow but sure. I’ll get back to where I was eventually.

Not one of my best days

Based upon Paul Carter’s LRB-365 and Base Building

• Incline Press
  • 45 x 5
  • 45 x 5
  • 110 x 5
  • 130 x 4
  • 150 x 3
  • 180 x 2
  • 200 x 1
  • 155 x 12
  • 155 x 5
• DB Bench Press
  • 55e x 10
  • 55e x 10
  • 55e x 10
  • 55e x 10
  • 55e x 10
• Behind the Neck Press
  • 90 x 8
  • 90 x 8
  • 90 x 6
• BB Upright Row
  • 50 x 15
  • 50 x 15
  • 50 x 15
  • 50 x 15
  • 50 x 15
• Tricep Punchdowns
  • 70 x 40 (each arm)

Just not feeling it today. Been mighty tired as of late. In part because of simple lack of enough sleep, but then also a lot of overwork. It’s my own fault, and I just have to resolve to get to bed earlier and ensure a better night’s sleep each night.

So I wasn’t feeling it when I started, as witnessed by fewer reps on the AMAP+50% set vs last week. But again, so interesting how an extra grinding rep or 2 there affects the entire rest of the session. I cranked out the DB presses great, and the BNP was even better — I found myself hitting a good groove and going all the way down, touching the bar to the base of my neck (often it doesn’t get down the far). So things got better as I went along, but still, today just didn’t feel hot.

Ah well, these days happen. At least I still got in there and worked.

My back seems to respond to slower work.

Based upon Paul Carter’s LRB-365 and Base Building

BB Rows

• 135 x 8
• 135 x 8
• 135 x 8
• 135 x 8
• 135 x 8

Seated Cable Rows

• 90 x 15
• 90 x 15
• 90 x 13

Shrugs

• 185 x 20
• 185 x 20
• 185 x 17
• 185 x 15
• 185 x 15

Wide, Neutral-grip Pulldowns

• 90 x 15
• 90 x 15
• 90 x 15
• 90 x 13
• 90 x 12

BB Curls

• 40 x 12
• 40 x 12

20 minutes elliptical

While on paper it doesn’t look like much progress, it is.

I am working to be a bit more bodybuilder-like in what I do, at least for any exercise that isn’t a power/strength movement (e.g. the 5,4,3,2,1 sets of bench/squat). I’m trying to not just move weight through space, but feel the muscle working and have the muscle really do the work. Trying to have a slower pace, not any sort of 2-0-4-0 type of tempo, but again to move slow enough and have enough of a little pause or hold or whatever to avoid momentum such that if I suddenly had to change direction I could without overshooting. That does put more emphasis on the negative (eccentric) part of the movement.

And boy, what a difference it’s making.

It’s rare that I feel my back work. I get a nice forearm and biceps pump, and something to my back, but rarely does my back (esp. the lats and traps and such) feel like they’ve been worked in any way. Sometimes I get it, but not often. Today? Really got it. I tried to make every movement something I can feel and really control. Now, shrugs, I think I’ll drop the weight on those and make them slower because I know those aren’t being done that way (I do it like Marc Rippetoe describes, which is basically like trying to clean up a barbell that’s too heavy). Or maybe I won’t and just see how many reps I can still muster and adjust from there.

Also, I’m trying to ensure I move from the elbow. I don’t want this to be a big biceps workout. Have all the movement come from the elbow, and really focus on the back muscles. I don’t get that so much with those wide-neutral-grip lat pulldowns… so I may try playing with the grip more. But all in all, yeah….

So on paper, it doesn’t look like much, but it’s progress. Just gotta keep at it. Probably need at least 3 months of this before I can really pass judgement.

ooopf.

Based upon Paul Carter’s LRB-365 and Base Building

• Squat
  • BW x 10
  • BW x 10
  • bar x 5
  • bar x 5
  • 135 x 5
  • 165 x 4
  • 195 x 3
  • 225 x 2
  • 255 x 1
  • 185 x 12
  • 185 x 5
• Stiff Leg Deadlift
  • 195 x 8
  • 195 x 8
  • 195 x 6
• Leg Press
  • 135 x 20
  • 135 x 20
  • 135 x 20
  • 135 x 20
• Standing Calf Raises
  • 35 x 15
  • 35 x 15
  • 35 x 15
  • 35 x 12
• 20 minutes elliptical
• Foam Rolling

Happy to continue working my weights back up on squats. Everything is slowly going up. One thing I’m happier about is building up my work capacity. You spend all this time working at low reps, so things like 20 reps just kill you. It’s a slow process, slower than I’d like, but I see the progress from week to week so I just keep going.

Ankle continues to feel better, especially evident when I do the calf raises.

Today was….

Based upon Paul Carter’s LRB-365 and Base Building

• Incline Press
  • 45 x 5
  • 45 x 5
  • 110 x 5
  • 130 x 4
  • 150 x 3
  • 180 x 2
  • 200 x 1
  • 155 x 14
  • 155 x 5
• DB Bench Press
  • 55e x 10
  • 55e x 10
  • 55e x 8
  • 55e x 8
  • 55e x 8
• Behind the Neck Press
  • 90 x 8
  • 90 x 6
  • 90 x 6
• BB Upright Row (wide grip)
  • 50 x 15
  • 50 x 15
  • 50 x 15
  • 50 x 15
  • 50 x 13
• Tricep Punchdowns
  • 70 x 40 (each arm)

Today was… what it was.

The lifting actually went OK, but my brain was NOT there. Had a very long day at KR Training on Saturday, and Sunday was a weird thing trying to sleep/rest but my brain didn’t want to so tho I dozed I never got solid rest. So walking into the gym this morning was very much an “I don’t wanna!” moment. I even thought about making it a “jack shit” day after inclines, but just kept going. I felt good, had a good session. But damn I’m still tired. Must work to remedy that over the course of the week.

I am always amazed at how one more rep can affect the rest of the session. I did 155 for 12 last week, and got 14 this week. But the 14th did involve lifting my butt off the bench (didn’t plan that, but it wasn’t going back into the rack without it, given I have no spotter). But that grinding took a bunch out of me. Always find that interesting.

Tried upright rows with a wider grip, sort of thing where when my upper arms are parallel to the ground, my lower arms are 90º angle. I did have to have a very slight forward lean to make my shoulder happy, but it worked alright as long as I kept that groove. It felt like there was more muscle involved and I got more out of it than narrower grips (relative to this grip). I’ll probably go with it for a while.

Just was what it was… need sleep otherwise. 🙂

Oh yeah… negatives!

Based upon Paul Carter’s LRB-365 and Base Building

BB Rows

• 135 x 8
• 135 x 8
• 135 x 8
• 135 x 8
• 135 x 7

Seated Cable Rows

• 90 x 15
• 90 x 12
• 90 x 12

Shrugs

• 185 x 20
• 185 x 15
• 185 x 15
• 185 x 15
• 185 x 15

Wide, Neutral-grip Pulldowns

• 85 x 15
• 85 x 15
• 85 x 15
• 90 x 15
• 90 x 15

Incline DB Curls

• 20 x 10
• 25 x 8
• 25 x 6

BB Curls

• 20 x 50

I forgot… more stress on the negative. I just kept zooming along, “gee this feels light”, oh yeah — negative! I remembered that on my 3rd set of pulldowns. Makes a huge difference.

I think it was in something Paul Carter wrote, but the speed isn’t like a 4 count or something. It’s a speed at which I could easily and immediately (without overtravel) change direction if I had to. That works better for me in terms of finding the right pace, than trying to count to some arbitrary number. I did discover that having a hold would be good too, like pull down, hold a moment… not so much for the hold, but to eliminate the momentum. I’ll keep working on it, because I’m just not used to working this way.

Not much else to report. Was an 80% day, so I’ll take it.

Based upon Paul Carter’s LRB-365 and Base Building

• Squat
  • BW x 10
  • BW x 10
  • bar x 5
  • bar x 5
  • 125 x 5
  • 155 x 4
  • 185 x 3
  • 215 x 2
  • 245 x 1
  • 185 x 10
  • 185 x 5
• Stiff Leg Deadlift
  • 185 x 8
  • 185 x 8
  • 185 x 8
• Leg Press
  • 135 x 15
  • 135 x 15
  • 135 x 15
  • 135 x 15
• Lunge
  • BW x 10e
  • BW x 10e
  • BW x 5e
• Standing Calf Raises
  • 30 x 15
  • 30 x 15
  • 30 x 15
• 10 minutes elliptical

This was pretty good. I’m happy to be working my way back up with squats. Geez… I never thought I’d use the words “happy” and “squats” in the same sentence. 🙂

I realized I haven’t used a belt in a long time… few months? I’m OK with that. Once I get to a point where things are a struggle beltless, I’ll add the belt and keep going up.

The 245 went up pretty easily, so I’m going to continue upping the work-up weights by another 10#. Just going to keep doing that until I find my level. The 50% weight I upped by 10# as an audible (planned on 175) and happy I did. I think I’ll stay here for a little while tho, given I only got 10 reps.

Everything else went alright for the most part. I did stop lunges early because my legs were so exhausted by that point, I found myself wobbling too much and my ankle isn’t worth the risk.

One thing I thought about tho…..

Frequency.

When I was doing 5/3/1, I found that 4x week (typical 5/3/1 program) was too much. I tried a spell doing 2x week, and that was too little. That whole adaptation/supercompensation curve thing that Rippetoe talks a lot about in his books, in terms of trying to time recovery and when to work again. But it’s not even so much about number of times per week, but how often you hit whatever you’re working. On 3x/week 5/3/1 I was actually hitting upper body about every 5 days, and lower body about every 5 days. On this LRB setup, I’m hitting things about every 7. Granted, I’m hitting upper body every 4 days, but it’s a different setup (pull vs. push; whereas 5/3/1 was always push as a main, and pull assistance). Lower body is once every 7 days.

Is this enough for me?

I don’t know.

It’s too early to tell because I’m still working up from the injury — the weights I’m using aren’t fully pushing me yet. Plus I figure I can’t really get a handle on things until I’ve been with it for at least 3-6 months. I mean, sometimes you can tell much faster, but so far with this I can’t know for sure yet. And in some respects, I think that’s a good sign. I do like what I’m doing, it’s a good change, a different challenge — I mean, only 1 minute of rest between sets is kicking my ass. 🙂

But it’s something I think about as an interesting variable.

It was a good day.

Based upon Paul Carter’s LRB-365 and Base Building

• Incline Press
  • 45 x 5
  • 45 x 5
  • 110 x 5
  • 130 x 4
  • 150 x 3
  • 180 x 2
  • 200 x 1
  • 155 x 12
  • 155 x 6
• DB Bench Press
  • 55e x 10
  • 55e x 10
  • 55e x 8
  • 55e x 8
  • 55e x 8
• Behind the Neck Press
  • 90 x 8
  • 90 x 8
  • 90 x 7
• BB Upright Row
  • 60 x 12
  • 60 x 12
  • 60 x 12
  • 60 x 12
  • 60 x 10
• Tricep Punchdowns
  • 70 x 40 (each arm)
• 20 minutes elliptical

Today felt very good. Went up in weight on everything, reps were solid. Felt good.

I thought that I should continue upping my incline weight by another 5# next week, but decided against it. That 1 rep shouldn’t be a 1RM, it should be a good working max, so even if I have a crappy day I can still hit it. I know I could go up, but…. not worth it right now. Focus on getting the 50% sets to break rep records there, and also across the board because I went up in weight on just about everything and reps were almost there across the sets. So… I think I’m settling into the groove of Paul’s program now. Rep records.

That went better than expected.

Based upon Paul Carter’s LRB-365 and Base Building

• BB Rows
  • 135 x 8
  • 135 x 8
  • 135 x 8
  • 135 x 8
  • 135 x 7
• Seated Cable Rows
  • 90 x 15
  • 90 x 15
  • 90 x 12
• Shrugs
  • 185 x 15
  • 185 x 15
  • 185 x 15
  • 185 x 15
  • 185 x 12
• Wide Neutral-grip Pulldowns
  • 70 x 15
  • 80 x 15
  • 90 x 15
  • 100 x 15
  • 90 x 15
• Incline DB Curls
  • 20e x 10
• BB Curls
  • 20 x 50
• 15 minutes elliptical

My shoulder still isn’t 100%, but it’s better every day. So today was a bit cautious, wanting to feel things out.

The big change I made? Going slower. I spent more time on the eccentric motion. Not necessarily going slower, like 2-0-4-0 count or anything. But more like normally my eccentric motion is merely something you have to do because that’s how our skeletal and muscular structures work, and so I have to do it in order to get back to the concentric motion again. Well, today I put more “meaning” into things. I’ve dabbled in this, but because I’ve been more concerned with strength and powerlifting style stuff (i.e. we don’t care how much weight you lower, it’s how much weight you lift… it’s “lifting” not “lowering”) well, that’s how it’s been. But I have been thinking that due to injuries, aging, and wanting to continue doing this for a long time that I may have to change up and adopt differnet protocols… including a more bodybuilder like style with moderately heavy weights, higher reps, more tricks for intensity (e.g. rest-pause, cluster sets, supersets, etc.). Ways to build without beating myself up so much.

So anyways, much of today actually wasn’t done towards this, but more because I wanted to be as gentle as possible to my shoulder. The above was a side-effect. But who knows… I’ve been giving it more and more thought. We’ll see. In part, its why I’m kinda like Paul Carter’s stuff, because I feel like that can still work to maintain some level of strength, but I can focus more on building.

As for how things went…

Of course, no chin-/pull-ups. 🙂

Rows went fine… dropped weight a hair and worked to be a bit slower, as I noted above.

But this felt like not enough work, so I added some seated cable rows for higher reps. I figured it would be a little less on the shoulder, but give me a good stretch and range of motion. It paid off. Felt good on my shoulder — kinda like the pulling at the bottom of the motion helping to move things into place a bit. Was more a good hurt than a bad hurt.

I also opted for different pulldowns. Instead of using a supine or pronated grip, I thought to try a neutral grip. I used that one wide bar with the neutral handles, and it was… different, but alright. No idea how much weight to use, went really light, worked up a bit. The range of motion isn’t as much because the shoulder blades come together (bar doesn’t get much lower than my nose/mouth, instead of touching my chest), but that’s alright. Again, really worked on being slower, more controlled.

We’ll see where this leads me. I actually might spend another week at this, then adjust things a bit because I feel like I’m “off injury” and can try normal things again. So, I should probably flip through Paul’s books again.