Ooof.

Wendler 5/3/1 program, cycle 24, week 1

• Work Set – Deadlift (working max: 390#)
  • 45 x 5 x 2 sets (warmup)
  • 160 x 5
  • 195 x 5
  • 235 x 3
  • 255 x 5 (work)
  • 295 x 5
  • 335 x 6
• Assistance – Deficit Deadlift (1.5″ deficit)
  • 205 x 5 x 2 sets
  • 205 x 3 x 3 sets
• Assistance – Crunches
  • BW x 15 x 3 sets
• Foam Rolling

Today was killer. Again, really focusing on keeping my spine “straight” and unmoved as the bar breaks off the ground, drive with my heels. That’s certainly my weak point (not lock-out, by far). And it just took a lot out of me today. My lower back was feeling it pretty hard. As I was doing my deficits, 3rd set? body just said “that’s it”… no way was I going to get that 4th rep without totally breaking down in form. Ah well, I just ensured I did a few more sets to make up for it. But man, that took a lot out of me. I really wanted to do some farmer’s walks, but my lower back and posterior just said “no… you’ve worked me enough”. Better to do a little less and recover well, eh?

I will say, I feel so wussy because it feels like I’m lifting light weights for few reps… I’m coming up off a reset (cycle 21 was the start of a reset… cycle 20 had a working max of 395, and cycle 21 reset to 360). So this cycle somewhat is back on track (working max of 390). I felt off, but looking back at my under pre-reset? I’m doing about the same in terms of weight and reps. So… I’ll actually take this as getting stronger because I KNOW my form is better now than it was then.

I even thought this morning about how PR’s are still cool, but I don’t mind not hitting them every 3-4 weeks. If it’s every 2-cycles… if it’s every 10 weeks, whatever.. I’m actually growing cool with that because I’m feeling a lot more like long-term progress is where I’m at now. It’s of course nice to hit PR’s and see daily and weekly progress, but it doesn’t have to be PR’s as much now as it used to have to be. I can see longer, I can get more satisfaction out of seeing like now… that my numbers aren’t much different on paper, but I know my form is much better so that’s progress, y’know?

Killer

Wendler 5/3/1 program, cycle 24, week 1

• Work Set – Bench Press (working max: 225#)
  • 45 x 5 x 2 sets (warmup)
  • 95 x 5
  • 115 x 5
  • 135 x 3
  • 150 x 5 (work)
  • 170 x 5
  • 195 x 8
• Assistance – Barbell Incline Press
  • 135 x 10/9/7/6/6
• Assistance – Pull-ups (superset between each pressing set)
  • BW (band-assisted) x 5/5/5/5/5/5/5/4/4/4/3
• Assistance – DB Rows
  • 55 x 10 x 2 sets
  • 55 x 15

I like how today went.

Benching was good. In talking with allthewaydoc, I mentioned how I was going to try something with my foot positioning to help me anchor down. In short, curl my toes up. It’s something I took from deadlifting as a way to get the weight off the balls of your feet and onto the middle of the foot and/or heel. If this bench position is to be about pressing the heels in to get the leg drive, why not try it.

I need to do it a few more times, but so far it seems promising. I found myself getting more leg drive and feeling more stable. I felt like I was actually able to push in the right direction.. .that is, like trying to scoot my head off the end of the bench, instead of driving my hips into the air. I still need a good arch to get things locked and positioned right, which then also is needing me to find a better starting point for my feet so they’re in a good position to push. I’ll have to work to find the groove, but so far this is promising.

The weight felt light. Cranking out 8 reps with 195 wasn’t too bad at all. I hope this means I’m going to break some PR’s here soon and be back on track with my benching.

I am liking incline barbell presses more. It puts me in a different path, and a different range of motion. I feel a lot of work in my chest and triceps — my arms were like jelly towards the end of the session. I think the heavier work is good too

Pullups… went to 5 reps. It kicked my butt and was a contributing factor towards the jelly-arms. I made a decision that once I hit 5 reps across for the 11 sets, I’m going to reduce the band-assistance. The strap contraption thingy uses 3 tubes right now. I’ll try dropping it down to only 2 tubes and see how things go.

I also muffed up… should have done 60# on the rows instead of 55, but gee… that was fine with the jelly arms.

Another mess up was not benching in the squat “rack”. I need to find my place there so when I try to 1RM with Joker Sets at the end of this cycle, I can have some sort of failsafe.

Dang… 2 dozen cycles?

Wendler 5/3/1 program, cycle 24, week 1

• Work Set – Squat (working max: 300#)
  • 45 x 5 x 2 sets (warmup)
  • 120 x 5
  • 150 x 5
  • 180 x 3
  • 195 x 5 (work)
  • 230 x 5
  • 260 x 5
• Assistance – Front Squat
  • 105 x 8
  • 115 x 6
  • 125 x 5
  • 135 x 5
  • 95 x 6
• Assistance – Crunches
  • BW x 6/6/10 x 3 sets
• Farmer’s Walk
  • 60 per hand
  • 3 50 yard trips
  • 10 breath rest between trips
• Foam Rolling

This is part 2 of the “6 week” cycle, doing 2 cycles back to back with no deload in between. While every other lift goes up in weight, squats remain at the same weight and I’m going for reps. I just didn’t get the reps last cycle, so I think it behooves me to stay here and ensure I at least hit prescribed reps this go around.

Did it today. I can live with this. Would have liked more, but I wasn’t going to really push it — don’t miss reps. The 5th rep started to get a little sloppy, so stop there.

I really want to work my quads more… they feel like the weak point in all of this. So on front squats, I opted to pyramid up. I’m not sure if I’ll normally do this, but I felt I wasn’t using as much weight as I could, so let’s try climbing up and seeing. I don’t want it to be another low-rep session of 5’s, 3’s, and 1’s… I do want/need some volume here, like 6-10 reps. So who knows… maybe I’ll keep pyramiding up for a while so I can get more reps at weights that make it hard to get those reps (e.g. first set should be a weight that is hard to get for 10 reps). And note, it’s all done after the regular squats AND with a lot less rest between sets (about 90 seconds or so). So I’m sure it’ll still be less weight than I could do if I was really focused on heavy front squats, but point is… I can go heavier as is evident by what I did above. So we’ll see… maybe 5 sets, first two are lighter weights with more reps, then 2 sets at something heavier for about 5-6 reps, then last set drops down in weight to AMRAP. *shrug*

Screw myself in.

Wendler 5/3/1 program, cycle 23, week 3

• Work Set – Press (working max: 155#)
  • 45 x 5 x 2 sets (warmup)
  • 65 x 5
  • 80 x 5
  • 95 x 3
  • 120 x 5 (work)
  • 135 x 3
  • 150 x 3
• Assistance – Press
  • 95 x 10/10/10/8/9 x 5 sets
• Assistance – Seated Rows (superset with all pressing)
  • 80 x 10 (15 on last set) x 11 sets
• Assistance – Wide-grip lat pulldowns
  • 100 x 10 x 4 sets
• Foam Rolling

What was really solid about today was some technique insight.

First, I continue to find ways to cope with my “dizzy” when I press and Valsalva. Plus, I always fight between breathing at the top of the rep (so I can hold at the bottom and get a stretch reflex), or holding at the bottom. Well, what I’m finding is I need to fight myself less. Instead of trying to find a pattern that I want to do, let my body dictate the pattern necessary. Yes, I might lose out in some way, but ultimately it will be a gain. I mean, if breathing at the bottom is what I have to do, so be it; just means every rep is from a dead stop and while short-term it’s a hit, long term it should lead to awesome, right?

So now I get in position, hold onto the bar, pull my shoudlers back and into position… then just hold my breath and squeeze… let myself get that dizzy. Release, let it clear up, and yes… if I feel the need, do it again, or even a third time, until it just won’t happen. Do NOT rush it. Then get back under, tighten up, unrack and step back.

Here’s another thing I picked up today. I always try to get tight but don’t quite do it before that first rep (tho I always can pick it up on the second). I stumbled into something with my feet: screw them into the ground. So imagine the knife-edge of my foot is a blade and turn my toes outward as if I’m trying to screw my feet into the ground — have that sort of outward pressure, and coming from the ground, go up my leg all the way into my hip socket so even my butt gets tight. It’s a little awkward to hold this tightness all the way up, but probably because it’s novel. But when I held it, my whole lower body was just tight and anchored like never before. Maybe I should try this when I bench press….

But do that… get tight, never lose tightness in the upper body and lats… let myself release and take another breath, hold it… and NOW press up for the first rep. Yeah, a lot to get there, and it might tap some energy out of me that could make another rep. But screw it. I’m at a point where if I can’t hold things up, who cares. If I’m going to risk falling over, who cares. And there’s no way I’m going to lift heavier weights over my head unless I’m tight tight tight. So, there we go.

Then I found as I went through it, my body said fuck it, just come down to the bottom, pause and hold it there, keep as tight as you can (or more typically, tighten back up), breathe, and now press again. Yes, pause every time at the bottom and just deal with it. If that’s what my body says to do, so be it.

I got 4 reps out, even tho the last one was shakey. I mean, it was a solid rep, no push to get started or anything, but my body wobbled and shook to get it up there. I felt I could have done a 5th if I was more stable, but I wasn’t so rack.

I continue to enjoy supersetting all that back work in. It’s light, but I’m slowly working my way up to a point where it’s putting more work on me. Slow and steady, right?

Finished off with some more tricep pressdowns and bb curls, just for some pump because we all like pumped arms. 😉

Next week starts cycle 24… no deload. Doing the 2 cycles back to back thing. Same basic program template. Press and bench will go up 5#, deadlift will go up 10#, but squat remains and goes for depth and reps.

Oh, and this upcoming cycle could see a press PR. My best ever is 155 for 3, and I will beat that!

Wendler 5/3/1 program, cycle 23, week 3

• Work Set – Deadlift (working max: 380#)
  • 45 x 5 x 2 sets (warmup)
  • 155 x 5
  • 190 x 5
  • 230 x 3
  • 290 x 5 (work)
  • 325 x 3
  • 365 x 3
• Assistance – Stiff Legged Deadlift
  • 135 x 8 x 3 sets
  • 135 x 10 x 2 sets
• Assistance – Crunches
  • BW x 10/5/10 x 3 sets
• Foam Rolling

I found myself trying to up my mental game. That I put myself into that lift. Not the whole lift (e.g. string of 5 reps), but that for each actual lift I was there in that one. I wasn’t thinking “3 of 5” I was thinking “1”. Be right there in that precise moment. It was pretty good and I found myself with a greater awareness of what I was doing and how my body was moving. This was most evident on the last work set because I went for the 4th rep @ 365, got about an inch off the ground, then found myself breaking form and just set the bar back down.

I have done more weight for more reps, but again my (re)focus with deadlifting has been on improving my form. I know in the past that weight was being lifted with a lot worse form, trying to just muscle through the movement and get the weight off the floor and stand up. But now, it’s that leg-drive thing. Drive drive drive. So, I’m happier with this.

For some reason then I opted to not do deficit deadlifts but do stiff-legs instead. I picked a weight that was too low (witness the more reps on the later sets). I probably could have done 165 or 185, but I had no idea where to start. I did get some good stretching out of it. I think if I had a little more weight and kept the reps higher (e.g. up to 10) it would have worked things much better. Ah well.

That was different.

Wendler 5/3/1 program, cycle 23, week 3

• Work Set – Bench Press (working max: 220#)
  • 45 x 5 x 2 sets (warmup)
  • 95 x 5
  • 110 x 5
  • 135 x 3
  • 165 x 5 (work)
  • 190 x 3
  • 210 x 6
• Assistance – BB Incline Press
  • 135 x 10
  • 135 x 9
  • 135 x 7
  • 135 x 6
  • 135 x 6
• Assistance – Pull-ups (superset between each pressing set)
  • BW (band-assisted) x 4 x 11 sets
• Assistance – DB Rows
  • 55 x 10 x 2 sets
  • 55 x 15
• Foam Rolling

Pressing was generally fine. I realized my legs were wiggly and all over the place. I still find myself frustrated with the ability to plant my legs and get tight. If I push towards my head, my butt comes off the bench. If I work to keep my butt on the bench, there’s no tightness nor drive in my legs. I have found it helps to really get arched… to push myself with my legs, get into that hard arch, and that seems to help, but not enough. Ugh.

Oh well. I’ll keep at it.

Meantime, I called an audible and opted to do barbell inclines instead of dumbbell. Why? Just felt like it. I’ll say, it’s the first time I’ve done BB inclines in…. I have no idea but many many years. I figure if I’m doing 55# DB’s I could throw 135 on the bar and see what I could do. What was horrible? It was… weird. I was not used to that plane of motion. The uprights/rack are really close to your head, so I don’t just unrack the bar but unrack and have to do a half-press to get it out just to start. But I pulled it out the first time and almost overshot and may have landed the bar in my lap! It was just not something I was ready for… that feeling. Then as I worked it, the bar path, the balance… all very different and strange feeling. To come all the way down touching the bar to the base of my throat (essentially) was different. And I apparently had the seat adjusted a little too high because when I went to rack it I almost missed the top of the uprights and could have lost the bar over the back! That would have been ugly. So uh… I probably should have started with an empty bar, got the feel, then went. But I didn’t. Still, by the end of things I felt where I should be and it didn’t feel so strange any more. I may stick with the BB for a while on inclines… it felt a lot more working than the DB’s did, and the range of motion didn’t feel all that different (tho of course it is).

1 good is better than any bad, right?

Wendler 5/3/1 program, cycle 23, week 3

• Work Set – Squat (working max: 300#)
  • 45 x 5 x 2 sets (warmup)
  • 120 x 5
  • 150 x 5
  • 180 x 3
  • 230 x 5 (work)
  • 260 x 3
  • 290 x 1
• Assistance – Front Squat
  • 95 x 8 x 5 sets
• Assistance – Crunches
  • BW x 20 (alternating sides)
  • BW x 10
• Farmer’s Walk
  • 60# dumbbell per hand
  • 3 50 yard trips
  • 10 breath rest between trips
• Foam Rolling… a LOT

I only did 1 rep with 290. I’m pretty sure I hit depth, but I may not have — I didn’t stay down there long and wasn’t focused on where my hip crease was relative to my knee, I was focused on going back up.

My cue for today was “explode”. I wanted to ensure the speed of my descent was fast on every rep. Not a free-fall drop, but I didn’t want to go slow either. And of course, weight gets heavier and you want to slow down more. No. I wanted to go at a decent speed down and really get that stretch reflex rebound. I know for certain I was hitting depth as I worked up (in fact, I think I was below parallel), but I was paying attention to that. On the last set, I just wanted to ensure I got back up… and I may not have hit depth, but I know I went down pretty darn low.

The cue was “explode”. Drop down, and just before I hit bottom tell myself “explode” and really drive drive drive up. It worked well, but I may have just fired off a hair too fast on the last one… yes, out of fear of not getting back up.

And I got 1 rep, and left it alone. I wasn’t sure about getting 2, to be honest, and I opted to stick with making 1 rep instead of missing any. I already knew I was going to repeat these same weights next cycle, going for more reps. So…meh.

Oh, and when I did the farmers walk, instead of a 45# plate in each hand, I grabbed 60# dumbbells. Why 60? Because the dumbbell rack is 2 tiers with the heavier stuff on top. The lightest dumbbell on the top rack was 60, so that’s what I grabbed. 🙂 but what a difference it made. I actually felt the weight as I moved. I felt it pulling on my whole body, and everything having to work! All this time I was skeptical, wondering gee, is this how it’s supposed to work? Everyone says it’s such a killer exercise…. now I’m able to see. 3 trips was enough after all the other work I did. I’ll probably stick with the 60’s work up to something like 5 or 10 trips… then bump up the weight. We’ll see, but yeah, this is better. 🙂

Remember – like a bodybuilder

Wendler 5/3/1 program, cycle 23, week 2

• Work Set – Press (working max: 155#)
  • 45 x 5 x 2 sets (warmup)
  • 65 x 5
  • 80 x 5
  • 95 x 3
  • 110 x 3 (work)
  • 125 x 3
  • 140 x 6
• Assistance – Press
  • 95 x 10 x 3 sets
  • 95 x 9
  • 95 x 7
• Assistance – Seated Rows (superset with all pressing)
  • 75 x 10 x 10 sets
  • 75 x 15
• Assistance – Wide-grip lat pulldowns
  • 100 x 10 x 3 sets
• And I superset the pulldowns with 30x20x3 of some tricep pressdowns with an EZ-bar, so my hands came to my sides
• And then did like 25xbarx3 with an empty EZ-bar for a little biceps pump
• Foam Rolling

Pressing went fine. I was actually of a pretty clear mind today so the lifting went pretty well. I’m getting myself to push a little more, keeping my whole body tight, refining technique here, so things are getting better. It may detract from my numbers a bit as I use some effort to set up better, but that’s fine.

On the assistance work, I have to remember to work this like a bodybuilder — build muscle. Push those reps hard. Don’t just focus on the concentric but also really give work to the eccentric (if the negative helps with building muscle, work it). Full range of motion, squeeze at the peak, and all that good stuff.

For whatever reason I opted to do a little arm pumping at the end. Normally when I do tricep pressdowns I use the rope attachment, and that keeps my hands in front of me. But I was lazy, there was already an EZ-bar attachment on the pulldown/pressdown station, so I went with it. My hands were about shoulder-width apart, so when I got to the bottom of the movement my hands would be, in essence, at my side. Lock out, and boy, that whole movement really changed things. I felt a ton of burn in my rear shoulder area. Not sure of what muscles precisely that was, but think about it… stuff like stiff-arm pullovers? This was essentially that at the peak, so I felt it some in my lats too. Dang… hurt so good. then just some empty bar curls for a wee bit of biceps pump (curls for the girls), and that was that.

Main thing? remember to treat the assistance work like a bodybuilder.

Ooopf.

Wendler 5/3/1 program, cycle 23, week 2

• Work Set – Deadlift (working max: 380#)
  • 1x5x155 (warmup)
  • 1x5x190
  • 1x3x230
  • 1x3x270 (work)
  • 1x3x310
  • 1x5x345
• Assistance – Deficit Deadlift (1.5″ deficit)
  • 5 x 8/6/6/6/6 x 195
• Assistance – Farmer’s walk
  • 3 50yd trips, 45# plate in each hand
• Foam Rolling

I continue to emphasize breaking off the floor with leg drive. It has to be legs pushing, not back lifting. And oh, it kicks my ass. 🙂 And lifting without a belt (save for the heaviest set) really helps you focus more on getting things right, tight, and working through. It’s good. And it kicked my ass today.

Following with the deficits… as you can see, I’d get to around 6 and that’s all I could do keeping strict. I’d start to feel things falter and refused to go forward with a rounded back and everything falling apart. Only about 90 seconds rest between those sets too. I swear, everything from mid-back to my knees was screaming afterwards. I spent much time on the foam roller at the end of this session.

Because it was really kicking me, I got back into doing farmers walks. The plates I put on the ground to give me my deficit, just pick them up and take the long way back to the plate rack. 🙂 I could only manage 3 trips because again my whole posterior chain was dying.

All in all tho, a good session. Very happy.

In other news… picked up Brandon Lilly’s new “365-Strong” book. It doesn’t add a lot over the original Cube Method book (a lot felt like a rehash, esp. due to the reuse of so many pictures and spare layout.. but it was a really nice layout and made for a good dramatic delivery of a lot of points Bradon makes), but yet it’s a good supplement. I think what it does is help clear up some of the dogma around Cube. That it’s not precisely this, but rather steps back a bit and tries to clarify what the backing philosophy is. I think Wendler does a better job at conveying “this is the meat of 5/3/1, this is what it’s about, go from there”, but I do think 365-Strong clears it up a bit more. The layout of the Cube Boss program I think also makes for a much better cookie cutter template, since a lot of people just starting out with the program will do well to have a cookie cutter at first, then branch out from there after they get a better feel for the program. I’m thinking about trying Cube Boss, or perhaps the Cube Extreme (once more gets printed about that flavor of the program). Very curious to see how such a change may benefit me. I mean, it’s been like 2 years on 5/3/1 and it’s obviously worked well for me, and I think it’s enough to not just be a program jumper. We shall see. No plans to change yet, but I’ll keep reading and thinking.