As 2013 wraps up, I like to look back and see how I did.

I finished up my 26th (essentially) cycle on the Wendler 5/3/1 program. I say essentially because there were some restarts and other things along the way (e.g. caught flu), but 26 is good enough.

How was I looking a year ago? From that post it seems cycle 15 was what I considered the last cycle of 2012.

At the end of cycle 15:

Press – 135 x 7
Deadlift – 330 x 7
Bench – 210 x 6
Squat – 270 x 3

Here at the end of cycle 26:

Press – 165 x 2
Deadlift – 440 x 1
Bench – 245 x 1
Squat – 315 x 1

In terms of absolute numbers, there’s no question I went up. But did I really go up? I mean, it’s hard to compare when there’s different reps. So let’s use some of the 1RM formulas. Deadlift 330×7 estimates at 407#; bench 210×6 estimates at 250; squat 270×3 estimates at 297#. So yeah, I generally went up. Not as much as I would have wanted, but I know why I didn’t.

The big goal I set for myself was to total 1000. I also wanted to do things like bench over 2 wheels, squat 3 wheels, deadlift 4 wheels. Well, I accomplished all of those things. Kick ass!

What’s even better was focus. I had conflicting goals. I wanted to get stronger, but I also was growing tired of the increasing flab around my waist. I mean, you gotta eat big, but I wasn’t. I wasn’t putting in the work at the dinner table (yeah, there’s work involved here). I didn’t eat enough, and I kept trying to lose weight and get strong at the same time. Sorry, you just can’t do that — it’s one or the other, pick one. So that caused me some setbacks, because I dealt with conflicting goals and stagnated. This is the biggest reason my numbers didn’t increase as much as I wanted, and why it took me until the end of the year to hit my numbers, and only through doing some different workups instead of just normal worksets.

But I think overall it was good. I learned a lot about diet, including that if you really want your lifts to go up you gotta eat big. Once I set about that and focused, the lifts came along pretty well. I mean, I could do 10# per cycle jumps on my squat, instead of having to repeat and hope for rep improvements. Eat. It’s that important.

I also came to realize how I was not focusing enough on sleep. I had some burnout issues as a result, but once I got serious about sleeping enough every day, things got better. I’m still not perfect with it because I guess that’s just part of growing older. But at least I put more explicit emphasis on getting sleep instead of it just being something you do when you fall over at the end of the day.

So all in all, while I had some stagnation and setbacks, I learned a lot from those experiences. They will serve me well, so it’s all good.

It also got me more focused on technique. I know my technique improved a lot over the year. Tightness is so important. And I know this was time well-spent. I mean, the 270 squat I did a year ago I’m sure didn’t hit depth and was really shitty by comparison to what I can do now. I know for sure my deadlifts are better (more legs, less stiff-legging). I have a better understanding of where some weak points are and how to hit them.

All in all, it was good and I’m happy with how the year went. It wasn’t quite the path I planned, but I still got there in the end with some side-benefits to boot.

So where to go for 2014? I’ll write about that later.

Exercise is good for you.

I exercise because I sit in a chair behind a computer all day, and refuse to let myself become decrepit. Of all the exercise in the world, only two have ever really appealed to me: martial arts, and lifting weights.

I would still love to actively study martial arts, but schedule doesn’t permit.

But I can lift weights.

I have lifted on and off since I was a teenager, but most all the lifting I did in the past was more bodybuilder-style, and well… it never really panned out. I would lift, then something would make me lose interest. It often came from boredom and lack of progress. But since I started lifting again about 3 years ago and discovered things like Jim Wendler’s 5/3/1 program and EliteFTS, there’s been no boredom. It’s been a lot of growth, and growth in the areas of physical strength and muscle mass has probably been the least of it.

You’d think it’s just “lifting weights”, and a stupid and unengaging thing mentally and emotionally. But this go-round has been anything but. I have found myself constantly challenged, and achieving things I never thought I could do.

I think the biggest thing for me to date was squatting 315#.

It’s not just that I squatted 315. I mean, that’s cool and all. But what really gets me is the achievement and what I overcame to get there.

Squats always intimidated me. Squats are hard. If you can’t lift the bar off the floor or drop it while deadlifting, it’s not that big a deal. Dropping a bar while benching is potentially fatal, but yet, somehow that doesn’t come to mind (maybe all the male “how much ya bench?” ego?). But something about squatting and getting stapled to the floor… or getting hurt coming back up… or whatever. I dunno… maybe too much worry from my teenage years, Mom’s voice of worry still ringing in my ears? Who knows. But I always hated it.

Then this go around I got stuck at 230# for a long time. I couldn’t overcome it, and I know a lot of it was mental. Yeah, getting deep in the hole can be a scary thought, and it doesn’t feed the ego either. And so lots of things would run around in my head, which only served to drive me down the road of continual failure.

Then… I missed a squat and had to dump the bar.

Oh sure, it hurt. When the bar rolled off me, over my head, yeah, I was sore for a few days. But that failure was great, because it didn’t kill me. In fact, I knew what failure felt like and it wasn’t all that bad. Sure, it wasn’t great and I don’t strive to seek out the experience again, but geez… once you fail, how the pressure comes off you! Yeah, failing isn’t something I’m good at. It’s part of how I was raised, it’s also something that keeps me from doing some things, because sometimes I’d rather not do something than risk failure.

*sigh*

Hate admitting that, but it’s truth.

But I failed. I dumped the bar, and lived to tell the tale. In fact, I dumped it again another time and still lived to tell the tale.

And then I got smarter. I paid more attention to things. I started to study more. Read more. Listen more. Learn more. I changed up my lifts to focus on what I perceived as weak-points. Sometimes I was wrong, but I knew I could be wrong going into it and that whatever happens I should just do what I do and see what changes as a result; learn, adjust, continue.

But even bigger was I started to silence the doubt in my head.

Oh sure. I can still freak out about the weight on the bar. I might start to plan how to bail out, or ensure I walk-out far enough so that dumping the bar will dump cleanly and not into the rack. Heck, when I was working up to my 315# PR, because I was having knee troubles and did fear injury (knee gives out half-way up and I totally collapse), I even found myself positioning my phone in such a way and place that I could drag myself over to it so I could dial 911 (instead of where I normally perch it atop the rack). I mean, yeah, there’s still doubt and future-planning driven by doubt, fear, and insecurity. But I found it was more about an ounce of prevention (because if my knee did give out, I would be really screwed if I couldn’t reach my phone), not just pure intimidation and fear.

The biggest change?

I stopped thinking about things too much.

I just kept telling myself: you go down, you stand up.

That’s it. Oh sure, that’s not a way to teach the squat. It’s not proper form, it’s not right technique (tho some try to pass off squatting as being that simple). But at least mentally, that’s all it is.

It’s not a chattery voice of doubt.

It’s not the spectre of deep-seated fears rising up.

It’s just squatting.

Yeah, it’s a big weight on your shoulders. Yeah, it’s going to be heavy. Yeah it’s going to scare you. But you willingly heave it onto your shoulders. You get comfortable with it. You embrace it. And while it will drive you down, you will remain strong, tight, unbending to it. And you will stand up. You will conquer. You will be triumphant. You will overcome, and take yourself further than you thought you could.

As I work up, the only voice I (try to) let in my head is one saying: you go down, you stand up.

And that philosophy is spilling over into other areas of my life, which I’m happy for. Yeah, I may be an older fart, certainly heading into my afternoon years… but I’m still learning and growing, still overcoming.

Oh I know. This isn’t some huge overcoming of things, because I know there are people in this world that overcome far greater things that are far more meaningful. Still, I learned a lot.

You go down, you stand up.

Who would have thought squatting would be so deep.

Good way to end the year.

Wendler 5/3/1 program, cycle 26, week 3

• Work Set – Press (working max: 170#)
  • 45 x 5
  • 45 x 5
  • 70 x 5
  • 85 x 5
  • 105 x 3
  • 130 x 5
  • 145 x 3
  • 165 x 2 (PR)
• Close-grip pulldowns (neutral grip, superset with warm-up pressing sets)
  • 75 x 15 x 5
• Press
  • 105 x 10
  • 105 x 10
  • 105 x 8/4/2 (rest pause)
• Wide, pronated grip pulldowns (superset with additional pressing sets)
  • 110 x 12 x 3
• Cable EZ-Bar pressdowns (pin the elbows to the side)
  • 40 x 12 x 3
• Hammer DB curls (superset with pressdowns)
  • 30 x 10 x 3
• Spider DB curls
  • 15 x 10 x 2

Press is fun stuff, but I really had no desire to work up to some 1RM like I did the main 3 lifts. My PR was 165×1, so I figured go for reps today. As long as I got 2 I was happy. I got 2, and thought about 3 but just racked it because I did what I wanted and would rather stop while I’m ahead than miss a rep.

Rest of the session was just to work through things and keep me going.

All in all, a fine way to end “the year”.

I will be taking next week totally off as a deload. My focus will be on a lot of rest, and some rehab stuff (e.g. icing my knees every time I sit to watch some TV, foam rolling everything I can, etc.). I won’t go to the gym, but I do want to keep myself moving and recovering.

Because… there are other things that I’m going to start working on. I’ll write on those later.

Achievement unlocked – 1000# total (and a deadlift PR too)

Wendler 5/3/1 program, cycle 26, week 3

• Work Set – Deadlift (working max: 410#)
  • 185 x 5
  • 225 x 5
  • 275 x 3
  • 315 x 1
  • 365 x 1 (went mixed grip)
  • 405 x 1 (added belt)
  • 440 x 1 (PR)

All that mattered today was hitting 440#. Not only a deadlift PR (20# over my last PR), but that gave me my 1000# total (315 squat, 245 bench press, 440 deadlift).

Again I know. This isn’t a real 1000# total because it wasn’t at a meet, or even a mock meet. Still, before you can total 1000# there you gotta do it like this, and this was the milestone, the goal, I set out to achieve.

As you can see, the work-up was not according to the 5/3/1 template; that wasn’t today’s point. The point was to hit the number. So just some light warmups, then single all the way up. Remember my knee problems? Well, I’ve been managing it pretty well with Advil and ice, so that’s leading me to believe it’s just inflammation. But it opted to come back pretty strong during the session. Just dealt with it (it’s pretty sore now, as I sit and type this). The 440 actually went up wicked easy — I was surprised. I was very “in the zone” and hellaciously determined to make this because it meant a few things:

1. a new deadlift PR
2. hitting the 1000# total
3. with satisfying #2, I could start down the path towards my next goal… which could only start after I hit 1000, and I am so ready to start work on that next goal.

What’s the next goal? I’ll detail it in the coming logs, but my work towards it starts immediately.

Friday I’ll still Press as usual, then going to take next week off… feeling pretty beat up, it’s Christmas week, time off work, so the timing of everything is good for some serious rest and recoup.

Merry Christmas, y’all.

15# PR. I’ll take that.

Wendler 5/3/1 program, cycle 26, week 3

• Work Set – Bench Press (working max: 235#)
  • 45 x 5
  • 45 x 5
  • 95 x 5
  • 135 x 5
  • 185 x 3
  • 205 x 1
  • 225 x 1
  • 245 x 1 (PR)
  • 255 – miss
• Face Pulls (superset with the bench press warm-up sets)
  • 35 x 15 x 3
• Seated cable rows
  • 100 x 12 x 5
• A bunch of light rope-handle pressdowns, and bb curls
• Foam Rolling

In my quest to total 1000#, again I opted to make today’s work up be more for the test and not so much another “workout”. I make some simple jumps to get warmed up and then just hit singles. I wanted to have as much as possible to put into the max attempts.

My goal was 245. My previous best was 230. The 245 went surprisingly well. I figured why not try for 255. The math says that’s my actual 1RM (255-260 depending what formula you use), the 245 felt good, and hey… if I make it, that helps towards my total. Awesome.

Well, the 255 didn’t happen. Came out fine. Went down fine. Got about half-way up and everything went south. I’m not sure where it fell apart first, but I do know my left leg kicked out, my right suddenly took everything on and my right hamstring started to cramp, I pushed all I could and did manage to rack it, but there’s no way this was a legit lift. So, doesn’t count. Still, I’m glad I tried it. One missed lift doesn’t tell me a lot, but I figure if I keep working my close-grip bench presses with an emphasis on lock-out, build up my triceps more, and keep working on technique, I’ll get there.

I think technique is the bigger reason for my success, because the foot tuck is working a lot better for me. I think I might be zeroing in on a foot placement that works to keep my butt on the bench yet still give me the drive. So… great. Just gotta keep at it and find the right spot, and then how to index it so I can find that spot every time.

Anyways, finished out the day with a little back and arm work, and called it.

I am happy with how things went. Benching 245 is another one of those things that I never thought I’d do. Getting to 275 then 315… it’s just a matter of time now; doesn’t seem like an insurmountable goal.

But before I care about that, it’ll be time to deadlift. The goal is 440#, to hit 1000 total. I’m there, dude.

Achievement unlocked: squat 315# (3 wheels)

Wendler 5/3/1 program, cycle 26, week 3

• Work Set – Squat (working max: 320#)
  • 45 x 5
  • 45 x 5
  • 135 x 5
  • 160 x 5
  • 195 x 3
  • 245 x 3
  • 285 x 1
  • 315 x 1 (all-time PR)

Wow. I had no idea this day would come, but wow that it did. 🙂

There are 2 goals: 1. squat 315 (3 wheels). 2. total 1000. These have been some long-term goals, especially joining the 1000# club. Granted, it’s not offically joining the club because it’s not at a meet nor even a mock meet. But before you can do it there, you gotta do it in the gym. So, this is about achieving a grasp on that first rung.

At the end of last cycle I was 50# away. Now I’m 35# away. When I bench and deadlift next week, well… I’m close. And I’m really going to bust ass to make it happen because I want it badly. There are “next goals” that depend upon meeting this goal, and I’m excited to get started on those but can’t until I hit 1000. So, motivation is there.

As for today…

The charts actually had me working up for 245×5, 275×3, then 310×1 (or more). Well, I was bent on making the 315. So I told myself that I would do it, and have been saying nothing to myself other than “you will squat 315”. I opted to take a different work up today, because today wasn’t going to be about working out, but ensuring I achieved the goal. So I opted to work up instead of 5/3/1, to do 3/1/1. I also realized that jumping from 245 to 275 to 315 was a big, uneven leap, so I changed to 285 to even out the jumps a bit more.

Everything felt good…. well, except my right knee. It started hurting last deadlift session, and today was worse. Every rep was pain. I go down no problem. Going back up, about half-way up the forces on my knee just get painful all the way to full extension. I don’t know what that means, but I reckon it’s not good. But I refused to stop because it hurt. I kept thinking about Paul Carter’s recent Relentless experience, which gave me inspiration to keep going. Either I make it or I don’t. So while I didn’t plan to reduce reps to deal with the knee, I think it helped.

The 315 was awesome. I dropped down, I shot up. I actually felt like I could have done more, and I thought about doing 325#. But no… the plan was 315, I hit that. End on a high note. If the knee was feeling good I probably would have gone for it, but I don’t need to hurt myself — look at the bigger picture, I need to deadlift to hit my goal. But I did well: I was solid, tight. I didn’t change anything, I didn’t eat differently, I didn’t decide today was a day to try some new technique or shift positions in hopes of getting more out of it. Just resist the temptation and keep doing what works. If I did anything different it was two things:

1. tight. I clenched the hell out of the bar, which just leads to further upper body tightness. tight tight tight. Big big breath and really make that torso a steel rod. And maintain that all the way through. It matters. I still have a lot of room to improve on this, but it was probably about as good as I can expect myself to do at this point, so awesome.

2. mental.

Lately all I’ve been telling myself is “you just go down, and you stand back up”

That’s all there is to it. No getting worked up over it. Getting psyched out. Being afraid or intimidated. If you miss, you miss, it’s not a big deal. You will learn, you will get better. But also that failure isn’t an option. You stand back up. It’s not that you’ll try, or that you will or that you may or any qualifiers. It’s straightforward: you stand up. It’s what you do, there is no other option.

And yes, I’m stronger than I think I am. Apparently. 🙂

Really, this is probably the most meaningful PR to me. Squat has been my least favorite movement. I can’t say it’s my favorite, but I must say it’s my most challenging and probably what has allowed me to grow the most (and I’m not talking in mass). I think it’s the day I think about the most and put the most into. It’s helped me overcome a lot, and to hit a milestone like this… it’s awesome. I mean, to achieve 315 feels like I climbed a mountain. So now hitting 405… gee, that doesn’t seem impossible, just need time and patience.

And I will get there.

For the record, after hitting 315, not only did I let out a Viking roar of accomplishment, but I called it a day (after deciding no, let’s leave it at 315). I met my goal, and I didn’t need to risk my knee any more… so “jack shit” for today.

Next… bench, and creeping closer to 1000.