“Week 2”

• 3 reps – Squat (working max: 240#)
  • 2x5x45 (warmup)
  • 1x5x95
  • 1x5x120
  • 1x3x145
  • 1x3x170 (work)
  • 1x3x195
  • 1x5x220
• Asst. #1 – Squat
  • 5 x 10 x 95
• Asst. #2 – Leg Curl
  • 5 x 10 x 60
• Metcon – jump rope
  • 1 Tabata set – all single hop

Today was interesting. If you follow along, I’ve been having mental blockades about squatting for whatever reason. I’ve been trying to overcome it, but it’s been a struggle. Well, today I may have had a breakthrough.

I turned off my brain.

This is something I already know, to just quiet down the brain. Just do it. Squat or squat not. See, I spend so much time trying to deal with my hatred of squatting, my fears, my hangups, whatever they are. Then, I create this big internal dialogue to counter it. All these cues and phrases to psyche myself up, to not suck, whatever. Well, all that’s doing is creating way too much chatter in my head, plus it’s fake. It’s not real psyching up, it’s just trying to lie to myself to counter all the negative thinking. So in the end, it’s really just reinforcing the negative and so things continue to fail.

Today, for various reasons, I didn’t have a chance to talk to myself much about anything. I just had to squat. I put the 170# on and it actually felt good. Strong. I had surprised myself at how good it felt. 195 felt fine too. So I strapped on 220 and sure it felt heavy, but I just kept going. The problem tho was that my brain was going… I was focused on my surprise about how not focusing on anything seemed to be helping, but then of course I was focusing on something, and it was just too much internal dialogue and not enough focus on squatting. But it was a happy feeling, not a “fuck, I suck” feeling. So all good.

So, I just need to get a little less psyched and a little more “zen” about things. Just quiet the brain, empty the head, and move the weight. If I say anything, it should only be small cues to remind myself about something, e.g. “tight” or “chin up” or whatever. Because I either can move the weight, or I can’t. The brain will affect if I can or not, so just take it out of the equation.

Things felt alright then. When I look back at last cycle, my “week 3” was 1x4x220, so I beat that by 1 rep. I actually think I could have gotten 6 if my brain wasn’t so giddy. So strength is improving, form is improving, and mental game is improving. Peace. Peace. Peace.

As for assistance work, just all good. Keep steady here, and I’ll bump the weights during deload week.

On rope jumping, I started out trying to run in place, but I’d trip up about 2 hops into it. A combo of leg muscle exhaustion and that tendon in my left ankle being jammed out of place. So I stopped after a few flubs, why reinforce bad form, and just did normal two-foot hops. I spun the rope at a fast pace tho.

All in all, I’ll take this as a good day, as hopefully a breakthrough in my mental approach. We’ll see how it leads me into next week, being “week 3”.

Exhausted!

“Week 2”

• 3 reps – Bench Press (working max: 205#)
  • 2x5x45 (warmup)
  • 1x5x85
  • 1x5x105
  • 1x3x125
  • 1x3x145 (work)
  • 1x3x165
  • 1x9x185
• Asst. #1 – Bench Press
  • 5 x 10 x 115
• Asst. #2 – 1 arm dumbbell rows
  • 5 x 10 x 45
• Metcon – jump rope
  • 1 Tabata set – all single hop… sorta

Today was cool. Bench press felt very good, all up until the last set. I’ve been trying to refine my form, especially using the cue “tight” to keep my entire body tight from the floor/feet up through my whole body. I was doing fairly well all throughout until the last work set when things went to pot. I was probably focused more on moving the weight for many reps, which is OK in that case, but I would find myself lowering the weight and the body got loose, I’d start to press and remember to tighten up, which would maybe have the foot drive but the torso would be loose, then I’d tighten the torso and the legs would loosen so I’d tighten that again and then the butt would come off the bench… just all over. Not good for form.

Nevertheless, cranked out 9 reps with 185, which is alright. Last bench workout was 1x12x175 and “week 3” last cycle was 1x6x190. So, I’m doing just fine and should kick it out of the park next bench session @ 195#. 200+ here I am.

I forced myself into strict form on the assistance bench, and especially noted that I wasn’t going to full lock-out… I’d go like 98% because I was focused on powering through the reps at a fairly rapid and explosive pace, so I was clipping the lockout. Fixed that. I’ll stick with 115 for next week and go 120 on deload week.

Rows went alright, but I felt like I was peeding out faster than last workout. Not sure why. Stick with 45, go 50 deload.

Then on the jump rope. I started out just working on the running in place technique and it actually went pretty well. So after doing that a few times I figured why not just start the set with that and see how far I get. I got through 1 proper reps (in addition to all the other I did just to practice) and felt that was enough because I was starting to trip up too much, so then I did 3 reps of the double-leg hop… and that was all I could muster. I was just truly out of gas. Go fig. I do like the running in place tho… it’s FAR more intense work. I’m just going to keep this up for a while… do a few to kinda warm up the CNS to the movement, then just kick into the set and do the run in place as much as I can and once the coordination falters finish out the set with double-leg hops but moving the rope at the same pace.

All in all, not a bad workout. Some good, some bad. But progress in general.

Short, but good.

“Week 2”

• 3 reps – Deadlift (working max: 285#)
  • 1x5x115
  • 1x5x145
  • 1x3x175
  • 1x3x200 (work)
  • 1x3x230
  • 1x8x260
• Asst. #1 – Good Morning
  • 3 x 10 x 65
• Asst. #2 – Hanging Knee Raises
  • 3x8xBW
• Metcon – jump rope
  • None

I had to cut today short. My Dad is in town visiting, so we’ve been running around a lot and I was pooped last night. Woke up later than usual this morning, and have to meet Dad for brunch today so… had to just get to the gym and get out. I didn’t want to do the “I ain’t doing jack shit” variant, but just did a few time-savers.

Deadlift was good. I won’t say 1x8x260 is a PR; 1x5x265 is my current “most I’ve moved”. But certainly I can say I’m stronger and well on my way to next deadlift session, moving 275 and I will set a nice PR with that I know. As mentioned before, I had some grip problems with my left hand, so I’ve been working to ensure my grip on everything I do remains a “closed fist” grip, no slipping into “hooks”. That helped a bunch (no wedding ring on either while I deadlifted), but when I got to rep 5 of the 260 I felt things slipping. As soon as the weight touched floor I switched to mixed grip (left hand, underhand) and kept pulling. This is the first time I ever used mixed grip and well… I probably shouldn’t have just dove into it. Nothing really bad happened, but just going “cold” like that could have been a problem, a little risky. It certainly helped, but part of the reason I only pulled 3 more was my brain was overloaded with lots of feelings and thoughts about the mixed grip, like “wow, that does make a HUGE difference!” “this is cool!” “hrm, that does put a lot of stress on the bicep, I can see why people get tears” and things like that. So the brain was just going too much so I opted to stop. I think next deadlift session I’ll do everything mixed just to get more experience with it. Likely my routine will be overhand with good closed fists (no hooks) but go mixed on the PR set. Apart from that, the deadlifts felt great, strong.

Good mornings and the knee raises I opted to only do 3 sets of each, and to superset them. This was in the interest of time. GM’s felt alright, 65 was good, probably go to 75 next time and work to a weight that actually works me BUT still ensures I work to stretch the hams… that’s more important right now, to get the proper range of motion. I’d rather slowly work up. Knee raises are quite happy; I pretty much accomplished the 3×8 across with little swing and just full body involvement and getting the knees up there the whole time. Quite awesome; getting stronger. I did notice my left grip starting to falter on the last couple reps of set 3 tho.

As for why the left problems… could be a matter of pure weakness there. But I’ve also wondered… I donate blood fairly regularly, and always have them poke my left arm. Could that be a factor? e.g. nerves poked? arm not up to snuff? I doubt it’s an issue, but I do wonder because I know the arm feels a little weaker for a few days afterwards. *shrug*

Ah… nothing like setting personal records.

Well, except perhaps a world record, but that ain’t happening right now. 😉

“Week 2”

• 3 reps – Press (working max: 130#)
  • 2x5x45 (warmup)
  • 1x5x55
  • 1x5x65
  • 1x3x80
  • 1x3x90 (work)
  • 1x3x105
  • 1x6x125 (PR)
• Asst. #1 – Press
  • 5 x 10 x 60
• Asst. #2 – Pulldowns
  • 5 x 10 x 115
• Metcon – jump rope
  • 1 Tabata set – all single hop

1x6x125 on the Press is a PR in every way: never done that much weight for any number of reps. Last cycle’s week 3 was 1x7x115, so this is a nice bump! It’s good to get stronger. As Rip says, “Strong people are harder to kill than weak people, and more useful in general.”

But you know what? I just realized something. I messed up.

I was only supposed to do 1 x >3 x 120 today. 125 is next workout. Heh. Maybe I’ll do 130. Why the heck not? 🙂 Sure there are physical limits to strength, but there are mental limits too… now if I can just break through these same mental limits when it comes to squatting.

Anyways, worked well, felt good, glad to have really blown the PR out of the water and will set another one next Press workout.

Assistance pressing was good, only had some pausing during the last few reps of the last set, so I’ll stick with 60# (1 min. rest between sets) and go to 65 during deload week.

Same with the supine grip pulldowns: only slight pause between last reps of last set, so I’ll go to 120 during deload week.

Oh on that note… I took a slightly different grip on pressing. I’ve noticed my shoulders feeling a bit odd, and I think it’s because my grip was too narrow, and so the moment I started pressing out of the hole my arms would twist and my elbows would be pointing “outward” instead of forward. Granted, eventually they do rotate, but it was a little early and causing some pain. My grip now is about the same width as my pulldown grip width, with the outside edge of my thumbs about even with the outside edge of my shoulders… that “just wider than shoulder width” grip. Felt a lot better today, pressed up and the rotation was a bit more natural later on in the movement.

On rope, I forgot to work on the running in place stuff (bad John), but I did pick up the pace and tried to almost as fast as I could… wasn’t all out, but close… just wanted to have enough in reserve to ensure I made it through. I’m sure I can pick up the pace even more, so long as I keep my coordination and don’t sacrifice rope speed for lots of fumbling about. The interesting thing? I felt a lot less tired. I did make a concerted effort to deeply breathe throughout the set, and all that extra O2 may have done the trick.

Anyways, good workout. Starts the day off on a happy note.

A little good, a little bad. It’s squat day.

“Week 1”

• 5 reps – Squat (working max: 240#)
  • 2x5x45 (warmup)
  • 1x5x95
  • 1x5x120
  • 1x5x145
  • 1x5x160 (work)
  • 1x5x180
  • 1x6x205
• Asst. #1 – Squat
  • 5 x 10 x 95
• Asst. #2 – Leg Curls
  • 5 x 10 x 60
• Metcon – jump rope
  • 1 Tabata set – all single hop

A little good, a little bad.

Physically, the workout was acceptable. Squats felt heavy, the work set was alright. On the 5th rep I was thinking “no way, I can’t stop at 5….” and barely managed to get 6 out and felt that if I even tried 7 I’d barely get out of the hole and dump the bar. But compared to prior work sets getting 1x7x200 and 1x5x210, 1x5x205 feels right in the groove, no increase. *sigh* The assistance squats are better, continuing to use that as a time to focus on form and really tire myself out. I’m getting better at not having to think about cues like “chest up” and “hip drive”, and more working to keep my head “straight” (not chin pointed to the ceiling, nor the floor behind me, just spine in straight alignment) and my eyes up and focused on a single spot all the way through, which means yes I’m looking up when I’m in the hole… keeping “shoulders tight” too. And the leg curls, 60# with 1 min rest after that level of squatting work, works me just fine.

So physically I felt alright.

Mentally I still struggle with squatting. Starting Wednesday after that great bench press workout I knew I had to attack the squat. I kept telling myself that, but I also admit there’s always that seed of doubt creeping in and I have to fight to keep it out… but it’s still there. And it’s there always… that little gremlin. I put the 205 on my back, “damn that’s heavy” with a sprinkle of “can I do this?” *sigh* then as I work along “will I get to 5?” Then I get to 5 and I find myself thinking “holy shit, I barely did this… I need to do more, fuck no I’m not stopping here”. And then I struggle for 6, and mentally think there’s no way I’ll hit 7 and stop. Years of mental blockade to have to chip through here. Sure I’ve started because I am squatting, I’m facing it, I’m not going away from it, but for some damn reason I keep limiting myself this way. Years of mental conditioning are hard to escape I guess…. thanx Mom. 😉 I just don’t know how to totally break through it, but I’ll get there, just can’t give up.

Ah well. Onwards.

Today was awesome.

“Week 1”

• 5 reps – Bench Press (working max: 205#)
  • 2x5x45 (warmup)
  • 1x5x85
  • 1x5x105
  • 1x3x125
  • 1x5x135 (work)
  • 1x5x155
  • 1x12x175
• Asst. #1 – Bench Press
  • 5 x 10 x 110
• Asst. #2 – 1 arm dumbbell row
  • 5 x 10 x 45
• Metcon – jump rope
  • 1 Tabata set – all single hop

Today was awesome. I have been having sleep issues and am actively working to fix them. Given I’ve had a couple nights of good rest, I think that’s playing in here, so I’ll take it.

As mentioned previously, I need to stop caring about “how much work to do”. That is, going back to prior workouts, seeing how I moved a particular weight to ensure that in this workout I do at least that and hopefully more. It really shouldn’t matter. Here’s the weight, just move it. I’ll move it however much I move it, and I can view progress later instead of pre-framing my head around a certain target. The only target should be to move the damn thing as much as possible, attack it, power through it, and strive to be awesome. 🙂

And so I did. A different mental outlook for this workout and sure enough… geez… 12 reps of 175? Last cycle I did 1x11x170 then 1x8x180. So 1x12x175? Yeah, I’d say that’s an improvement. Only reason I stopped at 12 was I knew I still had the 5 assistance sets to do and I didn’t want to tap myself out! I felt like I could have done a lot more.

So with that, the assistance work was strong and good. I’m working to have a slightly wider grip (index fingers on the hash rings instead of ring finger), and ensuring my elbows come in a little bit more. My shoulder seems happier, and who knows if this made enough of a leverage switch to account for the “strength boost”. The 110 was good, but I should go 115 next session.

Rows, another mental shift of not moving the weight or lifting it up, but thinking about pulling the elbow back. Focus on the tip of the elbow and moving it through space. That really helps to make the shoulder work. 45 is good, but I figure I’ll bump to 50 before too long.

And on rope… before I did the proper set I did some more work with the “running in place” stuff. I’d start with no rope, just moving my legs/feet in the air, getting my body aware of the motion, and figuring out what the pace of the rope should be. I did better, getting 4-8 skips before I’d tangle my feet up — same thing, sweeping my leg back with the rope and the foot gets caught. But that’s a slight improvement, so I’ll just keep at it. Meantime, I really jacked up the tempo of the regular work.

I need to bring up the tempo, because it was too slow to be any sort of intense-enough conditioning. See, I’ve beenn fluxing in my eating. At first I was trying to eat rather strict, lots of protein, minimizing carbs, and that wasn’t working too well. Then I spent too much time reading powerlifting stuff and a lot of them have the basic approach of eating like a bulldozer and just shoveling food. There’s a method to all that madness and it’s good, but the side-effect is… it’s making me fat. I’m not enjoying it. But this is just part of it… gotta experiment, swing one way, then the other, and find where things lie. And so, I’m refining again.

My goal right now is to take in about 35-ish grams of protein 6x a day. That’ll get me about 210g and that’s a reasonable number. I’m also not going to totally turn myself off to carbs but be a little more smart about when I ingest them. For instance, I work out in the morning so first thing upon rising, have some protein and some carbs so I can fuel the workout. When I return from the workout, more protein and carbs. Then throughout the rest of the day, try to stay off the carbs in terms of “heavier” stuff like pasta or rice or whatever, but do have lots of veggies and other such things. This is basically where I was in terms of diet some time ago, but I got a little to caught in the powerlifting stuff and need to swing back. It’s not so much that I’m trying to lose fat (tho that’d be nice), but more that I don’t need to be eating so much that I gain fat. Yes not shoveling could mean strength gains are slower, but heck, it’s not like Wendler 5/3/1 at this stage of the game for me is some fast-gaining program. So I think it’ll work.

Frankly, I have also thought about trying to just lose the fat, like trying to drop 20# and specifically target that endeavor for a while. I’m not sure tho, because I’m not at a point where I want to risk the strength gains. But, we’ll see. The bottom line seems to be finding the line where my body gets just what it needs, and no more.

Oh, another note. My “working max” went up 10# from last cycle. Generally the program approach is 5# on bench. The thing is, when I plugged a 5# jump into my spreadsheet, the math worked out such that none of my actual lift amounts changed! It was just an odd thing about the math and rounding off to 5# plates. So jumping up 10# in the working max allowed all the warmup/work lifts to go up 5#. So, there we go. I only went up 10# this cycle due to the math, which actually works out to a 5# jump. Odd how that was, but there we go.

Today’s workout wasn’t good.

“Week 1”

• 5 reps – Deadlift (working max: 285#)
  • 1x5x115 (warmup)
  • 1x5x145
  • 1x3x175
  • 1x5x190 (work)
  • 1x5x215
  • 1x8x245
• Asst. #1 – Good Mornings
  • 3x10x45 (bar)
  • 2x10x65
• Asst. #2 – Hanging Leg Hip Raise
  • 3x8xbw
  • 1x5xbw
  • 1x3xbw
• Metcon – jump rope
  • None

Well, today sucked.

First deadlift day on cycle 3 of Wendler 5/3/1, so it’s the “5 rep” day. Let’s just go over a few things, then I’ll analyze.

On the deadlift, as soon as I picked up the 245 it felt heavy. What’s worse is I felt I could have done at least 2 more reps easily, but my left grip gave out on me. Heck, around rep 6 I stopped for a moment, removed my wedding ring, then kept going because the ring felt like it was getting in the way of my grip. *sigh*

On the good mornings, first time doing it so I didn’t know what to expect. I put an empty olympic bar on my traps (like squatting) and off I went. I’m wanting to do them strictly, like this, knees locked and back is straight, lower back arched and kept that way through the entire movement. So of course, flexibility is a limiting factor. I didn’t get quite to parallel, but almost, and it got better as I worked because of course I was stretching it. So, I will just continue with light-ish weights until I get better… keeping good form until I feel a stretch kicking in, and not just the first sign of stretch, but good stretch such that I can improve flexibility which does mean yes there ends up being some lower back rounding right at the end of the movement, but I have to so I can get the stretch, then back up. After 3 sets of the bar I figured to put a dime on each side and try. That seems to be the right amount of weight at this point, until I get the movement down and flexibility improves. I did not feel all that tired or worked by this just yet, but learning the movement and fixing flexibility are more important right now.

And on the hanging hip leg raise, first, let’s go to 8 reps across (bumping it up from last time). However, I peeded out. Why? My left hand grip… literally died on me, couldn’t hang any more. *sigh* You can see in the EXRX link that the example shows to use those hanging straps. I’m mixed on that, because it will not work my grip, but if my grip is limiting…. and then as well, it could take some strain off my shoulders. Hrm.

No jump rope. My left ankle hates me.

So you can see, this was not the best workout.

*sigh*

So…. thinking about it all.

I’m not 100% sure what to do about my grip issues. Work forearms more? But forearms get worked every single workout I do, which is enough… and perhaps, too much? But what can you do, you need your hands! I may go mixed grip on my last deadlift set to help deal with it. And on the leg raises well… not sure. I really don’t want to use the straps… or maybe use deadlift straps? I don’t want to do either, I want to get stronger, but I also can’t necessarily let a weak-point hold everything else back. *ponder*

I’m also not sure I was totally there mentally today. One thing I need to stop doing is caring about what I lifted before. Before I hit the 245 set I found myself flipping back in my logs to see how I lifted that weight, or thereabouts, previously. I do this because I like numbers, I like tracking progress, and if before I did 5 reps with the weight, then today I better do >5 reps, else there’s no progress. But the thing is, that frames things too much in my head… that I have to hit X and then somehow I mentally limit myself. I need to stop doing that. Just let it be what it will be, because if it’s more, then it’s more, if it’s not then it won’t be. Either way the reps will be what they are and I can analyze it when I’m done. It’s like shooting… when you shoot, don’t worry about going “bang” then immediately dropping the gun to look at the target to see if you hit it; shoot, follow through, and don’t worry until later because holes will be where they will be and won’t change 1 second or 1 year later, so just worry about shooting “right now” and deal with the other stuff later. Just lift, stop thinking so much.

As well, I’ve been having sleeping issues lately. I won’t go into details right now, but the bottom line is not getting enough recovery and I’m sure that’s factoring in somehow. I’m working to fix the problem, tho it will take time. I was poking at the calendar over the weekend doing some long-term planning and it looks like this Wendler cycle will end just prior to Thanksgiving. I might take all of turkey-week off from working out and just try to rest as much as possible and recover. We’ll see when I get there.

Every day can’t be roses… gotta have some crap times to help you better appreciate the good times. 🙂 And life rolls on.

Starting cycle 3 on the Wendler 5/3/1 program.

“Week 1” 5 reps

• 5 reps – Press (working max: 130#)
  • 2x5x45 (warmup)
  • 1x5x50
  • 1x5x65
  • 1x3x75
  • 1x5x80 (work)
  • 1x5x95
  • 1x9x110
• Asst. #1 – Press
  • 5 x 10 x 60
• Asst. #2 – Supinated Grip Pulldowns
  • 5 x 10 x 115
• Metcon – jump rope
  • 1 Tabata set – all single hop

Normally one is to bump press by 5# per cycle, but I opted to go up 10# because when I looked at my performance numbers I think 10# will push me a little bit harder and get me to a place where I’m doing more strenuous work. I think it’ll be alright, because last time I did 110 I managed to crank out 7 reps (and 1x7x115 was my PR from last cycle). Today I did 9 reps with 110 and couldn’t get the lock out on 10th rep, so 9 it is. So yeah, I’m stronger and I think this will push me. It technically puts my “PR set” in “week 3” at 1x?x125, so that’s a good 10# over what I did last “PR set”… may not crank out 10 reps with it, but it should still be a good push for me. I’ll go with it.

The assistance presses, yeah… 60 is a good level. It works me hard and I almost didn’t lock out the last rep. My desire is to stick with 60 but get the form tightened up and get the 5×10 across without the last reps of the last sets being so difficult.

Pulldowns, the 115 was a good bump, as last reps of last sets couldn’t quite get the bar to my chest. I’m really focusing on the squeeze of the shoulders, ensuring they work through their full range of motion. So I’ll stay here a while.

On rope, I want to bump the intensity up, so yes I need to dedicate myself before every session to trying the “run in place” style until I get the coordination down. I started out with no rope, just moving my body through the motion and I could do it: knees went straight up and feet straight back down. But throw in the rope, and suddenly my legs change to a “schoolyard skipping” where I pull my knee up but then as the rope passes my leg sweeps back (still bent) and of course I get all caught up in the rope. Ugh. I’ll have to work to overcome that. 🙂 Another thing is I couldn’t do it for very long because my left ankle was not liking all the impact of my full bodyweight. I’m hoping to just keep at it tho, and strengthen my ankle — that would be better for me in the long run. I just hope that I can strengthen it before I beat it up too much. 🙂 But, after I did that for a bit, I just did the 1 set of “double leg” but picked up the tempo to be closer to what you need to do the run in place style.

A good workout. I felt very worked by it, very pushed.

“Week 4” deload

• Deload – Squat (working max: 230#)
  • 2x5x45 (warmup)
  • 2x5x95
  • 2x5x115
  • 2x5x140
• Asst. #1 – Squat
  • 5 x 10 x 95
• Asst. #2 – Leg Curls
  • 5 x 10 x 55
• Metcon – jump rope
  • Didn’t get far, due to foot issue

And we bring deload week to a close. Brief comments:

I noticed how the past few deload workouts, while the work weight is nowhere near what I can lift, it felt like I was lifting a mountain… just very heavy for some reason. Not sure what to make of that.

Assistance squatting… gym owner noticed and complemented me that I’ve really improved my form. Good to hear. I’ve been working hard on it, the key cue being not just to keep my whole body tight but the #1 cue is “chest up”… sure there’s hip drive, but not at the expense of losing back angle. It’s not lifting with the chest, just ensuring that as the hips drive the chest doesn’t fall. Has made a big difference, and I feel the bar going in more of a perfect vertical path, no rocking forward. I’ll stick with 95 tho because I want to continue to work on form ensuring my knees are not buckling in, that they go outward on the descend, and so on.

Leg curls… jump to 60.

And I didn’t get far on jump rope today. Some years ago I blew out my left ankle and there’s a tendon on the top inside that sometimes gets “out of place” and makes it painful to extend the foot… which happens when you jump! I just couldn’t get through 2 “reps” of the rope jumping. Sucks, but oh well, it happens.

In related news, I did all my medical stuff for the life insurance yesterday, so I’m back on supplements that I gave up (creatine, Jack3d). We’ll see how it all goes. I’m still not sold on the Jack3d, but I’m giving it more time before I make the call one way or the other.

Oh, I should also note this ends “cycle 2” on the Wendler 5/3/1. It’s a slow program, but it’s steady and doesn’t seem to be beating up my body. So I’m OK with it. I’ll start cycle 3 on Friday, going up “prescribed” intervals: 5# on press and bench, 10# on deadlift and squat. I’ll still stay on this modified “Boring But Big” template, changing the deadlift assistance from hyperextensions to Good Mornings, going up on weight/reps on other stuff. Just keep chugging along with minor changes. I do see progress in terms of my strength going up, my weight is up, muscle mass is increasing no question. I’m pretty sure my conditioning is up, tho I haven’t tried to really tax is to see. I donated blood this past weekend and in doing so it generates some health data for me: my blood pressure is excellent, resting heart rate is nice and low, total cholesterol is well below normal (despite all the whole eggs, meat, fats, and “excessive” food intake I have); I’ll have a more interesting bit of results after the life insurance blood/pee tests come back. I’m good with things. 🙂