You just keep pressing through the pain.

• 5/3/1 Press (training max 110#)
  • 2x5x45 (warmup)
  • 1x5x45
  • 1x5x55
  • 1x3x65
  • 1x3x80 (work)
  • 1x3x90
  • 1x7x100
• Asst. #1 – Press
  • 5x10x45
• Asst. #2 – Chinups
  • 1 x almost 1 x bw, then 3 negatives
  • 4 x 3 negatives x bw
• Metcon
  • 1 Tabata set, jump rope — all 8 reps single hop

This was an interesting workout. First, it’s “week 2” of the 5/3/1 cycle, so the working weight goes up and the reps go to 3. Overall work volume is lower, of course, but strength feels good… 7 reps at the max work weight for today wasn’t too shabby for me, and as always a couple were left in the tank. Going to the assistance press work, certainly the 60 seconds of rest this time around was better than 30 last time but… is it perhaps because of the longer rest period? is it because the work volume wasn’t as intense? because I’m getting used to things? stronger? Hard to tell for sure right now. Point is, should my assistance weights remain the same during the entire cycle? or should they also increase as the weeks progress? Not sure. I don’t think there’s any formal rule here, just what works for me. My feeling is, it’s assistance work, I don’t need it to exhaust me and impact recovery, so just keep it stable for the cycle then up it next cycle. But we’ll see as we go along… probably need numerous 5/3/1 cycles under my belt before I can say for sure.

Chins… geez… I am a wuss. But I know my shortcomings and am willing to work on them. 🙂 I worked to hold myself up at the top a little longer, at least for a count of 1 before I started my descent… hold myself up high! then lower for a count of 7. But that’s a big bump from last chin session and I’m not sure if that was more stress or what but on the last rep of the last couple sets I just couldn’t… I’d step off the bench and immediately start a controlled drop to the ground, maybe 2 seconds… resisting as best I could but I couldn’t resist much… the muscles were tapped. I’ll keep this up for the rest of the cycle but I am thinking that since my weak point seems to be the last half of the eccentric motion that next cycle maybe I’ll move to using the lat pulldown machine but in a chin-style grip and work it hard to ensure that last half of the motion is worked… I might even only do partial reps from the half-way point to the “chinned-up” point to just work that part out. Don’t know, we’ll see. But if there’s a weak point, that’s what needs to be specifically addressed.

Jump rope was cool. Previously I was thinking to bump this session to alternating single and double hops on each rep, debating if I should start with single (i.e. fresh) or double (i.e. end with a single when I’m pooped). I opted to start with a single so I got things pumping from the get go, but then changed my mind — I did all 8 reps as single hop. That pumped things up for me for sure… my feet and calves and lower quads were hating it (the quads and adductors and such are sore as heck from Monday’s squat workout). My body wanted to quit but no…. I just kept pushing, because it’s all in my head.

That’s really the big thing that’s coming out of so much of this: keep going. There’s so many reasons I want to quit, be it my mind saying “the body is tapped” but knowing that I’m still physically able to — because if I’m truly tapped then my body will stop on its own — to ego things, because hey… when the gym is packed this morning with a bunch of the strongest guys in the gym and you can’t do a fucking chin-up and your muscles are tapped and you don’t want to do that last rep…. you do it anyways, because you have to. Because you know you won’t get stronger, you won’t overcome the obstacles, unless you forge ahead. Like anything in life.

My first squat day on 5/3/1 and it went alright.

• 5/3/1 Squat (training max 220#)
  • 2x5x45 (warmup)
  • 1x5x90
  • 1x5x110
  • 1x3x135
  • 1x5x145 (work)
  • 1x5x165
  • 1x7x190
• Asst. #1 – Squat
  • 5x10x65
• Asst. #2 – Leg curl
  • 1x10x30
  • 4x10x25
• Metcon
  • 1 Tabata set, jump rope.

(Aside, I see why my indented lists are getting screwed up… the WordPress.com editor is inserting the /li after the li line, instead of after the nested /ul… I fixed it manually but let’s see if the editor retains it. And they still keep inserting a div after finishing a ul…. *sigh*)

Anyways, the workout was my first squat day since I started 5/3/1. I wasn’t looking forward to it because I’m not really looking forward to squats right now. Burnout? Relative unhappiness? I don’t know, mixture of things. But I figured this being the “5” week it would work me well but not kill me. In the end, it did feel alright. The weight felt appropriate, enough to make me work but not kill me. I was able to get 7 reps out on the last work set and left a couple in the tank, especially since I could feel I’d only do them if I sacrificed form. The assistance set of squats wasn’t heavy-hard, but it really drained me because that’s a lot of body and muscle involvement… gets you breathing and your heart pumping, especially with a strict 1 minute rest between sets. It’s kinda cool to see the quad and ham pump in the mirror. 🙂

On the leg curls, I had no idea where to start for a weight, so I just picked 30# and figured we’ll see from there. That first set wasn’t bad, but I wanted to make sure I could get through all 5 sets and 50 total reps without really killing myself. Every workout, being as it’s new and higher volume, has left me rather sore. I didn’t want to be so sore I couldn’t walk (Wife still cracks up at the time I worked my calves so hard they were sore for a week and for a couple days I couldn’t walk straight), but I just wanted to be worked. Wendler says to really start light, so I dropped down to 25# and was happy I did. That gave me enough work, the last few reps of the sets required some extra squeeze, but nothing was just balls-out killing me. I wanted to ensure the curls went through as full a range a motion as I could move. So, 25# is good for now.

Rope jumping… ha ha. Hard to do when your legs are tired. 🙂 But you press on because you have to. Certainly wasn’t a glorious session, but I’m trying to amp it up some. Tried to have every 3rd “rep” be a “single hop” set, with the 8th also being single hop. The goal is to add a single hop every rope session or two, so I can work my way to have every rep be single hop. Once I get 4 (single-double, 4x), I’ll start to add the single hops at the rear. So if I have reps 2, 4, 6, and 8 being single hop, then next it’ll be 2, 4, 6, 7, 8, then 2, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, and so on. Put them back when I’m tired, to push me more. For a giggle I tried doing the “jogging” technique on my 8th rep today and just failed hard. 🙂 Not quite ready for that.

So “week 1” of Wendler 5/3/1 is down. Next up, the “3” week. So far, I’m liking the program.

That was easy….

Oh, and I need to find a new format for my data here… either WordPress or this theme or something isn’t rendering the nested lists correctly. *sigh*

• 5/3/1 – Bench Press (training max 180#)

• 2x5x45 (warmup)
• 1x5x75
• 1x5x90
• 1x3x110
• 1x5x120 (work)
• 1x5x135
• 1x11x155

Asst. #1 – Bench Press

• 5x10x65

Asst. #2 – Dumbbell Rows

• 5x10x30

Metcon

• 1 Tabata set, jump rope

This workout was easier than I expected. Maybe I needed a higher training max? When I ended the PPNP my squat had been reset and my press was feeling close to a max, but my deadlift was still going very strong and I felt like I could still move up a bunch on my bench press. So my Monday Press workout felt good. When I was setting up weights for deadlifting I went ahead and ratcheted up the weight and calculated from there. But Bench Press I bumped just a tiny bit. So, this workout didn’t feel all that hard to me… not even a little bit. I mean, 11 reps with 155 and I had more in the tank… but I left them there because I know this isn’t supposed to be a “work to failure” sort of program. In doing the assistance work, 30% would be 55# and that was just going to be silly. I incorrectly remembered my work max at 170 so I refigured a 40% @ 65#…. but even that didn’t make me twitch. Still, I kept good form and worked to dynamically explode the bar off my chest (65# but put in 165# of force, if you will)… but even that wasn’t that great because it still felt way too light, not enough resistance. I thought to myself that next workout I need to go to 75# and yes… now correctly figuring 40% of my actual work max (180#) that ought to work out a lot better.

Nevertheless, if I calculcate “work volume”, today’s work set volume was greater than the total volume (work+warmup) of my last PPNP bench press workout. So, there’s still a gain.

On rows, I had no idea where to really start, but looking at weights I was using some months ago on barbell rows I figured 30# would be a good start. I want to be strict: arched back, back parallel to the floor, no twisting of the torso to get the weight up, go from dead hang (shoulder pulled forward) all the way until the dumbbell is touching my torso and my shoulder is pulled all the way back… pull back as far as I can go… as complete a range of motion as possible. Plus, only about 30-60 seconds of rest between sets since I have to alternate arms and the other arm gets a “rest” while the one is working. And with all that, 30# wasn’t bad. I’m thinking about going to 35# next workout and that ought to be a good work weight.

Rope jumping felt better. I’m thinking less about jumping and I believe that’s helping… as it usually does. Don’t try, just do. I’m trying to put more “single hop” sets in to bump up the intensity level. Next workout is squats so we’ll see how jumping goes after that, but otherwise I’m thinking I want to get more intensity so I might do something like pairs of two: light double-hop set followed by more intense single hop, and repeat that pair 4x.

Not a bad workout, just didn’t feel as worked as I thought I would. But, the program has only begun. We’ll see where I actually end up. I did have the passing thought that if benching even on “week 3” is too easy even with 95% of my working max that instead of bumping 5# I might bump 10# just this once. I don’t want to overdo it for sure, but just keeping myself open to the possibility.

Lots of deadlifting lets you know just what muscles are truly involved in the motion. 🙂

• 5/3/1 – Deadlift (training max 265#)

• Warmup

• 1x5x105
• 1x5x135
• 1x3x160

Work

• 1x5x175
• 1x5x200
• 1x7x230

Asst. #1 – Deadlift

• 5x10x95

Asst. #2 – Hanging leg raises

• 5x5xbw

Jump rope – 1 Tabita set.

Commentary

The nice thing about tracking in a spreadsheet is it’s easy to enter data and run some statistics. Today’s deadlift workset volume was 3485. The perspective? My last deadlift workout on the Practical Programming Novice program (last week), had a work set volume of 120 and a total (including warmups) volume of 2970. So my volume of deadlifting today was WAY higher than I’ve ever done… and that’s just the workset. Add in the warmup, then the 5 sets of deadlifting as assistance work and wow… that’s a lot of deadlifting. Yes, you become very aware of just what muscles are involved in deadlifting. 🙂

Note that my warmup didn’t start like other routines, with an empty bar. There’s no point in that with the deadlift given I need the bar off the ground to get started. Note as well that I did only 7 reps on the last work set. I felt I could have done more, certainly 8 and maybe 9, but I remembered how things went on Monday’s Press workout… just how humbling the assistance sets can be. I knew this deadlift routine was going to be massively more volume than before, so I felt better to be conservative and not push myself too hard.

On the hanging leg raises, Wendler wants you to do them with straight legs so your feet end up over the bar, like this. I can’t do that, not without a LOT of cheating and that’d just defeat the purpose, even if I could do it with the cheating. So instead, I’m doing it with bent knees, rolling my body up to get my knees to touch my shoulders, like this. But even then, I could only get up so far. If my head/arms were at 12 o’clock, my legs down at 6, and my eyes looking forward to 3, then my knees generally only got to the 2 o’clock point *sigh*. Well, that’s why I’m in the gym… to acknowledge my weaknesses and to get stronger, right? 🙂  Put the ego in the back seat and just do it… that’s the only way to get better. I’m trying to be strict, but I fear I may not overcome my sticking point that way… if the top portion is weak, it needs to be worked, and on bodyweight exercises how else can you do it? So… I’m going to add a slight kip, not so much that momentum moves me through it, but just enough to try to overcome the sticking point so my muscles have to get active and involved… plus if it puts me over the line, then even if my muscles don’t get the concentric benefit as much due to the kip, at least a larger range of motion will get the eccentric. I’ll stick with 5×5 on these until I can do them no sweat…. build up the strength.

On the rope jumping, suddenly I was more coordinated today! I didn’t make it all the way to the end without a stumble, but I probably stumbled about 50% less than I have been. That’s great! I’m just working to take it slow and easy to get the coordination down (get about 25-ish hops per 20 second period)… that slow is smooth, smooth is fast thing, right?

I realize that I really do like deadlifting. But that said… after all this volume today? I suspect I’m going to be mighty sore tomorrow. 🙂

To play on Dickens, it was the best of workouts, it was the worst of workouts. 🙂

I’m going to try another way of notating my workout, because WordPress.com’s editor (still) has bugs that have made editing a pain.

• 5/3/1 – Press (training max: 110#)

• Warmup

• 2x5x45
• 1x5x45
• 1x5x55
• 1x3x65
• Work

• 1x5x70
• 1x5x85
• 1x5x100
• Asst. #1 – Press

• 5x10x45
• Asst. #2 – Chin-ups

• set 1 – almost got 1 chin, 3 negatives.
• sets 2-5 – 3 negatives
• Metcon – Jump rope

• 1 Tabata set – 20 sec jump, 10 sec rest, 8x. First 5 sets were “double hop”, last 3 were single hop (faster).

Commentary

As you can see, I changed programs. Today marks my first day of following the Wendler 5/3/1 program, with the “Boring But Big” set of assistance work. That means I’m going to be doing 2 exercises per workout, tho one of those exercises will be done in two different ways. Again, I opted for this route because it’s simpler, it’s a good way to start out, it’ll give me more reps with the core exercises to help with my CNS conditioning. I also am striving for minimal rest between sets. Not only does that help me get out of the gym faster, but I’m trying to bump up my conditioning to help with some fat burn. Thus, rest between sets will vary. During the 5/3/1 warmups, just do what I need to change plates. During 5/3/1 work, at least 2 minutes but more if needed. During the assistance #1, try to keep weight light and the rest about 30-60 seconds.

And we’ll see where it goes.

How was this the best workout? I didn’t have to squat. 😉  Yeah, I burned out on squatting, so it felt good to not have to do it. I won’t do my first squat workout until next Monday, and I will actually look forward to that workout. But for now, the change is good and welcomed. I don’t feel totally exhausted and like my entire body is drained. It was nice to just get in, focus, and get out. I really liked it.

How was it worst? Well, to be fair it really wasn’t bad… just that while I didn’t totally kill myself, I did totally kill parts of myself. 🙂  Wendler says for warmups to just do 1x5x40%, 1x5x50%, 1x3x60%. I opted to add in 2×5 of empty bar because that gives me more form practice, plus I really felt it helped to wake me up and get me in the groove… especially with squats. I may not do that with deadlift, but everything else I will. Things felt kinda easy, but boy… when you hit that last set of the work sets and have to push out as many reps as you can — you can see I got 10 — that gets you. Especially true when I’m not resting 5 minutes between sets.

I just did something. In my spreadsheet, it does a 1RM calculation using this formula: =(C29)/(1.0278-(0.0278*D29))  where C29 is my current max weight and D29 is the number of reps you did at that weight. If I plug in my working max of 110@5 reps it calculates my 1RM at 124#. If I plug in what I just did as 95@10 reps, 1RM calculates at 127#. All theoretical, but interesting.

Then I moved into doing press for assistance work. Wendler says to start out way light, like 30%-40%. In general I want to do 30% so I can keep the rest periods low, but since the bar is 45# I had to go with 40%. Oh man…. that first set is easy but you think yeah, this might be hard by the last set/rep. By the 3rd set I was starting to lose form just to ensure I could get the 10 reps out. I then had to move from 30 seconds of rest to 60 seconds so I could finish out 10 reps per set. Damn! Yeah, 45# is fine as a workload here, tho I’ll probably space it to 60 seconds rest and pace myself a little more.

Chinups. I tried doing one, pure dead-hang, no swing, no kip, nothing. I was almost there but not quite. Oh well, I’ll keep working on it. So, I opted to just do 5 sets of 3 reps of pure negatives. That was intense. Towards the end I was literally dropping, struggling to hold myself up so the negative could last for a full 5 second count.  I also am trying to hold myself up at first. That is, as soon as my leg leaves the bench, don’t start immediately dropping but hold up there, even for a moment. As I went on and was getting more tired, I could tell that yes, my weak point is right at the top of the movement, those last few inches. I might try a “flexed arm hang” as another exercise in this to help focus on the part of the motion. But I think what that will be instead will be just ensuring that once my leg leaves the bench, that I hold for a count of 1 (at least) so there’s no sudden drop of a few inches, and slowly go down from there. Just focus on that area. I will get there!

Then jump rope. I felt good the first couple sets doing double-hops, but I kept getting tangled up. Ugh. So the last few sets I did as just a pure single hop… the rope speed went up, and I was a lot more successful at jumping and not getting tangled. Of course the trade-off was this was MUCH more intense, much more difficult, much more exhausting. It hurt. 🙂  But that’s what I want. It’s going to hurt on squat days (maybe deadlift days too), but I’ll just keep going — that’s how the body will adapt and grow stronger.

So, I like. It’s only one day but if this is any indication it’s going to be welcome and fun. I won’t totally kill my body, but I will totally kill part of it. We’ll see where this goes!

No workout today. I’m taking a cue from my body and just taking today off. Let’s hit it hard on Monday.

But in the meantime I made myself a new Excel spreadsheet for tracking my progress on the Wendler 5/3/1 program. Seeing the actual numbers that I’ll be using, the actual routine that I’ll go through, I think this is going to work out alright for me. It is interesting to see that what was considered “warmup” under SS/PP ends up being “work” under W531. But, that’s all part of how the program works. I’m not expecting the program to necessarily be easier, just different.

I feel excited. Rejuvenated. And that’s a good thing.

To borrow from The Eagles… take it easy.

Squats

• 2x5x45
• 1x5x85
• 1x3x135
• 1x2x185
• 3x5x185

As you can see, I really dropped my weight on the work set. I’m overworked on squats. I needed a deload.

Sad thing is, that 185 was hard. Not as hard as the 220 was on Monday, but still hard. I attribute this to mental exhaustion, on squatting.  *sigh*  But, it’s telling. More below.

An interesting thing tho. While doing the warmup sets I noticed that when I was in the hole my right calf started that ache. Hrm… as my thigh contacted my shin, the ache started. Hey… am I going too deep? going below parallel? I had someone watch me. Sure enough, I’m going a little too deep! That explains a lot, including why the weights were feeling even heavier the past couple weeks. I’m trying so hard to ensure I’m at least parallel that I’m overdoing it. This plays into my decision (more below), with how “more reps under the bar”, working my central nervous system (CNS), etc. is the way to go.

Bench Press

• 2x5x45
• 1x5x85
• 1x3x115
• 1x2x150
• 3x5x170

This felt good. Strong. I did notice I wasn’t putting my legs into it as much. As I think about it, it was the calf ache, I wasn’t putting my feet far enough back because that amplified the ache, and so I didn’t get as much leg into it. I still was using it, especially on the 3rd set I really put my whole body into it. I just wasn’t as consistent as I should have been.

Deadlift

• 2x5x95
• 1x3x140
• 1x2x200
• 1x5x240

This just felt good. Felt very strong here. Felt like I could have done another 3 reps (at least) with the 240, or gone up another 15-20# for another set of 5.

Metcon

Forgot to jump rope at the gym, so hustled home and jumped there. Usual thing, a Tabata set (20 sec jump, 10 sec rest; 8x), just simple double hop stuff. On the last set I tried doing faster single hops but didn’t get far. I did do a better job at jumping here. My first 20 second round is always good so I’m trying to pay attention to my form during that set to help mitigate problems… like the positioning of my hands and rope/handle angle and how that affects the rope as it passes under my feet so I don’t get tangled up, keeping my head up and eyes focused on something “eye level”. That helped me do a better job and get further, but I’m still getting tangled. I’ll get there.

Commentary

Feeling this strong on deadlifts and on bench press vs. how I feel on squats? My interpretation of it is overwork on my squats and my body saying “no mas”. I need a break.

I think I’m burned. I’m not sure if the intensity of the workouts is getting to me, or if it’s other things in my life getting to the workouts, or a little of both. Likely both, but I think the workouts are actually more the culprit. So, I need a break.

It was intentional to not do a full squat workout today. Just do something with a light enough load to keep the body working, but treat it like a “deload”. I picked the weights based upon Monday’s workout, but then bumped just slightly to make plate changing a no-brainer. 🙂  Why complicate this?

I am also going to take this coming Friday off. Give my body a little more time to recover (especially since my time off work is ending and I’m back to work on Monday).

When I resume on Monday, yes… I’m going to switch to the Wendler 5/3/1 program. I want to be in this for the long haul, that’s a program for the long haul. I’m not a 18-25 year old, I need to stretch out recovery; this program is better for recovery. I’m looking to bump my metabolism up so I can shed the fat I gained over the past 2 months (plus more!), and I can set up the assistance work in this program to be slightly lighter weights with less rest between sets (everything isn’t geared towards heavy 5 rep sets going for maximum strength). All signs point to this being a route for me to go. I figure I have to stick with it at least for one cycle (6 weeks in my case, since I’m going to do it 3x week) before I really evaluate and consider any changes, be it tweaking the program or changing to another program.

I’m still debating on exactly what I want to do for assistance work: “triumvirate” or “boring but big”. Granted I could do my own assistance work, but I think at first it’s wise to go with an existing program and only customize once I know more of what I want. Part of me thinks I should do “triumvirate” because, if nothing else, it gets me using more equipment in the gym and folks might like me not hogging the squat rack. 😉  But then again, I think only 3-4 other guys at the gym use the rack so, I may get a better less-interrupted workout if I stay there.

One advantage to BBB would be more reps in the same motion. That is, more CNS training towards really getting movements right and down. That will really help form refine and improve. My only fear with BBB is it will be, like it says, boring. I think part of my desire to switch off the current program is I’m a little bored with doing squats 3x week… but that is likely more due to overload than boredom. I do like squatting, but I think it’s just taking a toll and I need to scale back the approach. Besides, Wendler’s book says of the triumvirate:

This is very similar to Boring But Big, but you don’t have to do the same exercise over and over again, and you don’t have to do 5 sets. Just do the 3 exercises you’ve found to be the most effective for your training.

It’s about doing what you have found to be more effective for your training. Really, I don’t know what that is yet. It may do me well to start with BBB and see how that goes, then eventually “find my Kroc Row” (to use his phrase).

Just thinking aloud… don’t mind me.

Assessment

I’ve spent 8 weeks on this “Practical Programming Novice” program. A novice, constant linear progression program.

Here’s how things went:

Squat: — 105# to 230#. 230 was the most I did before I reset and found myself getting burned. Even if we take my reset weight (215), I still put over 100# on my squat.

Bench Press: — 115# to 170#. 55# increase.

Press: — 65# to 107.5#. 42.5# increase

Deadlift: — 135# to 240#. 105# increase.

Chin-ups/Pull-ups: — well, these were always “inverted rows”. But going from only being able to do low-single digit values to breaking into the double-digit range? That’s improvement. I’ll take it. Looking forward to doing full/real chin-ups and pull-ups. I’ll get there.

Those aren’t maxes: those are 3 sets of 5 reps at that weight. My actual 1RM? who knows. I haven’t tested it, and even calculations aren’t going to be accurate since 1. they’re just mathematical estimates, 2. they would require something like a 5RM, not 3 sets of 5 reps where I felt like I could still squeeze out more.

But it doesn’t matter what my actual 1RM is. The bottom line is I’m a lot stronger today than I was 8 weeks ago. I’m cool with that. The program did was it was designed to do: get you stronger. If I look at the “strength standards tables“, I’m not quite at the “novice” level, but that assumes 3-9 months of training: I’ve only had 2. I think I’m progressing just fine.

The reality is, it’s a very intense program. You need to eat a lot, you need to rest a lot, and you need to do little else in life than just lift… nothing else to really tax your system be it other physical activities or things like stress from work and life. If I was a younger man, I’m sure I could stick with this program a bit longer. But I’m not. Still, I’m quite happy with having discovered it and performed the program. I think it has set a good foundation for me to build upon in many regards: hypertrophy, strength, movements, fitness, CNS, discipline, humility, etc.. You name it, it’s really been helpful to me in some way in that area.

If I knew 20-25 years ago what I know now, I would have started lifting in a much different way. I think if anyone is going to start using weights to improve their life, some sort of “Starting Strength” type of program (be it the pure SS program or say one of the PP variants) is the way to go. You want to get strong? it works. You want to get big? it works. You want to be a bodybuilder? it’ll lay the foundation. You just want better strength for life and health, it’ll work. It’s a simple program, it works fundamentals, it lays a good foundation. There’s no bullshit, so long as you don’t overthink it. Just shut up, lift, eat, sleep. 🙂

See? The journey is really what it’s all about.