Today sucked.

Squats

• 2x5x45
• 1x5x85
• 1x3x130
• 1x3x175
• 2x5x220
• 1x3x220

As you can see, I had my first true miss on my work sets. On set 2, I almost got stuck half-way up on rep 5 but powered it out. On set 3, rep 3 was tough, then the seed of doubt was sown in my head if I’d make rep 4… and that seed was all it took. I figured to be conservative, rack the bar. Oh well, it’s how it goes some days.

I’m having that same ache too, tho it’s more localized now, on the outside of my right calf. It feels like my soleus, but not 100% sure as the ache kinda “radiates” up and down and in and out. It sucks, but I know it’s playing into everything… even if not physically making feel miss, it’s messing enough with my head.

Press

• 2x5x45
• 1x5x55
• 1x3x75
• 1x2x90
• 3x5x107.5

Press I actually felt good with. I felt strong and my form wasn’t 100% on the work sets, but still pretty darn good. I was happy with this.

Chins

• 1x10xbw
• 1x9xbw
• 1x6xbw

What happened here? This is certainly a big step back. I did feel stricter… that first set, every rep had my body stiff as a board and pulling all the way chest to bar (well, as much as my shoulders and such would let me). So who knows… maybe that tired me out some. But still, it didn’t feel good to drop like this.

*sigh*

Metcon (for Dave…)

Not sure if I’ll keep calling this “metcon” but for Dave….  🙂

I did a Tabata of rope jumping. 4 minutes; 20 seconds jumping, 10 seconds resting; 8 cycles. Just simple “double hop” schoolyard type jumping.

If you want to feel like an uncoorindated boob, jump rope.

Commentary

Today was just…. off. Not sure why. I did notice a lot of resting this past weekend… sleeping a lot longer than usual at night, yesterday I took a huge nap after lunch and still slept a long time last night. Body is trying to tell me something.

It could be that my diet changes are starting to kick in? As I mentioned before, really working to cut the carbs to nothing but the “raw veggies” (think paleo) and then a lot of meat/protein. I dropped a bunch of overall calories, no question, but feeling it so soon? And then the calf ache….

Maybe it is time to change up the routine. If nothing else, I am feeling tired of squatting. Maybe just a simple change of routine will do me well.

Much to ponder.

Today was generally good, but I need to change things up.

Squat

• 2x5x45
• 1x5x85
• 1x3x125
• 1x2x170
• 3x5x215

I did the same setup as Wednesday’s workout because I wanted to fix my bar speed. It was better this workout, smoother. However, I have this achy pain running down the back-outside-right of my right leg. Not sure what it is nor where it came from, but I do feel it affected my lift. Nevertheless, I feel generally good about this and am going to bump up 5# next workout.

Bench Press

• 2x5x45
• 1x5x80
• 1x3x115
• 1x2x145
• 3x5x165

I felt very strong today. I didn’t need to rest as long between sets, and I was just powering them out. Better form? More leg drive I know. Whatever reason, this felt very good. Another 5#.

Pull-ups

• 1x10xbw
• 1x10xbw
• 1x9xbw

And I could have gotten a 10th out if I cheated on that last rep. Is it odd that I feel stronger on pull-ups than chin-ups? Maybe after next week I’ll be at 3×10 across on both chins and pulls and will start on the assisted/negative real chins/pulls.

Other

Not sure what to classify this as yet… but I did some jump rope Tabata style. I don’t yet have the coordination to do this like a boxer so it’s just simple “double-hop” until I don’t feel as uncoordinated. It’s also far from HIIT, but I have to start somewhere.

Commentary

Overall today was good. Felt strong. Felt good.

I’ve been thinking about changing things up. This marks the end of week 7 on this program. I don’t feel a need to change just because of a time-limit, but I am feeling a need to change due to the packing on of fat. Going along with a desire to shed some of the weight, a program designed to pack on the weight doesn’t really work. But by the same token, I really want to get the rest of my lifts up to the same point as my squat. That is, I’m feeling that my squat is at the limits of what I can really do, so the progress is slow and I can accept that and go with that. Presses feel like I could go with a slow increase too… in fact, if I went to a weekly program I could actually even consider going back to a 5# bump on presses and not feel bad about it, but still slow. However, my deadlift and my bench press still feel like they’re progressing at a pretty decent pace and I’d hate to slow them down.

Besides… I know the real secret to things is getting my diet cleaned up. That’s the hardest part for me.

So here’s my present thinking:

Clean up my diet.

Start adding some HIIT in. Right now I’m going to jump rope and do it just like I mentioned above. As I get more coordinated, I’ll bump up the intensity. I will do this at the end of every workout. Will this be how I continue to do things? I don’t know. I was tossing around the notion of doing something like the Wendler 5/3/1 “boring but big” approach and having the 5×10 assistance set be somehow HIIT-like… maybe doing it 5×10 with 30 seconds of rest, more strict to Wendler’s plan… or maybe doing that exercise but pure Tabata-style. I don’t know… it’s just fresh ideas rolling around in my head, not sure what do to with it yet.

But in general, I know that changing the program is going to be necessary eventually so I can keep up muscular and strength gains, or at least, maintain if not improve… but acknowledge this will slow down if I’m trying to shed fat. My recovery will also be affected, thus a program change. But that alone won’t do it, and changing too much at one time isn’t wise either. Besides, like I said, I want to try to keep my bench press and deadlift gains going as long as I can, even if the other 2 lifts have slowed down.

So, work on my diet, add the jump rope, otherwise keep going, and we’ll see where this goes.

Better.

Squat

• 2x5x45
• 1x5x85
• 1x3x125
• 1x2x170
• 3x5x215

This felt good, better than the past few workouts. Form felt good, weight went up. Win all around. However, I’m going to keep it at 215# for the next workout. I had a little bit of a sticking point near the top of each rep, and I’d like to smooth that out.

Press

• 2x5x45
• 1x5x55
• 1x3x70
• 1x2x85
• 3x5x105

This felt fine. Keep on truckin’.

Deadlift

• 2x5x95
• 1x3x135
• 1x2x190
• 1x5x225

I cannot lie: it felt good to 1. minimize warmup sets with the 25# plates, since the 45# make for a better back angle, 2. 2 plate work set. 🙂

I fixed some back positioning issues, and again the minimization of the 25# plates helped since it gives me more reps with the better back angle. I also continued to use the double-overhand grip. I figure when it comes time to actually go to mixed grip, my grip will tell me. So until that failure point, let’s just keep going double-overhand. Plus, I’m still feeling good with this, so I’ll keep the 15# jump going for now, but I reckon this will come to an end in the next workout or two.

Commentary

I got more rest between Monday and today, taking it easier, a little more couch potato time. I’ve been running around from sun-up to sun-down every day on my “vacation” doing to-do list things and it certainly wore on me physically and mentally. While I still hate farting my day away, I do need to take more time to rest up else I’m just going to be grumpy when I have to go back to the day job. But the rest certainly helped and I felt a lot better today and it showed in my performance.

And I knew sooner or later my deadlift would exceed my squat. Didn’t quite think it would happen the way it did (due to a squat reset), but it’s all good.

Onwards… slowly, but still onwards.

Today was so-so, progressing, but not great.

Squats

• 2x5x45 (warmup)
• 1x5x80
• 1x3x125
• 1x2x165
• 3x5x210 (work)

Yes, I opted to do the same thing for another (third) workout. I’m not feeling it. I’m not sure if it’s recovery or what. I could hypothesize on a lot of things, but I opted to not push myself too hard… let’s see how it goes, then fare from there. This isn’t a sprint, it’s a marathon. That said, I felt good about how this work set went. It didn’t feel light of course, but it didn’t feel horrible. Next workout I’ll go to 215.

Bench Press

• 2x5x45 (warmup)
• 1x5x80
• 1x3x110
• 1x2x140
• 3x5x160 (work)

This felt good. I’m getting more comfortable with the “whole body” involvement, finding better foot position and getting good heel drive. I feel my progress here is still doing fine.

Chin-ups

• 1x10xbw
• 1x10xbw
• 1x8xbw

I don’t know what gives here but since my body just doesn’t seem to want to do high reps fine…. I’ll go with that emotion. I’m going to shift my goals slightly and work to 3×10 across. Besides, I’m tired of doing these “inverted row” things. The way to get strong at something? Do that something. I’m not doing that something, just something close to it. No question it’s helping me get closer to being able to do that something but… I tried today. I tried a dead-hang chin-up. I was almost there, but not quite. *sigh*  Well, I’m weighing about 240# right now (estimated 20% body fat)… if I can keep up with some weight loss too, that’ll help. 😉

But I’ve decided that once I get up to 3×10’s of these inverted rows, I’m going to start on real chin/pulls, even if I can’t do one. My current thinking (and this may well change) is to work to have 3 sets of 5 reps. But what those reps entail will vary. I will always start with a dead-hang and work to get a full chin/pull in. The rep only counts if my chin goes above the bar and/or chest touches the bar… missing it by 1/2″ is still missing it and doesn’t count. I will get as many full reps as I can. If I cannot get a set of 5 full reps, then the remainder of the reps will be done as pure negatives. It’s my understanding they will help towards getting full reps so hey, I’ll try it. So that means if I struggle on the first rep and can’t get it, I then have 5 negatives to do. Once I get a full rep and then struggle for rep 2, that means 4 negatives.

We’ll see how this goes.

And I guess, consider it also motivation for dropping down to maybe 15% or 10% bodyfat. 😉

Commentary

I’m still feeling a little worn out. Recovery? Diet? Not sure what, but I wasn’t feeling gung ho so I opted to do the same squat workout as before. I did feel alright with that set, so I will increase next workout. Trying to figure out why I feel worn, but that will come.

In the end, still happy to be going to the gym tho. My body generally feels good. 🙂

Today was not a good workout. But you drag yourself to the gym anyways, because that’s what discipline is about.

Squats

• 2x5x45 (warmup)
• 1x5x80
• 1x3x125
• 1x2x165
• 3x5x210 (work)

I opted to keep my progression the same this workout as last workout since the bar speed last workout was very slow. This session it was faster, but I could tell my form wavered a little bit. I’m debating if I want to do this again on Monday or go ahead and jump to 215#. That will depend how I feel. See the commentary section below.

Presses

• 2x5x45 (warmup)
• 1x5x55
• 1x3x70
• 1x2x85
• 3x5x102.5 (work)

My first microload! Decimals! 🙂  The odd thing here was feeling suddenly strong. Whereas on Wednesday I felt I struggled with 100# work sets, today only a couple of minutes after set 1 I felt this burst of “go” and pounded out set two. After only a couple more minutes of rest, set three. Odd that I didn’t need so much rest, that I felt so much stronger, and I did not feel at all like today was a struggle. Stressing sure, but not a struggle.

Chin-ups

• 1x11xbw
• 1x10xbw
• 1x8xbw

I don’t know what happened here. I feel like I’m stalling out. I’m debating if my body lets me get to 3×10 across that I should just go ahead and go to real pull-ups and chin-ups, even if that means things like 5 sets of 2 reps, or maybe 2 sets of 2 reps then 3 sets of 3-5 negatives. Whatever, but no more of these “inverse row” things.

Commentary

Today was not a good day.

I didn’t want to go into the gym. I had no motivation. I felt worn, I felt tired. I tossed around ideas of skipping today, but that would just start down the slippery slope of skipping. I thought that maybe I’d do a light workout instead, maybe just do the warmup sets and not the work sets, but no… what good is that? If the work sets aren’t going to happen, my body will tell me and I’ll listen to that, not listen to my brain and lack of motivation.

My guess? While I’m off work this week, it’s been nothing but work. Whittling down a huge to-do list, lots of running around, lots of doing things, and it’s rather non-stop. I’m tired! I haven’t gotten as much sleep either. So I do believe it’s just that creeping up on me. So how will this affect Monday’s workout? I don’t know for sure, have to wait and see how I feel when I get there. But it does tell me that I need to chill out this weekend, nap, and get some good recovery time in.

It also makes me think about how much longer I’ll be able to stick to this program. I’m not 18 years old and can’t recover like one. I cannot eat like a horse; in fact, I’m actively working to trim back on that because the fat gains are too much and I do need to lose. Consequently, that does mean my recovery ability will decline and I may in fact lose some strength or at least I may stick at a certain point for a while. It does make me think that after a couple more weeks of this program I might switch to something like the Wendler 5/3/1 to see how that fares for my body (and even in that, maybe pare it back a bit, like instead of 5 sets of assistance, only 3). We’ll toy around and see. It’s not so much to care about progressing with how much weight I lift, but progressing with putting a constant growing stress on my body so it will improve and adapt and work towards my goals. My goals have shifted slightly (e.g. the fat loss) so I need to adjust accordingly.

But in the end, my body will tell me what’s what and when to switch. My brain is eager to switch, but I need to force it to wait until my body says it’s time.

Squats

• 2x5x45 (warmup)
• 1x5x80
• 1x3x125
• 1x2x165
• 3x5x210 (work)

Today’s work reinforced that it was good to do the major reset. I continue to tweak and solidify my form. Chest up was key, but one thing I found I was paying more attention to was my foot positioning: the width apart, and the angle of my feet. When I walk the bar out, my feet are closer together so I have to fully reset them before I squat. I wasn’t quite getting things where they should be and then always end up adjusting as I go along. I worked to get it right from the onset. After I was done with my sets, I stood in front of a mirror, put myself into my position, then looked at myself in the mirror. My heels were perhaps a hair over shoulder width apart, and my feet were angled out more than I thought they should be… but actually when I looked at them from another angle, they were at a good 30 degree angle. Point was, I was more comfortable here, less stress on my hip and knee joints. With everything happier, well, I’m happier.

But as well, that foot position coupled with “chest up” really worked my adductors and posterior chain more… which is good, because obviously everything else I’ve been doing has been because those are weaker parts of my whole and so my quads were compensating. Yesterday I did watch Matt Wenning’s “So You Think You Can Squat” series and that put some good thoughts in my head. Anyways, I got the 3×5 but my bar speed was very slow. Next workout I’m going to keep my weights the same, keep focusing on form, but work to get the bar speed up to a “normal” speed.

Bench Press

• 2x5x45 (warmup)
• 1x5x75
• 1x3x105
• 1x2x135
• 3x5x155 (work)

As well, I continue to work on form here. I’m getting the hang of putting my feet back and pressing my heels down so that I get a full body drive from the legs up, but I’m still far from mastery of the technique… still feels weird to me, but every time I bench I get a little better and more aware of doing things right.

I am not sure how much longer I can keep up 5# jumps, but I wouldn’t be surprised if before the end of the month I dropped down to 2.5# jumps. I don’t want form to go to crap here all for the sake of weight.

Deadlift

• 2x5x95 (warmup)
• 1x5x125
• 1x2x175
• 1x5x210 (work)

Whoops! I slipped up and did 5 @ 125 instead of 3. No big deal.

This is starting to feel heavy, but not “oh God I can’t do this!” heavy. I do think that either next or certainly the subsequent deadlift session is going to need to go to a mixed grip on the work set. Until now it’s been exclusively double-overhand grip, and likely I’ll continue that for all the warmup sets, only using mixed for the actual work set.

I do think I can continue 15# jumps here, but again, that’s not going to last much longer.

Gear

I had another change of gear today. The only athletic type shoes I own is a pair of Nike Free, which I bought years ago due to Kuk Sool because they offered protection to the feet while allowing a lot of movement. I used them to lift because they’re what I had. As I read about what shoes to wear when lifting, running shoes or anything that has a lot of cushion in the heel is bad because that creates a lot of give and an unstable base under the bar — makes sense. Wrestling shoes or dedicated lifting shoes are best, but the other recommendation tends to be the good old Converse Chuck Taylor. They are basic, simple, flat soled, and not a lot of cushion to them. You see a lot of powerlifters using them. The Free’s were starting to tear and come apart on me, so I opted to buy a set of Chucks. Wore them today. Not sure I noticed any real difference other than they don’t look as fruity as the Free’s. 😉

Diet

I’ve put on about 15-20# since I started this SS-inspired program about 6 weeks ago. It’s lifting, it’s eating. Trouble is, I really can’t afford to get bigger, at least, due to fat. There’s no question I have some fat gain, but there’s also a fair deal of muscle gain — both are evident. The issue becomes my clothing. I’m starting to push to the edge of what my clothing can handle, and there’s no way at this stage that I’m going to start buying a whole new wardrobe.

But I know what I’ve been doing, and it’s been consuming too many calories overall. I’ve been very focused on whatever it took to maximize my strength gains, and that worked. But now, I gotta trim back. I need to keep the strength and muscle gains up, but shed fat. I weigh about 240# now (6’3″ tall), and using the US Army bodyfat method I’m around 20% BF, maybe 20-25% is a better range to say. So, if I could shed down to 200#, that’d be cool. That’s actually been a goal of mine for some time (remember the up-day-down-day thing I was doing?). Of course, it’s hard to say how that’ll play out as I’m building muscle too, but I still think 200# a reasonable target. Exactly where my weight ends up isn’t as big as issue as the overall body composition improving.

Given that, I need to drop my protein intake down to 180-200 grams a day (i.e. 1 gram per pound of lean bodyweight). I know I’ve been overdoing it here, on purpose. Trouble is, I started to get bad about carbs too… I shouldn’t have, thus here I am taking in too many calories in a day; I was good about this at first and actually lost a little weight, but then I got consumed by building bigger strength numbers — let’s hear it for that ego again *sigh*. So the big thing is to scale back protein intake and strive for 0 carbs in a day — that won’t happen, but if I target that it’ll help guide my choices and habits. I reset my squat, this is a reset of my diet. 🙂

Commentary

I still feel I’m doing alright. I’m getting better with my form in every way, but still a long way to go. I am slowing down, but I have to expect that will happen. With the diet change, my gains may slow and I may get pushed onto an intermediate-level program a little sooner than expected. It’ll be what it’ll be.

Bottom line: I continue to enjoy the journey.

My change-up was a good thing.

Squats

• 2x5x45 (warmup)
• 1x5x80
• 1x3x120
• 1x2x160
• 3x5x205 (work)

In the prior workout I was doing 230# work sets, but my form went to crap — not good. I opted to do a major reset, drop 10% (rounding down, be conservative), and work to fix my form. While there may be a lot of things to fix, I wanted to pick just one or two things so as to not overload myself. The two cues I set for myself were: 1. chest up, 2. abs tight. I focused on those, reminding myself of them when I got under the bar, again after I walked out before I did my first rep, and then resetting and checking myself between each rep. I didn’t focus on moving the weight or getting the rep, I focused on good form, especially the 2 cues.

Yes, things were better. Tougher no question, and I really felt it on my thigh adductors, which tells me I was doing more to include my posterior chain — all good improvement. So, it was a smart move to drop the weight and pick up the form. Remember: the body doesn’t know how much weight you’re lifting, just that there’s a stress. The poundage, the reps, those numbers are only known to the ego. Better to have the right form.

I will progress from here in 5# increments.

Press

• 2x5x45 (warmup)
• 1x5x55
• 1x3x70
• 1x2x85
• 3x5x100 (work)

Nice round number. 🙂 I could tell my bar speed was slowing down on these tho, not always getting the full push through of my head and the shrug at the end. So, I think this is another time to slow down. I’m going to drop down to 2.5# increases, so I’m happy I bought those fractional plates ahead of time. Again, I worked on cues like “chest up” to fix form.

Chin-ups

• 1x10xbw
• 1x8xbw
• 1x7xbw

What happened here? I didn’t feel as strong for some reason, but I noticed I was being stricter on these too… I guess my brain got into a “strictness” groove and it just carried over here. Not going to complain.

Commentary

Not the toughest, most demanding physical workout I’ve had, but it took a lot more mentally because I had to be very into what I was doing, keeping focused on fixing my form, constantly reminding myself of my cues. I do think it paid off, and long-term this will have been a wise move to reset and move on.

I do think things are starting to slow down, but that’s expected. While I know I need to focus on the now, I am starting to think down the line about exactly what I’m wanting for a more long-term program. The Wendler 5/3/1 is appealing to me because it continues to focus on strength, throws in some mass building and balance, is straightforward and logical, and I also think it’ll be something that I may be able to better recover from. We’ll see… much to research and consider.