Hrm. That may not have been the best idea.

I opted to move my bench to model 2. I ran into this in the past, where model 1 just doesn’t work as well for me on bench (tho perhaps if I was eating like a horse it would), but model 2 worked out ok. So last night I opted to do it. All in all it went well, but my shoulder isn’t too happy with me.

It is because of model 2? No, I don’t think so. But I don’t think the heavier weight helped.

At this point I’m starting to think I may need to totally change my upper body work. Jim Wendler posted this to his website just yesterday:

Question: I have a bad shoulder. How can I work around or through this?

Answer: This is something most veteran lifters have gone through. Rest is the obvious answer (as is an MRI and a good doctor, and I’ll assume these steps have already been taken). Here are a few more tips:

• Start squatting with a buffalo bar or a safety squat bar.
• Eliminate any kind of pressing from your training other than the main lifts. Keep all assistance to pulling movements.
• Pause all your reps at the bottom.
• Make sure you warm-up thoroughly.
• If you’ve had shoulder issues in the past, don’t stop the rehab. It should always be done as part of your training program. You don’t stop fucking once you get married, and you shouldn’t stop shoulder love once it’s healed.
• Make band pull-aparts a steady part of your training. Do 100 reps every day. Another great “rehab” movements is the full-range plate raise. This has helped my shoulders immensely and has actually allowed me to press again.

It makes me wonder if I should also “start over” with bench pressing. Drop the weight WAY down, never fewer than 8 reps, work on adjusting technique to be more aware of shoulder (e.g. I even noticed this morning after I unracked my shoulders had come out of position; I re-retracted them), add in more stuff like Jim mentions. In fact, that full-range plate raise is something that’s come up in some other contexts and I’ve been thinking about doing.

So… not sure, but it’s rolling around in my head.

• Bench Press (Base Building model 2)
  • bar x 5
  • bar x 5
  • 115 x 5
  • 135 x 4
  • 155 x 3
  • 185 x 2
  • 206 x 1
  • 195 x 5
  • 195 x 5
  • 195 x 5
  • 170 x 5
  • 170 x 5
  • 170 x 5
  • 140 x 15
• Dips
  • BW x 8
  • BW x 5
  • BW x 5
• Incline DB Press (350 Method)
  • 35e x 21
  • 35e x 17
  • 35e x 14
• Machine Flies
  • 70 x 10
  • 70 x 10
  • 70 x 10

All in all, a good “80%” session. Walking lunges are evil things. 🙂

Squats went well. I worked up to my EDM because I was feeling good. The 5×5 work sets continue to just slam along. So at this point, I think I need to change up. But… what? More weight? Different model? I’m going to go with different model and bump up to model 2. Main reason is the primary goal is Defattening Project, and model 2 will give me “more work” while also upping the intensity a bit. Plus if you look at model 3, that’s a LOT of work/volume, and if I want to go model 3 I better do model 2 first to work up to it. Not saying I will go model 3, but again given my goal and the path I ought to take to get there, it’s somewhat about more work not necessarily more weight (on the bar). So, I’ll start model 2 next week.

The other reason is the 60% doesn’t feel like it’s translating over. When I did the 285 I had a little stick about 2/3 of the way up, which is the transition point. I would like a little more weight on the bar to see if I can get some work to carry over into helping at that point. We’ll see if model 2 will do that.

I also realized I’ve been calculating my numbers wrong. Model 1 is supposed to work up to 75%, but I’ve been working up to 85%. Oh well. It’s been working fine for me, so I’m not going to sweat it.

Anyways, model 2, next week.

Oh, and on the Defattening. FINALLY — 215 yesterday, and 214 today. Carbs have been reduced, and I’m just constantly hungry, even after I finish eating. Ah well… the journey to 200.

• Squat (Base Building model 1)
  • bar x 5
  • bar x 5
  • 140 x 5
  • 165 x 4
  • 195 x 3
  • 215 x 2
  • 240 x 1
  • 285 x 1
  • 170 x 5
  • 170 x 5
  • 170 x 5
  • 170 x 5
  • 170 x 5
• Leg Press
  • 345 x 10
  • 345 x 10
  • 345 x 10
  • 345 x 7
• Walking Lunges
  • BW x 12
  • BW x 12
  • BW x 12
  • BW x 10
• Leg Curls
  • 40 x 12
  • 40 x 12
  • 40 x 8

A little good. A little bad.

Overall, the session went well. Still adjusting and feeling things out on this new program, but all in all good.

Feels good to be pressing again. It’s the hardest thing for me to progress on, but I do like doing it. But I had to call numerous audibles today because — shoulder.

No question the Advil and back-sleeping are helping, because I just don’t feel the pains as much any more. Plus I’m doing some good shoulder stretching, rotator cuff help, and so on, and those can’t be hurting. But with the pain gone, I feel everything more, and things don’t always feel good. 🙂 Still, I hope with inflammation going down that the body can focus on healing up and not just battling the inflammation.

But it was odd and painful at a few points. The upright rows didn’t feel exactly comfortable on my right shoulder. Then the JM Presses — as soon as I unracked, my left shoulder complained loudly. I actually thought about not doing any more JM’s but stuck with it so I could try to diagnose what went wrong. Thankfully no more issues, but still…. But because of it I didn’t do the extensions, instead going for rope-pushdowns. But those even caused some weird shoulder binding at the bottom of the movement (as I’d try to squeeze-hold at the end).

So… I suspect I’ll keep this groove but perhaps update the weights a bit. Like on the pressdowns I bet I could go lighter but really work the movement more, like maybe a 2-1-4-0 type of tempo, ensuring that hard squeeze/hold at the peak of the contraction. Basically I want to ensure the shoulder HEALS, so if adjustments to lighter weights, more reps, and other intensity-increasing techniques is what I have to do, then so be it.

That said, one thing I also did was remove the face pulls. Instead I did something I hadn’t tried before: the reverse flies on the pec fly machine. The other day when doing the rotator cuff work I had just put my arms out to the side, parallel to the ground, and was “open and closing” my chest. Man, that felt awesome and really moved some things that needed it, shoulder-wise. So I thought why not try doing those sorts of machine flies? Bent-over lat raises always irritated me, so if these hit the rear delts and also maybe help on the shoulder, why not? Man, that was good — I was able to forget about other muscles (e.g. I didn’t grab the handles — just braced my hands against them so the movement was all generated from contracting my delts and upper back), and it seemed good.

So really, apart from the shoulder weirdness — which I need to keep an eye on — I feel good about how today went. Some adjustments will be made, but overall, good.

• Press Behind the Neck
  • bar x 5
  • bar x 5
  • 65 x 5
  • 85 x 5
  • 95 x 8
  • 95 x 8
  • 95 x 8
  • 95 x 8
• Wide-grip Upright Rows
  • 90 x 10
  • 90 x 10
  • 90 x 9
  • 90 x 7
• Lateral Raises
  • 20e x 10
  • 20e x 10
  • 20e x 8
• Machine Reverse Flies
  • 30 x 12
  • 30 x 12
  • 30 x 10
  • 30 x 10
• JM Press
  • 115 x 8
  • 115 x 8
  • 115 x 8
• Rope Pressdowns
  • 35 x 20
  • 35 x 15
  • 35 x 14
  • 35 x 13

That wasn’t too bad.

Deadlifting itself was fine. My knee was a little unhappy, but by the 3rd work set things were humming along nicely.

Rows. Fine. I’m doing them more Pendlay-style, but whatever — so long as my back feels it.

Shrugs didn’t work out as I planned. I wanted a heavy/low-rep set, then a lighter/high-rep… but I missed the weight estimates by a long-shot. 🙂 Ah well. I did them Meadows style (3-second hold at the top), and I’ll probably just stick with that.

I do feel like I need a little more volume here, like a 4th set of rows and a 3rd set of shrugs. But I dunno… the deadlifts do a lot.

Anyways, all in all, fine. I think the bigger commentary comes from other things. I’m really feeling it in both shoulders and elbows. I’m going to start taking some Advil before bed for maybe the next week or so and see how it goes. I generally don’t like doing that, but I think I’m beat-up enough I could use a little help. As well, I’ve been a side-sleeper for some years now. Don’t recall why I changed to side sleeping, but I did. I do believe it either is causing or certainly isn’t helping my shoulder situation. So working on trying to get back to sleeping on my back. Feels very strange. 🙂 But hopefully changes like this will help my shoulder situation out.

All in all, things are groovy.

• Deadlift (Base Building model 1)
  • 185 x 5
  • 210 x 4
  • 250 x 3
  • 275 x 2
  • 290 x 3
  • 290 x 3
  • 290 x 3
  • 290 x 3
  • 290 x 3
• BB Rows
  • 135 x 8
  • 135 x 8
  • 135 x 8
• DB Shrugs (Meadows Style)
  • 80e x 10
  • 80e x 10
• V-Bar Pulldowns
  • 100 x 12
  • 100 x 12
  • 100 x 12
  • 100 x 9
• Hammer Curls
  • 30e x 8
  • 30e x 8
  • 30e x 8
• BB Curls
  • 20 x 100

Today was ok.

First day on the new approach, so a lot was guessing at numbers and seeing how it went. Adjustments will be made.

Already I’m losing some strength. The story of my bench press — if I’m not eating big, the bench suffers. Ah well.

I’m not ready to write it off yet, but I’m also not decided what to do about it:

• Stop benching altogether. No.
• Stay the course, see what happens.
• Stay on model 1, reduce weight.
• Stay on weight, but go to model 2.
• Change to a more bodybuilding style (vs. Base Building)

I’m not sure what to do yet. In part it’s a desire to get more reps in, but still keep it somewhat on the heavier side. But as well, more reps, lighter weight, a little less abuse to my shoulder which isn’t getting better. So.. not sure, but I am thinking that lighter and more reps is going to beat me up less so….

Otherwise, everything went about as expected. Will adjust some weights next week.

One fun thing. Instead of hitting the machine flies, I opted to do cable crossovers. I’ve never done them before, but talk about an exercise so associated with chest work. But after doing them, I may not do them again — it was just too much awkward strain on my already hurting shoulder. I might try it at a different height — I did the traditional “pulley up high, cross down low”, because cables do put a different “stress curve” on things. But nothing at the expense of my shoulders. I’m not even sure traditional dumbbell flies would be good for me right now… so it may be a lower-angled machine fly, if anything. I’ll keep playing and seeing what works.

• Bench Press (Base Building model 1)
  • bar x 5
  • bar x 5
  • 115 x 5
  • 135 x 4
  • 155 x 3
  • 170 x 2
  • 195 x 1
  • 170 x 8
  • 170 x 8
  • 170 x 7
  • 170 x 4
  • 170 x 4
• Dips
  • BW x 9
  • BW x 5
  • BW x 5
• Incline DB Press (350 Method)
  • 40e x 17
  • 40e x 10
  • 40e x 10
• Cable Crossovers
  • 30e x 12
  • 30e x 12
  • 40e x 10

Feeling dejected, but hopeful.

I’ve been sitting at a bodyweight of 216 for a few weeks now. I should be down, not steady. The things we changed up didn’t seem to have effect, so we’re upping the ante. Pretty much no more fat in my life, and I’m now hitting the gym 4x/week instead of 3. The gym sessions will be more or less the same as I have been, just minor mods.

I am still following a Base Building philosophy. With 4 days it’ll be: squat, bench, deadlift, press. I’ll give the main work in a Base Building style, then the assistance work will try to inverse pyramid. That is, start with good assistance exercises that are more compound, heavier weight, fewer reps, then progress to more isolated stuff (tho not entirely — no concentration curls here) with lighter weight and more reps. The lighter stuff can go closer to failure, but no pushing past it (e.g. drop sets, rest-pause, etc.). Keeping rest times to about 60 seconds. And just try to move move move.

Thus today’s squat session wasn’t much different than last week, but I did change up a few things.

First, I am thinking if things keep up as they are, I’ll probably bump it to model 2 as the work sets here are already pretty easy. I’d rather try going to model 2 before I increase the weight. I’ll see how next week goes, then judge from there.

Leg presses continue to use a narrower, lower stance. To help with that pressing motion, instead of pushing through my heels I remembered a better tip: lift the big toe. That keeps things “flat” and oh that seemed to hit everything just right. I’m also upping the weight a little bit, wanting to keep the leg presses more on the heavier side. I do hope this will be effective in bringing up my quad strength as for sure that’s my weak point.

Then the lunges… oh dear lord. I hate lunges, but I do them because there’s no question they help my knee. If I keep doing them, over time it’s been a huge help. So I need to keep doing them. Today for variety I opted to do walking lunges instead of in-place stepping out and back lunges. Geez… that sucked. 🙂 I also work to keep good posture, no leaning forward, very upright. That helps the hurt. Yeah, I should keep these up.

Now, I had planned to throw in some light leg extensions at the end, again towards helping my knee. But I couldn’t. My quads were trashed after the lunges. So I did leg curls instead. First, I think that may be a better option overall. Second, what hurt more was my quads! The physical pressure of resting on my aching, pumped quads, the simple pressure against them… that hurt more than anything. 🙂

So, we’ll see how all this goes and where it takes me.

• Squat (Base Building model 1)
  • bar x 5
  • bar x 5
  • 140 x 5
  • 165 x 4
  • 195 x 3
  • 215 x 2
  • 240 x 1
  • 170 x 5
  • 170 x 5
  • 170 x 5
  • 170 x 5
  • 170 x 5
• Leg Press
  • 345 x 10
  • 345 x 10
  • 345 x 9
  • 345 x 6
• Walking Lunges
  • BW x 12
  • BW x 12
  • BW x 10
  • BW x 8
• Leg Curls
  • 40 x 12
  • 40 x 12
  • 40 x 8

Well, it was fun while it lasted. 🙂

I am NOT making progress on the fat loss. It’s actually really mystifying to me because after over a year of doing this I have a pretty good handle on my body rhythms and flow of how the weight fluxes happen, and I just haven’t been seeing that same pattern. It’s quite strange and I don’t know what to make of it.

And frankly, I’m annoyed. I was aiming to be maybe 210 by now but I’m not…. 216 still…. still… still. grr….

So yes, going to drop the food intake, and up the work. I have a new plan set up that I’ll start on Monday, so today ends the 3x/week Base Building. The plan is my own, but still trying to be in the mold of Base Building. That type of work, that sort of focus, but 4x/week. Monday bench/chest, Tuesday squat/legs, Thursday deadlift/back/biceps, Friday shoulders/triceps. We will see how long I can keep it up, because with the reduction in food and increase in work (and stress), recovery needs to be on-point. So… we’ll see.

That said tho, today went well. Every deadlift rep I worked that new approach I stumbled into for my setup, to help ease the knee issues. It worked quite well, especially the warmer I got. I shall keep working on that.

And the v-bar pulldowns. Man, I like. Never really done them, and the chins just didn’t happen… but here on pulldowns? I can have less weight, fuller range of motion, and really work the back… I felt muscles working and getting worked in ways I hadn’t before. It was quite cool.

Otherwise, a good day. And while I’m annoyed at my lack of progress, I’m looking forward to where things will go.

Base Building Traditional Split

• Deadlift (model 1)
  • 185 x 5
  • 210 x 4
  • 250 x 3
  • 275 x 2
  • 290 x 3
  • 290 x 3
  • 290 x 3
  • 290 x 3
  • 290 x 3
• Barbell Rows
  • 135 x 8
  • 135 x 8
  • 135 x 7
• V-bar Pull-Downs
  • 100 x 10
  • 100 x 10
  • 100 x 10
  • 100 x 10
  • 100 x 8
• BB Curls
  • 20 x 100

Not a bad day…. but I don’t think these days are going to last.

Overall, today was fine. But what isn’t fine is the rate of my fat loss. It’s just not happening. After some discussions with Nick, we’re seeing how the rest of this week goes, and if there’s not sufficient reduction then we’re going to drop the food down a little more, and I need to pick it up in the gym — 4x week.

I’m totally down with that — I have to remember that, no matter what other goals I may have, the #1 goal right now is The Defattening Project. So all work must be chosen, selected, and done to support that goal.

That said then, I’m not sure what I will do. Will I keep on a Base Building-like approach? or will I adopt a more bodybuilding-like approach? I like the heavier, more reps, approach in Base Building… but it also lacks things like going to failure and other intensity techniques that are good for building (retaining) muscle, which is rather important. Plus with the reduction in food, better is to continue to up the workload, so that even means things like reducing rest, but Base Building supports that too. Plus there’s a level of work I get out of Base Building approaches that I just don’t get from more bodybuilding-like approaches.

So… I don’t know. I’m mulling things over. The bottom line: support Defattening.

Base Building Traditional Split

• Bench Press (model 1)
  • bar x 5
  • bar x 5
  • 115 x 5
  • 135 x 4
  • 155 x 3
  • 170 x 2
  • 195 x 1
  • 170 x 8
  • 170 x 8
  • 170 x 8
  • 170 x 4
  • 170 x 3
• Incline
  • 115 x 8
  • 115 x 8
  • 115 x 7
• Side Laterals
  • 20e x 10
  • 20e x 10
  • 20e x 9
  • 20e x 6
• Lying Triceps Extension (EZ-Bar)
  • 35 x 20
  • 35 x 18
  • 35 x 15
  • 35 x 12

A little change-up, but I think it’ll be good.

So squatting itself went fine. In fact, I was feeling good so I worked up to my EDM; still keeping 1 minute of rest between all sets. It was a wee bit slow at the sticking point (about 2/3 way up), but not too bad. It did a couple things: 1. it gave me a good measure of things so next time I try the EDM if it goes up faster then I’ve gotten stronger; 2. it reinforced the need to really push the work sets with C.A.T., especially as I transition through the sticking point. So it was productive, I think.

The work sets tho feel easy. I am hitting the same bar speed and such on that 5th rep of the 5th set. I’m not sure what I’ll do here… I may keep at it another week or two then switch up to model 2, instead of upping the weights. We’ll see how it goes.

Then I tried to change up a few things. I can feel my knee not being happy, so I want to continue to work on strengthening it. As much as I hate the unilateral work, I do believe it has really helped in the past, so I want to stick with it. But one interesting thing is that the other day I was just stretching in my chair and basically did a leg extension. The way things felt lead me to wonder if doing some light, higher-rep leg extensions might be good for me. So I’m going to adjust things slightly to put those in and see how it goes.

I also did split squats today instead of lunges, just for variety. IMHO either split squats or lunges, whichever… just do one of them, whatever keeps me from hating the work too much. 🙂

Another change up was my foot positioning on the leg press. Now when I started doing leg presses again some long time ago I was keeping a “stance” that was trying to replicate my squat stance as much as the press machine would allow. Then some months ago I was reading about going narrower as a better way to target the quads. But tho I did that, I didn’t feel I was getting the work. This past weekend I was reading something that made me think about trying to go a little more narrow and positioning my feet a little lower as well. So I did that. Feet were a few inches closer together, plus I moved them down a couple inches. No impact to range of motion, feet were still fully in contact with the plate. I also made an effort to push through my heels. It’s really easy in that position to have the direction of force basically go through the balls of the feet, but that’s not how it should be. Granted it shouldn’t be all through the heels, but rather evenly spread, just like the bar was over the middle of the foot (in a squat). Still, if I think to press through my heels, that ensures a “whole foot” engagement in the pressing motion, not just the balls of my feet. And so the result? Man, I really felt it in my quads, more than I ever have. That little bit more in, that little bit further down, ensuring a good full-foot press… oh yeah. So that was better than upping the weight for sure. 🙂

Anyways, all generally good.

But what isn’t good? I don’t know what gives with my weight loss. It’s not progressing at the rate it should be. Nick @ RP and I are going to watch things this week. If the rate doesn’t pick up properly then we’re going to drop intake yet again (yes, so soon after the last drop) and I’m also going to up the gym sessions to 4x week. I’m going to stick with Base Building tho, just some minor rearranging of the work. We’ll see how this week goes.

Base Building Traditional Split

• Squat (model 1)
  • bar x 5
  • bar x 5
  • 140 x 5
  • 165 x 4
  • 195 x 3
  • 215 x 2
  • 240 x 1
  • 285 x 1
  • 170 x 5
  • 170 x 5
  • 170 x 5
  • 170 x 5
  • 170 x 5
• Leg Press
  • 315 x 10
  • 315 x 10
  • 315 x 10
  • 315 x 10
• Split Squats
  • BW x 10e
  • BW x 10e
  • BW x 10e
  • BW x 10e
• Leg Extensions
  • 40 x 10
  • 40 x 10
  • 40 x 10