I could, but that would eat into my lifting stuff time.
Is it something you could sneak into your daily life though? I have a band attached to a door handle at my office and can use it to sneak in some tricep extensions or unloop it, stand in it, and do some curls. Same set-up at home.
I read this,
and then just figured out ways to make that work in my day-to-day as much as was feasible for me. I donāt do all those dislocatesā¦
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I could, if I felt a need for it. My approach tends to be that I donāt do things that I donāt need to do. I hurt myself by doing silly things like 1000 push ups in a day so my solution to that will be to not do 1000 push ups in a day again. That will likely fix the issue without the need to add stuff to my daily routine.
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Work for today:
20mins uphill treadmill. Went a bit lighter today because either:
A) I realised the goal is just to be in my target heart rate for 20mins, and trying to burn calories that way is silly at best
OR:
B) I am a big old vagina.
Iāll you makenthe judgement call here.
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I donāt have the exact numbers in mind but incline treadmill, depending on the angle, can burn twice or thrice the calories of regular treadmill. Plus whatās better? 20 min of walk or no walk? Work is work
I agree but Iām not really doing it for the calorie burn, I walk 12k+ steps a day for that. Iām doing it to get my heart rate into a sensible training zone for a while. Thatās the only real benefit i get from it that couldnāt easily be replicated without getting up at 4am
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Lol thatās whole new level of masochistry
I canāt force myself to lift with any intensity at 4am, so itās the perfect time to do mindless cardio
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Weigh in at 198lbs today. I think I forgot to log midweek, which was 203.2lbs. Way higher than expected.
I guess this is kinda working? I dunno. I donāt even really have a way to gauge strength gains because nothing Iām doing is remotely āstrength workā. Guess I just trust the process and if it ends up not working, Iāve only wasted 7 weeks and gained some more mental toughness out of it.
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According to some successful people, strength is built by accumulating volume in the 80-87% range. Are you doing that?
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Not much, no. Certainly the complexes and squats arenāt getting close. Off the top of my head, most of the 531 work Iām doing before probably isnāt either. So probably just the deadlifts
I guess the purpose of the program isnāt the immediate strength gains, but the size and work capacity for future strength gains. Iāve just got no objective way to measure whether itās working in that regard.
Remember that 531 does tend to get you stronger if you do it right. Also remember that fatigue obscures strength gains until youāre rested
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I guess Iāll find out in 4 + 17 weeks, plus deloads/holidays. That will probably be the longest Iāve ever trained with no idea if itās working or not.
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Couple of things you can do:
Take note of bar speed for a given working weight (video, not how it feels). If in 10 weeks you can move it faster, you probably got stronger. It will be best to look at the first rep of the for the comparison.
Use the max estimation formula to compare PR sets or sets close in number (within two reps). If the general trend is that your estimated max is staying the same or increasing, you probably got stronger.
Monitor your grip strength. If in a given week your grip is worse than usual, that is often a sign you are carrying a lot of accumulated fatgiue. So, if that week your numbers are bad, there is a high probability that this is a result of fatgiue and not that you are getting weaker.
Take note of your assistance work. If you find that at some point you need to slightly increase the load to make it feel effective (in the sense that the current load is simply too easy), you have probably gotten stronger.
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I normally do all of those things, apart from the grip test. When I get back to āregularā training after MMS, I will likely do the same again (although I have very few PR sets programmed). The problem with MMS is that itās so out of the ordinary for me, i just canāt judge any of that stuff. Luckily itās only 4 more weeks.
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I just read the article here on TN, you got me curious to see what you are doing.
I just read through what I wrote, and it seems like an assault on your way to do it, I hope youāll bare with me, because itās not to pick on your way of doing things. And as Iām writing as the first thing, you are probably using another variation than the original article. Where he btw says doing high rep squats of 225 x 25 x 20 thats 20 sets of 25 reps which is ridiculous.
You seem to do it a bit different than the 11 year old article. So you might do a variations newer than the one i saw.
What I extracted was:
2 days a week with an optional third day.
You start the workout with:
1: The complexes after this itās the big two:
2: Front squat and bench press day one
2: Deadlift and OHP day two
Those lifts follow 531 amrap and is only done for the main sets, no back off.
3: High rep squats ends the days workout. Day work up to a heavy triple striving for heavier and heavier weight and day two high rep squats work up to a heavy triple, a amrap back off set trying to do more and more reps with that weight.
The optional day is do a complex followed by what you like to do curls, lat raises, back work whatever.
Strength is gauged by the amrap sets of 531 and of course the high rep squat sets and on the optional day where youāre supposed to use heavier and heavier weights for the complexes.
Lastly itās a bulking program so no conditioning and eat a lot, itās a short period of time where youāre supposed to gain a heck of a lot of weight 40 lbs or thereabout.
Looks like a great program and if you follow it as laid out in your variation Iām certain that youāll end up being stronger. Trust the process. @MarkKO is the advocate for training a long time without knowing for certain if youāve become stronger, trusting the process is the key word.
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So, thereās a lot to digest there, I appreciate you taking the time to write it out. Iāll try to cover all of it.
Thereās two versions of MMS, the ebook version and the article version (Iāve heard Dan John call this MMS lite). The ebook version consists of:
- Bench (following Dan Johnās version of a strength program with waving ladders)
- One handed Press (same again)
- Minimal rhomboid work (his word, not mine) in the form of bat wings
- Minimal core work in the form of bird dogs.
- Complexes
- High Rep squats.
What Iām doing:
Iāve taken a mix of both templates and doing basic strength training first, then the complexes and high rep squats following the progressions laid out in the ebook (thereās no typos like the 20 sets of 25 in the ebook). Basic strength training is 531 for press, bench and front squat, Kroc program for deadlift.
What I might be fucking up:
- Iām running press and bench as BBB because otherwise upper bodywork would be almost non existent (essentially like a Jack Shit template for 7 straight weeks). This may be too much work, however I feel Iām recovering from it, itās hard to tell, see a point below.
- Iām not doing plus sets. This was because I donāt have rep maxes for 2/3 exercises Iām running 531 which tends to make me sandbags. I figured 5s PRO would mean I was still getting the work in with decent form. I probably should have dropped supplemental for bench at least and pushed for PRs and maybe done seated press and back squats instead of press and front squats. Ironically, in trying to stick closer to the program, Iāve probably moved further away from it.
- Iām doing extra work. Nothing high impact, but more than the recommended zero. I also workout less frequently than the original program recommends though (it works on a 6 day week originally), and I donāt feel over trained as far as I can tell.
Overall: if I was going to run it again (and Iām definitely not), I would make some of the changes above and go into it a lot leaner so i could really focus on shovelling the food in without going over my āfatness thresholdā, but as a stand alone 7 week challenge, Iām happy with how Iāve set it out.
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I like your approach and the reasoning behind it.
It was mostly a reply to you not being able to see if youāve gotten stronger.
But itās only a couple of month, so hard to tell if youāve become stronger week to week.
But if your get more and more reps in the squat, youāve become stronger.
I donāt even really get to measure that, I just do the reps the program says and trust Iām getting more muscular. Iām confident Iāll get solid PRs next time I test in ~ half a year though, and the harder I work, the bigger those PRs will be.
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Work for today:
Bench:
5 x 70kg
5 x 80kg
5 x 90kg (PR)
5 x 10 @ 60kg
Front squat:
5 x 55kg
5 x 65kg
5 x 75kg
Complexes:
5 x row
5 x powerclean
5 x front squat
5 x push press
5 x back squat
1 round each at 40kg, 50kg, 60kg
Back squat:
10 x 40kg
10 x 50kg
10 x 60kg
3 x 5 @ 80kg
Notes:
- So despite saying I donāt know if Iāve got stronger, thatās a comfortable 2 rep bench PR at 90kg. Bench felt pretty solid today.
- Front Squats felt not awful, just fairly bad. I think Iāve fucked my calculations up somewhere because this is a big old jump from last session.
- Full disclosure: all the exercises apart from bench where using the same bar at very similar weights, so I did them in whatever order involved fewest plate changes and tried to keep rest periods shorter.
- When I initially wrote this session out, I double checked it 3 times because 3 x 5 at an incredibly reasonable weight is nothing. My only thought is that it might be letting me recover for my first bodyweight āto fiftyā on Tuesday.
- 7/14 done, halfway through.
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