So I think I won’t do BBS. It’s high volume and intensifying at the same time, I rather just have high volume.
I’m looking into BBB variations. Something like BBB FSL sounds good, but I don’t know, I’m just afraid of that shit. Ton of work, and a lot of soreness the next days. Don’t know if it’s actually worth it if my main goal is strength and hypertrophy, and here it’s like only hypertrophy and suffer. My weights look too heavy to recover from the next days after a workout. Doing 150kg 5x10 deadlifts sounds doable, but suffer lol. Doing something like this is recoverable for me, but I would suffer a lot and I would need to eat A LOT. Seeing what Jim recommends, never I can eat like that. I’m not gonna eat 2 cheese burgers every day and fries and 10 eggs and whatever more you can eat, it’s just isn’t healthy and I’m not looking on getting fat.
So I think maybe mixing it up. Doing BBB FSL for the upper movements, and regular BBB for the lower body.
To clarify, that is NOT what Jim recommends. That was a sample diet of his athletes, which are high school football players. It’s what I expect a high school kid to eat.
Jim’s requirement in 5/3/1 Building the Monolith was 1.5lbs of ground beef and a dozen eggs per day. For a hard training athlete, that’s 780 calories from eggs and 1200 from 90% lean beef. No one is getting fat off that, and it’s FAR healthier than what most folks are eating on the daily.
So I’m leaning to BBB FSL with 5s progression. 5x10 FSL only for the squat and bench, and 5x5 FSL for OHP and deadlift. I’m thinking maybe switching between OHP and the bench as Jim listed, but I feel like it’s too low of a volume for the bench, and maybe too much volume for the OHP.
I gotta imagine you don’t have any high school age kids, haha. The fact this wasn’t a diet of sour patch kids and energy drinks puts it leaps and bounds above. Most high school kids are barely taking in any protein: it’s why Jim put those rules in place.
It’s not hard to eat healthier than that, and it’s not like its less tasty. I guess it just depends where you live.
If I were a coach I would suggest something else than replacing shitty food with less shitty food. Well I’m not, so I don’t have the exp, but still it’s my opinion.
Shit I miss training. I did a deload week now, but it was boring as hell. I miss lifting heavy shit.
Anyway, my programming is going to be like this: 3/5/1 Beefcake without deadlifts, and for deadlifts 5x5 FSL. If I’ll recover well, we’ll see if I’ll do beefcake for deadlifts as well. I don’t know how much accessories I’ll do, and I’m not sure if I should do 200 dips per week, it might be too much.
My TMs are: 155kg Squat, 102.5 Bench, 195 Deadlifts and OHP 70kg. I lowered my TMs by 5kgs beside OHP because there everything is going really well.
That was a good workout, and one of the hardest workouts I ever had. I had nausea and felt like I’m gonna vomit almost the whole workout. I ate a good amount of macaroni right before sleep, so it’s probably it.
Did 140kg x5 as a top set, which was OK. I didn’t do the 5x10 FSL. I did one 107.5x10, but a vomit feeling had been intensifying and I knew that anyway I would only get like another 2 sets. So I just dropped down the weight to 80kg and did another 4 sets.
I’m just gonna do regular BBB with some percentage for squats, probably like 60%. My legs are a bit sore but they feel fine, not shocked.
Programs like Beefcake are for people like football players, not for one that don’t eat like them, or have massages every day and focuses only on training. If I had to approximate what is my calories intake by average, it’s probably like 2200, when calorie calculators say I need to take 2600-2800 for maintenance.
My body currently isn’t used for high volume. I didn’t do high volume for like 5 weeks. I know my body so next week is going to be much better for shaww.
So now the plan is as follows: BBB ~60% for Squat, 5x5 FSL for deadlifts, 5x10 FSL for Bench and 5x10 FSL(?) for OHP. If anyone has some thoughts on it, I would love to hear them.
Crazy chest pump. I can’t remember such chest pump, my chest was full. Did 97.5x5 as a top set (top sets are always paused), which went alright. Did 2.5 sets of 72.5x10 as FSL sets with a pause, but my triceps started to cramp, so I lowered it to 62.5 and did another 2.5 sets. 0.5 as a complement for before, so in total 50 reps. My triceps were really cramping, for a very long time, or even ever, it didn’t happen. I actually barely ate anything for 8 hours because of an exam other than some chocolate and yogurt at morning, so I guess I had no carbs and no energy, and it felt that way.
I don’t think I eat enough calories, so I need to take that in check.
Did also 50 reps of pull ups, 50 reps of dips and then some biceps.
So I don’t know if I should continue with this FSL or just do something like 60% 5x10. I saw that it’s also possible to just drop the weight each set. I think the main thing behind those supplemental sets is purely hypertrophy. I really want to advance in bench. At this rate, it’s going to be a long road for 140kg.
Crazy crazy leg DOMS. My thighs are so doomed. Tried doing deadlifts, but man I just feel extreme tightness at my thighs- I just can’t flex them. So postponed deadlifts for tomorrow and will do deadlifts and OHP, hopefully it won’t affect recovery at the later workouts.
You just know I did something right at squats. Actually shocked the muscle. Probably some massage gun would do good here, but I think it’s just a temporary relief.
Was a good workout, but was pretty sore. I couldn’t do deadlifts yesterday because of soreness at my thighs, so I did them today instead. Top set was 175kg x5. My technique was good, but not efficient. My thighs were still somewhat sore, so I had to reduce the amount of power I generate from them. They were pretty limiting, but I managed to also do 137.5x5x5 as FSL.
Later did OHP, top set was 62.5x5, which was alright considering I barely had any energy left and was sore. Also did 40x5x10, like 60% which was good as well. My front delts and triceps were also sore from bench day, so they were also kinda limiting. Did some pull ups, dips and biceps.
Basically this week is full of soreness lol, because I use higher % then before. I don’t really do Beefcake because that’s too tough unless I’ll be eating a lot of calories, but I’ll be doing 60-65% for bench, OHP and squat, and for deadlifts 5x5 FSL.
I think maybe increasing the % each week, but not too much. Like this week was ~60%, so next week will be like 62.5%.
Anyway, my body already looks different from this week. Some muscles on my back are popping more, and my chest looks bigger. I don’t care if it’s maybe psychological, but if I see it then it exists.
Squat went good. Did 132.5x5 as a top set, which was alright. Later did 92.5x5x10 as supplemental sets with ~2 min rest, which was a bit tough. My quads were so pumped because of my hams. My hams were fatigued because I did deadlifts on Friday instead of Thursday, so it had some effect. Did also a few sets of leg extensions and leg raises.
Tuesday
Bench went great as well. Did 87.5x5 as a top set, which was pretty smooth. I still have to work on my technique, mainly staying stabilized on the bench. Did 65x2x10, which is ~60% from the TM, and it felt easy so I bumped it to 67.5 which is now 65% TM for another 3 sets, which felt kinda easy as well. Did pull ups in between. I used to do paused reps on the supplemental sets, but this cycle (and probably onward) I decided not to do it because I just get a better pump and I feel much more tension is kept during the set. Keeping tension for 10 paused reps is just not always possible. So I just did right before the end of each set some paused reps.
Did some rows and this time dips 10x10, then some biceps. I need to work on my biceps more since I feel them more now on the bench trying to stabilize the bar.
Deadlift: 165x5 top set, 127.5x5x5 FSL. Went well. Tried to do all the FSL without straps, but did the last 2 sets with straps.
One hand bar hold: 50kg x3x20 seconds per hand. Left hand is weaker than the right hand.
Leg curls and leg raises.
Friday
OHP: 60x5 top set, 45x3x10, then 40x2x5. I could do 5x10 with 45kg, but I know my shoulders need a bit more time to recover, so I lowered the weight and did a few more reps so I can recover better.
I couldn’t train for a few days because of national issues.
I thought to start doing the 1s week from today, but it didn’t go as planned.
Started with squat, got up to 117.5x5 when I got slight kneecap pain, so I decided to do some deadlifts. I think I get this pain because sometimes I sit in a squat position without any warmups, so maybe that’s it… I’ma stop doing it I guess without any leg warmups…
On deadlifts: 165x5, 180x1. It was pretty shit. I wanted to do like 185x5, but obviously I didn’t get even close to that. I seriously don’t know what’s up. It’s probably because of knee pain but I can’t absolutely tell.
Pretty frustrating workout. The pursuit of strength is pretty tiring. It’s long and it seems like I still have a lot to figure out about my body and how it works, it seems like I ain’t even close to figuring it out. The progression should be easier. I don’t even do big weights really.
This cycle was a complete bummer. I came to the conclusion that my TMs are too high. I gotta swallow my ego, and just lower my TMs. So I calculated my 1RMs, and took 85% of them, and it looks like a weight I could do for 5 strong reps, assuming I’m not feeling shit or fatigued.
5/3/1 is great, but sometimes I wonder if I could have quicker gains, because 5/3/1 is more tailored for the long term: making consistent and promisable gains, but they may come slower. I look at Alex Bromley’s Bullmastiff program, and it looks like a fun program. It’s meant to be run in the short term, and it’s a hard program, but doesn’t look like something I can’t pass.
I don’t want to program hop, because that’s kinda like running away. So I wonder.
Started Bullmastiff by Alex Bromley. It looks like a fun program so I’m trying it. I already completed week 1, and now starting my second week. These are the AMRAPs I completed on week 1:
Squat: 105kg x 14, Bench (Paused): 75x15, Deadlift: 130x14, OHP: 45x16. I left some reps in the tank in all AMRAPs, I don’t see any reason really going to full failure. Everything was pretty easy, I chose good 1RMs.
Overall AMRAP was easy as well. Last week I had to do deadlifts on Friday instead of Thursday, so I lost some recovery time. My buttocks and hams give up before my quads, or at least I feel them more. Snatch grip deadlift only 3 instead of 4 because I didn’t notice it’s 4 sets instead of 3 like last week.
I could’ve done more reps on the AMRAP, but I don’t see any reason to do that. I had like 3 reps left I think.
