Good stuff mate, looking like you can break some shit with those arms.
2 Likes
Those look good mate. Easy for you, but good. Also, those arms are looking serious.
1 Like
They looked solid mate. Can see you focusing on your brace and pushing into the belt which is great. You are pulling the slack out of the bar and engaging your lats. A guy on here MarkKo who doesn’t post anymore would use the cue of trying to squeeze oranges in your armpits which helped me a lot.
Once you get comfortable with all that then try to push hard with the legs when you break it off the floor and accelerate the bar as it goes up past the knees. At lighter weights you will feel the acceleration and max weights you won’t but it will help.
You are doing an excellent job mate. Well done.
3 Likes
@simo74 thanks! Those are exactly the cues I got from the Alsruhe videos. Figured I need some time at lighter weights to drill that technique, which worked great training at home where I don’t have much weight anyway!
@dagill2 and @Cyrrex thanks! Man I’m stoked to get an arm compliment 
but two compliments? (Blushing)
@T3hPwnisher thanks, and thanks for watching!
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12/18 Saturday
Sandbag
10 two-part picks
1 driveway front carry
10 two-part picks
1 driveway front carry
Picking it up, lapping, then standing tall and heaving it to lockout on my chest, then dropping. A two-part movement. Idk if that’s a regular pick or something else lol.
1 mile walk with family.
6 Likes
Sunday 12/19/2021
1 mile walk with family
Sandbag:
5 over shoulder
1 shoulder carry down driveway
5 over shoulder
1 shoulder carry up driveway
Tabata sandbag “squats”.
Holy hell those were miserable.
Great session, totally impromptu and done while watching my kids on their bikes.
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This made me smile. I agree they are a little nasty!
1 Like
12/20/2021
Last night I felt great and had the idea that today was the day: I’d squat 315. No, this doesn’t make sense, it’s 20lb above my recent PR, but I just felt confident. It didn’t work out. Perhaps it was a mistake. Here’s what happened:
SQUAT
1x275 - felt harder than I expected
Attempt 295 - folded like a wet paper sack. What the hell!
1x275 - way too hard, but I got it
1x265 - still hard
1x255
1x255
1x255
I think I logged that correctly. Since the SHTF I was just trying to do something useful. But was sorely disappointed - and shouldn’t have been; should have just kept on track as I have been. It was at this point that I realized that, while I have been progressing, I haven’t been following a program. Perhaps that would be a good idea again. I’m not good at following programs.
DB C&P
each arm: 1x75, 1x80, 1x85, 1x90, 1x90, 1x90, 1x95 PR @TriednTrue that 95 went up, who knows if I could get 100 but after the squat session, IDK if it would be a good idea to get that aggressive!
After that I did some leg machines, high rep to feel a burn in the offending areas.
Oh, and supersetted a bunch of pushups in between the squats.
Overall, hey, I tried - I was hoping to just knock this bastard off the list and not have to worry about heavy squats in 2022. Wrong. Now I still have to get to 315 and then switch gears; wife and I are talking about running a half-marathon in May.
8 Likes
Read this and though yes good to hear you are feeling great.
Then read the rest and put my head in my hands.
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Lol somehow I knew I was letting you down today @simo74 , you specifically.
If you learned something then you have not let me down.
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I did.
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12/21/2021, Tuesday
Sandbag:
5 over shoulder,
shoulder carry down driveway,
5 burpees jumping over bag,
5 over shoulder,
shoulder carry back up driveway,
5 burpees jumping over bag.
9:09 - Awesome. I’ve added more work per session to reach this point, and I have a time benchmark for this now. 8:00 is an achievable milestone.
After a minute or two to catch my breath, 1.1 mile run, untimed.
All of the above took 20 minutes or less. There’s no reason not to do this multiple times per week. Cue introspection time:
Before I even finished squatting yesterday I realized the hard truth: I wasn’t worthy of the 315 squat, because I haven’t built the base of volume. I haven’t wanted to suffer under high-rep squats, 10x10, anything that truly crushes the soul. And I thought I could get to 315 while rarely exceeding 5 reps at any weight. To achieve my goal I’m going to have to suck it up and suffer.
What else? Well, I have done practically zero assistance work for the squat. No significant amount of BSS. why? because they suck and I don’t like to do them. but I know they are the cure.
Also: My wife suggested the other day that we should run a half-marathon together. Not to compete, most likely to stick together with a goal of just finishing, possibly slowing to a walk during the second half.
Quite honestly getting in running shape is appealing on a few levels. But I don’t want to lose the squat and deadlift goals, or postpone them too far. So I think it’s looking like this for the near future:
-Gym trips must drop to 2/wk for life reasons
-Squat brutally
-2 weeks without a barbell in January, as promised - probably the first 2 weeks of the year
-Squat brutally some more
-Peak the squat again in February, maybe hit 315 at the end?
-Move squats to the back burner while I pursue other objectives
Another thing that hit me: I can hit 275 even on a bad day like yesterday. If I set that as my TM and did 5/3/1, adding 10lbs per cycle, it would only be 4 cycles = 12-16 weeks and I could have a 315 TM. If I followed the same for DL I could probably get the 405 in a similar timeframe. Could just do 2 days/week at the gym: Squat volume/DL531 on Tuesday, DL volume/Squat531 on Thursday. Home days could cover conditioning and upper body needs.
8 Likes
Confidence is important, so I don’t begrudge you thinking you were close. But good that you also have the wisdom to work on what might be holding you back.
2 Likes
Haha, no it isn’t.
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Seems like a reasonable plan to me. You could really go all out on squats and deadlifts twice per week but still do a lot of stuff for upper body at home.
To be fair, neither have I nor do I think anyone else has 
Have fun with the half-marathon. I did 3 or 4 of them several years ago. Totally doable if you have a decent base. I wasn’t lifting at the same time, though.
2 Likes
I don’t have a decent base, either!
Much easier to build a cardiovascular base than to build a strength base in my experience.
Good on you for doggedly pursuing the goals despite busyness and setbacks.
Couple of potentially helpful things I’ve probably mentioned too many times to count so feel free to ignore. 2x per week on 5/3/1 is absolutely doable and as long as you’re hitting it hard you’ll gain plenty of strength. I’d personally do squat coupled with bench and deads with ohp and then just hit whatever accessories you feel right for main goal. You can still be in and done in under and hour, I did it for a year when first getting back in to lifting after a good few years hiatus, hit prs on every lift.
Squats, I know you want to hit that 315, but I’d take a lower TM and then hit 10 reps every week for the top set regardless of what the reps for the day say, i.e. it’s a 3 day do 65% for 3, 75% for 3 then 85% for 10. If you start lower you’ll be able to hit 10s every week for months and I wouldn’t be surprised if you hit 315 for 10 fairly rapidly.
Again these are just things that have worked for me so feel free to ignore.
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I maintain that you don’t need to hit Squat and deadlift hard to build both, they work essentially the same muscles. Hit your Squat hard and do some minimal deadlift so you keep the pattern ingrained.
If I had those goals, I would:
Day 1:
Squat 531 with whatever supplemental protocol worked well for me
Core and quad work for Accessories
Day 2:
Kroc Deadlift program
Front Squat: some basic volume like 5 x 5
Core and quad work for Accessories
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There is an absolute time honored precedent of only training the squat and bench with some rudimentary back work and saving the deadlifts for the day of the meet. Although dudes back then did a fair amount of olympic lifts…which, really, wouldn’t be the worst idea.
4 Likes