Hex Bar Deadlift 5 x 112.5kg, 3 x 127.5kg, 2 x 145kg - grip was slightly wrong and the bar was tilting forwards
Pogo Jump 4 x 25 x 2.5kg
RDL 4 x 10 x 65kg
Hanging Leg Raise 4 x 8
Plate Pinch 3 x 20 secs with 2 x 5kg plates
Realised that there’s a lot of fluff in my workout that I do want to keep, but when you cut that out I did 2 reps of deadlift and 4 sets of RDL today. Think I should put in lunges to beef up the workout. I suppose power cleans count for something but I treat them like a warm up.
Bench Press 5 x 85kg, 3 x 97.5kg, 1 x 107.5kg (assisted?)
Alternate DB Bench Press 27.5kg x 20, 20, 20, 18, 14 (60 secs)
Incline Row (machine) 3 x 10 x 20kg, 2 x 10 x 17.5kg
Cable Curls 5 x 10 x 35kg (60 secs)
Rotator Cuff 15 x 4.5kg external, 8 x 8.5kg internal
I ended up benching with a fatter bar and that made squeezing it harder. Also the bench didn’t have anywhere for your head as it stops underneath the bar - won’t be using that one again. I asked a guy to spot me for 107.5kg, unracked it myself and i’d like to think it was “all me” as he told me but it felt like he just eased me through my sticking point. Probably going to repeat that 5/3/1 and maybe do additional benching as I feel like the weight is progressing faster than I am.
Very pleased with the other exercises, went BBB 5 x 10 style on the alt DB press, incline rows & cable curls and I feel like i’ve actually trained hard.
Power Clean 2 x 70kg, 2 x 75kg, 2 x 80kg, 2 x 85kg
Hex Bar Deadlift (hold just above floor 5 secs) 4 x 3 x 90kg
Back Squat 10, 10, 10, 6 x 100kg (60 secs)
Adductor/Abductor Raise 2 x 15
Hanging Leg Raise 4 x 9
Jesus, that was tough. I liked the power clean set up, surprised to not catch 85kg double though I was being quite casual about it. Explosive at the lighter weights. I read a DL article about holding just off the floor and having experimented with a 5 sec pause in the bottom of squats a few years ago I tried a similar approach today. Legs were shaking and quite hard to hold my breath for 5 secs but I think 90kg was a good choice.
Back squat was horrendous, set the safety bars to just below where I needed to be so depth was good in all reps, and just kept going until I could do no more. Had to hold onto the bar when I racked it and lower myself onto the floor, loved pushing my legs that hard. Think i’ve been at 55-60% intensity before now and being at a public gym has ramped it up to 85%.
Brought back the 30 total rep bench workout, struggled with the last rep on every set and was so close to failure. Pull-ups were much better but tired really quickly. Turns out I pushed too hard in squats the other day and I got my first experience of a hemorrhoid, it’s basically just a small bump that feels like you’re clenching a raisin, hope this is a one off as I thought only the over-50’s get this sort of thing.
Deload week coming up, will do 5/3/1 and 3 sets of assistance.
Edit: Internal Hemorrhoid, no doubt from holding my breath in the bottom of the deadlift, commonly get them from straining on the toilet but high abdominal pressure in a squatted position has brought it up. Found discussions on here about it and good to see other under 30’s have had this too. Bought Rutin and a cream, has been 48 hours and it’s started to go. Will do just the 5/3/1 on Wed or Thurs then hopefully be back to normal for rugby on Sat.
Put all my 5/3/1 into one workout. Suffering from an internal hemorrhoid that’s decided to come up for air, have been treating it and it’s probably 2-3 days from going away. It didn’t feel great during deadlift, feel like I was really aggravating it even though I wasn’t straining. Possibly just the increased blood pressure in my body. Really hoping it doesn’t disturb me in rugby on Saturday, will stretch and foam roller later today to help my muscles.
Was asked to play for the Development team as we had an easy game in the 3rds (which they won 32-19 to keep us near the top of the table). The bulk of the team were 17-19 year olds (i’m 27 if you’re keeping track), had a few other 3rds players in the backs with me so right wing, centres and full back were of a higher standard. I played outside centre to get more of the ball.
Our forwards were poor and the opposition won all our scrums and had a lot of turnovers. When we did get it in the backs the inside centre bulldozed through players but tended to cut inside so we couldn’t run support lines. Had a nice phase that included me offloading back to 12 as he looped round and scored in the corner. I did a similar thing with a second row for our other try which ended with 10 in the corner. Our defence was excellent and impressed me but attacking wasn’t organised. I made a dozen tackles, opposition were so physically weak I almost zoned out, managed to rip the ball off them half the time and hold it in the maul the rest, not exaggerating to say my girlfriend is stronger than their winger.
A note for the worst referee ever. Opposition took it into a maul numerous times, he even uttered the phrase “use it or lose it”, yet gave them the scrum. Also failed to enforce 10 yard distance for penalties, we’d tap and go, run 2 yards and get tackled and he’d just play on.
Edit:
12 teams in our 3rd XV League, 10 of 22 played, Current standings are:
1st B 2’s 33 pts ~ +300
2nd C 2’s 33 pts +164
3rd W 3’s 30 pts +191
4th A 3’s 30 pts +9 (my team)
We were stuffed by C, beat W and B and have a mid-table opposition to take us to the halfway stage. I missed our other two defeats but they were quite heavy which gives us a poor score difference, and given it could come down to that at the end of the season we need to work on destroying the smaller teams and not just being happy with wins. Week 12 sees B v C so if we can get 2 wins in a row we’ll be joint 2nd by xmas.
KB Swings 2 x 15 x 15kg
Abductor/Adductor Raise 2 x 15
Power Clean 2 x 70kg, 2 x 75kg, 2 x 80kg, 2 x 85kg - 85kg went up nicely
Hex Bar Deadlift 5 x 100kg, 5 x 115kg, 8 x 130kg - bloody grip, wiped my hands after 4 reps and lost grip again at 8.
Pogo Jumps 4 x 25 x 2.5kg
RDL 5 x 10 x 65kg
Leg Raise 4 x 9
Plate Pinch 3 x 30 secs w 10kg
Grip needs to improve faster as it’s annoying me now. I increased plate pinch time and will probably go up in weight next.
Bench Press 5 x 75kg, 5 x 85kg, 5 x 97.5kg
Machine Row 5 x 10 x 20kg
DB Bench Press 27.5kg x 20, 20, 20, 16, 12
Cable Curl 5 x 10 x 35kg - last two sets were slow to really get a pump
Rotator Cuff
Intended to do a double workout but someone was on bench for ages so i’d done my abs & grip work and just as I was about to go they finished so I did upper body too. Glad I did, my 5 reps went up much easier than last cycle. Managed 20kg on the machine row and cable curl was getting a bit easy so perhaps jump to 40kg next.
ha yeh, was definitely the deadlift pausing and holding breath that did it, confident it was a one off.
Dec 12
KB Swing 2 x 15 x 15kg
Adductor/Abductor Raise 15
Power Clean 2 x 75kg, 2 x 80kg, 2 x 85kg
Back Squat 5 x 90kg, 5 x 105kg, 7 x 120kg - put 5/3/1 back in now I have the safety bars
BBB Back Squat 3 x 10 x 100kg
Cleans were fine. Good to do 5/3/1 squats again, struggled with the weight more than I expected but hope to adapt. BBB was very difficult.
OHP 5 x 45kg, 5 x 50kg, 5 x 57.5kg
A1 Bench Press 80kg x 10, 5, 5, 4 (30-60 secs between exercises)
A2 Pull-ups 11, 7, 6
Didn’t get anywhere near enough calories in yesterday, was starving this morning but didn’t eat enough as I wanted to gym relatively soon after eating. Think this backfired after my squats as i just felt ill, weak and light-headed. Did the minimum in OHP and a token attempt at bench and pullups. Left the gym close to throwing up or passing out.
Alternate DB Bench Press (2 mins) 5 x 20 x 27.5kg, 16 x 27.5kg
Cable Curl 12, 12, 8, 8 x 35kg, 10 x 30kg - used a different cable and found it harder. Either way it’s for a pump not for a PB!
Rotator Cuff
First off I just looked up my teams result and they lost at the weekend. That’s 2W 5L without me and 5W 1L with me, and i’d say our chances of promotion are now gone. Will try and make time for Wednesday training to see if I can get moved up to the 2nd XV.
Today’s session was good, once again 5/3/1 isn’t working for me so i’m doing higher volume work around 80-85% 1RM. My 6 x 3 was solid, worked on bar speed. Think I need more weight on DB bench, and a good measure of how hard I worked was that i couldn’t do cable curl properly and had to drop the weight down to 30kg.
KB Swings 2 x 15 x 15kg
Adductor/Abductor Raise 2 x 15
Power Clean 2 x 70kg, 2 x 75kg, 2 x 80kg, 2 x 85kg, 2 x 90kg - caught the last one and put a little too much pressure on my wrist
Hex Bar Deadlift 3 x 107.5kg, 3 x 122.5kg, 7 x 137.5kg - used the straps, form was poor, i deserve to wake up with a sore back
Pogo Jumps 4 x 25 x 2.5kg
RDL 5 x 10 x 65kg
Hanging Leg Raise 4 x 10
Plate Pinch, double hand 3 x 30 secs x (2 x 10kg plates)
Power clean was good, 85kg was light enough that I went for 90kg. Deadlift was poor, my grip went so I used my straps, glanced across at the mirror and my upper and mid back were rounding so I did a more upright posture for the last few reps. Think the back work I did yesterday has tired me out and I couldn’t hold form, will know not to put the sessions in that order in future. Everything else was fine.
Was really happy to step on the scales and see i’d put on 4lbs since my last weigh-in. I was getting changed and thought I looked a bit bulkier in the mirror so checked my weight to confirm. Don’t think i’ve ever been above 170lbs so i’m entering new territory here.
Played bottom of the table. So easy to break their defensive line that the ball rarely came out to me. Think I touched it three times and passed every time. Ran a lot of support lines, think I could’ve got 4-5 tries if people weren’t so selfish. The full back in particular, great you can break lots of tackles but out of about 15 carries he got 4 tries, knocked on 3 in the first half alone and had at least 5 easy chances to set up a try but continued to run until he went to ground and the support runners had to drop in and ruck.
I was pissed off when I came off at 60 mins but then I thought about the guy who’d turned up and only got 20 mins in my place so could be worse. Only had to make one tackle so i’m fresh enough to do squats tomorrow.
KB Swing 2 x 15 x 20kg
Adductor/Abductor Raise 2 x 15
Power Clean 2 x 70kg, 2 x 75kg, 2 x 80kg, 2 x 85kg
Back Squat 3 x 100kg, 3 x 112.5kg, 8 x 125kg - straight back in the groove, 5kg more than last week and an extra rep
BBB Back Squat 5 x 10 x 90kg - filthy
Glute Bridge 3 x 12 x 30kg - would’ve gone heavier but no pad for my hips
Great session, so happy with that. Squats felt really solid and I got through the 5 x 10 going deep as I knew 90kg normally was within me. Legs are wrecked now.
Lat Pulldown 10 x 50kg, 3 x 10 x 45kg, 1 x 10 x 40kg
Bench Press 3 x 10 x 65kg, 1 x 8 x 60kg
A1 Tricep Cable Pushdown 3 unknown plates on machine x 10, 10, 10, 12, 15
A2 Bicep Curls 5 x 10 x 30kg
I pictured the session going a lot better than this. I’m at my parents and was dragged to xmas eve drinks in town and had a limited time to train before dinner. The ceiling is too low to stand and press so I sat and it felt very awkward. Pulldowns and bench would’ve been fine but I started too heavy and couldn’t see out the 5-6 sets I wanted to do. Cut recovery between exercises so it was all laboured, tried to combine bi & tri and ended up not getting a pump for either.
I have work today (26th) and a stag do next two days, so will be back in the gym on the 29th.
KB Swings 2 x 15 x 15kg
Adductor/Abductor Raise 2 x 15
Power Clean 2 x 70kg, 2 x 75kg, 2 x 80kg, 2 x 85kg
Hex Bar Deadlift 5 x 115kg, 3 x 130kg, 2 x 147.5kg
Pogo Jumps 4 x 25 x 2.5kg
RDL 5 x 10 x 70kg
Hanging Leg Raise 4 x 10
Grip Master - Heavy: Flat Fist 2 x 4, Power Pinch 2 x 3, Power Grip 2 x 8, Tricep Press 2 x 5 - new grip strength device
Managed a double at 147.5kg without straps, losing grip straight away so second rep was a bit awkward. RDL was good, extra 5kg made it tough. Got a grip strengthener for xmas and tried a few exercises, probably bought one that was too difficult but I like a challenge.
DB Bench Press 27.5kg x 10, 10, 10, 8, 5, 5 - changed from alternate to both arms at once and recovery of 1 minute
Tricep Cable Pushdown 6 x 10 x 25kg
Cable Curl 6 x 10 x 35kg
Rotator Cuff
Big pump. Bench felt light at one point, definitely taking the intimidation out of 95kg and will be nice to work with 100kg soon and do the same. Going to add bent over row to deadlift day, machine row today was nice. Everything took some sort of struggle to finish and DB bench obviously was beyond me, really like this session.
Oh and the grip work yesterday has left my hands aching and bench was hard to squeeze.
Ad/Ab Raise 2 x 15
Side Lying Clam 2 x 15
KB Swing 2 x 15 x 20kg
Power Clean 2 x 70kg, 2 x 75kg, 2 x 80kg, 2 x 85kg
Deadlift (Conventional) 5 x 110kg, 5 x 120kg, 5 x 130kg - probably rounded back on the last two reps of 130kg
Plyo Jumps 4 x 25 x 2.5kg
Bent Over Row 5 x 60kg, 5 x 5 x 70kg - underestimated what I could handle, 70kg felt fine and could go a touch heavier
BBB Back Squat 5 x 10 x 90kg - bleurgh
V-Situps 3 x 15
Grip Master - Heavy: Power Grip 2 x 8
Pretty good session. My flexibility was good when I got into position for cleans and the plates at the commercial gym have a bigger diameter so I thought i’d switch back to normal deadlifts while I work on my back. I think 130kg was a bit heavy given the previous sets but i’ll repeat that until they go up easily. Excellent back position for bent over rows and they were pretty strict so if i was to allow some momentum I could go heavier. Back squat was tough, I could feel my mid back from rows and my glutes from the activation work.
Was given a huge workload yesterday and took me 13 hours to get through it so no time for gym. Haven’t played rugby in three weeks so I thought i’d stretch my legs out and do a few shuttle runs on a nearby pitch. Muddy conditions so no sharp change of direction, felt out of shape and glad I did it. Came home and stretched.
Glute Activation 2 x 15
Ab/Ad Raise 2 x 15
KB Swing 2 x 15 x 20kg
Power Clean & Front Squat 2 x 70kg, 2 x 75kg, 2 x 80kg, 2 x 85kg* - *only one front squat
Back Squat 2 x 110kg, 2 x 115kg, 3 x 120kg, 3 x 125kg, 2 x 3 x 120kg - meant to do 6 x 3, maybe 5 x 4 would be better
Pogo Jumps 4 x 25 x 2.5kg
RDL 5 x 10 x 70kg
Hanging Leg Raise 4 x 10
I did a front squat each time as if I was doing a regular clean but that was messing up my wrists as I tried to catch it back in the hang position off my shoulders, so next time i’ll do a double clean then after the second rep i’ll do two front squats.
Squats were odd, 120kg felt lighter than 110kg so needed a warm up, forgot it was 3 reps and did light doubles to warm up. 5 x 4 will probably work best here in a pyramid fashion.
My work (football analyst) has been a bit hectic as i’m covering the Asian Cup in Australia, meaning i’m up at 3-5am and previewing in the evenings. It messed up my rhythm as I didn’t catch up on Fridays lost sleep until Tuesday when I had a massive nap and missed the window to go lift. Will likely do upper body tomorrow then rugby on Saturday.
Speaking of rugby… I couldn’t play on Sat but would’ve skipped it anyway as it was bottom of the table (we won 70-12). Interesting table as after this weekend we play B2’s in Week 15 and W3’s in 16, then in week 17 B2’s play W3’s (keeping up?). Table after 13 of 22 games looks like this:
Wrote down push press but was able to strict press that weight which was cool. Might do a pyramid with 62.5/65 in the middle two sets. Never done t-bar row before, quite a small RoM so worked on pulling the lats back and piled on the weight until it was a challenge. Lat was easier than my one at home, only goes up in 10’s though and I tried 50kg and almost couldnt’ finish, again pyramid is an option. After 4 sets of curls I wanted to die so I didn’t bother with the final two sets as my pump was achieved.
