[center]October 7, 2011 Lower Body BEAST MODE[/center]
Leg Press: 540*4 630*3 [b]720*2 NEW PR!! 810*1 NEW PR!! 855*1 NEW PR!![/b]
Glute-Bridges: 405*3 [b]455*3 NEW PR!! 505*2 NEW PR!![/b]
Elevated-Foot Rope Pullups: 14, 13, 10
WHARGARBL. OK, so I was starving for this workout, I thought I was going to pass out about 5 minutes in. I thought my old record on leg pressing was like 780. Apparently it was 700. I beat that 3 straight sets, and my final set was 155 lbs. over my previous record. I was actually out of room on the sled for weight, I had to balance a 45 behind the foot plate. Also thought on glute bridges that 455 was my old record, turns out it was 405. I beat that by 100 lbs. for a double. So yeah…good session
So since I can’t quite get onto the medium & tall box stacked on each other (about 39") without worrying about catching my shins on the steel frame, I decided to hold a weight in front of me while jumping on the regular height box. This way I’ll get used to jumping with the extra weight, should make getting on the taller stack easier. Honestly though I wish they had soft boxes to jump on instead of these steel ones, seems like a leg-break hazard. Apparently the club in Medford has soft boxes. Also liked how holding a kettlebell while doing the jumps took the arm swing out of the movement and made me focus more on legs.
Getting back to normal on heavy benching after the summer of higher rep stuff. That was fun, but I like lifting heavier best. Did a giant set on the pullups for the heck of it, feelsgoodman.jpg, everything else went well, push pressing is going good, honing form still, I want to get it to where 99% of the time my form is perfect, still feel like I’m not quite there yet. Finished with some rope slams for a metabolic component. I want to be particularly shredded on Halloween
I should be able to squat 350 but on this attempt I unracked it ultra-shitty. You generally want to have a belly full of air, I was exhaling as I descended. Stupid. Snatches went well, I’m focusing on breaking the weight off the floor rapidly, may do some speed deadlifting after regular deadlifting this week. Good mornings for lower back. Somehow got 6 on pistols. They look VERY weird when I do them using my right leg though, kind of like things aren’t straight, my upper leg goes in and crookedly, I need to post a video. Beasted out the PUPP, not sure I ever want to do that again.
I tried holding a weight while doing these over box jumps, worked out well. Did some bench pushups since I don’t do enough plyo stuff for my upper body. Below you can see the knee stretch I did, it’s from this T-Nation article. I did the one on the far left, with no reach. Finished with TKEs. I need to start taking stretching/mobility work seriously so I’m going to be tracking what I do from here on out.
FINALLY got dips to work without hurting my clavicles. I was going too low before I believe and putting too much stress on them. This was MUCH better. My shoulders were jelly after doing them and the inclines so my standing press numbers took a dip here. Felt great doing the dips though. Totally worth it.
BB DL: 405*2 415*1 425*1 315*5
Glute-Hams (on lat pulldown): 3
Pistols: 4, 4
Chinups: 12, 6
[i]I’m still not back at 100% on deadlifting, I feel like my lower back/glutes/hams are still exhausted. I guess that makes sense considering last Friday was supposed to be a ‘light’ day and instead I broke my leg press record by 250 lbs. or whatever and my glute bridge record by 100 lbs. Whoops. This coming Friday I’m going to keep the weight low on deadlifts, like in the 315 range, and see how I feel. Glute-Hams on the lat pulldown worked, but they hurt my knees…Did more pistols. I enjoy them even if they’re hard; I feel like it’ll work out any imbalances I have. Finished the posterior chain off with some chinups.
On a separate note I’ve been thinking of reorganizing my training; I do the deadlifting at the end of the week since I have a day off right after, but that doesn’t really make sense. It’s the hardest lift I do, and it comes after squatting on Tuesdays and sprinting or some other heavy conditioning on Wednesdays. I’m still sore sometimes when deadlifting, which is probably not good. I should probably be deadlifting on Mondays. Just like you prioritize within a workout, doing the largest lifts first, you want to do that during your training week as well. I take Saturdays off, and Sundays I do conditioning work, but it’s usually more anaerobic work (ball slams, kb swings, etc.) and box jumping (which I could do all day and not end up with a seriously fatigued CNS). So Mondays should probably be deadlifting day, Tuesdays incline benching etc, Wednesday conditioning, Thursdays Squatting, and Friday bench pressing. That is if I keep the same routine when bulking as I have now. I’m not entirely sure I will though. More on that later though; I’m thinking of doing something like a push-pull-olympic or explosive split. [/i]
[quote]AccipiterQ wrote:
On a separate note I’ve been thinking of reorganizing my training; I do the deadlifting at the end of the week since I have a day off right after, but that doesn’t really make sense. It’s the hardest lift I do, and it comes after squatting on Tuesdays and sprinting or some other heavy conditioning on Wednesdays. I’m still sore sometimes when deadlifting, which is probably not good. I should probably be deadlifting on Mondays. Just like you prioritize within a workout, doing the largest lifts first, you want to do that during your training week as well. I take Saturdays off, and Sundays I do conditioning work, but it’s usually more anaerobic work (ball slams, kb swings, etc.) and box jumping (which I could do all day and not end up with a seriously fatigued CNS). So Mondays should probably be deadlifting day, Tuesdays incline benching etc, Wednesday conditioning, Thursdays Squatting, and Friday bench pressing. That is if I keep the same routine when bulking as I have now. I’m not entirely sure I will though. More on that later though; I’m thinking of doing something like a push-pull-olympic or explosive split. [/quote]
I think you should try that one. Logic seems right. You can always go back, if it doesn’t feel good.
[quote]AccipiterQ wrote:
On a separate note I’ve been thinking of reorganizing my training; I do the deadlifting at the end of the week since I have a day off right after, but that doesn’t really make sense. It’s the hardest lift I do, and it comes after squatting on Tuesdays and sprinting or some other heavy conditioning on Wednesdays. I’m still sore sometimes when deadlifting, which is probably not good. I should probably be deadlifting on Mondays. Just like you prioritize within a workout, doing the largest lifts first, you want to do that during your training week as well. I take Saturdays off, and Sundays I do conditioning work, but it’s usually more anaerobic work (ball slams, kb swings, etc.) and box jumping (which I could do all day and not end up with a seriously fatigued CNS). So Mondays should probably be deadlifting day, Tuesdays incline benching etc, Wednesday conditioning, Thursdays Squatting, and Friday bench pressing. That is if I keep the same routine when bulking as I have now. I’m not entirely sure I will though. More on that later though; I’m thinking of doing something like a push-pull-olympic or explosive split. [/quote]
I think you should try that one. Logic seems right. You can always go back, if it doesn’t feel good.[/quote]
Yeah, deadlifting is what I excel in the most weight wise, so why not put it in prime position.
[i] Wow…well that was a fun series…basically hold a db in each hand (that’s what the weight listed is), dip down, dip down again and drop them and on the way up from that dip jump over the box, as you come up out of the crouch from landing you explode up and broad jump. Very tiring. Finished with some ropes & paloffs. [i]
Bench is going well, got some good forced reps with a great spotter. Pullups going well too. Push pressing added some more weight on, and then finished with some metabolic stuff (swings).
BB Squats: 315*2 335*1 345*1 315*2
Front Squats: 225*3 245*2 265*1
Power Cleans; 95*5 115*5 135*5 145*2
keeping my core tight while squatting definitely makes a huge difference. Going to keep plugging away at it. Front squats went well. Adding in power cleans here too instead of snatches. I’ll put snatches on another day, maybe after deadlifting, which sounds like a brutal day, but if I just do those 2 exercises I should be able to manage. Good session here
Did this one with minimal rest between sets, wanted to see how it worked. I’m going to begin another mini cut pre-Halloween. I’m going as a Roman gladiator, I want to look extra cut for this. Going to manipulate my water intake starting probably this coming Sunday, and follow Shelby Starnes’ protocol for pre-show sodium/water/nutrient intake
BB DL: 315*4 315*5 315*5 315*5 365*5
Rope Pullups: 9, 7
Front Squat / PUPP G.S.: 185*5/:30/185*5/:30/185*5/:30
Shoulder-Touch Planks: 10, 10
Decline Situps...just for the hell of it: 25, 15
Recently I watched this video, and it made me want to take a look at my deadlift form:
So for today’s session I decided that since I had to do a deload week anyway I would focus on my setup and keeping the bar close to my shins on the way up. Felt good man. Also when I searched for that video I used blogger’s youtube search function and pasted in the DL video’s url. This also came up for some reason:
So for the rest of this session I put in some rope pullups, kind of got away from them recently. Next I decided to throw in a Front Squat & PUPP giant set. I got the idea from an article from Dan John “four metabolic challenges…” that lists some challenges to try. Here’s an excerpt:
Simply take a squat movement and use a weight that you can get for ten reps. For this workout, however, we'll halve those reps, so we'll do sets of five. Instead of resting, you will PUPP.
Here's an example:
Front Squat x 5 (with 10 rep weight)
PUPP for 30 Seconds
Front Squat x 5
PUPP for 30 Seconds
Front Squat x 5
PUPP for 30 Seconds
Be careful on the last set as the heaving of the chest makes handling the barbell a bit suspect. I strongly encourage you to rest for a little bit after this workout.Yes, you can PUPP longer than 30 seconds. Yes, five reps with a weight you can front squat for ten is very light. And guess what? Neither will matter when you attempt to leap off the ground and front squat that last set. How about this? Try it first, then decide if you want to ask me about longer PUPPs and more weight on the bar.
I definitely thought this would be easy. I figured maybe for someone untrained it would be hard. I actually thought I had misread it at first and that there were supposed to be 4 sets of each. Yeah it didn’t matter. After that last set of P.U.P.P.s I collapsed and lay face-down on the floor of the squat rack for at least two minutes. The hardest part was actually not vomiting from the burning in my shoulders. The front squats really put a stretch on my delts, and then the PUPPs don’t let up on them either. Overall it was a great session, and I finished with some decline situps since I haven’t done any
[center]October 24, 2011 Glycogen Depletion Day 1[/center]
BB Flat / Pullup S.S.: 185*12/BW*10 195*12/BW*10 200*9/BW*10 185*10/BW*8 185*10/BW*7
Leg Curl / Leg Ext. S.S.: 90*12/60*12 90*12/60*12 90*12/70*12 90*10/70*12 80*12/80*12
Standing DB Press / DB Curls S.S.: 35*12/25*12 35*12/25*12 40*12/25*12 40*12/25*10
So for Halloween I’m going as a Gladiator/Spartan/Whatever. I’m following Thibs Shredded in Six Days protocol that he lays out in this article. I’m at trace carbs, The workouts for today and the next 2 days will be focused on glycogen depletion; as such these supersets are done with 30 seconds between supersets. Was pretty tired after this one, but it wasn’t too bad. We’ll see how it goes tomorrow
[center]October 25, 2011 Glycogen Depletion Day 2[/center]
Squats / Front Squats S.S.: 135*12/135*12 135*12/135*12 115*12/115*12 115*12/115*12 115*12/115*12
DB Incline / DB Rows S.S.: 55*15/55*15 55*13/55*15 55*12/55*13 55*12/55*12 55*12/55*12
AB Wheel: 13, 13, 13
Oof. Figured this would be easy since the squat weight was so light. Yeah not so much. I’m not sure how much glycogen I have left after this stored in my muscles but it can’t be much. Diet is still my ‘conditioning day’ day with less than 50 carbs per. Still drinking a shit ton of water.
Only cardio session for the week…I’m actually noticing something; after this summer’s accidental ketosis incident I was hesitant to do the low carb thing for more than a day at a time. But this is my fourth day of doing it and honestly I feel fine. I’m not doing two-adays like I was during that thing this past summer. Plus I’m consuming a bit of extra fat too, and things seem to be going MUCH better this time. I’m not even vaguely irritable or feeling as though I’m going to die or be consumed by wolves.
DB Front Raises: 15*13 15*15 15*12
DB Shrugs: 75*20 75*20
Alright, carb up has begun, we’ll see how this goes and how I look at the end of it. Cutting off water as well, we’ll see the effects. I did the raises & shrugs here because I want to emphasize my shoulders & traps. Bro science at its finest.
OK, so the flush out didn’t really work…at all. I didn’t look bad, I just looked regular. The point was you drink a few gallons of water per day, then cut out the water and piss out any water your body is holding. Plus you take in carbs to ‘plump’ your muscles back up. Didn’t happen at all. As soon as I stopped drinking the water, I stopped pissing, like within an hour. Not sure what I did wrong. Regardless, I didn’t look bad and had a good Halloween Saturday. So anyway, I’m going to attempt and take this coming week completely off, we’ll see how it goes. I haven’t taken a week off in 13 years.
