Well my dead and squat are pants now due to dropping 8 kilo and stopping them more or less entirely. But hit some big stuff back in June/July
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Sounds like it’s time to bulk and do the real lifts again and stop with all this jumping around malarkey!
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I am not sure I have ever been stronger or in better shape, so nah.
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I mean can you really be stronger if you deadlift and squat less? Sounds like the physical gymnastics you do are getting in your head and becoming weird mental gymnastics! Or age related mental decline.
Nah in all seriousness, if you’re feeling the best you’ve ever felt, why change for the sake of arbitrary numbers!
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Well see, my upper body strength is probably better than before in total. And the lower body stuff I have been definitively been trying to convert to more athletic strength, hence all the jumping. I could probably get my dead back up in no time if I really work on it. But yeah, the squat is toast. Not even worried about it.
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T&T w8 d4
Belt squat: 40, 60, 80kg X some, 100kg x 10 x 4 sets
90 sec rest
DB Bulgarian SS: 15kg, 20kg x 8 x 4 sets
2 mins rest
Decided to see how much my Hatfield style was inflating last week’s numbers, a lot, 40kg was humbling, a lot balance and set up issues which will reduce the weight but still harder than I’d like. Left leg was first on sets 1-3 right on 4-5, probably should have started with right, given that’s my weaker leg. 2 mins rest was more challenging that I’d like. Leading to my rethink on my next training cycle… More to follow shortly.
Cable hammy curls: 45kg x 12, 55kg x 10 x 3 sets
90 sec rest
Somewhere during my bss I must have annoyed my back slightly, showed on the hammy curls, weird, but kind of helped me focus even more on hammy mmc.
GHR: bw x 7 x 4 sets
90 sec rest
Love how quickly these improve.
This ends 8 weeks of tried and true by Clay Hyght, a solid programme with good challenge and good level of choice within the framework.
I didn’t attempt to gain weight, but maintained throughout, improved my diet and probably had a very minor recomp, so probably not really a fair run through.
Highlights: Hit some volume PRs (170kg x 6 sweeping deadlifts, 140kg x 8 x 5 sets on SSB, 112.5kg X 5 x 5 on bench and 70kg X 4 on the OHP) and completed a bodybuilding program.
Negatives: nothing about the program, but me and my life: I didn’t manage to consistently get 4 sessions per week. I don’t do conditioning unless it’s actually programmed in.
Those two points lead me on to my next point, I’d mapped out the first two weeks of Meadows Reactive Pump Hypertrophy, it’s 5 days per week, I struggle to get 4 sessions in a week and sometimes struggle to make 3 happen. My conditioning has notably deteriorated, my fault entirely but comes back to my life - I’m work full time and have multiple other part time jobs and commitments, including being a husband and father, I always try to train on lunch breaks to reduce burden on family, but work is hectic and that’s become less viable I’m also losing a couple of my team in the new year and work load will increase temporarily with more travel and less WfH.
All that to say, I’m putting a pause on the idea of a Meadows program, my thinking now turns to how to carry on attempting to grow and work on weaker areas, continuing to improve the big 4 and make sure conditioning gets back in the mix.
My solution:
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Conditioning a la Dark horse, 10 mins hard conditioning at the start of each session (I will do it slightly differently here though and deliberately avoid the area I’m about to train, so if it’s a bench day it’ll be sandbag work and if it’s squat day it’ll be Burpee pull-ups or something along those lines).
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Main lifts using 5/3/1 rep scheme with amrap on top set of every lift (will start with a longish run up in terms of starting weights), although I’ll use dark horses ordering (i.e. if it’s 5 for squats in Monday then bench on Tuesday will be 3 and deadlifts on Thursday will be 1).
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Accessories will be bodybuilding style but run in a giant set.
That should cover the bases I’m looking to hit and if I get 3 sessions in a week instead of 4 it won’t derail my progress too much.
I’ll post up what I’m thinking as a template shortly.
Diet will remain largely unchanged until blood test in Jan.
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You know it’s not too difficult to just add your own conditioning to any of your programs? That’s my current approach, but I’m not man enough to do your DH type stuff. Burpee pull-ups/hangs for time? Gross.
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New program, my own mismash of 5/3/1, dark horse and elements of tried and true - think I’ll call it Frankenstein, or maybe 5 dark truths.
Week 1 Day 1
Poundstones: 20kg X 100 reps
Conditioning: 50kg sandbag over shoulder x 5 x 10 sets emom
Honestly thought I was starting off easy here, by set 5 I was reconsidering my definition and just how poor my conditioning is. Also gave me a glute ham and lower back pump!
Bench: 60, 70, 80kg x 5, 90kg X 16
Gs1:
High Inc db press: 25kg x 15 x 4 sets
Lat pulldown: 80kg x 15 x 4 sets
Ab rollout: 8 x 4 sets
Pinwheels: 10kg x 15 x 4 sets
Gs2:
DB flyes: 7.5kg X 20 x 3 sets
BB rows: 70kg x 12 X 3 sets
Oblique cable thing: 40kg X 10 x 3 sets
Inc curls: 7.5kg X 12 x 3 sets
Finisher: strict Burpee pull-ups - amrap RP x 3: 12, 6, 4.
10 breath pauses.
Quite a long session, hopefully over time, conditioning will improve and reduce the time, pretty close to DH and that always pushed nearer 75 mins than 60, I didn’t push super hard on the rest times here though.
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@Frank_C haha totally get that, but my history tells me that this is the best way to ensure conditioning compliance, doesn’t happen as a stand alone session, I’ll try and force myself to throw some liss in here at some point, but for now this is definitely a way to get something done.
I assume you are doing these from your feet like an actual man
Nope - but on the scale of exercises that reduce manliness, ab rollout from knees is magnitudes less demasculinising than a sumo deadlift.
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Pretty sure ‘demasculinaising’ is not a proper word. Even in the tongue of bean lovers.
But the point here is that ab rolls from the feet are extremely manly and I bet you cannot do 5 and please film yourself attempting to do so, okay bye.
@dagill2 would have loved all this. Bastard.
Totally a made up word, because that’s what real men do! I shall consider your request.
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Yea I know, he’s missing out, plus would have been good to have a backup bean banterer!
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‘Bean Banterer’ could actually be a real club in your parts. Bunch of losers.
(I fuckin love beans, for the record)
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Haha definitely, I’d go.
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Go? You’d be the president, mate.
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Frankenstein’s monster - w1 D2
Conditioning and warm up:
- Burpee chins/pull-ups: Amrap in 10 mins - 61 reps
- Rear delt destroyer: 10kg x 40, 5kg x 30, 2.5kg x 10
Hilariously weak RDD, but had the desired effect.
5/3/1 - Squat 3s: 60, 80kg x 5, 92.5, 105kg x 3, 117.5kg x 20 
Had this in my head and set the camera to keep me motivated, turns out the blooming thing didn’t record - I’ve got 125kg next week, I’ll be going amrap then, so will re-attempt and re-record. The first 12 I think we’re “unbroken” rebraced at the top but no real pause, felt pretty easy, then it got to rep 15 and that was just pure willpower, my lungs are on fire, they went first bur my legs are also on fire just slightly delayed, nearly passed out, got tunnel vision with the black dots - and I’ve got all the accessories to do yet, good times.
Gs1:
Bulgarians: 15kg x 8 x 4 sets
Ghr: 6 x 4 sets
Cable crunch: 80kg x 10 x 4 sets
DB ohp: 25kg x 6 x 4 sets
Gs2:
Belt squat: 80kg x 15 x 3 sets
Hammy curl: 40kg X 15 X 3 sets
Oblique cable thing: 40kg X 8 x 3 sets
DB front raise: 10kg x 15 x 3 sets
Finisher: rev lunges -AMRAP rest pause - 3 pauses: 15, 8, 8.
This is a flipping long session, I’ll see how this goes, but might trim this at some point make it more schedule friendly. 3pm and only had 1 meal and very poor sleep, so happy to get some quality work in. Legs are going to be angry tomorrow!
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Fantastic.
And absolutely disgusting.
Nice work!
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