That still sounds better than the junk American kids eat. I think half our students live on Takis and Flaming Hot Cheetos - pretty much anything that’s orange or red and burns the taste buds. They skip the free lunch and buy a $5 bag of family sized chips and eat that all day.
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Haha. My kids love these. They don’t get to eat them often though. I won’t buy them so they have to pay for them themselves. Really limits how much they will eat when they are blowing their own cash. I can’t actually complain too much about my kids eating. They eat mostly clean because that’s all we have in the house. Occasionally I will buy cheese crackers or granola bars, but other than that they eat what we eat or they buy it themselves. I’m hoping that will extend into their lives after they leave home.
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This is the key. From my observations as a police officer and teacher, people don’t value things that are free. Free money from the government has no feeling when you spend it because you didn’t give anything to get it. These kids aren’t spending money they earned. It’s nothing to them.
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16/01/26 - I forgot what I weigh.
LWIWWIW
Deadlifts:
60kg x 5
100, 140, 160kg x 3
180kg X drop (felt well out of position, put it down had a regroup)
180kg x 4
Honestly a bit disappointed in that, not sure if that’s well earned self-pity or impatience, I really just want to be stronger than this and I was hoping that form improvements would start making a bigger impact, it turns out I was a crappy deadlifter, now I’m a slightly better deadlifter but still weak!
Thinking to either step back slightly and use 170kg as my top weight and build more reps, or keep 180kg but try a ROM progression cycle a la @T3hPwnisher.
On a slightly more positive note, I tried to think long arms the whole way through and didn’t get any pec cramping, thanks @FlatsFarmer. Also of note, my hamstrings feel smoked, and my lower back moderately worked, that’s a much better way round than it used to be!
Top set:
Bench:
60, 80, 90kg x 5
100, 110, 120kg x 1
130kg x 2
Slingshot
120kg x 8
What do we reckon to the RPS scale on that second rep at 130kg? Felt like a 10 to me - expert opinion @simo74?
Mid back cramped slightly on the slingshot set, maybe a rep or two left there on a better day, some sort of default PR at a guess.
Bodyweight finisher
Hanging leg raises: 10, 10, 10
Dips: 15, 15, 15
Chin ups: 8, 8, 8
I was going to throw curls into my finisher but a quick test showed elbow pain even at super light weight, that’s the sandbag yesterday, it was light enough to pick it up with my arms rather than using proper technique, going heavier would ironically prevented this pain. Funny thought chin ups don’t hurt it.
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Thinking to either step back slightly and use 170kg as my top weight and build more reps, or keep 180kg but try a ROM progression cycle a la
A combination of both is possible: make 170kg the top weight and build more reps WITH ROM progression. It gives the back a break by not pulling with such a long ROM so frequently, and you get a LOT of runway to progress by starting the weight so light.
My current cycle has me pulling 19 reps on my first set with ROM progression, and it means I’ll have a LOT of room to grow.
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Well that is an excellent idea, thanks pwn. I never make huge leaps on the deadlift, but I did do with the squat a while - that came from having a super long runway and building in the 10 rep range. I think from memory I started at 100kg x 10 and progressed either 5 or 10kg every 3 weeks, I forget which, using 531 % model each cycle, and kept going until I stopped getting 10 - stalled at 160kg x 8.
Maybe I’ll final get a decent leap in the deadlift this way. If not I’ll know what didn’t work and try something else - thanks, it seems so obvious now.
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Absolutely dude! I will say that, as far as becoming a “monster puller” goes, this leaves a little to be desired, as rep strength doesn’t always translate to top end strength. But if we follow the long runway long enough, we eventually work toward some low reps and can do some crazy stuff, and once we exhaust that, we can start back over, slightly heavier than we did at the very beginning, and make it all happen all over again.
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I agree with what you guys are kicking around.
It seems like you Built some strength with the Alshrue linear program. Then in December started Testing your strength with heavy, heavy, low low rep deadlifting. And it was so much fun, you’ve just kept “Testing” since then.
And just like you and Punisher mentioned, its time to Build strength again, by starting back over with “light” weights. Only now, slightly heavier than way back at the beginning.
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Also, I’m glad the long arms cue worked.
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A while back you mentioned not liking doing a bunch of sets with the same weight, like Alshrue and Conjugate style guys do. So the single top set, ROM Progression method might be just what you’re looking for.
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Nice grind but I’m terms of RPS it’s maybe a 6. I totally get how it felt like a 10 though 
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Before I forget, morning weight - 198
I always have in the back of my mind the exams and cereal study, that breakfast is so important for kids that even crappy cereal is better than nothing. I’m hopeful she’ll continue with good choices, particularly as exams are all happening this year.
As someone who spends most of my days trying to gain weight, I’m eating whenever I can late night and early morning, went on a call out last night, ate 6 eggs with cheddar at 1am just to squeeze more in, 8 eggs and 3 pieces of toast this morning (it really is hard to gain weight just eating real food).
That’s awesome, nice that he has parents who can assist with that sort of thing!
The first part sounds great, the cookie dough not so much, but that’s life and I assume you’re like me, more happy that they’re eating something than worrying too much about orthodoxy in the dietary department!
That’s the thing I focus on, building some good practices and giving them freedom as well, I remember most weekends from about 12-16 I’d usually buy 2ltrs coke (full sugar), bag of 10 donuts and a large bar of chocolate and have devoured it all by Sunday (usually having had pancakes and syrup for breakfast in there as well), I survived and have reasonable habits now (probably because my parents gave me that modeling and freedom).
This could be one of the most significant parenting challenges I think, that shift from being in charge of them, to essentially navigating and negotiating control of their lives across to them in incremental stages. It usually starts with them pushing the boundaries and parents pushing back, followed by the negotiations over time. It’s the push back bit that I’ve got wrong most over the years, that’s the pressure point when their intransigence meets my bloody minded stubbornness and anger ensues. If you can work through these issues with patience, love and diplomacy then you’re winning (and a better man than I have been at points!).
It’s the hope that they only do this during the school hours, then at home things are a little more balanced!
Agree RE freebies, but it’d be interesting to see if they gave Cheetos and takkis for free, I bet they’d get eaten!
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Haha busted, this is what happens when I freestyle instead of following a program.
Really hoping so! On paper it ticks all my boxes, and it’s worked well for pwn and others over the years, only one way to find out for me personally!
Harsh, but that’s why you’re the expert!
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19/01/26 - 202lbs (went out for lunch, salty heavy meal)
LWIWWIW (sorta)
Squats:
60, 80, 90, 105kg x 5
120kg X 10
OHP S/S Rows
20, 40, 50, 60kg x 5, 50kg x 15
60kg x 10 x 5 sets
Chin ups s/s hanging leg raises
10kg x 3, 3, 3, 2
Bw x 5 x 4
I’ve decided to go back to my old progression method for squats, 531%s and the cycle progression, but starting way back and taking every top set to 10 reps.
Did this in the morning and it’s cold, maybe that’s why it felt harder than I’d expected, I’ll see what this feels like in the afternoons, but if it feels similar, I’ll wind it back a couple of cycles, I need the beginning to feel easy otherwise the runway will be too short and I won’t get the results I want. (Ego hit will be real though!).
On the morning training, my timetable for the day changed so this was a squeeze it in type session, which is good because it means I’m getting stuff done instead of skipping it, but I am not a morning person, I walked into a barbell I was carrying (it caught on my rack as I was walking forward, it stopped, I didn’t), then hit my head on the leg of my bench (it was upright). On a related matter, my garage is a mess and needs sorting, also my music system (which was hanging out) died, bought something much better, neighbours might not be happy but looking forward to it, should be here (hear!) for the next session, which is good because phone music is the worst, only slightly better than no music at all.
The OHP were just to keep overhead work high on the agenda without going too heavy, same for rows - back work, but pump work, really strict form, feel really good. Wanted to keep the abs and arms in but time was tight for time - so went back and forth without rest until failure, blowing hard just from that.
No thoughts on OHP or bench programming/progression models, think I’ll just keep them instinctive for now, keep hitting overhead work in various guises 2-3 times per week and keep bench 1x per week, but pull back from hitting near max work.
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Morning weight - 203
I noticed that my weight had been relatively static for a while now (bumping up and down between top end of 190s and bottom end of 200s) thought about my diet and realised I’m trying to bulk, eating like I’m trying to cut, so went to the shops and bought some things.
Yesterday I ate 10 eggs and 3 pieces of seeded wholemeal for breakfast (eggs cooked in butter and toast was well buttered), but after that. I was too satiated to eat for a long time, not helpful and whilst I finished the day with bulking levels of cals (I also ate about 150g sugar around 5pm, not my intended strategy) I decided this morning to start easier, and got the blender out, 2 bananas, 2 scoops of whey and half a pot of cream, delicious and easy to do, no mental hurdle of eating when I feel full, an easy 1k+ cals and no digestive fatigue.
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Hilariously I got 2 call outs and 2 meetings that lined up to stop me eating at a regular lunch time, so instead of just being ready to eat, I ended up ravenously hungry, so before a meeting ate 125g cashews, after that meeting, 7 eggs and a tin of beans, then 95g chocolate. Dinner pizza and then pre-bed whey and greek (not adding PB today…)
Thought I’d run it through chatgpt for fun:
Did a post drill night session again:
-50kg sandbag bear hug carry - 50m up and back
-75kg sandbag platform load
-Large tyre flip (not super heavy but slippery!)
Done back to back without rest - three of us training tonight.
Then 60kg barbell floor to overhead and Burpee over bar - done as a continuous loop until it looked like the other guys were struggling badly overhead, at which point I hit 5 strict reps and called it.
First time in a long time that I can say I felt good after a session, still can’t say I enjoyed the work, but I think camaraderie a little bit of competition and social side helped, I can see why CrossFit does well.
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Maybe I need to try something like this because I’ve been constantly hungry the last few days. Wondering if I finally hit a true deficit and I’m suffering the results.
That ChatGPT response is awesome! 
And now I have to try it for logging food to see how it compares to my apps.
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It absolutely works, you’d need to work timing out for you, but for me I could easily do 1000 massive breakfast and then not be hungry until 1700+.
26/01/26 - 202
Gaining a little bit of weight, but without training, bad idea.
LWIWWIW:
Block pulls 2 bumpers 2 iron plates just below knee level:
60, 100kg x 5
140, 160kg x 1
170kg x 9 + 0.5 and back injury.
Here we go again, a deeply unpleasant sensation and instant pain on rep 10, watching the video it’s clear I’m getting fatigue and out of shape but stubbornly carry on regardless. This happened last time I block pulled, I’ve had less injuries from deficit pulls than block pulls (I think) I wonder whether there’s something in that moving forward, or whether I just switch semi permanently to trap bar, I don’t compete in powerlifting and my strongman comp will likely just be a one off, why do I persist in deadlifting when it’s something that semi regularly causes me injury.
Either way I’m grumpy about it and going to take some drugs, see if I can keep the back functional for daily life.
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Well I’m obviously not in the same league as you in the lifting world, but this is why I do trap deads. I know some people look down on the trapbar, but I’m a 47 year old woman who is trying to be stronger and prevent injury. If that requires me to use a different tool to achieve it, I don’t see the big deal. So if you are looking for support, you have mine. I’m sure with that, you now feel more confident in your decision making process.
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Thanks Beth, I think I’m slowly coming to that idea, whilst getting injured under the bar is on occasion just one of those things that happen, if there is a specific thing you do repeatedly that injures you, well you’ve got a few options 1) refine technique and continue practicing, 2) ignore technique and carry on, 3) stop doing that thing.
I’ve predominantly done 1 and 2 (probably more 2 than 1 over the years). I’m likely at the point where 3 might make more sense.
I’m also stubborn and don’t like quitting, even when it makes no sense, so I reserve the right to be an idiot about this.
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