This week has conspired to make training a no go, got my Wednesday session in today but I’m out the weekend so this week is a 2 session week and concludes my dark horse run - I’ll run the two test weeks starting by testing squat and ohp since they didn’t get worked this week and I’ll deload dead and bench and test them the week after.
Dark horse has officially broken me (life has probably contributed greatly this week).
New pr there but that cost me big time in the session I think. I ran at 8.4mph for 9 mins then 0.5 up at 9 and 9.5 mins. Probably could just have hit the 1.4 miles in 10 min mark but I was close to vomiting after that so glad I didn’t. 1.5 is a little way off, but doable.
Gs1:
Pendlay rows; 60, 80, 90, 100, 110 X 5
Pin press (2 inch off chest) 60, 80, 90, 100, 110 X 5
Ab rolls: 5 X 5 sets
Bjj: 8 X 5 sets
GS2:
Bent over row: 6/6*, 10
Pin press: 12, 7/3
Ab roll: 5 x 2 sets
Bjj: 8 X 2 sets
Like I said I was broken tonight, the pendlays were great up to 110, at which point they were a little cheaty and hamstrings got involved, so I switched to BO row for volume. *Accidental rest pause - couldn’t hold on so had to get straps (never had an issue with grip at that weight before, fatigue!). Pin press second set decided for me that I was done today, my bum came off the seat a couple of times up to 7 so rest paused it and the last three felt harder than the 110, bum came up still. Felt ruined, finished giant set and dropped 1 volume set and the emoms. Didn’t enjoy myself and wasn’t looking forward to the session. I might be a CNS fatigue convert.
Weight this morning: 206.5! Worked hard for that 0.5!
Thanks buddy, it’s mostly been good, but life has a habit of catching up with me so I’ll be very glad to go to 3 day a week next, although I don’t think the intensity will change much!
Difficult to say regards the testing, I have in mind minimums of 180/125/200/75 sbdo ideally more along the lines of 190/130/210/80, but we’ll have to wait and see, I’ve never really done a “test” style week just always hit gym PRs when I felt good during 531 cycles so this is new territory.
Oh and someone from my church thought I was the same age as then a while back, she’s 45, so apparently life’s not been kind to my looks! (Probably having kids and getting married at 23).
I had someone I knew from a while back drive past me the other day, they didn’t feel the need to stop and say hi, but they decided to email later and tell me how grey I was and recommend a barbers…
My mum will be very happy to hear that this happens to men too. She’s gone almost completely grey (dyes her hair), while my dad’s hair has maybe 20 grey hairs.
What’s your Alsruhe spin plan? I hated setting up the giant sets, and it was very difficult to pull off in the gym, but I have to admit I miss how hard the work was
It will be the 10 mins of hard conditioning first (, which is good because I’ll never doing it outside of training and btm prescribes conditioning so at least in doing some).
I’ll superset the main movement of the day with antagonist pairs and then giant set the accessories and add ab work (might throw in the “30 seconds of something to get your heart racing” at the end of the giant sets, not yet decided).
It’s funny I work a guy probably 20 years my senior, drinks an insane amount (probably boardline alcohol) smoked most of his life and still does when he can hide it from his wife, never exercises, but not a single grey hair on his head (not dyed) some grey in his beard, genetics are powerful things!
Tell you mum to embrace it, screw societal hangups about it - the ancient Hebrew culture viewed it as a sign of wisdom!
This week is already conspiring against me didn’t get time to train today, that screwing up of schedule makes the week so much more difficult, makes me wonder whether the testing is really that important or whether I should just jump into BTM. Flip side of that is I genuinely want to see what DH achieved in strength terms so testing probably is important!
For me - 100% yes. I like to see the fruits of my labours. I’m a numbers guy. I want big numbers. And I can’t live not knowing if I’ve made progress. Not always 1RM. normally 3-5RM. I makes me sound stronger. You know - when you get asked how much you lift and you drop a big number. And then the reps!
That said I do not know the Dark Horse programme. Is it possible to gauge progress with out test week? Can you get a solid estimate for your 1RM for the start of BtM?
