that sound nasty, hope you come good.
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Happy birthday to your boy!
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Week 46/52 10th July Upper 1
Cutting - Week 7
JP Principles upper/lower training.
Day 2 of back pain!!!
I went to the gym this morning with some paracetamol and ibuprofen, couldn’t do too much and what i did do i really lacked power. Basically everything hurt, so i changed it up a little.
-
HS Row
42kgx each side 9 (5-9 target)
37kg each side x 12 (10-12 target)
32kg each side x 15 (12-15 target) -
HS Chest Press
50kg each side x 7 (5-9 target)
45kg each side x 8 (10-12 target)
40kg each side x 8 (12-15 target) -
Pec Dec
82kg x 7 (5-9 target)
75kg x 8 (10-12 target)
68kg x 8 (12-15 target) -
face Pull
9 x 12
9 x 12
10 x 12 -
Tricep metal bar pushdowns
11 weight
x 15
x 13
x 11 -
Bicep Curls
12kg DBs x 12 (10-12)
14kg DBS x 11 (10-12) -
Hammer Curls
8 x 18 reps -
Cable OH Press
5 weight
x 20
x 15
x 12
Could barley get my shoes on to even go the gym, driving was agony. Sitting is agony. Jesus i’m in pain!
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No training today. I’ve been stretching and what not but back is still agony. Going to need to see a physio to get some relief. Just hard finding time with work etc.
Struggling to get in and out of bed, in and out of car and really struggling to put socks on. Nasty pain. Hopefully only 2 weeks for the strain to go away.
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Sucks man. Hope it sorts itself out.
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Sucks mate hope you can get it looked at and resolved soon. Can you still walk comfortably ? I always find movement (pain free movement) helps if my back is jacked up. Also helps to stay active and watch the food intake mate if you are unable to do anything.
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Walking is hard at first then eases up. I spent around 3 hours icing and stretching it yesterday and it seems to have eased a little but i’m sure i’ll push too hard in the gym and make it worse as that’s the stupid i am 
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Week 46/52 12th July Back Day
Cutting - Week 7
JP Principles but just fancied a back workout today while my lower back is still agony.
-
HS Row
45kg each side x 9 (5-9 target)
40kg each side x 12 (10-12 target) -
Lat Pull down wide
77kg x 9 (5-9 target)
70kg x 12 (10-12 target) -
Wide cable row
120lbs i assume
x 15 (5-9 target)
x 12 (10-12 target) -
Shrugs on calf raise machine
45kg x 20 (5-9 target) really got the weight wrong
75kg x 12 (10-12 target) -
DB Bicep curls - palms up
12kg DBs x 12 (10-12 target)
14kg DBs x 12 (10-12 target) -
DB Hammer curls
12kg DBs x 12 (10-12 target)
14kg DBs x 12 (10-12 target) -
DB pump curls - pump and cheat until 20 reps were achieved
8kg DBs
x 20
x 20
x 20
What i found interesting is that i did back in my Upper Monday workout and today it was completely recovered for my impromptu Back Day today. Maybe after this upper lower i might move back to more volume and a more traditional BB split for my bulk, who knows.
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I think your mentality on this is wrong. You recovered well and progressed whilst in a cut. This should be a sign that what you’re doing is working right now, not “If I can handle this, I should handle more”. Even if you upped your calories the past few days because of your injury, it doesn’t really tell you anything other than you’re feeling good and progressing. You did HS Rows and Facepulls on Monday - neither are hugely demanding exercises - even someone at a much higher strength level would likely recover from that in 48hrs. Why interfere or change something that’s working for you? The only possible reasons would be frequent stalls, being bored stiff of your workouts, or wear and tear from training with a higher intensity. None of those seem to apply to you.
I don’t want to speak for other people, but I believe the users following your log would rather see you stick this out for a good while.
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Cheers, probably needed to hear this.
Something else you said sparked a thought I’d been having for a while, which is none of my back work is a big hard movement. I can’t seem to find a good back compound movement that doesn’t hurt my lower back, or one that doesn’t inflame it. I really wish we had a chest supported plate t bar row or something like that.
I need to spend some time thinking and experimenting.
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I forget, did you ever play around with a trap bar (if there’s one available)? It’s a great movement for those with back issues and you can mess around with the height to find something that suits you. The handles being neutral and not in front of your body allows the weight to be distributed more evenly shifting stress away from the lower back.
If I had low back problems I’d probably continue to do the stuff you’re already doing that feel good, but also put a ton of focus into vertical pulls (chins etc).
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Great post @cdep89. I also fall into the trap of “I feel great, so let’s do more” (less so since turning 40, because I never feel great, but you get my drift).
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Have you tried just using an incline bench and doing supported dumbell rows ? Can be a little bit of a pain to get into position but they are great for isloating back work. Start light and really work on pulling back with the elbows (not the hands) and really get that squeeze at the top.
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I have tried but the metal bar (that supports the top of the bench) is rather large so any DBs bigger than the 20KGs hit the metal bar. I need to try kneeling on the incline though to see if that helps but when i tried before i didn’t know how to get the DBs in the correct position.
I want to try again though as i want a proper main back lift somewhere in my programme.
We do have a trap bar but i haven’t used it to be honest. The JP programme does start one of the upper days with deads but it takes so long to set up, then ramp and warm up i just haven’t bothered with it. I also (maybe wrong here) see the deadlift as a glute/ lower body move really rather than a back one. I know that sounds like an excuse but i really like RDLs on my lower day.
The JP back selection in his programme as written is:
Upper 1
Deadlift
Lat pull Down
Upper 2
Overheand chest supported Row
Neutral grip lat pull down
Pull over - I think this is a chest one on his sheet actually
So i assume upper back is hit with
Deads - or is this just lower back
Overhand chest supported Row
Lats
Neutral Lat pull down
Wide lat pull down - not sure if this is more upper back actually
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Not sure what sort of benches you have access to. In this video at around 5:15 you can see my set up
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Week 46/52 13th July Push Day
Cutting - Week 7
JP Principles on an Push day.
-
Incline Smith Bench - i couldn’t lift DBs heavy enough without pain
70kg x 9 (5-9 target)
60kg x 12 (5-9 target) -
HS Chest Press
40kg each side x 9 (5-9 target)
35kg each side x 10 (10-12 target) -
Lateral raise machine
45kg x 9 (5-9 target)
40kg x 12 (10-12 target) -
Pec Dec
82kg x 9 (5-9 target)
75kg x 10 (10-12 target) -
rear Delt fly
52kg x 14 (10-15 target)
52kg x 11 (10-15 target) -
DB French Press
14kg DBs x 12 (10-12 target)
16kg DBs x 12 (10-12 target) -
Trciep metal bar pushdown
11 weight x 12 reps (10-12 target)
12 weight x 12 reps (10-12 target) -
Across body cable tricep extensions
3 weight
x 12 reps
x 12 resp
x 12 reps and 6 partial reps
Weight is still dropping. I need to try and not have a cheaty weekend again (although it was driven by being my sons birthday). Hopefully drop another pound by the end of this week.
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Cheers i might try standing against the bench like that and see if it works. Do you find those hit more of your lats or upper back by the way?
That’s cool to read JPs programming for back work as that’s been 90% my setup for a LONG time, just swapping the lat pulldown for a pullup/chinup variation.
Chest-supported rows are god tier if your lower back is having issues. @simo74 is spot on. I was doing them for ages but had to drop them out because of my wrist injury. I plan to put them back in as soon as I can.
As for Deadlift, yes the legs are the primary movers but the back is worked phenomenally too. It’s a unicorn lift.
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If I put as much weight as I actually need for 6-12 reps on a T-Bar row - I can’t breathe when I hold the weight.
I’ve been treating Kroc Rows (with 6-12 rep range) as my main horizontal back lift and got up to 120’s each side before the dumbbells ran out. I then moved over to a plate-loaded machine row which I can do FAR more weight on.
If this movement doesn’t hurt your lower back, I’d strongly recommend it. It’s basically a DB Row with a hefty dose of body english, I just pause for a second at the top and control the weight on the way down for hypertrophy focus.
I never found much leg or back stimulus from conventional deadlifts tbh. Lots of back cramping though!
I will say that doing RDL’s and pulling the BB/DBs towards my shins on the way down hits my back a good bit, but still not enough for me to consider a main back movement anymore. I did it for years, it just never worked well for hypertrophy purposes for me.
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Anatomy will always matter for many lifts, @mnben87 and I were talking about this a little in another thread this week. There are guys with great leverages that lift 600-700lbs and still don’t look great, meanwhile, there are other guys that grow like weeds right from the start.
I know it may not have felt like it worked well for you, but didn’t you work up to the 500s? It must have done a lot for your erectors. I feel that deadlifts are pretty important up to a point and then you “graduate” so to speak, and there may come a point that it shouldn’t be in your program year-round if hypertrophy is your main goal. Especially if it dents too much of your other training. Unless someone has worked up to fantastic numbers though, I will always believe doing a heavy deadlift variation is a great choice for most people - whether that’s a conventional, an RDL, an SLDL, a below-the-knee rack pull, or even using a trap bar.
The big problem with the deadlift is people listen to people that talk shit about it now despite it being a mainstay in their programs for their formative years. We’ve ended up with guys who can’t even deadlift 225lbs saying it’s not worth it because of stimulus-to-fatigue which is absolute nonsense. Get your work capacity up and stop avoiding the hard work.
If your deadlifts have such a high load that they leave you light-headed, they kill the rest of your workout, hypertrophy is your goal and you feel time would be better spent doing something that may be more profitable for you. Now it’s time to get rid. Even if it didn’t grow you as you’d have liked, that absolute strength carried over to a ton of exercises when you finally decided to stop it. Probably got you some super quick growth when you got more specific. The choice you made to drop it was therefore a good one.
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