Wow, u r strong. Can u teach me plx?
@bug: only if you teach me to be hawt secks
RTS - Volume block: Week 1, Day 3
Saturday 12/3/11
Deficit pull (~2in)
2x365 @8
2x385 @8 bleh couldn’t keep lower back tight
2x405 @9 omg worse than previous set, can’t seem to get into proper position
Cut it short here. Couldn’t keep my back from rounding like a cat, hence giving a smaller deficit a shot. I don’t know if it’s been the longish break or having some tight hips. Bleh, may just do reverse band pulls instead.
Front squat
Did some warm up sets, but called it off.
Today just wasn’t my day. But it’s to be expected when there has been time off, some stress, and sub par eating. It’s all good though, it’s just one bad day in the grand scheme of things. Anyways I’m stoked to bench tomorrow.
RTS - Volume block: Week 1, Day 4
Sunday 12/4/11
Reverse band bench press
2x325 @8
2x345 @8
2x365 @8.5 a PR of sorts
2x365 @9
2x345 @8.5
2x345 @8.5
Overall pretty decent. Right shoulder was a bit annoyed by the end. I just need to remember to do band pull aparts after each pressing set.
Fat Gripz Floor press
While warming up forearm started to hurt so stopped.
Instead just did a bunch of inverted rows, band pull aparts, and fat gripz BB curlz.
Get a vid of the def deads next time
[quote]mmatt wrote:
Get a vid of the def deads next time[/quote]
I actually did a vid of them, but for some reason didn’t bother to upload them. I did a bunch of stretching and rolling and the like. That seemed to help with being able to get into pulling position. I guess the time off which entailed lots of sitting and studying didn’t exactly help with hip mobility.
I feel you. I don’t know exactly why, but my hamstrings have been tighter than ever the past couple of days.
What do you think of the RTS manual? Worth the money?
@matt: I found it worth the money. Lots of good information even if you don’t plan on running RTS. You can still apply whatever you learn from the manual to your own training. If I’m not mistaken the manual aims to help you tailor and personalize your training to you.
RTS - Volume block: Week 2, Day 1
Tuesday 12/6/11
Oly squat
5x265 @7
5x295 @8.5
6x295 @9 whoops was supposed to do 5
5x295 @ 8.5
5x295 @9
5x295 @9
These sucked a lot, more b/c they winded me out than b/c of how much weight was on the bar.
Fat Gripz Military press
5x155 @8
5x165 @8.5
5x165 @9
3x165 @wtf?
3x165 @wtf again, removed Fat Gripz
Using the Fat Gripz felt good, but at the same time felt a lot harder than w/o them. Triceps feel more pumped than usual.
Ab wheel
3x10
I liked doing a lower body and an upper body lift in the same session as opposed to do two lower/upper lift in one session.
I’m beginning to get a better handle on RPEs. I’m somewhat comfortable with my ability to judge RPEs, but as always there’s room to improve. With a decent handle on RPEs I’m planning on incorporating fatigue stops with the hopes of being able to autoregulate my training. I’ve kinda decided to start doing it now because in today’s session I felt I could’ve kept on going with the squats but with the military pressing quite the opposite. In fact I cut the pressing short.
Fat grip pressing is straight up the devil, a very humbling way to make things feel much heavier.
The RPE stuff sounds interesting for sure, doubt I’d have the honesty to make it work for me 
@phlegms: it most certainly is the devil for making me struggle with 165.
Kinda sorta extra session
Wednesday 12/7/11
Decided to do some random extra work while ‘coaching’ my brother today. The extra work consisted of curlz, band pull aparts, ab wheel, sum rowzzz.
I’ll probably try and do a little extra work, mainly back, abs, and biceps work, whenever I ‘coach’ my brother.
RTS - Volume block: Week 2, Day 2
Thursday 12/8/11
Bench press (w/ 3 count pause)
5x225 @8 hard to judge, uncomfortable/hard since i had to hold my breath and stay told for so long
5x245 @9 probably should’ve done 235 for this set and stuck with that weight
4x235 @9 <—should’ve stopped here
4ishx235 @10 set up was much better this set, so made the reps feel easier
fml these sucked so much, but in such a way that should help.
Block pulls (off ~4 inch blocks)
5x335 @8
5x345 @8
5x365 @9
5x365 @9
5x365 @9
4x385 @9.5
Hmm, it’s harder to use/get any leg drive while doing these, as a result I feel my back doing lots of work. Not sure if this is good or bad. Bleh, lower back was rounding more than I’d like it to.
Benching was somewhere between meh and decent, probably more towards meh. Most likely due to whataburger being less than an ideal pre-workout meal and performing sets of 5 paused presses sucking a lot. Pulling started off meh, but picked up.
After a second look, it seems like the fatigue stops are coming in handy. Last session’s benching was meh, so was cut short, while the pulling felt decent so was performed longer than the benching.
I also noticed that this week’s block pulls were an improvement upon last week’s. Last week 2x385 was a RPE of 9 (i.e. one rep left in the tank), but this week 4x385 was a RPE of 9.5. Excited for what RTS can do!
RTS - Volume block: Week 2, Day 3
Saturday 12/10/11
Back and glutes were sore from block pulling.
CGish incline presss (w/ Fat Gripz)
5x205 @8
5x225 @8
4x235 @10 this set could’ve ended badly
5x230 @9
3x225 @9
Was planning on front squatting first but incline pressed first to get warmed up since I was not feeling ready to squat yet. Lower back was still pretty toast from the block pulls.
Overall the pressing wasn’t too bad. In retrospect I should’ve stuck to sets w/ 225 until I noticed fatigue. Really had no idea what I could do on incline, so next time I’ll at least have some idea of what weights to use.
After incline pressing I started to do warm up sets for front squat but had a weird pain in the rhomboid region that made it painful to squat. Plus back wasn’t recovered yet. Hopefully I’ll be more recovered tomorrow.
RTS - Volume block: Week 2, Day 4
Monday 12/12/11
Was feeling really lethargic and unmotivated going in. Started warming up for deficit pulls, but had an annoying pain in my lower back. So I just did a bunch of random things to get a good sweat, in hopes the pain would go away. Eventually the pain was bearable enough to squat, not so much to pull. TBH I kinda feel like taking some a few days to chill, now that the Fall semester is done for me. We’ll see how I’m feeling in the next few days.
SSB squats (counted the bar as 45 to keep math easy, but bar is prob 60ish lbs)
5x225 @7
5x245 @8
5x265 @9
2x285 @10 need to set the pins a level higher for these
These are deceptively hard, this will probably make it more difficult to judge RPEs. My legs felt strong enough to get the weight up, but my back wasn’t. Friggin’ bar is trying to rip my head off. I foresee a love-hate relationship with the SSB.
RTS - Volume block: Week 3, Day 1
Tuesday 12/13/11
Oly squat
3x295 @8 ez
3x305 @8
3x305 @8
3x305 @8
3x305 @8.5
3x305 @8.5
3x305 @8.5
3x305 @9 but closer to 8.5, probably could’ve done a set or two more before reaching a RPE of 9, but decided to cut it here so as to not interfere with the coming squatting and pulling.
Need to work on getting my elbows under the bar when coming out of the hole.
24 lifts at ~77-80%, daily max: ~380
Military press (w/ Fat Gripz)
3x155 @7.5
3x165 @8
3x175 @8.5 things started clicking after this set
3x165 @8
3x165 @8
3x165 @8.5
3x165 @9
These were much better than last week.
21 lifts @ ~75-80%, daily max: ~205
BB row
6x135, 155, 185
Wanted to work up to a 6RM of sorts, but lower back wouldn’t have it after the set w/ 185.
Going to start keeping track of # of lifts and what intensities they’re at, in hopes that I discover a trend or two.
That ssb bar looks incredibly brutal, definitely a worthwhile investment. How much did it set you back brah?
@phlegms: so very brutal. Didn’t set me back anything. It was a bday/xmas present from the parental units 
RTS - Volume block: Week 3, Day 2
Wednesday 12/14/11
Bench press (w/ 3 count pause)
3x245 @8
3x245 @8
3x245 @8
3x245 @8.5
3x245 @9
Overall pretty good. I just need to keep in mind that the pauses make it more difficult, thus fatigue would come about faster than expected. Need to remember this so I don’t push it too much.
15 lifts @ ~80%, daily max: ~305
Block pulls (off ~4 inch blocks)
3x365 @8
2x385 @10 tried for a 3rd but lower back wasn’t up for it
Focused on flexing the lats and sitting b/w the legs. Those cues seemed to help with getting into better position. Pretty annoying that from the get go I was having lower back pain/pump. Worse case scenario I lower the amount of pulling and up squatting, so long as squatting continues to have no back pain.
Bench press
6x225
Figured I’d do some more reps, but pecs were fried lol.
It sucks that pulling was less than ideal, but squatting has been pretty good lately so I can’t really complain. Plus these downs teach me to keep on pushing forward.
Seems like my DLing goes in a hit or miss fashion. One session will be good, but will be followed by a crummy session or two. I’ll have to keep an eye out for this. If a trend like this does continue I’ll either have to DL less and/or make sure to quit while I’m ahead.
[quote]AquaCruzer wrote:
Seems like my DLing goes in a hit or miss fashion. One session will be good, but will be followed by a crummy session or two. I’ll have to keep an eye out for this. If a trend like this does continue I’ll either have to DL less and/or make sure to quit while I’m ahead.[/quote]
Deadlifts are funny like that. Good work in here though even though I find it quite hard to understand what’s going on under the new training system. all I gathered was that your way ahead of me, and you to teach me how to military