Great job on the PR!!
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Nice PR!!
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Time to ramble. Weird because I was so positive a couple weeks ago, but this is more thinking out loud.
I’m glad that I actually made some (modest) strength gains this year, so I can’t complain too much on that front. Squat and press didn’t move as much as deadlift and bench, but for once I didn’t feel like I went backwards. Turning away from back squatting with a straight bar and adding kettlebell presses and push presses were good decisions.
I still feel very DYEL though. My physique hasn’t changed much this year – again – and I suspect that for the past couple of years I have simply been gaining and losing the same few pounds of water weight + 1-2 pounds of bodyfat whenever I push the number on the scale in one direction. This likely holds me back. Like a lot of people, I never feel super lean nor super fluffy, and that messes with me sometimes. I suspect I never see much change when losing weight because I am undermuscled, yet because I have gained a couple extra pounds for a couple months, I expect to see some change. I know, it sounds funny.
I wouldn’t call any of this a waste of time because I lift for more than aesthetics, though I feel I spin my wheels in some ways. Not to get too dark, but in the past couple of weeks several people in communities relevant to me have died tragically and nonsensically, and I was only one or two connections away from knowing the victims personally. That has depressed me more than expected and evoked a “that could be me” kind of feeling. Training is one of my biggest hobbies, and it feels strange relating it to death like this. It’s not though because I don’t want to assume there will always be another year to physically transform and to actually add weight to the bar on squats and presses. I don’t want to eventually feel like I squandered my twenties.
I think my biggest problem is that I never feel like I am enough at anything. My bodyweight is not low enough that I shouldn’t make steady aesthetic and strength progress at close to maintenace calories. I also wanted to do MMS, but I still don’t feel I am strong enough to squat my bodyweight for fifty reps in one or a couple of sets. Probably more examples I could also mention. This is something I need to work on.
All in all, I’m happier with what I did this year than in previous years. I want to boost that momentum though. I think I need to spend more time gaining weight than I would like, and I probably need to go a little more all-in in those cases. Maybe I need to break up with the scale for a bit.
So, I’m going to finish this weight loss phase after this week and probably jump back into BBB even though I intended to try something scarier like MMS or even Deep Water.
It’s not unlikely that I will not be able to train at all (not even bodyweight movements) for 1.5-2 weeks around the end of January, so I really want to push hard for 6ish weeks.
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12/5
Some clean and push presses → 70 for reps
A couple power cleans with my new bumpers
SA KB Press 12kgx7,6,7
50 pushups
100 band pull aparts
I am pretty beat from yesterday. I also got home late last night because new friend of mine spontaneously asked me to go to a comedy show. We had a great time. It’s crazy how she and I are practically the same person. We get along super well. I’m glad it’s becoming more normal to do things again.
Excited to get back on a program soon, starting to feel like I am dilly-dallying a bit.
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Where do you think this comes from?
That’s a perfectly acceptable deviation from your intention. Here’s the thing, you don’t have to do MMS or DW. But, if you want to, then BBB better put you on the path towards that.
Could DW prepare you for fifty reps bodyweight for MMS?
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I welcome you to join me in my next 6ish month block, if you’d like. It’s from pwns brain.
6 weeks BBB Beefcake
Building the Monolith
Deepwater Beginners
Deepwater Intermediate
It’s almost guaranteed to get your squat numbers to explode and drive hunger through the roof.
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Oh, I know exactly where it comes from. I am getting better at dealing with it, fortunately. Probably don’t need to drag it into this.
That’s true. I guess I wanted to shake things up a bit, maybe get out of my comfort zone. I progressed a bit using BBB this year, and I think it better suits me, so it has those going for it.
Anything that strengthens my legs, hahaha.
I’ll probably be joining you for BBB, though with potential life disruptions I am trying to plan 6 weeks at a time, haha.
Squatting and pressing remain priorities, so that’s a big reason why these programs appeal to me. Even if I do BBB, I might drop bench entirely and have a second day for push presses or more presses. It seems like DW transformed your overhead strength, which was cool to see. I do lack some of the equipment to do DW though
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No time to put much here but I noticed this:
Ok, good.
Lol how childhood can F with us the rest of our lives. I’m the same way.
I told someone what I do for a living and they were like “oh your parents must be so proud!”
I was like “um…”
Anyway I assume that’s relevant, maybe its something else.
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I’m right there with you. It may end up being over 6 weeks for each subsection for me, but as long as the work gets done, it’s all good.
Yeah, I am beginning to care less and less about bench. I just can’t find the right “feel” in my form. IMO I’m finding way better aesthetic gains with dips and flys.
I’d definitely be interested in seeing what happens with a press day and a push press day.
DW transformed pretty much everything, haha. I think that stupidly high volume and high intensity is where the best progress lies, as long as the food is there to support it. I have a pretty limited setup and was able to stay about 95% true to the program, what are you missing?
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Not strange, it’s hard work paying off.
Although, for what it’s worth, I always find deadlift to be the lift least affected by bodyweight loss. In fact, i’ve never noticed any impact at all.
Of course I don’t know the whole context, but that sounds a little silly. Your parents’ thoughts aside, you put in the work to be in your current position. You should be proud of yourself, ultimately. That’s a little off topic though.
Parents can have interesting effects on their kids. That’s for sure. It breaks my heart when people tell me about toxic relationships with their relatives, and they can’t cut them out of their lives. That’s not to say it doesn’t still sting sometimes after the fact.
Despite that, I would probably still have this feeling, as you might be able to imagine.
For me it seems that I can at least more or less maintain my bench with pushups and dips only. I never really cared about benching all that much anyway, even though I am decent at it.
Of course the volume on the main lifts is stupidly high, but it seems lower or the same intensity as BBB @ FSL, no? I’ve only glossed over the ebook once or twice before. I don’t have an incline bench (seems important) or a way to do back extensions (seems less important). Could I prop my bench up on cement blocks? Yes, but if I’m going to die running a program that requires an incline bench, I don’t want that to be the reason, haha.
I read this a lot and can believe it, but I don’t feel, for example, that my leverages change much when I gain or lose weight. Lifting while losing bodyweight is generally a struggle simply because I run on such little fuel at that time. Though maybe that’s still what you mean. Of course it helps being built to deadlift though.
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Using this as proof and as an actual starting point. I want to feel like when I first started lifting and bulked for the first time and got a little uncomfortable, but immediately noticed a change after cutting down. Took these this morning
Couldn’t be bothered to take any other photos, but I know I can use the others from from this year’s T-ransformation challenge if needed 
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Depends. In the book it says take 70% of your 10rm, but I had no idea what my 10rm was so I just picked a weight I knew would destroy me.
lol, makes sense. It definitely doesn’t sound worth it.
Idk, incline bench pretty much 1/5 or 1/6 of the bench day. Whether that makes it un-runnable would be up to you
Okay, I like that idea better
I mean, I don’t let myself off the hook that easily. But I’m not sure what the appropriate substitute would be
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I’m not smart enough to know why it doesn’t affect, but it doesn’t seem to, for me.
It does actually state how to arrive at your 10RM from your 1RM. I think it was something like 0.7*0.77 equals your 10 RM training max (don’t remember exactly). It is in there though.
Do you do anything to ensure that you have a high energy availability around your training while otherwise keeping calories low?
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I actually think you might be right here, without meaning to be heinous. You seem to switch between goals rather quickly (long term goals are established but short term differs, I think. Maybe apply SMART) and you’re doing very frequent phases of fat loss/ negative caloric balance. That will hold you back on anything other than maintaining or improving your physique.
And that is all completely fine. There’s no issue with what you’re doing but if you focused on less goals at the same time and committed to them for longer periods of times, you might (or might not) get more satisfaction.
The tough part is that this means (temporarely) neglecting other goals. That can be mentally challenging. I know it is for me. Like to build and I realize strength, I have to accept losing leanness.
I’m sorry to hear that. My sympathies!
That’s the most valuable realization. Keep it up.
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I have been listening a lot to Dave Tate’s Table Talk recently and oftentimes they talk about taking technique blocks wherein a trainee might do 10, 15, to 20 sets of 2 reps at 60-75% intensity and ensuring that every repetition is as good as possible. So, less about building muscle, and more about ingraining technique. Maybe even recording every set and making adjustments intra-session.
But I don’t think I’ve seen anyone on these boards train like that?
Not too many competitive powerlifters on these boards for whom a whole block devoted to technique would be worthwhile.
I understand where you are coming from. I’m not ready to oppose you. With my own lifting, I’m rarely doing anything smart anyway as I tend to just keep lifting until I can’t (even if I have the intent to leave reps in the tank).
But just to discuss it,
How do you arrive at that? If you could improve your max by working pristine reps at 60% intensity for a 5-6 weeks, you can still push hypertrophy with your auxiliary lifts. If those 5-6 weeks allow you to lift heavier the rest of the year, how is that not worthwhile?
I for one certainly am guilty of doing a lot of bad reps in training. Now I’m just doing my own thing, but that’s also true for when I’ve done Wendler’s stuff and he is very explicit about that not being the play in his books.
I get that most of us don’t need to implement Dave’s 8 weeks without a barbell as we aren’t beating ourselves to shit in the same way that they do. But could a technique block be good? Maybe. And that can be a way to get stronger (more efficient) without having to add bodyweight.