Becoming Canis dirus - SvenG's Training Log

Training Training Logs
2112

5s PRO, 5x5 FSL - c13w3d1

Sunday - 05 June 2022
Workout: Easy conditioning & bench WMs, 0605-0715 (70 minutes)

1-pump burpees + 28-kg KB swings - 2x(25 + 25), 25-second rest between
Bike@120-140 bpm - 10 minutes
Weighted vest walk - 30 kg - 15 minutes

Bench - 205 - 13+4+3 (rep PR), 13+3+3+3

Fasted.

Horrible! Truly horrible. I just didn’t have it today.

Did a quick warm-up after the walk (high knees, shoulder mobility, push-ups, DB overhead triceps extensions, and 135x8) because I wasn’t feeling it, then into the first 20-rep attempt. Bar started slowing down around rep 10, got through 12 alright, then 13 was a fight. Okay, no problem: it’s the first set, don’t do something stupid, you’ve got another set. Rack for 15 seconds, let’s knock out the last 7. Hah! No go. Fought for 4 reps, then racked it for 15 again. Whatever, let’s just finish this: 3 reps, done.

Take a 5-minute breather, try to find some fire. Still nothing. Okay, just get under the bar—you’ll fight back, Sven, if it’s threatening to crush you! Besides, it’s the nature of these cold(-ish) back-to-back sets that the first one is basically a warm-up.

Or not.

Fought for 13 again, racked it, found 3 more, racked it, 3 more, rack, 3. And the last one—technically rep 22—was quite possibly the ugliest bench rep I’ve ever put up. Pretty sure it hit the Simo scale. Certainly I was working for it.

Mostly I’m just glad that terribleness is over. I’ll have a go at 205x20 again on Friday, so I’m putting today out of my mind for now.

Back at it throughout the day for calves, daily work, and The Last Castle.

Edit: That first rest-pause bench WM is technically some kind of rep PR, so I’m marking it as such. You know, for posterity…

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2113

5s PRO, 5x5 FSL - c13w3d1

Sunday - 05 June 2022
Workout: Calves & daily work + extra conditioning, 1245-1330 + 1550-1630 (45 + 40 minutes)

Jump rope tabata - 4x40/10

3 rounds of:
a) 1-pump burpees - 17, 17, 17
b) KB swings - 28 kg - 17, 17, 17
c) Kroc rows - L/R - 65 lbs - 10, 10, 21
d) Belted CR - 135 - 25, 20, 15

Jump rope tabata - 4x40/10

Pwn’s The Last Castle - AMRAP, 20 minutes
a) Farmer’s walk - 25 yards - 2x87 lbs
b) 6 alternating DB snatches - L/R - 40 lbs
c) Farmer’s walk - 25 yards - 2x87 lbs
d) 10 KB swings - 28 kg
Rounds: 8; Time: 21:31

Man, I am just exhausted today. Maybe yesterday’s deadlift WMs took more out of me than I realized. I did eat like a horse… Imagine that, haha!

Re-discovered a pair of old, crappy plate-loaded DB handles in my locker today. They’re terribly awkward for most of the DB moves I use, but I decided to try one out so I could bump up the weight on the Kroc rows to 65 lbs. That was also a little awkward, but overall, it worked well enough. And let me tell you, it was only a 5-lbs bump, but—holy crap! I was huffing and puffing on the third set, and my HR hit 174 by rep 14 or so on the second hand. I know the weight itself isn’t all that impressive, but those… THOSE were Kroc rows.

Also wanted to note that since I read the 10k Swing Challenge article yesterday, I’ve been doing my swings “Dan John style.” Previously, I was coming up relatively high and my arms were getting loose, then throwing back too far and losing some tension in my hamstrings. His swings seemed much tighter in the article’s video, so I’ve been trying to focus on my technique a bit more through the last three bouts with the kettlebell. They definitely feel different, and I think I’m now closer to his style than before. Planning to keep that up for awhile to see how things go.

The Last Castle and cutting the grass—yes, again, because it’s SO much better to do it twice a week at 45-60 minutes than once a week at 120-150 minutes!—are on the docket for today, but first: it’s time to eat.

Edit: Cut the grass after lunch to let the food settle, then went pretty much straight into this. I decided to record it today, not that you can see much because I can’t really get a good camera angle:

Nor is there much to see, anyway—I just march back and forth, throwing some weight around at the top and bottom of the driveway. (The full 21-minute workout is there, but not even I’m going to watch the whole thing!) Finished 7 full rounds in 18:45, was between hands on the DB snatches in 8th round when the timer expired, and finished that up in another 1:31. Not a bad day, all things considered.

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2114

5s PRO, 5x5 FSL - c13w3d2

Monday - 06 June 2022
Workout: Squat & squat WM, 1025-1150 (85 minutes)

Warm-up
Throws + jumps

Begin: 1042; End: 1133; Duration: 51 minutes
Squat - 155x5, 185x5, 220x5 | 255x5, 285x5, 320x5 | (255x5)x5
Chin-up - BW - 15, 14, 6
Dip - 60 - 15, 14, 6
HLR - 20, 14, 6
BPA - red - 10 high + 10 mid + 10 low
Push-up - 30
Good morning - 115 - 15, 10

Squat - 250 - 11 (rep PR), 9

Assistance totals:
Push - 65 reps
Pull - 65 reps
Single-leg/core - 65 reps

Tough squat day, but I’ve got a few lingering thoughts about yesterday. First, I watched some of The Last Castle video, and you can easily see how my arms float away from my body on the KB swings. I’ve been actively working against that since watching Dan John’s video, but I was pretty fatigued during that afternoon workout, and it just wasn’t happening at that point—my grip was toast!

Second, I started Indigo-3G yesterday. Took 3 capsules 30 minutes before dinner, which is generally my largest meal of the day and which last night consisted of about 1 lbs of chicken tenderloin, some sweet corn, and a few bites of fried cubed potatoes my wife and kids had, and close to a half-gallon of milk. Normally I do 1 Tbsp of ACV in 4 oz of water and 1 Tbsp of cinnamon about 20 minutes before any meal, but I opted for only the Indigo-3G capsules yesterday evening. I will be continuing to use Indigo-3G for the next two months at least. You all know I’ve been oscillating between leaner and fluffier, so I’m really keen to see how this impacts my perceptions of body composition over the next several weeks.

I also started Surge today. I’ll have more thoughts on that in a later post.

And now today. A tough squat workout following a horrible night’s sleep. So bad, in fact, I had to pull myself out of bed (late) despite a rare lack-of-sleep headache or the kids would’ve been late to school. Decided to flip-flop my morning to see if I could shake it, and I’m glad I did—felt much better by 1000 than I did at 0600.

Everything felt strong until the top set this morning: It very nearly buried me, and I don’t think I’ve been closer to missing squat reps (lately) than I was on the last two of those today. Main work took about 14 minutes, and the supplemental about 19, superset with assistance moves throughout, just like usual. The assistance moves felt INCREDIBLY strong today. Like downright easy. That was a nice surprise. I was also able to bounce back and complete the supplemental sets without too much drama, but I was definitely glad to be done.

But, wait, there’s more!

Crap! I’m supposed to hit 250x20 for the follow-up WM once I finish out the assistance…

Call me weak, but I knew that wasn’t happening today. So I did what any weakling would do: I ran upstairs to check my PR spreadsheet to see how many reps I’d need to at least get a rep PR out of it. Turns out, I hit 10 reps during my previous 5+ PR set at 230 back in early May. Okay, fine—let’s hit 10 reps at least. Somehow I found 11, and I might have had 12, but my lower back was barking as I “rested” with the BB on my shoulders after the 10th rep, and I don’t mess around with my lower back. So, I got the 11th, racked the bar, and took a 3-minute break before hitting the last 9 reps to complete 20 over two sets. So that was today’s “Widowmaker.”

Back at it a bit later with today’s daily work, but then that’ll be it for the day.

And thank goodness, 'cause there’s less than 24 hours until tomorrow’s press workout.

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You are doing a ton of work in here, not surprising you’re hitting some walls!

I’m enjoying your analysis of KB swings, I realized over the course of my 10k that I could tweak them just a tad and produce a very different stimulus. DJ is very very explosive in some of his videos and just explosive in some of his videos, I’m not sure I have quite made it to his top level consistently but the closer I get, the more I am enjoying them. In any case, any KB swing with the hips firing is going to produce a decent amount of stimulus.

Have you considered throwing up before and after photos for the Indigo-3G/Surge run?

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Thanks, man!

This fact was quite shocking to me, actually. Like, in my case, not letting my arms get away from me challenges my grip a lot more, which I really really appreciate. I don’t think there’s anything “wrong” with how I was doing them, per se, but as you say, a small change can make a big difference.

I need to do this, thanks for the reminder. A physique update would probably be a good thing regardless, even just for me. I’ll try to grab some shots later today or first thing tomorrow—those’ll have to be close enough to “before” pics because I didn’t think to do that on Saturday!

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So here’s the post, as promised.

I’ve decided to give Biotest’s Surge Workout Fuel a try, which is kind of a big deal for me because:

  1. I’m a sugar addict, and I became kind of carb-phobic while trying to undo years’ worth of bad nutritional habits.

  2. I have an addictive personality, so I’ve wanted to steer clear of even just thinking I need supplements or a pre-/intra-/post- workout drink to achieve what I want to achieve.

But if you’ve been following along for the past 11 months or so, you know I’ve been working to undo the bad habits I developed while undoing bad habits—I’m now seeking balance, mentally and physically.

On top of that, I’m already using food (and typically lots of it!), creatine, ACV, cinnamon, fish oil, Vitamin D—and now Indigo-3G—to achieve my goals, so I’m giving Surge a shot too.

But I’m starting slowly: I only made 1/2 a serving of the Lemon Drop flavor today. I don’t normally drink anything, not even water, during my workouts, but I started sipping it during setup and continued throughout the workout. The taste was really quite good, but at some point it became sickly sweet to me and, to be honest, I didn’t even finish that 1/2 serving over the course of the 85 minutes that followed.

Even so, it made a difference. Maybe not with the squats, but I crushed the assistance today. Just absolutely crushed it all.

(For the record, I superset these moves with every set of the day’s lift: warm-ups, main work, and supplemental work. Also, today I was coming off an exceptionally horrible night’s sleep and battling a rare morning headache before the workout.)

Normally the second set of chin-up/pull-ups and the first set of dips are excruciating, but today I hit 14 chins on the second set with more in the tank, and the first 15 dips were a cake walk. Frankly, I probably could’ve smashed all of the first three pull/push/core assistance moves in 2 sets each—and maybe I’ll give that a shot next time—but I didn’t want to crash out for the remaining work, particularly those squats.

But now that I think about it, yeah, the squats were tough—it’s a 1s week, after all—but 285x5 felt surprisingly good and, let’s face it, 320 is 95% of my current TM, so of course that set is going to be hard. Likewise for an attempt at 250x20 following the programmed work—I mean, that’s just kind of crazy, right?

Anyway, I half-expected to crash out either during the workout or shortly afterwards. But here I am, several hours later, I still haven’t crashed, and there’s no reason to think I suddenly will at this point: Surge seems to have given me the fuel I needed, when I needed it.

This whole thing is an experiment for me, and I definitely don’t want to jump the gun. But I can tell you this for certain, even after just one workout: Surge definitely didn’t hurt!

My plan this week, such as it is, is to see how it affects some of my weight lifting workouts and some of my conditioning workouts. I guess I’m trying to find how I can best put it to work so that I get bigger and stronger.

Given that, tomorrow I’ll hit up some more before the afternoon sled push. As miserable as it sounds, I think I’ll try a continuous 10x50 yards again, as that’s been difficult for me to get through lately. Maybe it won’t be quite so miserable tomorrow? Guess we’ll find out…

So my friends, buckle up, ‘cause here we go!

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On the Poundstone curl discussion, I find my biceps to be the limiting factor up until the first “rest” I have to take. Yesterday, I got to 80 before I had to chill for a minute. From rep 81-125 it was all forearms and my biceps were a non-factor.

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Thanks for droppin’ in, @mr.v3lv3t! Nice to have you along for the ride.

It’s funny—but not surprising, really—how the same move can affect people so differently.

And then there’s this:

That’s impressive, my man!

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2120

5s PRO, 5x5 FSL - c13w3d2

Monday - 06 June 2022
Workout: Daily work, 1540-1555 (15 minutes)

3 rounds of:
a) 1-pump burpees - 17, 17, 17
b) KB swings - 28 kg - 17, 17, 17
c) Pendlay rows - 120 lbs - 10, 10, 20

And that’s my daily work done. Bumped up the weight on the Pendlay rows by 5 lbs, but didn’t notice too much—at least not compared to the 5-lbs jump on the Kroc rows yesterday. These still challenge my breathing (and my lower back), particularly following the burpees + swings, more than anything else.

Oh, and here are some “before” shots for my Indigo-3G/Surge experiment:

surge_before
surge_before2570×1125 607 KB

They’re a little unfair because I’m pumped and sweaty from the daily work, but they’ll have to do for now.

We’ll also call these a semi-official physique update, but I’ll probably do the whole comparison/montage thing once I finish up SvenG’s Year of 5/3/1 and take stock of my progress on JW’s programming.

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At first I was very confused.

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2122

I may advocate for odd things at times, bulimia will never be one of them.

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Sven looks like he is prepping to go on stage

Sven will be competing at the “2022 Pwn Classic ”

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It’s amazing what a little pump and a little sweat will do! Now all I need is about 25 more pounds of pure muscle and a spray-on tan.

Your comment made me chuckle, @tlgains—thanks for that!

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5s PRO, 5x5 FSL - c13w3d3

Tuesday - 07 June 2022
Workout: Press & press WM, 0810-0925 (75 minutes)

Warm-up
Throws + jumps

Begin: 0825; End: 0912; Duration: 47 minutes
Press - 70x5, 85x5, 100x5 | 115x5, 130x5, 145x5 | (115x5)x5
Pull-up - BW - 14, 14, 7
Decline DB press - 2x60 lbs - 15, 13, 7
Ab wheel - ramp (19) - 18, 16, 6
BFP - red - 30
Band pushdown - red - 30
Bulgarian split squat - L/R - 2x30 lbs - 15, 10

Press - 115 - 12 (rep PR), 8

Assistance totals:
Push - 65 reps
Pull - 65 reps
Single-leg/core - 65 reps

I’m finding my current limits this week, folks, but that’s not a bad thing: it means I absolutely know where I need to go!

Felt slow heading into this work, but no Surge this morning. Found my groove for the main work, but 145 was way harder than I’d like to admit: there was a tiny knee dip on the very first rep. I corrected that for the remainder, but I had to fight for all of them. Once again came back strong on the supplemental sets. They weren’t easy, by any stretch, but every rep was solid. Main work in about 15 minutes today, completed the supplemental in… Doh! Forgot to clock it again. Something typical, I’m sure. Assistance went well—was really happy with two sets of 14 reps on the pull-ups today—but I could really feel yestereday’s squats during today’s Bulgarians.

Got a rep PR on today’s “Widowmaker” again—I did 115x10 as a 5+ PR set back in November—so 115x12 is something better, at least. I took about 3 minutes between the two sets, but I got 20 total across them. Not what I’d prefer, but… Again, finding my current limits isn’t a bad thing—breaking through them is how we grow!

The radar is suggesting I’ll have to swap some of tomorrow’s work for today’s sled push, but we’ll just have to see what this rain does—it could push through in time to get the regularly scheduled work in. Daily work will follow, regardless.

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2126

5s PRO, 5x5 FSL - c13w3d3

Tuesday - 07 June 2022
Workout: Daily work + hard conditioning, 1220-1240 + 1610-1630 (20 + 20 minutes)

3 rounds of:
a) 1-pump burpees - 17, 17, 17
b) KB swings - 28 kg - 17, 17, 17
c) Kroc rows - L/R - 65 lbs - 10, 10, 20

Sled push - 10x50 yds, 135 + sled = 222 lbs
Time: 11:59

Good gracious—I was working hard on that last set of rows: HR hit mid-170s near the end of the third set on the second hand!

So the rain has moved on, but I’m not sure it’ll be dry enough to push the sled. If that’s true, I’ll swap in Saturday’s easy conditioning, move the sled to tomorrow, and do Wednesday’s easy conditioning (at the park) on Saturday. Or something like that. I’ll edit in whatever I do, once I do it.

Regardless, I’m not forgetting lunch today. Let’s eat!

Edit: Okay, so—rain cleared out, driveway dried out, and the sun came out (just to make me miserable while doing this). Legs are hurting, definitely feeling yesterday’s squats. As planned, tried 13-14 grams of Surge in 5 oz. of water (i.e., about 1/4 serving), downed in basically one gulp about 15 minutes before the sled work. Then, first sub-12:00 time on the 10x50 yds at 3-plates in who knows how long. Coincidence? I’ll let you decide (@atlas13). Glad it’s done, that’s for sure. And Surge or no Surge, there’s no way I’m forgetting DINNER tonight, haha.

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Man, everyone trying surge is getting me really tempted to give it a go. Stuffs not cheap, so I think I will let you all be the test subjects before I pull the trigger.

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I’m happy to do so for you. I think I’m running a pretty legit experiment in my log if you want to check me over the coming weeks - basically can I do a program that’s been too hard for me in the last?

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Lol, I have been silently stalking your log for a long time now. Pretty diligently tracking your surge updates. Between you, Sven, flipcollar and Pwn, we got a pretty solid test sample. Appreciate you taking the initial plunge so all of us hold ours don’t have too haha

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Congrats member coach!!

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Coach Sven!!!

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