So the book says during this program to make your rest days actual rest days; don’t do anything. I’ve read the logs of other people on this site who’ve done this program, and they all do some conditioning or some type of workout on the “off” days. I guess I’m attacking it somewhere in the middle. I’m doing something each day. Usually it’s either 30 minutes on the Echo bike or a good trudge through the woods. I enjoy being in the woods more than anything, so on the weekends that’s my preferred modality.
I’ve been trying to gain weight since my birthday in August. Since October I’ve been running higher-rep hypertrophy-leaning programs. I’ve been inconsistent with the weight gain, to be honest. Some of that was hunting season; it makes it hard for me to consistently get in enough calories. Mostly it’s me just being lazy and undisciplined, though. Once I cut back down we’ll see if I’ve actually accomplished anything. I’ll keep gaining while I finish out this program. It already has kind of required me to eat to meet the recovery demands, even just after the first week. I stepped on the scale at 226.4 lb this morning. When I list my bodyweight in my log, it’s usually my running seven-day average. Today that’s 224.8 lb.
I am excited to get back to more traditional strength training. While I know it’s still helping me get stronger in the long run, it’s more difficult for me to get motivated to really get after it in the gym when I’m doing the hypertrophy stuff. It’s boring. In March I think I’ll go back to what I was doing last summer. Running five weeks where my top sets are five reps, followed by five weeks of my top set being a single at about an RPE8 was really netting me some good results. The block of 5s was really blowing up my singles ability. Some day I may go into detail about the overly dramatic reasons that I never have a problem “motivating” myself to get stronger. My origin story, if you will.
Even with the weight gain I’m still fairly lean, so I don’t think it’ll take me long to cut down to a reasonable level. Last time I “bulked” I got up 240 lb, but with a waist of 40+ inches. It wasn’t real pretty. Luckily I’m 6’4"; the fat has a lot of surface area over which to spread out. Unfortunately, the same is true about my muscle. Having grown up always being the super skinny kid/dude, it is pretty cool now being referred to as the meathead of my group of acquaintances.
Sorry for being so talkative, if anyone is even reading this. I guess it’s just a thought dump. Also, it’s my freaking log, so quit complaining. You’re welcome.
Made it through another. The back pain during those squats…
That was the revelation, for me. When I realized it wasn’t necessarily the fatigue of high reps that was going to limit me; it was the pain. And, given my history, I can do pain with the best of them. Pain I have figured out. Not saying I’ll get all reps on all sets from here on out, but knowing what the game is makes it easier for me to deal with it.
Just one workout at a time. I’ll probably continue whining about it, but damn the pain/cramping/fatigue in my back on these squats is for real. All that extra breathing and standing there under the bar is definitely trying. My left hip is starting to ache.
My body weight is going up pretty steadily. I do feel like I’m eating enough to recover well between workouts, at least for now.
Having to shovel a bunch of snow this morning before work was probably not ideal for recovery, but I have a session scheduled with my massage therapist tonight. We usually focus on my chronic neck pain, but we’ll probably just go for full body pain tonight. I’m kind of dreading it. Her sessions usually leave me sore for a few days.
This was, by far, the hardest set of breathing squats yet. But it is the weight at which I failed and only got 14 reps the first night I tried this program. Thanks @simo74 for setting me straight.
Absolute bullshit. There was no reason to not get these squats. I was super tired all day and didn’t feel great, but they were there. My mind was everywhere except under the squat bar during this set, though, so when it started to get hard I just gave myself permission to quit. I need to focus. This will be rectified. Sorry.
Had to get the Wolverine claws out for this one, but I got it. It seems like everything is still progressing right now. Given my lack of conditioning, after about the 14th rep, the three big breaths between each squat turns into three heaving gasps, my body desperately searching for oxygen - or any type of air, for that matter - that it can use to keep me alive for one more rep.
*I read in another log on here that these squats are supposed to be done beltless. Given the premise laid out by the author of the book, that makes sense. So, these squats were done beltless.
Honestly, I’m a little bit impressed with myself for finishing the set of squats. I wanted to rack it at 15. By 17 my back hurt so badly I was sure I was done. But I just kept doing one more squat. I played a little mental trick on myself, which I’m sure many have done before: I wrote the weight and the reps completed in my log book before I started the set. I knew how awful I would feel all weekend if I had to scratch out and change my log, so I think that kept me sticking with finishing all 20 reps.
My hips and back definitely need a couple of days off from squatting. About two hours after I was done lifting I went and played a local open mic night. Between sitting and standing on stage for about three hours I felt like a 90-year-old man. This also affected my eating for the day. I don’t like to have much in my stomach(food anyway. booze is a different story…) when I’m performing, so I didn’t eat much after training. Then I got home late and had to cram a bunch of food in before bed. Not ideal, but I think I did ok.
The open mic was really my first time performing solo. I’ve played in several bands, but I’ve always been more of an electric lead guitar player, and I’ve never been the main singer of any group. This was my first time doing an acoustic set where it’s just me and the guitar. I can stay in key, but I’m not much of a singer. It went pretty well, though. I think. They kept asking me to get back up and play more songs, so it couldn’t have been terrible. Even I could tell my stuff got better throughout the night, though, as I got more comfortable. My voice and singing was way better at the end. Just something I’ll need to keep doing to get more comfortable doing. Met a bunch of cool local musicians, though, and had a bunch of fun.
This one sucked. I’m sick again, and I didn’t sleep much the night before. But I’d be damned if I wasn’t going to get all 20. My lower back was absolutely shot; that’s why I only got 11 reps on the SLDL. The curls were getting pretty cheat-y by the end, but I don’t really care.
228 lb is my current 7-day average weight, but I actually stepped on the scales at 231. That’s up 20 lb since this summer.
I had a little hitch in the plan this week. I’ve gotten sick again. Which is usually not a huge deal; just figure out a way to work around it. But this is very much in my chest. And I can’t quit coughing. It’s constant, and it feels like it’s every time I take a breath. And, obviously, deeper breaths are worse. So I really didn’t think I was going to be able to do a set of 20 breathing squats in this condition. So I’ve pushed the workout one day. I hope. I’ll see how things go today and decide If I think I can do it tonight or if I’m just going to move on to the Friday workout.
Still not feeling well and still coughing a lot. Had every excuse in the book to not get the squats tonight, but I did. The demons were breathing down my neck on those last 5, though. May have to slow down the weight increase on the curls a bit; they’re really starting to hurt my (many times) surgically repaired left forearm/elbow/wrist. I’ll keep trying, but I may have reached a terminal velocity on the SLDLs while increasing my squat poundage. My back is just so shot after the squats it’s preventing my from getting all 15 of the DLs. I’m trying to put as much of the load as I can into my hamstrings, but there’s only so much I can do. Weight is still going up nicely.
Missing Wednesdays workout has now really screwed up my schedule for the next couple of weeks. I may have to figure out a workaround…
Ended up cutting this one a little short; as I was setting up for the SLDLs, the power in the house went out. Glad it didn’t happen while I was squatting; there’s no windows in my weight room and it went pitch black. Anyway, I had to investigate and then take care of a few things. Then I figured I had got the important part of the workout done, so I called it. Turns out somebody wiped out a power pole out on the highway and took out power the whole way down the line. We were only dark for a couple of hours.
This set of squats was brutal, but I actually think my conditioning and work capacity is improving.
Just some observations/musings now that I’m in week 5 of this Super Squats nonsense, most of which will echo what others have said in this forum:
I’ve been gaining about 2 lb per week on the program. I’ve done it by increasing intake frequency more than meal size; that seems to work better for me. I’m trying to avoid buying new jeans, but my thighs are testing the limits of the seams on my current ones. I have to actively pull them down into place every time I stand up because they won’t slide on their own. I’ve had to switch from my work shirts to golf shirts for now at work; the work shirts were so tight in the shoulders I couldn’t move. The golf shirts are tight as well, but not near as constricting. Stepped on the scales at 233.2 lb this morning.
My hips and lower back are shot. I don’t feel terrible overall, but definitely kind of feel like I was in a minor car crash all the time. My shoulders and elbows are feeling it from constantly pushing the (still embarrassingly low) weight each session.
I find that now that I know what it takes to complete the squat set, I just want it to get here. I’m certainly not looking forward to it. It’s more like I just want to get it over with, so let’s just get to it. I think I’ve kind of figured out the rhythm to the sets. For me, the first 7-8 reps are no big deal. They seem to take forever because of the breathing in between, but they’re no problem. Reps 8-12 my arms start to tingle and go numb. At first this worried me. Now I realize, whether they stay numb or not, I completely forget about it by rep 13-14 where it really starts hurting. That’s where I really start to feel how long the bars been on my back. At rep 15, all bets are off. It’s just pain management and trying to breathe at that point. I just have to convince myself to do one more rep. It’s often at this point I find myself glancing at the j-hooks and trying to allow myself to rack it. Interestingly, after rep 17, every time…every time, for some reason I find myself thinking “I have three more reps? I thought I was closer to done. I can’t do three more reps.” I don’t know why this thought enters my head every time. Then it’s just one painful rep at a time.
It’s definitely a mental game. Luckily, the prevailing thought in my head during the las 6-7 reps, is how angry and disappointed I’ll be in myself if I don’t get them. Powerful.