Cycle 4 Week 2
OHP
50x5
60x5
75x5
90x5
100x5
115x5
5x10 @ 65lb
HLR 4x12
Incline press 4x10 @ 120lb
Pendlay 4x9 @ 145lb
BPA 4x12
Everything moved well today. Top set was no problem…
I have been eating like a mad man. Still around 200 or 201 in the morning, but I have been eating a lot more carbs so I feel a bit bloated. Not shitty or anything… just bloated in the gut area. Haven’t missed a meal/lunch in weeks. Gotta keep up the consistency.
Cycle 4 Week 2
Squat
135x5
165x5
195x5
230x5
260x5
295x5
5x10 @ 165lb
Dip 3x12
Row 3x8 tempo 135lb
Lateral raise 3x20 @ 10lb ea
Attempted a slow walkout, pulling down on the bar and shoving my elbows in to keep my back tight. Tried on the previous sets to take big belly breaths, but I think my belt is too tight to get enough air for it to feel right. I definitely need to still work on walk out and breathing. I didn’t feel the weight shift towards my toes too much, but looking at the video, there is still some shifting on almost all of the reps.
Edit: also brought in my grip a bit. The Ohio powerbars rings are slightly closer than my others, and I’ve been putting my ring finger on the ring the past couple squat days. Any closer than that and I have to squat high bar, I can’t sink the bar low enough with my hands that close.
Walk outs have improved great, it is much more controlled, good job.
If you look at your squat in slow motion, you’ll see that the bar travels in an almost straight line, it’s only in the bottom position you let it drift forward, to me that would indicate that you need to work on mobility/flexibility.
You are strong enough no doubt about it. It’s probably not a major thing, don’t try to do something perfect, with heavy weight that will never happen anyway.
Look at you 4’th rep, this was the rep where the bar was traveling very close to straight up and down right over midfoot… probably.
I can’t recall how wide your stance is, but you could try to widen it just a bit to see if it allows you hips to sink down better.
Play with placement of the bar a little lower or trying to initiate the lift with hips and knees at the same time, it looks like a hinge only pattern and you shins are very upright.
But only work on one thing at a time, and only changing it a little bit… if you want to change anything at all. To me it looks pretty good.
Keep up the good work man.
Thanks @mortdk I will try some of the advice. You’re right about my mobility. My hips and hamstrings are always pretty tight, I could definitely stand to do do some mobility and flexibility work. I will check out squat University videos this week for what they suggest.
I’m still trying to find my stance width, I’m a bit wider than hip, maybe 3 or 4 inches so I could try widening my stance a bit more.
As far as sinking the bar deeper down my back, I’m finding it really difficult to do that. Bringing my hands in closer and getting the bar lower really screw with my left shoulder and elbow… I try to warm them up doing dislocates and BPAs before squatting but it only helps a little bit. I’m finding that my wrist angle is not good once the weight gets heavy too. I have to find a way to get my forearm/wrists in a straight line which I think just comes down to having better shoulder mobility.
I will definitely work on all the points you made, thanks again!
Well it’s all about finding you own setup and pattern, there really isn’t any one and only way to squat. Some like the bar higher or lower, some likes wide stance some narrow.
If your bar is very low normally the stance is very wide, and if close if high bar squat. Low bar normally starts with breaking at the hip, but there is no rules.
We should strive for straight bar line directly over midfoot. Keeping a rigid and strong back is another one.
Cycle 4 Week 2
Bench
85x5
105x5
125x5
145x5
165x5
190x5
5x10 @ 105lb
Row 3x12 @ 145
HLR 3x12
RDF 3x12 @ 10lb ea
Side raise 3x15 @ 10lb eat
Everything moved well, 5th rep was slow on top set but went up. Pretty tired of bbb, might switch to fsl for a cycle or something. I definitely have to buy one of the newer 531 books for some fresh ideas.
Cycle 4 Week 2
Deadlift
155x5
190x5
230x5
265x5
305x5
345x5
265x8
Tempo pull up 8,8,6
Pushup 3x15
Lateral raise 3x20 @ 10lb ea.
Deadlift felt heavy today. Feeling bloated and tired from all of the eating. Steadily at 202-204 in the morning the past few days. Starting to pick up quite a bit at work, so I may start to take it a little easy on assistance and accessory stuff so I don’t burn out too hard.
There are plenty of free stuff on Jims own website or even here.
You could try main set then supplemental 5x5 fsl
Or look up building the monolith template that’s given people great gains, Pwn did a review on his blog. mythicalstrength
Training maximally work up to a TM single then amrap the top set.
Much is depending on your goal.
Hey man, good work! Squat is still coming forward quite a bit and mort has some good ideas. Sometimes a very low bar position can work with a narrow stance, could be something to try. You can also widen your hands to get the bar deeper on your back, then slowly work them in and try to build shoulder mobility. There’s a lot of strength there, and when you learn to load your hips and knees properly I think your numbers will shoot up.
As far as getting a new 5/3/1 book, Forever just kicks ass man. There’s so much there it’s overwhelming at first, but when you dive in you start to sort it out. If you have that book and you get bored of 5/3/1 then there’s something going wrong or you’re just REEEEAAAAALLLY not meant to train that way (small chance).
Anyway, all verbal (textual) diarrhea aside, nice work!
Thanks @mortdk and @garagerocker13 I’ve definitely been trying pretty hard these past couple months to get my numbers up a bit.
I will try widening grip and dropping the bar lower on my back and bringing in my stance for squats this coming week.
Bench has been alright, finally starting to understand the importance of leg drive and bracing the core, and belly breaths this last bench day felt great.
I’ve been wanting to do building the monolith for quite a while now, maybe it’s time to just nuts up and do it. I was initially waiting for some better numbers but things have been so slow going lately that I’m thinking I should just go for it.
Is this in a template in one of the books? It sounds interesting. Work up to an 85% 1rm for one then drop back 80-90% of that and do amrap?
That one’s Leviathan outta the Forever book. I was stuck between that and Coffinworm and ended up choosing Coffinworm because it’s shorter and looks like I’m gonna hurt. haha Leviathan really does look interesting and seems like a smart way to sorta train maximally and still push size with assistance and PR sets during the anchor.
Lol and it’s a Mastodon album… I’m sold.
Coin flip between building the monolith and Leviathan. Going to finish up this cycle, probably do a shortened deload and start one of the two. Ordering the book tonight, hopefully shipping won’t be an issue with all the crazy shit going on right now.
He named it after the album I think. haha So far I haven’t had anything messed up shipping-wise, hoping it stays that way. I have quite a few guitar parts coming to me that I’m violently impatient to get.
It’s from forever and he thought that was maybe the best he’ve ever thought of, just had a relook at the book.
Work up to a single at TM or a PR set (not amrap) just 1 more rep than previous, in my mind that’s an amrap pretty quick.
Then do jokers and after that back off sets. But as he said a few month after the release he should never have put the jokers in there.
Depending on the lift it could be a single DL, a single bench PR on squat and OHP, whatever works for you.
Then do 3 - 5 backoff sets 5 - 8 reps in the 70 - 75 % range.
Thinking of it
week 1 TM x 1, week 2 - 2 reps week 3 - 3 reps.
back off follow the FSL 65/70/75% do 5x5, or 3x8, 4x6 and 5x5 for the last week. Endless possibilities.
I don’t have the forever book, it’s all about following the principles work hard, progress slow, keep TM to 85 - 90 %.
Sorry for the rant, went a little further. Looking forward to see what you’re going to do, I might follow along if it turns out good.
Thanks guys- all awesome ideas. My plan as of right now (and it will most definitely change, as always) is to run through building the monolith once or twice (about 3 months) being that it’s not necessarily meant to be run long term, and then switch to something I can coast on for the summer.
Not saying Leviathan will be a cake walk, but it seems much more self-regulating than BTM which is something I seem to need in the warmer months.
Cycle 4 Week 3
50x5
65x5
75x5
95x5
110x5
120x4 (PR)
5x10 @ 65lb
HLR 3x12
Incline press 3x5 @ 135lb
Pendlay 3x5 @ 155lb
BPA 3x12
Fifth rep on top set just wasn’t in the cards today, not upset about it. It was still a weight PR, and a new e1RM PR.
Im also gonna plug forever for conditioning and balancing your overall program.
@boilerman if you do have interest in conditioning when it suits your goals and you like wendlers approach, look up the “5/3/1 50% rule” on internet (cant remember if it’s in forever somewhere too or not)
I tried looking up the 50% rule but wasn’t able to find any real information about it @burnur, I will continue looking. Haven’t ordered the book yet, I’m planning on it soon though.
What a crazy week so far. The city I live in/near is essentially in shut down. Haven’t been to work… Went on one service call yesterday afternoon for a couple of hours, other than that I’ve been home.
Wedding plans are in the shitter and the to be wife and I are on damage control… Very high stress as we could basically lose a massive amount of money if the insurance company finds a way to not reimburse us.
My schedule and routine has disappeared so eating has been atrocious. Down a few pounds since Friday and I tried squatting yesterday but didn’t log it. Got up to 275x5 and called it quits. I’m going to be restarting the last cycle I did to try and get into a groove with all this crazyness.
OHP
50x5
65x5
75x5
85x5
95x5
110x5
1x15 @ 85lb
Superset all ohp sets with 5 neutral grip pull ups
Dip 15,10 (cut supersets short due to feeling lightheaded, probably due to my current state of appetite)
Pendlay 1x11 @ 135lb
I’d guess a lot of people are knocked out of routine in all ways. Bad timing for sure, one of my friends out west was supposed to get married on Saturday, of course that’s canceled and they lost a shit ton of money on it.