Cool man, I will prob upload a vid this Sunday if you wouldn’t mind taking a look at it. And yeah after tons of squats and deadlifts that’s all I have to compare power cleans to haha. I think of it like a deadlift that should feel like a squat out if the bottom, but I’m sure that’s not the way it should be.
3 Likes
Deepwater Intermediate
W4D1
Squat 9 sets to 100 reps at 265lb
15, 13, 12, 11, 5x10
Deadlift 3x10 at 185lb
Planks and sit ups
Again, speechless. I am ready to eat. I’ll upload a couple vids in a little bit
Edit: just watched back the vid… I did 13 reps on the second set. I ended up doing 101 reps…
7 Likes
Alright, finally got some food in me and the adrenaline has worn off.
Squats were absolute hell. This has yet again surpassed every week before it as being the hardest workout I’ve ever done. Felt amazing after the first set, and left a few reps in the tank. After that, it all went downhill. I was having a very, very tough time getting ten reps on the final sets. The first 5 or 6 moved ok, but the final 4 or 5 were ugly. Form was definitely not perfect.
I was having a hard time catching my breath for the first 2 mins of rest. I just sat in front of my fan and tried my best to breathe in through my nose very slow and very deep. After about 2 mins I was ok but my legs were absolutely shot. Walked around for the next 2 minutes before getting back under the bar.
Here are the first 3 sets of squats
I was having serious anxiety today about lifting. Stomach was in knots and I caught myself drifting/daydreaming (nightmaring?) about it. Thinking about how I wasn’t going to be able to do it. By set 7 today my mind was thinking of reasons to give up, rack the bar, and call it quits. I’m glad I didn’t do that.
My fiancee has been dieting a bit, and has lost a good amount of weight for the wedding. She actually went past her goal weight so she’s trying to eat up a bit as to not be too skinny to fit in her dress that was initially fitted last January. She was craving cheeseburgers so we ended up splurging and ordering from a hamburger place up the street. I got a bacon cheeseburger (didn’t eat the bun) with meat hot sauce and onions and a dozen wings with blue cheese. I’m still not really full so I’m going to let this settle for a bit and maybe eat some.turkey meat balls, peanut butter and milk before bed.
Quite the essay for today’s work but a lot of shit was going through my brain during that 1.5 hrs I was lifting.
6 Likes
You killed it in all respects dude! Great work!
1 Like
First of all, great work! This is making me want to try this program when I get in a better flow.
Second, that’s a great album, appropriately dark it seems
1 Like
Thanks dude, and yeah. Even with the pretty intense subject matter that album really seems to calm me down which I definitely needed pretty badly haha
I also highly recommend giving deepwater a run. It has been one hell of a program so far
1 Like
Thanks pwn, home stretch here I come.
Awesome work here man! Nice video too
1 Like
Thanks dude!
Deepwater Intermediate
W4D2
Push Press 9 sets to 100 reps, 4 min rest
9, 7, 8, 7, 7, 8, 8, 8, 7
BB curl at 75lb, 2 min rest, 5x10
Planks and sit ups
Another less than stellar press day. Had a rough morning/afternoon due to work. Ended up doing service calls for 8 hours today. Started at 745 this AM, got through 2 calls by 12pm… Got home, took the keys out of the ignition and got called back out. Ended up getting home again around 4, just in time to lift and get ready for my mom’s birthday celebration.
Didn’t eat anything all morning, and the only meal I had was a bag of beef jerky and half a gallon of milk in between jobs. I wasn’t expecting to be out past 10AM, so I skipped breakfast and didn’t bring any food with me figuring I would get some.food in when I got home.
Saturdays seem to be my worst days when it comes to mentality and eating. Tried my best in the presses, just couldn’t do well enough. Going to keep hammering away at them the next couple weeks. I think I had 3 less reps this week than last week, so that has to be fixed.
5 Likes
@boilerman mate you are fuxking crushing it man. Fuck the excesses my man. Hard work trumps all
1 Like
Just about anyone else would use work as an excuse to back off the intensity “until things calm down”. You’re an inspiration.
You better show a before and after pic at your wedding. Use that one with the cigarette.
1 Like
@ChongLordUno @jdm135 thanks guys
Ya man, the thought has gone through my head a few times but I made the commitment so I have to follow through with it. It’s funny though… I don’t feel like shit or really beat up or anything (although, the DOMs haven’t gone away) I think the issue is I just don’t have enough gas in the tank after doing the lower body stuff less than 24 hrs before. I think this coming week I’ll throw a little bit of carbs in Saturday morning and see if that helps at all.
Ya man I def will. I’m thinking there will even be some noticable differences between pre and post T-ransformation as well. Wish I took some leg pics beforehand because my quads feel like tree trunks right now haha
Deepwater Intermediate
W4D3
Power cleans, 9 sets to 100 reps at 145lb
14, 13, 11, 12, 5x10
Clean pull at 145, 3x10
Planks and sit ups
Counting today as an absolutely win. I couldn’t get out of bed this morning my legs were so sore from Friday. Woke up at 5 to take the dog out and ended up taking a 2 mile walk with her once the sun started coming up to get some.blood flow into my legs.
Took a couple stand-up breaks on the longer sets of power cleans to let the blood out of my quads. So pumped and painful.
@aldebaran tear me apart bro, don’t hold back on my “power clean” technique
6 Likes
You fucking tank
1 Like
Man you’re a badass. This shit looks like pure torture
Well there are several things here (but we also have to keep in mind fatigue):
• These are no power cleans but muscle no-feet cleans
• You don’t pull the slack out and your arms are bent before you even start the lift and during it
• You bend and pull with your arms way too soon, and are using them way too much instead of your hips
• When you pass the knees you mostly use arms/traps and very little of your hips extension then
• You don’t finish your hip extension, you should pull with your arms only when it is finished
• You don’t finish the movement with rotating your elbows under the bar to create a shoulder shelf for it to rest → this might cause elbows/wrist problems
• You stand tall instead of attacking the ground and catching it in a power position, making the lift harder
• The bar is not close enough to you and follows a straight path far from you
• Your feet could be closer
• You should look in front of you, this isn’t a deadlift
This is a very common occurence, and my training partner has the same issues. What I suggest, if you have the time:
• You should add several sets of the catch drills during your warm ups, and before your lifts, like sets of 5
• Probably a bit of triceps/lats/thoracic spine mobility before cleans
• Before your first cleans, do 1-2 slow clean deadlifts, then do your cleans immediately. You use like a 2-3 secs concentric, under control, paying attention to your shoulders that have to raise up at the same time as your hips. Do them, then do your first clean, same, slowly to the knees then EXPLODE UP like if you were to jump as high as possible
1 Like
Damn good work man
1 Like
Hah, thanks guys. Doing what I can. Definitely having a difficult time staying positive about this whole experience but hearing shit like this makes it more bearable.
@aldebaran I sincerely appreciate the amount of effort put into that post. I will definitely be working on fixing my technique, and even more so because I’d like to continue doing them after DW is done. Seriously man, thank you.
After DW is done I’ll start adding in some technique work. Any suggestion on shoulder/elbow mobility? My left shoulder has a tough time allowing my elbow to be raised as high as it should be to rest the bar on my “shelf”.
You will be proud for sure when you have finished… And most certainly stronger, bigger and tougher!
If you like to roll, rolling your lats/triceps/thoracic spine won’t hurt. I don’t really, so here are my favourites exercices:
I usually attach the band to a rack and bend forward while staying straight
Also, straps front squats are nice, and they warm-up your legs as well. Not the version that you do when you have poor wrist mobility: the opposite.
Just strap the bar tight like if you were going to do heavy deadlifts. But then front rack it and squat. Be thoroughly warmed-up, or wait a bit that your moblity improved.
You don’t have to do all of these, but for a few weeks you should, and see how it affects you and what you like.
It will improve. I had kyphosis (geek) and wrist surgery on both wrist and I can clean or front squat with a full grip if I want now
2 Likes
Thank you man, I will be watching all of these videos and trying to see what will work for me. Thank you again dude
1 Like