Here’s the video:
For the moment that’s what I’m going to do, if my squat still feels good only squatting once a week and if I make progress on my bench the I will stick with it but if not I will go back. But basically I’m going to gradually increase the weight, rather than trying to squat 480x3 on Monday for a PR and mess my back up again.
Thanks for posting. Nice pull Chris! What made you decide to not push the last rep? Felt your back round?
Hmm I wonder what the effect of bringing my head up like you do will have on my deadlift.
I just got out of position and it felt like my back wasn’t set properly so rather than risking injury (since my back is still not totally better) I stopped. Normally I would have still pulled another rep, and probably several more after, but my back isn’t normally injured and I’m not too confident with conventional.
Good stuff here. Based on what he’s saying towards the end of the video where the spine adapts to being strong and flexible for gymnasts and strong and stiff for powerlifters, I have a lot of strengthening to do to get rid of that lumbar flexion as I have been walking around hunchback with posterior pelvic tilt for my whole life. I’ll take it as a challenge
Monday, August 5 - Squat day
Squat (low bar)
395x4 - This felt like I could probably do 2 more reps, but looking at the video it looked easier than that and moved faster than it felt. I think my problem is that I haven’t squatted anything challenging in a while so actually pushing hard with my legs or straining is a bit foreign to me, but I’m coming back. Also I haven’t squatted with a barbell since April. This is 10lbs and a rep over last week, next week I will aim for 405x5
Down set: 355x6
Pause squat
320x5x2 sets
Lunges
20lb dumbbells x12x2
Band leg curl - seated
super mini band x24, 18, 17 - I thought I would try these seated instead, I didn’t want to do them like that before because it seemed like my back might not like it but that isn’t an issue right now.
Band hip flexor march
mini x20, 18, 13
super set with:
Band bad girl
super mini x25, 23, 20
And as for my back, it feels totally better now, like nothing happened. Feels fine in the morning, fine when squatting, fine after. I’m just weak as shit now, but I will be back soon. Getting injured sucks, not only is the time when you’re injured wasted but then you have to work to get back to where you already were.
I’m sure you learned a few things though so that’s always nice. The problem now is having the discipline to work your way back up slowly lol. Glad you’re feeling better, Chris!
There’s not a lot of discipline required because I’m just not as strong as I was before the injury. I could try to go heavier and either disappoint myself or get injured again, and neither of those is any use.
Wednesday, August 7 - Bench day
Bench press
340x4 - failed 5th rep a few inches from lockout
310x5
I get the feeling that benching once a week is not going to work for me. Last week 335x5 felt like maybe I could do a 6th rep so this is obviously worse, and there is no way I can say I’m not fully recovered so that is not the issue. Actually, everything felt heavier than it should and warmups felt a bit shaky. I’m just frustrated with training lately since I hurt my back and my bench is going nowhere, but I have another plan in mind. I guess I needed a bit of a break anyway.
Slingshot bench
390x5, 3 - misgrooved the 3rd rep on the 2nd set and barely finished it. Nothing is going my way today. But I think that if I can get my slingshot bench up it will improve my raw bench because the sticking point is about the same, just with more weight of course.
High incline
230x7, 5
JM press
185x12, 10, 9 - this is the only thing I made any progress on since last week
So I’m going to go back to benching twice a week, but I think that instead of close grip bench on the 2nd day I will try doing slingshot bench with my regular grip instead. As for squatting, I suppose I can skip the light squats before deadlifts for now but if I don’t like the way things are going I will add it back.
Time to hop on the juice. Enhance dat dere recovery
Yeah, and shrink my balls too.
It just doesn’t seem to me like steroids are worth it, too many potential negatives. If I was going to make a living off lifting weights then maybe it would be a different story, but that’s not about to happen.
Friday, August 9 - Deadlift day
Deadlift - conventional
425x5 - This was pretty easy. If I wasn’t concerned about form breakdown then I could probably pull another 5 reps, but the plan was 5 and I stuck to it. The bar rolled away after the 4th rep but this time I managed to pull it back into position and pull a 5th rep. I feel like I could improve bracing and lat engagement, but it seems like I have some potential with conventional. This is still a long way from good, I was close to a 600 sumo deadlift before things took a turn for the worse, but I will see where this goes.
And I’m going to keep volume low on conventional DL, maybe eventually add a down set but that’s it. In retrospect, back when I was pulling conventional until I messed up my back (4 years ago) I was doing too much volume, deadlifting too often (2-3x/week), allowing myself to use sloppy technique, and not doing any mobility work or stretching which would have allowed me to set up with a neutral spine. If only I knew then what I know now.
RDL
285x10x2 - I’m not really pushing these too hard at the moment, I could definitely do more but I’m trying to really focus on bracing and getting my hips to do all the work.
Barbell row
225x10x2 - I’m doing this with strict form (unlike when I was rowing 405) and as bent over as I can go without falling over. I actually feel this in the middle of my back more than my lats, I guess my back is not as strong as it once was but it should come back fast.
Maybe I should have done another set.
Chin ups - close neutral grip
bw x11, 10, 9
Barbell curl
65x18, 13, 11
I think I will keep this setup for now. If I don’t like the way my squat is feeling with only squatting once a week then I will bring back the light squats before deadlifting and do chin ups and curls elsewhere. Technically I’m squatting every day though, goblet squats and goblet squat stretches as part of my mobility routine. I bet you never heard of the goblet squat everyday program.
I figure that squatting 500-something in wraps feels nothing like doubles with 315 in sleeves and I was able to maintain and improve technique with that, so this could work too. But the main point of the goblet squats is mobility.
Thought you were gonna stay away from RDLs though?
No, just the ones with a band around my waist. There is nothing magically dangerous about regular RDLs and I have never had issues with them. As I mentioned before, in the past I worked up to some relatively challenging weights with the banded RDLs (this was with a conventional stance) and I just didn’t like the way it felt on my back. Maybe with sumo it’s worse, I don’t know, but that’s what I was doing when things started to hurt.
Oh I see. Sorry, forgot about that band around your waist part
Monday, August 12 - Main bench day
Bench press
330x5 - Not terrible but 6 would have been better, but it wasn’t going to happen
295x7
Floor press
295x6, 5
High incline
235x6, 5
Chin ups - close neutral grip
bw x12, 11, 10
So I’m back to benching twice a week, my experiment didn’t work out so fuck it. I’m going to keep volume on the lower side and do hard work sets, sub-max benching doesn’t seem to do anything for me. And stuff like flys, I make progress on them but it doesn’t carry over to my bench so I don’t see the point. In theory, less junk volume should allow me to recover and progress better, so that’s what I’m going to try. Once a week is too long between bench sessions but a ton of volume per session is not much use either.
Once I get my squat and deadlift back up to something half decent I think I’m going to do some higher rep training for a bit, mostly to change things up without changing too many exercises. But I’m going to keep the total number of sets on the lower side and just try to get stronger in higher rep ranges rather than turn this into a high volume hypertrophy phase. I think that the problem with the high volume approach (and the reason why it never really paid off for me) is that past a certain point you are limiting how much stronger you can actually get due to the accumulated fatigue. Sure, you will set some rep PRs as long as you don’t go totally overboard with volume but it could be well short of what you could accomplish with less.
A few times I have done a hypertrophy phase and really pushed the bench volume (because it seems to be easier to recover from) but then afterwards my bench is still right where it was before. So what use was the high volume/high rep work? My main issue is lack of progress on bench for a while, but something like that might help my squat and deadlift as well.
Tuesday, August 13 - Main squat day
This was one shitty workout
Squat
405x3 - This felt terrible, I tipped forward a bit on the 3rd rep and stopped after that. I wanted 5-6 reps
365x4 - Same thing on the 4th. I figured my strength would come back fast but apparently squatting once a week is not working for me. This feels like I have been set back 2-3 years of training. Frustrating.
I feel like I don’t really know how to properly execute a low bar squat right now, plus my legs are weak as shit.
Pause squat
325x5x2 sets - I wasn’t really fatigued from the squatting before this so these didn’t feel too bad.
Lunges
25’s x12x2
Leg curl
light band x20, 18, 16
About this low frequency thing I was trying out, I saw this video a while back where Broderick Chavez is saying that there was research back in the 50’s and 60’s that found that increased androgen levels improve motor learning and skill acquisition. This was the first I ever heard of it and it was old research, plus I hear a bunch of other people claiming that the only difference of drugs vs. natural lifters is the results they get. But after trying this out for 2 weeks (and not taking any exogenous androgens) and feeling like I don’t know how to squat and bench properly anymore makes me think he is absolutely right. I find that squatting and benching twice a week and deadlifting once works for me, some beginners might do better with more frequent practice.
Here’s the video, he talks about the motor learning part at about 8.40:
Thursday, August 15 - 2nd bench day
Bench press (warm up for slingshot bench)
up to 350x1 - fast and easy, could have done 3-4 reps. Bench technique feels much better today than the last few sessions, a week between bench sessions leaves me feeling like I can’t remember how to do it properly.
Slingshot bench (paused)
395x5
355x8
This is not bad, now I just need to do it without the slingshot.
Military press
205x8, 7 - I haven’t done this in over a month so I just picked a weight that I knew I could do a decent number of reps with and went in with no expectations. After I looked back through my training log and a couple months ago I did 205x9, although I noted that I was disappointed I didn’t get 10 with it. So overall this is pretty close to where it was before.
JM press
190x12, 10, 8
Underhand band pull apart
super mini x25, 18, 12
Barbell curl
75x15, 12, 10
Last two exercises were done with 1 minute rest between sets, because I just can’t bother devoting any more time than that to them.
So this workout seemed OK, nothing incredible but it feels like I’m back on track. I just need to be patient with my squat and deadlift and maybe something good will come of it.
Out of practice or is something still bothering you?
Yeah, a bit out of practice with low bar squatting plus my experiment with only squatting and benching once a week failed before it even got started. Seems like I really benefit from practicing the same movement pattern a 2nd time each week. Nothing hurts, no discomfort, just technique feels off and my legs are weak from not squatting anything heavy for so long.
Did you watch the video I posted? The one part about androgens improving motor learning is the thing that really surprised me, I have never heard that before. You hear lots of people go on and on about muscle protein synthesis and all that, but I think that this is really a major issue why lifters on AAS can get away with or even do better with less frequency. I’m not a fan of Izzy at all, but Broderick Chavez certainly knows a thing or two.