Yup. Dips have been called by many “the upper body squat”.
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There’s also a way to do dips a little differently to change the emphasis. Credits to @Frank_C for this one
Nice progress so far
Probably one of the best pieces of advice in here. Don’t psych yourself out man.
Also, regarding dips, they hit your entire upper body and can eat into your recovery if you push them. I don’t think you should get rid of them, but you should do them in straight sets rather than AMRAP-style, and you shouldn’t be going near failure. Personally, I’d rather see you do that with all of your assistance work. It’s not meant to be pushed for PRs, it’s there to assist your main lifts.
I’ve mostly been going to failure or close to it on my assistance lefts…with dips too. So, I typically max out at 13 reps on my first set with a 5 lbs plate on a belt. Next set I max out again…rest 2 minutes, etc…until I finish the 50 total. So, should I just do 5x10 instead?
This
Dips is a great exercise, but it CAN affect your bench. As long as you know that and that lifting with some degree of fatigue eats a bit into your strength.
WHEN you after 6 month or more decide to test your lift, deload and test. BUT you have to be patient and wait about 6 month or more, maybe even more, make it a new year thing.
Remember it’s training not testing, and testing should be done very sparingly.
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Don’t add weight. Stick with bodyweight on dips. Get blood flowing to the muscles.
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without weight would be fine
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Yes. Just straight 5 x 10. Don’t go near failure on any of your assistance work. Your #1 priority is to get stronger and better at squat, bench, deadlift, and press. Assistance work is only supposed to help you get better at them by 1) strengthening/growing lagging muscles and 2) keeping you healthy. Don’t underestimate how important #2 is.
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I feel like 5x10 on body weight dips is going too easy, but maybe I’ll vary rest time, etc. OK, but I’ll just stick to body weight from now on.
Deadlifts
65% 142.5 1 5
75% 165 1 5
85% 187.5 1 5+ (20 reps)
65% 142.5 5 5
Press
65% 70 1 5
75% 80 1 5
85% 92.5 1 5+ (11 reps)
65% 70 5 5
Assistance
Incline DB bench: 40 lbs - 10,10,10,8; 35 lbs - 1x12 (2 min rest)
Chin-ups: 5x10
Ab roller: 3x20
Note:
- Not doing cardio tomorrow to see if I perform better on Friday.
- Is assistance too much/heavy after deadlift/press? If so, what is a good alternative on this day?
- Chin-up reps in last two sets were dismal
Dips are easy to cheat. Keep them honest. If to easy even with good ROM, slow down the lowering portion.
Do incline bench with 30 or 35 lbs next week and don’t add weight until 5 x 10 becomes easy.
For chin ups, do 5 sets but do less reps each set. If the reps are dismal you’ve pushed the set too far.
Yeah, I regretted using 40 lbs after my third set.
Bench
65% 87.5 1 5
75% 102.5 1 5
85% 115 1 5+ (11 reps)
65% 87.5 5 5
Front Squat
65% 65 1 5
75% 75 1 5
85% 85 1 5+ (20 reps)
65% 65 5 5
Assistance
Pushups: - 3x25,20,5 (Goal: 100 reps - 75-90 sec rest)
DB rows: ~30 lbs - 2x20,1x10 (Goal: 50 reps - 90 sec rest)
Leg/hip/toe raises: 2x30 (Goal: 60 reps - 1 min rest)
Notes:
- Felt sleepy, sluggish and shoulders felt off. Been eating more, gaining weight but had trouble staying asleep past two nights. Averaged 3-4 hours sleep each night.
This is what I’m attributing my poor bench to. Not having trouble falling asleep…issue is staying asleep. I’ll often just wake up a bit after 4 am and can’t fall back to sleep. I have episodes like this about once a month where I go through cycles of about 2-3 days not being able to sleep well. I average closer to 5-6 hours sleep though. It’s rare for me to get 7+ hours. Sleep issues is something that runs in my family…my mom is the same as me…I think it’s genetics. - I think cardio helps me sleep better so won’t skip next time.
- I replaced curls with DB rows.
Front squat
Weight in lbs
70% 70 1 3
80% 80 1 3
90% 90 1 3+ (20 reps)
70% 70 5 5
Bench
Weight in lbs
70% 95 1 3
80% 107.5 1 3
90% 122.5 1 3+ (10 reps)
70% 95 5 5
Assistance work:
Dips (body weight): 15,10,10,10,5
EZ Curls: 55 lbs - 25,15,10
Medicine ball/leg raises: 2x40
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I think I need more than one day to recover from Wednesday’s deadlift/press day. Would it make sense to do the following?
Monday: Squat/Bench day
Wednesday: Deadlift/Press day
Saturday: Bench/Squat day
If I do then I’m guessing I’ll just shift the problem to Monday being the day I don’t feel recovered enough since I’ll have squatted and benched on Saturday. Maybe it’s worth trying to see.
I will post a video of two sets in a bit. I wouldn’t mind feedback.
First off, 11 reps on your 5+ day for bench is not a poor performance. It’s just not an A+ 110% performance, which happens sometimes. Don’t let it worry you.
Secondly, when do you typically train? I have the same problem as you with sleep - almost exactly the same problem, and my mom had it too. I moved training to the mornings and it made a big difference. Another thing you can do is try and up carbs by 10% or so, they can help reverse the adrenaline response from training. At least that’s how it feels to me. If neither of those two help, get up at 4 when your body wakes you up. You’ll feel shitty that day, but then you should have better luck sleeping that night. Honestly, I sometimes have better strength performance when I’m severely sleep-deprived.
Thirdly, are you repeating the same week over and over? Are you doing squat/bench Monday, deadlift/press Wednesday, squat/bench Friday, then squat/bench the following Monday again? Or are you treating it as an A/B workout where you do s/b Monday, d/p Wednesday, s/b Friday, then d/p the following Monday?
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Sorry if I am missing something, because I’ve just skimmed, but I think you may lack some conditioning.
I saw where folks recommend you do less cardio, but I didn’t pay a ton of attention to what that cardio consisted of. I think there’s value in doing 20-30 minutes 3x a week of something that has you just to where you have to hold a conversation two sentences at a time.
I say this because you say it takes you over an hour to get through this and you’re having a tough time recovering. I think I also saw you’re under eating. Getting your cardio right can go a long way toward all three.
You’re good, I just revisited the beginner article.
Remember this is training, this is about being fatigued and still training.
Do not move fridays work to saturday, this will only give you 1 day of recovery between squat/bench days.
Try this: Friday is a day were your topset stops 2 reps shy of falilure. So if you get to rep 9 and think I can only manage 2 reps more stop it, do not think about monday I did 13 I can do that today too, if you consistently gets 1 or 2 reps below mondays target.
This gives you 2 days to fully recover and you can hit bench hard, if and when the same happens to squat, then do the same.
You’re really doing good, you’re consistent and you do the work, as you’re supposed to.
I would still like to see you hammer some more rows, make that back big wide and thick.
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