You may have discovered a secret. Not everyone’s failure is the same and if you can push yourself harder than the next guy your failure might be too much. You always seem to push yourself harder than I can anyway.
It is that or ice cream contains a recovery agent your body has been crying out for…I hope it is the ice cream as I want an excuse. 
Cav- Maybe you have to train failure and maybe you don’t… he says occasionally , OK…but it seems like almost every workout your are going to failure; at their insistence. I know I couldn’t recover if I tried it that way…just my 2 cents…
Yes, Corrmhona, we all want to believe ice cream is a basic food group. “It’s Cherry Garcia, so I’m getting my vitamin C!” Drove me nuts when one trainer walked in with his dinner . . . a big chunk of cake. “That’s your dinner???” He looked at me like I was from Mars - what was the problem? Mind you, this is the guy who trains solely for PL, but is trim enough he could drop a few pounds and go straight into any bodybuilding contest he wanted.
Goat, these guys have pushed me to failure constantly, and after almost a whole year, barely put 10 lbs on my bench and 10 or 20 on deadlift . . . what’s wrong with this picture? Way back when I first started training, the first thing I read was a Nautilus book. It sounded so good - walk in the gym, do a dozen sets, walk out half an hour later, become Mr America . . . what’s not to like? That, coupled with my disgust over my thin body, probably made me pound myself horribly. Now surrounded by guys who think I should be able to do 10 reps, I hit failure at 7 - what? Keep grinding at it? Or drop the weight and think I’m a wuss?
I look at your workouts Goat, but can’t tell how close you come to failure or whether you leave something in the tank.
Do you have osteoarthritis? Do NSAIDs relieve the pain in your joints? You are a bit of a medical mystery! We all admire your perseverance for sure.
I think you have more capacity than they give you credit for. You fail when you FAIL. I think they are figuring you are stopping when it gets tough, and tying to push you for your sake and are actually killing you.
Without trying to over simplify your situation,it seems to me that you,re probably overntraining, and definately not getting enough recovery. This might seem like my pet horse,but in your situation there isnt much else it could be. Would you consider training like i do for a few weeks and at least see if you,re happier with things. Or maybe follow my log for a while first? You seem to know a lot about training but arent getting where you want to be. Do you have anxiety in other areas of your life as much as with your training? Not trying to be too personal. Confusion
Snap: have not been diagnosed with any arthritis. Pains seem mostly injury (sprain). Couple nights ago did lots of stretching and mobility stuff and almost pain free today.
Corrmhona: hard to tell what they think, but they do tend to drive me to the limit almost every time. It does worry me it may be too much.
Confusion: I did the Jones/Mentzer/Darden HIT stuff for years and years - zilch progress. I did one workout / week, 4 workouts, 2 workouts - once even tried once per 10 days. Nada. Today realize I was at the stage where I needed low weights and lots of volume to prime my weak body to get to the next level - so weak, I really needed rehab. And pushing myself to failure on every single set was, ironically, sending me straight into overtraining, or at least injury.
I know the Nautilus people tend to blurt out “overtraining!” as a conditioned reflex. Still, that may be a good guess, since even these guys admit they pushed me damn hard this summer.
I’m currently training twice a week, lower body then upper body. Mostly due to finances than workout plan - I’m a college instructor, pay sucks. Hopefully, can recover from it.
Keep the faith. No one can say you aren’t giving it your all.
Ate. Slept. Ate. Slept. Today lower body.
Sled pull, 3 plates. Surprisingly easy, just zipped along. Four trips down block and back.
Hip belt squats. One plate plus 25. Eight reps. Easy.
He added 10 or 20 lbs. Eight. Hmm, last was tough.
Two plates x 6. Arch back, knees out, just made it.
Two x 6. Last one near failure.
Two plus 25 x 5.
Two plus who know x 4.
Two plus a little more than that x 3.
Last reps really tough. I found myself suddenly bending forward as if doing Good Morning. Weird, since nothing above the belt has any effect. He didn’t say anything, but I know form just crashed and burned.
I’ve done seated leg presses and seems I can get some good force that way. Maybe my body is trying to switch to a leg press position when squatting gets tough.
Cool day, but wow I’m sweating. Pant pant.
Stiff leg deads with pairs of kettlebells, 50 lbs each. Three sets, 12 reps.
Reverse hyper. 70 lbs, 9 reps, easy peasy. He adds a bit more, two more sets.
Leg curl. Gagggg, I’m weak. Gotta take it down 2 plates.
Side bend. 40 lb dumbs, 20 reps each side. Too easy. 55 lbs, 15 reps, still not challenging. Used to do tons of side bends years ago to build up around scoliosis, looked like it worked.
Cav. I read an interview with boyer coe,he said he got stronger training with jones but not any bigger,so,he went backnto what had been working for him. Pulling sleds and stuff is pretty macho. Nice
Strong work Cav. Sled work can be brutal.
Confusion, Jones trained a lot of big boys . . . but I eventually found out they were already big before they met him. Jones also trained a lot of mediocre lifters - but they stayed mediocre. Then he started having them use barbells! Squats, deadlifts, just to get some progress going. Yeah, I remember Boyer - one of the top guys of his time.
NHLFTR, thanks. Actually, sled is getting a lot easier for me. Sure wish I could make that kind of progress with my lifts.
All progress is good progress. You are getting stronger.
Thanks, Corrmhona.
OK, in the past week, I suddenly discovered I had a new ability to arch my back more than ever. Don’t know what it means, but can’t wait to see what I can do with it at the gym.
Push press. Drive with hips, let bar sail up. Bare bar x 8. Then he slaps on bumper plates, each 10 lbs. Just in case I dump it on the floor.
65 x 5
65 x 5
Trying to get a good fast push.
75 x 5
I’ll be frank. I can’t even remember how many sets we did. Just kept going and going. He pointed out I needed to rest bar on shoulders during the push, I was thinking of strict overhead where you don’t bring the bar all the way down. Ouch. Collarbone doesn’t like it. I keep at it. Got up to 85 lbs, he didn’t like form, we took down and worked a few more sets until he way happy. Then he started putting plates back on.
We get up to 95 lbs. Try once, didn’t get all the way. Rest. Another try, made it. Rest. Got it.
Went straight to closed grip bench. 95 lbs (wait, didn’t I just see you on the power rack?) Grabbed it, seemed a little heavy. Arched back, worked it, 10 reps. He adds 10 more pounds. Eight reps. A bit rough right after the pressing, but I pause between reps and make it with good control. Another set of 8.
Cable machine. Face pulls holding thick rope. Easy 12 reps.
Tri pressdown, wide grip. 12 reps, look so easy he knocks up a plate. I get 8 or 9.
Sore spots on collarbone, but no blood. Eat and grade student projects.
Nice work Cav…collarbones heal !!!
Cool. Your getting more leg drive on the push press that way I bet. If it feels like you are cheating it is right!
Arching your back in a bench press sort of way or a squat sort of way? That is one of my weaknesses. My back is actually almost dead straight. The one lung specialist was sure I had a major spine injury and had it set in traction when I was a kid when he say the X-Ray. I’m pretty sure I or my mum would would remember that, so I think it must be congenital.
Thanks, Goat. Just a couple tender spots, no biggie.
Corrmhona, to be honest, I’m a bit disappointed that I have to put leg drive into getting a measly 95 lbs up. Hoping that changes. Arching back is part of all the big lifts. Sorry to hear your vertabrae are fused - that’s what you meant, right? I have scoliosis, but the only treatment was fusing and I didn’t want to lose flexibility for lifting. Anyway, you want to tighten the spinal erectors on lifting, keep the core solid, that sort of thing.
Lower body. Sled work, but less weight - it’s what he wanted. I just flew down and back the block.
Deadlifts. Sumo. Double overhand. Going for volume, gotta build me up.
135 x 8
155 x 8
155 plus 20 lb chain x 8
He’s getting on my form. Says I’m putting too much back in it, shrugging - shrugging??? That’s what he says. Put hip into it.
155 plus 2 chains x 8 he’s happy, I gotta sit down, arch back, make hip do the work
155 plus 3 chains x 8
165 plus 3 chains x 8
165 plus 3 chains x 8
Wow, the 8x8 routine or whatever. It whacks you. I’m sucking in cold air (it’s 50 out and in the gym). Lungs do not like me.
Reverse hyper
70 x 12
95 x 10
95 x 10 piece of cake.
Superset:
leg curls x 12
hyper extensions x 12
leg extensions x 12
Two supersets. Surprisingly, I make it.
Abs. Hold 35 lb kettlebell to chest. Go for 45 secs. Strength no problem, but lungs are screaming for mercy. Two sets. Yeah, he’s a sadist, in case you were wondering.
Looking good Cav ! 50 is good lifting temp!
I don’t think it is fused, it just doesn’t have the normal S shape, just a line. It was a comment from a pulmonologist looking at chest x-rays and giving at a reason why I have a smaller lung capacity.
Solid workout as always!
Thanks, guys.