350lb squat at your age and bodyweight is a damn good lift. Nice work man.
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5/3/1 Deload W1D3: Chin & Incline Walk
Chin-Up: BWx5, 25x5, 35x5, 45x3, 55x3, 67.5x1, 82.5x1 (PR,) 90x1 (10-Pound PR)
Incline Walk: 1.5 Miles in 26:57 @ 15%
This is good example of how well BBBB worked for me - I haven’t done a single weighted chin over the course of the program, focused on gaining weight, and then came back and PR’ed it twice. Also, I can get a higher incline on the gym’s treadmills, which is nice.
(The wrestling practice I was planning on going to was cancelled)
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5/3/1 BBBB W6D7: Bike Ride
25.75 Miles in 2:14:40 (11.5 MPH)
Pretty solid PR on the pace, and an estimated 1,250 calories burnt. Also, apparently that chin-up video managed to garner ~1,700 views since yesterday, so I guess I’m Internet-famous now.
4 Likes
5/3/1 Deload W1D5: Deadlift
5/3/1 Deadlift: 5x135, 5x185, 5x225
Deadlift Jokers: 3x275, 1x315, 1x355, 1x385, 1x420 (15- Pound PR)
SUPERSET
Deadlift: 3x5 @ 275
Chin-Ups: 15, 12, 10, 13
Pull-Aparts: Rest-Pause to 100
Locked this out with much less struggle than my last PR (~3 Seconds vs ~6 Seconds,) although it was difficult to break the floor. That’s generally been the way these have gone - if I can get the bar to my mid-shin/knee, I can finish.
I’m gonna start bringing a heavier band, I think I’ve gotten all the mileage I can out of this one.
5 Likes
5/3/1 Deload W1D5: Bench
5/3/1 Bench: 5x95, 5x115, 5x135
Bench Jokers: 3x155, 1x175, 1x185, 1x195 (PR,) 1x205 (15 Lb PR)
SUPERSET
Larsen Press: 3x5 @ 135
DB Rows: 12, 12, 15 @ 75
GIANT SET
Decline Tempo Crunches: 3x8 @ 25
Alt DB Curls: 3xRP —> 28 Total @ 35
Pushdowns: 3xRP @ #4 —> 28 Total Reps
Bench is disproportionately low compared to everything else, but so long as it keeps moving up, I’ll take it. Of all the big lifts I’m doing, it probably has the least carry-over to what I care about.
I’m definitely getting some of the “productive fear” that comes with pulling out a calculator and figuring out what week 6 of BTM is going to look like - the 5x5 squat at 300 is definitely going to take some doing.
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Absolutely love watching you smash these PRs after all the hard work. I’ll even forgive the sumo pulling, haha.
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The credit’s at least partially yours for turning me onto BBBB, so thanks for that. I’m excited to see what you make of it now that you’re planning on running it again - 5x10 with 405 in 20 minutes will probably be among the more impressive things you’ve done.
I was wondering how long it would take for someone to comment on the sumo pulling, lol. At this point, it’s mostly making the best out of a bad situation. Whenever I try to push weight/volume on conventional deads, my spine starts bothering me where stuff got removed from it, and I’ve had neurological symptoms flair back up a few times. I got told unambiguously to never squat or deadlift again by the first surgeon I consulted, so if the biggest compromise I have to make is moving my feet out six inches, I’ll consider myself lucky.
Although, I see the irony in complaining about injuries to you of all people.
Come to think of it, the injury stuff probably warrants it’s own post when I have time to write one.
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Old Back Injury Post
So, I’ve alluded to my history a few times so far in this log, but haven’t gone out of my way to describe it yet. That’s mostly because:
- Starting on such a negative note seemed like a bad idea
- I wanted to give the impression that I’m actually capable of hard work before I sound like every other “ow, my back” person out there
- Actually writing this out is probably going to take quite a bit of time, and it’ll be very boring to read. I’m pretty much just doing it for transparency’s sake.
So, without further ado:
How did I hurt myself?
I don’t know.
Yeah, underwhelming answer. I mean, I first noticed that I had hurt myself while I was jogging and it felt like someone stabbed me in the back, but there’s not some dramatic “I missed a 1RM deadlift and felt something pop” or “I got hit by a car” story to go with it. This happened in April of 2021
The most likely possibility, in retrospect, is that between sleeping, sitting around and online school (taken in bed) during Covid lockdowns, I was spending just about every non-training minute of my day completely sedentary. A word of advice: don’t do that.
As a side note: all of my training during that period was being done with kettlebells and bodyweight, which is a nice riposte for the “heavy lifting destroys your back” crowd.
Before Seeking Medical Attention
The first sign I got that something was going on beyond a simple pull or sprain was that I lost the ability to flex my left calf. I wasn’t able to stand on my left toes, or dorsiflex that foot with any force. After the initial pain subsided, my back actually felt fine. A bunch of symptoms consistent with a herniated disk began to appear over the next days/weeks. To name a few:
- I became extremely flexion-intolerant. Humor me for a minute, and stand up. Bend forwards with your knees locked like you’re going to touch your toes, but only go down to your knees.
I went four months without being able to do that - Pretty much constant sciatic pain in my left glute, hamstring, calf, and foot, accompanied by on-and-off numbness in the foot (oddly enough that was the one thing from this list that was a criterion for surgery. Go figure).
- I couldn’t extend my leg in a seated position (think leg extension machine)
- Shooting pain every time I sneezed
- Walking became painful enough that I had to sit down after a mile or two and wait
- My left calf atrophied (everything else did too, but this was more than “not training” levels of atrophy)
Doctor Number One
Online visit because Covid. I was told to rest and take an over-the-counter anti-inflammatory, which unsurprisingly didn’t help.
Doctor Number Two
In-person visit to an orthopedic surgeon, referred by the first guy. Was given an MRI, accompanied by a formal diagnosis: 8mm Herniated L5S1 Disk
Was essentially told that I needed to stop wrestling and lifting - forever - and hope that the thing fixed itself over the course of a year or two so that I could avoid surgery, which he implied would basically leave me crippled.
Honestly, fuck this guy. Obviously he wasn’t acting in bad faith, but that’s erroneously bad advice to the point of being insulting. If I didn’t go out of my way to get a second opinion and actually listened to him, I’d be in an immeasurably worse position. Doing precisely what he said not to was what finally got rid of the remaining symptoms after surgery and general feeling of not being “sturdy.” Moreover, his prognosis was delivered with such little tact that my mother ended up leaving the room crying. Thankfully, I got a second opinion from
Doctor Number Three
Dr. Eve Hoffman at Summit Orthopedics, on the off chance that anyone geographically near me is in a similar situation. She’s a marathon-runner, so she completely understood my desire to get back to training, and be able to wrestle with my team when our season began in November. After a couple visits and a failed attempt at solving the issue with corticosteroids (a medrol taper to be specific,) I was scheduled for surgery.
Surgery
On August 20th, 2021, I received an L5S1 Microdiscectomy and Hemilaminectomy. Essentially: they removed the bony processes from the posterior side of those vertebrae to access the disk, which they shaved off the herniated portion of. Then everything got sewed back up. The procedure took about two hours under a general anesthetic, and I was able to go home that same day.
Recovering from the Operation
I was prescribed 30 oxytocin, which I refused to take because I don’t need to become a narcotics addict on top of everything else.
I was on my feet and walking by day 2. The doctor said that I couldn’t do anything more intense than walking for six weeks, and that I could spend the next six weeks gradually reintroducing more strenuous stuff. The three month mark was within five days of my team’s first wrestling practice, and I was told I could participate right away so long as I wasn’t being an idiot with it.
I probably walked over 200 miles in the ensuing six weeks. Within four days of the operation, I was going four miles at a time. The longest walk I went on was over fifteen miles long. I don’t know how much this actually helped, but being able to tell myself that I was finally doing something that could be called “training” by some stretch of the imagination was invaluable for my mental state.
Returning to Lifting, Wrestling, Running, Etc.
Six weeks on the dot after the operation, I checked into the YMCA to deadlift.
3x5 @ 135
That week’s benching was at 75 pounds, my presses were with the bar, and I squatted 115.
I ran with my wrestling team, and gradually reintroduced myself to stance & motion and handfighting drills. When the season began, I was wrestling from day 1.
I had to bow out about 75% of the way into the season because some of the neurological symptoms were coming back. My coaches and teammates were extremely supportive throughout this whole process, and the guy who got bumped into the lineup in my place got some impressive stuff done.
I took a Deload week at this point, and then started focusing fully on lifting and conditioning. The symptoms cleared, and I continued a linear progression program until it stopped working, at which point I began this log.
At this point, I feel just about completely recovered. Not 100%, but somewhere around 98. As I’ve demonstrated, I’m able to do what I need to do.
Alright, rant over.
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I’m in the same boat. It’s not only the weight, though. It’s the weight coupled with being in a HIGHLY fatigued state… Make sure to eat well!
I am also really enjoying reading through your log
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Bench tends to be very dependant on body weight. This was a nice PR sir. Just keep slowly progressing it and you will get there.
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Reading about you going through it is sort of giving me a preview of how the next six weeks will hopefully go - which honestly may have me even more scared here, haha.
If nothing else, I guess I’ll come out of the other side of this with a bunch of ground-beef-and-egg recipes.
Glad you’re enjoying the log : )
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Impressive shit man
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I hadn’t really considered that, but it definitely sounds like it makes sense. I mean, off the top of my head, most of the best benchers I can think of (ignoring lightweight arch contortionists) are really big guys. Just another reason I should keep gaining.
Thanks, by the way.
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Random Late-Night Thoughts on BTM:
-I’m planning on running this on Sun/Tue/Thur. I usually get weekends off from work, so this setup means that I’ll have one day of lifting and my weekly bike ride done without any real time pressure. And that’ll be nice, because by the end of this program, I want to be doing the full 200 dips, which will probably take a while.
- Conditioning is going to continue to be the random potpourri that I’ve been doing so far, and will be done each day that I’m not lifting. Maybe some off-day ab work, too.
- Supersets and giant sets and going to be used heavily here. Day one will probably be squat-chin-dip into press-chin-pullapart, with any remaining dips rest-paused at the end. Day two will probably have the deadlifts done as straight sets, then bench-row, then curls. Day three will probably go squat-pullapart into press-press-chin, into shrugs. Taking two barbells would be a pretty obnoxious thing to do in a gym that only has four of them, so I can’t do anything like squat-press or deadlift-bench.
- Having read a couple decade-old Jamie Lewis articles, I am entirely too excited to load 400+ pounds onto a junk bar, strap up, and power-shrug the everloving fuck out of it. No way I’ll be able to get to 100 reps of that in any reasonable timeframe, so I foresee myself doing a few sets of it and then launching into a disgusting multi-step stripset.
- I’m gonna go to the grocery store on my way home from work tomorrow, and start buying eggs/beef. I’m going to try to keep meals cooked a day in advance, and then take full advantage of my 8-hour shift of getting payed to sit and stare at an empty pool by eating throughout.
- I leave for college during week 6, and I’m 100% prepared to drag my ass into some random 24-hour gym, buy a day pass, and do the final day of the program at 5AM before my orientation. Now that I say it, I almost hope it plays out that way.
Reading back over that all, I think I’m starting to get what people mean when they talk about this program effectively taking over their lives for six weeks. I’m totally down for it. And then next in line will either be deep water or super squats, depending on which flavor of misery sounds better.
5 Likes
5/3/1 Deload W1D7: Rest
Plenty of walking, but that’s hardly worth logging. The more important thing to note is that I just bought:
- 60 Eggs
- 3.5 Lbs Ground Beef
- 3 Lbs Ground Turkey
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You got those eggs from Walmart didn’t you
lololololo
(I could be wrong)
No Walmart near me, sadly. I’d be buying so much stuff from there if there wasn’t one. I just went to some random supermarket
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Big fan of you getting to yes on BtM and appreciate the vulnerability required to share all that info on the injury. I’m a big fan of yours dude.
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Second what Pwn said. Can’t wait to see you grow physically and mentally.
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5/3/1 Building the Monolith: W1D1
GIANT SETS
Squat: 5x45/135/185/205/235, 5x5 @ 265
Press: 5x45/65/95/105/120, 4+1x135, 8x105
Assorted Chins: 20x5
Dips: 6x12, 2x14
Pull-Aparts: 4x25
Total Time: 58 Minutes
I knew going in that this was going to suck, but I was completely unprepared for just how bad it was. By the time I got to my presses, I had random strangers telling me to “take some deep breaths” as I was racking the bar and trying to stay upright. I missed and had to rest-pause the fifth rep of my top set, and almost missed it a second time. I hit 130x10 a few weeks ago, to give you an idea of how gassed I was.
The actual giant sets looked something like:
Squat-chin-dip-chin repeat
Until I ran out of squats, then
Press-chin-pullapart-chin repeat
I’m going to go eat eggs and pity myself in a bathtub, now.
On the bright side, I picked up a bunch of BBQ pulled pork from a neighbor who had it left over from a picnic that they held.
5 Likes