INTRO: HOW WE GOT HERE AND WHERE WE ARE NOW
For those that haven’t been following along, Deep Water Intermediate marks the end of a 26 week long weight gaining training block I’ve been running that started off with 5/3/1 BBB Beefcake, then 5/3/1 Building the Monolith and then Deep Water Beginner. I intend to do a separate write up of the whole process, but in sum, it’s been the most effective training block I’ve ever engaged in. I’ve run Deep Water Beginner and Intermediate before, and at that particular time they were the hardest programs I had ever run in my life, so jumping back into them was a little intimidating. However, I also had prior experience to use to my advantage, and knew what kinds of deviations I was willing to make in order to completely maximize the program to my goals and, in truth, make it even more challenging. All of that will be detailed in the following.
WEEK 3-6 STRATEGY
Whereas beginner is about reducing rest times, intermediate is about reducing total number of sets to get the 100 reps. For weeks 3-4, I stuck with the approach of doing a set of 12 and then 8 sets of 11 to get it done in 9 sets. For weeks 5-6, I swapped to a set of 16 and then 7 sets of 12 until it got to deadlift day. The previous deadlift day was HELLACIOUS, one of the hardest workouts I’d ever done in my life, and then idea of opening up with 16 reps then trying to hold on for 7 more sets just seemed like a poor strategy, so I decided to flip it and do 7 sets of 12, take a LONG rest period (as allotted in the book) and then do everything in my power to hit a set of 16 after that. To include dead stopping and rest pausing: just get those reps in without taking an “official” rest. I ended up using the same approach for power cleans with the barbell (more on that later). Otherwise, I stuck with the traditional 1x16/7x12 after that, because the rest of these weren’t terrible compared to the deads.
NUTRITION
My nutrition was about as dialed in and Deep Water as it could get. I’m not going to do another “day in the life” thing because it was pretty much identical. Big variable is I swapped out walnuts for pecans, as I was starting to develop intolerances to the walnuts. My body seems to do that a lot these days. Otherwise, the most “un Deep Water” thing I’d eat daily was a square of 92-110% dark chocolate, clocking in at about 60 calories, along with a dark chocolate peanut butter cup and a Reese’s min peanut butter lovers cup, both of which clocking in at 70 and 30 calories respectively, and those latter 2 options were only ever eaten while I was at work. I actually WANTED to take in some carby cheat meals before the deadlift days…in theory, but in reality I just didn’t have any appetite for carbs at this point. All I wanted was large quantities of meat. My “cheat” meal was typically wings.
DEVIATIONS AND DIFFERENCES
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I used intuition to determine training weights on this one, primarily because reverse calculating my 1rm based off the weights I was using for sets of 10 across on beginner was resulting in “fantasy-like” numbers, like a 750lb deadlift. I ended beginner with the following lifts:
Press-135, Push Press-155, Squat-325, Deadlift-385
For Intermediate, I used the following weights
Press-155, Push Press-175, Squat-350, Deadlift-405
About the only weight I should have pushed a little higher is the squat. Big part of that is honestly just me not being at terms with how good I’ve become at squatting. It’s still very new to me. -
Once again, I pushed conditioning HARD through this process. Despite the fact that Deep Water in and of itself should be more than enough to put the body into a shocked state of recovery, I had a good thing going and didn’t want to let off. I actually found conditioning to be VERY helpful in recovering FROM Deep Water workouts. I’d try to turn the conditioning workouts into feeder workouts, and get blood flowing to the sore areas to speed up recovery. Something I found particularly effective for squat soreness was thruster WODs. My default was to just to 30 thrusters with 135lbs as fast as possible, similar to the Grace WOD, but I also made use of the Fran WOD, getting 100 thrusters with 95lbs as fast as possible with a 10 KB swing penalty for setting the bar down, etc. Post deadlifts I’d do things like stone shouldering or something clean focused. After pressing I’d do thrusters or the Grace WOD, etc. Whereas the first time I did Deep Water I’d limp for 6 days after squats, soreness would be gone around day 2 with this approach. The thrusters, in particular, are effective, because they FORCE your body to move through a full ROM.
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With cleans scheduled for every week, I took it upon myself to make 1 workout a log clean and the other a barbell clean. I’d do the log clean on the same week as the 100 squats, as I find the log taxes my lower back and I didn’t want to absolutely obliterate it by doing 100 deadlifts and chasing it with 100 log cleans. I made sure to apply the lessons I learned from clean pulls and cleans to the log and, for once, actually had a pretty snappy log clean.
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I never followed the prescribed core work. On days that were supposed to be back extensions into sit ups, I’d do reverse hypers into ab wheel. Otherwise, I let my daily work take care of core work.
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Instead of 5x10 curls, I’d do 1 set of Poundstone curls.
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Instead of multiple sets of lateral raises, I just did one gigantic dropset.
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On the bench day, I did incline dumbbell benching, and immediately after the final set I’d jump straight into my first set of dips. After my final set of dips, I’d jump straight into my first set of push ups. On my final set of push-ups, I’d do a big dropset by doing push ups to failure, then using the Reactive slingshot to do another set to failure immediately, then use the Metal Catapult to do one final set to failure. I’d then go straight to a set of 25 band pushdowns.
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I frequently did band pull aparts between sets of the main work on training days, just because they make my shoulders feel awesome.
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I used my Juarez Valley front squat workout for about the first half of the program on the “active recovery” day. At the halfway point, I started experimenting with a workout I named “Tower of Babel”, which was similar to JV. I’d start with 1 front squat, do 5 burpees, 2 front squats, etc, typically working my way up to 8 reps, then working back DOWN to the 1 rep. It was awesomely brutal but different than JV. I still chased this workout with a belt squat stripset.
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Rather than do the technique sets for squats and deads before the main work, I would cut them out of the main workout and then later in the day do a WOD incorporating squats or deads wherein I got 30 total reps. For squats, I took 300lbs (50 less than my work weight) and did 10 reps squats, 10 reps chins, 10 reps dips, 5 squats, 5 chins, 5 dips, 15 squats, 15 chins, 15 dips. For deads, I took 308lbs (97lbs less than workweight) and did a similar workout, this time with reps being 12-9-6-3.
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I used an axle for all pressing and benching. I used a buffalo bar for all squatting. I used a texas deadlift bar for the majority of my deadlifting (outside of the WOD deadlifts, wherein I used a Rogue echo bar).
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For deadlifts, I’d pull as many reps as possible touch and go, but eventually had to switch to dead stop in the later sets as fatigue built up. Because, gain, dead stop is EASIER. You get to rest.
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I cleaned every set for all my pressing: push and strict press.
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I still kept up my daily work as well. My GHR footplate actually broke off around week 2, so I cut out GHRs and got in 50 KB swings instead, violating the “bodyweight only” aspect of it. Still, worked out to 50 chins, 50 dips, 50 pull aparts, 50 swings, 40 bodyweight reverse hypers, 25 pushdowns and 20 standing ab wheel roll outs
THOUGHTS, EXPERIENCE AND RESULTS
I am, flat out, the strongest I’ve ever been, and at a lower bodyweight than my previous bests. I still haven’t gotten a “true” weigh in, but I clocked in at 189.8 post breakfast midway through the program, whereas the previous time I ran this I was in the low 200s and deadlifting about 40lbs less for the intermediate week, and squatting around 290 or so. A big part of that is how successful this whole gaining cycle has been leading up to this (which I will write about in full later), but once again Deep Water has been a fantastic program for putting something out of my reach and forcing me to do whatever it takes to be able to get to it. I haven’t been this dialed in in a LONG time.
THAT said, this experience was far less “traumatic” than the last time I ran Deep Water Intermediate. Kinda like watching a horror movie for the second time: you already know where all the scary parts are, so it’s hard to have those emotions again. I still walked around feeling beat to hell, but I wasn’t crippled like before. I was excited about crushing the squat days vs dreading them for 13 days, I never needed to lie down on the floor between sets (although the temptation WAS there), I didn’t need to cheat my rest periods, I didn’t need cheat meals, etc. I think this speaks more to just being more experienced as an athlete AND coming into this is SIGNIFICANTLY better shape than before. Conditioning is magic, and by having mine so strong, I actually COULD recover within the rest periods allotted to me vs trying (and failing) to play catch up. In Jon Andersen’s terms, I was thriving, rather than surviving.
I also managed to keep my abs through this process, and not for lack of trying. I’m still eating like it’s my job, but what I DID do different compared to the last time I ran Deep Water is actually emphasis the “organic” portion of the diet. Before I was eating McDonalds cheeseburgers without the bun and other low quality meat sources feeling like that was “meeting intent”, but in truth, nutrition QUALITY matters here. I also got a LOT of fresh veggies from our local farmer’s market AND my own garden, to the point that my meals were so full of veggies and Jon Andersen approved fruits (tomatoes, cucumbers, avocados, etc) that there wasn’t much room for anything else. I haven’t needed to move up a notch on my lifting belt, and I’m still fitting into the same pants I was when I started the whole 26 week mass gaining block. Hey leangainers, I figured out the secret: work INCREDIBLY hard and eat your face off.
Some crappy before and after photos
BEFORE]
AFTER
WHAT’S NEXT?
I’m signed up for a strongman competition at the end of Sep, which, depending on how the world handles the latest outbreak, may happen. In either case, I need a break from gaining weight, so I’ve taken 5/3/1 and mutated it to my needs. Going to be doing 5s pro for main work, widowmakers for supplemental, rotating implements each week, and pressing twice a week while regulating bench only to supplemental and assistance work. Conditioning focus is going to be on bearhug keg carries to prep for a huss stone carry. Assistance stuff is going to be DoggCrapp-esque single set work with lots of intensity modifiers. Basically, I’m going from VERY high volume to very high effort with low volume. Something that Marty Gallagher observed: the body likes balance sometimes by going from 2 different extremes.
. Absolutely massive visual difference there, and a quality write up to match.