Speaking of programming for yourself - this type of training is a great example of the balance I’ve found. It’s like a hybrid of moderate and low volume. My warm-up and build-up sets are purposeful, accumulate fatigue, and not easy, but my top sets are a step or two away from eye-popping intensity, and most exercises are structured around a top to-technical-failure set with a second drop or double-drop set to failure.
All stems from my experiences pushing too much volume, and my experiences pushing too much intensity, so I use and vary both, just focusing on quality reps and MMC. But I’d never have known to instinctively do that without having ran programs featuring all the different variations of frequency, volume, and intensity.
Leg extensions up the stack, 6 reps, couple seconds rest between sets, til you fail
50x6, 70x6, 90x6, 110x6, 130x6, 150x6, 170x5
30 seconds rest, then 170x25 rest-pause, just had to pause once around 17 reps.
Pendulum Squat
Empty x15
1 plate x10
2 plates x25 rest-pause, just resting in a 95% locked out position
5 minutes of lunges
Leg Curls
110 3x10, last set has 10 reps, then 10 partial reps, and then a 15 second iso old halfway up
I would have added something else but my realtor called me in the middle of my workout to let me know that after 10 rejected offers (the market is nuts at the moment) we had an offer accepted. Now it’s crunch time for selling the house, and wouldn’t you know it, my entire family has covid. We’re blessed fortunately - it only feels like a mild cold to us, but I’m well aware that it’s a complete crapshoot and anyone can have a life-threatening experience with it, so I’m glad we’re on this side of things. Good day, but rather stressful with all that we have to do.
Phew. Got a new house, scrambled to get mine ready, sold it in 2 days for just under 2x what I bought it for, 5 years ago.
Painting is just the worst. You’d think I’d remember this, but it’s something most people only do every few years at most, so no matter how bad it is you kind of forget the next time it rolls around. The cool thing was, I did all of the baseboards and the bottom trim in a heels-up squat, just all tension on the knees, just squatting up and moving over when needed, and experienced no knee or back pain over a week of painting. Fatigue and exhaustion for sure - but not pain.
This could not be more true. But it is also one of those jobs that you know you can do yourself so you don’t want to pay someone a heap of $$ to do it.
Exactly. The quotes I got were INSANE. Funnily enough though, it’s a bit cathartic with the work stress, and you get so much better at it over the course of the project that it’s kind of rewarding at the end.
Not rewarding enough for me to do it again sooner than I have to, but unfortunately the new house has a couple questionable colors that I will want to fix immediately.
When we extended and renovated our house like 5 years ago. The quote I got to paint the whole interior was seriously ridiculous. I decided to do it myself with my misses and a couple of mates helping from time to time. I worked till midnight every night after work and all weekend for a few weeks to get it done. By the end I was really good but also really over it.
I had one mate who used to be a shop fitter so did loads of painting. He didn’t tell me but offered to help one day. We started in the same room in opposite corners and were both cutting in, the idea was whoever finished cutting in first would heap the roller and follow the other one around. I wasn’t even 1/3 into one of my 2 walls and I look round and he has almost finish rolling both his walls. He straight up tells me to hurry the Fk up cause he doesn’t have all day. We both laughed hard about it the rest of the day. Turns out he never tells anyone he can paint because then everyone asks him to help and wherever he goes he always paints more than anyone else.
Continuing to work on different formats for my chest days.
Yesterday was:
5 max sets of dips, to technical failure. Slow negatives, below parallel, leaning forward to accentuate chest, and all the way up, exaggerated ROM at the top. Pretty smooth motion down and up, once the concentric becomes a grind the set is over.
5 sets on the incline hoist chest press, first 4 for 10 reps, last set is pretty much to complete failure with 5 forced half reps at the end - this is new, just seeing what comes of it, may head back down the technical failure route if it’s not worth it.
5 sets of cable crossovers with 5 slow pushups in between each set. I catch myself getting lazy when I get down and pump out 5 pushups in 2 seconds, but when I’m doing it properly, focusing on protraction, it’s a crazy feeling in the chest.
I suppose it’s fairly high volume.
Today was back day, and I just did this:
Mostly because I do all of my back stuff with a crazy ROM anyways and I wanted to see how this felt - it felt like any other back day for me in some ways, but I do like starting with the straight arm pushdowns for pre-exhaust.
But yeah - definitely love working my shoulders in that exaggerated ROM - dead hang pullups and all that - because for a couple years after it was dislocated I just shortened my ROM’s on everything and when I did occasionally hit something stretched out it felt like my shoulder was going to tear out of the socket. I just figured it was because shoulders aren’t supposed to be in that range - turns out it’s because my shoulders were just weak in that range.
185 x 10
205 x 10
185 x 10
185 x 10
135 x 17, 5 second negatives
Cable Flys, high to low, standing far in front
27.5 each handle
16, 12, 7 (failure each time)
Finished with 6 tricep overhead rope extensions on “3”, then 5 pushups, then 6 of “4”, 5 pushups, etc. until I failed at “9”, and then did a dropset all the way down.
Buying a dip/chin up station was one of the best things I did right when the COVID gym closures began in the spring of 2020. My pecs went from nowhere to “at least somewhere on the map”
Straight bar pulldowns
2 sets of 10, 1 set to failure, drop weight by 50%, go to failure again
Chest supported plate-loaded row
Same as straight bar pulldowns - 2 sets of 10, 1 to failure, drop the weight, fail again
Chin ups
2 sets to failure
Seal rows (take the decline bench and lay the short end on another bench so you can lie on it chest-down and use a barbell underneath it to do rows)
95 lbs 2x25
Another month, haha. Sold my house, bought another house, moved, changed gyms.
Today was my first day trying out my new rogue squat wedge.
I hate it - in a good way.
Squats on wedge, 3 second eccentric
135 5x10
SUPERSET
Hypers on Roman chair with 20# ez bar behind head, 5 second eccentric
3x10
Bodyweight sissy squats
3x10
Hip flexor leg raises
30# on cable stack
2x20 each leg
Single leg calf raises
3x15 each leg
Adductor Machine
130 2x15
The wedge makes the squats way tougher for sure - very little back, glute, or hip assistance so it’s basically all quads and some mid back, which is fine by me, as I’m ham dominant and really just want to squat for my quads. Not much weight required to murder one’s self on that thing. Gonna be sore tomorrow.
I can’t post in your other log, but good luck with whatever decision you end up making. You’re a good dude and truly an inspiration to me as a young(er) guy and semi-new father. Really like seeing the amount of work you put into everything you do and I hope whatever you and your wife decide on pays off for the family. I feel confident you’ll make whatever you end up doing work out for yourself.
That means a lot, dude. I know too many dudes older than me not doing shit with their lives and too many dudes younger than me killing it to even think about age - you’re a super level headed dude and I’m inspired by you too. I can’t say with any sort of confidence that I’d have stepped up at as young of an age as you in the way that you have.
And yes - where I end up is largely going to be dictated by the vigor with which I pursue whatever avenue I choose next. Thanks for the reminder.
Hey bud, I’m here. Appreciate you checking in. Went with the safe option after talking to my wife. Have been very happy. Joined a Muay Thai gym with a former Glory fighter as the coach, and just got done with my first night of sparring after a month of 4-5 days/week of pad work, got hit a lot and one of the bigger boxers nearly put me down with a shot to the solar plexus, but had a lot of fun.
Healthy, happy, weight is down, life is good, but I am extraordinarily busy every single day so I kind of dropped off here. I’ll check in again soon when things calm down a bit.
Thanks again for the note - always enjoy talking to you on here. Hope all is well with you!
Hello I have L4-L5 L5-S1 herniated disc via mri.If I try to lift any weight I would feel sciatica flare up.Bodyweight routine totally no problem.Any advice and stretches for fellow lifter so that I don’t have to waste much time?
LOTS of “lower ab” exercises - lying leg raises, hanging leg raises, reverse crunches, etc.
Lower back exercises - Hyper extensions on a Roman chair, and reverse hyperextensions if you have access to either of those setups, or Superman’s (look them up - lying on your stomach and raising your arms and legs off the ground)
Piriformis stretches - look up pigeon stretch, etc. - sciatica may be a result of a tight piriformis compressing the nerve instead of herniated discs crushing the nerve.
These all helped me - but how did your disks become herniated? Was there an actual event where you felt a pop, was it just generalized back pain that you investigated, etc. Do you deadlift or squat? Are you arching your back on either of these exercises?
Lot of info I don’t have here. Herniated discs are incredibly common - even in people without any back pain whatsoever. Give me some more info and if I can give any advice without overstepping my limited knowledge on the subject, I certainly will.
