Got through this quicker than expected - 16:10 in total.
The first 4 rounds only took about 1:45 each, then round 5 was 2:00 and last round was a bit longer. Didn’t have to break up the reps at all on the first 5 rounds, but I did have to break up the rows and pushups on the last round.
Good result though compared to when I did this (similarly) a couple of weeks ago - I dropped the reps on the swings from 20 to 15, but upped the weight and did 1 extra round of everything.
The air was quite mild this morning, but it was super windy and where I run between open fields for the middle part you really feel. Just before halfway I had the wind behind and knew it would be a struggle once I turned around - and I was right!
Aside from that challenge the run went fairly well. Once again I feel like the main thing to work on now is my breathing, and making sure I’m actually taking air into my lungs, because I feel like it’s quite shallow at the moment.
An OK session. Z-press was feeling a little wiggly and I think it comes down to not keeping my core tight enough and letting the bar float out in front of me a bit too much.
Deadlifts went well - I think I got 12 but I lost count momentarily in the middle so it may have only been 11. Was moving fairly well though and felt strong, and have more or less maintained the reps on the top set across all 3 weeks so that’s pretty good.
I need to work on the rows with my left arm - they feel really loose and like I’m just slinging the weight around without much control. The right arm in comparison is way smoother and feels more like an actual DB rows, albeit with more body english, especially on the later reps. This may simply be down to having less strength in the left side than the right though?
Got the whole lot done in 14:26 - just shy of 1 minute per round which I’m quite pleased about. Rounds 7/8 were pretty tough because I was feeling gassed and still breathing hard when the 30s was up, but managed to get everything done unbroken.
Little bit of pain in the left shoulder on the pushups pretty much from the very beginning. Only felt fairly minor so I pushed through, but it’s a bit sore now.
Run went fine, but I was definitely going slower than other mornings and I hit the turning point a good 50-100m short of where I’ve been before. I wasn’t making any conscious effort to go much slower, so maybe just tired?
Weighed in @ 13st 5.8lbs in the morning (after run and breakfast etc) - out of sequence so has to be taken with a pinch of salt, but I wanted to get it in as I knew I’d be away on Sunday
Decent session in all. Only put TM on front squats up by 2.5kgs as I figure it’s a ‘smaller’ movement than back squats and I’m using 5x5/3/1 on it which uses an 80% TM, so it makes sense in my mind that the jump would be smaller than normal.
Front squats were OK, but improved a lot from 3rd top set onwards when I focussed on actually getting everything tight and hitting one strong rep at a time (rather than just going through the motions).
OHP went well as well, beating reps on the top set that I got last time at this weight.
Kroc rows went really well on the right arm, but then nose-dived on the left - didn’t beat the reps from last week.
Took exactly 14:00 in total, which felt like a pretty good result. Earlier rounds were around the 55s mark, or just under, but some of the later rounds were closer to a minute; managed to keep up the pace by going unbroken on all rounds, although in the last few rounds a few of the reps on the ring rows were probably a bit short on ROM. Arms/biceps seemed to suffer the most with the combination of rows and picking up the plate.
Cold and dark out this morning - think I need to pick up some running lights or a headtorch or something because it’s now pretty much dark for the whole run, and once I get out of the village there are no street lights so I’m not particularly visible (though there’s not exactly much traffic to worry about, but still).
Runs felt pretty steady. Probably covered a 200-300m less than in last week’s sessions, but with 1 minute less of running it feels like my pace must still be consistent. I didn’t feel like I was particularly flagging on the last 5m run either so I think my stamina is improving.
Solid session; Z-press felt pretty good throughout, and I did a good job of staying ‘tall’ and keeping a stable core.
Deadlifts went well - first 2 sets were meant to be 8.75s as well but I just misloaded it and only realised when I got to the top set (as they were supposed to be all the same). I don’t think the 1.25kgs difference matters much though. 14 was a great result on the top set and the highest reps I’ve done so far on this new routine, so seems like things are moving in the right direction.
Kroc rows also felt a lot better today than they did on Monday - I only hit the same reps, but as before I consider this the more difficult of the two days (doing them after deadlifts), and I smashed the reps I’ve gotten previously on this day.
First 4 movements done as a complex @ 40kgs, with pushups right after using handles.
Got the whole lot done in 17:33 - first round took just under 2:00 and then 2nd and 3rd round were at around the 1:45 mark. After that I started getting slower with the last round being a little over 2:00.
Deadlifts were no problem at all, sort of like a buy-in to each round, and the rows were fine except I knew they were taxing the traps and arms before the cleans. Cleans were by far the hardest part, and front squats were getting tough by the end as well.
Managed all rounds unbroken, to mean I didn’t need to put the bar down or come off the pushups handles at all, but I did have to pause between reps on the last few movements for rounds 4 and 5.
Felt wiped by the end. My arms in particular were completely torched, feeling like they were seizing up all along the biceps and inner forearms.
Based on map tracker online I covered about 5km/3.1miles total, of which about 1.6km/1mile was done in each run.
Longest intervals done so far - a bit tiring but not too bad on the whole. In the last minute of the second run I had a small twinge of pain on my left knee, and it was sore until the end, but there doesn’t seem to be any lasting damage.
Not sure if I’ve mentioned it before but I’ve been doing 100 band pull-aparts each day (excluding Sundays) for a couple of months now. Mentioning it here because I only did 50 on this day - got the first set done and then went off and did other stuff and forgot to come back for the second set.
Weights felt heavy today - was away again over the weekend and think I’m lacking some sleep.
Got through the front squats but they weren’t moving as fast as I’d like. OHP felt OK on the warmup sets, but bar slowed right down on the top-half of that 9th rep so I cut it there. Disappointed I didn’t get to 10.
Kroc rows went OK - managed to beat previous PRs for each arm but I think if I’d really dug deep I might’ve got a bit further.
I thought this might be a challenge in the middle portion, and wondered if the round of 6 might be a bit tough, but I figured I should push myself and went for it. Unfortunately I was right however…
Managed to do everything unbroken up to and including most of round 6, but I did have to pause on the goblet squats to get through all 18. That round seemed to take me to the redline and then I was really struggling for the next couple of rounds on the way back down. Had to break up the reps on chinups and pushups, and more pausing on the squats to get through them all. In a way this made things worse though because it meant more time standing there holding the KB, which just tired my arms further and made the subsequent chinups and pushups harder.
I also had my hands back on the bar after 30s rest each round, but for the rounds of 5 and 4 on the way back down I was probably stood there for another good 10-15s seconds before actually starting the first chinup.
Once I got past that things became OK again and I got through the last few rounds no problem once more (as expected).
Runs felt pretty smooth today, no significant issues to report. Was a tad chilly out this morning but not too bad and the wind was only light which was good. Got to somewhere around the 5.2km/3.25mile mark in total.
Just a note to say I’m temporarily off-plan with the runs - was meant to do Week 5 Run 3 today per the app but instead skipped ahead to Week 6 Run 1, and will do Week 6 Run 2 next time out before slotting the skipped one back in and then getting back on track as normal.
Reason being that W5R3 weirdly takes a big step forwards; W5R2 is only 8/8 but then W5R3 is 20m straight, before then dropping back to 5/8/5 as I did today and 10/10 for W6R2. W6R3 is then a 25m straight run, and after that it’s pretty much long runs the gradually increase in duration until the end of the program.
I think the step-change is meant to be a confidence-builder, showing that you’ve already built the stamina to run for that long in one go, but to me it seems out of place and I’m happy to continue building it up more gradually, hence rearranging the days slightly.
Pretty decent workout - it’s worked out that I’m using the same weights as a couple of weeks ago (for the top sets at least) and Z-press felt pretty strong and stable, and on deadlifts I managed to beat the reps I got previously. I did have a bit of discomfort in/around the left hip after each set of presses, but it was only minor and doesn’t seem to have had any negative effect on the deadlifts.
I also managed to beat my previous max reps on the rows with both arms which I wasn’t expecting. Got to the target 30 reps on the right side, but I’ll keep on at this weight until I get 30 on the left too and then bump it up and work my way back up.
I felt a bit tired coming into this, so performance was a pleasant surprise. I think I might go a tad easier on tomorrow’s assistance workout and maybe also choose something ab focussed for the core element, rather than hammering the legs and hips again.
Things went pretty much as well as I expected. Ab wheel was really hitting the lower abs by the end, but otherwise wasn’t super challenging - more of a buy-in to each round really.
Had to break up every round of ring rows, other than the round of 5. Got about 12 in one go on the first round but by the end I could only manage 6 in one go on the last couple of rounds.
Please to get 25 in one go on the pushups - I know it’s not a super impressive number but I’ve only been doing sets of 5-10 in recent weeks/months, and had the issue with my left shoulder/pec just recently, so it was nice to know I could hit higher numbers still. The rounds of 5 and 10 were no problem, but I did have to stop on the rounds of 15 and 20 before getting the final few reps.
Felt fairly decent on this one; by the end I was tiring a bit but in the middle it felt more like my legs were generally tired from all the gym stuff rather than cardio being an issue. I’m also finding my heart rate and breathing comes back to baseline pretty quickly after going from running to walking.
Weighed in at 13st 5.2lbs Sunday morning. Doesn’t seem to be any real consistency with the weigh ins at the moment, so not too sure what to make of the information
Not a great session; generally felt like recovery was over the weekend, although I wasn’t doing anything strenuous and ate pretty well. I did sleep badly last night though and was generally tired this morning.
Front squats felt heavy. Not much more to say about those, but I did get through them without grinding.
Disappointed with results on the OHP as well - wanted to get 9ish (to match last week) but bar slowed round down at the top of 7 so called it there. As before if I was willing to grind them out I would probably have hit 1 or more on top, but trying to stick to Wendler’s recommendations. I did switch from full to thumbless grip midway through the set which I think threw me off a bit.
Kroc rows were tough, but still manage to improve a tad on these. I still feel like my ‘technique’ is off on the left-hand side, whereby I just struggle to get into the right rhythm when using body english, compared to the right-hand side where things are more in sync.
This is the last week of the 2 cycle leaders, so I just need to dig deep and get through it, then deload next week
Got done in 13:26. No rest between the movements, other than time taken to open a window/take a sip of water/move between stations.
With the recovery issues I’ve been having I figured this setup might be a good change of pace; slightly lower volume overall than I’ve been doing just recently, but running through all the reps for a given movement in one go instead of breaking them up.
For the rows I think I got about 15 to start and then quickly dropped down to 3s and then 2s. I think I got to the low 20s on the pushups, and then hit a set of 5 and 4 before doing 3s for most the remainder, just dropping to doubles for the last few. On the swings I did a set of 20, then 3 sets of 15, then 10s with a final 5 to finish up.
Little worried about the left shoulder during warmups, but it seemed to be fine once I actually got into things. I was surprisingly aware of my mid-back during the swings, which isn’t something I’ve ever experienced before with them but the area has been tender recently from all the pulling movements and pull-aparts I’ve been doing so it checks out.