Banded WG pullups - 10, 8, 6 @ red + black + blue bands
Incline pushups - 15, 10, 7
KB halos - 6/6, 6/6, 6/2+4 @ 20
(30s rest)
DE sets felt pretty decent, and I pushed the reps a bit on the superset assistance compared to previous weeks. This is the final DE upper session of this cycle, and I’ll be onto bands for the next one so it’ll be interesting to see what I get out of that.
Assistance work was surprisingly tough - I found doing the pushups straight into the halos just fried by triceps which I hadn’t anticipated. Reps for pushups fell off a cliff, and I had to rest-pause the final set of halos.
Lying leg raise + press - 4+4 (separate), 9 x 5
(90s rest)
(4m rest)
Back-off giant set:
KB swings - 3 x 5 @ 20
Squats (80%) - 7, 5, 5 @ 87.5
Lying leg raise + press - 3 x 8
(90s rest)
Assistance giant set:
Split-stand KB deadlifts (R/L) - 3 x 5 @ 20 ea side
One-arm cable row (L/R) - 3 x 12 @ 12.5 ea side
(60 rest)
Squats felt pretty good on the way up, and only 100+ felt tough, but I got 110 in my head for some reason so even though 105 was a struggle I still went for it. The reps weren’t particularly pretty, but I did get them done so I guess that vindicates the decision?
That’s a rep PR at this weight (previous best was 2 reps about 3 years ago I think?), and only 5kgs below my tested 1RM at the start of this program! Gives an e1RM of 121 which I think is the highest it would have ever been, based of previous rep maxes (highest before was probably 5 @ 100 = 117 e1RM).
That pretty much killed me though, and by the time I’d written my notes and changed the weights I’d already got to 3m of rest time, so gave myself another minute before starting on the back-off sets. Getting to 7 on the first (AMRAP) set was super tough, and frankly I’m surprised I got 5 on the subsequent sets.
(I should note that I started using a belt from 80+ on the main giant set, and then kept it on for the back-off sets as well. Not sure if I’ve mentioned it before but on the DE days I don’t use a belt at all, partly to make sure I’m not using it as a crutch and actually training the necessary stability, but also just in part because it’s a faff to put on and take off so I feel it defeats the point of the shorter rest times.)
Felt pretty dead after all that, so did some simple unilateral work for the assistance and then called it there.
Pushups - 6 normal, 2 x 3 explosive, 3, 5 x 2 clapping
ME bench - 10 @ bar, 5 @ 3, 4 @ 40, 3 @ 50, 60, 65, 70, 75, 80
DB rows (R/L) - 10 @ 3, 8, 8 @ 13, 6 @ 18, 5 x 5 @ 23 ea arm
(90s rest)
(3m rest)
Back-off giant set:
Pushups - 3 x 3 clapping
Bench (80%) - 9, 5, 5 @ 63.75
DB rows (R/L) - 3 x 5 @ 28
(90s rest)
Assistance giant set:
Seated DB clean and half press - 3 x 8 @ 5s
Seated lateral raises - 3 x 10 @ 2.5s
Bent-over reverse flyes - 3 x 10 @ 2.5s
Hanging twisting knee raise - 3 x 5 ea side
(60s rest)
I thought I’d be able to hit a good number on the bench after getting to 77.5 on the Spoto press a few weeks back, so very pleased to have got right up to 80, especially as this was my 1RM at the beginning of this program. Not quite an all-time PR as I have hit 5 @ 80 some years backm but certainly the best I’ve managed in a long time. Gives a new e1RM of 88.
Back-off sets were pretty tough though, and it felt like each rep was slightly different which isn’t ideal. Managed to slog through 9 reps on the first (AMRAP) set, and then hung on for the 5s after that.
Got some shoulder and ab work done for assistance and called it there. That’s technically the upper-body work finished for the first half of this program, but because of the wonky scheduling I’ll have one more to do next week, so I think I’ll mix it up by either doing a WS4SB-based RE day, or just some general ‘bodybuilding’ stuff.
Alt. reverse lunges - 8, 7, 6 @ 10s ea leg
(30s rest)
As expected, this was tough. The good thing about the short rests is you don’t get too much time to think, and have to just get on with the next set so you get through it pretty quickly. That’s the last DE done for this half of the program though, so the weights will drop off again, and as I’ve now got bands to use for the next half the bar weight will be lighter overall throughout so I’m hoping it’ll be less taxing (but that remains to be seen).
Squats were challenging as normal, but even deadlifts were pretty hard this time. I guess there’s a compounding effect because I always do deadlifts second, so they’re getting heavier week on week plus I’m progressively more fatigued from the squats that are also getting heavier.
Went for some straightforward assistance to wrap up. I’ve noticed that I was generally doing harder assistance earlier on, although I think I’ve managed to keep volume roughly the same (not tracking it though), so I’ll need to get back to that in the next half.
Something a little different from what I’ve been doing the past couple of months, loosely based on the RE upper day from WS4SB.
A little disappointed not to get more reps on the first couple of sets of pushups, but it wasn’t terrible. For the incline set I had my feet up on a bench, and for the decline set I set the barbell to a similar height and used that to raise my hands.
WG pullups went better than expected, but I was surprised by the drop-off when I got to the chinups. I was using an angled grip (45 degrees), but I thought I would get a few more reps. Felt like my arms were shot at that point though. Paused at the top of the reverse flyes and twisted my hands for a second (so palms end up facing the floor) to try and squeeze the traps.
L-lateral raises were kinda like a lateral raise/upright row crossover because I was just using 5kg plates, rather than dumbbells, so I was letting my hands hang down a bit to make them easier to hold. Really got my upper traps working.
This day as written normally has a grip/forearm section at the end, but as I’m due to be deadlifting next for the final session of this half of the program I thought it made sense to skip that.
Super happy to have got up to 136.25 on the deadlifts, and a great way to round off the first half of this program. Surpasses the max I set at the start of this program (130), and gives an e1RM of 150 which is way past my actual previous best of 140. Pretty sure this is an all-time 3-rep PR but it would take me a while to go back through all my logs to confirm. The funny weights was because I was determined to finish above the 130 I set on the deficit deadlift day, so I stuck 1.25 on first and then added on the rest as normal.
Grip was just starting to struggle a bit on the last rep (holding the bar with my fingertips), but I didn’t feel in danger of actually losing it. Still worth making sure I do keep working the grip in the next half though. Very happy to have got 9 on the first (AMRAP) back-off set as well, which took a bit of grinding.
Did this session at a slightly different time than normal (early afternoon, only about an hour after lunch) because I had a window to get in done in, but that doesn’t seem to have caused much issue.
Just to summarise the results from the first half of this program:
(Lift - 3RM > e1RM vs previous max)
Overhead press:
Z-Press - 47.5 > 52.5
Pin press - 47.5 > 52.5
OHP - 50 > 55 vs 52.5 (5 x 50 done some years back which would be a 58 e1RM)
Bench press:
Floor press - 75 > 82.5
Spoto press - 77.5 > 85
Bench press - 80 > 88 vs 80 (5 x 80 done some years back which would be a 93.5 e1RM)
Squat:
Zercher squat - 85 > 93.5
Front squat - 85 > 93.5 vs 90 (1RM set a 3? years ago)
Squat - 110 > 121 vs 115
Deadlift:
SG deadlift - 110 > 121
Deficit deadlift (2") - 130 > 143
Deadlift - 136.25 > 150 vs 130 (140 hit sometime last year)
Super happy with how this has turned out - e1RMs across the board have beaten what I set at the start of this program, and quite a few are on track for all-time PRs by the end of this.
Of course the big thing now is actually hitting those numbers. Next 9 weeks will involve doing ME 1 rep lifts, so I’ve got targets across the board to shoot for. I aim to approach it by just trying to beat the 3RM as a minimum, then trying to match the e1RMs (or as close as possible given the weights available etc.). Beating those e1RMs would be the stretch goal.
Big issue though is I’m planning to go away mid-May which will be right at the end of the 9 weeks so I may have to do the final session (or 2 or 3, depending on how the dates fall) afterwards which is a little annoying.
To be fair the first half of that doesn’t really take too much effort, especially bearing in mind I did 10 x 3 @ 97.5 (beltless) on my last lower DE session, and with less rest. I guess that’s what they call work capacity?
It shows there’s a definite skill to hitting top-end weights though, because I nearly psyched myself out going for the top set, even though I was confident I could do it, which is effectively what happened when I tried for 140 on my test say at the very beginning. Hopefully going for singles over the next half will teach me how how to handle that though…
Just to note that I didn’t do any ‘proper’ workouts, but just messed around with the bands to work out how to set them up and which ones to use etc. Settled on:
OHP - doubled yellow bands
Bench + Squat - double green bands
Deadlift - double-doubled (?) green bands
By ‘doubled’ I mean the bands are looped over the bar so I’m pulling against 2x the tension, as opposed to just having one end of the band attached to the bar and the other end anchored (which I would call ‘singled’).
The ‘double-doubled’ for the deadlift is then because I have the bands running from one side of the rack to the other, looped, so then it’s like pulling against 4x the tension.
Not sure if that’s actually how band tension works, but it what makes sense to me lol!
The big issue I have though is despite ordering exactly the same second set of bands, they’re clearly tighter/tougher than the first set I had, so it makes things a little wonky. Once I put some weight on the bar it seems less of an issue, but I think I’ll have to make sure I keep switching which side they’re on to avoid creating some kind of imbalance. Hopefully with use they’ll lose a bit of that and end up the same as the other bands.
DE squats (40%) - 10 x 3 @ 48.75 + doubled green bands
(30s rest)
DE superset 2:
DE deadlifts (40%) - 10 x 3 @ 60 + double-doubled green bands
Hanging knee raises - 10 x 4
(30s rest)
Assistance giant set:
KB deadstop rows (L/R) - 3 x 20 @ 16 ea arm
Reverse goblet lunges (R/L) - 3 x 10 @ 12kg KB ea side
Ab wheel (kneeling) - 3 x 10
(30s rest)
Decent session - pretty easy with the weights dropping back down, especially as I’m dropping 10% on the bar weight from the previous cycle (back to the recommended %'s) due to now using bands as well.
Struggled a bit with the different band tensions from brand new vs slightly used bands. On the squats it wasn’t really noticeable once I had weight on the bar, but on the deadlifts where the bands are double-doubled it was definitely pulling more on one side. On the later sets I started setting up slightly off-centre and that went a long way to making it feel balanced, but it hurt my soul a bit…
Got a 24kg KB on the way (hopefully arriving this week), so I’ll be able to start using that for the swings.
Assistance work was tough with the higher number of reps - looking to push that on this half of the program as I figure that’ll balance against the heavier weights done on the main movements.
Just to note also, I weighed in @ 13st 7.4lbs on Sunday somehow…
DE OHP (40%) - 10 x 3 @ 22.5 + doubled yellow bands
Chinups/Pullups - 5 x 3, 5 x 2 (changing grips to ‘pyramid’ by difficulty)
(20s rest)
DE superset 2:
DE bench (40%) - 10 x 3 @ 35 + double green bands
D-handle cable high rows - 10 x 5 @ 30
(20s rest)
Assistance giant set:
Rope cable face pulls - 15, 12ish, 9ish @ 15
Pushups (NH handles) - 13, 7, 6
KB halos - 3 x 5 @ 20 ea way
(30s rest)
Decent session. Weights felt super light here - I won’t make any adjustments and see how it plays out over the weeks, but the %s might need bumping up for upper-body DE days if I re-run this program.
Bands were causing a little issue again on OHP, but just setup slightly off-centre as with the deadlifts and that helped. Didn’t notice the same issue on bench which is a little odd - maybe I’m already pressing lopsided or something? Might just be that the bands don’t get stretched as far so the impact is less noticeable.
Assistance work turned out harder than expected. Facepulls were done by pulling towards the top of the head for a change (usually pull towards neck). The combination of pushups and halos blew up my triceps and shoulders. Last set of halos required a pause before switching direction.
Very tough day - did this workout earlier in the day than normal (about half 3, compared to 6ish usually) and the sun was out so the garage was hotter than it’s been for quite a few months while working out.
Very happy to have got up to 95 though! 90 was already a PR in terms of most weight ever done on a zercher squat, and then 95 beat the e1RM I set from the 3-rep day last go around (which was 93.5). Took mega strain to hit it though. This will also now be my goal for the front squat day when that rolls around (as I matched the zercher 3RM before).
Quite surprised to have got 6 on the first back-off set, and then 5 on the other two as well. Given I was doing singles for most of the main sets and it felt like I was having to brace everything super hard to get through those I didn’t know how doing multiple-rep sets would go. Guess I should have believed in myself a bit more…
Pretty smoked after all that though, so I just hit the same assistance as I did on this day last go around. Upped the weight a bit on the RDLs though, and threw on the weighted vest for the planks to see if that made much difference - felt like it was harder, but my abs were already hurting a bit coming into this day, so it may have just been accumulated fatigue.
Decline WG pushups (index finger on ring) - 30, 20, 15
Ring rows (hip height) - 11ish, 8ih, 6ish
KB halos - 3 x 8 @ 16 ea way
(60s rest)
Pushed this workout back one day because I was out and about in the sun on Tuesday and ended up with a headache and feeling a little nauseous that evening, so thought it wasn’t the best time for a ME workout.
Fairly happy with this - matched e1RM on the z-press from the 3-rep phase. Things felt good on the way up and I thought I might get to 55, but when I went for that top set the bar went up past my face just fine and then stopped dead. Like didn’t budge for a good 2-3s while I was just holding it in mid-air, and then slowly, ever so slowly, it started creeping upwards and I managed to lock it out. Didn’t think there was anything more in the tank after that lol.
Little disappointed with the back-off sets, as this is the first time I haven’t hit at least 5 on all sets throughout the program to date. On the first and second sets though I had a rep each where the bar went a bit too far backwards which made my legs come off the ground and I had to fight to stop myself falling backwards, almost holding a slight pike position, before getting it under control again. Holding the bar suspended like that took a lot out of me and I only just managed 5 reps on each of those sets, and there wasn’t much left for the last set.
May have pushed the hang cleans a bit far. On the main giant set they were feeling fine until the last couple of sets and then they were a tad taxing. Might have been better to drop down to 3 reps to keep them crisp/explosive. I didn’t got all out on the back-off sets, but pushing the reps higher I think just wore me out quite a bit and then made the z-press harder.
Assistance stuff was fine. Wanted to do something for the chest without hitting my shoulders and triceps too hard, so the wide-grip decline pushups seemed to work well. Didn’t go all out/to failure on these, but basically just went until my pecs were burning like hell.
DE squats (45%) - 10 x 3 @ 55 + doubled green bands
(30s rest)
DE superset 2:
DE deadlifts (45%) - 10 x 3 @ 67.5 + double-doubled green bands
Hanging knee raises - 5 x 5, 5 x 4
(30s rest)
Assistance giant set:
Pinch-grip plate rows - 3 x 20 @ 10s
Alt. reverse lunges - 3 x 12 @ 9.9 WV ea leg
Ab wheel (kneeling) - 3 x 10
(30s rest)
Had to push back this workout by one day as well as work overran a bit on Friday.
Everything felt like it went OK. Struggled more this time with getting the band tension even on the deadlifts, but it wasn’t a huge problem.
Pinch-grip rows were hard, but I realised I can make them harder by pinching two 5s together (in each hand), rather than just one bigger plate. I could also go heavier but do them dead-stop perhaps, with a slight readjustment of the grip each time - here my fingers were slipping up and kinda holding more onto the thicker outer bit of the plate with my fingertips. Not sure if that makes a big difference, but I think I’ll mix up the variations and see what happens.
Chinups/pullups - 5 x 3, 3 x 2, 2 x 3 @ pyramid grips
(20s rest)
DE superset 2:
DE bench (45%) - 10 x 3 @ 40 + doubled green bands
Rope cable rows - 10 x 6 @ 30
(20s rest)
Assistance giant set:
DB rows (L/R) - 12, 10, 8 @ 23 ea arm
Pushups (45 deg handles) - 15, 10, 7
KB halos - 3 x 5 @ 20
(30s rest)
First time doing back-to-back workouts in a while, but I wanted to try and keep things on track after workouts earlier on in the week slipped. Figured it would be OK as the DE workouts are both fairly light (especially at this point in the cycle), and it seemed to work out fine.
Weighed in @ 13st 9.2lbs in the morning.
Feel pretty tired today (Monday) - thinking the combination of clock change, generally less sleep than usual, and the back-to-back workouts have taken their toll a little. Not a big problem, but just need to make sure I don’t do anything stupid and accidentally run myself into the ground (especially with lots of people coming down with covid at the moment).
Twisting hanging knee raises - 11 x 2 ea side
(90s rest)
(3m rest)
Back-off giant set:
KB swings - 3 x 5 @ 24
SG deadlifts (80%) - 8, 5, 5 @ 96.25
Twisting hanging knee raises - 3 x 3 ea side
(90s rest)
Assistance giant set:
Bent-over KB deadtop rows (squat stance) (L/R) - 15, 12 @ 24 ea arm
Split squats (L/R) - 2 x 15 @ BW ea leg
Plank - 2 x 45s
(60s rest)
This was a tough session. I wasn’t feeling great coming into this, with something sensitive/painful deep in my left glute, and generally feeling a bit worn out. I didn’t want sessions to slip again though so I pushed ahead.
Disappointed to only hit 120 on the top set of SG deadlifts (e1RM from 3-rep cycle was 130), but I’m pretty sure that’s still a PR for this movement and probably was the best I could achieve on the day. Belt went on from 90+ and straps were used for the final 2 sets.
I accidentally misloaded the penultimate set with 5kgs on one side and not the other, hence doing 115 twice. It was noticeable during the lift, but I still got it up and figured it was something to do with how I was gripping the bar having just put straps on, and only realised afterwards when I went to change the weights what had happened. Think this just speaks again to where my head was at in this session.
Managed a decent back-off set, with 8 reps on the first (AMRAP) set which was pretty decent. Grip was definitely an issue with the bar basically held in my fingertips.
Assistance exercises got cut short at 2 sets because they were just running me into the ground - as Brian Alsruhe says if you’re assistance is helping you then don’t do it (or words to that effect). The issue was the way I was doing the rows was blowing up my lower back, which wasn’t the intention, and then as soon as I started the split squats my legs were burning from holding the bent-over squat stance position. When it came to the planks my legs were aching more than my core!
A workout to forget all in all, but at least I got it done.
McGill situps (R/L) - 10, 10, 8, 8 ea side
(60s rest)
Felt pretty good coming into this one. Surprisingly felt fine the day after the last workout, which made me think there was some mental stuff going on (knowing that SG deadlifts are hard as hell).
I was a tad greedy on the floor press: 80 got stuck for a second before going up, and I only ‘needed’ 82.5 to match the e1RM from the 3-rep cycle, but I went for 85 anyway. Really thought I was going to have to bail because it was just floating around not going anywhere, but eventually I got it moving again and locked it out! All-time PR on this (although it should be noted I’ve never tried a 1RM floor press before), and as above surpasses the e1RM I had set last time around, and even beats the 1RM regular bench I set way back at the start of this program, which is nice.
Back off sets were super tough, - barely got 6 on the first (AMRAP) set, and 5 on the next set was a struggle too. Interestingly I seemed to recover a bit towards the end as the last set of 5 didn’t feel too bad in comparison. I was trying to focus on really keeping everything tight and pulling the bar down with my lats so I think that helped.
BB rows were done in the same way as last time around - fairly upright (more like Yates row), and with a narrow-ish grip as I had to keep my hands inside the fat grips that I use for floor press.
Assistance work was interesting - never done Bradford presses before, but they were alright. Really surprised how my shoulders seemed to suddenly fail on the last 2 sets, so I only just managed to clear my head and re-rack. McGill situps were a total killer, as usual. Pushed total sets up to 4 just for the fun of it.
