Growing The Fro Out

Training Training Logs
61

I ate all the roast beef sandwiches throughout the day plus a shaker cup of Gatorade and a few tbsp of olive oil.  no stim preworkout though, but after foam rolling a bit I woke up.

deadlift
135xsum
155xsum
185x5
205x5
225x3
245x3
275x2
295x2. PR  this was about a 7/10 difficulty.  I had just tweaked my form so I wasn’t 100% sure about pushing this.
pyramid triples down to 225

295 vid:  - YouTube

GM
75x10^ may have done an extra rep, good control.  85 next week.
65x11
55x11

bb shrug
245x10. slowed down by the end but still strong, grip was more a problem than anything… ofc I forgot my chalk at home.  repeat next week.
245 x5. switch to alternating grip x7
225x8
205x10

db shrug 
105x10. maybe did an extra rep.  I gotta learn how to count… I’ll repeat next week and try to get a good hold on all the reps, though form was decent throughout.
105x7 x7
95x11
85x7. 5 second holds holy fuck SSC was right!! these holds are hard not so much for the traps and grip but breathing control.

lying leg curl
75x15^ prob did 16 or 17. fuck I fail at counting reps! 
75 x9 x5

calf machine shrug
240x15. repeat next week for moar domination.
240x9 x7
225x8
210x8
burnouts.  did fewer reps but more holds this time.  DEFINITELY burned.

I beat the log in everything again today.  had white rice and ground beef for dinner, as an offering to Crom in thanks for the lamentation of the iron today.

62

[quote]fr0IVIan wrote:
thanks man. it’s pre-set, I’m assuming it’s around 45-60*. I know I’m not putting up big numbers compared to others, but about two years ago 195 would’ve pinned me on the incline bench after maybe 4 half reps, and the same for 215 on flat bench. CGBP? I hardly did it, and when I did, my thumbs were touching at mid-bar. not sure how my wrists survived that.

it feels good to know that me now could totally kill me two years ago.

quinoa’s good stuff, I can just keep eating it and not bloat at all. I think my brand is Nature’s Choice in a 2 or 5 lb bag.[/quote]

Man no doubt, you can’t really compare yourself to others and making progress is what this is all about at the end of the day! Ouch on the close-grips… god, I seriously had to start rubbing my wrists just thinking about the annihilation that would ensue form that.

And thanks for the suggestion about quinoa - I’ll look into it. I know the guy I’m moving in with has some experience with it.

About your training, congrats on the PRs! One thing I figured I should ask about, because it seems like a bad idea to me is alternating grips on shrugs - I just don’t think it’s a good idea at all man. I can understand when people need to use alternating grips for deads, as many times it can make better pulls happen, but shrugs are a totally different animal in that regard. Just a heads up!

63

ahhhh I know… I forgot my chalk dammit.

64

had a meal of lightly breaded fried flounder and clementines before I left from a meeting at work. before the meeting I had ten eggs (3 whole 7 white) and a shaker cup with about 90g carbs from oatmeal, 50g casein and about 3-4 tbsp natty PB.

bb squat
185x10^. good control. � started getting winded by 7th rep but it seemed significantly easier than last time. � the difficulty was due more to catching my breath rather than handling the weight, but difficulty was only 5/10 at best.
155x11
135x10

front squat
95x10. had to rerack at 8th rep, bb started rolling forward off my clavicles. � should do this set after the all-out set of back squat.
75x10 x10. switched to underhand grip. might have better elbow position here.

seated db ohp
65x8+3. disappointing. � prob still not fully recovered from all the pressing this week + squats. my tris can barely assist at the halfway point and my traps are a little weak assisting at lockout.

seated bb ohp
135x6+4. Ã? really disappointing. Ã? I’m gassed.
135x3 x4
125x7
115x6.5 fucking dyinggg

seated db ohp
55x7
45x9

db lateral raise
35x9 x6 x6
30x11 (cheated last rep)
25x17

leg extensions
105x15. repeat next week and dominate. � in a hurry so nearly no rest in between.
105 x10 x9
90x9
75x10

squats were great but shoulders sucked, which was to be expected given all the excellent pressing on Monday and deadlift+shrugs on Tuesday and squats sucking the life out of me. not too bad though given that I only skipped one exercise each for bis, tris and shoulders and otherwise did everything else this week (except for calves which probably need the least work and were skipped entirely).

pw meal was a half a pound turkey sub.

65

[quote]fr0IVIan wrote:
thanks man. it’s pre-set, I’m assuming it’s around 45-60*. I know I’m not putting up big numbers compared to others, but about two years ago 195 would’ve pinned me on the incline bench after maybe 4 half reps, and the same for 215 on flat bench. CGBP? I hardly did it, and when I did, my thumbs were touching at mid-bar. not sure how my wrists survived that.

it feels good to know that me now could totally kill me two years ago.

quinoa’s good stuff, I can just keep eating it and not bloat at all. I think my brand is Nature’s Choice in a 2 or 5 lb bag.[/quote]

One thing I’ve learned (granted I’m not putting up huge numbers myself) is that no matter how much weight you throw up, you will always think it’s less than others (because you compare yourself to those better than you and not those who are worse).

PROGRESS is what matters. Every time I feel weak I look at the first post in my log and re-read my last post.

Good work man, keep on keepin’ on

66

[quote]scj119 wrote:

[quote]fr0IVIan wrote:
thanks man. it’s pre-set, I’m assuming it’s around 45-60*. I know I’m not putting up big numbers compared to others, but about two years ago 195 would’ve pinned me on the incline bench after maybe 4 half reps, and the same for 215 on flat bench. CGBP? I hardly did it, and when I did, my thumbs were touching at mid-bar. not sure how my wrists survived that.

it feels good to know that me now could totally kill me two years ago.

quinoa’s good stuff, I can just keep eating it and not bloat at all. I think my brand is Nature’s Choice in a 2 or 5 lb bag.[/quote]

One thing I’ve learned (granted I’m not putting up huge numbers myself) is that no matter how much weight you throw up, you will always think it’s less than others (because you compare yourself to those better than you and not those who are worse).

PROGRESS is what matters. Every time I feel weak I look at the first post in my log and re-read my last post.

Good work man, keep on keepin’ on[/quote]

thanks bud. that perspective will come in handy when I do have a really bad training day.

got home from the weekend trip an hour and a half later than I expected.
I did have a roast beef/turkey sandwich and a pbj sandwich on the way home.

seated db ohp
65x10. dominated it. up to 70 next week.

seated bb ohp
135x10. last rep was a grinder. switching this to 1st lift next week to destroy it.
fucked up and loaded for 125 ahead of time.
125x7. didn’t matter because this was all I had anyway.
115x7

seated db ohp
55x8
45x10

db lateral raise
35x12. cheated a bit more with upper back on last two reps.
35 x9 x6. cheated last two reps of each.
30x11 (cheated last rep)
25x18 not so strict, gym was closing.

threw in 30 reps of bent-over rear delt flyes omw out.

ate a bunch of fried breaded pork, chicken and fish after, unfortunately there was no white rice left so I settled for Gatorade.

it seems that I run out of steam on my ohp as I near lockout, at the point when it seems like it’s all tricep and just before my traps kick in to assist. not sure if I should be overly concerned with this and maybe start prioritizing tricep work… which would seem counterintuitive to do at the expense of chest pressing and ohp.

I’ll probably just put ohp back to #1 priority after a few more weeks of chest at #1.

67

did some quick measures this am.

weight - 200.4 lb
chest - 40.25"
left arm -16.25"

I decided to stop doing skinfold pinches until I can get a digital caliper that’s easier to read, and a measurement in a dunk tank or bod pod to correlate it with.

68

so, I never train after work because I’m either too tired and can’t put anything into the session, or it becomes impossible to sleep well and get up for work the next day. well, I didn’t feel all that tired today after work and I’m off til Friday, so I figured I don’t have any excuses not to go tonight.

I figured I’d deadlift so that I wouldn’t have to deadlift the same day as a chest, back or squat session.

then I figured, wtf, I’ll test my 1RM because I have no idea what it is.

foam roll, stretch, GM’s and light RDL’s to warm up.

deadlift
135xsum
185xsum
225xsum

ok, time to get bizzay.

245x3
275x3
295x2. went up easier than last time. here we gooooo
315x1. 8/10 difficulty at worst, bit tough getting it off the floor but accelerated it like a champ. my grip almost failed so I chalked up.
335xFail. it didn’t budge, I released and I got really lightheaded standing up.
335x1 WEIGHT PR+20, NEW 1RM 9-9.5/10 for difficulty. it was a grinder and slow from start to finish but I focused on using my back to hold it steady until my legs got it past my knees, then my glutes came to the rescue. no belt or straps, just some chalk for my sweaty hands. RAAAAWWWW BABYYY.

random lighter sets, I didn’t go crazy here as I could barely hold my arch and even 225 was very, very slow.

GM
85x10^. maybe did an extra rep again. good control. bit tired from the 1RM testing.
75x11
65x12. took a tiny breather at rep 8.

lying leg curls
90x10.5 x6.5 x5
75x7

pw meal was some chicken breasts and some sickly sweet banana dessert my gma made.

now I finally have a real number to plug into 5/3/1 for my deadlift. what’s even better is that I’m pretty sure I’m still in one piece.

69

eggs and oatmeal for breakfast.

titty wurk.

incline bench
195x10^. clean reps, the first 7 went up real easy. 10th rep stalled a tiny bit past half way up until my tris destroyed it. no touch spot.

flat bench
215x10^. DOMINATION.

incline bench
195x5 x4
175x8
155x9

flat bench
215x5 x4
195x8
175x8

cable flyes
70x15. no mini break. last two reps were cleaner. if I can get a good squeeze on the last rep next week I’m moving up.
70x10 x7
60x9
50x10
burnouts

pw meal: salmon sashimi and white rice.

70

Jeezus man. Congrats on the deadlift PR, that’s nasty that you came back after a fail like that. That’s gotta feel good.

And nice going on the benching as well. Those inclines are getting legit. Is that like a standard-angle incline bench?

71

fuuuuuaaaaa iphoneeee post faillll

yessir I believe your question was asked and answered in a previous post =p

backarack

so beat going in. but I got work to do. quinoa and salmon sashimi pre-meal.

wide grip pullups 35x10. needs cleaning up.
underhand grip (used a different station) 65x7.5
close grip 45x9
wide BWx10
under 45x6+3
close 25x8

pendlay row
175x10. less rest next time, took mini breaks after reps 8 and 9. pretty gassed though.
155x11
bb row 135x12

lat pulldown
180x9 x8 x7
165x11
150x9

db row
110x10. dead-stop. last two reps need cleaning up.
100x10 regular. so fricking gassed.
90x11 regular

rope pulldown/low row superset
100/130x15 took two mini breaks but cleaner than last week.
burnouts - skipped, was running mad late for gf coming over.

pounded a protein+bcaa+Gatorade shake right before I took a Navy shower at home. just finished eating white rice and salmon sashimi, with probably 60g more carbs from this tasty calamansi juice nectar.

I am SPENT.

72

[quote]SSC wrote:
Jeezus man. Congrats on the deadlift PR, that’s nasty that you came back after a fail like that. That’s gotta feel good.

And nice going on the benching as well. Those inclines are getting legit. Is that like a standard-angle incline bench?[/quote]

thank you sir, it does feel beastly. I feel like I really accomplished something. that DL puts me 1/3 of the way to my goal of a 1000 total. I did have to chalk up, switch to alternating grip, throw caution to the wind and pray that my back would hold up but it was worth it. >_< I should’ve taken a vid though.

incline benching feels like I could start pressing 2pps for 6 and work up from there, but I’ll just go up to 205 next session. slow and steady wins the race eh?

and in case you missed it again… it is a standard incline bench =p

73

[quote]fr0IVIan wrote:

[quote]SSC wrote:
Jeezus man. Congrats on the deadlift PR, that’s nasty that you came back after a fail like that. That’s gotta feel good.

And nice going on the benching as well. Those inclines are getting legit. Is that like a standard-angle incline bench?[/quote]

thank you sir, it does feel beastly. I feel like I really accomplished something. that DL puts me 1/3 of the way to my goal of a 1000 total. I did have to chalk up, switch to alternating grip, throw caution to the wind and pray that my back would hold up but it was worth it. >_< I should’ve taken a vid though.

incline benching feels like I could start pressing 2pps for 6 and work up from there, but I’ll just go up to 205 next session. slow and steady wins the race eh?

and in case you missed it again… it is a standard incline bench =p[/quote]

1000 pounds… whew, that would (will) be insane, lol. Do it! And sucks about the video, but you never can really predict HOW awesome of a day it is/isn’t going to be before you’re at the gym, ya know? Oh well, big PR nonetheless.

And lol about the inclines - I thought I had asked before but wanted to check. It just blows my mind that people can use those things, do you get good chest stimulation? I know everyone’s built differently but I’ve never had success to any capacity with standard inclines. Ah well. I would definitely stick with the 205, go low and slow with it. It’s too easy for form to break down on the heavier sets without training heavy consistently, IMO. At least I’ve kind of felt that way for myself.

Good shit.

74

LOLLL a 1000 TOTAL you dingaling!! not a 1000 DL!! haha if I can ever pull 4 hundo I think I’ll call it good enough. I think it’s very possible to split 600 lb between my bench and squat by February.

and yes, my upper pecs tend to get fairly swole by the time I’m done laddering down. I do touch my chest on every rep and squeeze the shit out of my pecs and front delts through lockout, even though my tris do more work from past halfway up.

quad wrangle day

eggs, quinoa and oatmeal for breakfast.

foam roll, yoga stretches and random lighter sets to warm up.

bb squat
195x10^. good control, all to depth. I made sure rep 10 was a good one; I took in more breaths, got big air, got deep and paused at the bottom before I rocketed up.

front squat
95x10^. domination.

bb squat
175x8
155x14. thought of gregron’s 135x50 and buried three reps more than last week.

front squat
75x13 x12. short rest, running late for lunch with the gf >_<

startrac leg extensions
105x15^ dominated last rep with a good squeeze.
105x12 x10. sweating like a pig, and my quads feel so swole I swear I’m splitting out of them like Bruce Banner does when he hulks out.
90x11
75x11. straight acid is running through my quads. I got up and was barely able to walk. def got that freshly sodomized gait going.

lunch was chicken noodle soup, grilled chicken with tomatoes and mustard on a roll, Gatorade and rice puddin for dessert.

mafackaaaa I could use a nap.

75

so you gained 12 pounds in around a month? Do you know your body fat percentage now? I didn’t read all the posts carefully, only looked at the weights and reps. This routine, your own customized or? It seems like watever you are doing is working like a charm.

76

[quote]Macmade wrote:
so you gained 12 pounds in around a month? Do you know your body fat percentage now? I didn’t read all the posts carefully, only looked at the weights and reps. This routine, your own customized or? It seems like watever you are doing is working like a charm.[/quote]

It’s not the routine he’s doing, it’s how much he eats, sorry bud, there’s no magical routine, every routine works, you just need to eat enough and sleep enough

77

[quote]XArena wrote:

[quote]Macmade wrote:
so you gained 12 pounds in around a month? Do you know your body fat percentage now? I didn’t read all the posts carefully, only looked at the weights and reps. This routine, your own customized or? It seems like watever you are doing is working like a charm.[/quote]

It’s not the routine he’s doing, it’s how much he eats, sorry bud, there’s no magical routine, every routine works, you just need to eat enough and sleep enough[/quote]

technically you are correct, my progress has more to do with my diet. I’m sure that if all I was doing all day was lifting progressively heavier boxes from the floor to over my head, I’d make progress because of my diet.

however, my previous routine was needlessly complicated in terms of knowing how/when to progress, and my form was dangerous and led to three or four injuries in a few months. i owe mr. popular a lot for simplifying things… 1-2 compound exercises, work up to one all-out set with a clean 6RM, progress to a clean 10 reps, then add 10 lb and repeat. pick 1-2 isolation movement(s), use a weight that you can get a clean 10 reps with, then when you can get 15 clean reps add 10 lb and repeat. aim for at least 1-2 lb bw gain a month (but eat for way more) and at least 10 lb increase per movement per month.

after a few weeks of this, I decided to add in two more all-out sets and then two lighter sets just because that felt like “enough” work. sure enough, that is about the limit of volume that I can recover from given my schedule. if I could do a conventional 5 on 2 off split, I would probably be able to handle more volume, or be bigger in my measures and/or be even stronger in my lifts.

if you compare sessions week to week, you’ll see that I try to get at least 1 more rep than the previous week on everything, even if I have to cheat it, or i make reps cleaner/stronger/better. otherwise, how else would you force your body to adapt and grow?

78

[quote]fr0IVIan wrote:

[quote]XArena wrote:

[quote]Macmade wrote:
so you gained 12 pounds in around a month? Do you know your body fat percentage now? I didn’t read all the posts carefully, only looked at the weights and reps. This routine, your own customized or? It seems like watever you are doing is working like a charm.[/quote]

It’s not the routine he’s doing, it’s how much he eats, sorry bud, there’s no magical routine, every routine works, you just need to eat enough and sleep enough[/quote]

technically you are correct, my progress has more to do with my diet. I’m sure that if all I was doing all day was lifting progressively heavier boxes from the floor to over my head, I’d make progress because of my diet.

however, my previous routine was needlessly complicated in terms of knowing how/when to progress, and my form was dangerous and led to three or four injuries in a few months. i owe mr. popular a lot for simplifying things… 1-2 compound exercises, work up to one all-out set with a clean 6RM, progress to a clean 10 reps, then add 10 lb and repeat. pick 1-2 isolation movement(s), use a weight that you can get a clean 10 reps with, then when you can get 15 clean reps add 10 lb and repeat. aim for at least 1-2 lb bw gain a month (but eat for way more) and at least 10 lb increase per movement per month.

after a few weeks of this, I decided to add in two more all-out sets and then two lighter sets just because that felt like “enough” work. sure enough, that is about the limit of volume that I can recover from given my schedule. if I could do a conventional 5 on 2 off split, I would probably be able to handle more volume, or be bigger in my measures and/or be even stronger in my lifts.

if you compare sessions week to week, you’ll see that I try to get at least 1 more rep than the previous week on everything, even if I have to cheat it, or i make reps cleaner/stronger/better. otherwise, how else would you force your body to adapt and grow?[/quote]

Aha, I understand, I try to add 5lbs week to week on my exercises instead of adding reps, out of curiosity how were yours strength gains on what mr. popular gave you?

79

and I have no idea how much body fat I have. I’ve stopped pretending that my caliper measures are accurate until I can correlate them with a dunk tank measurement.

ate a nice big ribeye steak, fat and all, and 4 slices of whole wheat toast slathered with smart balance butter.

arms/traps (basically tried to catch up with lifts missed earlier in the week). unfortunately, despite the 2.5 hour clusterfuck session, I couldn’t fit calves into the mix. I’ll have to try and get them saturday or Sunday.

since my bis were fried from my back session yesterday, I decided to do them first instead of tris.

ezbar curl
90x10^. mr. clean. 100 next week.

db hammer curl
55x10^. pretty clean, I only half hitched rep 9 on the right arm once.
55x7 x7
45x10
35x10

ezbar curl
80x9
70x12, back cheat on the last 4.

weighted dips
65x10^. counted two reps over just in case I fucked up counting and descended slowly and below parallel on two reps just to make sure I got it.

CGBP
205x10^. had to take a quick second before the last rep to reset and push deep into the bench, but it went up nice and smooth.
185x9
165x11

dips
45x10
25x12, slightly kipped the last one.

bb shrug
245x10^. easy peasy.

db shrug
105x10^.  good squeeze on all reps plus a nice hold on the last one to show it who’s boss.

bb shrug
245x9 x8. fucking nicked my right nut on the 8th rep >_<
225x10. tried widening my stance to let my balls hide between my legs, no dice.
205x10

db shrug
105x10 x10
95x12. short rest, some kid was working in on the bench I was using.
85x8 5 second holds. it got sooo freaking hard to do the 5 second count by the time I got to rep 6.

calf machine shrug
240x15^. doooo meeee n88888 Ted.
240x10 x8
225x10
210x10
burnouts. my intestines rumbled something fierce in the middle of these. SHITBREAKKKK

preacher curls
70x14 x8 x6.  felt something weird stab me in my ribs on the right side, when I got up there was nothing wtf.
60x7. got the stabbing feeling again.
50x8 and again.
burnouts

pushdowns
110x15^ easy as peas.
110x9 x8
100x9
90x9
burnouts

I ran into this guy I went to college with after not seeing him for a year. he told me “whoa you’re getting big… are you getting ready to fight?”. also got some comments from one of the bed flow coordinators at work that I haven’t seen since the start of the bulk four months ago… “wowww you’re getting big… look at those guns”. lolol every time I picked up the phone she said “hey what’s up guns”… lol I think it just goes to show how small and weak the rest of the population is.

post-meal was salmon sashimi, ribeye with the visible fat trimmed, white rice and Gatorade.

80

[quote]XArena wrote:

[quote]fr0IVIan wrote:

[quote]XArena wrote:

[quote]Macmade wrote:
so you gained 12 pounds in around a month? Do you know your body fat percentage now? I didn’t read all the posts carefully, only looked at the weights and reps. This routine, your own customized or? It seems like watever you are doing is working like a charm.[/quote]

It’s not the routine he’s doing, it’s how much he eats, sorry bud, there’s no magical routine, every routine works, you just need to eat enough and sleep enough[/quote]

technically you are correct, my progress has more to do with my diet. I’m sure that if all I was doing all day was lifting progressively heavier boxes from the floor to over my head, I’d make progress because of my diet.

however, my previous routine was needlessly complicated in terms of knowing how/when to progress, and my form was dangerous and led to three or four injuries in a few months. i owe mr. popular a lot for simplifying things… 1-2 compound exercises, work up to one all-out set with a clean 6RM, progress to a clean 10 reps, then add 10 lb and repeat. pick 1-2 isolation movement(s), use a weight that you can get a clean 10 reps with, then when you can get 15 clean reps add 10 lb and repeat. aim for at least 1-2 lb bw gain a month (but eat for way more) and at least 10 lb increase per movement per month.

after a few weeks of this, I decided to add in two more all-out sets and then two lighter sets just because that felt like “enough” work. sure enough, that is about the limit of volume that I can recover from given my schedule. if I could do a conventional 5 on 2 off split, I would probably be able to handle more volume, or be bigger in my measures and/or be even stronger in my lifts.

if you compare sessions week to week, you’ll see that I try to get at least 1 more rep than the previous week on everything, even if I have to cheat it, or i make reps cleaner/stronger/better. otherwise, how else would you force your body to adapt and grow?[/quote]

Aha, I understand, I try to add 5lbs week to week on my exercises instead of adding reps, out of curiosity how were yours strength gains on what mr. popular gave you?
[/quote]

it depends on the lift, and on how the week has gone. I can say for sure that ohp is progressing the slowest, but it’s gone up something like twenty pounds for a 10RM over the course of four months. I’ve just recently healed up completely and started squatting, deadlifting and rowing heavy again, as well as learning correct squat and DL form.

I can also say for sure that there is no doubt in my mind that I will beat last week’s efforts every week. I am probably still making newb gains and it’s great.

edit: just looked at earlier parts of my log and my ohp went up twenty pounds in ONE MONTH, not four. whoa.