It Vexes Me. I'm Terribly Vexed

Training Training Logs
381

11/21/2013

Had to play a concert this evening, so the good gym was out of the question. Can’t mess up my new split as soon as it starts though lol, so at lunch I went to this place and signed up for a new gym as well. It’s only 15 bucks a month, so that’s not a bad price for a secondary gym that I’ll use maybe once a week and in any case of emergency where I can’t get to my main gym on time.

Only problem is they don’t have a squat rack.

Smith Machine Front Squats:
135 10x Lol this is absurd. I can’t make that work.

Smith Machine Squats:
225 5x
275 5x
275 5x Forget it. I don’t understand who made this contraption or for what purpose, but it feels horrible. I’m never using it again. So straight away a big swing and a miss at the new gym.

Leg Press (one leg at a time):
4 sets of 12 w/ each leg

Leg Curls:
1 set of lol Strike two for the new gym. Their leg curl machine was evidently designed for kangaroos rather than humans. I cannot figure out how to get it set in such a way where it actually isolates the hamstrings.

Leg Extensions:
4 sets of 10, 4th set drop set with 4 drops. Hey leg curls are awesome! Wow I’ve never had such a quad pump. Are these bad for your knees? Is that a thing?

Standing Calf Raises:
4 sets of 12

Well that was disappointing. Looks like if I have to go here for my secondary leg day it’ll just be a quad and calf day. That’s fine I guess. I could do with becoming more quad dominant. Right now I’m not quad or hamstring dominant. My legs are just small and weak everywhere, and I use my lower back to do all the work.

382

The only movement I like for legs on the smith is front squats, where i put my feet in front of the bar, and when I have my arms crossed, my hands are keeping me from falling backwards, mimicking a hack squat, this nukes the quads. Then use it for a stiffleg dead, where you can focus just on squeezing the hams. I’ve been forced to do this once and a while, and at the very least you can pump up the quads, but the smith still sucks. Latter

383

[quote]csulli wrote:
11/21/2013

Had to play a concert this evening, so the good gym was out of the question. Can’t mess up my new split as soon as it starts though lol, so at lunch I went to this place and signed up for a new gym as well. It’s only 15 bucks a month, so that’s not a bad price for a secondary gym that I’ll use maybe once a week and in any case of emergency where I can’t get to my main gym on time.

Only problem is they don’t have a squat rack.

Smith Machine Front Squats:
135 10x Lol this is absurd. I can’t make that work.

Smith Machine Squats:
225 5x
275 5x
275 5x Forget it. I don’t understand who made this contraption or for what purpose, but it feels horrible. I’m never using it again. So straight away a big swing and a miss at the new gym.

Leg Press (one leg at a time):
4 sets of 12 w/ each leg

Leg Curls:
1 set of lol Strike two for the new gym. Their leg curl machine was evidently designed for kangaroos rather than humans. I cannot figure out how to get it set in such a way where it actually isolates the hamstrings.

Leg Extensions:
4 sets of 10, 4th set drop set with 4 drops. Hey leg curls are awesome! Wow I’ve never had such a quad pump. Are these bad for your knees? Is that a thing?

Standing Calf Raises:
4 sets of 12

Well that was disappointing. Looks like if I have to go here for my secondary leg day it’ll just be a quad and calf day. That’s fine I guess. I could do with becoming more quad dominant. Right now I’m not quad or hamstring dominant. My legs are just small and weak everywhere, and I use my lower back to do all the work.[/quote]
You aren’t quad dominant… you are hamstring and glute weak. :wink: You could always do some Natural glute ham raises to replace leg curls. Or do some gasp single leg romanian deadlifts if you are trying to keep your back from being over used. And you could also go full homo, and do some hip thrusts to help use your glutes to lock out deadlifts, and use the lower back less.

Oh, is lower back overtraining a thing? I mean, I SHOULD be overtraining that area from how much I do for it, but it has been the best lately that it ever felt. It actually felt best when I was doing good mornings twice a week with heavy ab work afterwards.

384

[quote]csulli wrote:

Well that was disappointing. Looks like if I have to go here for my secondary leg day it’ll just be a quad and calf day. That’s fine I guess. I could do with becoming more quad dominant. Right now I’m not quad or hamstring dominant. My legs are just small and weak everywhere, and I use my lower back to do all the work.[/quote]

I should have warned you unless they upgraded, that place is just mediocre at best, even for light leg day. The machines are not quite on par with the Rush. No HOISTing I’m sure.

You might try doing leg curls one leg at a time with lighter weight. I usually end up doing that on most machines anyway, feels less awkward. Oh well, probably worth the $15/mo just to do leg extensions, ha. And of course it should be good enough for arms and abs.

385

11/22/2013

Press:
45 10x
95 10x
135 5x
165 1x
185 2x

Push Press:
185 5x
185 5x

Press: (again)
135 10x
135 10x

VINNY HELP! I can’t lock things out over my head. Off my chest is fast, but once my arms hit about 90 degrees they just stop. Let me know how to fix that. And you better not say “press the bar”.

Incline Bench:
185 10x Probably a PR lol.
225 5x
225 4x Didn’t get set up well on this set.

DB Pullovers:
50’s for 4 sets of 12
I felt like I could manage more weight, but whenever I would try the weight of the DB would pull my legs off the ground and flip me over the bench. Could do with seatbelt.

DB Bench:
100’s for 3 sets of 8

Cable Flies:
4 sets of 12, fourth set drop set with three drops

Cable Unilateral Lateral Delts: (lol awesome name)
4 sets of 12
I was gonna do a drop set, but then I realized I had nowhere to drop, because I was already on the lightest setting… It’s a hard exercise; try it.

Blast Strap Rear Delts:
4 sets of 10

Dips:
+90lbs 10x
+90lbs 10x
+90lbs 10x

Rope Pushdowns:
4 sets of 12, fourth set drop set with three drops
All 4 sets were done in about the span of a minute lol.

Ab Wheel:
3 sets of 10

386

Are you pushing your head through?

387

11/23/2013

Strongman Saturday

Atlas Stones:
240lb stone for a set of 5
Makes me really out of breath, but muscularly very easy. Will be looking into crafting a 300lb stone soon fo mo gainz.

Pullups:
5 sets of 10

Frame Carry: (trap bar farmer’s walk)
405lbs for 2 carries of about 100-120 feet with one turn at the halfway. First run 34 seconds I believe, second run was 27. Was a little wary of my right knee, but once I get more confident in my stride these should be pretty easy.

Scap Retractions:
4 sets of 12

Barbell Curls:
135 8x
135 8x
135 6x

Incline DB Curls:
30’s 10x
35’s 10x
35’s 10x
30’s 10x

Preacher Curls:
3 sets of 15-20 w/ 50lbs against a miniband

Ab Wheel:
3 sets of 10

Need to get serious on biceps again. Tried to keep up with Chia on them today and basically got my shit pushed in.

388

[quote]spar4tee wrote:
Are you pushing your head through?[/quote]
Yea I am actually pushing my head through. Something about locking out my arms in the overhead plane though doesn’t seem to work right lol. Like I can’t get all the right muscles going the right way.

389

Could be a grip thang. Too close or too far out making it awkward for your elbows, but that’s unlikely. You’re also probably just less dominant overhead with your triceps. There’s really not much to overhead pressing, atleast with regard to strict presses. You just kind of…push that shit over your head nomsayin.

390

[quote]strongmanvinny wrote:
Could be a grip thang. Too close or too far out making it awkward for your elbows, but that’s unlikely. You’re also probably just less dominant overhead with your triceps. There’s really not much to overhead pressing, atleast with regard to strict presses. You just kind of…push that shit over your head nomsayin. [/quote]
Word. Could be a long head thing.

391

False grip on overhead work ?

392

[quote]AnytimeJake wrote:
False grip on overhead work ?[/quote]
I’ve tried it in the past. I’ll see how it feels next time if I can remember.

393

11/24/2013

Squat:
45 10x
135 5x
185 5x
225 5x
275 3x
315 3x
365 2x
385 1x This was way harder than it should have been. I was expecting much, much more from this workout. Quite disappointed. I did wait a bit too long and got kind of cold and probably didn’t take the weight as seriously as I should have, but mostly I suspect it’s just because this my first week of hitting legs twice a week rather than once. I guess I need to give my body a little more time to adapt its recovery. I’m still very displeased about it though.
315 5x

Glute-Ham Raise:
4 sets of 10-12 This exercise is so great.

Unilateral Leg Press:
4 sets of 12 w/ each leg

Went to Longhorn Steakhouse and had an 18oz steak and two sweet potatoes. After that great meal Chia mentioned that he felt kinda like training again. He said it sort of jokingly, but then I said I’d be down to go to the Rush and that was all it took. If each of us is only half serious about training, that adds up to a full serious and we end up training 100% of the time that happens.

Some kind of unilateral donkey kick machine:
4 sets of 12 w/ each leg; I’ve always wanted to try this machine. It was everything I’d hoped for.

Leg Extensions:
4 sets of 10

Lying Leg Curls:
2 sets of 10

Unilateral Kneeling Leg Curls:
2 sets of 10

Leg Extensions: for teh burnout
1 drop set with 14 drops (lol); I set it to the whole stack, did 5 reps and then moved the pin up one slot until I got to the top. I only got about 4 reps at most of the intervals until it started getting really light and I could get up around 10. The set was probably around 80 reps total.

No amount of punishment could fill the void left by my poor squat workout though. Regardless, I suspect my legs will be in some kind of fresh new hell tomorrow.

394

11/25/2013

Bench:
45 15x
135 15x
185 5x
225 5x
275 2x
290 4x all paused
290 4x all paused, vid 1
290 4x all paused, vid 2

DB Incline:
90’s for 3 sets of 10

DB Pullover:
60 for 4 sets of 12

Cable Flies:
4 sets of 10, fourth set drop set with 3 drops

Standing DB Press:
50’s for 3 sets of 12 I just did these really quick. I kinda stopped caring, and I was pissed off because the gym was filled with pipsqueak kids doing bullshit everywhere. So I had nowhere to do seated DB pressing.

DB Lateral Raises:
30’s 10x
35’s 10x
40’s 10x
40’s 10x

DB Rear Delts:
30’s 12x
30’s 12x
30’s 12x
30’s 12x

Dips:
BW 20x
BW 20x
BW 20x

Rope Pushdowns:
4 sets of 10-15, fourth set drop set with 3 drops

395

290 x4 second set:

Very disappointed that my butt is still coming off the bench. For fuck’s sake.

290 x4 third set:

100% of my focus was on keeping my ass down, and I still barely managed it on the first three! Look how much harder these reps are. The first video shows how fucking easy the weight is if I can just bench without worrying about my butt coming up. You shoulda seen my first set that I didn’t film, felt like I coulda done like 6+.

396

[quote]csulli wrote:
290 x4 second set:

Very disappointed that my butt is still coming off the bench. For fuck’s sake.

290 x4 third set:

100% of my focus was on keeping my ass down, and I still barely managed it on the first three! Look how much harder these reps are. The first video shows how fucking easy the weight is if I can just bench without worrying about my butt coming up. You shoulda seen my first set that I didn’t film, felt like I coulda done like 6+.[/quote]

I built foundations off false pretense many times in the past. I think a big one was my deadlift. I’d just jerk 500+ off the floor off BIG deficits and wonder why my fucking SI joint was as inflamed as an old mans ganglion. It took alot of sacrifice of the ego, but when I did, I found that I had an infinite avenue to pursue and strengthen that one thing, because it was now coming from a fortified place. (I can now deadlift without being unable to walk for 3 weeks).

Keep practicing ass down, little Feelip Jay Frie. It’ll serve you well.

397

Do me a favor…If you find time, please post up a vid of your old form vs your new form with like 275 or something real light. I would like to see what your changes look like, and how they help you.

I have had a few people tell me that I deadlift very narrow, and I have been exploring the idea of opening up my form a bit.

398

[quote]trivium wrote:
Do me a favor…If you find time, please post up a vid of your old form vs your new form with like 275 or something real light. I would like to see what your changes look like, and how they help you.

I have had a few people tell me that I deadlift very narrow, and I have been exploring the idea of opening up my form a bit.[/quote]
Will do today if I can remember.

Basically I have always had my hands right on the edge of the knurling and my legs just inside on the smooth part of the bar.

Last week I felt extremely strong moving my legs out to where they were entirely on the knurling and my hands were outside of them, so a few inches outside the smooth similar to what you might see from some people’s close grip on their bench press.

From a physics standpoint it does not make innate sense as my range of motion is increased, but biomechanically my lockout felt immensely stronger, possibly due to increased glute activation and maybe just getting my arms out of the way of my back.

399

Your butt keeps comming up when you bench, I had this problem, eventually puttting my feet out in front of my knee, instead of behind. This took a couple weeks to get used to, but cured the problem, acording to Dave Tate, it’s about keeping the knee lower than the hip, but I was really used to having my feet digging into the floor below my butt.

Anyway, thats what worked for me, it still doesn’t feel comfortable, keeps the butt down though. Goodluck

400

11/27/2013

Deadlift:
135 5x
225 3x
315 3x
405 3x
455 2x
495 2x Goddammit. I’m really disappointed I can’t do 3 reps of this. I should be able to do that.

Block Pulls:
495 2x
495 2x

Hyperextensions:
BW 25x
BW 20x
BW 20x Not as much volume as I normally do on these, but I had achieved a sick erector pump so I figured that was enough.

T-Bar Rows:
3 plates 10x
4 plates 8x
4 plates 8x
4 plates 8x

Incline DB Curls:
35’s 10x
40’s 10x
45’s 10x
45’s 10x

Preacher Curls:
70 10x
90 10x
107.5 5x
90 10x
90 10x

Cross Body Hammer Curls:
50’s 10x
60’s 8x
60’s 8x