Nice work James. Glad the bench is progressing and shoulders feeling better is always a good thing!
Awesome stuff James, whats the “F” stand for?
Thanks German and Matty.
Matty - “F” means “failure”. I just do as many as I can without counting the reps at all.
james
Just getting back through everyones threads today. Here is a video of my ghetto reverse hypers set up, I was playing around so don’t laugh.
27 July - Sled dragging for 25 minutes.
28 July -
Warm up
Deads: 3*135, 185, 225, 275, 315, 365, 425, 385, 385, 405, 405, 425, 425
Good mornings: 135, 185, 205
Lots of foam rolling and stretching
I really worked on my form in these sets as the weight is light enough for me to pay attention to the details. I filmed myself and will post these up tomorrow if youtube cooporates with me. They looked ok but I still need to practice keeping my chest high. The great thing about filming yourself is that you can see those errors and correct them on the spot.
My knees have been bothering me lately so I got a copy of “Bulletproof Knees” by Mike Robertson. Not cheap but neither are my knees. The pain seems to be both after squatting and sprinting. I think that the squat issue is my lack of flexibility / mobility and that a few weeks (months?) of working on those issues will correct that. I also think that same problem is carrying over to my sprints. Dragging the sled and deadlifts don’t seem to have that impact on me. I’m going to cut out the flat sprints while I get this sorted. I am going to give hill sprints a go and see what effect they have on my knees. I’ll also continue to drag the sled around. The book is a couple of hundred pages and will take me some time to read through so you shouldn’t see any changes to my programming until after I’ve read through it.
james
[quote]dday wrote:
I was playing around so don’t laugh.[/quote]
Bwahahahahaha…nothing like getting lucky with a workout ball…
Do you normally go that fast or do you typically keep the movement slower? I think that’s a great way to warm up my posterior chain and will give that a go before my next squat session. Thanks for the vid.
james
Damn dday did you at least lube the ball up?
Form videos from my last training session.
James I cant help you with the form as mine is awful, but the 405 looked like buttery smooth…nice work…
Maaaaan screw you guys 
No I don’t normally go that fast, I was messing around making sure the set up was right since it’s kind of rigged.
I’m not a deadlift expert, they looked pretty good to me. Smooth and fast, no obvious back rounding.
29 July - Various sled work and some sprints. Had my son and dog out with me so the sled drags were all done with him on my shoulders or with him on the sled. He wanted to do some sprints so we did. I sprinted with the sled and I got beat by my son. I also got tackled by my 140lb St Bernard which sounds like more fun than it is. I wasn’t really looking for him and my wife had let him go. It adds a bit of variety to my training sessions when she does that.
30 July
Warm up
OHP: 3bar, 65, 95, 115, 135, 165, 190, 170, 180, 190, 170, 180, 190, 170, 180, 190, 170
Pull ups: 5 * F
Weighted chins: +25, +50, +60, +50, +25
Pendlay rows: 135, 185, 225, 245
Dips: 10bw, +25, +50, +70
Foam rolling and stretching
Press went well today and all of the reps were nice and explosive. I was especially happy as I kept my rest periods short. I was pretty beat by the time I got to rows and dips though so I cut those short. The key is to get the main lift in and then do some accessory work. I hate to skip it totally because I think it really helps.
james
Fun times! Tackled by a St. Bernard and beat by a 4? Year old
Haha! Good times and great lifting. LOTS of volume as usual.
31 July
Warm up
Pull throughs: 3 10
Squats: 3135, 155, 185, 205, 225, 245, 225, 235, 245, 225, 235, 245, 225, 235, 245
Static holds
Treadmill walking at steepest angle: 10 minutes
This is day 1 of trying to get my knees and hips feeling good again. I would also love to solve for my PF problem too if I can. I think what happened is that I just tried to do too much too soon. I used to be super athletic when I was younger (into my 20s and early 30s) but a desk job sorta changed all of that. I want to get back to being athletic again. So when you combine that vigor with my lack of mobility then the obvious occurs.
I’m going to do mobility work and stretching nightly. I’m going to keep doing squats as my session today went well and there was no pain. I am going to stop the sprints until I get my mobility more under control. Ideally I would also really like for my PF to be part of the past but I know that is really something that might have to be addressed separately. The treadmill will replace my sprints for now and I will keep dragging the sled as that doesn’t bother my knees.
The static holds are there to build up the strength in the ligaments and tendons and to actively stretch out. I’ll progress from those in a few weeks once I get more mobile. These are surprisingly tough to do. Essentially I’m doing a Bulgarian split squat but holding the down position. I keep my knee slightly off the deck when doing these so there’s both stretching and strength in there.
The treadmill work was done to replace my sprints and these were done on the highest elevation. I was surprised at how sore these got my lower back and I think I’m going to like these a lot.
james
This is case in point of being our worst critic,IMO you have to be athletic to do what you do…but I certainly understand what you mean.
1 Aug
Sled work. 20 minutes or so of dragging the 90 lb sled around the grass. I focused on getting low and staying low. I really felt this in my hams and glutes much more than I have previously. I also noticed that my knees felt better still. So I think the key is getting low and taking long strides. I did these forward and backwards. I noticed that my lower back didn’t get as sore when I did them this way. But I did notice that my lower back got tight on my drive home. Good stuff.
Cheers Matty. I guess I need to look at things in perspective but by athletic I also mean “not in constant pain”…lol.
james
You could try hill sprints instead of doing them on the flat. I find it much easier on my knees. There’s something in the article today saying the same thing.
2 Aug
Warm up
OHP: 3bar, 65, 95, 115, 135
Pull ups: 5F @BW
Bench: 135, 225, 245, 265, 285, 265, 275, 285, 265, 275, 285, 265, 275, 285, 265
Pendlay rows: 135, 185, 205, 225, 245, 275. 0@315
DB Rows: 3 sets @ 140 to failure
Got all of my reps in my bench today. That makes me happy. I doubled down on the rowing to get the extra volume in. I skipped the dips as my shoulders were pretty fatigued. I tried doing 315 as a pendlay but only got it half way up or so. I can bench more than I row but I think that’s to be expected somewhat. I used the 140s for my DB rows and that’s as high as they go in my gym so from here on out it’s about reps.
james
Thanks FB and I saw that too. I’m going to ease back into them after a month of mobility work. I have a tendency to just jump in with both feet and then I get hurt.
james
3 Aug
Warm up
Deads: 3*135, 185, 225, 275, 315, 385, 425, 385, 405, 425, 385, 405, 425, 385, 405, 425
Pull throughs: 3 sets
Good mornings: 3 sets
Solid session tonight. It was done pretty quickly with minimal rest between sets of deads (one minute or less). I wanted to give pull throughs a shot and ended up really liking them. Good mornings were done with the belt on for a change and really focused on my form. Hams are pretty tired now.
james