Ha, I’ve totally bailed from squats in my training and a wondering if I’ll keep it this way indefinitely.
Your leg workout looks solid. What do you prefer about bench squats to regular? Thanks to your info, when I return to RFESS, I’ll use the Smith again. I like how it eliminates balance as a factor.
Good to see you Frank. Glad you are well and by most peoples standard still strong.
Just switching it up. I made front squats my main lift and I hate them. I think I tend to squat with more hip hinge to use my glutes and hamstrings. The bench or box squats make me use my quads more.
Alright, time to suck it up. Today was day one of SGSS for legs. To stay true to my training style, I’ll be doing this for legs but sticking with my bro style training for upper body (it wouldn’t be my programming if I didn’t mix and match programs) . I’m going to try to keep doing push/pull/legs but it’s possible that I’ll switch to an upper/lower split.
Well, I survived my 1st week of SGSS. The lower body’s soreness was triple the upper body soreness but that is to be expected since I’m slacking off. I feel like I’m in a good place mentally with my training and I can survive this program once again. I actually feel better having a plan and showing up and doing the work. I don’t exactly like the leg days, but I don’t have a choice. There is pre planned work that needs to be done and that’s that.
That being said, I find myself already thinking about future training methods. Truth be told, I’m trying to figure out an old man maintenance plan.I’ve invested a lot of time in the gym with minimal or no return. So the question is “what’s the bear minimum I can do and maintain what I have?” Is it a two days per week full body plan? Is it a CrossFit style of training like High Intensity Interval Bodybuilding? That one would definitely help with conditioning. Regardless of what route I take, I need to focus on conditioning. I’m in sad shape from a cardiovascular standpoint.
Here’s a bit of a life note: one of my students was shot and killed last night. He was 16. I’m not surprised it happened but I’m a little surprised that it was him. I knew what he was doing out of school. The odd thing is that he was a normal kid in my class. He was laid back and always smiling. It’s crazy that these kids can be kids in school but live life like they’re a Grand Theft Auto character the rest of the time. It’s hard to wrap my brain around the dichotomy of it all.
I have a love/hate relationship with front squats; sometimes, they work well, other times, them make me hurt. Your perception about being posterior-chain dominant is likely accurate and describes my squatting, too. Once I’m off of my current hack squats kick, I’ll give box squats a whirl. Thanks for the insight.
That’s horrible, I’m sorry to hear it.
Why not do cycles of both, four to sixteen weeks at a time or whatever works for your life in that period? Like me, you seem to have a touch of training ADD. I get bored always training the same way, but I also need enough structure for consistency and progression. Perhaps relatively short blocks of different methods and frequencies will hit all the high notes for you.
My training ADD is fueled by my desire to skip workouts. I have plenty of time to train, but I choose to do other things. My wife and I work at the same school. We get a plan period each day which is an entire class period off to plan future lessons, grade stuff, etc. We have the same plan period on EVEN days. We have block scheduling so we have an ODD and EVEN day and only see the students every other day.
On EVEN days, we have the class after lunch off. I choose to hang out with her instead of training. I really enjoy just being around her. We typically do our own work related thing, but we do it in the same room. On ODD days, I have lunch with her and my plan period follows that. I don’t want to train after I eat so that choice ruins that training opportunity.
The result of these choices is that I don’t want to train every day. I’m going to try the two day a week thing, but I’m already thinking of ways to work in conditioning. I seriously need to do that. That’s another reason to lift less frequently.
Tabata’s sprinkled throughout the day would beokey for that.
Throughout the day? Do you just like suffering? 
I actually miss the way I felt when I did CrossFit type workouts for conditioning. I need to bring them back. I don’t think I’d finish if I went hard on DT right now. I’ll have to pace myself.
And for the record, I’m still doing the SGSS progression on squats.
I’m sure it won’t work the same as the whole program, but I’m so weak that it should still help. I’m using this as a guide for the rest of my training:
I forgot to tell you all about work! In January, I was told that I’d get another year in my current position. I was hired for one year to teach PE & Health to students who failed the first time. It’s a required class for graduation. I found out in April that there weren’t enough students to fill my schedule so they couldn’t keep me. Fortunately, I was guaranteed a job somewhere.
The short version of everything is that I’ll be working at the school closest to my house. It’s also where my kids will go to high school.
The Principal told me she might need a female teacher so I told her about my wife and said she might consider moving. She spoke with the people who oversee PE throughout the District and offered my wife a job by lunch the same day. By the grace of God, we’ll get to work together until one of us chooses to leave. 
I love working with her. It makes me happy just seeing her in the halls and spending lunch with her. We don’t even have to really do anything or talk.
Isn’t it the best thing? After all, to enjoy work, to enjoy life?
This wouldn’t be such a bad idea…
For instance, an upper body workout could look like that:
A/ Max Effort Upper Body Pressing Variation go to a conservative 1RM/3RM/Cluster set after having set a 8’ to 12’ timer, rotating every week for something fun and challenging
B/ Pressing Assistance Exercise
C/ Pulling Muscle Endurance Circuit for 15-30’ using an EMOM or AMRAP format
D/ Extra Conditioning
So for instance
A/ Axle Floor Press go to a 3RM in 8:00
B/ Military Press 3 x 5
C/ AMRAP 20’
5 Pull-up
10 Gorilla Row
15 Cal Rower
20 Band Pull-Appart
D/ AMRAP in 8’
10 Inverted Row
15 Wall Ball Shot
30s rest
E/ AMRAP in 8’
30 DU
10 KB Swing (light)
5 Burpees
30s rest
The next week you do the strength work on pulling muscle and the circuits on pushing muscles
Thanks for the ideas. The problem I always run into with CF stuff is equipment. Thanks to @kleinhound, I have a copy of Ryan Fischer’s High Intensity Interval Bodybuilding. I started that a time or two, but struggled with the lack of a focus on any one lift or progression.
I think that program would fit my goals, but I’d have to address that mental hurdle of no planned progression and training most days of the week.
I think I’m going to try two full body days per week and add conditioning wherever. I could have done some today, but we went to the zoo and now I’m lying in the back yard drinking beer. 
It’s been a good day.
I just had to check My Fitness Pal to find this, but I’m September of 2019, I decided that it was time to stop obsessing over my abs. I stopped tracking food and adopted the goal of enjoying food, drink, and life like a somewhat normal person. I have succeeded but the tradeoff is days like this - training or lounging with a beer. I could train and then lounge, but it would be forced and that defeats the purpose of my new goal/lifestyle.
My weight is between 225 and 230 (my goal window is 225 - 235). My deadlift strength remains. Hang power clean strength is probably 90% of my PR. Everything else has kind of tanked. Maybe I should train the other lifts the same as deads and cleans…?
Anyway, my point was to defend my laziness today.
Am I slacking with my training? Absolutely.
Is it worth it? Absolutely!
I’m giving half the attention and effort to my training and I’d guess I’ve maintained 80-90% of what I built over the years.
Haha nah, I hate them! But I know I’m lying to myself if I say I don’t have 4 minutes to get something in.
Sounds like life is going well man, good to hear.
Summer break has started and I should be relaxing but I find myself thinking about work. My new school is the only high school in the district that has seven classes every day. They’re 50 minutes each. The other schools do block scheduling - each class is 80 minutes and you see the kids every other day.
With changing clothes and a warm-up, I’m going to have 30-35 minutes to train kids. And Wednesday classes are 10 minutes shorter. I think it’ll be a good change to see the same kids every day for weight training. I don’t have to do full body workouts. I’m not sure if I’ll do a push/pull or upper/lower split. Push/pull allows for combo sets like squat and OHP. Upper/lower gives the body more of a break between sessions since there’s always overlap between exercises (i.e. delts are working on pushing and pulling movements).
In light of this, I’m going to play guinea pig starting next week. I’m going to set a timer for 40 minutes and see what I can get done each day. I think I’ll do an upper/lower approach inspired by Wendler. I just finished the worst part of SGSS for squats (5x8). Next week would be 3x5 and 5x5. If I do deads Monday, I can throw in the 3x5 session for squats. That will let me do 5x5 on Thursday on the official squat day.
Squats will be the only lift that I’ll keep my training plans. Everything else will be trial and error to build workouts that fit in my class times. The class is called Weight Training & Conditioning. I plan to include that second part, too. Mon, Tues, Thurs, Fri sessions will finish with 5-10 minutes of conditioning. Wednesdays are still wide open. I think I’ll do plyos, agility and speed work, sprints, or longer CF WODs on those days since class is shorter. The track is also a good option on those days. The transition from weight room to track and back will eat up about 5 minutes of class time each way.
Anyway, next week starts my trial and error phase to figure out what can be done in 40 minutes or less.
I found out another one of my students died tonight. She was 15. There was a shooting at a party that took the life of another teen. She was hit by a car as she ran from the gunshots.
She was a tough girl. We butted heads early in the year but she turned things around and turned into one of my favorite students. Who would have thought being a teacher would be harder than being a cop?
I’m struggling to shake it. I think this is harder than my experience in 2020 when I was abandoned by command staff and found myself holding a wooden stick and plastic shield while being shot at. 
Ooof, that is brutal. Very sorry to hear that.
Real sorry to hear that, hope you are doing ok mate.
I just finished my last workout of SGSS week 6 for squats - 5x5 with 240 lbs. I looked back at 2018 to compare and I used 265 for the same week. That kind of sucks since that was my comeback from hip surgery. I have three weeks of triples ahead of me. This run of SGSS should get me back to a three plate squat. If I’m 25 lbs behind now, then hopefully I can get within 25 - 35 lbs of my old PR.
After this run of SGSS, I’ll go back to training “intuitively” aka winging it. I’ve basically been running 5/3/1 Training Maximally for deadlifts and cleans and it’s helped me maintain my strength. I’m good with that. My bench sucks so maybe I’ll run SGSS on that next.
Best bench gains I’ve had of my life came from following 5/3/1 5’s pro with 5x10 supplemental for like 9 weeks into 5/3/1 3’s pro with 5x5 supplemental for another 6 or so weeks.
I wound up using simple linear progression for the supplemental both times rather than the percentages. So the early weeks were way too easy, but by the end I was repping out weights much higher than most 5/3/1 programs would prescribe.
YMMV of course.
I find that I’m a fan of Paul Carter’s approach these days. I don’t like to spend a lot of time lifting and I don’t like to do much so I like to get to the point. I found a thread about BBB vs more traditional methods and he made some good points. He talked about RIR and meaningful reps per set. In the end, he said BBB might work but he’d rather do two sets of 6 all out and be done with it. I agree these days.
That being said, I started SGSS for bench this week. I just finished week 1 (sets of 8) for bench and week 7 for squat (sets of 3). I had success with everything on SGSS. It was just a draining program and I don’t want to do the whole thing. I’ve been winging it on most things lately which is fine for muscle mass maintenence, but a structured plan for a specific lift will do me good.
Thanks for sharing your experience! I’ll check back in eventually to share my progress.
On a conditioning note, I’m doing Fartlek intervals twice a week. I started with 20 sec intervals about four weeks ago. I bumped it to 22 seconds for the last two workouts. I tried a run/jog approach but I’m doing better with run/walk. I cover the same distance by running faster and recovering better between intervals.
Here’s the workout:
I ran an average pace of 6:14 min/mile and covered 0.48 miles on my first workout (data from running intervals only). I ran a pace of 5:15 min/mile and covered 0.63 miles Wednesday. Progress is good but I have a ways to go. I’d like to cover close to 150 meters per run. That’s close to 0.09 miles and I’m at 0.06 right now which is closer to 100 meters. Perhaps 120 meters is a more realistic goal…