You just gave me an idea that I’ll likely forget. I should incorporate more conditioning and less bodybuilding. The world is going crazy and I want to be physically prepared to survive (whether it be at work as a civilian). I need better conditioning, but it’s not fun and it’s tough to do during a shift. I can lift weights and break a bit of a sweat but it’s not a big deal. A soul sucking, sweat drenching workout, on the other hand, is undesirable for a lunch break workout.
I just mentioned in Flap’s log that I could probably lift twice a week and condition twice a week. A lunge, tire flip, loaded carry medley could be a good leg day. It’s a 2-for-1 approach that could hit legs and conditioning.
I need to think about this more once I finish my current cycle of training. I have 3+ weeks left and then I can adopt a maintenance approach for some things while improving conditioning…
Do it, man. Carry medleys with some sprints (like shuttle runs) are SO good, especially for LEOs, in my opinion. Carry object 1, sprint back, carry object 2, sprint back, object 3, sprint, rest.
You could hit one big lower body lift, one supplemental lift, then do a few rounds of your carry medley and call it. Superb session.
Hang power snatches might be my new favourite lift. Also, as the turnover in the snatch has always been my weak point, hammering them for the last couple months will be great for when I start using the full snatch in my next training cycle. The single at 145 was a little too muscle-y and not as snappy as I would like, but it was still a success.
Had to be quick with the assistance work as my wife was out and I was trying to get this workout done while my kid was napping. I know sit-ups get shit on but if you don’t flop around like an idiot they can be a pretty gruelling ab exercise. I’ve also be ignoring direct ab work which is bad and something is usually better than nothing.
In other news, my journey towards becoming a police officer has officially begun. My buddy who’s a cop took my resume to hand into recruitment. This is very much a town where it’s easier to get in if you know someone on the inside, and I know a LOT of people on the inside; my landlord is also a member of the city’s tactical unit, and he’s a reference on my resume. I know it takes more than just knowing someone to ultimately be hired, but with my extensive background in security and leadership positions in previous jobs, I’m confident I’ll make it.
Loving the talk about carry medleys and things to generally be more badass. Being big and good at lifting is cool, but being good at life is cooler and I think various carries help that. Maybe I’ll start doing farmer’s walks with my sandbag workouts. The sprint back and forth sounds fucking awful.
It is. It sucks so much but reaps so many benefits.
I remember when I first started really hammering loaded carries. I was running a barebones program of heavy cleans (full clean, not power clean), weighted dips and heavy-as-fuck farmers walks. The reason for this was because I was training martial arts like 5 days a week and lifting needed to be abbreviated. The only really new thing I added was the heavy farmers walks, and hooooly moly did they make a difference; my cleans became so much stronger and stable, and after a few weeks everyone I trained with commented that 1) my grip was unbreakable, and 2) my stability was better.
Moral of the story: carry heavy shit that makes you want to die.
Has to keep it short because my kid decided he didn’t want to have a full nap and my wife was sick. So I figured the dumbbell windmill was a good choice as I didn’t have time for all the assistance work I wanted; windmill works shoulder stability, core and hips.
All right, gonna need to recruit the T-Nation collective for this.
Looking ahead to my next block, I’m trying to plan out a couple things but I’m stuck. I’m calling it “How much, how many, how fast, how far?” How much can I lift on certain barbell lifts, how many consecutive reps can I do on certain BW exercises, how fast can I run certain distances, and how far can I carry certain implements.
The barbell lifts I’ll be using are the clean & jerk, snatch, clean & press, and bench. Reasoning: don’t have the ability to squat or deadlift heavy enough in my home gym.
I was hoping to use 5/3/1 Leviathan for these, because it’s focus is on lots of singles with some backdown work. Issue I have: the Anchor cycle uses PR sets, however doing those with the C&J and snatch is a recipe for disaster. I could potentially swap those for Joker sets, but it’s not part of the program and I don’t want The Spirit of Jim Wendler to kill me in my sleep. I’m not 100% married to using 5/3/1, I just prefer it for my strength work because the percentages keep me from slacking off.
Secondly, for BW exercises; I’m stuck on how to work towards breaking rep records on them without just gunning it and doing AMRAP sets constantly. My theory was to do submax work for a couple blocks (Leaders) using an EMOM set up, then doing a block (Anchor) of AMRAP sets. Thoughts?
A similar thing to the BW exercises would be done with the loader carries: submax work blocks, then max distance blocks.
Feel free to tag anyone you think would have good advice.
I agree with TX, as long as you’re smart, PR sets for those lifts should be fine.
Alternatively, instead of using the Leviathan anchor, you could swap over to a different template for those lifts. I did 10 reps @ TM for the power clean/snatch and tried to reduce the amount of sets it took to reach that number each week recently.
For the bodyweight work, maybe it’d be useful to use a set time approach. Like, how many dips/chins/etc. in 10 minutes. Bust your ass and set a baseline, now you’ve got a goal to beat. Gives you a lot of flexibility on how to approach your reps, but some serious work will be getting done.
You crazy bastard! (And I mean that in an endearing way)
Congrats on the first step! It sounds like you’ve got the personal connections and the resume to get hired. Your resume alone would be enough for me. We need people with real life stress experience.
Follow the leader you like but don’t run the anchor. I don’t like pushing reps on cleans or snatches (although I rarely do them). There’s no grinding out reps on skilled movements. CF might do it, but they’re doing sets of 20-30, not 5. It’s okay to run bits and pieces of a program. Look at my stuff.
In regards to bodyweight stuff, I’ve had the best luck with AMRAP on push ups and picking sets and reps for pull ups. For example, I tried to 4x10 pull ups with 60 sec rest. I’d get 3x10 and then like 6 or 7. I would just do rest/pause int until I hit 10 reps for that set.
I think I’ve also tried a hit a certain number of reps in as few sets as possible.
I’m gonna be following this like a hawk because I think this is gonna reflect my goals in the next couple years. With Leviathan and Jokers, I took Jim’s sentiment toward Jokers as “you shouldn’t do them unless you know you won’t be a fucktard”, not so much “nobody should do them”. I still do them and have found them to be a really valuable part of my last few cycles. Never missed a rep or even had a grinder. I think that should be your goal with the Oly lifts.
The BW work idea is great and I’ll be stealing that for my next cycle. I want to get better at BW moves and I think you have the right idea here.
Quote function is being a little bitch so I’m gonna have to tag-reply to you guys.
@TX_iron I’ve never found benefit, personally, from blasting out high reps on them. The full lifts are so technical that I get fried before I’m well and truly done. I understand CF likes to use high rep Olympic lifts, but that’s part of their sport and 1) I’m not a CFer, and 2) I disagree with their approach to it. Power or hang variations, I can probably get behind, but not the full lift.
@mr.v3lv3t Trying to hit X reps at my TM is another idea I was toying with. I’ll think about that too. You’re probably right about the timed set method also; I was doing that before and it was working well.
@Frank_C Thanks, man! I’m excited for it. There was a time where I was 100% against being a cop, but strangely enough once I moved and saw how much my new home needs good cops, I came to the realization that it was how I could be best used to serve my community.
Hitting a certain number of reps in as few sets as possible is another great approach. Maybe I’ll alternate timed sets and that approach.
@garagerocker13 Appreciate it! I used to be so good as BW movements when I trained martial arts regularly, but almost abandoned them once I got into barbells. It’s unfortunate because part of my personal philosophy is having a certain degree of BW mastery, which I’ve lost a lot of.
Congrats on the new career choice, somehow I missed that. Glad you decided to take action to fix something you saw that was wrong with where you live. Best of luck to ya - I know the world we’re in isn’t the easiest place to be an officer, but I hope you’re able to improve that on both sides by kicking ass at your job and making the community better
Fair enough. So admittedly I don’t know Leviathan, but aren’t anchor cycles where jokers would fit in the system?
Another idea would be to run a cycle or two of the beach body template, but replacing:
Press - Bench (TM for reps, 50fsl, 3s pro)
Deadlift - clean & jerk (3s pro)
Hang clean - hang Snatch (TM for reps, 2 x amrap)
Squat - clean & press (same as Bench)
So hear me out. Instead of going for a Wendler PR, you could go for a Waterbury PR - stop the set once your current rep is slower than the previous one.
Huge asterisk - I’ve never done this, but it seems like it would work in theory. I’ve run it similarly as a competition prep cycle, replacing press with push press, squats with front squats, and hang Clean with sandbag to shoulder.
I like this and might try it. I’m planning to run Advanced 5/3/1 next and week 1 is 5s @ 65, 75, 85. Week 2 is 3s at the usual weights and week 3 is singles. No PR sets. I don’t like the idea of 5s on power cleans.
On that note, I’ve actually been hitting a certain number of reps any way I can. I’ll shoot for 6-10 total and do whatever is necessary to get there. Less sets is better but I don’t push it too hard (4,3,3 or 3,3,2,2 or 5x2, etc). Slow, ugly reps don’t work towards my goal for that lift.
Oh nice, advanced 531 has always been an Apple in the eye. I actually don’t love high rep cleans either, but they are just part of the game in strongman.
That total reps thing is very waterburyesque of you lol.
3s pro is a nice compromise - to much past that and it becomes easy to just focus on getting through the set, versus getting in quality reps.
Leviathan is basically working up to your TM for a single every week, with some back off sets that you choose depending on how you feel. I could theoretically replace the PR sets with Jokers for the Olympic lifts as long as I play it safe. My decision to use it was based on the fact that, for the barbell lifts I chose, my goal in solely increasing my 1RM on them.
The Beachbody modifications you outlined are another great idea. I’ll have to look that over too. Thanks!
This workout should have been a disaster, and here’s why: A couple weeks ago, I drank way too much and became violently ill. My body has this great little habit of getting me to the point of being buzzed, but never drunk, then suddenly realizing that I never drink and that what I’m ingesting is bad and decides to expel it. I spend a good while vomiting up everything I ate/drank that night, and the next morning, and into the afternoon, even though there was literally nothing left in my stomach. My appetite that week was destroyed, and it unfortunately carried into this past week. Combined with an absolute HELLISH work week, this meant when I got home I had almost no energy to finish my dinner. On top of that, I’ve been sleep deprived like crazy. Yet somehow…
I absolutely crushed this workout. I don’t understand it. I had to triple check that I was using the right percentages on the bench because it felt so unbelievably easy. The walking lunge & carry combo that killed me last week? It was a piece of cake. Maybe some type of weird supercompensation thing happened last week on the days I wasn’t working out? I don’t know.
However, I do need to get my diet figured out. Proteins, fats, fruits, veggies, dairy, etc are all fine right now, but the struggle has been carbs like rice and oatmeal. I’ve never had any issues with them in the past, but now the second they hit my stomach my appetite vanishes. I’m gonna try cutting them out for a while and see how I feel. Dense bread still seems okay, so maybe I’ll throw some of that in around workouts.
Good training session overall. Things have been going smoothly lately.
Tried not eating any carbs so far today and last night and it’s been okay; only had meats, legumes, fruits/veggies and dairy, and aside from feeling a little hungrier than normal, my energy levels are all right.
