Lava2007 Training Log

Training Training Logs
761

5 October 2018 - Bench + OHP Bodyweight: 217.0lbs

Warmup: soft tissue + band walks

Bench 10x3 240lbs (60sec)
Barbell Rows 185x10, 205x10 (Double Overhand), 135x10, 185x10 (Double Under)
Military Press 3x3 155lbs (45sec)
Pullups 3x8, Chin ups 2x8 (60sec)
DB Bench 30x10, 65x32 (PR)
Hanging Leg Raises 1x10,8,6 (90sec)
Decline Sit Ups 3x10 (60sec)
0.60 miles ~3.5 min, 0.10 mile cooldown

Notes
Bench was solid. Not too easy, not impossible. I never thought “I should increase the weight,” but I also never considered getting a spotter. Didn’t even cross my mind. 240lbs (45sec) next time.

Barbell rows are a lot of fun. Pull-ups and chin-ups are a lot of fun also. I can feel them working my grip strength and my biceps, and I have a back pump when I’m done. I wish I had started doing back work sooner!!

I got a stupid PR on DB bench. I thought since my AMRAP was going to be towards the end of my workout that I needed to go with some lighter weight–apparently not the case. I banged out 32 reps in what felt like 20-25 seconds. It was awesome, but now my anterior delts are incredibly sore… at least now I know to go 75+ on DB bench from now on.

Hanging leg raises no longer hurt my lower back/SI joint, which is phenomenal. They’re fun, and they challenge my grip as much (possibly more) than they challenge my abs.

I got my new scale shipped to my house today. Same brand as the one I was using last week while dog sitting, although this one seems to be a little heavy (or the other one is a little light). I had a burger and fries last night, so a lot of carbs and salt. I also weighed myself after drinking ~32oz water and eating 4 eggs, 3 pieces of bacon, and a muffin (also hadn’t taken a dump yet). So 217.0lbs may not be the most accurate weight, but I stepped on it with my pajamas and slippers on and I was 220.0lbs. I didn’t think I would see that number come up on a scale for months… The whole ordeal is honestly a little disheartening, since the scale said 212.0lbs a few days ago (maybe that was more than a week ago at this point… time to move on??).

Anyway, pretty good week. Got a 91% and 80% on my lecture and lab exams for anatomy, respectively. That brings my grade up to a mid-B now. I’m also talking on and off with 3 different girls, feeling them out at this point. I went down into a full squat in gym shoes today with no pain in my back or hips. Point is that things are starting to look up for me, a little bit. I’m a happy guy right now.

Work tomorrow night all night, I’ll probably get into the gym on Sunday and just do core and run. The nasty essentials. I didn’t smoke/vape today and the difference on the treadmill was immediately noticeable. I don’t know if it was placebo or what, but 0.60 miles at 9.5mph felt SUPER easy. I’m glad I quit Juul for good.

I hope you all have a good weekend. Get some good workouts in, drink some beer, and catch up on your sleep. That’s what Saturdays and Sundays are for!! Peace out y’all

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762

Great read Lava, everything moving the right direction.

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763

Took my measurements again today. Here are the old ones compared to the new ones. Measurements in parentheses are flexed measurements.

6’2" 211.0-215.4lbs (lowest I’ve been in the last week compared to what I was at as of 20 minutes ago).
Left Arm: 14.75in (16in)
Right Arm: 14.5in (15.75in)
Waist: 37in (36in)
Chest: 43.5in (43.5in)
Left Thigh: 25in (25.5in)
Right Thigh: 25in (25.5in)
Hips (Ass): 42in (41in)

According to the numbers, my legs, arms, and waist have all grown in the last month or so which I’m not really buying. I don’t know. My mom knows how to take measurements, but she kept saying “I don’t know if this is accurate” and then telling me a number, so I may re-measure later to figure it out myself.

I was surprised that I had grown at all, ESPECIALLY around my waist. I’ve been doing more core and cardio and I genuinely believe that I look leaner than I did a month ago. That’s not to say that I look lean, because I don’t really, but definitely more so than I did last month.

I need to get back on the diet and ride it hard for 4-6 more weeks before I can change my lifting goals. I’m so damn busy all the time that it’s hard to find 3-4 straight hours where I can just go to the store and then come home and prep all my shit in the kitchen. I’m lifting tomorrow but my plan for right after school is to go to the grocery store and get my chicken and greek yogurt.

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764

8 October 2018 - Squats Bodyweight: 214.6lbs
Back Squat 45x10, 135x8, 185x5, 225x5, 275x5, 315x3, 335x3, 365x3, 295x3 (90sec)
Front Squat + OHP SS 5x3 135lbs (60sec)
Front Squat 5x3 225lbs (90sec)
Side Planks 3x45sec each side
Leg Raise Circles 3x10 each direction
0.50 mile run - 3:10 … 0.10 mile cooldown ~2.5 min

Notes
I said it last time, but not smoking has had a profound effect on the amount of effort required to run fast for a long time. I knew my respiratory/cardiovascular endurance would get better, but this has been completely immediate, and much better than I had anticipated it would’ve been, even over the course of a year. I think I’ll do a mile run test soon. I think I can get below 7 minutes, but I’d like to get as close to 6 minutes as possible. My best mile time ever was 6min 31sec when I was in 8th grade (14 years old, 140lbs). My best (and only) 5K time was ~22 minutes when I was a senior in high school during football season. I was playing every offensive and defensive snap of every game so I was definitely in the best shape of my life. I wanted to run a mile and time myself but it completely slipped my mind until like 2 months later and all my conditioning was gone.

I’ve also been on creatine for about 1.5 weeks now, so I don’t expect my weight to drop very much/very quickly, since I’ll be adding water weight for a while.

Tomorrow is probably a bench day but it might just be a recovery day, aka upper back and core. Injury prevention day. If it is bench, I think I’m going to restart the cycle and go back and do 225lbs with 30sec of rest between sets, alternating close grip and regular grip. I might go heavy on bench for a session for fun like I did today with squats, depends if I have a spotter or not. It’d be nice to hit 275-295 for a triple.

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765

Are you only running the 10 x 3 program on bench? It seems like I always see that workout but I see 5 x 3 on OHP and you’re doing progressive weights on squats.

I kind of forgot the 10 x 3 program so I need to read it again. I could do the strength version. I’m ready for a change.

766

I’m basing a majority of my workouts off of the 10x3 for fat loss, although I’ll be the first to admit that I’m being horribly inconsistent with it. I’m used to 5/3/1 where you do one main lift and then freelance for the rest of the session, so in that regard, my discipline is not good.

I’m using OHP as an assistance exercise more than anything. I like to throw it in when my upper body is feeling strong, but not strong enough to bench. More for mobility and shoulder health/balance than anything else.

I’m not deadlifting for 2 reasons.

  1. I don’t want to stress my spine more than I have to while my nerves are repairing themselves. (I’m also alternating between a single leg squat variation and back squats for each leg day for this reason.)

  2. I’m still at the point where specificity is–to a degree–optional. I don’t need to deadlift to increase my deadlift with where I’m at right now. I didn’t deadlift for about 2 months, but then I pulled a 20lb PR my first time back to deadlifts, because I had been squatting. I won’t lose much (if anything) off my deadlift as long as I continue to squat and do core.

TL;DR, no, I’m not only doing it for bench. I’m doing it for squats, too. The reason it’s harder to tell is because I’m alternating between a single leg variation and back squats for each leg session. The reason I didn’t do it for squats today is because I wanted to see (purely out of curiosity, nothing else) where my squat was at. 365x3 (2-3 RIR) made me happy, so next time I barbell squat, I will be back to the 10x3.

Part of the program is to progress the weights. Start at 75%, and progress 2% every 2-3 weeks. The other part of it is to reduce the rest intervals for each weight. The program calls for reducing the rest by 5 seconds each session until you reach 45sec, then increase the weight by 2% on the 4th session. To me, increasing the weight once a month is too slow. I don’t want to spend 3-4 sessions at the same weight when I know I can do more with no problems. I also don’t want to waste my time doing an entire 10x3 with the only difference being 5 less seconds of rest.

At the end of the day, my training is my training, and I usually end up doing what seems right at the time. I believe that I’m adhering closely to the principles that Waterbury lays out in his article that he describes 10x3 for fat loss in, the only difference is that I’m progressing faster and then resetting at the end of the month. Obviously I won’t be able to increase bench by 5lbs every week forever, so once I get to 245lbs @ 45sec, I’m going to reset to 215-225 and go for even lower rest intervals (20-30sec). It’ll be a good challenge and it should get me into pretty good weightlifting shape.

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767

How’s the diet going?

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768

I’ve been off creatinine for 2 or so months and I honestly can’t tell a difference. I took it religiously for over a year. It may have helped earlier but not sure it would help me now…

The only supplements I take now are: protein powder, zma at night, occasionally fish oils. I do take bcaas during workouts (probably just a placebo).

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769

I looked at both 10 x 3 articles last night. The strength version says to pick an exercise for that approach and do 5 x 5 or 10 x 3 on the test of the workout. The fat loss version has you do it on all exercises.

I think I just saw you doing more 5/3/1 progressions on a couple days (like squats yesterday).

The 10 x 3 is intriguing but if I do five exercises per workout and rest for 1 minute between sets then that could get long. But then again, I did four exercises yesterday and it took 75 minutes.

The studies showing that creatine is beneficial used repeat bouts of anaerobic work to failure. I think the key is the intensity. When you go to failure and you feel the burn (and lactate builds up) then you’ve burned through your phosphocreatine energy system. The creatine supplement helps you recover from this during your rest. If you’re not depleting that energy system then I don’t think you’ll notice.

In terms of your training, Hog, I think you’d notice a difference on something like 3 x 10 on bench with a 10 rep max. This is all theory but you might be able to hit 10, 8, 5 without creatine. If you did the same workout after loading up on creatine then perhaps you’d hit 10, 9, 9.

The funny thing about it (now that I think about it) is that muscle fatigue helps with hypertrophy regardless of the reps used to get there. I wonder if it even matters that you hit failure at 9 reps vs 5. Failure is failure.

I recently bought a product that’s supposed to give me a pump when training. I haven’t noticed a damn thing. After my second or third use it occurred to me that I’m doing 5/4/3/2/1 reps. Those aren’t pump reps. My training style might be the reason the product isn’t delivering the desired effect. I’ll try it again when I change my training style.

My point is that your training style might not benefit from creatine at this point. But someone like @anon96032531 or @kleinhound who is destroying themselves on just about every set might notice a difference.

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770

I’ve stopped taking creatine and my weights dropped back to 82kg. It didn’t really do anything for me so i dropped it. I never do high rep sets though lol apart from arm work.

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771

Creatine makes me hold water weight, combined with AAKG then I just blow up after anything over 15 reps, but I need to train high volume to reap any rewards from it

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772

Stalling a bit. It’s been a hectic schedule lately moving from house to house and not being home very often but I’m back on it now. Going to be back to 2,540 calories with ~220g protein and ~85g fat.

I used to take it a lot too. I’m doing it again because it’s so cheap and there are no risks associated with it as long as you take a proper sized dose.

Studies have shown that bcaas have a minimally positive effect. In some cases, bcaas were reported to have negative effects on trainees. I’ll see if I can find an article about it tomorrow and I’ll post the link. I took them for a while too (probably 2 months) and I thought I was recovering more quickly, but I think it had more to do with the fact that I was consistently eating 3k+ calories every day for the first time in my life.

I like to switch it up to keep myself from getting bored. When I know I’m not making strength gains, it’s hard to stick to the program. Like when I was on 5/3/1, it was super easy to do exactly what was prescribed because I knew it was making me strong as hell. Now that my hip flexors and spinal cord decided that they don’t want to function properly and I can’t safely train for strength, it makes everything much harder. Mentally and physically. But the 10x3 workouts are some of the quickest ones I’ve ever done. I’m in the gym for a maximum of maybe an hour. I usually just pick 3-4 assistance exercises for random sets and reps (I try to switch up the set/rep schemes every session) and limit my rest to 90 seconds. I’m easily in the best lifting shape I’ve been in, ever. Hopefully that serves me well when I switch to a hypertrophy phase.

Sorry if this is a dumb question, but what is AAKG?

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773

9 October 2018 Bodyweight: 214.4lbs

Warmup: side planks + stretches + arm circles

TnG Bench 5x3 245lbs (60sec)
Barbell Rows 3x10 135lbs (30sec)
DB Bench 40x10, 60x8, 80x25 (PR)
Pullups 3x5 (30sec)

Notes
Deload-ish day today. I recorded myself doing DB bench today and I found out why I’m able to get so many reps now. It’s because I’m not locking out at the top. I’m getting 75-85% of the way finished with the rep, and then coming back down. So, take all these PRs with a grain of salt. But I’m not going to change the way I’m doing it–my weak point in bench is the bottom off the chest. The lockout is the easy part. I need more work when the weight is down next to me or on top of me.

Took it easy on the back work because I’ve been doing back work at a personal all-time high pace over the last month or two, and like I said, it’s a deload-esque workout today.

I haven’t decided exactly what I’m going to do yet moving forward. I’d like to do one more session of 10x3 squats with 60sec of rest. I might change up my program for fun, I might not. I’m meal prepping after class tomorrow, so the diet starts for real tomorrow. I’ve been careful not to eat too much shit and sabotage myself, but starting tomorrow I expect to start feeling good again. I felt fantastic after eating record amounts of chicken and vegetables for a week, which is the complete opposite of what I expected.

Also: I squatted down (barefoot) today with no pain. How did I do it? I pointed my toes straight in front of me. I always thought it was better to flare the toes out 30-45 degrees, but no. Straight forward let me go down pretty near full depth and be pain-free, so I’m going to try that on Thursday, which is my next squat day. I know it’s supposed to be my single leg variation day, but I want to try it. I can do single leg squats afterwards.

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774

Argenine
Just an amino acid
It has many positive effects on the body that enhances a good diet, but it’s also a pump intensifier which when used with creatine, binds to your muscle receptors and prolongs and increase the effects of a pump

Not a huge fan of gimmicky supps, but personally for me it works
A usual pump will last 30 mins to an hour, when I have AAKG and creatine, it will last up to 4 hours, and makes me more vascular then normal for a day or so

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775

I must be weird. I see people talk about keeping their rest short and then they say it was <2 min. My standard rest between sets is 60 seconds and “long” rest is 90-120 sec. My body is very accustomed to the 1 minute rest and I find that my heart rate recovers in a minute or less regardless of what I’m doing. And I consider a recovered HR to be under 120bpm.

I started sticking to the 1 min rest approach after going to an NSCA conference. Someone’s presentation reminded me that the best way to boost testosterone was with 3 sets of 10 reps with 60 sec rest. HGH is also boosted by this type of training.

Hope this works out for you.

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776

Oh, okay. I never knew that creatine and arginine could work together like that. Once I get into higher rep stuff I might supplement with some AAKG then. Thanks man

I don’t think weird is the right word. I think most people are just lazy (myself included). I used to think “I’m here to lift, not time how long I’m not lifting.” There have been studies conducted that concluded that when training for maximal strength, longer rest intervals do make a difference. I think 4-5 minutes is sufficient. I read once that resting as long as 9 minutes could be beneficial, so I tried it. My next set was horrible because my legs had gotten cold. 4-5min is generally what I went with last year when I was making crazy beginner gains and all about the bulk. It worked out pretty well, but since I did that for so long, anything less than a minute now feels almost as if I didn’t rest at all.

I’m not going to pick a side on it because I’ve done it both ways (long rest and short rest) and both have been enjoyable for me. It really depends on your goals. So when you say you doubled your rest on a hard day, you might want to consider possibly even tripling it. It could help you out. Just a thought

Thanks dude. I’m nervous as hell but I’m going to try it out in about 16 hours. My legs feel great, my back feels normal (which is probably an 8/10). My nerve pain has been pretty minimal all week. I’m going to make an appointment with a PT tomorrow at school between classes. I know I just need to continue doing glute/abductor/adductor work for my hip flexor to get better, but I need professional help for my nerve pain. It comes and goes, and it’s never been legitimately debilitating. It would be great to have it gone completely for 2 reasons: First, I’d like to not have to worry about it flaring up. I want to be able to go 100% balls out in the gym again. And secondly, I want my confidence back, because it sucks absolute ass when I can’t do what I want in the gym because I’m worried I’m going to hurt myself more. I’m so done with it. I don’t care if it takes 2 years to get better, I just want it gone at some point.

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777

I hear ya there. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to go 100% the way that I want again.

In regards to rest intervals…

Hypertrophy: 60-90 sec
Strength: 1-3 min
Power: 3-5 minutes

Those are the text book answers.

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778

11 October 2018 - Squat Bodyweight: 214.2lbs

Warmup: Side planks, band walks, band clams

Back Squat 5x3 315lbs (90sec)
Good Mornings 2x20 135lbs

Notes
Wasn’t feeling it on Thursday. Thursdays are long days for me.

12 October 2018 - Bench Bodyweight: 213.8lbs

Cardio test: 0.70 miles in 4min 27sec. I was on pace (at that rate) to run 1.00 miles in 6min 21sec. Would’ve been an all-time PR.

–Drive Home–

Bench 45x10, 95x10, 135x10, 185x8, 225x11, 185x16, 135x27, 135x20, 135x13, 95x35
Random biceps and triceps and rows

Notes
I had the craziest chest pump of my life on Friday. Just an astounding pump. I set myself up pretty well by getting loaded on creatine, going to failure, after doing 10x3 for a while.

Solid weekend. Drank with the boys on Friday, worked all day Saturday, went to a bar today with some old high school coaches and got my ID turned down even though I’m 21.

I think the trick for me to stay healthy is just side planks and band clams. I switched my warmup around and shortly thereafter I experienced pain again, so I think those two exercises need to stay in my routine at all times.

That being said, I’m a little bored of the 10x3 now. I’ll try to stick with it, because the diet just started again. It didn’t take long for me to notice changes last time, so I think if I’m able to stay with it for long enough then I’l be good to go. my back and nerve pain is minimal as ever right now, so I’m really tempted to train for strength but I know I should give it some more time. Damn.

Squats tomorrow. I might start going beltless.

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779

You can still improve your strength by getting a bunch of volume at 80%. Decrease your rest times between sets like @MarkKO.

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780

Hell yeah so glad to see you getting healthy

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