Lo/Rez Training

Well, really, I’m trying to get things to be pretty simple and measurable.

For right now (well, after this blitz thing is over):

Monday through Friday, Squat. Work to a max for the day. Then some work sets at 70%+.

In the end it’ll look probably something like this:

M: back squat, overhead
T: front squat, bench
W: back squat, overhead
R: front squat, bench
F: back squat, overhead
S: deadlift, bench
Sun: off

But work up to that over a few months. Add in a lift, see how I handle it, adjust. Then add another lift. Etc.

Same scheme though: ramp triples, and when I can only do 2 good reps, doubles, and when I can only do 1, do singles.
And then volume at 70%+.

Might be too much, might not.

I want to be able to track my daily 1RMs for overall progress. And I want to be able to track volume of work sets and how well those increase the max (or don’t). I’d like to be able to measure if more work at 80-90% increases my max better than 90%+, or whatever.

I just had a lot of thoughts bouncing around in my head. It’s much nicer to have them finally out of there. It took me awhile to make sense of it all though, between what I’d been doing, what I’d been reading, what I was/wasn’t happy about what I’d been doing, etc.

Nice work. I made a decent physique change last year and it was on a modified version (I dont have pins) of layers system.chobbs used some of my mods in his training. It taught me the conditioning aspect (allot of work w. Little rest). Tho I didnt have any per workout stuff. This is literally when I at least got on whey .lol.

  • does olympic squatting build or maintain the deadlift? I was under the assumption lowbar did…unsure of olympic?
  • maybe snatchgrip dead one week/reg. Dead the next. Would still be working deads each week and your form on snatchgrip.
    -i was shocked at how much sghp worked my upper back and believe this led to some of the physique change. Could never really do allot of weight (my cleans are weak too) so I just hit tons of volume.

Interesting ideas, I like the idea of all this.

[quote]LoRez wrote:

In the end it’ll look probably something like this:

M: back squat, overhead
T: front squat, bench
W: back squat, overhead
R: front squat, bench
F: back squat, overhead
S: deadlift, bench
Sun: off
[/quote]

Are you going to do any upper back work?

I dont read all of your posts so im not going to get too specific but jesus christ dude stop thinking so so so fucking much.

Stop eating like an asshole. You can pretend that a gallon of milk and lb of beef is helping or you can start actually eating. Like 8 oz of fish/chicken/ and 2 cups of rice and veggies 3x a day and 2 big shakes a day… The way youre ating is just a way to get sloppy IMO and youre not even gaining too much weight on it.

Training wise why do you train lifts so often every week? How many of the strongest guys train that way… barring the russians ( you are not a russian genetic freak under supervision) almost everyone realizes that is too much to recover from.

Take this as my opinion or whatever but you dont need to train that oftent o make gains, you need to train with 200% intensity and emphasize recovering between your next sesion

[quote]PlainPat wrote:
I dont read all of your posts so im not going to get too specific but jesus christ dude stop thinking so so so fucking much.

Stop eating like an asshole. You can pretend that a gallon of milk and lb of beef is helping or you can start actually eating. Like 8 oz of fish/chicken/ and 2 cups of rice and veggies 3x a day and 2 big shakes a day… The way youre ating is just a way to get sloppy IMO and youre not even gaining too much weight on it.

Training wise why do you train lifts so often every week? How many of the strongest guys train that way… barring the russians ( you are not a russian genetic freak under supervision) almost everyone realizes that is too much to recover from.

Take this as my opinion or whatever but you dont need to train that oftent o make gains, you need to train with 200% intensity and emphasize recovering between your next sesion[/quote]

+1 on this. Also, please add some upper back work if you don’t have any on that program.

Let me preface this by saying I appreciate that you care enough to say something.

That being said, there’s a reason why I’m doing things this way. I’m training this frequently because if I don’t, I’ll stop training. If I miss one day, one day will turn into three days, will turn into a week, into a month, etc. This is the ONLY way I’ve found to keep myself training regularly and consistently. If you ask just about anyone, it’s not ideal, I realize that. But it’s the only thing that works for me.

Likewise, if I don’t keep myself actively thinking about this, I’ll think about something else, put my focus there, and quite frankly forget about training. So I keep myself thinking about this. Does that mean I overthink things way way way beyond anything reasonable? Yeah. It also means I’ve been able to keep training.

However, if you actually look through my log, you’ll see that for as much rambling thoughts I have, my actual training has been consistent, the lifts have been consistent, the training methodology has been consistent. That, believe it or not, is a huge step for me. I can barely do that anywhere else in my life.

Clinically, these are textbook Adult ADHD symptoms. Yes, I’ve been diagnosed, yes, it’s a real psychiatric issue, and no, I haven’t been responsive to any treatment. So I find ways to live with it.

Given that… I’m not starting from a “what’s ideal”, I’m starting from a “I need something simple enough that I can do it every day but still make progress”. That’s where training every day, and borrowing ideas from Olympic weightlifters has fit in well.

The most rapid progress I’ve ever made on my squat 1RM, my mobility and flexibility, and my leg size has been in the past couple weeks. Moreso than 5x5 or 20-rep squats ever did. Again, is this ideal? I don’t know. But it’s working for me.

And It works for Nick Horton’s gyms (unassisted). It worked for Broz’ gym (some/all were assisted). It worked for the American weightlifting team back when we were winning golds at the Olympics and before drugs really came onto the scene. It worked for the Bulgarians after drugs came on the scene. I’m not sure what we think we know about recovery is actually right.

Likewise, is drinking roughly a gallon of milk a day a good or ideal thing? Probably not. But that’s been the ONLY way I’ve been able to get down enough calories to keep my weight from not going down. I have constant sinus drainage and nausea, and after 4 surgeries/procedures to address those, as well as several trials of medications, nothing has worked to make those things go away. So I learn to work around it, and drinking high volumes of milk helps. If I had a normal appetite, and didn’t wake up coughing and feeling like throwing up every single morning, it might be a different story. But that’s my burden.

So that’s where I’m coming from. If you have solutions that work for my unique circumstances, I’m all ears.

Also, I do bodyweight facepulls everyday with a rope attached to my bedroom door. Regarding the upperback work I mean.

May 2013, my bodyweight was 135-137. Currently, my bodyweight is 150-153. 15lbs+ in about 9 months. This is with milk, eggs, beef.

If you compare pictures from then to now, my bodyfat hasn’t changed too much, so there’s that. Not particularly sloppy.

Mostly though, my weight gain stalled at 150, and I’m trying to get it moving again. And it’s started moving.

Im not gonna argue with you. You are not john broz or a bulgarian weightlifter. Those methods DO NOT work in conjunction with squat bench dead they were designed for olympic lifts FOR A REASON. Some people get it to work decent for them, but I dont know any top american powerlifter doing it on their own that has it work for them.

And I dont know if you think its an excuse with all of your reasons and what not but if you cant figure out how to make it work and do it the right way, ie not just drinking milk cause you cant force yourself to eat right and not lieing to yourself about recovery saying that training 6x a week is optimal for someone trying to get strong, then youre not going to make it in strength sports because like every other area of life where people are successful, the best don’t make excuses they do what they have to

[quote]LoRez wrote:
Also, I do bodyweight facepulls everyday with a rope attached to my bedroom door. Regarding the upperback work I mean.[/quote]

I’m not going to comment on the other stuff, because in my opinion if something is working then stick with it.

However, I will say that I’d highly highly recommend adding direct upper back work. And by that I mean proper compound vertical and horizontal pulling, not just face-pulls.

I can’t emphasise this enough - when I started training I did the typical bro-thing of tonnes of benching and the occasional lat pulldown and after a couple of years I ended up with a shoulder injury and I had to take two months off all upper body work. My physio told me that the issue was due to severely imbalanced shoulder girdle musculature and sure enough, after prioritising training the dumbbell row for a full year, my issues all but disappeared.

I think there are really very very few fundamentals to getting big and strong, but balancing your movements is definitely one of them.

Hey Lorez, wanted to thank you, somthing you said sunk home with me, about switching gears from size to strength training, and I’ve been stressing so fucking much about my squat being stuck for 3mths, mean while I’ve put on 15lbs of weight over those 3mths. One of those things where I was fixating on what wasn’t working, instead of focusing on what was actually working, so my streangth has stagnated, but I’m putting muscle on, in all the places I need, and in the begining that was one of my main goals.

I just got overly focused on the fact that one lift stalled, today I thought fuck it, I’ll just keep training, and enjoying progress. I have a feeling if I just keep focused on whats working, and putting on size, the squat will end up taking care of it’s self, and I’m having fun in the mean time !

As far as back work, it’s confusing calling those TRX pulls, face pulls. They’re so much more than that, and as long as your getting lots of volume on those, along with some deads, and chins atleast once a week, thats all I did for the longest time. They’re not really face pulls, your engaging your whole upper back, including lats, traps, and rear delts, plus core and what not.

They’re almost more of an inverted row, where you start by pulling them to your face when your fresh, then ( atleast in my case) let my elbow’s drift down, so I can extend the set. this cover’s your whoile back top to bottom. My back’s one of my better body parts, those have been my main back move for years. I think TRx row, or inverted row, kind of sums them up better. Anyway thanks, and PRs

[quote]PlainPat wrote:
Im not gonna argue with you. You are not john broz or a bulgarian weightlifter. Those methods DO NOT work in conjunction with squat bench dead they were designed for olympic lifts FOR A REASON. Some people get it to work decent for them, but I dont know any top american powerlifter doing it on their own that has it work for them.

And I dont know if you think its an excuse with all of your reasons and what not but if you cant figure out how to make it work and do it the right way, ie not just drinking milk cause you cant force yourself to eat right and not lieing to yourself about recovery saying that training 6x a week is optimal for someone trying to get strong, then youre not going to make it in strength sports because like every other area of life where people are successful, the best don’t make excuses they do what they have to
[/quote]

I get where you’re coming from. I’m not going to say you’re wrong. I’m not going to say you’re right either.

Well, this part is absolutely right: “like every other area of life where people are successful, the best don’t make excuses they do what they have to”

How about this.

I looked at your log. If I figured things right, from your gym meet in Dec 2012 to your actual meet in Dec 2013 you did this:

Squat 275 → 410 (135 lbs)
Bench 195 → 240 (45 lbs)
Dead 365 → 500 (135 lbs)

My maxes as of the beginning of February were:

Squat 235
Bench 170
Dead 305

If I don’t add 135lbs to my squat and dead, and 45 to my bench by the beginning of next February, you can tell me my methods don’t work.

So, by Feb 2015:
Squat 370
Bench 215
Dead 440

I think that’s pretty fair.

[quote]AnytimeJake wrote:

As far as back work, it’s confusing calling those TRX pulls, face pulls. They’re so much more than that, and as long as your getting lots of volume on those, along with some deads, and chins atleast once a week, thats all I did for the longest time. They’re not really face pulls, your engaging your whole upper back, including lats, traps, and rear delts, plus core and what not.

They’re almost more of an inverted row, where you start by pulling them to your face when your fresh, then ( atleast in my case) let my elbow’s drift down, so I can extend the set. this cover’s your whoile back top to bottom. My back’s one of my better body parts, those have been my main back move for years. I think TRx row, or inverted row, kind of sums them up better. Anyway thanks, and PRs[/quote]

I think Jake has a good point here, as does Furo. I’ve taken CT’s advice, and train my pressing like a PL’er, but back movements like a BB’er. I don’t just try to add weight to back exercises, but get a good stretch, hold contractions, make the movements ‘harder’ for me and increase time under tension and volume. Jake’s idea of letting his elbows drop as sets progress are basically like a mechanical drop set, which allows a good deal of volume. I use to have a shit load of issues like Furo, and just like him once i put an emphasis on all that stuff it helped a ton. Plus, my back started to actually look wayyyyy better with that. I would definitely add more upper back work in if you can, but I think you can do them in style that won’t effect recovery easily.

[quote]Spidey22 wrote:

[quote]AnytimeJake wrote:

As far as back work, it’s confusing calling those TRX pulls, face pulls. They’re so much more than that, and as long as your getting lots of volume on those, along with some deads, and chins atleast once a week, thats all I did for the longest time. They’re not really face pulls, your engaging your whole upper back, including lats, traps, and rear delts, plus core and what not.

They’re almost more of an inverted row, where you start by pulling them to your face when your fresh, then ( atleast in my case) let my elbow’s drift down, so I can extend the set. this cover’s your whoile back top to bottom. My back’s one of my better body parts, those have been my main back move for years. I think TRx row, or inverted row, kind of sums them up better. Anyway thanks, and PRs[/quote]

I think Jake has a good point here, as does Furo. I’ve taken CT’s advice, and train my pressing like a PL’er, but back movements like a BB’er. I don’t just try to add weight to back exercises, but get a good stretch, hold contractions, make the movements ‘harder’ for me and increase time under tension and volume. Jake’s idea of letting his elbows drop as sets progress are basically like a mechanical drop set, which allows a good deal of volume. I use to have a shit load of issues like Furo, and just like him once i put an emphasis on all that stuff it helped a ton. Plus, my back started to actually look wayyyyy better with that. I would definitely add more upper back work in if you can, but I think you can do them in style that won’t effect recovery easily. [/quote]

Yeah that’s actually exactly what I’ve been doing, and (unsurprisingly), my existing shoulder pain has improved significantly.

Just been doing sets of 20… the TRX-like movement start out as face pulls, but become more and more like standard inverted rows as they went on.

I was also doing Snatch Grip High Pulls every other day, which built my upper back like nothing else I’ve ever seen.

But since I have pre-existing shoulder issues, definitely. Thanks.

By lengthing the rope, on these TRX rows, (where you jamb your feet into the corner of wall meets, floor), resistance is almost limit-less. I’ve been doing these forever with a 4ft tow strap, stets of 20 no problem, but I found a set of handle’s that can atacth to the ends of the tow strap, and lengthen it by 5 inches a side. Now I can barely get 10 reps, and it will be a while before I’m back pulling them directly to my face. I can’t believe how much harder they became just by adding 10 inches to the over all length of my strap.

I might be biased, but I think everyone should be doing these, every day if possible, amazing exercise for posture, and shoulder stability, and upper back mass as well. Good time’s later

[quote]LoRez wrote:

[quote]PlainPat wrote:
Im not gonna argue with you. You are not john broz or a bulgarian weightlifter. Those methods DO NOT work in conjunction with squat bench dead they were designed for olympic lifts FOR A REASON. Some people get it to work decent for them, but I dont know any top american powerlifter doing it on their own that has it work for them.

And I dont know if you think its an excuse with all of your reasons and what not but if you cant figure out how to make it work and do it the right way, ie not just drinking milk cause you cant force yourself to eat right and not lieing to yourself about recovery saying that training 6x a week is optimal for someone trying to get strong, then youre not going to make it in strength sports because like every other area of life where people are successful, the best don’t make excuses they do what they have to
[/quote]

I get where you’re coming from. I’m not going to say you’re wrong. I’m not going to say you’re right either.

Well, this part is absolutely right: “like every other area of life where people are successful, the best don’t make excuses they do what they have to”

How about this.

I looked at your log. If I figured things right, from your gym meet in Dec 2012 to your actual meet in Dec 2013 you did this:

Squat 275 → 410 (135 lbs)
Bench 195 → 240 (45 lbs)
Dead 365 → 500 (135 lbs)

My maxes as of the beginning of February were:

Squat 235
Bench 170
Dead 305

If I don’t add 135lbs to my squat and dead, and 45 to my bench by the beginning of next February, you can tell me my methods don’t work.

So, by Feb 2015:
Squat 370
Bench 215
Dead 440

I think that’s pretty fair.[/quote]

fair enough and if I dont squat 500, bench 365 and deadlift 600 by next february you can hold me accountable as well.

[quote]PlainPat wrote:

[quote]LoRez wrote:

[quote]PlainPat wrote:
Im not gonna argue with you. You are not john broz or a bulgarian weightlifter. Those methods DO NOT work in conjunction with squat bench dead they were designed for olympic lifts FOR A REASON. Some people get it to work decent for them, but I dont know any top american powerlifter doing it on their own that has it work for them.

And I dont know if you think its an excuse with all of your reasons and what not but if you cant figure out how to make it work and do it the right way, ie not just drinking milk cause you cant force yourself to eat right and not lieing to yourself about recovery saying that training 6x a week is optimal for someone trying to get strong, then youre not going to make it in strength sports because like every other area of life where people are successful, the best don’t make excuses they do what they have to
[/quote]

I get where you’re coming from. I’m not going to say you’re wrong. I’m not going to say you’re right either.

Well, this part is absolutely right: “like every other area of life where people are successful, the best don’t make excuses they do what they have to”

How about this.

I looked at your log. If I figured things right, from your gym meet in Dec 2012 to your actual meet in Dec 2013 you did this:

Squat 275 → 410 (135 lbs)
Bench 195 → 240 (45 lbs)
Dead 365 → 500 (135 lbs)

My maxes as of the beginning of February were:

Squat 235
Bench 170
Dead 305

If I don’t add 135lbs to my squat and dead, and 45 to my bench by the beginning of next February, you can tell me my methods don’t work.

So, by Feb 2015:
Squat 370
Bench 215
Dead 440

I think that’s pretty fair.[/quote]

fair enough and if I dont squat 500, bench 365 and deadlift 600 by next february you can hold me accountable as well.[/quote]

This was nice to watch.

All right.

So, squats.

Ramp
45, 95, 135, 155, 175, 195, 205, 215, 225, 235, 245 x 2
255, 265 x 1, 275 x 0, 0 (265 was solid, could have tried 270, didn’t. First miss was due to back rounding; second because of fatigue)

Work sets
245 x 5 x 1

And some curls.

It wasn’t incredibly cold today. It’s only like 32.

We’re getting alot of snow in the Fort…stock up on food for teh bulk!