Easy Strength Round 3 Day 3
Dan John’s Complex E- 55/60lbx8
Flat Bench- 115lb, 3x3
Back Squat- 185lb, 3x3
1x10 sit-up with 10lb plate
3 laps of left hand suitcase carry with 16kg.
21/15/7 of burpee and KB swing with 24kg
Finished in ~4:57. Felt pretty brutal but strong. Burpees felt fine. Went from moving as quickly as I can to eventually taking a breath between each rep to pace myself a bit. The KB swings felt very crisp and strong until the inevitable fatigue. I think all those snatches helped a lot with this- the swings felt MUCH better with snatches than deadlifts.
Easy Strength Round 3 Day 4
Dan John’s Complex C- 55/60lbx8
Flat Bench- 115lb, 3x3
Back Squat- 185lb, 3x3
plank and shank- 30 second each
3 laps of double KB front rack carry with 24kgs
Gosh that complex sucks. First one that made me think that I hate complexes.
I saw that the gym DOES have a back extension machine, so I did the plank and shank. Probably going to do this for my ab work for a while.
My knees- both- are feeling iffy sometimes. But there’s no issue during the workouts themselves. Hopefully nothing bad happens.
Easy Strength Round 3 Day 5
Dan John’s Complex E- 55/60lbx8
Flat Bench- 115lb, 3x3
Back Squat- 185lb, 3x3
plank and shank- 30 second each
20 min Fobbit Intervals with 5 double KB clean and jerk with 24kgs
I liked the idea of Fobbit Intervals, but didn’t like the idea of doing swings and snatches because I don’t like either movements that much, then I came across this article-
And, wow, that makes perfect sense! The easy jogs therefore become active recovery in between sets of strength work! So I chose the double KB clean and jerk because I like the movement. I find it far more intuitive to clean a double KB than a barbell, and I can always do with more cleans in my workouts.
I haven’t KB cleaned for reps in a while, so form is garbage and my left hamstring/hip don’t play well with it atm + I haven’t jogged in over a year, so this ended up being harder than it ought to be.
It took some time to find the right speed for this, but once I did it essentially became a moderately challenging set of 5, followed by a slow jog to bring down the HR and get ready for the next set. I finally see why people combine jogging with strength movements.
And the way that I can adjust this seems infinite. I can slowly increase the jog speed as my aerobic capacity improves. I can increase the KB clean reps and/or the weight as I get stronger and better with the movement.
Easy Strength Round 3 Day 6
Dan John’s Complex A- 55/60lbx8
Flat Bench- 115lb, 3x3
Back Squat- 190lb, 3x3
plank and shank- 35 second each
15 min AMSAP of-
20lb sled push back and forth
10 KB thrusters with 20kgs
1 min rests in between sets. Did a total of 5 sets.
Complexes are feeling easier; certainly the first set is easier. This also happens to feel like the easiest complex of the bunch.
The conditioning work kicked my ass- I felt like a discombobulated, boneless fish on the first set- completely unable to string thrusters fluidly. It ended up being a do a rep, pause, then next. Got a bit more fluid and managed to string 7 reps straight by the end, but this felt VERY hard.
I was very confused why this felt so hard to do when the 12kg felt fine as far as the movement was concerned… Then I rechecked the weights when I finally finished and it all made sense. I had intended to do 16kg, not 20kg! No wonder things feel harder when I did an 8kg jump instead of 4kg.
Easy Strength Round 3 Day 7
Dan John’s Complex B- 55/60lbx8
Flat Bench- 120lb, 3x3
Back Squat- 190lb, 3x3
plank and shank- 35 second each
3 laps of right hand suitcase carry with 16kg.
Suitcase carry felt a lot easier. I wanted to up the weights every 2 weeks on the strength movements, but they just feel so easy right now…
Easy Strength Round 3 Day 8
Dan John’s Complex C- 55/60lbx8
Flat Bench- 120lb, 3x3
Back Squat- 190lb, 3x3
plank and shank- 35 second each
3 laps of left hand suitcase carry with 16kg.
21/15/9 of burpee and KB swing with 24kg
Finished in ~5:23. I didn’t pace myself on the burpees this time and ended up blowing myself up. Needed lots of time between the burpees and swings, which is probably why it took so much longer.
Easy Strength Round 3 Day 9
Dan John’s Complex D- 55/60lbx8
Incline Bench- 120lb, 3x3
Back Squat- 190lb, 3x3
plank and shank- 35 second each
3 laps of 20lb sled pull back and forth
1 mile jog at a very easy pace.
Lifted in the afternoon. Everything felt much easier.
Easy Strength Round 3 Day 10
Dan John’s Complex E- 55/65lbx8
Flat Bench- 120lb, 3x3
Back Squat- 190lb, 3x3
plank and shank- 35 second each
20 min Fobbit Intervals with 5 double KB clean and jerk with 24kgs
Saturday-
20 mins of getups-
10 mins of turkish getups with 8kg. Alternated between 3/side.
10 mins of racked getups with 10kg. Alternated between 3/side.
I wanted to go for a ruck in the morning, but-
-Wife and I went to bed way too late.
-Toddler woke up at 5AM and sorta wrecked sleep.
So I slept in, thinking that I’d do the ruck later in the afternoon. Then it rained. I’ve been meaning to do something like this, so today it is.
Originally intended to do 20 minutes of turkish getups, then my shoulders began to fatigue a bit and I switched over to racked getups. The racked getups are, surprisingly, not actually easier. There is a definite difference in how you move with the KB pressed overhead vs in a front rack position.
I liked this. I did it originally on the hope that it would make picking up the toddler easier, and it did!
Easy Strength Round 3 Day 11
Dan John’s Complex A- 55/65lbx8
Flat Bench- 120lb, 3x3
Back Squat- 190lb, 3x3
hanging knee raise- 1x5 with 3 second pauses at top
3 sled push back and forth with 50lb
Got the gym late due to waking up late + an accident on the road, so didn’t have time to do conditioning. Did the sled pushes with no rest and it’s hard on the legs.
Easy Strength Round 3 Day 12
Dan John’s Complex B- 55/65lbx8
Flat Bench- 120lb, 3x3
Back Squat- 190lb, 3x3
plank and shank- 35 second each
3 laps of right hand suitcase carry with 20kg. Took about 10 breathes after each lap.
1 mile jog at a very easy pace.
I’m leaning out at a noticeable pace while my wife says my shoulders are getting wider. It turns out that walking 10k+ a day isn’t the answer to leaning out, but rather just doing more complexes and occasional hard conditionings. Heck, I’m walking less right now due to work + poor weather and I’m still leaning out.
Easy Strength Round 3 Day 14
Dan John’s Complex D- 55/65lbx8
Flat Bench- 125lb, 3x3
Back Squat- 195lb, 3x3
plank and shank- 35 second each
3 laps of left hand suitcase carry with 20kg. Took about 10 breathes after each lap.
50 burpees in ~4:25
Started off with a single breath between each rep, ended up doing lots of double breathes after 30 reps.
Easy Strength Round 3 Day 15
Dan John’s Complex E- 55/65lbx8
Flat Bench- 125lb, 3x3
Back Squat- 195lb, 3x3
kneeling ab-wheel- 1x5
20 min Fobbit Intervals with 5 double KB clean and jerk with 24kgs
The gym has a ab-wheel. I think Fobbit Intervals are feeling better- KB clean and jerk feels betterish, and in general I’m recovering faster with the jogs.
Easy Strength Round 3 Day 16
Dan John’s Complex A- 55/65lbx8
Incline Bench- 125lb, 3x3
Back Squat- 195lb, 3x3
kneeling ab-wheel- 1x5
15 min AMSAP of-
20lb sled push back and forth
10 KB thrusters with 16kgs
45 second rests in between sets. Did a total of 7 sets.
Incline bench def. feels a bit harder than flat bench. I’m using the same weight mainly because I’m being lazy. Back squat felt strong today- had a pop and ease to it that I haven’t felt all that often recently.
Felt good on the conditioning work. Stayed pretty strict on the rest and didn’t need any in between the push and the thrusters until around set 5 or so- began needing some rest in between at that point. 16kg thrusters moved a lot better than 20kg- never had an issue going through all 10 reps.
Easy Strength Round 3 Day 18
Dan John’s Complex C- 55/65lbx8
Flat Bench- 130lb, 3x3
Back Squat- 200lb, 3x3
3 laps of suitcase carry with 20kg. Alternated hands at back and forth.
50 burpees in ~4:31
Single breath between each rep until later. First 26 or so felt great, then I suddenly felt very sick and moved to double breathes for a while. This felt hard.
Easy Strength Round 3 Day 19
Dan John’s Complex A- 75/85/95lbx3
Flat Bench- 130lb, 3x3
Back Squat- 200lb, 3x3
5 kneeling abwheel
3 laps of sled pulls with 50lb.
10 min of get-ups
Ended up being- 3 Turkish getup each side, 3 racked getups each side, 3 Turkish getup each side. Was moving at a nice and relaxed pace.
Easy Strength Round 3 Day 20
Dan John’s Complex E- 75/85/95lbx3
Flat Bench- 130lb, 3x3
Back Squat- 200lb, 3x3
5 hanging knee raise with 3 second pause at top
20 min Fobbit Intervals with 6 double KB clean and jerk with 24kgs
The Intervals felt hard. Adding that extra rep made this feel noticeably harder as time went on.
Experimented with heavier weights and lower rep on the complexes. I like it, but I’m worried about overdoing something in the shoulders. 95lb isn’t super easy. I’ll probably go back to doing 8s.
Easy Strength Round 3 Day 21
Dan John’s Complex A- 55/65lbx8
Flat Bench- 130lb, 3x3
Back Squat- 205lb, 3x3
kneeling ab-wheel- 1x7
Trainer stole the 2.5s that I had with me after I finished the bench and I couldn’t be bothered to go look for another pair. Eh, 205lb felt ok.
2 400 meter runs at 8min and 7min pace respectively with 3 min rest in between.
I want to move to one of the run based HICs but have no idea what my running pace would be atm, so I’m testing. The 8min one had me sweating but up for more, so I tried 7min. Ow. That one hurt my legs good.
Easy Strength Round 3 Day 22
Dan John’s Complex B- 55lbx8, 75lbx5
Flat Bench- 130lb, 3x3
Back Squat- 205lb, 3x3
kneeling ab-wheel- 1x7
3 laps of suitcase carry with 20kg. Alternated hands at back and forth.
jogged half a mile at 11min/mile pace.
Punch the clock kind of workout. Everything felt pretty good overall. I keep wanting to use heavier weights on the complexes and decided not to fight the urge.
Easy Strength Round 3 Day 23
Dan John’s Complex C- 55lbx8, 75lbx5
Flat Bench- 135lb, 3x3
Back Squat- 205lb, 3x3
kneeling ab-wheel- 1x7
easy mile jog at 12:45min/mile pace.
Legs felt weak on the back squat and it felt like it moved slowly, but the weight itself felt easy. Probably due to the sudden increase in jog and runs
Easy Strength Round 3 Day 24
Dan John’s Complex D- 55lbx8, 75lbx5
Flat Bench- 135lb, 3x3
Back Squat- 205lb, 3x3
kneeling ab-wheel- 1x7
6 total Turkish getup with 16kg- 3 each side
Easy Strength Round 3 Day 25
Dan John’s Complex E- 55lbx8, 75lbx5
Flat Bench- 135lb, 3x3
Back Squat- 205/245/275lbx3
I feel ridiculously tired throughout the day- Been getting very little sleep- like under 5ish- due to work and waking up early for workout. I used to be able to operate with not that much sleep, but it doesn’t seem doable atm. As a result I keep sleeping in way too long, leaving me with virtually no time to do anything aside from the absolute necessities.
I subbed in overhead squats instead of front squats on complex E and that was a very bad idea. Switching from a press grip to an overhead squat grip while fatigued is not fun.
I knew that I had no time for the Fobbit Intervals from the get-go, but hoped that I’d have time for at least some hard 400m runs to substitute. Knew after finishing the bench that I wouldn’t have time, so I indulged in some squat fun- I’ve been feeling the itch to test strength for a while now, so I did the squats with no pause.
They felt like nothing- like I wasn’t squatting any weight. The 275lb felt wobbly, but that was it. The actual squatting felt ridiculously easy. I honestly believe that I can squat in the high 300s if I just spend a couple of weeks building up to heavier weights right now.