Squat-
135/195/235/265/295lbx1
275lb, 6x5, 1x3 (Eh, 90-120 second rest for the most part)
Worked in with someone. Got 90 second rests for the majority of the sets, but some went into 120 or more when he asked me questions about squatting.
Regardless, solid PR and much better than last week. The first 2-3 reps of all fives felt easy, while the last rep got increasingly grindy. Last rep of set six was a grind, no speed at all.
Weighted chin-up(+25lb)/weighted forward lunge(15lb DBs)/hanging leg raise (90 second rest)-
4x5, 1x4 on chin-up
5x5 on the rest
Short pauses on all chin-up again.
Lat pull-down (60 second rest)-
135lb, 10/8/8
This felt difficult.
Clean-grip forward lunge (60 second rest)-
45lb, 3x10
Complex (back squat/alternating between BTN press and OHP/BB row/RDL)
5x5, no rest except to catch my breath here and there.
Not sure if this is a good warm-up.
OHP-
95lbx3
115/135lbx1
BB row-
95/135/155lbx5
185/205lbx1
205lb feels better than before, but still jerky
Superset of OHP and BB row (2 minute rest)-
135lb, 5x4, 1x3, 1x1 on the OHP
175lb, 7x5 on the BB row
The OHP felt pretty good during the five sets. Then I failed a rep on the sixth set and my shoulder/tricep had nothing left for the seventh set.
I realized halfway through that doing rows that come close to being heavy with heavy OHP is a bad idea. My lower back started to feel a little something. It doesn’t help that my OHP has a varying degree of leaning backward, depending largely on how properly I initiate the rep.
Also- legs felt tired after this.
TnG deadlift/dip (60 second rest)-
135lbx8, 185/225lbx6, 245lb, 4x6 on the deadlift
7x7 on the dip
This got tiring.
DB OHP/tuck lever (90 second rest)-
35lb, 10/10/8 on the DB OHP
3x2 on the tuck lever
Bicep curl/tuck lever-
10lb, 3x10 on the curl
4x2 on the tuck lever
Must have overdone something today. Body feels very tired and it’s hard to keep my eyes open at 8:30 PM.
Squat-
135/195/235/265/295lbx1
255lb, 3x7, 2x5 (60 second rest)
My balance went off or I initiated the rep improperly on 295lb and so I spent a couple seconds in the hole regaining balance and actually thinking on whether I want to bail on this or attempt a paused rep with shaky balance. Decided to go for it and it was surprisingly not bad at all. I thought a paused rep would be really difficult since I believed 295lb was ~80-85% of my max.
Came close to muscle failure by the third set. The sets of fives felt really difficult, and I muscled up pretty much every rep of the last set.
Squat conditioning must be better than before though, since I didn’t feel super-winded and dead the way I felt when I did moderate reps with short rest previously.
Still, took four-min mini-break to let legs and core recover.
Pull-up/cossack squat/hanging leg raise(60 second rest)-
5x5 on everything
Core and legs felt tired and worn out, but things felt fine besides that. Pull-ups felt good, though things started to feel a bit more tired from set three and onwards.
Deadlift-
135/225lb-stuff
275lb, 2x1. One as double-overhand, other as mixed. Wanted to see how double-overhand is progressing before I went on. It felt really easy- I might be able to do 315lb for a double-overhand now.
315/345/375/405lbx1
315lb, 5x8 (2 minute rest)
I need to stop doing 405lb as part of the ramp- it’s probably too heavy even if it doesn’t feel that difficult.
Things started to feel challenging on the fourth set, but generally speaking all reps from 5 onwards felt bad. I am not good at moderate reps with the deadlift.
Good morning-
115lb, 4x8 (60 second rest)
Weighted chin-up(+25lb)/weighted backward lunges(15lb DBs)/hanging leg raise(90 second rest)-
5x4 on the chin-up, 5x5 on the rest
Upper body and biceps felt tired, so I did fours instead with the goal of making all of them controlled from top to bottom.
clean grip backward lunges (60 second rest)-
45lb, 4x8
Complex (back squat/alternating between BTN press and OHP/BB row/RDL)
5x5, no rest
Bench press-
95/115/135lbx3
155lbx9
Wasn’t tiring/straining in the pec/front of shoulder like last time,but slowed down heavily by the 8th rep regardless.
Bench hasn’t improved much, in other words.
BB row-
95/135/155lbx5
BB row/dip(90 second rest)-
175lb, 10x5 on row
+25lb, 5x5, 2x4, then 3x8 with no weight on the dip
Weighted dips felt slow and awkward today, so decided to go with no weight after a while.
Inverted hang practice/TRX row/DB OHP(45lb DBs)/kettlebell swing(24kg)-(one minute rest)
7x1/7x7/7x7/7x10
OHP started to get a bit difficult at the last two sets. The hangs are a constant hit or miss- I want to be making my entire body tight during the hang but I feel my muscles tensing up only on some sets.
The gym closed at 2PM today and is closed tomorrow, so I went rather early today and decided to do Monday’s session today.
This failed. 295lb and 275lb felt super slow and tiring. 255lb had no pop and felt slow as well. 225lb felt fast but seeing as how that’s not really heavy for me anymore that doesn’t mean much.
Ugh.
Weighted chin-up(+25lb)/weighted forward lunge (20lb DBs)/hanging leg raise (90 second rest)-
5x5 on everything.
Paused the chin-ups well. Getting better and better. Lunges felt miserable with just a 5lb boost.
Lat pull-down(60 second rest)-
135lb, 4x8
Clean grip forward lunge(60 second rest)-
55lb, 3x8
Superset of OHP and BB row-
3x3, 3x5 (60 second rest)
1x3, 1x2, 1x1 2x5 (2 minute rest)
4x5 as OHP with leg drive to get bar off chest, 4x5 (2 minute rest)
Not sure what happened here. Couple possible factors-
1- I’m trying to adjust my posture again, and this means that my weaknesses will be obvious for some time. Seeing as how I could drive no power at all from my left shoulder/upper back when I started failing, I would guess that this has something to do with it.
2- Christmas was incredibly stressful for me.
3- Even one day of rest fucks me over.
Dunno. It’s annoying.
TnG deadlift/dip(60 second rest)-
135/185lbx7
225lb, 5x7
7x7 on dip
The deadlifts felt good. Dip felt ok until the last rep- that was probably a partial.
I’ve recently decided to go 100% into fixing my forward head posture and train myself to have a neutral head posture.
This appears to have some severe ramifications on my body. Apparently most of the random issues I’ve noticed is being affected by trying to get a neutral head posture and this is fucking with my squats.
Weight distribution/hip position during squats were never great, but things feel magnified 10x now. 265lb felt heavy and repping out 225lb felt really weird- I felt weight in strange locations and my torso/hip felt really out of place.
I’m willing to bet that recent stress + 0 coffee today is why the 265lb felt heavy and slow, but the 225lb rep feeling weird is entirely because of me trying to fix posture. I also squatted in my socks today, but I doubt that had anything to do with it.
Strangely enough, deadlift feels a lot better and more natural now.
Imma stop treating the squat as a main movement for the time being. I’m going to continue going as heavy as I can and do 3-4x5 or so just to see how things are progressing, but I plan on using the clean-grip lunge as the main leg stuff and do a lot of goblet squats to instill better form.
Clean grip forward lunge-
45/65lbx5
85lb, 3x5 (90 second rest)
Pull-up/goblet squat(45lb)/hanging leg raise (60 second rest)-
7x5 on everything
Pull-ups fairly easy with pauses at the bottom.
Fortunately, the only thing getting weaker right now seems to be my OHP and squat.
Deadlift-
135/225lb-stuff
275/315/345/385lbx1
315lb, 5x5 (90 second rest)
Grip felt really weak and sore and body didn’t feel well on 135/225lb, so I figured that today would be shitty.
Then I did the ramp sets and things felt ok, though some muscles felt stiff and strained on 385lb. 315lb felt like the cleanest reps I’ve pulled in years and felt really easy.
Once again, doing nothing for a day appears to be bad for me.
Squat-
135/185/225/245/275lbx1
Wanted to see how squats felt. They felt very easy, given that I deadlifted beforehand. No weird form issues or anything outside of where the bar appears to be resting on my left shoulder now.
I guess the horribleness of Weds can be attributed to no shoes and just being a shitty day… I don’t know, I’m starting to consider that my opinions on how things went that day don’t count for much.
Weighted chin-up(25lb)/goblet squat(45lb)/hanging leg raise (90 second rest)-
3x5, 2x4 on the chin-up
5x6 on the goblet squat
5x5 on the leg raise
Superset of BB row and dip(90 second rest)-
155lb, 9x5
9x7 on the dip
Superset of Inverted row and DB clean and press(60 second rest)-
8x7 on the row
45lb, 8x5 on the DB clean and press
The clean and press got my heart racing by the end. Oh my, this is a keeper.
I thought the inverted rows felt super easy until I got to set 7,when I realized that I felt sore in the lat/upper back area. Cool.
Good simple day. Didn’t do a whole lot cause I didn’t have time.
Warm-up stuff that involved power cleans, cleans, and OHP ramping up to 135lb
155lb, 7x 1 clean/1 power clean/2 mix of push jerk and push-press, 1x2 power clean/2 mix of push jerk and push-press (2 minute rest)
The power clean/clean didn’t feel all explosive, so I’m pleased that I got 8 sets. Did the last set as two power cleans since I went up to my toes on the last clean.
I think I get the difference between a push-press and a push jerk now. The push jerk feels more natural since I’m just trying to get the bar over my head, whereas with the push-press I need to consciously imagine as if I’m transferring force from my legs all the way up.
Pull-up/tuck lever swings(60 second rest)-
5x5 on the pull-up/ 5x3 on the tuck lever
Did 3 sets of pull-ups with dead-hang, 2 sets with no hang and trying to keep tension and with shorter ROM.
Going to start differentiating the tuck levers now that I’m coming close to actually managing true tuck levers.
The ramp felt ok.
275lb felt really slow and muscles felt tired, but didn’t feel difficult mentally. Eh. Just satisfied that I recovered somewhat from the disaster of last week. Would have really pissed me off if I couldn’t do even this.
Clean grip reverse lunge-
45lbx5
65lbx5
85lb, 3x5 (90 second rest)
65lb, 2x5 (90 second rest)
My left leg couldn’t do this properly after the third set, so dropped weight down to 65lb. Much easier.
Weighted chin-up(25lb)/goblet squat(45lb)/hanging leg raise(90 second rest)-
3x5, 2x4
5x6
3x6, 2x5
Chin-ups felt more difficult than usual.
Some sort of lat pull-down machine (45lb on each side, 45 second rest)-
1x5, 4x10
Alternating between pull-up and NG pull-up/single-leg deadlift/hanging leg raise and later tuck lever “swings” (60 second rest)-
10x5 on the pull-up and deadlift
6x5 on the hanging leg raise,1x5, 3x3 on the tuck lever “swings”
Pull-ups never felt difficult, and the first 5-6 sets felt pretty easy. Feels like an improvement on my ability to do pull-ups.
Had a hard time balancing myself during the deadlifts, so I decided to start using a nearby pole as support.
Def. used a bit of leg drive on the fifth rep, but I don’t think so for the rest. In any case, I guess OHP strength is coming back to before “break” level.
BB row-
95/135lbx5
155lbx7
Superset of BB row and weighted dip(25lb)- (90 second rest)
175lb, 5x5 on the BB row
4x6, 1x5 on the dip
175lb rows didn’t feel that good today, not sure why. The deadlifts yesterday?
The dip felt a lot better than last week.
Inverted hang/DB clean and (push)press(45lb)/TRX row/KB swing(24kg)- (60 second rest)
5x1/5x6/5x10/5x10
I suddenly felt exhausted and very sore/tired in my hand/forearms after I finished set three, so decided to go to five sets and do more next week.
My right shoulder felt some sort of pinching pain whenever I lowered the DB to do the clean.
Power clean and push press (2 minute rest)-
155lb, 2x2, 1x1
Nope, not happening today. Everything felt weak and achy.
Squat-
135/185/225lbx3
275lb, 2x1
225lb, 5x3
Just cause. 275lb also felt weak.
Pull-up/push-up/body squat(60 second rest)-
5x5 as pull-up, then 5x5 as chin-up/10x10/10x20
Realized about 2/3 of a way through that this is basically half the calisthenics of WOD Murph without the mile jogs. Then I read up on Murph and further realized that this is basically WOD Cindy.
Anyways, not all that bad. Only the muscles involved with the push-ups started to feel actually fatigued, but I’m ok with that given that I’ve always sucked really bad at doing moderate volume of push-ups.