At some point in the morning-
7x13 EMOM push-up
3x6 EMOM NG pull-up. Last set felt tough.
Hang power snatch->overhead squat->back squat->BTN press, 1x8 with bar.
Back squat-
95/135/165/185/205/225/245lbx5
Right knee didn’t feel great on the warm-up complex and ramp sets. Plus the 205lb set didn’t feel as smooth as I would like, so I did the 225 and 245lb sets with a breath in between. The sets themselves felt very good; pretty sure I could have done many, many more reps on 245lb. My conditioning feels a lot stronger than the last time I got to these weights, which no doubt contributes to this feeling.
Deadlift-
135/185lbx5, 225lb, 5x5
TnG with straps. Felt good.
Hanging leg raise to parallel- 4x6
Pendlay row- 95lb, 2x12
Armor-building complex with 115lb barbell- 10x1 EMOM
Push-pressed instead of pressing the bar.
This felt like a good balance between feeling tired after the set but having just enough time to recover to do more.
Right knee is not getting better. I may have to reduce the amount of squatting movements I do to give it some rest.
At some point in the morning-
7x13 EMOM push-up. Last set felt a bit tough.
3x6 EMOM bent-knee inverted row
Later-
Bear complex with barx1 for warm-up.
I am wondering whether overhead squats and snatches are putting some interesting stress on my knee, so I am going to avoid them for a week and see what happens.
OHP- 75/85/95/105lbx5, 115lbx6
So, ya, fuck dropping the weight down. Full steam ahead with heavier weights. 115lb set took actual effort, but it did feel a lot better than when I used this weight for the 10k swing a couple of weeks ago.
Bench press- 95lbx5, 135lb, 5x5
Standing ab-wheel- 4x5
This felt hard. ROM is not all the way there yet
BB row- 115lb, 2x15
Felt really easy.
Juarez Valley thrusters with 65lb and jumping burpees- 10/1/9/2/8/3/7/4/6/5
Done in ~10:59
The thruster movement feels much smoother. This still really kicked my ass.
At some point in the morning-
2x20, 1x10 EMOM push-up
3x6 EMOM pull-up. Last set felt tough.
Later-
Originally thought of doing more bear complexes, but a meeting going very late made me reconsider. It is probably a good idea to get away from the barbell occasionally.
7 rounds of
5 chin-up
10 push-up
10 lunges (alternating between forward and reverse)
with 20lb of rice in my backpack.
Finished in ~22:00. Decided to record time after the first set, so I don’t actually know.
Basically Wendler’s WALRUS training. I wanted to either get to 10 sets/30 min/when my chin-ups started to suffer even with 2 min rests. Going forward I’m going to use the 30 min as the cap as Wendler suggests instead and just rest as long as needed for the chin-ups. Felt downright relaxing after all those painful conditioning work. This just feels like a good old strength session. I think it would be nice to do this after some Oly lifting practice.
At some point in the morning-
7x13 EMOM push-up
3x6 bent-knee inverted row
Deadlift-
135/195/235/265/295lbx5
TnG with straps. Definitely getting used to using straps now. I couldn’t make a strong fist on 265lb and 295 but I never felt like the bar would drop from my hands. The reps didn’t feel particularly strong.
Back squat-
135lbx5, 185lb, 5x5
Felt strong.
Hanging leg raise to parallel-4x6
Pendlay row- 135lb, 2x12
This is too heavy. Needed to rest-pause on the second set.
Armor-building complex with a single 24kg KB- 10x3 EMOM.
Did the movements holding the KB in a goblet position. Felt like a solid way to get HR up and sweaty. Legs started to get sore near the end.
Edit- Right knee is not happy with all the squatting.
At some point in the morning-
7x13 EMOM push-up. Last couple sets didn’t feel easy.
1x13 chin-up. Felt like around 90% max effort; not great.
Later-
Bench- 95/115/135/145/155lbx5
Felt good. Form keeps feeling better. Something that I’m doing right now is clearly helping this feel better positioning/form-wise.
OHP- 75lbx5, 95lb, 5x5
Felt very smooth.
Standing ab-wheel-1x3
Not happening today.
Kneeling ab-wheel- 2x10
KB row- 2x15
Felt tougher than the 12s I did last week.
10 rounds of-
10 KB swing
5 burpee pullup
Took ~14:41. Started to really fall behind pacing wise from around the 6th set. Pull-ups really took a while to get through.
Couldn’t complete the sets of 95 straight. I dropped the bar after the 4th rep on the first and dropped the bar after 5th rep on the second. It wasn’t the grip today- I just literally couldn’t guide the bar down correctly after the BTN push-press. I’m just using my body to stop the bar from smashing down onto the floor.
My shoulder and upper back felt utterly torched from this. I think it’s a combination of doing this fasted + the presses yesterday. I thought they felt easy but they may have had a bigger impact than I thought.
Had zero desire to run today. I woke up at 8 and promptly got more sleep instead of forcing myself out of the bed to run. I’m in homebody mentality right now. I’m seriously contemplating buying a Rogue Echo Bike so that I can get efficient cardio in while staying home and use for hard metcon work. I’m also going to get a jump rope so that I can skip instead of running on days like this.
Armor-building complex with 45lb barbell- 5x5 sorta EMOM
Failed to finish the last set within time. Barely had enough time to rest after each set- finished the first set with like 17 seconds left and it never got better. A lot of fatigue in the upper back and shoulders but I realized that I can keep working through them. So this ended up being an exercise in learning to push through fatigue. I think that’s great. I’m doing way more pressing through all these conditioning work than I’ve ever pressed in my life. Either my shoulder strength will grow accordingly or I’m going to burn out soon.
45 min walk with 20lb backpack. Just walked around the house with the TV on for background noise. Pretty sure the neighbors would think I’m a crazy person if they could see me.
Edit- Right knee now feels fine during resting squats and didn’t bother me during the complex. I think my hypothesis that the snatch/overhead squat caused the issue is correct.
At some point in the morning-
7x14 EMOM push-up
2x7, 1x6 EMOM pull-up. Last set felt tough, but better than last week. Sort of.
Back squat-
95/135/165/195lbx5, 225lbx8
Successfully did the 225lb without locking out, though I sneaked in a tiny breath at like the 6th set while doing the rep, which sort of defeats the purpose. Still, very cool. I think I’m starting to finally understand what it means utilize mind over matter in lifting. I’ve gutted out squat reps when I felt like my legs weren’t working before, but I’m now thinking that those kinds of reps are not valuable while reps like today are useful.
Deadlift- 135lbx5, 225lb, 1x12, 1x13
TnG with straps. Had to reset straps on before the rep 10 of set 1 and before rep 12 of set 2 because my grip had worn out by then. I think I got a bit too ambitious with this. I needed the warm-up set of 185lb and the 12/13, while perfectly doable, gets away from what I actually want with these assistance. Achieved my goal of wearing my grip out, but that’s not the point of these assistance work.
Hanging leg raise to parallel- 3x7
Pendlay row- 105lb, 3x10
This felt tiring.
Armor-building complex with 115lb barbell- 10x1 EMOM
Push-pressed instead of pressing the bar. Really tired and lacking power on the power cleans but they got better over time. Felt powerful starting from like the 6th set(ish)
At some point in the morning-
10x10 EMOM push-up.
3x7 EMOM bent-knee inverted row.
Later-
OHP- 75/85/95/105lbx5, 115lbx8
Hard set of 8.
Bench press-
95lbx5, 135lb, 3x8
I noticed today that the bench wobbles when I use it along with the adjusted squat rack position. Moved the squat rack roughly back to where it used to be and the wobble disappears. What I find funny is that I thought the garage slope went the other way.
Kneeling ab-wheel (3 sec pause at full extension)- 4x6
Started to get tough on the last set.
BB row (3 second pause at top)- 85lb, 13/12
Juarez Valley thrusters with 65lb and jumping burpees- 10/1/9/2/8/3/7/4/6/5
Done in ~9:45
The marked time improvement on this really does show how you can get ‘better’ at movements.
I’m having a hard time falling asleep. Laid in bed for two hours before I fell asleep, so I don’t think I slept all that much or well today. I’m going to crank the AC up and cool the house down and see if that helps.
At some point in the morning-
7x14 EMOM push-up. I’m fatigued. Felt tiring from set 3 onwards.
Recon Ron pull-up program week 1 as defined here (Apologies if this link is not allowed.)
I’m feeling myself hitting a wall with the EMOM pull-ups, so I’m going to try a pull-up program. I’ve heard of this one for a while and apparently it works for everyone to some extent, so why not.
Armor-building complex with a single KB- 5x5 EMOM.
Upper back and shoulder felt sore, so I figured this would be the simplest way to get my HR up. Quite tiring but I finished the entire thing within time.
45 min walking around the house.
I’ve been feeling very hungry the last couple of days and it may be attribute to the fact that I’ve added some actual walking back in; for example I walked 30 minutes after lifting for the last couple of days and didn’t bother logging it. I’ve felt that the weight loss has stagnated a bit in the last weeks, so hopefully this kick starts it again. Slowly inching back up to heavier weights will have an impact though, so we’ll see what happens.
7x14 EMOM push-up. Felt slightly better than yesterday but still under recovered.
Recon Ron pull-up program week 1
At least pull-ups are feeling strong. Fatigue seems to be localized to muscles that are being overworked?
Deadlift-
135/195/235/265lbx5, 295lbx6, RPx2
TnG with straps. Ran out of gas by the sixth rep. I wanted 8 reps though, so I RPed 2 more reps. As always when I do these though, I don’t think it was a good idea in hindsight. My glute has been feeling sore this week, so I figure this has an impact on that. I think all the squatting I’m doing in the conditioning work is affecting my lower body. I’m puzzled why it doesn’t seem to be bothering squats that much.
Back squat-
135lbx5, 185lb, 3x8
Didn’t feel that bad; good effort.
Hanging leg raise to parallel-3x7
Bent-knee inverted row- 3x10, EMOM
Armor-building complex with 45lb BB- 5/5/3/3/5 EMOM.
This freaking wrecked me. Jesus this got hard. It’s amazing how fatigue breaks you down. I ran out of time on the third set, so I went to 3 reps to recover a bit on the fourth. BB feels significantly harder than KB. I can only imagine how much harder it would be to do this with double KB as intended.
I’ll get my walk in a bit later. I got this done right before a work meeting that I’m sitting in right now.
At some point in the morning-
10x10 EMOM push-up. Didn’t feel stupid easy, so I know I’m still fatigued.
Recon Ron pull-up program week 1
Later-
Bench- 95/115/135/145lbx5, 155lbx7
You know what felt sore after I finished the 155lb set? My left hamstring, the muscles around my upper hip, and my back. Pec and arms felt fine. For the first time in years, something is definitely changing for the positive with this movement. I just need to keep at it.
OHP- 75lbx5, 95lb, 3x8
Slowed down dramatically on the last set.
Kneeling ab-wheel (3 second pause at extension)- 4x6
This is hard.
4x6 EMOM bent-knee inverted row
Not sure where to put this now that I’m doing pull-ups daily, so I decided to replace the BB row with the inverted row for a couple of weeks. I’m wondering whether doing these consistently is what’s improving my bench.
I have two main difficulties with this movement- my upper back (I suppose around the traps?) feels very tired if I attempt to do sets of 10+ and my hips refuse to extend properly with the bent-knee position if I set the pins too high, so there’s clearly some movement dysfunction going on there. And I can’t do this straight-legged because I can’t seem to keep my core from sagging. It’s like I just don’t understand the concept.
I tried setting the pins two levels lower today. That made it easier to extend the hips with bent-knee. Maybe I need to approach this in a ROM training style. Find the pin setting where hip extension doesn’t require much effort and go up from there.
My hamstrings felt dead, so it felt like I just flopped every rep of the swings instead of making them powerful. The burpee pullups felt a lot better than last week. I need to add this clarification the pullups- I’m doing these with a bit of leg drive.
Clean and push jerk-
95/115/135/145lbx3
Felt tough but quite doable. Cleans felt cumbersome. I initiated the 145lb with the intent to clean it but the body overrode the brain and made it into a power clean. Probably a good thing too, because the front squats felt rough. My legs feel weak and inexplosive today. The jerks felt ok for the most part; I need to not let myself get sloppy and make it into a push-press.
Power clean and push jerk-
135lb, 10x2 EMOM.
Did two power cleans then two push jerks. Again, felt tough but quite doable.
Power is returning nicely overall.
5 rounds of
5 chin-up
10 push-up
10 lunges (5 forward lunges then 5 reverse lunges)
with 20lb of rice in my backpack.
Took ~16:14. Something is definitely up with my legs and lower body. Felt my HR jack up while doing the lunges and they should be the easiest part of this thing.
I’m pretty happy that I can do a pull-up workout and then follow it immediately with a hard clean and weighted bodyweight session.
Woke up with every part of my body feeling sore. Yesterday really kicked my ass, so I had to go for a jog for recovery purposes. Plus the weather is just so much better at my parent’s place, so I had no excuses.
Legs felt really sore throughout the jog but it started to feel better and lighter eventually. Breathing and HR felt very comfortable through the entire jog.
Weighed myself at my parent’s house on Saturday after that pretty hard session and then eating a shit-ton of lasagna for lunch to find that I weigh… 162! Wtf. I honestly expected somewhere in the 163-165lb range. No idea what I weigh right now on a daily basis; probably somewhere between 158-162lb?
At some point in the morning-
6x15, 1x10 EMOM push-up
Feeling better. Nowhere near as difficult as the 7x14s I did on last Weds/Thurs.
Later-
Recon Ron pull-up program week 2
Felt easy.
Back squat-
135/175/225/245/265lbx5
Did all of these as regular locked-out squats. I didn’t think the no lock-out squats would go well today because I drove nearly two hours and did pull-ups right before this. I wanted to go heavy instead.
I didn’t want to do many warm-up sets so I took big jumps. It wasn’t a good idea; 225lb felt heavy on my back. Screwed my head on right for the 265lb and I felt mentally ready to commit. It felt ‘light’- obviously strained but I never doubted for a second that I could hit all 5 reps and didn’t feel mentally tough. Compare to that when I was doing those sets of 10 last year and just kept asking myself ‘What am I trying to get out of torturing myself like this?’ Very good.
Deadlift-
165/205lbx5, 235lb, 5x5
TnG with straps. 165lb flew off the floor. 235lb felt easy and mechanical.
Hanging leg raise to parallel- 3x8
Abs sore.
Bent-knee inverted row- 5x5
Not EMOM to see how that feels.
Amor-building complex with 45lb BB- 5x5 ‘EMOM’.
Finished the fourth set a couple of seconds into the start of the fifth set. Finished fifth set a couple seconds after the timer. This is just sheer conditioning hell. Feels as hard as the tabata stuff, but the difference is that I have a goal in mind and so feel compelled to push to the end.
I find it interesting that this is not improving at all while all the other conditioning stuff are.
At some point in the morning-
10x10 EMOM push-up.
Recon Ron pull-up program week 2
Later-
Push-press- 75/95/115/125/135lbx5, 145lbx4
Thought I could do 145lb based off how 135lb felt, but apparently not. I had to jerk the bar on the 145lb and it still barely went up, so I stopped it there.
My left lats got painful during the push-presses. Weird.
Bench press-
135lb, 2x10, 1x5
Felt the left lat on the first set; felt better on the later sets.
Good sets overall. Couldn’t get through them straight; paused around rep 7-8 for both.
Kneeling ab-wheel (3 sec pause at full extension)- 3x7
Bent-knee inverted row- 5x5
Tabata thrusters.
Started with 65lb and realized that I couldn’t keep it up, so I dropped the weight down to 45lb at some point. Fatigue build up in the shoulder/upper body didn’t go away though. I should just do tabata front squats from now on.
At some point in the morning-
2x25 EMOM push-up. Second set surprisingly hard.
Recon Ron pull-up program week 2
Felt slightly more fatigued than before, but overall smooth.
Armor-building complex with 45lb BB- 5x5 ‘EMOM’
Finished the fourth set right as the fifth set started. Could only get through two sets on within the timer for the fifth set. My forearms felt burned out and I had to take some rest. I think it’s because I did this right after pull-ups.
At some point in the morning-
6x15, 1x10 EMOM push-up
Felt ok. Needed to pause a bit on top for the last two sets.
Recon Ron pull-up program week 2
The pull-ups feel more confident.
Deadlift-
135/185/235/255/275/285lbx5 (with an aborted first set of 285lb because body position felt off when I pulled the first rep)
Felt ok.
Don’t know what to think about my deadlift right now. I’ve always done deadlifts as a cluster of singles (put the bar down, take 2-3 breaths, pull again), so I have little experience or practice maintaining tension during the reps. I think that and the strap use explains why these TnG feel off. That being said, I still did 275lbx12 and such with hook grip before when I built up to pulling mid 300s for reps, so maybe that “cluster of singles” thing wasn’t really a bad idea. In any case, I don’t have the plates to pull in the mid 300s and I have no interest in buying more plates until I hit a 3 plate squat, so I think I’ll just get more practice in with straps and keep griping about how deadlifts aren’t flying and how odd it is to see my top level deadlift and squat strength so close to one another.
Back squat-
135/185lbx5, 195lb, 5x5
Felt damned near effortless and I loved it. I felt like I can actually feel myself accelerating during the ascent.
Hanging leg raise to parallel-3x7
Inverted row- 5x5 EMOM
Tried these out with straight legs and with the lowest possible bar position before I had to pull the safeties out, which I couldn’t be bothered to do. I had some reps near the end where these actually felt “correct”, so maybe it’s just really a matter of practice and dropping the bar position low enough. I’m going to have to try it even lower next time.
Bear complex WOD 10 min AMRAP with 65lb
Try to finish the Bear complex WOD in under 10 min, but am allowed to put the bar down to rest if needed.
Almost done with the sixth rep of set 4 when the timer ran out. This is an ass kicker.
Edit-
Walked 30 minutes with the 20lb backpack held in various positions as long as it’s not on my back and then 15 minutes without it.