Easy Strength Day 21
Goblet Squat- 10 with 32kg
KB Swings- 25 with 32kg
Felt a lot better than the last time I attempted with 32kg. Maybe I’ll stick with it.
Incline Bench- 125lb, 2x5
Deadlift- 265lb, 2x5
Incline bench felt ok. Deadlift flew, though I felt my hamstrings today. I used a ‘thinner’ bar and I had zero grip issues. I’ll just have to stick to using ‘thinner’ bars from now on and ramp up a bit less.
2/2/2 pull-ups
6 hanging leg raise
4 rounds of KB waiter walk with 24kg. Switched arms after the ‘back’ and ‘forth’.
One minute rest between rounds.
Easy Strength Day 22
Goblet Squat- 10 with 32kg
KB Swings- 25 with 32kg
Incline Bench- 125lb, 2x5
Deadlift- 265lb, 2x5
Strong.
5/3/2 pull-up
7 hanging leg raise
10 total sled pushes with 120lb. Went down the path, 1 min rest, then back.
Began to feel quite fatiguing from set 8 or. Collapsed onto the floor after the last one. Quads felt like they were on fire.
Easy Strength Day 23
Goblet Squat- 10 with 24kg
KB Swings- 25 with 24kg
Incline Bench- 125lbx5, 145lbx3, 160lbx2
Didn’t pause on the reps. Felt strong.
Deadlift- 265lbx5, 295lbx3, 325lbx2
This felt strong, but I felt fatigued in my lower body. Could be because I haven’t recovered from the earlier day’s workout.
2/2/2 pull-up
7 hanging leg raise
6 KB suitcase carry with 24kg back and forth. Alternated arms after each back and forth. 45 second rest.
Easy Strength Day 26
Skipped day day 25 just to stay on schedule.
Goblet Squat- 10 with 32kg
KB Swings- 25 with 32kg
Incline Bench- 125lb, 2x5
Deadlift- 225lb, 2x5
The swings felt slow and tight, so I dropped the weight on the deadlifts. It was a great idea- the first set felt very slow. Second set felt much better.
I’ve been getting very poor sleep, so I think that explains this.
4/3/2/1 pull-up
7 hanging leg raise
4 rounds of KB farmer’s carry with 40kgs back and forth. 75 second rests between rounds. Felt pretty darned hard on the grip. Shoulders aren’t as achy as last time though.
Easy Strength Day 27
Goblet Squat- 10 with 32kg
KB Swings- 25 with 32kg
Flat Bench- 125/145/155/165/175/185lbx1
Deadlift- 205/235/265/295/325/355lbx1
The swings felt better today but honestly not by much.
The RPE on the bench was interesting- 125-165lb honestly felt really easy- like RPE 1-2, then it rapidly went up on 175-185lb. Simply not used to getting close to the limit on the upper body I guess. My max tested flat bench is 195lb, so I’m pretty close to that.
The deadlifts felt ok. I’m definitely fatigued. 355lb felt tired.
2/2/2 pull-up
5 toe to bar
4 KB bottom up carry in rack position with 12kg. Alternated arms between back and forth. No rest.
Easy Strength Day 30
Goblet Squat- 15 with 28kg
KB Swings- 25 with 28kg
Incline Bench- 1305lbx5, 150lbx3, 165lbx2
Felt ok.
Deadlift- 225lbx5, 255lbx3, 285lbx2
My hamstrings are definitely very fatigued.
6 pull-up
6 hanging knee raise
4 rounds of KB waiter walk with 28kg. Switched arms after the ‘back’ and ‘forth’.
One minute rest between rounds.
Easy Strength Day 31
Goblet Squat- 15 with 28kg
KB Swings- 25 with 28kg
Incline Bench- 130lb, 2x5
Felt ok. Second set felt significantly slower.
Snatch grip deadlift- 135lb, 2x5
Switching over to the snatch grip deadlift to give my hamstring and glutes a rest. It’s obvious now that I really overdid it.
2/2/2 pull-up
5 toe to bar
6 rounds of KB suitcase carry with 28kg back and forth. Alternated arms with each. 30 second rests.
Easy Strength Day 32
Goblet Squat- 15 with 28kg
KB Swings- 25 with 28kg
Incline Bench- 130lb, 2x5
Snatch grip deadlift- 135lb, 2x5
Failed to wake up in the morning on time, so did this in the afternoon. Ya, felt a lot stronger and crisper. Who would have thought.
2/2/2 pull-up
7 hanging knee raise
5 rounds of 1 KB press then walk back and forth with 28kg KBs.
One minute rest between rounds. The presses felt good till the end- that one got a bit wonky. I totally underestimated the walks. Had to break up the last one up with a minute rest in between.
Easy Strength Day 33
Goblet Squat- 15 with 28kg
KB Swings- 25 with 28kg
Incline Bench- 130lb, 2x5
Snatch grip deadlift- 135lb, 2x5
2/2/3 pull-up
7 hanging knee raise
5 total sled pushes with 120lb. Went down the path, 45 second rest, then back.
I wanted to do at least 8, but got a nose bleed and so stopped.
Easy Strength Day 34
Goblet Squat- 15 with 28kg
KB Swings- 25 with 28kg
Incline Bench- 130lbx5, 150lbx3, 170lbx2
Felt ok. 130lb is probably a touch heavy, but given that I’m almost done with this run of Easy Strength I think it’s ok to let it go up a bit. The 170lb felt strenuous.
Snatch grip deadlift- 135lb, 2x5, 175lbx3, 225lbx2
175lb felt very easy. 225lb felt harder; couldn’t maintain back position as I went up.
6 pull-up
7 hanging knee raise
4 round of KB bottoms up waiter walk with 8kg. Switched arms after the ‘back’ and ‘forth’.
30 second rest between rounds.
Easy Strength Day 35
Goblet Squat- 15 with 32kg
KB Swings- 25 with 32kg
Incline Bench- 135lb, 2x5
Snatch grip deadlift- 145lb, 2x5
Amazingly 135lb felt better than the previous 130lbs I’ve been doing.
Lower body feels a lot better on the swings, but my grip felt tired.
2/2/2 pull-up
7 hanging knee raise
4 rounds of KB farmer’s carry with 40kgs back and forth.
I attempted a 45 second rest and failed on the second round. Now that I look back I can see why- I was doing 75 second rests! I thought I was doing 60 second rests and so did the usual 15 second cuts. That makes me feel better now.
Easy Strength Day 37
Goblet Squat- 15 with 28kg
KB Swings- 25 with 28kg
Flat Bench- 135/145/155/165/175/180lbx1
Snatch grip deadlift- 135/165/195/225/255/285lbx1
Didn’t feel good on the flat bench today- none of the reps had the speed and ‘pop’ you’d want with singles. The deadlifts felt ok.
6 pull-up
7 hanging knee raise
4 KB front rack carry with 28kg. 2 straight back and forth with one arm, 30 second rest, then 2 with the other arm.
Forgot to mention that I’m run down and both physically and mentally exhausted at this point. Frequent less than 6 hours of sleep and while the physical exhaustion ain’t there- all I really do in a day besides lifting is sit on my ass for work, care for the baby in between and after work, and walk anywhere between 9-12k steps a day- my body feel like lead by the end of the day. I’ve never gotten better sleep in my life. It’s a miracle that I wake up with my alarm.
Easy Strength Day 38
Goblet Squat- 15 with 24kg
KB Swings- 25 with 24kg
Flat Bench- 115lbx10
Snatch grip deadlift- 95lbx10
2/2/2 pull-up
7 hanging knee raise
6 rounds of KB bottoms up waiter walk with 8kg. Switched arms after the ‘back’ and ‘forth’.
30 second rest between rounds. Felt a lot easier than last week.
5 KB bottoms up press with 12kg, switched arms after each rep.
Easy Strength Day 39
Goblet Squat- 15 with 28kg
KB Swings- 25 with 28kg
Flat Bench- 145lb, 2x5
Snatch grip deadlift- 165lb, 2x5
2/2/2 pull-up
7 hanging knee raise
5 rounds of KB press then walk back and forth with 28k KBs.
Used ladders of 1/2/3/1/2 on the press.
The 3 felt a bit iffy and the subsequent ones definitely felt harder, but overall pretty good. The walks felt pretty hard after the third round. But I did it. Pretty pleased.
Something weird is going on with my hip and legs when I’m doing KB swings. Feels oddly tight and sore.
Easy Strength Day 40
Goblet Squat- 10 with 28kg
KB Swings- 25 with 28kg
Incline Bench- 135lbx5, 155lbx3, 160lbx2
135lb felt off. 155lb felt pretty darned hard, so I took a 2 min rest. 160lb felt much easier.
Snatch grip deadlift- 175lbx5, 195lbx3, 215lbx2
This felt alright.
5/3 pull-up
7 hanging knee raise
2 rounds of suitcase carry with 24kg
1.5 laps each.
And that ends Easy Strength. Learned that it’s way too easy to make ‘Easy Strength’ into ‘Not that Easy Strength’ if you let ego and impatience get in the way. Feels like I burnt myself out by going far too heavy on the deadlift singles early on, and I definitely let the 5s on the bench creep up too much.
Still, I did add 5 or 10lb to the 2s on the bench every week. A month ago I wrote that 165lb on the incline felt grindy and last week I did 170lbx2 for a fairly strenuous double. I think it’s fair to say that my bench is a lot stronger than two months ago. If I wasn’t so harebrained with deadlift progression I probably could have progressed up to a 405lb+ deadlift without much effort.
Gonna take the next week off- I’m traveling at the start of the week- and then do Easy Strength again, this time with flat bench and back squat. And after that I really want to spend a disciplined year or so of doing 5/3/1 with a very low max. I think I know more about my body now and can make it work. Hopefully.
Easy Strength Round 2 Day 1
Bear complex x8 with a bar
Flat Bench- 115lb, 2x5
Back Squat- 115lb, 2x5
Unless otherwise mentioned all of these are done with clear pauses at top and bottom.
DB row- 2x5
5 hanging leg raise
2 rounds of trap bar carry with 225lb
The trap bar carry felt a lot heavier than I expected. It’s pretty great.
Snatch- 45lb, 3x2
So, I’m making a lot of modifications here. Since I’m doing back squats I don’t see a point of doing goblet squats for warm ups and I’m pretty sick of swings. So I’m instead doing to do barbell complexes for warm-ups. Not a lot and I’ll probably stick to always the bar for this.
I also want to work on the snatch. I’ve done a full clean and push press up to 185lb before but never worked on the full snatch seriously. This will be a power snatch into an overhead squat- I learned my lesson about doing Oly lifts without a coach when I tweaked my knee badly while doing full cleans years ago.
Dan John has his recommendations for how to program Oly lifts into Easy Strength, but that I’ll do another time maybe. For now I’m going to just do 3x2 for the entire length of the program. The goal here is to simply get the practice in.
The snatches are going to be done after the bench. I forgot that I was going to do them today and did them at the end when I remembered.
I also removed pull-ups because I’m going to do Recon Ron again. I worked myself to a hard set of 6 with Easy Strength, so technically I’m at a point where I can do Recon Ron as written, but I want to do them with a strict dead hang, so I made my own little ‘pre-program’ that will work up to the start of Recon Ron. I’m doing this sometime before lunch as a break from work.
I forgot to mention that I’m going to be doing 2x5 of DB rows in every workout a well in the manner Dan John recommends you do them.