I can relate! Often times I’ll plunk myself down in front of the computer after my workout to get it logged on here. What should be a 5min job can take me upwards of 20mins with the amount of blank staring at the screen that I do.
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04/15/2021
Rest/recovery day:
30min back/shoulder/neck massage
3miles on the AirDyne: 11minutes
Hip flexor knee raises
I just received a notification that my deadlift bar and new flat bench are scheduled to arrive tomorrow. If they arrive before my workout tomorrow, I might just have to load up the bar and feel out some heavy deadlift singles.
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04/16/2021
5/3/1 Building the Monolith Week 1 Day 2
SUPERSET
Deadlift
135 x 5
225 x 5
315 x 5
375 x 5
425 x 5
480 x 5
480 x 5
480 x 5
Axle Bench
115 x 5
165 x 5
205 x 5
225 x 5
265 x 5
290 x 5
290 x 5
290 x 5
290 x 5
290 x 5
The top sets of deadlifts were a good level of difficulty. Bench was tough as well, but all sets felt strong.
DB Rows
90 x 20
100 x 15
100 x 15
90 x 15
80 x 15
Axle Curls - 25lbs
100reps
1hr 2mins
As much as the supplemental work in BBB Beefcake kicked my ass during the workout, I never really felt under-recovered from the work. If anything, I felt like I may have overeaten during BBB. But here I am walking into workout 2 of BtM and feeling a little under-recovered. Legs, chest, and lats were all still holding some decent DOMS from my previous workout. It looks like I’ll be putting a little extra effort into recovery on this program as I think the higher intensities are going to start digging a recovery deficit if I’m not careful.
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Yesterday was a fantastic day spent outside with the family. I worked up a sweat several times as we were clearing brush around the property and I worked on my strongman “arena” (will post pics once I have it completed). I did a lot of lifting/moving of my atlas stones, flipping tire, hydrant, and these rubber mats that I have for outdoor flooring which weigh 75lbs each. Not a workout, but a good recovery day.
04/19/2021
5/3/1 Building the Monolith W1D3
SUPERSET
Squat
135 x 5
225 x 5
315 x 3
345 x 5
390 x 5
440 x 5
225 x 20
Axle Press
115 x 5
160 x 5
160 x 5
160 x 5
160 x 5
160 x 5
160 x 5
160 x 5
160 x 5
160 x 5
160 x 5
Completed this work in 38mins and then went upstairs to help get dinner on the table, bath and bedtime for the little man.
When I first unracked the 225lbs for my widowmaker set, my thought was “this is going to be easy, maybe I’ll push it to 25-30reps”. After 10 fairly quick/smooth reps of not completely locking out, my quads (right quad specifically) were threatening to cramp. By the time I got to 20 reps my quads and lower back were completely pumped up and I decided that for my first widowmaker of the program that this was going to serve its purpose.
For press, I cleaned the first rep of each set. Press was tiring and kept the heart rate up combined with the squats, but it wasn’t overly difficult.
After dinner/bath/bed for the young lad, I completed the assistance work.
Weighted Chins
45lbs x 5,
45 x 5
45 x 5
45 x 5
45 x 5
Shrugs
35
35
30
Band Pullaparts - red mini
34
33
33
Chins - I used my hanging ‘D’ handles; weight plate in dip belt
Shrugs - I used my chest-supported row machine and did one arm shrugs by grabbing the end of the bar with a single 45lbs plate loaded. Seemed to work well for this.
Band pullaparts - red mini band; 34 starting with hands above parallel, 33 with hands starting at parallel, 33 with hands starting below parallel.
The assistance was completed in 22mins. Exactly 1hr total for all work.
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I absolutely love reading people’s experiences of 20 rep squats haha. There is almost never a good thing said about them.
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You use your d handles like rings? I don’t know why I haven’t thought have that before. Pretty awesome.
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@boilerman - 20rep squats sure can make a light weight (relative) feel very difficult! I’m dreading the upcoming workouts where this weight becomes greater than 350lbs. To date, I believe my heaviest widow maker set is 315lbs, and it sucked.
@zeptrey - Pretty much! I just have a hole drilled through my floor joist with a chain looping through from one handle to the other. Gives me the ability to chin-up with a neutral grip vs the straight bar on my rack. It is also higher so that the hanging weight plate doesn’t hit the ground if I go to a full dead hang.
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LOL school boy error there. Good work mate
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I recently blew my lifting strap, and have been using my knee sleeves that the neoprene has split from top to bottom so I decided it was time to go ahead and upgrade my gear a bit. Threw in some tacky and a deadlift belt as well to try out!
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The lifting is looking solid man. BtM must be in fashion this year! Got any strongman comps on your radar?
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Well that is just crazy haha.
Looking forward to reading your thoughts on it!
Are you planning on doing deepwater after BtM?
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@Irishman92 - Irish! I saw you poking around again, hope all is well. There is a little program party over on Reddit that ran 6 weeks of BBB Beefcake, followed by BtM, followed by Deep Water (Pwn’s bulking cycle). No strongman comps on the radar, just hoping to play with my strongman toys a little more this year than last. I’m not sure the state of lockdown that you guys are in, but we are back in a “stay at home order”. Groceries, pharmacy and work are pretty much the only reasons you are allowed to leave home.
@boilerman - I’ll be sure to document my misery, haha. Gulp I don’t want to write it down, because I’m scared to commit to Deep Water right now but it is in the “maybe pile” right now.
On another note, my flat bench and deadlift bar arrived. I have already sold the flat bench that I was using. This new bench looks and feels great, I’m looking forward to trying it out and think the additional bench width will be much more stable and comfortable. The deadlift bar looks nice and is covered in whatever oil they apply to keep it from rusting. I’ll need to thoroughly wipe it down before giving it a trial run. I have a problem, so in my first test run I’ll be pulling over 600lbs just to make sure the bar works.
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I’m jealous!
It’s good to see someone stronger than me doing this, too. I do it just for some variety in an otherwise boring exercise - especially for high rep sets.
Why didn’t I think of this? I already drilled a couple holes in my floor joists for my old pulley system. I’ve been without pull-ups for quite a while now. I recently bought a Titan pull-up bar but discovered after the fact that my basement doesn’t have any legit framed walls. I haven’t quite figured out how to mount it yet. The basement wall stops (bricks) at about 6.5 feet and then the lumber starts. The thing was so cheap that it’s not worth paying the shipping to return it.
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Completely understandable. It stayed in my maybe pile for a year haha
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I managed to pick up a cold/flu a couple of days ago and am just starting to turn the corner and feel a little better. I’ve been running a fever along with chills/sweats and a stuffed nose/head and a sore throat. I was COVID negative, fortunately, but it put me out of the gym for a few days.
Today was going to be another rest day but then I received my Cerberus order in the mail and a spike of motivation/adrenaline/whatever hit me and I went in and got the workout done. All the work was completed, but I didn’t push the pace as I was still far from 100%.
4/22/2021
5/3/1 Building the Monolith W2D1
SUPERSET
Squats
135 x 5
225 x 5
315 x 5
365 x 5
415 x 5
415 x 5
415 x 5
415 x 5
415 x 5
Axle Press - clean first rep of every set
115 x 5
165 x 5
190 x 5
145 x 22
Squats had plenty of rest between sets so the difficulty wasn’t too bad. I was happy to hit that number of reps with the press AMRAP though.
Chins
10
10
10
10
10
10
10
10
10
10
Dips
20
20
20
20
20
20
Twenty more reps than last week.
Facepulls
50
50
Glad I got it in, feeling pretty good other than my chest is still very congested. Tough to get in a full breath without coughing.
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Don’t mess with the flu if fever is/ was involved, mate. Taking it easy for a while won’t hurt in the long run.
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#humblebrag
Good work
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Thanks Ko, seems that the fever is gone now which is good. Just a little chest congestion and other minor cold symptoms.
I will shamelessly plug these in wherever I can!
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Quick little prehab work in the gym:
Axle Press - empty axle (25lbs)
100
GIANT SET
Hanging Knee Raises
10
10
10
Hip Flexor Raises - 5s hold for each rep; reps per leg
5
5
5
Shoulder Band Dislocates
10
10
10
Deep Lunge Bottom 1/4 Reps
10
10
10
That press actually scorched the shoulders quite nicely. The giant set was just some extra work that is to look after some of my more frequent chronic pains that pop up on occasion.
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Mate you have to. I have found that people outside of the is small Iron world of our have little interest abs even less interest in our lifting numbers. If you can’t share here and get a little appreciation then you won’t get it anywhere else !!
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