Considering that 275lb press wasn’t the prettiest, 300 and than 3 plates is just around the corner. Congrats man, and just keep smashing it!
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haha, he still has me by 10lbs on the push press…but he hears me coming. 
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That’s what is honestly great about these forums. Seeing other people push through limits you once felt to be impossible for yourself. I have a friend who also trains alone in his garage gym and works out hard and has found out what works for him. Unfortunately he doesn’t participate in a forum or have anyone around to compare to. We worked out for a few weeks together and he smashed every PR he had just from seeing the potential from how hard someone else was pushing it in the weight room (his PR for squat went up over 60lbs, just from having a reason to push harder than he was - don’t get me wrong, the lbs were already there but not the balls).
So keep getting stronger TNation; I need that extra push!
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Thanks man, I’m hoping so!
Yup those 300 looked as if you almooooooost had it.
a little more practice and BOOOM it’s there.
3 plates… well keep pushing, but them overhead press in any form is hard to improve… at least for me 
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Yes, it felt like it was there! Hence the multiple additional attempts, but clearly lost some steam on my last attempts.
Haha yeah, overhead pressing is definitely a slow moving lift but I think the push press technique improvement could add the pounds I need to take me to 315lbs. Ambitious? Maybe, time will tell!
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There’s not much to the form. I think the speed of descent, the depth, and transition are very personal. It’s a matter of comfort and where you’re the strongest in terms of joint angles.
If you dip back under the bar on the lockout then I’ll say you’re doing jerks.
Play with your hand spacing to see what works best. My hands are much closer together on push press than my usual OHP. I’ve tried going wider but something gets lost in the transition from leg drive to press with the wider grip.
Throw in some top half lockouts on OHP days to push your lockout strength if you want. If 255 is your OHP max then those arms aren’t used to locking out 300.
I like doing that stuff seated. Set the pins or safety bars at the desired height and do dead stop lock outs or touch and go. Both will be effective.
I don’t think it’s necessary to do that to hit 300 but it might get you there a bit faster.
I think I’ve mentioned this before but I’m not ashamed to use straps on my heavy attempts to prevent my wrists from being the limiting factor. If your wrists flex on the press then it could be the difference in making or missing. Think of it like squatting in Chucks vs Skechers Shape Ups. When you exert force, you want the bar to go up–not your wrists (or shoes) to compress/go down.
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Ive been hoping he’d do it forever. He should have way bigger weights overhead with a 255 strict press. I’ll just need to hit 3 in the next couple months.
He’s hit 200 for 7. I already know he’s in another realm lol
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Yea, depending how I find recovery on this program I may implement some lockout partials to help with this. Good thinking.
Yea, him and Vinny just give people like us hope in the overhead strength category.
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like us? Son your strict press is 85 lbs higher than mine. If anything it’s 3 tiers with me at the bottom
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Boy, your strict press is 10lbs higher than mine.
Your waiters carries for 100’+ are more than I can balance overhead.
I can only assume your DB OHP/Circus DB would therefore be significantly higher than mine.
I only have a strict BB press stronger than yours…because I lean back and bench the damn thing.
So, at best, I’m even with your overhead strength!
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That salt toss really made it.
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I saw that on YouTube and wanted to try it. Nothing says badass like tossing some smelling salts. It’ll be a repeat psych-up technique for sure, but it would have looked much cooler if I had hit the lift after that…
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Push jerk. Sorry had to be a punk and correct you.
Maybe we could have a little log competition to settle things. My next comp has a 190 log press for reps in 60 seconds. Set a date of January 1st and see who comes out on top?
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My circus DB suuuuuuuucks. Lol it’s probably my most miserable lift, because the weight I can use is so much less than what I could do with a dumbbell. I really need to get one.
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Ah yes, typo. Punk.
I’m in. Although I will 100% need a reminder for this competition as my memory is non-existent.
That sounds like an nice competition.
We will remind you every week
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Week 2 - Day 1
FRONT SQUAT
135 x 5
185 x 4
225 x 4
295 x 4
295 x 4
295 x 4
295 x 4
295 x 4
PAUSED FRONT SQUAT
185 x 8
185 x 8
185 x 6
185 x 6
FRONT RACK REVERSE LUNGE (reps per leg)
95 x 8
95 x 8
95 x 6
95 x 6
Notes: Front squats are starting to feel more comfortable which is cool. Using 375lbs as my 1RM at the moment, but I’m looking forward to testing my 1RM at the end of this 10 week program. I am really liking this program so far. It is sticking to the basics, but still pushing me pretty hard each workout. It leaves some room for customization with “optional” suggested work, but if time or energy are short this workout can easily be done in under 45mins while hitting all the required lifts. That’s my kind of program! I weighed in this morning after breakfast at 211.8lbs (Thank you 3 Thanksgiving dinners). Today was another relatively high carb day (~300g) so I’m going to assume scale weight will still be holding above 210lbs tomorrow morning. I was considering dialing back my weight a tad, but it’ll be an uphill battle with Halloween (our big annual shit show that we host) followed closely by the holidays.
We are heading to Florida for a vacation from December 27 to January 5 so I plan on testing my new 1RMs before I leave. My priority is strength and breaking my previous PRs set at the beginning of 2017 so any form of cutting would be going against my main goal so, BRING ON THE FOOD!
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Dinner: Spaghetti Squash with tomato paste and 50/50 mix of ground beef and venison. Leftover rice. Caesar salad. Chased it down with some red wine.
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Leg day on this program tested my commitment. I must admit there were days that I skipped the lunges because I had nothing left in the tank and I knew my legs had already been crushed by the paused squats.
I hated the front rack reverse lunges so I did regular reverse lunges. How are they treating you?
Week 4 is a beast! 5 x 6 with the same weight. Enjoy!
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Well admittedly I’m not pushing the paused squats and reverse lunges too hard. The main sets of front squats were reaching RPE 8, but the paused squats and reverse lunges I just used to keep blood moving to the muscles and focus on more MMC with my quads. Also, last night’s workout took almost an hour because I was making dinner between sets so my rest periods were significantly longer than required. This left me relatively fresh for each consecutive set. Just these main 3 movements could easily be done in under 40mins.
I absolutely see how the leg day could crush someone though. If I shortened up my rest periods and/or used a more challenging weight for my assistance I would not be walking well today. Plus the option for additional work could really leave me out of gas. I have been feeling excellent quad stimulation, and DOMS in the right places following the Front Squat day, so I’m not planning on digging myself into a hole if these lighter weights are doing their job (which they seem to be!).
My last cycle of 5/3/1 I actually did with front squats and my leg size started coming back. It seems that if back squatting is my only leg exercise that I lose a noticeable amount of leg mass. Back to front squatting regularly now I have eliminated two pairs of jeans from my wardrobe as I can’t squeeze my legs in them anymore (also, thanks to the wonderful calorie surplus). I’m making skinny jeans out of ‘relaxed fit’ jeans again!
Yeah…5x6 is going to hurt!
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