MarkKO's Training Log

Training Training Logs
401

Oddly nervous going, I think because last 531 week I only got the top single and I was determined to do better than that.

Today’s training:

DL
5x396 lbs, under 6 RPE
3x451 lbs, 6-7 RPE
5x500 lbs, 9 RPE - one short of my minimum goal of six but I’m still pleased enough. Tore a callus on my left hand.

1440×2560 1.33 MB

Semi sumo is becoming very comfortable.

5x10 269 lbs SSB squats, all 6 RPE, which was a surprise. I’m beginning to notice the BBB sets get easier by week three, which I’m hoping.means I’m getting stronger.

I was going to do side bends but my left hand isn’t up to gripping much so I did sit-ups instead:

10 on what looks like a decline bench
4x10 on the GHR

60 reps of jump rope between BBB and assistance sets, nine of those single legged for 30/leg per set for a total of 600. Need to practice these.

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402

Didn’t feel like sprinting so took my Bulgarian bag for a 35 minute walk. Found a nice steep-ish hill.

403

I’m beginning to realise joker sets are quite a mental thing for me: I’m more likely to feel they’re due not just if I’m feeling good, but if I’ve been toying with the idea of doing them form that lift already.

Today’s training:

Bench press
5x203 lbs, under 6 RPE
3x231 lbs, also under 6 RPE
6x258 RPE, 9-10 RPE

Felt good, and felt I’d earned some joker sets.

1x269 lbs, 9 RPE - shitty unrack, way too aggressive and brought the bar out too far
1x280 lbs, 9-10 RPE - unracked not like a moron and was rewarded with a much better rep
1x291 lbs, 10 RPE

That was slow but I knew for sure I had a few more lbs so I was stupid and

1x302 lbs, 10 RPE - no pause, and I got a lift out but I’m still really pleased. Right shoulder one hundred per cent happy.

5x10 154 lbs mostly tng bench press. Couldn’t feel my triceps on the final rep of the last set and almost failed.

3x12/arm 100 lbs DB rows - straps for my left hand, the tear isn’t healed enough yet.

These knocked me around, so I decided to drop the weight and use a slow eccentric.

2x12/arm 60 lbs DB rows - the slow eccentric was horrible.

30 reps/leg jump rope between BBB and row sets.

40 light band pull aparts.

That was the most taxing session I’ve ever had where I didn’t squat or DL.

404

Going over 3 Bills!

Good work

2 Likes
405

Still feeling yesterday’s work. Also, I think my walk the other day didn’t make my left knee too happy. Nothing to freak out about, but definitely to be monitored. My lower back was tight too.

Today’s training:

Squat
5x341 lbs, under 6 RPE
3x385 lbs, under 6 RPE
8x429 lbs, 9 RPE

Considered my knee, back and how the squats had felt. Decided I’d earned a joker set or two as long as I was careful.

1x451 lbs, 7-8 RPE - my current TM.

Intelligence isn’t my strong suit this week.

1x473 lbs, 9 RPE and a new sleeve PR. I don’t think 500 lbs walked out in sleeves is too far off.

Tried my semi sumo DL and my hips and lower back were having none of it.

Instead: snatch grip DL, and it turns out my stance should be wide, around the same as my squat stance just without splayed feet. Still using straps because of my palm. Grip width about the same as bench.

10x220 lbs, 6 RPE
10x253 lbs, 6-7 RPE
10x283 lbs, 7-8 RPE
10x253 lbs, 7 RPE
10x220 lbs, 6-7 RPE

Since I’m deloading next week I may experiment with a wide stance conventional DL - the only issue will be gripping outside my legs. Not that it matters much, semi sumo is feeling great.

3x25/leg bodyweight lunges

50 very light band pull aparts

406

Hey, watched the vid and have a question. You have a slight pelvic thrust prior to squatting. Are you engaging your glutes at this point? I read this somewhere, and have tried it. Sometimes it seems to help a lot, others it just cramps me, most of the time, I forget to do it.

Enjoy the deload.

407

@The_Myth

You’re right. I squeeze my glutes and hold that squeeze as best I can as I descend. If I don’t, I get a fair bit of buttwink and my lower back is strained more than it needs to be.

It takes a while to get used to, but we’ll worth it. A good thing to do is GHR or back raises squeezing your glutes at the top when you warm up for squats and DL. That way, your glutes are awake when you need them to squeeze and hold for the squat.

408

Week 4 - deload

Day one of my new job - was going to train early morning but decided to go after instead. Now I know what’s what in terms of parking and stuff I’ll train tomorrow early morning.

Today’s training:

Press (all sets under 6 RPE)
5x104 lbs
5x115 lbs
5x126 lbs
10x104 lbs

14 fat man pull ups

18 chest supported flyes

60 reps single leg jump rope between sets, then 2x100 reps single leg jump rope. BTW I mean 30/30 and 50/50. By cycle 4 I may be able to start alternating feet each rep.

409

Congratulations and good luck for/with the new job. I hope The new hours really make you life smoother.

410

They will I’m sure. The simple fact that they’re based on eight hour shifts instead of 12 is huge, even though I know there will be some very long shifts in there at times.

411

Got up and got to the gym early. Different crowd, more bro lifters.

Today’s training:

Semi sumo DL (all under 6 RPE again)
5x275 lbs
5x319 lbs
5x363 lbs

Did a poor job of getting tight so my lower back worked kind of hard.

10x269 lbs SSB squat

15/side 100 lbs side bends

60 reps single leg jump rope between sets, then two sets of 100. Didn’t get many unbroken.

412

At the gym ran into one of the guys in my fed. He’s a 308 usually, but holy crap if he hasn’t shed some lbs of fat. He’s probably around 12% and still squatting over 700 and benching over 400.

Anyway, that got me thinking. According to the formulas my maintenance calories are between 3150 and 3850 - which is pretty much what I’ve been having. One calculator online gave me 3000.

What I’m wondering is whether a 300-400 calorie deficit per day would be workable with my current training. So far doing 531 with BBB I’ve been coping fine and seeing good progress. My focus is getting stronger, but I wouldn’t mind slowly dropping fat too. It’d give me more room to add muscle and still be in the 220s, for one. As it stands I’m planning on running two more BBB cycles before transitioning to FSL, although I have considered jumping on to FSL from cycle three or four instead of waiting until cycle five. In my gut I think FSL would be better if I’m in a slight deficit (I’d do triumvirate for assistance).

Either way, I’m going to drop my calorie target to 2700 and see how I go. I tend to overshoot my target anyway, so if I aim for 2700 around 75% of the time I’ll probably be around 2900-3000. Even though that’s effectively going to be a 100-200 calorie deficit only I’m guessing it may still have some effect.

413

I’m curious to see how a deficit affects your workouts. I am having a hard time committing to a deficit since getting stronger is a huge need for me at this point. I always ending up eating to maintenance at least because adding five to the bar seems more important than leaning out.

Do you have an idea of what your body fat percentage is?

414

@The_Myth

I’ve got a ballpark idea of my bodyfat percentage, which is low 20s. So, compared to you I think I’ve got a much larger room for error in terms of caloric intake. By that I mean my body has enough excess fat at the moment that I figure if I get enough protein in, a slight deficit in calories shouldn’t be a deal-breaker in terms of recovery.

I’ll trial it for a cycle plus what’s left of this deload week and see how I go. I think/I hope that I’ve got enough experience to have set my 531 out properly which is why I haven’t been finding BBB a beatdown at all.

So, if I can get through a BBB cycle with a 300ish calorie deficit, I figure I should be good to go until I hit 12-15% at which point I’ll reset my maintenance and have a maybe 100-200 calorie excess to push growth.

415

It sounds like a good plan, will be watching to see how it goes.

416

Wednesday:

4x150 single leg jump rope in 25s. Need to get the hang of these.

5x10 49 lbs Bulgarian bag snatches

All took around 20 minutes

Thursday:

Bench press (all under 6 RPE except last set at 7 RPE)
5x159 lbs
5x181 lbs
5x203 lbs
10x165 lbs

BB rows
15x132 lbs, medium width overhand
15x176 lbs, narrow underhand
20x220 lbs, wide overhand

Total 100x53 lbs kettlebell swings in 40, 30 and 30 (around five minutes total)

417

It’ll be interesting. I shot for 2700 yesterday and hit 3100. I was hungry as though, so I’m guessing that was a kind of deficit. I’m shooting for 2700 again today, and I’m going to keep doing that and see what happens. The closer I can stay to 2700 the better.

418

Just an idea, if you get too hungry on 2700, you can try cycling calories - 3200 on workout days, 2200 on off days. For me it helps because I’m only hungry on off days and not all the time.

419

It’s funny you should day that, because I’ve considered cycling calories. I’m going to try hitting 2700 across first, though. Yesterday I got 3000 with less hunger, mostly I think because I timed my intake better.

My logic really runs along the lines of if I’ve been averaging 3300 or so daily and drop to an average of 2900-3000 I shouldn’t some kind of effect that is hopefully loss.

Also, I’ve decided to switch to FSL next cycle simply because of time. With the new job I now train before work, which limits my time to a hour or so. I could maybe fit BBB in that, but FSL with two assistance exercises supersetted for three sets of 10 would be faster.

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420

Starting to get accustomed to early training.

Today’s training:

Beltless squats
5x231 lbs, under 6 RPE
5x275 lbs, under 6 RPE
5x319 lbs, 6 RPE

Depth iffy here and there but I’m happy with how everything else with my squat is going.

Semi sumo DL, 10x319 lbs, 7 or so RPE

Couldn’t find the SSB so clean grip with straps lunges 1x10 at 154 lbs which is too much for reps, so I’ll drop it to 132 lbs.

6x15 second sprints on the Concept II with 45 second rests at level 7 around 85-95%, which was too fast if I wanted 10. Not as good at judging how fast a sprint is on the rower.