Up to 222lbs on the nose today, but that’s explained by some festive food and drink at my girlfriend’s work Christmas party on Saturday.
Workout
Warmup
200 pullaparts
100 dislocates
Flexible Five
Glute drills
Metcon
Tabata KB swings
Tabata dimel deadlifts
Main Giant Set
8x light and high KB swings
5x deadlifts @ 120/130/140/145/150 (PR)
12x standing crunches Really happy with the deadlift PR. Last rep at 150 felt super tough and my grip was slipping even with straps, but watching it back it looked like RPELOL. First three reps were touch-and-go too which is nice.
Secondary Not-So-Giant Set Went a little off-script here and worked up in front squats to a PR (esp. with clean grip) instead of the usual work.
5x40kg
5x50kg
5x60kg
3x70kg
1x75kg
Body Comp
I’m definitely carrying more midriff girth than is ideal, but that’s been the case for literally my entire life.
Since the start of September I’ve put somewhere in the region of 0.5-1" on my waist, but also 0.5" on my quads, 2" on the chest and 0.5" on my arms. The quads one is especially significant because I carry basically zero fat on my legs.
Going to kick off 2019 with Building the Monolith as a last mass gain before shedding some flubber. Will ride the gains train through to the mid-term break when I’ll have a holiday-and-deload week, then switch to leaning out for the next nine-week block of training.
Down to 219.8 today. Feel pretty rough, which I will presume is what happens the day after you hit deadlift and front squat PRs in the same day. Counting the days until a New Year deload week.
Skipped conditioning today because I am a terrible person. Gotta be honest, after 20-odd weeks of conditioning and giant sets I am pretty keen to switch it up a little.
Workout
Warmup
200 pullaparts
100 dislocates
Flexible Five
Main Giant Set
Four rounds:
5x pullups (BW/BW/+2.5/+3.75/+3.75)
5x kneeling press (42.5/45/47.5/50/50)
5x kneeling ab wheel rollouts
Secondary Giant Set
Three rounds:
12x chest-supported row (20/25/30 each hand)
8x incline bench (40/45/50)
12x cable twisty things each way
I still feel pretty fatigued and demotivated, but at least today I had the excuse of an early driving lesson to cut the workout short. Every rep I did fit in, though, felt like RPE1,000.
220.4lbs
Workout
Warmup
Flexible Five
200 pullaparts
100 dislocates
Main Giant Set
5x Pendlay row @ 60/65/67.5/70/70
5x bench press @ 60/65/67.5/70/70
30s side plank each side
Woke up at 220.3 today which isn’t bad going given that a food emergency resulted in a shitty 1,000kcal pizza for dinner last night.
Feeling a little perkier now, but still not so much that I didn’t totally half-ass this workout by skipping the assistance. Next week I’m due to change up the rep scheme to 10x3 so maybe that’ll relight the fire.
Workout
Warmup
200 pullaparts
100 dislocates
Flexible Five
Glute drills
Metcon
EMOM 3x KB swings into 3x KB squats
Main Giant Set
Five rounds:
5x squats @ 70/80/90/100/110kg (PR)
8x KB snatches @ 12kg each hand
10x hanging leg raises
Really happy with how well the 110 moved, especially given it was pretty acceptable depth. I’d like to have more but I’m not competing and it’s not a half-squat, so whatever. I am folding over a little at heavier weights on the latter reps; I don’t know if this is core/quads or just fatigue making me forget chest up cues.
Either way, 110x3 is my previous best at that weight so all good as far as I’m concerned.
Weighed in at 222.2 today which is fun. With Christmas looming, my fatness is going to get worse before it gets better so this and next week I’m just going to put in a ton of volume to try and mitigate that.
Main Giant Set
5x med ball slams/3x deadlifts/10x decline situps
Deadlifts:
3x120
3x130
3x140
3x145
3x150
3x155
3x160 (rep PR. RPE9)
1x170 (PR)
3x150
3x150 Amazing what a weekend of rest and festive gluttony can do. 160 was my 1RM for months so really happy to rep it out.
Secondary Giant Set
Four rounds:
5x front squat @ 60kg
10x BB rows @ 40kg
30s plank
Finisher/Conditioning
Two Tabata rounds alternating KB swings and SLDL.
Hey, did you know that if you hit PB triples and a new max deadlift on a Tuesday, your bench is pretty badly affected on a Wednesday? Fun fact for you there.
Forgot to weigh in today.
Workout
Warmup
200 pullaparts
100 dislocates
Flexible Five
Main Giant Set
3x tempo DB rows @ 40kg // 3x bench press // 8x bandy-twisty-things each side
Bench press:
3x60kg
3x62.5kg
3x65kg
3x67.5kg
3x70kg This, which I have hit for 5-6 reps frequently, was a complete and total 3RM today. I wouldn’t have got the third rep here if the bar was just 100g heavier. Given that I decided to just back off and hit some volume for the remaining sets rather than the 10x3 planned.
5x5 @ 62.5kg giant setted with 8x DB rows @ 40kg & bandy-twisty-things
Secondary Giant Set
Three rounds:
8x T-bar rows @ 45kg
8x close-grip bench @ 50kg
8x overhead plate bends
Conditioning/Finisher
Five rounds of 30s each: band rows/pressups/situps/rest
221.3 today. I have a flight to Gatwick tomorrow, so before I went to the gym I booked a backup flight to Liverpool so that I could from there either fly to Heathrow or get the train to Victoria.
Anyway literally 30s after paying my £100 I got a breaking news notification that Gatwick was opening again. Such is life.
Today was more high-bar squat practice than anything else.
Shame to not hit the one-plate milestone. It did move but I couldn’t get it past my eyes. Considering I drank a lot last night and my last max standing press was an eight-second grinder at 2.5kg less I’m confident in getting this soon.
Assistance Giant Set
Three rounds:
20x DB rows @ 30kg
12x incline bench @ 45kg
10x Russian twists
Metcon/Finisher
Five rounds:
30s each inverted rows/press-ups/sit-ups/rest
No weigh-in again since I’ve no scale at my parents’ place. Hit a really long session today since I had the time and I’ll be eating a lot over the next couple of days.
Workout
Warmup
200 pullaparts
100 dislocates
Flexible Five
Glute drills
Tweaked my hamstring yesterday apparently. Or something. Get a small pain behind the knee when I bend my leg back (i.e. heel to arse) but not during a squat or hinge.
Next week is a deload anyway. Today is theoretically my last planned workout until then but I’m getting a pair of Romaleos delivered tomorrow so some squats are probably in order.
Retiring the Adipowers after several years of service. Will hit some squats to break in the Romaleos tomorrow. Hamstring/knee still feels a bit off but should be OK.
Potentially the best session of 2018 to finish it off.
Lifted at my friend's home gym. He's one of the head honchos in a national parkour association so it's fairly good as home gyms go.
Anyway for my comp I need to massively improve overhead strength and deadlift reps. Absolutely smashed both today.
Workout
Squats Just some reps to break in the new shoes. They felt great.
5x60kg
5x80kg
3x95kg
3x100kg
3x105kg
3x3x100kg
Deadlifts
3x70kg
3x90kg
3x110kg
3x110kg
3x120kg
2x3x130kg
12x130kg (PR - previously 10) All bar the AMRAP without straps.
Press
10x20kg
5x30kg
3x40kg
3x45kg
3x50kg
3x55kg (PR) This felt good so I loaded 58kg for a single which would be a very small PR over my 57.5kg max in November, but…
3x58kg (huge PR)
1x60kg (PR)
1x62.5kg (PR)
Now taking a deload week and back with Monolith next year.
Happy 2019 all. I’m entering the year as a too-fat-but-stronger-than-ever 225lbs and about to run Building the Monolith.
After that I’ll take a short holiday/deload, switch to 5/3/1 for Strongman, take a short holiday/deload again, then run 8 weeks of competition prep for SMB Strongman 2019.
Having not so much as looked at a barbell since eight days ago I’m feeling pretty raring to go. I also passed my driving test today so overall I’m in a pretty good mood.
Building the Monolith: training
Starting off with the following TMs, all pretty bang on 85% based on recent maxes/triples.
I’m not really making many changes to the program, besides the following:
As per Jim’s suggestion, I’ll be swapping the Monday and Friday press sets. I think it makes a lot more sense to do 10x5 presses on the same day I have to do 100 chins, because I like to superset them.
I’ll be doing pressups instead of dips.
Chinups are a lot harder than they were 20lbs ago, so I could potentially wind up doing a mix of chins and lat pulldowns. I will try to do all the chins though.
As many others who have run Monolith have done, I’ll add some core work.
On Saturdays (from week 2) I’ll be doing some strongman events training as well.
Tuesday/Thursday/Sunday will involve some kind of easy conditioning work. I don’t have a prowler or weighted vest but I’ll do something anyway.
Building the Monolith: diet
I’m going all in with the 12 eggs/1.5lbs beef because why not? Additionally it will be a nice experiment to see how I do on low carb in a surplus. Technically I’m undercutting the beef by 1oz per day (eating 650g) because it works out easier in terms of purchasing but I’m sure Jim will forgive me.
Lifting days I’ll have a sweet potato/spinach/red pepper/cheese omelette (refrains of the Vertical Diet) pre-training and a beef/egg burrito post-training. Beef/veg mix twice during the work day, then whatever I have for dinner, then another 4-6 eggs in the evening. Conditioning days will be similar but without the pre/post-workout carbs. Dinner will be some kind of meat/veg combo.
Not looking forward to it. I like eggs as much as the next guy, but not enough to want to eat 500 of them over the course of six weeks.
Today’s training is brought to you by the following song:
Hit the scale at 225.8 today.
Not the best night of sleep as my girlfriend has a cold/throat infection thing that keeps her coughing a lot. I’m coming off the same thing and still a little gunky - this, plus the looming “back to work” meant we had less-than-perfect conditions to start a horrible program.
It was indeed horrible. Had hoped to hit more chins/pressups, but I underestimated how much the squats would take it out of me. Goal is to hit the full 100 and 100+ respectively by the sixth week.
I went chin/pressup/facepull for four sets, then just the squats on their own, then press/chin for the 10 sets and some pressups to finish off. Tris were fried.
Whole thing took about 1h40m including the 10m warmup which I’ve got time for but would ideally like to get down. Not bad really though considering I moved the 10-set presses to today.
Workout
Warmup
Flexible Five
200 pullaparts
100 dislocates
Glute drills
Squats
10xbar
5x40kg
3x60kg
5x75kg
5x90kg
5x5x100kg This SUCKED. Can’t decide if my TM is too high or it was just an off day or I’m just unused to moving this much weight in a session. Possibly a combination of all three.
Press
5x20kg
3x30kg
10x5x37.5kg This on the other hand felt like a refreshing break.
Like the Batman comparison mate, that was very funny. Good to see you’ve made some progress on the big 3 lifts. You seem to be a numbers guy. I think we’re the same age approximately. I’m turning 30 this year. I will set myself a birthday-oriented goal at some stage.
Down to 225.2 today despite a 4,000kcal day yesterday. Still have some Christmas bloat to lose, I guess.
Training
So I don’t have access to a Prowler (though now I can drive, I may be able to pop to the Crossfit gym during the week - not sure if they allow open gym walk-ins during class times) and post-Christmas is a bad time to spend money on a weighted vest.
I’d like to do the conditioning properly, but given that I’m going to start adding in some strongman conditioning from week 3 onwards I think it’s probably OK to just do elliptical work on the non-lifting days.
Hardly worth logging, but here we are!
Diet
Eggs: 18/480*
Beef: 0.8/26kg*
*Realised that as I began on Tuesday and will end on Saturday it’s not a full 42 days of eggs and beef.
