Mike's First Log, a Maximum Strength Edition

Training Training Logs
1

So After trolling various internet forums over the last five years and reading and enjoying lots of people’s log’s I have finally decided to “pop my cherry” so to speak. I will be logging my trials and tribulations of Eric Cressey’s Maximum Strength program.

A little background on me. I was always athletic growing up, however I never excelled at any particular sport. When I was 20 (2002), with 9/11 still fresh in my mind I decided to join the Army and enlisted as an 11B Infantryman. When I reported to Fort Benning for basic training I was completely out of shape, weighed a whopping 139 lbs at 69 inches tall and had no idea what the hell I was getting myself into. My first PT test I did 25 push-ups, 30 sit-ups and ran my 2 mile in a blistering 22 minutes.

I persevered, and with the motivation of my Drill Sergeant’s daily “smoke-sessions” my last PT test I did 56 push-ups, 64 sit-ups and ran my 2 mile in 14:30, not a high score by any means but a big improvement for 14 weeks. O yeah when I graduated I also weighed 155 lbs, and was about 10% BF.

Fast-Forward to late 2005, I was a SGT and had just re-enlisted for stabilization and college, which basically meant for the months of Aug-Dec I was a civilian going to college. I was perusing the aisles of the local Barnes and Noble and happened to pick up a book titled “The New Rules of Lifting” by Lou Schuler. I started the Lifter #2: The guy who considers “skinny” an insult program in late August of 2005.

By December of 2005 I had put on 20 lbs of lean body mass, however due to Army obligations I was not able to complete the program.

Present day I am now Green-to-Gold Army ROTC cadet pursuing my B.S. in Exercise Science with an Allied Health concentration. I am currently studying for the NSCA-CPT exam that I am planning on taking the end of January. I have purchased a couple of other program’s that Eric has put out to include M2, and A&C which are way under-priced for the amount of information that is provided in them.

I know this has been a entirely too long introduction, but I felt if you know where I am coming from maybe you can help me get where I need to go. I will try to post here at least every lifting day (M-W-F-S) and maybe even T-TH to let yall know what I am doing. I wont be listing what I eat everyday, but suffice it to say I pretty much follow the meal plan Eric lays out in the book.

I will also only be posting the exercise and loads so as to not post up copyrighted information. I am a mesomorph so unfortunately I have to do cardio tues/thurs as prescribed.

All weights will be in LBS

Packing Day: Last Week
Starting Weight:173, BF%:unknown
Broad Jump: 84in
Box Squat: 225
Bench Press: 185
Deadlift: 245
3RM Chin-Up: 27.5

Phase 1/Week 1/Monday 28 DEC:
Box Squat: 185 (challenging, but I could probably go up 5lbs)
Speed Deadlift: 125
Walking DB Lunge: 30 (Holy Crap I forgot how much I hate lunges)

It felt really good to get under the weight’s again, total time with rolling, mobility warm-up and the workout was about 75 mins. As I write this (WED) I have some pretty good DOMS in my glutes, and quads, but nothing debilitating.

Phase 1/Week 1/ Tuesday 29 DEC:

So Eric prescribes we do 15 minutes HIIT intervals, and while I am a fan of using time for intervals, I own a Forerunner 305 with a HRM and prefer to use the physiologically specific method Mike Boyle talks about in his DVD “Interval Training for Athletes and Clients” (It was free with my purchase of Functional Strength Coach 3)

Without giving away Mike’s entire DVD I ended up doing eight 30/90’s which comes out to 16 minutes.

Alright so that brings us up to today, I will be posting today’s workout sometime later this evening. Until then please feel free to comment/criticize/ask questions as I am sure I probably left out some pertinent information somewhere.

2

Phase 1/ Week 1/ Wednesday 30 DEC:
Bench Press: 160
Neutral-Grip Low-Incline DB Press: 40
Seated Cable Row: Medium Pronated Grip: 105
Prone Trap Raise: 5
Side-Lying External Rotation: 2.5

Foam rolling about made me pass-out. I am really enjoying the warm-ups before the workout.

Crazy shit I saw at the gym today: A guy using the “Extreme Core Trainer” AKA “Landmine” for back rows, with the ECT handles, he looked a hot mess.

3

Phase 1/ Week 1/ Friday 1 JAN:

Front Squat: 115
Rack Pull from Kneecaps: 205
DB Bulgarian SS: 25
Pull Through: 20

I know the Front Squats are weak sauce but I have not done them in a while, and I didn’t want to go overboard.

4

Phase 1/ Week 1/ Saturday 2 JAN:

1-Arm DB Push Press: 40
Close-Grip Chin-Up: BW
Push-Up: BW+25
1-Arm DB Row: 40

Alright week one down, 15 to go. I haven’t been overly sore like I have with some other hypertrophy programs I have been on. Interested to see how my loads increase this week.

5

Great to see a new log being started. Keep pushing hard and you’ll make some big time gains.

6

Thanks man, I appreciate you stopping by.

7

I see that you just log your total poundages. It might be helpful for others and yourself to see how many total reps you got by using those poundages. Any set / rep nomenclature will do.

Even if there’s no increase in a lift’s one rep maximum, getting more repetitions in at a given weight is still an increase in strength. And also, keeping track of total repetitions can prevent overtraining or let you know that you have way more to push.

8

In order to respect Eric Cressey, and copyright laws I am not including reps and sets as someone could essentially figure out his program. However with that being said I do personally keep track of all my sets and reps in a log book, and thus far have been able to complete all prescribed reps with the weights I have listed. I apologize if it leaves my log incomplete looking, but Eric has put a lot of time and effort into his book and I think he would appreciate it if I did not post his program on a public internet forum.

9

Phase 1/ Week 2/ Monday 4JAN

Box Squat: 195 (the last set damn near broke me off)
Speed Deadlift: 135
Walking DB Lunge: 30 (Unfortunately 30lbs is the heaviest DB’s I own, so next week I gotta take it to the gym)

I was happy with my load on the Box Squats, and disappointed that I could have went heavier on the DB lunges but due to lack of equipment was unable to. My diet is pretty damn good right now, and my sleep cycle is starting to get back to normal after New Years.

Although I am looking forward to bench pressing on Wednesday, I am not looking forward to going to the crowded University gym full of chicken-legged dudes doing chest, tri’s and bi’s.

10

Phase 1/ Week 2/ Wednesday 6JAN

Bench Press: 170
Neutral-Grip Low-Incline DB Press: 40
Seated Cable Row: 110

I wanted to try the 45’s for the DB Press however some stick legged dude was knocking out 10 sets of 20 bicep curls or something so I said fuck it and used the 40’s. I am really spoiled from working out in my own gym at my house to having to to go to a free school gym. It is especially a pain in the ass when you have to superset something and people are looking at you like your a dick.

11

I always feel the need to drop in on Maximum Strength logs, being that it was the program that got me started on serious training. My box squat on my original test day was 225 also, at the end it was 315, add another 9 months after that and I am now good for a 405 free squat, keep at it man!

I also have never had a single shoulder problem despite all of the pressing movements I do, I attribute a lot of that to training correctly from the start with MS. All of the rowing and chins along with the prehab movements are really important for keeping those shoulders healthy.

12

HOLY CRAP! A 405 free squat! Honestly when I started this program I had no goals as far as loads go, I just wanted to be able to add weight every week to all my big lifts. I stay at around 175 so if I could squat twice my BW I would be happier than a two-peckered billy goat. Thanks for stopping in Vikings, I appreciate the support bro.

13

Phase 1/ Week 2/ Friday 8Jan

Front Squat: 135
Rack Pull from Kneecaps: 215
Bulgarian Split Squat: 25

My legs were smoked from the Front Squats, so I decided to keep the same load as last week on the DB Bulgarian SS’s. I did however hold the stretch at the bottom of them to help out my range of motion. Rack Pulls felt good, however my traps are a little sore so I am wondering if maybe I am shrugging a little too much.

14

[quote]armygrunt82 wrote:
Phase 1/ Week 2/ Friday 8Jan

Front Squat: 135
Rack Pull from Kneecaps: 215
Bulgarian Split Squat: 25

My legs were smoked from the Front Squats, so I decided to keep the same load as last week on the DB Bulgarian SS’s. I did however hold the stretch at the bottom of them to help out my range of motion. Rack Pulls felt good, however my traps are a little sore so I am wondering if maybe I am shrugging a little too much.[/quote]

Its not uncommon to get sore traps from deadlifting variations without having to shrug at all. Look at all the guys out their with big deadlift numbers, then look at their traps, case closed.

15

Haha you’re taking almost the same exact educational path as me, except you have the benefit of being prior enlisted!

Halfway through my MS3 year here, I’m sure the rest of ROTC won’t be a problem for you.

I had the first Maximum Strength log on the site, whole thing is logged here: Forums - T Nation - The World's Trusted Community for Elite Fitness

Good luck!

16

Sweet, I figured there had to be someone else who had logged the same program on here.

I don’t know if I would say being prior-enlisted is an advantage at my program, however it has come in handy when they need someone to chew a little ass.

What program did you follow-up Maximum Strength with? I was thinking of doing Jim Smith’s AMD program since Eric kind of semi-recommended it in an article I had read.

17

I had a training program of my own making, had to work around a thumb injury that made it impossible to bench or pull for weeks. Wasn’t happy with myself because I made awesome gains on the program and couldn’t show it off because of the injury.

I don’t own AMD but I’ve met and trained with Smitty and the Diesel Crew before (and I was the smallest and weakest guy in the room!)- great bunch of guys. Smitty is like a mad scientist coming up with programs, exercise and rehab. I don’t think you can go wrong with anything he’s made.

18

Dude, this is an awesome program. I made some - if not the - best gains of my life. The only thing I can say is make sure you’re on top of your food and rest 'cause it gets pretty taxing.

19

Thanks for stopping by WhiteFlash, I am really looking forward to seeing what kind of gains I make. I am pretty anal when it comes to my diet, so much so that it drives my wife crazy sometimes. Being married also helps me get to bed at a decent time so I usually get at a minimum 7 hours of sleep.

20

Phase 1/ Week 2/ Saturday 9Jan

1-Arm DB Push Press: 45
Close-Grip Chin-Up: BW
Pushup: BW+35
1-Arm DB Row: 45

I did not realize on the super-set’s we were allowed to rest between the exercises so as soon I completed a set of the DB push-press I would jump straight to the set of chin-up’s.

On another note I weighed myself at the gym after I worked out, and the scale said 181. I know this is not all LBM, I am however curious what my BF% is as my pants are not fitting any tighter in the waist where I usually gain weight.