11/25 Bench
265x5
300x3
335x2
Pin press paused
275x4,4,4,3
225x6
felt sick, went home.
11/28 Back/cardio
Pull ups
normal grip BW 4 sets of 8
wide grip BW 5x5
treadmill 20 minutes
incline 9, speed 3
BB Rows
135x8x4
185x5
225x3
I suck at wide grip pull ups. Got done with cardio and saw I had some time to spare and dicked around with BB rows. I suck at those, too.
12/8 Legs
Squats
225x3
245x3
275x3
295x3
315x3
335x3
355x2
275x5
275x5
275x5
Sumo Deads
135x6
225x6
275x6
315x6
345x1
BW=224
So, I’m a couple weeks out from my first full meet, and how do I prepare? By not showing up to the gym for 10 days, and drinking a lot of beer. With that, I didn’t really know what to do today, so I just worked up in 3s on squats to see where I’m at. My horrible squat got a little more horrible. I just plain haven’t been squatting with consistency, and that needs to change. I’m altering my program to squat twice a week starting now. Deadlift will be done as accessory, like today.
Sumo deads, first time doin em. Felt something weird in the back of my knee on the 345 set and decided to call it a day there.
12/10 Bench
225x3
245x3
275x3
295x3
315x3
330x3(tried for 4 and got stapled)
225x17(yuck)
Skullcrushers
3x10
all superset with neutral grip pull ups, 8x10
My gym closes at 6pm on Saturdays for some reason, so I got a day pass at the local commercial gym. I don’t like the place much. Unadjustable benches, one weird squat rack, ZERO straight pull up stations, no place to set up anything reverse band, DBs only to 100, barbells have no knurling, etc, etc, blah blah. But its 24/7 and half the price, so I dunno. Anyways…
I didn’t feel good benching, but I’m happy with the numbers after the lay off.
12/13 Squat light/deload-ish
225x6
250x6
285x6
315x2
BW: 223
12/16 First full meet
375-335-455 at 220.
Squat, missed 400, which I know I couldve gotten easily. Sat too long at the bottom and didn’t explode up.
Bench, 315 and 335 were easy, and narrowly missed 355, so not too upset with this. Also need work on my technique with pausing here, I was sinking in too hard, which caused the judge to make me wait longer than I needed to.
Dead, finally felt good on the hammy, ready to go heavier here. 405, 425, 455 all good lifts and easy.
1165 total, I fully expect I can add 100 lbs to that by the next one.
12/19 Bench
245x3
280x3
315x8
210x10x5
DB bench
70x4
80x4
90x4
100x4
Bit sore from the meet yet, and wanted to squat, but the racks were in use, and short on time, so I benched, and hit a nice rep PR. Forgot to do chins between sets again though, damnit. Gonna try to get on a more set schedule, and lift Mon Tue Thur Fri every week, so this week I get to toss in a back/bi day on Wed to make up for it.
12/20 Squats
265x3
300x3
340x4
225x10x3
superset with chins
10x8
This plus a hangover is a pretty solid way to kick your own ass.
12/22
Reverse band bench
225x8
275x5
315x5
365x1
385x1
405x1
425x1
315x11
275x11
225x11
135x31
Chest supported rows
neutral grip (weight in plates, dunno what the bar weighs)
45x10
55x6
70x6
80x6
90x6
100x6
70x12
55x12
45x12
So on Mon-Tues I’m following 5/3/1, and on Thur-Fri I’m kinda dickin around. Felt like a damn good workout though.
12/23
Squats
185x10
225x10
275x10
Farmer’s walks
225# hex bar for about 30 yards x 10 trips
These were pretty light and short so I did em for time with little rest.
12/26 Bench
225x5
265x5
295x5
DB bench
100s x6
105s x6
110s x6
115s x6
120s x6
superset with DB rows, same weight and sets, 15, 12, 12, 10, 10 reps
12/29 Squats
245x5
280x5
320x8
275x5x3
and some light GMs
12/30 Upper body widowmakers
Bench
255x19 (116% BW)
Was supersetting all warmups with chins/pulls, and after the 255x19, I realized I’ve never taken a pull/chin-up set past 10, so I went for a set of 20 there as well, got to 14 chins and decided I wasn’t gonna make it, cuz I was out of gas from earlier sets.
SOHP
45x10
95x5
115x5
135x5
165x5 (nice and easy for not having done these for a while)
superset these with neutral grip pull-ups at a much slower pace, and got the set of 20 in there somewhere, although ugly lol. I now have the goal to do this without any kip, more of a dead hang between reps, and pulling up a bit higher.
1/2 Squats
280x5
320x3
355x5
385x2
280 felt way, way heavier than it should have. 355, I felt good for 2 more, but I was seein stars, and 5 is already a nice PR. Didn’t have time for BBB/assistance so I decided to get another PR with 385x2, and it felt light. I wanted to go for more, but I recently watched a Dave Tate video about Louie telling him to go home immediately after a PR.
After one cycle of doing 5/3/1 on monday, and higher rep squat work on thursday, Ive set PR’s on 2, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, and 10 reps. And I still have thursday. Gotta love beginner gains, which is essentially whats happening, as I’ve never taken squatting seriously enough.
1/3 Bench
265x5
295x3
330x5
355x1
225x8x3 paused
Superset with weighted chins
BW+35 8 sets of 5
Not a training session, but I wanted to post this somewhere, and I don’t really think it merits a new thread anywhere. I use 1RM calculators quite a bit to gauge progress, get ballpark guesses, etc. I got irritated that they all utterly break after 10 reps, most times before 10.
For instance my 10RM bench is 300. Most calculators put that at 400. My new 5RM is 330, which I consider an equal lift, maybe even better. Most calculators put that around 385. Even better, I’ve gotten 225 for 29 back in the day when my max was about 350ish. 225x29 gives you well over 400 for most calculators.
So, in my generous time wasting, I started working on my own calculator. The problem I first see is that they are all (that I’ve seen, anyways) using a linear model. No need to get into the math details on some of the methods I tried, here is what I came up with:
1RM estimate = Weight/0.98^Reps
If the terms aren’t clear, 300x10 would be 300/(0.98 to the 10th power)=300/0.82= 367 estimated 1RM. My current PR is 365.
To check this equation in more extreme terms, 255x19 comes out to 374. I think it’s nuts trying to figure 1RM from a set of 19, but I use it as a check on the math. If its way, way off, then a 10RM is gonna be way off. If it’s really close, a 10RM might be pretty damn precise.
This formula also seems to work for my DL, as my 415x7 set comes out to 478, and a few sessions after hitting that set, I very narrowly got 475 for a single. Pretty sure 480 wouldn’t have went up at that time.
Squat, dunno not yet. I broke most rep PR’s in the last cycle, so I don’t have much for useful data, but I think it’ll work just fine.
A note, this formula gives considerably lower numbers than most calculators I’ve seen. This was intended as well, as I thought the numbers were too inflated. My estimated DL was 512 and I barely got 475. My best bench estimate has been over 400 for months, and I think I could maybe hit 375-380. It’s personalized for me.
Reason I post it, I guess, is because the general concept can be used. For those of you that are bored and nerds like myself and wanna devise your own calculator, start with some non-linear like this, imo.
/end rant
1/6 Squats
225x3
275x3
325x3
375x3 PR
405x1 PR
295x10 PR
few sets of lying leg curls
I was reluctant to go heavy on squats for a second time this week, but I’m goin into a deload. That finishes the cycle, in which I broke any rep record from 1-10, couple of em twice. Man my squat sucked. PR’s are always good though.
1/9 Upper Deload
Bench
225x10x4
superset with lat pulldowns
1/12 Squats
270x3
310x3
345x6 PR
285x8x3
This workout looks kinda skimpy on paper, 36 reps total. But it kinda kicked my ass. And it’s a PR so I’m happy.
1/13 Bench
250x3
285x3
320x7 PR
355x1 (nearly two, probly shouldn’t have tried it after the 320 set)
255x8x2 (wanted more, but my entire upper arms starting aching pretty bad)
superset with pull ups, sets of 5 with a pause at the top of the last rep
I’m a little worried about this ache, the day after a deload.