Exercises: Rest 1-2 minutes between sets.
1 x 8-10-rep work set / 1-2 x 6-rep prep sets
Whew…295 with 3 second pauses. Got to 6 then repped a couple regular singles.
Did the BWNL 4, 5, and 6 this weekend when I had time. Nothing crazy pretty easy going. I did notice bodyweight finally coming down and my chins are getting way easier. I’m sure the body weight is helping that but my arms are getting somewhat bigger as well even with the weight coming down. Weight is 215lbs this morning.
W5D1 BWNL
xercises: Rest 1-2 minutes between sets.
1 x 6-8-rep work set / 1-2 x 6-rep prep sets
W5D1 and D2 BWNL
Day 1
1 x 6-8-rep work set / 1-2 x 6-rep prep sets
Day 2
1 x 8-10-rep work set / 1-2 x 6-rep prep sets
Woke up and couldn’t go back to sleep so hit Day 2 early this morning. I like working in the morning only because it’s cooler in the shop, but beyond I can’t really get fired up to hit lifts that early. I think that is the major reason why I don’t do it. Squats today felt mediocre at best. I mean my weight is coming down so it’s understandable but doing 20lbs more last week felt about the same…at roughly the same body weight. It’s just hard to get going early with this stuff for me anyway.
Forced deload…sigh…poison ivy again. This time though it’s literally everywhere. Literally. Going to urgent care today to get the steroid injection and the z pack. We were having the land cleared because I was tired of getting it. However they needed a couple fence posts pulled. I didn’t see any poison ivy anywhere. But it was there…must have spread it all over while showering. Probably just push ups and stuff like that if I can without ripping one of those gross wounds open. Fuck pouson ivy.
It randomly cooled off so I got a session in.
W5D4 BWNL
Exercises: Rest 1-2 minutes between sets.
1 x 8-10-rep work set / 1-2 x 6-rep prep sets
Taking Prednisone taper starting with 60mg 12 tablets and just taking one less a day until gone. I can’t sleep and I’m not eating much and still putting on a shit load of weight. When I finally went in Saturday to get the steroid treatment I had to force my eyes open to see and it was starting to blur pretty bad. Felt like I had a lump in my throat and when they tested my spO2 it was 86, 88 and finally hit 92 after sitting a minute. Poison ivy literally got every where. So we had a bobcat forestry mulcher come out and clear some land because obviously poison ivy…and I’m tired of getting it. But it must have aerosolized the shit…as well as me getting some of the oil on my hands from moving some t posts out of their way. Even though I always hose off and wash up before doing anything this oil must have still been on there. Anyway long post for me. It’s getting somewhat better just need sleep at this point.
Hang in there, man. Hopefully you’re on the mend now.
Wow, man. That really sucks, sounds like you got it pretty bad… Hoping for a quick recovery
It sucks, but I’m kind of used to it. The stuff is every where out here. Luckily one more round of clearing and mulching should make it much much better and at least manageable. If I get just get some shut eye tonight, I should be right as rain.
Good to hear man, rest up.
Rest…we got another random rain shower. Cooled it off a bit so I hit another session. These later week Best Workout sessions are pretty easy going at least.
W5D5 BWNL
Exercises: Rest 1-2 minutes between sets.
1 x 8-10-plus rep work set / 1-2 x 6-rep prep sets
Alright getting back after it. Poison Ivy sucks. On the last leg of the Prednisone taper and my sleep is still suffering big time however the weight is normalizing. It was wild. I wasn’t hungry and hardly ate at all last week but my weight ballooned up from 216 to 224. Then all of a sudden Saturday I was just hungry. I started off the morning with 4 eggs and sausage. Had 2 pork chops for lunch and then had 2 onion burgers for dinner, no bread. I tried to work out off and on with the poison ivy, but when I would get real sweaty it would start itching big time. SO I generally took it easy. But I did a lot of thinking on future programs and ideas. I really don’t like the 6 days on thing from Best Damn Workout. Even though it is crazy low volume…however I do like the intensity and the tools you use to get there. However stopping short of failure doesn’t work in my brain especially when the volume is so low. I really like the article put out by Thibs today. EOD lifting is my bread and butter. The programs I’ve ran that are like that were usually the ones I did the best in, BTM, Super Squats etc. So…I think I’m going to jump into some DoggCrapp style training with their ABA type split. I may throw a Gap workout in there on the weekend to bring up a lift or body part. I think I am going to throw a lot of the intensification methods form Best Workout at it as well but push the stuff to failure of course. The extreme stretching…eh…we will see. I’ll at least try it but I’ve done it before and meh. I would like to get the weight down a bit more, but we will see at first the demands of the program. I’m using this older tnation article as a reference How to Build 50 Pounds of Muscle in 12 Months .
Farting around this week trying to figure it out. But I think I get the gist. DC seems well suited for the shop gym. I got a session in Saturday and Today.
| Workout A1 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Exercise | Sets | Reps | Weight | Reps Done |
| Barbell incline bench press | 1 | 11-15 RP | 245 | 13 15hold |
| Dumbbell seated military press | 1 | 15-30 RP | 40s | 25 10hold |
| Dip | 1 | 15-20 RP | 15 | |
| Wide-grip lat pulldown | 1 | 15-20 RP | 160 | 17 |
| Deadlift | 2 | 5-8 or 9-12 SS | 315 | 5 |
| Workout B1 | ||||
| Exercise | Sets | Reps | ||
| Barbell curl | 1 | 20-30 RP | 65 | 24 15hold |
| Hammer curl | 1 | 11-20 SS | 40s | 15 |
| Standing calf raise | 1 | 10-12 SS * | 135 2 Grey Bands | 10 |
| RDL | 1 | 11-15 SS | 315 | 9 |
| Leg press | 2 | 4-8 SS +WM | 225 2 Grey Bands | 4, 20 |
Went ahead and did RDL instead of GHR because that’s what I got. RDLs were with 3 to 5 sec negatives. I did the powertec squat instead of leg press but it’s close enough. I’ve always had a rough time with that and my knees and back. However didn’t seem to be an issue. Maybe because I used the heavy grey elitefts bands instead of more weight. So 225 then whatever the bands were. So it unloaded a bit at the bottom and overloaded the top. The Widowmaker there was a ball buster. Had to pause for a few breaths and bang out 5 more…pause…5 more so on and so forth. The WORST part of that thing is getting out of it when your woozy. Made it out alive.
W1D3 DC
| Exercise | Sets | Reps | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Dumbbell flat bench press | 1 | 20-30 RP | 60s |
| Barbell seated military press | 1 | 11-15 RP | 95 |
| Close-grip bench press | 1 | 11-15 RP | 155 |
| powertec supported row | 1 | 15-20 RP | 205 |
| chin ups | 1 | 10-12 RP Negatives | 25 |
Gap workout Shoulder and triceps.
Seated Viking Press
185 3x12
Landmine side laterals 3x15
Rope Pushdown 50lbs 3x20
Single Arm Cross Body Pushdown 20 3x 15
Behind the back Lateral 3x20 10
Just need press to be better but want to be smart about it. I’m going to keep the gap the same body parts for a minute until I feel my shoulders are there. They seem to be the cause of a lot of my upperbody weakness.
| WEEK 2 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Workout B2 | ||||
| Exercise | Sets | Reps | ||
| seated incline db curl | 1 | 20-30 RP | 30s | 22 15hold |
| rope curl | 1 | 20-30 RP | 50 | 26 |
| Leg-press calf raise | 1 | 10-12 SS Negatives | 135 grey bands | 12 |
| Lying leg curl | 1 | 15-20 RP | 95 | 18 |
| Back squat | 2 | 4-8 SS + WM | 245 | 18… |
| Workout A3 | ||||
| Exercise | Sets | Reps | ||
| Hammer Strength flat bench press | 1 | 11-15 RP | 315 | 13 |
| Smith machine seated military press | 1 | 11-15 RP | 185 | 15 |
| EZ-bar skull crusher | 1 | 15-30 RP | 50? | 30 |
| Close-grip chin-up | 1 | 15-20 RP | Orange Band…? | 15 |
| BOR | 1 | 10-12 SS | 165 | 12 |
Lats are fried. The close grip chins I couldn’t get more than 4. Must still be cooked from the negative chins so I did orange Band assisted chins. Also… Widowmaker squats at the end of a session is way tougher than knocking them out at the beginning of a session. I like it but I need to work on it again.
I did these sessions back to back simply because it was cool outside and I had the time. I really need to get some conditioning sessions in the next couple of days. Mainly because I’m sore from head to toe and that’s about the only way to work that out. I am liking these sessions short but brutal. I’m not logging any of the warmup sets but I usually do 2 to 3 depending on what I’m doing. Simply pyramid up to the top set.
Think I’m going to buy a couple Meadows’ programs. Wish I would have sooner, but at least I hope it goes to help out his family and his employees. Sad to see such a good solid person in a fairly nutty industry go down. Sounds like he passed peacefully at least. I know he has young boys and was coaching football for one of his son’s teams. Worked with Olympia level athletes to high school football players. Good people, RIP John!
W2D3 DC
| |Workout B3|||||
| — | — | — | — | — |
|Exercise|Sets|Reps|||
|Dumbbell drag curl|1|20-30 RP|30s|40|
|Pinwheel curl|1|11-20 SS|40|11|
|calf raise|1|10-12 SS|225|15|
|Machine hack squat|2|6-10 SS + WM|225 + 2 Whites|8, 21|
|Barbell Romanian deadlift *|1|10-15 SS|275|10|
It’s hot. Plain and simple. Not much to do about that I’ve been dragging ass hard here this last week. The weeks prior I didn’t get much rest while on the Prednisone and with poison ivy but man this week I feel like the tanks are just getting me by on fumes. Probably because I’m losing weight while doing this too. Weight this morning was 216. So really it hasn’t moved much at all this last week. This morning I upped the carbs a bit just to see if that would help. Didn’t seem to. RDLs were killing me. I gave everything up on the powertec squats and those RDLs I just didn’t have it.
Here is how I have the powertec squat set up. When I took the weights off the pins before stepped on the diamond plate the entire powertec lifted on the squat side. Not sure how much band tension that is but that says something. That POS is heavy.
Awesome man, seems like a good way to support the family, there is a GoFundMe page as well.
I know @aldebaran has run a bunch of John’s stuff, so he might be able to give a few recommendations to the programs.
You did two DC workout one right after the other one??? I would be dead after the widowmakers 
If you like high intensity, Colossus is the way to go. I don’t know a single soul that didn’t had a blast on it. But it’s 5 days per week at least so you should do it when you have the time/energy
I’ll look into Colossus. But I’ve had my eye on Unity for a minute. It’s the skeptic in me that worries about the go fund me stuff but I’m sure it’s fine. Yeah those back to back sessions were dumb but if you get a brief break in the heat, you take advantage of it garage gym lifting. I am definitely dragging ass. Sleep is starting to tank again. Last night’s widow maker soreness hasn’t set in yet so I’ve got to keep moving. After back squats WM I was walking like Frankenstein for a couple days.
