Week 7 Squats. Curls, Squats, ab roller, step ups. Assistance Extenstions, SSB Squats, planks, and air squats. Conditioning was lighter clean pulls ss jumping rope 5 rrounds. Weight is coming off in a hurry which is good as long as I don’t eff it up. 201 this AM so a couple more lbs and we should be good. I would have put on 5 good lbs of muscle since my father passed in early February and I was sick for a couple weeks.
Week 7 Bench Heavy. Nothing too much here except my back and ssb squats anf then I drove my mother 4 hours to stay with my sister for a couple of weeks. Then 4 hours back. I tried doing pendlay rows but my low back didn’t want to. So all chest supported rows except some supported meadows rows. Bench is better but still needs a bunch of work off the chest. Pressing stuff isn’t my thing but I need to make it my thing.
Week 8 Deads. Man my erectors were already sore this was the icing on the cake. The only thing different was I did heavy below the knee rdls instead of sumo. Nothing much else to report just a couple of weeks left in the program trying to figure out what’s next.
Did week 8 OHP and Squat session back to back. I did do some z cage presses for assistance on OHP. Really really liked those. Feel like that would be good assistance for my OHP. Hatfield squats for assistance on squats. Bunch of ab work and conditoning too. On OHP day I usually do a giant set of shoulder work with some mountain climbers for the conditioning. Shoulders are smoked but went ahead with squats because I was able to get some time off work today and the garage is getting up to mid 90s now in the evening. I know everywhere has crazy weather but Oklahoma has to be up there. It wasn’t even a month ago I had to cover all the plants due to a couple sneak freezes and now 2 weeks of non stop mid 90s. This summer is going to be brutal. Has me thinking of some AC for the garage.
Last day of week 8 onto last week. Bench work today. Bench and 1 block bench for assistance. Did chest supported rows mainly and banded db hand supported rows as the antagonistic. Weighted crunches and weird reverse plank thing for the tva. Air squats and jump rope for conditioning. Then the conditioning portion was a giant set of heavy high incline bench, meadows rows, feet elevated pushups and air squats.
Final week DL of @alpha Powerbuilder. Man, the light days are as tough as the heavy days especially later in the program. Supplemental was trap bar deads. Antagonistic were banded dips SS banded pec minor dips and regular dips. Ab work was ab roller and decline situps. Conditioning mountain climbers and skipping rope. Then emom hang cleans. Have to say I’m looking strong but don’t see the strength moving up much. That I have to say is my fault due to having to cut hard for the Transformation challenge. I need to eat better to get the weight to go up, no doubt. But this program is legit. Something that I needed to get my work capacity up. Really like how he programs and pushes you. I like those types of programs that challenge your work ethic more than your ability to move heavy weight…although the latter helps.
Dear God…just saw the weather. For the foreseeable future we are in a drought pattern with 100+ degree temps. Garage workouts are going to be brutal.
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Week 9 OHP. Sloppy session. The only thing good about this one is its done. Kept getting calls during it… I hate that. Other than that nothing much to it. I’m trying to eat more but maybe its the fat past in me that unconsciously doesn’t want me to over do it. Anyway weight was going up steady but this morning it dropped to 197…need to drink a shake before bed maybe. Find time for another snack in there possibly. I’ll continue to tweak it. Powerbuilder or any of Alsruhe’s programs you probably should eat. Cutting probably isn’t the best idea. I’m feeling it. Of course I haven’t had a deload in a minute but I am feeling beat. Piling in some oats this am with some protein and some pecans. I’ll probably get some eggs at work. Then 2 chicken breast for lunch and a bunch of spinach. A butt load of meat loaf and green beans for dinner. Homemade beef jerky and 2 apples with a 1/4 cup peanut butter for a snack. The dinner is really about the only thing that changes for me and thats where you can make it or break it. On the nights my wife wants a lighter dinner the weight drops…and I should know better and eat more.
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Pushed last Skwat workout. Very basic and I didn’t think I had the energy to get after it. I turned it up to 11 pushed top sets and did some heavy hatfields with a final drop set with help from the wife. Leg curls to failure before squats then weighted crunches and moutain climbers ss with planks. Single leg extensions to failure then both legs with same weight to failure, heavy hatfields, decline situps, and skipping rope. Its hot…so ill do my rower conditioning tonight inside with AC on blast.
And done. Light Bench day. Good program. Without putting on much weight I’ve gained mass in my chest and upper back for sure. Since there is little to no direct arm work in it my arms didn’t really grow. I am sure they would have if I wouldn’t have cut weight during this program. Hard to gain arm mass without eating. All in all its a good program. @Alpha has a bunch of good stuff out there, definitely recommend.
Deload Week. I did the 4 major movements and then chins/dips. I didn’t do a ton of reps but I tried to still push the weight a little. 5 reps for 3 sets is about all I want out of my working sets. I did push my shoulder stuff a little just because my shoulders suck. Front Squats worked up to working sets at 175, and I probably should have pushed it more but…meh. Z/Cage Press thing worked up to 125 then drop sets after the 3rd set. High Incline BP with 135 and probably should have done the powertec on a high incline…these tend to make my shoulders ache pretty bad even with shortened rom. I’ll either use the lever machine or dbs for this next time. Conventional Deads 345 top sets. These killed garage is getting hot and deads being last just about did me in. Then chins and dips… Dips I have down working on doing more then just 5 chins…I want to be able to do BBB Challenge or BTM but if I recall those call for a bunch of chins and dips. So I’ll probably stop doing the other stuff and for the rest of this week and maybe next I’ll just do chins and dips until I can handle chins a bit better.
Chins ss Dips. Arms. Thats about it. My chins need work. I’m going to continue doing both everyday during deload and every other day I’ll add a squat or OHP or DL to it. Or do like I did today and do arms just because haven’t worked arms in a long time. I love arm day. Been a long time. Mainly pump and grunt work but my arms are full of blood tonight. I ate like a beast today too. Weight should be moving up good and slow. As long as I continue to condition I’ll be good.
Chins and Dips yesterday. Today the same with Deads. Worked up to 315 x 10 on trap bar. Then some pull downs and rows on the pulley. 3 sets at most didnt push anything too much. Been tired just completely tired… so not pushing anything too hard this week. My sleep doc says I don’t have apnea but prescribed silenor and it works I’ve been sleeping better. I don’t even need it all the time but I still wake up and I’m tired all day. This week yesterday and today were the worst…i am tired of being tired. I wish I could figure this out. I could handle this when I was younger but the older I get the worse I am about handling it.
Weekend was awesome didn’t do anything but eat and drink and sleep. Much needed.
Day 1 Week 1 BBB Challenge. 1st day in the books and OHP sucks. I struggled on the top set of 115…yuck. May need to drop tm…damn it. And I was too lazy to reset for the 5 x 10 bp so I did a slight incline 225 on the powertec. I’ll fix that for next time and do regular flat bench at 50% tm. Did push downs, curls and face pulls even walked over 2 miles today. Good day except for ohp…stupid ohp.
Day 2 Week 1 BBB Challenge. Deads. 295 on the top set for 5. Squats SS with Ab Roller. I did ssb squats…and forgot that 45s on there isn’t 135 but 155. But I fought through it and did 50 reps. I went deep too my hams are lit. Ab wheel after the 10 reps of ssb squats. In and out quick day I like it. Did some elliptical and some airplanes for warmup. Good day. Makes up for OHP day…stupid ohp.
D3W1 BBB Challenge. Bench. Top set 175 for 5. Easy 65 for the press 5 x 10. Banded 60 for Db rows 5 x 10 supersetted with the press. I need bigger DBs. V bar push downs and bb curls and low pulley face pulls. Need to drop the weight on the facepulls.
God my legs are still sore from the 50 squats…cant wait for the 50 deads…yay.
Slowly gaining weight, 204, still but thats up 2 for the last couple weeks. Feeling stronger and sleeping better. Hope the sleep stays there.
Forgot to mention that I’ve walked 7 miles this week so far, so I have another mile to go. I may just hop on the eleptical and sweat that mile out in the garage tonight.
Gave blood the other day and got my blood pressure and cholesterol. Blood pressure is great 119/72. However, my cholesterol is starting to trend up over the last three donations. This last time it came in at 192. They don’t give a breakdown beyond total cholesterol unfortunately. I have a physical coming up in a couple weeks and I’ll see if I can get the doc to order up a bunch of labs to check everything out.
D4W1 BBB Challenge - Squats. 230 top set for 5. 175 deads 5 x 10. 50 hanging leg raises. Walked a mile this morning will do some elliptical or more walking this evening.
Day1W2 BBB Challenge press. I hate to even report on my pressing…man I suck at it. Top set at 110. Did 135 bench for 50 but I threw a 45 under the bench to give it a slight incline. 50 chins is a chore still. Got 25 in then switched up to rack pull ups for the rest. Need to work on that too. Did the curls and did db skull crushers and rear delt work as well. Warmed up with some elliptical.
D2W2 Deads. 315 top set. Felt super easy. Deadlift has come up for sure. Haven’t trained it for a while before i ran powerbuilder, so at least that’s one lift I feel good about. The rest meh. 50 squats at 135 weren’t anything but I did notice on my last 2 sets some terrible hip shift to my right. I’ve got to work on that. I’ve got one leg much longer than the other and very open or turned out hips. That doesn’t help but it shouldn’t cause the shift to happen that bad. Just need some more stretching and some more work. I turned up the ab roller game with Ss of planks. I’ve got to keep my core work up. Honestly that was probably the hardest part about yesterday. Walked a mile at work before it got too hot and warmed up on the eliptical for 5 before lifting. I’ll figure out a way to get my conditioning in this week. It’s hot…really hot.
Got sick…no covid though. Lost about 10 lbs though…damn it. Still feeling a little fatigued but not too bad. No idea what the hell that was all about. But got to dig in and eat and deload for a week to get my base back then pick back up.