I know, arent i just simply Puntastic?
1 Like
Gotta admit, it was a smart one
1 Like
Very interesting log here! A lot of long post with a lot of interesting stuff!
You seem an advocate of High intensity with low volume if I’m right, that’s exactly the kind of training that I like.
When you will have time if you can take a look in my log, I need some advice in my programming.
1 Like
Thanks man, welcome aboard!
Depends on the situation but most of the times yes, high intensity and relatively high frequency are the keys to growth to me at least.
I’ll check it out, hopefully I can help
You may find something helpful here in my log as well, there are a couple of posts about training here
1 Like
Just for back eron the gym, it was a good one.
The guy I trained with did well, he has progressed with eating and straining since last time.
He got 11x82.5 on the close grip bench today with a cleaner technique than what he used for that 7x85 six days ago. Nice.
Three weeks ago his lifts were
Now his estimated maxes are
95kg front squat (+10kg)
112kg CGB (+22kg)
190kg deadlift (+30kg)
12 BW chin ups (+4 reps) (This is not an estimation, he did it today after all of his main work so he might be able to get 14-15 when fresh)
Front squat progress could’ve been better, I’m assuming that he’s stopping a bit short on his PR sets - tomorrow he won’t do that.
But everything else he progressed really well.
I’m proud of the guy but he won’t hear that from me for a while. I may say that a set was pretty good when he’s gasping for air on the floor with bloodshot eyes but that’s about it - satisfied athletes don’t perform as well.
On another note; lately I’ve been doing a lot of rear laterals and band face pulls as assistance movements and man do they feel good. They also seem to work pretty well for delt hypertrophy, but it’s too early to say anything for certain.
1 Like
damn it’s better than my yearly progress …
2 Likes
That’s what happens when we combine work ethic and a training partner that yells at you louder than an airplane until you break your PRs
2 Likes
You just make people succeed man. Even that squat dude with your coaching and there work ethic his progress was insane.
1 Like
Thanks man
The squat dude was out this world with his work ethic, and as we saw that leads to great things
The thing with coaching is to get inside people’s heads, you must know how to push them and how far they can be pushed. They don’t know it themselves and it’s your mission to figure it out
I’d really like to work with the squat dude and get him and my girlfriend to do a couple of meets. Preferably so that they attend the same meets - if they did well and people noticed that the same guy was behind them it would raise interest. I’ve rarely gotten chances of coaching people who aren’t just gymbros or “regular people” so getting a bit of publicity wouldn’t hurt.
Yeah, I get middle aged women to squat 132lbs for 30 reps straight in three weeks but to them that means nothing. The fat loss that comes alongside that means something but if they mention it to their friends it rarely gets them excited enough to come to me.
Although I do have this one gym that wants me to work there full-time after army. They were hiring a year ago and I applied - they told me that over a hundred certified personal trainers applied but I was the one to stand out (I haven’t finished with getting my certification yet, I’ve been a bit busy).
After that I told them that I couldn’t start right away and they told me that it’s not a problem and I should just call them after my army service if I’m still interested.
I’d love that job, only downside is that the gym is a bit too far from where I would be studying in the future. (I didn’t exactly think it through when I applied for that job)
Oh well
Somehow my answer turned into a novel - don’t you hate it when you just try to answer briefly and end up writing a damn trilogy?
Are you ever going to do a Pl meet yourself? Could be a good way to attract new clients as well.
Also just wear some sexy gym gear or something, maybe the ladies will come for more sessions haha.
Is there another place near there that you could study at? That sounds awesome man. You can always maybe go there once you’ve finished studying though.
Yeah it Happens alot.
1 Like
Me doing a powerlifting meet is very unlikely - I’m not interested enough in the sport
I think my three-year old gym shirt is very sexy, it even has holes the size of your head in it. (Apparently weighted pull ups and hangs rip your shirt apart) and I’m too cheap to buy a new one.
Now that I think of it, not looking like a beggar in the gym would probably be a good idea.
Plenty, for them to be hiring would be surprising as the market is pretty saturated nowadays
If all else fails then yeah, it’s a good safety net. I wouldn’t keep it as a primary target at the moment as I could get much better salary as a physical therapist than as a PT in a small gym in the middle of nowhere - but you can still live with what you’ll earn there so it shouldn’t be forgotten.
Not that it’s necessary a bad thing, it’s just when I’m writing and start off just saying something like “yeah, thanks man” then I tell a bit about what happened that one time when squat dude missed the bus to the gym because he was too sore to run and all of a sudden I’m starting an autobiography. Like, I got from point A to point B but how? Sometimes there’s literally no connection between the two.
Oh well, all this just makes my log look longer (and long posts must contain valuable information) so my market value goes up, right?
Darn, it happened again!
1 Like
Just dropping a post in to say that I’ve really enjoyed reading through the entirety of your log & will continue to follow it in future.
Keep up the good work!
2 Likes
Yeah man, it’s supposed to have them… It’s where you put you head through 
3 Likes
That would certainly help
Ah so there is a method to your madness 
1 Like
Thanks man, welcome in!
I think it’s quite odd that my shirt’s designer decided to put the head-hole in the place of armpit
I guess it’s fashion
I’m not admitting anything!
But do you remember how in last November I…
1 Like
Today I had a really bad urge to row, so after my lower body work (so a total of 8 sets of deads/pause deads 3 sets of front squats and 4 sets of reverse lunges) I decided to do a set of meadows rows
I picked meadows rows because 1) the dumbbell in the gym don’t go high enough 2) bilateral rows are a lot more stressful on your body
I don’t think I’ve ever gone heavy on meadows rows (I’ve only done them twice or so) so hitting 12x200lbs/90kg (not counting the bar of course - 4.5 plates loaded) was pretty nice, even when it’s not really all that much weight-wise. (Back pump was nice though)
For anyone wondering what meadows rows are:
1 Like
Couple of observations from my current program
So, as you may have noticed I’m currently running an estimated max - based upper/lower program that has a strong focus on skill mastery and rep PRs (just trying new things)
I’ve been running this thing for about a month now and I’ve noticed a couple of things;
-
This program is quite hard on your recovery - I’ve noticed that my appetite is even greater than usually and I’m sleeping a lot better (and a bit more) than usually. This is not exactly a program I’d like to run if I was cutting and not getting enough sleep (although you’ll probably lose some fat anyways just because the amount of energy you burn squatting/deadlifting hard every three days is quite high)
-
Even though you are basing everything off of estimated max you will eventually progress if you work hard. Apart from last week’s Deadlift where my back was not feeling it I’ve progressed in every single workout in a way or another.
-
Because you are basing everything off of estimated max you’re getting in work with a wide variety of %s of your actual max - sometimes your 75% may be 85% of your actual max, sometimes it may be 70%
But that doesn’t matter; as long as we are keeping at 60% or higher of your actual max and we go to failure (AMRAP sets are for this) we are making size gains. And with the non-failure sets we are practicing technique and explosiveness
- This program is pretty hard on your grip - or at least mine. I pull with double overhand and as I only use straps for PR sets there’s a lot of strapless work. Of course if I just can’t hold onto the bar I’ll strap up, but still, sometimes my grip is just fatigued as hell. In the later phases I’m probably going to at least cut down on strapless work but I can manage for now.
Overall, i really like this program so far. I’ll keep doing it and if I discover more things I’ll let you guys know
2 Likes
General life update
I’ve now been in the army for 200 days
That’s almost 29 weeks, and that’s a long time if you ask me
New recruits came in last week (they come once every six months) and that really makes you realize that hell, you were one of them half a year ago!
Apart from the minor losses in physique and strength I’ve liked it here so far. Now that it’s winter and it’s cold outside it’s not as fun anymore but I’ll manage. Luckily it’s only like -12℃ outside so it’s not really all that cold just yet. (But I’m pretty sure we’ll get some colder days before this is over)
Oh, and one funny thing - now that I’m back to training people (during our free time) guys have seen me putting dudes through hell and they are lining up to train with me - bloodshot eyes and empty gazes are pretty common here nowadays.
4 Likes
Why you should do weighted stretches
If you’ve been reading my log for a while you may have noticed that I incorporate weighted stretches in my programs rather often
Now that I have a bit of free time I thought I’d write out why I do that. There are several benefits to doing heavy weighted stretches. Not all of them are backed by science but I’ve seen the effects over and over again.
- Hypertrophy
This one is actually science-proven. Some of you may be familiar with the bird wing study. Essentially what they did was that a weight was attached to a bird’s wing and the wing was left in a stretched out position for several days. What they found was that the wing muscle grew 318% in size - that’s the biggest improvement in muscle size ever recorded in such time. And it was done with only stretching.
Now of course holding a weighted stretche for days on end is not practical in the real world, but 1-3 minutes is still beneficial, of even less.
Think of Arnold Schwarzenegger. What is the first thing that comes to mind in terms of muscular development?
His chest. Perhaps. Well, Arnold was really fond of doing heavy chest flies with an emphasis on the stretch for his chest. I’m not saying that’s the only thing that made it grew but it’s certainly a factor in there. So, exercises that include a deep stretch are also something to consider.
Another example - DC style calf raises. Aka. The thing that’ll make you wonder why you’ve ever done anything else for your calves. DC-style calf raises are basically regular calf raises with a 5 second negative and a 15 second stretch in the bottom. They are absolutely brutal and will make your calves grow like nothing else. There are also studies on only doing weighted stretches for one of your calves, they resulted in significant amounts of hypertrophy in the stretched calf.
- Increased strength
I’ve noticed that every time I incorporate weighted stretches for my chest my bench variations go up like crazy (same with other people) and when I do heavy quad stretches my squatting strength increases.
I don’t know what’s the cause for this but I suspect that increased muscle size and mobility are the main factors.
- Structural alterations
There are two exercises I believe cause structural alterations: the pullover (stretches and expands your ribcage) and the weighted hang (increases your shoulder width)
For these two I can’t give any scientific explanation, but there are really world examples; the old school bodybuilders. They all did pullovers and most of them had humongous ribcages. I don’t believe that a coincidence. I’ve noticed the same with myself too; I have a huge ribcage - partly genetic but I believe that pullovers have expanded it.
Regarding weighted hangs, I’ve seen it time and time again. Guys gaining 1-2, even 3 inches of structural width just by hanging for long times with big weights. Personally I built up to 200 pounds for a minute a year ago and now I’m trying to get back to it and then even further.
Now why would you want wider shoulders and a bigger ribacage?
Three main reasons:
Number one, there’s more to build on - the bigger your structure is, the more muscle you can put on.
Number two, your leverages get better (mainly with presses) as you get thicker.
Number three, you’ll just look bigger in general. You don’t want to have that male model body now do you?
With structural alterations we need to take in account your age - if you’re over 25 (or even 24) there’s little chance that you’ll get anything noticeable out if it.
- Injury prevention
This I’d separate into two subcategories: mobility and traction.
Weighted stretches are really good for improving mobility, as the stretch is rather extreme. And there’s less change of tearing a muscle that is not tight than one that is like a steel rod.
Traction is something the weighted hang offers you; they keep your back happy and open. SuperD’s lower back protocol combined with weighted hangs is a surefire way to get rid of all that compression you’ve built up in your spine.
- Mental fortitude
Weighted stretches are hard.
Hanging from a pull up bar with 200 pounds added is painful. Every second feels like an eternity and you’re just waiting there, trembling, hoping that the timer would beep. Putting yourself regularly through something that challenges you mentally us a great way to toughen up. And stretches are great for this in the sense that it’s really all in your mind.
Now of course you can’t just go straight into stretching your chest with hundred pound dumbbells, that’s stupid. But doing stretches in a safe manner with a weight you’re capable of handling is extremely beneficial for you.
So, stretch away!
If you’ve got questions, I’ll be happy to hep to the best of my ability.
awesome.
2 Likes