Wednesday 11/2/11
Deload Pull
Thibs Pulldown: 4x12
Superset: straight arm rope pulldown + standing wide grip cable row 2x12
Seated Incline DB Curls: 1x30
Hammer Curls: 1x30
How you feeling about deload? I’m not taking one until I have failure on progression.
Which seems to be NOW LOL.
[quote]Hallowed wrote:
How you feeling about deload? I’m not taking one until I have failure on progression.
Which seems to be NOW LOL.[/quote]
I’m running 3 on 1 off cycles. After 6 of these I took a whopping 4 day deload cycle. 1 week would be overkill.
It’s a hard concept for me to grasp, because I either wanna sit on my ass all day or go in and kill it. I felt this one was necessary though as I pushed PRs on every session over the past 3 weeks just to see where my strength levels are in order to program around them for the upcoming months. There was one morning I felt like an old man when I got out of bed and thought, “yep, 'bout that time!”
The upcoming months will be about racking up a little more volume while focusing on accelerating the weight (a la CT), so hopefully (fingers crossed) I won’t need to deload.
My general thoughts though are, the ones I see deloading for an entire week out of every month are certainly not the ones who need it, and the ones who are destroying themselves and need it are the ones who never take one. How about some middle ground peeps??
[quote]jskrabac wrote:
[quote]Hallowed wrote:
How you feeling about deload? I’m not taking one until I have failure on progression.
Which seems to be NOW LOL.[/quote]
I’m running 3 on 1 off cycles. After 6 of these I took a whopping 4 day deload cycle. 1 week would be overkill.
It’s a hard concept for me to grasp, because I either wanna sit on my ass all day or go in and kill it. I felt this one was necessary though as I pushed PRs on every session over the past 3 weeks just to see where my strength levels are in order to program around them for the upcoming months. There was one morning I felt like an old man when I got out of bed and thought, “yep, 'bout that time!”
The upcoming months will be about racking up a little more volume while focusing on accelerating the weight (a la CT), so hopefully (fingers crossed) I won’t need to deload.
My general thoughts though are, the ones I see deloading for an entire week out of every month are certainly not the ones who need it, and the ones who are destroying themselves and need it are the ones who never take one. How about some middle ground peeps?? [/quote]
NO! THERE WILL BE NO MIDDLE GROUND! BLOOD SHALL BE SHED!
Or um, yeah good idea maine.
I haven’t actually failed on my progression yet… close though. The day I fail fail is the day I eat cookies til I want to barf and take four days to deload. Not a week lol how silly!
[quote]Hallowed wrote:
There seems to be a distinct lack of fucking around in here.[/quote]
Now that is funny 
Some new checkpoints for my focus on upcoming months with training…
-
I’ve taken the past 2 months to get a very good idea of my 5, 3, and 1rm on the big lifts, so hear on out I will be doing the 6/4/2 wave loading on my main lift to increase the volume. I now know what are good loads to choose to give my workouts the right amount of intensity to handle more volume, while not destroying myself in the process.
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Deloading. As in, with an increase in volume I’m dropping the weights slightly on all my working sets. That’s just common sense though…lol. In addition to my rep maxes, I took note of the weights at which bar speed dropped significantly. It is just slightly above these weights that will mark my top sets.
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Quality of reps. Will really be focusing on this one…both bar speed and fine-tuning my technique. I’ve read in one of Dave Tate’s articles, if you can lift 500lbs then you better as hell be applying 500lbs of force when there’s 250 on the bar. This will certainly apply from here on out. When in doubt, choose the load I can ACCELERATE.
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Rest times. I would also like to bring these down to just 1-2 minutes.
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Volume. As I already mentioned, even my core lifts will now be following the 6/4/2 wave loads so volume will go up. But, whenever I’m looking for a boost I’ll jump to 8/6/4 waves on a few lifts. For instance, next month that will be incline press and front squats.
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Chains. Not gonna go overboard, but add them to a few lifts to see what this linear force curve is all about and how my body responds =/
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Progression. +5lbs/month upper body lifts +10lbs/month lower body
Friday 11/4/11
Push 1
OHP: 6x110, 6x125, 6x140, 6x125, 6x140, 4x155 (ok, I chose too high. Will drop 10lbs next week for starting weight)
Superset: blast strap rear delt fly + ext. rot. 3x12
Swiss-Bar Bench Press + ~60lb chains: (bar weight) 6x110, 6x120, 6x130 6x120, 6x130, 6x140
Superset: chest supported rows + bent-over db shrugs 3x12
DB Incline Press: 8x40, 8x50, 8x60, 8x70, 8x60, 8x70 (Ok, I screwed up the wave loading here, but whatever, got in higher weights. Next week.)
Saturday 11/5/11
Legs 1
Safety Squat + ~90lbs chains: (bar weight) 6x165, 6x185, 6x205, 6x185, 6x205, 6x225
Trap Bar DL: 6x280, 6x320, 6x360, 6x320, 6x360, 6x400
GHR: 3x10
Sledwork:
-12x~20m backwards sled pull, narrow stance squat +335lbs
-6x~40m forward sled pull, legs as straight as possible +145lbs (I chose the weight a little too low, so think about the straight legs like enhancing the intensity from a RDL to straight leg RDL to hit more hammies)
First time doing free squats in exactly 1 year!!! Yay knee rehab!!! Booo, I’m fuckin’ weak sauce! =(…though, safety squat bar will own you, 'nuff said.
Sunday 11/6/11
Pull
Thibs Pulldown: 6x12 (3 second hold at contraction;just 30 sec rest)
Superset: straight arm rope pulldown + standing wide-grip cable row–4x12 (2 min rest)
Standing straight bar cable curls: 3x12, 1xAMRAP+3 10sec rest pause sets to 26 total reps
Rope Curls + Chains: 12x56, 10x74, 8x92, 6x110 (brutality!)
Sled work: giant set (zero rest between; 1 min after)
straight arm underhand pullbacks
sled curl
rows
6 rounds of 10 reps each, sled + 135lbs
Man, the straight arm rope pulldowns are the most I have ever felt my lats firing during an exercise. By bending over to start and then extending my hips at the end, I’m extending the ROM significantly both at maximum stretch and at contraction. The ropes also allow me to pull my hands to my side for an extra leg of contraction that I don’t get with a straight bar.
NIce to see you free squatting man, things are getting back to normal. Btw what are you weighing in atm?
[quote]Oregand wrote:
NIce to see you free squatting man, things are getting back to normal. Btw what are you weighing in atm?[/quote]
My knee is actually felt pretty good one day later. Things look like they’ll be alright if I stay smart. The chains are a nice touch right now, deloading my knees at their most vulnerable.
I’m at like 213 atm.
STAY SMART!!!
Tuesday 11/8/11
Push 2
Bench Press: 6x175, 6x195, 6x215, 6x195, 6x215, 6x235
Superset: cable scap retraction + hammer strength reverse shrugs–3x15
Standing OHP from Pins: 6x105, 6x115, 6x125, 6x115, 6x125, 6x135
Superset: seated face pulls + cable ext. rot–3x12
Incline Press: 8x135, 8x150, 8x165, 8x150, 8x165, 8x180*
*just about a finger tip of help on rep 8
Transition to higher volume is definitely challenging…but I like it.
Wednesday 11/9/11
Legs 2
Deadlift: 6x250, 6x285, 6x320, 6x285, 6x320, 6x355
Front Squat: 8x140, 8x155, 8x170, 8x155, 8x170, 8x185
GHR: 4x8
Sled work
backwards (quad): 6x40m +290lbs (ouch ouch ouch!)
forwards (ham): 6x40m +200lbs
Thursday 11/10/11
Pull
Thibs Pulldown: 6x8 (little heavier today, still held about 2-3 sec contractions)
Superset: straight bar cable pullovers + neutral grip pulldown–4x12
Seated bench cable curls: 3x12, 1x10+6 top half+4 bottom half reps
Alt. Hammer Curls + iso holds: 2x6, 2x8
Sled circuit: 6 rounds +160lbs, 10 reps each
underhand straight arm pullbacks
sled curls
sled rows
[quote]jskrabac wrote:
11/9/11 Front[/quote]
Y SO SRS?!?
I kid.
Lookin good maine.
[quote]Hallowed wrote:
[quote]jskrabac wrote:
11/9/11 Front[/quote]
Y SO SRS?!?
I kid.
Lookin good maine.[/quote]
Damn, my gf says the same thing whenever she looks at these. Next week I’ll smile just for the hell of it. These are the ones I send over to Shelby every week so he’ll probably be a little baffled lol.
So here’s the last email I sent over to Shelby as I only have one last week with his online coaching. I weighed in at 214 for those last pics.
[i]Ok so for my long term plan, here’s what I intend to do.
I do not see the point of making things more complicated than they need to be.
Gain: As far as gaining I will continue to follow the template you’ve laid out for me over the past 11 weeks. Bump things up if gains stall for 2-3 weeks, scale back if things get out of hand (like 3 straight weeks of gaining 3+ lbs). As of right now my tentative ceiling is 230, but of course I’ll assess how I look at that time. If I’m happy with my overall thickness I’ll stop there. Otherwise I’ll keep at it until the weak links have caught up.
Maintain: Seeing as I started 2011 at 175, I think it’ll be a good time for me to just hold my weight for a good 3-4 months in order to mentally recoup and basically get used to moving around and training at a bigger size. As far as diet I will adjust macros, sticking to your plan, until my weight is more or less staying the same each week. With a good 3-4 months of clean maintenance eating I’m sure a bit of recomp is inevitable and will kind of be a bonus. As far as training, I will take the time to focus on increasing strength and work capacity while holding the new weight.
Cut: To start, I’ll merely reverse the process following your template and dropping carbs, then fat, then protein little by little as weight stalls until I see myself dropping about a lb/week. I will milk the basics until I’m lean enough that I need to pull out a few tricks, like actually paying attention to timing of macros in the day, or possibly carb cycling. That is all entirely new territory for me, which I do not wish to screw up, so I will contact you again at this point for that final 12 week stretch. Then I will probably get a tan =)
[/i]
And this was his response.
That sounds solid, I don’t see anything that should be modified. Run with it!
Nothing to it but to do it.
Oh and he told me I could use his fat loss package to get me ready for a photo shoot and don’t have to spend all my dough on the pre-contest package…essentially saving me like $700!