I think bench is pretty worthless but most of us still do it. Bodybuilders will tell you DBs and cables are better for muscle development and doctors will tell you it’s bad for your shoulders. It’s hard to argue, but here we are still trying to do it.
Too bad the standard bro question isn’t “How much do you DB bench?”
Like it or not, we all fall victim to social norms and bench press is definitely one of them.
Sorry to hear about the shoulder flaring up again.
I only occasionally and rarely have shoulder problems… and it always comes after incline dumbbell press.
So I’m ditching db’s there made by the devil 
But I know a lot of peeps say db’s are the best.
I’m trying to “put the shoulders” in the back pocket and my grip is with pinkys inside the powerrings.
I think the grip we tolerate the best is the grib we’ve used always.
Hope you’ll get over it soon.
Indeed. I think DB pressing is great, it’s just hard to do a top-half rep with those in the same sense. On this program, the normal bench presses could be replaced with DB work but they are maybe 200 meters away from where I workout. Would kind of kill the flow. Maybe kettlebells could work…
Weight: 75.9 (+0.5kg, slightly unexpected)
Sleep: >8hrs, woke up before my alarm even.
Mirror: Looking good, looked almost as if I still had a pump from the rock climbing the day before. I know I didn’t but it looked as if I did.
Avoided doing technique work to let my shoulder rest, and avoided triceps work because I need those for pressing tomorrow.
Hi Allberg.
I wanted to say that I’m really impressed with your physique change in the check-in thread. Fantastic job.
@ Nordic. What country, if you don’t mind my asking?
At shoulder friendly pressing options. I have to be very careful with wide grip barbell BP, or anything OH in a snatch position. You may have tried these. Nice especially if you have DBs with flat sides. I haven’t lurked your log to see if they are in your training.
DB Neutral Press w/ Contact - Heavier DBs and just pressing them flat/ incline/ or decline.
DB Squeeze Press - Lighter DBs but with a hard squeeze on the way up.
Lots of things going on in today’s post.
Weight: 76.9kg (+1kg)
Mirror: Looked pretty good. Not as good as yesterday night when I came home when I was just insanely vascular.
Sleep: ~7hrs
Woke up with DOMS in my triceps, a muscle I intentionally did not hit yesterday. Weird.
4 circuits, 30-60s rest between exercises and ~90s between circuits
Top-half squat 7,7,7,6@160kg [0]
Front squat 7@60kg
Power snatch from hang or blocks 5 reps @ 35kg
Jump squat with bar 10@35kg
Vertical jump series 10 reps
Ergometer 250m
4 circuits, 30-60s rest between exercises and ~90s between circuits
Top-half seated overhead press 7@55kg [1]
Standing military press 6, 5, 5, 5, 4@40kg [2]
Push press 7@40 kg
Medicine ball push-press throw overhead 10@7kg
Feet elevated plyo push-up 8 [3]
[0]: Unexpected missed rep on last circuit. Odd, can’t explain it
[1]: On my second circuit I couldn’t even budge the bar so I moved the safety pins up one setting. Arguably, the new setting is the one I should have used all along. I’ve been somewhat confounded about my top-half seated overhead press being the same as my PR push press, you’d think the top-half should be heavier so.
[2]: A lot of missed reps here.
[3]: Elevated feet, woop woop!
Thoughts: yesterday was a refeed of oversized proportions so I shouldn’t have missed any reps today by that token. The only reasonable explanation is that I didn’t get enough sleep.
I also struggled with motivation with today’s workout beyond the 1hr mark, this has been a pretty consistent feature throughout the program, i.e. I feel as if the workouts are too long for me personally.
One new thing was that going in I was feeling bored with what I had scheduled going in to the workout. Since the program basically consists of 2 different workouts and these are done twice a week this isn’t that strange to be honest. Prefered Athlete Lean, Athlete Strong in that regard (I realise I still haven’t posted my review of that program).
I’m believe that I’m missing reps because I’m not recovering between sessions adequately. It could be that I suck in this rep range, but it doesn’t feel as if that is what it is to me.
Tuesday, I was feeling cold to the point of still being cold when taking a warm shower. It’s not that bad today, but I’m still cold. But, I must have been at least 700-1k calories above maintenance yesterday, so I shouldn’t have any metabolic downregulation continuing today as far as I understand it. With that said, I didn’t experience any supercompensation, I wasn’t warmer yesterday evening and so forth. The only thing I noticed, physically, was that I was more vascular, I obviously had a very full stomach, and biking home was a comparative breeze. Can you weigh in on this @danteism?
I don’t want to shred up my shoulder any further. Being on a caloric deficit is surely not an optimal environment in which for it to heal. I’m also somewhat concerned about the signs of continued metabolic down regulation - not to the point where I’m stressing out about it though.
The way I see it is, I’ve gotten a lot out of the diet, I’ve made a few mistakes that I can learn from next time, and now might be a good time to stop to create the best circumstances for healing the injury. Note: I haven’t decided on anything yet, I’m just sharing my thoughts.
With regards to programming, I might still run Built for Battle next, but that would entail pressing more often, but less volume per workout. This could be good or it could be bad, it’s impossible to tell which without trying it. Another thought would be to do SGSS now, and replace the bench press with DB bench press - something which doesn’t seem feasible on B4B, and then do Built for Battle this spring. That would improve my conditioning at a stage when I’ll be primed to take advantage of it later on for a more outdoorsy spring.
Lesson’s learned from yesterday’s refeed/cheat dinner:
Don’t eat anything that you wouldn’t eat on diet. Your body has forgotten how to digest junk so it’s better to just avoid it entirely lest you want to bring junk back in as something you eat routinely. You don’t, so: avoid junk.
Eat what you would normally eat, and then some. Make the portion size bigger, don’t go after items you normally abstain from or avoid.
If you are going to drink alcohol, do that, and enjoy it. Don’t drink just a swig, and fret about what that does to your metabolism and protein synthesis. (A colleague brews beer in his spare time, a blueberry stout. I had a taster)
Do not take fish oil (or partitioning agents) by the belief that food will be served a certain time when it’s a work event. Food won’t be served on time. Take fish oil when the food seems imminent, avoid partitioning agents. Save those for other days.
Do not trust office gossip that there won’t be a lot of food. Assume that there will be. This will keep mid-day snacking to a minimum.
Try to schedule a workout closer to the meal. You have flexible hours. Come in an hour early, do your job, leave an hour early, go train, come back in time for the event making it the ultimate post-workout meal.
Don’t be surprised if the meal is high in fat, and that the carb sources are not optimal for you.
I had a lot of veggies and bread with the meal, and crisps/chips afterward and simple sugars in the form of candy.
The moment you feel full stop eating!
Try to make your refeeds/cheats something you cook yourself, you love cooking and you just got cheated out of having fun in the kitchen.
Thanks!
Sweden
I don’t have access to those kinds of dumbbells but I’m considering readjusting my training so I can use DBs instead of a Barbell for a while.
I’d be willing to bet you ate too little to experience supercompensation or any significant amount of metabolic boost
I’m pretty sure I told you to eat a boatload of food, but maybe we have a different perspective on what exactly that means
However it may be, I’d urge you to stick to the diet as planned for now. Don’t refeed again before you absolutely need it just so you form a healthy and objective relationship with refeeding.
Also note that even though we can battle metabolic downregulation, most people will experience it to a certain extent when dieting despite refeeding and doing tricks like that. Your metabolism will come back after the diet so it’s not the end of the world. (Although dieting with more food is always nice)
Haha… I’m pretty sure no one on this site could out eat you
You did, and I did eat a lot of volume. The buffét we were served was vegetarian, so a lot items weren’t very calorie dense. Sauces, olives, etc. surely were though. The most carby thing there were chips and baguettes. Oh, and rice cakes. I ate to the point of stuffed and far far beyond. But, I could’ve and I would’ve eaten more throughout the day had I known more about the dinner composition.
I can promise to at least stay in a deficit until I’m back at the weight I was before the “refeed”.
To be fair, I’m not struggling that much with being in a deficit. It’s cost efficient if anything. The primary thing I believe needs tweaking eitherway is the training I’m doing. One option, that I didn’t mention in my previous post is this: instead of dropping 1-2 reps next week (as planned) and adding 10-20 pounds (as planned) I drop 3-4 reps on the upper body exercise.
Noted!
@Voxel with your goal of 180kg loaded carry, is that with farmers handles?
Trap bar is the intention, if I can find plates that are dense enough or a trap bar that’s “longer”. But, farmers handles would serve but haven’t seen those around the gym.
Oh ok. Just wondering because with farmers handles it would be easier plus I’ve found farmers handles to be better for carrying. I mean it is what it’s designed for lol
Do you think that being in a deficit notably impacts healing an injury?
Food is life man
Cost efficient up until the point where your macros are so spent that you need to opt for the finer meats and vegetables, but yeah, that’s a nice bonus when dieting
Which one do you feel more confident about?
Usually you’re the best judge wghen it comes to your training
Yeah, a more severe injury and a bigger deficit make it worse of course.
Depends on how your question is intended. I’m going to assume it’s only in reference to heavier weights vs. more reps, please correct me if I’m wronjg there.
Going for fewer reps would be probably suit me best. My form doesn’t break down that much from going heavy, it just makes a rep an either-or proposition. I think that the thing that poses the most risk is when I can get a rep by grinding through it and having my technique break down as a result of willfully trying to get it.
This just plays into my psychology, really. It’s probably the same thing that, when I started the program and it said: do 3-5 reps of this then of course I went with 5 out of the gate. It’s just a wonder that I don’t do 6 circuits instead of four.
Confident as in, in your opinion which one is a better balance of safety and progress
Go with that then
Elaborate
Done, starting there next week.
If anyone is interested, the world championship in climbing has started and will mostly be live streamed and can be followed here: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC2MGuhIaOP6YLpUx106kTQw