Who says you have to be in a surplus? Most of the programs around here say to eat a surplus but it’s not necessary for all goals. I just read a side piece from Louie Simmons at Westside and his athletes are often training to get stronger while maintaining weight. Why not run The Complete Power Look on maintenance?
I’ve run that program and it’s brutal but I think you’ll be fine. If you are more hungry than usual then eat.
No one but the program. While I always eventually mod whatever I’m running it would be nice to at least start with the best intentions (no modifications). That’s all.
Thanks for stopping by. I see you are fighting now? Cool!
Did you make any gains? Oh yeah that’s one thing that I didn’t love about the program. The progression is a bit slow. I’d like to believe I improve my lifts in a shorter time frame than what the program has one adjust his/her training max. But maybe the weekly rep-progression is adequate.
The assistance lifts suck! 1.5 reps on squats is not fun. I couldn’t wait to get to the second phase where the reps drop.
I got stronger but like most years I was trying to get back to previous strength levels. My body is very specific and when I neglect a certain lift, it suffers. I can still train the muscles involved in that lift with other methods but my performance on the actual lift always tanks and it takes a program like The Complete Power Look to get it back. I’m pretty sure I had neglected squat and bench when I ran this.
Valentine’s day!
Straight out of the Complete Power Look Program:
Front squat 5x3 @ 80% #boring
Paused front squat 4x8 with bands around knees #fun
Split squat 4x8
Leg press 3x10
I kinda liked it. Surprised at my disdain for straight sets at a heavier weight and my derived enjoyment from the higher reports sets. All of the bodybuilding work I did during the bootcamp must have rewired my brain.
This program will suit me and the gym I’m currently at for a while at least. Looking to return to Look Like a Bodybuilder, Perform Like an Athlete or Athlete Lean, Athlete Strong in a couple of weeks when I’m back at my usual place. Or finally Built for Battle.
Climbed in the PM and sucked majorly.
Off.
Went clothes shopping. Looked strapping in a new vest as all of my old fancy clothes are now too big. Felt inspired to maybe try and drop that last tidbit of abdominal fat. Might just try to eat less on my off days and see what that does to my body composition over time. So, no super structured plan. More, 5/2 for athletes. Will have to get the tape measure out and start taking pictures again to track progress if so.
Too many days have passed for me to be able to make entries for each day as my memory isn’t all that good. So, let’s just do a quick summary.
Sunday: Squat
Monday: Bench press, my shoulder thing is back, seeing my PT this coming Monday for a review
Tuesday: Climbing, hard. Been chasing 7a routes, and continued to do so. Hands felt very fatigued.
Wednesday: Deadlift
Thursday: Overhead press
Friday: lead climbing for the first time since I got certified. Had a blast. Fell off a boulder route onto a crash pad (so, no worries) and in my frustration I did a kip-up off of the floor. So apparently I can do that now. Neat!
All of these workouts are as per The Complete Power Look program, but as one of my optional exercises I’ve been doing standing ab crunches as I found inspiration from @Yogi1
So, I usually do one of the optional exercises that are suggested in the program, together with the ab work. And at the beginning of the week I was doing 50 pull-ups but that has metamorphosed into doing a whole lot of Frenchies everyday instead as I’m hoping it’ll carry over to climbing better.
A Frenchie is when you,
That’s one rep of a Frenchie! Two or three of those is aboutaas far as I can push a set right now.
Tomorrow will be an off day.
Physique wise I feel like I look leaner but I’m not tracking actively at the moment, nor actively applying the 5/2 thing. Just eating semi-intuitively. I’ll review occasionally that I’m getting enough protein and not under-eating on gym days.
Life-wise, I’ve started sleeping again. I took sick leave shortly after mentioning burning out as I was effectively useless at my job and had been for some time. This is not something I’ve been too transparent with here on the log which I kind of wish that I would’ve been so that I could have reacted sooner…
Anyway, for a long time I’ve not been sleeping properly, and when I’ve woken up I’ve basically been in fight or flight mode (never rested), and now I’m at the stage where I’ve started dreaming again. Only nightmares so far but at least that means I’m getting to a deeper sleep. Still wake up several times per night though.
I’ve also gotten to a point where I can actually follow an entire episode worth of TV (comedy, 20 minutes) and was able to play a video game for more than five minutes yesterday and remain focused. Joy! Up next is watching a 40 minute show, and then a movie. Reading a book. And juggling multiple objectives in a game.
So, seeing improvements in all aspects of life right now.
And I got a new haircut,
And another good thing. Finally, my cold has left my body and now only the remnant echoes of it occasionally wanders through the upper portions of my lungs but I’m no longer a minor physical exertion away from triggering my max heart rate. I got lucky.
I’ve realised that with regards to strength training, and hypertrophy work, we ate truly blessed with how much detailed information has been put out here on T-nation and by the same authors elsewhere.
The requisite training methodology impacted how we express ourselves, i.e. we train strength (skill) and work for hypertrophy (indicating the need for volume, either in a session or accomplished through high frequency).
We’re even afforded the luxury of knowing how to progress. We know very well what works for beginners, and how to guide them along as they plateau.
I do not find that to be the case with rock climbing, the training methodology there seems to be in its relative infancy compared to weightlifting.
There is one person that has studied how to train finger strength for climbing, and her results seem sound and solid. But other than that it’s just a hodge-podge of climbing more while not neglecting rest and throwing in some dedicated work to improve certain qualities. I just don’t get the sense that it is very well thought out. Yet.
Personally, I’m tending towards the idea that it’d be safest to inch your effortless efforts up a bit and have that to increase your best. Least risk of injury with regards to the tendons.
On the other hand, I vaguely recollect @adarqui talking about how our body will adapt into becoming the organism we want it to be. But I don’t really know what the best climbers in the world do every day. My impression is that they climb an insane amount and that’s about that. They don’t seem super mindful about nutrition, they undereat so they are lean and aren’t carrying any excess body fat.
But, chiral to that I recall CT talking about the future world champions in Crossfit will be tremendous Olympic weightlifters with an exceptional work capacity. So, it is possible to come at it from an other angle and disrupt the game from there.
Anyways, I still improve just by climbing and am glad for it, but looking ahead I see a need to maybe carve my own path. Or find better reading material, maybe I just haven’t found the T-nation of rock climbing.
Strength & conditioning research and application basically drives everything. As a coach your job is to break down the movement at which your athlete needs to excel.
In the case of rock climbing an athlete would train the vertical pulling movements in a variety of ways. I’d suggest the basic methods and regular tempos for starters. Then I’d add in things for grip strength such as plate pinches, cans of crush type stuff, etc. Pull ups would move to towels. Grip and pulling strength/endurance could be trained with things like fingertip hangs in an isometric fashion. Instead of using a pull up bar, grab the top of the rack where it’s flat with just the finger tips and hang. You could do pull ups this way as well as isometric holds are various positions.
I’ve never done rock climbing but it seems that the ability to hang at various arm angles is a necessity. Being able to pull yourself through space effortlessly is a necessity.
For any activity, you just need to evaluate the movement patterns and train them accordingly. For every sport, there is always the skill aspect and that can only be attained through practicing the exact skills.
That’s a really good breakdown. Bang on with the finger training, that’s very similar to what climbers do. It’s called hangboarding, there are dedicated ones with different edge widths. There is some other specialty gear too. Thanks for reminding me about towels.
Week 2 of “The Complete Power Look” begins
Weird day, ended up double-booking myself somewhat so the day ended up being a bit more active than I would have liked.
9:00 climbing (bouldering and hangboarding)
10:30 climbing (top rope)
11:10 yoga (70 minutes)
15:00 squat workout
Fucked up my back during yoga, while doing a bridge. Felt like my best bet for not being immobile tomorrow was to continue moving so I did my squat workout anyway.
How have you liked the complete power look program?
Motion is lotion, as they say.
It’s just the second week but I felt significantly stronger this week compared to my last session. I genuinely felt “powerful”.
The only thing I don’t like is that it feels almost like cheating working in the 80% range because it is so easy and I’m worried I might outgrow the weight even with the increase in repetitions.
It would have been nice to retest one’s 3RM as part of the program but I might do it between phases.
I love that I added in abdominal work instead of one of the optional assistance exercises.
Overall, I like the foundation of the program and could see myself using it as a template for programming henceforth. Meaning that I could see the front squat being replaced by zercher squats for instance. I’d also be creative with warm-up. Front squat day could easily have snatch grip high pulls for activation etcetera. We’ll see how I evolve it over time. I’m not following it dogmatically.
Glad to see you don’t have diabetes (read your log)
That’s always a plus
Funny how there are individual differences here. I remember when I tried this program out for a bit; my max triple with front squat at the time was around 70% of my 1RM so I was basically dying. My front squat actually went down during the program.
You could also just estimate it. Has the program been updated in the last couple of years? I don’t remember there being phases really.
Reverse engineering programs into templates is a great way to learn and to try stuff out, yeah.
Me too, man. When I’m done with my diet I’ll have to test stuff out in terms of working carbs into the diet.
Unusual, no? What gave out?
Definitely, on some lifts. With the front squat I find it better to test, as the upper back gives out before the my legs.
Either that or you misremember. But yes, 4 week phases of ACC, INT, REA, they’re jus not labelled as such but the assistance Loft selection reflects this.
For what it’s worth, after my diet I’d go hypo after eating a lone tangerine 100% of the time. Now it’s more of a 50/50 chance. So, as you get used to more carbs it might get better.
My quads, I’d say. Yeah, very unusual. Most people would have gotten more reps and their upper back would have been the one to fail.
Memory is not my strongest asset so it could very well be that I just had it mixed up with something
Yeah, we’ll see. When I did the 6ish week block of waves and clusters and whatnot I was eating massive amounts of carbs and don’t remember having any problems during that time, so unless something has drastically changed I won’t be living on fat and protein only for the rest of my life
Saw my physio again for my shoulder issue which has migrated somewhat into the scalenes. Got adjusted which unlocked some thoracic mobility. The problem continues to be my inability to properly activate my lower traps forcing other musculature to stabilise the joint.
Will be doing something akin to thebbeginning of a planche pushup to activate my serratus (every day) and fat boy pull ups with an isometric hold (gym days).
Did my workout at around noon. It was okay. Forgot that the work sets have an additional rep this week so I compensated by tacking on a few work sets extra to get to the same number of reps in the workout as I would have if I got it properly.
Noticed that I couldn’t set my shoulders properly while doing a flat DB bench as my shoulder came forward when I leaned back with the weights so I’ll be doing one handed DB bench presses instead from here on.
Climbing session. Did poorly on the ropes but killed it on the boulders after. Continuing to kip-up off the floor whenever I fall on my back. Coolness factor over 9000!
Decent DL session as per the program. Was meaning to tack on some extra work as I went out for burgers after but didn’t have the time. Gym was too crowded to superset stuff.
@danteism Why is it I can deficit DL the same amount of weight as I do for normal deadlifts? My 3RM for both lifts is the same.
For me those numbers are pretty close too, I’ve always just thought that it is caused by me being a very back dominant deadlifter - the deficit makes me more aware of my lower body and I may end up in a better mechanical position than from the floor.
