And then when you’re wheels down you can do a 4 miler to scope out the new neighbourhood 
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Not a bad idea. Be good to get the layout.
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I find the best way to get to know a new area is either a run or a bike ride. You see so much more at the slower pace than you do driving round in a car or truck.
Good luck with the moving Pwn.
Gonna be good to get settled and back to the normal grind again.
Right on, thanks for sharing man. You’ve become what is essentially a spark notes lifting resource for me haha, so special or not I’m sure there’s a couple “a-ha!” moments in there.
@simo74 When I moved to my small city (New England layout) I got lost daily since there’s 4,000 ways to get to the same areas and they all look the same but don’t quite connect. Was a great way to learn the setting and burn up some fuel.
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I have returned. And with my return comes the creation of the next training space to achieve my goals. Observe.
And for you particularly observant types, yes, that IS a Juggernaut action figure at the end of my trophy rack. Gotta keep things in perspective.
This is the first time in about a decade that I no longer need to back up a car before I start training. This is the 1 car garage that is attached to the 2 car garage of my house, so now I can actually park both of our cars in a garage AND have a training space. And one of the big joys of THAT is that it means I can set up my equipment BEFORE the workout AND just leave it all there when the workout is done, whereas before I always had to factor in about 10 minutes of set up and teardown into my training budget.
This opens up many more opportunities for greater accumulated training volume, assistance work, etc etc.
And with that, come some changes in training, which takes me to last night’s workout, the first in the new training space…
PM WORKOUT
MAX EFFORT WORK
Top down deadlift with texas deadlift bar
5x135
5x225
3x315
1x405
1x495
1x545
1x585
0x635
1x585
SUPERSET
Axle deficit deadlift (deadstop)
3x10x296
Reverse hyper
4x10x270
SSB front squat to SSB squat (no rest between exercise) of 155lbs
1x20/5
Notes: First, holy cow Nebraska is humid. This was the most I have sweat during a workout in a LONG time. Zero fear of ever pulling a muscle from not being warm. Second, trying out some new stuff now. After hitting 405 for 23 reps I don’t have any concerns about my rep strength, so now I want to start feeling some heavy weight in my hands and see what kind of damage I can do. Also, to give a total peek behind the curtain, after spending a week away from training but still being very active (like, by unloading 15,080lbs out of a moving truck in less than a day, and carrying a freezer down some basement stairs, and moving an entire gym MULTIPLE times to get everything in the right spot), I know I’ve accumulated a lot of fatigue and most likely dropped some bodyweight, so I didn’t want to jump right back into what I was doing before at risk of regressing, so I’ve brought back a VERY old staple of max effort work. I think I have a much better understanding of the Westside method compared to what I did before, and though I’m not going to claim to be using THAT in particular, I can at least poach some of it.
On that note, first time EVER doing topdown deads, and I liked them, but there was a learning curve as a result. I need to put the j-hooks on the 8th spot rather than the 9th next time. 9 was good for warmups, but once the bar started flexing, it became too high, and I nearly lost it on both of the re-racks with 585. Took a while to figure out the unracks too. 405 felt incredibly heavy, and considering I had pulled it for 23 reps earlier, I knew that wasn’t right. Dialed things in and then 585 moved very well. Was able to do a controlled negative with 635, but wasted too much energy on the set-up and had nothing on the return. Might go with it for 1 more week and then pick something new.
I HAVE done deficit pulls before, but it’s been like a decade, and last time they injured me. This time, seems I have the mechanics much better figured out. Used an axle to make this REALLY silly, because it won’t flex at all, which makes this a REAL deficit pull. Went deadstop for 2 reasons. 1 being that it will get more benefit from the deficit pulls (specifically my goal of re-learning how to get my hips under my shoulders at the start of the pull), but second being that, since I no longer live in a duplex, and I’m a corner house, and my garage is as far from other humans as possible on my street, I can make noise and only bother my loving family. Again, changes in training.
The superset was brutal, and once it was over, I had nothing left in me. Went with that squat workout. If I do it again, I need to take off the belt between the front and SSB squats. Gives me more room for reps.
More changes in training to come. Thinking of alternating by set on my press workout between pressing and behind the neck pressing. I have 2 racks now, with my yoke being set up. Great time to take advantage of that. Stay tuned.
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Wow that was a long detailed write up. Gym looks great and that session sounded pretty tough, but that’s what we expect from you.
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I don’t know if it’s worth the lack of universal healthcare and paid holidays but damn if I’m not jealous of American garages and/or basements. Home gym options are a lot more restrictive on this side of the Atlantic.
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Just when we thought things couldn’t get sillier.
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Moving isn’t much fun, I’m glad to hear you got through it. 3 car garage and house in the corner, Congradulations! The gym looks great too.
Cool write up of the 1st workout. I hope you keep up the documentation.
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Is it just me, or is the floor a little slanted based on the first pic? If it is, will it be a trouble for deadlifts?
down under we have public health, paid holidays and generally houses are bigger and many have 2 or ore car garage. You just have to put up with all the deadly animals, insects and snakes !!
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@simo74 Thanks man. I’m happy with it. The heat and misery are just more opportunities to get stronger, haha.
@mattjp I kinda dig restrictions, just because of how much it forces me to be creative. I’ve had sprawling home gym spaces before and they were just so wasteful. I’m definitely getting my space worth on this, haha. That said, when I’m done moving, I’m definitely gonna make something big.
@mr.v3lv3t I’ll always find a way to top myself, haha.
@FlatsFarmer I don’t mind the moving so much as just the nickle and dime packing and unpacking. You never realize how much junk you have until you move, haha. And thanks! I’m pleased with how this all turned out. I’ll try to keep the details going well for the next training phase.
@whang Your eyes don’t deceive you. I ended up taking the 1 car garage vs carving out part of the 2 car because this was the least slanted of the 3, but all garages tend to have a small slant to allow rain/flood water to exit to the street. Not going to be a big deal for deads though, because I’m set up before the slant really starts. You can see a few horse stall mats in front of the power rack, and that’s where all pulls are gonna happen.
PM WORKOUT
SUPERSET (press and lat pulldown)
Axle strict press
5x66lbs
5x141
5x166
11x186
11x166
5x10x90lbs
ALTERNATING GIANT SETS (on odd sets, axle strict press, on even sets barbell behind the neck presses, both followed by dips, lateral raises and band pull aparts)
Axle strict press 136
2x10
1x8
Dips
3xF
DB lateral raises 20lbs
3x10
Band pull aparts
3x12
Barbell behind the neck press 95lbs
2x10
1x8
Dips
3xFailure
DB lateral raises 20
3x10
Band pull aparts
3x12
Notes: 3:45 between heavy presses, 2:00 between giant sets. Mixing more stuff up, brought back the back work with the pulldowns and brought back a really old classic with the behind the neck presses. Used my echo bar for those, since it has no center knurling and wasn’t going to tear up the back of my head. Did them standing, and unracked out of the yoke. Had to fight my instinct on every set to set them up like a low bar squat. Used a VERY wide hand spacing because that was all my mobility would allow. But still, if the dude with the 6 shoulder dislocations, torn labrum and dozens of subluxations can manage it, it’s probably not as dangerous as the internet makes it out to me. It definitely DOES make the shoulder suck in a whole different way than pressing in front of the body, but I wanted to keep both because the latter is still valuable as an athlete and I don’t want to lose that skill.
Thinking about rotating the strict press implement each week while keeping the behind the neck as the staple. Might be something I implement. Just letting myself play around some in my training.
Haven’t weighed myself in a long time. Also, I’m just putting this out in the universe, but I’m thinking I may have torn the labrum in my left hip. Recovery on it is still very slow, and I keep snagging it on stuff. Training is zero issues, but I’ll turn/pivot in my day to day life or get in/out of my car or a booth at a restaurant and suddenly it will lock up/be in pain. I suppose time will tell. I have no real plans to stop: just going to keep slamming it with training and force it to heal or fall off.
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Your name says it all…you’re an animal
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I can tell you from experience that it doesn’t heal. Tearing it off would work. Not sure how you’d be real precise, though…
Looks like a great gym you’ve come up with Pwn.
Quality workouts as usual.
Are you planning on getting somebody to look at that hip, or do you just command it to stop being silly and heal the F up.
For sure. When we moved out of our apartment and into our house 2 years ago, moving the big stuff (bed, couch, desk, tables) didn’t bother me all that much. It was all the small stuff that wore me down in the end: the “nickel and dime” packing and unpacking of the kitchen, the bathroom, the clothes, the shoes, etc.
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I worked for a moving company for a summer a handful of years ago. Plenty of horror stories I could share, but the nickle and dime factor was always everyone’s biggest source of stress.
Last time we moved (2016), my wife was pregnant. I packed and moved everything from one house to the other. I only unpacked what I needed and quit. I felt like I’d done enough.
@losthog Thanks man. I suppose the next step in true animal fashion is to chew it off, haha.
@Frank_C I’ve got hopes that my biology is different! In the same way that I don’t seem to catch human diseases, haha. The other OTHER hope is that I’ve developed enough muscle around the are that I can “fake” a labrum.
@mortdk I’m not opposed to getting it looked at, but I have something of a scale of injury (it’s something I intend to write about in the future). Persistent pain but no dysfunction typically just means pushing through for me. It’s only when something traumatic happens and I lose basic function that I seek attention.
Great example was when I tore my cornea, I was in a lot of pain and I planned to just go to work and flood the eye with eye drops to make it better, and then I got in my car, the AC hit my eye, it swelled shut and wouldn’t open on it’s own, so I called my eye doctor and got seen right away, haha.
@ActivitiesGuy and @mr.v3lv3t Really temps a dude to go simple, haha. My wife definitely civilized me. If I were to move myself, I’d have 1 instapot, a foreman grill, a laptop and like $15k in gym equipment, haha.
@Frank_C we found out my wife was pregnant a few days before some friends moved into town and asked for help unloading the truck. We weren’t ready to announce at that point, so I had to strategically cut her off in the moving line to grab all the heavy stuff and leave her with the pillows.
…come to think of it, I’m ALWAYS helping my friends move. Weird…
PM WORKOUT
GIANT SETS (squat-clean pulls-reverse hypers)
SSB squat
8xBar
8x155
8x245
8x335
7+1x425
Clean pulls 235
6x3
Reverse hyper 410
6x10
Notes: 3:45 between sets. Original plan was to alternate between box jumps and clean pulls each set, but I need to find a better spot to set up my box in the gym. Couldn’t pull the trigger on the jump because I was too nervous of where I’d land on a misfire. Cleans pulls served the purpose well though, as it’s more time reinforcing getting my hips down. Need to warm up for them slightly better next time, as I immediately pulled something in my tricep on the eccentric of the first rep. I could ALSO just plain not have an eccentric now that I’m in my own garage and not in a duplex, but old habits die hard. I also JUST realized I could also implement something I always wanted by using the prowler between sets too, so long as I train in the evenings, but that would mean having the garage door open, and right now I’m appreciating training in the sweltering heat. I’ve taken to using the term “descend into Hell” when I get to my training space, since I have to take some stairs down and the heat is like a blast furnace.
The topset of SSB squats was phenomenal. Really needed that. I haven’t weighed myself in a while, but I’m thinking I’m down a bit. Mrs commented on how my work clothes are hanging off me. I’m eating food like it’s my job and my appetite is matching my efforts. Might as well ride it out though. Seems the strength wants to come back.
Had plans to hammer the back with some rows after this was done, since the bar was loaded, but I was wiped. Conditioning isn’t all the way back yet. Can always sneak them in tomorrow though.
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