My training has been so structured for a long while now (and that’s generally the way I like it) I don’t do any of these crazy sets. I love reading your log and living vicariously through your training. Thanks mate
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Thanks @simo74 All you need to have workouts like these is for your plans to go radically off the rails and have no worries about attempting to make good choices, haha.
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Just reached the chapter on dealing with injuries in Deep Water (it’s been a busy week, be nice), and it strikes me I’ve never read anything that echoes your writing on training so well. No wonder you love this program, you’ve been Deep Water since before Deep Water was a thing.
@dagill2 You got it. Jon is a total enabler for me. Usually, any author I read there’s at least ONE thing I disagree with, and it makes buy-in tough. Jon was the first dude that I read and thought “Hell yeah: THIS is what I do”. And now I had a dude that was SUPER accomplished to back it all up. No counting calories or macros? Check. High protein/fat, low carb? Check. Balls to the wall training, no submax stuff? Check. All the mentality stuff was the same. I’ve written before, but Jon and I attended the same university about 8 or 9 years apart, and even have the same philosophy minor, so it’s just kinda crazy. We most likely used the same equipment, since our school had an old run down weight room that they FINALLY demolished and replaced a year ago.
AM WORKOUT
SUPERSET (press-pulldown)
Axle strict press
5xAxle
5x66
5x151
5x171
13x196 (lifetime PR)
10x175 w/power keg
Lat pulldown 120
6x10
GIANTSETS (press-dip-raise-pull apart: Sets 1 and 4 trap bar, sets 2 and 5 axle, sets 3 and 6 keg)
Trap bar press 115
2x10
Axle strict press 176
1x10
1x6
Keg clean and press away 160
1x10
1x6
Dips
6xFailure
DB lateral raise 25
4x14
2x13
Band pull aparts
6x12
Poundstone curls
104xAxle
Notes: 3:45 between heavy press, 2:00 between giant sets. That topset of axle press was nuts. I clocked myself in the jaw on the first rep, stumbled back, felt like it was going to cap out at 10 since I was out of the groove and jacked up, but managed to keep brute forcing reps until I beat 13. I beat my previous best, and I imagine I coulda totally blew it away in even better conditions.
I’m taking the keg press out of the giant set rotation and replacing it with the log. Now that the press weight has been taken down, all this energy is wasted. 250 isn’t going to be a problem, and pressing a keg with the staggered grip is practically a single arm lift, so I don’t want to get too unbalanced there, especially when I could spend this time getting my press even crazier. Still, good to keep getting in practice with it, so I’ll most likely keep it as my second set after my topset.
I was surprised with how strong I was this early in the morning. Must really be over my illness.
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WTF… Nice press PR mate. I am now finally starting to question if you are human.
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Thanks man. I assure you I am in fact Human: All too human.
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I was impressed with the top set, then I kept scrolling down and there was more work. Then I kept scrolling and there was even more work. If there was ever proof needed that volume works it’s here.
It’s such a dumb debate. I get the whole “1 big set” thing, and a lot of my most successful training IS built around that when it comes to MOVEMENTS, but I still fill the muscles with volume.
Like, I think my best progress on deads came with working up to 1 topset on mat pulls and then 1 crazy/stupid dropset on squats. It was basically a 1 hour workout to do 2 sets of work. And my press day here is 1 big topset that’s the “money maker”. But after that, I chase a pump and take out whatever energy is left.
Heck, on the giant sets itself it’s the same principle. The press at the start is the moneymaker, but then I hit dips to squeeze a little bit more out of the tube, and then raises. By the time it’s done, the shoulders are toast, and even though I didn’t have another rep of PRESSES left in me, I still had some reps of shoulders left.
Training is good stuff. Doing it makes you strong, haha.
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I completely agree with this. From what I see, the debate is even more dumb as it isn’t about if
either way works but whether one way is more optimal that another. FFS why dont people just train really hard, eat and sleep and see what happens !!
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I’ve been lurking on this forum for a while now and I just decided to sign up to respond to this topic.
I can only speak for myself but I’ve tried doing the back down sets after the main top set and I just seem to stall with it. It’ll be ok for about 3-4 weeks but then I start stalling and then regress. Also, I have to switch movements after a training block otherwise I never get anywhere. I think I just have a hard time recovering from training. Adding lighter weight assistance work like dips is fine it’s just extra barbell work that seems to zap my recovery.
I’m not strong by any means (I’ve benched 275x7) but the only way I seem to progress is with lower volume and taking sets closer to failure (1-2 reps in the tank). Seeing emevas pound away at all this volume impresses me lol.
Lee Boyce is my guy for this. We’re both tall. He’s stronger than me but we’ve accomplished decent gym strength. We’ve both been injured (his was worse but I’ve had more). I’m also an average dude. I don’t compete in anything and never will.
I don’t do everything he says but I don’t lose faith in him just because I disagree with something he writes. My favorite things about him are that people need to acknowledge their leverages and pick exercises accordingly and they need to think about risk vs reward in training.
It sounds simple but it’s under valued in the training industry.
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Careful with that word “optimal”. 
It’s like trying to capture Bigfoot, Loch Ness, and a unicorn in the same day.
Write this on the front of your training journal, bathroom mirror, somewhere! It’s not about what works for someone else. If you can figure out what works for you then you’re in the 95th percentile of gym people.
It seems like a lot of people spend their training life searching for the perfect program and miss out. “This program is working, but I wonder what that program will do for me?”
Don’t be that guy.
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Will have to get back to the rest of the comments in a bit, but for now a quick update
PM WORKOUT
GIANT SETS (squat-keg-hyper)
Buffalo Bar squat
9xBar
9x140
9x230
9x320
9x390
Keg cleans 210lbs
6x2
Reverse hyper 460
6x10
STRIPSET (no rest between sets)
8x320
10x230
12x140
14xBar
Notes: 3:45 between the first 5 giant sets, 2:00 between the superset of keg and hyper, 3:45 before the last stripset. This is once again becoming a keg clean workout with squats and hypers, but that’s fine given the competition demands. The squats are moving well, but the keg is really coming together. I’m remembering all the tricks and how to roll it up my body, and given I’m only 40lbs shy of comp weight and about 4.5 months away, I’m in a good place.
The keg also does a good job of making everything in my back pop, so who needs a chiro.
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@simo74 The sad reality is that there’d be no “fitness industry” without making this stuff overly complicated. Same way Weider made no money selling equipment and an empire selling bunk supplements. The old rumor was that Weider had 1 protein powder and 5 different labels for it. Want some weight gainer? Buy the weightgainer powder and follow the instructions that say to mix it with cream and peanut butter. Want the fat burner? Buy the fat burner powder and follow the instructions that say to mix it with water. We all need miracles, haha.
@srszn2 Appreciate you having your first post here in my log dude. Something to keep in mind with backoff sets is that, if your MAIN set is going up, you can’t really say if you’re stalling or regressing with your backoff set.
What I mean by that is, your mainset generates fatigue, and then you perform your backoff set under this fatigue. If your mainset is progressing, that also means it’s generating MORE fatigue than before, and thus you perform your backoff set under greater fatigue, which is ANOTHER way you can progress.
The example I use for this is this one. Let’s say you could deadlift 600lbs fresh. Then, I have you go for a mile run and pull a deadlift as soon as you get back, and you can only manage 525. Now next time, I have you run 1.5 miles and you go to deadlift and you still only manage 525. This would be an indication that your deadlift has actually gotten stronger, as you managed to move the same weight as before while still being under greater fatigue than before. If we took away that run beforehand, you’d be able to pull even more.
Now yeah, ideally, your backoff sets will go up, but it’s not necessary. If you track my squat workouts, as of recently, there isn’t much growth on the weights I’m using, but at the same time the weights I’m moving on the keg and reverse hyper is growing, which means the topset is accomplished under greater fatigue than before.
@Frank_C I think Mark Rippetoe remains the only internet personality to perpetuate the idea that the squat, bench and deadlift are somehow magically the best movements for all trainees no matter what and so much as a 1mm deviation makes them inferior, haha. But what else would you expect from a man who claims himself the best coach out there on those lifts. Everyone has an angle. It’s nice to see people more concerned with making trainees progress vs perpetuating their own dogma.
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Sometimes that angle is straight down at the floor
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In fairness, if I was Mark, I wouldn’t be able to look anyone in the eye after declaring myself the best coach working today for the powerlifts AND the Olympic lifts.
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Maybe he meant that literal day? Did he say it on Christmas or another big holiday?
I was meaning to pick your brains on Deep Water actually. What do you think makes the program so radically different than other programs you’ve run? Is it purely those 10x10 escalating density sets?
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That, while keeping the weight the same for such long stretches. I was totally blowing myself away each session while feeling the healthiest I had in a long time because I wasn’t always chasing weight. I got to spend 6 weeks at a stretch getting used to a weight. Can’t think of the last time I did that.
And the prescribed percentages were higher than I would have used if left to my own devices. I was doing 10x10 before, but with about 35lbs less because it “felt” right. The program challenges you.
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Thanks for your input. I’m trying to knock together a 2 lifting day a week program using the principles of Deep Water. Do you mind if I tag you in when I put it to paper?
Also, did you really do 3 sets of lunges after your deep water squat sets? That feels like salt in the wound.
Still did the lunges, but often with minimal weight.
I don’t see 2x a week working with Deep Water. Jon’s big thing is for the body to be in a constant state of recovery: never recovered.
If you only wanted to lift weights 2x a week, I would spend 1 day doing a ton of push ups and dips and 1 day doing a ton of chin ups, but then I wouldn’t move on to intermediate, because the back day in beginners primes you for the cleans in intermediate.
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