Succinctly put… awesome goals!
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@alex_uk The first step is admitting it, haha. So many dudes are in denial, but being strong and jacked will always be better than strong and not jacked.
Ok, first, I keep forgetting to add that I did a set of 20 NG chins at the end of my squat workout the other day. Really just trying to get my back back to where it was and beyond.
Did my 25 minutes of stretching and single leg work. Left leg continues to feel fine: just tender around the IT band.
AM WORKOUT
Axle bench press 296
2x10
1x9
Close grip axle bench 256
1x10
2x5
Swiss bar incline bench 220
1x10
2x8
Dips
2x40
1x35
Standing ab wheel between sets of bench
8x8
Notes: 3:05 between sets of benching, 2:00 between sets of dips. I alternated the close grip benching with the swiss bar benching. I definitely liked it more as a training approach: made the training seem much faster. Not sure if it necessarily is more effective, but it gives me some room to play around at least, and now I can make drop sets and other intensity modifiers a bit more viable.
Also interesting how much more gas I had in me for those dips at the end. I feel like that might mean something. My sternum was a bit achy, which is most likely from the weighted dips I did in place of log this week.
Putting on my knee sleeves made that left knee ache. Pain is around the IT band/very bottom of the hamstring, which is most likely where the tear occurred. I wonder if that’s also the spot where they harvested my hamstring to make a new ACL.
Very slight pain in my right forearm, which I think is a product of the grip training, rather than squats. My upper body in general seems to be in less pain post squatting these days. I may have to take a lesson that, when bodyweight goes up, squatting transfers to SSB only, and when it goes down I use the buffalo bar. Wouldn’t be the worst idea.
Never understand why people would spend so many hours working after something and then be afraid to even admit it’s what they’re working for.
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I think it is a certain element of not wanting to look like you’ve failed, so few guys reach what they set out to achieve in the lifting world, so if you say “I only want to be strong don’t care what I look like” it gives you free reign to fail at getting strong and looking good and vice versa if bodybuilding is the main priority. But let’s face it every lifter being honest would want to look better or be stronger (if it didn’t affect their primary goal).
It’s a mindset I’ve fallen prey to in the past, but never again, I wanna look sexy and be strong!
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I didn’t notice this reply.
This is something I’ve always “struggled” with when I go through periods of serious training. (consistency would probably help, ha). I’ve seen you, Wendler, etc. say things about eating to support your training, and I just never have gotten it. I did CrossFit for a couple summers and would be hungry after those workouts, so I’d eat, but otherwise, even when lifting heavy-ish weights I never felt like I wasn’t fueling myself enough. It’s definitely a sign of how unintensive my training can be. I can’t afford CrossFit now and I’m not sure I’d actually want to do it, but regardless of all the negatives, I was in incredible shape when I did it consistently, ate a lot, and did not get fat. Gotta figure out how to bring that intensity back into my workouts.
It did. I’m not at your level or as dedicated so this isn’t really info I need to progress or anything, but I just like learning from people stronger than myself. Thank you.
I am hoping the base-building program I am doing becomes exponentially more effective when I am able to start gaining weight again. I am 165 pounds (down from 180) and I’m not liking it, but I’m still hitting all of my prescribed numbers when I lift.
I think it’s largely that, but also that some people see that as a vain mindset. It is, I suppose, but if that’s what you want, and what you work for, it’s a bit disingenuous to pretend it’s not what you care about. I primarily work hard for 3 reasons, in order of importance from least to most: to look good, to feel good, and to have my kids see their dad working hard and being active (something I didn’t have). Fortunately, doing the things that make you feel good in a healthy sense (restricting vices, eating well, and working hard) often result in looking good.
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@flappinit It severely conflicts with the lessons people are taught to not be vain or feel pride about stuff, and it’s honestly just super silly. You can be proud without arrogant, and you can be vain without being a narcissist, and hell, even then, if I was as accomplished as some people I WOULD be an arrogant narcissist, haha. @alex_uk Touched on something too, in that getting strong AND being lean is harder than getting strong and not being lean, and so a lot of folks want to convince themselves that they’re more “hardcore” by not caring about how they look, when really their “hardcore” is just a way to justify doing things the easy way. It’s just like the dudes that are too hardcore to do curls or direct ab work.
Also, positive role modeling for my kid is big for me as well. I remember I wanted to be JUST like my dad, which meant I wanted to eat potato chips out of the bag on the couch JUST like he did, I wanted to eat fried egg sandwiches every day JUST like he did, I reached for his cigarette in the ash trash so I could smoke JUST like he did (he thankfully caught me and stopped me). And I love my dad, he’s my hero and one of the greatest influences in my life, but he was also not a good physical role model, haha. My kid already has MUCH better nutritional habits and self-control than I did as a kid. They will eat half a cupcake and then say “I’m all done” and leave it behind. That NEVER happened for me, haha.
@jshaving The truth is that most folks get enough food day to day that they’re already eating to support their training. We live in an era where food is abundant and VERY nutrient rich. Even junk food is fortified with vitamins, and processed stuff tends to be so calorically dense that, if you eat it, there’s a fair chance you’ll go over your caloric needs without even trying. It’s why when people ask “how do I know if I’ve recovered from training”, I can tell that they’ve never undereaten before. It took a bit of doing for me to get to the point where I could outtrain my diet, as I needed to train very hard AND stick primarily with meats and veggies.
Glad the response was helpful.
@liftangryordie500 Food is anabolic for sure, haha. It’s magical really. I’m sure you’ll see some solid growth there.
I yet again forgot to log something in my log yesterday: I did a 105 rep set of axle curls at the end of the bench workout. I might also start doing some tricep work at the end of one of these workouts. Seems like an easy place to add in some mass.
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Stretched this morning. Single leg is good.
TKD lesson of 45 minutes had a BIG takeaway today. Wanted to document this. Shared it in the combat section too
So I had a bit of a revelation regarding TKD blocking yesterday after doing some reading, implemented it today and it worked fantastically. The whole “grab defense” thing has some merit, but really, calling them “blocks” just confuses things. They’re hard parries.
The low block
Is just a stupid idea to block an incoming roundhouse kick OR to try to force on force stop a front kick (snap or teep)
BUT, if you step off to the side as you do it against a front style kick, it’s just a parry , and should put you in a position to capitalize on a counter attack (assuming you circle to the back).
Same with the middle block
Not going to stop anything, but you step to the side and do it against a straight attack and it’s a parry.
That picture is stupidly exaggerated, and we drilled keeping it close and just using it to move the punch off line, but it’s making the first form a lot less stupid.
We did these for our 1 steps, and it was suddenly a MUCH more useful drill. My kid was getting me off center and had my back totally exposed. They remembered something I said from my previous lesson, because I said “If you’re at my back, I can’t block, I can’t attack much, and I can’t see what’s coming” and my kid goes “So it’s like Christmas for me?”
My wife goes “WHAT are you teaching our kid up there?!”
I was so proud. They were figuring out logical attacks from there. Figured out a front snap kick right between my legs from behind and a liver punch: total Bas Rutten style stuff. We suddenly went from doing things because it was tradition to doing things because it made sense: huge.
This became cool too, because we learned how all the blocks in the form are there to teach against all the attacks in the form. Great to see the material come together.
Forms looked amazing as a result as well. Strong punches, held the fist well. A few more lessons like that and I’ll promote them to orange belt. From there, I’ll be teaching angular attacks, as white belt has been all straight attacks. Plan is roundkick, roundhouse kick (Muay Thai style), hook punch and a knifehand strike. Will teach leg checking as a defense. I’ll also have to look into the next form and find out what else needs to be taught from it.
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guilty as charged 
only I admit that I omit core/arm work out of laziness
@anna_5588 I imagine you omit them out of exhaustion if we’re being honest with ourselves, haha. Less conditioning and more ab and core work and you’ll meet your deadlift goals.
PM WORKOUT
Max Effort Lower
(4) High Handle Trap Bar Mat Pulls
5x135
5x225
3x315
1x405
1x495
1x585
1x675
1x745
0x765
GIANT SETS (dead-row-chin)
2 second pause high handle trap bar pull 405
3x9
T-bar row 3 45s and a 10
3x9
NG chins (various grips)
1x5
2x4
10 minute-ish rest
3 rounds on the BAS (2 minutes on, 1 minute “rest” of rope skipping) using MMA style gloves
Notes: 3:45 between heavy pulls, 2:00 between giant sets. The strength was there for 765, but my hamstring was a little angry after 745 and I could feel it trying to pull apart on 765. Got no reason to sacrifice it at the moment, so I pushed it to the redline and backed it down again. I find this helps the healing process, as so far my hamstring is feeling awesome.
Giant sets were fairly easy with the shorter ME session.
Went to Dick’s Sporting Goods today since they’re opened up and picked up a bunch of martial arts stuff. Just about returned everything when they wouldn’t sell me the weight set they had because “we don’t sell the display”. Hey, here’s a thought then: don’t put a pricetag on it. Was looking out for that kid on the powerlifting team, so pissed me off. Rant aside, I now have the MMA style gloves, got my wife some 12oz boxing gloves, my kiddo some MMA style gloves (they already have boxing gloves) and I got some thai pads. Can really rock and roll.
I liked the MMA style gloves because they allowed me to skip rope between rounds easier than transitioning with the boxing gloves. It’s definitely different using them, but for fitness purposes, they work well. May include some slam ball and sprawls in the future.
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In my daughters karate they teach them exactly this. The block is done with a side step to parry the kick and then a reverse punch to the midsection with the non blocking hand.
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@T3hPwnisher Low blocking has no purpose and I’m a first-degree black belt certified under WTKO, the same badge on the gi in your pictures. A lot of things are done for art, kata included. However, sparring is more dynamic and explosive - in place of low blocking for front kicks we make a parry block and circle around to the exposed side of the body. From there, you can face punch, chest punch, front kick, or round kick if you know what you’re doing. That’s how I learned it anyway
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Funny enough, the badge on my gi is actually just the company that makes the gi.
Some company called “Hawk Sports”
Hey wait, I don’t think I’ve posted any pictures of me in a gi yet…You break into my house? Haha.
EDIT: Oh geez, I’m an idiot: you meant the photo of the dude in the gi. That makes way more sense, haha.
Low block instincts got me VERY good at catching kicks, but also very good at EATING kicks, haha. But when I did catch the, it was pretty cool. I had a combo where I’d catch the leg, pull the dude to me Scorpion style, then suplex them. Wasn’t very much appreciated on the other side, haha.
@simo74 It makes a lot of sense. We were taught “yeah, it’s a force on force block, and you’ll do it in the form” and the we’d never do it in sparring, and in one steps it was stupid. I saw a Kung Fu dude at my old stomping grounds breaking down the TKD form and explaining what the hell these blocks were SUPPOSED to be and it made so much more sense.
Forgot to document that I woke up at 201.2 this morning. I’m way more defined at this bodyweight than I typically am. Usually, once I break 200lbs I’m at “I’m getting fat” stage, whereas now I’m at the “Not ashamed to take my shirt off at the pool”/“Give the neighborhood moms something to look at” mode.
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It’s totally fucked how youve conditioned us to look on passively while you pull 745 and yolo 765 with a recently injured hamstring.
Love it.
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I was never able to try head suplexes under my Sensei. He was more interested in pre-defined three and five-step sparring and contact-limited free sparring (touch the gi with your hit and no more). Either way, I got good at everything technique-wise but had to evaluate my style of combat to make sure I wasn’t subconsciously pulling punches and kicks when my target should have been 1-2 inches into somebody’s body.
Knee and elbow strikes are also incredibly effective to learn, they do the big pain to everybody in a satisfyingly bone-crunching way
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They’ll definitely enter the curriculum at some point. They are actually in the forms for us, so I’ll most likely scale them at that time. Was showing my kid today how knee strikes could come if they didn’t parry the right way.
And yeah, suplexes weren’t a part of what I learned in TKD, but my wrestling background came through. I used to go to a side that had “throwdowns”, where dudes with a bunch of different backgrounds would get together to spar. Gave me a chance to try out stuff like that. Was always a good time, but logistics were nuts.
I laughed way too hard at this, haha. Definitely part of my plan to condition my body to the idea that it’s a scary world out there and it better be ready.
I’m going to, perhaps falsely, speak for a lot of people here based on the assumption that they have had the same thoughts that I had when I first started reading your log, and say that a lot of us have had a lot of “what the fuck is going on” moments that got forgotten rather quickly as your lifts and size shot up in spite of the things that most people let stop them.
There’s a whoooooooooole lot of stuff that can stop you, if you let it. Full disclosure, I would let that hamstring tweak stop me for way longer, but I’m definitely learning to focus on what can keep me going rather than dwelling on what can stop me, and if that isn’t an important lesson for a lot of people who come on here to learn, I don’t know what is.
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That sounds fantastic, I need to look for one of those. Diversity among fighting styles.
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