Rebirth of the Juggernaut: Brute Force and Ignorance (Part 1)

[T3hPwnisher]

AM WORKOUT

MAX EFFORT LOWER

High handle trap bar lifts
5x135
5x225
3x315
1x405
1x495
1x585
1x635
1x675
1x700
1x700

Max Effort: High Handle Trap Bar lifts: 2x1x700lbs

GIANT SETS (dead-row-chins)

2 second pause high handle trap bar 415
3x8

T-bar rows 150
3x8

NG chins (various grips)
1x7
2x6

DB rows 105
1x12

Notes: 3:45 between heavy pulls, 2:00 between giant sets. Significant improvement from last week, where I couldn’t get over 495. Still wasn’t comfortable going full max effort, but, in turn, it’s pretty goddamn awesome that 700lbs is my “not quite there but wanna still go kinda heavy” weight. It was something I was chasing for a while when I first got the trap bar, and I lost some of that ability as my weight went up, so now things are boding really well for when I can get together a healthy training cycle. I’m gonna go one more week on this for next week, as last week wasn’t really a max effort workout. It seems my strategy of “make training while injured completely awful so that the body heals rapidly to avoid more training like that” is paying off.

Giant sets were smooth. No real issues.

[mr.v3lv3t]

Dude, killer pulls. Flap should be receiving the conch signal any moment now.

IIRC you have a pretty funky offset handle for the DB rows right? Looks like a tiny farmers walk handle? I might be recalling this incorrectly.

[T3hPwnisher]

Thanks man. Was good to move something heavy again.

You remember correctly: it was a DB row handle made by Westcarry Barbell. I ordered it through Mike Tuchscherer’s site back when we worked together, which gave him a chuckle. I don’t think the company is around any more, but Black Widow sells one

Right now I’m just using a fixed weight dumbbell for rows, but may end up breaking that one out again soon.

[anna_5588]

@T3hPwnisher

Was good to move something heavy again.

Weren’t you injured less than 3weeks ago?
You should write a PT book marketing max effort trap bar deads as a recovery hack “doctors don’t want you to know”

[dagill2]

What was the advantage of that handle?

[T3hPwnisher]

@anna_5588 It’s actually been 13 days and I am still injured, haha. The trap bar lifts are less about healing the injury and more testing it. I may actually write a bit about my method, but it is ultimately about pushing right to the edge over and over again as soon and frequently as possible.

@dagill2 it allows one to load a DB row with 45lb plates without making the ROM super short, so you can go heavier than you could with a standard loadable handle.

[jshaving]

@T3hPwnisher

eating good food

What’s this mean for you? Good as in healthy, or good as in, like, a really good burger (which I suppose can be healthy). Or both. They’re not mutually exclusive. I think I remember you saying you rarely (or never) eat your wife’s baked goods - would that change?

Just curious, haha.

Sweet dumbbell handle! Might need to look into that - my adjustable ones can barely hold any weight. Maybe 60lbs or so. Would be nice to have a heavier option.

[T3hPwnisher]

Good as in enjoyable. Basically indulge my hedoism. Would definitely put away baked goods, haha.

I honestly rarely use that handle. I tend to avoid things I have to load up when it comes to back work. I try to make my assistance as little thinking as possible. But it definitely works.

[mr.v3lv3t]

Nice, thanks dude! I noticed even with 25s on the handle the ROM is affected or at least the end position of the row needs to be thought about each rep.

[mattjp]

Really enjoyed your last blog post. Enjoyed reading the salty replies on /r/fitness a lot more, though.

[T3hPwnisher]

@mr.v3lv3t No problem dude. Hope it works out.

@mattjp Thanks dude! Now that I’m off work for the week, I can have a little fun with that topic, haha.

---

LUNCHTIME WORKOUT

Axle bench press 301
1x10
1x8
1x6

Close grip axle bench 256
1x10
1x8
1x5

Incline swiss bar bench 220
1x10
1x7
1x6

Dips
1x46
1x39
2x29

Pull ups between sets of benching
1x7
8x6
1x10

Neck harness 45
2x22
1x20

Poundstone Curls
110xAxle

Notes: 3:25 between sets of benching, 2:00 between sets of dips. Bit of a drop on strength here, but my bodyweight also dropped to 193.4 this morning, so it looks like I’m in a bit of a free fall there. Just gonna keep pushing and holding on as much as I can. I’m adding sets of dips as the rest times drop to get in a little extra work. My groin felt much better this time than the last: could get into position far better than before, but incline benching is still a little tough.

It’s been really good to get in the chinning between benches. I missed back work between pressing.

I hit a MAJOR stretching PR of being able to get my right heel to touch my glute while sitting in the “aikido sitting position”

The left isn’t quite there yet, as it pulls on my fake ACL, but it’s getting close.

Going to try some squatting tomorrow. Gotta remember NOT to stretch before the workout.

EDIT: Oh yeah, the Mrs and I have been going on 1.5-2 mile walks during her lunch breaks these past couple of weeks. Good to get in extra activity.

[mr.v3lv3t]

Black widow makes some pretty nifty odds and ends huh? The revolver row handle with the 3 grip choices actually caught me eye too, and I got word the expansion kit for the powerblocks is back in stock. Decisions, decisions haha.

I actually got a pretty good laugh reading your that blog post with 5 hot dogs on my dinner plate. We were generously left with all the leftover food from a lake weekend, for better or worse. I’m not active on reddit but I’m curious now to see what the braintrust over there has to say about it.

[T3hPwnisher]

@mr.v3lv3t We actually did hotdogs tonight, haha. Was a good night for a cookout. Black Widow is a great little company: guy has been around forever. Good to see he still has stuff in stock. And between the dozen steroid accusations I got from reddit today, the thread was good for my ego if nothing else, haha.

---

TKD Lesson wasn’t super great today. Despite all the work on balance this week, my kid collapsed during every single drill and I called it early at 35 minutes. I DID key in on the fact that my kid’s breathing is causing issues. When they get frustrated, they breathe in and out super rapidly, and they tend to laugh when they exert themselves, so their core has zero strength. We worked on some slow and controlled breathing today, and THAT was a challenge in and of itself. I feel like the further I get, the more baseline stuff we find isn’t solid.

I told my kid flat out that, if they can hold a round kick stance without falling over, they’ll get a stripe on their orange belt. I’m hoping that helps. It does suck that I only get to teach my kid 3 times over 2 weeks now, because I was really excited for this lesson and it ended up being a pretty big dud.

On the psychological front, I’m champing at the bit to do SOMETHING as far as competition goes, and none of it is strongman. I “get” geared powerlifting alluva sudden, because that actually sounds fun compared to raw, since there would be a whole new thing to take on and discover and figure out. I’ve been looking for some sort of martial arts competition, despite the fact I’m SUPER out of practice and most likely can’t do anything without a real team or promoter. But hell, I’m even excited for a squat workout just so I can push myself and do SOMETHING. This tends to happen when I lose weight, so it’s cool at least.

That all said, I have my phone consult with my doc tomorrow to discuss my LDL, so maybe it will all come crashing down and everything will have to change. I guess we’ll see.

[mattjp]

I’d personally like to see you do a powerlifting meet (raw or geared) just to see how much your total will have skyrocketed since the last one.

Returning to the shoulder topic, did you ever get surgery on yours? If so, what was recovery like?

[T3hPwnisher]

Thanks man. I genuinely don’t imagine I’ll have much of a change in total, since goals moved far away from 1rms since that time. Perhaps if I peaked, but I won’t do that, haha.

I got surgery, but that was in 2002, and I wasn’t lifting like today, just doing some bro workouts and wrestling. I had to do some physical therapy, and even then the damn thing went out 5 more times, so it didn’t really do much. My understanding is that surgeons tend to shy away from doing surgery on young patients these days for that very reason. Not sure what it’d be like if done today.

[mattjp]

Ah OK, cheers. Don’t think they’d consider me young anymore, but you never know!

[T3hPwnisher]

Yeah, you are most likely in the right age category. Surgery should always be avoided when possible, but sometimes it is the only answer.

[anna_5588]

Just wondering, if there we’re an implant that regenerated tendons after injury, would you have a more positive view of surgery?

[T3hPwnisher]

I am all for elective surgery (its why I got LASIK): I was referring to corrective surgery.

[T3hPwnisher]

Just finished the phone consult. Short story is I’m going to start a lower dose of a lipitor like statin and make some diet changes.

Long story is that the doc doesn’t really seem to think it’s much to do with my lifestyle and that it’s primarily a genetic thing I’m dealing with. He went over my medical history since 2006 and showed how things had been generally trending upward through out that time. Most the things he said I should be avoiding I’m already avoiding (alcohol, refined carbs, have a low glycemic diet). Where I AM guilty are the two things I already knew about: saturated fat intake and red meat.

Those are quick kills at least. Now, we DO have a ton of beef in the freezer that we’ll be working through, but we can introduce some more chicken into the diet. I’m going to stop eating cheese as my go to snack at work and switch to pistachios. I’m also probably going to eliminate it wherever else I can (I used to make a habit of getting hamburgers instead of cheeseburgers and things like that). Probably go egg whites vs full eggs when possible. Basically, I can just do the whole “clean eating” thing that we all know.

They said one of the side effects of the drugs is muscle pain. I can’t imagine that would be any different than my normal life.

On the plus side, the doctor didn’t seem to think my attempt to move up weight classes had any impact on it whatsoever, and also is open to me getting off the medication if I can demonstrate changes with diet and lifestyle.