That strip set looks brutal mate. Really nice smooth tempo on those pulls. Are you adding these just to accumulate volume or are you focusing on anything specific ?
@simo74 Much appreciated dude. Theyāre smooth because my hips feel like junk and I gotta go slow, haha. This is my supplemental work for the day and aligns with the principle behind this weight gain phase that each training day will include some sort of intensification modifier in it somewhere. Before this, it was on t-bar rows, but I was honestly just getting sick of setting up the t-bar rows AND I also dislike straight bar deadlifts enough these days that doing ājust 1 setā of them is easier to swallow. I also think making light weight heavy on these will make it so that they beat me up less compared to if I just grind out straight sets on it. Iām not ready to give up straight bar deads YET, but Iām getting close, so I think leaving it as supplemental work will allow me to maintain proficiency and keep strength in it, while the trap bar allows me to continue to perfect my ability to strain. The progressive ROM is nice too, as Iām not spending a whole lot of time getting ābetterā at 1 particular ROM, but instead moving through a bunch. Part of me is tempted to actually throw the mats under the plates at the end and keep the ROM progression going, but Iāll save that for another time.
Did 20 Stone of Steel lap and extensions before heading into work. Still working through the white meat of our thanksgiving turkey, so nutrition has been really clean. Caffeine is being abused to ridiculous levels.
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I was thinking start with mats under the weights but increase the weight. Drop set till no mats and then drop the weight 10% and add the mats to create a deficit.
But if you start with the mats under the weight and remove mats, the set gets HARDER as you go rather than easier. Iād have to take weight off with each mat.
I was thinking like my he way you do squats and do half the reps of the first set in the second. So you get 15, then take a mat off. The time it takes to take the mats away is a rest maybe 30 secs, then go for 8, take a mat 30 sec rest, go for 5.
Now weight is on the floor, drop 10%. And repeat.
Any way really works, itās all just about getting in volume, after all said and done.
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Ah. Yeah, I used rest pause the time before this, but still went to match reps. I could Xeno it, but that gets a bit tricky with the difficulty increasing with each set vs the traditional method with all variables staying the same and just the short rest being the difficult factor. Lotta ways to approach it. Since Iām already pulling from a short ROM on the max effort stuff, itās been good getting so much time in on the longer pulls with the supplemental work.
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Awesome blog post again today man. Love your work.
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@dagill2 Thanks dude! Always appreciate your feedback.
PM WORKOUT (1500)
OMAR WOD (adjusted: no space for bar facing burpees, so did regular burpees. Thrusters w/95lbs per RX)
10 thrusters
15 burpees
20 thrusters
25 burpees
30 thursters
35 burpees
Time: 14:38
Notes: Saw this a few weeks ago, but was feeling too sick to give it a try. Itās not bad. I wasnāt moving fast enough through it to get a real intense burn like I do with Fran or Grace, but it still sucked and got me moving. Will probably do something else before leaving for work tonight, and then I get 4 days off and can get back into a regular schedule. Hoping to get some runs in.
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Hey pwn, do you update the blog weekly on the same day, or just whenever you finish what youāre writing?
I really enjoy reading the posts, but I honestly forget about them and itās normally weeks between times I check, or @dagill2 posts in here and reminds me.
I try to update on the weekend, but life sets the schedule. Sometimes it slips to Monday. I donāt ever do it before Saturday unless it is more a blurb and less a full post.
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Made up a WOD before work, but in the same style that Vanilla Ice āmade upā the bass beat to āIce Ice Babyā. Since the barbell was still loaded to 95lbs I did
21 hang cleans
21 dips
15 hang cleans
15 dips
9 hang cleans
9 dips
Realized my forearms kill me on cleans because Iām just brute forcing the bar into the racked position rather than letting it rotate. If I switched to an axle and did continentals, Iād most likely have it easier.
Last night on the night shift for a while. Going to stay up all day tomorrow to reset my clock. Squat workout in the morning: excited about that, which is a sign that something weird is going on in my brain.
Really liked the blog this week, it just for the cool film reference but also the message. Your comment about food, Made me think of a conversation I had at work today. One of the young ladies at work (Iāll call her a larger lady because I am polite) commented that I eat all the time. She asked me how much I ate each day and when I said around 4000 calories she complained how she was on 1500 and still not losing weight. I didnāt have the heart to tell her that the reason I eat so much is because I do 2 x 40 min walks every day with the dog and train hard 3 days a week, whilst spending all weekend running around after 3 kids. I just smiled and said āI am lucky that way, I have always been able to eat what I wantā.
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Much appreciated dude, and I dig that story for sure. Itās absolutely frustrating being the target of other peopleās rationalized incapability. Right up there with being told you have superior genetics, a fast metabolism, are a mesomorph, itās so incredibly rare that someone ever says āYou work so hard that youāre able to do things others canātā.
The āI only eat 1500 calories a dayā crowd is a frustrating one as well. These folks seem to be under the impression that body only counts calories when itās solid food that is eaten in a sitting position at some sort of dinning table. Liquid calories and āquick bites/snacksā never seem to get added into their daily allotment. I remember Paul Carter writing about a client of his that was under the same delusion until he finally cracked the code that, as the cook of the family, she was āsamplingā all the food as she made it, and adding hundreds of calories onto her daily allotment by sneaking bites here and there.
Which is a bit of real comedy: I write a blog on lifting and hang out on lifting forums and have ZERO interest in discussing training offline, because people are super frustrating to deal with in that realm.
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Thereās a British show called secret eaters that goes into this
This is very very true. I think that for most people they just donāt have the desire to learn what good training or good diet really is. They want someone to sell them something or tell them something that is going to fix what ever it is that is stopping them being fit or thin or muscular or strong. 35 years later and people still believe shit they were told by the personal training in the gym in the mid 80ās. Itās very frustrating trying to talk to these people because they will never get it.
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No one wants the answer to be āeffort, consistency and timeā, because you canāt sell or bottle that, but itās the god honest truth. Fitness is no different than any other skill. Yet (most) people know that a ādegreeā from an online school that you can earn in 8 weeks is worthless, but will fully buy into the idea that you can reverse 30+ years of neglect with 1 pill and 15 minutes a day twice a week. And itās all about what you BELIEVE: not reality. People all grant themselves license to have an opinion on fitness for some reason. And as a student of politics, I see it in THAT realm too. āOh, you watch the news so you know whatās going on? Ok, coolā
Thereās no appreciation for the value of education.
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It seems like because fitness is something we can all do, see on TV, read about in a magazine that people feel they have educated themselves. Itās like watching a war film and then deciding you know everything about the armed forces, or as you nicely put it, watching the news and knowing who to vote for. The worst bit for me isnāt the complete lack of knowledge people have, itās how sure they are that what they do know is correct and you canāt convince them otherwise.
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Iām bookmarking this. Not for its application to fitness knowledge, where Iām no expert, but for everything else in life. Iāve tried to express this concept but you have put it very well. I wonder where this sureness comes from. Maybe a hardwired survival technique to avoid indecision in times of incomplete information?
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I donāt feel like this is a unique thing to fitness. Certainly in my line of work, everyone seems to be an expert in everything. Everyone understands supply chain better than me, HR policy better than me and can price check every other retailer without even looking at their phone. Itās a wonder companies spend so many billions doing these same things when we could just ask all these experts in our midst.
How many times do you hear it?
It goes on all day long
Everyone knows everything
And no oneās ever wrong
Itās not even a new thing either, these lyrics are mid 80s and were the first thing I thought about when reading these posts.
AM WORKOUT (0645 After working night shift)
Buffalo Bar Squat
5xBar
5x140
3x230
1x320
REST PAUSE (12 Deep Breaths Between Sets)
11x370
6x370
3x370
2x370
1x370
9x320
1x320
8x320
2x320
7x320
3x320
6x320
4x320
5x320
3x7x280
12x230
SUPERSET (1 min rest between sets, squat-hyper)
Belt squat 150 (no lockout)
1x19
1x15
1x14
STRIPSET
15x150
125
100
75
50
25
Reverse hyper 360
4x13
Standing ab wheel
1x20
Band pull aparts
1x50
Band pull downs
1x25
Chins (various grips)
1x20
3x10
Notes: Fantastic workout. Just firing on all cylinders. The topset wasnāt an absolute grinder, so I pushed the follow ons hard. Belt squat continues to be brutal. Got in the majority of my daily work at the end. Gonna try to get in some conditioning later: possibly a run with the Mrs.
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