After day 1 of Building the Monolith, I was in the shower with the water about as cold as I could stand to try to bring my body temp back down, looking at the floor and contemplating quitting the whole thing, haha. High rep squats will always do it. Even deads, with heavier loading, just don’t have the same effect.
1 Like
Had the same exact thought earlier in the shower lol, but the best thing is knowing that you aren’t gonna quit despite all the tricks your mind is playing on you.
1 Like
I’m having the worst workout hangover of my life today. I have severe doms in my hams from Tuesday’s Deadlifts and my quads cramp every time I extend my knees. The worst part is the headache: it’s so bad it’s ridiculous.
I really wish I had some paracetamol at hand right now lol
Press
40 kg x 5
46.4 kg x 5
52 kg x 5
40 kg x 10
40 kg x 10
40 kg x 9
40 kg x 7
37.5 kg x 9
Alternating with chest supported db row 5 x 12
Hanging leg raise 3 sets
So this workout was pretty disappointing. The last set of the main work was a grinder, at least the last two reps.
Supplemental was really hard and it took all the effort I could give to get through the first 3 sets. The first one saw a sharp decline in performance, and the last one was hard as hell even with the lighter weight. I didn’t get through everything in 20 minutes, I closed up with around 2-3 minutes over the time limit.
At this point I don’t know if I should lower the weight next week or if it’s better to just throw myself at it and “fail while trying.” I’m think that, despite my disappointment for not getting all the five sets perfect with the right weight, my effort was still high enough to illicit a growth stimulus, being that my goal. So probably it’s no biggie: I still worked hard as hell.
2 Likes
Deadlift
104 kg x 5
118 kg x 5
133 kg x 5
104 kg x 10
104 kg x 10
104 kg x 10
104 kg x 10
104 kg x 10
So last night I got half the amount of sleep I usually do because in the middle of the night a strong stomach ache hit me, accompanied by nausea and diarrhea. This workout was, once again, hell. I felt like passing out in the middle of the workout and I was literally in shock when I left the gym. I didn’t do any assistance because after the last rep of supplemental I was sure that if I had done one more set of anything I would’ve fainted. I slept for two hours when I got home after lunch and I’m head is still hurting now. I’m wrecked.
@T3hPwnisher today’s session scared the shit out of me and, aside from that, I’m coming to the realization that I might have been going too hard too soon. I posted my last sessions on my log over at Wendler’s forums and the advice I got was to lower my TM’s by 20 pounds as of the very next week, and possibly to scale back to a different BBB template and work up to FSL weights.
I stated my concern about the fact that doing too light or easy BBB work wouldn’t lead to much gains, and this is one of the responses that I got:
"I’d give it a try before deciding it’s not worthwhile. You don’t need to be struggling for that 10th rep on every single BBB set to see progress, and you 100% shouldn’t be dropping reps during the 1st cycle. A weight that might seem light when you’re fresh on your first week can build up to a lot more by week 3 of your first or second cycle. You just need to think a bit longer term and consider it more as cumulative fatigue for your body and muscles.
When I ran BBB with FSL weights, I used a 10RM for my TM too. My 5x10 sets went fast and smooth but I absolutely felt it the next day and saw great size gains over a few months. Working with as much weight as possible isn’t the only thing to worry about with making size/strength progress. I kept my rest times to 60 seconds between BBB sets and would be feeling wiped out by the end of the workout, but without any real compromise on form or lift speed.
It’s the same principle as any 5/3/1 program really, each part builds on the last and you WILL see progress if you stick to it in a sensible way. Don’t get too caught up on how hard you push yourself on one specific day."
Another one:
“Look at it from a different perspective. I knew I needed to change my TM’s recently so I looked through my logs and looked at my PR set week and I saw that at each lift I was hitting a strong 10 reps at 80% TM. It’s not like I’m using a 50% TM or anything. Your FSL sets should absolutely be powerful, each BP rep should be powerful off your chest, powerful out of the hole, DL powerful off the floor. If you’re struggling, which it sounds like you are, your TM is wrong, period. Don’t fall back into the media guru perspective of training where everything has to be heavy, you must reach failure, you must feel like your dead and puking after you workout; these mentalities are all ridiculous. The weight will be light for a while, but remember that it accumulates over time and adds up quickly. Don’t focus so much on what the weights will be immediately, focus on where your progress will be a year from now, 2 years from now, etc.”
Sorry for the wall of text.
What do you think about this?
1 Like
I think they’re right. Especially if you’re cutting out assistance work because the supplemental work is wiping you out. Better to get in 5x10 of lighter work than 0x0 of heavy work.
Sounds about right. Probably I had just been psyching myself up a bit too much with this “working hard as fuck” thing and I genuinely planned on overcoming any difficulties in the gym through sheer willpower, but apparently in doing that I forgot that I have limits and too much IS too much. I’m a bit disappointed at myself though, I thought I could make it.
I’ll head over to the article on Wendler’s website, that offers a list of ways to make BBB work. I read it sometime ago but it’s worth re reading, then I’ll chose a template and go from there. I think I just need to be patient and keep at it.
This is one of the most @T3hPwnisher things I’ve read in a while.
3 Likes
So I brought down my TM’s. These are the new ones:
Press - 50 kg / 110 lb
Deadlift - 142 kg / 313 lb
Squat - 120 kg / 264 lb
Bench - 84 kg / 185 lb
It breaks me apart to go back to these weights, which are the ones I used as my TM’s 2-3 months ago. But sometimes you have to take a two steps back to make three forward.
I’ve decided to use 50% of my TM for my BBB sets. Next cycle I’ll bump that up to 55-60% and then in two cycles I’ll either increase it to 65-70% or straight up use FSL weights. I’ve also decided to sub 5’s PRO on the main work with the original 5/3/1 pr set, at least for this cycle. Since the supplemental will be light, I can probably afford to push a bit moe the main work. The rule I will follow, though, is to keep 2 reps in the tank on that set and avoid going to failure. If I find that hampers progress, I’ll sub 5’s PRO back in.
Assistance will be 5x10 chins on press day, 5x10 rows on bench day, with a couple of sets of curls, dips, and lateral raises if I feel good afterwards. Core work on lower body days.
After 3-4 cycles of BBB, I think I’ll finally be ready to handle a harder program like BTM.
That is the plan.
2 Likes
I think this is a good plan. I’ve always admired your ability to just grind away and trust the process I feel like this has given you the results you have and this new plan looks like a step back towards that.
2 Likes
Different leverages and whatnot are so weird. Your deadlift and press TMs are respectively 25kg and 7.5kg lower than mine but your squat and bench TMs are basically my 1RMs.
Also, it makes me slightly happy to see your press TM is the same as mine, and your bench is lower. Even though I’m aware it’s representative of nothing.
Funny haha, I actually feel that my bench is my worst lift based on how it feels and the difficulty in grinding reps—with the Deadlift and even the squat, I’m pretty good at struggling; I can power up a weight for one more rep even if I feel that I don’t have much in the tank, whereas with the bench what happened several times is that I found myself in the whole and I couldn’t get the bar up no matter how hard I tried.
My Deadlift is probably the weight that has the loosest TM to 1rm correlation though: I’m only using 313 lb right now, but if you scroll up the log you’ll see that I hit 355 x 3 on a joker set and I have done other sets at around that weight. I feel it’ll work better if I keep the weights lighter and the form and speed perfect.
Thank you man, appreciate it.
This sounds like a challenge doesn’t it? 
1 Like
Last time I challenged someone on T-nat ion, one of us went on to pull 600lbs+ on the regular. I’ll leave it down to you to figure out whether that was me or activitiesguy.
I’ll happily take on another one, with limited hopes of success
1 Like
Great outlook dude, will serve you well in the long run.
That’s probably my plan as well. Doing Beginner Prep right now, with plans to move onto BBB afterwards. Then will follow the same outline Pwn gave you with BtM, and Deep Water.
Unless my goals completely change and I decide to go a more “conditioning” focused route, haha.
1 Like
Bench
58.8 kg x 3
67 kg x 3
75.6 kg x 7
42 kg x 10
42 kg x 10
42 kg x 10
42 kg x 10
42 kg x 10
Alternating with chest supported db row 5 x 10
Curls 2 supersets
Squat
84 kg x 3
96 kg x 3
108 kg x 8
62 kg x 10
62 kg x 10
62 kg x 10
62 kg x 10
62 kg x 10
Press
37.5 kg x 5
42 kg x 3
47.5 kg x 9
25 kg x 10
25 kg x 10
25 kg x 10
25 kg x 10
25 kg x 10
Alternating with neutral grip chins x 10,10,9,8,7
Lateral raises 2 sets
Deadlift
106.5 kg x 5
120.7 kg x 3
134.9 kg x 8
72 kg x 10
72 kg x 10
72 kg x 10
72 kg x 10
72 kg x 10
Rope crunch 3 sets
Bench
63 kg x 5
72 kg x 3
80 kg x 5
42 kg x 10
42 kg x 10
42 kg x 10
42 kg x 10
42 kg x 10
Alternating with chest supported db row 5 x 10
Dips 3 sets
Curls 2 supersets
I’m pretty disappointed with my pr set. I don’t understand why, despite lowering my TM, it seems like I might be regressing in strength. That goal of benching 225 seems further and further now.
Also, lately my bench has been hurting my left shoulder.
The pain is located somewhere between the pointy end of my clavicle and my front delt.
I don’t recall feeling this pain with any other exercise, but sometimes it comes back with certain movements of the arm outside of the gym. I don’t know if it’s because my technique sucks or what I should do about it, but advice is welcome. I don’t want to give up on benching because I feel it’s kinda necessary, but I also think that if I keep benching I could eventually exacerbate the issue.
So the issue is double sided. I am stalling on the lift, and it’s also causing pain. What would you do @T3hPwnisher if you were in my shoes?