Coffinworm (anchor) cycle 1 week 3 day 1.
Today’s menu:
Squats: 80kgx5, 90kgx5, 102.5kgx10.
Assistance:
Db Rows: 2x12, x8@45kg.
Ok session. Squats were fairly easy and got some solid reps. Onto the next!
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Coffinworm (anchor) cycle 1 week 3 day 2.
Today’s menu:
Press: 45kgx5, 52.5kgx5, 60kgx8.
Assistance:
Face pulls: 3x10@60kg.
Ok session. Resting for next week. See you in a couple days.
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Coffinworm(anchor) cycle 1 week 3 day 3.
Today’s menu:
Bench: 65kgx5, 75kgx5, 85kgx12.
Assistance
Weighted chins: 2x5@20kg, 3x5@40kg.
Db Bulgarians: x10, x9, x7@30kg.
Weighted dips: x10, x9, x7@35kg.
Bench was very easy but I decided not to overdo it. Took my time with the assistance which still was light work. Happy with being able to put up 20kgs at a time on my chin ups without additional warm ups.
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Coffinworm (anchor) cycle 1 week 3 day 4.
Today’s menu:
Deadlifts: 110kgx5, 130kgx5, 145kgx5.
Assistance:
Db rows: 3x12@45kg.
x25 dips (bw)
x25 bulgarian split squats (bw)
Easy session. Could have gotten more with the deadlifts but forgot to bring the chalk with me, so my grip was very slippy. It’s ok since this was an optional amrap. Sneaked some bodyweight reps with the pulling assistance just to get some blood flowing.
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Coffinworm (anchor) cycle 2 week 1 day 1.
Today’s menu:
Squats: 85kgx5, 95kgx5, 110kgx5, 95kgx5, 110kgx3, 120kgx5, 130kgx1.
Bench: 5x5@70kg.
Assistance:
Tricep pushdowns: 5x10@30kg.
Face pulls: 5x10@60kg.
Db Bulgarians: 3x10@30kg.
x25 leg raises.
Supersetted the Squats with some light tricep work, and stopped the amrap set 1-2 reps before failure so I could train again tonight: I instead opted to get some more singles with roughly the same weight. I feel like there is still something that is holding my squats back, and it may have to do with training frequency. Since I was disappointed with my top set, but still wanted to train again later in the day, I performed the bulgarians after the sports session.
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Coffinworm (anchor) cycle 2 week 1 day 2.
Today’s menu:
OHP: 50kgx5, 55kgx5, 62.5kgx5, 55kgx5, 62.5kgx3, 70kgx6, 80kgx1, 85kgx1 (PR).
Deadlifts: 5x5@120kg.
Assistance:
Weighted chins: 5x5@40kg.
Db Incline Bench: x8, x7, x6, x4@ 40kg.
Leg extensions: 2x12, 2x10@60kg.
Good session today. I hit a rep pr on the top set and a a new 1 rep max with +5kg increase on my press. My chin ups have improved too. After some db bench, I decided against doing bulgarians again today and opted for spamming some volume on the leg extension.
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Coffinworm (anchor) cycle 2 week 1 day 3.
Today’s menu:
Bench: 70kgx5, 80kgx5, 90kgx5, 80kgx5, 90kgx3, 100kgx6, 110kgx1x4.
Squats: 5x5@85kg.
Assistance:
Db Rows: 2x14, 1x12@45kg.
Tricep pushdows: 2x10, x8@30kg.
Db Bulgarians: x10, x8, x7 @30kg.
Got a new rep pr but couldn’t get a single at 120kg for some reason. Got some practice with 110 singles instead. Did the assistance. All is good.
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Coffinworm (anchor) cycle 2 week 1 day 4.
Today’s menu:
Deadlifts: 120kgx5, 135kgx5, 155kgx5, 135kgx5, 155kgx3, 170kgx6.
OHP: 5x5@50kg.
Assistance:
Face pulls: 4x10@60kg.
Leg extensions: 3x14, x8@30kg.
Pushdowns: 3x10@30kg.
Pec dec: x18@30kg.
Good session today. Hit one more rep on the top set, then did some assistance later in the day. No singles since I already hit my PRs on deadlifts and want to save my CNS for the squats.
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Coffinworm (anchor) cycle 2 week 2 day 1.
Today’s menu:
Squats: 85kgx5, 95kgx5, 110kgx5, 95kgx5, 110kgx3, 120kgx5, 130kgx3x1.
Bench: 5x5@70kg.
Assistance:
Chins: 5x5@40kg.
Dips: x8, x6,x7, x6, x4@35kg.
Leg extensions: x14, x12, x10, x9@60kg.
I was feeling pretty good warming up, but couldn’t get that 6th rep on the squats and it upset me. I mean, sure, my form and quad engagement have improved, but I was hoping to get some measurable progress on my sets today. The singles @130kg also felt hard. The rest of the workout was me trying to work around fatigue setting in from the squats.
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Coffinworm (anchor) cycle 2 week 2 day 2.
Today’s menu:
OHP: 50kgx5, 55kgx5, 62.5kgx5, 55kgx5, 62.6kgx3, 70kgx5.
Deadlifts: 5x5@120kg.
Assistance:
Db Rows: x14, x15, x13@45kg.
Pushdowns: 5x10@15kg.
Db Bulgarians: 2x10, x8@30kg.
Ok session today. Hit every number without much struggle, excluding the leg assistance. Feel a bit tired so I will go ahead and have a good night’s sleep.
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Coffinworm (anchor) cycle 2 week 2 day 3.
Today’s menu:
Bench: 70kgx5, 80kgx5, 90kgx5, 80kgx5, 90kgx3, 100kgx5, 110kgx2.
Squats: 5x5@85kg.
Assistance:
Face Pulls: 3x10@60kg.
Leg extensions: 2x16, x18@30kg.
Tricep pushdowns: 3x10@20kg, x13@15kg.
Another ok session. I could almost get 120. Hit a double on 110, which seems a first for me. I did some assistance in the evening.
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Coffinworm (anchor) cycle 2 week 2 day 4.
Today’s menu:
Deadlifts: 120kgx5, 135kgx5, 155kgx5, 135kgx5, 155kgx3, 170kgx1.
OHP: 5x5@50kg.
Assistance: 3x10@60kg.
Today was especially good. It was by no means a hard session but I completed it on 4-5 hours of sleep, with casual clothes and no chalk.
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Coffinworm (anchor) cycle 2 week 3 day 1+3.
Squats: 85kgx5, 90kgx5, 102.5kgx10.
Bench: 65kgx5, 75kgx5, 85kgx10.
Assistance:
Chins: 2x5, 3x5@20kg.
Just decided to merge 2 of this week’s days together since it’s a deload anyways. Should have done so sooner.
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Coffinworm (anchor) cycle 2 week 3 day 2+4.
Deadlifts: 110kgx5, 130kgx5, 145kgx5.
OHP: 45kgx5, 52.5kgx5, 60kgx5.
Assistance:
Db Rows: 3x8@30kg.
I spent some time doing mobility instead of a general warmup and this sesh felt absolutely great. Granted, this is a deload week, but the weights I used were my working ones until not too long ago. Below will follow my review of this training cycle.
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Here are my notes regarding my experience during the past 3 months, running exactly 4 cycles of Coffinworm.
It doesn’t happen often for me for a program not to “click”. But this is a good time to speak about what went wrong with picking and executing the aforementioned program.
First the results:
No progression on the Bench; little progression on the Squat, resulting in hitting the TM for 5 clean reps with better depth and form than every before, and in squatting shoes;
Some small PRs on Deadlifts and the Press.
I will first list my obvious faults:
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Lack of consistency: I started this program during the holidays and had to postpone several sessions due to the gym closing every time it could. One could blame it on timing. So, for the first cycle, you could say I followed the program only twice a week. Anyways, this was a problem for the first few weeks only. For the remainder of my training I managed to stick to 3 days a week, which is a recommended frequency in Forever.
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Lack of recovery: I could not take care of my recovery needs. This happened through several instances: Deciding to cut calories to lose 5 pounds because I surpassed my bodyweight target in the middle of the program, all while training multiple training sessions a day and trying to attend university lectures, was a dumb idea.
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Mishandling of assistance: I completely overdid the assistance during the first part of the program ( mainly by taking sets of heavy bulgarians to failure every few days), tanking my recovery. I then had to skip on the assistance for some time, before finally bringing some back at the end of the training cycle. This did not help.
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Overshooting my training maxes. Though previously calculated according to what the program prescribes, it would have helped to be a bit more conservative on those, so I will take the L on that.
I will now list the reasons why I disliked the program:
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The sets/reps structure taxes you before getting to the top set. I had a very good experience with “spinal tap” training when I successfully ran the “God is a beast” template last year, resulting in some good bench PRs. So why didn’t it work this time? I already mentioned that my training maxes might have been too high… but the next point might be the explanation
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Complete lack of a wave progression: that is literally what drove most of my strength gains up until this point. Even after adjusting my training maxes I could not get out of this stagnant cesspool. I could not get new reps on the bar, the training max stuck, and so the torment continued. I was just stuck doing the same heavy fucking weights for months. We can agree one’s training time can be spent more productively.
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The supplemental program is bollocks: for an advanced intermediate lifter, the discrepancy between the working weights and the supplemental fixed percentages could only be filled by adding more volume ( something like BBB or BBS). Take squats: a couple sets at 85 kgs every few days couldn’t, and in fact didn’t, really help me get better at performing on my 120kg top sets. Every time I did the supplementals, ON ALL LIFTS, they seemed too easy. And every time I did the top sets, they often felt too heavy.
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Training frequency ( talking about 3 days a week here) is too low for this program.
Conclusions:
I am so happy to be done with this dumb ass program. I learned my lesson:
regarding the program, I will choose something better suited for my recovery capabilities;
for the training maxes, I will try to be more conservative and start lighter;
regarding assistance, I will take the main lifts’ demand into account;
for the frequency, I will try to raise it (at least for the lifts I want to improve).
This concludes my commentary.
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Great write-up!
I had success with God is a Beast as well, driving up some long standing PRs after lots of time away from 5/3/1, and I really enjoyed it. Coffinworm isn’t on my near-term radar, and it probably won’t be, particularly given your observations here.
In any case, thanks for the write-up.
And keep up the good work: Your consistency over the past several months has been spot-on.
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I took last cycle’s considerations and translated them into a new customized split.
The final program is a kind of 2x2x2, 5s PRO, with SSL for the Bench and the Press, a BBS variation for the Squat (specifically its based on “the whip and the body”); finally, Jack Shit for the Deadlift. The training maxes have been set conservatively to 85%, as prescribed.
On strength day one, assistance is limited to supersetting pulls with the SSL volume, since I have to train again later in the day. On sports days, I am including additional assistance circuits ( still figuring out on this one).
For the sake of simplicity, my write-ups from now on will only reference those 2 main sessions of Barbell work.
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Squat TM: 115kg. Bench TM: 95kg.
Custom 531(Leader) Week 1 day 1:
Squats: 75kgx5, 85kgx5, 100kgx5.
5x5@85kg.
Bench: 62.5kgx5, 72.5kgx5, 80kgx5.
5x5@72.5kg.
DB rows: 5x10@40kg.
The squat top set was pretty easy. I noticed I could tweak my form by driving my knees further. Bench felt great. Rows were supersetted with Bench 5x5 sets. I’d say everything was perfect except for the squat supplemental: I will probably open next week with a lighter FSL instead.
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Custom 531(Leader) Week 1 day 2:
Deadlift: 110kgx5, 130kgx5, 145kgx5, 130kgx5, 110kgx5.
Press: 45kgx5, 52.5kgx5, 60kgx5,
5x5@52.5kg.
Squat: 10x5@75kg.
Weighted Chins: 5x5@40kg.
Great session. Felt very strong and didn’t struggle finishing the 5x10 at all. Maybe I will add some volume on the chins next week.
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Custom 531 (leader) Week 2 day 1:
Squat: 80kgx5, 92.5kgx5, 105kgx5. 5x5@92.5kg
Bench: 67.5kgx5, 75kgx5, 85kgx5. 5x5@75kg.
DB Rows: 5x11@40kg.
Gave the squat SSL another chance and found it easier than last week. Good session today as well. Should train again in a couple days.
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