I feel like I need a computer for this response but I’m on my phone so I’ll shorten it. I agree with you that having some go to go with the show is still important. My brain still thinks I’m athletic but I’m quickly reminded that it’s slipping when I finally step on a basketball court. I can still do most of the things I used to do but I’m a lot slower. I don’t like jumping off one leg on the run. I prefer to slow down and gather myself first.
In terms of training, you nailed it. It’s movement patterns instead of specific movements. I say I like to play basketball but I rarely play. It’s almost like I enjoy being able to navigate stairs without knee pain more than I want to run and jump on the court.
As I get older, I’m changing my priorities in terms of what I do with my time. My daughter made the middle school volleyball team, I’m coaching girls flag football for my school, and my son starts flag football tonight. As I spend more time attending those things, I’ll spend less time on myself. And that’s not an excuse to let myself go. I’m just not going to be hitting the gym six days a week anymore. Winter might give me a chance to do that, but not right now.
Pretty rough little leg day. I didn’t sleep at all Monday night (maybe 30 minutes), and then flew home later evening Tuesday… I was just worn out when the alarm went off this morning. Good to get some volume in, at least.
Standing leg curl
Bunch of warm up sets, then a top set and a back off with some drops.
Seated leg curl
20, 15, 12, 10
Adductor
Worked up the machine and then a set of 25, then again for 15. Both sets I forced a couple with my hands
JM leg extension warmup
Just worked up the stack with no rest, probably 5-6x, then one drop to finish out
Leg press
So Cris writes his weights down in his program and is a lot stronger than I am. I was noticing I was coming relatively close on leg press, but still not back squats. This made me rethink the leg press and I’ve been going lighter, slower, and I’ve widened my feet up a bit so I can get a lot lower - I’d imagine this is part of why my knees are feeling better.
Worked up to a top set then did another with two drops. I was coming very close to actual failure in a leg press on this!
HS hip thrust
Cris likes these, I’m kinda eh, but I did actually get some real fatigue right between my glutes and hams, so that was cool. Worked up to one 4x drop set.
Walking lunges
I wasn’t super pleased with myself here. I was supposed to do 50 steps each leg with weights (holding 10# plates), and then another 50 without. I only got halfway there with and was finished, which, fine… but then I only got another 10 with bodyweight.
Was really worn out, so I took an extra day off yesterday. Today felt great, so I think it was the right call!
Back
Superset (2 warmups, 2 work sets):
SAPD (neutral grip)
Lat PD
Superset (2 rounds):
SAPD (supinated)
MAG PD (neutral)
DB Prone Incline Row
50/8
75/14ish + a couple partials
60/12ish
Step Forward DB Row
Finally got these to feel perfect today! The key is to put 70% of your weight on your working leg, 25% on your support hand, and only minimal on your other foot.
60/8
110/10
75/14
Superset (2 rounds):
Seated Cable Row
T-Bar Row
2p/12
HS PD
1pps/8
1.25pps/12 + 6 + 4 + 30s hold
Hanging Leg Raise
4 x 15
Incline Treadmill
Watching OSU now - will go until my wife finishes her workout; probably half an hour
Super high volume chest and shoulder workout today at ~3am (because I can’t sleep!). Awesome to get it in before everyone woke and work started, though, so an ok problem to have.
Back in the States and back in the gym. I’m so tired lately I’m literally falling asleep every time I sit down. Like I’ll finish a meeting, go up to the room and fall asleep sitting in a chair for half an hour, then get up and go to the next dinner. I’m also a bit fatter than I’d like to be, but I don’t really care about that right now; it will take care of itself. I’ve got one more big push and then things should start slowing down a little.
Today was a relatively quick, but tough, leg day.
Lying Leg Curls
Did tons of sets working up, then a top set and a back off with a bunch of partials.
Adductor
I’m one plate away from the stack on this, and I’ve been strict; I’ve progressed these pretty quickly.
A bunch of sets working up again, then a top set, then a back off with pauses at top and bottom.
Leg Press
I overestimated my weight, so didn’t end up doing exactly what Cris called for, but it was awful so I hit the mark.
I’m going to list these out as sets, but the rest was just the time it took to stand up and change plates
1pps/15
2pps/15
3pps/30
Rested 30 seconds and decided to leave that weight
3pps/20
2pps/20
1pps/15ish?
Rested 20 seconds
1pps/20
Done.
Hack Squat
1pps/5
2pps/7
I was smoked here - barely moving
1pps/7 w/ 5s pauses at the bottom
Leg Extension
1 set to full failure (20ish reps) + partials to failure + 10s isohold
Upgraded from Planet Fitness to Anytime Fitness. I was finding PF so crowded as to be unusable even at 5am in most the cities I was in. AF is pretty dungeony (in an awesome way) and all the locations are a little different, so that’s amusing right now.
Anyway, killer arm and calf workout at AF. Watching some football and then will walk the dog later.
Yesterday was another back workout. I probably should have taken a rest day, because it was super grindy. Oh well.
I’m all done with Scorpion. My plan was to go straight to Subzero, because it’s going so well, but I do legitimately miss doing any barbell work. I’m hitting a slightly less busy travel season, too, so it’s good timing to do a little heavier work if I feel like it. On the other hand, my joints really do feel good. That could be the absence of the barbell work or just that Cris goes higher rep in general (which I could apply to any movement). I’ll ponder for the day and we’ll figure it out. I stay close enough to one style of programming it’s really variations on a theme rather than big shifts.
Alrighty, here’s where I’m at: I’m going to run Program X (Meadows’ hybrid conjugate for bodybuilding program) for the next 12 weeks. Handful of thoughts on this.
Primarily, I just want to. We were talking about conjugate in another thread and it is fun.
I wanted to add barbell lifts back in, so this scratches that itch.
It’s really easy to program the hard days on Saturday and Sunday, which is work schedule friendly.
The leg days are not brutal on the joints (speed squat based), so I’m thinking I can focus a little more on starting to run a little bit (as discussed with @simo74 like a month ago).
I think I need to start working my calories back up to a higher maintenance before I try dropping them again. Doing more activity with the light running and heavier lifting should be a good pairing.
If my joints start getting cranky at all, I will bail and jump into Subzero (Edmonds’ program) as was my original plan.
So today was DE Squats and Legs
Everything felt pretty good
Lying Leg Curl
It took me a lot of sets to warm up to where this felt good, but then I got rolling.
4 x 15,12,9,6
DE SSB Box Squats
45/6
135/4
185/3 x 8
Leg Press
Doubled Red Bands for all sets
1pps/10
3pps/8
3pps/12
3pps/10
The volume is a billion % (give or take a few million %) more manageable - Unity destroyed me.
It’s closer to a true bodybuilding split than a real conjugate split; there’s only one leg day, for example. Unity is 2 ME and 2 DE days, with a back and bi day in there.
There’s little (if any) real ME work. You get some heavy volume and do DE work, but you aren’t working up to the 3RM every week like you do with Unity.
Yeah same. The lessons I learned from unity were: Seated OHP is really cool and John Meadows can right a high volume program that will be hard but doable.
That’s interesting. I might have to check it out! My next John Meadows program I want to run is “28 days later” after seeing @davemccright mention it in a post!
I’ve also run Program X and really enjoyed it! That’s actually the program I ran right before 28 Days Later! It was cool because I had never run anything like a Conjugate program before!
@freshyfresh you are picking some tough ones! I also really liked “Muscular Demolition,” which is what “Reactive Pump” on this site was. Really clever and fun combination of high volume bodybuilding and the big 3.
Today was chest and a little triceps.
Banded HS Press
Doubled red bands for everything
Quite a few warmups
1pps/8 x 4
Incline
Had no idea where I’d be on these; stayed pretty conservative
45/8
135/8
165/6
185/6
Reverse Band Bench
I used the football bar and the medium grip on this and it felt fantastic - I was battling no elbow or shoulder pain.
Black bands for this
225/5
245/5
255/5 x 4
Reverse Band CGBP
Same setup, just moved my hands to the closest grip
185/8
205/8
215/8 x 2
205/8
Rope PD
Put the Gripforce on these
5 x 10 w/ 75s rests
‘Twas back today and a very long dog walk because it was perfect out.
Meadows Row
Tried to treat this like a true week 1 workout and stay pretty light on everything
-/8
25/8
50/8
75/8 x 4 w/ 2 min rests (rest time is the progression here)
One-arm BB Row
50/8 x 4
DB Pullover
50/8 x 3
Haven’t done these in awhile and the stretch was pretty rough
Pull-ups
3 x 5
Something felt weird between my left shoulder and pec, so I kept cutting these sets short - that’s also my excuse for being terrible
DE Bench
Varied grip every set, 60s between
45/15
95/10
135/6
185/3 x 8
Heavy DB Side Raise
35/8 x 4
Rear Delt Machine
25, 20, 15, 12, 9
Smith “Cage” Press
45/3
95/3
115/3
135/3
155/5
Cable crunches in between each set
I’m doing a lot of walking, because it’s really nice out. Every now and then I throw in a little jogging, but it’s not real formal nor a real big part of it. That’s about my interest level right now, so I’m definitely leaning into “building slowly” (or not at all?)! In my mind I’m a freaking Delta Operator moving 40 miles under load, though.