Any issue if I swapped D1 and D3 around. The paused and incline DB will work better on my squat day
Iāll echo @T3hPwnisher about ROM progression for deadlifts, since I followed his method and hit my first-ever 600 lb deadlift in competition that way. This past year, Iāve also discovered that I really dig power cleans before deadlift sets. They just really prime my body to pull from the floor without mental hesitation.
For the strict press, itās been really simple for me: gain weight and press more.
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I love this advice. I have been less than excellent with my food for a little while now. I guess it is time to get my sh$t together and bulk this body up again.
I have programmed out the ROM for the next 8 weeks, so hopefully with the right effort I can squeeze something out of them.
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Are you pulling this main set, touch n go or dead stop and do you think is really matters ?
Nope! As I said, this was a bit of the top of my head. 
you can definitely switch things around
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Friday gym
Very light just to get the body moving again.
Squat 60 x 8 x 3 sets
Felt easy and light as they should. Felt the hip flexors waking up though.
RDL 60 x 8 x 3 sets
Even this was enough for a lower back pump
Db bench incline 30 x 10 x 3 sets
Havenāt done these is over a year, felt very uncoordinated, especially getting the first rep up. Strength was ok though. Good pump.
Lat pull downs 62 x 10 x 3 sets
Easy reps
Seated Dumbell press 25 x 20 reps
Always feels weird to do a deload session with no real plan. Didnāt really have any motivation for this but glad I went.
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I always pull touch and go. I never pull deadstop reps. I donāt feel like the approach would work with deadstop.
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Glad I clarified. Touch n go it is, thanks.
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I am curious, why would you say your approach wouldnāt work with dead stop reps?
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I donāt: just that I donāt feel it will.
Touch and go keeps the tension in the body for a LONG time. Dead stop doesnāt, and typically results in fewer reps total.
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I was squatting 1x/wk and upped the frequency to 2x/wk on the pull, I tried 3x/wk but my hips started getting obliterated. The low squat frequency really helped with recovery, especially saving my quads for the deadlift. I capped at straight sets of triples at 80% for all weeks except week 5 when I would aim for a weight or rep PR on the squat. The pull I split the volume between those two days by adding more sets but low reps. Topsets were always getting pushed after week 2 though. Almost no direct leg work, everything dedicated towards the pull. Beltless most of the time and that seemed to help alot once I put it on for the last 1-2 weeks of my block. Pauses on friday to work on my setup with paused backdowns and alot of heavy rowing, the bulk of the volume I put here. Singles were on sunday and sometimes no backdowns if I was super beat but would always make it up. High rep sets fatigue me alot and take awhile for me to recover from so I didnāt do alot of reps above 5. Each week Iād always take last weeks top weight as my last warmup for sunday. The singles werenāt gonna matter if I didnāt get in the volume and reps to build on it though.
OHP I did a lot of sets of 5 and sets of anywhere from 8-12 on a secondary day. I always had one heavy day a week with OHP first in the training order if it was gonna be a high rep day Iād do it second. I had no reason to do singles personally but the training packed on a ton of size around the shoulders and built potential Iām sure. A closer grip I preferred I felt the tris and lats kicking in. Going out wide to cut ROM made me lose all power from my back, I got alot out of my lats, tris and traps. 1x/wk I was kinda stalled but it helped keep shoulders healthy and kept my bench feeling smooth. When I got up to 2 or 3x/wk I ran into shoulder and pec tightness which would affect my bench, felt horrible. But I got very comfortable with pressing.
Lots of Low Volume, Low Fatigue Lat, Curl and Hamstring Work, basically anything not really hit well by the compounds. Body weight always went up never down, always a slow increase with some maintenance periods. Really huge focus on lats trying to get them brutally strong to support my pressing and pulls, I hit them heavy and frequent, 4x/wk.
Its just a submax, high specificity, high frequency approach, not alot of variation lol, short training blocks with frequent deloads helped alot imo. I got up to 675 on the pull and 270 for 5 on the seated strict press, my squat progressed just fine during the time with low frequency. Sorry for the long wall of text It was easier for me to just lay out the training and have you pick pieces out haha
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This is an awesome response, so much for me to digest here. Thankyou for taking the time to lay all that out.
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Nothing like swinging in like 9 days late, but I have to put a huge congrats on a phenomenal strongman performance somewhere other than on social media. Way to go big guy!! Keep eating those veggies!!
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Starting an 8 week gaining block this week, so food is going to be key. Time to up the calories and increase the veggies for sure. Wish me luck
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Good luck!!!
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You donāt need luck when youāve got mad skills and motivation! Youāve got this! Get it done!!
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Thought I would give a general update regarding training and layout what the plan is for now until the end of the year. There is 9 weeks up to and including the Christmas week, so rather than run a couple of 3 weeks blocks with deloads I have decided to run one 8 week long block with the deload in week 9 which will be Christmas week.
The goals for this training block are simple:
- Gain weight
- Improve my overhead press, specifically the push press
- Improve my deadlift
- Maintain Squat strength
How am I tackling these:
- Gain weight - This one will be as simple as eat more food and remember to eat like an adult. I have been less dedicated with my food over the past 6 months especially with post dinner snacking. So I need to fix that. 2 simple changes to start with and then will adjust from there. 1. More protein with breakfast. I currently have 4 eggs every day, so i will add a protein shake to this. 2. Proper evening post dinner pre bed meal. This will most likely be greek yogurt mixed with casein protein. Iāll watch the scale and add to this if it doesnāt move.
- Improve my overhead - For this I am going to use what @Koestrizer suggested and work on frequency and push volume. I will be overhead pressing 3 days a week in the gym and also including specific triceps movements. Plan is to go with
D1 Paused push Press and Inc dumbell bench
D2 Dumbell overhead press and close grip bench
D3 Push Press and Tricep push downs - Improve my Deadlift - For this I am going to use @T3hPwnisher ROM progression method. This is 7 weeks, but I have added a week at the start for me to get the set up right and feel out the movement. This will be based off 1 max rep set starting at an elevated pull and progressive pulling from lower position each week. I will be pulling with straps and use touch n go for this. I have not done much touch n go deadlifting so this will be an interesting experiment.
- Iāll still squat once a week, and also use leg press on another. If the volume of leg work starts to interfere with the overhead or deadlift I will reduce it. For squats I will use be progressing the weights each week and lowering the reps over the 8 weeks. weeks 1 to 3 - 3 sets of 8, weeks 4 to 6 - 4 sets of 6 and weeks 7 and 8 - 5 sets of 4.
One other thing I will hopefully change for this period is my sleep quality. Some of you may already know, but I have pretty bad sleep apnea. I have a CPAP machine but if I am being honest, I dislike is very much and havenāt used it for months. I noticed in the lead up to my last strongman comp that I was getting realty tired in the afternoons, like fall asleep at my desk or at the wheel of the car tired. So it is time I put on my big boy pants, and learned to just take my medicine. I will be using the CPAP machine again and will log daily here. Hopefully I can learn to put up with it and see the recovery benefits.
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I feel confident that if I can do it, you can do it. We can keep each other honest. 
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That is the beauty of the forums, we get to borrow some will power off other members. Knowing you will check in one me helps me stay on track. Thank you
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Iāve switched from deficit to maintance, so my calories have increased. Iām trying to just increase the portions of the good food Iām already eating. Lots of chicken and lean beef. Plus added some carbs in. Been loving my morning oats. Iām just trying to make sure that I donāt lose sight of the goal of keeping what Iām eating good food. Going to all of this trouble to be healthy and strong. Gotta try to keep the food that way too.
Iāve got my eye on you. 
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