You didn’t come across defensive at all. Just didn’t want to sound like i was being a bitch haha. I agree with you about shoes but for a different reason. I too have the Reebok Crossfit oly shoes. I love them. But I need them due to an extremely tight achilles heel at birth.
Did some squats today too but I feel I have somewhat stagnated. I don’t feel comfortable on the crap squat racks my gym has. Still keep up the good work! I’ll be following along for sure!
Weekend workouts are always awesome. There’s so much less stress going into one if you have a weekend with no major plans. You don’t feel rushed to get in and you don’t feel rushed to get out. I decided I’d get an extra session in with Sam and it was a straight up pushing session. Probably the best session for bench that I’ve ever had.
Started off getting some hip and shoulder stretches in with the band. Typical stuff at this point. I don’t start of any training session without stretching my hips now… Even if I’m lifting on my own or doing an arm assault, I’ll still get some hip stretching in. I’d like to get to a point where I don’t need to stretch every workout, so I’m sucking it up for now. Once I was warmed up, it was time to hit the bench. Bar, 135, 185, 225… Even 225 at three reps seemed easy. Something is wrong. 245 for three. Easy. 255 for two. Survivable. Up next: 265 for a double.
So 265 got unracked and I felt no crushing sensation like I’m accustomed to even at lower weights (around 230ish). I nailed both reps. Afterward, I did it again and took a bit of a spot on the second rep. So something absolutely crazy happened at some point, because that’s way more than my measured 1RM before working with Sam… and this is only the corrective phase. From there, we dropped back down to two sets of 225 for five reps. Now that was killer, but I only needed help on the second set final rep. All sorts of personal bench records set right there.
We tried out overhead pressing for the first time tonight, but just a bit of it. My shoulders were gunned after hitting a few sets of military press. We finished off the workout with a few supersets of dips and then I got to hit the ab wheel right at the end. Couldn’t have asked for a better pressing session.
I was out celebrating my close friend and colleague’s birthday last night, so I figured today was going to be a bit rough. I drank around four liters of water before bed until mid day today to try and balance things out. But just to make sure I’d be alright for my workout tonight, I went for all you can eat sushi and took a three hour nap. Totally primed for my volume squatting and rack pulls session.
Like all of my workouts now, I started by getting my hips loosened up. Some body weight squats and banded hip stretches usually do the trick. I’ve also been trying to get some flexibility in my ankles, so I made sure to get some stretches in for that too. I decided I’d rack pull first so that by the time I go to squat, my hips and hamstrings would be even more warmed up. Starting at 135, I ramped to 185, 225, 275, and 315 all with two sets of three. Now from training sessions, I know that I usually start to fail to drive my hips forward a little past three plates. I decided I’d go for singles at this point, so I nailed 335 and 355 pretty comfortably. I decided to stop there before I got into funny-form territory.
After rack pulls, it was time to hit my old favorite. Volume squatting. A couple days ago I hit 10 sets of eight and felt good. I decided 10x10 wasn’t too far off, so that’s exactly what I went for. Aside from being totally gassed at the end of it, I feel like I was able to keep my expected form the entire way through. I noticed my feet were starting to cramp a bit, which to me suggests an improvement. I’m trying to push my knees out pretty wide and open my hips, so my weight gets shifted to the outside of my feet instead of rolling them in. Based on where my feet were cramping, I think that it’s working.
I finished off the whole workout by hitting a couple sets of abs. I tried planking for a little bit (two minute mark is where I really start to shake) and got my trusty ab wheel going too. Those two things together are a recipe for ab abuse for sure.
What weight did you use for 10x10? That’s some volume for sure!
@gavsterry, just 135 for now. Really working on my form since highbar is so different than how I’m used to squatting. Only point of the volume was to try and train the movement as much as I could in one session. With a “low bar” squat (for me, that’s like across the back of my shoulders) I was hitting ~185 in a big pyramid set for around 23000 lbs of volume or so. Long way off from that now!
Arms Day
When you’re chest is butchered, your legs are a disaster, and you have to train the next day… It can only mean that it’s time for a solid arms day. The one thing I’ve been able to do now that I’m training with Sam is actually hit workouts dedicated to arms, and it’s been crazy. Once I’ve been working with Sam for a while, I’m pretty confident these arms-only workouts will taper off.
I started the workout with stretches and warming up my shoulders a bit. I knew I wanted to hit some dips today, so I made a point of ensuring my shoulders had some decent mobility before touching any weights. First lift was some close grip bench with a slow tempo to get some blood flowing through my triceps. Once I felt warmed up form that, it was time to tackle some dips. After hitting dips on Saturday with Sam, I was pretty scared to see just how bad I had gotten at them. I want to make a point now to ensure I can get better at them and not feel embarrassed when I start dipping and feel like failing after a handful.
Next up was some straight bar curls with the Fat Gripz superset with some rope pulldowns. I’m pretty sure a few rounds of this is what fried my biceps. I actually stopped counting how many rounds I did, so that could be part of the issue. I followed that up with straight bar spider curls superset with hammer curls. The hammer curls is when I really noticed that my arms were jacked up. Trying to squeeze at the last few degrees at the top of the ROM was insane. Exactly what I was going for though.
I finished off the arm portion of my workout with some Fat Gripz dumbbell curls and a few variations of cable exercises to hit my triceps. By this point I was only curling around 20 lbs so I’m sure I looked like a pure beast… Gotta watch out for the guy curling 20’s. And just because Sam is proving to me how weak my core is, I hit some planks and the ab wheel right at the end to finish it all off.
Squat Training
Another personal training night for me and getting to work with Sam. Tonight was all about the squat and getting me primed for my next pulling workout with Sam by targeting a lot of hamstring movements. The one takeaway from my training tonight is that speed is going to be one of my limiting factors in the short term, and probably on all of my lifts as I try to break through plateaus.
Like usual, I started by warming up my hips. I’m really starting to notice that once I hit a few ankle/calf stretches that my depth gets much lower and I can achieve it much more comfortably. I’ll probably try to hit more ankle mobility stuff at home in between training sessions to see if I can improve this. We didn’t waste any time, so once I was warmed up we went from ramping fours and threes right up into singles around the 270 mark. I nailed 270 although I felt like I was on my toes the whole time instead of driving from my heels. We put 280 on the bar and it pinned me. Sam and I both knew something was up.
The cause of the problem wasn’t (and in my opinion, still isn’t) totally obvious, but this same sort of thing happened last time. It was 280 pounds. Sam and I both know that I can squat 280 pounds. It’s nothing new to my body. I squatted 270 cleanly just a a couple of minutes prior. So what gives? Well, the fundamental problem is speed. Squatting 270 I was able to keep moving through my typical sticking point because I was quick off the bottom. With 280, I got into the hole and had no speed to break the sticking point. We dropped to 275, which I nailed. Neither of us were surprised. Then we went back to 280 and I hit that too. So how could I have possibly failed at 280 the first time, but two sets later I can hit it?
We’re hypothesizing that the training I do on my own when I’m not with Sam might be interfering. Now, typical situation like this is going to be a trainer saying “don’t do anything on your own, buy more time from me”. But I’m not about to buy more time. And Sam isn’t pushing me to buy more. We’re thinking that when I’m trying to leverage high volume to practice technique that I’m actually training my body to get comfortable at a certain weight. So 10x10x135? Yeah, sure it’s a whole bunch of volume. Yeah it feels awesome on my legs. Yeah I can practice my technique… But I needed that scare of 280 on my back and the failure to really get my body to say “oh shit, let’s kick it into gear”. So with that said, I’ll be sticking to more sets but lower reps until we prove this theory.
After the high weight stuff, I hit sets of 6 and sets of 10. Sure, those were hard, but my volume squatting 100% absolutely helped with that. After all the squatting, Sam decided to be nice and help me annihilate my hamstrings. I mean, I was borderline in tears after this. I got strapped into the glute ham raise machine (with a band on, since I’m a pussy) and did that for a few sets of 15. After the first set my hamstrings were basically done, so set two and three were a nightmare. But the next exercise was laying on my back with my feet on a big yoga ball, and rolling my feet to my ass while keeping my torso inline and off the ground. I did three reps of this and felt like my hamstrings were being sawed off. I was almost in tears trying to get the second and third set of this done… But hey, that’s what big eating and foam rollers are for, amiright?
Pressing
Now that personal training sessions are a bit more of a regular part of my schedule, I’ve started to get creative with what I’ll be focusing on in between my training days with Sam. I’m so used to hitting lifts or body parts twice (4x for legs) within an 8 day time period, so this is a huge change for me. Since I squatted yesterday with Sam and tomorrow I’ll be pulling, I figured today would be a good opportunity to press.
Typical band stretching routine to warm up. Yadah, yadah, yadah… Now, my bench press hasn’t been suffering from lack of speed work like my squat, but I figured it wouldn’t hurt to try focusing on that instead of just tons of volume. I also can’t quite wrap my head around just doing the bar for triples for like 20 sets to practice speed and form, so I opted out of that. I decided to take a similar rep pattern to what I do with Sam, but instead of coming back down and doing volume, I would hit triples for speed at a low weight. So… bar for a couple sets, 135, 185, 210 for triples, 220 for a double, and then 230 for a single. All really comfortable. All completely on my own (which I need for confidence). All in the squat rack so I don’t need to roll my shoulders to unrack. I dropped back to 135 and pounded out a few rounds of triples with 20-30 seconds of rest between sets. Each rep I was trying as hard as I could to squeeze my hamstrings and glutes to get as much acceleration behind the bar as possible.
Next up was military press. Again, I wanted to take a similar approach here. Ramping with triples until I got to 135, where I just went for a single. Then I tried 145 and got that up without killing myself over it. Back down to 95… and triples time. I made an effort to to make my unracking and first rep one continuous movement (without just trying to push-press it up) so that I don’t waste energy at the bottom before I even hit my first rep. 95 felt like butter and I could snap the bar to the top on every single rep while keeping a vertical posture (no back arching with chest up).
I finished the workout off with some incline dumbbell press and some dips. It was a short workout and it wasn’t a ton of exercises or volume… But I feel like I really focuses on two major lifts and did a good job on them. For the next few months, if my goal is to get stronger, I think this is going to be the way to go. Instead of going overboard on volume and exercises, I can always fill in time by getting mobility drills in too.
So I walked into Goodlife today thinking that I needed to get limbered up to do some heavy pulls. I had had a decent pressing session yesterday, and I was all set to lift some iron off the ground. But Sam had other plans. Today wasn’t just any pulling day… because it was actually just a pressing day. BOOM.
We actually hit a ton of sets tonight with different variations so I’m going to have problems recalling exactly what we did. I do know that we started with some incline bench in the rack and that was a total surprise. Ramped up to 185 and started doing pause rep singles. 185, 205, 230, 240.
Yeah… I just incline pressed well past my pre-training PR that I have on FLAT bench press. I went for 250 right after, but because the bar slowed right down on the way up, Sam decided we should cut the rep short. There was a lot more to come.
We dropped the weight back down to 230 after and started hitting some reps there. After all of the incline pressing, we laid the bar flat and ramped back up again from 135 up to 240. Once we got to 240 we changed things up a bit. Sam knows that I’m over analytic about everything. The fact that I can’t bench nearly as much when I train alone is purely because I’m not confident to do it when nobody is around to save me in case something goes wrong.
In order to break through that, I need to show my body that I’m totally capable of doing it. So I did 5 singles at 240 with 35 second breaks in between. That’s 10 lbs more than what I hit for my final set of bench pressing yesterday and 4 more singles of it. Most sore part after all of that bench pressing? My ass.
Afterwards we moved onto dips. I was able to hit all of my dip sets comfortably, and I think that’s because I didn’t exhaust my shoulders before hand. Last time with Sam was brutal because I military pressed first. So speaking of shoulders, it wouldn’t be a complete pressing day if we didn’t target some delts.
Hand stand pushups elevated on boxes. Yeah. That’s a great idea. So I’ve never had to flip myself into this position and I felt like a bit of a moron… But I started to get the hang of it near the end. I had no idea a hand stand pushup was so bloody difficult. I was only hitting sets of two, but that’s not bad considering I just smashes a ton of PRs on bench before. To finish the workout, 60 reps of ab wheel rollouts. FML.
Yesterday Sam warned me that he had something crazy prepped for me on Saturday (tomorrow) but wouldn’t tell me what it is. When I ran into him on my way into the gym tonight, I made sure that I wasn’t going to need my triceps… So arms day it is. Have to make sure my legs and back are good to go for tomorrow because I have a feeling I’ll be squatting and pulling, and there’s no chance I’m not going to hit my top sets tomorrow.
I dove into my workout tonight without stretching. Crazy talk, right?I hit close grip bench with a a pause at the bottom for sets of five, but only stuck to a plate per side. I supersetted some straight bar Fat Gripz curls with this, so after six sets or so my arms were starting to feel pretty solid. When I moved onto do dips, I made sure to get some shoulder stretches in. There’s no point in risking any shoulder straining while trying to get better at dips. I hit four sets of 12 and felt pretty good about it. I’m hoping that by practicing these a bit more I should get better pretty quickly considering I used to dip with almost 90 lbs strapped onto my body.
Next up was some straight bar spider curls superset with some rope pulldowns. I ramped up the weight a few pounds every set on the curls and kept the weight constant for triceps ensuring I could hit 20 reps every time. After that, I hit a big superset of dumbbell hammer curls, dropset straight bar curls with the Fat Gripz and tricep pushdowns on the cables. I only did two rounds of this, but the dropset on the straight bar curls was owning me hard. My triceps actually felt better on the second round of this, so that was pretty awesome.
For my second last bicep exercise, I hit Fat Gripz dumbbell hammer curls superset with triceps cable pulldowns. I’m still loving this exercise for my triceps since I’ve found a way to really keep the tension on my triceps the whole time. The last bicep exercises I hit were Fat Gripz dumbbell spider curls superset with reverse EZ bar curls. This butchered my forearms but it drove me to try something extra right after…
I decided I’d do some plate holds to get some extra forearm work in. I only took two 10 lbs plates but I did three rounds of holding these at my sides by pinching them with my fingers. Hoping tossing stuff like this every now and then will help with my grip strength, which happens to be okay for now, but I don’t think it hurts. I wrapped the workout up with some planks.
Still no pulling! But that’s okay, I’ll do a pulling session on my own tomorrow. Today was for training squats. The highbar variation, as usual. But Sam said he had something up his sleeve for today. And he wasn’t lying. Today was all about mobility and speedwork for my squats. And that absolutely did not mean the workout would be easier.
I warmed up only briefly before getting started with Sam, so I was a bit nervous that my hips were going to be tight still. We only started with the bar and 135, so I got some opportunity to get my hips warmed up. But Sam had me start doing body weight lunges in between my sets. This also made a huge difference in my hip flexibility, so even though I was getting gassed from the lunges, my squats were coming a lot easier. As the weight went up on the bar, Sam started tossing in variations to the lunges, so I was eventually twisting and lunging and staying low the whole time. Seems easy, but holy was I ever winded from it.
Once we topped out at 190 for sets of 8, Sam took the weight back off the bar, and kept 140 on. He strapped some chains on right after. Cool. I haven’t done squats with chains, but I’ve benched and pulled with chains, so I have an idea what’s going on here. We stuck yo only five reps, but we probably did five or six sets of this with the lunges in between. For the descent of the squat, it was really slow and controlled. I wasn’t even trying to do it this way, but that’s how it happened. The chains keep me from tipping forward or back, but I can’t explain why it felt more natural to go slow. At the bottom, there’s so much tension built up in your legs from going down slow and controlled, but since the chains are on the ground, the weight on your back feels light. You can really explode out of the hole, and as the chains come off the ground it gets heavier. Regardless, you have so much speed it doesn’t even matter.
The remainder of my workout was a variety of mobility drills. I did some step ups, and two different hip drills that are really going to help with my squats. I can already tell. Those will be good things to practice on my own when I’m in at the gym and feel like squatting. It’ll be cool to measure the difference they have on my body if I squat, try the drills, and then squat again.
Pulling
Woke up today and Sam was right. We didn’t go too crazy yesterday with legs, but my calves and quads were super tight today. I had hit arms pretty hard the day before that and chest prior to that… So I was due for a pulling session. I figured I’d get some rack pulling in today and see what I could work up to, and then do some other various back movements.
Started off with 135 on the bar and hit a few sets of triples. This kind of weight is obviously stupid light for a rack pull, but it helps to get a few sets in of practicing the entire movement. One step up. Another step up. Push my knees back. Push my knees out. Grab onto the bar. Tuck my chin. Ditch the arm slack. Deep breath. Pull. After a few sets it becomes routine so then I can start tacking on some weight. 190, 230, 280, 320, 340, 365. All for triples. All felt great. I was doing some kettle bell deadlifts in between where I could watch myself from the side in the mirror and make sure that the feeling in my back where I think it’s straight is actually true. No sense in practicing my lifts and memorizing the feeling if it’s… wrong. So since 365 was my previous no-go point, I figured that I’d try to shoot a little bit past it. 385 was the last weight I was conventional deadlifting, so I figured why not. This pulling session was going good so far, so 385 isn’t that far off. I hit it for a single, and decided to stop there. Now it was time to try out some conventional pulling off the ground.
I setup the bar with 135 on the ground. After rack pulling, the ground seems incredibly far away haha. I used the technique I was taught to try and line up versus how I had always practiced before. I was doing it sideways so I could check my back in the mirror, and I could comfortably get set up. My spine was completely neutral, and the bar was lined up in the middle of my lats. This setup is a LOT different than how I was pulling before, and although Sam and I haven’t got to conventional deadlifts, I’m thinking that this setup is much more aligned to what he’s going to suggest. Pulling this way felt weird compared to how I was used to doing it, but it was the exact same pattern as the kettle bell deadlifts I was doing… except with a bar. I only worked up to 225 since I didn’t want to start breaking any technique.
The rest of my workout was just a mashup of different back exercises… Wide grip pullups, barbell rows, seated cable rows, rear delts on the pec deck, etc. I felt pretty good after hitting a bunch of different exercises with no crazy weight or volume, so I worked on some accessory stuff for training at the end. I did a few rounds of planks where I really focus on contracting my core, some glute isolation movements, and some glute ham raises.
Pressing
Just thought I’d open up by mentioning the picture here. Jean shopping is basically the worst thing ever. Nothing fits. Ever. Especially because I’m not tall, so it’s just a disaster. Today I had a vacation day from work. I basically relaxed all day. When it was time to hit the gym for my pressing workout, the energy just wasn’t there. Not sure what was up tonight, but not every day can be amazing.
I warmed up my hips, hamstrings, and shoulders. I’ve learned by now that benching takes a huge toll on my hips and hamstrings, and if I don’t stretch them out and warm them up, then I’m asking for trouble. I ramped with triples to get up to 230, and then I did that for a single. I called my gym buddy over to spot me for 240 for a double, and I was pretty pleased with how that went. I attempted 250 and basically got pinned, but with a spot I was able to push it up. That was kind of soul crushing, so that’s probably what bummed me out.
After benching, it was time for some overhead pressing. I ramped with triples to get up to 135 where I decided to switch over to singles. 135 was easy, so up to 145… But I couldn’t even hit 145 today. Also quite a bummer. Again, not totally sure what was up with this pressing workout because nothing was really sore… I just wasn’t feeling it. The rest of my pressing workout was a ton of dips. I was hitting sets of 10 but I wasn’t really counting how many sets I was doing. Dips are feeling a lot better now, even though I hit shoulders first.
I finished the workout off with some planking. I focused on squeezing my core and forcing breaths instead of going for time. This is always a nice switch up for me because it makes me consciously engage my core.
Squat Training
Big squat workout with Sam tonight. Big surprise, right? All our squat workouts are big. Tonight was going to be a taper down to a 1 RM from sets of 10, and then a 5x5 follow up. I got in a little bit later than I had liked to, so I missed a lot of my usual stretching. Well… it didn’t end up too badly!
Started with the bar for around 20 reps. Sam knew I missed a lot of my stretching and warmups, so he got me to hit that and then 10 at 95 just to get my hips opening up. Next on the bar, 135… Then 165… As we ramped, we were dropping the number of reps. 260 is where things got pretty tough. I think that was only for a triple too. 270 was even trickier, but only having to hit two reps made it more bearable. I just treated that set like to individual singles. 280 was the big 1RM for my highbar tonight, which is pretty cool since I hit a bunch of volume before hand. We decided to keep on going though so we loaded 290 up on the bar. The decent was awesome for 290 since I felt like I was loading up my legs when we had used the chains before. Not sure what happened, but once in the hole, all the tension came off my legs, so to stand up would have been a gnarly good-morning. Sam gave it tug to start it moving and then I stood the whole thing up. Definitely didn’t do it on my own, so I won’t pretend to call that one a PR.
Afterwards, it was time to work at a lower weight for 5x5. 200 was this session’s number and the goal will be to try and increase this in the future sessions. It felt sweet walking 200 out after trying to hit 290. It felt like nothing. That’s the kind of confidence I want to feel when walking weight out. It let’s me focus on bringing the weight down in a controlled fashion and having no fear about being able to turn it around and squat it out of the hole. 5x5 was actually easy, from my perspective. It was work to put in, but i felt confident the whole way through.
We finished off the whole workout with some glute ham raises. I finally figured out the technique change I needed to make in order to do these properly to fry my hamstrings, so I’m sure I’ll be hitting these up on non-training days too. After our training session was done, I hit some ab wheel rollouts and planks.
Haha love the post above. Can’t agree more about Jean! Being only 5’8" I have the same problem. Need short and wide legs with a smaller waist! It sucks. Good work though. Enjoying the trading so far
@gavsterry at 5’ 4", my quads are a few inches shy of my waist, and my legs are basically the same as my waist… So life sucks when jean shopping. I’ve checked out some online alternatives for jeans made for lifters, but I’m so used to going into stores like Winners and buying jeans at a super discount price. I’d be terrified to spend $100-200 on jeans and have the crotch wear out instantly.
#SwoleProbs.
Thanks again for stopping in. Glad you’re enjoying the posts.
Arms Day
I guess today I could have scheduled some benching, but I’m guessing that could potentially happen on Saturday with Sam, and I know tomorrow is going to be pulling. Made sense to toss in an arm day so that I’m not murdering my triceps the night before I bench. Worst case is that I end up squatting or pulling on Saturday and then I just bench on Sunday. No biggie. So… today was another classic arm assault.
I started with close grip bench for my triceps, but instead of sets of 5 or 8, I stuck to triples the entire time. I ramped from 135 doing two sets of triples and got up to 185 for a single triple. In between all of those sets I was hitting some EZ bar curls (no straight bars at the weight I wanted were available). Something Sam has mentioned in training once is that he wanted me to hit a few sets of bicep curls to get some blood back from my triceps into my biceps… and I’m pretty sure it’s bro science, but for whatever reason doing bicep work between my tricep sets makes the tricep sets wayyyyy better. Who knows.
Next up I hit some dips supersetted with some press downs on the padded support people use for dips/pullups. It’s a cool combination because the pushdowns on the machine part are a nice isolation on your triceps and you can really explode the pad down, and then when you go into your next set for dips you actually feel more refreshed. Each set of dips got easier and easier, and I was making sure to use a band to stretch and warm up my shoulders between sets. Gotta keep those shoulders primed.
At this point, the bulk of my “heavy” tricep work was done, so there was an assortment of rope pulldowns, straightbar pulldowns and straightbar pushdowns mixed in with the rest of my bicep work. I made sure to get some straight bar curls with the Fat Gripz on, some spider curls with the Fat Gripz on, and some hammer curls in between those sets too. The hammer curls I could really feel my arms get pumped up, which was awesome. I finished biceps off with Fat Gripz dumbbell curls and Fat Gripz hammer curls. I then did a final exercise for my forearms, which was reverse EZ bar curls for sets of 8 and then a 20 second hold on the 9th rep.
Just so I didn’t feel like I wasted an ENTIRE workout doing arms, I made sure to hit ab wheel rollouts for sets of 20, and rounds of planks. Definitely feeling my abs getting stronger, which is great. They should still be good for tomorrow’s pulling session too. Another arm day wrapped up.
Pressing and Pulling Personal Training
Sam is always one to try and pull a fast one on me. “Don’t worry about training your arms tonight”, he says… “We’ll be pulling tomorrow”… And then I come in tonight warming up my hips and hamstrings, and the first thing he does is put the bench in the squat rack. FML. Good thing my triceps weren’t wrecked for yesterday, because tonight had a ton of pressing.
Tonight wasn’t just any typical pressing night. No. We were going for some high volume sets. At this point I can’t remember the exact number of sets, reps, and weight, but it was definitely nuts. Benching 135 for 10, 190 for 8, 210 for 8… and then we got into the… danger zoooooone around 230. How the heck am I going to hit 8 reps at 230? So I went for it anyway, and got 7 reps and a big spot on the last rep. We tried it again and I did all 8 reps again, but had another big spot on the final rep. Crazy though, so that’s absolutely a PR. Not a 1RM, but still a PR. I wish we were done though. But we weren’t. Now it was time to hit sets of 10 at 190. Should be easy, right? At this point my chest was so pumped that trying to hit the sets of 10 was getting ridiculous. I couldn’t get the top 30% of range of motion because I felt like I was fighting my own chest. Needless to say, I needed some big spots from reps 7-10ish on both sets of 10 at 190. That concludes the pressing.
So Sam wasn’t totally lying. We’d be pulling today. He lined up 135 on the ground and wanted me to sumo it a few times. As soon as I started pulling it, I was sweating uncontrollably. Who knew 135 could be so much work, right? I think it’s just because my hamstrings were punished from benching, and now I’m basically using my hips and hamstrings to pick up a bar. We transitions from sumo, to conventional from deficit, and then conventional from deficit with a super slow tempo. I’ve never felt so ruined by 135 pound pulls… ever.
And just because Sam is cruel, we did glute ham raises after. Only three rounds of 10, but he had me removed the band for the last set. I was struggling so hard that I had crazy calf cramps afterward. We finished off with three rounds of medicine ball throws superset with ab wheel rollouts. I felt less like throwing up from the throws then last time I did them, but they still felt terrible. The ab wheel practice I do on my own has been helping an awful lot.
Pressing and Pulling
I figured I’d get my own pushing and pulling session in tonight since the odds of me getting back in town before the gym closes tomorrow are pretty slim. It was planned to be a pretty stacked workout, but I’m really glad with how things went. I aimed to get my pushing out of the way at first, and then focus on pulling for the remaining portion of the workout.
My intentions for pressing tonight were to stick to triples and ramp up while keeping my speed. I ramped up to 185 over three or so sets and decided to stick some chains on. The chains only come about 1/3 of the way off the ground at the top range of motion, so the delta there isn’t too big but it’s noticeable. Not including the chain weight, I hit 185, 190, 195, 200 for triples and then 205, 215, 225 for singles. The 10 pound jumps I had my buddy come over to watch over me and make sure I wouldn’t die. I’m not exactly sure what the chain weight is (I think 25 lbs per chain completely off the ground), so even if I assume at top range of motion each chain is only adding 5 lbs, that’s still 235 for a single which isn’t too shabby after hitting a bit of volume before hand. Once I nailed that, I did a few rounds of 6 reps with 135 plus the chains on and tried to blast the bar up as fast as I can.
With the heavy pressing out of the way, it was time for some pulling. I decided I’d do some rack pulls tonight, and while hitting my bottom warmup sets, I’d opt for a wide grip to practice getting into position for how Sam was instructing me. I’m used to pulling with my hands really narrow, but he’s going over some movement patterns with me where I’ll be able to transition into high pulls and an assortment of Olympic lifts. Without straps though, I can’t pull more than 185 fast with my hands that wide. So the first few sets of rack pulling I used wide double overhand grip, and then at 225 I switched to narrow alternating grip. I hit 225, 275, and 315 for triples and stayed at 315 for a few sets. Again, I wanted to try and pull fast tonight. No sense in working on max effort stuff when I’m not with Sam. For now at least.
After rack pulling, I did a few sets of underhand barbell rows. These felt like they were hitting my back pretty good. I did alternating incline dumbbell press for one accessory pressing movement, which hit my chest pretty hard by the end of it. And I finished off all pulling tonight with 50 reps of pullups spread out over a handful of sets. Tossed in some planks to finish up the whole workout and called it a night!
Squat Training
I didn’t write about it over the weekend, but Saturday was a pretty bad squat day for me. My hamstrings were still absurdly tight and they were pretty sore, so I was squatting like crap when I trained with Sam. We backed off a bit and I finished the squat workout without getting to crazy. I was disappointed though. Today was a new day, and a day for breaking all sorts of high bar squat PRs.
I got to the gym a few minutes earlier than usual, so I started hammering out my mobility drills. I was practicing getting into position for a wide grip conventional stance deadlift that Sam and I were going over previously as I found it really stretches out my legs. I made sure to stretch my hips while warming them up doing body weight squats, and of course, I focused on getting some ankle mobility in too. The first set I hit with just the bar, Sam and I both said this was going to be a solid squat day. My hips were opening up and my knees were spreading out on the descent. Things were looking good. He said we were going to find my 10 rep max after we worked up to a daily 1 rep max, so I knew I was in for a treat.
We tossed 135 on the bar for 10, 190 for 6 and then 230 we already dropped down to doubles. 250 was the last double I hit and then 270 was the start of the singles. So after 270 we started taking smaller jumps. I hit 280 clean, which is usually the weight I have an “issue” with where I drop too fast, bail, and then need a second attempt to regain my confidence. Then I hit 290, which was my previous highest attempt, but I don’t count it since I was stuck and Sam had to row the bar up. Today I did it though, so that was the first PR. Sam’s been pushing me to get to 300. It’s a milestone. So we had to hit that today. And I did. Boom. Second PR. So while things are going so well, why not try another 10 pounds? Sure. 310 knocked down too. That’s three highbar squat PRs and PRs for squatting without a box at all (since I’m a huge fan of box squats, I never really deviated from them).
Okay, so while I’m here celebrating new squat PRs, I’m forgetting the whole point of this workout… to find my new 10 rep max. So now that I’ve just crushed three PRs, I somehow have to squat for sets of 10… which would be easy if we stuck to 180-190 territory like last time I did this. But Sam decided I was doing 225 today. Okay, great. I’ve only ever squatted 225 for 10 on a box with a weight belt. So, I took a deep breath, walked the bar out, and started my first set of 10. It was gruesome, but I got it done. Awesome! New 10 rep PR for high bar squats. So Sam puts on another 5 lbs for 230. I’m kind of losing confidence now because I know how hard the last one was, and I’m only going to be MORE tired now. But… 230 for 10 happened. Obviously Sam sticks on another 5 lbs… and I manage to nail 235 for one of the hardest squat sets I’ve ever done. I felt like I was pushing against the floor with melting popsicles. For anyone counting, that’s about 6 squat PRs in one session, half of which were for weight and the other half for volume.
We finished up the workout with a couple of “light” exercises that always embarrass me because I either butcher them or they build up so much lactic acid I can barely function. First up was Bulgarian split squats with some light dumbbells. These are one of the worst things for building up lactic acid in my quads. I felt like screaming by the last set because my quads were burning so much. I finished the entire workout with a medicine-ball burpee variation type of thing. Sam and I both didn’t want to admit they were like burpees… but they were. My legs were so fried by the end I couldn’t hop backwards from the medicine ball. My legs just would not perform that movement. It was a pretty interesting experience at least.
