TCam's Log - The Road to Elite

Training Training Logs
1421

Okay, Back At It

Back from travels, went skiing for the first time and didn’t die. Got a few workouts in since the last log, but I’m not worried about putting them down here. Biggest lifts were a 4x3x405 on squats that were decently easy. Deadlift still causing some low back pain, so that’s been minimal.

Time to circle back around to the beginning again for real this time and get some athleticism and conditioning going with movement high variability and just having some fun.

Hybrid Conjugate - Weird Phase

Week 1/4 - Day 1

Beltless SSB Squat:
8x5x245 - 30 sec rests from rack to squat again, alternating close and wide stance

Trap Bar Hack Squat - Heels Elevated:
12x185
8x235
2x6/6x185 - 1.5 reps, woof

Seated Cable Leg Curl:
30, 20, 10 x 80 - Incomplete rest periods, not timed though

A1 | Alternating KB Meadows Row
3x10/10x70s

A2 | KB RDL:
3x10x70s

Half-Kneeling KB Windmill:
3x8/8x25

Seated Band Ab Pulldown:
2x20xLight

This phase will follow the end of any cycle in order to increase movement variability, reduce absolute loads, and give me some weird stuff to do. Things like box jumps should be in here probably too.

I wanted 10 sets of the squats, but by the last 2 sets, my thoracic erectors were dying. Never felt them like that before actually.

Trap bar hack squats are pretty ridiculous. If my knees can adapt to them, they’re probably one of those “bUlLeTprOoF your knees” sort of movements.

Half-kneeling windmills are hard as shit to control. I did these last week with just 15 lbs for sets of 8 and my QLs were destroyed the next couple of days. Taking that as a sign to do more of them since my QLs have been giving me issues.

It hurts? LOAD IT

1422

Hybrid Conjugate - Weird Phase

Week 1/4 - Day 2

A1 | Bandbell Bench:
5x10xBar+90

A2 | Seal Row w/ Cadillac Bar:
4x10x195

DB Swing to Overhead Press:
3x15x50s

Sled Push - Tank M4 Sled:
5 x 240 ft x 2/3 Setting + 180 lbs

B1 | Cable + Band Triceps Pushdown:
20x60+2 Minis
15x90+2 Minis
12x90+2 Minis + 12x90 - Drop set

B2 | Cable Curl:
12x90
12x90
12x90 + 12x60 - Drop set

Lateral Raise - Myoreps:
20 + 8x5 x 20s then 2 sets of 10 no weight full abduction

Right pec has been feeling bad recently and so this phase is a perfect opportunity to do some wobbly stuff and overhead things.

Got some good conditioning stuff in with the sled push, but also the DB swing to presses are basically Crossfit.

1423

Hybrid Conjugate - Weird Phase

Week 1/4 - Day 3

Squat w/ Belt/Flats:
3x10x315

Hyper on GHR - Inclined w/ 8" Box:
2x10xBW + 2x10xBW+35 - Alternated each rep with just BW and with added KB
20xBW+35 - Alternating hands

Sled Drag - Tank M4 Sled:
3 x 120 ft x 3/3 Setting + 160 lbs - Backwards drag
3 x 120 ft x 3/3 Setting + 160 lbs - Forwards drag

Metcon - 7 Rounds:
A1 | Concept C2 Bike:
Intensity 7, 15 calorie bike

A2 | Med Ball Ground to Overhead:
10x60

Then a 20 cal bike cool down

I haven’t done higher reps on squats in a while. Honestly mostly due to laziness and just wanting to feel strong with lower reps (not accomplishing that currently). But this felt great to do during the workout and then afterwards it was nice not feeling like shit. I definitely need to force myself into the higher ranges for volume cycles so that I’m not constantly using higher intensities.

Also cardio is hardio.

Week 1/4 - Day 4

A1 | Incline Bench w/ Band:
3x8x185+Monster Mini - Not doubled, just the under-the-bench method, probably only 30-40 lbs added

A2 | Machine Row:
5x10x90

Machine Dips - Plate Loaded:
10x180
15x180

Incline Band Overhead Triceps Extension:
20x2 Lights
15x2 Lights

Single-Arm DB Push Press:
2x8/8x65

Decline Sit-Ups:
2x10xBW
2x10xBW+35 - Plate overhead

KB Suitcase Carry:
2 x 230 ft x 80 per side

Not sure I’ve ever done it, but incline felt pretty good with the bands. I can really feel the actual accommodation of the strength curve, since off the chest is so much harder than flat bench.

Other than that, the KB suitcase carry was the biggest thing to note. About halfway through each round, my contralateral QL was screaming for whichever hand I was using. I’ve done this exact lap around the gym with 80s several times before and I don’t remember it being that hard. Definitely something to keep up with.

1424

Hybrid Conjugate - Weird Phase

Week 2/4 - Day 1

Beltless SSB Squat - Oly Shoes:
10x4x295 - 30 sec rests from rack to squat again, alternating close and wide stance

A1 | Belt Squat Hack Squat (Close Stance + Far Back Position):
2x10x180

A2 | Leg Extension - Paused:
10x130
10x160

Alternating DB Meadows Row:
2x15/15x85s

B1 | Half-Kneeling KB Windmill:
8/8x25
2x8/8x35 - PR

B2 | Seated Band Ab Pulldown:
3x10x2 Lights

Jumped up 50 lbs on the cardio squats and kept the same total reps. I didn’t have the same awful feeling in the thoracic extensors this time, so… progress! Very hard though and I’m not sure yet what I’ll do next week to top it.

Good workout all around.

1425

Hybrid Conjugate - Weird Phase

Week 2/4 - Day 2

Bandbell Bench:
10x100
10x150
2x10x200
10x150

A1 | Lat Pulldown:
2x8x200
8x200 + 8x150 + 8x100 - Drop set

A2 | DB Swing to Overhead Press:
3x10x60s - Grip struggling after the shaky bench

B1 | Cable + Band Triceps Pushdown:
2x12x110+2 Minis
12x110+2 Minis + 12x110 - Dropset

B2 | Cable Curl:
3x12x90

Barbell Snatch Grip High Pull / Upright Row:
10x70
2x10x90

Setup the bands on the Bandbell with quadrupled bands rather than a single choked short band. That made the weights hang higher and not bounce as absurdly. I’ve never done over like 90 with this, so 200 was fun.

1426

Hybrid Conjugate - Weird Phase

Week 2/4 - Day 3

Squat w/ Belt/Flats:
2x10x365
10x315

Conventional Deadlift w/ Belt/Straps:
2x8x405

Hyper on GHR - Inclined w/ 8" Box:
3x10xBW+70 + 3x10xBW

DB Thoracic Good Morning:
Couple of sets at 50 and 75

A1 | Deep Forward Lunge - Heel Elevated:
2x12/12xBW

A2 | Tibialis Raise w/ DB:
2x15/15x10

Didn’t get in the sled work or cardio portion of this workout this time. Need to stay on top of it in this phase though.

Squats went well, another day of 10s and up 50 lbs over last week for 2 of the sets. I could have gotten a 3x10x365, but I’m trying to manage my intrasession effort so that I’m not overdoing it overall.

1 Like
1427

looks like you have been having some fun recently. Keep up the good work

1428

@bigpappafrance It’s been good getting some different stimuli in for sure. Easy to get stuck on one piece of the puzzle so I gotta make sure I get this stuff in. I appreciate the comment!

Hybrid Conjugate - Weird Phase

Week 2/4 - Day 4

Moderate Incline Bench:
2x5x225
10x225 @ RPE 8

Machine Lat Pulldown:
2x10/10x90

Wide Grip Cable Lat Pullover:
15x90
2x15x110

A1 | Cable Iron Cross Curls:
2x15x40s
12x50s

A2 | Cable Crossover Rear Delt Fly:
20x30s
2x15x40s

Cable Fly:
2x40x35s

Short workout today because my fiancée is entering her peak for her next meet and thus she has less accessory work to do. I’ll need to adjust for that so that I can get more work in, in less time. Thankfully that’s part of the point of this phase and it should force me to meet that standard better than I did this week.

1429

Hybrid Conjugate - Weird Phase

Week 3/4 - Day 1

SSB Squat w/ Belt/Oly Shoes:
4x5 + 4x4x335 - 30 second rests again, alternating close and wide stance

DB Hack Squat - Heels Elevated:
12x80s
2x12x100s

A1 | Leg Extension - Paused:
2x15x160
15x160 + 12x130 + 12x100 - Drop set

A2 | Cable Low Row:
15x150
2x15x180

Half-Kneeling KB Windmill:
8/8x35
8/8x44 - Dem linear weekly PRs for a new movement..

Added the belt to the timed SSB squats this time and it was fully necessary. I was hoping to get 40 total reps again with 5s and 4s, but the last few sets were just too hard to warrant tacking on just one more for no real extra gain. This will definitely be the last week of this little scheme, because I would otherwise be unable to continue to control the weight. Should be a good progress marker, if I continue with it next cycle.

DB hack squats are interesting. Like a very close stance goblet squat, but you can actually use an appreciable amount of weight.

Quads were dead after leg extensions. Even felt them during the windmills. Doing well with those. I’m just going to keep doing them for fun and they should help with QL resilience and hip mobility under load.

1430

Hybrid Conjugate - Weird Phase

Week 3/4 - Day 2

Cable Rows w/ Bandle:
A bunch x Some amount with multiple shoulder abduction angles and pauses for the rebound stability

Paused Bench:
3x5x275

Close Grip Spoto Press:
2x10x225

Seated Alternating DB OHP (Lockout position held) + Normal Seated OHP:
8/8x50 + 8x50s
2x8/8x60 + 4x60s

A1 | Assault Bike:
6 x 15 calories - About 5:30 cycling time total
1 x 10 calories - Cool down, about 2 mins

A2 | Lat Pulldown:
15x100
5x12x150

B1 | Cable Triceps Kickback:
2x15/15x40

B2 | DB Alternating Hammer Curls (Strict):
2x12/12x30

Stayed conservative on bench and didn’t push into anything close to failure, since it was my first time flat benching with normal weight in a few weeks. Need to grade my pecs back into it and see if I can ensure some resilience there to have a good bench cycle.

Otherwise pretty good workout. Cardio in the middle of a workout instead of the end was a good idea. Much easier to get into it and actually try.

1431

Hybrid Conjugate - Weird Phase

Week 3/4 - Day 3

Squat w/ Belt:
5x5x315

Sumo w/ Belt/Straps:
3 clusters of 3x2 reps at 405 - Dynamic work

Landmine Staggered Stance Deadlift:
3x10/10x50

Reverse Cable Squat (Hip Flexors/Abs/Ant Tibs):
2x15x60

Based on the effort needed for the Day 1 squats, I decided to not progress the 10 rep squats for this week. The squats I did were easy though. Just continuing to be careful with intra- and intersession effort and volume.

Week 3/4 - Day 4

Incline Bench w/ American Press Bar:
10x175
10x195
10x215

Machine Dips - Plate Loaded:
12x140
12x180
12x230
12x230 + 10x180 + 10x90 - Drop set

One-Arm DB Row:
10/10x95
10/10x110
10/10x125 - Most I’ve done on this since my big lat strain last year

A1 | Cable Crossover Rear Delt Fly:
3x20-25x35s

A2 | Band Pec Fly:
40x2 Monster Minis
30x2 Monster Minis

The neutral grip felt great on incline today. The top set of 10 wasn’t hard and from what I can find, it’s only 10 lbs off an 10RM I’ve done with it. I also used to shake a lot in ulnar/radial deviation but this time it was steady. Apparently the forearms have gotten stronger.

This was a good mental win today with the lat. I’ve been avoiding what used to be my favorite row variation because it has been the slowest movement to feel normal (other than pull-ups, which is how I hurt it, and I’ll need to weigh the benefits of even doing them again at some point).

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1432

Hybrid Conjugate - Weird Phase

Week 4/4 - Deload - Day 1

SSB Squat w/ Belt:
3x1x335
1x385 - Moved okay but felt crushing lol

Hatfield Squat:
2x8x335

A1 | Seated Leg Curls:
3x15x90

A2 | Cable Reverse Squat:
3x10x80

Side-Lying Adductor Raise:
2x10/10xBW

Plank:
3x1:00 - 30 sec rests

Great day of knowing I hit the deload when I was supposed to. Felt like weak trash from the first plate on squats. I was actually wanting to just do some higher intensity singles to do a volume deload primarily, but it wasn’t going to happen that way. Retrospectively, I think I personally should just do intensity deloads and maintain volume anyway.

1433

Love the last little bit of training. How is everything feeling?

1434

@bigpappafrance
Things are feeling pretty good so far, but I think the next time I hit this phase, I’ll be doing less barbell work and more intense GPP/capacity work. After seeing how short this phase really is, it will be good to take a nearly full break from the barbell.

1435

Hybrid Conjugate - Weird Phase

Week 4/4 - Deload - Main Things Catch-Up

Reverse Band Floor Press w/ Kadillac Bar:
2x5x275-Minis
8x275-Minis

Sumo w/ Belt/Straps:
2x1x585 - First one was solid, second one got out in front of me and ruined it
8x405 - Paused

Squat w/ Belt:
5x405

Paused Incline Bench w/ American Press Bar:
3x215
3x245
3x265
2x8x215

One-Arm DB Row:
10/10x120
15/15x120

End of the weird phase. Retrospectively, any barbell work I do during this type of phase will likely be low rep, submax form practice work. Something to keep me in the competition motions for later phases, but not enough to affect the rest of the phase’s focus. Probably working with 405 squats, 315 benches, and 495 deadlifts for singles and doubles. Other than that, no barbell work and maybe not even any fixed bilateral bar. This type of phase should be very DB and unilateral focused for me.

1436

Hybrid Conjugate - Volume Phase

Week 1/6 - Day 1

Squat w/ Belt/Oly Shoes:
5x6x365 - RPE 6.5 on average

Leg Press - Quad Focus (Low/Close Stance w/ Oly Shoes to Full Depth):
2x10x540

Cable Leg Curl:
2x15x95

A1 | Front Foot Elevated Split Squat:
2x15/15xBW

A2 | Marching w/ Front Rack Offset KB:
2x8/8x80

Adductor Machine:
20x70
20x90
20x70
20x50

I’m going to focus my volume towards submax effort so that I’m not overdoing it and hitting frequent rep-maxes until the strength phase. Still finding a sweet spot on effort x volume to see what causes a change without exceeding capacity and getting injured or developing tendinopathies.

Squats felt good for the most part today. Other than that, the goal was 2 hard sets of each accessory after a light warm-up set or 2. Adductor work was just density work in a few minutes.

1437

Hybrid Conjugate - Volume Phase

Week 1/6 - Day 2

Paused Close Grip Floor Press:
4x8x275

Hanging KB Overhead Press:
2x8x85+50
20x85 - No hanging weight

A1 | Chest-Supported T-Bar Row:
4x10x90+Dbl Mini

A2 | Machine Dip (Selectorized):
15x140
15x180
10x220 + 8x180 + 8x140 - Drop set

Lat Pulldown - Very Wide Grip for Rhomboids/Rear Delts:
2x25x100

Solid session here today. Similar to the squats, just working some preliminary submax volume before pushing for more rep maxes. Bench hasn’t been feeling great on any barbell variation recently, but this was a good day. All sets were strong and stable.

The hanging KB OHP was very hard at 135 total weight. These were closer to failure for sure, but that’s going to be more task failure with the instability, than muscular failure.

1 Like
1438

I know what you mean, trying to program for short blocks can be hard especially when you are doing high volume periods.

1 Like
1439

Hybrid Conjugate - Volume Phase

Week 1/6 - Day 3

Paused Conventional Deadlift w/ Belt/Straps - Ohio Power Bar:
3x8x405

Squat w/ Belt - Flats:
5x2x405

Lying Leg Curl:
3x10x100 - Weight biased to shorted position

Cable Seated Good Morning - 1.5 Reps:
3x6/6x100

A1 | Adductor Machine:
2x20x50

A2 | Bouncy Band Pallof Hold - Split Stance:
2x20/20x10

I haven’t done much conventional work recently and it showed here. Form was fine, but my low back got pumped to hell. Squats surprisingly went well afterwards.

The cable good mornings were done in a sumo position basically and I used the rope attachment, reaching as far forward as possible (allowing lumbar flexion), the 0.5 rep was just moving from lumbar flexion to extension and then the full rep used hip extension as well.

Edit: Unable to get to the 4th day this week due to my fiancée’s meet and then work the next day.

1 Like
1440

Hybrid Conjugate - Volume Phase

Week 2 - Day 1

Duffalo Bar Squat w/ Belt/Oly Shoes:
5x6x395 - Very hard but technically still RPE 7.5 on average when it comes to how many more reps I could do

Sumo w/ Belt/Straps:
5x2x495 - Controlled eccentric following first rep

Belt Squat Hack Squat (Close Stance + Far Back Position):
10x180
10x180 + 20x90 - Drop set

Seated Cable Leg Curl:
15x60
2x12x80

Hyperextension:
2x10xBW - Just controlled, focused on hamstrings

BTN Lat Pulldowns to Low Bar Position:
2x15x50

This was a rough one for sure. Along with my theme of being aware of intrasession effort, I may have overstepped on this one. Like I noted, the technical RPE on the squats wasn’t high, but each rep took a lot of concentration and effort to keep my position. The Duffalo bar tends to kick me forward, so using it plus Oly shoes made that difficult to combat. 90% of the time, I was successful though.

Regardless, I’m still happy to have gotten the same 30 reps as last week with 30 lbs added and a harder bar for me. The question is whether I’ll add to it next week or do something else.

Sumo felt great today. Position was awesome and I got 495 to practically float with the slack pull a couple of times.

1 Like