PM workout
4x20 yd hill sprint from sideways start
Kb row 1x20x45
Lu raise 1x20x10
Fat grip curls 2x15x45
Band pushdowns 2x20
AM workout
Two step approach jumps 4x2
Incline bench 2x10x155
Squat 3x3x225
Kickstand RDL 2x10x45
Ab wheel 2x6
Jumps were alright. Can tell I’m both really heavy right now & not that explosive. But as I start working on it, I know that will come back. Going to be starting a new program next week, geared more towards athleticism/jumping/speed. Gonna go four days a week, with days 1&3 being jumps then upper body, days 2&4 being sprints then lower body. Looking forward to it, as I’ve already deviated in that direction from my current program a lot. I’ve lost interest in just trying to gain size right now, but really wanting to get back to moving like an athlete
Have played a good bit of pickleball each of the past two days. Really digging that. It’s just been so fun to get out there with my wife & play. We played doubles against a few college kids today & ended up winning both games too, which was cool. Just enjoying playing sports again too, something I’ve missed for so long. I feel like it’s not a bad idea to cut training down to maybe 4 days a week but try to supplement with more of this. We’ll see
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29.3 again on the jumpmat today. Same as last week. Not bad
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AM workout
5 sets-triple (bounding) broad jump
Feet up wide grip paused bench 2x10x165
Weighted chin-ups 2x8x30 (should have done more)
Lu raises 2x12x10
Incline curls 2x10x20
Body weight overhead tricep extension 2x10
Jumps got better as the sets went along. Probably a combo of getting more warmed up & getting more comfortable with the movement. Happy with them for today
Bench was good. Pushed hard for both sets. Planning to do a bunch of different variations for a little while. Might help, might not. It’s really just an experiment, but it’s one that I’m excited to run.
Plan is to lose a little bit of weight for the next month or two. Hopefully doing the extra bit of hypertrophy work at the end will help spare muscle as I cut a bit. I weigh in the 195-197 range right now, & feel I’ll be most athletic while still being strong if I’m between 187-190. Also feel like that’s a pretty “aesthetic” weight for me, still decently big but very lean.
Overall, today was day one of the new plan, & I’m excited to see how it goes
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AM workout
Hill sprints 4x20 yds (start facing backwards)
Hang clean 3x3x135
Squat 2x5x255
Deadbugs 2x5
Back extension 2x15
Legs are pretty tired after today. Was good work. I’d describe most of today’s training as having felt alright. Nothing was super great. Sprints were decent, cleans were really light as I am just trying to relearn technique, & squats moved at a moderate speed. Nothing big to write home about.
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PM workout
Step off bench into hurdle jumps 5x3
Wide grip paused feet up bench 5x185,205
Kb row 2x20x45
Dips 1x22
Lateral raise 2x15x12
Far grip curls 2x15x45
Just a couple sets on everything, but got a lot of good work in those sets. Jumps still don’t feel great, but it’ll come with time.
Have some extra time this weekend, so I might split up the weekend training to just sprint tomorrow, then lift Sunday. We’ll see if that’s what I feel like tomorrow.
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AM workout
Sprints 3x25 yds
Squat 4x5x225
Press 2x5x115
Pull-ups 2x10
Dips 2x10
Incline curls 2x10x20
Ab wheel 2x5
Didn’t feel quick at all today. Oh well. Thought up an idea that I’m gonna test out this coming week. Basically a mix of easy strength & 5/3/1. Not gonna write it out on here, but I feel like those two programs have similar principles & do well at keeping all aspects of fitness in balance, which is something I lack. I laser in on one specific goal, which is great for achieving that one thing, but let everything else fall to the wayside. For example, I just did hypertrophy programs for a few months, now my athleticism/speed/explosiveness, conditioning, & even “strength” on main movements is down. This has happened when I focus on sprinting & also distance running before as well. Would like to keep these all at balance better, even if some aspects are just on “simmer” while I emphasize others
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AM workout
Airdyne 5x1 min hard/1 min easy-3.94 miles total
Yesterday I wrote about needing to be a bit more balanced, so today I had to put my money where my mouth is. I really have almost no interest in conditioning right now…but I know I need a little bit of it anyways. Good stuff here. Original plan was some interval runs, but biking was the right call for today. Hip flexors and quads are pretty sore from yesterday, so the low impact of this was good
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AM workout
Single leg broad jump + SL lateral broad jump 5 sets each leg
Power clean 3x3x135
Press 3x4x125
Deadbugs 2x5
Fat grip curls 2x12x50
Dips 2x12
Good stuff. Single leg broad jumps were pretty cool. Cleans & press both moved well. Assistance was good, got a decent pump on the dips & the curls
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Played four games of pickleball (singles) this morning. Also played a bit on Monday this week, which was a good rest day activity.
Todays PM workout
Lateral hurdle hops 2x3 each direction
Bench 3x4x185
Squat 5x300
Chin-ups 2x10
Ab wheel 2x5
Body weight overhead tricep extension 2x10
Back extension 2x10
Bench & squats both felt strong today. I haven’t touched 300 in a pretty long time, & the 5 went up really solid. Slowed down by the last rep or two, but I know I had a few more in me. Happy with that. Bench straight up moved fast. Got a good pump on the assistance, especially the chin-ups. Jumps weren’t bad either
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Rest day today but got a few games of pickleball in
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AM workout
Broad jump 4x2
Press 5x170
Power clean 5x135, 3x155, 2x185
Dips 2x12
Incline curls 2x10x20
Ab wheel 2x5
Planning to work through the 5 tests from Jim wendler’s “average to athlete” article this week. Did the squat on Wednesday, then press & broad jump today. Will do pull-ups tomorrow & airdyne on Sunday. Might do a little write up when I finish them if I have time. Would like to set a baseline here then maybe retest in late May or so.
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PM workout
Hill sprints 4x25-30 yds
Squat 2x10x275
Dead bench 10x165
Chin-ups 1x20
Body weight tricep extension 2x10
Deadbugs 2x5
Good stuff. Airdyne tomorrow to conclude the 5 tests. Today yielded a higher estimates 1rm on squat, though I think I’m gonna use the 5rm number as it just feels more accurate. I can grind on higher reps really well, but digging in for a heavy set of 5 shows more of my true strength levels even though it’s a lower estimated number
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PM workout
20 minute airdyne- 7.98 miles
Jefferson curls 2x20x20 lb db’s
Wendler “average to athlete” test write up
To start this off, the reason for this write up: I absolutely love reading the write ups other users on here make. @creative_name ‘s write up on his current program was super insightful, & I’ll actually be copying his program for my squat going forward, plus it’s just cool to see how strong you’re getting. @atlas13 ’s big life updates are always really cool too, & seeing the conditioning progress & the determination behind it is fun to read about. Pretty much any big write up that @T3hPwnisher does is super enjoyable, whether it’s a new program, nutritional protocol, or even vacation/cruise write up.
So with that said, I appreciate what y’all & so many other contribute to this site, & I want to do my part & try to give back some useful info.
This past week, I undertook the 5 strength and conditioning tests from Jim Wendler’s “average to athlete” article (should be easily google-able). While hard standards like this aren’t everything, they can at least help vector training in the right direction. I’m well aware that a successful training block can have nothing to do with numbers. When my wife had our first child a little over a year ago, I certainly wasn’t hitting any pr’s, but simply getting the training in everyday & doing damage control was a success to me. @T3hPwnisher has written about improving his relationship with food, & those things are probably way more valuable than any weight room numbers.
With all that said, I still think things like this are fun, so I tried out these tests this past week. They seemed like a good mix of athleticism, strength, & conditioning, & someone who excels at all of them will certainly have a solid physique to back it up, so it kind of checks all those boxes. Anyways, here were the results & then my plan going forward
Broad jump
The first test was an option between broad jump & box jump. I want to be able to do all of these in my garage, & I have no boxes, so the selection was easy. I jumped 8’ 4”, which was two inches shy of the standard put forth by Jim.
Squat
For this, Jim says to use any lower body lift. The standard is 2.5x body weight. While I’m sure I could trapbar deadlift or just regular deadlift more, the squat is more of a staple in my training, as deads tend to just take more than they give for me. So while I doubt jim had a high bar back squat in mind when making this, that’s what I had to roll with. I hit 300x5 & 275x10 on separate days this week, which (given the formula from the article) spit out a 350 & 365 max respectively. I know these estimates aren’t perfect, but I have no interest in peaking for heavy single, so a guess is good enough for me. I’m going with the 350 max as my result instead of the 365 though, as a 5rm is probably more true for me. I can grind out higher reps pretty well, so an estimate from a heavy five seems more honest. I weighed around 194 this whole week, so this gave me a 1.8x body weight max.
Press
Hit 170x5, which spits out a 198 max. A true 1rm might be a bit lower for me, but again, the guess is good enough. This put me just over body weight, which met Jim’s standard.
Chin-ups
Hit a set of 20 unbroken. Met the standard here.
20 minute airdyne
Hit 7.98 miles, easily clearing the 7.5 set forth. Initially planned to just cruise by, but about 5 minutes before starting I decided I wanted to crush the given number. Tried to pick it up at the end to hit 8 miles, but just didn’t have it in me.
Results
So the conditioning and upper body tests went well, while the lower body strength & power tests showed some weaknesses for me. My last two training blocks have been mainly long distance running & then hypertrophy work with probably a bit of upper body focus, so these aren’t too surprising.
Going forward
Got some work to do in the squat rack. I’m going to be doing the “Tex-ish method” courtesy of @creative_name for my squat to hopefully bring that up. With that, I’m also going to be following Jim’s RX of some jumps before each lift. Plan to do a lot of variety here, but I’m sure any jumps with carry over to broad jump. I’ll also be doing power cleans again to help a bit with the overall athleticism. Upper body lifts and assistance will still feature, though they are going to be a bit lower priority than before, as that was such a dominant feature in what I’ve been doing leading up to this. Also plan to have one conditioning day a week. While this seems light, I have also taking up playing some form of sports 2-4 other days a week, so that helps make up for the lower volume aerobic work.
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Means a lot man, glad you enjoy my ramblings lol.
I love this test from Wendler, and have used it myself a TON of times to gauge some baselines. Part of it is figuring out what works for you. Like for me, I’ve had 3 surgeries on my left knee. I can box jump pretty well, and put up some respectable numbers. Broad jump? Not gonna happen. My knee just straight up refuses to really put out on that movement. Which is fine, it’s why he gives options, which I really like about his test. You don’t need to max every test to be in shape, because some things you’re just naturally gonna suck at a little. But find the one that “fits” to you and run with it. So if high bar is your game? Own it. Yeah maybe you could move some more weight a different way, but it doesn’t really matter, the goal here is just to compare you to you and see that things are heading in the direction you want.
Also, I will forever be impressed by a set of 20 chins. Quality work
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It really is a good set of baseline things to keep track of. I hear that on the broad jumps. Can really be playing with fire on those. I hear you on finding what “fits”. Definitely gonna be hammering the high bar. Appreciate that on the chins. Yeah some of the standards seem “easy”, while others seem a LONG way away, but it’s a good vector for what to really be focusing on
That’s really cool to hear! My squat has responded very well to that program, so I hope you’ll get the same out of it :] If anything from my explanation of it was unclear, please let me know. I wasn’t expecting anyone to actually run it lol.
@creative_name appreciate that dude. Hoping not to butcher it haha. Texas method was one of the first programs I had a lot of success with, so turning it in a wave loading cycle really jumped out as something I just had to do
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AM workout
Skater jumps 5x3 per side
Press 3x4x135
Power clean 3x3x135
Ab wheel 2x5
Dips 2x13
Incline curls 2x11x20
This was the first day I’ve had to wake up this early to train in almost two weeks. That, coupled with a rough night of sleep, led to everything feeling a little slower/heavier than usual. With that said, still got good work in. Definitely liked the skater jumps. Was trying to go about 6 feet per jump. Got that on some, was close on others
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