I have neglected my log for a little bit due to life, but not my training. Don’t exactly remember the days specifically, however, so I will log yesterday’s lift and go from there.
5/27/2014 - Upper
Incline:
5*5 with 175 (felt really good)
Cable Rows:
12020
14015
16010
14011
120*12
BW dips/chins:
25/7
25/6
16/5
14/5
10/5
3 sets of rear delts
Solid day. Incline felt strong, definitely had more in me. I have been doing this pyramid scheme with cable rows for a couple of weeks now, I do the last two sets (after decreasing the weight) with very strict form. My goal with the BW dips is to get 100 in 5 sets; I usually die pretty hard around the 4th set. Also, do not judge my pullups too harshly, I can do 13/14 when fresh, but the rows take quite a bit out of my back.
5/28/2014 - Lower
Squats:
5*5 with 245
Deads:
5*3 with 335
Squats were harder than expected. My form felt good while I was warming up, but I was not very explosive today. Part of this is because I was using a bar that I hate for squats. A few months ago the gym got this Olympic bar, which is (to me at least) thin, slick, and it also spins quite readily. In other words, it’s a great bar for cleans and snatches. However, when I squat with it, it just doesn’t feel right for whatever reason. Nevertheless, squats were decent.
Deads actually felt pretty damn good (I grabbed a different bar). I deadlift with a *slightly rounded upper back. Today, I tried to keep my chest as proud as possible and it felt pretty good. I also felt my thoracic vertebrae pop, in a good way. Solid day.
I found that article by Geoff Neupert about crawling very interesting when I read it on this site the other day. Afterwards, I looked into his and his colleague’s (Tim Anderson) work. I believe that they extrapolate way too much out of certain studies in an effort to market themselves, but I also believe their ideas have a lot of merit.
I am now crawling most days, trying to work up to 10 minutes straight of leopard/spiderman crawling. I also do some of their ‘resets’ throughout the day. We will see if I magically become as strong as a superhero haha. Seriously though, I feel it will benefit my posture greatly.
Pretty happy with my performance today. Almost had all 5 sets on bench, I’ll get it soon. I might have tried for that last rep, but 7 was tough enough that I didn’t think I had it, and didn’t want to go to failure. Rows were pretty good too, although I was dead by the last set. Dips and chins both felt better than usual, but I was gassed by the end and just had nothing left on the last set of pullups, prompting me to leave at that point. Good day overall.
Squats:
3*10 with 225
Worked up to a single with 275 just because I wanted to feel something moderately heavy.
SLDL:
3*10 with 225
I don’t know why but this workout left me pretty gassed. Not a lot of rest between sets, around 2 minutes, but still. I do not think I have adjusted to 10 rep sets of squats, and I may never haha. That being said, today was a pretty good day. I moved quickly and the bar moved well. I will probably use 245 for the sets of SLDLs from now on, because I pretty much destroyed those. 225 is still a good weight for squats at this time.
I have been doing less (read: almost none) assistance lately (hacks, leg curls, calves), but I have been trying to up my conditioning work. I have added in 4-5 minutes warm ups and cool downs as well, mainly to get more practice with crawling. My conditioning consists of walks around the park by my house, during which I do pullups when I pass the bar (new PR of 15 with BW a couple of days ago) as well as ‘sets’ of crawls. I try and work up to 10 total minutes of crawling. Tomorrow I am going to do some sprints.
Cable Rows:
20 with ‘120’
15 with 140
12 with 160
12 with 140
14 with 120
BW dips/chins:
30/8
20/6
20/5
15/5
15/4
This day was fine. Nothing extraordinary, although I did manage to get 100 reps of dips within my 5 sets. I would like to be getting at least 40 chins here; this is a new goal. Incline moved pretty well, gonna stick with it for now until it becomes too easy. Again, I am trying to adhere to Paul Carter’s principle of owning a weight before moving up.
Wanted to throw up a picture to keep things somewhat interesting around here. I have a few videos of me benching/rowing with 185 but they’re from a while back. I am going to get some more current footage, possibly when I hit legs tomorrow because I can make my brother film me.
As far as this picture goes, it was taken in good lighting with a pump. That being said, I have come a long way from where I started. If I can find a picture of my 18 year old self I’ll put it up for some perspective.
Pretty good day today. Squats were moving fairly well. The slowest part of my lift seems to be in that just above parallel area. Once I get past it I am able to fire my hips through with force. Deads almost moved well. Probably the best part about today was that my last sets were as good as the first ones. After I got back from the gym, I drank a protein shake and went down to the park by my house where I walked for about an hour. Stopped at the pullup bar a couple of times while I was there, did a set of 12 and one of 11.
I read a recent CnP blog post about the DB clean and press, which prompted me to read a Colucci article on this site regarding the movement. It sounds pretty intense, and I want to try it out. Obviously I have cleaned DBs and then pressed them for reps, but never trained the clean and press as a movement in and of itself. As much as I wanna mess around with it, my workouts have been productive lately, so I will probably save it for when my upper body workouts become stale/boring.
DB Clean and Press:
Did about 20-25 minutes of this. Worked up to a double with the 60s (weak). Did a bunch of 5s/6s with the 50s as well as some random sets with 40s, 45s, and 55s.
Farmers Walks:
Did like 5 or 6 walks of as far as I could go with 90lb KBs in each hand. Probably in the range of 75-100 yards.
I felt like complete ass this day. I was planning on doing a standard upper body day, but I did a set of 5 with 185 on the bench and it was heavy as shit. I had been wanting to try out some new things, so I decided it was a good day to call an audible and have some fun as opposed to dragging ass through a miserable workout, which was a great decision in hindsight.
DB CnP notes: This exercise is a beast. I have heard that some people have a harder time with the clean than the press, but I am not one of those people. This is not altogether surprising since my overhead strength sucks. That being said, I should probably have some overhead work in my program, and this movement has found a place in my current routine (more on that later).
Farmers walk notes: I have done these before, but I much preferred the KBs to the DBs. I also used chalk, which allowed me to tax my upper back to a greater degree. These were also fun because I did them at the track outside of the gym. The shoulder pump was nice as well.
Overall takeaway: My traps and biceps are really sore as I write this two days later. The upper trap DOMS I can understand, but I am not sure if I am happy about my biceps. I’m not worried about it, but I will try and be more careful on the eccentric of the DB clean and press in the future. I have procrastinated the inclusion of loaded carries in my program for far too long. I now know that this was a mistake, but I am still working how to implement them. I plan on reading CT’s and Dan John’s thoughts on the matter, but I am open to suggestions.
Squats:
3*10 with 225
Worked up to a single with 295.
SLDL:
3*10 with 245
I felt average going into this workout, but it was a pretty damn good day. My form was really dialed in for both movements, but noticeably improved while squatting. I thought about working up to 315 but I had slowed enough by the time I reached 295 that I didn’t feel that a grinder was justified. No worries on my end because it was definitely my best day to date as far as sets of 10 are concerned.
Bumped the weight up for stiff legs because 225 had started to feel stupid easy, and, to be honest, this wasn’t much more difficult. I will still use this weight for another week or two to prove to myself that the weight is a joke. Good day overall.
I feel like there is a large discrepancy between my rep ability and my strength at heavier weights here.
Meadows Rows (weight is the amount added to the bar, mainly used 25s):
7510 each side
7510
6010
5015
I have gone heavier on these in the past, but I was trying to focus on the ol’ MMC.
Dips/Chins (in that order):
30/10 (nice)
20/6 (hm)
15/6
12/4 (shat)
DB OH Carries:
Did 4 sets with the 30s, not sure how far I went but most sets were 35-45 seconds in duration.
The OH carries are hard as shit, especially at the end of the workout. Gonna stick with the 30s (I am aware that this is absurdly light) until I work up to a minute for all the carries. Good workout today, it was fun. I have been bored with my workouts lately so I decided to mess around with some different weights/movements. Incline could’ve felt better due to my still sore biceps. There was no pain, but perhaps a slight discomfort was present. All good.
Farmers:
2 sets of 1 minute with 90lb KBs
1 set of 45 seconds, put the bells down for about 5 seconds, then 10 seconds for a total of 55 seconds
Today was fun. All the racks were taken when my brother and I got to the gym, so we were like fuck it lets do the workout outside. My gym has this wobbly squat stand outside and a bunch of weights so that’s what we did. It was definitely hot but it was still a good time. Squats were moving pretty well today, but I need to do a better job of keeping my chest up. Deads were really solid, I have a video of my last set that I’ll post up after this. Although it will probably come out sideways and I’m not sure how to fix that.
Farmers were brutal, felt like my forearms were going to explode, in a good way. I want to try and work the rest times down a little bit, but my brother was struggling here. To be fair, even with about 1:30 - 2 minute rest I couldn’t go the full minute for the last set. Definitely some work to do here.
KB Squeeze press walks:
Did 3 walks of 1 minute with the 70lb KB, plus walking it to where I wanted to do the walks, which was difficult in and of itself.
I decided I am weak as shit overhead, so I might as well focus some attention on that weakness. I was kind of all over the place with the OH press, but I was trying to get a feel for what I could do, as I hadn’t lifted anything overhead in a while. Tried a new row machine for shits, it was ok. I like cable rows better. I’ve been trying to do my dips and chins at a station outside, but this station sucks so I’ll probably go back to doing them inside the main gym.
Before the KB squeeze walks, my brother and I tried it with two 30lb sandbags. The bags were partially ripped/duct taped together and they were spilling black sand. Just not a good experience. KB squeeze walks were tough but I liked them better than I thought I would. Definitely keeping them around. 70lbs is enough for now, I think I dropped the bell at like 57 seconds on the last set, so this should be enough weight for a few weeks or until it becomes too easy.
Barbell-on-back walks (wtf?):
Sets with 115, 145, 145
I felt decent when I get to the gym, but my form felt really dialed for some reason. I focused on pushing my elbows really hard under the bar, seemed to help keep me upright when I got tired squatting. Took hardly any rest here, not sure why but I was working fast today. Felt pretty damn gassed after stiffs.
These walks were interesting. Pretty brutal on the traps, but not as hard on my core as I expected. Next time I’m going to mess around with a front rack position and see how that feels. I wish I had a yoke.
Dips/Chins, BW:
4 sets don’t remember exactly how many reps I did per set
DB OH Walks:
5-6 walks, 3 or 4 with the 30s, 2 with the 25s
Very meh. When I was using CnP programming ideas, I never missed 235, even on a bad day. I’ve worked up to nearly getting 185 for 5 sets of 8, but 225 felt heavy as shit. Not totally surprising because I haven’t been benching heavy, but still. Anyways I am putting bench on the back burner for a little while. I want to focus on OHP because I suck at it, and I feel that a dedicated training phase will only help my bench in the long run. I plan on using incline as my other main pressing movement.
That being said, my right shoulder has been bugging me a little bit. When I palpate it with my fingers in the pec minor area, it feels more inflammed/swollen than on the left side. I’m going to start going after it with a lacrosse ball frequently. I also need to up my rear delt work, I have been slacking in the hopes that adding in these carries will fill that gap, but I really feel that those fibers need some focused attention.
Farmers:
3 walks of 1 minute with the 90lbers, about 1:30 rest, and a few shorter walks
Felt good so we decided to up the weight on squats. Worked up to a max on deads out of laziness, if that makes any sense. 385 really wasn’t much of a strain, but 405 wouldn’t budge. Obviously would’ve had more leg drive had I not squatted previously, but I was a little disappointed. I could have had the lift but my back would’ve rounded and I didn’t wanna go there, just wanted to see if I could get it cleanly.
BB Push Press:
1155
1255
1355
1454
1155
1255
135*5 (pretty hard set, held at the top for about 5-10 seconds)
Did sets of explosive pushups in between sets. Started around 8-10, last set was 4 i think. Pretty much stopped when I lost explosiveness. Powercleaned first rep of each press set.
OH DB carries:
Did a few walks with the 25s, which worked out much better than the 30s. I will need some time to work up to that, but I don’t expect it will take very long. Felt a lot better today in the shoulder/scapula area.
Front Rack Carries:
4 or 5 carries of around a minute with 135 loaded on a bar. Ridiculously hard on the abs, I think I like these better than the back squat carries.
Weighted NG Pullups:
BW6 or 7 with some pauses and peak contractions to get warmed up
205
305
405
504
205
305
403
BW*6 or 7 (gassed)
Did explosive rows on the rings with my feet slightly elevated on a box in between sets of pullups. Very nice back pump, and I’m not disappointed with 50 lbs added for 4 reps as a decent starting point.
KB Farmers:
3 full walks and a couple shorter ones, full walks being about a minute in duration. These things are just badass. I really like the loaded carries and I think they have been working as far as thickening up my upper body. Still a little early though, we’ll see in another month or so.
My quads are sore as hell today. I have a feeling that my back will feel the same way tomorrow.
