Witty Title No.69

Bench day, 5’s week:

“Conditioning”:
Played with some kettlebells. Swings, Clean and presses, snatches, goblet squats, pull ups and some loaded carries. No structure or anything, just trying to get less sucky at the snatches and clean and presses because I was shocked at how difficult and ugly they were on Saturday(?).

Bench:
Worked up to 85kg x 8, equaled a rep record.

6 x 3 @ 87.5kg
2 x 3 @ 90kg

Inbetween all sets:
band pull aparts, back extensions, ab wheel.

These sets are getting a bit too heavy, nowhere near submaximal anymore and, more importantly, I’m not getting any stronger. I think maybe some higher rep work or some Spoto presses for a break from the heavy work. This seems to be a common theme in my training, alternating heavy work and lighter work for assistance. I think maybe reducing my volume on shoulder day might be useful as well.

Deadlift day, 5’s week:

Conditioning:
50 jump ropes, 5 swings, 50 jump ropes, 5 goblet squats. 36kg bell. 10mins.

Jumps: some

Deadlifts:

Worked up to 132.5kg x 5 easy reps.

then:

155kg 2-1-1 cluster

Meadows rows: some
Back extensions: some

Pull-ups, dips and swings between sets.

Shoulder day:
Trying a new idea for shoulder day, based vaguely off full body, full boring template.

Bench:
5 x 65kg
5 x 75kg
5 x 85kg

Squat:
5 x 75kg
5 x 87.5kg
5 x 100kg

OHP:
Worked up to 55kg x 4

dB double paused arnold presses:
5 x 3 @ 22kg

Rear delt hang and swing set:
3 x 35 @ 12kg

Some pull-ups and bicep curls inbetween.

Will do conditioning tomorrow, and probably take a deload next week. Feeling lacking in energy and next week will be a tough one anyway.

Back to business, after a week travelling for work (and suffering from the plague).

Squat day, 5’s week:

No conditioning, since I can’t breathe.

Squats:
worked up to 100kg x 5

then:
paused squats: 5 x 3 x 75kg

few back extensions, job done.

Bench day, 5’s week:

Still no conditioning, although the coughing when I try is a pretty good ab workout.

Bench:
worked up to 85kg x 5
then:
3 x 5 paused bench @75kg supersetted with 8 dB rows @35kg

Sounds like a rest might do you good…

[quote]MarkKO wrote:
Sounds like a rest might do you good…[/quote]
Had a ‘rest’ last week. I’m not feeling too tired now, just struggling to get my breathing back so I’ve cut almost all assistance, all conditioning, and the plus sets for the week and should hopefully be back to full strength next week.

Deadlift day, 5’s day:

Deadlift: Worked up to 132.5kg x 5

Squat: 5 x 75,87.5,100kg
Bench: 5 x 65,75,85kg

Trying a variation of Full Body, Full Boring for my next cycle, see how it works out. Hopefully will get the results of Full Body, Full Boring (with less deadlift improvement, due to reducing frequency), without being quite so spectacularly boring. The rough template will be:

M:Squat + FSL paused
T:Bench + FSL paused, Rows
Th: Deadlift (no plus set) + cluster set + Bench + Squat
Sa: OHP + assistance, Squat, Bench, Pull-ups

Missed logging for a while, been away for work. Quick summary of the last week:

M: Squat 5’s week (100kg x 10 plus set), 5 x 5 paused FSL squats
T: Bench 5’s week (85kg x 8 plus set), 3 x 5 paused FSL bench, dB rows
W: Deadlift 5’s week (no plus set), 155kg 2-1-1 cluster, squat 5’s (no plus set), NG chins
Th: Bench 5’s (no plus set), NG chins

All workouts were time limited in a (surprisingly good) commercial gym at 5am on an empty stomach so pretty happy with most of them.

Todays work:

OHP (experimenting with thumbless), 5’s week:
worked up to 50kg x 8

Squat:
5 x 60, 75, 87.5, 100kg

Bench:
5 x 65, 75, 85kg

Pull-ups and band pull-aparts throughout.

How are you finding the deadlift clusters?

[quote]MarkKO wrote:
How are you finding the deadlift clusters? [/quote]

Now I’ve tweaked my method so my volume doesn’t get so crazy on week 3, I’m really liking it. I think I’ll run my new approach (2-1-1, 2-1-1-1, 2-2-1-1 at TM) for a while until my TM starts to approach my real max or I feel like moving towards higher reps/moving back to ROM progression.

Thanks for that dude.

My pleasure. That looks like a good approach.

I’m running clusters for my pull too right now, but much more basically: singles with short breaks until they grind.

Squat day, 3’s week:

Squat:
worked up to 105kg x 8
Superset:
Back extensions x 20
Lunges x 12

4 sets

Really feeling like a basic, high frequency program is helping me a lot, like it always has in the past. Just need to resist the urge to add in new movements. The only addition should be conditioning, and maybe some speed work. Maybe.

Bench day, 3’s week:

Bench:
Worked up to 90kg x 5
supersetted with pull-ups and band pull-aparts

OHP:
8 x 30kg, 37.5kg, 45kg, 47.kg

supersetted with:
dB rows: 8 x 32.5kg

[quote]dagill2 wrote:
Really feeling like a basic, high frequency program is helping me a lot, like it always has in the past. Just need to resist the urge to add in new movements. The only addition should be conditioning, and maybe some speed work. Maybe.[/quote]

I fight the urge all the time! But I’m working in 12 week blocks now. No new movements for 3 months. My progress has definitely has been shooting up ever since that approach.

Strong lifting though man, keep it up!

[quote]isdatnutty wrote:

[quote]dagill2 wrote:
Really feeling like a basic, high frequency program is helping me a lot, like it always has in the past. Just need to resist the urge to add in new movements. The only addition should be conditioning, and maybe some speed work. Maybe.[/quote]

I fight the urge all the time! But I’m working in 12 week blocks now. No new movements for 3 months. My progress has definitely has been shooting up ever since that approach.

Strong lifting though man, keep it up!
[/quote]
Thanks man, I’ve not seen your log up here in a while, I’ll have to go check it out.

[quote]isdatnutty wrote:

[quote]dagill2 wrote:
Really feeling like a basic, high frequency program is helping me a lot, like it always has in the past. Just need to resist the urge to add in new movements. The only addition should be conditioning, and maybe some speed work. Maybe.[/quote]

I fight the urge all the time! But I’m working in 12 week blocks now. No new movements for 3 months. My progress has definitely has been shooting up ever since that approach.

Strong lifting though man, keep it up!
[/quote]

They work nicely don’t they? You get time to get better at the movements as well as stronger.

[quote]MarkKO wrote:

[quote]isdatnutty wrote:

[quote]dagill2 wrote:
Really feeling like a basic, high frequency program is helping me a lot, like it always has in the past. Just need to resist the urge to add in new movements. The only addition should be conditioning, and maybe some speed work. Maybe.[/quote]

I fight the urge all the time! But I’m working in 12 week blocks now. No new movements for 3 months. My progress has definitely has been shooting up ever since that approach.

Strong lifting though man, keep it up!
[/quote]

They work nicely don’t they? You get time to get better at the movements as well as stronger.
[/quote]
They get me stronger in a way nothing else does. Whether they make me bigger remains to be seen. The issue I have is that, if I’m totally honest with myself, I lift partly for entertainment and programs like Full Body, Full Boring are just so damn boring.

[quote]dagill2 wrote:

[quote]MarkKO wrote:

[quote]isdatnutty wrote:

[quote]dagill2 wrote:
Really feeling like a basic, high frequency program is helping me a lot, like it always has in the past. Just need to resist the urge to add in new movements. The only addition should be conditioning, and maybe some speed work. Maybe.[/quote]

I fight the urge all the time! But I’m working in 12 week blocks now. No new movements for 3 months. My progress has definitely has been shooting up ever since that approach.

Strong lifting though man, keep it up!
[/quote]

They work nicely don’t they? You get time to get better at the movements as well as stronger.
[/quote]
They get me stronger in a way nothing else does. Whether they make me bigger remains to be seen. The issue I have is that, if I’m totally honest with myself, I lift partly for entertainment and programs like Full Body, Full Boring are just so damn boring.[/quote]

I’m the complete opposite. If I could, all I’d do would be squat, bench and deadlift with some rows and maybe press occasionally