Bonus Workout:
11/9/2012
Close Stance Squats:
135 5x
185 5x
225 10x
225 10x
Quads were already stiff and burning and sore obviously from the last two days. After this on top of it walking normally is out of the question lol. I’m going to keep doing this until the muscles in my legs get the message though.
Oh I forgot, I also did a couple sets of 10 situps on the decline bench with a 25 held behind my head. I’ve been wanting to do that for a while.
DE Lower:
11/9/2012
I’m pretty sure you aren’t supposed to do speed stiff legged deadlifts, but I can’t bend my legs so, I did em. Seriously my quads are so sore and tight people probably think I’m handicapped when I try to walk.
Speed SLDL:
I used minibands stretched about three feet to either side of the bar, so they were pretty tight at the bottom. I should use stronger bands in the future still though I think.
135 5x
245 1x
245 1x
245 1x
245 1x
245 1x
245 1x
245 1x
245 1x
245 1x
245 1x These felt really easy. I guess that’s the point, and you’re supposed to do em fast. My training partner said I did these so fast it looked like I was just standing up with no weight. I gotta say, they were really fun though. I would walk up and just grab it and rip it up as fast as I could. I wouldn’t hardly even set my feet, just run up and tear it off the ground!
Good Mornings:
135 5x
185 10x
185 10x
185 10x
Reverse Hyper:
3 sets of 10 also, how come people talk about how awesome these and the GHR are when both of those things are apparently designed to crush your groin?
Leg Curls:
3 sets of 8 That’s all my quads could handle. Yeah quads, because my quads were so sore that the pressure of the bench against them was agonizing!
Chest Supported Row:
4 sets of 6 with 4 plates and a couple different grips
ME Upper:
11/10/2012
Incline Bench:
135 5x
185 5x
225 3x
275 2x Technically I was supposed to hit a 3rm on this lift, but I guess I had more balls then brains on this one. I’d never tried going heavy on inclines before, so I really had no idea what was difficult or not.
225 5x Just got a few more reps in. Left a couple in the tank cuz I didn’t have a spotter. I’ve never failed without a spotter on inclines, but I imagine it sucks hard.
DB Overhead Press:
50’s 10x
70’s 10x
75’s 10x
75’s 10x
Side Raises:
20’s 10x
30’s 10x
35’s 10x
Dips:
BW 30x Don’t think I’ve ever tried this many dips in one set before. So… cool I guess.
BW 20x
One Handed Overhead Tricep Extension:
30 10x
20 10x
20 10x
20 10x Not really feeling this one.
Skullcrushers:
90 10x
90 10x
90 10x
90 10x
I need to find time for more abs I think. No squats today I guess. I’m going to do them again tomorrow though; and also the next day, and the next five days after that.
[quote]csulli wrote:
[quote]Spock81 wrote:
I lean forward a lot too, it’s the low bar yo! Nothin’ wrong with that!
[/quote]
Well it’s the degree of lean that I think is holding me back. I’ve never seen anyone squat a respectable amount being as bent over as I am.[/quote]
A couple of things:
You can try moving your grip in but that always irritated my shoulders and bicep tendons. I now use a 3 finger grip, where my pinky goes underneath the bar and it allows me to crank my elbows hard and keeps my chest up.
I haven’t seen you do any ab work?
[quote]frankjl wrote:
A couple of things:
You can try moving your grip in but that always irritated my shoulders and bicep tendons. I now use a 3 finger grip, where my pinky goes underneath the bar and it allows me to crank my elbows hard and keeps my chest up.
I haven’t seen you do any ab work?[/quote]
Holy shit, Steve must have coiled steel cable in place of his spinal erectors lol.
I appreciate your input very much! Youre an experienced conjugate system lifter. I messed with a closer grip the other day, but it always seemed to migrate back out wide. I don’t have the best bicep tendons in the world. Especially my right bicep has had tendonitis at the shoulder and a minor tear at the bottom.
It’s uncanny you should say that about abs. I literally just wrote something about how I feel like I’ve been struggling to find time for abs lately lol. I was real good about doing them for a while, but recently I’m struggling with my time management. I probably need to focus and decrease rest times, because my workouts last fucking forever. Often I’m there right up until they close. I’m gonna do abs today though.
Do you think I should go heavier on speed work?
Bonus Workout:
11/11/2012
Close Stance Squats:
135 5x
225 5x
275 1x
315 1x
365 1x
365 1x
315 3x
315 3x legs still debilitatingly sore. Going to stay relentless though.
Decline Sit-ups with 25lbs behind my head:
3 sets of 10
Ab Roller:
3 sets of 10
My abs have come a very long way since I started this log.
Jogged for a half mile
Ran up and down some stairs a few times with a sandbag on my back.
[quote]csulli wrote:
Holy shit, Steve must have coiled steel cable in place of his spinal erectors lol.
I appreciate your input very much! Youre an experienced conjugate system lifter. I messed with a closer grip the other day, but it always seemed to migrate back out wide. I don’t have the best bicep tendons in the world. Especially my right bicep has had tendonitis at the shoulder and a minor tear at the bottom.
It’s uncanny you should say that about abs. I literally just wrote something about how I feel like I’ve been struggling to find time for abs lately lol. I was real good about doing them for a while, but recently I’m struggling with my time management. I probably need to focus and decrease rest times, because my workouts last fucking forever. Often I’m there right up until they close. I’m gonna do abs today though.
Do you think I should go heavier on speed work?[/quote]
I’m tall, awkward and inflexible so my grip stays against the collars of the bar. With my grip that wide I really have to work my upper back hard (good mornings, face pulls, rows, shrugs, etc) or else I get folded up whenever I squat. I also have to really try to crank my elbows underneath the bar and focus on squeezing my shoulder blades together hard.
It’s taken me a long time to realize how important strong abs are. Pavel once said “strong hands and strong abs = strong body”. Matt Wenning used to train abs every day. You just have to realize they are equally as important as the rest of your accessories.
As for your speed work, the most important thing is the speed but you really gotta figure this one out for yourself. Jim Wendler advocates going heavier on the speed work, for me I prefer to just do more sets. For bench I’ll usually go 10-16 sets with shorter rest periods. For squats I like to keep the weight low but work off a LOW box.
Keep in mind that a lot of guidelines you’ll see on the internet for very advanced lifters who use supportive gear. For a raw lifter, you can probably push the weights up a little more. The key is to make sure the bar is moving fast and that your form is on point, or else you won’t get the most out of it.
why all the close stance squats, what’s with 3-4 workouts a day…yea you need a girlfriend !!
You know you’ve got to give the body time to recover all those muscle tears in order to get stronger…ah, young bucks, lol
I agree with the above statement raw lifters can go up a bit on the % for speed, but it should be easy, better to focus on technique and form…below are the basic % I go by for speed work. You can hook the bands on the deadlift platform too.
Bench - 40-50% of 1RM in bar weight with 25% of accommodating resistance.
Squats - 50-60% of 1RM in bar weight with 25% of accommodating resistance.
but it’s got to be fast. if not, then drop the weight, it’s about fast not the weight. That’s the part that most people don’t get, they think they should be able to lift more. It’s not an ego lift.
[quote]lil power wrote:
why all the close stance squats, what’s with 3-4 workouts a day…yea you need a girlfriend !!
You know you’ve got to give the body time to recover all those muscle tears in order to get stronger…ah, young bucks, lol
I agree with the above statement raw lifters can go up a bit on the % for speed, but it should be easy, better to focus on technique and form…below are the basic % I go by for speed work. You can hook the bands on the deadlift platform too.
Bench - 40-50% of 1RM in bar weight with 25% of accommodating resistance.
Squats - 50-60% of 1RM in bar weight with 25% of accommodating resistance.
but it’s got to be fast. if not, then drop the weight, it’s about fast not the weight. That’s the part that most people don’t get, they think they should be able to lift more. It’s not an ego lift.
[/quote]
I feel like my chest and back are doing pretty well and they keep getting stronger, but I’m just so tired of my legs being weak; it drives me crazy!
Thanks for the speed guidelines! Looks like my plan follows that pretty well. I should probably think on technique a little more though. I noticed my bench form gets a little crazy when I’m going as fast as possible.
For anyone who was wondering, after squatting for 4 out of 5 days, my legs don’t feel sore anymore. Well maybe a little bit, but they feel pretty good. So for anyone toying with the idea of squatting every day or 4 times a week or whatever, for a male in his 20’s, I suppose you can expect your body to adapt after only a few days or a week of training. I’m natural as well, so if you’re taking steroids I guess you would adapt to it in like an afternoon or something I dunno. And from what I’ve heard of guys in their 40’s and beyond, you’ll be waiting forever for your legs to stop being sore.
ME Lower:
11/12/2012
Box Squats: My first box squats! Box was below parallel.
135 5x
225 5x
275 3x
315 3x
365 3x So box squats felt easier than regular squats. Is that normal? What’s that mean?
SSB Good Mornings:
115 10x
115 10x
115 10x
Leg Curls:
3 sets of 6
Hyperextensions:
45lbs 10x
45lbs 10x
45lbs 10x
Plank for 2 minutes
This was actually pretty tough! I hadn’t done a plank since high school. I used to be pretty good at em. Of course I was like 30 or 40lbs lighter in high school.
Some jump rope cardio. Here’s something I hadn’t touched since I was like 8 years old. Just thought I’d try some different cardio stuff. So I did a few jumps and then I did that thing where you spin the rope around you twice in one jump, and I nailed it first try and kept going. So I thought I was hot shit, except when I tried it again, I failed, and then I spent pretty much the entire rest of the time trying to do that and failing.
[quote]csulli wrote:
ME Upper:
11/12/2012
Box Squats: My first box squats! Box was below parallel.
135 5x
225 5x
275 3x
315 3x
365 3x So box squats felt easier than regular squats. Is that normal? What’s that mean?
[/quote]
Could be you were rocking on the box, could be you have strong hips and quads depending on how wide/narrow your stance is. But…typo…ME Upper on Box squats? ;-)…when is your next box squat session? I’m back, so I’ll be in this week.
[quote]lil power wrote:
[quote]csulli wrote:
ME Upper:
11/12/2012
Box Squats: My first box squats! Box was below parallel.
135 5x
225 5x
275 3x
315 3x
365 3x So box squats felt easier than regular squats. Is that normal? What’s that mean?
[/quote]
Could be you were rocking on the box, could be you have strong hips and quads depending on how wide/narrow your stance is. But…typo…ME Upper on Box squats? ;-)…when is your next box squat session? I’m back, so I’ll be in this week. [/quote]
Ha, fixed the typo.
“rocking on the box” that sounds like something I might have been doing actually. I probably won’t be box squatting again till next Friday.
Btw Vikki congratulations on your pro total. I bet a lot of people bomb out of their first multi-ply meet. A rocky start (I’m just glad you were able to touch with something in that bench shirt), but wow what a finish! Extremely impressive deadlift, especially from a grip perspective.
OMG!! I do better on box squats than regular squats too!! I have no idea why! Maybe it’s because my free squats are crazy deep and my box squats are like normal depth. I dunno. I also just feel like I have more control over things when I box squat.
Either way, HELLO FRIEND.
[quote]Spock81 wrote:
OMG!! I do better on box squats than regular squats too!! I have no idea why! Maybe it’s because my free squats are crazy deep and my box squats are like normal depth. I dunno. I also just feel like I have more control over things when I box squat.
Either way, HELLO FRIEND.
[/quote]
Yo!
Bonus Workout:
11/13/2012
Closer Stance Squats:
135 5x
225 5x
275 5x
275 5x
275 5x
275 5x
275 5x Starting to feel this more in my knees…
I found a use for kettlebells: cardio!
I did kettlebell snatches 10 reps with one arm, 15s rest, 10 reps with the other arm, 15s rest, and so forth for 10 minutes. Seemed like pretty good cardio. I can’t really do a kettlebell snatch though. The weight always smashes into my forearm, which I’m pretty sure isn’t supposed to happen. I used 30lbs I think.
Legs aren’t sore today (the day after this workout happened). I’m pretty sure my legs won’t be sore again until I stop squatting this much. I can feel some general burnout happening though I think.
DE Upper:
11/14/2012
Bench:
45 5x
135 5x
185 5x
added doubled minibands to each side
185 3x close grip
185 3x
185 3x
185 3x medium grip
185 3x
185 3x
185 3x regular grip
185 3x
185 3x
OHP:
45 5x
135 5x
155 5x
185 1x barely. My lockouts felt nearly impossible on OHP today. Obviously it’s from the bench with bands overloading the triceps with the added weight at lockout. Still though, tougher than I had imagined!
Push Press:
185 3x
185 5x Just to do a bit more.
Pullups: I have been delinquent with pullups. I feel like it’s been ages since I’ve done any, and I used to do tons.
BW 10x
50lbs of chain 5x Hardest part of these was that I had the chains draped over my neck, so at the bottom of
50lbs of chain 5x the pullup they were strangling the crap out of me.
BW 10x
BW 10x
BW 10x
BW 10x
V-Bar Cable Rows:
heavy set of 10
lightened up and did 3 sets of 20
I superset some skullcrushers with closegrip bench by just going to failure at SC’s and then bringing the bar over my chest and going to failure with CG’s.
I used 70lbs
skullcrushers - 26
close grip bench - 40 The weight was too light to really “go to failure” on close grip bench, but I just sort of stopped.
Rope Pushdowns with 1 sec. pause at the bottom:
2 sets of 10
Plank for a minute and a half
Decline situps with 25lbs for 10 reps, dropped the weight and immediately did 10 more reps with just BW.
Jump rope for 200 reps.
Bonus Workout:
11/16/2012
Squat:
45 5x
135 5x
225 5x
275 3x
315 1x
365 1x
365 1x
315 3x I’m getting all my weight forward on my toes and my knees are killing me. I was experimenting with less sit back and more opening up the knees and dropping into the squat. I’ll just try full sit back mode next time. I feel like I need a damn degree in squatting for this stupid lift. Much more of this, and I’ll just become a bench specialist or something.
[quote]csulli wrote:
Bonus Workout:
11/13/2012
Closer Stance Squats:
135 5x
225 5x
275 5x
275 5x
275 5x
275 5x
275 5x Starting to feel this more in my knees…
I found a use for kettlebells: cardio!
I did kettlebell snatches 10 reps with one arm, 15s rest, 10 reps with the other arm, 15s rest, and so forth for 10 minutes. Seemed like pretty good cardio. I can’t really do a kettlebell snatch though. The weight always smashes into my forearm, which I’m pretty sure isn’t supposed to happen. I used 30lbs I think.
Legs aren’t sore today (the day after this workout happened). I’m pretty sure my legs won’t be sore again until I stop squatting this much. I can feel some general burnout happening though I think.[/quote]
Haha yeah man, those kettlebell cleans and snatches seem awkward as. I tried them a couple of times and gave up in a mist of confusion.
I just stick with heavy swings, and they seem useful for my lockout probably due to encouraging more active glutes. Also my upper back is hulk smashing from them, definitely notice the difference.
I’m assuming you squat low bar? Have you tried high bar and going atg? It takes some getting used to, and your numbers will take a dive, but it’s the ONLY way I can squat pain free, and it feels way more natural once you get used to it.