Zep's Last Stand

Training Training Logs
141

B workout
Squat 3x5@195
press 10/9.5/4/3/3@45 (not sure what the hell happened here)
lateral raise 3x10@25
face pull 3x10@9
curls 3x10@60

Pullup workout
6w/negative, 3, 4w/negative, 3.

A workout
squat 7/7/6@195
bench 10/9/8@65
deads 1x5@235
pressdowns 9@10 10@9 3X10@8 (emphasis on form)
rows 3x7@90

Bodyweight of around 178.5 I weighed in a bit heavier than this, but the circumstances of the weigh in were a little different.

I look forward to my lifts more than ever now. Its the highlight of my day. I just want to keep progressing. Lots of food and rest. I hope this is working. I really want to get to 190 some day soon.

Mentally, Im pretty beat. Some days things just dont look good. I want 195 for 10 tomorrow. Thats the goal. Im gonna rest well and eat some pasta. Maybe tomorrow Ill make a salad or something (lots of meat, cheese, and eggs in the salads).

-Zep

142

Ok so my meds for depression seriously fucked up my sleep schedule because I couldnt get a refill and then they gave me too much. Caused a shift in my schedule Im gonna try to stay up all day and shoot for bed at 9. Im kinda pissed about this. I have to be more disciplined. No more bullshit. Also Ive been slacking on my eating in the last 2 days. Im not happy with this. Gotta change. Tomorrow will be all about sleep and food.

-Zep

143

I feel real good right now. Im gonna try to wean myself off of my meds. Its probably against medical advice, but I am tired of being all fucked up on them. I am happy with all of my lifts and I am excited that I have been making progress. I cant wait for my next workout. Should be a good one.

Been getting a little pain in my knees and shoulders in between workouts. Im gonna push through the end of the week without changing anything if I can and see how I recover over the weekend before I do anything about it.

Ill post up #'s soon.

-Zep

144

A Workout
Squat 225 for 5/4/4 (may chose to deload or just continue to push until my last set gets close to 10)
Bench 70 dumbells for 5/5/9
Deads 1x5 @ 245
pressdown 7 plates for 20 (form emphasis) and 9 plates for 15/13
Rows 90 for 5/5/5 (form emphasis)

Had exams all week. I havnt slept or eaten in 24 hours. I feel like shit. I am going off my meds too. I feel pretty good. I am looking forward to my next workout. Minor knee pain.

-Zep

145

Also, I may decide to add pullovers and hamstring curls to the split somewhere. Just spitballin for now though.

-Zep

146

A workout

Bench 70 for 5/5/9
squat 225 for 5/4/4
deads 245 for 5
presssdown 7 for 20 then 9 for 15/13 (working for a pump with good form)
rows 90 for 5/5/5

B Workout

Squat 225 for 5/5/6 (maybe could’ve got 7)
pullover 40 for 20
press 55 for 5/5/6
chin ups 5/5/5 @ bodyweight of 181.2
lateral raise 25 for 10/5/10/5/10/5 (working for a pump with good form. limited rest)
face pull 8 for 5 sets of 10 (very limited rest again, pump with good form)
preacher curls 50 for 10/8/8/6 (control weight, slowly lowering it to full extension. Form/pump)

I feel pretty good. Real sore because I had to miss a day or so of lifting for my exams. I am looking forward to getting to 190. I am still wearing the same jeans size comfortably. Everyone told me I was going to get fat. The other kids who laughed at me and made my goals a joke? They’re still on the fast track to becoming even more average. Ive added an inch to my chest and an inch to my arms (not sure if this is proportionate but I don’t care. Ive always had small arms relative to the rest of my body). I can honestly see my progress. My roomate, a division 1 400 runner said he wants to start lifting with me because I am making noticeable progress. (He is 6/2 and 162 lbs at around 4% bodyfat. I think he could gain a lot of weight real fast. I hope he decides to lift with me.)

I have halted a couple of my lifts to bring up lagging areas (squat, press, rows). I am placing a big emphasis on form and trying to clean up all my movements before making any more large jumps in weight.

I feel damn good mentally. I went off my meds cold turkey against medical advice. Still have a ton of bad thoughts and memories, but honestly no amount of chemicals is going to take that away from me. Its time to face it. Knee and shoulder pain has gone down as well.

I dont know if you can tell by the length of this post, but I am real excited to be making progress. Granted, Im not huge, or strong, but at this rate, I will be a lot bigger and stronger within the year. I feel stronger than ever. Never again will I quit for any reason. I love this. The only two things I focus on all day are school and lifting, everything else just falls into place around it.

-Zep

147

Took a few days off to recover. Mad sore. Tomorrow Ill be back in the weight room. The roomates are back and shit is all fucked up again. Fridge is a god damn mess. Ruining my organization.

A workout
Came into this workout pretty sore.

squat 225 for 5/4(failed)/didnt attempt
bench 70 for 5/5/10 (felt like I could have got 12)
deads 275 for 5 Had to reset my grip and take a min in between. Kinda looked like 3/1/1
pressdown 8 plates for 20, then 9 plates for 10/10 (form and pump)
rows (actual old school t bar) 125 for 5, 90 for 10/10/10

bodyweight of 186.4!?!?!?!?!?

-Zep

148

keep your head up man, theres always something better and keep training
!

149

Bworkout
squat 5 (heavy and awkward)/ 5 (last rep awkward)/ 6 (decent reps) WTF?
pullovers 30 lbs for 20
press 55lb dumbells for 5/5/7
pullup 5/5/4.5 at bodyweight of 185.6
lateral raise 30 lb dumbells for 10/10/6(immediately switched to 25 lb dumbells and got 4 more)
face pulls 9 plates for 10/10/15
curls 50 lbs for 10/10/10

A workout
Squat 225 for 5/4(failed to get 5 up)/NA WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON HERE!!! I am so weak.
bench 70 for 5/5/10
deads 275 for 2 (grip was giving out)
peressdown 9 plates for 20, 10 plates for 15/15
Rows 90 for 10/10/10

I am officially done with this program. It just results in overuse injury/tendonitis and pure exhaustion. There has to be a better way to progress. I was looking at an article by Tim Henriques called “6-week squat, bench or deadlift program” or switching to a 5/3/1 variant. I do not think I am strong/big enough to worry about imbalances yet. I’m tired of looking at my numbers and going, “yeah, I that looks like progress…I think.” I dont care if I have to be patient. I just want to increase my numbers.

If anyone is reading this, any thoughts?

-Zep

150

[quote]bignate wrote:
keep your head up man, theres always something better and keep training
![/quote]

Thank you for reading my log. Its been a long road, but I am getting everything together. Slowly but surely.

-Zep

151

Dammit, just go on 5/3/1. It was the single smartest thing I did when I was first starting out and it’s the single smartest thing I did recently after taking a break from powerlifting.

152

I have decided to go with more of a traditional bodybuilding split. I will just be patient with the strength. It will come with the added size.

-Legs-
Squat:
135x5
185x5
205x5
225x7 (New PR. Failed at the very bottom of rep #8.)
I need to get someone to make sure I am doing things properly with my squatting. I think I have it down, but its hard for me to know all by myself.

Lying leg curl
100x10
115x6 too heavy for form so I dropped immediately to 100x4
100x8 good ones and 2 kinda sloppy ones
Focused on form and contraction. Caused me to have some knee pain in the TT area in between sets. I think with my ACL. I may switch to doing RDL.

Lunges
50 lb dumbells for 3 sets of 10 alternating.
Focused on form. Felt like my grip was a limiting factor on this.

Standing calf raise
Not sure how I am going to do these yet. I want to do them DC style (20 slow reps focusing on stretch), but we don’t have a machine and I’m not sure how to set the exercise up yet.

I weighed in at 189 even. I don’t appear to be getting any fatter than I was at the start. Same waist measurement, same pants, etc. Feeling nice and sore today.

I will be going in for a chest workout later tonight.

-Zep

153

-Chest-
Dumbell Bench:
50x5
60x5
70x5
75x11 (New PR)

Dumbell Incline:
50x5
60x5
65x10

Barbell Decline:
135x5
155x5
185x8 (I am not sure how many of these were actually me, I just went all out. I got 10 reps, but I think my spot started helping around 8. He is about 55 lbs lighter than I am, but I think he is going to be a reliable spot in the future, just gotta have him keep his hands off the bar haha. Good kid though.)

Bent Arm Dumbell Pullover:
40x20

-Back-
Deadlift:
135x5
185x5
225x5
275x1 (My grip was absolutely shot for some reason. Sweaty hands. Couldn’t hold on to the bar.)
275x1 (Same story as above.)

Chin up:
189.6 (BW) for 5/5/5 (New PR)

Lying T Bar Row:
45x5
70x5
90x5
90x10 (Better form, so there is improvement here.)

Wide Grip Lat Pulldown:
100x5
140x5
140x8

Dumbell Shrug:
50x10
60x10
75x10

-Shoulders-
Dumbell Standing Overhead Press:
40x5
50x5
55x10 (New PR)

Cable Rope Seated Face Pull:
9x10
9x10
9x10
10x7

Dumbell Lateral Raise:
20x10
20x10
25x10

Kinda upset with my back day. I feel good about everything else though. I am feeling a lot stronger than before. I am definitely stronger now than I have ever been. A couple of my friends have begun giving me shit for wanting to gain weights. Seems like it is the ass end of every joke these days. Funny thing is they all work out to look good, but are still woefully average on all of their goals. I want my back strength and leg strength to go up so badly. Tomorrow is arm day. I will be doing 3 supersets. One for strength, and 2 for pure pump/hells fire. I feel good and sore on all of the bodyparts I have worked so far.

-Zep

154

I am not really tracking my sets and stuff. I just kinda ramp up doing sets of 5, and bust ass on the last set to set a new PR somewhere in the 10 rep range, however that comes out. I dont track rest either. Shoulder workout took me 30 minutes, Back workout took me about an hour and 15. It just depends. I am focusing on strength, not conditioning, so I dont care as long as the PR’s keep coming. More weight on the bar, for more reps than last time.

For the shoulder workout, my shoulder was cracking all the way up and down haha. No pain though. Just cracking. I had a little pain in my left elbow during my chins. I hope that goes away.

-Zep

155

Just posted all of my workouts, and none of them went up. Ill post them later. Damn…

-Zep

156

-Arms-
Close Grip Bench:
90x5
135x5
155x7

Preacher Curl:
50x5
60x6
60x12

Skull Crusher:
50x5
60x5
60x12

Incline Dumbell Curl:
25x5
25x7
25x8

Pushdown (Rope):
10 on cable stack x 7
10x8
9x9

Hammer Curl:
20x5
20x5
30x8

-Legs-
Squat:
135x5
185x5
225x10 (New PR)

RDL:
135x5
185x5
185x5

Leg Press:
180x5
270x5
360x20

Standing Calf Raise:
Skipped

-Chest-
Dumbbell Bench:
55x5
70x5
80x10 (New PR)

Dumbbell Incline:
55x5
60x5
70x9

Barbell Decline:
95x5
135x5
185x9 (All of them mine for sure. Failed going for 10) (New PR)

Dumbbell Pullover:
40x20

-Back-
Deadlift:
Skipped (My lower back and posterior chain was fried from the leg workout. In fact I am still hobbling around campus. Also, this didn’t kill my grip for the rest of the workout either.)

Chin Up:
BWx5
BWx5
BWx6 (Not sure what I weigh right now. Not sure if it is a new PR or not)

Chest Supported T-Bar row:
45x5
70x5
90x12 (New PR)

Wide Grip Pulldown:
100x5
130x5
140x9 (New PR)

Dumbbell Shrug:
140x10
150x15

I am taking a lot less time in between sets and emphasizing form. Also for some of the larger exercises, I didnt include a few warmup sets, I just included the 2 leading up to the AMRAP set.

Shoulder workout today. I had a little pain in my shoulder during my chest workout, but I am feeling good now and ready to smash this workout.

Not sure what type of program this is, but I am seeing progress on it, so I am going to stick with it for a while. I would like to try to figure it out because it will determine what my next program will be. I will be using this program until I get bored, or it stops working (results are not boring, so this one will probably be the case).

Mentally, I feel pretty good. Some bullshit with my school and a week of tests coming up, but I feel pretty good.

-Zep

157

Still training. I hit 196.2 lbs yesterday. Feelin real good.

-Zep

158

Hit 200 lbs bodyweight the other day. Feelin good. I know not all of my gains are muscle, but I am one hell of a lot stronger now and not to mention bigger. I haven’t noticed a lot of body fat accumulation, although it is there, so I think I will keep going and trying to get bigger. I am now in my second cycle of 5/3/1 Boring But Big, and I am enjoying setting new records as I go. I thought I was going to be happy making my cut when I got up to 190, but now that I am 200, I am thinking that I want to keep going. I haven’t had a six pack since I’ve been 5 years old anyway. All I am doing is eating a ton of food and lifting and making sure that I am sleeping well. My mother has informed me that I am only allowed to gain 5 more pounds because I am going to start looking gross haha. I am looking forward to seeing how gross I can become in the next 8 months or so. I hope that by the time I have to start dressing up for school that I look absolutely stupid in ties haha. I’ve been noticing that I am getting a little more attention from people now. It seems that now that I am not wearing a winter coat or hoodie all day that I get told about my weight gain a few times a day.

-Zep

159

Gym is closed tomorrow due to a holy day (Catholic university). Getting into a scuffle at the bar makes me realize how fucking small I am. I need to get bigger…now. I may be finding a gym in the area to lift at for a day.

-Zep

160

Weighed in at 201 even today. Feelin real good. Looking forward to my next workout.

-Zep