Blut Wump - Korte 3x3

[blut wump]

Week 1 Day 2

Today was definitely easier than Monday. It occured to me that maybe the 'sled'-dragging on Sunday had taken a bit out of me.

My thighs felt a bit tight as I started the squats but that went away. Annoyingly, I got a pain in my right knee on set4. I'm going to have to play with foot spacing and angle to keep this from being a hindrance.

Bench felt easy too except that the last two sets of Narrow grip were starting to take it out of my triceps. I was beginning to feel some concern about being able to lock out on the last rep. I did eight bench sets since it's Wednesday.

Deadlifts also easy enough but my lower back was complaining again. Sometimes I forget that I have a bad back. I was doing SLDL with more weight than this last week.

One thing I tried very much to do today was to relax during the sets. I occasionally found myself tensing to lift and tried not to. I think it made the lifts easier. I again tried to keep the workout fairly brisk. I wasn't timing myself, as such, but I know that the deads took under 9 minutes discounting warmups since I looked at the clock before and after. The whole workout took about 40 minutes and I didn't feel rushed. I finished off with some hammy and lower back stretches and 5 sets of Needsize's abs 5x5 on the decline jobby.

I was thinking that after the next workout I should bump the weights but then I realised that I'm supposed to anyway. I think it'll be time to reassess the intensity after next Monday's workout.

You already know the weights but here they are, anyway.
Bench: N - Narrow, S - Shoulder-width, W - Wide
All weights in Kilos

ATF Squats: Barx10, 40x8, 60x5, 87.5 x 5 x 5 - knee hurt on set 4
Bench: Barx10S, 40x8N, 60x5W, 82.5 x 6 for 8 sets NSNWNSNW - locking out on last rep of last two Narrow sets and final Wide set was neither hard nor trivial
Deadlift: 60x10, 80x5, 100x3, 112.5 x 5 for six sets - nothing much to report. Didn't feel as much of a chore today but I recall thinking a couple of times that I'd just done a rep with less than good form.

 

[super_rice]

Yeah, controlling your mental state during the sessions helps to avoid over-reaching, and just overall conserving energy. I believe Korte condones an "ESM" method or some sorts in his articles.

 

[blut wump]

I was thinking about it afterwards in relation to the deadlift. It's like trying not so much to do a deadlift and lift the bar but more to stand up in a deadlift movement with the bar being just added resistance. I'm trying to stand up rather than trying to deadlift the bar.

Maybe it's all too Zen for this time of night. Doing the same exercise over and over again gives you a lot of time to think about it.

 

[blut wump]

Week 1 Day 3

A few days late but I'd better get this in before it gets overtaken by week2

My right knee was hurting from the start so I had to experiment with foot placement. The first two sets I had my heels very close together with wide flared feet. I think of them as Penguin Squats. They helped a little but from set 3 onwards I was using a soulder-width stance with feet forwards. This allowed me to squat without pain but if I tried to settle-in at the bottom it still hurt so I was going fully down but not relaxing-in when I got there.

This put more strain on my lower back so I got my usual lower back ache during squats rather than having to wait until deadlifts. The good thing was that it went away while benching and didn't come back.

My triceps were getting into trouble towards the end of benching. I've occasionally suspected that I might have a triceps weakness but couldn't believe it. With luck, this program having isolated the problem will also fix it.

The weights were even less of a struggle today so I did 8 sets of each. I had some triceps and 'tear-drop' muscle doms over the weekend but otherwise fine. I might do a double increase on the weights as I go into week 2 and use the week 3 weights. I just hope my knee doesn't let me down. If I do the weight bump then I might drop down to basic volume for the first day of week2.

ATF Squat: 20x10, 40x8, 60x5, 87.5 x 5 for 8 sets - two penguin sets + 6 very classical stance, lower back ache + bad right knee
Bench: 40x10N, 60x6S, 82.5 x 6 for 8 sets WSNSWSWN - triceps would have let me down had I continued with more sets
Deadlift: 60x10, 80x6, 100x3, 112.5 x 5 for 8 sets - nothing to report except a lack of lower back ache

 

[Jim Ouini]

Any idea what's up with the knee pain? Mine still hasn't totally gone away although it's a lot better as long as I warm up properly.

And on the bench you go W-S-N...how are the close grip feeling since you're using the same weight as your wide, correct? I see you mention your triceps giving you trouble, my closegrip is about 60% of my regular grip, I think, haven't done them in awhile. If I do this I can't see myself using the same weights for wide and narrow...

 

[super_rice]

Perhaps the knee pain is in relation to the newly increased volume. If so, then maybe you should not scale up to 8 sets until say, week 2 or 3, when you are more accustomed to it.

But then again, if it is too easy on a paticular day, I think that the effect of the korte is lost.

 

[blut wump]

Week 2 Day 1

I decided to jump straight to next week's projected weights after having felt fine doing 8 sets of each last Friday. Accordingly I dropped the volume back down to compensate but I think I still felt better than I did last Monday. See what the week brings.

My right knee was a bit better than on Friday but I still felt the need to nurse it. I was able to sit and settle-in on the squats but I could feel that I was holding off fully relaxing at the bottom. My knee was clicking every time I went down. I chose an expanded penguin stance today: shoulder width but with about a 30 degree flare.

Not much to report for bench and deadlift. Triceps were starting to complain by the last set and my lower back was complaining a lot by the end of the deads. Something has definitely changed with my deadlift form as I occasionally graze my knees on the way up which I never used to do. I'm making a bit of an effort to get myself a shade lower when I begin to pull. I'm also getting concerned that I'm not guarding my arch with these weights since I can just muscle it up through any bad positioning.

The weights today were better. Enough of an effort that you wouldn't mistake it for cardio. I seem to be coping with the volume. I hope they don't turn into the proverbial 'famous last words'. I'm fine, arggghhh.

ATF Squat: 20x10, 40x8, 60x5, 80x3, 95 x 5 x 5 - knees better but not good
Bench: 20x10S, 40x8N, 60x5W, 80x2S, 87.5 x 6 x 6 NSNWNS - triceps starting to fade again
Deadlift: 60x10, 80x5, 100x3, 120 x 5 for 7 sets - lower back aching a lot again

 

[blut wump]

Any idea what's up with the knee pain? Mine still hasn't totally gone away although it's a lot better as long as I warm up properly.

And on the bench you go W-S-N...how are the close grip feeling since you're using the same weight as your wide, correct? I see you mention your triceps giving you trouble, my closegrip is about 60% of my regular grip, I think, haven't done them in awhile. If I do this I can't see myself using the same weights for wide and narrow...

My knee started to hurt before I started the Korte. Maybe 8 months of squatting has finally just caught up with me. I really don't have much of a clue how to warm up my knees which might be part of the problem. I do the lighter sets and give my knee a rub and a bit of a stretch and a few words of encouragement and hope it can cope.

On the bench I think my weakest might be the shoulder grip rather than the narrow grip. If your close-grip weight is 60% of your regular then I think you have something to work on since you'd be unable to be doing sets for reps at 60%+.

I remember years back I always preferred a shoulder-width grip and would use a wide grip about 1/3 of the time and never liked it. The books all said that one should be strongest with a wide grip and I can't remember when I switched over and stopped doing narrower grips. I'm obviously finding the wide grip sets easier than the other two so I'm doing fewer of them. My triceps are coping fine but they are suffering during the later sets. With any luck, after finishing this program, it'll be a long time before a I fail to lock out on the bench.

 

[blut wump]

Perhaps the knee pain is in relation to the newly increased volume. If so, then maybe you should not scale up to 8 sets until say, week 2 or 3, when you are more accustomed to it.

But then again, if it is too easy on a paticular day, I think that the effect of the korte is lost.

I'm sure the volume isn't helping but it started to complain about going deep two or three weeks ago. Maybe I've twisted it or something. I think I'll get one of those elasticated bandages for daily wear.

I think I just had a bit of extra energy on Friday and with a weekend's worth of recovery ahead of me I did the extra sets. I also had a five hour drive straight after the gym and I might have been trying to defer that.

I'm not yet unhappy with the Korte. The first day I was worried about being buried and by the third day I was throwing in extra sets. It should settle down soon enough and I should be able to calibrate successive runs better.

 

[Jim Ouini]

My knee started to hurt before I started the Korte. Maybe 8 months of squatting has finally just caught up with me. I really don't have much of a clue how to warm up my knees which might be part of the problem. I do the lighter sets and give my knee a rub and a bit of a stretch and a few words of encouragement and hope it can cope.

Pretty much the same here; I do deep BW squat while holding onto the squat rack and then a couple warmup sets with just the bar. Then pray.

On the bench I think my weakest might be the shoulder grip rather than the narrow grip. If your close-grip weight is 60% of your regular then I think you have something to work on since you'd be unable to be doing sets for reps at 60%+.

I remember years back I always preferred a shoulder-width grip and would use a wide grip about 1/3 of the time and never liked it. The books all said that one should be strongest with a wide grip and I can't remember when I switched over and stopped doing narrower grips. I'm obviously finding the wide grip sets easier than the other two so I'm doing fewer of them. My triceps are coping fine but they are suffering during the later sets. With any luck, after finishing this program, it'll be a long time before a I fail to lock out on the bench.

For example my 3RM bench with hands wider than shoulder width is something like 275; my close grip (hands inside shoulder width) 3RM is probably 205/225 or so (haven't tested). But I did close grip as a tricep exercise, don't think I could do 275 x 3 close grip (unless I was on a decline bench on the smith machine ).

That reminds me, there used to be a powerlifter at a gym I used to go to who powerlifted and his 'normal' grip was very narrow, hands maybe 6-8 inches apart. He had a ~670 bench this way