My Training Log

[amounirl]

4-16-12: Supplementary Back & Arms

Strict Pendlay Rows
5x135
3x5x175

Cheat Pendlay/Yates rows
2x5x225

Several High Pull Variants
5x3x185

BW Reverse Hyper/25 lb dumbbells hammer curl/25 lb dumbbells jm press circuit
2x15 (15 reps on each of the 3 exercises, 2 rounds)

Since my training has been kind of crappy these last 5 days, I decided to throw in a supplementary back/arms workout, might as well because I have to go to weight training anyways. It felt pretty great to be back in the gym.

Strict Pendlays were 100% strict, my torso didn't move at all and it looked exactly like a reverse gravity bench press. I threw in some cheat pendlays/yates rows just to try them out, but I felt it mostly in my grip, lower back, and maybe a little bit of lower lats. Probably won't be doing them again. I did a couple types of high pulls, which I actually really liked. I also power cleaned 185 just for fun at the end of these, and unfortunately my spine bent back right where it was injured 2 weeks ago. I stretched a bit to keep it from seizing up, and did some light high rep reverse hypers to get blood into the area. I really hope I can still squat tomorrow. At least I've got my belt to keep my lower back/core from having to work too hard. The whole circuit at the end, again, was just to get blood flowing to the muscles and get some light bicep/tricep work in, to keep from atrophying.

So anyways, hopefully I can get a PR on squats tomorrow. I"m going to start repping out the last set of the day more often, even on 5s week, if/when I ever feel strong, just so that I don't become so reliant on 5/3/1 week PRs. Even Jim Wendler himself stated that a good program should accommodate for crappy training days, so I'm going to go against the recommendation on 5/3/1 for PLs to not rep out 5s week.

On a side note, last night on my home scale, the one I always use for consistency even though it's probably not accurate, I weighed in at 203.5, after eating a big dinner. In the morning at school on the weight training scale I weighed in at 205. This is the heaviest I've ever been, and it feels good to be bulking again, even though it takes a lot of painful stuffing myself to get adequate calories from whole foods. I think the creatine also has something to do with it. When I got home today, I weighed 200.2, and I've never come home weighing over 200 lbs. Bodyweight PRs all around!

 

[amounirl]

4-17-12: Squats

Light Warmup Lunges

Dynamic Power Clean
115x3x3

Squat
warmups
Added Belt
285x5
330x3
365x1,0
Removed Belt
275x5, rest 60 sec, 275x4, rest 60 sec, 275x3

Hook Gripped Grip Rack Pulls
worked up to 475 for 10 sec

1 set of Speed Deads
225x3

Today didn't go so well... I felt pretty crappy, weak, and sore, and my form was really off. I think it might just be that I missed my deadlift session last time, so my legs were really sluggish and whatnot. Or it's because I did a lot of running on saturday and sunday, which could have put a lot of wear and tear on my knees. Either way, I resolve to never miss a workout ever again because of soreness, I'll go do a deload if I have to just to keep my blood moving around. I decided to try to rep out 365 again after barely getting it for 1, since my form felt so off when I failed it, but I just ended up not being able to complete 1 rep. Within about 2 or 3 minutes, I went and did 275 for 5/4/3 with short rest periods, just so I could get some hypertrophy work and end the day on a more or less positive note. My form felt decent on these, a lot better than it did on the other heavy sets. Then I did some hook grip rack pulls and a set of speed pulls just to make sure my deadlift won't be too shitty on friday.

If there's one thing I've learned from the many shitty workouts I've had these last 2 months, it's that my body responds very well to volume, I'm never cutting out rep work again.

 

[amounirl]

4-18-12: Bench

Bench
warmups
225x3
245xalmost3,2,1
225x0

Other random shit

Another shitty workout. Here's the story on the 245x2.5, I was on my 3rd rep and I got past the sticking point, at this point I knew I was going to lock it out, but my spotter saw it was moving really slow so he put his hands under it just to be ready to catch it. I got paranoid that he was going to rob me of this PR I've been chasing for months so I said "I GOT IT!" He thought I said grab it, so he grabbed it... I was really fucking pissed but I understood that it was an honest mistake, so I'm not mad at him, I'm just mad at the whole situation. I thought I might be able to get it on my next set, but I only got 2. On my 3rd set I only got 1 rep, and didn't want to try and fail another one so I racked it. I decided to do 3x5x225, but at this point my previously injured bicep tendon started bothering me again, so I couldn't even get it off my chest. In fact, my bicep was bothering me the whole time, especially after I strained on 245x2.5 (which should have been 3...) This caused me to have to be very slow at the bottom on both the eccentric and concentric, so I lost my momentum. I usually don't bounce it (as you can see in my videos), but I was almost pausing, which definitely also affected my strength. Either way, it ended up shitty. My bicep was too fucked to do much else in the way of pressing movements, and certainly not pulling movements, so I did some shrug variants just so I wouldn't feel like a total pussy. After my workout I realized I could have probably done floor press... Oh well, I fucked up...

The one bright side was that I'm 95% sure I could have gotten 245x3, so I will adjust my training max. Now about my current training program, I'm pretty sure 6x3 is a solid program, but I haven't been getting very good results from it (for reasons which are mostly my own fault). I should have stayed at 240 until I could no shit get it for 6 sets of 3, but I egotistically moved on to 245. One option is to jump back down to 235, but there's one major problem with this program for me, which is that I have to be at 100% performance every bench day. It doesn't accommodate for off days. I have way too many bad days for it to work, because my homework is very inconsistent, which affects my sleep, making it inconsistent as well. My outside physical activity is also inconsistent, one day I could have a great rehab workout in kempo and the next day I could have a ball busting workout/sparring/grappling match that fucks up my spine and bicep tendon (aka last thursday). So needless to say I have very frequent crappy days in the gym, which are 100% unpredictable. I'm gonna go back to 5/3/1 for bench, but I'm going to do it this way:

Week 1: 70%x3, 80%x3, 90%x3, 95%x1 paused, 2 board press 95%x3+

Week 2: 65%x5, 75%x5, 85%x5+, 75%x3, 70%x5+

Week 3: 75%x5, 85%x3, 95%x3+, 85%x3, 75%x5+

Week 4: Deload (insignificant)

I'll only rep out the + numbers on days when I feel good. I'll use the new PR to calculate my new training max for the next cycle. I'll definitely have to adjust my goals, unless I magically bulk 20 lbs of muscle in the next 2 months and hit 8 reps each cycle on my 95%x3+ (maybe if I hit a second puberty or started using dbol or something-not happening). Realistically I think I can bench 275 paused by the time I turn 18. Who knows, maybe this creatine or training program will give me amazing results and I'll somehow eat 5000 perfect calories a day and I"ll gain 10 lbs of muscle and 10 lbs of fat in the next 2 months, then bench 305, but I don't think so. I think the squat and deadlift are still achievable, but again, it's never reliable.

That being said, I'm probably going to take a 2 months break from kempo just so I can heal up all these injuries. I feel like a pussy for it, but thankfully I have a plan with a buddy of mine who's done martial arts for about 10 years and is a black belt at another dojo, who's also into lifting. He's doing stronglifts and works out mon-wed-fri, and I'm working out tues-wed-fri-sun, so we were thinking about doing some light (60%) sparring for cardio/skill, and also doing some conditioning work like hill sprints and pushing cars, on wednesdays and fridays. That should keep my cardio/fighting skill up, and possibly even help it. We're starting next week.

Since this post is already incredibly long I might as well write another paragraph about what I think caused my bicep to be fucked up today, and possibly even why my legs were shitty yesterday. First off, my bicep was compromised from all my kempo injuries (not really injuries but just built up wear and tear), but second, I went and played football with a couple family members on Sunday, not really any tackling, but mostly running and passing, and all of that throwing and sprinting must have put a lot of wear and tear on my joints, esp shoulder, elbow, and knees, especially because I weigh 200 lbs but my body is used to weighing 180. I usually could have recovered by wednesday, but I did the monday upper back workout, then did power cleans (even though they were light) on tuesday, giving it no time to heal. Either way, another shitty workout today, hopefully deadlifts will go well tomorow.

Sorry for the long post, as you can see going through my log, when I start talking about something I like to run my mouth (or in this case my fingers...) and describe it very thoroughly.

Edit: Surprised this website didn't put a link on the word dbol. Dianabol D-bol. No links

 

[amounirl]

Spoke to my Sensei today, the man is a genius, he somehow convinced me to stay. From now on though I'm not going to go to the thursday fighting classes, well at least while lifting is my focus. After I hit 300 on the bench I can start doing the intense thursday class again, but for now I'm probably just going to come on Wednesdays and Saturdays, maybe Mondays. Also one thing I forgot to mention was that I'm going to start up with 5s week tomorrow, that way I'm doing light bench and deads on weeks when I'm doing heavy or high volume OHP, and heavy bench and deads on weeks when I'm doing light OHP.

 

[amounirl]

4-20-12: DL and OHP

OHP
3x8x120

DL
Warmups
365x3x3 with 30 sec rest in between sets

Face pulls, lateral and rear delt flyes, and chin ups from in between sets and at the end

Had a decent workout, didn't attempt to go heavy and just focused on form, which actually felt pretty good today because of an article I recently read on the deadlift. Didn't want to go heavy because I felt pretty shitty and missed my DLs last week, but I made a new plan. Since this week was a piece of shit, I'm treating this week as if it was 3s week, so here's the plan for the rest of the time until my meet on my birthday:

DL is the same as Sq and bench, except instead of 3s, 5s, 5/3/1, 10/8/6, the cycle goes 3s, 3s with reverse band deficit DLs (hopefully 75%x3, 85%x3, 95%x3), 5/3/1, 10/8/6.


Week of: Sq and Bench; OHP
4-22: 5s; 5/3/1
4-29: 5/3/1; 10/8/6
5-6: 10/8/6; 5x5
5-13: 3s; 3x5
5-20: 5s; 5/3/1
5-27: 5/3/1; 10/8/6
6-3: Deload everything, meet on 6-8.

My attempts are going to be

Sq: 365, 385, 405
Bench: 245, 275, 300
DL: 450, 475, 500

Might throw in OHP: 165, 185, 200
or C and J: 200, 225
if I have time

If I can get the second attempts I'll be satisfied, I'll be stoked if I hit the 3rd numbers because that's my long term goal. Bodyweight will probably be around 210-220.

 

[amounirl]

Afternoon training session:


Pushed my buddy's car 2x150 ft, then 1x100 ft (I was gassed), then did light sparring for about 15 mins on and off.

 

[amounirl]

Strongman

Pretty uneventful, just did a bunch of random GPP including pushing a sled (wayyy harder than pushing a car, that was hell), wheelbarrow pendlay rows/viking presses, and tire flips. Hopefully next week I can get in a solid session.

 

[amounirl]

4-23-12: Easy 5 min supplementary workout

Dumbbells Incline Bench and Chest Supported Rows Superset
1x8x30s
3x8x50s

Just threw this in because I feel like I haven't gotten much chest or back work, I don't know if I"m just crazy or if if I'm actually atrophying or just gaining fat, but I keep looking smaller and fatter in the mirror, without gaining weight. I think it might be dietary, I'm going to start eating 6 medium sized meals a day instead of 1 small, 1-2 medium, and 1 huge meal. That has worked for me in the past, only recently when I started following the "eating later in the day" type diet (based on carb backloading) have I started to suffer these problems.

 

[amounirl]

4-24-12: Squat

Squat
warmups
5x255
5x295
6x330 55 lb/2 rep PR!

Not much else of note, walked out 4 plates and then did some light lunges but my workout got cut short today unfortunately.

 

[amounirl]

Forgot to mention I've been doing some gripper stuff. On sunday I was only able to close the CoC Trainer for 5 reps on my right hand, 1 rep on my left. Today I got 27 with my right hand and 15 on my left (most likely made such fast gains because it's a new and awkward motor pattern for me). I'm going to borrow the CoC #1 next week from my training partner.