My Training Log

[NoFatChicks91]

I am liking the sandbag stuff man. That stuff is really tough and 200 lbs is sick weight. I hope those stretches help. Like I said it's just an idea, but I can tell they really help my squats when I get loosened up before hand.

 

[amounirl]

Thanks man, actually did both stretches as part of my pre squat stretch routine today and it definitely helped!

Deadlift and OHP

Squat
Did some light sets with 3x5x135, wore the belt very loose so I could feel pushing my core out and arching my back. Technique wasn't perfect but much better than the last 2 times.

Strict Press
115x5/7/8/5

Deadlift
Worked up to 2x465. Recorded that set and also 3x365, here's the links to both:

365 clean: Deadlift 3x365 - YouTube
465 sh*tty: Deadlift 465x2 - YouTube

Definitely know it's hamstring weakness because my 365 was good but 465 technique broke down. Will be prioritizing Good mornings now

Good Mornings
15x95 lbs just to punish my hamstrings for being weak b*tches.

Pretty good day today. Kind of interesting thing happened this morning, I recently ordered a stimulant product called Black Widow Energy which includes caffeine, ephedra extract, and yohimbe bark extract, and I was reading reviews that said to start with very little and work your way up. Was bored this morning since all my friends are in school and my school doesn't start till Sept 22nd, so I took a little less than half a pill. The dosage is 3 pills. Keep in mind I almost never drink coffee, so I have no tolerance to stimulants. Within 10 mins, I had no appetite, and a ton of energy. I wanted to go for a run or something. Although my heart probably would have exploded. My heart rate before was 64-68 (my HR goes up when I test it, so I'm probably sitting more around 60), but once I was on it, I was too ADD to test my HR, but it was probably 80 or 90. I listened to a slayer album (forgot which one) and it sounded amazing because my mind was running fast, and the album was running fast. I felt pretty high strung and just powered through some pre-term chem HW, somehow had fun with it till I got stuck, then played some video games while listening to slayer and everything was way more intense than usual. Finally I got so jumpy that I just wanted to go work out, so I headed to the gym to do my deadlifts.

Once I was there I was powering through everything, somehow I managed to muster up the focus to do my stretches, and got pretty good technique on my squats as a result. OHP was pretty good, the 8th rep on the 3rd set was a pretty big grinder but I had a ton of energy and explosivity on all the reps leading up to it. Did band pull aparts between every set, shoulders felt great, though my left shoulder socket has been a little sore since tuesday, did some external rotations after and it felt much better. Didn't want to reaggravate it doing bradford presses though, so I just focused on my deads. Started to slow down on deads, but I was still a little extra energetic, so I was using pretty short rest periods on that. Was listening to Children of Bodom the whole time, a band I've kind of fallen out of love with over the years, as they became sh*tty, but since my mind was running so fast it sounded awesome. Now that I'm home and it's been about 4 hours since I took the half pill, I still have a slight energy high, but I feel pretty normal, heart rate is 60-64 again, and my mind feels just a little fast. Either way, had a good day today, training was pretty fun and efficient, even if I was a bit ADD/distracted from the pill. Pretty excited to start my cut because I literally feel unrelentingly positive when I'm on this stimulant, with only slight anxiety/jitteriness as side effects. Also I'm looking bigger and leaner in the mirror after training, even after my pump has faded, my traps look huge in the mirror. Really good day today.

 

[NoFatChicks91]

Glad those stretches helped man. I watched the deadlift too. Even though u struggled on 465 a little I'd still give you credit for it. Good shit that's like 100 lbs plus my 1 rep max haha.

Ps slayer is badass

 

[amounirl]

Haha thanks, my form was shitty but at least I know for sure that it's hamstring weakness, hitting the good mornings hard again should fix it, and throwing in some dynamic work to reinforce technique, on squat day. Slayer is badass indeed, especially while lifting or doing homework xD.

On a side note I took my brother to the park today and got him on a pull up progression, had him do 5x10 lat shrugs on the pull up bar, then 2 sets of negatives. Next time I'll have him run through 10x2 negatives, in between playing of course, don't want to make him hate strength work before he even gets started lifting weights. We both challenged eachother on the monkey bars (he's got an advantage weighing only 85 lbs though!) and we both managed to skip 2s, and somehow I didn't dislocate my arms. Did a few runs on the monkey bars and I definitely feel like it's improving my grip and back strength, also did a few sets of sternum pull ups, and 1 muscle up, before finishing off with a solid set of 10, touching my sternum on the first 4, chin over bar on the last 6, kind of a PR considering my best with just chin over the bar is 10 or 11 reps. Lots of good lat work today.

 

[NoFatChicks91]

I knew some crossfit guys that used monkey bars often in their workouts and those boys were in badass shape. I bet that will do wonders for your grip like you said. Hell that sounds like something I need to get in on. Wonder if kid's parents would care if a grown man went down to the park by himself and worked out on the monkey bars..

 

[amounirl]

Haha yeah it's awesome, done it by myself a few times and got weird looks, so I usually go while kids are in school, but from now on I'll probably just take my little brother so I can go when I want lol.

Was supposed to squat today but we had a beach class (happens only about once every 2-3 months) in Kempo and I didn't want to miss out on that, it was really early so I got no sleep, then the class itself wore me out, both fucked me over for squats. Had fun though! My hamstrings are still sore as hell, so I"m just gonna combine squat/bench tomorrow like this:

Squat 5x5x235
Bench 25 reps total x 195
Front squat 195 x (match bench reps)
Pendlay Row 135 4x10
Good mornings with bradford presses (probably 3x10x135 and 3x10x85)
speed DL into "Kirk Kowalski row" 10x1 (probably around 255-275)

Will probably drink this pre workout I got laying around before this just so I don't get exhausted and lazy. Expecting to be there for about 3-5 hours so I'll bring some rice and beans to eat after my front squats. Also came to the realization today that I'm doing too much moderate intensity cardio, since kempo classes are about 1.5 hrs, even though it's basically HIIT, the rest periods make it become moderate intensity on average, and therefore catabolic. Gotta limit it to 2-3x per week to preserve gains. Probably one of the reasons my last cut was so unsuccessful.

 

[amounirl]

9-9-12: Squat/Bench

Squat
245x5/7/8/6

Bench
195x5/9/9
235x1 paused
195x5 paused

Good Mornings
4x8x135

Bradford Press
2 or 3 x10x75

Pendlay Row
135x10/10/9

Decent day today, although I didn't get to do everything I had planned because I was so worn out. High volume squatting takes a lot out of me. At least I'm increasing the weight and reps every week though. Squats were good, technique is getting much better, been stretching a lot more and going down slower, wearing the belt very loose on most sets to help me push out my abs and keep my back angle. On bench I keep setting high rep PRs, so I decided to try a heavy single, and 235 felt way harder than it should have. I might have been fatigued but I think the reason is that I haven't been going heavy/low reps in a long time, so even though I'm making good gains on my high rep strength, my maximal strength isn't increasing significantly. That's fine though because up until I go to college I'm just going to continue my "add 5 lbs every week and do 25+ reps total" program, then start 5x5 until December, when I'll probably be pretty fat, then when I "cut" I'll either do smolov base cycle on a caloric surplus or sheiko 32 on a small deficit (or maintenance but with stimulant pills), after which I"ll start 5/3/1 to regain my maximal strength while maintaining rep strength. Periodization, kind of.

I knew if I did front squats I wouldn't have the energy to do GMs, and since my hamstrings are much weaker than my quads I decided to do GMs instead. Pendlays didn't go so well, I think the high rep program isn't really working, so I'll switch it to the same program I'm doing for my squat/bench, which seems to be working just fine. I think what I'll do for front squats, until I have the work capacity to go heavy on them and do GMs after, is just match the weight and reps for GMs, just to maintain my quads. I'll be hitting them hard on 5x5 in a few weeks anyways so it shouldn't be a problem. Could also have been worn out from just the sheer amount of work I had to do today, next week I'll definitely do squats on Saturday and Bench on Sunday. Still, not a bad day today, rest day tomorrow (with kempo at night), but I might do some rear delt work.

 

[amounirl]

9-11-12: Supplementary Lifts

Front Squat
195x5/9/9/5

Incline DB Bench and Chest Supp Row
60sx12/12
65sx10/10
70sx8/9

Drag Rows
2x10x95
2x10x115
1x11x135 followed by 9 shrugs

Front Plate Raise followed by plate halos (Raise/HaloRight/HaloLeft)
25x8/3/3
35x8/3/3x2
35x8/10/10

Felt really sluggish and tired today. My hamstrings have been sore for the last week and a half, but I think they're slowly adapting, iced the crap out of them yesterday. Also felt a bit sluggish at kempo yesterday, despite only gaining 1 lb this past week (198 at the gym), might be because there's a cough going around and I've been feeling a slight sore throat these last few days, or just my cardio is declining. Will start doing hill sprints whenever I haven't exercised in the last 5 hours and don't have to train legs in the next 24 hours. So that includes tonight, and tomorrow morning. Nothing too draining that will kill my strength work but enough to get my pussy assed lungs into shape.

Despite the sluggishness got a good front squat workout, last rep of both sets of 9 was paused because the weight was easy, the last set was all slow and paused (but explosive on the way up). Incline DB bench/chest supp rows were weaker than I expected, very sluggish and tired, and my cardio was shot. Drag rows were fun, I've been seeing a lot of guys smaller and weaker than me with bigger traps, even though I have good traps genetics, so I'm going to start hitting the traps more. Plus now that I'm benching with a closer grip they're more important. Just getting used to them, was very weak on these compared to what I'd expect. Front plate raises were good. Had a crazy pump after lifting, tried to get a picture but my hands were shaking way too much and my phone camera sucks, requires you to be completely still for 5 sec. Looked bigger than ever in the mirror though.

It's funny because for the longest time my chest and traps were way bigger than my shoulders, but now my shoulders are catching up. I still have a narrow shoulder bone structure, but all the back work is making them look wider, and my shoulders have been getting much thicker with all the isolation I've been adding. Now I gotta start hitting my chest more because it honestly is starting to look small compared to my front delts. It's all vain bodybuilding crap, but from a powerlifting perspective, bigger muscles=more leverage! Really notice a lot more bottom end strength on the bench press from the shoulder gains. No strongman tonight unfortunately.

 

[NoFatChicks91]

Shit, hope you aren't getting sick. I've had strep throat for 2 months now and haven't been able to get rid of it. I'm finally getting back to normal energy range thank god. I don't know, if your hamstrings are jacked for that long it could just be a little overtraining. Last week I could tell my legs were starting to get overtrained, my lifts were going down and cardio was kicking my ass. Took it easy over the weekend and made 5 new PRs. Maybe just back off on the legs for a few days. Idk it could also be that the cardio is taxing your legs inbetween your lifting days.

Whatever it is I love the attitude of you getting in there and tearing it up while you're feeling run down like that. Keep it up brother

 

[amounirl]

Thanks man, yeah I think I'm feeling better now, been taking a lot of vitamin C. I took it pretty easy on Tuesday and my hammies are still sore, I'll just have to see how today's workout feels, if my deadlift is stalled then I might take a deload.