I have no idea what's going on anymore.

[SoaringSwine]

Very nice deadlifting.

[ThePman]

Day 1 - 1/18/10

Box Squat - 1RM: 163 kg

110 kg x 3 reps @ 7 RPE - 68% of 1RM

120 kg x 3 reps @ 8 RPE - 74% of 1RM

130 kg x 3 reps @ 8 RPE - 80% of 1RM

Bench Press - 1RM: 125 kg

77.5 kg x 3 reps @ 7 RPE - 62% of 1RM

90 kg x 3 reps @ 7 RPE - 72% of 1RM

100 kg x 6 reps @ 8 RPE - 80% of 1RM

Followed up with about five close-grip triples with the fatbar, up to 95kg.

Kinda hungover/tired from yesterday so I didn't feel all that motivated going in, but it ended up okay. Shoulders are both holding up fine on the benching. I'm doing a ton of band pull-aparts and face pulls in between sets and making sure to stretch and tennis-ball the capsules when I get home. The higher reps and focusing on keeping very tight and very strict form probably isn't hurting anything either.

[ThePman]

Day 2 - 1/20/10

Power Clean - 1RM: 109 kg

80 kg x 2 reps @ 7 RPE - 74% of 1RM

85 kg x 2 reps @ 7 RPE - 78% of 1RM

90 kg x 2 reps @ 8 RPE - 83% of 1RM

95 kg x 2 reps @ 8 RPE - 87% of 1RM

100 kg x 2 reps @ 9 RPE - 92% of 1RM

Chinups - 1RM: 137 kg

100 kg x 3 reps @ 6 RPE - 73% of 1RM

110 kg x 3 reps @ 7 RPE - 80% of 1RM

120 kg x 2 reps @ 9 RPE - 88% of 1RM

130 kg x 2 reps (1+1 rest-pause) @ 10 RPE - 95% of 1RM

Finished up with one set of 30 on the back hyper.

Diet must be okay, I was 88.2 in the chucks.

All this pulling is beating up my poor hands. That whatever it is in my right ring finger seems to be getting a little better, finally. But then I managed to rip a big chunk of skin off my right pinky on the cleans, and it was bleeding pretty bad for half the workout.

[ThePman]

Day 3 - 1/21/10

Front Squat - 1RM: 128 kg

75 kg x 5 reps @ 7 RPE - 58% of 1RM

85 kg x 3 reps @ 7 RPE - 66% of 1RM

95 kg x 5 reps @ 8 RPE - 74% of 1RM

Incline Bench - 1RM: 115 kg

85 kg x 5 reps x 5 sets @ 8 RPE - 74% of 1RM

Finished with weighted abs for two sets of 10 and one set of back raises/hypers for 30 reps.

Thought I was gonna black out on my main set of front squats. I unracked it, then had a pain in my shoulder so I racked it to get a better grip, then went light-headed, and kinda went out in space for the set. It happened so hell with it.

5x5 for the incline bench is the trigger to bump the weight. Not sure if I want to continue with the 5x3 to 5x5 progression, or switch to singles. Singles are more fun, but we'll see.

This is the last microcycle for this block, and I've got my next one drawn up here.

[ThePman]

Day 1 - 1/25/10

Deadlift - 1RM: 247 kg

165 kg x 5 reps @ 8 RPE - 67% of 1RM

187.5 kg x 3 reps @ 8 RPE - 76% of 1RM

210 kg x 4 reps @ 9 RPE - 85% of 1RM

Chinups - 1RM: 135 kg

100 kg x 5 reps x 2 sets @ 8 RPE - 74% of 1RM

100 kg x 3 reps x 3 sets @ 8 RPE - 74% of 1RM

My right hand is a mess right now. The ring finger is still stiff, puffy, and sore in the joints. I don't know what the hell I did to it, but it needs to hurry up and heal. Hook gripping is impossible above 140, and even mixed-grip isn't doing so hot on the heavier sets. The pinky finger got cut the other day, so it's got a big rip on it and is also sore and puffy. I taped it up for the workout, but I'm running with two fingers out of the game on that hand, so 210x4 @9 should have been a 6-rep set.

I weighed 88.2 so my IF diet is working well enough. Not interested in dramatic losses, but staying between 85 and 90 is probably for the best right now.

[rose]

"IF"? If I don't eat that I won't get fat? :pfft:

[ThePman]

Naw IF = Intermittent Fasting.

The idea is to fast 16 hours and then fit your meals into an 8 hour block of eating. So I skip breakfast and load up on stimulants instead (way more fun), and put the first meal off til noon or 1pm. Then eat several very protein-biased meals until 8-9pm.

It's not a deliberate dieting strategy since I don't count calories or anything else, but it does seem to lead to nice gradual losses in fat and doesn't mess up my energy levels for lifting since I get the bulk of my food before and after the workout.

[steak]

Finger sounds muntered :roll: Good luck with it

[Thunderhorse]

Intermittent fasting is the shit.

247 is a damn fine deadlift, congrats bro. Couple of quick questions:

1. What grip do you train with?

2. Your opinion on Kroc Rows?

[ThePman]

Intermittent fasting is the shit.

247 is a damn fine deadlift, congrats bro. Couple of quick questions:

1. What grip do you train with?

2. Your opinion on Kroc Rows?

I've been trying to get good at the hook grip lately, but the mess in my right hand has been making that tricky. My standard grip is just the usual over-under mixed grip, right hand dominant.

I like Kroc rows. I'm a fan of sloppy back work in general, honestly. Everybody's jumping on the bandwagon, but I don't see any harm in giving them a shot and seeing if they help out. The real benefit to them is that you're using heavy weights for a lot of work, and building the kind of mental toughness that involves.

[ThePman]

Day 2 - 1/27/10

Box Squat - 1RM: 150 kg

100 kg x 2 reps @ 7 RPE - 67% of 1RM

110 kg x 2 reps @ 7 RPE - 73% of 1RM

120 kg x 2 reps @ 7 RPE - 80% of 1RM

130 kg x 2 reps @ 8 RPE - 87% of 1RM

135 kg x 1 reps @ 8 RPE - 90% of 1RM

100 kg x 3 reps x 2 sets @ 7 RPE - 67% of 1RM

Bench Press - 1RM: 128 kg

82.5 kg x 5 reps @ 7 RPE - 64% of 1RM

95 kg x 3 reps @ 7 RPE - 74% of 1RM

105 kg x 6 reps @ 9 RPE - 82% of 1RM

Close-grip Bench (w/ Fat bar) - 1RM: 113 kg

90 kg x 3 reps x 5 sets @ 8 RPE - 80% of 1RM

So I got stupid tonight on box squats and tried to build up to a daily max, then do some back-off sets. I used a low box, a couple inches lower than normal height and pretty visibly below parallel. The build up went fine. Then on the second back-off set at 100, the right quad went "rip". Not bad, it was more a warning-tear than a full blow-out, fortunately, though there is some obvious bruising. It's only mildly annoying to put it through a ROM, so I'm just going to hit it aggressively with some high-rep BW squats the next few days to get some blood in it and help it mend up. No more low-box squatting for awhile, anyway.

Benching is going nicely, on the other hand. The mobility work I'm doing for the upper body is helping this along just fine.

[steak]

close call on the quad

[Thunderhorse]

Thanks for the info! Yikes, scary squat incident. Do you think there is any merit in training double overhand (it is definitely harder, for me) or switching between left hand and right hand dominant?

I personally like doing mixed grip because I can lift a lot more but I was wondering if there's any merit in other ways.

[ThePman]

I've been doing high-rep sets of BW squats and lunges, which oddly seem to make the pain go away. I dunno if I just ripped some scar tissue in there or what, because putting it through a loaded ROM is not painful at all. Sitting here at my desk and flexing the VMO is painful, but not full-ROM squats or one-leg squats. Go figure.

Nothing of major interest to log tonight, just did some cleans up to 102.5 and had a miss at 105 mainly due to psyching myself out with the weight. The pull was there, my catch wasn't. Oh well.

Finished up with light squats, one set of 15 with the bar and then sets of 10 with 60, 70, and 80. These worked my lungs more than anything, but they did feel nice and good on the quad.

One set of 12 pullups and that was it.

[ThePman]

Day 1 - 2/1/10

Squat - 1RM: 141 kg

60 kg x 5 reps @ 7 RPE - 43% of 1RM

70 kg x 5 reps @ 7 RPE - 50% of 1RM

80 kg x 5 reps @ 7 RPE - 57% of 1RM

90 kg x 5 reps @ 7 RPE - 64% of 1RM

100 kg x 5 reps @ 7 RPE - 71% of 1RM

Bench Press - 1RM: 130 kg

75 kg x 5 reps @ 7 RPE - 58% of 1RM

85 kg x 5 reps @ 7 RPE - 65% of 1RM

97.5 kg x 8 reps @ 9 RPE - 75% of 1RM

Close-grip Bench - 1RM: 122 kg

90 kg x 5 reps @ 8 RPE - 74% of 1RM

90 kg x 4 reps @ 8 RPE - 74% of 1RM

90 kg x 3 reps x 3 sets @ 8 RPE - 74% of 1RM

Chinups - 1RM: 131 kg

118 kg x 1 reps x 4 sets @ 8 RPE - 90% of 1RM

This last half-blowout of my quad convinced me that I need to really do something about it instead of just trying to work around it. So one more time, I'm resetting to lighter weights and trying to slowly build it back up. I read some Bill Starr articles for inspiration, and my plan is to focus on building up the workload each session instead of cutting back the ramp-up sets to hit the top weight. I'm planning on slow 2.5kg increases per week, which is going to mean a lot of easy workouts, but it also means that the quad will get a chance to get broken in and hopefully actually heal up.

I modified my training cycle for this month accordingly, but it's not a huge difference from what I'd already decided on.

[ThePman]

Day 2 - 2/3/10

Front Squat - 1RM: 106 kg

90 kg x 1 reps x 10 sets @ 7 RPE - 85% of 1RM

Overhead Press - 1RM: 67 kg

60 kg x 1 reps x 4 sets @ 8 RPE - 90% of 1RM

Deadlift - 1RM: 256 kg

210 kg x 1 reps x 4 sets @ 8 RPE - 82% of 1RM

Lots and lots of singles tonight. I love singles. I was way too conservative on the front squats. I ended up doing a rep every 60 seconds, and they never got above a 7. No big deal, this is supposed to be a slow and steady progression.

The OHP and DL were more spot on, but I was still using 60s rests on the OHP and 2m rests on the DL. No grinders, though. Everything was smooth. I'll gradually work these up to 10 singles, then add weight.

[steak]

hows the hand now?

[ThePman]

Better. Still not 100% and it flared up a bit on the DL warmups last night, but at least it's making progress.

[ThePman]

Day 3 - 2/5/10

Power Clean - 1RM: 111 kg

100 kg x 1 reps x 4 sets @ 8 RPE - 90% of 1RM

Squat - 1RM: 138 kg

60 kg x 5 reps x 1 sets @ 7 RPE - 43% of 1RM

70 kg x 5 reps x 1 sets @ 7 RPE - 51% of 1RM

80 kg x 5 reps x 1 sets @ 7 RPE - 58% of 1RM

90 kg x 5 reps x 1 sets @ 7 RPE - 65% of 1RM

Incline Bench - 1RM: 106 kg

90 kg x 1 reps x 4 sets @ 7 RPE - 85% of 1RM

Finished up with one set of 15 pullups, one set of 30 back raises, and one set of weighted crunches. Weight was down to 87.7 kg (~193 lbs), which is getting down there. As long as I don't dip under 190 I really shouldn't have any problems with strength. However this also means I can eat junk tomorrow.

[ThePman]

Day 1 - 2/8/10

Squat - 1RM: 161 kg

60 kg x 5 reps @ 6 RPE - 37% of 1RM

72.5 kg x 5 reps @ 6 RPE - 45% of 1RM

85 kg x 5 reps @ 6 RPE - 53% of 1RM

97.5 kg x 5 reps @ 6 RPE - 60% of 1RM

105 kg x 5 reps @ 7 RPE - 65% of 1RM

Bench Press - 1RM: 128 kg

80 kg x 3 reps @ 7 RPE - 62% of 1RM

90 kg x 3 reps @ 7 RPE - 70% of 1RM

102.5 kg x 6 reps @ 9 RPE - 80% of 1RM

Close-grip Bench - 1RM: 122 kg

90 kg x 5 reps x 3 sets @ 8 RPE - 74% of 1RM

90 kg x 3 reps x 2 sets @ 8 RPE - 74% of 1RM

Chinups - 1RM: 132 kg

118.5 kg (+30kg) x 1 reps x 6 sets @ 8 RPE - 90% of 1RM

Good session today. Weight was back up to 88.5 (~195 lbs) from all the junk over the last three days. Pies and KFC and Cadbury are the best.

Squats are easing back up slowly. I get a little warning-stretch not-quite-pain in both the quad and the previous adductor injury from a year ago, but it eases out as I go up the ladder.

[ThePman]

Day 2 - 2/10/10

Front Squat - 1RM: 118 kg

100 kg x 1 reps x 6 sets @ 8 RPE - 85% of 1RM

Overhead Press - 1RM: 71 kg

60 kg x 1 reps x 6 sets @ 8 RPE - 85% of 1RM

Deadlift - 1RM: 256 kg

210 kg x 1 reps x 6 sets @ 9 RPE - 82% of 1RM

Everything felt nice and smooth tonight. Still keeping 60s timed rests on the FSQ and OHP.

The DL got 9s here because the last two singles were really damn hard, and I extended the rest times to 3-4 minutes. I'm going to have to start putting a belt on next week; my body just can't handle that many consecutive first-reps without a little support. I'm feeling the deadlift in spots you really shouldn't be feeling it, like lats and biceps/forearms.

I'm going to peak this in two more workouts if all goes well (10 singles), then I need to try a max of at least 250. More would be nice, but one step at a time. 250 is the benchmark I need to hit.

[Beef]

those are some solid weight pman well done!

[ThePman]

Day 3 - 2/12/10

Power Clean - 1RM: 105 kg

100 kg x 1 reps x 6 sets @ 9 RPE - 95% of 1RM

Squat - 1RM: 139 kg

60 kg x 5 reps @ 7 RPE - 43% of 1RM

72.5 kg x 5 reps @ 7 RPE - 52% of 1RM

85 kg x 5 reps @ 7 RPE - 61% of 1RM

97.5 kg x 5 reps @ 7 RPE - 70% of 1RM

Incline Bench - 1RM: 100 kg

90 kg x 1 reps x 6 sets @ 8 RPE - 90% of 1RM

Finished with one set of 17 pullups and one set of 35 back raises.

This workout wasn't too hot going in. I've been feeling pretty beat up, and even binging on junk food (BK + pies + candy bars along with my regular eating) didn't budge my weight up any. Oh well.

I missed all but two of the six attempts on the power cleans. Height was there, couldn't seal the catch. This was a technique/mental thing, speed was mostly there.

Squats were squats, and inclines felt alright.

[Beef]

hey mate, i'm curious as to how you work out those percentages of your 1 RM

[ThePman]

There's a web app I use to track the information, and it spits out the estimated 1RM based on the weight/reps/RPE. I have no idea how accurate it is, and I'm not really tracking it.