Dude, I do NOT touch my chest on militaries. I stop around chin level. So I’m not that far ahead of you in the OHP department.
Good stuff holmes.
Today was pretty much… yeah. Nothing great but nothing bad happened. I was expecting to be a little stronger today, but I’m still pretty goddamn sore from back/shoulders so I’m hoping that may have affected things a bit. I’m really not happy with the decline numbers, I thought 10+ was going to be easy. I guess I am still working my way back up in weight, though, gawd.
Still, decided early on to make it a high-rep day, as I’ve been (inadvertently) keeping my working ranges for chest in the 5-8, which I’ve been trying to cycle around.
Decline BB (“loosey goosey” form to emphasize chest - flared elbows, not much of a tuck)
245 x 1 (Done on purpose, just so 225 would feel light)
225 x 9 (meh)
225 x 6 (tired)
205 x 8
Incline BB (more flared, trying out a wide-stance base like Bug was talking about, it was nice.)
185 x 8
185 x 6
135 x 16
Flat Flyes (fucking fried as chest at this point)
~70 lbs x 7
~55 lbs x 8 (lollll)
No cardio right now. Doing sprints later tonight - because I don’t think I’ll be directly hitting legs this week. My lower back still isn’t recovering from the 5/3/1 as quickly as I was hoping so I do need to lay off the leg work, probably going to make it more like once every 1.5-2 weeks instead of a straight once per week.
[quote]bugeishaAD wrote:
Dude, I do NOT touch my chest on militaries. I stop around chin level. So I’m not that far ahead of you in the OHP department.
Good stuff holmes.[/quote]
Psh, w/e. You’re still miles ahead in the sexy department.
ARM DAY, pretty good.
I am really enjoying pre-fatiguing my triceps with Skull crushers before close-gripping. The weights used on the presses kind of suck, but it has been MUCH more friendly on my carpal tunnel issue.
EZ Skull Crushers
125 lbs x 10
125 lbs x 8
115 lbs x 11
Close-Grip (big squeeze, slow, full ROM)
200 x 7
190 x 6 (wat)
165 x 10 (lol wrists)
L-Extensions
25 x 13.5
15 x 27 SUPERSET WITH…
Tricep Kickbacks
10 x 17 (crazy pump, lol, never done these before, ever.)
Strict Preacher Hammer Curls
50 lbs x 6 (heavy)
45 lbs x 8
40 lbs x 11
EZ Bar Preacher Curls
95 x 8
85 x 9
65 x 16
K-Pipe Curls
25 x 16
25 x 10 (wrist domination, NOT good.)
Then I decided to do sprints afterwards. I’ve never done real sprints in my Vibrams before, but just Prowler Sprints. Holy shit, I can definitely feel it in my ankles. I did 7 sprints of about 60-70 yards or so. Nothing too crazy, but I’m pretty fat and out of shape after this last weekend, hahaw.
Also, because I listened to this old school jam,
Coheed reference in title . . . . I’m in!
[quote]ashylarryku wrote:
Coheed reference in title . . . . I’m in![/quote]
Fuck yes, man! I was starting to lose faith in humanity for a while there. Glad to hear someone’s got their head screwed on right (and you listen to metal too, good for you.) 
Today was kind of a doucher. I HAD to do something, but my delts weren’t ready yet and I couldn’t do legs, as they’re pretty farkin’ sore from squats yesterday.
Tomorrow I will be helping my company move to a new building so there’s little chance I will be able to work out tomorrow as well.
So, I did a “back” day.
LATS / UPPER BACK / REAR DELTS
Rack Chins
95 lbs on EZ bar on my lap x 8
75 lbs on EZ bar on my lap x 9
65 lbs on EZ bar on my lap x 9
BW x 12 (haha fuck)
BB Row** (See description below) - EXTREMELY TIGHT FORM, no body english at all
185 x 9
165 x 14
115 x 30
Rear DB Flyes (higher angle then previous, didn’t like it, hit traps too much)
45 lbs x 10
35 lbs x 13
25 lbs x 13
15 lbs x 14
DB Shrug (5 second hold squeeze) SUPERSET with Hang Cleans*** (see also below)
75 lbs x 13 / 115 lbs x 11
75 lbs x ? (didn’t write down, 8?) / 115 lbs x ? (8 maybe too, lol)
About the BB Rows, I’m using serious bitch weight BUT, this is only serving to keep my lower back healthy. And these almost fucking destroyed it, which is why I stopped after only a few sets. Lower back health is 180% top priority in my life, currently. Also, when I say strict, I mean there is NO other movement whatsoever besides the bar (you get it.)
Also, the Hang Cleans, disregard the weight and all that. The form is probably fairly shitty, but I only do them once in a blue moon for some trap stimulation.
Not a bad workout, but it’s fucking disheartening not being able to ACTUALLY do a real back thickness workout.
Wouldn’t worry about it… your still putting in work with everything you can do… which is all anyone could ask!
I heard on the rumourmill (/read in alpha section) that you have huge-ass calves… what do you attribute most of your growth in them to? My calves are a relatively ok part genetically but they are still not much above 16" iirc… unfortunately that beats my arms easily… I’m currently using 5 second descents and 3 second pauses and they feel great… still not a ton of doms with them after 5 sets like this and a few sets of leg press calf raise, though…
Hey man, just saw this… Been a while!
I guess I should have made sure your technique was fine back then, huh… Sorry brother (did I write you a program though? Can’t remember at all). And yeah, your transformation is crazy!
What are your goals now?
[quote]jake_j_m wrote:
Wouldn’t worry about it… your still putting in work with everything you can do… which is all anyone could ask!
I heard on the rumourmill (/read in alpha section) that you have huge-ass calves… what do you attribute most of your growth in them to? My calves are a relatively ok part genetically but they are still not much above 16" iirc… unfortunately that beats my arms easily… I’m currently using 5 second descents and 3 second pauses and they feel great… still not a ton of doms with them after 5 sets like this and a few sets of leg press calf raise, though… [/quote]
Honestly man, being fat for 18 years is 100% what I attribute to calf size. That, and my dad is 57 years old and still has legit 18" calves… he’s never lifted weights in his life. I’m really rather gifted in that area, back when I was still SUPER fat my freshman year in college I had legit bodybuilders coming up to me saying how jealous they were of of the strength/size I had in them. Shit you not.
That being said… they only got bigger once I started doing calves, DC-style. That’s the one and only way I trained them, and managed to put about an extra inch and a half on them in about a 2-year span. So, sorry man, that’s all I can really recommend. I would not suggest becoming morbidly obese for teh calvezz.
[quote]Cephalic_Carnage wrote:
Hey man, just saw this… Been a while!
I guess I should have made sure your technique was fine back then, huh… Sorry brother (did I write you a program though? Can’t remember at all). And yeah, your transformation is crazy!
What are your goals now?
[/quote]
Thanks for stopping in, C_C! It definitely has been a while.
No worries at all about the technique, and program and stuff, lol. Yeah, you gave me a pretty low-volume routine to start off on, which really was great - especially considering I was planning on doing Starting Strength, lol. I think it was something in this fashion-
Monday - Chest
Tuesday - Legs
Wednesday - Shoulders
Thursday - Back
Friday - Arms?
or something like that, some kind of variation in there. Seriously, I can’t thank you enough for getting me on a real split.
I knew I was going to have to drop/add some certain exercises here and there as I learned my body, so it was all part of trial and error anyway. Most of the things you had me doing then I’m doing now anyway, just doing them much better. 
Thanks for the comments on the transformation, haha. Currently my goals are to really get legitimately lean. I did so two years ago but jumped RIGHT into a hard bulk (see = 2,000 calories per day too many) and got fat again. Since then I’ve been up and been down, but have gotten stronger while doing so.
I believe I’ve reached a point in my life where to really make the next step I need to get very lean, hold it for a while, and really start working my way back up in calories. Getting stronger is great, but in terms of actual mass I don’t think I’ve gained a whole lot in the last year, since my calories have been semi-restricted the whole time. My priorities first and foremost are from a physique standpoint, and everything else falls by the wayside.
So, all I can do is keep trucking forward. I’m in a really weird spot in my life and mentally, so I’m trying to keep as consistent as possible. But no one ever accomplished anything great without a few obstacles in the way, here and there.
So… that being said.
I was planning on having an off-day. Like I mentioned in my post yesterday, this morning I was helping the company I work for move over heavy shit to their new building for about 3 hours this morning. I was doing this totally fasted (I mean, whatever, lol.)
BUT… my boss is a PLer, and a pretty damn good one. He knew I had had some injury issues in the past but wanted to see how my form on the big 3 looked. Said we’d keep it light.
Well - I managed to at least scrape a little out of the reserve energy stores. And at this point, I was more fasted than fasted itself. I had nothing in me but two pieces of gum, haha. Ended up setting a PR.
“Workout” went something like this:
BACK BOX SQUAT (said my stance is too narrow, so I widened it up a LOT)
135 x 10
225 x 5
315 x 5
365 x 2+1 (just a bit of help, but yeah buddy! Never felt 365 on my back before. Really not that bad.)
275 x 12
Then we did really, incredibly uber-light form checks on benching and deadlifts. Apparently my stance was like, ridiculously too wide on DLs, lol. Said it was basically a modified sumo/conventional stance, he was really confused, lol.
So it was nothing crazy but I got some (ridiculous) fasted morning cardio with the moving and then a nice little workout that I never saw coming - cool.
^ the training above is pretty awesome… shows what a “coach”/the right people can do… makes all the difference. good PR man.
& It’s cool on the calves… whilst I don’t intend to get morbidly obese I have found long eccentrics and pauses (but not as long as DC) to be the first thing to really hit my calves hard for awhile now… so we’re on sort of the same page! I know I have it in me for pretty huge calves as they are past 16" and I’ve got so so far to go on them…
[quote]jake_j_m wrote:
^ the training above is pretty awesome… shows what a “coach”/the right people can do… makes all the difference. good PR man.
& It’s cool on the calves… whilst I don’t intend to get morbidly obese I have found long eccentrics and pauses (but not as long as DC) to be the first thing to really hit my calves hard for awhile now… so we’re on sort of the same page! I know I have it in me for pretty huge calves as they are past 16" and I’ve got so so far to go on them…
[/quote]
Definitely agree about the right coaching man, it really felt great. And thanks!
Don’t worry about the calves, man. Looks like you’re better off right now than a lot of other folks are. I’ve come into the idea more and more recently that calves truly are one of the more genetically-influenced bodyparts out there, for sure. Keep hammering 'em hard bro.
So, today was a bummer. Felt GREAT going in… and then blah. Body just wasn’t having it.
After the warm-up felt heavy, and the terrible first “heavy” set, I knew today was going to be a stimulate, not annihilate day, and that it would be a quick one.
Oh well, I guess you have to have your shitty days to get to the awesome ones.
BB OHP
195 x 2 (YIKES, wow. Bad)
165 x 10
135 x 12
Seated DB Laterals
45 x 12 (not uber strict, but not too loose)
25 x 15
25 x 8
15 x 16
Front Raises
45 x 8 (Bad pain, all done)
So yeah… like I said, total shit day. 's okay!
Did you get hurt? Where’s the training?
[quote]165StateChamp wrote:
Did you get hurt? Where’s the training?[/quote]
Lol… don’t taze me bro! Felt like total balls this weekend. Started working out one day and quit halfway through warm-ups because I was going to puke. Then I was helping some friends move the last 2 days, so blah on that.
Ate extremely shitty ALL days (as in, nothing all day moving and then binge at night, or I could barely eat anything those days I didn’t feel great.)
Felt great going in. Numbers weren’t very good, especially on the chest exercises, but I had a fucking SICK MMC going today for whatever reason. Haven’t felt so pumped in a long while… must be the explosion of shitty carbs.
Did NOT do CG presses today, as my inclines utilize a very close grip anyway, so I figured it would be redundant. I don’t regret it. Killed the triceps today.
EDIT: Also, forgot, my wrists were fucking death today. I usually don’t throw on the straps until work sets but they were screaming when I was warming up with like 115 lbs, so that wasn’t good. Didn’t seem to affect my work sets too much, as far as I could tell.
CHEST + TRICEPS (haven’t done this combo in a LONG while.)
Decline BB
255 x 1.5 (sooo wrong. Wtf is going on, tried to get second rep up for like 5 seconds, lol)
225 x 6 (?!?!?!?!?!)
195 x 11
Incline BB
190 x 6
165 x 10
135 x 14 (partial reps, last 3 reps were paused for a few seconds with a HUGE stretch on top of chest)
DB Flye
70 x 6 (fuckin spinning my wheels, chest was donezo)
EZ Skullcrushers
~140 lbs x 6 (EPIC PR)
115 x 11
115 x 8
65 x 18
L-Extensions
25 x 10 (really bothered my right shoulder, weird)
15 x 24
Will do sprints/prowler sprints/both later.
Lol, 4 days go by after a session where you complain about pain after every other lift, got me wondering. Good stuff though. Mirin dumbbell flys.
got my attention that you DDR for cardio. lol vid?
following because that is an amazing transformation. you sir will keep me going when the grind sucks.
[quote]165StateChamp wrote:
Lol, 4 days go by after a session where you complain about pain after every other lift, got me wondering. Good stuff though. Mirin dumbbell flys. [/quote]
Hahaha, right. Kind of surprising there was no injury. shifty eyes And yeah, for some reason I’m much better at flyes than I am at pressing - obviously, haha. But thanks bro!
[quote]fr0IVIan wrote:
got my attention that you DDR for cardio. lol vid?
following because that is an amazing transformation. you sir will keep me going when the grind sucks.[/quote]
Lmao, yeah man, I use to play the shit out of DDR in high school back when I was fat. Got super good at it, got some exercise, and use to hustle people at arcades for a little bit of cash, hehe. I can work on getting a video uploaded today at some point.
And thanks man! Losing the weight really was pretty easy. Gotta say it’s been much more difficult trying to figuring out my body over the last few years!
Whew. Legs.
Started doing squats onto a 15" Albany Strength protein jug. Did that through the heavy set, and realized it wasn’t going to work out, haha. Tub wouldn’t stay stable like a box on rubber floors in a gym. 
Also, was monkeying with the new technique my boss showed me, which is WAY wider than I’d normally go. Still seemed to be okay. No big boy weights though.
Squats - Very little rest between sets (60-90 tops)
315 x 2 (onto box)
(Rest NOT box squats)
265 x 8
225 x 14
225 x 8 (lower back was firmly telling me to fuck off after this)
Leg Extensions (100 reps)
50 x 40
50 x 30
50 x 30
Yeah, cool story bro.
I think the board ate my reply…
yea I can believe you’re good at it. I used to see huge dudes running DDR back in the day. they looked like they could barely bend down and tie their shoes and they were shuffling their feet at warp speed to some crazy 200 bpm Japanese crack seizure-inducing song.
and wtf 70 lb flyes. totes mirin.
[quote]fr0IVIan wrote:
I think the board ate my reply…
yea I can believe you’re good at it. I used to see huge dudes running DDR back in the day. they looked like they could barely bend down and tie their shoes and they were shuffling their feet at warp speed to some crazy 200 bpm Japanese crack seizure-inducing song.
and wtf 70 lb flyes. totes mirin.[/quote]
Haha, definitely man. I had no stamina past like a minute and forty seconds, but I was golden during that time period, lol.
Felt like total balls today, AGAIN. Decided to hit it anyway, because whatever. Apparently there’s some kind of flu thing going around real bad, I don’t know if I either had that, am working on having it, have allergies, or am just a pussy. Either way, my abdomen felt really “rumbly” and I pissed out my ass like 5 times before working out today.
Had to keep it extremely short and sweet because I had work this morning, and Packers after 4. Nothing stands in the way of my Packers.
“Shoulders and Back”
Seated OHPs
165 x 10.5 (re-racking this by myself was… interesting to say the least)
145 x 9
115 x 11
Deadlifts (brand spanking new form, felt decent)
385 x 4
315 x 10 (lower back DEATHDEATHDEATH)
And that’s it. I can’t emphasize enough how out of it my body was. Mentally I’m golden and 100%, but I just gotta shake this crud before I can start getting some productive sessions. Even my warm-up for OHPs felt heavy, which was 165, and just decided to rep it out.
where do you rack, overhead? I always felt it was easier to rack at the bottom position. but what do I know…