08 July 2018
BFBattle
Day 4 (Heavy Day)
Front Squat(365) (135 x 10 w/u) - 3 x 185/225/275/ /5 x 325/4 x 345/3 x 365/1 x 385(no second rep, didn’t attempt 405)
Bench(285) - 10 x 135/3 x 185/225/ /5 x 255/4 x 270/3 x 285/2 x 300/1 x 315
Rack SGHP - 3 x 135/155/175/ /5 x 185/4 x 195/3 x 205/2 x 215/1 x 225
Wtd Pullup - 3 x BW/40/50/ /5 x 60/4 x 70/3 x 82.5/2 x 88/1 x 100
OHP(145) (75 x 10 w/u) - 3 x 95/115/125/ /5 x 135/4 x 140/3 x 145/2 x 155/1 x 160(!)
Warm Up - 15:36 (seriously, WTF)
Total - 73:15
So, this day SUCKS. ASS. I like this program, but today sucks. Going for these higher weights in this fashion is really a kick in the ass.
Front squats felt better this week than when I started this workout last week. Last week, I started with 185 for the warm up, which was a mistake. I usually start with 135 for 10, which feels light as shit now - when I unracked it, I popped up a little harder than I meant to and had to reset the weight before starting (it didn’t quite hop clear of my shoulders, but it definitely came close). When I started with 185 last week, my legs just didn’t feel as ‘loose’ as they normally do. After starting at 135 (I also threw in a few box jumps to try and get the ol’ CNS going) before starting the clock, I felt much better - at least early in the workout. Today’s weights got heavy a lot faster than usual. Pushed through, felt alright at 365, maybe a little wobbly in the body. Tried putting on a belt for 385 - seemed a bit more sturdy at first, then started to lose it forward coming out of the hole on the first rep. Experience tells me when that happens on the first rep, it typically gets worse on each subsequent so I racked it and called it there - the last two sets are ‘attempts’ anyways. Still kind of irks me - I was on the verge of 405 for a year or so but life and work kept getting in the way. Finally got it fall of '16, less than a week before tearing my bicep tendon. Managed to work around it and keep most of my strength up during post-op recovery and squeezed out 405x1 again a couple weeks after I was cleared to lift again - this would have been late winter/early spring '17. Ever since that one, every time I get close to it my upper back folds like a cheap card table. I’ve tried a couple different things for strengthening my upper back to no avail - I put on some thickness up there but my form issue got no better. I need to start filming my front squat (at least the heavier weight sets, where my form starts to suffer) and see what I can figure out. Trying to think what partial ROM or variations I can use to help strengthen that as well.
Bench felt pretty good, not much to write here. About half the bars we have here are so rusted that it’s hard to see where the knurling starts. I was benching with one of the bars that is still chromed enough to see the knurling (I use this as landmarks for where to set my hands), but it has a pretty good bend to it which was causing my bench to feel unstable (possibly my fault, from when I dumped a heavy front squat a couple weeks ago - it bounced on the benches I set for safeties, pretty sure this is the same bar from then). Since i was going heavier, I swapped it out with another. Wasn’t thinking about it, and ended up with a bar that was difficult to read the landmarks for hand spacing. Pretty sure my hands were in a slightly different spot every set, possibly even offset to one side or the other.
High Pulls - nothing to talk about here. I can just about do these in my sleep at this point. Pro tip: if you have trouble putting mass on your traps, go find the videos Thibs has made teaching this move and give it a try for a few weeks. This move has put more mass on my traps than anything else - I can’t remember the last time I did shrugs.
Pullups - same as SGHP. Worked up to the heaviest DB we have, the 100. If you can’t figure out where I found DBs that weight 82.5 and 88 pounds, those two sets are kilo DBs. I did the math so you wouldn’t have to (same with the 100, it’s a 45 so technically it’s 99 but close enough as doesn’t count).
Overhead Press felt pretty solid today, I was definitely happy getting 160 even if it was only for 1 rep. Not a PR, but the heaviest I’ve pressed in a while - and it was a pretty smooth movement as well, not overly fast but not a grinder. Goldilocks speed. After finishing the last circuit and putting away all my weights, I was going to do some lateral raises just to increase the total weekly tonnage for my delts. Got towards the end of the first set (30 x 5), and started feeling pain in the same place I tweaked it last week. So no lateral raises.
Yes, you read that time total correctly. I was definitely taking longer between sets on this one. Partially due to the heavier weights, but largely due to just plain old procrastination. At one point I even said to myself, ‘now you’re just procrastinating’, and then (as if to prove it to myself) picked up a DB and carried it back to the rack even though I hadn’t finished the round yet. I even pre-staged most of the weights and it didn’t seem to make much of a difference. <On a side note, I ran out of 45 pound plates tonight. OHP was done with 25s and a bunch of 10s (5s and 2.5s as well, obviously> As much as I hate to admit it, this program is beating me up a bit more than I expected. To be fair though, I didn’t take any time off in the shift from DH to this - the last day I was supposed to lift on the DH routine (bench day) I switched and did this instead. So one day off between DH and BFBattle. I have one more day left in this training week, which just happens to coincide with my travel days to get home, which will eat up most of the week (and then I’ll be jet lagged for the rest). Weird, you’d almost think I planned it this way… This will give me basically a week off, then I’ll pick back up in my (commercial) gym back home - just have to figure out the deadest time to do it. I’ve gotten used to lifting within 45 minutes to an hour of getting out of bed (no joke), so maybe I’ll continue and hit the gym first thing in the morning. Should be fairly dead around that time.
