Brute's Non-Stop Endeavor for Strength

Training Logs
1

Hello, Brute here.

Though I don’t have a lot of free time on my hands I’m going to try to keep a log here to keep track of my nutrition as well as my trainings.

My stats:
Age:22
Weight:195
Height:6ft1/2in

Best lifts to date
Squat 1x3 315
Deadlift 1x3 455
Bench 1x2 275
OHP 1x3 165

I have several things I want to take care of which I could breakdown into several categories.

Gym goals:
Ditch straps and start using chalk (done)
Squat more than I bench
Deadlift 6 plates for at least 1 rep
Dip my BW+3 plates
Pull up my BW+2 plates

Nutrition Goal
Eat better
Prep my food better
Learn to cook better so I can add variety to my meals
Drink more water
Eat more everyday, currently trying to eat 4200 cals every day

Overall Goals
Weight, attain a solid 210lbs short term, 225 long term.
Deadlift 6 plates
Squat 4 plates
Bench 3 plates
Overhead 200+ lbs, pref 2 plates.

My weapons of choice:
Heavy death metal
Chalk
Wrist wraps
My trusty costco membership card to give me access to that ground beef goodness
5/3/1 program

I use to like volume a lot but I figured I might not need as much as I have been doing.

I decided to cut it down a bit to focus of my weak parts and to actually use assistance work as… well… Assistance. I don’t want my assistance to stay off of the main lifts anymore, I will try to perform moves that have a significant carryover to my main lift. I really want strength but I do want size maybe a little more, though, I’m confident I’ll be able to get the size I want through Heavy compounds and heavy assistance.

2

Reserved for personal videos:

Don’t have any 1rm videos of myself, but I do have those two which I’m proud of, I took em a little while ago before maxing out in my 5/3/1 program.

Here is me deadlifting 455x3 @ 190-195lbs

And me Squatting 315x3 @ 190-195lbs

3

Feb 27, 2013
Back
Deadlift
1x5 195
1x5 250
1x3 295
1x5 320
1x5 370 (chalk)
1x5 420 (chalk)

Kroc Rows
1x20 100lbs
1x15 100lbs

Pull ups
1x4 BW+45

Diet: 2230 cal 111g protein, 187g carbs, 109g fat

I’m happy I managed to pull 420 strapless. I usually would pull my deadlifts double overhand all the way up to 315lbs, Past that point I would use a hook grip and anywhere past 375 I would use hook grip and straps. Today I managed to go strapless all the way, and I only used a hook grip on my last set which to me is a big improvement. I’m glad I could pull more weight double overhand even when I ditched my straps. I realized that my weakness in my deadlift is my grip, I usually don’t have trouble locking out the weight but my form fall off a little bit cause I lose grip of the bar and I’m scared of letting it go fall on the ground and making a ton of noise. I hate disrupting the gym and being the center of attention.

As far as assistance, I’m not sure if it was enough volume wise, but my forearms told me it was. My gym tops their dumbells at 100 lb so I might have to switch to bent over rows sometime, or add more volume to the krocs, more sets or something. I’d like to get 30 reps with those.

Didn’t get a whole lot of pull ups in, my grip was roasted at that point.

Diet wise very disappointing, I barely ate 50% of what I want to eat. Earlier this week I hadn’t done the groceries so I had very little food to eat at school making it really hard for me to hit my calorie needs… but It’s going to get fixed real soon.

4

feb 28, 2013
Chest

Bench
1x5 110
1x5 140
1x3 165
1x5 180
1x5 210
1x5 235
1x10 140
1x10 140
1x10 140

Close-grip floor press
1x5 185
1x5 205
1x4 225

Dips
1x10 bw+45
1x10 bw+70
1x6 bw+90

Diet: 3500 cal, 186g protein, 298g carbs, 155g fat

Happy with the numbers, not much to be said about this training other than dips felt really strong, can’t wait till next chest day to demolish it even more.

Diet wise not too bad but not too good either, numbers are off, I should at the very least eat 200g of protein and I failed, I guess carbs are bad too, fat is in line I suppose.

5

After watching my squatting video and then watching a Elitefts video on so you think you can squat I realized I make a have a lot of form mistakes on my squat.
To name a few:
-I don’t arch my low back enough, I keep it straight so I get a buttwink at the end of the move
-I am facing a mirror and I watch my knees so they don’t wobble through the lift, probably making my back arch more than it should
etc

I think I might have to lower my weights by a fair amount today and see the deal is going to be, I’ll squat facing the opposite way of the mirror with my head way up and trying to sit back more than to touch the floor with my ass. Not sure if I’ll follow 5/3/1 for squats today I might just do a few sets just to see how I feel about the movements, ramping the weights to a minimum of 225 and then see how it goes from there.

Kinda sucks I got to lower the weight haha my squat sucks right now compared to my other lifts, in a few weeks I’ll be easily benching more than I actually squat which is a shame. I’ll work on it though, I want to make today’s workout brutal so I can get the numbers back up quickly.

6

March 1, 2013

Did a little bit of foam rolling before squatting, nothing too long though.

Squats
1x5 110
1x5 135
1x3 165
1x5 180
1x5 205
1x5 235

Front Squats
1x3 135
1x3 185
1x2 225

Leg curls
1x8 150
1x8 150
1x8 150

Abductors (super sets in/out)
1x10 180
1x10 210
1x10 235

Abs

Ended up with some more foam rolling.

Diet: Shittey

Not much to be said. I lowered my squats numbers but a lot because I wanted to fix my form, especially the butt wink at the bottom portion. I got my spotter/GF to spot me while performing my 2nd set of the program to see how it looked cause I started squatting by not looking at the mirror to ensure I keep my head way up.

It looked something like this

From the video I think it looks good, I got some trouble with making a curve in my lower back because I got used to doing the squat with a straight back, it doesn’t come naturally. I had to stop in between each rep to re curve my lower back when I went up in weights ( 2 or 3 set after this video shot ). I was kinda happy at the video because, to me, the form looks text book… but I’m worried I might be losing composure the further the weight goes up.

Didn’t go real heavy on front squats, I kind of just wanted to get a feel for them to gauge how much weight I should put on in the next session, but thinking about it I might just remove the fronts and just do BBB for my leg day just so I can work under the bar trying to make the form I learned from the So You Think You Can Squat video become my natural form (especially the keeping the head up chest out and lower back bended part). On top of it I’ll keep doing some abductors cause I think they’re really important for the squat to make sure my knees don’t cave in when I perform heavy weights. I’m also gonna throw in some more Hamstrings work, I might keep the laying leg curls, I definitely want to add in Dumbell SLDL’s and maybe some more seated leg curls just for good measures.

I hate lowering my squat numbers just cause now I’m squatting the same that I bench… But I feel it’s gonna be worth it in the end, and I can’t wait till my next leg workout, see how BBB feels, never did that much squat volume. I bet it’s gonna suck but I might actually like it.

7

Yesterday (saturday) I wanted to go to the gym do my OHP day but last 3 workouts I went with my gf which is my spotter right now. She couldn’t come with me so I decided to hold the training day so we could be synched cause she’s running the program with me right now.

Planning to do this week

Day 1: OHP wk1 Squat wk2, gonna squat BBB for my leg assistance with some abductor and hamstrings, not gonna do any assistance for my OHP.

Day 2: Back wk2 day with assistance

Day 3 Chest wk2 with assistance

Later in the week, maybe something like friday I’ll go back in the gym and pound my OHP wk2 with assistance.

This way we’re gonna be synched in the program and she won’t have to do legs while I do chest or w/e. Then the week after everything should go back to normal.

I also want to add in pull ups in between every pressing moves as of now. Hopefully it wont affect my back day in any negative way. Will monitor it closely.

Last thing. I might start gomad today just because I lost 5 weights and fell to 195 from 200 lbs. makes me mad as F. I want to GOMAD to gain up to 210 or so, Hopefully it’ll work with my diet. When I hit 210 I’ll try to keep up the weight by replacing milk with mucho steaks.

8

March 2, 2012

Did a little bit of foam rolling in between Presses and squats

OHP
1x5 70
1x5 90
1x3 105
1x5 115
1x5 135
1x5 150

Squat
1x5 110
1x5 135
1x3 165
1x3 190
1x3 220
1x3 245

Seated leg curls
1x10 90
1x10 105
1x10 125

Leg extensions
1x10 90
1x10 105
1x10 125

Abductors (supersetting in and out movement)
1x10 210
1x10 220
1x10 230

Wanted to go in and shoot a 5x10 BBB for squats but some girl wanted to bump in for squats in the rack and I didn’t feel like adjusting the weights back and forth in between sets so I figured F it and I’ll do it next couple times instead.

Still trying to fix my squat form as good as I can, I see to still be getting some kind of butt wink. I’m guessing I’m not ‘‘sitting back’’ enough or something, posted a video in the powerlifting section, hoping to get some pointers.

9

March 8, 2013

Deadlift
1x5 200
1x5 250
1x3 300
1x3 350 Added in chalk from here
1x3 400
1x3 450 Mixed grip

DB rows
1x20 100
1x15 100

Pull ups
1x7 BW
1x7 BW

Bench
1x5 110
1x5 140
1x3 165
1x3 195
1x3 225
1x3 250

Not much to be said as far as the workout goes, everything is going smooth so far, still pushing hard to get the numbers.

Only problem I can see is my diet… weighted myself today and got really bummed when I saw I went down to 192 lbs. I’m gonna try to put more focus on my diet. I use to go to costco to get my steaks but it’s getting a little pricey, I think I’m gonna start to go more on just regular groceries for my meats. I know a place where I can find some wicked deals on steaks. Might be a little less tasty but I guess I’ll just add more spices to it, gonna microwave my steaks at school if I have to, I’m gonna try to eat more steak rice and chicken rice and try to bring my weight back up and further.