Caesium32's Log - Cycling With a Side of Lifting

23/02/17 5/3/1 W5D2+3

Squat (TM-85) superset with neutral grip chins:
20x8x2, 40x5, 60x5, 70x5, 77.5x7, 60x20

First time squatting in oly shoes, definitely felt a lot more stable. I noticed normally when I’m setting up I can shuffle my feet a bit to get them where I want, there was no way I could do that today. My lower back got less pumped than usual which is nice.
On the PR set I caught one of the safeties with the 20kg plate and it knocked me off balance. I did a couple more reps but it threw me out of the groove so I stopped early. I’d say I easily had ten reps though which is encouraging, PR is eight. 20 rep set felt probably the easiest any of them have.

Press (TM-42.5) superset with neutral grip chins:
20x5, 30x5, 35x5, 40x5, 30x5x10
Total of 30 chins between this and squats.

40kg was fairly easy to say my PR with it is seven, reckon I could definitely beat it. 30kg absolutely flew up, felt like I could throw it at the roof. Kind of tired after the squats and wanted to sit down so I’m happy I got through this. Didn’t do chins for a lot of the back down sets because my forearms were a bit sore, mostly sets of three though. 30 in a workout is definitely a volume PR.

Finished off padding my friend at boxing for ten minutes and learning how to throw a hook for another five or so.

I’m very happy with this workout, writing it down it seems like I didn’t do too much but the intensity was high. If I need to go to training two days a week I’d probably do something like this. Deadlift workout is going to be on Monday but I may do a little bit of back and pressing assistance at home if I feel like it this weekend; technically I’m down two workouts worth of pressing and one of pulling assistance.

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27/02/17 5/3/1 W5D4

Deadlift (TM-105):
20xlots, 60x5x2, 70x5, 80x5, 90x5 (capped), 70x5x5

I couldn’t find any 2.5kg plates anywhere so I just went 5kg less. I don’t think I ate enough over the weekend and I’ve eaten terrible today so surprise, surprise I feel rubbish. The lower weights were a blessing in disguise and I didn’t feel like attempting a PR.
Technique seemed to have improved by the back off sets.

Ab wheel roll outs superset with push ups (50 reps):
x5, 5, 8, 7/ x10, 15, 13, 12

I didn’t feel like doing any back assistance.

Today’s just one of those days where there’s a lot of stress and you don’t feel good. I need a few good nights sleep and some good food and I’ll put it behind me. Plus there’s only one more week of the program then I can deload.

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WEEK 5 SUMMARY

Training:
Mixed week training wise. Squats and press went fairly well but deadlifts and bench were pretty hard. No kickboxing or run again.

Diet:
Average calories were 2942 and body weight stayed at 86.0kg. This week I’m upping calories to 3300. Macro breakdown was P-203g, C-379g, F-64g which isn’t too bad. I’ve gotten into the habit of eating enough fruit and veg now. No alcohol.

Other:
Mobility work once, SI pain came back today and yesterday for the first time in a while so I’ll be doing some more later.
One more week of hardgainers left.

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28/02/17 5/3/1 W6D1

Bench press (TM-67.5):
20x10, 30x8, 40x5, 50x5, 57.5x5, 65x5x5

This went better than I expected. The last couple of reps on one or two sets were a bit slow but there was never any doubt I wouldn’t be able to complete all sets.

Cable row (50 reps):
30x15, 15, 10, 10

Incline bench:
30x10, 10

I had a sharp pain in my right shoulder from the first rep so I stopped early. Hopefully it subsides once I’ve deloaded. Something to keep and eye on.

Face pulls (50 reps):
10x20, 15, 15

Ran 1km to the gym because it was raining loads and then walked up one of the worst hills I’ve seen afterwards so figured that would be okay instead of the exercise bike. I was in a bit of a rush.

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Strong benching bud, keep it up! What are you going to do after 5/3/1 for hardgainers? You remind me a lot of myself at your age.

After my deload I’ll only have two weeks left at university and then after that I’ll have to use a different gym and I’m not sure how often I’ll be able to go so I don’t wanna start another program.

For those reasons I’m planning to use those two weeks to experiment and work up to some heavy sets. I’m thinking week one I’ll work up to around a 5RM and week two a 3RM then I’ll do some back off sets and whatever assistance I feel like. I also like the look of that Tim Henriques routine you linked before somewhere so I want to give that a go in the near future when I fancy a change from 5/3/1.

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01/03/17 5/3/1 W6D2

Squat (TM-85):
20x10x2, 40x5, 65x5, 72.5x5, 80x6, 80x10 (PR)

So today went a little off track. My previous PR with 80kg was eight and I wanted ten but I hit the safeties with one of the 20kg plates AGAIN. I don’t know why this keeps happening; I presume the rack is only slightly narrower than the distance between the collars so unless I’m dead centre I’m gonna hit them. It threw me off again because every rep after I’m descending really slow worrying about hitting the safeties so I stopped at six.

Changed the weights for the guy I was working in with and decided I’m going for 80kg again. Took the safeties off, went for it about a minute after my first set and hit 10 nice reps.

After this there were two guys both waiting for the rack because it was really busy and I told them I had only one more set left after my first PR set so I didn’t do the 20 reps. Thinking about it after I think a lot of it was just because 20 reps are really hard and I didn’t want to do it so I’m kind of disappointed in myself. I suppose two sets at 80kg is a decent amount of work though so good and bad.

Things felt good today and I’m excited to see how some heavier weight feels in two weeks.

Face pulls (60 reps):
10x20, 20, 20

Kettlebell swings (50 reps):
10x25, 25

Punishing myself for avoiding the 20 reps. First set got my glutes, second set destroyed my grip.

Lat pull down (50 reps):
35x18, 12, 12, 8

Grip was limiting factor here so I went light weight and really slow. Lats felt good after.

Chest press (50 reps):
20x25, 25

Did lots of assistance volume to make up for being a wimp with the squats. I’m going to do a bit more pulling than pressing because my shoulders still feel a bit off. All of my back feels kind of pumped now still about 45 minutes after the workout.

EDIT: Weight after lunch was 85.6kg so empty probably about 85.3kg. Kind of worrying, will see what I weigh on Friday.

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03/03/17 5/3/1 W6D3

Press (TM-42.5):
20x8, 30x5, 35x5, 40x5, 30x5x10 (paused)

Got through this very quickly, back off sets all power cleaned. Nothing to report really, all felt good.

Pec deck (50 reps):
20x20, 25x20, 30x10

Bit of a poor excuse for assistance but I wanted something easy because my shoulder’s been a bit funny recently and when I noticed it I wanted to give it a go.

Lat pull down (50 reps):
40x10x5

Went very slow focussing on my back and varying grip each set. Great lat pump.

Finished with two minutes on some cardio thing, can’t remember what it’s called but it had my legs burning.

Body weight yesterday was under 86kg again so I’m making an effort to eat more.

05/03/17 5/3/1 W6D4

Deadlift (TM-105):
60x5x2, 80x5, 100x10 (PR), 90x5, 80x5x5

Extremely happy with this, 100x10 is a goal I’ve had in my head for a good while. Not sure how many I had left, from about rep six each rep was a similar difficulty, but not many I would guess. The back off sets were pretty rough- the PR set took a lot out of me and I had to use a mixed grip for the last three.

Technique feels much better too, I’ve been leaning back more and keeping my shins more vertical like I saw @MarkKO mention once so thanks for that.

Dumbell rows (50 reps):
14x20, 20, 10

Ab wheel rollouts (25 reps) superset with push ups (50 reps):
x5, 8, 5, 7/ x10, 15, 10, 15

That’s a wrap for this cycle and couldn’t have ended on much more of a high. This was a pretty tough workout and it took a fair bit out of me. Looking forward to a deload next week. I think I’m only going to go into the gym two days and play it by ear rather than strictly going by percentages.

BW: 86.9kg

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07/03/17 Deload Week

Squat:
20x5x2, 40x5, 50x5, 60x5

I’m glad this is a deload because the top set felt pretty difficult. I’m a bit run down with a cold and generally haven’t slept enough the last couple of days, not to mention those deadlifts.

Press:
20x5, 30x5x3

These weren’t so bad, had a bit of pain in my right bicep.

Lat pull down:
35x20x3, 30x20x2

Slow and controlled using different grip widths. Good pump.

Lateral raises superset with dumbbell curls:
5sx10x3/5sx10x3

Just realised I still need to post a week six summary.

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Going good bro!

WEEK 6 SUMMARY

Training:
I’ve already covered most of my training this week as I did it but to summarise: I got two new PRs, both of which were goals of 10 reps with the heaviest weights of the cycle so I’m very pleased.

Diet:
Hasn’t been too bad this week especially since I paid less attention to macros than last. I decided I’ll use them as a guideline but I don’t need to be trying to hit them exactly everyday, it just makes it harder for me to get enough calories. Average calories were 3310, protein 198g, carbs 409g and fat 98g so couldn’t be much better for me. I will say though they weren’t always the best sources. Wednesday night I went out and although I didn’t drink that much I did have a large 20 nugget meal from McDonald’s at about 11pm and a takeaway chicken burger at 2am, both totally worth it though. As a result I just ate a little less on the weekends to average it. Average body weight was 85.9kg which is down 0.1kg from last week so basically nothing.

Other:
Not much else to comment, last week was a fairly standard week really. Had a few random aches and pains which I think we’re just me being ready for a deload.

It’s four days late but I wanted to summarize my last week just for the sake of completeness. I think from this point on I’m going to stop the weekly summaries. They were definitely helpful as a way to keep myself accountable and think about what I’d done but I’m into better habits now so they’re slightly redundant I feel.

Hardgainers, or at least my bastardized version, was a cool program to follow. It’s definitely the most volume I’ve done and it had me sore week after week a lot of the time which I’ve not had before. I felt a bit beat up by it but I didn’t do the recommended mobility or conditioning so could be that or maybe I didn’t eat and sleep enough. Overall I enjoyed it and I’m looking forward to working up to some heavier sets in the coming weeks to see how things feel.

This week’s been fairly stressful so far. I’ve had a lot of work to do so I’ve been working basically non stop from around 6-12/1 every night since Monday as well as my usual lectures and things. Appetite has also been kinda off which I’m not too happy about. Probably averaged about 2.5k calories a day, I need to toughen up and get them in. That last deadlift session left me pretty tight in my lower back and hips when I sat for a while but it’s feeling better now after stretching it out a bit. Also had a bit more SI pain but it’s also on its way out.

That last paragraph seemed very negative but it’s not all bad, I’m going home this weekend which I’m looking forward to and I’m looking forward to tomorrow’s workout too. In general things are going well and I’m happy.

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Well that is the most important part, isn’t it?

Still great to watch your progress and to see that the consistent work you put in brings you closer towards your goals. Keep it up, man!

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That’s what I’ve been thinking and why I ended my post with it. I think I and a lot of other people have a tendency to get caught up in the little things that don’t really matter. I’m just feeling reflective tonight I guess lol.

Thanks for following along with my log, I really appreciate the support.

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Can’t really ask for better. Good to hear.

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09/03/17 Deload Week

Deadlift:
20xlots, 60x5, 80x3, 100x2, 60x5

Felt pretty good so I went a little bit heavier than I was going to here. The volume is low enough that it doesn’t matter anyway. All double overhand.

Bench:
20x10, 40x5, 50x5, 50x10, 40x10

Opposite of deadlifts here, I was gonna work up to around 60 but left pec/shoulder was kinda sore/stiff. Felt better towards the end I just needed to warm up a bit.

Cable row (100 reps):
20x20x5

Push ups superset with ab wheel:
10x3/ 5x3

Finished off with lots of shoulder dislocations. The whole workout only took about 35 minutes. If the weather is nice I’ll probably do some hill sprints on Saturday.

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Keep it up, life is always going to get in the way: whether it’s lectures, getting a cold, assignments etc.

Just go to the gym and see how you feel !

When I don’t feel great I tell myelf that at least I’m not injured so I’m still winning !

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Yeah exactly, there’s a lot worse problems than having to sit and type up a report for six hours a night or an annoying cough.

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This is actually going to be me tonight and this week end: report writing ahah

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Been thinking about what to do training wise in the near future and I’m not really sure. Part of me wants to basically program hop a bit and see what others are like and then there’s so many variations of 5/3/1 to try. I want to see what other programs are like and figure I may as well at least give a few a try for a few months each. They’ll all work somewhat if I put the effort in so worse case scenario I train suboptimally; best case scenario I find something I like and/or that works well and/or learn something.

The last day or two I’ve been considering Texas method as a potential option at least for a few weeks. I think whatever I do I want to move to training three days a week instead of four. I’m going to have exams next term and probably be more busy in general, plus extra recovery is never bad. If I’m itching for more I’ll do some conditioning or a run or something instead and there’s always kickboxing I could go to.

I’m still not sure whether to cut down a little bit either, I’m sort of as fat as I want to get but I don’t particularly mind how I am. I’ve got two more weeks to think about it.

Below is a list of things I’m considering trying at some point. It’s probably not exhaustive, I just brainstormed it in about five minutes.