I have never had worse abdominal soreness then when coming back to a lot of volume on ab wheel, especially after some time off of them. Good work, you’ll see the payoff in all of your main movements when you’re consistent with trunk work.
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Imagine where you’ll be in a year. It’s nice to see you getting rewarded.
I’ve no idea honestly but it’s exciting. I’m just gonna keep making goals about 3 months ahead and work to meet them.
Thanks for following along and offering advice.
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That’s why we’re all here mate. Good idea, until you have a definite idea of what you want long term going three months to three months in respect of goals is a decent medium. You have enough time to actually achieve something.
I just don’t have a good enough idea of what I can do in a year so any goals I set would basically just be random numbers plucked from the air. I’ve already hit two of my goals for Christmas this year. I think I read in 5/3/1 about setting a requirement for what to eat each meal and ticking off everytime you do it or something. I might do something similar to that to try and keep myself accountable nutrition wise, maybe even extend it to mobility work if it helps me.
Give it another six months and that’s going to change.
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I am a little late to the party and haven’t caught up with everything but I will be following along.
Things seem to be progressing nicely at the moment for you. Keep it up!
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Thanks a lot! I’ve been following your log for a while, you’re doing a great job even if things haven’t gone 100% your way lately. I don’t know if I’d be able to go to the gym after a 13 hour day.
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Saturday 19/11/16 C2W3D3
Press 30x5, 35x3, 40x3
I had a pretty big night out yesterday and was feeling a bit delicate this morning. I figured a press workout is easier than a squat one so swapped the order of them around. Also I’ve already hit my press goals so I’d rather have a bad press day than squat. Was supposed to use 37.5kg for my last set but couldn’t find any 1.25kg plates so I put 40kg on and just hit a nice triple.
Snatch grip high pulls 30x5x5
Seen a lot of people crediting their back development to these and they looked like something fun to try, plus I want to add more explosive movements. I’ll probably make a long post about my future training a bit later. Unfortunately I didn’t feel it in my upper back as much as I thought but then I didn’t go very heavy so that may be why. Will keep these in for the next cycle at least.
Lat pull-down 40x10x3
I couldn’t get a bench to do my assistance so called it a day. Both had powerlifter sort of guys on them doing lots of sets and taking a lot of time between them.
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Sunday 20/11/16 C2W3D4
Squat 65x5, 72.5x3, 80x8 (PR), 90x2 (PR)
I couldn’t be happier with today 80kg x8 puts my max at 99kg, only 1kg from my goal with a cycle left! I decided to see what 90kg felt like after and it was an easy double.
Stiff leg deadlift 50x5, 55x5, 65x5
Hack squat 40x20x2
Felt a bit sore/tired by this point so decided to only do two light sets for hack squat, as Jim says I don’t want to major in the minors and I certainly worked hard today.
Ab wheel from knees 3x3
I’m still sore from last time I did these and they felt like they were tearing me in half so I only did 3 reps.
Other things to note I went to bed early last night and started reading beyond 5/3/1. There’s so much in there I’m gonna have to read it multiple times. Went to sleep nice and early and got 11 hours sleep which felt great. I’m gonna start making a list of the things I wanna try with regards to training then I’m gonna make a long detailed post in the near future laying out all my training for the next 6 months or so I think.
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So I’ve been thinking a lot about my training for the next year or so recently. I want to have at least the next 6 months planned out when I start lifting seriously again after the Christmas break.
I figured a good place to start planning would be to consider some goals. I’m toying with the idea of doing some sort of competition, however I’m not sure when I’d be ready for one. I know a lot of people say it doesn’t matter how you do etc but the competitive side of me doesn’t want to go to a competition knowing I’ll be last. I think it’d be nice to have a real target/date to look to and plan around though, similar to my goals ive set for the end of my 3rd cycle but more meaningful. It’d be either a powerlifting meet or strongman but I think I’m more likely to go with PL. I’d feel more comfortable doing that and I think it would be easier to prepare for training in a commercial gym. I’m wondering what sort of numbers I should be aiming for at least to do okay in a local meet. Even if I have numbers to aim for what sort of progress can I expect in 6 or 12 months at my level?
@MarkKO and @T3hPwnisher any chance you could give me any advice? You’re both people I’ve spoken to that know about powerlifting. If I were to compete it’d be around 80-90kg in case that helps. Anyone else that reads this and wants to help please feel free, I’ll be very grateful.
As well getting stronger and preparing for a competition if I do one I’d also like to make a greater effort when it comes to mobility and conditioning in future. Another thing I want to do, while sounding at risk of trying to do everything at once, is become a bit faster/athletic. I’m hoping that will come hand in hand with the conditioning and I might look at including hang or power cleans and snatch grip high pulls to my training once a week.
I’m going to finish beyond 5/3/1 in the next few days. There’s a lot in there I’d like to give a good go at some point so I’m going to make a list and see what would best fit my immediate goals. I’d also like to give Ben Bruno’s 100 rep trap bar workout a go and building the monolith also looks brilliant.
At the end of the day I’m only 18 so hopefully I’ve a very long time lifting ahead of me to try it all. I don’t plan to do any sort of strength sport competitively any time in the next 5 years, more just for fun, but I’d like to one day give pretty much everything a go.
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Yeah, there’s no rush, mate. And as far as competition, as long as you can get lifts in then it’s never too early. In powerlifting I’ve been getting silly technicalities on lifts I should’ve gotten because I haven’t been to a ton of meets yet.
Also I can’t stress this enough: get people to train with and go to meets with you They will make meets many times easier and less stressful, and of course you get to hang out and lift with some (probably) cool people.
edit: Also apparently I have checked out your log before, Caesium.
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I think training towards a PL meet is a great idea. Worrying about where you’ll place isn’t, however. A much better bet is to set a goal total and shoot for that. That’s something you have a lot more control over, because whether you get your total has more to do with how realistic your goal is, how well your prep goes and how well your attempts are picked - all things you have almost total control over. How you place depends on who you’re up against and how they manage all the factors I just mentioned. That you have absolutely no control over.
Let’s say you compete at 90 kg, a decent total would be 500 kg for a first meet. A 400 kg total would be plenty fine too. I totalled 535 kg at my first meet at 90 kg competing raw with wraps. Without wraps I’d probably have gone about 520 kg or so.
The bottom line is, a decent total at the meet is a bigger total than what you’d set now.
I’m happy to advise on your prep and attempt picks of course.
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Thanks for stopping by. I’d absolutely love to have someone to train with that has similar goals to me but unfortunately there isn’t anyone at the minute. The one person I sometimes go to the gym with has only been going a month and he just can’t be bothered, it’s more of just something to get him out of the house. He’s constantly saying I take it too seriously, imagine if he saw everyone else on here.
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You are welcome.
Well, nobody forces you to do so and I probably wouldn’t call that a healthy relationship to training since my body was telling me that it did not want to deadlift heavy weights.
Two things I like to remind myself though are 1) we all got the same 24 hours in a day (I know how cliche that sounds) and 2) what you get out depends on what you put in. The second part is the most important one and I don’t mean that at all in an aggressive way. Surely some people are more gifted than others and make faster progress. However the results we get out of our training are ultimately determined by the amount of effort and work we are putting into it. It took me a long time to really get this. Since I want to be better than I currently am I need to put more work and more effort in than I have before.
An example would be: I can’t complain that I do not get the results that @T3hPwnisher (a strongman on this forum) gets out of his training because I am simply not willing to put in the effort that he does. That is okay for me. I admire what he does but I can not do it myself or even better: I am not willing to do it.
Sorry for this rant but this was something that has been spooking around in my head lately 
I did not mean that related to you! It is just something that has recently come to my mind.
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I knew you’d have something useful to say and what you’ve said seems spot on. While I did say I didn’t want to come last I was thinking more of something to aim for in each lift to set a half decent total but had no idea what was one.
Based on calculated 1RMs I’d hit a total of 290kg at the minute so I don’t think 400kg would be miles away. I also just worked out my calculated total from when I started the log which was 256kg, so a 34kg increase in just over 2 months. At that rate I’d have a 400kg total in about 7-8 months so I think aiming for a meet around a year from now would be perfectly fine.
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I totally agree with what you’re saying and it’s honestly something I’ve been thinking about myself. Using @T3hPwnisher as an example again I’ve often seen what he does and thought it was a lot more than I’m willing to right now. Like I said in my post just above at the minute I do this mostly as a fun hobby and so the sacrifices and effort I put into it reflect that. It’s a balancing act the same as anything you spend a lot of time doing. One thing I’ve noticed; the harder I do try the more I appreciate the effort people trying harder put in.
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Couldn’t agree more!
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You’ve figured out something I think is essential to consistent progress: how much effort you’re prepared to put in. As long as you’re putting something in consistently, you’ll get something out. Being comfortable with what you’re prepared to do means you’re more likely to keep at it steadily, and that leads to decent progress in the long term.
Appreciate all the shout outs folks.
@caesium32 , from what you wrote, this stuck out to me the most
I mean no disrespect when I say this, but this doesn’t sound competitiveness at all; it sounds like not liking to lose. Now, don’t get me wrong; most folks don’t like to lose, but in my experience, competitive people THRIVE on competition and WANT to face the best, because it pushes them to BE the best. If you really are competitive, the best advice I can give you is to bite off WAY more than you can chew.
You gotta keep in mind that the benefits of competition really aren’t the competition proper; it’s the prep. A competition forces you to start doing the things you weren’t doing in training, because you can’t just let weaknesses foster anymore.Knowing you have a deadline coming up where you have to put it all out there forces you to have to step up your game, dial it all in, and come in as strong as possible.
I’m actually going through that right now in my own training. I was given the all clear to start training again, and I went into it as hard as I could, but once I signed up for a competition with a lot of events I was really bad at, it really forced me to step it up a notch.
Sorry for the rant, but this is a fun topic for me. I say look at the state records and try to beat them. Once you can do that, set some national ones.
…or go compete in strongman since it’s better, haha.
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