Chasing Records

Training Logs
561

Hahaha dude don’t get me started on some of those comments. In reality, the only reason that video caught so much hate is because Jason Blaha made a video about it and then all his trolls and the “Alphadestiny” supporters came to my channel to talk shit about me. I realized literally like 99% of the shit talkers were straight up DYEL after a few of them had the balls to show themselves, so I stopped taking it personally. They were just being emotional because they felt like I “attacked” their boy. Doesn’t change the fact that those 2 inch rack pulls are useless lol. Also, my channel basically doubled in size in the last week so I’m not complaining.

Nice dude! I’m glad you found some of the tips helpful. And push presses are just great in general. I had gone a bit a stale on them before but I’m about to throw them back into the old routine for a little while and see what happens.

562

Food poisoning and a miraculous chin-up PR

I’m never eating at Olive Garden again lol came down with a nice case of food poisoning which left me with zero appetite and had me puking for half day. Luckily my body cleared it in pretty much 24 hours, but it still screwed up like 3-4 of my workouts, including 2 bench sessions and a deadlift session, probably because I pretty much didn’t eat or drink for a full day. Anyway, all that to say I somehow hit some really good heavy dips and chinups after benching the other day even though my bench work was highly subpar. For reference, my last heavy bench day I hit 15 solid singles with 240lbs in my density block. This week I took my jump to 242.5 and only managed 6 reps. So I’ll probably have to keep the weight the same here for another 2 workouts.

After the crummy benching though a miracle happened! I worked up to 165lbs for a triple on dips, which is a PR. I’ve now hit a PR triple on dips for 3 straight weeks (155, 160, 165) as well as a PR single last week with 4 plates! I also managed a PR triple on chins with 115lbs followed by an easy single at 135lbs (which I’ve now hit for 3 consecutive weeks) and a PR single at 145lbs which is a 10lbs PR and when you include my body weight a 300lbs chinup! Next stop is a double body weight chin.

4/28/18
Bench(242.5) - 6 singles in 10 minutes
Dips(45x5)(75x5)(95x5)(115x3)(135x3)(165x3)(120x8)(120x7)(120x6)
Chins(45x3)(75x3)(95x3)(115x3)(135x1)(145x1)(90x6)(90x5)(90x4)

Done.

2 Likes
563

Good job mate.

If you’re asking how you shore up here, I would say top 5% in pull-ups strength-to-bdw ratio.

1 Like
564

High Pull + Power Snatch Complex

On a whim last week I decided to do a couple power snatches while I was warming up my high pulls and I did a pretty easy 185lbs power snatch. So this past week I decided I’ll probably start doing this complex at least once a week and I worked up to a pretty easy 190lbs yesterday, that’s 3 high pulls done in a rhythmic fashion and finished with a single power snatch. I need to change things up a bit anyway. All my deadlift variations have gone stale so I’ll probably cut out heavy pulling for a month or two and shift my emphasis more onto squats and explosive pulls for a little while. Should be a fun change of pace and it will give me the opportunity to try to work in a little bit of heavier squatting and see where I currently stand. For reference, my best ever full snatch from back in the day is 245lbs and my best ever power snatch is 220lbs. I haven’t done a snatch since 2013 and I’ve never attempted this complex before in my life until last week. My pulling power seems substantially increased from what it was back when I used to the Olympic lifts regularly, but my technique is a pittance compared to what it was back then. With a little bit of effort though I think I could potentially match my previous best power snatch of 220lbs, so that’ll be the goal here.

5/1/18
High Pull x 3 + Power Snatch (bar)(95lbs)(135lbs)(155)(175)(185)(175)(175)(180)(185)(190)

That was all. I had to deload squats and deads last week and I hit a few heavy squat triples on Sunday and my legs are basically still crippled from that so I didn’t do too much yesterday.

565

Heavy Squats up to 450lbs @ 155

Kind of fell off on updating again lol so here’s a bunch of squat sessions from the last couple weeks. My straight set work culminated in sessions with 400lbs for sets of 3,3,3,3,5 and then 405 for 3,3,3 after a forced week off. After that I decided to test the waters with some heavy singles to get a better idea of where I am. In 4 sessions over 2 weeks I hit top singles of 430, 440, 450, and 440. The first 440, the 450 that followed it a couple days later, and the most recent 440 are the three linked videos in that order. I also did either 3 or 4 backoff doubles with 390 in each of those sessions and then finished up with some high pull/power snatch combo sets. Unfortunately, I guess I kind of dove in full bore a little too quickly and I’ve developed a good deal of soft tissue irritation surrounding my glutes and down the sides of my thighs as well (probably IT band related). As such, tonight’s session was basically just phoned in lol. So looks like it’s time to dial it back a notch for a week and then either revisit this style of training and re-evaluate, or switch it back to straight sets probably in the form repeat doubles this time. I felt really good for months when I was doing the straight set work and basically burned my self out in 2 weeks of the higher intensity work, so I already know what a smart person would do here. But we’ll see if my body is able to get a handle on this inflammation or not and I’ll let that dictate the direction things go. I would have liked to be able to put in a longer block of heavy work.

5/3/18
Squat - 335, 375, 405, 430, (385 x 2,2,2,2)

5/6/18
Squat - 335, 375, 410, 440, (390 x 2,2,2,2)

5/10/18
Squat - 335, 375, 415, 450, (390 x 2,2,2)

5/13/18
Squat - 335, 375, 415, 440, (390 x 2,2,2)

https://www.instagram.com/p/BidVcyhh7XL/?taken-by=ape288
https://www.instagram.com/p/Binfe9rALy9/?taken-by=ape288
https://www.instagram.com/p/BixIgZrBXl_/?taken-by=ape288

566

410lbs Squat Doubles; 200lbs Hang Power Snatch

Pretty good stuff so far this week. I used 410 for my squats on Sunday and just knocked out 4 doubles with it. The weight was moving decently, though it was a little tougher than I would have liked. Still trying to adapt to heavier loads on the squat. My IT bands have been lit up these last few weeks. It’s getting really annoying actually. Thinking about just going back to what I was doing before, a moderately heavy session of triples and then a lighter session of triples later in the week using a narrower stance. I was recovering well from that work and apparently building up a decent strength base as well. I’ve tested the waters a little, so perhaps it’s time to put my head back down.

Did some solid upper body stuff yesterday but I won’t bore you with that. All I’ll say is bench still sucks, but I’m really fucking good dips and chin-ups now lol. I experimented with some hang power snatch triples today on a whim, rather than doing high pulls and power snatches as a combo exercise and they went very well. I actually liked doing the snatch triples better than doing high pulls triples, which I didn’t think would be the case. But I knocked out a bunch of them today all the way up to 185 for a solid set of 3. So I figured I’d knock out a few singles to finish up the day and I ended up doing easy singles with 190, 195, and 200. I never once did a hang snatch back when I used to do the O-lifts. It was all floor work. My pulling power is substantially higher now than it was back then. I should be good for a 100kg hang power snatch soon if I can find my nuts.

5/20/18
Squat(410lbs) - 2,2,2,2
Snatch Grip high Pull - (175x3)(185x3)(195x3)205x3)(215x3)(225x3)(235x3)(245x3)(255x3)

5/22/18
Hang Power Snatch (95x3)(125x3)(145x3)(155x3)(165x3)(175x3)(180x3)(185x3)
(175x3)(177.5x3)(180x3)(182.5x3)(185x1)(190x1)(195x1)(200x1)

Done.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BjDYs8gBq7M/?taken-by=ape288
https://www.instagram.com/p/BjGQDIRhWp4/?taken-by=ape288

1 Like
567

210lbs Hang Power Snatch @ 155

2nd time doing hang snatches and I managed 10 more pounds than the first session both in terms of my heaviest single and my heaviest triple. First session I tripled 185 and singled 200, this time I tripled 195 twice, singled 210, and almost tripled 200. Good stuff! These are fun as hell man. I can smell 100kg now! Got bench and heavy dips/chins today, rest tomorrow, and then squats and more snatches on Sunday!!!

5/24/18
Hang Power Snatch - (95x5)(125x3)(145x3)(165x3)(175x3)(180x3)(185x3)(190x3)(195x3)(200x1)(205x1)(210x1)(200x1)(190x3)(195x3)(200x2)

Done.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BjLgOuKBWts/?taken-by=ape288

568

Guess It’s Been A While

I’ve been working on a couple things recently. I put front squats back into the rotation for the first time in years, and they were incredibly rough at first, but after 4 sessions they’re starting to get a little smoother. My body couldn’t even get into the correct positions at first though. I’ve also re-implemented power cleans from the floor for the first time in years, which is another thing my body has “forgotten” how to do. I’ve just been doing 5x3 twice a week, started with 185 a few weeks ago and have moved up to 205 so far. The weight is easy, but my technique is still not consistent enough or reliable enough to allow me to stack much more on it right now. I’m also deadlifting twice a week st the end of my squat/power clean days. Just working up to one set of 5. I started with 450 a few weeks ago and have been using 470 the past two weeks. Pretty solid stuff.

In addition to this my main goal right now is to try to get to a 45 inch vertical jump before old age sets in and I can’t jump high anymore. I’m somewhere in the 41-42" range right now. To get there I’m squatting twice a week, power cleaning twice a week, high pulling twice a week, and depth jumping twice a week. I’ve been doing the depth jumps for 3 weeks now. I won’t do them for more than 6-8 weeks tops. We’ll see what happens.

Upper body training has been centered around getting a strong strict press. I’ve done 172.5 x 3, 177.5 x 2, and 190x1 so far this training cycle. Ultimate goal is 2 wheels obviously, but, I might be 50 years old before that happens. I did a 125lbs strict curl last week. First time I’ve ever tried a heavy single on those. I’ve been doing clean rep work with 100lbs. My goal there has been to get to body weight for a single. Anyway, here’s my most recent lower body workout:

Front squat(335lbs) - 3,3,3
Power clean(205lbs) - 3,3,3,3,3
Deadlift(470lbs) - 5

Doesn’t look like much when you write it down lol.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BmuLMCih4rW/?taken-by=ape288
https://www.instagram.com/p/BmOlKwWhuL7/?taken-by=ape288
https://www.instagram.com/p/BmhMoDcBCn-/?taken-by=ape288

2 Likes
569

100kg Hang Power Snatch @ 70.3 bw (220lbs @ 155)

Quick update for you greedy bastards. I’ve hit two big lifts this past week, a 395lbs front squat a few days ago after only 4 weeks of prep I believe, followed up last night with a 220lbs hang power snatch (100kg!!!) Anyway, I really haven’t been training the hang snatch at all because all the wide grip overhead starts to aggravate the carpal tunnel in my wrists and then I wake up every night because of that shit so it’s not worth it for me to aggravate that by actually practicing snatches when I don’t care about weightlifting anymore. Instead I’ve just been doing a shit load of high pulls at varying weights multiple times a week. The reason for that is two fold: one, I’m working to peak my vertical jump at the moment and I think those will be helpful for that, and two, I wanted to see if they would transfer to the hang snatch which apparently they did because this is a 10lbs hang power snatch PR. For reference, when I actually practiced the Olympic lifts a few years ago my best ever power snatch from the floor was 220lbs. I just matched that yesterday at the same body weight with more in the tank, while being completely unpracticed at the lift, not just from the hang but from the freaking pocket. This is considered the weakest position to pull from. Contrast that with the floor which is considered the strongest. Clearly, I have become a lot more powerful than I used to be. Anyway, I’m pretty happy about that and I’m done with my depth jump cycle so I’m going to test out my vertical jump next week and see where it has landed.

As for the front squat, I wanted 4 wheels and I think I could have gotten it if I had waited another week or two to hit the heavy single but I got impatient. I did 10 total front squat sessions leading up to this single (prior to that I hadn’t front squatted in a few years) and topped out at 365x3 before hitting the single with 395 the following session. I could have tripled 370 and potentially even 375 which probably would have given me a 405 max, but oh well. I’m about to take about 10 days off from lifting all together so when I come back to it and I’m going to wave the weights back down, run another LP on the front squat, work up to 375x3 this time and then hit the damn single with 4 wheels. Then I’ll go back to the back squat.

Fun stuff though. This was a solid training cycle.

https://www.instagram.com/p/Bn95VGSByl_/?taken-by=ape288
https://www.instagram.com/p/BnwX8Ztjd2F/?taken-by=ape288

570

100kg Hang Power Snatch Full Session

Just posted the full snatch session from last week on my YouTube channel where I hit the 100kg hang power snatch. The plan was just to hit 10 singles with 190lbs with the option of making a few small-ish jumps if I felt snappy and efficient. So after 5 singles I started taking 5lbs jumps and by the time I got to 210 I felt like my technique was finally dialed in and my body was operating at max power so I decided to go for the 2 PR’s. I think I left a little bit in the tank, probably could have gone for 225, but I’m going to save that for next year I guess. My plan now is to keep these in the rotation for a little while longer using submaximal weights and continue to push the weights heavier and heavier on the high pulls. I’ll see if I can work my way up to 105kg (230lbs) sometime next year. That would be approaching my all time best full snatch from the floor from the back in the day, so that would be pretty cool to hit.

Finished up the session with one last set of 480x5 on the deadlift. I guess I haven’t been posting very much, but what I’ve been doing these last few months is twice a week on lower body days after doing both squats and an olympic lift variation I finish up the session with a set of 5 on the conventional deadlift. I started with 450lbs in June or July and added 5lbs to the bar every other week or so and have now worked up to 480x5 for 4 straight sessions over two consecutive weeks. Now this training cycle is over so I’m going to deload for these next 10 days and then wave the weights back down and basically repeat this cycle again with the goals of hitting a 405 front squat and a few casual sets 500x5 on the deadlift by the end of the cycle.

Hang Power Snatch - (190lbs x 5 singles),(195),(200x),(200),(205x),(205),(210),(215, PR+5lbs),(220lbs, PR+10lbs)
Deadlift - 225x5, 315x3, 405x1, 455x1, 480x5

Done.