Plate Swings (warmup/explosive, two hands on one plate)
45x5, 3 sets
Front Squat
145x4, 3 sets
Deadlift
245x2, 5 sets (PR!)
Deficit Deadlift (standing on one 45 plate)
155x5, 3 sets
Standing Calf Raise
335x6, 4 sets
DB Farmer’s walk
60x15, 3 sets
Comments: Incorporated swings to help me drill in hip drive technique more, for both deadlift and power clean (on other leg day). I think I like how it feels! Gonna keep that in as explosive accessory on my deadlift days as it wakes my hips and glutes very well. Also, this week my grip stopped failing. Maybe heavy squats and deadlifts on one day is more neural stress than I need at this point. XD
Comments: Looks like overhead work is shaping up well recently! I’ll test for 1RM for MP when I can do 85lbs for 5 reps with strict form. Also screwed around at the shortest pullup station available at the end and apparently I can finally do one rep without leg drive! I think I’ll wait until my close grip lat pulldowns are officially at body weight before making the switch though.
Yeah, I certainly don’t do well doing heavy pulls and squats on the same day. It’s nice not to have your grip give out on you. Good deal on your deadlift PR. I agree, it does look like your OHP is coming along; good stuff. That first ‘real’ pull up is also exciting. nod
I guess it’s like how people say “if you prioritize everything, you prioritize nothing” for training pulls and squats, ahaha. Grip has always held me back but now that I finally figured out how to use straps (after half a year since buying them), I have to incorporate more grip work like farmer walks, which really bring my forearm weakness into the spotlight. Funny since my forearm circumference is only an inch (or less) shorter than my upper arm measurement. XD
Anyways, pull day today!
Pendlay Rows
115x4, 4 sets
Close Grip Lat Pulldown (focusing on bottom contraction)
130x9
130x5, 2 sets
Reverse Pec Deck
85x5, 3 sets
Alternating DB Curls (rep=for each arm)
25x4, 3 sets
Reverse Curls
45x5, 2 sets
Neck Crunches (hold at top)
45x6, 2 sets
Weighed Planks
45x30 sec, 2 sets
Comment: Was starting to shorten my pauses at bottom of pulldowns recently, which shortchanged my back from stimulation, so I dropped things back a little for lat pulldowns to get a better squeeze. Also, I threw in pullup holds just to really get everything out of my back and to speed up my journey to working set worthy pullups. Neck crunches feel better with lower reps I think, since with higher reps I stop really feeling my neck muscles holding the contraction on top and the plate starts to dig into my head, which doesn’t feel so good.
Comments: Made a bad choice to rush for the squat rack while it was still empty and wrecked havoc on power cleans in not so good kinda way. I know I can do 100lb for at least one comfortable rep for three sets from cleaning for overhead work recently, but apparently I couldn’t recruit max power by third exercise, which is understandable. Definitely not gonna place explosive work anything later than first thing in the day from now on, that’s for sure lol.
Also, apparently I broke out in hives yesterday and it’s not getting any better today. Guess this means yet another doctor visit, eh.
Dips
1 rep, 10 sets with less than 20 seconds of rest in between, pause/stretch at bottom
Shrugs
205x10, 3 sets
Lateral Raise Machine
55x10, 3 sets
Comments: Bench continues to be annoying, so I figured I may as well do my main four movements in a 5/3/1 style periodization scheme. That final bench set felt really fun, but it really showed me how much I need to work on muscle endurance so I think I’ll stick to this until September and if school work gets tough, maybe I’ll switch to 5/3/1 Big But Boring type of work for four days a week. The 5x10 type of work was surprisingly hard despite it being a 50% of max deal, yet another sign that maybe it wasn’t a good idea to avoid high rep work after all, ehehe.
Anyways, can’t wait to see how 5/3/1 style sets work for deadlifts on Thursday!
Pullup (with 10 sec rest between reps each set)
BWx3, 4 sets
Wide Grip Lat Pulldown
85x8, 3 sets
Face Pull
50x13, 2 sets
55x7
Hammer Curl
25x5, 3 sets
Barbell Curl
45x6, 3 sets
Cable Crunch
85x16
85x14
Weighed Leg Lift
15x12, 2 sets
Comments: Switched out DB row for pullups because I wanna minimize work with straps and I feel the same muscles with these two exercises. I can barely do pullups right now but they already blast my lats like nothing else, wow!
Also, arranged to have DB rowing work done on the other pull day, where I’ll be giving lighter weight, higher set rowing a try (“Kroc” rows, with whatever I can do without straps for 10 reps, done for up to 20 breathing reps) after Pendlays.
Comments: Higher rep deadlifts felt amazing for my lower back, although I was nearly puking by last rep lol. The hardest part was the squat, surprisingly, although that’s probably just me being used to low rep work. Also threw in a few pullup singles because my lats felt like doing them haha. I think I’ll do that whenever I can, since they say a pullup is something you get better at the more you do it?
DB Bench Press, stretch/pause at bottom
45x10, 5 sets
Incline Bench Press
95x6, 1 set due to fatigue
DB Upright Row
25x10, 3 sets
Lateral Raise Machine
60x6, 3 sets
Dip and Pullup negatives alternating (superset?)
5x1
Comments: Might take incline bench out on MP day from now on and just do more DB work for chest because of shoulder fatigue. The pump from flat dumbbell bench alone is pretty good as is. For some unknown reason, dips seem to complement pullups here, as I feel a lot of back activation when I get down low enough for the chest stretch, so I thought it might be a good idea to put last as a kind of burnout exercise right now when I try to put in some pullup type work every session.
Comments: Kroc rows aren’t quite Kroc rows just yet, but I wanted to use a weight that I can actually feel in my back/that is challenging so I decided to make it a forced reps deal and will move the weight up when I can do it for 21+ without rest. Loved the exercise before I did it, hated it when I did it, and loved it again after I did it. Wonderful thing lol.
Man, you are coming right along! I like how you’re not at all hesitant to take things out or switch things up with your exercises. nod (while still keeping your core movements, of course)
Ha, I feel exactly the same way about Kroc rows. Before you do them it’s all “sweet, I’m about to crush some rows!”. Then, it’s “gasp, grunt, mutter”, and finally “that was awesome!”. It’s always a surprise how much one all-out set tears up my back.
Glad to see you working those pull ups; you’ll be cranking them out in batches soon.
Yep, at first I was worried about changing things too much to see results but I realized that I can use my core movements (big 4+power cleans) as my progress tracker and just try different things to see what worked the best for me. Like, for example, a lot of guys swear by leg press as a quad builder alongside the good ol’ squat but for me, those hurt my back and knees worse than actual squats. Not to mention that I can’t even use as much weight on the leg press as I can on the squat for some reason. o_O
Gotta love that feeling, yup! My upper back and forearms felt amazing (read: pumped with massive DOMS)the morning after my first try with Kroc rows.
Ahaha hopefully. I like how I can use them as a guideline on body composition to a degree too. From now on, if I see my pullups suffer for more than two sessions, I’m probably going overboard with my bulk lol.
Anyways, Leg (Squat) Day!
Power Cleans
45x5
95x5, 3 sets
Squat (first two sets paused)
135x5
155x5
185x7
Front Squat (all sets paused)
70x10, 5 sets
Lunges
70x5, 3 sets
Standing Calf Raise
355x6, 4 sets
Comments: Decided to go with pausing squats whenever I’m not working with max loads, as I’ve started to bounce when working with over 200lb for my back squats. I underestimated front squat BBB mode weights, so I think I’ll go with a bigger percentage next round, but it’s nice to see power cleans getting back to their normal numbers again and that all out back squat set is actually pretty fun!
Tomorrow will be the start of the 3 rep week for my 5/3/1 stuff. Can’t wait to hit the bench press again. (/chest bro mode)
DB Incline Bench (pause/stretch at bottom)
45x10
45x8, 2 sets
Dips (bicep touching forearm)
6x2
Shrugs (from rack, allowing bigger weights than from floor like usual)
225x10
275x5, 3 sets
Lateral Raise Machine
60x7, 3 sets
Comments: For once there weren’t so many people squatting at the school gym so I got the chance to do some rack pulls with my shrugs. Fun to see bigger weights than usual in my hands.
[quote]kazil wrote:
You’re not doing enough Mazeppa reps.
[/quote]
Aw well, unfortunately I can’t focus on increasing all my lifts at once after a certain point. Currently running a Mephisto Waltz and Chopin Fantasy (F minor not impromptu) program right now and you know what coaches say about sticking to programs. A Mazeppa cycle in the near future sounds kinda like fun though, in the way that 20 rep squat sounds like fun!
Sorry for lack of updates ladies, I’m still working 5 days a week push/pull/leg with 5/3/1 scheme for the Big 4 lifts like always, but I swapped “tabata” squats/spinning for shuttle runs and hill sprints and they’re a lot more fun despite taking longer! School is a bout to start to and 3rd year is where premed starts to get intense from what I heard so I’m gonna go with abridged weekly reports on training from now on. Plus I get worried about spamming the forum too much to be honest. XD
Got up to 175lb while I was away from TN thanks to cheap Chinese takeouts with delicious HK milk tea and only my DL and OHP increased noticeably so I decided that I should do a conservative/slow cut down to 140 this school year before I really go overboard with the gains, ahaha.
Two weeks into my first cut attempt, I’m sitting at 164lb right now, so I think I’m done with the initial water loss stage now. Haven’t been losing strength in most of my lift so far, but it’s probably best that I don’t jinx myself ahaha.
OHP is going really well right now, with a comfortable 90x4. Deadlift is also not progressing badly, with a 250x4. Bench is stagnating a little but an easy strict and paused 120x7 is alright in light of my OHP progress and with cutting considered. Squat however isn’t doing so well right now, sitting on a grindy, loose form 205x4. At least nothing is dropping yet, from the looks of things.
As for assistance stuff, I’ve dialed back progress on those and decided to just focus on strict form with squeezing, especially for back and biceps. Gotta reserve energy for the big four when I’m running on limited supply after all. XD
Half of last week and half of this week fell in deload so that’s why I chose to put these two week’s updates together.
Squat 5/3/1 day was pretty ugly, barely done 4 hideous Good Morning hybrid reps with 210lb. Gonna reset squats now definitely. The other non-deload day was a back/bicep/ab day which I now basically treat like a light/accessory day now because low rep did nothing for my back or biceps except make me tired for DL.
This week, I got a 5+ rep bench day and back day in. Got in an easy 11 rep set in on my last bench set with 115lb and that was with the iffy leverage killing push-up bra too, haha. Felt like I had a rep or two to spare too but I chose to back off a bit to make room for more gains before reset. Back day on Friday felt really good too, considering I can still feel my lats and rhomboids right now on the night after, woo!
Looking forward to how the next three lifts will go definitely, which will happen next week!
(As for school, brain dissection is real fun stuff! Biochemistry is a bit iffy but I got this like a hard DL. :D)
hi there. Im a classical pianist…play liszt on every recital…Just thought it was neat to see someone else lift weights and play the piano…Ive been pretty serious about fitness.
Keep up the good work…just an idea…but Id stop knee extensions and leg curls…step ups or lunges are better and leg curls on a swiss ball or straight leg dead lifts, kettlebell swings are much better than leg curls.
clean and presses are the best exercise you can do… I love them.
Which liszt do you like the most? I play Dante fantasy probably the most.
good luck
steve
I love the Sonata in B minor the most, but I don’t think I have the musical maturity for it yet. I would love to play it at some point in my life though!
As for what I play, well so far the only big Liszt piece I have learned/been learning is the first Mephisto Waltz. XD After this I’ll probably go for Wild Jagd.
Lately I’ve been doing paused good mornings for my hamstring assistance and it feels better than SLDL or leg curls, but thanks for the advice. I like swings for activation/warmup before deadlifts.
Another week passed! Before I know it, it’ll be time for midterms at this rate.
Early morning leg day without coffee is the devil I swear, barely managed to grind out eight reps with 225lb on my all-out deadlift set and almost threw up after I did my five sets of ten on front squats Monday morning, yikes. Squat day on Thursday wasn’t amazing either, with only six reps done on my all out set with 185lb, but I wasn’t nauseous unlike on Monday.
On a better note, I managed to do six reps with 85lb on overhead press and eight reps with 120lb on bench press so my upper body is doing fine currently at least!
Once my upper body presses gains (esp. OHP) stagnate, I’ll shift focus back onto legs again. Don’t wanna be a female chest-brah lol.
I agree, it does look like your OHP is coming along; good stuff. That first ‘real’ pull up is also exciting. nod
I know I can do 100lb for at least one comfortable rep for three sets from cleaning for overhead work recently, but apparently I couldn’t recruit max power by third exercise, which is understandable. Definitely not gonna place explosive work anything later than first thing in the day from now on, that’s for sure lol.
A Mazeppa cycle in the near future sounds kinda like fun though, in the way that 20 rep squat sounds like fun!