Dear God these felt horrible. Stopped before I hurt myself.
I’ve learned something today- Doing cleans an hour or so after I wake up is not a good idea. Hell, I’m starting to suspect that I did pretty shitty with lifting in general when I lifted early in the morning largely because I wasn’t simply alert enough to make it useful.
Front squat-
135/185/205lbx1
See, I think heavy shit feels even heavier right now because I’m simply not awake enough, cause that 205lb felt heavy.
175lb, 3x6
Superset of chin-up/dip/single leg deadlift-
5x7 on the chin-up/dip, 5x5 on the deadlift.
These were not that bad.
Sit-up-
3x10
So… ya, volume stuff do not seem to be impacted all that much. Anything that requires actual focus/a good degree of alertness like the Olympic lifts and heavy weights suffered horribly.
The bad thing in all this is that I’ve been planning on lifting early in the morning again soon. Either I need to wake up super early (like 5 AM) and then go lift at like 7 or 8, or I need to kill this dream completely.
A couple years ago I was lifting early in the AM. I really enjoyed it, but I had to wake up, drink some coffee, eat a good breakfast, take a shower and then go and lift. I had to give myself 2-3 hours before I was getting under a barbell.
Squat-
135lbx3
185/225/245/265lbx1
235lbx8
205lb, 5x8, supersetted with 5x5 pull-ups + another 5 pull-ups somewhere in the ramp.
-Playing mind-games with myself with the 235lb. Felt a bit like I had to will myself to do another rep until I hit 8, but once I racked the bar I felt perfectly fine and like I could do another five reps.
-The 205lb felt much better than the 195lb last week, in that bar speed never slowed and it felt very consistent. Tiring though.
-Pull-ups felt ok until I decided to do them off the top support of the power rack on sets three and four. This felt torturous to my forearms, probably because I cannot grip the supporting beam with my hands closed. Torturous but awesome; I think I’m going to start doing my pull-ups like this whenever I squat. Hopefully it helps on building up my forearms.
Superset of hanging leg raise and reverse lunges-
5/5/3/3/3 on the leg raise, 5x5 on the lunges.
I like lifting in the morning because it frees up my evening. I’ve been going to the gym sometime between 7PM-8PM and getting out somewhere between 8:30-10PM for the last couple of months now. I’ve clearly gotten stronger, but the fact that I basically do not have time in the evening to do anything is starting to annoy me.
I think I’ll get the hang of waking up somewhere around 6:30-7AM first =D This should be easier to do now that it’s summer. I wake up with the sun, so getting up early during winter is virtually impossible for me.
Worked up to a 135lb clean and press. The press felt easy, but since I lift in front of a mirror I can see that it looked ugly.
Clean felt easy too, yay.
Barbell row-
95lbx10
135/155lbx3
185/205lbx1
Superset of barbell rows and DB OHP-
165lb, 5x5 for the row
50lb for a set of 5, then 45lb for four sets of 5. I didn’t like how my form looked on the 50lb, but then 45lb felt too easy. Will do more than 5 reps next time.
Superset of TRX push-up and TRX row-
5x5 on the push-up, 7/7/7/6/6 on the row-
Ate pizza for dinner with my parents an hour or so before lifting today. The sensation of being full + an enormous amount of carbs made me feel lethargic and just not in the mood for lifting. Bleh.
Squat-
135lbx3
185/225/245/265lbx1
205lb, 3x10
Everything just felt off. Bar speed slowed down quite a bit on the last set of the 205lb.
Pull-up
x5
+15lb, 5/2
Nope, doing pull-ups with a full stomach is no fun.
-Felt like my hip is too high on the deadlifts/ I’m lifting with my back more than my hamstring/glutes. Dunno why this is happening, things just didn’t feel right. It… might be a subconscious thing where I don’t to scratch my shins, since I didn’t bring my tape with me today.
-The 365lb was a chalkless PR. I shouldn’t have attempted that. That in of itself didn’t feel difficult at all but it wiped out my grip. The 315lb felt like a mess because of it.
I dislike using chalk because of the mess it makes, but now I need to start making a point of using chalk every time I pull more than 300lb, OR LEARN HOW TO USE STRAPS CORRECTLY AND GET BETTER STRAPS.
Mixed up the OHP and DB row warm-up/ramp, so I’ll just list the weights and shit.
OHP-
95lbx5/115lbx5
Push-press-
145/165lb
Almost died on the 165lb when the plate on the right side clipped something as I brought the weight down (I think the J-hook?) and caused the plates on the left side to almost slide off; the 5lb actually did fall off. Took a couple of seconds to balance the weight enough to rack it.
Ya, I’m going to start putting clips on from now on; that was scary.
DB row-
65/75/85lbx5
Superset of the DB row and OHP-
110lb, 7/7/5/6/5 on the OHP
105lbx4, 110lbx4/3, 95lb, 2x5
I went up to 110lb on the row because the knurling on the 105lb DB sucks balls. The 110lb is too heavy though.
Superset of TRX row and dips
5x6 on the dip
5x7 on the row
Superset of chin-up/dip/assortment of leg stuff
5x7 on the chin-up and dip.
single leg deadlift/assisted pistol squat/reverse lunge/single-leg deadliftx2
Supersetted the 245 and 215lbs with 3x5 pull-ups off the top support beam of the power rack.
My conditioning sucks; those three sets felt very difficult to get through. Actually, the 245lb wasn’t bad but things got really hard once I started doing the pull-ups. The strain on my grip is affecting the entire body.
Started using chalk with the 365lb; it felt easy.
Didn’t bother with the fifth set because I simply wasn’t engaged mentally.
These felt tougher than they should; not sure if that’s because I wasn’t engaged or because I’m out of practice. Probably both with mental engagement being a major reason.
Pull-up
x6
+20lb, 5/5/5/5/4
Mixed up pull-ups and chin-ups.
Meh. Stopped because the reps started to feel hard at 6. This reminded me of a blog post T3hPwnisher made, where beginners don’t know how much they can actually push themselves until they try.
I probably would have pushed it if I squatted in the rack with safety bars, but the possibility of failure, however unlikely in reality, scared me.
The 225lb were not at all difficult, but that’s not really surprising given that I believe I did 4x6 before with half the rest I’m taking now…
I think I got stronger with the previous method because I was pushing myself to hit a rep PR every single week. As it stands right now, I may be spinning my wheels. We’ll see what happens in 2-3 weeks.
Pull-up
x6
+20lb, 5x5
Some of the reps weren’t great.
Superset with reverse lunges, 4x6. Forgot to do a set.
Superset of DB RDL and hanging leg raise-
5x3 on the leg raise
35lb, 5x5 on the DB RDL
Superset of push-press and row-
135lb, 5x6 on the push-press
165lb, 5x5 on the row.
-Cleaned the weight up. The cleans felt good today. I think my single biggest problem with the cleans right now is the way I think of them. They’re NOT deadlifts. I need to use my hips in a completely different fashion. I watched videos of folks cleaning yesterday and I think it helped me visualize it better.
-Trying to focus on using less lower body on the push-press. Mixed results today. Some of these used my shoulders to finish the movement, others were entirely lower body. I’ll keep at it.
-Going to continue doing 5x5 on the row until I’m happy with my form.
Clean deadlift-
185lbx3
225lb, 2x3
245/275lbx1
Same issue as with the actual cleans. I’m tempted to finish these with the same hip movement I do with deadlifts, but that’s completely wrong.
Superset of TRX push-up and TRX row-
5x5 push-up
5x7 row
The fifth set felt easier than the fourth. I thought I wouldn’t be able to get another eight reps after the fourth set, but then the fifth set felt pretty easy in spite of having done a bunch of reps beforehand.
Superset of pull-up and RFESS-
4x7 on the pull-up, with last set as neutral grip so that I can guarantee seven reps.
5/6/7/5 on the RFESS
Superset of hanging leg raise and DB RDL-
5x3 on the leg raise
45lb, 5x5 on the DB RDL