MarkKO's Training Log

Training Logs
1342

Dang, it’s funny cause I almost don’t keep track of my PRs at all except for my 1rm for what I would consider main lifts (big 3, overhead press, olympic lifts). I’ve never understood the whole, do a bunch of variation and have a PR on a different variation each session. Their reasoning for that is, it keeps them motivated. Sounds to me like someone has a short attention span and can’t seem to focus on the big picture.

But then again, my 1rm for lifts barely increase, maybe 2/3 times a year at most.

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1343

I get how they can be indicators when you’re training conjugate - along the lines of ‘my two board usually goes up when my comp bench goes up’ - but it’s funny how the big, bad conjugate training bastards might put up a post of something like a monster box squat but never talk about how it’s a PR.

I think that’s more because you have horrible luck with injuries.

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1344

I’d like to think it’s because I can be a lil stupid at times but at least I’m on the road to being unkillable/indestructible.

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1345

That’s the reason I haven’t suggested @Benanything to run a westside style routine,although I’ve been thinking it for a while

Maxing out every week + his luck and he’s dead in a week or so

Seriously though man,give it some thought.It has worked great for me

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1346

Why is it that I think this will only encourage @Benanything to have a crack at conjugate?

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1347

Feels like the fatigue from this cycle magically appeared overnight. Didn’t feel bad when I woke up, but definitely glad next week is a deload.

Today’s training

Lazy lifter plus shoulders

Squat

15 TRX fatman pull-ups between first three warmup sets. Warm-ups felt amazing, focused on pushing my knees out as I’ve been sloppy with that of late and it made a world of difference.

5x346 lbs, under 6 RPE
5x396 lbs, under 6 RPE - had a close call with this one, set the bar marginally too low and it nearly rolled off my back just after I walked out.
5x440 lbs, 7-8 RPE - tried to treat this as a medium weight, so didn’t bring my grip in and didn’t take time between reps. Definitely makes a difference in how it feels, but also doesn’t seem to have any negative effect on bar speed or technique.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BPdtY-vh549/

FSL front squat 5x8x242 lbs, under 6 through to 7 RPE

Straps help a ton, not only do they make clean grip comfortable but they force me to place the bar correctly. Granted, this means I’m light headed for most sets, but who cares?

BB RFESS 50 total reps at 154 lbs: 15 (back), 15 (front), 10 (back), 10 (front)

These were brutal AF. Used the. Straps like OBB Power Handles for the sets with bar on my back.

45 degree back raises 100 total reps with 44 lbs chain: 35, 40, 25

Supersetted calf raises/abs
Calves 100 total reps at 143 lbs: 35, 35, 34
Abs 50 total reps: 10 STB, then sit-ups on the decline bench for 20, 20

Left bicep started feeling off after the STBs and I couldn’t find the cabinets for the slings, so I did sit-ups. Felt like they hit my rectus hard AF and left every other part of my midsection alone, so won’t be using them much until I want to just grow my visible abs.

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1348

It’s Friday, so here’s my highlight reel for the week.

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1349

DOMS is setting in in my legs, starting in the hamstrings and the quads and glutes are getting hints too.

This has been a GOOD cycle. I was initially concerned that I had pitched the volume too high, but it seems like I was needlessly worried. Even DL seems to be tolerable. I figure it’s not surprising with nice low TMs across the board. Two more cycles and into the anchor.

Speaking of which, I’ve been thinking on and off about the PR sets in the anchor. I’m considering capping at least some of the plus sets, if not all of them, to avoid being beat up when I start peaking. What I’m thinking of is either capping plus sets at 10, eight and six in weeks one to three respectively, or capping weeks one and two at 10 and eight and leaving week three open so I can go to town.

I could also do it differently for different lifts, which could work. I’m thinking of deadlift mostly here, so I might cap all deadlift plus sets and go right, six and four.

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1350

I’ve actually thought about running conjugate. My biggest ‘issue’ with it is the amount of variations. I tend to be quite a training minimalist. I might give it a shot in the future though, just to mix things up a bit. Right now, I’m in the midst of running smolov. After this, I might run the 20 rep squat problem with the goal of hitting 140kgs for 20, who knows?

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1351

20 rep squat routine is an attractive routine for sure.At some point that I’ll want break from conjugate I’ll definitely give it a shot

You could probably reach something crazy,given that you eat your ass off though

As for variations,you do not have to go crazy with them
For squats for example you can stick to pause squats and squats with bands
I do find value though in staying away away from the main lift on max effort days,cause missing a pr attempt on the lift you wanna improve can be psychologically damaging

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1352

Hey now, don’t be mean… :pensive:
To be fair, there was a period of time where I was consuming 4k+ calories on a daily…

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1353

Naaaaaah bro I wasn’t trying to be mean :pensive:

It’s just true that 20 rep squats x 3 times/week adding weight each session needs a ton of food and sleep to succeed

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1354

Sleepy AF today. Woke up looking good again, though. It’s now seven days that I’ve been on 300 g of carbs/day (bar maybe one or two days where I was on 280ish). This adds to my suspicion that 300 g/day is my current sweet spot. Weighed in at 200.8 lbs. Wondering if it’s water weight, but I drank a bunch of water yesterday so I doubt it is.

It’ll be interesting to see if the deload has any effect on how things go. I suspect not.

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1355

On a whim checked the GPC Australia rankings. I’m sitting at 23rd in the 220s, which is the highest I’ve ever been. That’s kind of moot, since next meet I’ll be in the 198s - where, incidentally, my current best total would put me at 13th. Now, none of this really means anything. GPC Australia reboots their rankings after every nationals, so these rankings only take into account totals posted since July 2016. I quite like that approach, because it means you have to actually compete at least once a year to keep your name in the rankings, if not your place.

Either way, it’s nice to see. The magic number in the 220s seems to be 1500 lbs, which looks like it’ll get you into close contention for a spot in the top 15 (usually the cutoff for getting a spot at Nationals). In the 198s it looks like 1400 lbs would pretty comfortably put you in the top 15, maybe even 1380 lbs, while 1500 would almost guarantee a spot in the top 10. Of course with another seven months until nationals that’s going to change, but I think it’s reasonably indicative. Also means nothing much for me because I’m not looking at qualifying for nationals this year, but assuming I keep going reasonably well it should mean I have a good shot at getting a spot in the 198s in 2018.

In terms of ‘strategy’, such as it is, I either need to set a good enough total at 198 lbs late this year to cement a place in the top 15 that’ll hold until mid 2018; or wait until the first quarter of 2018 to set that total. I prefer the first option, because it gives me a longer run-up to nationals, as I’m looking at late October to compete. The second option would most probably see me competing around March 2018, which would then give me just over three months to prep for nationals. I would much rather have a seven to nine month run-up to nationals than a shade over 12 weeks.

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1356

So, in terms of meets I know I’m competing on July 9, here in Canberra; and then there’s the Canberra Cup on October 22 which is the last full power GPC meet in Canberra for the year.

That would give me

17 July-13 August
14 August-10 September
11 September-8 October
9-15 October - spare
16-22 October - meet week

which effectively gives me two four-week cycles and one truncated six-week cycle.

It’s workable, but I have to admit it’s a trifle awkward as well. There are a few factors I need to consider. First, it is looking like my July meet will coincide with when I stop my deficit and start the process of creating my body’s new set point (obviously that timeframe isn’t set in stone. If I get to the look I want earlier, phase two starts earlier and vice versa). I anticipate this to be almost trickier than being in a deficit for a time until I figure out exactly what my maintenance level intake is (I’m fairly confident my current macro split will be something I carry across). Anyway, assuming this is what happens, I’ll be eating a little bit more so my recovery should in theory be slightly improved, which may give me a bit of extra leeway in training or drive my profess a bit.

Long story short, what I’m considering is running Training Maximally. Three months isn’t quite enough to run a decent leader/anchor and follow it with any kind of peaking, unless I ran the peaking as the anchor - and even then I don’t see myself getting that much stronger in two four week cycles to warrant spending five or so weeks peaking for the meet. It just doesn’t sit quite right with my gut.

I read through Training Maximally again and now for some reason I feel like I have a handle on how I could run it. For starters, I would simply pick two assistance exercises per day (hello Triumvirate) and just hit them. I probably wouldn’t do much to program them beyond setting a total number of reps. Ditto down sets and Joker sets. If I felt like them on the day, I’d do them. If not, I wouldn’t.

The advantage I see here is that I’d have a short timeframe for doing this. There’s a limit to how much I could fuck up my progress training like this for three months. One other major advantage to doing this is that it completely removes any need to peak or get used to heavy singles. All I’d need to do in the four or so weeks leading up to meet week is whack on wraps a few times to get used to them again.

I’ll lay out a few ground rules that’ll help me when planning this closer to the time:

  • Jim mandates a TM at 85% of your best GYM max or estimate. Well, duh. I seem to do OK picking my TMs so I’ll just be my usual conservative self
  • Jim suggests deloading only every six weeks, but respectfully I know myself and I think I’ll stick with every fourth although if it feels like I should hold off deloading for a week I will
  • for deloads I’ll follow the template except I won’t work up to a TM single but a beltless single (which will probably be 20-40 lbs below the TM) just to be safe
  • assistance exercises shall be two per day from this list because otherwise I’ll end up adding every damn thing:
    military press
    dips
    split squats
    front or SSB squats
    back raises
    T-bar rows
    Kroc rows
    ab wheel rollouts
  • pull aparts, pull-ups and fatman pull-ups will be kept between early warmup sets
  • stiff bar and straps for DL until last TM increase
  • conditioning will be kept as is because it seems to work and takes fuck-all time
  • the book sets out the sets as 10%, 20%, etc. I think I may just go quarter, half, plate, plate and a quarter, etc most of the time because something tells me Jim’s intent when including this template was not to have people feverishly calculating percentages and hunting for fractional plates
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1357

You can compete at the 198 without water cut since,so do you consider cutting a bit more over a long-ish period of time and with a water cut going for the 181?

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1358

While it’s all bubbling constructively in my mind, this is pretty much how I’m looking at running Training Maximally. TM increases as standard. Fourth week deload.

Monday
Bench press, optional Joker sets (with or without Slingshot), pull aparts between warmups
Press, 25-50 reps
T-bar row, 50 reps
Bike sprints

Tuesday
Deadlift, optional Joker sets (week one), pull-ups between warmups
Front or SSB squat, 25-50 reps
Ab wheel, 50 reps

Thursday
Bench press, optional down sets, pull aparts between warmups
Dips, 50 reps
Kroc rows
Stairmill

Friday
Squat, optional Joker sets (wrapped last four weeks), optional down sets either squat, front or SSB, fatman pull-ups between warmups
Split squat, 25-50 reps/leg
Back raises, 100 reps

The assistance volume is WAY down, around on a par my peaking for the July meet in parts. I figure because I’ll be working up to my TM daily in much smaller jumps than I use now (so more sets) I wouldn’t achieve much by hammering the assistance much. Again, the advantage of this lasting only three months comes in to play. I doubt the above would cause me to lose strength or size even if it doesn’t make me gain much - and I’m pretty confident this will bring my strength up some.

Holy wow. Somehow it all came together in the past two hours. If I may, @T3hPwnisher @littlesleeper @Destrength @andypee @BOTSLAYER it looks decent, yes? Not just me?

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1359

Looks pretty solid to me mate, nice and simple, usually the best way

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1360

Def dig the program, it is not just you :smiley:

Your desire to improve is your motivation. I agree with not needing outside motivation but every once in a while a little push can help with bumps.

This is infuriating. I get it, you are lazy but don’t drag me down into your world of reverse progression.

REALLY LATE EDIT: I meant to mention that it is recommended to not have electronics in our bedrooms to help with sleep. I realize this is almost impossible these days.

1 Like
1361

Are you doing rep PRs on the top set, 5s pro, or something else entirely?