Moving North of Vag

Training Logs
1

So, I’ve been on this site for a while and have posted a couple times and as you can probably tell from my posts, I am your typical beginner/newb in the sense that I have no idea what I want in terms of lifting and how to go about it. I’ve done like 3 week stretches of Alwyn’s program, Nate Green’s program and Chad Waterbury’s program to name a few.

Luckily for me, I came upon a “Blood and Chalk” with Jim Wendler and this got me interested. I started this about 3 or so months ago and am in my 6th deload week and loving it. The program that is, not the deload but whatever. I guess the point of this post is that I’ll just be keeping a training log and hopefully, the other 5-3-1 guys will follow along and chip in with their experiences.

At the moment, I am 26 yrs old, about 6’0 and 205 lbs. I have a chest that resembles a piece of looseleaf paper and I hate it. This is the one thing that I am hoping to improve on and am hoping for pointers from some of you successful 5-3-1 gents.

My starting training maxes were:
145-Military
210-Deadlift
195-Bench
210-Squat

My training maxes for next week will be:
150-Military (actually got up to 155 but had to reset the maxes back down)
270-DL
225-Bench
270-Squat

Goals are to get a 225 Bench, 315 DL and Squat and then keep on moving north of vag.

As for food, I’m just gonna eat clean as much as I can and only eat when I’m hungry really. I’m tired of trying to count calories and carbs and fats and proteins. Mostly, I’ll have eggs and bacon and a grapefruit along with a glass of whole milk for bfast, lunch will usually be the 2nd piece of meat that I cooked from the night before along with 2 green peppers, dinner will usually be a meat along with some type of bagged veggie unless I decide to get something else.

If I get hungry, I have the “Dave Tate Grab Bag” with peanuts, almonds, cashews, and m ‘n’ ms or I’ll have some David Pumpkin seeds. Ok so time to move north of vag. I’ll try and keep my log and keep you up to date on progress.

2

Monday 11/15/10

PVC pipe rolling and AMPED warmup: About 15 minutes total

Military Press:Training Max: 150
5x60
5x75
3x95
5x100
5x115
5x130 (Just went for 5 reps)

Military Press: 5 sets, 10 reps, 95lbs
Wide Grip Pull Ups: 10 sets, 5 reps, bw (spread out throughout the workout)

Cardio: Put 60lbs in my bag and went on the treadmill. Put treadmill at 4.0 mph walked at a level incline for 2 mins, then increased the grade to 10% for 1 min, then back to level and kept rotating. Did it for a mile so it took 15 mins total. I go to the gym right after work and it gets too dark to do hill sprints so I will be using these as a substitute for Prowler pushes on my upper body days and rest days.

Today will be either squats or deadlifts. Not sure Cardio will probably consist of 15-20 flat sprints at 11 mph on the treadmill and resting speed will be 8 mph. Maybe 7 at times. Will do these for a minute block so basically it will look like 15 sec sprint, 45 sec rest… Not sure how many to go for. We’ll use today as a test day and see how I feel. Most of my cardio previously had been basketball games but the season is over for now so it’s onto the treadmill I go.

Food was basically a gallon and half of water, 2 24oz of wawa coffee, egg mcmuffin from McDonalds, 2 hot dogs for lunch, a handful of sunflower seeds for am snack, a handful of trail mix for pm snack, dinner was 3 kids fist sized filet mignons, a lot of broccoli, 32 oz skim milk, and maybe 5 french fries.

Watched the Eagles last night and saw Vick dominate. I am an Eagles fan and won’t deny that I had my doubts about whether or not that he could play at this level again but he is doing great. For the record, I was anti-McNabb from the day he was drafted and am very glad to see that he is doing for the Redskins what he did for us.

Alright, time to go to work. Have a good day T-nationites! BTW… I took some pics of myself on my blackberry and emailed them to my yahoo account but can not save the images on my computer to post on this site. If anyone has any idea of what I need to do, let me know. Otherwise, you won’t get my pics. They are before pics so I don’t know how important they are to you people.

3

Decided on doing squats today. I left my shorts at home today so after work, I was going to buy a new pair and then go straight to the gym but there just weren’t any cheap shorts so I decided to just go home, eat dinner, and then go to the gym later (7:30ish or so). On my way home, my mom asked me to do something so my plans for the gym were kinda thrown off so I went home, then changed, grabbed a mouthful of pumpkin seeds and went to the gym.

Did my 15-20 minute AMPED workout and just as I was about to finish, some kid decides to go to the power rack and do squats with 95 lbs. I don’t know if they were full squats or 1/4 but I was pissed so I just said I’d do some “Jim Wendler” power cleans (basically form sucks but you’re picking up the weight) while waiting 'cause I figured he’d be doing about 4 or 5 sets. I did 3 warmups of 45, 95, 115, and then 3 work sets of 5 reps at 135. Of course, while I was doing the cleans, he goes from the rack to the leg press machine while I was in the midst of my 2nd warmup set. I guess I could have waited for him then. Oh well, got a little extra workout in.

Squats: Training max: 270
5x110
5x135
3x160
5x175
5x205
5x230

I seem to have the most difficulty on my 5 rep weeks but the other 2 weeks seem to be relatively easy. I don’t know if it is because I come off a deload or what but I got the required sets so I’m good.

5x10 Squats @160 lbs

(These two are done throughout the squat workout)
5x10 Back extensions
7-7-6-7-8: Hanging Leg Raises

Cardio was pretty brutal today. Tried running sprints at an incline on the treadmill. Never did this before but I liked them. Will probably continue to do it.

The Set up looks like this:
9.0 mph
8.5 incline

sprinted as fast as I could for at least 30 seconds then brought the speed and incline down to about 3 or 4 mph and 0 degrees and rested for as long as I thought I needed to. After my rest I sprinted again. In a 21:36 span, I got 8 sprints. Next time I will go for 9 sprints.

Today is my day off so I’ll be heading to the gym to do my stretching routine and then my modified treadmill prowler pushing.

Food yesterday was:

bfast: 5 eggs (3 whole, 2 white), 32 oz skim milk, whole grapefruit, 5 slices of bacon

snack: 2 mouthfuls of pumpkin seeds

lunch: 10" roast beef sandwich on a roll with swiss cheese, pickles, and extra meat and 32 oz of skim milk.

snack: handful of “Dave Tate’s Grab Bag” and mouthful of pumpkin seeds right before the workout

Dinner: 2 chicken fajitas and 32 oz of skim milk.

the 2 chicken fajitas really filled me up but I think it was because I drank the milk first. Next time, I could probably survive with just 1.

Yesterday was 24 hours of college basketball. How much of that did I watch? 0 hours. I remember in college I would skip class on days like yesterday and just watch hoops all day. I miss those days. I would have watched some games at work on espn3.com but I was too busy. Sucks but I hope I’m not this busy the first day of March Madness.

Contemplating getting NBA JAM for the PS3. I think it came out yesterday but that game was the greatest thing in my childhood so there’s no way I can pass that up right? Even at 50 bucks, it’s still probably worth it. Anyone get it yet? Alright, I’m out like a deaf kid in musical chairs.

4

Day off yesterday. Did my pvc pipe rolling and warmup/stretches before going on the treadmill and doing the “Smink Walk On Treadmill With 60lbs On Back To Simulate Prowler Push” exercise. This time, the incline was 12 and speed was 4 mph again. Walked/jogged on the incline for a minute and then rested as needed. Did 5 inclines in 20 minutes.

Next time I do this, I will go for 6 inclines and so forth til I get to 10. Then I will either up the speed or up the incline. I’m afraid to put the speed too high because right now I am running with a regular Jansport school bag holding a 35 and a 25 in the bag. I feel like if I start running, the bag will break. As of now, the 4 mph is giving me a workout hard enough where I’m pushing and it feels like I’m pushing something so I’m satisfied.

Food yesterday was basically the same in terms of bfast and snacks. Lunch was a grilled chicken caesar wrap from wawa. Dinner was something that I saw from a fellow 5-3-1 guy who posted his pizza with ground meat on it. Props to you good sir for a delicious dinner!

I will be doing hard cardio tonight only due to the fact I have a meeting tonight for basketball refereeing. Tomorrow night will be bench and Saturday will be deadlifts to round out the first week of this cycle.

Nothing good on tv last night considering the Sixers were playing the Raptors and both teams are horrible and the Sixers just aren’t fun to watch now that AI is gone. They really need to bring in a one of a kind talent that can simply score at will. Evan Turner and Lou Williams aren’t good enough to get the job done.

I ended up watching Green Street Hooligans again for probably like the 30th time. That is one of those movies where you can definitely watch more than once along with Tombstone. Elijah Wood sucks but other than that it’s such a great movie.

5

Hard cardio yesterday. Someone was using the treadmill when I finished my warmup so I went on the spinning bike and did 4 hard sprints on the bike and then went onto the treadmill and did 4 more incline sprints at 9mph and 9 incline. I don’t know what Wendler is thinking when he says these things are awesome. To me they suck. It’s been a long time since I was in hs and felt like throwing up after running suicides for bball.

Anywhoooo, diet was about the same. Some more eggs and bacon in the am, handfuls of trailmix through out the day, handful of pumpkin seeds (actually a whole small bag… they can be damned addicting sometimes) leftover ground meat and green pepper for lunch, grilled cheese for dinner. I didn’t get home til late last night so I didn’t feel like doing anything special for dinner so… grilled cheese it was. I know everyone probably thinking that I’m an idiot because I don’t have my diet in check but, I feel like I am getting bigger in the chest and shoulder area and my waist is staying around 35-36 so I’m not too worried.

I do feel a lot better now that I went to the gym every day this week so far and did something even if it was just my modified prowler treadmill thingmajig. I may or may not go back to doing shakes just to add a little protein in me but I’ll just wait and see if my progress has stalled or not. If I do go back to the shakes, it will just be 1 a day as opposed to the 2 a day I have been doing for the past 3 months. Weekend is coming up, I don’t have a computer at home so I won’t be posting today’s bench or tomorrow’s deadlift session until Monday.

Judging from the activity I’m getting on this, a lot of people are going to miss me! I know this week is just my 5 rep day and I usually only go for the prescribed reps but for some reason, I’m kind of feeling antsy to push myself and I was looking in my book and my 3 rep session last time was 180x6 so I’m thinking I might try and break that today and go for 190x7 or more. It’s still early so hopefully, the day goes smoothly and I’m feeling like a monster. Yes, benching 190 lbs makes me feel like a monster. This is just bold talk from a one eyed fat man. Have a good day everyone.

6

Friday night workout:
Bench: 5-3-1
5x95
3x115
3x135
5x145
5x170
7x190 (PR)

Bar Rows 5x10@135lb
Chins 4x3 w/45lb
Dips 12/12/13/15/16
-No cardio… I have issues with my big toe due to the fact that I overpronate and it was bothering me today so I wanted to give it some rest.

Saturday am workout:
Deadlifts
5x115
4x135
3x165
5x175
5x205
5x230

Good Mornings: 5x10@95lb
Also did a bunch of ab workouts between sets.
Again, no cardio. Had a three on three bball tourney on Sunday so was using that as my hard cardio for the weekend.

7

Shoulders yesterday:

5x65
4x75
3x95
3x105
3x120
5x135

Chins 4x3 w/ 45lb weight
Dips 5x15
Rear Delt Flys: 5x10@15lbs (First time trying these so started off light… could probably move up to 20 or 25 next time)

Expendables comes out on video today! Who’s getting it?! I know I am… It sucks being deaf sometimes because I usually have to wait until the movies come out on DVD to see it on closed caption. They have the movies in subtitles at select theatres around Philly but they are only out for like a week or 2 weeks and then they put up a new movie because they’ll only have 1 movie subtitled at a time. I hate it but the day has come and I can’t wait to see the movie.