/sarcasm
But honestly I just wanted to try a new program that a friend got and showed me. I can’t give the name of it because of stupid legality issues, but it’s a three-week benchpress program immediately followed by a three-week squat program. Very high-frequency-you’ll figure it out. I’m not sure how good it’ll be but he swears by it, so we’ll see.
Stats/History
Ht: 5’8
Wt: 144
Benchpress: 245
Squat: 285-300? (guessing on this one, just recently started squatting ATG. I can hit 225 for 14 reps.)
Deadlift: 360
I just got done with a roughly eight-week plan of heavy lifting (six reps or less on compund movements, eight or less on iso. movements.) Every set of every exercise was taken to failure, some with drop-sets included. It was basically a push, pull, legs plan. I know that a lot of coaches would slap me for such a program, but it really worked for me for a while. Now that I’m hitting plateaus, I’ve taken a two-week “break” where I followed the same split, except with much lower intensity and volume. Now we’ll see how this one goes. I’m including some before shots (not very impressive…) and I’ll throw up some afters so we can see if my buddy was right.
Legs first. So embarrassing…
back. not very proud of this one either…
Did my first workout a few hours ago.
Benchpress:
165x10
180x8
190x6
200x4
215x2
Bent-over dumbbell flyes:
20 3x12 (all my DB weights will be per DB.)
Bent-over row:
135 3x8
Standing DB curls:
30 3x10
Crunches
3x25
Don’t know if I like this. It just feels too easy. I’m using the right weights for my max though. I guess I’ll feel it more as I fatigue throughout the week.
Second workout was much harder. I’m not used to high-rep low-rest lifts! lol
Benchpress: (my goal was 15 reps for all sets)
155x15
145x15
135x12
115x8
95x13
Squats:
135x12
155x12
155x12
Standing calf raises:
180 3x12
Crunches:
3x25
I didn’t mention before, but for the supplementary exercises aren’t meant to cause any soreness or significant improvements, more maintenance than anything. And the rest break for yesterday was three minutes between the bench sets, today was one minute. I’m reaaally not used to the low-rest part. Hopefully it’ll get better.
Still not sold on the program, but I felt it a lot more today than I did yesterday. Heavy triples tomorrow!
Just had a thought: The template for this program calls for five days a week on the bench portion and three days a week on the squat portion under the pretense that squatting is more taxing on the CNS than benching. One of my concerns has been that this program would make my lifts kind of eclipse my DL. So why couldn’t I follow the squat template and do an extra three weeks with a deadlift focus? Opinions are appreciated.
Yesterday was rough. I’m getting so damn sore.
Benchpress
185x3
205x2
185x2
165x3
155x3
Bent-over flyes
25 3x10
Bent-over rows
140x10
140x10
140x8
Dumbbell Curls
35x10
35x8
30x10
Crunches
3x25
Soreness is really killing all my lifts, next week has got to be better.
So I figured that I would take Fri. and Sat. off, then basically start the second week today. This way if soreness was getting to me I could take a day off and not lose time.
Benchpress:
170x10
185x5
205x0
(This was supposed to be a 10/8/6/4/2 pyramid to put in perspective how bad things were.)
Even with one less workout and the same amount of rest that the program calls for I got weaker. I’m not a big believer in over-training, but I’ve been taking in a minimum of 170-180g of protein a day, so I know my diet’s in check.
I didn’t even bother to do the auxillary exercises. I’m going to go ahead and start the squat portion and see if the reduced frequency works for me. At this point it’s going to be improvise as needed. Next week I might try for a new bench max just to see if I really lost strength. Any thoughts?
