Just. Don't. Suck (Part 1)

Just put a 20kg plate on your back.

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7.20.18

Woke at 237.6 lbs… I think.

Slept like absolute garbage. Awesome. Wore my fitbit to bed for a change.

Sad but true… the first tiny bout of deep sleep was interrupted when my wife got into bed. She weighs all of 130 lbs soaking wet but it felt like a fucking rhino crawled into bed with me. Wasn’t happy about that and it took me forever to relax and fall back asleep.

The second bout of deep sleep was when she got out of bed and went back down to the couch.

She has trouble sleeping for various reasons — asthma, sore legs from running, anxiety. The small couch in the living room seems to help her sleep when the problem is the first two. She’s also nice and goes down there when she’s tossing and turning.

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That graph looks like my hubbys sleep study graph before he got his sleep apnea machine…

Hope you get some better quality sleep soon!

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I hope you get better soon bud. You gotta find a groove

I don’t know about you but every time I start to make some progress and knock on the door to my goals something happens. For bench it’s always my shoulder.

I’m too stubborn for another surgery. I’m going to find a way to rest my shoulder and hopefully that does the trick. It usually does (although it’s worse than it’s ever been since surgery in '04).

I’m not sure what to do about my hip. I’m going to rest it by not deadlifting or squatting. I’ll test it by doing bodyweight squats. If it continues to hurt during those then I have no choice other than to go back to the doctor.

For now I’ll try RFESS. Those didn’t bother me yesterday, but I could see how they might if I push the weight and do heavy singles. In thinking about going back to Guaranteed Simple Strength & Size. It’d give me three weeks of sets of 8. I just don’t know which exercises to do without squats and deads. I might look at rack pulls or trap bar deads from the high handles.

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Bands my man, loop em round your shoulders and push into them :wink:

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Hey Big J

I hope you’ll find your way man, if BFB is to hard, then:

Time to look at something other than goal oriented training.
You might find something like the DH appealing, not exactly the DH but something similar.

Giant sets my friend, is the way, Maybe 5 rounds of giant sets.
BB row, pushup, core work, strongman shit. Followed by Light press emom 50%
Jumps, RFESS, core work, conditioning. Followed by light DL emom 50%
pull ups, strict press, core work, strongman shit. Followed by light bench emom 50%
KB swings, RDL, core work, conditioning. Followed by BW squat emom

Do some bodybuilding or/and rehab training afterwards.
Don’t go balls out on the giant sets, get back in the groove.
I really like the way I feel during and after the giants set workouts.

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I think you meant to say, if BFB’s frequency/intensity doesn’t fit your hip/shoulder rehabilitation plan…

If we tell him it was too hard for him he’ll be back in the gym today doing a circuit of 8 alternating hip hinge and shoulder movements up to 150% of his 1RM.

All kidding aside, it was probably your CrossFit venture immediately followed by such a high frequency program that did it. GSSS was obviously giving you the best results.

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Do cable fly’s count? That might be my next option, but with higher reps. My problem now is that I’m stuck with certain rep schemes. I don’t mean literally stuck, but my brain likes them and it doesn’t want to change.

I’m also considering going back to my State Trooper Academy approach of doing tons of push ups.

Correct. Hard is a relative term. And right now “hard” means not being able to do what I enjoy because of joint pain. It’s “hard” to find alternatives.

As I’ve said multiple times in here, in the past I’ve pushed towards my goals and come close. But as I get close something happens like joint pain or just flat out lack of enjoyment so I abandon the approach and change gears. The end result is that I don’t achieve my goals. I change things too frequently and don’t really make progress with anything. I’m tired of doing that and that’s why you see me being so stubborn and still trying to push things.

It was front squats in one WOD that did it to my hip. They’re dead to me now.

My shoulder was starting to ache a tiny bit towards the end of GSS&S but I chose to ignore it. Now it’s flat out painful. Doing things in everyday life hurt. I don’t think I hurt it in the gym; I think it’s been a slow onset. I’ve mentioned before that I sleep on it and wake up in pain. I think over time I’ve slowly loosened the ligaments so that the joint is loose again. The pain is probably from inflammation (I hope). I haven’t actually experienced a subluxation or dislocation so I would be shocked to find any damage to the labrum (shoulder labrum this time).

I’ve always had lax joints. I’m one of those people who can flex the wrist and touch my forearm with my thumb. The laxity has saved me from some injuries but definitely caused some. My dislocated knee in college was a non-contact injury so blame that one on laxity. In a high school football game I had someone roll up my leg. My knee caved in so far that the inside of it touched the ground while my lower leg was flat on the ground (straight out to the side). But I dodged the ACL bullet and only had an MCL sprain.

I might try a cortisone injection for the shoulder if it doesn’t stop bugging me. Coming off of a surgery 7 months ago makes me really hesitant to even go to the doctor. I’m not actually injured. I can still do daily things; it’s just screwing up my hobby. I feel kind of dumb spending money on stuff like this. I also feel selfish. So for those reasons you’ll probably see me continuing to struggle with this and trying to find non-surgical solutions. Hell, I don’t even want to visit the orthopedic surgeon(s) for a consultation.

I’ll probably write out another round of GSS&S this morning. Last time the leg day was squat, deadlift, lunges, and RDL’s. I really don’t want to do RFESS and lunges as my two quad movements. Single leg work really sucks. I can use Monday and Wednesday to feel out the weights for sets of 8 on whichever exercises I choose. If things go well then I can officially start the program on Thursday (because I have to work Friday night).

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Hell yeah it does dude…the sets take twice as long and feel 4x as long, and you don’t get the feeling of lifting lots of weight. Trap bar deads with high handles!! Great for back, for hips, and gives the benefits of both a squat and a dead.

Also if you remember the distinction between Advil and Tylenol that I pointed out earlier, go out and get a bottle of Advil - 200mg caplets. Take 4 of them every 6-8 hours for 10 days. Ever get those giant Motrin horse pills from the doctor? Those are just 800mg of Advil. 10 days is a good anti inflammatory regimen, and can do wonders for your discomfort.

My shoulder dislocated several times and one of them caused a chunk of bone to pop off so it’s as if it doesn’t have a full socket to hold it. Band pull aparts, lots of horizontal pulling, and the moving Blackburn’s are probably the only thing that keeps it in the socket - if I throw a ball hard I can feel it pop out and in, and then I can’t raise it over my head for a few days.

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Alright. I just picked up a 500ct bottle of Advil/ibuprofen.

I think I settled on RFESS, high handle trap bar deads, RDL’s, and box squat for my leg day. Box squat doesn’t hurt as long as I stay above 20".

Question about box squats… Should they be touch and go or should I sit back on the box? If I sit back then I release the tension. I’m not sure if that’s good or bad.

As for upper body day I think I’ve settled on OHP, Lat Pull Down, Pendlay Row and high rep push ups. I’ll probably superset those in that order too… at least on the day with only three sets.

Here is a couple of thoughts

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One thing I noticed in every video is that they all have shorter legs and wider stances than me. Hmmm…

I’ll have to play with some foot placement to see what I can do pain free.

Here we go! Starting weights for round two of Guaranteed Simple Strength & Size.

Friday Week 1
Exercise Reps Weight
RFESS 3 x 8 125
Trap Bar Deadlift (High Handles) 3 x 8 315
Box Squat 3 x 8 245
RDL 3 x 8 185
Farmer’s Walk 60 m
Saturday Week 1
Exercise Reps Weight
Overhead Press 3 x 8 105
Lat Pull Down 3 x 8
Pendlay Row 3 x 8 195
Push Ups 3 x 20
Hang SGHP 3 x 8 165
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And here are the goals. Week 12’s weight is what I’ll be hitting for a single.

Friday Week 10 Week 11 Week 12
Exercise Reps Weight Reps Weight Reps Weight
RFESS 5/4/3/2/1 185 5/4/3/2/1 195 5/4/3/2/1 205
Trap Bar Deadlift (High Handles) 5/4/3/2/1 455 5/4/3/2/1 475 5/4/3/2/1 495
Box Squat 5/4/3/2/1 365 5/4/3/2/1 385 5/4/3/2/1 405
RDL 5/4/3/2/1 305 5/4/3/2/1 325 5/4/3/2/1 345
Farmer’s Walk 30m 30m 30m
Saturday Week 10 Week 11 Week 12
Exercise Reps Weight Reps Weight Reps Weight
Overhead Press 5/4/3/2/1 165 5/4/3/2/1 175 5/4/3/2/1 185
Lat Pull Down 5/4/3/2/1 Week 9 5/4/3/2/1 + 5 lbs 5/4/3/2/1 + 5 lbs
Pendlay Row 5/4/3/2/1 255 5/4/3/2/1 265 5/4/3/2/1 275
Push Ups 3 x 20 3 x 20 3 x 20
Hang SGHP 5/4/3/2/1 225 5/4/3/2/1 235 5/4/3/2/1 245

I’ll be pushing a few exercises like RDLs, OHP, and maybe trap bar deads but the rest should be easily attainable. Remember, last time I topped out at 285 on bench and 465 on Deadlift and went on to hit 305 and 545. Conservative seems to work and it’s always enjoyable when you don’t fail a rep.

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Nice,will be good to see how you go. Make sure you eat.

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Hope that shoulder and hip gets better man

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So it turns out somewhere along the way my brain switched a couple of words in the title of CT’s program. From this point forward I will title it correctly.

Simple, Guaranteed Size and Strength (or SGS&S)

Sorry CT :disappointed:

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This program sounds super interesting. Did you say it was on TN too, or is it just on CT’s website?

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It’s just on CT’s site. It’s still free but it never appeared here.

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