Silver and Steel

W1 D3

Conditioning
10 rounds:

  • 5 Burpees
  • Run around house

Main

  • 3 Broad Jumps
  • Deficit (3 mats) DL: 135/5, 225/5, 315/5
  • 8 TRX Fallouts

And that was it. I’ve been eating like a 4-year-old and it caught up with me today in the heat.

W1 D4

Conditioning

  • Pull-ups: 1, 2, 3… 10
  • Push-ups: 2, 4, 6… 20
  • Air Squats: 3, 6, 9… 30
  • Run up the short hill

Main & Volume

  • Pull-up: BW/5, 25/3, 25/5 the rest of the way
  • Incline Press: 135/5, 185/3, 215/3, 225/2; then 175/12, 175,8, 175/8
  • Side Plank: 10 seconds per side

Dynamic

  • 185/3 EMOM x 8
    My daughter was hanging with me and I got all kinds of confused. This was supposed to be 145 + bands x 10 minutes. Oh well.

Assistance

  • 100 BB Curls

3 logs in 4 days

Someone is cooking on gas!

Keep it up mate

Thanks man! I obviously already failed by the time you posted this…

In other news, traveling is not conducive to Dark Horsing. I’ve been doing random workouts, and will continue tomorrow, I’ll be home Saturday and will decide if I’m going to stick with a plan I can’t consistently pull off or if I’ll keep doing whatever and/ or go back to the Meadows programs. I sometimes get bored with it, but my joints feel great and I can do it in any gym; plus it just plain works for my current old man goals of just looking ok.

When is your baby due by the way?

The baby is due in January mate. 12 week scan next week!

Yeah I thought the Darkhorse looked a little time heavy. Any workout that lasts more than an hour starts to stress me out as i always feel I have to be somewhere else doing shit!

With regards to random workouts, as long as you’re lifting or moving mate. That’s how I tide myself over when real life gets in the way.

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Congrats! Are you going to find out the sex or be surprised? With my first-born, I did both…

And you’re 100% right about Darkhorse’s time commitment. It takes even more time when you’re in gyms you don’t know and trying to figure out what you can do. It’s just not realistic for me right now. Stupid real life…

Like you said, just doing stuff is key. I’m going to do a Pull - Push - Legs right now because that allows me to do whatever, whenever, wherever. Maybe I’ll actually get stronger too, since I’m pretty weak.

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Pull

  • WU: 100 jumpropes
  • A. BB Row: 45/10, 135/8, 185/10 x 4
  • B. Pull-up: BW x 8, 10, 8, 4 (30 total)
  • C. Rack Pull: 135 + black bands/ 5, 225 + black bands/ 6 x 4
  • D1. TRX Rear Delt: 3 sets of 10
  • D2. TRX Face Pull: 3 sets of 10
  • E. Grip4orce BB Curl: 45/12, 65/6 x 3
  • F. One-arm TRX High Curl: 2 sets of 8

I want to find out the sex mate however she wants the surprise. To be honest, I’m twisting her arm and hopefully she finds out.

Can’t go wrong with PPL mate. So versatile and allows you to play by ear

Good luck! We were the opposite - I didn’t really want to know and my wife did. For my first, they tried to guess too early and then were wrong so it ended up kind of being a backward compromise. It’s exciting times man. You’ll be emerging from your house again in the springtime like a bear, so the timing is good too.

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Little to report - I’ve been doing my workouts. Hurrah!

I’m slowly but surely coming to the conclusion that for us 35+ dudes, there is no ‘program’.

There’s just getting into the gym and getting shit done.

I remember listening to a podcast with Marty Gallagher and he said that when he goes to the gym, he just does whatever he feels like doing.

This idea is becoming increasingly attractive the older I get

I think I’m with you. Anything that removes a chance I won’t go, that it will take more of my time/ energy than it needs to, or that I’ll get hurt seems like a good idea at this point. Doing whatever I want seems to fit that bill.

I had to Google Marty Gallagher, but certainly seems like an someone we can consider an authority.

I think @ActivitiesGuy guy has said he got a 600 lbs. deadlift by gasp just going in there and deadlifting when/ however he felt like.

My go-to right now is having a relatively general split and basically knocking out whatever I happened to listen to on YouTube on the drive over. I do tend to put my bigger lifts later in the workout because it feels better for me, and I’m not strong either way so what’s the difference?

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My wife and I just had this conversation the other day. No baby on the way yet, but I’m sure it’s not far away. We both want the first one to be a surprise and then figure we will want to find out what the second one is (if/when the time comes).


ActvitiesGuy is a great example of what can be done with minimal time in the gym while still achieving feats of strength that few have.

Another log worth checking out for the simple (not easy) workouts with a bit of the “whatever, whenever, wherever” flavour you’re looking for is @strongmanvinny2 's log. He rotates through 3 types of workouts: Squat (typically Front Squat), Back (Often deadlifting, but other days just a whole lotta rowing/GMs/RDLs), Overhead work (OHP, push jerks, etc). Then whatever accessories you’re feeling.

(I hope this isn’t too fanboy of me @strongmanvinny2) I tossed his workouts in a spreadsheet a couple months ago for my own curiosity on the pattern and it looks something like this:

I’d like to eventually start working out like this, but right now the guidance of 5/3/1 still works better than me trying to auto regulate the weight, reps.

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That’s awesome! Good luck. You know how it works, right? There is a simple test to tell how far away it is…

Thanks for sending this. Exactly the kind of thing I need to be looking at.

I probably should just start doing 5/3/1. Most the guys that are on this site that are strong and jacked seem to be doing it/ have done it. It would at least have me do the main lift, then I can screw around. I take my BB Curls too seriously and think I’m going to shrivel up if I jump on 5/3/1 for some reason.

@littlesleeper thanks for stopping in and the advice; it’s super-helpful A good day for it, too, as I’m obviously in a procrastinating work kind of mood.

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Haha, do explain. We are currently severing a building lot and then hope to be building later this summer/early fall so we are trying not to bite off more than we can chew just yet.

It’s a damn good place to start. There are 3 or 4 day/week variations and then assistance isn’t really prescribed at all, so you can rock those BB curls until the cows come home!

Haha, I haven’t shriveled up yet!

Oh, I know this mood all too well… Monday vibes.

Nice. Is this for the new house? It’s hard enough when we do a project here, and the extent of my involvement is literally to pick up the phone and call a contractor.

Exactly what I need to do. I tend to be “all or nothing,” so when I get thrown off even an exercise on more detailed plans I just spin my wheels for awhile.

You’re exactly one of my examples! You’re stronger and bigger and leaner than me - that’s pretty much all the goals. Well, save one: we can both assume I’m significantly better-looking, but that’s because my face will not appear in these pictures.

I like a slow ramp to the week so that, by the time I get into it, it’s time to taper off for the weekend.

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Both of ours were surprises (the sex, not the baby). We moved both times my wife was pregnant (oddly enough out houses weren’t good enough once we got pregnant). We didn’t intend to redecorate the whole room anyway, but moving ensured this. The colors everyone bought us for clothes were green, yellow, and a bit of orange.

The baby came out and we all figured it out when Doc flipped them over. It was great! We had two names ready for each pregnancy.

Speaking of fan boys… CT’s Simple Guaranteed Strength & Size program taught me some simplicity. I did four main exercises per day with an upper/lower split. Day 1 was three sets, day 2 was 5 sets. Increase the weight and back to three sets the next week. Five sets. Repeat.

I’ve considered doing this as a general training principle on whichever lifts I choose to prioritize.

In the program the reps go from 8 to 5 to 3 and finish with 5/4/3/2/1. It’s 12 weeks and you spend three weeks in each rep range.

You could pick your main lifts and hit 3 x 8 (or some other rep scheme) one workout and then do 5 x 8 with the same weight the next time you hit it.

I view it as a more structured approach to training like @ActivitiesGuy.

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Yeah, we had a handshake deal to buy a house this Spring, but it ended up falling through so I’m now stealing a 2 acre lot off of the family farm to build a new house on. I won’t be doing much/any of the work myself. I spent the last 3 years doing renovations to make a decent profit off of our last house (which we did), but now I’m looking forward to having the work done for me.

Haha, well I appreciate it man, but I think I’ve just figured out the Photoshop better than you! I’ve been training quite specifically for strength for awhile, so if I didn’t have a little strength on you, I’d quit.

  • Also, sweet garage setup you have there! I’m planning on building a DIY lifting platform once I get my home gym setup in our new place. Looks great.

Thank you for this, sir, and for dropping in! Is this on his personal site? I’ve enjoyed doing his stuff in the past. I’m just way not in the mood to think right now (plus I don’t have the tools for that activity). I want simplicity so I can lift at home or on the road - I think that’s your set-up as well actually?