Same GF I’ve had for a touch, but still new yes. Life is turning around. Still juggling the new financial burden from the divorce. Other that that, life is good lol. Been hittin the gym super hard recently with no end in sight and went the private route on TRT so getting that dialed in is giving me hope. I’m bound to wake up one day and be swole 
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Good to see your back at it, will be following along. Keep it up!
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Thanks dude!
That’s awesome man! How is the TRT making you feel?
Honestly still can’t tell anything. Still riding the high of knowing my numbers weren’t as good as they could have been and now they should be closer. Just telling myself it’s easier to build muscle this way .
Had a good back day after getting 2 shots at the docs office! Feelin a lot better!!
Right before I finished up back and was moving to biceps my girlfriend got sick, so we left. She was killin it though!! First real back day.
Unfortunately I didn’t get to do BOR’s as they don’t have BB’s, but I got to use a lot of cool machines. But none that quite mimicked anything BOR’ish
The machines they have for lats and romboids are fucking nuts. Greatest pump of my life. I feel like the perfect workout would be to start at my house and finish at the real gym with machines . Wicked pump in places I haven’t felt in a while. Very satisfied.
Tomorrow is leg day and I’ve already told her I’m starting at my house, because only bitches squat in smith machines! After the Lords favorite BB variation I shall wobble to planet gay and destroy what’s left of these wheels and booty
Leg day! Starting squats here at home then headed to the gym to play with their machines.
Not exactly sure what my work set is gonna look like today lol, so I’ll start recording here and just do what I feel like 
Back squat
225 x 3
255 x 1
285 x 1
315 x 1
345 x 1
285 x 3
285 x 3 - swapped to bushing bar to try it, seems more stable. WTF did I think a fancy ball bearing bar would be cool 
Time to meet the GF at the machine planet! Leg day TBC
So, something I’m noticing when I get any type of moderate weight (for me) is that I seem to be “leaking power” of that makes any sense. I’m not sure if it’s a bracing issue, technique issue, a muscle recruitment/drive issue, or some combination or something else lol.
Say for example, 225 I’m nice and rigid, I feel like all my power and drive is being forced into the floor and the weight drives up. When I go heaving it’s almost like that drive and power is being randomly sent all around my body. Like it’s taking that power I normally have and it’s going other places and coming back, almost like pulsing. I’m trying my hardest to get biiig belly breaths, stay tight and brace my core, my back, lats, arms are close and tight, bar is locked it. Idk if it’s just general weakness or what.
@chris_ottawa @FlatsFarmer @T3hPwnisher @BOTSLAYER
y’all are some of the strong guys that come to mind when I have questions, there are more but I figure this is enough knowledge to get a possible question. Thank you ahead of time for taking the time to read this and offer an opinion!
What do you mean, are you shaking?
Based on what you wrote, I would say it sounds like you aren’t used to lifting near-max weights (which you don’t really need to be doing most of the time anyway) and that while you might consciously know how to squat it’s not yet automatic so when it gets difficult your body just pushes in every direction rather than doing exactly what needs to be done to get the weight up. What I would do is do some work that challenges your technique, like a heavy low rep top set (not necessarily a single) where you have to really focus on maintaining proper technique, plus lighter work far from failure for some extra technique work without any breakdown.
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Yes! That’s what it feels like. Not shaking or anything. I’m not used to heavy (for me) squating at all. I had major issues with it last year when I worked out routinely, had hip and groin pain I couldn’t seem to fix. Now that I’ve recently started back squating the pain is gone and it feels good so I’ve just been working on greasing the groove, the few squat sessions I’ve had since starting back have been higher reps in hopes of greasing the groove and finding a groove. I will definitely implement your suggestions for future workout! Thank you for taking the time to reply!!!
What are your actual goals? Unless you plan to compete in powerlifting I don’t see much use for singles. Something like 5x5 or 5x3, just linearly progressing the weights, wouldn’t be a bad idea right now.
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I’d love to look like I could compete in physique, so hypertrophy. That said, I think strength is a part of being big. Never seen somebody with a body I’d love to have be weak as piss. I kind of feel like I try and mix both styles or training into my workouts. Little bit of heavy and little bit of high rep, best of both worlds Who knows.
The thing with singles is that they are pretty much useless for hypertrophy and it will take plenty of time and effort to get any good at doing them. If your goal is hypertrophy then more reps is the way to go.
The problem with exercises like squats where technique is a significant factor is that until you actually develop decent technique you can’t get much out of the exercise. If I was you, I would do something like 5x5 or whatever and then run to the gym and do some leg press, hack squats, or even smith machine squats for high reps because that will actually build some muscle right now. Then once your squat is more solid and you can push close to failure without any major technical errors you can push the squats harder. You don’t need to do crazy high reps either unless you just like that stuff, 5-12 reps is good and you can spend a few weeks here and there doing triples or singles if you feel like it.
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I agree on singles not being great for hypertrophy. Although I’ve only logged a couple leg sessions in this journal, you can scroll up and see the majority is higher rep stuff. I try and add a little heavy stuff just to get used to it and help increase strength. I did a stint last year with a lot of high rep volume stuff and my strength went down, so I try and incorporate a little bit of heavier work just to try and maintain/gain strength.
To really get anywhere with singles or heavier work in general you have to keep doing it regularly for weeks or months. If for example your typical squat day involves working up to a heavy set of 5 and then doing some higher rep work after it will be an easy transition to singles rather than if you do 8-12 reps for a few weeks and then go for a single one day, and sets of 5 are much more conducive to hypertrophy than singles.
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I totally agree with Chris. With heavy weights it’s hard to keep “tight” or keep everything “engaged” or to “recruit” the smallest, weakest muscles. However you want to think about it.
In training you should use weights that allow you to keep everything tight and controlled and base your progression on keeping that tightness/engagement/recruitment. The lighter weights allow you to keep the smalls weak muscles involved, so you can Train them. That’s how you’ll be able to progress your squat and get stronger with hip/groin pain.
This can be totally boring and feel more like “practice” than working out. So I agree that you should do some other, less technical, Go-Hard stuff after.
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Also all those guys are stronger than me, that’s a good group to be included with.
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Still stronger and wiser than I!
Currently on the stair climber as I conclude my second part of leg day. Edit: 40 floors in 6ish minutes (accidentally hit the estop not regular stop so it erased exact time)
Starting to realize this gym sucks lol. The machines are cool but the weight stacks don’t have enough weight. Every machine I used today I used the Mac weight. Still destroyed my legs it just took a lot of reps lol
Leg extensions
5 sets to failure at 170lbs
Leg curls
4 sets to failure at 100lbs
Seated leg press
4 sets at 290 took too long to get to failure so stopped around 20 each set
Good girl machine
Glute kickbacks
GHR
2 sets holding a 10lb plate straight out in front of me
Calf raises
2 sets to failure
Lots of bicep stiff too since I missed that yesterday.
I don’t have anything to add beyond agreeing with @FlatsFarmer lifting maximal weight for low reps is a skill that requires practice: it’s why I don’t care to do it. I’d rather just get bigger and stronger, haha.
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Thanks for the reply man
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