I have not been making any strength progress over the last 5 months.
Current stats (in pounds unless otherwise stated):
Weight: 189
Height: 5’11"
1RM Bench: 225
1RM Squat: 265
1RM Dead: 365
Zodiac: Pisces
I’ve boiled my situation down into problems/solutions:
- Poor (read: no) record keeping/ This log
- Too advanced programming/ Simplify
- Imperfect form/ Simplify programming and video
- Below average diet/ consistently add meal around workout and after dinner, reduce carbs at dinner
Goal over 8 weeks: basically turn my 1RMs into 5RMs, by this very familiar program:
Workout A Workout B
3x5 Squat 3x5 Squat
3x5 Bench 3x5 Shoulder Press
1x5 Dead 5x3 Hang Clean
Workout C: 5 rotator cuff or core exercises, chosen by dartboard method, like:
For the Cuffz: Cable rows, chins, band pull-aparts, face-pulls, scap wall-slides etc.
For the Abz: bar rollouts, Pallof press variations, single leg squats, etc.
A or B rotating on Sunday, Tuesday, and Thursday. C on Friday. Each beginning with dynamic mobility warm-up drills. Foam rolling in the evening.
I plan to eat 5-6 meals a day, with the 6th being on training days, and 80% of the meals complying with Precision Nutrition.
I’m psyched for Sunday already.
Week One, Day One
Squat 3x5x190
Bench 3x5x185
Dead 1x5x275 Form Sloppy. Need to work on keeping back on my heals and keeping the scaps retracted.
Mood music courtesy of: KRS-One and Quicksand
Had done all these weights before. No surprises. See what happens with the bar gets heavier in the next few workouts.
Week One, Day Two
Squat 3x5x195
Used a lower bar placement and wider stance and it made them pretty easy. Who knew?
Shoulder Press 3x5x115
Hadn’t done these in a while, started a little light.
Hang Clean 5x3x115
Hadnâ??t ever done these much. Expect to increase weight quickly as the form gets more comfortable. These are quite fun.
Felt outstanding after this workout.
Tunes brought to me by Coheed and Cambria.
Week One, Day Three
Squat 3x5x200 No problem, though form wasn’t as tight as last workout.
Bench 3x5x190
Dead 1x5x285 Like the squats, my mind was wandering and didn’t think much about getting the scaps retracted.
Serenaded by the dulcet tones of The Blood Brothers.
What is your goal, your volume is extremely low if your all natural and haven’t made too much progress before your definitely not aiming for too much with that.
And why are you doing rotator cuff exercises are you injured?
[quote]Airtruth wrote:
What is your goal, your volume is extremely low if your all natural and haven’t made too much progress before your definitely not aiming for too much with that.
And why are you doing rotator cuff exercises are you injured?[/quote]
My goal is to increase my weight on bench and squat. There’s a few logs on here, ninjaboy and flux(?) that started out with numbers not to far from mine and made huge gains with this low volume linear progressive program. It’s Rippetoe’s novice program. I know it’s not without it’s detractors, but I’ve heard of enough success to think it’s worth a 2-3 month try.
Let’s call the rotator cuff stuff “prehab”. No shoulder problems and want to keep it that way.
Week One, Day Four
Chins 4x6x35
Cable X Rows 3x10x60
Side Bridge/1 arm rows 3x10x50
Scap Wall-slides 3x12
Lower body Russian twists 3x10
Guns 'N Roses blaring on the earbuds. What did you expect, it’s biceps day!
First week in the books.
Week Two, Day One
Squats 3x5x205, pretty easy. Quite pleased with progress here. Squatting three times a week has been great for honing my form and gaining confidence.
Press 2x5x120, 1x4x120 Struggled here a bit. Not sure how the form stacks up.
Hang Clean 5x3x125. Still pretty awkward here. I’m catching on my toes, because I’m not getting my chest out and elbows up high enough.
Music by At the Drive-In.
Week Two, Day Two
Squats 3x5x210
Bench 3x5x195
Dead 1x5x295
Week Two, Day Three
Squats 3x5x215
Press 2x5x120, 1x4x120
Hang Clean 5x3x135
kept my chest up and the squats came off pretty easy.
Really sticking on the press. I’ll give one more try at this weight.
Training accopanied by Danzig, with some Deftones on the final set of cleans.
Week Three Day One
Squat 3x5x220
I was prety tired, going into the workout. I was having trouble staying back on my heels and judging by the video, I couldn’t be bothered to get down to parallel. I’m going to do this weight again on Tuesday.
Bench 3x5x200
Was very please that I pulled this off. Looking at the video it looks easy, but it felt heavy. I need to keep my elbows under the bar. That should help me to keep progressing
Dead 1x5x305
Having some form issues here, don’t really know what to do to get better hip drive.
Squatted and benched with Jimmy Eat World, then some Megadeth on the deads.
Week Three, Day Two
Squat 3x5x220 Got legal depth here
Press 2x5x120,1x3x120 Going to have to take a step back here and get a running start
Clean 5x3x145
Week Three, Day Three
Squat 3x5x225 Kept my chest up, felt great
Bench 1x5x205,1x2x205,1x3x205
having trouble getting a good setup at my weekday gym. the pins are a little too high or a little low in the cage. Lost all back tightness on set 2 and bombed out. Lowered the pins and had a decent start on set three, but i burnt myself out on set 2.
Skipped the Deads. The bench effort ruined me mentally.
I’ll do some pulling on Friday. Chins, facepulls, band pull aparts.
Sunday I’ll attack 230 on the squat, try the 205 bench again, and 315 dead. That’s 87%, 91% and 86% of my current 1RMs. I’m making some good progress here.
Week four, day one
couldn’t get used to the rack at my wife’s gym. I kept hitting the pins and breaking my form. Just an all around fail on squats at 225.
Bench 1x5x205, 2x3x205 - picked up a rep from last time, so that’s progress
Dead 1x5x315 good times
Kind of a throwaway day. But taught my wife to box squat so that was awesome.
Week Four, Day Two
Took most of the week off being sick. Did a step back on the weight
Squat 3x5x215
press 3x5x105
hang clean 3x5x145
week five, day one
Life still keeping my training inconsistent. Stayed at the same weight on squats and bench, though upped the deads
squat 3x5x215
bench 3x3x205
Dead 1x5x325
week five, day two
Finally had a workout I could feel good about. I had forgotten how to squat in my two week forced delaod. The secret was to stay back on my heels and the weight moved a lot easier and I suppose i didn’t look like i was doing a standing leg press.
Squats 3x5x220
Press 3x5x110 - stepping back to a running start to conquer 120
Clean 5x3x155
Looking forward to getting back up to 225 on the squat on Sunday.
Week Five, Day three
Squats 2x5x225,1x4x225
Bench 1x4x195,1x5x195,1x2x195
Deads - skipped
Really wasn’t mentally prepared. Trying to bench with straighter wrists and it’s proven difficult to change at this heavy a weight for me.
Shouldn’t have skipped the deaeds, but my head just wasn’t in it.
Week Six, day one
I’m switching to front squats. Something bad with my low bar positioning is tearing up my back.
Front Squat 3x5x155
Press 2x5x115, 1x4x115
Hang Clean 5x3x160
After 4 solid and 1 half-assed week of backsquats it was refreshing to switch to front squats. See if i can’t add 40# to my 5RM over a month like on the back.
Week Seven, Day ONe
Front Squat 3x5x160
Bench 195x3x5
Dead 335x1x5
