June 18, 2013 Lower Body

• Snatch-Grip High Pull: 185*2 210*2 225*2
• Hanging Power Snatch: 145*2 155*1 160*X 135*4
• Hanging Power Cleans: 135*3 155*3 185*2 205*X
• Deadlift: 405*1 425*1 435*1
• Paloffs: 100*10 110*7

44 minutes

Fucking miserable workout.  I think I may be reaching the end of my time working out.  I dread going to the gym now, I don't enjoy it at all, it's a chore. High-pulls....the 225 I barely got it above my belly-button, those shouldn't count. A person with my strength should be able to get at least 275 on this. I can barely get 210 for some reason. I thought snatches would be easier since I would have done the bottom half (a high pull) with much heavier weight. didn't really make a difference though. I've actually lost weight on them over the past year, a significant amount too. Cleans went....awful. You should be able to hang clean as much as you bench. I max out around 310 on benching right now. I can't even clean my body-weight. For reference most 14 year-olds can do their body weight after about 3 weeks of training. I've been doing this fucking shit for 18 months, and my max has dropped from 225 to about 190. I've tried dropping the weight and just doing the bar, or like 115 lbs. or whatever, for a month or however long, and it makes no difference. As soon as I start building up any weight on the bar the same thing happens, it feels too heavy, and I can barely even start the rep even if I did 5 or 6 reps at 5 lbs. lighter. When it gets that heavy (so like trying to clean 195) I have to use some arm to pull the weight up and try to hit the rep, and throw my legs out to either side as far as I can so that my body is lower and I can catch it without bending my knees at all. But obviously that's a bullshit rep and I don't want to be doing that. I can't see anything wrong with my form in the video, other than maybe I'm leaning a little too far forward maybe? (although in the video here the guy is leaning forward just as much as me) But other than that my form looks flawless to me, I just can't see what I'm doing wrong and why my weight doesn't go up on these movements. I've gone through two full bulks, added weight on everything else, and actually lost strength on the o-lifts. Fucking horse-shit. Deadlifting went fine afterward at least.


I'm starting to think about how much longer I want to keep working out for.  I never did it to look more attractive, and believe me if anyone reading this is, you're barking up the wrong tree.  Women overwhelmingly like skinny guys that jog 4 or 5 miles per day.  But like I said I never did it for that, and I don't care if being as large & ripped as I am is attractive or not. I did it because I enjoyed the challenge, I enjoyed feeling great, and I enjoyed having the strength should the need for it ever arise outside of the gym.

Now?  The challenge is more of a grind, and I'm not progressing any.  The last 3 bulks/cuts I've done have all ended with me looking exactly the same.  I up the calories I'm taking in on the cut hoping I don't drop down too low on weight, but I always do anyway for some reason.  So basically every bulk I've done I just piss away the muscle on my cut. I have no idea how to preserve muscle at all on a cut, I lose 95% of what I gained on each bulk, so it's been largely pointless.  I certainly don't feel great working out anymore, if anything it just tires me out and takes up so much time during my day doing it and then recovering after, it's a pain in the ass.  As for needing the strength? I'm never going to need to lift a few hundred pounds off the ground, that is perfectly balanced on something I can easily grip.  There's no point to it.  I don't know, there is just so little in working out and fitness that I find enjoyable anymore, I'm starting to wish I had the 1000s of hours back from the last 14 years that I've basically wasted.  And looking back, it has been largely wasted. The first 8 years I had no clue what I was doing, putzed around with machines, didn't know how to do most lifts.  The next 2 I started to figure out more but my diet still sucked.  It's really just been the last 4 that I've known how to eat decent and had a decent routine. But again, my diet never really works out well, and the routines I do feel stagnant.  I guess what I'm saying is, if you want to live longer, do some sprinting a few times a week, and don't waste your time in the gym like I have, there's almost no point to it.