Good PM session here, hit 265 on incline, though it was messy. Also did some weighted pullups, felt good. Went up to 200 on seated press. No idea what my PR is on that, should probably check. edit: just checked, that 200 is a PR for me! yaaay, etc.
Nice heavy double there at 475. Good stuff. Hit 500 again. Narrowly missed 160, so I had to go back and try it again, got it. REALLY happy with this ECA stack so far, and the results of the last week or so (more on the ECA thing later). Easing back into HPCs as well, as my shoulder gets back to normal.
Blew through this workout...barely any rest time. LOVE olympic squats, haven't done them in a while though. May do them on my 'lighter' squat days. I can't believe I got 340 on them. I've improved so much these past 6 months on squatting. Front squats went well too. Had nothing left in the tank by the time I got to the good mornings, the Olympics really drained me. Can't wait to do them again. Also, hand is feeling a tad better, swelling down, and I can curl my pinky all the way when making a fist with much less pain.
light light. LOVE seated presses; one of my goals this bulk is to work on my shoulders, and I definitely feel seated presses more in my delts than I do with the standing cousin of this movement. Pullups were...meh. Chest/back was already tired, and I hate high rep pullups.
smorgasbord workout. Got everything in though. Built up on benching which is more inline of what I want to do on the heavier days. I really enjoy the heavy t-bar rowing. Sled push & pull was for the competition at my gym, it's on a longer course this time around.
Decided to do some more power cleans here, although I prefer doing them heavy. May need to look at form and how I'm doing them. I think my form on snatches is actually better than cleans. I have trouble with the concept of 'rotating myself under the bar' on cleans. It just doesn't make sense to me. On snatches though it does since it's over my head, and I can think of myself as almost 'swinging' on the bar. If I ever figure it out on cleans I'll post about it. Did more deficit deadlifts. I really hope these things pay off, they're murder on my whole posterior chain, especially my lower back. Not in a bad way, it just taxes the heck out of them. Also I don't use wraps on them. I've wanted to wean myself off using wrist wraps as much as possible, and since the weight I'm using here is so small it's a great opportunity. I have to be careful though, when resetting the weight back to the floor those extra few inches really make the bar pick up speed. Jammed my wrists pretty good.
Really hammering on the deficit deadlifts now. Felt great. After that did power cleans. Not hanging power cleans, but actually from the floor. Did a lot more reps than I'm used to as well. After the deficit deadlifts the weight was flying, until I got to 225 and realized my hips were exhausted. Did some snatches after, and some pull-throughs, and then did a few core sets as well. Felt really good after this one.
Mixed in some heavy stuff on the db incline and NG Pullups. Good session though, hit 10 on 230 wasn't sure I would, could've had 11 actually. Did some cable rows after, I like them for high reps, may add them in on high rep days. Tried lat pulldowns just for fun, they're pretty dumb. Just do pullups. Rest of session went well. Bumping up LM Lateral weight in two weeks to 55 & 55
Tapered this workout a bit shorter, my legs were exhausted coming in, I guess from sprinting & broad jumps 2 days ago. Maybe exhausted is too strong of a word, but they were fatigued, almost cramping on squats. Rest of workout went well, getting the hang of pull-throughs. Not sure if the swiss ball bridges are really working or not, end up feeling them in legs and core as I try and stabilize.
Squats: 315*3 340*1 355*1 365*1 (High for year!) 340*1
BB Split Squats: 185*3 205*2
Good mornings: 215*2 225*2 235*1 NEW PR!!
BB Walking Lunges: 170*5 170*5
Paloffs: 100*10 110*4
Swiss-Ball Bridges: 5, 4
Swiss-Ball Lateral Bridges: 3, 2
41 minutes
FINALLY got past 350 without my lower back folding on me. I think the good mornings are having a good effect, plus switching up reps every other week maybe? Finally. Threw in split squats after since I like doing them heavy as opposed to with more moderate weight. The good mornings went well, I prefer them with the medium weight but I want to make sure I'm staying consistent with the theme of the workout. I'm about 95% certain I've never good morninged that much before, so that's good. Did some lunges to finish things off, then moved to paloffs. Finished with some swiss-ball neck work. You can see a video of them here, for some reason the video finder on here couldn't find it.
Doing some more reps on the squats, while I bring my lower back strength up. Did good mornings 2nd, focused on making sure I hinged at the hips. Tried to make sure I didn't hump my back out at the bottom too much, tried to make sure my back was flat, or arched in a bit still. I'll take videos next time to see. The forced hinging instead of just bending at waist allowed me to move more weight. Got 225. Was beat after that. Still did walking lunges. Kickbacks were brutal, I was gassed at that point from the squats & good mornings. Finished with paloffs.
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.
Wanted to try doing split squats first. Definitely preferred that. It doesn't tire you out much for subsequent bilateral work since it's so light, in relative terms. I actually felt better squatting after doing the split squats. Walking lunges are always a blast as well. Did some good mornings, progressing slowly on them as I build up more lower back strength, then did paloffs. I'm not sure if it's because I did split squats first, or what it is, but I'm positive that my lower back felt much stronger this week. Maybe it's psychological, but I'm going to keep doing the good mornings, and the split squats first. BLEW threw the session, only 38 minutes. Felt great! There are many ways to make progress; lift more weight, lift a weight for more repetitions, lift it faster, increase time under tension, or decrease rest time. Definitely did the latter here. Felt great
On squats my legs/posterior chain didn't fail, lower back can't support that much weight, need to bring it up somehow. Maybe good-mornings? I'll have to figure something out. Pin squats hit 300 finally. Felt good. Next did some bulgarian split squats, but what I was really waiting for was Split-Stance RDLs. REALLY felt these in the belly of my hamstrings. I thought the 135 would be a light warmup, instead it ended up being my first working set. Crazy good beating of my hamstrings on these. Couldn't do walking lunges after, no way was I going to be able to go knee to ground and get up after the RDLs. Finished with paloffs, then some sled pushes and was gassed.
Was in a bit of a hurry, still got a good workout in. Wish I had squatted more, considering I got a cluster at 335 last week. May try 345 for a cluster this coming week. REALLY loving cluster work right now. Not doing the cluster let me put up some better reps/weights on subsequent exercises. The walking lunges just absolutely decimate me, I'm doing fine, I do them, and then I'm drenched in sweat.
Good session, wanted to get a few different things in. Hopefully next week I can start sprinting again, as the track should be melted by then I hope. We shall see
280 & 290 on squats absolutely decimated me. I think I'm going to start having my 2nd set of squatting as the heaviest set. By the time I get to the third set I'm already pretty beat. Next week I'll try 280-290-270 I think. I was exhausted after these 3 sets, I think I took about 6 minutes after the 2nd set. On split squats I really didn't have much left in the tank at that point, just did a rep with 185 and called it a day on those. I'm liking kickbacks a lot more as I get used to them. Finished with paloffs; would have done two sets but I was beat!
The squats at 280 lbs. beat the heck out of me. Went heavy on pin squats, and split squats as well. Could barely get up from bottom on the 185 split squats. Going to up the kick back & paloff weights next week; getting the hang of the kickbacks is nice, definitely a nice glute/ham builder.
Good session, the weights keep climbing on the 10 rep maxes. The straight-leg kickbacks take a while to get used to, I need to make sure I'm staying balanced on them and not leaning to one side or the other. Finished with paloffs, the 110 is about as high as I can go for 10 reps rigth now, was about to fall over after them.
Well, I'm posting this on Tuesday the 8th...my ass/hamstrings/quads are finally recovered mostly. I'm thinking maybe 3 sets of 8-10 on the squats may be more appropriate for the next couple weeks, until I'm used to the volume. Because honestly I can barely walk the rest of the day here, and then for the next two days I'm stiff, sore, and slow no matter how much I try and stretch out. Maybe 245-255-265 next week. Split squats I need to start doing outside the squat rack because I keep banging the weight on the side of it when dipping down. Other than that they went well. Straight-leg kickbacks I posted a video of below. I do them standing up leaning against the column of the cable station though. Added weight on to the paloffs, felt good. Also of note, I feel like the pin squats are definitely helping me at the bottom of the regular squats, that start from the bottom with no momentum really has been a boon to regular squats.
