LRB 365: Strong-15. Week 3. Bench

*Session done at the local L@Fitness so scale and weights are a little suspect.

BW - 200*

Bench -
BarX10
85X5
95X4
115X3
125X2
145X1
155X1, 1
135X16

Incline -
95X10, 10, 10, 10, 10

DB Flyes - 2 sets of 20

Rope push-downs - 4 sets of 18-20

135X16 would be an all-around PR*.  Felt good to hit that target regardless.

My left triceps were sore and fatigued for some reason today and that back-off set took enough out to make the last couple Incline sets a bit of a bitch.  Barely got the final rep.

Same thing with the push-downs.  Triceps were shot.

LRB 365: Strong-15. Week 3. Squat/Dead

BW - 201

Pause Squats - BarX10, 95X5

Squats -
125X5
145X4
165X3
185X2
205X1
215X1
225X1

Pause Squats - 185X3, 3

Deadlift -
135X5
165X5
195X4
225X3
265X2
285X1
295X1
305X1
255X3, 3

Leg Curls - 4 sets of 20+

Everything moved smooth and easy today.  Deadlifting at these lower weights with max speed continue to leave my traps sore the next day or two. 

That's Phase 1 done for lower body day.  One interesting thing:  the additional volume leading up to the singles is more fatiguing than I would have thought.  On 5/3/1, 225 on Squats and 305 on deadlifts were noticeably faster and lighter than they are with this progression and were regularly done for reps of 5+.  Then with Deadlifts coming after all the squatting, I'm getting another slight hit from fatigue.  I'm not worried that I've over-programmed because I used my "everybday max" as dictated by the manual, but it's certainly enlightening.  Next week, the back-off Pause Squat and most of the Deadlift weight take a small step back, so I look forward to seeing what those feel like.

LRB 365: Strong-15. Week 2. Back

BW - 204

Chins -
BWX13, 7, 5, 5, 4

T-Bars -
45X10
70X10
70X12
80X10

Rickshaw Shrugs -
200X20
290X20, 20, 20

BB Curls -
BarX10
65X5
BarX42, 10

Pretty solid.  13 chins was a bit of a bounce-back from recent sessions.

Upped the weight on T-Bars, but still repping kind of slow and focusing on the contraction.

Forgot my straps, so I had to used the shrug machine.  This actually felt pretty "good."

Two sessions in a row of 40+ empty bar reps.  That's the trigger I was looking for to go to phase 2 in my little curl project.

LRB 365: Strong-15. Christmas Vacation

12/20
BW - 205

Chins -
BWX8, 6, 5, 5, 5

T-Bars -
45X10
70X10, 10, 10

Shrugs -
135X20
225X20
315X20, 20

BB Curls -
BarX10
65X5
BarX40,10

12/23
Squats -
BarX10
95X5
125X5
145X4
165X3
185X2
195X1
215X1
225X1

Pause Squats -
175X5, 5

Deadlift -
135X5
165X4
195X4
225X3
265X2
275X1
285X1
295X1
235X3, 3

Leg Curls - 4 sets of 20, 1 set of 26

12/24
Bench -
BarX10
85X5
95X4
115X3
125X2
135X1
145X1
155X1
125X16

Inclines -
105X10, 10
95X10, 10, 10

DB Flyes - 3 sets of 20

Rope Pushdowns - 4 sets of 20

Squats felt much better now that I'm not sick.  Faster, but also combined explosiveness with better control so that I didn't lose lower back tightness at lockout.  Good Session.

Deadlifts all felt pretty fast.  Traps are getting sore from these now when they weren't under higher weight/reps on 5/3/1.  Interesting.

Bench felt pretty good.  Trying to focus on initiating the concentric with my legs.  Really burned myself out on the AMAP back-off set, and had to drop my weight mid-way through my incline set as a result.  Chest and shoulders were sore as hell the next day.

LRB 365: Strong-15. Week 1. Bench

BW - 201

Bench -
BarX10
85X5
95X4
115X3
125X2
135X1
145X1
155X1
115X15

Incline -
105X10, 10, 10, 10, 10

DB Flyes - 2 sets of 20

Rope Pushdowns - 4 sets of 20

80+% session.  Now that I'm past all the limiting symptoms of last weekend's head-cold, I felt like this session was a more realistic introduction to the new program than Saturday's plague-ridden squat session.

As promised, the introductory weights all felt light as hell, and I was able to focus on applying maximum explosiveness while also keeping my form tight.  This has been one of the biggest difficulties for me of late:  keeping my upper back tight while driving lighter weight to lock-out.  I find that high bar speeds tend to pull my shoulders apart at the top resulting in a loss of tightness for the following reps, and I'm trying to correct this problem.  There was progress on this today.

I would like to have gotten more than 15 reps with 115, but the bar was moving way slow and I was just out of gas.

I think this was an over-all volume PR for inclines, however.  Don't think I've gotten 5 full sets of 10 with 105 before.  As maximizing assistance volume is one of the top-tier goals for the introductory phase of the Strong-15, I'm pleased with this, and will continue to push it in coming weeks.

I haven't done DB flyes in...I don't know.  And I kind of remembered why.  In order to keep stress on the muscle, the range of motion is severely limited.  I double-checked the manual, and it just says "Flat Flyes," so I think I will switch to pec-deck.

It's also over a year since I did any kind of cable push-down, and these 4 sets of 20 really fried me.  I kept the weight light, and tried to focus on feeling the triceps pull and relax.

All in all, felt like a pretty good body-building session.  My first in I don't know how long.  I'm certainly reminded how boring aspects of training this way can be however, but maybe I can focus on adjusting my perspective in that regards.

LRB 365: Strong-15. Week 1. Squat/Dead

BW - 199

Pause Squats -
BarX10
95X5

Squats -
125X5
145X4
165X3
185X2
195X1
205X1
215X1

Pause Squats -
165X5, 5

Deadlift -
135X5
165X4
195X3
225X2
265X1
275X1
285X1
225X3, 3, 3

Leg Curls - 4 sets of 20

80%?  Don't know.  Head cold is kicking my ass up and down the street, but didn't want to wait on starting the LRB 365 program, and anyway the first few weeks of the Strong-15 are mostly light.

I still want to use my light pause squats as a warm-up because they give such a great stretch, and help grease the groove as far as depth, however I was stepping out to wide and after the 2nd set, my hips were screaming at me.  Great way to start the session.

Then I further beat myself up by focusing to much on popping the weight up at the top, and I lost lower back tightness at full extension.  My low back was slightly strained by the 165 set.  Just getting better and better.

The set ended up fine, after I stopped popping my hips forward as much, and the pause squat sets were both solid.

Deadlift felt a bit heavy today, and I'm wondering if I've had a bit of drop-off here meaning that I'd done a long slow peak leading up the last week or two, and now it's falling back to earth a little.  Could also be illness combined with the rough squats.  One more reason I'm glad to be starting a new program so that everything is light.  225 sets all felt strong.

Leg curls.

5/3/1 BBB: In Review

I'm going to keep this short like my time with this program.

First off, all these headings should have BBB in quotes, or I should have called it 5/3/1 +5X10 or something, because with the exception of Cycle 2 of Squats, I didn't use the main movement for the 5X10 sets, but rather a variant except in the case of Cycle 2 of Deadlifts where I did hypers for 5 sets of 10-20.  Not really the program right?  So this is very much In Review of what I did as opposed to A Review of Boring But Big.

All I really have to say is that my pressing moved the needle a little bit more than my Squat, and that Squat in particular started to leave me feeling pretty beat up.  Deadlift continued it's usual steady increase for the most part.  I haven't done a Wendler style deload or layoff since I started 5/3/1 Full Body back in July.  I had some lower rep sessions while on vacation, but they were still real work sessions.  I imagine this has a lot to do with the beat up feeling.

All of this, combined with one other element made me decide to cut this a little short.  I was only going to do one more cycle of this program anyway, so it's not a complete bail out.  The other element is that Paul Carter finally release his LRB 365 manual this week, and I'd been planning on running that for the entirety of 2013.  With the way my training was starting to go, I looked at the calendar and saw no reason to wait.  I've jumped straight into that program with no layoff either, because I've set very conservative goals, and the first 3 weeks are very light.  See you over there.

5/3/1 BBB: Cycle 2. Week 3. Press

BW - 201

Press -
BarX10
65X5
85X5
95X3
105X8

PBN -
65X10, 10, 10, 10, 10

T-Bars -
30X15
60X8
90X5
115X3
90X13, 8

Reverse Curls -
BarX10
65X5
BarX27

80% session despite having a cold.  Probably could have gotten a few more reps on 105, but didn't feel the need.

PBN was a bit harder than last time, but I was also breaking each first rep off my neck.

Upped weight a bit across the board on rows.  This was fine.

Couple more reps with the empty bar on the reverse curls so...yay.

5/3/1 BBB: Cycle 2. Week 3. Dead

BW - 201

Deadlift -
135X5
185X5, 5
245X5
275X3
315X5

Double-Overhand Timed Barbell Hold -315X12 seconds

Hypers - 5 sets 15-20

Ab Wheel - 5 sets of 8-10

80% session.  315X5 is a Rep PR.  Could I have gotten a 6th?  Double-overhand grip would have been the first to give, but I'm not sure I could have locked it out either.

5/3/1 BBB: Cycle 2. Week 3. Bench

BW - 200

Bench -
BarX15
95X5
115X5
140X5
155X3
175X1
185X1
135X10, 6

Chin-ups - BWX10, 7

Wide-Grip Pulldowns - 3 sets of 10

BB Curls -
BarX10
65X5
BarX30

80% session.  I have a tight schedule early this week, and so had to do bench a day early.  Because that had me going Press, Squat, Bench on consecutive days, I made some slight tweaks so that there wasn't as much overlap with what I did on Press day.  That means taking the focus away from my shoulders a bit.

First, I chose not to go for a rep max on my top set, but rather to just get the required single, and then take my training max for the cycle for another single.  Wendler has written a lot about this lately, and it made sense for this day.  Both singles were heavy, but the rep was smooth on both.  Very satisfied with that result.

Second, rather than do BBB sets on Incline, I did more flat bench with a 50% set.  I kind of thought I would get more than 10 reps, but I'm fine with this.

Chins and Pulldowns and curls were all fine.

5/3/1 BBB: Cycle 2. Week 3. Squat

BW - 202

Pause Squat -
BarX10
95X5

Squat -
135X5
185X5
200X5
230X3
245X3
155X10, 10, 8, 8, 10

Single-Leg Curls - 5 sets of 12-15

-10%.  Felt weak, and my form was shit and all over the place.  On top of that, my top set was supposed to be 255.  I mis-loaded 245, and still only felt comfortable getting 3.

I am satisfied with upping the weight on the BBB sets though.

5/3/1 BBB: Cycle 2. Week 2. Press

BW - 203

Press-
BarX10
65X5
80X3
90X3
100X11

Standing PBN - 65X10, 10, 10, 10, 10

T-Bars-
25X15
55X8
85X5
110X3
85X20

BB Reverse Curls -
BarX10
65X5
BarX25

+10% session.  100X11 is a top 3 Press for me, and I probably could have gotten 1 or 2 more.  Hard set, but no grinding.  Good stuff.

Set up in the rack for the standing PBN this time, and it made it easier to set the hooks at a good spot.  Bottom of my skull basically.  Also got all 10 reps on each set this week.

85X20 is an all-time PR on T-Bars.  Had to pause for breath a couple of times, and it was a grind, but got the goal.  Will up the weight slightly next session and start working up to 20 again.

Added 25 reps to the work set on the reverse curls as well.  They felt a lot stronger this week.

5/3/1 BBB: Cycle 2. Week 2. Dead

BW - 204

Deadlift -
135X5
185X5, 5
225X3
260X3
295X8

Deadlift hold -
295X1X15sec.

Hypers -
BWX12
5X15, 15, 20
10X20

Ab Wheel- 1X2

Swiss Ball Crunches - 4 sets of 15-30

80%+ session.  295X8 is an all-around PR on Deadlift.  I really should try to enjoy these more, as they're bound to dry up again sooner or later, but it's become so routine for me to set PR's in this lift. I've only ever crapped out on Deadlift twice. Once was October of 2011 when I tried 315 for the first time and it wouldn't budge, and the second was in July of this year when I first started 531 Full-Body and ended up having to lower my training maxes across the board because I had lost a lot of strength in the lead up to opening a show.

Grip strength is starting to get dicey double-overhand, and that's why I added another 1 rep set just to time out my holds.  This was just an idea, and I might try to go with something more conventional, as my hands/forearms don't feel sore the day after.  I should probably also just start using chalk for my top sets to make sure it's less of an issue.

Added a bit more weight and reps on the hypers today, so that's cool.

Went to do the ab wheel, and my abs started screaming at me right away.   Guess they weren't fully recovered from last time.  Pretty weak.  I did some chiropractor crunches to get some work in on them anyway.

5/3/1 BBB: Cycle 2. Week 2. Bench

BW - 206 (whoa, wtf?)

Bench-
BarX15
95X5
130X3
145X3
165X6

Incline -
95X10
105X10, 10, 10, 10

Chins - BWX9,4

Ridiculously wide-grip Pulldowns - 4 sets of 10-12

BB Curls -
BarX10
65X5
BarX35

Felt like complete ass all day, but still had an 80% session, and actually felt a bit better afterwards.

165X6 on bench is right in line with my recent PR's, and ties my all-time 6 rep PR.

With inclines, I felt able to up the weight a bit this week which was nice.

Assy feeling and weirdly high BW were not a good combination on chins.

I'm switching to wide-grip pulldowns for this cycle.  My gym has a couple, and one is this crazy wide, like 45 degrees out from my shoulders, grip bar.  I decided to use that one.  Very short ROM with this bar, but I could still feel the muscles working so we'll see.

35 reps with the empty bar was a super-solid PR on curls.  I'm looking to hit 40 once or twice before I up the weight a bit.

5/3/1 BBB: Cycle 2. Week 2. Squat

BW - 200

Pause Squats -
BarX10
95X5

Squats -
135X5
155X3
190X3
215X3
240X6
135X10, 10, 10, 10, 10

Single-Leg Curls - 5 sets of 10-12

80% session, and 240X6 is an all-around PR since I reset my squat to be deeper.  HOWEVER, the last couple of reps were some of the hardest I've ever done, and my form went to absolute shit, and in fact had been kind of crappy all day.  So while I'm stoked for the PR, I would have liked a smoother lift.  Something to think about if the next session is rough as well.

On the BBB sets however, as I got further from that ugly fucking 240 set, these got smoother and more automatic feeling.  Still, I'm going to leave the weight here for next time.  I don't see any reason to push it at this point.

Also, standing single-leg curls.

5/3/1 BBB: Cycle 2. Week 1. Press

BW - 201

Press -
BarX10
65X5
75X5
85X5
95X12

PBN -
65X10, 10, 10, 8, 10

T-Bar Rows -
25X15
55X9
85X5
110X3
85X18, 9

Reverse Curls -
BarX10
65X5
BarX20

80% session.  95X12 is a Rep PR, but it was a bit of a grind.

This cycle I'm doing standing PBN for my BBB movement.  Never done them before, and it took some toying to figure out how to set up for the un-rack and re-rack because I'm only coming down to the back of my head on these.  Shoulders were fried after.

85X18 is an all-around PR on t-bar rows.  Nice.

Press day already feels like such a body-building day, AND has low overall poundage, so I decided I will throw in some reverse curls and try to increase them in the same way I'm doing regular curls on Bench day.  Reverse curls are obviously much harder, so I expect it will be 45/65/45 throughout the cycle(s).

5/3/1 BBB: Cycle 2. Week 1. Dead

BW - 204

Deadlift -
135X5
185X5, 5
215X5
245X5
275X10

Hypers - 5 sets of 10-15

Ab Wheel - 5 sets of 5-10

+10% session, but Deadlift often is.  I focused on making sure my knees locked out after the last couple of sessions, and just thinking about it seemed to take care of the issue.  Everything felt strong, and 275X10 is right around my projected 1RM and ties my 10 Rep max.

This cycle I'm doing hypers and ab wheel for my assistance.

On hypers, my hands are behind my head, or I'm holding a weight behind my head.  Significantly harder than over my chest.

On ab wheel, I realized I can get a few more reps if I keep my head forward rather than looking at the ground.  Somewhere Mark Rippetoe is probably screaming about my cervical spine, but whatever.  When I can kick out 5 sets of 10 this way, maybe I'll return to neutral.

5/3/1 BBB: Cycle 2. Week 1. Bench

BW - 204

Bench-
BarX15
95X5
120X5
140X5
155X9

Incline-
95X10, 10, 10, 10, 10

Chins - BWX13, 5

Neutral Grip Pull-Downs - 3 sets of 15

BB Curls -
BarX10
65X5
BarX30

+10% session.  155X9 is an all around Rep PR on bench.  In fact, looking back I have never hit 9 reps on a top set of 531 bench.  Wow. 

Took a lot out of me though, and that's why I stayed at 95 lbs. for the BBB sets on Incline.

BW of 204 for 13 chins is an all-time PR, and all these reps were paused.  Pretty nice!

I meant to switch to wide-grip pull-downs for this cycle, but I forgot until half-way through my pull-down sets.  I'll hit it the rest of the cycle.  No big deal.

Got 5 more reps with the empty barbell on curls today.

5/3/1 BBB: Cycle 2. Week 1. Conditioning

Hill Sprints - 10 minutes

Intervals - 10 minutes

My hill is a 20 minute walk from home.  I was pressed for time today so I only ran the hill for 10 minutes, and then did sprint intervals all the way home.

5/3/1 BBB: Cycle 2. Week 1. Squat

BW - 204 (yay, thanksgiving!)

Pause Squats -
BarX10
95X5

Squats -
135X5
175X5
200X5
230X7
135X10, 10, 10, 10, 10

Standing Single-Leg Curl - 5 sets of 10

Almost 80%, but the last rep or two of the squats at 230 were a pretty good strain, however technique felt solid through all the effort and I got the number of reps I was looking for, and that's the goal.

Switching to back squats for the BBB sets for this cycle.  Much harder than front squats following the 531 sets, but also felt more awesome to just keep banging out back squats.  Happy with this choice.

Also switching to single-leg hamstring work for this cycle.

5/3/1 BBB: Cycle 1. Week 3. Press

BW - 201

Press -
BarX10
80X5
90X3
105X8

Upright Rows -
85X10, 10, 10, 10, 12

T-Bar Rows -
25X12
55X8
85X5
110X3
85X15, 10

80% session.  Press felt strong.  105X8 was NOT a grind, and puts me back in spitting distance of some of my best all-time pressing sessions.

5/3/1 BBB: Cycle 1. Week 3. Bench

BW - 202

Bench -
BarX15
95X5, 5
135X5
150X3
170X5

Incline -
95X10
105X10, 10, 10, 10

Chins - BWX11, 5

Pull-Downs - 3 sets of 12-15

BB Curls -
BarX10
65X5
BarX25

80% session.  170X5 is right around my best projected 1RM close-grip and pausing every rep.

5/3/1 BBB: Cycle 1. Week 3. Dead

BW - 200

Deadlift -
135X5
185X5, 5
235X5
265X3
305X3
315X3

RDL-
135X10
155X10
165X10
175X10
185X10

BW Lunges - 5 sets of 12-15

Running Thanksgiving errands, so I went to a L@Fitness near my house.  Because it was Monday, there was a queue for all the benches.  So fuck waiting for a bench and/or switching up my bench workout to accommodate that crap.  So instead of waiting for one of the 3-4 benches, I went over to the lone squat rack, dropped the bar on the ground and did Deads.

This gym has some of those crappy angle-sided weights that move around at the bottom of deadlift reps.  I knew that would suck ass if I tried to go for a lot of reps on my top set, so instead I pulled my programmed 531 top-set for a triple, then pulled my training max for the cycle for a triple.  315X3 is also a Rep PR.  Pretty fun.

RDLs and Lunges.  All good.

5/3/1 BBB: Cycle 1. Week 3. Squat/Hills

Saturday:
BW - 201

Pause Squats -
BarX10
95X5
135X5

Squats -
135X5
165X5
195X5
225X3
245X5

Front Squats -
95X10
105X10, 10
115X8, 8

Leg Curls - 5 sets of 20

Sunday:
Hill Sprints - 20 minutes

Okay session.  Probably not quite 80% on Squats.  245X5 was my goal for the day, but the last two sets were pretty damn hard.  It's possible I overdid the warm-up sets.  Next time I will drop back to 2 sets of Pause Squats, and only one warm-up set of full squats before my 531 sets.  See if that makes a difference.

Front squats felt stronger, though.  That was good.  However, I'm still worried about my back squat form, and I believe I will swap out Fronts for full back squats next cycle on my BBB sets.

Leg curls sucked less than usual.

5/3/1 BBB: Cycle 1. Week 2. Press

BW - 203

Press -
BarX10
75X3
85X3
95X10

Upright Rows -
85X10, 10, 10, 10
95X10

T-Bar Rows -
25X12
55X8
85X5
110X3
85X13, 6

Solid 80% session.  Everything showed an uptick in weight/strength.

I'm considering rotating some of my assistance for the next cycle.  If so, I will probably keep the T-Bars since I've had a lot of success with them in the past Deadlift-wise, but may switch out PBN for Uprights.  Still thinking about it.

5/3/1 BBB: Cycle 1. Week 2. Dead

BW - 201

Deadlift -
135X5
185X5, 5
225X3
255X3
285X8

RDL -
155X10, 10
165X10, 10
175X10

Lunges- BW 5 sets of 12

80% session.  I was only looking for 285X8 today, and that's what I got.  I will say the last couple of reps were a little harder to lock out with my legs than I would have liked.  In particular, my left knee didn't want to lock correctly.  Don't know what that is, but hopefully all the Front Squats and Lunges will benefit that area.

Decided to back off of 185 and work my way up a little more slowly on RDL's.  These were all good sets/reps, and I didn't even need a strap.  Right choice.

Upped the reps on lunges to 12 per.  I think I meant to do 11, but I forgot about that in the gym.

5/3/1 BBB: Cycle 1. Week 2. Bench

BW - 200

Bench -
BarX15
95X5
125, 145X3
160X6

Incline -
95X10, 10
105X10, 10, 10

Chins - BWX10, 7

Pull-Downs - 5 sets of 12-15

80% session.  Super-solid.  Was just gonna look for an easy 5 reps on my top set of bench, but 6 turned out to be just as easy.  No grinding, just getting a few extra reps before moving on to the BBB sets.

Switched to the shallower incline bench so I could up the weight a bit and bring some more pressure onto my chest.  Had to tweak my set-up a lot.  I don't want this to be a technical lift for me, but I still need to feel solid under the bar.

Solid 50% set on chins.

Pull-downs felt good.  Keeping my shoulder blades back, and pulling my elbows down.  No bicep effort at all, but my lats were feeling good and worked.

5/3/1 BBB: Cycle 1. Week 2. Hills

Hill Sprints - 20 minutes

I've done some running since I got back from vacation at the beginning of October, but I suddenly realized I hadn't hit the hill once since then.  Need to change that, and get these in before the weather gets just to crappy and I have to find something else.  Given everything, these were about as hard as I expected.

5/3/1 BBB: Cycle 1. Week 2. Squat

BW - 200

Pause Squats -
BarX10
135X5

Squats -
135X5
180, 205X3
235X6

Front Squats -
105X10, 10, 10, 10, 10

Leg Curls - 5 sets of 20

Again, I came in and got the reps I was looking for on my top set.  235X6 is my 2nd best squat since I reset my form.

Fronts are still gassing me.  I keep telling myself I want to go for AMAP on the last set, but by the time I get to 10 I just want the damn thing back in the rack.  We'll see if that trend continues.  Still, 5 sets of 10 is the program.

Leg curls suck.

5/3/1 BBB: Cycle 1. Week 1. Press

BW - 202

Press -
BarX10
70, 80X5
90X12

Upright Rows  - 85X10, 10, 10, 10, 10

T-Bar Rows -
BarX20
25X10
50, 75, 100X5
75X20

Not a bad return to front pressing.  12 reps of the top set was what I was looking for, and what I got.  Can't complain.  I took these off of a stand, but I cleaned the first rep of each set.

Uprights were heavier than I'd hoped, but I chose the correct weight for the day.  Didn't have to use straps.

Hit 20 reps with my work weight on T-Bars, now I will up it for my next session, and work to 20 again.

5/3/1 BBB: Cycle 1. Week 1. Dead

BW - 199

Deadlift -
135, 185, 185, 205, 235X5
265X10

RDL -
185X10, 10, 10, 10, 10

BW Lunges - 5 sets of 10

Pretty solid session.  I've been hitting a lot of project 1RM increases with my pull the last couple of months, so I thought I'd take the opportunity of starting the BBB phase to just hit a solid 10 reps and then move on to the accessory stuff.  As always, I held the last rep at the top for grip.

185 was a tad ambitious for me on the RDL's right out of the gate.  I probably could stand to back off to 155-165 so that I can focus on the muscle contractions rather than just making each rep.  Also, I had to add straps after the 1st set.  Going forward, I will keep my straps handy, and try to delay using them as long as possible.

5X10 lunges were pretty easy all the way through.  I'll up it to 5X12 for the next session.

5/3/1 BBB: Cycle 1. Week 1. Bench

BW - 200

Bench-
BarX15
95, 115, 135X5
150X7

Inclines -
95X10, 10, 10
105X10, 10

Chins - BWX10, 6

Pull-Downs - 5 sets of 10-15

Disrupted session.  I only took bench to a rep where the bar speed slowed dramatically.  I could have gotten 1 or 2 more, and possibly ground out a 3rd.  I decided to just take the two extra reps and focus on the BBB sets.

There were a bunch of guys in the main bench area talking NBA when I went to do Inclines and I let myself get sucked into the conversation.  The incline sets were all "fine," but they all had 3-4 minute rest between sets because of talking.  I've never really talked to anyone in the gym before, and it was kind of nice to socialize, but I feel like I diminished my workout.

Also, I used the really steep incline bench, but I think I'm gonna try the curved one next time.  The steep angle just makes it feel a lot more like an overloaded OHP rather than a deficit bench press somehow.

Since this phase is so much about volume, and since I can't do 5 strict sets of 10 on chins, I've decided to just do 50% sets of chins and follow that up with 5X10 pull-downs for lat volume.  A little bit of a call-back to the Defranco programs that started all this for me.

5/3/1 BBB: Cycle 1. Week 1. Squat

BW - 203

Pause Squats -
BarX10
95X5

Squats -
95, 135, 170, 195X5
220X8

Front Squats -
95X10
105X10, 10 10, 10

Leg Curls - 5 sets of 20

Decent session to kick off the new phase.  And my legs were KILLING me the next day.  Woke me up in the middle of the night it hurt so bad.  Just brutal.  2 days later, I'm all good.

220X8 on the Squat is in the ballpark of my best lifts the last couple of months.

Front squats felt pretty solid.  I've settled back on a pretty standard 3-fingers under the bar grip, only with my wrists rotated slightly inward.  This weight feels "light," however I kept feeling gassed towards the end of the sets.  Don't know if that's diet, sleep, or just need to get used to the 5X10 protocol on these.  Plenty of time to find out.

Leg curls suck.

5/3/1 Full-Body: In Review

Yesterday I wrapped 5 cycles/4 months of 531 - Full Body.  I'm going to go over the way I set it up, and then the progress #'s.

Here's a comparison of the textbook version of this variation and what I did:
3-Days
Wendler:
Regular Squat every session; one 531, two with lower %/reps
Me:
Regular Squat on 531 day, Pause Squats the other two with the lower %/reps.  Pause Squats help me keep my form in check.

Wendler:
Military Press with 531 sets/reps on Press/Deadlift day
Me:
I used Klokov presses instead just because I wanted to give the movement a good try.  Also, every 3rd or 4th session I would use Paul Carter's Strong-15 scheme to understand where my top end strength on the movement was in comparison to the high-reps I was getting on my 531 top set (it was always lower than projected).

Wendler:
Puts out a lot of DB/one-arm/one-leg movements as potential options for assistance
Me:
Everything was done with a barbell, or lifting my body off the floor (chins and dips)

Wendler:
One Squat, One Press, One Pull movement per session.
Me:
That plus a few cycles where I threw in ONE additional accessory movement per day targeted to bring up one certain muscle group per cycle.  So I would settle on a muscle group, and add one movement to each lifting session for that area.  I did this for two cycles with shoulders/traps, and one cycle with legs.

That's it.  I consider that directly in-line with the principals of the program as laid out by Wendler.  The only place one might quibble is with the additional movement added to bring up a muscle group, however I always had enough energy to get a quality work-out on all the lifts, and my numbers never seemed to suffer from the added work.

On to my progress:
There are a few ways to look at this, but I'm going to start with progress on the individual lifts.  One note on this: I reset my max on everything after the first cycle because I was stalling really quickly following the 2-day program I'd been on for the summer, and that's why the initial weights don't seem far off from the final weights.  I also started pausing all bench reps on my chest, and this further reduced my initial #'s.  With that out of the way:

Squat -
Best lift first cycle: 225X4, projected 1RM 250
Best lift final cycle: 225X8, projected 1RM 280
30 lb. increase

Bench -
Best lift first cycle: 160X4 (touch-and-go), projected 1RM 180
Best lift final cycle: 165X6 (all paused on chest), projected 1RM 195
15 lb. increase PLUS added pause at bottom

Klokovs -
Best lift first cycle: 70X12, projected 1RM 95
Best lift final cycle: 85X11, projected 1RM 115
20 lb. increase

Deadlift -
Best lift first cycle: 295X1 (awful); projected 1RM 305 (previous best was 345)
Best lift last cycle: 290X8; projected 1RM 360
60 lb. increase

Something else I started tracking, and another way to look at progress, is that I logged my projected "total" for each week, and then my average total for each cycle.  So for example, in week 1, I projected at 240, 175, 305 for a 720 total, I found that number for each week, and then took the average of all 3 weeks per cycle to get my average total for the cycle.  Progress looks like this:

Cycle 1 -
720, 735, 720 for Average Total - 725

Cycle 5 -
780, 835, 820 for Average Total - 810

85 lb. increase

Looking at it this way results in a very conservative number by which to judge my current standing.  Rather than just taking my best individual lifts across the whole program and saying my final total is maybe 835, I can safely say that my total is at least 810.

So there are two different ways to look at my progress.  I think the bottom line here is that progress was demonstrably made.

As to how I feel about the training like this?  I loved it.  I really did.  It was hard to talk myself into transitioning into something else.  This type of full body layout using only a compound barbell or bodyweight movements is the kind of thing I've wanted to try since I started reading Chaos and Pain, and it really worked for me mentally.  Also, I've long felt that in addition to the Big-3, my long-term staples would be standing OHP, BB Rows, Chins and Dips.  This program allowed me to ONLY to do those things for a long time, and it was awesome.  I expect I will return to this from now on for a significant portion of each year's training.

5/3/1 Full-Body: Cycle 5. Week 3. Bench/Dead

BW - 203

Pause Squats -
BarX5
95X5
135X5, 5
185X3
210X3
235X1

Lunges - BW 5 sets of 10

Bench-
BarX15
95X5, 5
130X5
150X3
165X6

Deadlift -
135X5
185X5, 5
225X5
260X3
290X8

Tough session, but with some good results.  This was the last week of 531 Full Body.  I have a tight schedule this week with 2 public readings and rehearsals for same.  Also, I'm going to try and squeeze 2+ full cycles of 531 BBB in before I start rehearsing my next show after the new year.  Therefore, I made the executive decision to combine my last 2 Full Body sessions into one, so that I can start BBB this weekend.  The big loss here is that I had to drop my final session of Kolkovs.  Everything else that got skipped (chins, leg curls) will be present in the next phase.

Pause Squats felt solid.

My quads felt mega-pumped after the 5X10 lunges.

165X6 is a tiny, tiny all-around PR on the bench close-grip and pausing every rep on the chest.  I was hoping to go for 8, but 6 was a grind.  The 150X3 was the best feeling set of the bench session as far as tightness of set-up.  Feeling positive about the adjustments I've made, and the results.

290X8 is also a small all-around PR on Deadlift.  I started making a small adjustment here, which is basically just keeping my hips a tad higher.  The bar still banged the fuck out of my knees, but didn't tear up my shins at all.  The last couple reps here were also really tough grip wise, and the final rep BARELY locked out.  I still managed to hold the weight at the top for a second or two, but I could be beginning to see the upper limit of my double-overhand grip.

5/3/1 Full-Body: Cycle 5. Week 3. Squat

Saturday:
BW - 199

Squat -
BarX10
95X5, 5
135X5
185X5
210X3
235X5

Front Squats -
95X10, 10, 10

T-Bar Rows -
BarX15
25X10
75X5
100X3
75X15

Dips - BWX10, 6, 5, 5, 5

Sunday:
Timed-Mile - 8:49

Kind of an 80% session, I guess.  Squats felt slower than I would have hoped, but 235X5 is pretty much dead-center-average for what I've hit the last 5 weeks.

Fronts felt solid.  Still playing with my grip trying to find a fingers under grip that's both stable and comfortable enough not to be a distraction.  I was planning on starting BBB with 115 for sets of 10, but I believe I will start with this weight at least until my grip is more settled.

Used Paul Carter's over-warm-up method on rows this time to great success.  I was struggling to get 75X10 just working up to it, and with the over-warm-up here the 15 rep set was solid.

Dips were okay.  It's still just a matter of being gassed by the end of the session, and still having the discipline to not only work through all 5 sets, but to keep pausing each rep at the bottom.

Fell off the conditioning band-wagon a bit since I've been back from vacation.  Had a tight schedule this week, but I made myself go out at sunset last night and run a mile.

5/3/1 Full-Body: Cycle 5. Week 2. Press/Dead

BW - 199

Pause Squats -
BarX10
95X5
135X5, 5
185X3
210X3
235X1

Klokov Press -
BarX10
65, 75X3
85X11

Deadlift -
135X5
185X5, 5
215X3
245X3
275X10

Leg Curls - 5 sets of 20

Great session.  +10%.

Pause Squats felt as solid as they have since I went to this top tier of %s.

85X11 on Klokovs is an all around PR.

275X10 on Deadlift is an all around PR.  Felt really good too.

Leg Curls are goddamn uncomfortable at just about any weight.

5/3/1 Full-Body: Cycle 5. Week 2. Bench

BW - 201

Pause Squats -
BarX10
95X5
135X5, 5
185X3
210X3
235X1

BW Lunges - 3 sets of 10

Bench -
BarX15
95X5, 5
120X3
140X3
155X7
95X12

Chins - BWX10, 8, 5, 5, 5

Pause Squats felt good.  Something that occurred to me about starting every training session with squats:  it forces me to take everything seriously.  Obviously I should take everything seriously, but the thrill/danger of squatting just puts me in a different place from the very first set than anything else.  And I'm not just talking about starting off with calves or neck or something.  Even benching and deadlifting with an empty or light bar does not snap me to attention in the same way that back squats will.  And once I'm in that place, I'm pretty much there the rest of the session, and able to focus in on every rep and set even at the end of a session when I'm fatigued and the last thing I want to do is another set of paused-chins.

Getting that extra leg work in with lunges here.

Bench felt really, really solid today.  155X7 is my 2nd best lift since I reset my form.  I went back to thumb around here, since thumbless didn't seem to help at all last time.  I good cue that I found this session was squeezing my shoulder blades together throughout the lift.  I realized that at the top of reps, I was extending my shoulders all the way forward and was losing tightness in my back.  This worked very, very well, and was something I hadn't understood about the lift previously.

I believe 201X10 is an all-around PR since I started pausing my chins as the bottom.

5/3/1 Full-Body: Cycle 5. Week 2. Squat

BW - 200

Squat -
BarX10 (long pause at bottom)
95X5 (shorter pause)
95X5
135X5
175, 200X3
225X8

Front Squats -
BarX5
95X10, 10, 10

T-Bar Rows -
25X10, 10
50X10
60X10
70X12

Dips - BWX11, 6, 6, 5, 4

225X8 on Squats is an all-around PR since I reset my form.  Felt good.

Looking back, I realize that a lot of the times I've tweaked my back I was either front squatting, or I had front squats in my program.  This made me a little paranoid, so I did some research, and worked hard on my form in this session.  The two cues that I focused on were breaking with the knees, and allowing them to travel forward to make the descent, and leading out of the hole with my chest.  This seemed to work pretty well, and everything felt tight. 

I also changed my grip from cross-arm, back to hands under the bar.  I toyed around with this a few ways, gradually moving to thumbless, and then actually settling on pinkie around the bar for the last two sets.  This creates a sort of "neutral grip" that seems unlikely, but seemed to actually work out okay, and elbow pain I started to feel during thumbless sets dissipated by the last set.  Gonna keep the weight light on these, and use them as my BBB back-off sets beginning next cycle.

T-Bars are weak for some reason, but I think I need to go back to doing an over-warm up on these as that had worked well previously, and worked well for Pendlays as well.  If I do that, and they are still weaker than before I did all those Pendlays, then I may need to second guess either that movement or my approach to it.

11 reps at 200 is an all-around PR since I started pausing my dips at the bottom of each rep.

5/3/1 Full-Body: Cycle 5. Week 1. Press/Dead

BW - 200

Pause Squats -
BarX10
95X5
135X5, 5
185X3
210X3
235X1

Klokovs -
BarX12
60, 70X5
80X12

Deadlift -
135X5
185X5, 5
200X5
230X5
260X11

Leg Curls - 5 sets of 20

Solid session.  80%

235 on the pause squats is still slow, but smooth as long as I'm focused.

Klokovs felt a little wonky.  Couldn't quite get in the groove.

260X11 on Deads is a Rep PR, and a tiny increase to my projected max.

Leg curls were murder.  5 sets of 20 was harder than the set of 100 I did on vacation.  Different machines, weights, etc., though.

5/3/1 Full-Body: Cycle 5. Week 1. Bench

BW - 201 (hmmm)

Pause Squats -
BarX10
95X5, 5
135X5, 5
185X3
210X3
235X1

BW Lunges - 5 sets of 10

Bench -
BarX15
95X5, 5
115X5
130X5
150X5

Chins - BWX8, 7, 5, 5, 6, 5

BB Curl - BarX20

Hypers - 5 sets of 15

Mostly good session except for the benching.

I moved up to the tier 3 %'s for the off-day Pause Squats.  The 235 was slow but absolutely do-able, and that's reassuring.

Doing lunges on this day is part of the additional leg work I'm adding into this cycle.  Back-off Fronts on Squat day, BW-Only Lunges on Bench day, and high-rep leg curls on Deadlift day.

I started trying out a thumbless grip on Bench here.  Funnily I was only able to get the requisite 5 reps when a good day would have been closer to 10.  Not blaming the grip though.  I just think it was an off day benching.

Paused Chins are starting to feel more solid.

I did this set of curls just to off-set all the pressing on the day.  Everyone talks about programming to have pulling movements equal or outweigh pressing movements, but it seems to me that very few of the popular programs actually accomplish that.

Had a long time till the bus would show up, so I did a bunch of hypers.  Started putting my hands behind my head instead of across my chest, and I'm surprised at home much heavier that feels.

5/3/1 Full-Body: Cycle 5. Week 1. Squat

BW - 199

Squat -
BarX5 (long pause to stretch at bottom)
BarX10
95, 135, 160, 185X5
210X8

Front Squats -
135X5, 5, 5

T-Bar Row -
25, 50, 75, 75X10
60X9

Dip -
BWX5, 5, 8, 5, 6

Hypers - 2 sets of 15-20

Solid first session back after vacation.

Squats felt solid, and not far off what I'd worked up to before the break.

I'm adding a touch of additional leg work for this cycle, much as I added some additional shoulder/trap work the last few.  To that end, I did a few sets of Front Squats.  I'm getting reacquainted with these, and will use them as my BBB volume sets in November and December.

Also decided to switch from BB to T-Bar rows for awhile.  This is a bit off from my best with this movement, but I'm focusing on keeping it very, very strict.  As long as the muscle is getting worked strictly, I'm not overly concerned about the weight.

With dips, I can see that energy plays a huge part when they're this late in the session.  I only did 5 reps on the first two sets because I was "trying to save myself" for the last sets because it's the first pressing motion of the day, and that's crap.  If I needed to save myself, I wouldn't have been able to get up for the 8 and 6 rep sets.  I just have to get in the mindset to attack the first set with everything I have, and let the reps fall out however they will on the later sets.

Had some time before the bus was due, so I kicked out some hypers to wrap up.

Vacation Training

Conditioning:
Steady State - One 25 min. session
Running - One 15 min. session
Hills - One 20 min. session
Hiking -
One light 1 hour trip
One heavy 2 hour trip with climbing

Lifting:

Deadlift Session:

Pause Squats -
BarX6 (looooong pause to stretch)
95, 135X5
155, 185, 205, 225X1

Press -
BarX10
65, 85, 95, 105, 105X5

Deadlift -
135X5, 5
185X3
225X3
275X2
315X2, 2, 2
275X2, 2, 1

Squat Session:

Squat -
BarX10, 10 (long pauses on the first set)
95X5
135X5
155X3
185X3
205X3, 3
225X3, 3

Front Squats - 135X5, 5, 5

Chins - BW 199X5, 5, 4, 3

Dips - BW 199X10, 6, 5, 5, 5

Seated Leg Curls - 100 reps

Band Pull-Aparts - 2 sets of 50

Birthday Squats

LRB Diet - Week 10

BW - 197

Squats -
BarX10 (long pause at the bottom to stretch)
95X5
125X4
145X3
185X2
205X1
125X35!!!

Chins - 5 sets
super-set with
Push-ups - 4 sets

Band Pull-Aparts; Medium Grip - 2 sets of 50

Fucking hell, this was the hardest damn set ever.

To recap, about a month back, inspired by Dave Tate's Halloween tradition of doing a "death-set" of 315, I decided I would aim to do a a 35 rep set for my 35th birthday.  I projected my 40RM, which is a hilarious idea especially in the middle of running 531.  I used 40 precisely because projecting a max for a rep range that's far away from the range you've been working in is a dicey proposition, so I knew I would need a margin of error.  That weight projected to be 125 lbs.

Then for the last 3 weeks I've been adding back-off sets on my heavy squat day with 135.  Again, I used a heavier weight to train for this to create "elbow room" for the 35 rep set itself.  Week 1 I did 135X10, Week 2 135X15, and Week 3 I did 135X20 and then a 50% set of 135X12.  This helped me get used to working in a higher rep range, and with a heavier weight than my "event" weight.

For the programming of the event itself, I used Paul Carter's Big-15 #'s which are designed to over warm-up to a moderately heavy single, and then back-off to some higher-rep work sets. This was perfect.  The 125 felt feather-light for the first 10 reps or so thanks to the over warm-up.  I got to 20 and everything was still OK, but around 25 reps I didn't know if I would make it.  My lower back started cramping pretty hard from holding my arch that long, and that meant that taking a rest at lock-out was really no rest at all.  It was a toss-up as to which was harder at the end, squatting or holding at lock-out.  The weight was so light that I even tried standing straight up and using my hands to hold the weight against my back, but the cramping continued.  By the time I got to 30 there was no option left but to finish, however.  Those last reps will go down as the ugliest squat reps of my life, but I got my 35.  I racked it, and collapsed onto the safety pins and just stared at the ceiling panting.

Diet-wise, I didn't eat any carbs the day before, and on the day I added some carbs back in to breakfast and lunch, and then added a 2nd lunch a couple hours before training along with a cup of coffee.  As a result, I was lean in the morning, but had plenty of energy for squatting. 

This all went pretty damn well.  If I had it all to do over again, the only thing I would change would be to add hypers at the beginning and/or end of every session leading up to this.  That low-back cramping was no joke.

After the squats, I just did some chins and push-ups to make sure I got some push-pull in before my vacation.  No point in recording the reps performed, because the numbers would be extreme outliers after that squat session.  I was just too wiped to be much good for anything.  I will say that I kept both movements strict, and with a tight pause at the bottom of each rep.

Lastly, I threw in some pull-aparts for balance because I got more push-ups than chins.

5/3/1 Full-Body: Cycle 4. Week 3. Press/Dead

Saturday:

Band Pull-Aparts, wide-grip - 100 straight reps

Sunday:

LRB Diet - Week 10

BW - 197

Pause- Squats -
BarX5, 10
95X5, 5
135X5, 5
160, 185, 210X3

Klokovs -
BarX10
55, 65X5
75X3
85X2
95X1
100X1
105XFAIL
85X5

Deadlift -
135X5, 5
185, 225X5
250X3
280X8

Shrugs -
225, 315X10
405X5
455X3, 3, 3, 3, 3
475X2, 2, 2, 2, 5

Band Pull-Aparts; Medium-Grip - 5 sets of 25

Brutal, balls-to-the-wall session.  Spent about 2 hours in the gym.  Goddamn pause squats still feel heavy as hell over 200 lbs.  One thing that did feel good was sitting down into the first set with the empty bar for a long, long time.  It just seemed to really stretch out my hips and allow everything to open up for the pause, and felt pretty awesome as well.  Regarding how heavy the top set is feeling, I don't think I'm ready to jump up to the next % tier of the program, and will have to stay here for a while OR just go ahead and take a shot at the next tier, and see if I fail or not...

Decided to do another "testing" day for the Klokovs using the Strong-15 #'s.  That 100X1 was maybe the hardest grind-out of a rep I've ever done.  The first few inches of this lift are just brutal, as even once you've broken the bar off your neck it still moves SLOOOOOOW for the next little bit.  I ground just as hard on that 105, but it would not break.  I upped the weight a bit for the back-off set to make it a bit more challenging.

280X8 on Deads is a Rep PR, and a tiny, tiny increase to my projected 1RM.  I was mainly focused on keeping my hips high, because my shins and knees have been taking a beating lately, and I think it's because I'm starting with my hips too low.

Did the 475 for double on shrugs, because I think I can move up to that for the triples, but I didn't want to jump straight in.

Had a few minutes till the bus would come, so I hit some band pull-aparts.

This was my last regular session before I go on vacation.  I'll hit the gym once more to try my "birthday squats" idea, and I may also get in one more conditioning session once the squats are done.

5/3/1 Full-Body: Cycle 4. Week 3. Bench

LRB Diet - Week 9

BW - 199

Pause Squats -
BarX10, 10
95X5, 5
135X5, 5
160, 185, 210X3

Bench -
BarX10, 10
95X5, 5
125X5
145X3
160X7
95X15
super-set with
Pull-Ups - BW from a dead-hang; 6 sets of 1

Chin-Ups; Neutral Grip; Dead-hang on every rep -
BWX5, 5, 5, 3, 3

Hypers - 3 sets of 15

Nice session.  160X7 is a huge all-around Bench PR with close-grip, and pausing every rep on my chest.  This puts me in spitting distance of my previous best on wide-grip touch-and-go.  There's always a chance this was an above average day, and that I'll see a little bit of a drop-off, but then again maybe not.  I'm going on vacation, and probably won't bench while I'm away, so it'll have to wait till I get back.  My bench started to really take off here around September, 9.  I'm going to go back into my log, and try to really make sure I know what I did in the month or so leading up to this.

I'm resetting all my pull/chin-ups to a "dead-hang."  This isn't totally accurate.  What I'm doing is extending my arms almost fully at the bottom and pausing.  The reason it's "almost fully" and not a true dead-hang, is because I'm keeping enough tension to keep my scapula retracted.  My reps feel higher quality this way, and my chest comes more naturally to the bar, rather than just my chin.  Regardless, this is a significantly more difficult approach, and feels more "legitimate."

Had some time till the bus would come, so I kicked out some hypers real quick.

5/3/1 Full-Body: Cycle 4. Week 3. Timed Mile

LRB Diet - Week 9

Timed Mile - 8:20

5/3/1 Full-Body: Cycle 4. Week 3. Squat

LRB Diet - Week 9

BW - 197

Squat -
BarX10, 10
95X5, 5
135X5, 5
180X5
205X3
225X7
135X20, 12

Pendlays -
BarX15
120X3
155X3
140X15

Dips (paused at bottom) -
BWX5, 5, 5, 5, 3

Hoo-boy.  I did not get very much sleep the night before, and this session was mentally and physically exhausting.

225X7 is in line with the top-sets of my last two sessions, but no weight PRs.  That's fine and good, but the real story is then in the back-off sets.  Jefit says this a volume PR for me, even over the 195X20 session I did back in May when I was cutting my squats much higher.  I'd thought about form in the days between my last session and this, and theorized that if I kept my butt pushed back a bit at lock-out, I would be able to take a breath or two between reps without losing my arch as much.  This worked out very well and holding the weight with locked knees felt much safer for my back.  Also, being able to keep my arch tighter resulted in an almost painful low-back pump.

My goal for the back-offs was to hit 20 reps with 135 (5 more reps than last session), and then do a 50% set.  I was nervous going into the 20 because I felt a bit wiped from the top-set, but the new lock-out positioning helped me get it very solidly.  I then rested ONLY 60 seconds (this is how 50% sets work after all), and went back for another set.  I thought I would be lucky to get 10 as tired as I felt, but I ended up getting 12!  I probably could have gotten 15 with an all-out-maybe-dump-the-last-rep set, but I'd beat my goal, and called it good.

So that's my last regular squat session of the cycle.  I have two more pause-squat sessions, and then it's on to the "Birthday Squats."  I'll be using my current, projected 40RM of 125, and working up and then backing-off to it using Paul Carter's "Big-15" progression.  That will look like this:
BarX45
95X5
120X4
145X3
180X2
205X1
125X35
Gotta make sure I get more sleep the night before, and eat up a bit.

As fried as I was, 140X15 is an all-around PR in Pendlays.

For Dips, I'd been saying I was going to work up to +45 by 5, and then re-set my form to full depth and with a pause at the bottom.  I got to thinking about this, and realized it's the same bullshit I used to tell myself with Squat and Bench.  "Yeah, I'm gonna reset my bench form to close-grip and pausing every rep at the bottom, but I just want to hit 225 with my hands past the rings and a lot of bounce of the chest first."  Why?  All that does is delay me hitting the target with the harder form.  So I said fuck it, 45X5+ will feel so much sweeter when I hit it deep and with a pause at the bottom than it will cutting high.  And how shitty would I have felt about myself if I'd done +45X5 today, and then discovered next session that I can't get much more than 5 BW reps with a deep pause?  Not lying to myself is a good thing.

Honestly, I almost skipped dips altogether because I was so tired, and that meant ab wheel was just not going to happen.

5/3/1 Full-Body: Cycle 4. Week 2. Press/Dead

LRB Diet - Week 9

BW - 198

Pause Squats -
BarX10, 10
95X5, 5
135X5, 5
160, 185, 215X3

Klokovs -
BarX10, 10
60, 70X3
80X12

Deadlift -
135, 135X5
205, 235X3
265X10

BB Shrugs -
225, 315X10
405X7
455X3, 3, 3, 3, 5
405X12

Ab Wheel - 3 sets of 5-10

Pause Squats still feeling heavy.

Klokovs were pretty solid today, and 80X12 is a Rep PR.

Deadlift felt great, and 265X10 is an all-around PR.  My 3rd of the year.  Started with 285X5 in February, then 335X1 in May.  Maybe I'll hit another before the year's out!

Bumped up to 455 for the triples on shrugs.  Felt tired as hell by the time I got here, and my grip was rough even with straps, so I did a back-off set of 405 instead of progressing to singles.  405X12 is an all-around PR.

Got 3 sets of nothin' on the ab wheel before I called it and went home.  Pretty good session, but I was beat down by the end.

5/3/1 Full-Body: Cycle 4. Week 2. Carries

Sunday:

LRB Diet - Week 9

BW - ???

AM:
Steady-state - 20 minutes

PM:
Wife Carries - 1/4 mileX2

When I started lifting, my wife would sometimes ask me what my goal was, and I would joke that I thought a man should be able to carry his woman for 2 miles over un-even terrain.  I even did a cycle of farmer's carries once with that in mind, but that fell away as I tried to stay focused on the basics. 

Recently, she asked me how far I thought I could carry her now, and partially inspired by a recent CNP article on Tom Hardy, I decided to try some piggy-backs.  I have a 1-mile route in my neighborhood I often use for conditioning, and I thought I would go for a 1/2 mile carry.  Luckily, the route is easily broken down into 1/4 miles, because that's all I could manage.  We then walked another 1/4 mile until I felt recovered, and I did another 1/4 mile carry.

The good news/bad news is that no one part of my body felt much more fatigued than any other.  This was a whole body effort, and pretty much everything was giving out at once rather than having one "weak link."  That both reinforces my confidence that I'm keeping my training well-balanced, and that I still have loads of room for improvement in every area.  With that said, it's now a day later, and my biceps are more sore than they've been in a long time, so this obviously provides a different type/degree of stress than all the rowing and chinning I do.

If the wife is willing, I may start alternating this with hill-sprints as regular conditioning.  It's also pretty fun and pretty funny.  There is a bar right where we stopped yesterday, and I collapsed onto a bar stool and treated myself to a giant ice-water, and a gin-and-tonic for my troubles.

5/3/1 Full-Body: Cycle 4. Week 2. Bench

Saturday:

LRB Diet - Week 8

BW - 197

Pause Squats -
BarX10, 10
95X5
135X3, 3
160, 185, 215X3

Bench -
BarX10, 10
95X5, 5
120, 135X3
150X7
95X10

Pull-ups - BWX1,2,3,1,2,3,1,2,3

Chins (neutral grip) - BWX5, 5, 5, 5, 8

Hypers - 3 sets of 15

Okay, pause squats felt a little heavy on the last two sets.  Really hoping I catch up to these weights over the next two weeks.

However, bench was a tiny all-around PR close-grip and pausing every rep.  Bench is finally moving a little bit these last couple week, and that feels nice.

Pull-ups felt a bit more challenging this week on the 2 and 3 rep sets, but neutral grip chins felt awesome, and that 8 rep set is my highest rep set in a little over a month.

Light back day, so finished with some hypers.

5/3/1 Full-Body: Cycle 4. Week 2. Squat

LRB Diet - Week 8

BW - 197

Squats -
BarX10, 10
95X5, 5
135X3, 3
165, 190X3
215X9
135X15

Pendlays -
BarX15
110, 145X5
130X17

SL High-Pulls -
130, 145, 165, 165, 170X5

Dips -
BWX5, 5
+35X8, 6, 4

Chiro Crunches - 1 set of 40

Ab Wheel - 2 sets of 6

80+% session.  I won't say +10%, because RPE was pretty high on everything, but lots of little PR's today.

215X9 is an all-time Rep PR, and projects to an all-around PR with my deeper form.  Added 5 reps to my back-off set weight.  Will try for 20 with 135 next time.  It looks like the weight for my 35 birthday squats is going to be at 125, so 135 for 20 should be a good prep for that attempt.  Might want to add a 2 sets of 10 to follow it though.  40 total reps with 135 might be even better prep.

I also added additonal sets to my squat warm-ups based on a recent article by Paul Carter.  I will say that the 2nd set of each warm-up weight felt better than the first.  Hard to say if it helped my top sets any.  I'll try to keep this up with Squating and Benching and see if I think it's having an impact.

130X17 is a small all-around PR on the dead-stop rows.  The last few reps had one or two breaths between each, though.

16X5 was my previous best on the High-Pulls.  They still felt like they were right at the top end, but I suddenly remembered 2.5 lb. weights!  So I was able to bump up to 170 and get 5 for a small all-around PR on this move as well.

8 reps with 35 lbs. was my goal for dips this session and I got it.  Next session, I will go for 5 with a 45.  After I get back from vacation, I'm going to reset to BW dips for a little bit, and start pausing my reps at the bottom.  I'm worried that I've started cutting reps high, and pausing is the best way I know to fix that for any movement.  Looking forward to feeling humbled.

Started to do the swiss-ball crunches per normal, but I'm getting really bored with them.  I've noticed that an Ab Wheel has been able to stay at the gym for a while without being stolen, so I'm going to switch to that for awhile. 

5/3/1 Full-Body: Cycle 4. Week 1. Press/Dead

LRB Diet - Week 8

BW - 197

Pause Squats -
BarX8
95, 135X5
160, 185, 210X3

Klokovs -
BarX10
55, 65X5
75X15

Deadlift -
135X5, 5
190, 220X5
250X11

Shrugs -
225, 315X10
405X5
425X3, 3, 3, 3, 3
455X1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 5

Chiro Crunches - 5 sets of 40

Pretty satisfying session, and looking leaner than I've been in over a year.  That 210X3 still felt pretty heavy though.  Probably an 8 or 9 out of 10 on the ol' RPE scale.

Klokovs felt a bit back on track.  I approached them somewhat differently, in that on the first 3 sets I paused every rep on my back so that I would have to take them from a dead-stop.  Then on the top set, I paused every 5 reps for breath.  The hardest part of this lift is breaking it off the neck, and that's why I "trained" the pause/break on all the up-sets so that I would be prepared for the top-set.  As the weight increases on this lift, I'm going to try and incorporate more pausing.  The difference between attempting this lift from a pause vs. with the stretch reflex is pretty drastic.

250X11 is right in the strength range for my last session, is a Rep PR for the 9-11 rep range, and everything felt pretty good.  So that's a good session.

So with shrugs I really hemmed-and-hawed and decided to go up to 455 for singles, and then when I decided to do max reps on the last set, I got 5 which is hilarious.  So next time, I'll do 455 for my triples I guess, and do 475 for singles and see how many reps I get at the end with that.

Heavy, heavy back day so I did crunches for my core work.

5/3/1 Full-Body: Cycle 4. Week 1. Timed Mile

LRB Diet - Week 8

Yesterday:
Timed Mile - 9 minutes

Today I woke up looking as lean as I have on the entire diet.  Never got around to buying a scale, so I still can't say where my "true" weight has been, and my gym weight has been hovering steady in the 197-199 range.

At this point, I'm shooting for the LRB food template, but falling back to the LRB Shake Diet in a pinch.  This is mainly on work-day mornings, when I will have a Met-RX MRS instead of taking the time to cook real food.

5/3/1 Full-Body: Cycle 4. Week 1. Bench

LRB Diet - Week 8

BW - 199

Hypers - 5 sets of 15

Pause Squats -
Bar, 95, 135X5
160, 185, 210X3

Bench -
BarX10
95, 110, 125X5
145X8

Press -
65, 85X8
75X8, 6, 5
super-set with
Wide-grip Pull-Ups - BWX1, 2, 3, 1, 2, 3, 1, 2, 3

Chin-ups - BWX5, 5, 5, 5, 6

Another decent session.  I guess this kind of thing can happen when you're only working one job, heh.

Pause Squat weight creeps up a little bit more for the next few weeks.  Getting gradually closer to PR range. 

Best bench session in a long while.  This is an all-around PR with close-grip and pausing every rep on the chest.  I really wanted this today, and I got it.  I'm thinking about dropping some or all of the overhead work in my program after I get back from vacation at the end of the month to try and get some real, steady progress on this lift by incorporating Incline Presses instead.  But I'm going to be patient, and finish out the shoulder volume programming I've implemented until vacation.

Speaking of Press, I had to remind myself to stop after a few sets here.  I'm only really supposed to be doing 4 work-sets, and I got 4-5 here and was about to start another before I snapped to my senses.  My Klokov's sucked ass last week, and I don't want that to happen again.

Pull-ups on a straight bar this time, whcih was a little harder than the bent bar.  Still got all my rungs done.  And then chins felt strong even though I ultimately could only get 6 on my all out set.

Not a lot of low-back work on this session, so I opened it with hypers for my core work.

5/3/1 Full-Body: Cycle 4. Week 1. Hill Sprints

LRB Diet - Day 49

AM Steady State - 25 minutes

PM Hill-Sprints - 20 minutes; sprint up, walk back

5/3/1 Full-Body: Cycle 4. Week 1. Squat

LRB Diet - Day 48

BW - 198

Squat -
BarX10
95, 135, 155, 180X5
205X10
135X10

Pendlays -
BarX15
105X10
145X8
120X15

SL High-Pulls -
120, 145, 155, 155, 155X5

Dip -
BW, BWX5
+25X10, 6, 5

Chiro Crunches - 3 sets of 40

Nice session.  205X10 is an all-time Rep PR, and an all-around PR at full depth.  My birthday is coming up at the end of the month, and I'm going to institute a new tradition of picking a weight and squatting it for as many reps as I am years old.  This was inspired by Dave Tate's Halloween tradition of doing "Death Squats."  However, I don't want to go straight from working in the 5-10 range to trying for a 35 rep set, so I'm adding back-off sets on Squat day in the weeks leading up to try and build my work capacity.  Next week, I'll shoot for 15-20 with the 135, then 20-30 in the week after that.  On my birthday week, I'll make sure I have a couple days off and then work up to a mild single before backing-off to attempt a 35 rep set.

Was feeling a little gassed after the two, 10 rep sets of squats, and so the Rows and High-Pulls were a little on the weaker side today.

But I rallied for dips, and a 25 lb. plate for 10 reps at 198 is a weighted dip PR. 

Since there was so much back work today, just crunches for the core work.

5/3/1 Full-Body: Cycle 3. Week 3. Press/Dead

LRB Diet - Day 46

BW - 198

Pause Squats -
Bar, 95, 135X5
155, 180, 205X3

Klokovs -
BarX5
60X5 uh...heavy
70X3 heavy, da fug
80X6 WTF?!

Deadlift -
135X5, 5
215X5
240X3
270X8

BB Shrugs -
225, 315X10
405X3, 3, 3, 3, 3
425X2, 1
445X1, 1, 1, 3

Chiro Crunches - 5 sets of 40-45

Pause Squats felt a little heavy today, but not as heavy as...

...Klokovs.  As you can see from the notes above, I was completely baffled and caught off guard here.  I even "got up" for the top set because I was concerned by how heavy the other work sets felt.  3 weeks ago, I hit 75 for 15, and 2 weeks ago I hit 70 for 20.  It's inconceivable to me that a 5-10 lb. jump can cut my rep range down from the high-teens to the mid-single digits.  I'm gonna chalk this up to fucking astrology or fatigue from Bench Day or something, and I expect to rebound next time.

Deadlifts went really well however.  270X8 projects to a # 2 all time 1RM, and is a Rep PR.  What's more, the set was more about focus than straining, and I didn't walk away feeling gassed, nor do I feel wrecked today.  All good signs that my favorite lift is in pretty good shape at the moment.

Wanted to start flirting with increased weights on the shrugs so instead of hitting a back off set in the 300's after my triples, I started adding 10's and doing singles.  My form/ROM felt a little shitty, but I was able to get 3 on my last, all-out set.  Next time I may go with 425 for the triples, and bump up to 455 for the singles.

Skipped hypers at the top of the session to make sure my back was super fresh for Deadlifting, and so finally made myself get some ab work in the session.  I think that since I added in the additional shoulder work, the sessions just feel to damn long with both hypers AND crunches, so I'll have to start alternating.  I'll probably settle on crunches on Squat and Deadlift day since they've got heavier low-back movements, and do hypers on Bench day.

5/3/1 Full-Body: Cycle 3. Week 3. Bench

Labor Day Training

LRB Diet - Day 44

BW - 198

Hypers - 5 sets of 20

Pause Squats -
BarX10
95, 135X5
155, 180, 205X3

Bench -
BarX10
95, 125X5
140, 155X3

Press -
BarX10
85X5, 8, 5
75X8, 5, 5, 6

Pull-Ups -
BWX2, 1, 2, 3, 2, 1, 2, 3, 2, 1

Chin-Ups -
BWX5, 5, 5, 5, 6

Shitty bench session, so I broke my ass on OHP and Vertical Pulling to make up for it.  Was looking for just 4 reps on the bench, but my arms were shaky as hell, and the work sets all felt heavy.  At some point, I may just have to bite the bullet and dedicate a month or two to trying to improve this lift.  It's either that or drop it all together in favor of the stuff I really like to do, but that seems like the cowardly way out.

Decided to start doing ladders of wide-grip pull-ups to see if improving that movement will provide more volume and intensity to help maintain/improve my chins.  So I'll probably do this low-medium rep pull-ups followed by medium+ reps chins progression for awhile.  It also helps balance pulling against the additional pressing I've added on this day.

The gym was closing in 5 minutes, and I let that be my excuse to skip abs again. 

5/3/1 Full-Body: Cycle 3. Week 3. Hill Sprints

Sunday Training

AM Fasted Steady State - 20 minutes

LRB Diet - Day 43

BW - ???

Hill- Sprints - 20 minutes; sprint up, walk down

5/3/1 Full-Body: Cycle 3. Week 3. Squat

Friday Training

Band 2-arm biceps curls - 5 sets of 10
super-set with
Band Pull-aparts - 5 sets of 20

Saturday Training

AM Fasted Stready State - 20 minutes

LRB Diet - Day 42

BW - 198

Hypers - 5 sets of 15

Squat -
BarX10
95X8
135, 170X5
195X3
220X6

Pendlay Rows -
BarX15
110X3
150X3
135X15

SL High-Pulls -
135, 145, 155, 165, 165X5

Dips -
BW, BW, +25, +25, +35, +35X5

Not a bad session.  220X6 on squats is a PR with my new, deeper form.  Felt like it, too.  A little worried that all the Pause Squatting is now making regular squatting feel awkward.  That would suck, because pause squatting is what got me comfortable with full depth on regular squats to begin with, but regular squats just feel strange with the quick turnaround at the bottom now.

135X15 is an all-around PR on Pendlays

High-pulls felt a little heavier today with the same weight as last session.  Hitting PR's on the previous 2 movements may have contributed, lol.

Getting re-acclimated to doing dips weighted.  Next session, I should try to bang out 10 reps with 25, and then at least 8 with 35.  If I do that, I should be able to quickly move to just using a full 45 plate for sets of 5.

Skipped abs again because I suck.

5/3/1 Full-Body: Cycle 3. Week 2. Press/Dead

LRB Diet Day - 40

BW - 197

Hypers - 3 sets of 15

Pause Squats -
BarX10
95, 135X5
155, 180, 205X3

Klokovs -
BarX10
55X5
60X4
70X3
75X2
90X1
95X1
100XFAIL
70X5

Deadlift -
135X5
135X5 (RDL)
200, 230X3
255X8

BB Shrugs -
225X10
315X10
405X3, 3, 3, 3, 3
315X14
315X15

Chiro Crunches - 20, 30, 40, 45

Decided to do the Klokov's LRB/Strong-15 style again to see where my top strength is with the lift.  When I did this 3 sessions ago, I failed on 90.  Solid progress.

8 reps with 255 was getting pretty close to my limits.  Probably 1 more rep, 2 would have taken everything I had.

Added an extra set of 405 on shrugs, and then hit two back-off sets with 315.  So more of a volume day.  I raised the pins one notch, and it made getting into position significantly easier.

Also getting back on the wagon with the core work at the beginning and end of the workouts.

Diet Thoughts at the Half-Way Point

So I'm over a month into the LRB Diet, and I want to record some thoughts here for myself to look back at when I want to start diets in the future.  Some of these may change by the time I'm at the end of this dieting phase, and hopefully I write another one of these then.

The 2 things that seem to make the BIGGEST difference for me in terms of making and maintaining progress on this diet are:  1)  Training frequency and consistency, and 2)  Limiting alcohol consumption.  If I can get my scheduled 3-4 lifting sessions and 1-2 conditioning/steady-state sessions done in a week, and limit frequency and quantity of alcohol intake to 1-3 times a week while trying to order drinks that I drink slowly, then I seem to have significantly more elbow room in the type  of food I'm consuming.  That means that if I end up in a social situation for a meal where I have less control over the food available to me, I can get outside of the diet a little bit without seeing any consequences. 

For example, I got 3 lifting sessions and 2 steady-state sessions in over the last 6 days.  In that time, I kept pretty close to the diet, but on a couple of occasions had to eat meals out because I was away from home with no access to a microwave.  I also had drinks on 2-3 occasions, but managed to limit that to bourbon for the most part.  I tend to sip bourbon and rye, and usually won't have more than 1 in an hour.  The results are that the last two days I feel and look like I'm about as lean as I've been on this diet, and a couple of co-workers have commented about my evident weight-loss.

My schedule should be finally opening up a lot over the next 5 weeks.  My plan is to maximize that opportunity to power through until the big reunion of college friends happening on Columbus Day weekend.  Ideally, I should be able to hit the two points discussed above AND keep a tighter leash on the diet, all because I should be able to spend more time at home eating and preparing my meals.

The only slight hiccup is that I've allowed myself to run out of protein powder, and probably won't receive my shipments of new stuff until next week.  Hopefully this week I can keep the protein up with real food meals to compensate.  I expect eggs to be a big part of that plan.

Another thing I really need to get done this week is to finally buy a scale.  I've just been using the scale at the gym, and calling it good since I work out at the same time of day most sessions.  However, a few times I've had to use some other gym to get a workout in, and the scale there always seems to have a surprising result; usually  lighter than expected.  It's time to start tracking this at home in the AM so that I can have a more consistent result.

5/3/1 Full-Body: Cycle 3. Week 2. "Bench"

LRB Diet - Day 38

BW - 195

Pause Squats -
BarX12
95X5
135, 155, 185, 205X3

Press -
BarX10
75, 85, 95X8
85, 85X6
super-set with
Chin-Ups (V-grip) - BWX7, 7, 7, 7, 6, 7

Clearly I did not bench today.  I had to hit a commercial gym, and get in and out to make a social engagement, so I opted for the old "I can do this whole session in this one rack" workout.

Everything felt fine for the most part.  After the last two pressing sessions, it seems like I may have had a touch of a drop-off since I was alternating it with Incline at the beginning of Summer.  Not really sure what to make of it right now, and I think I need a few more sessions to see where it's really at.  The fact is, I've been doing a press movement every session for 8 weeks now including Dips, Bench, and Klokov.  That's a good variety of pressing planes, and to have my strict press drop off in that time is confuddling. I'm not gonna go back to the drawing board just yet, though.  I got good volume here and hopefully that will help stimulate some bounce back in the next couple of sessions.

7's on chins felt pretty good, but the more neutral grip usually results in a few more reps in my experience.

5/3/1 Full-Body: Cycle 3. Week 2. Squat

LRB Diet - Day 35

BW - 197

Saturday and Sunday - AM fasted cardio 20-35 minutes

Squats -
BarX10
95X8
135X5
160, 185X3
205X7

Pendlay Rows -
BarX15
110, 140X5
125X17

Stiff-Leg High-Pulls -
125, 135, 155, 165, 165X5
super-set with
Dips -
BW+25, 2 sets of 5
BW+35, 2 sets of 5
BW+25, 1 set of 5

Was under the gun to get in and out this session, so no core work today.

Squats felt just okay.  Not spectacularly good or bad.

125X17 with Pendlays is an all-around PR.

Super-set the high-pulls with dips to try and make up some time.  165 for 5 was definitely at the top end of my ability for the day.

Haven't loaded dips in a while, so this felt like a "re-acquaint myself" session.  I was also using an adjustable dip station, and never felt like I got the bars at a comfortable width.  The last set was supposed to be a back-off set for higher reps with just the 25 lb. plate, but I forgot during the set and stopped at 5.  's All good, and I'll remember to do something along those lines next time.

All in all, an 80% session.

5/3/1 Full-Body: Cycle 3. Week 1. Press/Dead

LRB Diet - Day 33

BW - 197

Hypers - 5 sets of 15; 30 second rests

Pause Squats -
BarX10
95, 135X5
155, 180, 205X3

Klokov Press -
BarX10
55, 60X5
70X20

Deadlift -
135X5
135X5 (RDL)
185, 215X5
240X10

BB Shrugs -
225X10
315X5
405X5 (add straps)
405X3, 3
405X5
365X5, 5
315X12

Full-bore, balls out session for me.  +10%.

I've shortened the rest on the hypers and lowered the reps a tad because I like the "pump" feeling I get in my low back.  It seems to help me keep my arch at the bottom of the pause squats to have my low back warmed up this way.

Going into my last set of pause squats, I thought about trying to rep it out a bit, but reminded myself that this is still kind of part of my warm-up, and that I still had a lot of lifting to do.  I'll put that idea on the back-burner until next cycle.  Not talking anything crazy; just going for 5 on the top set.

Continuing to PR on Klokov's in the higher rep range.  This was an all-out effort to get the 20.  Looking forward to what happens with this lift as the numbers continue to climb.  I assume that at some point the rep range on the top set will start to spiral down.

I'm renewing my focus on form with the deadlift a bit.  I'm trying to stay tight and almost motionless at the bottom of each rep so that the only  movement is taking a breath and/or taking the slack out of the bar before I start the next concentric.  This felt really great today.  I probably left a rep or two in the tank, and my low back didn't feel taxed at all after the top set.  It was actually my legs that seemed to be getting fatigued this way.  Front squats may return in my near future if that continues.

On to CNP shrugs!  OK, I made sure to note which level I stuck the pins in this time, because I'm positive it was lower than last time.  I was pulling these off just above my knee, and it was fucking hard to get up into position, yet kind of awesome at the same time.  I have zero illusions that pulling 405 from above the knee will help me pull 405 off the floor, but it was still a grind at the beginning of every set, and I'm sort of proud of them in context.  Rather than hit a high rep back-off set on 315 after the 405's the way I did last session, I decided to up overall volume by dropping to 365 for a couple sets and then hitting a modest back-off set.  I just wasn't ready to be done shrugging, but I was done with 405.

5/3/1 Full-Body: Cycle 3. Week 1. Bench

LRB Diet - Day 30

BW - 201 (I fucking knew that scale was wrong the other day)

Hypers - 5 sets of 15-20

Pause Squats -
BarX10
95, 135X5
155, 180, 205X3

Bench -
BarX10
105, 125X5
140X7
super-set with
Chins - BW; 5 sets of 5

Press -
BarX10
95X8
85X5, 5, 8
super-set with
Chins - BW; 5 sets of 5

Chiro Crunches - 3 really crappy sets

I really don't think I put on 12 pounds since Thursday afternoon.  Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean that commercial gyms don't have light plates and scales.

Pause Squats are jumping to the Phase 2 %'s from the 531 Full-Body program.  From 60% up to 85% on the top set.  Also worth noting, I've been increasing the training max by only 5 lbs. per cycle on this movement.  205 was a little slow here, but I'm gonna hope that's at least partially due to the big weight increase.  We'll see how it feels again next session.

Bench felt a tad better.  I was hoping to just get 6, but I was able to press out 7 with one in the tank.  This is at least in line with my numbers from last cycle, and right now consistency feels awesome on bench as opposed to steady decline.

I'm adding in pressing on this day for the additional shoulder work mentioned in my last lifting post.  I was hoping to do 4 sets of 8 with 105, but the 95X8 warm-up was a grinder after the benching, so I dropped down to 85, and 5's felt about right under that weight.  On my last set, I got myself all amped up and ground out 8 reps with that.  Next week, I'll start with the 85 and see what that's like.

I superset all my pressing with sets of 5's on chins.  Chins continue to feel weak despite weight loss.  I tried to go for more than 5 on the final set, but no luck.  Hopefully reducing the reps per set like this, and going for more overall volume will see an uptick here.  I'll keep going for it on the final set, and when I can knock out 7 or 8, I'll up it to straight sets of 6 and repeat.

Got my core work back in at the top and bottom, but the crunches were miserable and I aborted them after 3 sets.  I think all the chins had taxed my abs a bit.  Don't know how I feel about that.

5/3/1 Full-Body: Cycle 3. Week 1. Hill Sprints

LRB Diet* - Day 36

BW - ???

Hill-Sprints -
Five, 5-10 minute sets on various hills
interspersed with 5-10 minute walks from hill to hill
last 1.5 sets were superset with regular push-ups; 80 reps total
last 0.5 set was finished with supersets of planche-position (or "reverse grip") push-ups; 10 reps total
1 hour 15 minutes total time; sore as hell for 2 days following

I was out of town at a wedding, and to prepare for the influx of copious calories from unpredictable sources, I followed *Paul Carter's Holiday Diet.  Three days of low-to-no carbs with regular training leading up to the day(s).  On the day of the feast, you train your ass-off in the morning and then go binge on carbs+.  Paul calls for weight training here, preferably squatting.  I had no access to a weight facility in this tiny Wisconsin resort town, BUT the town is hilly as hell so Hill-Sprints it was.  We drove up that day, and I stayed protein only until we got up there.  Then I basically walked all over town, and whenever I found a good hill, I'd run it for 5-10 minutes then walk around until I found another good one.  The last two hills, I started doing 10 reps sets of push-ups at the bottom of the hill before sprinting back up.  On my last hill, my shoulders were getting a little sore, so I reversed my hand placement and did planche-position push-ups on the last two runs.  Then I walked back to the hotel, downed a protein shake, slept for an hour and a half, woke-up and pounded another protein shake, then went to dinner with the wife and destroyed cheese fondue, sauerkraut, Roesti (cheese-stuffed hash browns), assorted dry sausages, apple pie, and local beer.

The next morning, I woke up and went for a 45 minute, brisk walk around various hiking trails around the town.  I fasted all AM, then had a little bit of chicken and cabbage at lunch followed by another protein shake.  At the wedding dinner, I expected a buffet or some other situation where the food wouldn't be that spectacular and I could pick and choose just the low carb items.  That plan was torpedoed by the best goddamn wedding food I have ever encountered.  Nonetheless I tried to skew hard towards fat and protein, but with all the alcohol being consumed, it probably didn't matter. 

Still, the next morning came around and I looked about as trim as I did going into the weekend, AND I looked a bit fuller in my muscles.  Particularly, my shoulders and traps seemed to have really benefited from the extra work I've started giving them combined with the week's diet.  I didn't have access to a scale, so I have no idea where my weight was these last three days, and will have to find out what ballpark I'm in when I hit the gym this afternoon.  All in all, I'm pretty happy with the results, even if it was more of a pain in the ass than I would prefer. 

5/3/1 Full-Body: Cycle 3. Week 1. Squat

LRB Diet - Day 26

BW - ?189?

Squats -
BarX10
95X7
135, 150X5
170X3
195X8

BB Rows -
BarX15
95X8
135X8
115X15

High-Pulls -
115, 135, 145, 155, 155, 155X5

Dips - BWX8, 12, 16, 4, 6

I was pressed for time getting ready to go out of town for the weekend, and had to settle for going to the L@Fitness (formerly B@llys) near my home.  189 seemed like such a drastic drop-off from my last weigh-in that I'm suspicious of the scale.  However, when I set it down to Zero pounds, it counter-balanced correctly so who knows.

I need to be better about putting my head down and doing work when I'm in a strange gym; I always feel wound tight and get a little off my game wanting to get in and get out as fast as possible.  For this session that was manifested by skipping mobility warm-ups and all my core work.  I'll have to make up for all of that in spades next time I'm in the gym.

Nevertheless everything went pretty well.  Squats felt solid, and the results are in-line with steady progress after I reset my form.

I couldnt' really do Pendlays here because I didn't have access to bumper plates at this gym.  So BB Rows trying go keep my low-back parallel to the ground and using a brief dead hang at the bottom of each rep to try and simulate a dead-stop row as much as possible.  The results were predictably slightly off from previous sessions.

For the 2nd month of LRB Dieting, I'm adding in some additional shoulder/trap work inspired by a CNP article.  One of the reasons for choosing now to take my first ever stab at strict dieting, is because I'm going to a sort of weekend camping reunion of college friends at the end of September.  While I'm trying to trim up, I thought I'd also take a stab at building some "movie star" shoulders.  Kind of silly, but also fun.  So for this day, I'm adding in High-Pulls, a movement I've never done, but always wanted to try.  These are done incredibly NOT as a textbook version of the Olympic accessory, but more as an explosive, cheating upright row.  One cool bit of synergy here, is that it seemed to work out very well to use the weight from the back-off set of bent rows as the warm-up weight for the high-pulls.  I worked up to 155, where I was having to really use explosiveness and much face-scrunching to get the 5th rep, and knocked out 3 of those sets.  I used straps on this movement as well.  I really liked this movement, and my delts felt really sore the next day.

Dips were a bit wonky because this gym has a weird, trapezoidal dip apparatus.  Again, getting past this sort of thing is something I need to be able to do.  It's dumb to only be able to have good workouts in my regular gym.  Regardless, my target was to ladder up to, and back down from 16 reps.  I got that top set, but the back off sets were completely crap.

5/3/1 Full-Body: Cycle 2. Week 3.Incline Sprints

LRB Diet - Day 24

Incline Sprints - 20 minutes

Band Pull-aparts - 5 sets of 20
superset with
Band Biceps Curls - 5 sets of 20

Got some bad news about an old friend on this day, and just didn't feel the long walk out to the hill for hill-sprints.  Went to a stretch of side-walk that's on a steady incline a couple of blocks away and ran full-out sprints for 20 minutes.  Legs and feet are still sore 2 days later.  Followed up with some band work before I hit the shower.

5/3/1 Full-Body: Cycle 2. Week 3. Press/Dead

LRB Diet - Day 23

BW - 197

Pause Squats -
Bar, 95, 125, 145X5

Klokov's -
BarX10
60X5
65X3
75X15

Deadlift -
BarX5
BarX5 RDLs
205X5
235X3
260X8

BB Shrugs -
315X4
405X5, 3, 3, 5
315X20

So used to going straight from warm-ups to Squat, I keep forgetting to do hypers.

75X15 on Klokov's is a new projected 1RM.

260X8 matches my 1RM projection from last session for Deads.  I think I could have gotten the 10 I wanted to try for, but the 7th rep was off and I felt a slight strain in my back so I took one more rep and shut it down.  Everything feels OK now, though.

I'm going to try throwing a bit more shoulder and trap volume in through a trip I have planned at the end of September.  CNP inspired.  I can't vouch for how good my form was on the 405 sets, but 315X20 was to my ears and a personal best.

5/3/1 Full-Body: Cycle 2. Week 3. Timed Mile

LRB Diet - Day 21

Timed Mile - 8 minutes

My 2nd best time ever at this distance, and I just ran it because I wanted to get something in with a tight weekend schedule.  This was earlier in the morning, probably within an hour of a breakfast of egg whites and steel-cut oatmeal.  I lept out of the gate, then reigned myself in to conserve some energy, but once that pace was locked in, I didn't waver the rest of the run.  Everything just felt awesome for some reason.

5/3/1 Full-Body: Cycle 2. Week 3. Bench

LRB Diet - Day 20

BW - 198

Hypers - 5 sets of 15-20

Pause Squats -
Bar, 95, 125, 145X5

Bench -
BarX10
95, 120X5
135X3
150X4

Chins - BWX5, 5, 8, 5, 4

Bench still feels solid form-wise, and the projected 1RM for this session shows a slight uptick over the last few sessions.  However, I was pumped up and approached the top set like I was expecting to pull a new deadlift PR, and my goal for the set was 4-6 so only getting the minimum there still doesn't feel awesome.

Chins are also feeling weak.  That sucks.

5/3/1 Full-Body: Cycle 2. Week 3. Squat

LRB Diet - Day 12

BW - 198

Squats -
BarX10
135X5
165X5
185X3
210X7

Pendlays -
95X10
145X3
130X15

Dips - BWX7, 17, 9

Chiro Crunches - 5 sets of 35-45

I ate an extra meal consisting of grilled chicken, hummus, and salad today that is probably contributing to the weight being slightly higher in the gym than the last couple sessions.  I wanted to make sure I had plenty of energy as I was determined not to have another crappy squat session.

And wah-la!  210X7 is an all around PR since I started dropping all the way down in squats.  I might have gotten 1 or 2 more, but they would have been grinding.  Almost more importantly, my form felt more dialed in than it has in a long time on full squats.

130X15 is also an all around PR on Pendlays.  15 was as many as I was going to do with anything resembling acceptable form however.

17 dips at 198 is a rep PR and projects as a new 1RM.  So...I guess an all around PR there as well.  +10% session all the way (except I forgot to do hypers).

5/3/1 Full-Body: Cycle 2. Week 2. Press/Dead

LRB Diet - Day 16

BW - 196.5

Hypers - 5 sets of 15; 30 second rests

Pause Squats -
BarX6
95, 125, 145X5

Klokov Press -
BarX10
55, 60X3
70X15

Deadlift -
135X5 RDL
135X5X2
190, 220X3
245X10

Plowed through the hypers to make-up time so that I could get to a show tonight.  Also skipped abs at the end.

Felt good walking into the gym today, and pause squats accordingly felt a lot stronger even holding a strict 3 second pause at the bottom.

After 10 reps of 70 on Klokov's I was literally seeing stars dance around.  I took a deep breath, pulled everything tight, and hit 5 more to obliterate my previous projected 1RM.  Shoulders are really feeling it, too.

Deadlifts felt good as well.  245X10 is a Rep PR, and my highest projected 1RM since May.  That's with a big grain of salt knowing that I failed to pull 295 for more than a hard single just 3 weeks ago.  It's nice to see my projected max staying above 300, but it's killing me to not be pulling actual weight above that number right now.  Gonna keep on with the plan though.