Vacation Prep. Week 3. Squat

BW - 205

Squat -
BarX10 (paused)
95X5 (paused)
135X5
185X4
225X3
275X2
315X1
275X5, 3

High Bars - 225X3, 3, 3
super-set with
Low Bar Paused - 225X3, 3, 3

Front Squat - 135X11

Crunched for time, so I did a bunch of squat variations with short rests instead of 30 minutes on the treadmill.  Lots more fun this way.

The 315X1 moved okay, but the rep sets of 275 felt like shit.  Getting out of gas and just feeling shaky on the way up.  One or both of those may be due to the diet.  Anyway, that's another reason I decided to go with squat variations for my volume instead of regular squat sets.

I've never super-set (giant set?) high-bars with paused low bars.  I really liked it.  It's neat to be able to leave the bar in one spot with the same weight on, and get this kind of work in.  Also, my quads and hamstrings are both fairly "tired" feeling the next day.  That almost certainly means they'll be really sore tomorrow.

After the last pair of triples on that, I felt like it was time to be done with those, but I wanted to do one more thing.  I decided to just strip it down to 1pps and rep out some front squats.  I'm sure that also contributes to my quads feeling exhausted today.  My tracker told me this was an all-around PR, which seemed crazy to me.  I checked this morning, and found a flaw in the app.  13 would have been a Rep PR, but I would have needed to get up closer to 20 for an all-around PR.  Still, coming within spitting distance of a Rep PR after all the other volume ain't nuthin'.

Vacation Prep. Week 3. Bench

BW - 205

Incline -
BarX30
95X5
115X4
135X3
155X2
185X1
145X19, 7

Hammer Bench - 50X20 (burn-out set)

Plate Full Front-Raise - 25X20, 15, 15
super-set with
Incline DB Flyes - 30sX15, 15, 15
and
DB Rear Delts - 30sX20, 20, 20

Treadmill - Incline Walking; 30 minutes

Because I didn't get to the gym yesterday, I threw in assistance work today in addition to the main lift.

145X19 is a Rep PR for Incline, and would also be a Rep PR for Flat Bench.  Together with 21+ total reps it meets my goal and I will move up to 155 next time.

I didn't really want to do the hammer bench because of time, but since I did it last week and my Incline was stronger this week, I thought I should at least get one set in.

But I really want the bench assistance focus to be on shoulders, and so I did this tri-set, and liked it.

Vacation Prep. Week 3. Leg Accessory

BW - 205

Bulgarian Split Squats -
35X20, 12
BWX18

Single-Leg Curls - X20, 12, 12

Treadmill - Intervals; 10 minutes

Got in and out at the office gym.  Split squats were much harder than I expected given that I usually squat prior to doing them.

Vacation Prep. Week 2. Press

BW - 203

PBN -
BarX20
65X5
85X4
95X3
115X2
135X1
95X14, 8

Chins - BWX12, 9, 5, 5, 4

DB Curls - 35sX12, 10, 8
super-set with
Overhead Extensions - 40ishX20, 18, 15

Walking - 30ish minutes; outdoors!

135X1 is a Rep PR.  It was a real 50/50 grinder, too.  I wish that hadn't been the case.  We'll just have to see how it goes in future weeks.

Vacation Prep. Week 2. Deadlift

BW - 209 (?)

Deadlift -
135X5
185X4
225X3
275X3, 3
315X2
365X1
315X5, 5, 5

Deficit Deads (1" plate) - 225X3, 3, 3, 3, 3

Treadmill - 30 minutes; incline walking

 Kind of played things by feel today, and was focused on tweaking my deadlift set-up.  I videoed a lot of the sets along the way and used those to make adjustments as I went.  I very quickly refined the set-up to get my shoulders directly over the bar.  From there I worked on finding a starting position for my hips.  My focus here was on: 1) Hips below shoulders (#MarkBell).  2)  Hamstrings feeling tight.  3)  Hamstrings being low enough to accomplish 1. and 2., but not so low that they shoot up before the bar leaves the floor.  And finally 4) Bottom Position on subsequent reps being the same as on the first rep.

Here's a video of a set with 275 where I felt like I got it dialed in (I forgot to video my sets at 365 and 315, dammit):

Then I decided to see if I could keep the same feeling with deficits.  I hit my biggest deadlift numbers using deficits for additional volume, but I also suspect that's where I started to develop bad habits on my set-up.  Here's a video of a deficit set where I'm dialing in the same 4 points above:

Vacation Prep. Week 2. Bench

BW - 207

Incline -
BarX30
95X5
115X4
135X3
155X2
185X1
145X17, 4

Hammer Bench - 50X20, 17, 15

Incline Flye - 20sX15, 15, 15
super-set with
DB Rear Delts - 30sX20, 20, 20

Plate Raise - 25X25

Treadmill - 30 minutes; incline walking

Alright session.  I was looking for 19 reps with 145 on Incline, so I will repeat this weight next week.

I had been hesitant to try the hammer bench, because I didn't want to try another movement that would aggravate my shoulder.  This actually was okay, although the weight was really light.  I'll try it again next week.

I probably went overboard on assistance a little bit here, time-wise.  Starting next week, I will be going more frequently, doing the main lifts on separate days from the assistance, and alternating steady-state with interval cardio.  I want those sessions to be shorter, so I'll just have to contain myself.

Vacation Prep. Week 2. Squat

BW - 207

Squat -
BarX10 (paused)
95X5 (paused)
135X5
185X4
225X3
275X2
315X1
275X6, 3, 3, 3, 2

Bulgarian Split Squats- 20X15, 15, 15

GHR - BWX10, 8, 7

Treadmill - 30 minutes; incline walking

Squat strength may be declining a bit with weight loss and lack of calories.  Some of this could be psychological.  I was also trying for more sit-back, and that may have fucked me up a bit as well.  When I stopped doing that, some of the later work-sets felt better than the 315X1 and 275X6 did.

Added a DB to the single-leg work.  Didn't make it that much harder, so I'll up that weight a tad next time and start getting after it.

Somebody moved the GHR up to a higher setting, locked the bolt down, and stripped it so nobody could move it.  So these were a lot harder today.

Vacation Prep. Week 1. Press

BW - 209

PBN -
BarX20
65X5
85X4
95X3
115X2
125X4, 3, 2, 2, 2, 1

Chin-ups - BWX10, 6, 5, 5, 4, 4, 4 (38 total reps)

DB Curls - 30sX18, 12, 11
super-set with
Overhead Extensions - 50ishX25, 15, 12

Treadmill - 30 minutes; incline walking

125X4 is a Rep PR.  Together with 14 total reps, that takes me to the end of a full cycle of PBN.  I'll start over next week working up to 135 as my over warm-up and then repping out lower weights again.

Everything else was fine.

Vacation Prep. Week 1. Deadlift

BW - 209

Deadlift -
135X5
185X4
225X3
275X2
315X1
365X1
345X3, 3, 3, 3, 2

Bulgarian Split Squat - BWX20, 20, 15

GHR - BWX12, 10, 8

Treadmill - 30 minutes; incline walking

Odd session.  I misread my programming here, and I'd intended to do high-rep sets with a much lower weight.

I discovered last time that my deadlift form was set up with the shoulders well behind the bar and the hips fairly low.  I started playing around with adjust that here.  I didn't think to film it, which is dumb and a tool I need to use to fix this.  The good news is that my back felt strong and VERY stable in this position which helps reduce the yips I have from injuring myself a couple months back.  The bad news, is I still feel very slow off the floor.  The thing is that the first rep feels the slowest to break, and the subsequent reps feel better.  That screams bad set-up, so I'll just have to work it.

Got more reps total on the split squats which are still brutal as hell.

Really making the GHR a struggle for myself.  I'm dropping my upper body a little bit below parallel at the bottom of the movement and focusing on initiating the concentric with my glutes first before I start extending the knees.  Still pushing the glutes through hard right before the top as well.

Vacation Prep. Week 1. Bench

BW - 210

Incline -
BarX30
95X5, 5
115X4
135X3
155X2
185X1
135X20

Incline DB Flyes - 20sX15, 15, 15

DB Rear Delts - 30sX20, 20, 20

BB Curls - BarX35

Treadmill - 30  minutes; high-incline walking

135X20 is a Rep PR for Incline and also would be for Flat Bench.  Moving up to 145 next week.

I went round and round on what kind of assistance I wanted to do for this Vacation Prep period when I'll be in a calorie and carb deficit.  For lower body days, it was fairly easy to just pick some BW stuff.  For upper days, chins are the only viable BW movement because push-ups and dips aggravate my shoulder.  I'll be doing chins on OHP day but I didn't necessarily want to put them right before deadlifting until I see what my recovery will be like on the diet.

I ended up deciding to go with all light shoulder work.  See if I can build up shoulder strength and stability as much as possible around whatever is wrong in there.  It was hard NOT to do triceps work, but fuck it, we'll just see what happens.

Vacation Prep. Week 1. Squat

BW - 213

Squat -
BarX10 (paused)
95X5 (paused)
135X5
185X4
225X3
275X2
315X1
275X8, 3, 3, 3

Bulgarian Split-Squats - BWX20, 16, 15

GHR - BWX10, 10, 10

Treadmill - 30 minutes walking; slight incline

My target with 275 is 12 reps.  I got 11 last week, but I was strangely intimidated by the weights today.  Maybe that's must my subconscious saying, "you're in a caloric and carb deficit, you won't be able to lift this."  Whatever.  Before this last month, 275X8 would have been a Rep PR, so it's not terrible.

Oh my fucking God, I forgot how much those split squats can hurt.  Good stuff.

Still tweaking my GHR set-up and execution.  I feel plenty of 'H,' but not so much 'G.'  I started pushing my hips through hard close to the top of the rep and that seemed to help.

Reps and Volume. Week 16. Deadlift

BW - 214

Deadlift -
135X5
185X4
225X3
275X3
315X2
345X4, 1
315X3

RDL - 185X15, 15, 12

Paused Front Squats - 135X5, 5, 5, 5, 5

Chest Supported Rows - 90X20, 15, 12, 11

I was on the fence about even doing Deadlifts today.  I gave it a shot and they felt strong all the way through the set of 345X4.  Then the next set of 345 had no umph at all.  Instead of trying to force the issue I dropped down for a quick set with 315.

Later in the session I went back to the platform and examined my set-up in a side mirror.  I hadn't realized this, but I was set up with my shoulders WAY behind the bar.  This is something to look at.  I haven't filmed myself from the side in a long time, so I'll start doing that.  Got to get my shoulders over the bar.

RDL's felt strong.  I forgot my straps today and just went with a mixed-grip.

Paused Fronts and T-Bars both felt strong.

Reps and Volume. Week 16. Bench

BW - 212

Incline -
BarX30
95X5, 5
115X4
135X3
155X2
175X7*, 3, 4 (*failed on 8)

DB Laterals - 20sX20, 20, 20
super-set with
Rolling DB Triceps - 30sX20, 20, 15

DB Hammer Curls - 40sX10, 10, 10
super-set with
DB Rear Delts - 30sX18, 18, 18

175X7 is a Rep PR, and, together with 14 total reps, meets my goal for this weight.  I'll reset next week with 185 as my over-warm-up single.

I was going to try machine benching today, but once I got there something said work through the delts so I did that instead.  I've been doing lots of OHP and rear delts, but I hadn't done anything for the lateral head for awhile.  Who knows, maybe it can help jump-start some improvement before I go see a professional about my shoulder issues.  Also, my shoulder is WAY less achy for having not done the heavy lock-outs.  I'm suspicious that as I work back up on Inclines and start looking to hit reps at 185+, I may run into the same issues, however.

Reps and Volume. Week 16. Squat

BW - 215

Squat -
BarX10 (paused)
95X5 (paused)
135X5
185X4
225X3
275X2
315X1
275X11, 4, 2

High Bars - 225X3, 3, 3, 3, 3

GMs - 135X10, 10

Single-Leg Extensions - X20, 17, 15

275X11 is an all-around PR.  However, 11 is my number to beat, so I'll be repeating this day next week.

This really re-fatigued my low back after having just recovered from Deadlifts on Friday.  I may do accessories only on Deadlift day this week, and think about alternating like that.  I'll also be making big changes to my programming starting next week as I start looking to get in shape for a vacation in early March.

Everything else went well.

Reps and Volume. Week 15. Deadlift

BW - 214

Deadlift -
135X5
185X4
225X3
275X2
315X1
365X1*
345X3, 2, 2, 2

RDL - 185X15, 12, 12

Paused Front Squats -
BarX5
95X5
135X5, 5, 5

Single-Leg Curls -
X12, 10 (straight-weight)
X15 (dropped weight)

Haven't done deadlifts in a while and things were a little out of whack.  *I did double-overhand all the way up to 365, but that top weight started to come out of my fingers right before lock-out.

I was going to try using straps for my work sets, but I couldn't get in position starting at the bottom.  I didn't realize so much of my set-up started while standing upright, getting tight and then pulling myself down to the bar.

Worksets felt weaker than I'd hoped after the time off.  I missed at the bottom on both an attempted 4th rep on the first set, and an attempted single at the end.  My weakness continues to be from the floor.

RDLs felt good though.

Thinking about strength off the floor, I decided to try out paused front squats here instead of the planned T-Bar rows.  Might play with this again next week.