Novice LP. Session 27

BW - 227

Bench - 202.5X3X5

Chin-Ups - BWX6, 4

Negative Chins (0/0/3) - BWX4X4

202.5 is a Novice LP, or 3X5, PR on bench.  First reps were strong, last reps were slow.  I'm optimistic about 205.

Chin-ups feeling stronger than ever.

Novice LP. Session 26

BW - 228

Squat -
365X3
327.5X3, 3

Deadlift -
330X3
295X3

365X3 is an all around PR.   Heaviest weight I've ever had on my back.  Felt pretty good, although depth is not as clean as I would have liked:

As has largely been the case since I switched to triples and back-off sets, the top tripe feels much better than the following sets of 5.  Low back irritation and mental fatigue from the top set really gum up the following sets.  On this day, I ended up only doing triples on the back-offs.  Here's the shit-show that was the first back-off set:

At this point, it hurts to get out of bed in the morning.  So having hit this big milestone weight, I'm going to deload and reset to a weekly progression on squats.

I was in an unavoidable time crunch, so I skipped a bench session that would have been going for an LP PR, and just went to deadlift.

Deadlift felt pretty good all things considered, but I forgot to film it.

Novice LP. Session 25

BW - 227

Squat -
360X3
325X5, 5

Press - 130X3X3

Band-Assisted Chins - RedLightBandX6, 6, 6, 6

360X3 is a Rep PR.

As has been the case since I moved into a top triple and back-off sets of 5, while the tripe feels objectively very heavy, the 1st set of 5 on the back-offs tends to feel the hardest.

No low back trouble on the top set.  On the back-offs, the rep itself doesn't hurt, but unracking the weight and standing with it has a lot of discomfort.  Really bothering me by the 2nd set.

Moved on to 3X3 on Press after stalling last session.  These were heavy, but very do-able.  We'll see how far these go.  When this stalls, the plan is to try again the next session, and then try resetting to 3X5 and mirco-loading the next run up.

Went up to 6 reps on all band-assisted chins.  Felt pretty good, but still challenging on the last reps on the last sets.

Novice LP. Session 24

BW - 228

Squat -
355X3
320X5, 5

Press - 127.5X5, 4, 3

Chin-ups - BWX6, 3

Negative Chins (0/0/3) - BWX4X4

Top set of Squats felt the slowest yet, but do-able.  This ties my previous 3 rep PR.  If everything comes together, I feel that a PR can be there on Monday.  After running through video of the last session, focus here was on keeping heels flat.  Had the safeties a notch too high, and hit them on the first rep.

1st back-off set felt really hard out of the gate, but much easier by the end.

Failed again on Press.  Some of it is just having my gas and low back reduced by the squat sets.  The current advice for stalling on Press in the advanced novice program is too continue with 3X3.  I'll give that a shot.

Got another rep on Chins.  Slow but steady progress.

Novice LP. Session 23

BW - 227

Squat -
350X3
315X5, 5

Bench - 200X3X5

Band-Assisted Chins - RedLightBandX6, 5, 5, 5

All the Squats felt heavy today as the low back was feeling really irritated.  Even some of the warm-ups were rough.  Technique got off on the last rep of 350, and the 1st back-off set was all over the place.  Maybe time to move DL back to a heavy day so that I have more recovery?

Bench was okay, but very heavy.

Band chins were fine.

Novice LP. Session 22

BW - 225

Squat - 275X3X5

Press - 102.5X3X5

Deadlift -
325X3
290X3

80% Squats and Press all went pretty well.  Squats were harder than the Press.

Similar to the adjustment I made to the last heavy Squat session, I needed to do something with DL to account for failure on the last session, and to give me low back some recovery.  I reduced the top set by 10lbs., reduced the reps to 3, and added a back-off set of 3 at 90%.  My back was already feeling better coming off of the changes I made to squats, and I'm feeling positive about these changes.  I still feel like there's a lot of room to work on tightness all along the spine, however.

Novice LP. Session 21

BW - 227

Squat -
345X3
310X5, 5

Bench - 195X3X5

Chin-Ups - BWX5, 4

Negative Chins (0/0/3) - BWX4X4

After failing on Squats on Monday, I could have taken several approaches:  Repeat the attempts, reset to 90%, do 1 set of 5 followed by 2 back-off sets at 90%, switch programs.  My low back has been giving me low level achy-ness fairly continually for a couple of weeks, so I didn't want to try the sets again, and since I failed on the first set, I wasn't even stoked about the idea of a set of 5.  At the same time, the LP has generally been running so well, I didn't want to do a full reset, and certainly didn't want to jump to a different program.  So I settled on a slightly different approach.  I went UP in weight for the first set, but reduced reps to a triple.  Then followed with the two back-off sets of 5 @ 90%.  This felt really good.  This is the approach I plan to take as all the lifts stall out, and we'll see how it goes:

Bench felt fairly weak on the 1st and 2nd sets, but I get a lift-off for the 3rd set and it went well.

Chins also felt stronger.

Novice LP. Session 20

BW - 226

Squats -
340X4
305X5

Press - 127.5X5, 5, 4

Band-Assisted Chins - RedLightBandX4X5

Woof.  Every rep of the 1st set of squats was hard, and the 4th one wouldn't go up.  Though about doing two more sets, but decided to get take a back-off set at 90% instead.  Will try 340 again this week.

Press failed on the final rep of the final set.  Will try this again when Press comes back up in 1.5 weeks.

Band assisted chins felt stronger this time.

Novice LP. Session 19

BW - 225

Squat - 267.5X3X5

Bench - 152.5X3X5

Deadlift -
335X2
300X5

Squats and Bench all felt good on the light day.

Heavy day for Deadlift.  Failed on 3rd Rep.

So then I did a back-off set at 90%

I'll try this weight again next week.

Novice LP. Session 18

BW - 227

Squat - 335X3X5

Press - 125X3X5

Chin-Ups - BWX5, 3

Negative Chins (0/0/3) - BWX4X4

Whew.  Squats were hard and exhausting again on this day.  I'm in brand new LP territory here having set an LP PR last session, and never having had the 80% days before.  I'm gonna try and push this as far as I can: fail2X, reset, fail2X, top-set+back-offX2, 3X3, etc.
3rd set shown below.

1st set of press was really hard as well.  They got more do-able the further I got from the squats.

Little bit of progress on the chins.

Novice LP. Session 17

BW - 226

Squat - 330X3X5

Bench - 190X3X5

Band-Assisted Chins - RedLightBandX4X5

330 for 3 sets of 5 is an LP PR.  These were really, really fucking hard.  I had out of town guests for the 2nd weekend in a row, and I had to sit in jury selection all day.  That means my sleep and food and just general routine were all very irregular.  I tried pounding a coffee and doughnut before this session, but focusing seemed next to impossible until after the first work set.  That woke me up a bit for some reason, and I got through all three sets.  Here's the last set.  Probably too high for competition, but may be okay for training:

Bench went a little bit better.

2nd day of Niki Sims chin-up program, meaning first day with band assistance.  Red light band looped under one foot, and legs kept straight throughout.  By the 4th set of 5, these were actually a little harder than I expected, and I was really feeling them in my biceps.

Novice LP. Session 16

BW - 227

Squat - 260X3X5

Press - 97.5X3X5

Deadlift - 325X5

Light day for Squat and Press.  2nd weekend in a row of having folks visit from out of town, so no conditioning this weekend.

Half way through my deadlift set, I tried taking as big a breath as possible because my back wasn't feeling awesome, and I discovered that I hadn't been taking nearly big enough breaths.  Last reps felt much better than first reps.