5/3/1 Log: Cycle 1. Week 1. Pause Squats

Defranco Hip Mobility

Pause Squats -
BarX5
105X5
135X5
160X5
185X5
210X5

Front Squats - 135X5X5

RDL -
135X5
155X5
175X5
195X5
215X5

Hammer Swings - 15 seconds AFAP, 45 second rest; 15 minutes

Wow Pause Squats.  Paul Carter once said not to go above 5 reps with these because they are so taxing, and I definitely see what he was talking about.  I used 80% of my regular squat max for my training max here, and I don't know if I could have gotten much more than 5 reps on my top set if I'd tried, but frankly all the work sets felt hard.  I dropped a line to Carter about this to see if he thinks that's normal, or if I should drop the training max even more.  He said I should leave it for this cycle, and drop it in the future if necessary.  After the top set of 5, my heart was pounding like it did after my set of 20 at the end of my last cycle.  Crazy.

UB: Reps Week 3. Bench

Defranco Shoulder mobility

Bench -
BarX30
65X10
105X6
135X3
170X1
135X10, 6, 3, 3, 2, 2, 2, 3 (31 total reps)

Pull-Downs - 5 sets of 8-10

Standing Abs - 5 sets of 12

Because I failed to hit my target reps in Week 2, and then had to do a lot of singles on my way to 30+ reps, I decided to back-off the first work-set a little in the hopes of bumping up the following sets.  I had mixed results here, as you may be able to tell.  I got more reps on the 2nd set than I had the previous two weeks which is good, however it immediately devolved into triples and doubles.  Also the total reps for the first 2 sets combined isn't any better than the first two weeks, nor did I beat the total number of sets needed to reach 30+.  All in all it kind of seems like I just rearranged the deck chairs. 

I think there are two factors at play here:  1)  because I train alone, I just don't feel comfortable taking every set to the limit, and 2)  I seem to be trimming up.  I don't really weigh myself, but I pretty clearly look leaner in the mirror.  Some of this could be diet.  I haven't been paying any more attention to what I eat, but I think there's a chance I'm not eating as much as I have been.  This may be having the effect that I'm not getting growth in my pressing muscles due to a lack of nutrition.  Also, less mass means less area to distribute the load over, meaning the muscle I do have actually has to work harder to lift the weight.

All in all, I'm not super worried about this becasue I don't really care about the bench press that much.  As long as my squats and rows show improvement, that's the main thing for me, and I haven't stalled on those.  If my squat stalls out 2 weeks in a row, I will eat more going into the following week.  For now, I probably prefer being leaner to making a lot of bench progress.

UB: Reps Week 1. Bench

Sunday:

Timed Mile - 10:38

Monday:

Defranco Shoulder Mobility

Bench -
BarX15X2
65X10
105X6
135X3
160X1
135X12, 4, 4, 3, 2, 2, 3 (30 total reps)

Chin-ups - Gym BW 210X7, 3

Presses - 95X5, 85X5, 65X5, BarX7, BarX10

Decided to do a light one-mile run between lifting days.  Just went for something easy; I even walked a bit after the initial quarter mile.  Had to keep my focus to keep my pace down though.  When I run by myself, my instinct is too just take off.

So the numbers Paul Carter lays out in this plan call for the work-sets to be 63% of your 1RM*1.05.  For my bench, that comes out to about 130lbs.  This is one of the rare examples where I have consciously made an ego-driven change to my programming.   It just seems dumb to put a 25, 10, 5, and 2.5 lb. plate on each side for this instead of just throwing full plates on there on working on that weight for this cycle.  Also, 135 projects as my 15 rep max, same as what I'm doing on Squats.

The results were interesting.  It was easier than the Squats (have I mentioned I'm a poor squatter?), but not as easy after the first set as the rows.  Could be because I upped the weight slightly over the recommended %?  I also cut those later sets shorter than I may have needed to because, ya know, the weight is hovering over my chest with no partner to catch it.  Anyway, with the 30 second rests (it's 60 for Squats) this was a bit of a romp.  Pretty fun.

UB: Strong - Review

I've now completed the 6-week strength cycle from Paul Carter's "Ultimate Beastom - How to get 'What Constitutes Strong.'"   This was a 5X5 program, and here are the results for the four main lifts:

Press:      No 5 Rep PRs, one 2 Rep PR (5 lbs.), no projected increase to 1RM
Deadlift:  Three 5 Rep PRs (10, 20, 30 lbs.), projected increase to 1RM (24 lbs.), best results of program
Bench*:   No 5 Rep PRs, one 4 Rep PR (5 lbs.), projected increase to 1RM (1lb.)
Squat:      Two 5 Rep PRs (5, 25 lbs.), projected increase to 1RM (6 lbs.)

*switched to close-grip for last session; results probably skewed

I also want to high-light some progress on other lifts:

Chin-ups:       Went from BW of 205X9 to BW 212X10
Dips:               Went from BW of 208X11 to BW 208 + 25 lbs.X8
Front Squats:  Went from 115X12 (projected 1RM=161) to 135X8 (1RM=171)

My general impression of the program is that it is successful, and I think the results clearly speak to that.  The two keys would seem to be primarily making sure your targets are realistic, and additionally trying to choose assistance work that will contribute to the main lift.

For the Press, I feel fairly confident that not having OH triceps work in the program resulted in my failure to meet my goal.  This is good though, because this failure provided the evidence that led me to look at my log and see that my press went up when I was doing OH extensions, and dropped off when I was only doing Dips for triceps work.  That is potentially valuable if it proves to be true.  Also, I thought a 10 lb. 5 Rep PR was a modest goal.  If I had to do it again, I would have only shot for 5, and I believe I would have gotten it.

For the Pull, this lift continues to shine for me.  Just more evidence that I am better at this than any other lift.  The thing to keep in mind from that should probably not be that I can do anything on the pull.  That sounds like a good way to fuck myself up.  Rather the take-away should probably be that I don't need to focus on it as much.  I can probably let it take a back-seat while I devote more fuel and effort to other lifts.  Also, I developed a nagging mid-back strain on this program, and I now believe it was from deadlifting, and points to the need to have more rowing in my programs to keep up that area.  Like the OH triceps work for the Press, if this is an accurate assessment, then it was worth it to have this information going forward.

For the Bench, I decided prior to the final sessions to go ahead and switch to close-grip.  That had been my intention for a while, and Paul Carter convinced me to just go ahead and make the change.  I was starting to have some nagging shoulder pain, so that seemed like a good idea.  I still set a Rep PR, and projected 1RM increase.  That suggests the work I did wide-grip was certainly successful.  I suspect the Dips contibuted to the success of the close-grip bench a bit more than the DB benching.  I did feel like I got some good work in once I switched to flat DB bench, after discovering how hard it is to do incline the day after heavy shrugging.  More lessons learned.

For Squats, I did set some PRs.  I also made progress on Front Squats, and also reacquainted myself with RDL's (on which I set several PR's, but didn't include above because it had been so long since I had done them that PR's were likely).  I think my primary take-away with squats is that I need help on form.  I just continually feel that my form is neither correct, nor consistent, and I would like to be both.  The guy that owns and operates my gym is a former champion powerlifter, and I'm going to see how much he wants to charge to form-doctor the 3 big lifts to make sure they're all in good shape.

The main thing I didn't like about his program, particularly in contrast with 531, is that without the constant opportunity to set PR's in a variety of rep ranges, it's not quite as fun.  At any point on 531, I set around 20 PRs in different rep ranges in the same amount of time I only set 7 with this one.  It's not that the programming is more effective, it's just set up differently and you don't have that opportunity.  As I continue to age in "lifting years," I expect that sort of PR progress even on 531 would become less frequent, however it just seems to be set up to allow for that, and that's fun.  Louie Simmons often talks about the benefits of his conjugate system being that his lifter are setting PR's in some lift variation every week, and that allows them to set PRs whenever they want.  This isn't the same as that, but it offers that same level of encouragement.  When I finally discovered progression models for lifting, that was when a switch flipped in my head, and I found myself really able to get into lifting on a regular basis.

That being said, one thing that was really great about this program was starting it.  I'd been on a 2-day split because of my rehearsal schedule, and those workouts were slightly long, and very intense because they each had two of the big lifts with heavy weights, followed by lots of super-setting of assistance work to keep the time down, then core work, and then finishing with some kind of conditioning.  When I started this, and it was lighter weights on the big lifts, and 3 assistance movements of 2-3 sets with medium to high reps, and out, it felt like I had gone on vacation.  It was just awesome to go in and have a short and easy session.  And it was like this for 2-3 weeks instead of the 1 heavy-ish deload week on 531.  This could be crucial in the future for down-shifting and getting back into it, the key would be recognizing the need, rather than lucking out and scheduling a program shift that just happens to correspond witht the need.

All in all, I'm very satisfied with these results.  I reached some great goals, and even the goals I failed to reach taught me a lot that I can build on.  I'm taking 5 days off, and then I'm going to start the conditioning phase.  Looking forward to it!