First comp Bench since early March. Heaviest Bench since I hit 255 last July which tied my previous PR.
Haven't done TTB since November.
On Curls, 80X10 ties my previous PR. Haven't done BB Curls since mid-February?
Possible take-aways:
-Bench - This wasn't really a surprise. I've been doing a flat bench variation almost every week and regularly hitting 225+ singles on them. Nice to be in striking distance of my previous PR.
-TTB - Had no idea how this would go, but I've been doing a lot of vertical pulling and hip flexion, so I guess that worked.
- Curls - Also didn't know how this would go as I've been doing a lot of Long ROM training, partials, tempo, pauses, etc. Maybe at the end of the day, it's a single-joint exercise and I should expect BB-style training to carry-over really well to that.
- With working all these variations instead of the main lifts, am I conjugate now, lol?
My quads are getting really achy. Kind of a DOMS way, but kind of unusual as well. They were distractingly achy during my first back-off set of squats. And I woke up to them aching this morning. For me, DOMS is usually a 24-48 hours later thing. I would think it had to do with diet, but I don't see a reason why that would be effecting my quads and not anything else. It may just be that back squat objective intensities are just the highest of any of my lifts. I'm going to try using RPE to see if it raises the objective intensity of my Squat assistance movements so that my legs get more acclimated to heavier loads. I started off this program with assistance at 80% of BACK-OFF sets on light day, and 90% on medium. I've been saying they were too light, so I think that's biting me in the ass.
Anyway, top set of Squats felt @ 9. Didn't get much sleep the night before.
Last back-off set felt @ 8. Fatigue was tempting me to rush these AND get sloppy with them. Really had to focus to be both patient and focused.
Last set of Inclines felt @ 8. Looks fast though. Again, poor sleep.
Had to use the shitty pull up station for neutral grips. They were fine. Was hoping my lighter bodyweight would make a noticeable difference, but I guess 3% isn't that big an off set, haha.
Rows were fine. No straps. Played around with hook grip a little, but finished with plain ol' DOH. Gym was crowded so no video.
Pull-Downs - X11, 8, 7 (straight-weight; same weight as previous)
BB Curls - ~60X11, 10
Starr Rehab Squats were expected to be sets of 8 today, but the Squat had other plans. 6th rep with 315 was challenging technically, so I called it there and went ahead and dropped to sets of 5. These all "felt" like real work sets and my legs were nice and achy for about 24 hours following. I'm just going to switch over to standard LP progression with 10 lb. jumps (hopefully) between sessions. Adductor still feels a bit sharp on the initial warm-up sets, and feels a bit spasm-y at times outside of the gym, but nothing nearly as debilitating as it was. Current plan is to run the LP up to the mid-to-high 300's and then switch back into regular programming with an HLM, top-set followed by back-off sets approach. I'm hopeful that lower intensity back-off volume will help continue the healing process while also driving adaptation for the top sets. All 3 work sets shown.
250X1 is a Rep PR on bench. Nice to get it for 5 sets, too! The first set was really close as the descent was a bit slow, and touched a bit high. Those were the two cues I took into the other sets, and they were all much better. I may try to push this up one more time. Would be nice to notch 255 before I switch over to HLM, but we'll just have to see. Last set shown.
Chins were fine. Still strict and double-paused.
RDLs still feeling good with the straps. So good, I'm probably sand-bagging on switching back to pulls from the floor. "I'm talkin' to the man in the mirror."
Pull-downs were the same total reps as last time, with a slightly different distribution. All these chin-up accessories are probably going out the door once the adductor feels good enough to switch back to regular programming. Looking back at my log, I have added about ~15 lbs. over the course of about 2.5 months. Went from getting ~105X8 to getting ~115X11-12.
Likewise, I've taken barbell curls from getting ~50X9 on the 2nd set to getting ~60X10 on the 2nd set here. If I start to miss these movements because my chin-up strength starts going backwards, this is stuff I could potentially mix in on off days at the gym in my office building, but I don't want to get ahead of myself. The main thing is to get back to regular, progressive work on the multi-joint barbell movements.
All strap-less. I can't remember for sure, but I think I only used mixed grip on the 275X2 set of Deads, and on both the deficit sets.
The 315 and 305 sets were way slower off the floor than I expected. For now, I'm going to assume I need to re-acclimate to the movement after barely touching it through 12 weeks of the Big-15. I will stay at 305 for my back-off sets until I'm satisfied with the speed on both those and the top single at 315.
Regarding my speed off the floor, it's convenient that I already had deficit deads programmed in here. When I sat this up to have 3 heavy assistance movements on Deadlift day, I wasn't sure how many sets of each, so I limited it for this session to see what I had left in the tank by the end. Based on this session, and my need for bottom-end work, I will add at least one more set to the deficits moving forward, and possibly more.
My hamstrings feel decently tight/sore today, so I'm going to leave the RDLs at 2 sets for now. However, I may end up moving the rows to another day so I can do more quality volume, in which case I will add another set of RDLs here.
215X15 is a Rep PR and is in the ball-park of projected 1RM increase. Also my first time getting 6 reps on the back-off set with this weight. Took a video to check in on my adjusted low-bar form:
I'm going to have to watch this several more times before I have a take-away though. I think most of the reps look good, but I need to get into it in more detail.
I was tuckered out after this and cut the assistance down to 3 sets each.
Nice session. All the squats felt well grooved as I was cuing "chest up" hard. Both 235s felt strong.
Pause squats were more challenging this week and a lot of fun. I'm going to try to keep the number of sets up next week, but that may require cutting back on some of the other assistance if I'm feeling wiped.
Leg Press was all narrow stance. My quads were burning after the 2nd set.
Was pretty tired at this point so I just got a couple sets each on the curls and the raises.
Forgot shorts, and had to work out in jeans. The confusion caused me to forget my mobility and stretching warm-ups until I was half-way through my Press sets. Ha.
Press felt good. My goal for this cycle is 125X5, or 10 more pounds a week. That would be a PR. Could be ambitious, but since Bench isn't getting pushed as hard, gotta shoot for assistance PRs.
Bench was fine. 155 is well below my Every Day Max, so I focused on getting tight and moving it fast.
Upright Rows were solid. If I can hit either 105 for multiple sets of 10, or for more than 10 reps in one set by the end of the cycle, that will be a PR. Again, that's adding 10 lbs. a week.
I want to do bench dips for my triceps assistance on this day, but there wasn't a good/free spot in the gym to set up for these, so I opted for push-downs. However, I almost exclusively do rope push-downs, so I thought I would switch that up anyway. Will the grip matter? Will I be able to do bench dips next time? Will I vacillate uncertainly between different movements every week? Who cares. It's triceps assistance. Just get some work in.
+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.
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.
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.
Saturday:
Push-up Progression -
BWX10
Doubled-BandX5
"Reverse Grip"X15
Doubled-BandX6
BWX20
super-set with
Band Pull-Aparts - 5 sets; 165 total reps
Band Medley -
Front Raises; Cross-overs, Upright Rows, Reverse Curls AMRAP
Working around my low-back strain (almost healed), and my heavy rehearsal and performance schedule. I think I'm good to get back in the gym for at least an upper-body dominant session, but I'm not rushing because I need to be 100% when my new show opens in 2 weeks. So I'm adhering very closely to the shake diet and getting in a lot of light band work and some conditioning to help make sure I don't erase my gains while I'm out of the gym.
DB "Cleans" (external rotation) - 15sX13, 8, 10sX10
Treadmill - 10 minutes jogging
Everything moved smoothly on bench tonight. I continue to feel more and more confident in my set-up, and then I just focus on pressing the weight instead of feeding myself cues during the lift. Top set was the same as last week, but all the other sets were heavier. Next week is the last week of the cycle and I'll be going for a 10lb. 5 Rep PR. It'll happen for sure.
BB Curl - 45X8, 65X6, 75X5
super-set with
Hanging Leg Raises - 3 sets of 5
With my schedule so hectic I've decided to switch to a 2-Day split. This was supposed to be Week 3, or the 531 week of the cycle. I'd already done that day for Press, so I used what would have been my Deload weight, or Week 1 weight for the next cycle. I worked up in 3's as I would for the Deload week, but then decided to do 7 reps on the top set and match my previous best for that weight. Demonstrating that my strength hasn't dropped off.
For the pulls, 2 reps on the top set would have been a 2 rep PR, so I got that plus one more.
Dips - BWX10X3
super-set with
T-Bar Rows, no support - 90X5, 70X10, 10
Face-Pulls - 3 sets of 15-20
Push-ups - 10,10,10,8,5
I've decided to pull back on the bench for a few weeks, and focus on Dips, rows, and push-ups. That's why I decided to only get 5 on 160. 7 would have been a rep PR, and would have projected an increased 1RM. It was hard not to go for it, but I just kept reminding myself to leave something in the tank for Dips.
My previous best of 225X5 projected to a 260 1RM. So roughly a 35lb. improvement on the Built Like a Badass program, even though I didn't Deadlift for 12 cycles. Luckily, Defranco's lower body assistance work is designed to benefit both the Squat and the Pull. Also, there must be some carryover from the Squat.
Anyway, now I have all my numbers needed to start 531. I'll have my first Press day on either Saturday or Sunday, and we'll go from there. Like all the big lifts, I won't see this weight on the pull again until around month 5 of the program. I'm scheduled for a 300lb. pull at that time. Meet me there?
