Not a big difference in top end strength on Swiss Bar this week, BUT on the back-offs I did start to remember some old pressing tricks for squeezing the quads and glutes. We'll see if I can translate that into a bigger single next week.
Messed around seeing how deep of a barbell squat I could get. I thought it would be high bar, but my body naturally wanted to lean forward, so it ended up being low bar with the heels pulled closer together and the toes pointed further out. These were fun.
Over a year since I've gone this hard on Squats, I think. Immediately pre- and post- the first lockdown I was doing sets of 6 @~8. Anyway, these were fairly tough. I was very focused on depth, and so took my time, breathing and resetting between most reps, etc. I've mostly kept rest times in the 2-3 minute zone. I expect rest times on these to be consistently over 3:00.
Dips were supposed to be @7 with this weight [shrugs].
Trying to decide where @10 is on OH extensions so that I don't get stuck with the bar behind my head is interesting.
Pin Pressing is such a weird experience. On one hand, these feel really hard, but on the other hand, don't seem so fatiguing?
Rotating Gaspari Bar Curls feel...interesting...on my wrists. Not painful, but an unusual feeling of tension.
Had a conflict tonight, and so got my work-out in at an "away" gym that I found in the area. The gym was mostly fine, however none of the barbells had a center knurling, and the only spare belt they had was a nylon and velcro affair.
Because of the above, I conservatively lowered my top-set weight for squats from 380 to 365. I kept the back-off weight the same, however. Top set weight was fine, however the old problem of sliding forward at parallel instead of dropping down below parallel crept back in here. Something to watch out for. Same problem was apparent on a few reps of the back-off sets. Top-set and last back-off shown.
The incline benches at this gym were standard 45 degrees, whereas the one I usually use is more horizontal. To gauge it, I worked up to a heavy-ish single, and then backed off. The back-off weight ended up being a bit too light, so I just kept rest periods down. Main floor of this gym was packed, so no video of anything but Squats.
No neutral grip chin options available, so these were all supinated. Felt fine on my wrist actually, and generally fairly strong. Still tried to keep all sets below RPE 10. Last was probably @10, but whatevs.
BB Rows, were not from the floor, but from a fairly horizontal hang position. Wasn't sure if the staff would appreciate me doing Pendlay's on their regular gym floor with iron plates even though it was a padded floor. These were fine.
Was again nervous about the top set of Squats. 20 lbs. heavier than last week, and the heaviest weight since rehabbing my adductor. And once again, the weight was pretty easy, an the adductor feels fine. Unfortunately, the first set was above parallel. Wah-wah. I deliberated about what to do, and ultimately took it again. Better depth, but still borderline. Decided to take it and try to do better in the future. Originally, the program was to do a single and 5X5 back-off. Since I took an extra single, I decided to only do 4X5 to keep the volume "slots" as programmed. Both singles, and last back-off shown.
After last week's Inclines, I was pretty sure I 4X5 @ +10 lbs. wasn't going to be great. I was prepared to be surprised, but I could tell from the first couple of reps that I needed to cut to 3 reps if wanted to get all of the volume in without a lot of @9+ RPE sets. Totally at peace with that decision. I've decided to incorporate that into the program going forward for the last week of each 3 week Bench wave. I really want the Incline weight to be the same as the back-off weight on heavy Bench day for the psychological benefits of having handled the weight already on the "harder" movement, so that it may "feel" light on the main movement. Last set shown.
I was running out of time, and my right wrist has been bothering me, so I decided to skip Chin-Ups. They can sometimes aggravate my wrists, and I'd like those joints to be fresh for alternate grip DL later in the week.
Week 1 of a new 3-week DL wave, so intensity drops down on BB Rows, but I upped the reps to 7 per set. These did take a little more "leg" to complete all the reps in the sets, but I kept pretty good torso position and the bar touched in the same area (just above the belt) on all reps. Gym was crowded, and so I couldn't get video where I was working.
This might have been the smoothest set with 375 I've ever done. I 100% that the Starr Protocol has allowed me to "reset" to better depth on the squat. That depth seems to be taking some stress off of the adductor (I still feel a twinge in it moving through parallel, but nothing at the bottom), and it's giving me a stronger rebound out of the hole. I was nervous going into this set as this is 20 lbs. heavier than the heaviest weight I've handled since I went on the protocol. They just felt great. Top set and last back-off set shown.
190X5 is a Rep PR for inclines. This was a challenging weight on every set. My grip is medium-close (top thumb knuckle on the smooth; about 1.5" out from Press grip), and the combination of the angle and the closer grip makes the ROM feel forever long. I had a spotter stand by for the last couple of sets. I'm programmed to go up to 200 next week, but I'll play it by ear. It would be great if the strength is there for it, but I'm prepared to do triples if necessary. Last set shown.
Chin-Ups were whatever. I'm just doing 3 sets and trying to leave a rep in the tank on every set (RPE 9, I guess). The BB Rows will either trigger additional adaptations that allow chins to maintain/increase, or they won't. Tired of living and dying by my chin-up strength for a while.
Rows felt a bit heavier than I expected after last week even though I was only doing triples. A reminder that with movements that rely on smaller amounts of muscle, something that felt easy at 175, can feel much tougher 20 lbs. heavier even with less reps. So I added the belt to makes sure I kept everything tight. Had straps on hand, but those definitely weren't necessary. Last set shown.
Pull-Downs - X10, 10, 10 (straight-weight; same as last week)
BB Curls - 45X12, 12
Left adductor pain and a terrible schedule the past few, and upcoming, weeks have led me to admit that I haven't really been doing the program successfully for a couple of weeks and won't be able to really follow it for a month or so upcoming. I'm stuck trying to formulate a sort of "maintenance" block.
Failed pretty hard on I.D. last week and then couldn't get back into the gym because of Memorial Day schedule. Left adductor is killing me (appointment with my P.T. tomorrow) so I went with the "middle day" programmed weights. I also started playing around with moving my stance in a little bit as I saw some stuff on the SS forum about narrowing stance and switch to squat shoes helping with this issue. Felt maybe a little better in the session and probably helped depth the most. Walking with a limp the next day because of adductor pain. Video of 3rd set shown.
Because of the adductor pain, I also move my feet in on bench, and used the same middle day weights as last time. While the leg still hurt, the weight itself felt very easy. Possibly a stronger foot placement for this lift? Last set shown.
Chin-ups were okay. One more rep and set than last week. That's pretty normal for the ebb-and-flow of this movement, but at the same time doesn't feel much like progress.
I failed to get 10 reps on the 3rd set of pull-downs last time so repeated the weight and got all the reps. Will move up next week.
Also managed to get to 12 reps on both sets of curls, so will add weight.
Squats went pretty well. Still trying to get better depth. Maybe marginal improvement on this day. Last set shown.
Bench was pretty tough. Got a lift-off for the last two sets just to try and save energy. Strength was there, just the medium volume/medium intensity set up for pressing movements on the middle day is always tough. Last set shown.
Decided to mix things up on Chins. I'd told myself I was going to get to 50 total reps on a day before I decided this volume approach wasn't working. Well 50 is an arbitrary number. I knew I needed to change it up, because I was starting to dread chinning at the end of this day. I consume a lot of stuff from various Starting Strength people, and SS adjacent stuff. Inspired by stuff Andy Baker wrote here, and also some of the Barbell Medicine stuff (recently splintered off from SS). The BM guys talk a lot about the importance of volume over intensity, and even over tonnage which is interesting. I don't consider myself nearly smart enough to really grok the big picture of half the stuff they present, and definitely not to experiment with on my own on the main lifts.
But for chins?
From what I gather, their point of view is that intensity doesn't matter nearly as much as volume. Specifically, that once work weight gets into the 70%+ range, it becomes largely equal in it's ability to drive hypertrophy. And that, after a proper novice phase, hypertrophy becomes far more important to strength gains than the neuro-muscular effects trained by super-high intensity. That singles, etc. are still important practice for strength sports, but take a lot more out of you than lower intensities that are just as effective at driving strength. In some ways, it reminds me a lot of Paul Carter's strength programming. i.e. Working up to 1-3 heavy singles, and then do a bunch of sub-max back-off sets.
So that's all to get down what I'm thinking about it at this moment. And that's why I'm moving to less sets of chin-ups (high intensity/stress) and adding in sets of pulldowns and chins to keep the overall volume up on the prime movers in the movement. I had been doing 8-10 sets of Chin-ups @ around 40 total reps. I'm moving that down to 4 initial sets here @ 19 total reps. Then I have 3 sets of pull-downs and 2 sets of biceps for a total of 9 sets "for chins." I will look to add reps to the chins until I get up to about 25 (per Andy Baker's link above). But if the 1st set reps aren't increasing and/or the total sets required to get my reps is plateauing or going up, then I will add a set to pull-downs and/or curls. If I get to 5+ sets of chins, 5 sets of pulldowns, and 3 sets of curls (Andy Baker, again), and there is no progress, I will have to add a 2nd day. I'll reset the 1st day back down to 4, 3, 2, and then both days will follow the previous progression, but the movements on the 2nd day will be those from Baker's 2nd day.
The only problem if figuring out where to put that if I'm on a 3 day split and Deadlifting twice a week. Maybe Intensity Day.
Squat depth was borderline here. I filmed every set from 225 (when I put on my belt) up, trying to get better depth, but the ones that felt deep always looked borderline on video. Need to reach out to my old coaches about tuning up my squat again.
4th rep on bench was sloooooow, so I cut it there, and did a 2nd set of 3 instead. Will progress with 2 sets of 3. Both sets shown.
Deadlifts felt pretty good. Slow, but fairly strong. 2nd set shown.
Squat reps were all high. Every single one. MAYBE a couple of them were close to parallel. Maybe. My headspace was scattered heading into this set. I knew I cut the first rep high, and from there I struggled to find depth. So disappointing. This week I'm travelling, and so will only be able to go to the gym twice. I guess I'm going to do V.D. on Monday, and I.D. on Thursday, and go ahead and try to go to 400. I'll try to grab someone at the gym I trust to call out my depth. From the video, I believe the strength is there, the execution was just garbage.
Press went well. 2X3 PR. 2nd set shown.
Deadlift also went well. The 2nd set continues to feel better than the first. That's not a new phenomenon in Starting Strength style training at all, but I'm trying to figure out if there's a way to use warm-ups to try to get the FIRST set to feel better. 2nd set shown.
380X5 is a Squat PR. Moved pretty well. Depth is borderline, but feels tight at the bottom.
227.5X5 ties a PR on Bench. Probably about RPE 9.5 (i.e. couldn't have gotten another rep, but possibly could have had a touch more weight). A good tip that came up on the Barbell Logic podcast with Matt Reynolds was that right when the bench hits a hard sticking point, allow it to drift back over your face a bit more, and that movement actually allows the elbows to extend without having to push the weight up. The effect is that you move an inch or so closer to lockout, and through the sticking point. I felt that very much on this last rep.
390X3 on Deadlift ties a PR. Last rep was also about RPE 9.5 Had to reset after the 2nd rep because the bar shifted on the platform.
152.5X3 and 137.5X8 are both Rep PRs on Press. I think a 4th rep would have been there at 152.5, but I let the bar get out in front of me too far and got on my toes. Pretty clear in the first video. The set of 8 at 137.5 was also RPE 9.5 or so.
On Chins, I got a couple more reps, and one less set than last time. Progress.
No PRs on Squats. I've I'd been paying attention, I might have gone for a 6 rep PR on the first set. I've been starting to feel a little beat up by Squats, and my form was getting bad (bad bar path and bad depth). Today I made a game time decision to switch to the same phase that Press is in: Top set followed by AMRAP @ 90% and another set of 90%X5 for volume. Knowing I would only have one set at 370, I really took my time. Focused on bar path and depth. I'm feeling like the days of toying around with these advanced novice LP strategies like Greyskull are coming to an end for the Squat, and I will need to move back into some intermediate programming very soon. I've managed to stretch it out almost a full year on Squat and Bench, so that's not too bad.
135X9 is a Rep PR on Press. I originally programmed for the third back-off set to be 80%X5, but that didn't feel right on the day. I'm still playing around with how to use the back-off sets but not let tonnage drop too far. 1st and 2nd set shown.
On chins, I got the same total reps as last session in less sets. Feels like progress.
365 for 3X5 is an LP PR. I feel like I should have gone for a 6th, but it's feeling very heavy, and the technique looks off. Depth is borderline-to-high, and bar path is poor. Sigh.
147.5X4 is a Rep PR. Couldn't squeeze out 5 on either set. Will switch over to a top-set of 3, a back-off set of AMRAP @ 90%, and a set of 5 @ 80% for volume. 2nd set of 4 shown.
Increased total reps in the same amount of sets on Chins. First couple of sets were on their own, then super-set a few sets with Squat warm-ups (none b/w last warm-up and 1st work-set), and then a couple more sets after Squats.
360 for 3X5 is an LP PR on Squats. Thought I might go for a 6th rep, but technique was feeling off. Also depth was all over the map. Still, I get to go for 365 for sets across next week, and that's good. 3rd set shown.
187.5X10 is a Rep PR on Bench. Think I only needed 9 for a PR, but going into it, was pretty sure 10 would be there. This was probably RPE 8.5.
256 (BW+30)X4 is a Rep PR on Chin-ups. However, these weren't feeling great. Because I was using the same weight on Dips, I used this kind of shitty/rickety chin/dip rack. First set was tough, and failed to get 4 on the 2nd set. I'll repeat this next time.
256 (BW+30)X7 is a Rep PR on Dips. These were fine. Wasn't getting quite deep enough on the first set, but the 2nd and 3rd felt better. Hate this rack for these because my face hits the upright. Final set shown.
295X9 is a Rep PR on Deadlift. These felt really good, and half-way through I thought I was going to bang out 10. Upper back started to feel really fatigued after 6, though, and I didn't want to force 10 when 9 was a PR.
All in all, everything felt better than the previous session. As expected, that first session back from vacation sucked, and these subsequent sessions should be better.
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.
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.
Went into the meet room on worked up with the actual meet-day equipment including the kilo plates, so all weights above are approximate. The gym owner, who is running the meet and will be judging that day gave me commands.
He said my depth on the top squat was borderline.
The top-set on bench just about stapled me, but then they pulled off 5 kg and the judge thought it looked like an opener. I think the difference was aggression.
245X15 is a Rep PR, and together with 19+ total reps meets my goal for this weight. Moving up to 275 next week.
Also, my 315 felt like it may have been a touch high this week, however it was ridiculously easy. That should boost my confidence for the 315X1 going forward.
High-Bars are juuuuust starting to feel like I might need to do more reps with 225 for the volume supplement. Since next week's jump on Low Bar from 245 to 275 is larger than normal, I'll still plan on sticking to 5X3. That's actually the last week of this phase before I start shaping up for a beach vacation in early March. No reason to expect to push assistance extra hard in that instance.
Back to Good-Mornings and my low back felt totally fine. I really, really hate this movement, but it felt better today than it has in a while. In effort to feel a good stretch in both my glutes and my hamstrings, I ended up bending my knees a bit and letting my hips move down at the "bottom" of the movement. That seems technically incorrect, but my hips and spine felt perfectly stable/neutral, and I was able to really feel the stretch all through those two muscle groups before firing back up into the starting position. Both areas are fairly sore today as well.
Standing Leg Curls - X20, 20, 20, 12 (each leg; no rest between 1st and 2nd, and 3rd and 4th sets)
Single-Leg Press - 1ppsX15, 15, 15, 12 (per leg)
Back into it after a week off. I went very low carb during my down week and dropped around 5 lbs. What makes that interesting is that 165X8 on bench is a Rep PR. My previous best was 165X7 at 203. So a PR even at the leverage disadvantage.
I videoed my chins to see if I was cheating or cutting them high. I have mixed feelings about what I see in the video. On my phone it looked bad, but it looks okay on a larger screen. Think I will first try keeping my heels back towards my butt and see how that feels/looks.
My goal for the cycle on DB Bench is 65sX15. Should be close to that now, and will switch to them next session.
I'm still playing around a lot with squat form, and it was going pretty well on the first session back, but then I started having some pain at the top of my left quad. It was particularly limiting on the back-off set with 215 where the weight felt fine, but the pain limited me. Here's a vid of the 175X3 set that I took to check my form mid-way through:
Getting a bit more sit-back, and the depth is still good.
Standing single-leg curls were particularly brutal trying to go back and forth with no rest.
Left quad pain was still there for the single-leg presses, but I think pushing through them may have helped.
