Transmutation to Accumulation Pivot Day 5.

BW - 217

DOH Bench-Grip Deadlift - 270X4, 4 @7

Low Bar Box Squat (beltless) - 215X4, 4 @7

Standing, Single-leg Curls - X13, 9 @8

DB Incline - 60sX8, 8 @7

Plate Full Raise - 25X15, 15 @8

DOH BG DL (lol) went pretty well got up to @7.5 on grip strength, which is fine.  Doing DOH for a reason.

I think the only other time I've done box squats was when I worked out with Matt Wenning a couple of years back.  These felt very solid.  I kind of thought the weight would be higher, but novelty, plus the lingering quad strain plus [waves hands].

Did DB Inclines for the 4th time in 4 years, haha.  These also felt fine

3 years since I did plate raises. 

Hybrid Training. Week 6. Tempo Run and Light Upper

Saturday:

Tempo Run - 3 miles @ 00:37:00

Sunday:

BW - 225

Bench - up to 175X2, 2

CG Bench, TUT (5/0/0) - 155X4, 4, 4

Rope Face-Pulls - X20, 15, 15 (straight-weight)

super-set with

Rope Stiff-Arm Pushdowns - X20, 15, 11 (straight-weight)

BB Drag Curls - up to 70X5, 4

Hit my distance on the tempo run this weekend, which is great.  Next week I'll push to 3.5 miles, and then look to reset to 2.5 miles and start increasing pace.

Bar moved pretty well with 175 on speed bench.  Final rep was probably too slow.

Tried the TUT close-grips with an explosive concentric; similar to what I did in Columbus with Matt Wenning.  Felt good.  Final reps on each set were getting pretty hard.

Supersetting the facepulls with straight-arm pushdowns using the rope attachment for both and the same weight was interesting.  Pre-fatiguing the rear delts, I discovered I could "feel" them in the pushdowns, and with a slight alteration I could "remove" them from the movement which also made the movement more difficult.  I'll look to keep this one in the rotation and see what pans out.

I guess I did drag curls a couple of times in 2011.  That must have been when I first started and was doing the DeFranco program.  I found this a challenging movement to get down.  Focused on keeping the shoulders down so that I wasn't doing a shrug/row hybrid.  By the end, it started to feel close to right.

Hybrid Training. Week 5. Light Lower

BW - 229

Squats - up to 255X5, 5, 5

Pause Squats - 235X4, 4, 4

GHR Hypers- BW+25X18, 15
super-set with
GHR Sit-Ups - BWX15, 15

Solid day.  Speed Squats and Pause Squats both moved very well.  Challenging to accelerate, but not "heavy."  Focus on keeping knees-out.

Since Wenning specifically recommended weighted hypers, I'm throwing those in today.  I forgot about doing an explosive movement, and just super-setted them with sit-ups.  All went well.

Hybrid Training. Week 5. Light Upper

BW - 229

Bench - up to 165X3, 3

DB Rolling Triceps (w/controlled eccentric) - up to 55sX6, 6

Face-Pulls - 3 sets
superset with
Machine Pullovers - 3 sets

DB X-Body Hammer Curls - 30sX14, 20 (long break before 2nd set)

Solid session.  165 moved pretty fast.

Continuing to hit triceps and lats following bench per Matt Wenning.  I didn't go in with a specific plan of what I would do for them.  Since the original programming for this day had more body-builder-ish accessory work suggested, I didn't go with any barbell work, and focused a tad more on isolation work.

Left tricep was feeling a bit sore during the extensions, and has a lingering soreness that's different from DOMS.  Something to feel out on the next upper body day.

Hybrid Training. Week 5. Heavy Lower

BW - 228

Warm-up -
Walking Lunges - BWX20
Leg Curls - X20
Decline Sit-ups - X15

Deadlift -
up to 315X2
then 295X4, 4

Squat -up to 247.5X5, 5, 5, 5

GHR Sit-Ups - 3X15

Hot and humid in the gym today.  Sapped energy between sets.

Deadlifts felt okay.

Squats felt good despite being gassed.

I'd done hanging legs for a few weeks, so I decided to switch to the GHR sit-ups Wenning had us do for a while.

Hybrid Training. Week 5. Heavy Upper

BW - 226

Warm-up -
Rope PushdownsX20, 15
super-set with
Straight-Arm PushdownsX15, 10

Bench -
up to 190X2
then 160X6, 6

Dips -
BWX10
+10X6
+20X6, 6

Chins - BWX7, 5, 4

Lying EZ-Bar Triceps -
60X6
80X6, 5

T-Bar Rows - up to 110X6, 6, 6

Seated DB Overhead Extensions - up to a 70 lb. DBX6, 6

Straight-Arm Pushdowns - 1 set of 15

Way more volume on this day than I would normally do on this program.  Two reasons for that: A) mainly the coach that worked with me for my meet in March wanted to hear about my training with Matt Wenning, and so I was killing time till he was done with a client; and B) I wanted to start putting some of Wenning's recommendations into practice, so I was feeling out some things.

To that end, I warmed up per his recommendation by hitting some triceps and lats.  Just hit a couple of medium-high rep sets.  No big.

Bench went pretty well.  Grip is moved in per Wenning, and trying to focus on keeping elbows in through lock-out.  I was good for that one the heavy(ish) double, and the 2nd set of 6.  The first back-off set had a bit of elbow-flare about half-way up.

Then it was time to "trash the triceps and lats," per Wenning.  For the initial movements, I kept the Hybrid Training program in mind.  On heavy bench day, following the bench, the program calls for 2 hard, low-medium rep sets.  I'd been doing the Press as suggested by the manual, but Wenning's impression that I needed to get away from benching so much with my anterior delts, made me think that I should sub in a compound, heavy triceps movement.  My old favorite Dips seemed like just the ticket.  To keep the intensity higher than the volume, I went with weighted dips for the first time in a long time.  I was about 10-15 lbs. off my best for that rep range, but that's not bad as a place to start.

The program had barbell rows and then chins, but I thought I'd flop that to hit the lats first.  After that, I was bascially just going back and forth between triceps and upper back movements waiting on Bill to be done.  Tried to take everything into a range where 5-6 reps would be challenging for a couple of sets.  Trying to see what movements I might like to rotate in.  It will be dips for sure as the secondary movement for a few weeks

Training with Matt Wenning at Ludus Magnus Gym. Day 2. Speed Bench

Bigger crew today.  Some of them showed up later, and we ended up working in two separate groups.  Matt trained alongside us this time.

Warm-up -
Earthquake Bar Bench for 4 sets of 20.  Maybe a 15lb. kb on each side.
super-set with
1-arm DB rows - worked up to 90X8

Speed Bench - doubled red mini-band
6 sets of 3 up to a quarter each side
then 1 set of 3, 10 sec. rest, 1 set of 3 with 5 sec. eccentric

Skull Crushers - on the ground, long pause between reps, super slow eccentric
3-4 sets of 6-8 with 90 lbs.

Hammer Pull-downs, pulled to forehead - 3 pps.XAMAP;
2 sets, super-set with
X-Body Hammer Curls - 35sXAMAP

Bamboo bar bench was pretty fun.  They had me in at the beginning of the rotation with much lighter weights, so it never got as challenging for me as it was for some of the guys at the end of the rotation who couldn't finish their last couple of sets.

I've never done band bench before, and the first rep was an eye-opener.  The band definitely makes the bar come off your chest differently.  I was getting a ton of cue-ing from Matt and his crew on this movement.  Matt had a lot of take-homes for me on this one: "You're way anterior dominant on bench, and you're finishing with all delts.  Your grip is out to far, and your lats are weak.  Move your grip in (moved from the rings to a fingers width inside the rings), and make sure to keep your elbows in throughout the movement.  You need to warm up your lats and triceps before you bench, and completely trash them afterwards.  You need to do that for 2 years."

To his point about weak triceps, he had me start out at 110 on the floor extensions, and I couldn't get 2 reps.  Had to strip a 10 from each side, and I could continue.

Training with Matt Wenning at Ludus Magnus Gym. Day 1. Speed Lower

I was in Columbus this week for work, and I took the opportunity to arrange to go train with Matt Wenning at his gym, Ludus Magnus.  I would describe the gym as contemporary-hardcore.  A converted garage with no climate control, a ton of specialty bars, a couple of racks, a platform, a quality bench, all the dumbells, and a smattering of machines.  Only what you need, or might find useful.  Matt just had me work in with the group he was training that day, I'll detail basically what we did, but I don't remember specific weights.

Warm-up:
Sled-pull - 1/2 way down the block, and then back up (maybe 3 plates on the sled)
Lying Leg Curls - 1 set of 20
Decline Sit-Ups - 1 set of 20

Speed Squats - Safety-Bar Box Squats w/ one chain per side
I believe we did 4 sets of 2; all reps paused. Maybe a quarter and a dime on each side.

Speed Deads - different conventional stance/grip every set (1st lifter decides); all reps held at knee on eccentric for a 2 count.
We did a bunch of singles here.  Maybe worked up to 245.

Finishing Circuit - 2 rounds, AMAP
Fat Bar Shrugs w/ 1 pps.
GHR Sit-Ups
Hypers w/ 45 lb. plate

Warm-ups were all good.  Pulling a heavy-ish sled over a busted sidewalk in the the July sun was hilarious.

The speed squats with safety bar, chains, paused on a box are the kind of classic "Westside" style movement I never thought I'd actually do.  I shit ton of sit-back.  More than I think would be possible with a regular squat.  Matt's take-home for me on this was basically, "you've got to keep your knees out hard.  Looks like you've been squatting a lot into your quads, and when those are taken away, you don't have any power.  Get those knees out, and keep them out."

The speed deads paused on the way down were kind of fun.  I really started to feel the pause in my lats.

On the finishing circuit, I got around 20 reps on each movement the first circuit, and around 15 on the second.  Matt's only real send-home for me on Deads was that I should do more of the weighted hypers.

I was working in with a crew of 3 other folks.  2 guys and 1 woman.  The team training environment of stripping, loading, spotting, cheering, and coaching was pretty fucking awesome.  Matt was super-nice, he ended up giving me a ride back to my hotel, and asking me to come train bench the next day.