LRB 365: Big-15. Phase 1. Mini-Review

Quick and minimal results and a few notes from the 1st round of Big-15 training on the LRB-365 program:

Bench - Goal met: 155X15.  I labored in the X13-14 range for a couple weeks, and finally hit this during my final bench session.
DB Bench - Goal met: 60sX15.  Got it at the end, and also hit 55sX20 the week before.
DB Incline - Goal met: 55sX15.  Got this 1/2 way through the cycle.

Squat - Goal met: 205X15.  Hit this on week 3, and got up to 205X17.
Front Squat - Goal met: 125X20.  Got X19 in Week 2, and hit X20 in Week 4.

Chins - Goal met: BW+25X10.  This was an ugly set, but I got it.  May need to start filming these to see if I'm cheating them.  These were all shoulder-width, neutral-grip.
DB Rows - Goal met: 75sX12.  Got it in the final week.  In the previous session, two weeks prior, I got 70X10 for 4 sets across.

Seated PBN - No goal set because I hadn't really done them before.  Hit 95X15 for an all-around Rep PR for all types of PBN, and right around my Rep PR for all OHP.

All the lifts listed above were Rep PRs, and most project to increased 1RM.

In addition, I had my 36th birthday in this time and did my birthday squats that I started last year.  Got 135X36.  125X35 the year before.  Not a major increase but these are mostly a mental effort, excepting that the low- and mid-back fatigue in a way that they don't with lower rep squatting.

Also, on my final Squat day I'd had a few days off and had a week off coming up.  Rather than do the prescribed light hamstring and single-leg assistance, I opted to have some extra fun.  I did something I've never done before which was do all three powerlifts in the same session. 

Because most of my real worksets for a year or so had been in higher-rep ranges.  I decided to just work up to new 2-Rep PRs.  To be clear, I didn't work up to 2RM, but rather I knew I was so much stronger than my previous best 2 rep lifts on Bench and Dead that I just decided to top them both by 10 lbs. 

For Bench that was 185X2, and for Deadlift 325X2.  Bench in particular was ridiculously easy.  Deadlift was a little bit harder, but I had just done a high-rep Squat workout, hahahaha.  Anyway, 185 is projected as my 5-7 RM on bench, and 325 as my 4RM on Deadlift.  So like I said, these weren't humongous efforts, but rather just having some fun bringing my Rep records more in line with the current reality.

Looking forward to the 2nd cycle!

Birthday Squats

BW - 202

Squat -
BarX10
95X5
135X4
155X3
185X2
205X1

135X36

10 more lbs. and (obviously) one more rep than last year.  Just like last year, the two main obstacles are the mental aspect and low back cramping.  Between 15 and 25 reps, my mind insists there is no way I'm going to make it to 36.  Right around 25, my low back starts cramping up so that I have to kind of stand straight up at the top of each rep and round my upper back so that I can support the bar but relax my erectors for a couple of seconds.  At about 28, it becomes all determination, and I just drive on to the last rep.

One other thing I played around with is that when my legs started getting tired, I would shift my toes to point more forward.  This seems to distribute the load across the thigh musculature a bit differently, and I think it gave some muscles a bit of a break while recruiting others to soldier on.

I also ate a lot and drank a lot of coffee today in preparation.   We got free samples of breakfast sandwiches sent to work by a catering company, and I had 5 over the course of the day.

See you again next year for 37, birthday squats.

LRB 365: Big-15. Phase 1. Week 5. Arms and Squat

Friday -
BW - 200

Incline DB Curls - 25sX20, 20, 20, 20, 20
super-set with
PJR Pullovers - 40X20, 20, 20, 20, 20

Ab wheel - X14, 14, 14, 14, 12

Sunday -
BW - 199

Standing Calves - 3 sets of 15

Squat -
BarX10 (paused)
95X5 (paused)
115X5
145X4
175X3
215X2
245X1

205X17, 5
145X10

Leg Curls - X20, 20, 15, 12
super-set with
Lunges - BWX20, 20, 18, 18

Was pretty run down on Squat day from a fundraiser I went to the night before.  Had a good time, but I was out late and got a bit drunk, and that always makes for a dicey squat day.  Nevertheless, 205X17 is a PR.  Every single rep of it sucked.  Couldn't even gut out more than 10 with the 145 prep for birthday squats.  Could have just taken my PR and gone home.

LRB 365: Big-15. Phase 1. Week 4. Front Squats

BW - 202

Seated Calves - 140X15, 15, 15

Front Squat -
BarX10
65X5
85X4
95X3
125X2
145X1

125X20

Squat - 145X15

RDL -
135X10
225X12
185X9

Leg Press - 3ppsX15, 15, 15, 15

125X20 is an all-around PR on Fronts.  Legs were shay-kee.  This will actually be my last Front Squat session of the cycle.  I have one more day scheduled, but I'm using that day for my Birthday Squats.  Deciding now whether to do Fronts again on the next cycle, or try out High-Bar Squats for the first time.

One back-off set of back squats in prep for B-Day Squatting.

On RDLs the warm-up set with 135 felt fine, but as soon as I started my first rep with 225 something felt wrong.  There was pain radiating from, or into my low back on the left side.  I finished the set, and dropped weight, but got no relief that way.  There was no aggravation in that area before the 225, and there have been no issues since I aborted the movement.  I even did some band work at home later on, and felt nothing.  This is frustrating because this movement is one of the big stand-ins for developing my deadlift strength on this program, so not being able to do all my work-sets is delaying that development.  Also, I've got a history of low-back strains when I'm doing Front Squats and DB Rows, and I've done both this week.  But with no incident on those actual movements, it's impossible to tell if they are related.   Lame.

I was determined to get 15 reps on every set of Leg Presses, and they were brutal after the first set.  Nice.

LRB 365: Big-15. Phase 1. Week 3. Arms and Squats

Friday
BW - 202

Incline DB Curls - 25sX20, 20, 20, 20, 15 (30 sec. rests)

PJR Pullovers - 40X20, 20, 20, 18, 15 (30 sec. rests)

Ab Wheel - 12, 12, 12, 12, 10

Saturday
BW - 202

Calf Raises - 305X15, 15, 15

Squats -
BarX10 (paused)
95X5 (paused)
115X5
145X4
175X3
215X2
245X1

205X15, 6
145X15

Leg Curls - X20, 18, 18, 15
super-set with
Lunges - BWX20, 20, 20, 20

Stretched my triceps out really well before the pullovers by tying a band low on a squat rack, grabbing it behind my head and slowly stepping away from the rack.  Take a step, hold for 15-20 seconds, take another step.  Right triceps still got sore at the shoulder, but it seemed to help, and my triceps isn't nearly as sore there the next day.

205X15 is a big all-around PR since I rest to squat deeper last year.  If I get 18 reps, that would represent my best all-time lift.

I've got my birthday coming up at the end of the month, and just like last year I'm going to do my Birthday Squats.  Last year I squatted 125X35 for my 35th, and this year I'm aiming for 135X36.  So I'll be doing 145XAMAP sets at the end of all my squats to get ready for it.

Decided to super-set my leg curls and lunges.  Pretty good/hard.  Drastically reduced the number of lunges because my quads had so much less time to recover from the squats.  Bodybuilding, y'all.

Birthday Squats

LRB Diet - Week 10

BW - 197

Squats -
BarX10 (long pause at the bottom to stretch)
95X5
125X4
145X3
185X2
205X1
125X35!!!

Chins - 5 sets
super-set with
Push-ups - 4 sets

Band Pull-Aparts; Medium Grip - 2 sets of 50

Fucking hell, this was the hardest damn set ever.

To recap, about a month back, inspired by Dave Tate's Halloween tradition of doing a "death-set" of 315, I decided I would aim to do a a 35 rep set for my 35th birthday.  I projected my 40RM, which is a hilarious idea especially in the middle of running 531.  I used 40 precisely because projecting a max for a rep range that's far away from the range you've been working in is a dicey proposition, so I knew I would need a margin of error.  That weight projected to be 125 lbs.

Then for the last 3 weeks I've been adding back-off sets on my heavy squat day with 135.  Again, I used a heavier weight to train for this to create "elbow room" for the 35 rep set itself.  Week 1 I did 135X10, Week 2 135X15, and Week 3 I did 135X20 and then a 50% set of 135X12.  This helped me get used to working in a higher rep range, and with a heavier weight than my "event" weight.

For the programming of the event itself, I used Paul Carter's Big-15 #'s which are designed to over warm-up to a moderately heavy single, and then back-off to some higher-rep work sets. This was perfect.  The 125 felt feather-light for the first 10 reps or so thanks to the over warm-up.  I got to 20 and everything was still OK, but around 25 reps I didn't know if I would make it.  My lower back started cramping pretty hard from holding my arch that long, and that meant that taking a rest at lock-out was really no rest at all.  It was a toss-up as to which was harder at the end, squatting or holding at lock-out.  The weight was so light that I even tried standing straight up and using my hands to hold the weight against my back, but the cramping continued.  By the time I got to 30 there was no option left but to finish, however.  Those last reps will go down as the ugliest squat reps of my life, but I got my 35.  I racked it, and collapsed onto the safety pins and just stared at the ceiling panting.

Diet-wise, I didn't eat any carbs the day before, and on the day I added some carbs back in to breakfast and lunch, and then added a 2nd lunch a couple hours before training along with a cup of coffee.  As a result, I was lean in the morning, but had plenty of energy for squatting. 

This all went pretty damn well.  If I had it all to do over again, the only thing I would change would be to add hypers at the beginning and/or end of every session leading up to this.  That low-back cramping was no joke.

After the squats, I just did some chins and push-ups to make sure I got some push-pull in before my vacation.  No point in recording the reps performed, because the numbers would be extreme outliers after that squat session.  I was just too wiped to be much good for anything.  I will say that I kept both movements strict, and with a tight pause at the bottom of each rep.

Lastly, I threw in some pull-aparts for balance because I got more push-ups than chins.

5/3/1 Full-Body: Cycle 4. Week 3. Press/Dead

Saturday:

Band Pull-Aparts, wide-grip - 100 straight reps

Sunday:

LRB Diet - Week 10

BW - 197

Pause- Squats -
BarX5, 10
95X5, 5
135X5, 5
160, 185, 210X3

Klokovs -
BarX10
55, 65X5
75X3
85X2
95X1
100X1
105XFAIL
85X5

Deadlift -
135X5, 5
185, 225X5
250X3
280X8

Shrugs -
225, 315X10
405X5
455X3, 3, 3, 3, 3
475X2, 2, 2, 2, 5

Band Pull-Aparts; Medium-Grip - 5 sets of 25

Brutal, balls-to-the-wall session.  Spent about 2 hours in the gym.  Goddamn pause squats still feel heavy as hell over 200 lbs.  One thing that did feel good was sitting down into the first set with the empty bar for a long, long time.  It just seemed to really stretch out my hips and allow everything to open up for the pause, and felt pretty awesome as well.  Regarding how heavy the top set is feeling, I don't think I'm ready to jump up to the next % tier of the program, and will have to stay here for a while OR just go ahead and take a shot at the next tier, and see if I fail or not...

Decided to do another "testing" day for the Klokovs using the Strong-15 #'s.  That 100X1 was maybe the hardest grind-out of a rep I've ever done.  The first few inches of this lift are just brutal, as even once you've broken the bar off your neck it still moves SLOOOOOOW for the next little bit.  I ground just as hard on that 105, but it would not break.  I upped the weight a bit for the back-off set to make it a bit more challenging.

280X8 on Deads is a Rep PR, and a tiny, tiny increase to my projected 1RM.  I was mainly focused on keeping my hips high, because my shins and knees have been taking a beating lately, and I think it's because I'm starting with my hips too low.

Did the 475 for double on shrugs, because I think I can move up to that for the triples, but I didn't want to jump straight in.

Had a few minutes till the bus would come, so I hit some band pull-aparts.

This was my last regular session before I go on vacation.  I'll hit the gym once more to try my "birthday squats" idea, and I may also get in one more conditioning session once the squats are done.

5/3/1 Full-Body: Cycle 4. Week 3. Squat

LRB Diet - Week 9

BW - 197

Squat -
BarX10, 10
95X5, 5
135X5, 5
180X5
205X3
225X7
135X20, 12

Pendlays -
BarX15
120X3
155X3
140X15

Dips (paused at bottom) -
BWX5, 5, 5, 5, 3

Hoo-boy.  I did not get very much sleep the night before, and this session was mentally and physically exhausting.

225X7 is in line with the top-sets of my last two sessions, but no weight PRs.  That's fine and good, but the real story is then in the back-off sets.  Jefit says this a volume PR for me, even over the 195X20 session I did back in May when I was cutting my squats much higher.  I'd thought about form in the days between my last session and this, and theorized that if I kept my butt pushed back a bit at lock-out, I would be able to take a breath or two between reps without losing my arch as much.  This worked out very well and holding the weight with locked knees felt much safer for my back.  Also, being able to keep my arch tighter resulted in an almost painful low-back pump.

My goal for the back-offs was to hit 20 reps with 135 (5 more reps than last session), and then do a 50% set.  I was nervous going into the 20 because I felt a bit wiped from the top-set, but the new lock-out positioning helped me get it very solidly.  I then rested ONLY 60 seconds (this is how 50% sets work after all), and went back for another set.  I thought I would be lucky to get 10 as tired as I felt, but I ended up getting 12!  I probably could have gotten 15 with an all-out-maybe-dump-the-last-rep set, but I'd beat my goal, and called it good.

So that's my last regular squat session of the cycle.  I have two more pause-squat sessions, and then it's on to the "Birthday Squats."  I'll be using my current, projected 40RM of 125, and working up and then backing-off to it using Paul Carter's "Big-15" progression.  That will look like this:
BarX45
95X5
120X4
145X3
180X2
205X1
125X35
Gotta make sure I get more sleep the night before, and eat up a bit.

As fried as I was, 140X15 is an all-around PR in Pendlays.

For Dips, I'd been saying I was going to work up to +45 by 5, and then re-set my form to full depth and with a pause at the bottom.  I got to thinking about this, and realized it's the same bullshit I used to tell myself with Squat and Bench.  "Yeah, I'm gonna reset my bench form to close-grip and pausing every rep at the bottom, but I just want to hit 225 with my hands past the rings and a lot of bounce of the chest first."  Why?  All that does is delay me hitting the target with the harder form.  So I said fuck it, 45X5+ will feel so much sweeter when I hit it deep and with a pause at the bottom than it will cutting high.  And how shitty would I have felt about myself if I'd done +45X5 today, and then discovered next session that I can't get much more than 5 BW reps with a deep pause?  Not lying to myself is a good thing.

Honestly, I almost skipped dips altogether because I was so tired, and that meant ab wheel was just not going to happen.

5/3/1 Full-Body: Cycle 4. Week 2. Squat

LRB Diet - Week 8

BW - 197

Squats -
BarX10, 10
95X5, 5
135X3, 3
165, 190X3
215X9
135X15

Pendlays -
BarX15
110, 145X5
130X17

SL High-Pulls -
130, 145, 165, 165, 170X5

Dips -
BWX5, 5
+35X8, 6, 4

Chiro Crunches - 1 set of 40

Ab Wheel - 2 sets of 6

80+% session.  I won't say +10%, because RPE was pretty high on everything, but lots of little PR's today.

215X9 is an all-time Rep PR, and projects to an all-around PR with my deeper form.  Added 5 reps to my back-off set weight.  Will try for 20 with 135 next time.  It looks like the weight for my 35 birthday squats is going to be at 125, so 135 for 20 should be a good prep for that attempt.  Might want to add a 2 sets of 10 to follow it though.  40 total reps with 135 might be even better prep.

I also added additonal sets to my squat warm-ups based on a recent article by Paul Carter.  I will say that the 2nd set of each warm-up weight felt better than the first.  Hard to say if it helped my top sets any.  I'll try to keep this up with Squating and Benching and see if I think it's having an impact.

130X17 is a small all-around PR on the dead-stop rows.  The last few reps had one or two breaths between each, though.

16X5 was my previous best on the High-Pulls.  They still felt like they were right at the top end, but I suddenly remembered 2.5 lb. weights!  So I was able to bump up to 170 and get 5 for a small all-around PR on this move as well.

8 reps with 35 lbs. was my goal for dips this session and I got it.  Next session, I will go for 5 with a 45.  After I get back from vacation, I'm going to reset to BW dips for a little bit, and start pausing my reps at the bottom.  I'm worried that I've started cutting reps high, and pausing is the best way I know to fix that for any movement.  Looking forward to feeling humbled.

Started to do the swiss-ball crunches per normal, but I'm getting really bored with them.  I've noticed that an Ab Wheel has been able to stay at the gym for a while without being stolen, so I'm going to switch to that for awhile. 

5/3/1 Full-Body: Cycle 4. Week 1. Squat

LRB Diet - Day 48

BW - 198

Squat -
BarX10
95, 135, 155, 180X5
205X10
135X10

Pendlays -
BarX15
105X10
145X8
120X15

SL High-Pulls -
120, 145, 155, 155, 155X5

Dip -
BW, BWX5
+25X10, 6, 5

Chiro Crunches - 3 sets of 40

Nice session.  205X10 is an all-time Rep PR, and an all-around PR at full depth.  My birthday is coming up at the end of the month, and I'm going to institute a new tradition of picking a weight and squatting it for as many reps as I am years old.  This was inspired by Dave Tate's Halloween tradition of doing "Death Squats."  However, I don't want to go straight from working in the 5-10 range to trying for a 35 rep set, so I'm adding back-off sets on Squat day in the weeks leading up to try and build my work capacity.  Next week, I'll shoot for 15-20 with the 135, then 20-30 in the week after that.  On my birthday week, I'll make sure I have a couple days off and then work up to a mild single before backing-off to attempt a 35 rep set.

Was feeling a little gassed after the two, 10 rep sets of squats, and so the Rows and High-Pulls were a little on the weaker side today.

But I rallied for dips, and a 25 lb. plate for 10 reps at 198 is a weighted dip PR. 

Since there was so much back work today, just crunches for the core work.