Novice LP. Session 52 (Greyskull Squats and Press)

BW - 228

Press - 137.5X5, 5, 5

Deadlift -
365X3
325X3

Dips -
BW+25X7, 7
BWX16

Chin-Ups - BWX5, 5, 4, 3, 3, 3, 3 (26 total)

No PR on Press today.  It was a tough session, but I also only took one day off since missing on the 5th rep of a Bench PR.  Also, my midsection felt "soft" during this set.  Felt my hips shifting side to side during a couple of reps.

365X3 is a Rep PR on Deadlift.  Felt solid, but heavy-ish.  Again, my midsection didn't feel tight enough.

BW/228X16 is a Rep PR on Dips as well.  These all felt really good even though I haven't done them i a couple of weeks.

Chin-ups are feeling shit, but they're also at the tail end of a lot of other work.  Just threw a lot of volume at them and called it a day.

5/3/1 BBB: Cycle 2. Week 2. Dead

BW - 204

Deadlift -
135X5
185X5, 5
225X3
260X3
295X8

Deadlift hold -
295X1X15sec.

Hypers -
BWX12
5X15, 15, 20
10X20

Ab Wheel- 1X2

Swiss Ball Crunches - 4 sets of 15-30

80%+ session.  295X8 is an all-around PR on Deadlift.  I really should try to enjoy these more, as they're bound to dry up again sooner or later, but it's become so routine for me to set PR's in this lift. I've only ever crapped out on Deadlift twice. Once was October of 2011 when I tried 315 for the first time and it wouldn't budge, and the second was in July of this year when I first started 531 Full-Body and ended up having to lower my training maxes across the board because I had lost a lot of strength in the lead up to opening a show.

Grip strength is starting to get dicey double-overhand, and that's why I added another 1 rep set just to time out my holds.  This was just an idea, and I might try to go with something more conventional, as my hands/forearms don't feel sore the day after.  I should probably also just start using chalk for my top sets to make sure it's less of an issue.

Added a bit more weight and reps on the hypers today, so that's cool.

Went to do the ab wheel, and my abs started screaming at me right away.   Guess they weren't fully recovered from last time.  Pretty weak.  I did some chiropractor crunches to get some work in on them anyway.

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

LRB Diet - Week 9

BW - 198

Pause Squats -
BarX10, 10
95X5, 5
135X5, 5
160, 185, 215X3

Klokovs -
BarX10, 10
60, 70X3
80X12

Deadlift -
135, 135X5
205, 235X3
265X10

BB Shrugs -
225, 315X10
405X7
455X3, 3, 3, 3, 5
405X12

Ab Wheel - 3 sets of 5-10

Pause Squats still feeling heavy.

Klokovs were pretty solid today, and 80X12 is a Rep PR.

Deadlift felt great, and 265X10 is an all-around PR.  My 3rd of the year.  Started with 285X5 in February, then 335X1 in May.  Maybe I'll hit another before the year's out!

Bumped up to 455 for the triples on shrugs.  Felt tired as hell by the time I got here, and my grip was rough even with straps, so I did a back-off set of 405 instead of progressing to singles.  405X12 is an all-around PR.

Got 3 sets of nothin' on the ab wheel before I called it and went home.  Pretty good session, but I was beat down by the end.

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. Press/Dead

LRB Diet - Week 8

BW - 197

Pause Squats -
BarX8
95, 135X5
160, 185, 210X3

Klokovs -
BarX10
55, 65X5
75X15

Deadlift -
135X5, 5
190, 220X5
250X11

Shrugs -
225, 315X10
405X5
425X3, 3, 3, 3, 3
455X1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 5

Chiro Crunches - 5 sets of 40

Pretty satisfying session, and looking leaner than I've been in over a year.  That 210X3 still felt pretty heavy though.  Probably an 8 or 9 out of 10 on the ol' RPE scale.

Klokovs felt a bit back on track.  I approached them somewhat differently, in that on the first 3 sets I paused every rep on my back so that I would have to take them from a dead-stop.  Then on the top set, I paused every 5 reps for breath.  The hardest part of this lift is breaking it off the neck, and that's why I "trained" the pause/break on all the up-sets so that I would be prepared for the top-set.  As the weight increases on this lift, I'm going to try and incorporate more pausing.  The difference between attempting this lift from a pause vs. with the stretch reflex is pretty drastic.

250X11 is right in the strength range for my last session, is a Rep PR for the 9-11 rep range, and everything felt pretty good.  So that's a good session.

So with shrugs I really hemmed-and-hawed and decided to go up to 455 for singles, and then when I decided to do max reps on the last set, I got 5 which is hilarious.  So next time, I'll do 455 for my triples I guess, and do 475 for singles and see how many reps I get at the end with that.

Heavy, heavy back day so I did crunches for my core work.

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

LRB Diet - Week 8

BW - 199

Hypers - 5 sets of 15

Pause Squats -
Bar, 95, 135X5
160, 185, 210X3

Bench -
BarX10
95, 110, 125X5
145X8

Press -
65, 85X8
75X8, 6, 5
super-set with
Wide-grip Pull-Ups - BWX1, 2, 3, 1, 2, 3, 1, 2, 3

Chin-ups - BWX5, 5, 5, 5, 6

Another decent session.  I guess this kind of thing can happen when you're only working one job, heh.

Pause Squat weight creeps up a little bit more for the next few weeks.  Getting gradually closer to PR range. 

Best bench session in a long while.  This is an all-around PR with close-grip and pausing every rep on the chest.  I really wanted this today, and I got it.  I'm thinking about dropping some or all of the overhead work in my program after I get back from vacation at the end of the month to try and get some real, steady progress on this lift by incorporating Incline Presses instead.  But I'm going to be patient, and finish out the shoulder volume programming I've implemented until vacation.

Speaking of Press, I had to remind myself to stop after a few sets here.  I'm only really supposed to be doing 4 work-sets, and I got 4-5 here and was about to start another before I snapped to my senses.  My Klokov's sucked ass last week, and I don't want that to happen again.

Pull-ups on a straight bar this time, whcih was a little harder than the bent bar.  Still got all my rungs done.  And then chins felt strong even though I ultimately could only get 6 on my all out set.

Not a lot of low-back work on this session, so I opened it with hypers for my core work.

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.

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

LRB Diet - Day 46

BW - 198

Pause Squats -
Bar, 95, 135X5
155, 180, 205X3

Klokovs -
BarX5
60X5 uh...heavy
70X3 heavy, da fug
80X6 WTF?!

Deadlift -
135X5, 5
215X5
240X3
270X8

BB Shrugs -
225, 315X10
405X3, 3, 3, 3, 3
425X2, 1
445X1, 1, 1, 3

Chiro Crunches - 5 sets of 40-45

Pause Squats felt a little heavy today, but not as heavy as...

...Klokovs.  As you can see from the notes above, I was completely baffled and caught off guard here.  I even "got up" for the top set because I was concerned by how heavy the other work sets felt.  3 weeks ago, I hit 75 for 15, and 2 weeks ago I hit 70 for 20.  It's inconceivable to me that a 5-10 lb. jump can cut my rep range down from the high-teens to the mid-single digits.  I'm gonna chalk this up to fucking astrology or fatigue from Bench Day or something, and I expect to rebound next time.

Deadlifts went really well however.  270X8 projects to a # 2 all time 1RM, and is a Rep PR.  What's more, the set was more about focus than straining, and I didn't walk away feeling gassed, nor do I feel wrecked today.  All good signs that my favorite lift is in pretty good shape at the moment.

Wanted to start flirting with increased weights on the shrugs so instead of hitting a back off set in the 300's after my triples, I started adding 10's and doing singles.  My form/ROM felt a little shitty, but I was able to get 3 on my last, all-out set.  Next time I may go with 425 for the triples, and bump up to 455 for the singles.

Skipped hypers at the top of the session to make sure my back was super fresh for Deadlifting, and so finally made myself get some ab work in the session.  I think that since I added in the additional shoulder work, the sessions just feel to damn long with both hypers AND crunches, so I'll have to start alternating.  I'll probably settle on crunches on Squat and Deadlift day since they've got heavier low-back movements, and do hypers on Bench day.

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

Friday Training

Band 2-arm biceps curls - 5 sets of 10
super-set with
Band Pull-aparts - 5 sets of 20

Saturday Training

AM Fasted Stready State - 20 minutes

LRB Diet - Day 42

BW - 198

Hypers - 5 sets of 15

Squat -
BarX10
95X8
135, 170X5
195X3
220X6

Pendlay Rows -
BarX15
110X3
150X3
135X15

SL High-Pulls -
135, 145, 155, 165, 165X5

Dips -
BW, BW, +25, +25, +35, +35X5

Not a bad session.  220X6 on squats is a PR with my new, deeper form.  Felt like it, too.  A little worried that all the Pause Squatting is now making regular squatting feel awkward.  That would suck, because pause squatting is what got me comfortable with full depth on regular squats to begin with, but regular squats just feel strange with the quick turnaround at the bottom now.

135X15 is an all-around PR on Pendlays

High-pulls felt a little heavier today with the same weight as last session.  Hitting PR's on the previous 2 movements may have contributed, lol.

Getting re-acclimated to doing dips weighted.  Next session, I should try to bang out 10 reps with 25, and then at least 8 with 35.  If I do that, I should be able to quickly move to just using a full 45 plate for sets of 5.

Skipped abs again because I suck.

5/3/1 Full-Body: Cycle 3. Week 1. Bench

LRB Diet - Day 30

BW - 201 (I fucking knew that scale was wrong the other day)

Hypers - 5 sets of 15-20

Pause Squats -
BarX10
95, 135X5
155, 180, 205X3

Bench -
BarX10
105, 125X5
140X7
super-set with
Chins - BW; 5 sets of 5

Press -
BarX10
95X8
85X5, 5, 8
super-set with
Chins - BW; 5 sets of 5

Chiro Crunches - 3 really crappy sets

I really don't think I put on 12 pounds since Thursday afternoon.  Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean that commercial gyms don't have light plates and scales.

Pause Squats are jumping to the Phase 2 %'s from the 531 Full-Body program.  From 60% up to 85% on the top set.  Also worth noting, I've been increasing the training max by only 5 lbs. per cycle on this movement.  205 was a little slow here, but I'm gonna hope that's at least partially due to the big weight increase.  We'll see how it feels again next session.

Bench felt a tad better.  I was hoping to just get 6, but I was able to press out 7 with one in the tank.  This is at least in line with my numbers from last cycle, and right now consistency feels awesome on bench as opposed to steady decline.

I'm adding in pressing on this day for the additional shoulder work mentioned in my last lifting post.  I was hoping to do 4 sets of 8 with 105, but the 95X8 warm-up was a grinder after the benching, so I dropped down to 85, and 5's felt about right under that weight.  On my last set, I got myself all amped up and ground out 8 reps with that.  Next week, I'll start with the 85 and see what that's like.

I superset all my pressing with sets of 5's on chins.  Chins continue to feel weak despite weight loss.  I tried to go for more than 5 on the final set, but no luck.  Hopefully reducing the reps per set like this, and going for more overall volume will see an uptick here.  I'll keep going for it on the final set, and when I can knock out 7 or 8, I'll up it to straight sets of 6 and repeat.

Got my core work back in at the top and bottom, but the crunches were miserable and I aborted them after 3 sets.  I think all the chins had taxed my abs a bit.  Don't know how I feel about that.

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

LRB Diet - Day 26

BW - ?189?

Squats -
BarX10
95X7
135, 150X5
170X3
195X8

BB Rows -
BarX15
95X8
135X8
115X15

High-Pulls -
115, 135, 145, 155, 155, 155X5

Dips - BWX8, 12, 16, 4, 6

I was pressed for time getting ready to go out of town for the weekend, and had to settle for going to the L@Fitness (formerly B@llys) near my home.  189 seemed like such a drastic drop-off from my last weigh-in that I'm suspicious of the scale.  However, when I set it down to Zero pounds, it counter-balanced correctly so who knows.

I need to be better about putting my head down and doing work when I'm in a strange gym; I always feel wound tight and get a little off my game wanting to get in and get out as fast as possible.  For this session that was manifested by skipping mobility warm-ups and all my core work.  I'll have to make up for all of that in spades next time I'm in the gym.

Nevertheless everything went pretty well.  Squats felt solid, and the results are in-line with steady progress after I reset my form.

I couldnt' really do Pendlays here because I didn't have access to bumper plates at this gym.  So BB Rows trying go keep my low-back parallel to the ground and using a brief dead hang at the bottom of each rep to try and simulate a dead-stop row as much as possible.  The results were predictably slightly off from previous sessions.

For the 2nd month of LRB Dieting, I'm adding in some additional shoulder/trap work inspired by a CNP article.  One of the reasons for choosing now to take my first ever stab at strict dieting, is because I'm going to a sort of weekend camping reunion of college friends at the end of September.  While I'm trying to trim up, I thought I'd also take a stab at building some "movie star" shoulders.  Kind of silly, but also fun.  So for this day, I'm adding in High-Pulls, a movement I've never done, but always wanted to try.  These are done incredibly NOT as a textbook version of the Olympic accessory, but more as an explosive, cheating upright row.  One cool bit of synergy here, is that it seemed to work out very well to use the weight from the back-off set of bent rows as the warm-up weight for the high-pulls.  I worked up to 155, where I was having to really use explosiveness and much face-scrunching to get the 5th rep, and knocked out 3 of those sets.  I used straps on this movement as well.  I really liked this movement, and my delts felt really sore the next day.

Dips were a bit wonky because this gym has a weird, trapezoidal dip apparatus.  Again, getting past this sort of thing is something I need to be able to do.  It's dumb to only be able to have good workouts in my regular gym.  Regardless, my target was to ladder up to, and back down from 16 reps.  I got that top set, but the back off sets were completely crap.

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

LRB Diet - Day 12

BW - 198

Squats -
BarX10
135X5
165X5
185X3
210X7

Pendlays -
95X10
145X3
130X15

Dips - BWX7, 17, 9

Chiro Crunches - 5 sets of 35-45

I ate an extra meal consisting of grilled chicken, hummus, and salad today that is probably contributing to the weight being slightly higher in the gym than the last couple sessions.  I wanted to make sure I had plenty of energy as I was determined not to have another crappy squat session.

And wah-la!  210X7 is an all around PR since I started dropping all the way down in squats.  I might have gotten 1 or 2 more, but they would have been grinding.  Almost more importantly, my form felt more dialed in than it has in a long time on full squats.

130X15 is also an all around PR on Pendlays.  15 was as many as I was going to do with anything resembling acceptable form however.

17 dips at 198 is a rep PR and projects as a new 1RM.  So...I guess an all around PR there as well.  +10% session all the way (except I forgot to do hypers).

5/3/1 Full-Body: Cycle 2. Week 2. Press/Dead

LRB Diet - Day 16

BW - 196.5

Hypers - 5 sets of 15; 30 second rests

Pause Squats -
BarX6
95, 125, 145X5

Klokov Press -
BarX10
55, 60X3
70X15

Deadlift -
135X5 RDL
135X5X2
190, 220X3
245X10

Plowed through the hypers to make-up time so that I could get to a show tonight.  Also skipped abs at the end.

Felt good walking into the gym today, and pause squats accordingly felt a lot stronger even holding a strict 3 second pause at the bottom.

After 10 reps of 70 on Klokov's I was literally seeing stars dance around.  I took a deep breath, pulled everything tight, and hit 5 more to obliterate my previous projected 1RM.  Shoulders are really feeling it, too.

Deadlifts felt good as well.  245X10 is a Rep PR, and my highest projected 1RM since May.  That's with a big grain of salt knowing that I failed to pull 295 for more than a hard single just 3 weeks ago.  It's nice to see my projected max staying above 300, but it's killing me to not be pulling actual weight above that number right now.  Gonna keep on with the plan though.

5/3/1 Full-Body: Cycle 1. Week 3. Bench

BW - 201

Paused Squats -
BarX5
95X5
115X5
135X5
superset with
Chin-ups - BW, 4 sets of 5

Bench -
BarX11
95X5
135X5
155X3
170X1
superset with
Chin-ups - BW, 3 sets of 5, 1 set of 2

Pause Squats felt great.  Smooth and explosive.

I was in a rush this session because we had company coming over for dinner.  I skipped the hypers and crunches, and instead superset a ton of little chin-up sets across the workout.  By the time I got to that last set of 2, it felt like I had tweaked my mid-back a little on the left-hand side, so I did full-stop, feet on the ground reps with an overhand grip, and could only get those 2 reps.

Bench is what it is right now.  Much like adjusting my squat to go full ATG, and having to reset my training max for the next cycle to account for the lower strength curve, pausing the close-grip bench on my chest has significantly lowered my top weight on this movement.  I'm resetting my training max for the next cycle, so that I can finally get some reps in.  That being said, my form felt as tight as it has in a while, and these sets were all smooth, even if 170 was quite slow.

UB: Strong Week 5. Press

Defranco Shoulder Mobility

Machine Lateral Neck Flexion - 20X20X3 each side

Press -
BarX12
70X5
80X5
90X5
105X5
115X5

BB Upright-Rows - 105X10, 5

DB Laterals - 35sX8, 5

Defranco-style Core circuit - 45lb. plate X2 (spread-eagle sit-ups, crunches, crunches w/ feet up)

Treadmill - 5 min. walk, 5 min. jog

I switched neck work to lateral flexion starting today.  Paul Carter down-played my notion that neck work could contribute to any of the big lifts saying it's just in the program because it's cool to have a big neck.  Nevertheless, I did some digging on exrx.net and it looks like the muscles responsible for lateral neck flexion play a bit of a role in the deadlift; at least more than the other neck muscles are involved in any of the other big lifts, so I might as well work on those if I'm gonna do neck work.

Pressing felt Hea.  Vy.  3 times I've lifted the equivalent of this weight or more in the Press, but I gotta say that I'm nervous I may miss my goal next week.  Maybe not though.  I know I've strained more to make this lift before, so hopefully I can gut out my little 5lb. 5 Rep PR next week.  Similar to my last Squat sessions, I may reduce the total weight of the warm-up sets to save more for the top set next week.

I've gone back and looked at my logs to try and figure out differences between when the press felt strong and when it felt weak like it kind of does now.  Of course there can be lots of factors that effect things, and I don't track diet and weight as closely as a lot of folks do, so I could be missing something there.  But the biggest difference I can see in the logs, is dropping overhead triceps work.  I've been relying on pressing movements and dips for triceps work for a couple of months now, and the press has felt heavier and heavier.  Back when it was shooting up and feeling strong, I was doing a lot of overhead BB extensions.  Hope this is a light-bulb moment.

UB: Strong Week 3. Squat

Defranco Mobility

Standing Calf Raises - 285X15, 345X15, 365X15

Squats -
BarX5
135X5
155X5
185X5
205X5
225X5

Front Squats - 125X10, 5

RDL - 155X12, 8

Because I'm getting close to the whole stack on the calf raises, but it's also been getting hard on the top reps, I decided to move up the weight on the first sets and keep the top set at the same weight as the previous session.  So more total weight lifted, but no "PR."

Squats felt pretty smooth once I got to the top sets.  Giving myself plenty of rest between those last sets now.  225X5 is just shy of my previous 5RM, although my 5RM projects to 250.

UB: Strong Week 3. Bench

Defranco Shoulder Mobility

Machine Neck Extension - 15X20, 20X20, 25X20

Bench -
BarX10
95X5
105X5
125X5
135X5
155X5

DB Incline - 55sX12, 7

Dips - Gym BW 204+5lb.X12, 4

Defranco-style Core Circuit X2

20 minute, brisk walk home

Back of my neck felt a little sore coming into the gym, so I backed off the weight on the extensions.  I'm pretty sure it was just my traps from heavy shrugging the day before, but no point in killing myself on neck extensions anyway.

Bench felt a little better today.  I've been focused so much on tinkering with my set-up, that everything had just felt hard.  Today I tried to just make sure and do the things I KNOW have been good, and not worry as much about other stuff.  That meant setting up high on the bench so that my shoulders end up just below the uprights, and getting into this position by setting my feet then sliding down the bench and then back up onto my upper-back.  The thing I had trouble with today was tucking-and-flaring my elbows through the movement, and pulling the bar apart.  Otherwise, I gave myself decent rests between the top sets, and things mostly felt good.  Next week the top set is my projected 5RM.

UB: Strong Week 2. Deadlift

No warm-up

Standing Calf Raises - 225X16, 265X15, 305X15

Deadlift -
145X5
165X5
195X5
215X5
235X5

Power Shrugs - 275X16, 295X10

Chin-ups - Gym BW 202X10, 4

Cable crunch - Stack + 45lb. PlateX15, Stack+60lb.X15, 18

10 minute brisk walk on treadmill

Forgot to pack shorts or sweats in my gym bag today and had to work-out in my work slacks, lol.  Skipped warm-ups to help make sure I didn't rip out the crotch.  Ridiculous.

Jumped up a few more plates on the calf raises.  Just a few away from the whole stack for whatever it's worth.  Pretty confident I'll be there by the end of the cycle.

Felt pretty focused on the DL's today and everything moved pretty smoothly.  The first or second rep almost always feels like the best, though.  That kind of seems to make sense with the way I read other lifters talking about having to program the Pull somewhat differently from the other lifts.  In the future, I may condsider keeping the reps in the 1-3 range for work-sets of this lift.  I almost feel like it would be better to do multiple sets of 2-3 at the same weight I might do 1 set of 5 with on lighter days. 

Next week my top set will be 255, and while my 5 rep max projects to be 265, 255 is actually the most I've lifted for 5 or more reps (I pulled 255X6 in the middle of my 2nd 531 cycle back in early December).  Looking forward to seeing how that feels.  Hopefully I'll be feeling focused and fresh like I was this session and everything will move smoothly.

5/3/1 Log: Cycle 3. Week 3. Bench and Squat

Defranco Stretching and Mobility work

Bench -
BarX10
95X5
135X5
155X3
170X4

Squat -
BarX10
135X5
165X5
190X5
215X3
240X3

Pulldowns, slow eccenctric - 70X12, 10, 80X10
super-set with
GHR's - 5, 5, 10

Face-pulls - 4 sets of 15-20

Core Circuit - 25lb. plate X2

Sick all week plus rehearsals and work.  Felt better in time to get to the gym, but I was about 5-8 lbs. lighter than last session.  Rep PR's in both main lifts.  Bench felt good, Squats were hard.  Probably would have been the opposite if I'd have reversed the order.  Frankly, I'm happy to have the Rep PR's with the week I had.

This was the last 531 session.  I start Paul Carter's Ultimate Beastdom next.  It's something I've had my eye on, so I thought I'd start it while I still have some "easy" gains left in me.  531 was pretty good to me, and I may come back to it.  I'm telling myself I'm not program hopping, and that I'm just a novice trying out a few different variations of the SAME KIND OF LIFTING to find out if any one iteration works better than another.

5/3/1 Log: Cycle 3. Week 2. Bench and Squat

Defranco Stretches

Bench -
BarX10
95X5
125X3
145X3
160X7

Squat -
BarX10
135X5
155X5
180X3
205X3
230X8

Chins (V-Grip) - BWX6, 5, 5, 5
super-set with
RDL - 85X10, 95X10X3

Push-ups - BWX10X4
super-set with
Face-pulls- 4 sets of 15

Defranco Core Circuit X2

Prowler Pushes for 10 minutes

Rep PR's and projected 1RM increases in both the Bench and Squat.  Bench was easier than the Squat, but as planned I set a bigger PR in the squat.  Great session.