BW - 200
Bench -
BarX10
85X5
95X4
115X3
125X2
135X1
145X1
155X1
Pulldowns - 1 set of 100
EZ Bar OH Extensions - BarX70, 30
superset with
EZ Bar Curls - BarX50, 50
Not much to say; pretty easy. Worked out in the morning with no breakfast, so I ran out of gas a bit on the arms supersets.
Tuesday, March 5, 2013
Saturday, March 2, 2013
LRB 365: 100 Reps. Week 2. Squat
BW - 198
Weighted Vest Walking - 25 min.
Squat -
BarX9 (paused)
115X5 (paused)
135X5
165X3
185X2
195X1
215X1, 1
Cable Rows - 1 set of 100
BW Lunges - 1X50, 30, 20
As I was finishing my walk, I turned down my back alley just as a group of 20-something girls came walking out. They saw my vest, and one of them gave me the weirdest fucking look.
Squats were all fine. Rests still super short.
Rows were fine, and I got more reps in fewer sets on lunges.
Weighted Vest Walking - 25 min.
Squat -
BarX9 (paused)
115X5 (paused)
135X5
165X3
185X2
195X1
215X1, 1
Cable Rows - 1 set of 100
BW Lunges - 1X50, 30, 20
As I was finishing my walk, I turned down my back alley just as a group of 20-something girls came walking out. They saw my vest, and one of them gave me the weirdest fucking look.
Squats were all fine. Rests still super short.
Rows were fine, and I got more reps in fewer sets on lunges.
LRB 365: 100 Reps. Week 1. Accessory
BW -??? (office gym)
DB Press -
25sX12
35sX15
35sX10
Face Pulls, Rope Pushdowns, Rope Hammer Curls - 1 set of 100 each
Treadmill - 20 minutes walking
Nice little workout with DBs and the Cable stand. Pushdowns were easier than the curls, but I think the biceps were a little pre-fatigued from the face pulls.
I was feeling froggy and had some time to kill, so I hopped on the treadmill for 20 minutes.
DB Press -
25sX12
35sX15
35sX10
Face Pulls, Rope Pushdowns, Rope Hammer Curls - 1 set of 100 each
Treadmill - 20 minutes walking
Nice little workout with DBs and the Cable stand. Pushdowns were easier than the curls, but I think the biceps were a little pre-fatigued from the face pulls.
I was feeling froggy and had some time to kill, so I hopped on the treadmill for 20 minutes.
Thursday, February 28, 2013
LRB 365: 100 Reps. Week 1. Dead
BW - 200
Pause Squats -
BarX10
95X5
135X5
155X5, 5
Deadlift -
135X5
155X5
185X3
225X2
245X1
265X1
275X1
BB Shrugs - 135X50, 50
Weighted Vest Walking - 20 minutes
Everything went fine.
With the light end of the squats, I haven't even been locking out all the way. More bodybuilder style squatting. Also, rest times are bare minimum on all the barbell movements. Set, rack, load, breathe, set.
Deads were all fast and had a lot of pop.
I was originally going to use a plate-loaded shrug machine for the 100 rep shrugs, but I had a barbell loaded with 135 right there after deads so I just used that. Kind of rough on my junk, though, so I might go ahead and use that machine from here on.
Got another 20 minutes with the vest.
Pause Squats -
BarX10
95X5
135X5
155X5, 5
Deadlift -
135X5
155X5
185X3
225X2
245X1
265X1
275X1
BB Shrugs - 135X50, 50
Weighted Vest Walking - 20 minutes
Everything went fine.
With the light end of the squats, I haven't even been locking out all the way. More bodybuilder style squatting. Also, rest times are bare minimum on all the barbell movements. Set, rack, load, breathe, set.
Deads were all fast and had a lot of pop.
I was originally going to use a plate-loaded shrug machine for the 100 rep shrugs, but I had a barbell loaded with 135 right there after deads so I just used that. Kind of rough on my junk, though, so I might go ahead and use that machine from here on.
Got another 20 minutes with the vest.
Wednesday, February 27, 2013
LRB 365: 100 Reps. Week 1. Bench
BW - 200
Bench -
BarX10
85X5
95X4
115X3
125X2
135X1
145X1
155X1
Pulldowns - 1 set of 100
EZ Bar Curls - BarX70, 30
superset with
EZ Bar OH Extensions - BarX70, 30
Treadmill Intervals - 8 intervals, 20 minutes
My shoulders were literally flying up off the bench at lockout of all except the top couple of sets of bench. Light. Weight. Bay-bee.
100 pulldowns felt weird. I used the same weight I used on rows, and halfway through I thought there was no way I would make a 100, but then I did with room to spare.
EZ bar is much easier on my wrists for extensions, so I decided to superset empty bar extensions with curls to keep everything moving. Kind of surprised I didn't get to 100 with the 20 lb. bar. Nice to have something to shoot for.
Weather was horrendous, but I needed to get my conditioning in before my schedule clogs up later this week. That meant I had to make rare use of the treadmill. Treadmill is a fine tool, it just bores the hell out of me so I avoid it. Then when I have to use it I always overestimate how hard I can go. That was the case today, and I ran myself pretty much into the ground. My vision was literally doing that weird zoom effect from Vertigo when I got off.
Bench -
BarX10
85X5
95X4
115X3
125X2
135X1
145X1
155X1
Pulldowns - 1 set of 100
EZ Bar Curls - BarX70, 30
superset with
EZ Bar OH Extensions - BarX70, 30
Treadmill Intervals - 8 intervals, 20 minutes
My shoulders were literally flying up off the bench at lockout of all except the top couple of sets of bench. Light. Weight. Bay-bee.
100 pulldowns felt weird. I used the same weight I used on rows, and halfway through I thought there was no way I would make a 100, but then I did with room to spare.
EZ bar is much easier on my wrists for extensions, so I decided to superset empty bar extensions with curls to keep everything moving. Kind of surprised I didn't get to 100 with the 20 lb. bar. Nice to have something to shoot for.
Weather was horrendous, but I needed to get my conditioning in before my schedule clogs up later this week. That meant I had to make rare use of the treadmill. Treadmill is a fine tool, it just bores the hell out of me so I avoid it. Then when I have to use it I always overestimate how hard I can go. That was the case today, and I ran myself pretty much into the ground. My vision was literally doing that weird zoom effect from Vertigo when I got off.
Monday, February 25, 2013
LRB 365: 100 Reps. Week 1. Squat
BW - 201
Weighted Vest Walking - 20 minutes
Squat -
BarX12 (paused)
115X5 (paused)
135X4
165X3
185X2
195X1
205X1
215X1
Cable Rows - 1 set of 100
Lunges - BWX40, 20, 20, 20
Weighted vest looks dorky and/or like a SWAT vest, but there's no way around that so I'm gonna get used to it. I got all kinds of weird looks, and some people changed direction on the sidewalk so as not to cross my path. Whatever. I'll just stay off main roads and try not to walk at peak hours. Otherwise, a nice little walk with the added weight.
Squats were really fast and easy and had a lot of pop, as they should.
Cable rows were easy and I may add a touch more weight next time. My brachialis are actually a little sore a day or two afterwards though, so maybe not.
100 lunges were brutal. My legs have been sore since the session ended. It didn't set in the next day, it set in immediately.
Weighted Vest Walking - 20 minutes
Squat -
BarX12 (paused)
115X5 (paused)
135X4
165X3
185X2
195X1
205X1
215X1
Cable Rows - 1 set of 100
Lunges - BWX40, 20, 20, 20
Weighted vest looks dorky and/or like a SWAT vest, but there's no way around that so I'm gonna get used to it. I got all kinds of weird looks, and some people changed direction on the sidewalk so as not to cross my path. Whatever. I'll just stay off main roads and try not to walk at peak hours. Otherwise, a nice little walk with the added weight.
Squats were really fast and easy and had a lot of pop, as they should.
Cable rows were easy and I may add a touch more weight next time. My brachialis are actually a little sore a day or two afterwards though, so maybe not.
100 lunges were brutal. My legs have been sore since the session ended. It didn't set in the next day, it set in immediately.
Friday, February 15, 2013
LRB 365: Strong-15. In Review
The full Strong-15 run that starts Paul Carter's LRB 365 manual is complete.
The biggest difficulty and most important thing switching into this program is determining goals for the cycle. I switched from 531 to Carter's Ultimate Beastdom program last winter as well. I just don't have the experience to easily switch from a training max based approach to a goal based approach. When I did this last year, I charted my E1RM progress over the previous 531 cycles and used that to project goals for the strength phase of the UB program. This was based on the assumption of equal or better progress. It worked okay, but I had mixed results for a variety of reasons. Mostly related to poor form as I approached my goal weights. Again, inexperience.
It was a bit easier this time because Carter goes into a lot of detail around using what he calls the Every Day Max (EDM) as the baseline for the goals here. He is very much talking about feel and intuition about what you can lift, but after working in E1RM for so long, I still wasn't positive about what that should be because I was still getting 5-10 reps on all my 531 top sets. So this time I took my E1RM for each week of 531 for the prior 3 months and averaged it. I decided that my EDM should at least be in that ballpark. I then set different, modest (I thought) goals for adding to each of them. It broke down like this:
Squat - EDM (3 month 531 avg.) 275. Goal - 285 (+10 lbs.)
Bench - EDM 200. Goal - 205 (+5 lbs.)
Deadlift - EDM 360. Goal - 365 (+5 lbs.)
I should note that although I averaged ALL my 531 weeks together, it occurred to me afterwards that it might have been smarter to only have used the 3rd week of each cycle since it's the heaviest. However, when I go back and look at that, those weeks yielded the highest E1RM of each cycle across the board. So this still seems fairly conservative.
Now the good news is that I didn't miss any lifts on the program. The not so good news is that Carter wants the final singles in Week 9 to be "crushed", and they really weren't. Here are the results by the numbers:
Final Squat - 265: This was really smooth and there was no doubt I would make the lift, however it was a bit slower than I might of hoped. Still probably my favorite result of the program.
Bench - 185: This is a true EDM for me in the sense that I've hit this weight on multiple occasions, including in Week 8 of this cycle. The real news here is that I set rep PR's on my back-off sets each of the last 3 weeks of the cycle.
Deadlift - 335: This was the biggest letdown. This matches my previous best actual lift, which is okay, and it was smooth, but it was really, really slow.
With the deadlift, it could be that I overestimated my EDM, or it could be just additional stress of heavy squatting before deadlifts. Regardless, I came up with a new way to track EDM for myself, that is SUPER-conservative and still allows me to have fun playing with programming spreadsheets. I've always tracked my Rep PR's, and now I'm just averaging the E1RM of all of those together to give me a result. Again, this yields amazingly conservative numbers because some of these Rep PR's are really old. However, if I'm going to buy into Paul Carter's sub-maximal philosophy for a whole year or more, then it seems like a decent way to go.
The biggest difficulty and most important thing switching into this program is determining goals for the cycle. I switched from 531 to Carter's Ultimate Beastdom program last winter as well. I just don't have the experience to easily switch from a training max based approach to a goal based approach. When I did this last year, I charted my E1RM progress over the previous 531 cycles and used that to project goals for the strength phase of the UB program. This was based on the assumption of equal or better progress. It worked okay, but I had mixed results for a variety of reasons. Mostly related to poor form as I approached my goal weights. Again, inexperience.
It was a bit easier this time because Carter goes into a lot of detail around using what he calls the Every Day Max (EDM) as the baseline for the goals here. He is very much talking about feel and intuition about what you can lift, but after working in E1RM for so long, I still wasn't positive about what that should be because I was still getting 5-10 reps on all my 531 top sets. So this time I took my E1RM for each week of 531 for the prior 3 months and averaged it. I decided that my EDM should at least be in that ballpark. I then set different, modest (I thought) goals for adding to each of them. It broke down like this:
Squat - EDM (3 month 531 avg.) 275. Goal - 285 (+10 lbs.)
Bench - EDM 200. Goal - 205 (+5 lbs.)
Deadlift - EDM 360. Goal - 365 (+5 lbs.)
I should note that although I averaged ALL my 531 weeks together, it occurred to me afterwards that it might have been smarter to only have used the 3rd week of each cycle since it's the heaviest. However, when I go back and look at that, those weeks yielded the highest E1RM of each cycle across the board. So this still seems fairly conservative.
Now the good news is that I didn't miss any lifts on the program. The not so good news is that Carter wants the final singles in Week 9 to be "crushed", and they really weren't. Here are the results by the numbers:
Final Squat - 265: This was really smooth and there was no doubt I would make the lift, however it was a bit slower than I might of hoped. Still probably my favorite result of the program.
Bench - 185: This is a true EDM for me in the sense that I've hit this weight on multiple occasions, including in Week 8 of this cycle. The real news here is that I set rep PR's on my back-off sets each of the last 3 weeks of the cycle.
Deadlift - 335: This was the biggest letdown. This matches my previous best actual lift, which is okay, and it was smooth, but it was really, really slow.
With the deadlift, it could be that I overestimated my EDM, or it could be just additional stress of heavy squatting before deadlifts. Regardless, I came up with a new way to track EDM for myself, that is SUPER-conservative and still allows me to have fun playing with programming spreadsheets. I've always tracked my Rep PR's, and now I'm just averaging the E1RM of all of those together to give me a result. Again, this yields amazingly conservative numbers because some of these Rep PR's are really old. However, if I'm going to buy into Paul Carter's sub-maximal philosophy for a whole year or more, then it seems like a decent way to go.
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