Gonna pivot next week with reduced volume on upper back and biceps work, RPE caps ~8 across the board, and swapping out upper back and biceps accessories. I want to let some of the general fatigue (achiness, sleep and mood disruption, etc.) dissipate a bit if I can.
Will start upping volume and RPE again after that. It's very possible that I can't run another 5 weeks after that, but we'll see. Just want to shore up these chin-up gains and at least see if I can make some more before switching focus.
This block has already been a general success with some Rep and Volume PRs on Chins and Curls.
Performance was slightly muted here at the end of the week. Some lingering anterior delt DOMS from the prior session may have played a part on Bench as I had difficulty maintaining bar path.
Top strength on Bench was completely flat for the 2nd week in a row, but this time back-off set strength nose-dived after the first set.
I then backed way off to see how Close Grips were going to go, and the back-off weight ended up being the work weight.
Sleep hasn't been great this week, so maybe there's a recovery issue. Looking back at the last year+ of training with Emerging Strategies, I've never had two lifts plateau in week 4. This is really throwing a wrench into the experiment of doing back-to-back, 4-5 week "greatest hits" blocks. When I started this experiment, I told myself I would switch to Phase 2 if two lifts plateaued or regressed in Week 4, but I didn't really expect it to happen. On the other hand, it might be fun to have different stuff to do next week....
BW - 228 Waist - 43.75" sRPE @ 7 Bench - 207.5X3 @8 177.5X7, 7, 7 @~7 CG Bench - 170X6, 6, 6, 6 @7.25/8 Rack Pull-Ups - BWX7, 7, 7 @~8 GPP Day - - Circuit: Straight-Arm Pull-Downs, DB Press, Hammer Curls - 7 minutes; 3 rounds; sets of 8-10 - Rower - HIIT; 7 rounds; 14 minutes
Okay upper body day.
Right elbow was feeling a bit sensitive, and slowed down the lock out on my top triple, raising the RPE. I was able to increase the weight slightly on the back-offs, but all-told e1RM was relatively flat from last week. Expect a bounce back next week!
Closed-grips were a little better initially, but the RPE ramped up fairly quickly. This may be somewhat a function of adding an extra set to both bench movements.
I ended up not adding an extra set to the rack pull-ups because I always had this set a 3 sets for this program, i.e. I didn't drop a set for the first two weeks like I did with everything else. I'm also getting extra upper-back work on the GPP days, so no big.
sRPE ended up being right about on target, I think.
GPP Day -
- Circuit: Straight-Arm Pull-Downs, DB Press, Hammer Curls - 7 minutes; 3 rounds; sets of 10
- Rower - HIIT; 6 rounds; 12 minutes
Solid upper-body session. sRPE was sub-target for the 2nd week in a row, so if I'm feeling well fatigue-wise next week, I'll be adding a set to each movement.
Bench took a 2% jump in e1RM this week, which is above average for the last year. In my best training 4 training blocks over the last year, bench jumped about 3% in week 2 on average, but the TM on the first week for those bench blocks was 92.7% on average (below the mean for the year), and this block started at 98.9% (the highest of the year). So year-best TM and an above average jump in week 2, are a combo that I haven't seen on bench in the last year, and an auspicious start to the block.
Last week, RPE on Close-Grips ramped quickly on the sets across, but this week I was able to both add weight, and maintain it at target RPE. Nice to have that on track in week 2 as well.
Added a rep to all the Rack Pull-Ups but BW was down, so whatevs. I'm not going to stress over these, even if the data says they were one of my top-6 DL accessories in the last year. They'll progress or they won't.
GPP Day went very well. Got another 3 round in 7 minutes on the resistance circuit. I added weight to all movements, and still hit 10 reps on all sets. Thought I would add 2 rounds to the HIIT, but only adding 1 felt right in the moment.
GPP Day -
- Circuit: Straight-Arm Pull-Downs, Seated DB Press, Hammer Curls - 7 minutes; 3 rounds; sets of 10
- Rower - LISS; 20 minutes
Nice little upper-body session.
200X3 @7.5 is interesting because that's about at 99% of where my bench was at the end of the previous, aborted cycle. That was back on 12/22. So almost a month later, with minimal training, bench strength is about where it was. Not sure if there are any take-aways, but if the lift trends upwards from here, and especially if I get a couple of larger-than-average jumps (my Bench tends to have those), I could end up with a good little bench block.
I had to drop weight on the last set of Close-Grips, as the RPE started jumping pretty fast. All good (probably).
Rack Pull-Ups were fairly easy, especially as I'm still dropping a set from each movement in this first week.
vi
GPP Day went well, too! Was able to move through this combination a bit faster and with more reps, resulting in getting a 3rd round in the same amount of time. I think the prior GPP day's circuit probably had a lot more biceps involvement in each movement and that created more fatigue.
Also doubled my time on the rower with no difficulty. Will probably switch to HIIT next week.
Solid bounce-back session. Still had some residual fatigue and tightness from the terrible DOMS I was dealing with mid-week, but felt much more recovered for this workout.
Squat is still obviously the lift that suffered the most, as the adductor DOMS were the worst of all the muscle groups. Obviously RPE will determine what happens, but hopefully in the upcoming, final training session of this block, I can at least get back to the day 1 performance.
Bench was back on par with the Day 1 performance. Everything felt solid.
DL bounced back about as well as Squat on the top set. The back-off set and deficits even more so.
Well that sucked. I definitely fucked up my pivot block. DOMS from the first session was so bad, that it made everything on this day very hard, and that should not have been the case. Total work sets per session are exactly the same as last block, and total work reps are only ONE more than last block. Definitely not such a change that DOMS should have been this bad. Volume on the pivot block was just too low. I thought it might be at the time, but there was so much weirdness pivoting from a 3 session cycle to a 1 session cycle, etc., that I tried to trust to the process, and the process is clearly off.
Interestingly, Bench was much less heavily impacted than the lower body lifts. This was primarily an adductor DOMS problem, although low back and chest were also very sore.
Anyway, didn't get video of the top sets of Squat and Bench because they both topped out sooner than expected. I got everything adjusted well enough to predict where the top set of DL would fall.
This block is composed of one session cycles so that I can try and see how much improvement I can get before I go on a short vacation mid-July. I'll probably only get 5 session/cycles in before my trip. Mike Tuschsherer did this in the last year or so, and that's where I got the idea. My intuition says it will be fairly tough to do the same exact workout each training session and expect to see weight increase, but I'm looking forward to finding out what happens.
To try and give myself the best chance of this working well, I based everything on a Meta-Block Review from the RTS on-line app. It suggests that these rep and RPE ranges on the mains, and these assistance movements should be my best bang for the buck.
Squat and Bench movements all went fairly well. I think I may see that Bench and Deadlift lag a bit on this program because they've been first order movements the last several blocks, but here they will be relegated to competition order. Bench performance seemed to be hitting a bit of a wall by the time I got to the close-grips.
Deadlift was much more difficult. Again, possibly the shift from first to third order. The target RPE here is 8.5 and I both overshot that and undershot my original target weight of 390.
Plate deficits were really wonky on the one warm-up set I took on them, but that gave me enough feedback to make some adjustments, and the work set felt pretty good. Came in a touch under target RPE, but at the end of the workout, I didn't want to push more volume
Not sure about that 330X3 @8. I had to go to a competition level of focused aggression that is pretty different from the other squat sessions this cycle. Barring surprising increases in Bench and Deadlift next session, I think it's going to be time to pivot. Everything is starting to hurt, sleep is getting tougher, etc.
That said, close-grips made a big jump commensurate with the jump comp lift took this week. This movement has averaged about 95% of the prior comp lift session, and this was right there.
Deficit DLs were also right in line with the comp lift. Averaging about 92%.
Oof. What a bad idea. Wife and I took the day off and went out for a big, late breakfast. This was my second time recently trying to go train after something like that, and it was terrible. I gave myself and hour buffer between finishing eating and getting to the gym, but I still felt bloated and low-energy.
This impacted Squats the most of all. Maybe because it was the first lift, or maybe because it was the heaviest. Frustrating, because it indicates a regression in e1RM, and this late in the cycle that could be true, but because I decided to train under drastically different conditions, I really don't know, and will have to wait until next Squat session to see what's happening.
Close-grips still went up in intensity at target RPE. However, as a % of comp, this is the 2nd week in a row that the lift's progress has dropped off, which may presage a drop off in comp progress. Still not sure if I'm measuring something useful there.
Deficits continue to progress fairly linearly. However, opposite of close-grip bench, it seems to be progressing more than the comp lift. Still circling the value of these comparisons. I suspect what I want, long term, is to identify supplmental lifts that perform at a predictable % of the comp lift, and progress at a fairly 1:1 ratio. To what ever degree that is measurable and predictable, I imagine I am in the earliest stages of tracking it.
Solid session. Busy gym, and I ended up working in with someone on Squat, and having a lot of side conversations during close-grips, so not a lot of video of those.
Quick Notes:
Squat went very well overall. Getting comfortable with the weights being far in excess of BW again.
I've been playing with bench rep execution. For higher intensity sets, still "resetting" between reps (taking a new breath, etc.), but for more "rep out" sets just going straight through, or in chunks. Seems to be working much better than resetting every rep like I had been, and like I do on Squats.
On deficit pulls, playing with foot placement to try to emphasize glutes and hamstrings rather than quads for the majority of the stroke. If I had it to do over again, I think I would prefer wider grip DL instead of pulling from a deficit to remove this issue.
Based on last block, I thought* there was a chance I could get a larger intensity increase on my comp. movements in the 4th cycle, and that turned out to be the case for Squat here. *possible placebo
Nice to have 3 plates in the rotation again, and it came in even a tad under RPE target. I could have tried going up, but I'm wondering about the cumulative fatigue* about warm-up sets @6+ when back-off sets are also going to be prescribed. So I called it good and moved to the back-off sets, which moved REALLY well, and also came in slightly under RPE target to start. *possible nocebo, lol
Close-Grips also similarly were flying today. I thought here about going up in weight just a touch, but last block started to plateau in cycle 5, so I don't mind giving myself a bit of "fatigue margin" this week as long as I'm meeting or exceeding goals.
I did get a touch greedy on Deficits and tried going a bit above what 230X7@6 would have indicated, and it did end up being a slight overshoot.
Squat is the only movement so far this cycle that hasn't taken a larger-than-programmed jump in intensity at some point. Don't know if that's a function of lingering tightness/discomfort in the left quad, it being a lift that's more "mature" because I've hit it so hard and often during the years, or something else.
CG Bench has been fairly predictable, and Deficit DL has been taking big jumps.
Looking back at the previous developmental block, I thought there might be a chance for a large jump in week 2 as acclimation set it. And coming into the session, my body and energy levels felt very good, and I thought that was going to happen.
That didn't turn out to be the case with the Squat where it only jumped 5 lbs. on both top set and back-offs. Still very happy to make a pain-free jump.
However on the supplemental lifts, I did make a larger jump. +5 lb.s on CG bench, and +12.5 lb.s on deficit pulls that still left some weight on the table.
I suspect my theory about acclimation in the 2nd week may carry more water with movements I do less commonly, i.e. I may have take a couple of weeks off of comp. squatting, but I've still done the comp squat thousands of times, as opposed to the supplemental movements that I've only did occasionally in isolated blocks. I've made notes on this, and we'll see how it plays out through the rest of this block, and next dev. block.
All videos are of top sets or final back-off sets.
