Energy Legs

Today started out very slow. I got into the gym, and took forever to get warmed up - I swear, I must have spent close to 10 minutes putting my shoes on. HOWEVER, once I finally started, the weight moved really fast. I warmed up a little bit differently - normally for speed work I'll warm up the same as i do for heavy work, but instead I warmed up only with doubles today ( 2 doubles with the bar, 2 with 95, 2 with 135) and it felt good. I worked the weight up to 175, and hit it for my ten sets of 2, and it moved really nicely. I'm starting to get more comfortable with the slight tweaks to my form, and today I felt as though I could really sit back onto the box while still keeping my torso very vertical. It felt a lot better than last week.

Next it was time to squat heavy. I did 185 x 2, 225 x 2. and 275 x 1 without the belt. 275 felt a little slow, and I didn't want to risk missing the next rep, so I went to 295 and hit it for a tough single with the belt. Even though that wasn't an easy rep, I decided to go for 315 - I got my head focused, psyched up a bit, and hit it without much trouble. It was definitely a max for the day, but it wasn't significantly harder than the 295, which is very good. It's good that I'm able to hit that weight after speed work; I think my goal over the next two weeks is going to be to try and start smoothing the jump to 315 from 275. I think (for today) it was good to do that 295 in the middle, but in general now that I am hitting 315 with some constancy I want to get used to going 225 - 275 -315. It will be a lot harder when my speedwork is at 185 and especially 195, but I'll work at it.

"Why use the little change when you could have the big dollars?" 

Thirdly, I decided to tweak the way I do my good morning/front squat assistance work on these days. Up till now, I've been doing a 5 x 8 good morning or 5 x 5 front squat (alternating weeks), and adding 5 lbs a month. It's a stupid linear progression and it makes me hate doing both of those movements. SO, instead I've decided to still alternate good mornings and front squats every week, but to basically do whatever the fuck I want as far as sets and reps. Maybe one week I feel like shit, and i'll just do a 5 x 10 of GM's at 95 lbs. And maybe the next week I feel great, so I decide to go a heavy triple of front squats. Whatever. So today being a pretty good day, what with the speed work and the 315, I felt like pushing my GM's a little bit. I started with the bar to get my nerves working, then started to work up: 95 for 15, 135 for 10, 185 for 5, 225 for 5, then back down to 185 for 8.

Searched "heavy good mornings" and this came up. Not sure why, but it's AWESOME. 

This was pretty awesome and not really expected. My old 5rm good morning was 205, so hitting 225 for 5 is great. And overall, doing the assistance work like this is not only more fun, but it's gonna make me stronger too - hitting 225 for 5 is a lot better than doing a bunch of miserable sets of 8 at 160. I think thursdays are going to be a lot better and more useful with this change.

And finally, for core work today I wanted to try and hit my lower back (I'm a little bit nervous still about it rounding too much on heavy deads, so I want to try and start nailing it at least one day a week). However, I had a really hard time hitting it well. I started with round-back back extensions with a 25 lb plate, but my hamstrings gave out well before my low back felt anything. Then, I switched to a 45, but still it hurt my legs way more than my back. Next, I tried a very limited range of motion, only moving enough to round/tighten my lower back, and finally I started to feel it, but still not very much. So then, I tried the same ROM, but with a 45 lb dumbell, hoping the worse leverage would make it harder - but it just felt like I was gonna snap my hamstrings up, so I stopped. I still want to find a way to work those muscles better, but it's going to take some experimentation I think.

ANYWAYS, powerful day. Had a lot of fun, kicked a lot of ass. Lets do the same tomorrow.

Very successful arms day

Today was an awesome arms workout. I decided to push myself a little bit today - rather than doing my normal drop sets, or doing reps to near failure, I decided to do a super-setted 5 x 10 of close grip bench and preacher curls.

I wanted to choose weights that I could do, but that also would be pretty challenging - I figured I would rather push myself and fail (as these workout don't really matter too much), than to go too light. So, I decided to go with 135 on the close-grip bench, and to use the 25 lb Dumbbells for the curls.

 That's about where I close grip. Maybe a little bit wider

I managed to make it through the curls, although it was pretty hard. This is a pretty awesome improvement however, considering where I started: on the first post I wrote about curls on this blog, I did 10, 9, and 7 reps with the 25's. So, doing 5 sets of 10, super-setted with another movement, is pretty cool. The close grip was the real pleasant surprise, however: this was the heaviest 5 x 10 I have ever done for bench (with any grip, never mind close grip), And I even managed to squeeze out 12 reps on the final set. I think this shows a huge improvement in my tricep strength, and in my bench press strength in general, and I'm pretty excited I was able to make it through this workout pretty easily, when I wasn't even sure i would be able to do it at all at first.

Even though arm days are a little bit stupid, and I still count them as being relatively unimportant in comparison to my real workouts, I think that they are really helping me to get stronger in my upper body, and I plan to keep doing them whenever I can on Wednesdays. It was a very worthwhile experiment.

Hodge twins are right when they say you got to find what works for YOU. I may think "arm day" is pretty stupid, but it's certainly helping get me stronger. 

On a slightly different note, after my 24 hour cheat last weekend, I have already noticed a drop in body fat %. Before the meet, I would have estimated my body fat at about 14.5%. However, looking at myself yesterday morning and today, I would honestly say I've dropped down to between 13 and 14%. I'm right on the edge of my abs being visible WITHOUT me having to flex them like a motherfucker, and when I do flex, you can see my upper abs pretty clearly - but relaxed, my manbelly still hides them for the most part. If I can drop down another 2%, and get between 11 and 12, I should be able to start to see them without flexing, although I'll still have to get down to around 8 in order to be at the level I want as far as leanness goes. SO, it seems pretty clear that the cheat meals work really well for me in terms of kickstarting my metabolism for fat loss. I'm going to stick with my current diet for the rest of this three week cycle, and pay attention to see if I notice a fat-loss plateau again in the second half of these weeks. If not: great, but if I do plateau like I did last cycle, then I think I'll have to change my diet to include more cheats: I'll have to be stricter overall in my diet throughout the week, but then have a 24  hour cheat every weekend to ramp up my metabolism. I'm thinking that, if I decide to change, I'll probably eat 3 big keto meals a day, with 3 protein shakes in between the meals to make sure I'm getting enough protein, then cheat friday night through saturday evening. BUT, thats just one idea, none of this is decided yet. I'll have to see how the rest of this cycle goes before I change anything.

Low ass body fat, I'm coming for you

Coming up tomorrow, lots of cool shit! Speed work, heavy single squat, and some slight changes to my thursday assistance work. Get strong bitches.

First Bench Day After Meet

Today was a pretty good day. Warmed up, then got straight to work. Here's what bench work sets looked like:

130 x 5
150 x 5
170 x max (7)

Wow, this fucker is so huge. 

The first two work sets were nothing: I think I hit all 5 reps at 150 in about 5 seconds. HOWEVER, my setup for my set at 170 was a little loose. I think this is how it happened: I get a little nervous when i get to the heavy set, so I try to set up EXTRA tight. However, by trying too hard, I fuck up my normal set-up feel, which distracts me, and then (and this is the big no-no), I end up letting out my air for no real reason, which takes some of my tightness away. The breathing thing is a stupid bad habit - I NEVER do it on my lighter sets, but for some reason once I get heavy my nerves get the better of me and I do it by accident. SO, my set-up was a little loose, and I tried for an 8th rep, which I JUST barely missed. I was a little ticked off, but it wasn't a bad miss: I didn't get stapled, I just couldn't quite lock it out. And, considering the last time I benched 170 for reps (about 6 weeks ago), I only got 4, I would say 7 is pretty fucking satisfactory. BUT, for next  time, I really need to make sure I don't over-think my setup for that heavy set, and most of all to HOLD MY AIR. That will be the difference between Just barely getting and just barely missing that final rep.

HAHAHAHA this fucker too. 

Next, I ripped apart the 5 x 10 bench at 115, even though I had just struggled with that 8th rep. I got 16 on the last set, and probably had a rep or two left in me if I really pushed. Think I might move these to 120 next week, I don't think they will be challenging at this weight.

5 x 10 bent over rows at 115 weren't HARD, but there is something about them that just doesn't feel good. Just like how friday, they felt easy but bad (and I decided to switch them to Pendelay rows), the rows today weren't hard, they just felt shitty to do, especially in my core/low back. I might keep them for another couple weeks, but I'm thinking about changing the high-rep rowing to 1-arm Dumbell stuff. That way I'll have 1 arm rows for high reps on Tues and heavy Pendelay rows on Fri, which I think is a pretty awesome contrast. BUT I haven't decided yet, just a thought.

Dumbell strict press was cake with the 40's, hit 18 reps without a struggle on the first set. Might move these up next week as well.

And finally, Lat pulldowns at 150 were pretty solid. They were pretty solid last week, but I decided to start at this weight again today, just in case I was still feeling a little wiped from the meet. However, they weren't any problem, so I'll probably push to 160 starting friday.

More Mustafa Mohammad: because his lats are fucking huge too. 

OVERALL, it was a solid day. I was a little pissed about that 8th rep, but honestly that was not a big deal, and other than that I killed this workout. UP NEXT, epic arm day. Feels good, man.

Squat day after test meet

First of all, I had a 24 hour cheat after my mock meet, and let me just say it was awesome. Carbs never tasted so good. My thinking was that it would help speed my recovery, and besides it was about time for a cheat meal or two anyways. I'm hoping that it will help spur my metabolism, and help me drop some extra body fat in these last three weeks before I leave school. If it doesn't, I'm going to need to tweak my diet some more once summer comes, but I'm hoping it doesn't come to that.

It wouldn't be a cheat without a McDouble

ANYWAYS, I was still pretty sore and beat up this morning, and stressing a little bit about a leg workout so soon after the meet, but I didn't feel too bad. I went through my warmup pretty quick, doing 5 with the bar, 5 with 95, 5 with 135, and then jumping straight to 185 for my first work set. Then, I hit 215 for 5, and finally, 240 for 11. The first ten reps were pretty much perfect. The 11th was sloppy (I dropped my chest), and because of that it was a hard rep, so I decided to just stop there. I definitely had a few more in me though, which is good.

Next, speed deads felt very fast. I wasn't too wiped from the squats, so I didn't find these to be overly taxing or exhausting. 215 moved pretty fast for 12 sets of 2 from a deficit, and my form felt very nice too. It's good the weight is moving so well on only the second wave of this speed work. Hopefully 245 will move pretty fast as well a few weeks from now, which means I'll have no problem taking my speed work weight up again in another few cycles.

All my speed deads are from a deficit. I'm thinking about maybe starting to wave the height of the deficit in the next 3 cycle wave, just to add more changing stimuli. We'll see what I decide

Finally, I was sort of dreading doing 5 x 10 squats at 165 today, thinking it would be especially brutal and miserable when i'm tired, but it was actually pretty easy. The first four sets of ten moved nicely - I focused  on breaking each set into two waves of five, which let me move through them fast, while keeping form very nice. Then, because I didn't push 240 to the limit, I decided to go pretty hard on the fifth set at 165. I got 15, then did a paused 16th rep just to really fuck my legs up. Just as a point of reference - in the beginning of the year, I did some 20 rep squats, and the final weight I used was 165, with a belt. And today, I got 16 without much trouble, AFTER 4 sets of 10 with 90 seconds rest. Pretty awesome progress.

So many squats. At so much less weight than this guy hahaha

To top it off, I did some standing cable crunches today, which I actually liked very much. I worked up to 3 sets of 20 with a hundred pounds. It wasn't incredibly difficult, but I definitely felt it in my abs by the end. It was a nice alternative to the weighted sit-ups I've been doing.

SO, this was a pretty great day, especially considering that I'm still sore and a little burnt out from the maxes saturday. Even though I was a little nervous for today, I tried to keep my head even and go at it one set, one rep at a time, and it ended up being an awesome workout because of that. So, I'm gonna eat and rest a lot the rest of today, and try to kick some more ass tomorrow.

Powerlifting Meet

Okay, so it wasn't a real meet. BUT, I have never done a meet, and I really wanted to have a day where I did all 3 lifts to a max as if I were in a meet, to not only see where my lifts are at but also to feel what being in a meet would feel like. And it was fucking fun and awesome. Here's what it went like:

Slept kind of shitty last night, but I got up, had a light breakfast and a coffee, and waiting for my lifty friends to get here to start the strong. After we warmed up, squatting started. Because of my iffy squat at 305 on thursday, I decided to open light - 295 - which was fucking stupid but okay, because today wasn't all about Pr's. SO, I ripped 295, then hit 315, then just BARELY missed 320. I would have loved that PR, but tying my PR is pretty damn good too.

Next up was bench. Warmups were good, but I'm not used to benching after squatting, so it was hard to get ramped up for the heavy reps. I hit 195 for a solid opener, then hit 210. FINALLY, a fucking pr, after a year of being stuck at 205. Sure it's not a GREAT PR, but progress is progress. I've only been feeling good on bench for the last three weeks, and already I hit a new pr. Hopefully the goodness will keep up, and the PR's will keep coming in the next few months. I skipped the last attempt, as that 210 was definitely all out.

FINALLY, it was time to deadlift. Deadlifts have oft been my nemesis, but I was lifting against two of my friends who are both awesome deadlifters, and I was amped up. Warmups moved pretty fast. I hit a 315 opener, which was solid. Then I went for 345, ( a 10 lb PR) which moved slow as fuck but I locked out. I was a little worried about rounding my back, but after watching the vid it looks like normal upper back rounding, and my lower back felt fine. So, even though the 345 was ROUGH, I loaded up 355... and got it. It was a grinder, but I was pretty psyched. That's a 20 lb pr, after already maxing out my other 2 lifts.

SO overall, it was an awesome day: tied my squat PR, got a 5 lb bench PR and a 20 lb dead PR - all without ANY rest before the "meet." My total: 880. Im tired, but VERY happy. It's time to eat a lot and rest now. But I'm pumped to get back to training on monday! This was an awesome day, but I've still got to work my ass off to reach my goals a year from now:

90 lbs on my squat: 405
100 on my dead: 455
45 on my bench: 255

I know I can do it. I've got a little over 12 months. It'll be a rocky fucking road but today is one of those days that shows me how much it's worth it.

 Do it fuckers.

Press Press Press!

Had a very nice day in the gym today. Slept okay, had a light breakfast and a little coffee and hit the gym right away this morning. Took a while to warm up (considering today is Chaos and Pain bench day). Here's what that looked like:

bar x 5

75 x 5

95 x 5

115 x 5

135 x 3

165 x 2 (felt crazy dizzy on this last set)

Then, I loaded up 185 and started my sets - 1 rep on the minute for 9 minutes. It went really smoothly - so well, in fact, that after my nine minutes were up I rested a little extra and hit it for a 10th single. This was BY FAR the easiest of the three weeks (for anyone who is slow, week 1 I hit 165 x 9 x 3, week 2 I hit 175 x 9 x 2). Perhaps that simply has to do with the fact that I'm getting stronger - or maybe the other two weeks are just really fucking hard, and the week of singles is more of a "Fuck yeah, look what I can do" week. Either way, it felt really good and was fun. 

Gotta say Jaime, I'm loving Chaos and Pain

THEN, if having a good bench day wasn't enough, I did my 5/3/1 press work - 110 for 5, 125 x 3, and 140 for 4. Honestly, after so much benching I was worried I wouldn't be able to get it off my chest for 1, never mind hit 4. And considering 150 is my current pr, I'm pretty happy with those numbers. GRANTED, strict press is fucking slow and a pain in the ass to make get better, so I'm not going to be too happy-go-lucky about hitting that 140 for 4, but still it's a good sign. If, in a couple months, I'm able to hit that 150 for a rep or two AFTER Chaos and Pain benching, then I can be pretty sure I have a new PR. we will see. 

ANYWAYS, I did 2 more max overhead press sets, one at 125 and 1 at 110, then did my bent over rows at 145 - these felt pretty easy, so I ended up doing them with a minute rest instead of the normal 90 seconds. I think I'm going to change these from bent-over rows to Pendelay rows in the next few weeks. My back needs to be challenged by heavier weights, so I'm just going to jack up the weight on my 5 x 10 tuesdays, then go nice and heavy on this day for a 5 x 5 of Pendelay rows. 

After rows was 3 sets of dumbbell benching with the 55's (got 15 on the first set), and then 5 x 10 lat pulldowns with 150 - I had to get out of the gym, so I was kind of rushing these, and even so they were easier than on tuesday. OVERALL it was a pretty kick ass day. 

TOMORROW I'm doing my mock meet. I think it will be a lot of fun, and I have the potential to kick some serious ass. HOWEVER, I need to go into tomorrow not expecting to shatter all my PR's. Instead, I just need to take tomorrow as a way to get a GENERAL idea of where my lifts are at, and get a feel for what a meet would feel like. But I'm going to try really hard to to have certain "numbers" in mind, and to just do my best with how I feel for the day - and not be disappointed, no matter what. SO I'm excited. LET'S GET READY TO MOVE SOME WEIGHT!

Heavy Speedwork

Today was an alright day. Heavy speed squats at 195 off a box were hard, but do-able. It's gonna take some getting used to in order to do them properly with the weight in the new, higher position with the bar.
At the end of reps, I felt myself shifting my weight forward on my toes, so I need to watch that. But overall it wasn't too bad.

HOWEVER, then I squatted up heavy, hit 275 for a great rep, then jumped to 305 (instead of 315) because I REALLY didn't want to miss a rep.... and I missed the rep. I got it through the normal sticking point, but then towards the top I shifted my weight forward veryyy slightly and just couldn't lock it out. It wasn't a bad miss, I almost had it - and considering I had just done the heaviest speed work I've EVER done, it shouldn't bother me too much, but I still really hate missing lifts.

If I was Andy, I would have fucking killed everyone in the gym when I missed that lift

So anyways, I was tired and a little angry, so I did my 5 x 5 front squats at 155 quickly and unhappily, then did 3 sets of 20 sit ups with a 10lb plate, and got the fuck out of there. Overall, it wasn't a bad day, I was just pissed about missing that 305. BUT, I'm goign to be squatting up to a heavy single every week now, so I need to get used to both feeling my body and not pushing too hard, and not being too angry when I miss a rep - especially when it doesn't staple me.