Death

This weekend was harsh. Trained saturday early in the morning and feeling like shit. Drank heavily last night. And now I'm exhausted, pissed off and tired.

Saturday I was stiff, tired, and up way too early. Squatting felt like shit, but I worked up to 315 and hit it for a miserable single.

Next, strict pressed. Again, felt like shit. Worked up and hit 165 for an okay single, then went to 175 and missed it decisively.

Overall, not bad for a rough day of training, but not great. Gonna rest up and I hope tomorrow will be  good day. We will see.

Bench PR and Press rep PR

Today was a great day.

Started with Chaos and pain bench. Hit the bar for a slew, then 95 x 12 and 135 x 8. Then straight to 180 for 10 sets of 3. Since I did this with no problem last month, I decided to really focus on form. Lately, my paused reps have been feeling awesome, but with touch and go I tend to feel a little sloppy and I think that hurts me. With this 10 x 3, I really focused on moving the weight fast down and up, keeping it in a smooth path, and making all the reps the same with my back tight. It worked really well, all 30 reps were cake. After I finished, I went to 205 and destroyed it for a single, easiest rep I have ever hit at 205. Went straight to 215 and despite some nerves, crushed that too. Then, hit 215 again for a single a few minutes later - tougher and slower this time, but still got it. FINALLY. Been waiting on 215 for over a year now. Take away - move the weight fast and smooth, treat it just like a rep at 135.

Next, fucked up 5/3/1 strict press too. Hit the bar, then 105 x 5, 125 x 5, and finally 140 x 7. That's awesome, and a two rep PR. AND, I breathed out on the way up, which fixed my fucking dizziness and didn't seem to take any power away from my core. This movement just keeps getting stronger. Dropped back and hit 125 for 9 paused reps, and then 105 for 11 paused reps.

Next, upright rows with 130, blew up my biceps. I don't like doing high reps.... but my bench is going up, and I'm getting nice pumps from it, and it's really tough to go heavy with it, so I'm going to keep these in.

Next, 3 sets of pushups to failure. got 38, 22, and 16. I was tired of the 10 x 12 thing. I think instead I'm just going to do bodyweight pressing on this day, whatever sets and reps of whatever I want. Pushups, dips, HSPU, whatever. More to come I guess.

Finally, Lat pulldowns heavy for reps - did 200 x 3 x 10. Thees feel fucking amazing, except I almost got a hamstring cramp from squeezing into the floor hahaha. Anyways, gotta keep these heavy. Tried ending with a max set at a lighter weight, and that felt like shit. All heavy all the time on these.

SO, awesome day. Finally breaking all my pressing plateaus. I don't know what's going to happen tomorrow. I might wake up early and go lift, I might just skip. We will see. Either way, getting strong and having fun. That's the way it should be.

Leg power

Had a powerful leg day today.

Started with Squats. felt a little tight and shitty today. hit the bar for 3 warmup sets, then 135 x 10, then 225 x 6, then straight to my work weight, 275. The ten x 3 was good today. Probably the best it has been since I started doing these kinds of workouts. there were a couple rough sets in the middle, where I got out of position and had to REALLY fight to lock a rep out - but honestly, I think this was due to the fact that I was using a shitty bent bar and it kept shifting on me. Overall, besides 4 or 5 rough reps my form was mostly very nice. I was catching a great bounce, especially on the first reps of my sets, and I didn't fail or even almost fail any reps. After hitting set 10, I decided to go up and hit a few singles. I hit a solid rep at 305, then hit 315 for an agonizing single. I didn't catch much of a bounce and it was SO slow coming up, but I still got it, and I'd say hitting 95+ percent after 30 reps at 275 is pretty good.

Next were front squats. High rep front squats are the worst, but I actuallt moved the weight really nicely today. Hit 155 and 175 for an easy 5, and even 195 mover really nicely, only a little struggle on the 5th rep. After that I jumped up heavy. Hit 225 for a nice single, then 235 for a tough rep - back started to round. I rested up and hit 235 one more time. the weight moved a lot faster this time, and there was less rounding. Pretty happy with that, that's 2 singles at my PR. Hopefully I'll be breaking that PR soon.

Third, deadlifted. These felt nice today, and I worked hard. Hit 205 x 2 singles, 285 x 2 singles, 325 for a solid rep, and then 335 for a nice rep with a flat back. It wasn't easy, but it was solid enough that I ALMOST tried another single... but I think I'll save that for next week. No rush with these. Just trying to keep the hips low and the back flat, and slowlyyyy get them heavier. Then, when I do them fresh, with a belt, and with a little more back rounding, hopefully I'll be able to pull a shitload.

Finally, finished off with 3 sets of hollow rocks and back extensions with a 25 lb plate. The weighted extensions feel awesome. I'm glad I took my time doing unweighted ones, it helped me feel out the movement, but now I'm going to really start to grow and strengthen my back with these.

Overall, awesome day. Worked my ass off, and now I'm eating a fuckload to try and grow my legs. I'm really excited for tomorrow's workout as well. Unfortunately, lifting saturday is going to be tough because of my schedule... but I'm really going to try and make it work. I've been PR ing that day pretty consistently, and I don't want to just skip it. We will see what happens.

Hard work day

Worked my ass off today.

FUCK I want to grow

Started with 5/3/1 bench. warmed up, then hit 140 and 160 for easy sets of 5. Hit 180, and it was solid but not easy. My form felt a little wobbly. Still, I got 7 nice reps and went for 8, which I just couldn't fight through. That's too bad, I thought I would have 8 today. 7 is still very good though.

Next, dropped back to 160 for sets of paused bench. This continues to be one of my stronger movements, and I love the way it feels. Did an easy 3 x 5 paused reps.

Finally, worked my ass off on the bottom set, hit 140 x 17. I was hoping for a little closer to 20, but still 17 is not bad at all. After a short rest, hit the final 3 reps just to make it an even 20.

Next, strapped myself to the 100 dumbell and kroc rowed it for 40 each side. These fuckin HURT but they explode my back. Gotta work hard to make the food go there.

Next, strict press. Started out feeling shitty. I was tired out by this point. 135 didn't feel great. I hit 155 for a single, which was meh, then another which moved better. Went up to 160 for 2 singles, then 165 for 2 singles, then finally 170 for a single, missed on the second single. Ended up being really awesome. I might have even gotten that second 170, but I rushed it a little. I almost passed out on all of these fucking reps too, but whatever.

Finally, supersetted neutral pullups with dead-stop presses to failure. did 1356 x 6, 8 pullups, then 115 x 10, 6 pullups, and 95 x 10, 4 pullups. My shoulders were on fire and my lats were killing me.

Grow shoulders, grow

Overall, an awesome day. Bench could have gone a little better, but press continues to explode, and I worked hard as fuck on everything today. Tonight, I start new diet. All the carbs better go to my fucking shoulders and back. This could be the start of a new, HUGE era. We will see.

New Diet

I've been reading and thinking a ton about diet lately, and here's what I've come up with.

The keto dieting I have been doing has been great for fat loss, but I haven't put on much (if any) muscle. I love getting stronger, but I'm not nearly big enough to write off muscle gain. I need more mass, and I think I need carbs in order to put on that mass.

So here's what I'm going to do. Basically carb backloading. I'm going to eat 0 carbs until my workout, have a protein shake like usual, and then post workout eat as much protein as I can with clean carbs - Rice, sweet and white potatoes, some whole milk, wheat breads on occasion, etc. Basically whatever I want that is reasonably clean - not gonna jump into pizza and ice cream. Wednesdays and sundays will be pure keto, and saturdays I will keep as a full cheat, with whatever dirty foods I need.

Right now, I am sitting around 12 - 14 % bodyfat, and weight around 195 lbs. I'm going to try this new style diet, probably until December, and re-asses. If I'm getting fat, I know I need to stick with a stricter diet. If I'm getting huge and staying lean, I can either stick with this, or dirty it up more and experiment further.

I'm going to need to really commit to training my ass off, and really keep myself in check so that I don't start eating whatever I want whenever. I've learned a lot of discipline this past year, and I think I have a ton of potential. Lets see what happens.

LIFT HARD
EAT BIG
GET STRONG
GET HUGE

Less Sloppiness, More Focus and Intensity

Today was a good day, but suffered a little bit from sloppiness.

Started with 5/3/1 squats. Felt really good warming up, hit the bar for a few sets, then 125 for a set of 10 and a set of 5. Then work sets. 210 x 5 and 240 x 5 both moved nicely. Then I went after 275. Problem is, I psyched up a little too much, and went past the point of intense focus and into the realm of sloppiness. It's a problem I've faced many times before, especially on 5 week. I know I can hit the weight for a lot of reps, which makes me amped up, but I also know it's going to hurt to do that, which makes me scared and more amped up, so I hit the reps hard and fast and a little sloppy. Don't get me wrong, the set wasn't horrible by any means, I got probably 5 really nice reps, 6 and 7 were especially sloppy, and then I slowed down and took some big breaths before hitting a pretty nice 8th rep. But I honestly think I probably would have gotten 9 or maybe even a 10th rep if I could have eliminated the wasted energy from those sloppy reps. It's really tough to do, but on the rep outs I really need to keep all the intensity and focus, but eliminate the sloppiness. I had my mind set on going all out on this set, getting a ton of reps - but If I had relaxed a little bit and just taken it one rep at a time, I think I would have done better. I just need to eliminate the tiny bit of depth cutting, the small drops of the chest, the slight caving of the knees, all of which take away from my power and make the set worse. STILL though, 8 reps at 275 is very nice, and I'm very happy with that. It's just frustrating to know that IF I focused on making my reps nicer and NOT on how many I get, I probably would get more reps anyways hahaha. Oh well, that's a task for next monday.

Side note: Clarence is the man

Speed pulls were 245 from a big deficit today, 12 x 1 on the minute. First pull was WEIRD haha, haven't pulled from this big of a deficit in a long time. Overall, however, moved pretty fast. It's hard to get my hips low enough, and my legs were tired from the higher-rep squatting, but hopefully this week will get me adjusted, and then 265 and 285 will move like lightning.

Finally, hit my 5 x 5 at 235. At first, some of the weirdness was lingering from my heavy set, but after set 2 I really focused up and worked on making my sets EXACTLY like the sets at 125. I thought about keeping my chest high and sinking nice and low into the squat. That's what made thursday and saturday's workouts so good. And those final 3 sets felt really nice - so good that I even did 2 extra reps on the last set.

Ended with 3 sets of 12 HLR's and 15 back extensions.

SO, overall, a very good day. I just need to remember to FOCUS without letting myself be sloppy. I need to take each set 1 rep at a time, worry about quality, and quantity will take care of itself. Hopefully   on thursday I'll be able to attack this weight again with nicer form, and get in a ton of heavy quality reps.

Stronger

Today was a stronger day.

I felt pretty good, took my time warming up and getting in the groove. Moved 135 pretty well and 225 felt alright too. Hit 275 for a nice double, and went straight to 315. I just kept myself calmer and imagined that it was exactly the same as 135, and the weight moved really nicely. Went up to 325 and did the same, and it was a really good rep - not easy, but not very hard either, good form and nowhere close to failing. That's a ten lb PR since switching styles. Hopefully I'll put up a video a little later.

After that, strict pressed. Yesterday was a pretty tough day and my warmups weren't feeling great, so I didn't expect too much. Hit a bar for a bunch, then 135 x 3, 135 x 1. 155 flew up, so I went straight to 170. I didn't really expect to make it, but I psyched up, got the adrenaline flowing, and then just imagined it was an empty bar and that shit moved NICE. again, not easy, but not even close to failing. That's insane. 170 is 15 lbs more than I could do 3 weeks ago. 175 is right around the corner now... that would be crazy.

After the heavy stuff, did really light leg press and incline pushups for a couple big sets. I'm gonna try and do that shit every saturday, flush blood through my muscles and my joints and reallyyyyy get them healing after the heavy work. Then on sundays, I'm ONLY going to stretch, no lifting at all. The way I felt thursday, after true rest wed, was awesome. Hopefully doing this will leave me physically and mentally EXPLODING for mondays workout, and I can keep getting stronger.

Anyways, time to eat and rest and heal.