Yes, I'm still here

I had a lot going on this weekend, so I ended up skipping the Friday squat workout, intending to make it up on Saturday, but then all of the Saturday activities prevented from getting to it. And Sunday, well, Sunday I just wasn't up to it.

Now I'm starting day one of the deload week a workout behind. To make up for lost ground, I'm combining what would have been the Friday/Saturday squat workout with the Monday deload overhead press workout. And, yes, I still plan to do the deload squat workout on Friday as scheduled. If I were going to make the mistake of missing a workout, I picked the right time to do it. It will be easy to make it up as part of the deload plan.

As had been scheduled for last Friday, I worked up to 225 on the squat for three reps (since this is week 3, the plan called for one+ reps). Since I'm working this into the OHP workout, I skipped the leg presses and leg curls and instead threw in a couple of warm-down sets on the squats at 175 and 155. I think it's a fair compromise.

The OHP workout called for a max of 80, but I'm doing 95, since it's pretty light. I supersetted OHP with chins and dips across three sets. A good workout without overdoing it, which is exactly the intent of the deload week. This is recovery time for the muscles after having gone heavy last week.

I've decided to switch to Wendler's Big But Boring (BBB) plan starting next week. There's no particular reason for it other than it will give me additional work in the big movements themselves rather than splitting the emphasis with the assistance movements. The assistance exercises are great, and I'm sure I'll go back to the Triumvirate at some point; I just feel what I really need is more work on the really big stuff. So, starting next week, boring it is.

Today's log is, of course, on Fitocracy.

Doing that bench thing and thoughts on weight acclimation

As with some other exercises recently, I'm feeling the need to make some minor adjustments to the progression pattern. Today, for example, my warm-up sets were to go from 90 up to 135, with the working sets starting at 165. I know I may be a little neurotic about this, but I didn't like the 30-lb. jump from the last warm-up to the first working set, so I decided to squeeze in another set at 155 before the set at 165. That's a more gradual progression, so I think it gets my body better acclimated for the heaviest working sets.

I believe that weight acclimation is a highly underrated—and perhaps misunderstood or even unrecognized—concept. Yes, it's almost entirely psychological and thus will largely be dismissed by many, but it certainly can have an impact on your workout.

Try this experiment some time with an unsuspecting test subject:  Empty an opaque milk jug and then put it in the refrigerator. You could wait for someone to go for a bowl of cereal or you could just ask someone to pour you a nice cold glass of cow juice. What happens when they pick up the jug? Surely, everyone has done this at some point. You think a jug is full and when you grab it, it nearly flies to the ceiling.

Afterwards, try the opposite. Fill a jug full and tell someone to "throw that empty away." Again, what happens? Exactly the reverse of the previous experiment. If you think the container is empty, you exert less force against it than is actually required.

I firmly believe the same principle applies exactly the same in weight training and weight lifting. If you go into a lift cold and attempt your 1RM, chances are, you'll fail. It's not necessarily because you're incapable of lifting that much, but because your body just isn't ready for it.

Never mind the fact that trying to lift heavy without warming up leaves you vulnerable to injury.

Yes, I believe the progression matters. As I've stated before, it doesn't really matter that you only do one rep in that acclimation set as long as you do something to prepare your muscles for the heavier weights. Also consider what it feels like in reverse: After you've done a working set at your heaviest weight, drop back down to your heaviest warm-up set and see what it feels like. It seems a lot lighter than it did when you were warming up, doesn't it?

Today I again employed the additional warm-up set to acclimate myself before the working sets. My goal was to do at least one rep at 205. Instead, I did two at 215 and then dropped down to complete the bench press workout with a set of three reps at 205. I'm not going to say that the acclimation set helped me exceed my goal. The fact is, I simply knew I could do more. I opted for two heavy sets at the end just to give me some forward momentum. I'm deloading next week anyway, so why not?

I finished up with supersets of incline dumbbell press and single-arm dumbbell row. This is the first time I've included incline DB press, so I figured it was about time. It will probably become a permanent substitute in place of flat DB press.

And it's another workout in the books at Fitocracy.

Week 3 Day 2: Deadlift

If zombies decided to start lifting weights, would it be called the undeadlift?

I think I like Tuesdays the best because it's deadlift day, and there's just something kind of satisfying about moving really heavy stuff.

Yesterday, I made a couple of minor adjustments to the workout. The important one was that I decided to top out not at 295 as I'd planned, but at 305 instead. I've done 5 reps at 295 before, so I know I can do more. I was able to complete three reps at 305 and very well could have done 5. I want to continue to improve and, since this is the peak week of the cycle, there's no harm in going a bit heavier. Next week is the deload, so no worries on pushing it too hard.

The other tweak I implemented was supersetting hanging leg raise, good mornings and then ab crunches on the PowerTec Workbench. And, yes, I openly confess that part of the reason for making this change is because I hate hanging leg raises, so I don't want to do any more than three sets of the damned things. And, yes, I hate them so much that I'm more than willing to do supersets of three different exercises just to get out of doing two sets of them.

I finished up with three sets of Pendlay rows since I wimped out on Monday and didn't do them when I'd planned.

Besides, I like to do the rows on deadlift days because the two work so well together to strengthen the back. When I was following my hardgainer minimalist routine years ago, I liked to do seated row and bent-over row after deadlifts. It did a lot to strengthen my lats and traps. And I did not mind at all when doing the bent-over row that I had a tendency to allow my upper body to move upward from parallel to the floor because it just meant activating the traps more. With the Pendlays, I remain parallel, but there's still some activation of the traps. I may want to work the shrugs in more as I'd planned and some upright row.

For a little variation I will occasionally mix in underhand barbell rows, which some refer to as Yates rows.

It was a tough workout, and I'm ready for my rest day today before moving on to the bench press tomorrow. It might be time for me to push a little harder on that one as well. In two weeks I'll be starting another cycle, and it's about time to shake things up and raise expectations.

Oh, yeah. It's logged on Fitocracy.

Okay, I wimped out

It was a Monday like any other Monday. I dragged myself out of bed and prepared myself for the ordeal that is work, knowing that ugly surprises awaited me. But Monday is also OHP day in my current routine, and that's fine. The only problem is, between work distractions that followed me home and the behavior of two ornery kids, I just wasn't into it.

That means I cut things a bit short. I had expanded the OHP workout to include Pendlay rows in addition to chin-ups and dips, but yesterday I did only three sets of chins and dips and skipped the Pendlays altogether.

Yes, I wimped out.

On a positive note, however, I was able to complete a full five reps at 125 on the press, 10 lbs. more than the most I've done recently, and I could've done more. I'm in the peak week of my second Wendler cycle, so this week I will be doing the heaviest lifts on the big movements. If I had completed only one rep or two at 125, it would've been considered a successful workout, but I did five, so that's a real accomplishment.

Next week is supposed to be the deload week, but I'm seriously tempted to see what I can do at 135. But maybe not.

The plan hatching in my head right now is to deload next week and focus on reps and volume for the assistance work, which means doing all of the extra movements I decided to add for this cycle, but have, ahem, occasionally skipped.

It looks like I'm well on track to hit some recent personal bests on the main lifts. I say recent personal bests because I'm still not close to my all-time bests on any of the main lifts. But I'm still making progress. This should give me some good momentum going into the deload week to be able come out on the other side rested and ready to take some big strides forward.

Squats too

Vanilla.

That's all I have to say about today's squat workout.

I worked up to 215, did 5 reps (Wendler says 3+, so I did 3+2). Not bad. Will get better. I slipped in a couple more sets along the way because a) I know that I need more of a warm-up than most people (old, poor circulation, etc.) and b) because I didn't like the big jump from 145 to 190. I firmly believe that weight acclimation sets are needed before you go to your heaviest set, even when that isn't your 1RM or your 5RM. And the acclimation set doesn't have to be any more than one rep, just to tell your body the heavier stuff is coming. But that's just me. And I always, always do the first set with just the bar to loosen up a bit and to lubricate the ol' knee and hip joints.

Most "gurus" will tell you to do two or three warm-ups and then hit the working sets. I actually like to do four or even five. You just have to know your body and know what feels right, but the important thing to remember is not to fatigue your muscles on warm-ups because that's all they're for—to warm up the muscles and get the blood circulating.

Instead of 365 on the leg press, I dropped down to 345 for some rep work and supersetted with standing leg curl. Increased the weight on the leg curl incrementally to 25. Can probably do more, but I'm taking my time. And what the—? My left hamstring is stronger than my right. Or maybe just less fatigued.

In case I haven't mentioned it before, my leg presses are performed on the Yukon Fitness Vertical Leg Press.

Will do some lunges and step-ups next week. I didn't want to overdo it this week because I'm heading to Red River Gorge for a Zipline tour tomorrow morning. The last thing I wanted was to be hobbling around stiff and sore the whole day.

And, yes, I overdid it last week. I was sore for at least three days afterwards. A bit too much volume, and the one set of lunges and step-ups I did after the leg presses and standing leg curl (not to mention the extra several sets of squats) really killed my hamstrings.

Since I'm off to the Gorge tomorrow, it also means no farmer's walks, which is just as well since I haven't purchased any handles yet, and I won't try the dumbbell handles with collars ever again. It was fine with the 65-lb. hexheads, so if that's all I have, that's what I'll use. I'll just have to go for lots of volume.

You can check out the vanilla squat details on Fitocracy.

Bench press Thursday

For many people the bench press comes easy. It's the primary movement on which most of their effort is focused. When someone wants to know how strong a guy is, they'll ask how much they can bench. The bench press is easily the most overrated weight lifting movement. Far too much emphasis is placed on it.

And it doesn't come easy to me. It seems I've always struggled with it. From time to time I've made good strides, but very seldom have I ever felt confident that I could beat personal records.

Today was another of those days it just didn't come easy. You would think that the OHP and bench press would go hand-in-hand, at least to some extent. Doing 8 reps at 115 on the OHP was easy the other day. Today, doing five at 195 on the bench was not. I might've been able to do six or seven reps, but I was expecting to be able to do 8 or even 10. I was really thinking 8. It was the number I had in mind from the start of the workout.

The bar just seemed to have my number today. But I'm only in my second cycle of 5/3/1, so the PRs may yet come. Did I lift the weight at or above the rep total the plan calls for? Yes, but it was just more difficult than I expected. I did an extra set of dumbbell bench press and Kroc rows to try to make up for the disappointing bench press numbers. As with the squats, I often feel I'm just not doing enough on the bench press sometimes.

In the next cycle of 5/3/1 I expect I will be seriously pushing the envelope on my limits. I'll have to wait and see how it works out. The PRs on the bench press are still several months down the road. On the deadlift, squat and overhead press, they're just around the corner.

Yes, it's logged on Fitocracy.

Makeup day

Normally, Tuesday is deadlift day, but because I was a little busy attending my son's fifth grade graduation, I skipped the workout with plans to make it up on Wednesday. Finding myself preoccupied with other matters, I wasn't very motivated to do that makeup workout, but I didn't want to let it slide. So I compromised.

Instead of doing the full workout I abbreviated it a bit and focused primarily on completing the deadlift sets. I was able to do 5 reps at 280 in the last set, which puts me in good shape to be able to do some reps at 295 next week. I expect to be able to do at least 5 reps at that weight.

I realized during the workout that I'd performed the Monday OHP incorrectly. Well, not in terms of form or anything, just that I performed more reps than I was supposed to. The plan is called 5/3/1 for a reason. In each of the first three weeks of a cycle, the intensity increases and the reps decrease. Week one is the 5-rep week, week 2 is three reps in each working set, and in week 3 the working sets are 5-3-1. But I completed five reps in each of the OHP sets on Monday instead of three. Duh. Obviously, I'm no worse for wear. Plenty of time to recover before next Monday's workout.

Likewise, I have to remember that I'm doing three reps in each set of the bench press this evening. Three. Three, three, three. Except in the last set. In the last set, you're supposed to do as many as you can without going to true failure. Yeah, it's kind of a weird concept, but I can't argue with it because it seems to be working. I'm especially happy with the improvement on the OHP.

Yes, the progress is slow, I admit. If I were trying to hit my 5RM each week, I could be lifting 120+ on the OHP right now. But the mistake I've always made in the past is pushing too hard and being too impatient. The Wendler system is working for me, so there's no reason not to keep going with it. Slow and steady = constant improvement = no frustration.

The change I made to yesterday's workout was to ditch the hanging leg raises and good mornings, opting instead for ab crunches on the Powertec Workbench and close-grip chin-ups. I supersetted the three exercises to abbreviate the workout. I shuffled things a bit, but since I completed the main movement for the workout as prescribed, I don't think it's truly a violation of the plan.

Today, it will be business as usual with the bench press, dumbbell press and Kroc rows.

The deadlift workout is, of course, logged on Fitocracy. (I may have linked to an incorrect URL in previous posts. Oops.)