I'm starting a new log. The purpose of my first log was really to make sure that I didn't slack off on fitness as I entered the workforce, which I am no longer concerned about as it's been over a year and a half and Finding time to get to the gym is pretty easy.

I've been inspired by the Broz philosophy of "you're not overtrained, you're undertrained," this article, and the logs of a few people here (mostly Jaysick and Busto), to stop thinking that 3 days a week of strength training is enough to get me as fit as I want to be. This log will be all about my efforts to lift 3 days a week and do something supplemental the other 4 days. The hope is that eventually I can handle heavy exercise on a daily basis, and that I'll be in sick shape.

My plan is to use a westside/texas method type of programming that I've been messing around with 3 days a week, then just go on feel for the other 4 days a week. My strength programming will roughly be:

Tuesday: Max Effort Day
Max Effort Bench
5rm squat
Max effort chinup/max effort deadlift
Abs

Friday: Volume/Accessory Day
Bench assistance (close grip, floor press, db bench): 5x5
HBBS: 5x5
Volume chinups/pullups
Postural work
Abs

Sunday: Recovery Day
Dynamic effort bench
Dynamic effort squat
Postural work
Accessory arm work

I'd like to stay around 165 lbs because in the not too distant future I plan on competing in some raw powerlifting events. I'd like to have a 1015 total, which I believe is the requirement to qualify for the AAU National powerlifting meet in the 165lb raw division. I'm around 12% bodyfat so I've got some room to recomp.

For supplements I don't really take anything. Last time I tried creatine I got wicked diarrhea, but I have used it successfully in the past so I should try again. I'll probably resume the ZMA + trib stack sometime soon even if it has debatable efficacy. If anyone has some suggestions for cheap sups that will improve recovery I'm open to suggestions.

Current Max:
Bench: 220
Squat: 275 (est)
DL: 350 (est)

All time Max
Bench: 230
Squat: 329
DL: 402

AAU Raw Nationals Qualification (1015 lb total)
Bench ~ 240
Squat ~ 345
DL ~ 430

4-27
Knee rehab:
3 sets of 5 quad extensions, hold each rep for a 10 count

Core:
3 sets of 30 second stomach vacuums
3 sets of 10 supermans

In.

I'll be curious to see how you progress when you get to "handling heavy exercise on a daily basis" cause I disagree with John Broz quite a bit on this principle, in theory. What you have laid out above just looks like 2 ME heavy days per week though, with one DE day, which is pretty solid.

Good luck on your goals, I hope you crush them.

Yeah I'm certainly never gonna have the free time to train like one of Broz' athletes so I may be doing them a disservice by saying his philosophy inspired me. But at my gym there's a lot of D3 athletes that lift 3-4 days a week on top of their practices so to eventually train similarly to that shouldn't be impossible for me; I'm only 23.

Basically I think that a fear of overtraining has been greatly hindering my results over the last couple years, so to actually push myself closer to my limits would definitely be a good thing.

Makes sense. I could certainly do a lot more work at 23 than I can now!

good luck, sounds like an interesting idea and this is the type of programming id like to do in the distant future (if i could recover from it).

did you have surgery on your knee?

very honored to get a mention. didnt read this earlier because i didnt know what g-flux was lol. gonna be keeping a close watch on this and might actually try out your programming for a few weeks.

i'll start next week if you tell me where i can throw in some military presses and PCs lol

Your knee problem still the subluxation thing? Mine did it again the other day at the pool. /=

No. I completely rested it for a few weeks, then once it no longer hurt to put it in full extension I gradually built it back up. I've been relatively diligent with the rehab exercises, but to be honest I'm not sure I agree with the diagnosis that lead to the dissemination of said exercises.

I went to three different doctors, two of which were allegedly "knee specialists" and none of them could give me a definitive answer as to what the initial injury was, or why I had problems with the knee locking when it was in extension. By the time I saw the third doctor I had almost no pain and full mobility, so he basically told me that without a fresh injury and no symptoms his diagnosis would be conjecture at best. None of them gave me an MRI despite my requests. Pretty much the only things that I "learned" were that I have a lot of "play" in my right knee, that I should be wearing a knee brace whenever I exercise, and that I shouldn't be doing deep squats or any olympic lifting. So **** them.

Busto- Fitting in military presses is something I've struggled with. I could probably do a 5rm on max effort days, but I'm lazy so whatever. Currently I'm just sick of not repping 2 plates in bench so that's a primary goal for the immediate future. My shoulder's don't seem to do well with a ton of pressing so I'm ok with cutting out military presses for now.

That's what the second doctor told me and what the rehab exercises that I've been doing are supposed to help with. My kneecap has subluxed over 10 times and what happened to me recently felt 100% different, but I figured the rehab exercises target the VMO, and as we know from Thremp a nice set of VMOs is highly sexy.

4-28
Dynamic/Recovery Day (weight x reps x sets)

Dynamic Effort Bench- 135x3x8 on the minute
Low Bar Box Squat- 185x3x6 (form check)
Scap Shrugs- 154x10x5
Chest Supported RD Flyes- 10sx15x3
BB Curls- 75x12, 65x12, 65x11

I feel like on the box squats I need to be keeping my shins more vertical. My PC felt noticeably weak doing these.

Haha yeah..I just subluxed mine for the 3rd time and my activity level goes down drastically every time it happens because I don't want it to happen again.

Therapist, as well as that thread, told me mainly to focus on terminal knee extensions, only tried them once though couldn't really tell you if they helped much.

You got MRIs done and stuff? If it felt completely different there's only so many things it could be yeah?

I'll keep watching your log to see how you're doing.

ok, i think i am mistaking you for the guy who randomly tore his mcl and meniscus leaving the gym.

I would do something like this Doug but I don't have the time. Enjoy it while you can.

No that was me and that was the diagnosis that the first doctor gave me the day after the injury. The second doctor said I had a severe patella subluxation, which I'm almost 100% sure wasn't the case. The third doctor said he basically agreed more with the first doctor but the fact that the swelling had gone down and that I could limp around meant that I probably wouldn't need surgery so I should just rest it and wait to see if it continued to get better. He was the most qualified of all the doctors that I saw and he also said that if anything like this happens again to just call him immediately and not go through the referral route with my GP, so I've got that going for me, which is nice.

Looking back, its hard to believe that I went from having my knee completely locked in hyperextension to being able to squat again in just a couple months without any real treatment.

4-29

-25 mins of hills on the recumbent bike.
-20 mins of static stretching legs, butt, chest
-2 sets of calf raises
-2 sets of DB lateral raises

My shoulders have been pretty crappy recently. Lots of AC joint issues. I think I need to have more high rep isolation shoulder stuff because injuries like these never used to happen when I was doing more shoulder hypertrophy work even though I was benching more.

I should add that I felt really really depleted after the workout. Going to refeed very hard on Friday before my volume lift at night.

4-30
Volume Day

DB Bench- 85sx5x5
HBBS- 242x5x5
Chinups- bwx10, +35x5x3, bwx10
Scap pushups- 3x15

5-1

I had wanted to go to the gym and do some 500m repeats on the rowing machine and finish off with some ab work, but the gym was closed for some spring concert at the school. Instead I stayed home and did:

50 2 handed 1 pood swings
rest 1 minute
50 right hand 1 pood swings
rest 1 minute
50 left hand 1 pood swings

Then I stretched for 20 minutes and did 3 sets of leg extensions as per my rehab instructions.

5-2
Dynamic/Recovery Day

Dynamic Effort Bench- 135x3x8 on the minute
Dynamic Effort low box squat- 185x3x8 every 2nd minute
Calf Raises- 4 sets
DB lateral raises- 3x10
Hanging leg raises- 3x10

Not to self. Don't do a bunch of kettlebell swings the day before box squats.

I may have missed it but I don't think you mentioned anything about diet. From what I understand, G-Flux is all about doing tons of work, but also eating a ton. I saw the word "refeed" in a recent post. You're not on a deficit, are you?

ETA: Just saw that you want to stay around your current weight... so... ~maintenance? That's going to be difficult.

The inclusion of that g-flux article was more of a joke than anything else. The point of the log is really just to get away from my prior mentality of "you've squatted and benched today, that's good enough, you don't want to overtrain." I'm so far away from being in good enough shape to try some g-flux/broz stuff it's sad.

I've been carb cycling and keeping my weight around maintenance for the last month or so. Generally when left to my own devices (just eating what I crave) I eat around a 40/40/20 P/F/C breakdown, so having some days where I really force myself to eat lots of carbs has been helpful.

It's definitely true though that in order to not crash and burn in the next couple weeks my diet needs to be in check. And my supplements. And my sleep. Recently I've been slacking off hard on the last two.

In other news my entire PC is super sore today and I'm supposed to do my first max effort low bar squat day in awhile tomorrow. The plan is to do enough cardio to get warm tonight, then stretch and abuse myself with a lacross pall and 3 inch PVC pipe for about half an hour. And 9 hrs of sleep tonight.

I dunno if you are referring to doing SS or what, but I never thought I'd overtrain if I did workouts between my SS days. I would just never be fresh enough to put more weight on the bar.

More so on the TM than SS but basically I'd go to the gym and grind out my pressing/squats and then call it a day because I had been there for almost 2 hrs and I was getting tired. I used to always use the "I'm tired, and I don't want to overtrain" excuse. Not that I was actually overtrained. I don't think I was anywhere near overtraining. I was just being a pussy.

My strength went up in those lifts as long as I was eating a big surplus but I didn't build any beach muscles and I got a lot worse at stuff like pullups and cardio and looking sexy. Basically I'm now hoping to trade off some strength gains but in return I don't want to get any fatter and I expect my arms/delts to grow a bit.

I feel the same way about volume day, way too ****ing long as written. I think there are a few solutions though.

You could reduce the weight a bit and reduce rest times to ~2 minutes. I know the weekly progression will essentially force you to start using longer rest times down the line, so I think something has to be done there so workouts aren't consistently 2 hours long. Slow down progression or use alternative progression methods (add reps, reduce rest time, etc) so you can get your work done in a reasonable time again.

You could just do 3x5 instead and see how far that takes you. When it stalls reset and add a set, using short initial rest times.

You could make volume day 2 separate workouts, upper/lower on 2 different days. F'instance:
M: volume lower
T: volume upper
Th: light
Sat: Intensity

But I do think you can do some damage with a single ridonkulous session, there's only so much productive work that can be done in a single session. I wouldn't call that overtraining just ****ty programming though. Tons of people work out this way, just do **** to make themselves tired, barely making any progress. I'm not convinced working out everyday is all it's cracked up to be given that some of the strongest guys workout just a few times a week.