Yeah...it's always something else. Torn my knee up getting into bed, hurt my back getting out of the car, etc etc

Back felt ready to work today. Maybe 90% and no more sharp pain, which is of course good news.

Lots of warmup
Band stuff for hip and legs
Squat 20x20x3
Bench 80x5x2, 80x10x1 (probably near max, maybe had 2 more)
Blast strap row, pretty easy angle: 20, 20, 10, 10
Curls with pink KB: 15xea arm
Side planks
10 pushups

Feeling pretty good about this, even though it was a light and easy session. Here's something light and easy to balance all the metal.

AM Session: 2 pullups

PM Session:
LOTS of warmup. I mean, not cha-style, but close. My "regular" warmup, extra hip mobs, L leg flossing (so good).

Front squat
20x5x2
40x5
60x5x2 (this was more of a back-feeling limit than a weight limit)
80x3x1 (back felt fine)

Press
59x5x2
59x8x1 feelsgoodman.meme.jpg

Pendlay Row
40x5x2
60x5x1
80x5x3 not hard, but the limit where I could keep my hips set

Barbell curl
20x5x1
40x5x1 LOTS of forearm pain in both arms

voodoo flossing above and below elbow
retest curl 40x3x1... still painful! Voodoo flossing is not magic?


5-way shoulder mob... **** I love this one.

All in all, feeling really good. My back feels better (95%+, at least at light weights). I haven't forgotten about my chest and I can definitely feel some lingering pain, but it feels 90%. And I listened to some old-school Bad Religion while lifting. Not bad.

omgomgomg This is like one of my favorite bands. Also it seems to be enjoyed by a lot of people who listen to metal, I'm not sure why that connection is there.


Have you listened to their album called Pygmalion? It's different, but really good and I think unfairly overshadowed by Souvlaki.

People who listen to metal are pretty open minded about good music in general in my experience.

I've listened to Pygmalion a bunch. I can't say I got much into shoegaze besides Slowdive and My Bloody Valentine though. I must have listened to all those albums 100s of times. I think I got into this in my early 20s when I listened to Sigur Ros and was generally a huge-headphone-wearing pussy. This was much more of a commitment when you had to carry around a portable CD player, batteries, CD cases, etc.

that's a pretty good enya song

No worries KC, I have several mid-90s hc tees with super-serious slogans and guys jumping with one arm straight for no reason, X'ed hands and stuff to range balance.

Pygmalion was really ****ing good and I don't even need to tell you then. The "demo version" of pymgalion which eventually got scrapped and re-released was probably my favorite thing Slowdive put out though.



and ofc MBV is elite.

glad i never got into this stuff when I would have been susceptible to it. I woulda been ever more no fun club than i already was.

Warm ups

Squat (any recent squat has been HBBS)
110x5x3
Starting again around 85% of where I was when I tweaked my back. L hip felt a little tight mid second set, but otherwise felt back to normal. Felt light. Nice.

Bench
83x5x2
83x9x1 (lost tightness around 7th rep or I think I'd have a couple more)

Power Clean
40x3
60x3
70x3
80x3
90x3
100x3 - started to get tired and slow

Side planks
3x15s per side

I took some vids. I'll put them up for form check, but it was dark already and my phone camera sucks so I don't know how useful the vids will be.

These vids are terrible quality. So much for form checks.

Squats, 110x5x3


First and last set of bench, 83x5 and 83x9


Power clean 90x3 and 100x3

Feeling good, just a fast workout today.

Squat
115x5x3 easy

Press
61x5x2
61x7x1 just took too long between reps to get more

Deadlift
70x5
100x5
120x3
140x5
easy

Blast strap fallouts
3x8

Chest felt bad today. Super tight and painful at my old injury site. Too much time sitting at my ****ing desk imo.

Lots of rolling and some static stretches on chest
Band on shoulders and chest
Band pull aparts both ways

Squat
125x5x3 fine

Bench
86x5x2
86x12x1 bodybuilding imo
Really tightened up because my chest felt bad, felt fine so repped it out bruh

KB hi pull
1x2, 1.5, 2, 2.5, 3
Pulled the 2.5 poods high enough to snatch. Pulled the R handed 3s high enough to snatch, but weaker on the L side.

Neutral grip pullups
5xheavy band
1xno bands
negatives: 3x5 no band obv

I probably shouldn't have lifted so late.

correction of rep omission

Do you roll your pecs with a lacrosse ball against the wall?

I do not. I should, thanks for the reminder. Rolling right on or even near the painful spot on my sternum is too much, but I can roll the outer part of my pecs at least.

Did this. Thanks again. After extensive work, this reminds me that in the past I always felt a lot better after ART on really tight areas through my upper pec and in my armpits. No surprise those areas are very tight now, too. I'll be working on them a lot.

Terrible sleep last night; got stuck a couple grand at live pokers and played way too late. Meh. Some dude asked if I lifted. He was fat and I don't think he really lifted, but hard to say. Fat love connections at midstakes live poker tables imo.

Stimulants
Warmup/mob/rolling/flossing Stuff (~30 mins)

Squat
128x5x3
easy

Press
63x5x2
63x9x1 (1? left)
I like this max (-1 or -2) on last set (for bench and press) approach. I feel like it's better "armor building", to steal a Dan John phrase. Since I'm recovering from an upper body injury, that's important to me. I don't know if it's valid for this reason or not. Doesn't matter.

Deadlift (all double overhand until otherwise noted):
145x5x1
too easy, whatever, I'll take my 5s for now and move along

Blast strap fallout and band face pull supersets
5x10reps of each

5-way shoulder mob, also applied spot pressure/fake ART stuff on one that
stretched chest

rolling again, (pecs too as noted above)

I played 15ish hours this week. 10 last Saturday and 5 on Wednesday night. Beats down the body for sure.

When do you think you are going to run out of LP gains this time around?

Good question. My goal is to exhaust my linear gains like I hadn't before (I actually have never finished a linear program before). I plan on resetting and taking smaller jumps on the 3x5's a few times and then switching to 5x3's until I run out of steam. Then I plan on introducing oly, just maintaining bench and press somehow and switching squat to some intermediate program, probably texas method as I really like that approach and I think it works well for me (at least it did the last time I ran it.)

I'd hope for something like the below after I finished triples, but these are wild-ass guesses:
(in 1rms, not triples)
Squat: 200
Bench: 150 (optimistic considering my max bench ever is 125, albeit while not benching at all and likely having **** for form at the time)
Press: 100 (optimistic, probably.)
Deadlift: 220
Power clean: 140

These are lofty goals for LP and should be easily attained in an intermediate stage even if I fail to get there with LP, but I think I can get there by the end of the year and at the same weight, at most a few kg more (I don't really mind being a little bigger, but nothing crazy).

As long as you take your time, I think you'll crush those.

vids linked

Squat
131x5x3
easy
some pain on set 2 on interior of right knee, but pain subsided quickly
from vids I can see that I sacrifice lumbar tightness for depth sometimes, I will try to stop that. That's probably how I injured my lower back a few weeks ago.

Bench
89x5x2
89x11x1
went fine imo other than lost tightness on rep ~7 and hit hook on rep 11

Power Clean
100x3x5
Went fine. Started to get pretty tired as it was 90+F/30C in my garage.

Pulled a 125kg sled for ~7 minutes. Sprints at first, then just walking. This was a drag.

knee & hip - have you tried this as part of warming up before squatting?
http://www.mobilitywod.com/2012/05/v...oral-pain.html

and this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=weXE1...ayer_embedded#!

That second one is really opening up my hips. The two spots shown in the first vid are great for the knees.