Hey guys!

Welcome to the log. After some contemplation I decided I'm going to start a training log. I have been reading some other logs and for the most part this sub-forum seems to be filled with positive non-toxic people and I like that.

Little bit about me and my training history. I first started lifting in high school and then got more into it in college. I had a very good coach making my programs and my numbers shot up really fast. Unfortunately, I tore a tendon in my right arm/bicep area or w/e it's called and kind of became depressed, stopped training. Then after that I was ****ing around on and off, never consistent. I have played soccer all growing up, as well as some basketball, golf, beach volleyball, and occasional football games. And I just always tried to be outside and active.

About ~6-7 months ago, I began training again consistently and really figuring out the best ways to have everything sustainable because that's really the name of the game. The biggest difference now I think is that I'm a lot more mature about my lifting, don't really have an ego and take warming up/stretching and nutrition a lot more seriously than just lifting heavy all the time.

Current BW and Lifts:
I'm 5'8 and ~155lbs atm.
Squat 1RM - 315
Deadlift 1RM - 385
Bench - ~200-225 (not sure I haven't tested in a while). It's by far my worst lift technique wise.

I think I used to be really obsessed and kind of impatient with trying to hit certain numbers by certain time but I think that's not really optimal. I'm not a professional athlete nor do I want to treat this like a job. And for a while it was really starting to feel like that. For that exact reason, I don't keep track of my calories or macros because I know I have a really good diet and I know I'm eating enough.

Goals:
Squats - 405
Deadlifts - 455+
Bench 315
Start running more.
Possibly start going climbing, I find it kind of fascinating because it's like a puzzle and test of strength at the same time.
Go on more hikes, runs, the beach and spend more time outside with my gf in general. I think for a while I was really bad at doing that and spent way too much time inside.
Record more lifts to work on technique. I pretty much never do this.

I used to want to be a "powerlifter" but now I think I just want to be strong but also explosive, athletic, and agile.

Anyways hopefully some of you guys will enjoy this. Don't hesitate to ask any questions, I'm a pretty friendly and helpful guy.

4/9/2018
squats 3x7x225
bench 3 x 7 x 135
Sauna 20 minutes

4/10/2018
Deadlift 4 x 5 x 280
pull ups 4 x 6
1 arm db row 50lbs dbs 4 x 8
tricep press downs with rope 3 x 10

Sauna ~17 minutes

In. Funny I was recently trying to figure out how to use stack and tile and came across your old youtube vid.

GL with your goals

Thanks man I appreciate it. I sound like such a tool and a little boy in that video haha.

4/12/2018

Squat 3 x 5 x 245
Bench Press 3 x 5 x 155
Lying leg curls 125lbs
Leg raises 3 x 12

Sauna for like ~20-22 minutes.

Sweet another powerlifter+climber log?! In.

GL!

How come you are logging your sauna usage?

4/13/2018
squats 3 x 3 x 255
deadlift 4 x 3 x 315
pull ups 6 x 8 (i was only supposed to do 4 sets)
barbell curl 5 x 12 (only was supposed to do 3)
and did some tricep extensions for the hell of it.

Things got crazy after that. This one really strong dude was working out next to me and we just started talking about some **** and I decided this is a perfect opportunity to just ask him to critique my form on the deadlift because lately I felt unhappy with my form.

Then he started teaching me and showing me stuff so of course I'm not going to say no when someone really ****ing strong and a much better lifter than me is trying to teach me. I knew my issue which is I wasn't getting my ass down low enough and loading my hamstrings enough, but I couldnt quite fix it. And then another jacked dude walked by and he is like oh yea I was stuck at 4 plates until Andrew taught me how to load properly.

One thing lead to another and then I went and kept working out with him after. He actually really fixed my sumo deadlift because I had an issue with getting my ass down and like really properly activating my quads, legs, keep my chest up and not rounding a little. I did some more sets with 135, then I was like alright let's just throw on 225 so I can see if I can maintain the form with 225. It felt super easy and he went up to 315 so I was just super pumped and I was like **** it let's just go. I ended up hitting 315 after all of the stuff I have done and I have never felt the weight come up so ****ing easy and mind you I was super fatigued already. I ended up hitting 315 for 2 sets and then finished off with one set of 135 for 12 reps which burned like crazy. Moral of the story, no matter how tired you feel, if you want it bad enough and push yourself your body is capable of crazy things. Oh and the pre-work out is good :P.

Comments: I think I'm going to start maybe writing some things about how I felt about my work out and stuff like that. I think this could be cool to look back upon in the future. The craziest part about today was that I was lifting only on 2 hours of sleep. Long story, of course I don't recommend this to anyone. I basically decided to drink a coffee and a pre-work out and to just ****ing go. I will post some videos later of my squats and deadlifts once I have a chance to upload them so you guys can check them out.

Hey man, welcome . I have actually read your blog a decent amount, I just kind of read it without posting anything. I don't have any experience doing climbing stuff so pretty much just a noob. I feel like I would pick it up pretty quick but do you have any tips or anything as far as how you go about implementing it into your work out routine and also ways to improve at climbing?

In Tim Ferriss' book the tool of titans, there is a Dr who talks about the benefits of Sauna usage and how it improves your endurance. I will take a picture of that page and post it here later. I guess it's not super important to keep track of it but I don't see why not.

Here is the 2nd set of 3 of 255. I feel pretty happy with how it moved and everything. I think maybe I could really work on is the tightness of my upper body and the lats but maybe I'm being overly critical. I tend to be really hard on myself and overly analytical.

They are close to perfect bro. But do you even upperbody? DB rows with 50s can't be real.

Thanks man, appreciate it. My upper body is definitely my weakness. With that being said it's not so much the pulling but pushing. The 50s did feel pretty easy but I was mostly focusing on doing really slow reps and controlling the weight instead of trying to use them as a strength building exercise.

4/16/2018
squats 3x7x225
bench 3x7x145
did a few sets of 95 with like a 5-6 second eccentric phase. These weren't on the program but I'm recovering really well after each work out so I decided to just throw them in to focus on where I lower the bar and just get a little extra in.

I decided to just do the squats beltless today and it felt pretty good. I was a little bit annoyed because the good squat rack was taken by some idiot doing 315 for 1/4 reps, if you can even call them that.

4/17/2018
Deadlifts 4x5x275
Lat pull downs 4x6 @8-9
1 arm db row 55lbs super setted with seated wide grip row 4x8 @7ish?
face pulls 3x8-10
tricep pull downs with a cable 3x10

sauna 15-16 minutes.

I was working out with my buddy today so I wasn't as focused on exactly the numbers I was doing but helping him with form and stuff. I ended up doing a little extra than the program said but I think I'm recovering super well, don't feel fatigued at all and the weight is flying up on my main lifts so I don't think it's affecting me.

Today my eating has been crazy and this is roughly how I have been eating for anyone curious. I had 5 eggs, 2 muffins and a tomato, I basically made an egg sammich. I then had a large mango omega smoothie at jamba juice with 2 scoops of whey protein after the gym, and like 15-20 minutes after that I had a pretty full container filled with pasta, chicken and asparagus. And about 10-15 minutes ago I made a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.
And I plan on trying to have like 2 more meals today. With all of that, I stepped on the scale and it said 153 so I don't understand where the **** it all goes . Either the scale is messed up or my body hates me and I will be small forever.

This is from my friday work out. The sumo stance deadlifts were at the end of the work out and felt much better even though I was fatigued. The conventional stance deadlifts I thought were terrible and my form kind of sucked. I have been really working on getting my body in a better position and engaging everything better. But yea you guys can see the ugly stuff too. Nobody make fun of me, I'm sensitive :P.

I found a video of me doing 365 for 2 on sumo but in the video I can tell in the past I used to not drop my ass as much as I should and put too much strain on my lower back and didn't engage my legs enough. I'm not going to test it now but I think in 7 weeks or so I might give 405 another shot. I also think some kind of a PR on squat is incoming as well. I might shoot for like 335-355. The bench I really want to make sure I get at least 225.

If anything I’d say your hips are too low in this video. It’s a common bad cue given by trainers to bring the hips down. Look how your hips shoot up a few inches before the bar leaves the floor. It means your starting position is improperly leveraged and probably losing tightness as a result. Check out Greg nuckols article ‘everything you think is wrong about the deadlift is probably right’.

Just a guess, but I think your sumo will always look much prettier than your conventional.

Hey dude, thanks for the article I appreciate it. I'm a big fan of Greg and his website/articles etc. I have read his other, the longer deadlifting article but never this one until just now. Sometimes I also like to just go back and re-visit the material I have read anyways.

I think maybe you misunderstood what I meant or I explained it poorly in my previous post because I was trying to multi-task. Anyways what I meant is that in the past my conventional deadlift which is what I used for 385, was much better and stronger. Then I started practicing sumo deadlifting and alternating stances between training. My best for sumo DL is 365 for 2.

I was basically talking about how in the past when I deadlifted sumo, my ass wasn't getting low enough, my chest wasn't upright and I was basically not engaging the legs that properly. Super recently I have improved my sumo deadlift a lot and I feel like next time I try 405 I think I will try it sumo.

With my conventional deadlift, I thought I was starting my ass was too high so I was practicing what Koklyaev does, starting the ass really low, really exaggerating it and then letting the ass get into position naturally and then pull. From Greg's article. I think for a while I was starting the ass way way too high and putting too much strain on my lower back, not loading the hamstring properly like I used to so that's why I started doing that. I don't mind posting the 365 and 385 dls even though they don't have greatest form, I just don't know how to put two snapchat clips into one.

"1) Contrary to what the internet tells you, you can’t “turn your deadlift into a squat.” All other things being equal, the lower your hips are when the bar breaks the ground, the more efficient your deadlift will be. Otherwise you’d RDL more than you deadlift."

TLDR: In the past I was good at convetional DL's, I was bad at sumo. Then I start practicing sumo, ****ed my conventional.
Now I feel really confident in my sumo and I'm back to fixing my conventional.

4/18/2018
Squats 3x5x245
Bench press 3x5x155
Lying leg curls 4x6 @8-9
Leg raises for lower abs 3x12
Sauna 20 minutes.

Today was supposed to be a day off but went in because tomorrow is my bday and I wanted to take it off. Usually I think 2 on 1 off is optimal. I think on my day 1s I'm going to start adding jumps and more explosive type training. 6 sets just feels really low amount of volume for me.

Squats look good.

Sumo - pretty good. focus on shoving your knees out as hard as you can.

Conventional - on the setup, get your hips back a little farther and set your back & core so that your back is flat and super tight before you start pulling - tight lats, tight core. Think chest up and hips back at the start of the pull. When you get all this right, your hamstrings will feel very tight before the bar leaves the ground and you wont feel much, if anything, in your low back.

Hey thanks for the tips I appreciate it. Today I really focused on getting my hips back and just getting super tight without over complicating it and pulled 4x3x315 for conventional and it felt amazing. I knew the set I posted the form was off.

4/20/2018
Squats 3x3x255
Deadlifts 4x3x315
Lat pull downs 4x8 @8
Face pulls 3 or 4 sets @7-8
Close grip pull ups like 3 sets for 6-8 reps
Also did like 2 sets of rope curls just to get a bicep pump with fairly light weight.
Sauna 23 minutes

I'm really trying to hammer out extra **** at the end and do like a strength-hypertrophy hybrid type work out so I can really grow more. Also trying to eat a ton.

Nice. When your DL form is good, moving weight that used to feel heavy feels easy. I always feel like eating more when I am moving heavy stuff.

I feel pretty confident in my deadlift at the moment and I think I could hit 405 but I'm going to wait until I'm done with the 8 weeks to try it.

The one thing I do want to work on more is my pressing power. I hit 225 at like 18 or 19 years old and now I'm not even sure if i can hit it. Idk if you or anyone reading has any tips perhaps?

I really feel like my right hand has maybe some wrist mobility and I tore my bicep tendon in college in the right arm doing too heavy of curls. I feel like I can generate plenty of power from my chest to push but it's more like the stability that I'm having the issue with. I think I need to work on flexibility of the right wrist but also strengthening like the smaller muscles in the right arm/forearm area around the elbow.

I have been doing a lot of stretching lately and just massaging that area etc. The one elite powerlifter guy I talked to that taught me how to find tune the deadlift told me to do more like isometric holds. Idk if maybe you or anyone else reading this has tips for improving this?

I really want to hit like 315 on the bench in like two years.

Found this video on it. I think I'm going to really try to learn more about it and what I can do to improve my issue instead of avoiding it because 225 bench press is just not good enough for me. I laugh at the guys that do nothing but bench press and curls and upper body but it's just as funny and pathetic if I can squat and deadlift a lot but have a **** bench press.

I'm thinking maybe I will do a bench press focus/specialization program after I complete the current one but I'm not sure if that would be too much bench work and I should do something more balance and well rounded. Any advice?

This one feels really good.

I have started doing some conditioning stuff. Doing 5 sets of stairs up and down 10 times, making pretty good time. Jumping up like 3 stairs for 5 sets, jump rope, some band face pulls and push ups. Pretty pleased with everything.

Squats 4x7x225
Seated Press 4x7x70 on each side just tried to focus on isolating the chest.

sauna 23-25 minutes or so.

All of Kelly Starrett's stuff is excellent. I learned a lot of what I know from watching his awesome videos and reading his book, Becoming a Supple Leopard.

I have no OHP advice that would be useful to you. I had to stop because I always ended up screwing up my neck when I did them. I'm an expert on DLs, and know a lot about mobility stuff, benching, squatting and a lot of assistance movements, but not OHPs.