6/25

45 minutes of cardio, first 40 minutes at 4.8 and the last 5 at 5.0 = 3.61 miles

6/26

DL
10x135, 5x185, 3x225, 3x255, 2x285, 1x315
2x3x335 (PR)
3x5x225

Front Squat
10x45, 5x95, 5x115, 3x135, 2x155
5x3x175

DL was meh, first rep in the first set was crap as usual, rest are ok-ish I guess -- still need to get tighter. It was a PR triple, though, and I think I have more, so that's decent at least. Always forget to film my FS, but I suspect it's terrible and I need to reset; may drop to 5x3x155 next week and work on form.

First rep is meh cause your hips start too low. It's ok for your knees to be a little more over the bar and your hips higher. You dont have to have your shins vertical at the start. Look at the difference in hip hight between the first and the second rep. Nice job on the PR though. Looked easy.

I would probably do all reps dead stop for a while so you can work on your starting position more frequently

Weasel,

Thanks, I'll try that next time; I've been trying cha's "shins vertical" cue a fair bit recently, but it occurs to me that I might not be optimally proportioned for that sort of thing.

Regardless, I'm pretty happy that I hit the weight, and hopefully with a bit more tweaking I can continue increasing. I think I'm going to run M-O when I get back from vacation, so hopefully I'll have some positive results.

Touch n go-ish reps still look better than initial reps. Overall looking pretty solid for really heavy triples. Gotta man up and make sure you don't overtake me in DLs too soon. Looks like it's happening as I type this...

Not a fan of the neck position, though I do sympathise with wanting to watch one's self in the mirror. I find that it is much easier to get and stay in extension with a neutral neck - yes this means you're "looking down" to start, but just look out into the distance as you do the rep so you finish looking straight ahead or slightly up.

You don't really start with your shoulder blades over the bar either, which goes with weasel' setup advice.

Small tweaks imo which should keep you in good shape for future PRs though

Looks like I have a challenger in the jellydick race to a 4wheels deadlift.

I think I used to have my shoulders a bit further forward and overemphasized the shins vertical cue; I am excited to try to tweak this on Sunday for my speed DLs and Wednesday for my regular lifts.

I try so hard on the neck thing (thinking about it, anyway, and doing it better on lower weight sets), but it's hard for me to get my lower back tight with my neck neutral. More work needed, I guess.

loco,

+1 on the great looking squats. Maybe cha will come along and dock you for some miniscule buttwink. But excepting that, they looked pretty damn great to me.

Monte, lots of great work itt!

Squats are good. You may want to slow down a little at the start and lock your position. Bounce is nice at the bottom imo. You own that weight.

DL is....not right. 23sec mark of first set. That is really bad position. I think it's dangerous. Injury potential is high imo. Also, very limiting on what you can actually pull.

Easily fixed if you had someone there who could tell you when you were in correct position before you started the lift. Once fixed, I bet your 1RM would go up on the spot. Open invite to Sarasota

Monte an early lock for Golden Loco??? Looking good, but not yet. Good time for gamblers. Place your bets!

Thanks man, appreciate the advice. I take it you agree with Weasel/aidan et al that I need to get my hips higher/scaps more over the bar and ditch the "shins vertical" cue? My lower back does feel a little used today (not painful though), so I want to get this under control.

Lol let's not go crazy, there is no way I take this.

That's it! Drive the odds against you up so you can make a killing on props when you take it down.

Or when you take a dive???

No one knows what will happen. Gambler's delight!

Re deadlifting: I have found it very helpful to use the KC Protocol. Initiate the pull a couple of times without actually taking the bar off the ground, just enough to feel your glutes and hams (and lats) engage and for your hips to find their natural starting position. Do one or two "initiation reps," then go for the full pull.

fakebusto,

Thanks, I'll try that next time.

6/27

Shoulders feeling a little DOMSy, probably because of the time I missed last week, but I decided to take it a little easier. Weighed in at 196.8 this morning, so my mini-cut is going ok.

OHP
10x45, 7x75, 5x95, 3x115, 1x125
3x5x135

Facepulls
8x15x52.5

Chins
3x5x+50

Paused bench (long 2 count)
10x45, 10x95, 5x135, 3x165, 2x185
2x4x185, 2x5x185

DB Curl
3x12x35

Closegrip Cable Row
3x12x100

Cable Front Raise
3x12x15

Press was fine but maybe slightly harder than it should have been; chins were kind of slow/AIDSy but I banged them out. I decide to ditch spoto for a long paused bench and keep the weight light to give my shoulders a break; I was going to do 195 or 205 for my worksets (hence the 185 warmup), but I figured I'd just take it even easier.

Excited to DL again next Wednesday; I'm leaving for vacation on Thursday, so I'm skipping my Sunday day off and compressing lifting so I get a full week's work of stuff in before I go.

Lower back still tender from Thursday; I think I'll lift upper body tomorrow and save squatting for Monday to give it another day. Looking back through my log, the DL form check video I had at the end of my cut before I worked on the ass way back/shins horizontal thing looks a lot better; less lumbar flexion/scaps further over bar, etc. Still have the neck thing but whatever.



I'll try to groove this in on my speed DLs on Monday and then get ready for a good workout on Thursday.

Cardio today: 62 minutes @ 4.9 mph = 5.03 miles

The treadmills at the gym only allow you to program in 45 minutes manually, which is dumb, so I had to restart it once and cobble together an hour.

Yes, agree with them pretty much.

More importantly, I also strongly believe that you have to just find the ideal position for your body that keeps the weight in the right position while keeping your levers at their strongest, most advantageous positions. I have long legs and long arms. I need to be over the bar and my hips need to be low and stay low until I get the bar past my knees.

For example, I did four singles today for work-sets. 1, 3 and 4 were good. On rep 2, my hips shot up, because I didn't actively crank them down, and it felt like I was pulling at least 25lbs more than was on the bar.

I think a lot of people would say my hips are too low at the start of my DL. But, in fact, they are not.

Like I said, if you had someone there who knew what they were doing, they could tell you exactly when you were in the right position to pull and you would just need to get that position grooved into your head to be able to pull safely and effectively.

BPA,

Thanks, I'll play around with my positioning a bit and see which looks/feels the strongest. I suspect that the main problem is being so far behind the bar, and beyond that I'll need to experiment with hip height until it looks decent.

I'll take a few videos of my light sets Monday and we'll see what we see.

Monte is cutting again? Unsubscribed.

Just a mini-cut, bro; I'll still be RDLing 95 lbs, so it won't get embarrassing or anything

Lower back feels fine after last week's abortion; just going to keep this week's schedule the same and skip the Friday workout, no big deal.

6/30

Squat

10x45, 5x95, 5x135, 3x185, 2x205, 1x225, 1x245
3x5x250
10x185

DL (speed)
10x135, 5x185, 3x235
5x3x265

One Leg Press
3x12x110

Calf Raise
3x12x180

Squat felt pretty good; hit a weird sticking point on the last rep of the first set, but otherwise it seemed pretty smooth. Videoed all of my speed DLs and they felt much snappier than last week, although it could have been in my head. Still think I need to get a bit tighter overall, but getting a bit more over the bar seemed to help.

Squats:

DL: Look much better. Nice work

Skinny. Bulk.

Thanks Weasel; we'll see if Thursday (with real weight) is any better.

Fakebusto,

Even though I am skinny, I have no abs. I'm like an enigma wrapped in a mystery, covered in cottage cheese around the middle.

Need more LBM. Bulk.

Strange, considering all the direct ab work you do.