Thanks for the encouragement re: the wifeacore lifting; even though it'll just be once a week, I think it could be a good introduction and perhaps prime her to be ready to move on from the trainer whenever the contract is up (maybe November?). It's more of a compliance thing at this point, because she'd blow it off otherwise, but maybe this will get her interested.

BPA, it wasn't intentional, but I will work on it. I was feeling very sore in my upper back on Saturday, and trying to remember what I'd done to make that happen -- ldo it was the M/O. No lower back soreness, though. Friday should be interesting, although hopefully easy-ish.

Weight this morning: 194.4, which considering I had more booze than normal over the weekend is fine. Kept the macros relatively decent, though, and didn't go maintenance on either day, so no biggie. Hip still a bit sore, but improving.

7/28

Bench (8s accumulation) (90 second rest)
10x45, 10x95, 5x135
10x3x175

Chins (2 minute rest)
5x5x+45

Superset A

Dips (3 minute rest)
5x10x+25

Facepulls
5x20x45

Superset B (90 seconds rest)

EZ Curl
5x12x55

Cable Tri Pressdown
3x15x57.5

Cable Lateral Raise
5x12x10

Bench was stupid easy; my AMRAP test next week as at 195, so I'm interested to see how many I can get. As proscribed by the book, I'll probably add 1.25 lbs to my working max for each additional rep to keep things reasonable. Chins were smooth, and I was pretty happy to get the full 5x10 on dips. I'm going to try to pare the rest time down in between sets until there's just two total minutes in between sets, and hopefully I can still fit the facepulls in the rest period. All the bro stuff was fine; 90 seconds was enough between sets. Finished everything in 1 hour on the button, so feeling pretty good.

Does the wifeacore need a form check?

I took videos, but no way are they going to be posted.

I will say that keeping her upper back tight and chest up while squatting and deadlifting is challenging for her now with dat rack, although I think that's probably a reason why this could ultimately benefit her quite a bit.

Come on man. We all respect your decision not to post videos of the Wifeacore, but there's no need to rub it in (or maybe there is iykwim)

Left SI joint still a little tender, but better. Weighed in this morning at 195.2, but other than Saturday my calories/macros have been good so whatevs.

7/29

Squat
10x45, 10x95, 5x135, 3x165, 3x195, 2x215, 1x225
3x5x240
10x185

DB BSS
3x10x20 (ea)

Hypers
4x15x+35

Ab Wheel
4x10xbw

Hip was a little tender when I locked out at the top of the rep, but other than that no big deal. 240 was a little grindier than I had hoped, but maybe that's just the minicut talking. Upped it to 20 lb DBs on the SS and it was doable but tough; everything else was fine.

Looking forward to deadlifting on Friday.







Looks like the last few reps in set 3 might have been just barely parallel, but hard to tell

Close enough not to matter. Legendary WIM on that last set.

Those squats:

fakeb,

Thanks, but that couldn't have been more than RPE 9, right? Felt like 10 while I was doing it but I have to be able tough out more? Kind of pissed 240 was that hard, but with the cut and the hip I guess it's not super surprising.

Aidan,

My feels. Appreciated greatly, especially considering the source.

It looked pretty effing hard man. Maybe I need to push myself as hard as you do

Green shirt bro does not approve of set 3!

They can be both a subjective 9.5 and an objective 8. I think you could almost certainly have ground out two more reps with out much if any form breakdown. The important thing to work on is to get the subjective and objective assessments into line, as you can almost always grind out more reps than you think you can (on multi-rep sets at least), and it will help you push yourself as the weights increase.

lol stop

I guilted the rack from him one day when he was going to curl in it; he evil eyed me from the bench he was curling at for my whole set. I think I am not his favorite person.

Agreed. I was thinking that the first set felt really hard, but watching the set on video helped me realize that I could get 3x5 relatively comfortably. My hope is that I can get up to 3x5x260 without failing, but we'll see.

3x5x260 is a lock if you can find the WIM

I hope so.

The medium term goal is 3x5x275, but that is going to take some WIM to grind through without stopping I think. I'm pretty sure I did that (or got close) when I was 230 or so, but with much worse form and probably not sufficient depth.

For all your talk of leverages, etc those are some extremely good looking squats.

Thanks. Jellydick weight though.

This.

Nice work there Monte! Keep the noms up and keep squattin. If I see you below 195 again I'm going to mail you bread pudding.

I've got some bad news for you: weight this morning was 194. Cardio/low calorie day today too. I'm losing weight much slower than during my last cut, which was kind of the goal; keeping calories to ~2700 or so on lifting days and 2000 or a bit above on non-lifting days, seems to be working.

unsubscribed

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60 mins @ ~5.1 = 5.11 miles

Might do some ab wheel tonight at home if I remember.

Weight this morning: 193.2, which is roughly where I was last week -- it takes that long to drop fakeLBM after drinking and eating salty stuff, apparently.

7/31

OHP(10s intensification) ("90" second rest)
10x45, 8x75
10x3x100

DB Row
4x10x100

DB Incline Bench
4x12x55

Facepulls
4x20x45

Skullcrushers
4x12x65

DB Hammer Curl
4x12x30

Was going to do flyes but my right inner shoulder/bicep felt a little tight so I decided against it. Supersetted rows with bench and facepulls with skullcrushers, with 90 to 120 second breaks after each round. Was supposed to take 90 second breaks between OHP sets, but cut it down to 60 seconds because the weights were pretty lol. I guess I started too low, but I'm AMRAPing 110 or something next week so I can make the adjustment the next week I guess.

I think i saw back a while that you were going to go up 1.25lbs per rep over 10 for Press and Bench? When I did it and had maxes about what you used I had no problem doing 2.5lbs for press and bench. I think I got 20 reps for each on the 10 waves as well so my working max went up 25lbs and it was still pretty easy.

Weasel,

Thanks, I'll keep that in mind. I suspect I might have difficulty throwing up 20 reps at either of the weights I'm scheduled to use, but high teens seems reasonable. I am inclined to be more conservative with OHP, though, as I think my 1 rep max is probably less than what it would actually be calculated as given my 5RM or whatever.

While I have you here, another question: should I be lightening the load on the back work I do Thursdays since I'm deadlifting Fridays? I never really had to worry about it when I was DLing after an off day, but would the volume of back stuff I did today be expected to impact my DL as M/O gets tougher, do you think?

I just looked at when I did TJM and i only got 19 for bench and 16 for press on the 10s wave and still went up 2.5lbs per rep over 10.

I would either lessen the back work the day before DL or move the back work to the same day as DL and just to it after Deadlifts