183?!?!! Dude, time to either cut back on the cardio or start eating more.

I get these whooshes every two or three weeks and then ping pong around the same midline due to my not-really-planned-but-god-I-need-desserts-and-booze-one-night style refeeds. But even excepting that, I'm shoveling in the food and/or not being super nitty, so maybe I need to shovel in a bit more. Nice problem.

I think I am going to cut back on the meters, though; should be at 50k by the end of the week, and I'll try to do around that or a bit more for the second half of the month. Fewer 35k+ weeks may help my legs recover.

Quote from 5 years today! Apparently you kept it up, in some form or another. Nice rowing numbers. I can manage about about 70% of your distance over the same time periods when you row easy.

Monte for H&F "keep it up" hall of fame.

4/13 (182.8 lbs)

A
SSPT DL (Round 2, Week 4, 80%, 370 1RM, ~55-60 s rest): 10x295

B
OHP (5/3/1, 1s): 5x110, 3x125, 5x137.5
Snatch Grip Rack Pull: 3x8x205
Facepulls: 6x12x52.5

C
DB Bench Press: 4x10x85
EZ Curl: 3x12x75

D
Tricep Pressdown: 3x15x75
Lateral Cable Raise: 3x12x10.5

DL was super easy and solid, even with the weight still falling off me. Was hoping for six reps on press, but this wasn't super surprising; probably going to microload up my estimated 1RM number just because I doubt I have very much progress to eke out. Bench almost killed me, but I think taking a little time away from heavy dips has helped my recovery a bit. I'll probably do a round of them next week.

Totally agree. I have hit 1:29 and I barely row. There's no way that I'm THAT much faster than monte.

Solid

for real.

4/14 (184.2 lbs)
C2 Row: 10:00 mins (2470 m)
HLR: 4x12
Pallof Press: 4x12x32.5
Farmer's Walks (85 lb DBs): 1x~60 sec, 1x55 sec, 1x50 sec

Legs still pretty fatigued on non-lifting days, which I guess isn't surprising. Going to relax a bit on the distance for a while and see how it goes.

4/15 (184.4 lbs)

A
Bench: 2x5x220, 1x6x220
DB Row: 4x10x100
Facepulls: 6x12x52.5

B
Front Squat: 1x4,fx195, 2x3x195
Standing KB Press: 4x10x35
DB Curl: 3x10x45

C
Good Mornings: 3x10x115
Skullcrushers: 3x15x85

First time failing a front squat; just rolled off my shoulders as I was going back up and I couldn't save it. Probably could have gotten four on my last two sets, but I didn't feel like the bar was that secure. Might be time for a general deload week next week, as I'm feeling pretty fatigued these days. Not really a surprise given the weight loss.

4/18 (187.0 lbs)

A
OHP (paused): 3x5x115
NG Chins (paused): 4x5x+25
Facepulls: 6x12x52.5

B
Squat (paused, beltless): 3x5x185
Dips (slow, paused): 4x8x25
DB Hammer Curl: 3x12x40

C
RDL: 4x10x135
Tricep Pressdown: 4x12x65
Lateral Cable Raise: 4x12x10.5

Feeling kind of beat up so I decided to take a deload week; I'll keep going with the SSPT DL since I'm not up super high with the weight yet, but maybe I'll increase the rest time a little. Dialed back the weight and focused on the eccentric portions of the lifts in most instances, and it felt pretty nice, actually.

Indulged a bit over the weekend, but no big deal. I've got a Vegas trip in a week and a half, so there'll be more of that coming in any case.

4/19 (186.2 lbs)
C2 Row: 19:50 mins (5000 m)
HLR: 4x12
Pallof Press: 4x12x32.5
Farmer's Walks (85 lb DBs): 1x~60 sec, 1x55 sec, 1x50 sec

Pretty easy.

4/13 (183.0 lbs)

A
SSPT DL (Round 2, Week 5, 82.5%, 370 1RM, ~55-60 s rest): 8x305

B
Bench (paused, slow eccentric): 3x5x185
Snatch Grip Rack Pull: 3x8x205
Facepulls: 6x12x52.5

C
Arnold Press: 4x8x45
EZ Curl: 3x10x65

D
Tricep Pressdown: 3x12x65
Lateral Cable Raise: 3x12x10.5

Slept like **** last night, which I'm hoping why DL was harder than it should have been (some random grip issues on a few of the later reps). Everything else was easy and deload-y. A good night's sleep should cure most of what ails me, I'd guess. Probably past time to change my grip over to alternating, though, given my problems double overhanding last cycle and the issues I had staying tight when strapping in.

4/21 (182.8 lbs)
C2 Row: 20:08 mins (5000 m)
HLR: 4x12
Pallof Press: 4x12x32.5
Farmer's Walks (85 lb DBs): 1x~60 sec, 1x55 sec, 1x50 sec

Not too bad.

4/22 (182.4 lbs)

A
OHP (deload, paused): 3x5x115
DB Row: 4x10x100
Facepulls: 6x12x52.5

B
Front Squat (deload, paused): 3x5x135
DB Bench Press: 4x8x75

C
Good Mornings: 4x10x135
Skullcrushers: 3x10x65
DB Curl: 3x8x40

Deload still going; dropped the weight on the compound lift and some of the assistance stuff, and focused on the eccentric portions of the lift and/or paused as appropriate. Feeling pretty dialed in; just in time to go to Vegas.

4/23 (184.2 lbs)
C2 Row: 19:59 mins (5000 m)
HLR: 4x12
Pallof Press: 4x12x32.5
Farmer's Walks (85 lb DBs): 3x50 sec

Probably going to do a light row tomorrow, then keep up the deload through Wednesday. Resume normal-ish work sets Monday after I get home.

As always, the consistency is impressive.

One question: What is paused OHP. Paused bench makes sense, because you start the lift at the top. But when you unrack an OHP, the bar is at the bottom of the ROM. At least when I do OHP I always have a little pause there between reps to tighten up or something. However, I don't think an extra pause at that point of the lift would really help me train anything (but I don't know). So where in the lift and for how long are you pausing?

Pausing at the bottom for a beat or so, just so there's no stretch reflex/bounce at the bottom. No particular reason other than it's just a useful heuristic in my mind to stay controlled on the descent and crisp on the way back up. And it probably helps me stay a bit tighter, although I think it's easier to do so at moderate weights.

I guess I've been doing OHP wrong, since I always get ~0 bounce. Or maybe not wrong, but all my OHPs have been paused.

4/25 (185.0 lbs)

A
Bench (deload, paused): 3x5x195
NG Chins (paused): 4x5x+35
Facepulls: 6x12x52.5

B
Squat (paused, beltless): 3x5x195
Standing KB Press: 4x10x35
DB Hammer Curl: 3x12x35

C
RDL: 4x10x135
Tricep Pressdown: 4x12x65
Lateral Cable Raise: 4x12x10.5

Not quite as bad of a weekend as the last one. Back on the horse for a few days until the Vegas trip. Everything still pretty smooth; I'll probably keep going with the paused back squat for a few weeks after I get back just to do something different/see how high I can go. I doubt I have much more room to keep going up on paused bench, but I suppose we'll see. After I'm finished ****ing around with it, I'll probably go to 5/3/1 for a while.

4/26 (185.0 lbs)
C2 Row: 21:25 mins (5378 m)

• WoD: 4x750 m/2 minutes easy (2 minutes warm-up and cool-down)

HLR: 4x12
Pallof Press: 4x12x32.5
Farmer's Walks (85 lb DBs): 3x50 sec

The WoD was written with three 750 m pieces, but I added a fourth because I wanted to make at least 5000 meters. Even with the 8 minutes relative easy pulling in between the 750 m pieces, I still came in at just below a 2 minute pace. Pretty happy with that.

4/27 (181.8 lbs)

A
SSPT DL (Round 2, Week 6, 85%, 370 1RM, ~75-90 s rest): 6x315

B
OHP (paused, slow eccentric): 3x5x120
Snatch Grip Rack Pull: 3x8x225
Facepulls: 6x12x52.5

C
Dips: 4x8x+35
EZ Curl: 3x10x65

D
Tricep Pressdown: 3x12x67.5
Lateral Cable Raise: 3x12x10.5

Tried mixed grip for the first time, and it went alright. Grip was better but didn't get quite pulled down into position and had a little lower back rounding on the last two reps. Need to work on getting my ass a bit lower and pulling my chest up a lot more. Everything else easy-ish. Nice to hit a low watermark on the weight pre-Vegas; going to try to keep things to a reasonable level of excess this weekend. We shall see.

Hai.

sKwaTs lookin' good.

Knees don't need to be anywhere. Bar mid-foot, knees not tracking beyond foot are all ideal scenarios in terms of mechanics but it's just like the ideal gas law - good for approximation but real world behavior has to be judged on individual merit.

If you keep your spine locked and torso rigid you can pretty much do whatever you want. Hard to deviate far without having massive solidity in the core and that's why the 'ideal form' is narrow in scope.

However, if you have to give up some ideal mechanics leverage for a deviation that suits your body's specific mechanics then go for it!

I miss the bounce on many reps as well. Tuning your stiffness impulsively is a hard task. Some are better at it. I need time to get tight again so for me the pause is more productive than the bounce.

If I could contract and relax my muscles faster I'd probably be able to use the bounce better. I guess practicing the bounce at lighter weights when stiffness is easy to tune-in can be good for grooving the pattern.

Garbage genetics crew checking in. Great work going on itt.

Thanks bros. Still jellydicking around, though; hopefully I can reach EV level sometime before I die.

5/2 (183.4 lbs)

A
5/3/1 Bench (Round 1, Week 1): 5x155, 5x175, 8x200, 2x10x135
NG Chins: 4x8x+35
Facepulls: 6x12x52.5

B
Squat (Round 1, Week 1): 5x165, 5x185, 8x215
Arnold Press: 4x10x40
DB Hammer Curl: 3x10x40

C
RDL: 4x10x165
Tricep Pressdown: 4x12x75
Lateral Cable Raise: 4x12x10.5

Still super jet-lagged and hung over from dropping a few grand in Vegas (most of it because my old gym buddy took the dealer's bust card in a few high leverage situations that cost me a few thousand while I had an assload of splits and double downs on the table, but w/e. I also lost CCR both times we did it). Kind of in a fog, and felt a tad light headed at times, especially during the back-off sets after the main lifts, but managed to push through. Looking forward to 12 hours of sleep tonight.

Probably just going to do 5/3/1 while I polish off the last of this mini-cut and then figure out what lifting at maintenance looks like, since I should be able to autoregulate a bit easier with only one top set instead of three. We'll see how DL goes, but my lower back was sore for the first time in forever after doing it last week (when I tried alternating grip for the first time), so I may need to drop down a bit and do some higher rep stuff to groove in that form before I go back to heavy singles. We'll see.

5/3 (184.6 lbs)
C2 Row: 31:51 mins (7909 m)

• WoD: 3x2000 m/1 minutes easy (3 minute warm-up and cool-down)

HLR: 4x12
Pallof Press: 4x12x32.5
Farmer's Walks (9 lb DBs): 3x45 sec

Just short of a 2 minute pace for the entirety of the rowing even with the 8 total minutes of warm-up/cool-down stuff, so feeling pretty ok with that even though I was feeling pretty fatigued halfway in. Going to try to reclaim the diet this week and get back down to where I need to be so I can wrap this up shortly and experience the joy of eating at maintenance.

5/4 (185.4 lbs)

A
5/3/1 DL (Round 1, Week 1): 5x225, 5x255, 5x285, 2x10x185

B
5/3/1 OHP (Round 1, Week 1): 5x95, 5x110, 8x125, 2x10x75
Facepulls: 6x12x52.5

C
Dips: 4x8x+45
EZ Curl: 3x12x65

Could have grinded out another rep or two in DL, but even that would have been pathetic. Guessing it's some combination of hamstring DOMS from Monday + weight loss + not having pulled a workset above a single rep for about a year. Hopefully I can improve a bit over the next few months. Everything else was relatively easy.