Hurting my back caused me to make the fastest bench/ohp gains ever, so you might have a point. I am liking the semi upper lower split with some extra pressing on the lower days. I just think heavy squat + deadlift in the same day is a little much. In the future, I plan to bench 3x a week, press 2x, and squat and deadlift 1x with some lighter sq/dl accessories on the opposite day.

No. It's hard enough to find a gym with a rack here. I could always switch back to high bar if I can't figure out how to fix this.

Sunday, December 10, 2017 Training
Strength Block C5 Deload

2. RG Bench (kg):

57.5x2
62.5x1
67.5x1 @9 oops
62.5x4 @9
55x5x3

2. Tempo Squat (kg):

60x4
75x4
85x4
90x4
95x4

Training time: ?

***

My arm felt decent going in so my plan was to try to do my bench work as programmed and just deload the squat this week. Unfortunately, the pain showed up as I was warming up to bench. The 67.5 was way too hard but I definitely lost the groove. The 62.5 set wasn't that great either, tbh. If my form would have been on point then I might have been able to get some sets of 5 at that weight but whatever. Deload week it is.

Based on today it's still hard to say whether I will be able to use a narrow grip with wrist wraps for the squat. I felt quite a bit of pressure on my wrists in the 90 and 95 sets, but no pain then and no pain now hours later. I'm hoping I'll be able to adapt to this and be able to unrack heavy weights using this grip, but time will tell.

Week 88 Diet
"Maintenance" Phase Week 7

I use wrist wraps on SQ/BN/OHP on anything heavy, I think they help but mostly like why not use them?

How long has this elbow pain been going on? You think it's just golfers/tennis elbow? I was watching a recent SQ video of yours and I didn't see anything that stood out (even rack/rerack). And if you're thumbless you're prob not going to be pushing up on the bar, which could irritate it. If these are all time high weights you're using perhaps it's just adding some stress on tendons etc. that will take a bit to get used to.

Good on you for sticking with training especially with poker going ****ty. It'll turn around man, it always does. It's a stressful lifestyle though, I know. Be patient with it all (training, body comp, poker), envision the long game.

Re: wrist wraps, I just don't like adding more tedium to my routine if I don't need to. I haven't needed to use them for bench or OHP up until this point.

My elbow/shoulder has been grumpy since I started doing low bar. I don't think it is because of pushing up on the bar, more that the position itself is uncomfortable for me to get into and maintain during a heavy set. I don't think it's tendinitis because it flared up almost immediately with low bar squatting, while it seems like tendinitis would have been brewing over the course of months.

Thanks. Poker is kind of ruining my life right now. I've never had issues with life tilt like this, and I've had 50 buyin downswings before. I think I'm just getting too old for this ****.

Tuesday, December 12, 2017 Training
Strength Block C5 Deload

1. Press (kg):

37.5x3
44x1
49x1 @9.5
52.5x0
46x2 @9.5

2. Chin-ups (@65kg):

0kg x5
7.5kg x5
7.5kg x5
7.5kg x5
7.5kg x5

Training time: 1:05

***

Another day that I went off script a little. My arm thing hasn't really been affecting the press so I planned to push it pretty hard but and have it just be a deload in terms of volume. The 49 was kind of slow so it might have been better to move on to back off work after that, but I really wanted to see if I could hit a PR single fresh without the fatigue of an AMRAP set beforehand. That single didn't pan out, but I'm at least glad that I have a normal press sticking point now. The bar became stapled to my forehead instead of being an agonizing grind to lockout like typically. Might be a sign that my technique has improved.

I was pretty trashed after that grind so I guess it's not shocking that I couldn't do much with 46kg afterward. The bar got really forward on the second rep but the first rep was slow enough that I kinda knew nothing good was going to happen in that set.

Yeah I felt like I handled it worse mentally as I got older. A real thing imo. But it'll turn around! We can't all be mindset gods like kaby . What games do you play? Online?

That's the problem right there, he plays live.

30 hands per hour. 40 hours per week. Lol. He use to play that many hands in one hour online.

No actually you're wrong on this one. I would NEVER get this tilted from live. This is me being deconditioned by years of live play and returning to online, where the density of infuriating **** happening is like 100x.

The game has passed you by bro. Time to get a job. Are you still playing on stars? Is that even beatable? I thought only way was to get italian/indian sites.

I'm not going to discuss where I play on a public forum. Let's just say if I passed on the live donk festival to play it instead, then it's a pretty good game.

It's rigged then bro. If Americans rigged Up bet then some shady asian site is going to be rigged also. Good luck.

Quite possibly. But the thing is I'm not down that much. It's a very tame downswing compared with what I'm used to, but for some reason my tilt threshold is non-existent these days.

time to do some work on rebuilding your tilt threshold then perhaps, or do some more focused introspection than "i'm getting too old for this ****"

including meditation/mindful breathing in my daily routine always helped for me. meditate twice a day for 10 minutes and see what happens after a couple of weeks..

are you studying as much as you used to?

Meditation is a wagon I fell off a while ago and have been meaning to jump back on. I did it for maybe 2 months or so last year and liked it a lot.

I am not studying as much as I used to. It would feel wasted because in the games that I play, 90% of the EV comes from fish stomping. Logical me knows that it would still help to study more, but I guess the point I'm trying to make is that strategy isn't the shortfall here, mental game is. Maybe studying would have carry over to mental game as well, though.


***

Anyway, I'm starting up a new cycle tomorrow, with some tweaks to the programming. **** has been getting stale.



Main changes:

1. Got rid of the machine rows and gonna try some underhand barbell rows. I'm sure that these will be an unmitigated disaster to behold.

2. I'm moving onto weekly progression for the squat and block pulls, and giving them both equal priority. I'd like to set new 5RMs each week on these for a while before I need
to begin loading them bi-weekly like the bench and press.

3. I think it's time for some deadlifting from the floor. I'm 5'5"; this should be within my capabilities. Gonna start off light on them, the pause and prior squat sets should ensure that's the case. I never did a paused deadlift so that should be exciting.

4. I trimmed a few things to increase the chance that I get out of the gym in under 90 minutes. I just don't have enough hustle to warm up to squat, squat, warm up to bench, bench, set up the blocks and deadlift in under 2 hours, so I'm not even gonna try. Only two exercises on Sunday, but with the McGill warmup, it will still take me a while to do that workout.

New training maxes:

Squat - 124 (85% is 105kg, less than my 3x5 PR so a bit of a reset)
Block Pull - 130 (85% is 110kg, 5kg more than my last session, but I did 3 sets, not one)

Maybe studying would have carry over to mental game as well, though.

yeah this was what I was going for

2 hours for generic warm-up and only 3 exercises seems....excessive.

It really is, I think he might spend more time training per week than I do. I do two a days sometimes but they are short.

New programming looks fine but first lift should have 5 minute max cap rest on it. DB bench/Rows/chins should all be 2 minute max.

Press is a different animal. It deteriorates fast and needs rest to hit more heavy reps and hero is obviously obsessed with that lift, and justifiably so. MLYLT coming after him.

You make it sound like i'm doing 5 min on a elliptical, then doing chest fly, curl, and lat pulldown and wondering where the two hours went.

It takes this long because it's squat/bench/deadlift. The McGill is 8-10 minutes. Squatting alone takes like 45 depending how heavy it is and how many sets. Benching and deadlifting require setting up the rack/blocks which takes a few minutes and have to be ramped up to separately. I get through them faster than squats, but 30 minutes each is not uncommon.


Rest time is one reason why I like ramping up to a top set a lot more than sets across at the top. I can go with a shorter rest between 5x75% and 5x80%, take a 5 minute rest before the 5x85% set, then the back down work can be back to shorter rests. On the 5x5 day I'll rest 4-6 minutes between each of those sets and it may take me an hour to bench. With this program I'd never go over 6, and only even rest that long after the second to last set of a primary.

Anything not in bold on the spreadsheet will have shorter rests. So I'm with you on that with the exception that I'm resting longer between chins. IMO strict chins FULLROM done for sets of 5 are pretty taxing. But my chin progress is glacial so maybe I could be doing something different for that programming.

Saturday, December 16, 2017 Training
Strength Block C6W1

1. RG Bench (kg):
TM78 up to 85% x5+

60x5
62.5x4f {TM-2}
57.5x5x3 @8 (linked is second set)

2. BB Row (kg):

40x8
47.5x8
47.5x8
47.5x8

3. Press (kg):
w/ Band Facepull: #1 x20x4
TM54 72.5% 6s until @9

37.5x6
37.5x6
37.5x6
37.5x4 @8.5 lost balance {TM-2}

Training time: 1:19

***

Not sure how I can go from 64x7 to 62.5x4 bench in two weeks. I've accepted that luck-based factors can affect my bench performance on a given day, but this seems excessive even given that. I probably could have ground the 5th rep out but it wasn't even my planned top set and it's probably better that I saved my energy for some decent back-off sets. Those sets moved better and better with each one so I guess my technique just sucked today.

Rows felt pretty good actually. Underhand grip seems better for me. We'll see what happens when they get heavy.

I was meant to press 39 but I took a bit off the bar since bench was so awful. 37.5 was still pretty heavy. I'm lowering the TM on both lifts slightly. Not sure what's going on here but I'd like to get ahead of it by beginning the cycle with some days where I can actually complete my sets and reps.

I used to get pretty gnarly shoulder pain (that shot down my whole arm) from squats. I mean, every session. It would ruin all my other lifts. I'd take days off to let it heal up. And iirc it was kidcolin who pointed out the issue.
And looking at your last lbbs you have the same form that I had which caused it.

Your elbows are cranked up. You need to try to keep your humerus parallel with your trunk. You may need to think "elbows pointed down", or to think "pin elbows to ribs" the first few times
The real issue for me was coming out of the bottom in a heavy rep. I was already cueing "elbows up", so under a heavy load I was giving it all I had which included even more "elbows up".

I recently started lifting again, and forgot the keep my humerus with my trunk on a PR, and the pain came back. But I just set a new PR (290lb) today, remembering the correct cue, and no pain at all.

Saturday, December 17, 2017 Training
Strength Block C6W1

1. LBBS (kg):
TM124 up to 85% x5+

92.5x5
100x1*
100x5
105x4 {TM-3}
97.5x2**

2. Pause Deadlift (kg):

60x4
75x4
85x4
95x4
95x4

Training time: 1:20

***

Losing strength all over. I thought working up to x5 at 105 would a safe bet since I hit 107.5x5x3 already, but I was wrong. (*) I got distracted when a gym staff member started rearranging plates on my rack in the middle of my set, and then the do-over set of 100kg was dishearteningly heavy. I might have WIL'ed out on the 5th rep of 105, but that 4th rep felt pretty slow.

Wrists felt pretty decent with the wraps on until (**) the backoff set, when I did have some pain that caused me to rack the bar. I'm still not pleased with my unrack and walkout with this rack position, but I feel like I need to invest a few more workouts doing this before trying something else.

Pause deadlifts felt fine. Nothing much to report until the weight gets heavier.


Thanks for the input. This is all stuff to consider if I go back to the thumbless grip. With the narrow thumbs-around grip, my arms are parallel with my torso I think. It's just a matter of whether my wrists will be able to handle it.

All the Christmas cheer is sapping our gains. Bah.
Hope the pokers treats you better soon!

Thanks. I hope so too. Won 1500 today which puts a decent-sized dent in the downswing, so that's a start.


Week 89 Diet
Maintenance Phase Week 8



No quotations around the word maintenance are necessary this week. I've had some small success in titrating down the calories in the midst of the poker ****storm. Macros could improve.

Weight is stable, and I feel like literally the fattest 136 pound man on the planet at this point. I may have some kind of body dysmorphic thing going on here. Nudes tomorrow so I guess you people can be the judges of that.

Tuesday, December 20, 2017 Training
Strength Block C6W1

1. Press (kg):
TM52 80% 5s until @9

41x5
41x5
41x5
41x5
41x4 @9 lost balance

2. Chin-ups (@65kg):

2.5kg x5
7.5kg x5
12.5kg x4 @10
6kg x5
6kg x4 @9.5

3. RG Spoto (kg):

45x4
52.5x4
55x4
55x6

Training time: 1:33

***

Reasonable day. It seems like lowering the TM on the press was a good call. My caffeine pills ran out and the supplier doesn't have them anymore so I guess it's time to start a caffeine-free category of PRs so it feels like I'm making progress again. I was weaker on chins as well.

I decided to change my pause work to spoto bench, thinking that it might a bit more specific to my issues with benching. They felt really good, actually, and probably easier than pausing on the chest. I like that I can't rest the bar on my chest at the bottom, as that was a bit of an issue for me with pause bench.

Re: nudes, I took the pictures and tape measurements but I can't be bothered to compile them into a neat presentation right now. Tomorrow maybe. Spoiler alert: they're awful.

Wednesday, December 20, 2017 Training
Strength Block C6W1

1. Block Pull (kg):
TM130 up to 85% x5+

97.5x5
105x5
110x5

2. DB Bench (lb):
w/ Band Facepull: #0 x19x4

35s x8
45s x8x4

3. Tempo Squat (kg):

60x4
80x4
90x4
90x4

Training time: 1:28

***

Tablet was dead so no videos. Block pulls felt pretty not great. I'd have preferred to get 7-8 reps on the 110 set so it seems like once again I have selected a weight that is too heavy to start with. By the time I got to squat I was pretty checked out mentally. I may need to shell out for the overpriced pre-workout since I no longer have my caffeine. Squats just felt ridiculously heavy with the narrow grip. I'm going back to the thumbless wider grip and try to cue elbows down like SiQ suggested.

I'm not proud of my effort today, or lately in the gym, but here we are.







and....



New nudes:



Measurements:



***

The only way I could feel good about these pictures was to place them side-by-side with this time last year when I weighed the same. I've definitely made some body composition progress since those were taken, just not as much as I'd like.

The measurements are tricky to interpret as ever, but having the largest increase be my shoulder circumference is pretty great if having the second largest be waist circumference is not. It would have been nice to get more than 0.5cm of chest gains in trade for 2cm waist, though.

It just seems like I'm very poorly partitioning these calories, and since I'm training like a straight ***** lately, I'm not sure I even deserve to eat them. I'm strongly considering a cut. Thoughts are welcome.