I think TM would be kinda sweet. Just make sure to have plenty of time for volume day for all the sets and eating and all that.

I was thinking that 5x5 squats would be soul crushing at first, but I was thinking that they couldn't be as soul crushing as how hard the 3x5 squats are at the very end of your novice linear progression when you are essentially doing very near 100% of your 5rm 3 times in a row.

I mean 5x5 squatting is still pretty crazy but after thinking about I was encouraged a little bit.

Well I generally don't get home before 7:30 pm on workout days now, so with volume day an hour extra is fine. It's not like I do anything besides shower and eat afterwards anyway.

Agree about working below your 5rm, that ish is hard. I suspect recovery is even worse w 5x5 though, but if it's intolerable it's possible to cut a set per Rip's suggestion.

2010-08-17

Rough day. Very troubled stomach + lack of sleep are probably the main culprits. That, and due to the gym schedule having to training heavy with one day in between on a deficit is ugh. Last week though. Should have eaten more to make up for everything I crapped out yesterday/this morning


Squat
3x3x110 kg (242 lbs)

Hellish. No juice.


Bench
3x5x70 kg

No spotter, getting into the groove with the Tate technique. Gonna study the vids a bit more, feel like something's not quite there.


Deadlift
1x4x120 kg (264 lbs)

Just awful. Form was meh. Damn my T-Rex arms!


Weighted Sit-Ups
2x10x20 kg


Blog:
I have a porch now, whee. Gonna make a cat door in the wall and a custom-built cage (w cat furniture, bed etc) so my cats can get air and sun whenever they want. Actually a carpenter is gonna do it but w/e.

In before ygos.

2010-08-19


1x8 chins

Watch out JF, gonna crush you in the race

Porches are the best thing evar! I wish I had one The last place I lived did, and it was awesome, so much time spent on it. I'm going to be looking to upgrade my current living conditions, and I think the only 2 things that will be mandatory will be a garage for my gym and a porch.

My chins def took the biggest hit during my RFL, I am not sure why. Squats are obv second, but I'll have to keep in mind that I'll have to do some sort of dif programming if I ever RFL again.

I barely made it to 5 when I lifted a coupe days ago. Granted it was after workout, but I def felt substantial strength loss.

I've experienced a 2 rep difference doing chins after pressing compared to starting with them, so have to factor that in. I basically think RFL sucks, but ymmv.

And yeah, porches rule

Obligatory items for my next apartment:
- Huge kitchen
- Porch
- Good-sized place for dinner room
- Wine cellar....

2010-08-20

Was in a hurry, so decided to just press and squat and do chins the day after at home.


Press
2x5x55 kg
1x4x55 kg (concentration fail)


Squat
3x3x110 kg

The power cage was busy, so had to use the uprights. Asked the owner to make sure it was alright to fail the squat and just dump the barbell (uprights are placed on solid, 1.5 inch or so thick plastic-ish mats). He was fine with it ldo, he's a powerlifter (apparently one of the better raw squatters in Norway). He asked to see my form, which he complimented with the exception of my rather upright back. Need to reach back with my ass even more. He was pretty pleased (and surprised) I was doing parallell squats with a wide stance - he had even heard of SS (not too common here near the Arctic). Nice to have someone like that checking form. Dunno if he actually coaches, if so I'll inquire about power cleaning/snatching in the future.


2010-08-21
Random chin sets and L-chins throughout the day.

Alright, didn't bother to update for a while since it's boring to repeat the same weights.


2010-08-31


Squat
1x3x100 kg (220 lbs)
2x3x105 kg (231 lbs)

My squat strength is really going down the ****ter in the worst way. 105 kg was actually a grind. Jesus. Just two weeks ago I was doing 3x3x248

After the stupid squat mistake in July + mountain trip my right knee started acting up. It's still bothering me a bit, which is clearly due to knee caving on grinding, grinding reps. Considering dropping down to 100 kg and doing 3x5 instead, or even 95 kg and do reps with good form. Squats are really ****ing awful on a deficit, just horrible.


Bench Press
1x5x72.5 kg (160 lbs)
2x4x72.5 kg

FFFFFUUUU


Deadlift
1x5x110 kg (242 lbs)

These felt, and looked, great. Inspired by miles I set up with my ass lower, and wow it definitely made a difference. Back was in pretty decent extension for the entire work set. Now, this is 10 kg lower than last time but form there was so total aids I had to drop down. Doing 1x5 is pretty tough on a deficit, but this set was just awesome. Thanks miles!


Weighted sit-ups
3x10x20 kg
1x4x25 kg

Meh, not ready for 25 kg yet.


The owner of the gym was lifting in the same room (the "power room") as me and my brother. Cool guy, and pretty damn strong. Today was his deadlift day, with an insane amount of sets pyramiding up to 1x5x440 lbs which was "a pretty light day". Scored some brownie points by helping him load/unload plates. He's a big guy and the plates are so good/tight it's a bit of hassle. Not much of an effort for me between sets anyway.

Gotta say I love the new gym, the atmosphere is very friendly, people are mostly not clueless. Both the owner and another guy offered tips on our squat/bench form which was sound.


Going to diet for this week and 2-3 weeks after that - using up the last of my ephedrine to finish off the diet. Unsure of what to do after, will at least do two weeks of caloric maintenance. Programming-wise I think I'll try PPAN for a short while before moving to a very premature TM. Is it too early compared to what I'm lifting? ldo, but given my previous experiences with SS I need to eat like 4k cals daily to drive progress and that ain't happening.

Oh, added super fun fact interesting for no one but me: the owner revealed that the weights at my previous gym generally weigh a bit less than their stated weight. The new place, however, uses ameritard standards (i.e. "20 kg" is actually 45 lbs). This made both (because it meant I was weaker than I thought) and (since it meant I've lost less strength than I thought I did). It also explains why I thought everything was pretty heavy when I moved...

I hope you're getting sexy because it sure looks like you are getting weak.



/catch 22 for impatient people

Yeah, the weakness is strong in this one. I'd guess I'm around 14% now, so I'm guessing 12%ish at the end. Sexy-ish, need a winter of teh bulk (JF-style) before true sexay happens imo


I have hopes for getting back fairly soon to 260-270 once I start eating a bit more again though. Funny how I measure everything by the squat, when everything else is roughly the same. Guess it's mainly because everything else was fairly weak...

Well squat seems to be the biggest thing that suffers on a deficit and benefits the quickest at a surplus. I measure a lot of my success/failures through the amount I can squat at the given time.

14% is pretty sexy. Doubt I'll ever be much less than 20% for the next 9 months.

your squat is approaching my preyuss

Actual sick burn :/

FWIW I'm probably gonna follow Lyle's recommendations at the end of http://www.bodyrecomposition.com/mus...n-changes.html for the rest of my training life.

The fact is, I don't feel comfortable at BF % levels above 15, and I put on 50% of whatever fat I gain on my face. It's just absurd, I look like a blob so fast.

2010-09-02

Not a good day, slept too little and bushed from Tuesday.


Chins
8, 7, 6

Can do a set of 9 now when properly rested, think I'm winning this one JF


Squat (Recovery)
Warm-ups then
1x5x85 kg

And then my knee pain flared up. FML. Googled some and I'm 99% sure the pain is in the lateral collateral ligament (outside of the right knee). Pic here: http://www.formerfatguyblog.com/2008...n-therapy.html.

Sigh. It's definitely caused by bad form, cause the last set on Tuesday was such a grind and bro said there was pretty bad knee caving on last rep. Think I need to get a knee wrap and be certain to use 100% good form.


Close-grip paused bench
3x8x50 kg (110 lbs)

Actually struggled with the last rep on the last set, lol. I guess close grip + pause + fried arms/back + more reps = hard.


Back Extensions
3x10x20 kg


Kinda crazy to me I've only been dieting 5 weeks, I'm starting to get a bit crazy food-focused. At least the Burger King Big King Triple XXL burger with double bacon managed to semi-stop my hunger...

Add weight imo. Partly for strength, partly for deception in your bet! Especially when you're losing weight. And mix in some pullups to balance out things.

I did a Youtube search of "semi sumo deadlift" and a video of yours from 2009 came up pretty early on the front page. However, it did not have very many page views (neither did any of the other videos) so I guess semi sumo deadlift is not a real hot search topic. But if it ever does become a hot search topic, you may become an internet sensation.

Hm yeah, you're probably right about that. I was thinking I'd get to 10 before I added weight.

Pullups? But but...no guns?!?!?!?!



I can't wait

I know a guy who tells me he trains quite a bit. I have never questioned what he does (just assume it's ******ed) but he does look fit/ with some decent sized arms. He was over the other day and did like 19 chins without stopping. He has the same pull up bar and his wife was like, 'yeah he does these all the time.'

Chins= big arms.

Yeah chins involve biceps more, no question about that. But still, some variation doesn't hurt - pull-ups, neutral grip chins etc. I also recommend L-chins for teh sick burn in ur abz.

your knee - hopefully its not a damaged ligament.

If you can continue to train and do things without causing it pain, thats good. If stuff you try to do causes pain, you probably should get it checked out by a doctor.

Here's some general things to try to do (you might know some of this already):

- vertical shins - whatever exercise you're doing, try to keep your lower leg as close to vertical as possible at all times.

- ankle mobility - doing mobility work for your ankles is important. Do stuff daily if you can.

- hip mobility - also very important for your knee. Do stuff daily also.

- knee stability stuff - single leg stuff like split squats and step ups are excellent for developing the muscles around your knee to make it stable. If those cause pain, dont do them. There are other things you can do that will help if the knee is bad.

- whatever you're doing from this point forward - do not ever let the knees cave in. Whether its getting up out of a chair, or any exercise, be aware of the way your knee is tracking.

- do lots of soft tissue mobilization (foam rolling, lacrosse ball rolling, etc.) on your quads, hips and calves. Doing this often/daily is important.

That's some good general stuff. If you want to discuss more, pm me and maybe we can find each other on AIM sometime.

some more exercises I just remembered:

hamstring/glute stuff like pull throughs and single leg RDLs are stuff you should probably try to do.

Cha, I started doing all this stuff religiously and it was working, but then squats got so heavy (for me) that my legs were literally too dead. I think it is really challenging to do all the prehab/rehab work AND still squat heavy 2/3 times a week, which is a problem a lot of us run into so our solution is just to skip the prehab/rehab work.

If you have bad knees, the backs squats should take a back seat to the other stuff, at least until the knees are 100%.

Once you're ready to go all out on the back squats, you could still do all this other stuff, just do the back squats first in your workout.

If your legs are too dead at the beginning of your workout, squat less often.