greasy and groovy

[msingh]

Starting stats - BW ~ 89kg, 6'3", ~10-15 chins, ~6 pullups.
Goal: sets of 20+ chins by the end of July.

Method: grease the groove by Pavel

[msingh]

Reps (OBCFF)
4,3,2,2,2
2,3,2,2,3
Total: 25

All sets done with orange band chins from foot (OBCFF)

Pavel said do between 25-100 a day, so i started on the low side. Will build up towards 100.

[msingh]

2,2,2,2 OBCFF
9,9,8 pullups

total reps: 34

Woke up with my elbow aching. I dont know if i can keep going with this, my presses were affected today. I hope adaptation occurs soon cos i dont want it intefering with bench in particular.

I've done some 95 reps so far in the last 3 days..!

[Kostas]

2,2,2,2 OBCFF
9,9,8 pullups

total reps: 34

Woke up with my elbow aching. I dont know if i can keep going with this, my presses were affected today. I hope adaptation occurs soon cos i dont want it intefering with bench in particular.

Maybe you could just do maintenance for the presses while your shooting for your 20+.

Do bench and press just once a week each, heavy as possible, one work set only.

[msingh]

knkavo, i just built up to some good momentum on my bench now, if there is an opportunistic cost, it will be the GtG, but lets see what happens. Waiting for some broz like adaptation to occur..

[simonsky]

don't rush it. it shouldn't affect your lifts at least from the start. i'm doing daily pushups and didn't affect my lifts.

why not just do, let's say ~10 singles throughout the day then add a rep/set next week?

[msingh]

Ease into it? That makes sense!

[The Emancipated Freak]

Both words in the thread title are easily applicable to me. Good luck, man.

[msingh]

Thanks!

[msingh]

Reps (OBCFF)
2,2,2,2,2
2

Total: 12

[msingh]

Reps
2 (OBCFF)
3x5 105kg (weighed chins)

Total: 17

[Bronan the Barbarian]

Just my two cents: Grease the groove works better--and has less impact on your other training--if you give it a bit longer. Like aiming for the twenty pullups by the end of August. That way it's sort of an imperceptible uptick in work on the targeted movement. Good luck.

[msingh]

Just my two cents: Grease the groove works better--and has less impact on your other training--if you give it a bit longer. Like aiming for the twenty pullups by the end of August. That way it's sort of an imperceptible uptick in work on the targeted movement. Good luck.

You're right. July is too ambitious, August is better. I'll change my goal - thank you.

[Bronan the Barbarian]

Good luck. Hope you get the twenty. It's pretty cool when grease the groove works. You jump on the bar to test your max, and the pullups just keep on coming.

[jgh]

Nice work so far man, you really went for it!

I just have one caveat that I feel obligated to repeat...

I still think it might be worth considering not using bands if you can avoid it. Sounds like some other folks who have chimed in have actually done this program and can comment on it better than I, but my impression from reading is that it's important to grease the right groove, so to speak. ie, instead of two banded chins, try one regular chin.

And you're spacing them all throughout the day, right?

[dsp]

is it important to space them throughout the day? what if i did a set 30 mins ago and im bored as fuck and want to do another one right now? or if i do all of them in a 5 hour spacing?

[msingh]

Jgh, When i can do a whole load of band ones then i'll use BW. It's not super easy atm with the bands, i'd say about 70-80%, and after orange band i have yellow too, which offers even less resistance. But lets see what happens. My reasonign for using bands is to get some of the GtG benefits without the fatigue of doing unassisted ones. Eventually i hope to smoothly transition from bands to bandless - say once ive worked up to 100 reps a day banded.

Yep spacing them out, except when i do them as part of my regular training session.

[OCG]

So, wait, you can already do chins and pullups yes?

[msingh]

Yep

[msingh]

Reps
3,2,3,2
3,2

Total: 15

I did these using OB across the pins, which gives less assistance than hung from the bar.

[msingh]

Reps
3,3,3,3,2
2

Total: 16

[dsp]

bands sound gay if you dont actually need them.. just do less reps. (that's my uneducated mantalk.. but i'm sure you want to get your money's worth out of the bands. 100 reps before switching to bw is insane though, do you weigh 220+lbs?)

[dkggpeters]

Even if you can only do a few reps I wouldn't use the bands. I have noticed that recovery is not an issue if your max is 3 or 4 reps and you do 2 or 3 reps throughout the day. Recovery becomes an issue when you are doing 10 or more reps throughout the day.

You should get quick improvement and well. Is your goal 20 pullups? I have a hard time getting past 15 and always seem to stall at that point no matter what I do. A year ago I could barely get one rep up and weighed 20 lbs less then I do now.

[dsp]

You don't need another log for this, you really want to update this everyday? Besides it's weekly increases, so it wouldnt exactly be exciting unless you fuck around with the program. and we know how that goes...

[msingh]

No training. I had a few slices of toast a glass of tea the whole day. Badddd shit going down, so nothing to report.

[msingh]

Reps
13,11,10 chins

ive lost some but it was cos i didnt eat anything yesterday and been sleeping like shit etc. i'm slowly recovering though.

[msingh]

Yea i need a seperate log, dont want to clog up my main one with daily chinning numbers.

Also it keeps me motivated and others can read about what im trying to do, so why not?

And i will keep using bands - if i don't use them i'll beat up my body too much and it will inhibit bench/press/squat/deadlift progress which i do NOT want!!! im using a very light band (orange) and from the pins so it doesnt give a whole load of assistance so its not easy by any means..

[jgh]

Yea i need a seperate log, dont want to clog up my main one with daily chinning numbers.

Also it keeps me motivated and others can read about what im trying to do, so why not?

I like reading it, fwiw!

[dsp]

whats fwiw mean anyways? and shouldnt you be aiming for the same sets and reps everyday for a week?

btw i've been doing towel neutral grip pull ups since monday. as of yesterday, 3x5 is fucking easy. it's even easier today, but i'll wait a bit more before doing 3x6.

[jgh]

whats fwiw mean anyways? and shouldnt you be aiming for the same sets and reps everyday for a week?

btw i've been doing towel neutral grip pull ups since monday. as of yesterday, 3x5 is fucking easy. it's even easier today, but i'll wait a bit more before doing 3x6.
fwiw = for what it's worth

I haven't read anything to suggest doing the same sets/reps every day of the week. I tend to only remember the gist of things though, so perhaps I overlooked this. The gist of FM/GTG that I've gathered from reading Pavel and JP is "do a bunch throughout the day and slowly increase volume." I suppose "slowly" could mean every week but I suspect folks tend to use more auto-regulation than strict programming when doing this.

Edit: welp, my mistake. I was just rereading the relevant sections of the GSLP ebook and JP advocates weekly schemes like you said. I'm not sure that's terribly important in terms of adaptation but I bet it makes easier mentally, both for tracking and for the fact that it changes up over time.

[dsp]

Well, on monday they were fucking hard, and today they're relatively easy, and by sunday i could probably do them one handed. Worst comes to worse i could always increase by more than 1 rep per set.

They've also helped my weighted chins quite a bit. my forearm used to feel exercised after them, now not even one bit. heres hoping my DOH deadlift grip strength is increasing.

[msingh]

@dsp towelchins: im not sure if my grip is my weakness. i think i could do a lot of more reps gripwise, its my weak ass lats, probably that are holding me back. i'm considering doing some lat pull downs for a laugh see if it makes any difference. but im doing rows too so lemme give that a chance first to show up any improvement.

[msingh]

Pullups
6,7,7

just my usual pullup workout done unassisted. ive regressed since last week and im not sure why.

[thefinalsql]

Great looking progress!

Maybe someday I will work up to 1. lol

[dsp]

That's an extremely weird weakness in your deadlift, never heard of it before haha :P. are you using DOH?

If you don't like the rows (i fucking hate them - then again i broke both my wrists twice and they get aggravated from them, and wrist curls), try weighted chins. Same musculature, and feels fucking better to me. I'm currently doing this.

I don't think your pullup method is working because you are doing random reps. That's not how its outlined in the program. You should probably drop the bands (since you can do a rep, stop being a pussy..) and build up. I'm not even increasing the reps, im increasing the thickness of the towel until I can get a 3x5 gripping a pair of DD tits (fake ones). I want that crushing grip that grandadddies have haha

[simonsky]

Yea i need a seperate log, dont want to clog up my main one with daily chinning numbers.

Also it keeps me motivated and others can read about what im trying to do, so why not?

And i will keep using bands - if i don't use them i'll beat up my body too much and it will inhibit bench/press/squat/deadlift progress which i do NOT want!!! im using a very light band (orange) and from the pins so it doesnt give a whole load of assistance so its not easy by any means..

it doesn't bother me that you have a separate log for this.

although what bothers me is your use of bands. i have an example which i hope makes sense. let's say you need to work on your 3pt game so you want to make x/day beyond the arc and then eventually progress it week by week.

you have 2 choices ,

A. make a very few amount of 3pt shots since doing more will negatively affect your recovery
B. make a relatively higher amount of 2pt shots than option A because it is closer and not as taxing

which do you think will make you better at shooting from beyond the arc?

[msingh]

Chins
10,10,10

bandless to make you guys happy ;P

[msingh]

dsp, yeah DOH, i'm trying to nail down my form real solid and mixed grip is too weird. But speaking of weird, your post is one of the strangest ive read in a while. Rock climbing right?

simonsky, i cant explain to you guys that doing dead hang chins with a thin band, looped around the pins at the bottom really gives very little assistance - it's no harder than a stretch reflex chin for reps. I can't help feel it's working on a weakness and a more productive way to do it than not.

[jgh]

simonsky, i cant explain to you guys that doing dead hang chins with a thin band, looped around the pins at the bottom really gives very little assistance - it's no harder than a stretch reflex chin for reps. I can't help feel it's working on a weakness and a more productive way to do it than not.
Just to say it again, I wasn't saying no bands because "you're a pussy" or "bands are gay." It was because of the specificity thing.

Maybe the difference is so minor that it doesn't matter, but when I think about doing chins, I usually try to tighten my back first before pulling and doing so causes my feet to move forward a little bit if my body is planked. If I were forced to keep my feet on a band, I'd have to compensate, however minimally, in order to still pull, thereby not making the band-supported chin exercise at least slightly different than a normal chinup for me. Like I said before, maybe this difference is irrelevant, but a) I don't have the experience to know and b) folks that do prefer negatives/fewer reps over bands.

Also, three sets of 10 seems really close to failure if those were actually your GTG sets. Why not 5 sets of 6 or 6 sets of 5 if you're aiming for 30 total?

[dsp]

Congrats on the unweighted chins. I just thought it was hypocritical to call microplates "fagplates" but using expensive hairties as assistance to do a bodyweight exercise.

Oh ps my posts are weird because 50% of the time I'm high as fuck. I'm going straight edge for a month though till my birthday, todays day two! I should create a log, and everyday just write "succeeded in not smoking, drinking, or doing drugs". TOTALLY not ripping on you.. ; )

[wakk0]

msingh,

Did you ever make your goal?