Adam's Shitty Deadlift in the Land of Vag

[Patrick Stroup]

Nice work adam, so explain to me your approach to doing the singles before you do the percentage work? is it to a certain percent or just whatever moves fast?

[AdamW]

Thanks Stroup!

I borrowed the singles idea from Paul Carter. In the past before a big rep out, I've always warmed up to something heavier just to make the workset feel easy in comparison, but after reading Paul talk about it I've been doing it on all of my main lifts (except the ones where I'm running 5/3/1). There's no real percentage or anything, I just work up to something I know I can hit without any trouble. If I had to put a number on it, it looks like I usually end up choosing a weight around 90-95% of my training max.

My program (for squat/press/bench anyways) is setup like this (based on a training max that is 90% of a conservative 1RM, so everything is retardedly light):

Week 1: 75% x 5, 5, 5, 5, 5+
Week 2: 80% x 5, 5, 5+
Week 3: 85% x 5+
Week 4: Deload

So even on my absolute heaviest week, I'm only doing 85% of 90% of a conservative max, which works out to 76.5%. So my absolute heaviest work set of the week is only 76.5% of my max, which seems ridiculous but it's been working well so far. Keeping me injury free and allowing long term steady progress. Because the work sets are so light, the "heavy single" is still really a joke, usually something I can hit for 5 or 6 reps.

Aside from the mental advantage I get when my work sets feel comparatively light, the other benefit is that I get to "grease the groove" with weights that are heavier than I would normally use for a work set. A 405 squat sounds heavy to me in my head still, and while I could probably do it for 3x5, it would be a ridiculously hard 3x5. My technique would get sloppy pretty fast and I'd probably hurt myself sooner or later. This way I still get to throw some heavier weights on my back every session, but the volume is low and every time I do these singles they feel easy, so it's helping me feel a lot more comfortable in that territory.

Sort of sounds like I'm being a pussy and am afraid of moving heavier weights, but I've set 2 bench PRs and a press PR since switching to this program and my previous PRs on those lifts were in December and January. I hit a 345 bench without lifting more than 255 in the cycles leading up to it, so I'm a big believer in the carry over from higher rep submaximal training, at least for me. And my joints and shit feel better than ever, so it's win-win.

[Patrick Stroup]

seems legit. Get at it man!

[AdamW]

Thursday, 8/2/2012 - C3.W2 3x5+ Bench/Pause Squat/Chins/Airdyne

Bench
45 x 10, 135 x 5, 225 x 3, 275 x 1, 315 x 1
260 x 5, 5
260 x 12

Pause Squat (3s Week)
135 x 5, 205 x 3
265 x 3
300 x 3
340 x 8

Chins
237 x 6, 6, 6, 5
237 x 3, 3, 3, 3, 3 (90 second clock)
= 38 total reps

Airdyne Tabata
84 cal





Bench went good enough, can't complain. 315 wasn't hard at all but didn't feel fast, wish I had filmed it because it was probably a lot quicker than it felt. For some reason I thought I needed 15 reps at 260, so I was sort of disappointed when after 12 I knew I was gonna probably fail 13 and racked it. It turns out though that 12 was the number I actually needed, and it's a rep PR as well as the second biggest max I've had since starting this entire program! Last cycle I got 12 reps at 250 on the 3x5 week, so this is a big improvement. Definitely happy.

Pause squats are really hard. After the set at 300 I knew the last set was going to be tough. Spreadsheet told me I needed 8, so 8 it was. I thought my eyes were going to burst out of my head by the end and I had a weird headache in my eye sockets for the rest of the night from all the pressure, haha… Damn hard set.

Added another rep to my total chin volume, wasn't too bad. Did the last bunch on a 90 second clock like I did with the rows the other day, went pretty well until the last set where I really had to grind for the last rep.

Training partner got a great deal on a Schwinn Airdyne bike the other day so we tried it out today. That thing looks so lame but my god it will murder you and rape your soul. I know the calorie count is certainly not accurate, but it's a good way to measure total effort on the thing so that's what I'm going to track. I was fucked up after that, big time. My quads hurt so bad I wanted to cut my legs off, and it still hurts to take a deep breath. My training partner (Mr. Conditioning) only beat me by 3 calories too which is damned awesome. Looking forward to incorporating this more, it's really quick and easy to use on days when we don't have time to screw around with the Prowler. You get a lot of upper body work on the thing too, pushing and pulling. Great conditioning tool!

Another 80%-er in the books.

[Patrick Stroup]

airdyne tabata is one of the most brutal conditioning workouts you can do. I purchased a prowler that is used a ton by me and everyone at the gym and its nice. But I would love to have a airdyne. Way more than the c2 rowers we have at the gym which dont hit the legs nearly as hard as an airdyne will.

Killer work on the pause squats.

[AdamW]

Thanks Stroup, yeah we have a rower as well and I think this bike smokes it. It felt like it was going to fall apart though with my 235 pound ass pedaling as aggressively as I could, hopefully it can stand the abuse. Got it for $35 though, really can't complain at that price.

[Patrick Stroup]

Thanks Stroup, yeah we have a rower as well and I think this bike smokes it. It felt like it was going to fall apart though with my 235 pound ass pedaling as aggressively as I could, hopefully it can stand the abuse. Got it for $35 though, really can't complain at that price.

WHHHHHHHHHHHHAT!? That is a crazy good deal. Jealous I am.

[Tall Texan]

Great work Adam. So for your pull ups you're just adding a rep each time and knocking out sets until you reach it? Also, notice any differences from the conditioning you've been doing?

[AdamW]

WHHHHHHHHHHHHAT!? That is a crazy good deal. Jealous I am.

He bought another for for $100 too, not as great of a deal but still pretty good! After he re-sells one of them we'll have made money, haha... I might just buy the other one from him for the $100 and bring it home though, I like that thing!

Great work Adam. So for your pull ups you're just adding a rep each time and knocking out sets until you reach it? Also, notice any differences from the conditioning you've been doing?

Hey Scott, yeah just adding a rep right now and doing however many sets I need to to get them all in. I'm thinking I'm gonna take it up to 50 reps and then work on reducing the number of sets. Once I can do 5 sets of 10 I'll worry about adding weight.

I haven't noticed any real difference from conditioning to be honest. I out-eat my conditioning work easily, so no body composition changes. I'm mostly just doing it for the sake of getting better at it, I like the idea of having a bigger gas tank and some endurance, just like I like the idea of getting stronger.

[sking1001]

Trying to catch up here, Adam, and I'm thoroughly impressed with your progress as of late! Very nice work, man...sounds like the starting too light philosophy really works.