Narvaez Family Starting Strength Log

[simonsky]

You're a lakers fan too? awwwwwww

[slowjoe]

Why for?

He was obsessing.

GL Tom. Have a look at the Tommy Suggs interviews (esp part 3 and 4) if you have time. You don't get to hit a home-run every workout. Your biggest problem might be managing your expectations/emotions, rather than anything program related.

[Tom Narvaez]

Watched the Suggs interview. Thanks Joe.

Fuck it. I'll keep posting my log. I'm posting in other sections right now anyway. I'm officially addicted to the internetzz.

4/25/12
Squats: 430x5
I'm sure this will make some of you super happy to hear, but I decided to try and "sit back" more today. It worked very well and I greatly preferred it. I noticed in most of my sets that my knees would pull back quickly out of the hole and my back angle would assume a more horizontal orientation. I wasn't having success thinking about "leaning over more" so I tried the ever-famous, ever-annoying "sit back" cue and it worked better. My back angle was more consistent, I felt more tighter out of the hole, and I got deeper without traveling further down. That said, this was a pretty brutal set in terms of how much energy it took out of me. It destroyed the rest of the workout energy wise. This was mostly because I don't have any jack3d right now. I never realized how much I relied on stimulants until recently.

Press: 160x3, 165x3, 125x8
I knew right away that today was not a PR day for press. I was just butt-fucked after squats. So, I got some volume in instead. I'll go for 162.5x3 next time or maybe even 165x5x1. I need more JACK3D, lol.

Pullups: 240x8x2 /w 2 orange light bands
No energy so I just did a light pull-up workout instead of my usual heavy 3x5 chins. Easy enough and I could really feel my lats due to the overhand grip. My next shipment of JACK3D should be here before Saturday's workout. Thank God. I need that shit.

[Briks42]

Tom, I know you are getting tons of different suggestions from all over the place right now so I hate adding to that, but I'm doing it anyway, haha.

Monday- squat, press, chin

Wednesday- bench, curl, deadlift (re-set to 365ish and make 5 pound weekly jumps. You shoot for 5 reps but add the 5 pounds as long as you get 3)

Friday- squat, press, chin

Monday- squat, bench, curl

Wednesday- press, chin, deadlift

Friday- squat, bench, curl

So basically, you are squatting twice every week and deadlifting once. Alternating presses and benches and alternating chins and curls. If you like rows better than chins, use them. Or even go back and forth. Deadlifts will be back to weekly linear progress but only 5 pound jumps. 5 pound jumps is key. You'll notice powercleans are missing. I have nothing against powercleans for some people but I don't think they help your goals right now. If you think you need to do SOME though, work in some singles or doubles as part of your deadlift workout.

This is a very simple template but I think it would be perfect for you. I think you would smash through your deadlift plateau in no time with the 5 pound jumps. I honestly wouldn't be surprised if you could tske them up to like 450x3 before stalling ( which would take about 17 weeks of 5 pound jumps)

[Bradley]

Have you been cycling off of Jack3d regularly?

[skipbeat]

Briks I really doubt Tom can sustain LP on squats for another 17 weeks though.. he'd be squatting 600 x 5 by then. When he switches up his squat programming the DL will likely come with it. I do agree with the template, maybe he shouldn't reset so far though. I still think he should just get his squat strong as fuck and his DL will get strong as a consequence, it's probably a lot higher than he gives credit for if he actually deadlifted fresh. But that would fuck up the train of ass kicking he's on, which is why I say to try and fix the DL programming, but not at the expense of the squats.

[Briks42]

Briks I really doubt Tom can sustain LP on squats for another 17 weeks though.. he'd be squatting 600 x 5 by then. When he switches up his squat programming the DL will likely come with it. I do agree with the template, maybe he shouldn't reset so far though. I still think he should just get his squat strong as fuck and his DL will get strong as a consequence, it's probably a lot higher than he gives credit for if he actually deadlifted fresh. But that would fuck up the train of ass kicking he's on, which is why I say to try and fix the DL programming, but not at the expense of the squats.

Skip, I agree with you. I am not giving any squat programming advice at all outside of the days, which I think are the days he is squatting currently. Whether he is doing Texas Method, Madcow, or anything else on the squat is fine. He clearly knows what he's doing there.

My main suggestions are just to drop the powercleans, deadlift weekly on Wednesdays, re-set and make 5 pound linear jumps. The amount of the re-set would also be negotiable, but the weekly deadlifts and 5 pound jumps would not (if I were his coach, which I'm obviously not).

[Tom Narvaez]

Eventually, I'm just going to do Madcow's. For now, I'm just going to do the old school advanced novice program alternating cleans/deadlifts on Wednesdays.

With Madcow's, you're supposed to do a 4 week run-up which kind of allows each lift to adjust relative to the other lifts in terms of how you can perform in a slightly fatigued state. "Friday" squats on Madcow's are submaximal and don't require perfect recovery from Wednesday's volume deadlifts (5x5 ramped pulls). If I can squat 430x5, I can very likely do ~455x3, but, on Madcow's, on Friday, I'd be squatting 435x5 which is ~5% less than a true max triple.The point being that you don't need full recovery until Monday for Madcow's.

I've never really deadlifted much more than I squatted, but I've also never squatted this much more than I deadlift. I guess I'll find out what's going on when I do 355/365 next Wednesday. It will be the first time I've deadlifted in 2+ weeks. If it flies up with barely any effort then I was obviously very overtrained previously. If it is any degree of hard, I'm probably just one of those people that doesn't get a good carryover from squatting. It is likely both.

There are plenty of really strong lifters, guys with 800+ squats, that squat quite a bit more than they pull for whatever reason. It may turn out that I'm just one of those guys.

I'm going to do a cycle of Madcow's with 10# jumps and then a cycle with 5# jumps. If my deadlift still isn't going in the right direction, I'll switch over to sumo and do the same thing. It may take me a while, but I'll get it figured out.

My failures in the weight room are never due to effort or a lack of want. For me, it is about patience and the mental game more than anything else. At the same time, I pride myself on being able to use my knowledge to get myself, and my lifters, to progress much faster than what other people do. So, it is a balance. With squats, I've found a horse that I can just keep riding into the dirt. That's what I'm going to do until it stops working.

[Tom Narvaez]

Have you been cycling off of Jack3d regularly?

Nope. I never cycle off. I only take it 3x/wk so I don't see the point. My "on" cycles are already shorter than my "off" cycles just due to the way I organize the training week.

[Bradley]

Nope. I never cycle off. I only take it 3x/wk so I don't see the point. My "on" cycles are already shorter than my "off" cycles just due to the way I organize the training week.

Even if you don't take a drug every day you can still build a tolerance. If the dose you're taking is sufficiently high enough to be building tolerance, then 2 days (assuming 3x/week training with 2 days of consecutive rest per week) would not be a long enough "cycle" to reset this.

However, since we all metabolize drugs differently there's no way to say what dose is too much.

I would just keep an eye out for decreasing efficacy of your doses or needing to use more for the same effect. That would be a sign you're developing a tolerance.