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5/20/17 GGW W2D3 (medium)
Squat 192.5: 5/5/5
Bench 142.5: 5/5/5/5
Deadlift 262.5 5
Pullups: 9/8/8/8/9
Thoughts: Another good day in the books. Chugging along.
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5/23/17 GGW W3D1
Squat 220: 4/4/4/4
CG Bench 140: 4/4/4/4
Deadlift 245: 4/4/4
Thoughts: My arch nemesis squats are becoming a grind again. Not a good sign in the first cycle of the program that is supposed to be a light cycle. We will see how it goes next cycle. All my other lifts are going along swimmingly.
Last edited by StrengthEngineer; 05-23-2017 at 12:50 PM.
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do you lift at a commercial gym in phoenix? . . . I'm in Gilbert
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No, there aren't any good ones near me. Really the only gyms on my side (north Phoenix) that are equipped properly are crossfit gyms with very slim pickings for open gym time. So I actually put together my own Rogue setup in my garage a few months back.Originally Posted by MBasic
Last edited by StrengthEngineer; 05-23-2017 at 12:53 PM.
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5/25/17 GGW W3D2
Squat 192.5: 4/4
Press 108: 4/4/4/4
Row 155: 4/4/4/4
Curl 47: 10/10/10/10/10
Thoughts: Yeah, don't know what's up with my squat but the weight felt way heavier than it should again today. This was light day, this weight is typically a warmup weight for me, and I did the same exact weight 2 weeks ago for 4x6 and it felt like a feather, yet for some reason it felt heavy and bar speed was slower than it should be today. Not fatiguing, but it felt heavy, like a grind. Same as how I felt after my heavy squat day on Tuesday. All my other lifts seem to be responding to GGW well, but my squat feels like it's detraining. Not going to do anything drastic just yet as this is only the 3rd (and final) week of the first cycle, but I'll definitely be monitoring it closely next cycle, if I'm still feeling this way at the end of the second cycle then I'll start thinking about making tweaks. Last month I got up to 235 on my LP, so it's really weird that 192.5 feels heavy now.
Last edited by StrengthEngineer; 05-25-2017 at 10:54 AM.
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You squatted 220 4x4 2 days ago, so you probably still have some fatigue built up from that. I'm on HLM, and my light day squats always feel "heavy", even though they're at 80% of what I did 2 days earlier.
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Yeah, that may have something to do with it, but 220 4x4 felt really heavier than it should as well. We will see. I'm not going to think too much on it right now, I'll see how I feel in 3 weeks after the second mesocycle. Worst comes to worse I have to tweak things a bit going into the 3rd cycle. I don't feel overly fatigued like I did at the end of my LP, it feels like the lift stagnated, which usually means it needs more volume. The first cycle on GGW is light, so I may have had a little detraining set in. Next week heavy day is 4x6 @75% so the extra volume should help to stimulate adaptation. Everything else is responding really well to the new program, especially my deadlifts, extra deadlift volume has been great so far.
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5/27/17 GGW W3D3
Squat 206: 4/4/4
Bench 152: 4/4/4/4
DL 280: 4
Chin: 9/9/9/7/7
Thoughts: I think I found out what's going on with my squat to make it feel so heavy. I was leaning too far back onto my heel. Made a little adjustment to put the center of balance just a hair forward onto mid foot and it went much smoother. I was able to activate more quad this way, on my heel I was squatting hamstring dominant which is not ideal, and likely why the weight felt so heavy. So we will see how it goes next week after that adjustment, but it felt promising today. I fudged up on deadlifts today, but still completed the set. I'm so used to double overhand now since I do 3 sets DOH on Tuesday every week for light deadlifts, and all my warmups I do DOH, so when I went to pull my heavy deads today without thinking I started pulling DOH as well. Made it through the first couple reps, but then I had to change grip mid set for the last 2, and after changing grip my form was way off the second two reps. Lesson learned, pay more attention next time! Also learned to keep chin-ups no more than an RPE 8. I had planned 3 sets of 9 and 2 sets of 8 today, and that 3rd set I went to RPE 9.5 to get that 9th rep, and then I couldn't even get 8 on my final two sets. I already know that when I go above an RPE 8 on chin-ups it super fatigues my remaining sets, I should have cut it at 8. Oh well. Still a good day. I'll try for 9/9/9/8/8 again on Tuesday.
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5/30/17 GGW W4D1
Squat 206: 6/6/6/6
CG Bench 131: 6/6/6/6
DL 227.5: 6/6/6
Thoughts: Start of mesocycle 2. Wow 6 rep sets felt like pure death this morning, hahaha. Definitely going to have to extend my rest times a bit next mesocycle to probably 4-5 minutes, I'm still trying to keep rest times to a minimum at the moment. Didn't do my chin-ups this morning as I slept on my shoulder weird the other night and I've been in a lot of shoulder pain the last couple days. I was lucky enough to be able to squat and cg bench today (yesterday I wasn't sure I'd be able to lift at all today today), I had to be very careful. Didn't seem to aggravate it any further thankfully.
Also starting my cut this week (was on maintenance all of the first mesocycle), time to get rid of the belly fat once and for all. My game plan is about a 2 month cut to bring me down to 10% body fat, then go on a long term bulk at 2lb gain per month. I'm currently at 21% body fat according to the navy method at 5'9" 170lb, 35 1/4 in waist at the navel, and 15 inch neck at narrowest. Type 2 diabetes runs rampant in my family, and I know body fat is a big determining factor of if you get it, so I definitely need to get this body fat down to a more healthy level. Aside from the fact that it's summer and I look like shit with a shirt off, lol.
Last edited by StrengthEngineer; 05-30-2017 at 08:23 AM.
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4/1/17 GGW W4D2
Squat 179: 6/6
Press 101: 6/6/5/6
Row 140: 6/6/6/6
Curl 48: 10/10/10/10/10
Thoughts:
Squat form looked really good today when reviewing the video. Still have some DOMS from heavy squat and volume deadlift on Tuesday, but that's not a bad thing, and exactly what light day today is for. My press 3rd set wasn't good, I only got 5. Two issues, one was I didn't rest long enough, and two was that my form slipped a bit on the earlier reps which built fatigue. I knew that 5th rep was a 9.6, but I still tried to go for 6 and couldn't get out of the hole. Took an extra minute on the rest for the 4th set and went in determined, and hit it. I had to dig deep for that last rep, but success none the less. I mixed up reps on my rows, today was supposed to be 8 reps and I did 6 and didn't realize until after. Oh well. Next time.
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