Front & High Bar Squat: 95x5, 135x4, 185x3, 225x3, 255x3 each
High Bar Only:275x3, 285x3
Front Squat Back-Off: 185x5
DB Bench Press (between SQ sets):
90x8, 100x8x2
Notes: All pretty solid. Put belt on for high bar for the first time since resuming squats and even though it was a 3", still pinched a bit so need to get the placement right for that. All in all, nothing of note here. Since it's been so long since I've front squatted regularly, my front rack mobility isn't fantastic; additionally, I have short humerii and longish forearms, so the deck is somewhat stacked against me for FS. So I won't be pushing the FS super hard. I'll let it slowly tack up with time as my regular squat goes back up, but won't be pushing my rack mobility limits. Tried using straps but couldn't make it work in a way that wasn't even worse than holding a front rack.
Deadlift
255x5, 295x5 after CDL and DL warmups
CDL Back Offs
185x5, 135x5
Cable Row (between sets)
150x10, 180x8, 195x8x3
Notes: All OK here too, nothing exciting.
DB Curls
40x8, 50x8x2
Plank
30,35,35s
Assault Bike
15/50x10
Bench Press
315x3, 335x2, 350x1
BW Squat
BWx9x5
Notes: Bench feels heavy but moves fast. Just re-acclimating to the feelings of holding and pushing heavy weights.
Press
185x5, 205x5x3
Cocaine DL
Empty bar and light dumbbells
Notes: Re-tweaked my back at some point, probably Friday but I didn't feel anything happen at the time. Felt a little teeny tiny something Friday night, then got worse over the weekend. It's not a terribly bad one, but is annoying, so kept the CDLs real light.
PR and BP still without belt or wraps.
350 bench and 205 press on IG
Lat Pulldown - Neutral Grip
195x7, 210x7, 225x7x3
Paloff Holds - 4 sets
Tricep Rope
110x12, 120x12x2
Still don't know how it happened, but back tweak continued into yesterday, feeling about the same as it did Monday. Interesting thing is that this feels more like one of the traditional back tweaks I've had intermittently since 2008, less like the super resilient, supertweak I've had more recently. So hoping this one will go away and leave me alone, like they used to. Anyway, just did super light cocaine DLs instead of any regular DL; I was slotted for leg press anyway, and that went fine, which also indicates it's not as bad of a tweak as the previous recent ones didn't allow me to even leg press.
It's already a little bit better today, so hoping that's a general trend; we'll see how it feels Friday and I'll make a gametime call on squats and pulls.
Cocaine DL
45x10x2, 88x5, 108x5x6, 88x5
Dumbbell Standing Press
55x9, 65x9x2
Notes: Kept DL super light and easy; did some of the sets later on at the end between curls and planks. Added 1 rep to presses; easing into increasing the difficulty here, since I've never really run a 4 day split like this with upper body. The 3 day program I'd been doing in 2017 and 2018 worked really well, but the Mon and Fri workouts were about 3 hours long if I did conditioning, and they also didn't include any leg press or squats. Adding those back in just wouldn't be feasible on that 3 day program, unless I did 2-a-days. Trying to make it work similarly on the 4 day split. I'll post about this in a separate post below.
Leg Press
455x8, 515x8, 455x8
Cable Row
180x10, 195x10x4
DB Strict Curls
30x12x3
Plank
35s x3
Notes: Now that stricties are up to 12s, I'll go to 35 and drop reps back down.
Assault Bike
25/65 x8
Notes: Doing these about as fast as I was doing my 15/45s a couple months ago, and they feel easier, if anything. I haven't nearly pushed myself to even close to the limit on any conditioning yet, but performance keeps going up relatively quickly. I really hate that raw throat, absolutely breathless, heart hammering feeling; so the longer I can avoid it while still getting in better shape, the better. I'll probably have to go there eventually, but as long as the numbers improve, I don't see a reason to rush into it.
Last edited by Michael Wolf; 10-09-2019 at 09:48 AM.
Is your back tweak in the T12L1 area, mike? Trying to compile a list of shit that provides some relief for the tweak thats been nagging me for the better part of a year.
Oddly enough heavy “hip thrusters” seem to be at the top of the list. I do these very discretely when the gym is empty and there are no witnesses.
No, it's much lower.
Press: 4" belt (loose)
215x3, 225x3x2
DB CDL
Sets of 5 @20, 30, 40, 50x3 sets
Notes: Finally starting to feel back in my groove here, towards the end of week 3 of this block (which will be 13-15 weeks, depending how things go). I'm getting used to the 4 day program again, both in terms of the program itself as well as the general logistics of going to the gym four days a week.
Lifts themselves are starting to feel a little better, a little more back to normal. Though I did 225x5 several times over the past few months, it always kind of felt weak. While not any kind of objective measure, I wasn't internally satisfied with it even though I did it. Doing 225x3 today, I felt very solid with it for the first time in a while, probably since April when I hit 225x8 on my NYC trip. I hope to be back at peak 225x10 by the end of this cycle, but will DEFINITELY be back to 225 for routine work sets of 5 pretty soon. I remember the very first time I did 225x5 as a routine work set in 2015 and how excited I was. It's a place in my training I set as a baseline ever since.
Bench Press
295x5, 315x5x2, 295x5
Goblet Squat
Sets of 6 @20, 30, 40, 45, 50
Notes: Bench was pretty uneventful, just ramping back up. Did the goblets to test out my back a little further, they felt fine. Back generally feels better than yesterday, the first clear day to day improvement since it happened at some point Friday. And felt better at the end of the workout than before, always a good sign.
225x3 press and 315x5 bench on IG
Lat Pulldown (neutral grip)
150x10, 165x10x4
Paloff Holds
4 sets
Notes: Last week did 6 reps on the 4th set with 165. This week did all 10, felt easy. Will move to 8s at the next full increment, 180, next week.
LTEs
90x10, 110x10x2
Notes: Same weight as last week but did the 110s for 10 instead of 8.
Last edited by Michael Wolf; 10-10-2019 at 06:53 PM.
It went from 95 to 45 overnight here in Austin, so today was a perfect day for an early wake-up and workout so I can catch a flight later. And by perfect, I mean absolute shit.
My back is feeling a little better but wasn't ready to go back to adding weight on full squats and DLs, but was good enough to do some light ones, which is better than usual this quickly, so I'm encouraged by that.
Cocaine DL
45x5x2, 95x5x2, 135x5x2, 185x5x2 (also did a few sets of sumo here, to see how it felt on my back; not zero but not too bad).
DB Bench Press
100x9x3
Notes: CDLs were uneventful, aside from what I wrote above. Last week did 90x8, 100x8x2 on DBBP, so added one rep to all sets and did all three sets at 100. Starting to build some momentum and feel good here, but considering I threw up the 100s for 2-3 sets of 8 seated PRESSES last winter, still a long way to go. That said, these are pretty easy and there's lots of room before they get tough here.
High Bar Squat: Tempo 2-0-1
45x5, 95x5, 135x5x4
Cable Row
195x8, 210x8x3
Notes: Being early, cold, and cranky left my front rack pretty crappy so I ditched the front squats after 95. I did hold 10-15s in the front rack to stretch the position out between every set of high bars. Did the squats nice and slow to be careful with my back and it went fine. Rows, added on plate to the stack and dropped reps from 10 to 8, but I'll do this for 9 or 10 next week. I'm now one shy of maxing it out.
DB Curls
40x9, 50x9x2
Planks
35s x3
Notes: Added 1 rep to curls.
Assault Bike
15/45 x10, pushed it harder again. Still not crushed by these but my objective performance keeps going up so OK.