Once More. From The Top.

[Gary Gibson]

[Monday, June 22, 2015...]
BP, touch and go
45 x 20
135 x 5
185 x 3
205 x 1
210 x 4

SQ, Olympic, higher heels
135 x 6
225 x 4
275 x 2
295 x 1
305 x 1
275 x 3, 3, 2

DBR, semi-supinated 125 x 6, 115 x 6

Squat still giving me trouble. Maybe this is is just a natural wave.

[hector_garza]

I had no idea you had a log here!

I read your posts here years ago when you had that crazy knee thing you were draining yourself. Fascinating stuff. Is that mostly worked out?

Excited to follow your log. Good luck at your upcoming meet! Sounds like your training plan is in check.

[Gary Gibson]

I had no idea you had a log here!

I read your posts here years ago when you had that crazy knee thing you were draining yourself. Fascinating stuff. Is that mostly worked out?

Excited to follow your log. Good luck at your upcoming meet! Sounds like your training plan is in check.

Thanks. Yeah, the knee effusion at that point was purely overtraining. Squatting just once or twice a week for reasonable volume has solved all my problems. I have since stopped trying stupid things I read about on the internet.

[Saturday, June 27, 2015]

SQ, Olympic, higher heels, sleeves at 315
45 x 12 x 2
135 x 6
225 x 4
275 x 3
305 x 2
315 x 2
320 x 1

BP, touch and go
45 x 20
135 x 5
175 x 3
195 x 2
205 x 1
210 x 1

DL, conventional, no shoes, no belt
315 x 3
365 x 2
405 x 1
425 x 1
405 x 2

DBR, semi-supinated 120 x 6 x 2

Better. Finally got my squat back over 315. 320 was the biggest squat I've done in a while. I wanted to baby step up 5 lbs at a time. But when I walked out 325, I knew that I was done with the movement for today. I benched poorly and hustled over to deadlift after I benched 210 for a relatively easy single. I didn't have it in me to push bench after the squat. The first 405 deadlift felt so easy that I jumped to 425 and hoped I'd get a double. Ha. Not even close. So I went back to 405 afterward and got a hard double. Finished up with getting two sets of DB rows with the 120 DB.

I'm just happy that I got five squat reps over 300, three of them over 315, and four deadlift reps over 400.

What's funny is that there were two guys in the gym doing the exact routine simultaneously. They started with squats when I did, but moved to bench before I and then to deadlifts. Then the bigger of the two busted out some DB rows right as I finished up deads. I had to tell them that I honestly wasn't stalking them! It was cool to see someone else doing the same basics upon which I've come to rely.

[Gary Gibson]

[Wednesday, July 1, 2015, 170 lbs...]

BP, touch and go
45 x 20
95 x 10
135 x 5
165 x 3
185 x 2
195 x 2
205 x 2
210 x 2
215 x 2

SQ, Olympic, higher heels, no belt, sleeves at 315
45 x 16
135 x 8
225 x 4
275 x 2
305 x 1
315 x 1 x 3

BP, touch and go 195 x 4 x 2

DBR, semi-supinated 100 x 12 x 2

Four days of rest and I was raring to go today. I am going to try my best to keep my rest times to between four and six days. Also I'm going to alternate what gets precedence and most of my energy. It's either going to be bench first or squat first. Bench first will go like today: BP-SQ-BP-DBR. Squat first will go like this: SQ-BP-DL. On the days bench gets precedence squat will be low volume maintenance. Ditto for vice versa.

So today I worked up to a heavy double on the bench, then I did low volume squats, then I went back to the bench to get in a little more volume with a lighter weight. Finished up with DBR volume because the DBs at the Lee Rd LAF only go up to 100.

Can't help but notice that squatting first makes bench really bad next. Benching first doesn't detract from the squat nearly as much...but it still detracts a bit. Squatting first knocks 10-20% off my bench. Benching first knocks 5-10% off my squat. So it makes a lot of sense to rotate the lift order. The way I've set this up, I also deadlift only every other session or once every 8-12 days, which makes a lot of sense. I may occasionally simply not deadlift if I feel I need some time away from the lift. It really does take a lot out of me and prevents me from squatting my best for quite a few days.

I might have been able to bench 220 for a double today. But it would have been close. I'm guessing my odds of getting a second rep were 50/50 today. So I called it a day instead of burning out my press and risking needing someone to come yank the bar off my chest and save me. And honestly my second set of 195 got a little bouncy at the third rep. Either way it's way better than the 210 x 1 that shut me down after squatting last session!

Today's squat session was mostly about me staying used to dunking 315. I really don't want to go below this milestone for my work sets ever again, even if my work sets consist of singles. I want to have 315 or more on my back every time I go to the gym. I failed on my fourth attempt, but I didn't record it up top because I didn't fight for it. I sunk it and immediately knew it would be a fight in which I would probably lose form getting it back up. So I just called it a negative and gently dumped it on the safety bars.

My next planned session is five days from now, Monday, July 6. I'm already dreaming of squatting 325 for a double and pulling 415 for a double. But sadly, my other long term dream has died...

It looks like some 5'6" 180-lb man with national records has swept all the FL USAPL raw open records with numbers I could not match if I were to get up to a bodyweight of over 200 lbs. He squatted over 500, benched over 400 and deadlifted over 600. I'm not going to spend too much time lamenting this...or highlighting my doubts about how effective the current testing protocols are. I will just set my sights on the Masters 1 raw records since I'll be competing as a Master next year. The current records there are around a 370 lb squat and just under a 500 lb deadlift. That squat is a little on the low side and I expect I'll have to squat well into the 400's to make my mark.

I do believe Masters numbers drop so sharply not because of a natural decline in test, but because Masters simply don't juice the way the highly competitive young bucks do. There is already little enough financial incentive for younger powerlifters to mess with drug cocktails. When you subtract what little fame there is in the Open division, the incentive to bother with drugs completely evaporates. I'm not as bitter about this as I may sound. I'm mostly happy that my lifting career has lasted long enough for me to have a shot at being competitive with older farts who aren't juicing.

And I just weighed myself on a whim. To my great surprise I am just a few ounces over 170 lbs today! I actually moved the scale to several different spots to make sure the uneveness of the floor wasn't giving me a false reading. I guess I haven't been eating very much this week. But I weighed myself after breaking my fast with a couple of sandwiches. I'm really surprised to find that I still weigh so little. I'm kind of happy insofar as singles with 315 in the no-no-no Olympic squat isn't horrible at a middle-aged, completely PED-free 170 lbs.

And on that note, I really need to reconsider my expected rate of progress. I've calmed down a lot on this, accepting that there are no 50-lb increases in a month left in store for me. So adding a mere 5 lbs every other session or even every third session would still represent great progress for me. So maybe I should look for 320 for doubles next time, not 325. It makes a difference. Just 5 lbs every third session is 5 lbs every 12-18 days...10 lbs per month! That's plenty at this point. And it would get me to a 405-lb Olympic no-no-no squat not terribly long after my 40th birthday. Just food for thought.

[Gary Gibson]

[Monday, July 6, 2015, 173 lbs...]
BP, touch and go
45 x 20
95 x 10
135 x 5
165 x 4
185 x 3
195 x 2
205 x 1
215 x 1
220 x 2

SQ, Olympic, higher heels, sleeves at 315
45 x 12
135 x 6
225 x 4
275 x 3
305 x 2
315 x 1
325 x 1 x 3

DBR, semi-supinated 125 x 5/4

Mixed feelings today. Happy that I got a clean, non-bouncy double with 220 on the BP. Happy I got three singles with 325 on the SQ. But said I didn't have enough energy left over to do any volume on the bench. Also sad I couldn't muster any energy for one-arm rows either. The BP is a five-lb improvement over the last session and the SQ is a ten-lb improvement. I am having a devil of a time getting doubles for the squat, yet I seem to be improving my ability to do a handful of singles.

I did the BP-SQ-DBR again instead of the SQ-BP-DL so I could devote everything to getting a couple more pounds on the BP. I think I may do one more session like that so I can try to get a double with 225. I would like to get a few singles with SQ 330 or 325 in a BP-first session...then when I switch to a SQ-first session, get 325 for doubles.

I broke my fast early today and I ate a lot last night. So I trained fairly full and I later weighed while more hydrated than usual. 173 is NOT my dry wake up weight today. I seem to be hovering between 170 and 174 though. I'd like to Olympic squat 350 for a double before I weigh over 175. My best ever Olympic squat with just knee sleeves was 365 at 182 and that was several years ago. I am slowly edging toward double bodyweight Olympic style again. And this time I may hit 360 before I weigh even 180.

Once I hit my goal of double bodyweight for a double, I may resort to a volume routine and try to put on a little weight. My aspiration is to spend the next few months filling out to the top of the 83-kilo class and putting up 1200 lbs total as a Master 1.

[Gary Gibson]

Started a new training log thread.

[Gary Gibson]

And I'm blogging again. If anyone wants to follow my results and random thoughts, I'm active on Voluntary Dissonance again. Here are my knee wraps thoughts.

And my results from the past six weeks.
BW 174-176 --> 186-188 = +12 lbs
BP 215 x 2 ---> 255 x 2 = +40 lbs
SQ 315 x 2 ---> 365 x 2 = + 50 lbs
DL 405 x 2 ---> 455 x 2 = + 50 lbs

Touch and go bench, high bar squat with sleeves and wraps no belt, conventional deadlift with hook grip no belt

Thanks for reading and having followed along.

[Gary Gibson]

Had to share. Big lifetime PRs on high bar, beltless squat and beltless conventional dead.

Here if you happen to give a fuck :-)

[Chris McCarthy]

Nice work!

[Gary Gibson]

Nice work!

Thanks! And the hits just keep on coming...

I front squatted 315 last night! It was with wraps, so knock off 100 lbs obviously ;-)