B's Journey to Awesomeness

[BKlinger]

Today I read an awesome post by Mike Tuchscherer about how some people are not doing what they should be doing to get strong, but much rather are just lifting heavy weights for the enjoyment of doing so regardles of the results. This is me and I want to do better in the future because I really want to continue to get stronger and will try to do so by approaching my lifting endeavours in a more structured and disciplined way.

Quick recap of my lifting progress in 2014:
SQ: 180kgx1->210kgx1
BP: 140kgx1->150kgx1 (TNG heels up -> IPF pause, heels down)
DL: 200kgx1->240kgx1
Bodyweight: 85kg->87.5kg
Did my first powerlifting meet
Happy with my progress over the year and looking forward to getting stronger and staying healthy in 2015!

Wednesday GPP:
10 min chins
5 min curlz
5 min abz
7 x rower sprints
some easy power cleans with 100kg

[BKlinger]

Thursday:

Pin SQ (beltless): 145kgx6@7, 152,5kgx6@7.5, 160kgx6@8, 165kgx6@9, 155kgx6,6
TNG Bench: 122,5kgx6@7, 127,5kgx6@8, 132,5kgx6@8.5, 125kgx6,6,6,6
OHP: 70kgx6@7, 75kgx6@8, 6, 6, 6, 6; 70kgx6, 6

Good training day. 2nd time ever doing pin squats and I like them a lot! Set pins so I am about an inch below parallel at the bottom and they teach me where below parallel actually is at (feels wayy high to me). Every set felt better after the first one because my technique got better and I focused hard on not doing a pin good morning but rather some nice squats.
Adductors still felt smoked going in but 0 calf pain because no excessive depth which is awesome!
Bench felt really strong today and I am pretty sure I could have hit 8 reps with 132,5kg, but stayed there because I didn't want to overshoot my target RPE.

Tried to do "reapeats" on my OHP today. That felt good as well and got quite some volume in.

[BKlinger]

Friday:
2sec pause DL (beltless): 145kgx6@7, 155kgx6@7.5, 165kgx6@8, 170kgx6@9, 160kgx6@8, 160kgx6@9
Floor Press (paused): 117,5kgx6@7, 122,5kgx6@7.5, 127,5kgx6@8.5, 130kgx6@9 PR!, 122,5kgx6@8.5, 122,5kgx6@9
Lever Rows: Bar+40kgx10@7, +45kgx10@7.5, +50kgx10@8, +55kgx10@8.5, +50kgx10@8.5

I feel very weak on pause DLs because keeping my back straight on conventional pulls is a weak point of mine and I get a lot out of my belt because of that as well. Hoping to get better at that by doing them and focusing hard on maintaining good form.
Lever Rows felt pretty good as well, but I found it hard to rate RPE here, especially with the high reps.
Good training day in general however with a nice PR on Floor Press!

Edit: Just found out I did pause DLs wrong by pausing at the knees. Will pause slightly above the floor in the future...

[Austin Baraki]

Edit: Just found out I did pause DLs wrong by pausing at the knees. Will pause slightly above the floor in the future...

Nice work, I haven't caught up on your log in a while and it looks like you've been doing a lot better lately. And I don't think there's a "right" or "wrong" way to do the paused deads, when I was doing them I would pause ~two inches below the knees and it worked great for me. Some like pausing just off the floor, some like pausing somewhere in between, etc.

[BKlinger]

Saturday:
GPP: 7min chins, 5min curlz, 5 min abz, 10 min jump rope (did this at home, so no rower)

Sunday:

Comp. SQ: 180kgx3@7, 190kgx3@8, 200kgx3@9, 195kgx3@9, 190kgx3@9 185kgx3@8, 185kgx3@8.5, 182,5kgx3@9
Comp. Bench: 130kgx3@6, 137,5kgx3@7, 142,5kgx3@8, 147,5kgx3@9.5 PR!, 142,5kgx3@8.5, 140kgx3@8.5, 140kgx3@9, 137,5kgx3@9, 135kgx3@9
2s pause Bench: 120kgx5@8, 125kgx5@9, 120kgx5@9, 115kgx5@8, 115kgx5@8.5, 115kgx5@9

Good session! Did the squats in oly shoes and focused on controling the descend better than I have been doing before and stopping 1-2inches below parallel. Had no calf pain at all.
Worked with 6-9% fatigue today because I programed myself a high stress week and today felt really good with lots of volume! Felt a little exhausted going into 2s pause bench however, so my performance there was really weak. Still got lots of work done.

Training time: 1.45 hours (trying to push my rest times a bit)
Morning weight: 87,9kg

[BKlinger]

Tuesday:

Pin Squat(belt): 155kgx5@7, 165kgx5@7.5, 175kgx5@8.5, 180kgx5@9, 170kgx5@8, 170kgx5@8.5, 165kgx5@8, 165kgx5@9
TNG Bench: 127,5kgx5@7, 132,5kgx5@@8, 137,5kgx5@9, 130kgx5@8, 130kgx5@8, 130kgx5@8.5, 130kgx5@9, 127,5kgx5@9
Press: 80kgx5@7, 85kgx5@8, 90kgx5@9, 85kgx5@8, 82,5kgx5@8, 82,5kgx5@8.5, 82,5kgx5@8.5, 82,5kgx5@9

Good session with lots of volume! Have to switch things around a bit this week to get everything in but should be no problem. Put on a belt for my pin squats because my SI joint has been slightly irritated since the beltless 2s pause DLs last week and I want to play it safe.
I was pretty exhausted when I finally came to the Press, so I sat down for 5 minutes and had a protein shake with some oats in it and felt much better afterwards.
Training time: 2.10 hours
Morning weight: 88,2kg

[BKlinger]

Conv. DL (belt): 195kgx3@7, 205kgx3@7.5, 215kgx3@8.5, 210kgx3@9, 205kgx3@9, 200kgx3@8, 200kgx3@8.5, 200kgx3@9
Floor Press (paused): 122,5kgx5@7, 127,5kgx5@7.5, 132,5kgx5@8, 135kgx5@9, 130kgx5@8.5, 130kgx5@9, 127,5kgx5@9, 125kgx5@9
SLDL (beltless): 160kgx5@7, 170kgx5@8, 180kgx5@9, 170kgx5@8, 170kgx5@8, 170kgx5@8... palms were hurting badly, shut it down

Good session. On my warmups for conv. DLs I did all my warmups with the sumo stance as well.
Sumo warmups: 60kgx3, 100kgx3, 140kgx3, 160kgx3, 180kgx3, 195kgx3, 205kgx3

[BKlinger]

Comp. SQ: 170kgx5@7, 180kgx5@7.5, 190kgx5@8.5, 180kgx5@7.5, 180kgx5@8, 180kgx5@8, 180kgx5@8.5, 180kgx5@9
Comp. Bench: 130kgx4@7, 135kgx4@8, 140kgx4@10..., 135kgx4@9..., 130kgx4@8, 130kgx4@8.5, 130kgx4@9
Conv. DL: 180kgx5@7, 190kgx5@7.5, 200kgx5@9, 190kgx5@9
BB Curlz: 3x10 with 60kg

Good session for squats but really bad for the bench press. Did squats first today because we trained with the whole crew from the powerlifting club and everybody was doing squats together. Felt beat going into deadlifts, weak there but that was expected.

[BKlinger]

Sumo DL: 190kgx5@7, 200kgx5@8, 207.5kgx5@9, 200kgx5@9
TNG Bench: 127,5kgx5@7, 132,5kgx5@8, 137,5kgx5@8.5, 130kgx5,5,5,5,5 till RPE9
Lever Rows: Bar+50kgx10@7, +55kgx10@8, +60kgx10@9, +50kgx10@8, +50kgx10@8, +50kgx10@9 (with straps)
BW Chins: 20,20

Today was a bad day for sumo deadlifts and Ifelt really trashed going in after my high stress week. I used to be super upset about days like this but I finally start to understand the bigger picture. Had pretty sore adductors after my last set of deadlifts but not really any pain, so very happy with that.

[BKlinger]

Wednesday:

Comp. SQ: 170kgx6@7, 180kgx6@8, 187,5kgx6@9 PR!, 180kgx6@8, 180kgx6@8.5, 177,5kgx6@9
Comp. Bench: 120kgx6@7.5, 127,5kgx6@9... wtf, 120kgx6@8, 120kgx6@8.5, 120kgx6@9
2s pause Bench: 112,5kgx5@7, 120kgx5@9, 115kgx5@8.5, 115kgx5@9

Thursday:

Conv. DL (belt): 180kgx6@7, 190kgx6@8, 200kgx6@9 PR!, 190kgx6@9
Floor press (paused): 125kgx5@7, 130kgx5@8, 135kgx5@9, 130kgx5@8.5, 130kgx5@9
Front SQ (belt): 115kgx7@7, 120kgx7@7.5, 127,5kgx7@9, 120kgx7@8, 120kgx7@9

I have been feeling very sore all over for quite some time now. Bench was very weak yesterday but Squat and Deadlift went pretty well and my work capacity is improving.
Overall good sessions and I really enjoy training at the moment.
Morning weight: 88,0kg