Barry's "Get Stronger Until I Can't" Log

[BarryF]

Saturday 2/11/2017

Squat:
45x10x2, 135x5, 225x3
315x2x4
335x1
365x1
385x5@9.5

Chins:
BWx10
+45x6x3 These continue to be pretty tough at this weight although I have gained back a few pounds in the last couple of weeks. Maybe I'll try to work these in twice a week with the 2nd day being a bit lighter for 3x8 or so.

Press:
135x1
155x1
175x1
185x1 PR tie

Squats were much tougher than I would have liked, but I dug myself into a pretty good recovery deficit starting with a 20 lb DL PR attempt 2 weeks ago right in the middle of a squat peaking cycle. I followed that up 10 days later with a 3x5 deadlift PR. If the next two weeks continue to be less than stellar I may just run another cycle with a small bump in weight before I attempt a max. So I plan to test squat and deadlift either in two weeks or 7ish weeks.

Year to date progress:
0/0/0
Total 0

Keeping it real.

[BarryF]

Monday 2/13/2017

Bench:
w/u to 285x1, nice and smooth so:
305x1 +5 lb PR
265x3x5
225x8x2

Press:
135x5
140x5,6,6,8

Wed is my scheduled day to squat and deadlift, but won't be able to as I have school from basically 6:45 am to 8:30 pm, and have to be up at 5 the next morning. So I figure I either squat/dead a day early or a day late. Pretty sure adding a recovery day will be a better choice than removing one. Triples are on the agenda.

Year to date gains:
0/5/0
Total +5

[BarryF]

Thursday 2/16/2017

Got an extra day of recovery, so should be a great session

Squat: Rx=(390,395,400)x3
45x10x2, 135x5, 225x3
315x1,1,2,1,2 felt like dirt all the way through to the 5th warmup set here. Got discouraged at this point and decided to postpone squats.

Deadlift: Rx=475x3x3

475x3,2
425x0

/sigh

Reebok Legacy Lifters scheduled to arrive tomorrow to replace my Reebok Powerlift 2.0's. I'll probably try to squat again Saturday or Sunday.

[BarryF]

Friday 2/17/2017

Bench:
215x6x6

Press:
135x5x3

These came in today:

[BarryF]

Sunday 2/19/2017

Another day of recovery probably would have been ideal, but last squat session was a bust and I don't want too much time to pass without a productive squat session, cuz doms, so:

Squat: Showing warmups because I wasn't sure I would make it to my worksets or not. Figured I would get some light volume in if nothing else
45x10x2, 135x5, 225x5, 275x5, 315x3, 1
345x1
375x1
390x3x3 Last set @8.

These were a bit harder than I wanted them to be, but probably not an ideal lifting day. Still fighting some discomfort when squatting in various areas of my legs. I'll see how the next two squat sessions go and decide if I want to attempt a 1RM or not. It's been like 8 months since I set my last 1RM, but if the next two sessions don't seem great, I'm going to wait about 6 more weeks before maxing. Then again, maybe I will since I probably could use the practice and don't think a max effort squat beats me up anything like a deadlift does.

I was afraid things might feel a little bit wonky with the new shoes since they have a higher heel than my Powerlift 2.0's, but I didn't notice any issues. Again, I wasn't feeling quite 100% and was battling a little bit of pain and discomfort which might have thrown my form off a little bit, but here is my second set @ 390:

[BarryF]

Monday 2/20/2017
BW 202ish? Forgot to weigh.

Today was a really good training session. Decided to press heavy before benching since bench was going to be fairly low intensity.

Press:
135x1
165x1
175x1
190x1 +5 PR
195x1 + 10 PR Getting awfully close to BW press!
155x5x3 smooth sets, room to ramp up from here.

Bench:
230x5x7

Chins:
BWx8
+45x7x3 +1 rep on all sets!

[BarryF]

Thursday 2/23/2017

Great workout today. I've been running the Ibuprofen protocol to try to clear up what I suspect was chronic inflammation in my right thigh, and I was rewarded today with pain free squatting. I also stuck to the plan rather than doing some dumb shit like maxing out when I'm 9 days out from attempting a mock meet for all my lifts.

Squat:Rx=400x3
45x10x2, 135x5, 225x5, 275x3, 315x1
365x1
385x1
405x3@7.5? I think I could have set a rep PR here with 6 reps. And yes I did 405 instead of 400 but whatever.

Deadlift:
500x1x3@7-8 hard to tell but these were pretty smooth

I don't think I will do any elaborate taper for bench since I think I recover pretty quickly for that lift. So tomorrow will probably just be a normal volume workout, but I may make Monday my last heavy, high volume workout prior to next Saturday. Maybe do light press on Wednesday then rest till Saturday.

I think it will make sense to warm up to a heavy single or 3 on Monday for squats.

Oh forgot to mention, I discovered something quite interesting today at the gym. Recently got a pretty nice squat rack with all new plates and some new bars. Ten new rubber covered 45's on the squat rack so I've been deadlifting with the new plates. I noticed today that they are about 1" smaller in diameter than standard cast iron plates, so the 545 I attempted and got about 2" from lockout turns out to have been about 1/2" deficit pull LOL. Would it have been enough to make the lift a success? Who knows for sure. But I will definitely shim up the smaller plates with mats from now on haha. I noticed because someone had robbed a couple of plates to put on one of the machines along with some iron plates, cuz, you know, the other 100 or so plates throughout the gym weren't enough, so they had to take some from the squat rack.

[BarryF]

Friday 2/24/2017

Bench:
245x4x8

[BarryF]

Monday 2/27/2017

Squat:
bunch of warmups(45x10x2, 135x5, 225x3, 275x3) then
315x1
365x1
405x1
425x1@8? Hard to tell since it feels fairly heavy. I think I was 1-2" too deep, not terrible, and hit a slightly slow spot on the way up. Based on how this felt, I think I will be in good shape to attempt a new max on Saturday. I still had a little bit of fatigue today, probably from Thursdays squat triple and heavy DL singles, but not too bad.


Chins:
BWx8
+45x7,7,8 I'll try 3x8 next time, or 4x7

[BarryF]

Tuesday 2/28/2017

Bench:
260x3x8

Press:
145x5x4