Milo234's Training Log

[Milo234]

This has been a bit of an odd week. My babysitter randomly quit on me so I missed Tuesday's deadlift workout, so I did a little deadlifting on Wednesday after bench pressing. However I ended up having to deload deadlifts, bench press, and biceps this week, and I also got mildly sick this weekend. It seemed odd that I would end up needing to deload almost all of my lifts in the same week. At least I was able to start squatting again as my neck is mostly healed.

---

Wednesday 2/21/2018 - Bench Press, Lats, and Deadlift

Bench Press - 45x12, 95x12, 185x5, 225x4, 290x1, 265x3, 255x4, x4
Incline Bench Press - 45x12, 135x6, 3 sets x 190x4
Wide Grip Bench Press - 45x12, 95x12, 3 sets x 205x4
Flat Bench Dumbbell Fly - 10x12, 2 sets x 40x10

Deadlift - 135x12, 225x6, 275x3, 370x2, 405x1, 415x1, 425x1, 435x1 PR!

Dumbbell Row - 30x12, 5 sets x 90x5
Medium Width, Pronated Grip Lat Pulldown - 45x12, 3 sets x 135x5
Narrow, Neutral Grip Lat Pulldown - 3 sets x 150x5
Iso Low Row - 3 sets x 165x5

Bench Press - On BP I had really sore triceps, probably from the Sunday workout 3 days prior. When I did 290 I felt like there was no way I could do 5, so I just stopped at 1 rep and deloaded. 265 was an insufficient drop in intensity so I had to go to 255. This deload occurred after 3 weeks of very productive training on the Texas method. Last week I nailed volume day and intensity day like they were nothing. If I can maintain a 3:1 accumulation to deload ratio while running Texas method I will be very happy with that, but it is possible that maybe the weights have gotten heavy enough that my Sunday workout with close grip bench press work is interfering with regular 5x5 workouts. I'll have to carefully monitor going forward and see what happens and adjust accordingly.

Deadlift - I was too fatigued to do more than 2 reps at 370. I felt mentally pissed off at the thought that I would have to deload deadlifts and bench press on the same day, so I decided to just do some heavy singles and set a new PR single. I got in a nice, short growl while doing at 435. My estimated 1RM for deadlifts has been in the 440-450 range for a while based on previous training, so being able to get 435 after 3 other heavy singles and while carrying a non-trivial amount of residual fatigue seems pretty good.

Lat work went well. Dumbbell rows still aren't too hard. I increased the weight by 10 lbs on neutral grip lat pulldown and iso low row since the intensity seemed a bit too low. Will do that again next week.

---

Saturday - Squat

High Bar Squat - BWx5, 135x5, 185x5, 225x5, 5 sets x 300x5
Front Squat - 2 sets x 225x4
Stiff Leg Deadlifts - 135x6, 225x6, 265x2
Leg Extension 50x12, 125x0, 80x2

Squats - My neck was recovered enough that I was able to do back squats fine. Front squats put more pressure on my vertebrae interestingly, probably because I was trying really hard to maintain an extended upper back, and I felt like it was unwise to do more front squats so I stopped after 2 sets.

SLDL - I was pretty sure I would need to deload these this week based on Wednesday's deadlift results, and so I deliberately deloaded to 265 which turned out to be not nearly enough. Since I couldn't handle 265 I just decided to call it quits.

Leg Extension - I figured since I didn't finish all my front squats maybe some additional quad work would be good, but my quads were so destroyed by 5x300x5 that I couldn't even come remotely close to last week's numbers, so I decided I'm not going to waste my time on Leg Extensions while doing heavy squats.

---

Sunday 2/25/2018 - Press, Bench Press Heavy, Triceps, Biceps

Barbell Press - 45x12, 95x5, 135x4, 3 sets x 155x4
Bench Press Heavy - 45x5, 95x5, 185x5, 225x3, 275x1, 305x1, 315x1 PR!
Close Grip Bench Press - 2 sets x 210x6
Close Grip Incline Bench Press - 45x12, 95x6, 2 sets x 195x6

Barbell Biceps Curl - 45x5, 3 sets x 99x5, 99x4, 85x0
Seated Dumbbell Hammer Curls - 2 sets x 20x8

Shoulders felt extremely fatigued on barbell presses, so I just decided to completely deload on presses and close grip work since I deloaded on BP on Wednesday. Now I should be completely fresh for next Wednesday's 5x5 BP workout. I'm quite excited that I finally did 315! I got a video. Having someone take a video made me get totally pumped up with adrenaline and it ended up being a really easy rep. My estimated 1RM on BP has been in the 340s recently so that too would suggest 315 shouldn't have been too difficult.

YouTube

Surprisingly my biceps completely crapped out on me this week despite deloading 2 weeks ago. I'm going to guess that this is because last week I did 3 sets of ez curl preacher curls to failure and that those were much more fatiguing than the hammer curls I was doing previously. So next week I'm going to resume hammer curls. I'll bring preacher curls back into my routine in the not too distant future as I feel they help a lot. My biceps didn't feel totally fresh going into this workout anyway, so I guess I shouldn't have been surprised that they crapped out.

[Milo234]

I'm a week late in posting this week's training log, so I'll be posting two weeks of training logs tonight. This particular week was a bit depressing in terms of progress, and perhaps that's why I didn't post it last Sunday, but at least I did get some useful additional training knowledge about my body's training tolerances.

This week I ended up having to deload bench press again, despite deloading last week. This really got me wondering about my bench press programming. I went to the Scientific Principles of Strength Training ebook to review the recommendations on deloading, and I realized I was doing it wrong. The recommendations for deload week were 70% intensity and 50% volume of overload day for the first half of the week and 50% intensity and 50% volume of overload day for the second half of the week, and there was a note in there that explicitly mentioned that lifting heavy weights during the second half of a deload week is a very bad idea as recently healed damage is much more likely to tear again.

Well, that explains my problem. I was deloading with 90% intensity and 50% volume on overload day and still keeping my heavy day in for the second half of the week. So this was dropping some residual fatigue, but obviously not nearly enough. Given that SPST defines strength phase overload intensity as 75-85% 1RM, the intensity range it recommends for the first half of the deload week is 52.5-59.5% 1RM and for the second half of the week 37.5-42.5% 1RM which are pretty damn low ranges. So, at least in the future I'll do my deloads better. It's still an open question of whether the volume I'm doing on bench press is too much, especially given that the weights have increased quite a bit from when I started doing this volume. I'm doing considerably more volume than Rip recommends in PPST.

---

Tuesday 2/27/2018 - Deadlift Focus

Deadlift - 135x12, 225x5, 275x3, 315x2, 4 sets x 370x5 PR!
High Bar Squat Heavy - BWx5, 135x2, x3, 185x5, 225x5, 275x3, 320x5 PR!
High Bar Squat Paused - 5 sets x 255x2
1 + 1/2x2 Deadlift - 135x1, 3 sets x 205x3

After coming off a week of deloading deadlifts, things went pretty well tonight. I decided to increase the weight by 10 lbs next week for the HBS heavy set since this was not too difficult. It will also make the ratio of squat heavy day to squat volume day weight a bit more reasonable.

This week begins a 3 week experiment to confirm that my current deadlift volume is sufficiently high that I will have to deload ever 3rd week, and after confirming that I'll make a plan to decrease the DL volume somehow. Also, 4 sets of 5 deadlifts at this weight is starting to caused my form to breakdown towards the end of the last 2-3 sets.

---

Wednesday 2/28/2018 - Bench Press and Lats Focus

Bench Press - 45x12, 95x12, 185x5, 225x4, 265x1, 290x4, 290x0, 2 sets x 225x4 - way too fatigued still here
Incline Bench Press - 45x12, 135x6, 3 sets x 190x4
Wide Grip Bench Press - 45x12, 95x12, 3 sets x 205x4
Flat Bench Dumbbell Fly - 10x12, 2 sets x 35x10

Dumbbell Row - 35x12, 5 sets x 95x5
Medium Width, Pronated Grip Lat Pulldown - 45x12, 3 sets x 140x5
Narrow Width, Neutral Grip Lat Pulldown - 3 sets x 160x5
Iso Low Row - 3 sets x 175x5

Thor's Hammer L R B (one rep with left arm, one rep with right one, one rep with both arms) - 1 set x 40x4 (a talkative guy at the gym talked me into doing this)

Bench Press I deloaded as mentioned at the start of this post.

Lat work is going pretty well. The dumbbell rows are starting to feel a bit heavy.

---

Saturday 3/3/2018 - Squat Volume Day

High Bar Squat - BWx5, 135x5, 185x5, 225x5, 275x1, 5 sets x 305x5 PR!
Front Squat ATG - 4 sets x 225x4
Stiff Leg Deadlift - 135x6, 225x6, 4 sets x 295x6 PR!

My legs kinda felt dead so I stopped the front squats after 4 sets despite intending to do 6. I'm gonna have to figure out proper volume for lower body now that I'm back to an intensity phase and my deadlift volume is probably too high.

---

Sunday 3/4/2018 - Press, BP Heavy, Biceps

I ended up entirely missing this workout because my babysitter cancelled on me at the last second. This was very depressing, but I was just going to deload all of these muscle groups anyway, so I guess it isn't too terrible that I missed this workout.

[Milo234]

Highlights of this week: Bench Press is back on track; I clearly exceeded MRV on all lower body exercises so the question of whether my DL volume is too much is clearly settled; and lats exceeded MRV, which is probably fine.

I think I mentioned in a previous post that my weight has been going up for the last 2-3 months from about 280-300 while body fat percentage only increased by about 1% which probably helped a lot with driving progress, especially on the bench press. However now that I'm back at work full time, I've noticed that I'm not eating as much and my weight has dropped a little which may have resulted in a tiny strength loss. Anyway, I'm trying to make sure I keep my caloric intake up but am going to try to focus on just eating to maintain my weight rather than go up as realistically my body weight is probably a bit too high, and I can't keep eating so much and still stay focused at work. I really at some point in the future will need to buckle down and start getting strict about diet.

I've got one more week until I fill up my current training log. I ordered a new, cool-looking notebook on Amazon that has Goku SS3 on the cover, but I'm not sure whether the notebook will work as a log. If it turns out not to work, I'm gonna go buy a boring one at Staples as I confirmed Staples has some acceptable notebooks very similar to my current one that I've had since 2015 (note most of the time between 2015 and now was spent not productively training).

---

Tuesday 3/6/2018 - Deadlift Focus

Deadlift - 135x12, 225x5, 275x3, 315x2, 4 sets x 375x5 PR!
High Bar Squat Heavy - BWx5, 135x2, x3, 185x5, 225x5, 275x3, 330x5 PR!
High Bar Squat Paused - 5 sets x 255x2
1 + 1/2x2 Deadlift - 135x1, 3 sets x 210x3

DL - My form is starting to break down on the last 2 reps of the last two sets, and Saturday's Squat volume workout clearly showed that I exceeded my MRV for lower body in 1.5 weeks after deloading DLs. My current deadlift volume consists of:

DL 4x5
1+1/2x2 Dl 3x3
SLDL 4x6

I think Rip in PPST only recommends a single set of 5 heavy deadlifts when running the Texas method with SLDLs and maybe a few back off sets or alternatively power cleans, but I still want to try keeping the volume higher if I can. I think I'm going to switch to 1 set of 5 for heavy deadlifts followed by 3 sets of 3 for a total of 14 reps, all at the same weight. That is a 30% reduction in volume from 20. We'll see how that goes. If I'm able to get in 3 weeks of productive training with that volume before needing to deload I think I'll stick with it for a while. I think the volume for the 1+1/2x2 DLs is probably fine as the weights there are probably still relatively low, and the SLDL volume seems perhaps ok for now as I don't want to lower the volume too much as I should be systematic in testing my body's volume tolerance here. If 4 weeks from now I find out I was wrong I'll lower the volume even further.

---

Thursday 3/8/2018 - Bench Press and Lats Focus

Sadly there was bad rain and wind and a snow storm Wednesday night, so the gym closed early, and I didn't realized it was closing early until I showed up at 7 and it was closed. So I had to move my workout to Thursday. Hopefully this won't impact next week, but we'll see. Rip really was right when he said that in practice nothing ever goes perfectly with your training.

Bench Press - 45x12, 95x12, 185x5, 225x3, 5 sets x 275x5
Incline Bench Press - 45x12, 135x6, 4 sets x 210x6
Wide Grip Bench Press - 45x12, 95x12, 4 sets x 215x6
Dumbbell Flat Bench Fly - 10x12, 45x10, x10, x10, x8

I decided to reset volume day bench press to 275 so that it would be 90% of intensity day which is at 305 and to reduce the weight by 10lbs from my PRs for all other bench press exercises. Sadly 5x5@275 today felt worse than when I did 5x5@285 several weeks ago. Also neuromuscular efficiency went to crap with two weeks of deloads and missing last Sunday's workout. My form got much better by set 4.

Dumbbell Row - 35x12, 100x0, 2 sets x 65x6
Medium Width, Pronated Grip Lat Pulldown - 45x12, 145x0, 95x8
Narrow, Neutral Grip Lat Pulldown - 110x8
Iso Low Row - 120x8

I ended up needed to deload lats this week. My lats were on fire after Tuesday's deadlift session. I managed to go 4 weeks with this volume before deloading, so that seems reasonable. I'll repeat what I've been doing for another training block, and we'll see if I can get those dumbbell rows up to 125 which is the heaviest dumbbell at my gym!

---

Saturday 3/10/2018 - Squat Volume Day

High Bar Squat - BWx5, 135x1, x4, 185x5, 225x5, 275x1, 310x3, 225x5
Front Squat - 2sets x 155x4
Stiff Leg Deadlift - 135x6, 2 sets x 205x6
Treadmill 5 minutes 3 MPH 3% incline 132 HR
Matrix Elliptical Backwards Level 10, 2.5 MPH average, 5 minutes

HBS - My primitive brain told my prefrontal cortex to fuck off on the 3rd rep as my body refused to descend for the third rep twice. I had to really focus to make myself crank out that third rep. It was clear my legs were thoroughly trounced from all the deadlifting. SLDLs felt incredibly heavy, even at these light weights. I did some very light cardio since I had a lot of extra time. Cardio felt good.

---

Sunday 3/11/2018 - Press, Triceps, Biceps

Barbell Press - 45x12, 95x5, 135x4, 5 sets x 175x5 PR!
Bench Press Heavy - 45x5, 95x5, 185x5, 225x3, 275x1, 305x3 PR!
Close Grip Bench Press - 5 sets x 225x5
Close Grip Incline Bench Press - 45x12, 95x6, 4 sets x 205x6

Barbell Biceps Curl - 45x5, 70x3, 100x4, 70x5
Seated Dumbbell Hammer Curls - 2 sets x 20x8

Barbell Press - Hurray for a PR! I needed this to feel good about this week.
BPH - Another PR, that's good! Although I did 2 sets of 300x3 several weeks ago and it felt easier than this. I feel like I've lost a very small amount of BP strength. Regardless, I think going with a single set of 3 for now is reasonable. I hope I can get to 315x3 before needing to switch to singles.
CGBP+CGIBP - reset - decreased 10 lbs from last successful overload

Biceps - Was aiming for 5x5. Can't believe I failed to get 100x5. I'm not sure whether my biceps were due for a deload along with lats or I lost a tiny bit of strength with the weight loss or what. I think I'm going to switch to preacher curls for a training block then come back to regular barbell curls.

[Milo234]

Very good training week. Finished deloading lower body. Hit all other numbers.

I've been sick this week which has kinda sucked, but it hasn't seemed to prevent me from lifting. On the other hand maybe lifting is making me not get well as fast.

---

Tuesday 3/13 and Wednesday 3/14 - Deadlift and Squat Deload

There was a blizzard all day Tuesday that ended Wednesday morning, and I was sick throughout the blizzard and didn't feel like lifting Wednesday. Since I was going to deload this week anyway I just skipped the Wednesday workout and did a few light deadlifts Thursday during my bench press workout.

---

Thursday 3/15/2018 - Bench Press Volume Day and Lats

Bench Press - 45x12, 95x12, 185x5, 225x3, 5 sets x 280x5
Incline Bench Press - 45x12, 135x6, 4 sets x 215x6
Wide Grip Bench Press - 45x12, 95x12, 4 sets x 220x6
Flat Bench Dumbbell Fly - 10x12, 4 sets x 45x10 PR!

Deadlift - 135x5, 225x5, 275x5

Flat Bench Dumbbell Row - 35x12, 100x5, x5, x5, x5, x4
Pronated, Medium-Width Grip Lat Pulldown - 45x12, 3 sets x 145x5
Neutral, Narrow Grip Lat Pulldown - 3 sets x 165x5
Iso Low Row - 3 sets x 185x5

All bench press sets were much easier this week than last week. Neuromuscular efficiency has returned after the crappy two weeks of deloading and initial week of this accumulation phase doing overload training. I'm also starting to eat a bit piglike again if that matters.

I finally got to 4 sets of 45x10 on the dumbbell flys. On 12/7/2017 I was at 45x10, x10, x9, x7. It took 14 weeks to get those extra 4 reps, wtf!

I still have the problem that I did this bench press workout on Thursday and not Wednesday, and I probably should get back to doing this workout on Wednesday. Maybe I'll do that after my next deload.

Deadlift deload was fine. I was able to use double overhand grip for 275x5 without too much trouble.

On lat work I failed to get the final rep of 5x5@100 for dumbbell rows. So I think I've finally got to the point where I'm going to have a very hard time increasing the weight. I'll aim to just try to get 5x5 next week at 100 then increase the weight. Other lat exercises are going well. Increasing 10 lbs instead of 5 on the iso low row is going well.

Since progress on the dumbbell rows has ground to a halt, I'm half expecting the other lifts to stop progressing soon, although I feel like the relative intensity on the other lifts is still considerably lower than on the dumbbell rows as I've been forced to increase those by 5 lbs per arm rather than per two arms, so I may just keep the weight on the dumbbell rows the same while continuing to increase the others for a while.

Given that I seem to have failed at 5x5@100 my estimated 1RM on the dumbbell rows is about 125 lbs which is the size of the largest dumbbell at my gym. I probably still have many, many more productive months of training before not having big enough dumbbells could become a problem, perhaps a whole year, but I guess at that point I'll have to get with it on barbell rows.

---

Saturday 3/17/2018 - Squat Volume Day

High Bar Squat - BWx5, 135x5, 185x5, 225x5, 275x2, 5 sets x 310x5 PR!
Front Squat ATG - 4 sets x 230x4
Stiff Leg Deadlifts - 135x6, 225x6, 4 sets x 300x6 PR!

All of these sets were drastically easier than the sets from 2 weeks ago with five pounds less on the bar. Probably I was carrying a crap load of fatigue last time I overloaded two weeks ago. Hopefully this accumulation phase will last longer than two weeks now that I'm dropping deadlift volume. The SLDLs flew off the floor at 135 and 225. Form started breaking down on the last two reps of SLDLs.

---

Sunday 3/18/2018 - Press, Bench Press Heavy, Triceps, Biceps

Barbell Press - 45x12, 95x5, 135x5, 5 sets x 177.5x5
Bench Press Heavy - 45x5, 95x5, 185x5, 225x3, 275x1, 310x3 PR!
Close Grip Bench Press - 5 sets x 230x5
Close Grip Incline Bench Press - 45x12, 95x6, 4 sets x 210x6

Preacher Curl with Ez Curl Bar - 25x5, 45x5, 65x5, 5 sets x 85x5
Seated Dumbbell Hammer Curls (1 minute rest) - 30x8, x8, x6

I'm quite happy with 310x3 on BP. Hopefully next week I'll hit 315x3. Looks like I was estimating a 1RM of 320 when I started this log in January, now I'm estimating a 1RM of 345-350 which seems like very good progress for 3 months.

I had very little DOMS while bench pressing today which bodes well for the future.

Preacher curls made my triceps feel a tad sore. That was odd. Maybe I have to statically contract my triceps more than I realize when lowering the weight on the preacher curl, or maybe it's just been so long since I was doing them that I forgot how it feels. Anyway, hopefully two exercises like this will be reasonable volume given all my lat work.

[Milo234]

Excellent week overall. Hit all bench press and squat target numbers. Ended up needing to deload lats oddly. Deadlift volume seems a bit better, though I may still need to reduce volume further... we shall see.

I got an awesome new training log with Goku SS3 on the cover from Amazon that I started using this week.

Amazon.com: Great Eastern Entertainment Dragon Ball Z Ss3 Goku Notebook: Toys & Games

---

Tuesday 3/20/2018 - Deadlift Focus

Deadlift - 135x12, 225x5, 275x3, 315x2, 380x5, x3, x3, x3 PR!
High Bar Squat 5RM - BWx5, 135x5, 185x5, 225x5, 275x3, 340x5 PR!
High Bar Squat Paused - 5 sets x 260x2
1 + 1/2x2 Deadlift - 135x1, 3 sets x 215x3

This new plan to only do 14 heavy deadlifts seems to be much less taxing than 4 sets of 5. Hopefully residual fatigue build up won't be as bad, but we shall see next week.

---

Wednesday 3/21/2018 - Bench Press Volume + Lats

Bench Press - 45x12, 95x12, 185x5, 225x3, 5 sets x 285x5
Incline Bench Press - 45x12, 135x6, 4 sets x 220x6
Wide Grip Bench Press - 45x12, 95x12, 225x6
Flat Bench Dumbbell Fly - 15x12, 50x10, x10, x8, x7

Flat Bench Dumbbell Row - 35x12, 100x3, 90x0, 2 sets x 70x6
Pronated, Medium-Width Grip Lat Pulldown - 45x12, 100x8
Narrow, Neutral Grip Pulldown - 115x8
Iso Low Row - 130x8

Hit all bench press target numbers which was good. Next week, assuming residual fatigue doesn't bite me in the butt I'll be setting volume day PRs. This was the first time using 50s on the flys which was cool.

Oddly my lats needed to deload this week. This was very strange as I only went one week before needing to deload this time. This indicates that either my biceps work with the heavy preacher curls was too much, possible but perhaps not super likely, or perhaps using the 100 lb dumbbells on rows last week pushed the intensity too high to make this volume recoverable.

So, what to do next on lats? My inclination is to drop the weight back to 90 starting next week, and aim to do 90-95-100-105 and hopefully be able to hit the 100s and maybe 105s. Alternatively I could drop the volume on the preacher curls, but I think for now I'll keep the preachers where they are and see if this fixes the problem.

---

Saturday 3/24/2018 - Squat Volume

High Bar Squat - BWx5, 135x5, 185x5, 225x5, 275x3, 5 sets x 315x5 PR!
Front Squat - 4 sets x 235x5
Stiff Leg Deadlifts - 135x6, 225x6, 3 sets x 305x6, 305x0, 275x0

Squats went well but my body completely crapped out on me on SLDLs after 3 sets, so I didn't get my fourth set. The final rep of the third set was a shrugger as I stalled close to lock out and had to jerk the bar up a little bit to reach lock out. This makes me think that next week I may have to deload deadlifts in which case my volume reduction was insufficient. Assuming my volume reduction with deadlifts was insufficient, I'm going to have to make some plan about what to cut out next. Alternatively to cutting things out, I could also drop the weight back to 290 and aim to hit 4x305x6 in four weeks after deloading. Will make a decision about this after next week's DL workout.

---

Monday 3/26/2018 - Bench Press Heavy, Barbell Presses, Triceps, Biceps

Babysitter cancelled on me at the last second on Sunday, so I ended up having to postpone Sunday's workout until Monday. As a result I'm going to just move BP volume day to Thursday for the next couple of weeks until the next deload week.

Barbell Press - 45x12, 95x5, 135x5, x2, 5 sets x 180x5 PR!
Bench Press Heavy - 45x5, 95x5, 185x5, 225x3, 275x1, 315x3 PR!
Close Grip Bench Press - 5 sets x 235x5
Close Grip Incline Bench Press - 45x12, 95x6, 4 sets x 215x6

Preacher Curls Ez Curl Bar - 40x12
Seated Dumbbell Hammer Curls - 15x12

Presses - I switched from the crappy thicker diameter bar after 135x5 to the bars with a smaller diameter and better knurling because they finally freed up, hence the extra odd warm up set. Quite happy with 5x5@180.

BP 315x3 Woot! What more can be said about this awesome milestone? Hell Yeah!

My arms felt dead by the end of the close grip BP work.

I hope next week goes well adding 5 lbs to the bar. That'll enable me to hit some volume records this training block. I feel pretty good about getting 320x3 next week assuming residual fatigue doesn't force a deload.

I decided to deload biceps this week for good measure so I can be 100% on lat work this week and also so I could save some time Monday night as the schedule was a bit weird.

[Milo234]

Overall a pretty good training week.

I ended up needing to deload bench press this week, but things went well for everything else. It looks like I've gotten a pretty good volume calibrated now for a 3:1 accumulation to deload ratio 4 week training block for bench press. Since I didn't hit any new volume day PRs this four week cycle, I'm going to aim for a 10 lb volume day PR for the four week cycle starting next week. I'm also gonna aim for some big PRs on overhead press.

Next week is the moment of truth for whether I successfully dropped volume on deadlifts enough to get a 3:1 accumulation to deload ratio for my lower body exercises. So far things are looking good.

---

Wednesday 3/28/2018 Deadlift + Squat Heavy

Moved my Tuesday and Wednesday workouts to Wednesday and Thursday this week since I did last Sunday's workout on Monday. I'll get back to T/W schedule next week.

Deadlift - 135x12, 225x5, 275x3, 315x2, 385x5, x3, x3, x3 PR!
High Bar Squat 5RM - BWx5, 135x5, 185x5, 225x5, 275x3, 345x5 PR!
High Bar Squat Paused - 5 sets x 260x2
1 + 1/2x2 Deadlift - 135x1, 3 sets x 220x3

Deadlift warm ups flew off the floor. Things are looking good for hitting another successful DL overload next week. My plan for the last month has been to get to 395x5 and then to do a 1RM test and demonstrate that I can do at least 455. I'll finalize plans for when to test based on how the next 2-3 weeks go.

I've noticed that my balls are sometimes getting in the way for deadlifting, and depending on how I grip the bar my lock out is just above my penis. It looks like based on another forum thread, Rip claimed that this indicates that I probably have T-rex arms. So maybe I'm genetically above average for bench pressing and below average for deadlifting. Who knows? It looks to me like most guys with videos deadlifting 800+ on Youtube can lock out clearly below their balls, so I obviously don't have their good proportions for deadlifting. I also probably need to get proper underwear rather than wear boxers. I also read some articles about deadlifting on powerliftingtowin.com, and the author of that website seems to think that sumo style deadlifts are better for lifting more weight, so maybe at some point in the future I'll come back and train sumo style again and see if that feels any better for my balls as it keeps the legs farther apart.

HBS 5RM is good. Weights are starting to get heavy but I'm pretty sure I've got at least another 10-15 lbs in me.

---

Thursday 3/29/2018 - Bech Press Volume and Lats

Bench Press - 45x12, 95x12, 185x5, 225x3, 290x4, 200x8
Incline Bench Press - 45x12, 95x6, 155x6, x6
Wide Grip Bench Press - 45x12, 95x12, 155x6, x6
Flat Bench Dumbbell Fly - 15x12, 35x10, x10

Flat Bench Dumbbell Row - 35x12, 5 sets x 90x5
Medium Width, Pronated Grip Lat Pulldown - 45x12, 3 sets x 150x5
Narrow, Neutral Grip Lat Pulldown - 3 sets x 170x5
Iso Low Row - 3 sets x 195x5

I ended up needing to deload on bench press this week, which should be fine. Hopefully all of the testing over the last few months has finally helped me zero in on what should be a very productive training plan to use over the next 3-6 months.

I decided to drop the weight on dumbbell rows back to 90 and go for 90-95-100 this cycle aiming to get 100@5x5 PR on dumbell rows. 90 wasn't too bad.

The pulldowns are starting to get very heavy. Iso low row is still fairly doable. I think this cycle is going to be my last strength cycle, and then I'll go back and do a hypertrophy cycle next.

---

Saturday 3/31/2018 - Squat Volume

High Bar Squat - BWx5, 135x5, 185x5, 225x5, 275x3, 5 sets x 320x5 PR!
Front Squat ATG - 4 sets x 240x4
Stiff Leg Deadlift - 135x5, 225x4, 4 sets x 310x4

Things are going well for squat volume day. 5x5 felt considerably harder this week, so I suspect residual fatigue is building up and probably next week I'll need to deload which seems fine.

I've noticed that over the last month my front squat technique has gotten better. I'm pretty happy about that.

SLDLs - Since I failed to hit last week's numbers, I think that's a clear indication that volume is too high for my goal 3:1 accumulation to deload ratio, so I decided to drop from 4x6 to 4x4 going forward. That seemed to make more sense than dropping the weight especially since I'm planning to do a 1RM test on DLs sometime in the next month, and I'd rather be in the habit of pulling heavy weights. Form was beautiful on all 16 reps, apart from balls not feeling comfortable. My back was rigid and I felt like my hips were a hinge being pulled by my hamstrings.

---

Sunday 4/1/2018 - Barbell Press, Bench Press Heavy, Triceps, Biceps

Barbell Press 45x12, 90x6, x6
Bench Press - 45x5, 95x5, 145x5
Close Grip Bench Press - 115x6, x6
Close Grip Incline Bench Press - 45x12, 105x6, x6

Preacher Curl with EZ Curl Bar - 25x5, 45x5, 65x5, 3 sets x 90x5
Seated Dumbbell Hammer Curls (1m rest) - 30x8, x8, x7

I deloaded all the pushing movements this week. Hopefully the next three weeks will see some impressive overhead pressing PRs.

I decided to drop the volume on preacher curls to 3 sets since the fifth rep of the third set today was clearly taken to failure, and I strongly suspect that doing 5x5 two weeks ago contributed to last week's unexpected, super-premature deload on lats. I think what I'm going to do is just stick with 3x5@90 for the rest of this training cycle, then increase it 5 lbs next time. 5 lbs every 4 weeks on biceps seems like a pretty good rate of gains and is probably going to be comparable in effectiveness to taking the effort to microload by 1 lb per week.

[Milo234]

Decent week, but perhaps not great. I ended up having to deload lower body due to excessive deadlift residual fatigue, and I needed to deload lats too. I have been trying to slowly reduce deadlift volume to the point that I don't need to deload every third week as I have for the last month and a half or so, but I apparently haven't dropped it enough. I'm completely puzzled by the lat deload, though. Not sure what's going on there.

---

Tuesday 4/3/2018 - Deadlift Focus + Heavy Squat (ended up being a deload workout)

Deadlift - 135x12, 225x5, 275x3, 315x2, 390x3, 390x0
Paused High Bar Squat - BWx5, 135x5, 185x5, 5 sets x 225x2
1 + 1/2x2 Deadlift - 155x3

The warm up deadlifts moved rather slowly. It should have been obvious to me that I needed a deload this week, but another guy I occasionally talk to at the gym was shouting encouraging things telling me to go heavy, so I ignored my brain and did 390x3. I stopped midway through a 4th rep that I probably could have completed, and then realized that this was stupid and that I should have just deloaded. So I stopped there. Hopefully this is sufficiently low volume that it'll be an effective deload. I really don't want to have to deload deadlifts for two weeks in a row, though perhaps a 2 week deload on deadlifts might not be that bad an idea if next cycle I can't get in 3 productive weeks of training.

I decided that along with deloading deadlifts, I was going to deload squats too this week. I got in 3 productive overload workouts on squats in the last 3 weeks, so I'm relatively happy with that, and my quads felt pretty dead anyway and probably were due to deload too. So at this point, my planned volume for deadlifts going forward is:

Tuesday
Deadlift x5, x3, x3, x3
1+1/2x2 DL 3x3
Saturday
SLDL 4x4

If this ends up still being too much to get 3 productive weeks of training, I suppose next cycle I'll drop one of my sets of 3.

---

Wednesday 4/4/2018 - Bench Press Volume + Lats

Bench Press - 45x12, 95x12, 185x5, 225x3, 5 sets x 285x5
Incline Bench Press - 45x6, 135x6, 4 sets x 220x6
Wide Grip Bench Press - 45x12, 95x12, 4 sets x 225x6
Flat Bench Dumbbell Fly - 15x12, 50x10, x10, x9, x7

Flat Bench Dumbbell Row - 35x12, 95x0, 60x6, x6
Medium Width, Pronated Grip Lat Pulldown - 45x12, 150x0, 105x8
Narrow, Neutral Grip Lat Pulldown - 115x8
Iso Low Row - 135x8

Bench Pressing went pretty well. My neuromuscular efficiency was kinda crappy after last week's deload. This is week 1 of a new training block, and these are all my old PRs. The plan is to get some 5 lb PRs on all volume day exercises next week and the week after for 10 lb PRs this block, hopefully.

I'm really puzzled by this lat deload. I only got in one producive week of training before needing this deload.

There are a few possible explanations. The most likely seems to be that intensity has just kept going up, and now I've finally hit a challenging intensity on most, if not all 4 exercises. Iso Low Row is the one exercise where I'm not sure the intensity is all that difficult yet. Also, it could be that deadlift intensity going up has also contributed to additional fatigue.

Going forward I need to decide between another strength block, probably where I cut all the weights by 5-10 lbs and hope for 5 lb PRs across the board on the final week, or I could switch to doing some hypertrophy work. I know that I want to test a very heavy deadlift at some point in the next two months, and it would probably make sense to have my lats still in a higher intensity training cycle when that rolls around, so I think I'll stick with one more strength block, then go back to doing some hypertrophy work.

---

Saturday 4/7/2018 - Squat Volume Day (deload)

Squat - BWx5, 135x5, 2 sets x 160x6
Front Squat ATG - 2 sets x 120x4
Stiff Leg Deadlift - 135x4, 2 sets x 155x4
Life Fitness Elliptical Level 9 - 5 minutes

For the deload I dropped the intensity along with the volume just to make it as likely as possible that I'll be ready for some hard deadlifting starting next week.

I did 5 minutes of cardio since the workout was pretty short.

---

Sunday 4/8/2018 - Press, Bench Press Heavy, Triceps, Biceps

Barbell Press - 45x12, 95x5, 135x5, 5 sets x 182.5x5 PR!
Bench Press 3RM - 45x5, 95x5, 185x5, 225x3, 275x1, 320x2, 320x1
Close Grip Bench Press - 5 sets x 235x5
Close Grip Incline Bench Press - 45x12, 95x6, 4 sets x 215x6

Preacher Curl with EZ Curl Bar - 45x5, 2 sets x 60x4
Seated Dumbbell Hammer Curl - 2 sets x 20x6

The barbell presses felt pretty darn heavy quite frankly. It also felt like I was engaging my abs more than usual. I'm starting to think I maybe need to add a few more warm up reps at 155, so I'll do that next week.

I was really hoping to bench press 320x3, but it was very clear after rep 2 that this wasn't happening. The third rep as a single was pretty easy. So I guess I'm going to switch to 3 singles going forward. My triceps seemed to be pretty fatigued this time.

After I complete this strength block, I think I'll do some peaking and then do a 1RM test. Since I got 315x3, I'm estimating my 1RM around 350, however that was done with considerable residual fatigue being week 3 of a 3 week accumulation block, and it was of course done three days after a hard volume day work out. So I figure that if I do some proper peaking, exceeding 350 should be doable. Hopefully I'll hit 3x1 at 325 and 330 over the next two weeks, and I think that should leave me pretty well prepared to hit 350+.

I decided to deload biceps this week since I needed a lat deload too, just in case biceps fatigue was contributing in any significant way. I've noticed that bench pressing heavy is starting to really pump up my biceps now, so maybe I can't tolerate much more biceps volume at the moment.

[Milo234]

So, I've fallen almost 5 weeks behind in posting training logs. My mom came to visit and distracted me quite a bit, and there's been a bunch of family stuff that has taken up my limited free time. Anyway, hopefully tonight I'll post the last four weeks of complete training logs, and tomorrow I'll post this week's log and get caught up to date.

I'll save the details for other posts, but the last five weeks have been somewhat exciting. I maxed out on the bench press and got 360! And I did a test on the deadlift and got 455. I'm very excited about the 360 bench press. The other somewhat exciting thing was that I injured my right glute a couple weeks ago, and that really sucked. Anyway, after two weeks of no posterior chain work at all, I feel relatively recovered from that.

---

Tuesday 4/10/2018 - Deadlift Focus + Heavy Squat

Deadlift - 135x12, 225x5, 275x3, 315x2, 390x5, x3, x3, x3
High Bar Squat 5 RM - BWx5, 135x5, 185x5, 225x5, 275x4, 350x5 PR!
High Bar Squat Paused - 5 sets x 260 x 2
High Bar Squat With Chains - 225 + 50 chains x 5
1 + 1/2x2 Deadlift - 135x1, 225x3, x3, x3

Squatting is moving along very well. 350x5 felt kinda hard. Still clearly felt like I could add 5 lbs a few more times over the next month, but definitely it's a challenging weight.

A guy who comes to the gym and likes to use chains convinced me to try one set with his chains, so I did that.

The deadlift volume tonight was an attempt to cut back in the hope that no deloading will be necessary next week. I ended up needing to deload regardless...

---

Wednesday 4/11/2018 - Bench Press Volume + Lats

Bench Press - 45x12, 95x12, 185x5, 225x3, 200x6, x3
Incline Bench Press - 45x12, 2 sets x 155x6
Wide Grip Bench Press - 45x12, 2 sets x 160x6
Flat Bench Dumbbell Fly - 15x12, 2 sets x 35x10

Flat Bench Dumbbell Row - 35x12, 4 sets x 90x5
Lat Pulldown - 45x12, 3 sets x 145x5
Neutral Grip Pulldown - 165x3, 115x1
Iso Low Row - 140x8

My triceps felt destroyed going into this work out. My conclusion is that all the volume I am doing with close grip bench pressing on Saturdays is too much too recover from. So next time I run a strength phase I will have to dial it back significantly. My chest felt decent going into this workout, but then it too started feeling somewhat dead after a few sets. So maybe I had built up a lot of residual fatigue.

As a result of this unexpected deload after only 1 week of productive overload training this block, I decided that I was frustrated enough and that I would just spend the next two weeks peaking on the bench press and max out, then go do some hypertrophy training, then try another strength block and push through to 400.

My lats sort of died midway through this work out. I'm not sure what's going on with my lats. I need to figure out an appropriate volume going forward.

---

Saturday 4/14/2018 - Squat Volume Day

High Bar Squat - BWx5, 135x5, 185x5, 225x5, 275x4, 5 sets x 325x5 PR!
Front Squat ATG - 4 sets x 245x4
Stiff Leg Deadlift - 135x5, 225x4, body bombed out

Things are going extremely well for squatting. My body was destroyed and I couldn't do SLDLs today with any significant weight. The attempt at reducing DL volume was still insufficient. Clearly I need to reduce deadlift volume even more going forward.

---

Sunday 4/15/2018 - Press, Bench Press, Triceps, Biceps

Barbell Press - 45x12, 2 sets x 90x6
Bench Press - 45x5, 95x5, 135x2, x2
Close Grip Bench Press - 2 sets x 115x6
Close Grip Incline Bench Press - 45x12, 2 sets x 105x6

Preacher Curl - 3 sets x 50x5
Seated Dumbbell Hammer Curl - 2 sets x 20x6

This was all deloading. Since I made up my mind to spend the next two weeks peaking in order to max out, it made sense to not try for another successful press overload.

[Milo234]

The highlight of this week was bench pressing 350!

Also worth noting, I had to deload deadlifts again this week. So this means that in practice for the last two months, despite my best efforts, with all my successful heavy squatting, I have only been able to deadlift every other week. So I think this means the next time I run a new strength phase for lower body I will just plan to deadlift every other week and keep the volume on deadlifts extremely low.

---

Tuesday 4/17/2018 - Deadlift Focus + Heavy Squat

Deadlift - 135x5, 225x5, 275x4, x4
Sumo Style Deadlift with relatively narrow sumo stance - 275x2
High Bar Squat 5RM - BWx5, 135x1, x4, 185x5, 225x5, 275x4, 355x3 PR fail
High Bar Squat Paused - 5 sets x 225x2

225 felt super heavy on the deadlifts. It was obvious that I would have to deload.

I thought I would be able to hit a PR on squats even though deadlifts went poorly, and I tried, but my body crapped out on me after the third rep and it was obvious I wasn't going to get a fourth rep.

---

Wednesday 4/18/2018 - Bench Press Max, Peaking Week 1

Bench Press - 45x5, 95x5, 185x5, 225x3, 265x1, 295x1, 335x1, 350x1 PR!
Bench Press - 290x2, 3 sets x 280x2
Incline Bench Press - 225x3, 155x6
Flat Bench Dumbbell Fly - 15x12, 35x10

Flat Bench Dumbbell Row - 35x12, 90x0, 2 sets x 60x6
Lat Pulldown - 45x12, 105x8

I was quite happy with 350x1. I took a video, but since I got 360 next week I didn't bother posting it to Youtube. Based on previous training logs it was pretty clear that I should have been able to hit it. It seemed like I could probably do an extra 10 more pounds, so I made 360 my goal for next week. I probably shouldn't have wasted any time on the IBP or dumbbell flys since I'm focused on peaking for next week.

I was shocked that my lats crapped out again. I eventually figured out two weeks after this that the problem is that bench pressing is heavily engaging my biceps, so I just can't do all this extra lat work with the same weights as before. I am going to have to do lat work but cut the weight back since my biceps are fatigued from bench pressing.

---

Saturday 4/21/2018 - Squat Deload

High Bar Squat - BWx5, 135x5, 3 sets x 160x6
Stiff Leg Deadlift - 135x6, 2 sets x 155x4

This was an incredibly short and boring workout. I cut front squats out because I figure they might interfere a little with bench press peaking.

---

Sunday 4/22/2018 - Press, Bench Press Peaking, Biceps

Barbell Press - 45x12, 2 sets x 90x3
Bench Press 45x5, 3 sets x 115x3
Incline Bench Press 45x12, 2 sets x 105x3

Preacher Curl with EZ Curl Bar - 2 sets x 45x5
Seated Dumbbell Hammer Curl - 2 sets x 20x6

I cut out all close grip and wide grip work and just did normal grip to try to maximize neuromuscular efficiency for Wednesday's upcoming max out. I also did extremely low volume and intensity today to ensure all residual fatigue would be gone.

Another biceps deload.

[Milo234]

Exciting week, bench pressed 360! Woot! Back on track with lower body work.



Also deadlifted 455!

---

Tuesday 4/24/2018 - Deadlift 1RM

Deadlift - 135x5, 225x3, 275x2, 315x1, 365x1, 405x1, 455x1 PR!
Deadlift - 465x0, x0, 365x0
High bar Squat Paused - BWx5, 135x5, 185x5, 225x5, 5 sets x 265x2
Standing Calf - 30x12, 45x12, x10, x8

On a whim since I was pissed off about having to deload again last week and since I was planning to max out bench press tomorrow, I decided to max out deadlift. I'm fairly happy with 455, but I'm also not happy that progress is starting to slow on the deadlift. I was really hoping that I would be able to power through to 500, but it looks like I'm going to need to go back and do some hypertrophy work before pushing through on the deadlift again, and one I start doing heavy weight on deadlifts again I'll probably only deadlift hard every other week.

I attempted 465 and could not do it at all. I was shocked that I couldn't even do a single at 365 after the max attempt. Heavy deadlifts really kill recovery.

It's good to be getting back on track with calves.

---

Wednesday 4/25/2018 - Bench Press Max!

Bench Press - 45x5, 95x5, 185x5, 225x3, 265x1, 295x1, 335x1, 360x1 PR!
Bench Press 365x0, 4 sets x 280x2
Incline Bench Press - 45x12, 2 sets x 155x6

Flat Bench Dumbbell Row - 35x12, 2 sets x 60x6
Lat Pulldown - 45x12
Lat Pulldown experimenting with hand position - 2 hands width from bend 45x9, 1.5 hands width from bend 105x8

My conclusion from the lat experimenting was that my current grip width on lat pulls is fine.

I'm extremely happy with 360x1 on the bench press. When I started this log I think I was estimating my BP 1RM around 320, and now I've actually demonstrated 360. Neuromuscular efficiency was incredibly good today. I think cutting out all the different grips last week probably helped with enhancing neuromuscular efficiency today.

Still bummed about lats needing to deload.

---

Saturday 4/28/2018 - Squat Volume Day

High Bar Squat - BWx5, 135x5, 185x5, 225x5, 275x5, 5 sets x 330x5 PR!
Front Squat - 3 sets x 250x4, x50x2, x1, x1
Stiff Leg Deadlift - 135x6, 225x3

Very happy with 5x5 PR on squats. Squats feel like they're progressing well.

Can't believe my body crapped out again on SLDLs. I guess maxing out on DL is extremely taxing.

---

Sunday 4/29/218 - Missed Gym

Missed gym due to having to spend all day supervising movers moving crap out of storage.