Milo234's Training Log

[Milo234]

Several highlights this week:

1. Still not recovered from maxing out on the deadlift last week. Can't believe it's taking me so long to recover. I really shouldn't be surprised though. What I've read in books suggests that a max deadlift should take at least 2 or more weeks to recover from if you are decently advanced in training.

2. Started hypertrophy phase for Bench Press muscles

3. Injured my right glute squatting putting an end to several months of extremely productive squat training that seemed likely to continue for some time. This really, really sucks.

Another thing somewhat tangentially related to training is that I watched a YouTube video discussing body proportions that make one genetically gifted for deadlifting, and my wife took a significant interest me mentioning to her that I lock out my deadlifts at my penis. The video said that to be genetically gifted for deadlifts it's good to have long arms and a high ratio of torso to body length. The video mentioned ape index as one way to assess relative arm length and sitting height as a way of assessing torso length, both of which are easy to measure, so I did. Apparently an ape index of 1 is the norm in the general population. My ape index is 1. My seated height length appears to be approximately average for my height. So based on these two metrics I have average genetics for deadlifting, but the fact of the matter is that I still have a stupidly high lock out, so I assume I must have slightly wider chest than average and therefore actually probably have shorter arms than average. So maybe that makes me slightly above average in terms of bench press potential and below average for deadlifts, but who knows?

I really wanted to see if I could find anyone else who has my deadlift problem. So I searched YouTube for a very long time and could not find videos of anyone who locks out their deadlifts at their cocks. Then my wife, having taken an interest in my deadlift lockout, searched and was able to find one guy who deadlifted 700 in a deadlift suit who seemed to lock out clearly at least on top of his balls and possibly close to his cock. Inspired to search more, I decided to try to find videos of people who were genetically gifted bench pressers deadlifting. Problem: People who are genetically gifted at bench pressing only post their bench press videos on YouTube and don't post any videos of themselves deadlifting... maybe because their deadlifts suck. Kirill Sarychev is an exception to the video trend, but he is probably on steroids and is like a mountain and he locks out just at the bottom of his balls as best I can tell.

I finally got an idea that led to some videos. I went to the IPF Raw World Championships results, and looked at videos of the super heavy weights with the biggest bench presses deadlifting. Finding: they all lock out at their dicks and you can see it clearly in their videos:

Jezza Uepa - YouTube

Boughalem Ilyes - YouTube

James Heely - YouTube

Kelly Branton - YouTube

So anyway, this made me conclude that perhaps the issue for me might not necessarily be a wide chest and short arms, but perhaps it's just that I'm fat and it makes it harder for me to get my arms in an optimal position to have a lower lock out. Anyway, I'm not totally sure, but one thing I'm sure of is that since I'm like these guys, it seems like a given that I will never deadlift 800 lbs and that 700 lbs should probably be my lifetime achievement goal for 4-ish years from now. I strongly suspect it is impossible to deadlift 800 lbs if your deadlift lockout is not below your balls. It seems like every video I find of people deadlifting 800+ involves a lockout that is at a bare minimum 1 inch below the balls.

Anyway, enough phallic talk...

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Tuesday 5/1/2018 - Deadlift Focus

Deadlift - 135x5, 225x5, 275x3, 315x3, 395x0
High Bar Squat 5RM - BWx5, 135x5, 185x5, 225x5, 275x5, 315x2, 315x5 PR!
High Bar Squat Paused - 5 sets x 265x2
Standing Calf - 30x12, 45x13, x11, x8, x8

Still not recovered after maxing out on deadlift last week.

I was quite happy with the squat PR. Felt hard, but seems likely I can get at least another 3 weeks of +5 lbs training in.

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Wednesday 5/2/2018 - Bench Press, Lats

Bench Press - 45x5, 95x5, 185x5, 4 sets x 225x8
Incline Bench Press - 45x5, 95x5, 4 sets x 175x8
Wide Grip Bench Press - 45x5, 95x5, 4 sets x 175x8
Flat Bench Dumbbell Fly - 15x8, 4 sets x 45x8

Flat Bench Dumbbell Row - 35x8, 80x8, 80x3
Barbell Row - 2 sets x 135x6
Lat Pulldown - 60x6, x7

I decided to plan my bench press hypertrophy phase by starting off all my lifts slightly above 60% of their estimated 1RMs and go for sets of 8. Will keep adding sets for the next few weeks as well as 5 lbs per week until I end up exceeding MRV. I'm not really sure how many sets it's going to take.

I was intending to start lat hypertrophy work today, but once again my lats were dead and nowhere near as strong as they were in the past. I have finally stumbled on the conclusion that it is because I'm destroying my biceps with the bench pressing. My biceps are getting a huge pump from all the bench pressing, probably because they are being used to stabilize the bar on the eccentric ROM. Conclusion: I need to drop the weight on all the lat exercises and just work up from lower weights even though they won't be PRs. Since I'll be doing the lat exercises with pre-fatigued biceps I'll still be giving the lats good stimulation.

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Saturday 5/5/2018 - Squat Volume Day - Injury

High Bar Squat - BWx5, 135x5, 185x5, 225x5, 275x5, 335x5, 335x2

I was aiming to get 5x5@335 and my legs were feeling great. I felt like this was completely doable, then on the first rep of the second set, as I was descending to the lowest portion of the squat I felt a pain in my right glute that felt like it was shooting around my butt. I did a second rep and felt the pain again and decided to stop. I'm really annoyed by this. Thankfully someone there in the gym talked me out of doing any more lower body work for the day.

I was in the middle of some extremely productive squat training, and now an injury. My right buttock hurt the rest of the day and my hamstring and calves hurt a little too. Pain has decreased significantly over the last two weeks to the point that I am going to resume squat training again, but I ended up having to entirely take off 2 weeks of any posterior chain training because of this. When I do resume squatting it will be with lower weights and hypertrophy training rather than strength training. I'm amazed at how well my last round of hypertrophy training prepared me for this strength phase, and I can only assume that if I do another 2 blocks of hypertrophy work then come back to squatting I'll be able to take my 5x5 record well above 365.

I suspect, though I'm not sure, that maybe I should have just taken off from lower body training this week since I maxed out on deadlifts last week. Probably maxing out on deadlifts on Tuesday, then doing a 5RM Squat one week later, then doing high volume squats 1.5 weeks later was probably not the smartest idea. In the future I will just deload for two weeks after doing 1RM deadlifts.

It's also worth noting that the right side, which I know is my weaker side for my lower body is the one that got injured. I'm going to put some focus into trying to even out the strength imbalance as part of the next two hypertrophy blocks.

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Sunday 5/6/2018 - Press, Triceps, Biceps

Barbell Press - 45x8, 95x5, 4 sets x 135x8
Barbell Upright Row to Forehead - 45x8, 55x8, 65x8, 75x2, 65x8
EZ Curl Bar Upright Row to Forehead - 20x4, 40x4, 50x5, 60x0
Barbell Face Pull - 4 sets x 45x8

Close Grip Bench Press - 45x8, 95x8, 4 sets x 185x8
Close Grip Incline Bench Press - 45x8, 3 sets x 175x8, 175x7 (failed to get last rep due to too short rest between sets)

Preacher Curl with EZ Curl Bar - 45x8, 4 sets x 65x8
Incline Bench Dumbbell Curl - 4 sets x 20x8
Seated Dumbbell Hammer Curl - 4 sets x 20x8
Pin to Chin Partial ROM Barbell Curl - 45x8, 4 sets x 65x8

Barbell Shrugs - 45x8, 135x15, 3 sets x 135x20

I haven't done upright rows in a long time, and I've never done them to my forehead. I'm doing them all the way to my forehead based on a recommendation from Mike Israetel. I ended up deciding that barbells suck for this and that EZ curl bars are much more comfortable on the wrists. Barbell face pulls are also extremely awkward but allegedly are one of the best exercises to directly target the rear delts.

For close grip BP and IBP I went with slightly more than 60% of my estimated 1RM. Will keep adding sets going forward.

I am fairly happy with the biceps work. Will keep adding sets going forward and try to get some nice biceps hypertrophy to go with all my other upper body hypertrophy work. The pin to chin was pretty fun. It felt like it got my upper range of motion worked well since the preacher curl focused on the lower range of motion.

I decided to add in shrugs because I have to take off from deadlifting due to the glute injury, and shrugs seemed like a good way to get some trap stimulation in the absence of deadlifts. I have never done barbell shrugs seriously before so this was a bit of an experiment.

[Milo234]

Highlights:

Bench press work is going well.

I finally made the realization this week that my lat work has been going poorly for the last month because my biceps are now getting killed by my bench press workouts, and so I just can't match my old PR levels with biceps this tired. My plan is to drop the weight by about 30% on the lat work after bench pressing starting next week and see how that goes.

Right glute seems to be mostly recovered. I'll resume squatting again next Saturday.

I've got two more weeks of training before a 1 week vacation planned. I'm hoping my bench press training gets into functional overreaching right before going on vacation so if I can't train while traveling it'll hopefully be a deload week.

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Tuesday 5/8/2018 - Deadlift non-focus to recover from injury

Barbell Shrugs - 45x20, 4 sets x 140x20
Leg Extensions - 4 sets x 80 x 20, right leg only 50x10 (failure)
Hip Adduction - 150x12, 4 sets x 305x12
Standing Calf - 30x12, 45x14, x11, x8, x8, x8

I decided to do some shrugs since I can't deadlift and I want to work my traps. I really have no idea what a reasonable weight is. I need to find some way to make sure I don't cheat on my shrugs and always do them with a full range of motion. Shrugging in the squat cage up to the support bars has crossed my mind as a good idea, but I'm not sure if there is a pin hole at the appropriate height. I'll investigate this on Tuesday.

I decided to try high rep leg extensions to try to get some quad hypertrophy since I don't want to work my posterior chain at all.

The hip adduction machine doesn't go heavy enough for me anymore. 305 is the max weight, so I have to go for reps. I plan to start doing sumo style deadlifts starting after my glute heals, and hopefully those will get me so strong that the machine becomes a total joke.

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Wednesday 5/9/2018 - Bench Press and Lats

Bench Press - 45x5, 95x5, 185x5, 5 sets x 230x8
Incline Bench Press - 45x5, 95x5, 5 sets x 180x8
Wide Grip Bench Press - 45x5, 95x5, 4 sets x 180x8
Flat Bench Dumbbell Flys - 15x8, 4 sets x 45x8

Flat Bench Dumbbell Row - 35x8, 80x0
Lat Pulldown - 45x12, 120x12, x10, x4
Flat Bench Dumbbell Row - 4 sets x 50x8

BP hypertrophy work is going very well. Biceps are getting killed by all the bench pressing. The plan going forward to get my lats back on track is to just start with 30% less weight than old PRs and go from there.

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Saturday 5/12/2018 - Non-squat day to recover from injury

Barbell Shrugs - 45x20, 145x20, x14, x2
Leg Extension - 35x20, 110x5, 125x5, 140x5, 155x5, 170x5, 185x5, 200x0.5
Hip Adduction - 150x12, 4 sets x 305x12

My traps clearly were not recovered from Tuesday's shrugs. So I probably need to work traps with high volume only once a week. Same goes for leg extensions. I decided to just try a 5RM on the leg extension since my quads didn't feel up for high volume today.

Getting 4x305x12 on hip adduction two times in one week shows that this is a pretty easy weight for me. If I ever come back to this machine in the future I'll have to do a hell of a lot more sets.

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Sunday 5/13/2018 - Press, Shoulders, Biceps, Triceps

Barbell Press - 45x8, 95x8, 5 sets x 140x8
Upright Row to Forehead w/EZ Curl Bar - 4 sets x 50x8
Barbell Face Pull - 5 sets x 45x8

Close Grip Bench Press - 45x8, 95x8, 5 sets x 190x8
Close Grip Incline Bench Press - 45x8, 4 sets x 180x8

Preacher Curl w/EZ Curl Bar - 45x8, 5 sets x 65x8
Incline Bench Dumbbell Curl - 4 sets x 20x8
Seated Dumbbell Hammer Curl - 4 sets x 20x8
Pin to Chin Barbell Curl - 4 sets x 65x8

All work today went really well. My technique is getting better on the new shoulder exercises - upright row to forehead and face pull.

Biceps work is going well. I'm going to just add one set per week on biceps and see when I exceed MRV. In the past while doing no lat work my MRV was somewhere in the 20-24 sets range. I plan to continue doing hypertrophy training for biceps while doing hypertrophy training for bench press, and hopefully next time I run a biceps strength phase I'll be able to achieve my goal of a 135 lb strict barbell curl.

I have no idea what my MRV will be with this set of exercises, but we'll see what it ends up being. I hope to exceed MRV in two weeks.

[Milo234]

Highlights for this week:

Upper body pressing work went well. Seems like I surely must have exceeded MRV because this was a horrifically painful week.

I had an interesting conversation about lat work with a very talkative guy in the gym who has extremely strong lats and claims to have been ridiculously strong in the distant past, e.g. 370x3 bench press, 540 deadlift, 600 squat (maybe not done to competition standards). He has extremely strong lats, and his lifts are not too terrible currently though nowhere near those old numbers, so I suppose he's probably not exaggerating too much. Anyway, I mentioned to him that my biceps were dead after all the bench press work, and so I was having trouble training my lats, and he replied that clearly I should separate lat work from bench press day by at least 1 day, giving the biceps some time to recover. I then mentioned that my current plan was to just lower the weight and that some people say that pre-fatiguing the biceps before doing lat work is a decent idea. He replied that that seems like bullshit and they really need to be trained heavy and hard when they're fresh. I realized that he was totally right. So anyway, that conversation got me rethinking my lat work.

A couple of other important realizations came while thinking about my lat work. One is that I'm only training lats once a week currently, and science says that 2 times a week minimum would certainly be better for pretty much all muscle groups. A second important realization was that all of the biceps work on Sundays is probably interfering with lat work on Wednesdays as well. I also think I really should add some chest supported rows into the routine. A final thought was that lats should be more important than biceps. I find that really hard to stomach because biceps are some a wonderful vanity muscle, but lats are by far the bigger muscle, and mine feel like they're weaker than they should be given how strong my bench press is.

Unfortunately I can't really add any more training days to my schedule, so a separate day for lats is out of the question, but the obvious thing to do is to just do lats on both of my upper body days. As the biceps will be fatigued from bench pressing, bench press day, Wednesday, will have to be a lower volume lat day, and Sunday will be the higher volume lat day. Biceps I am planning to cut back to one exercise on each day for now after lat work.

On lower body, the same talkative guy upon me mentioning my glute injury and how the pain felt said it sounded like I irritated my sciatic nerve. After reading about the sciatic nerve I think he is extremely likely right. So the good news is my muscles are probably fine. Anyway I decided this week to start squatting again on Saturday, and I decided that since I had forced myself to do nothing for my posterior chain for two weeks that my posterior chain muscles were effectively peaked, even if my quads weren't. So I decided to attempt 405 on Saturday and got it, and it clearly felt like I could do more!

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Tuesday 5/15/2018 - Non-DL day due to injury

Barbell Shrugs - 45x20, 145x20, x11
Leg Extensions - 35x20, 4 sets x 85x20, 85x12, right leg only 50x11 to failure
Hip Adduction - 150x12, 5 sets x 305x12
Standing Calf - 30x12, 45x15, x11, x9, x9, x9, x8

Traps clearly aren't recovered for shrugs. If I ever add shrugs back into my training routine on a regular basis I'll need to figure out proper technique and volumes

These hip adductions are too easy.

Calf work is going well.

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Wednesday 5/16/2018 - Bench Press Hypertrophy and Lats

Bench press - 45x8, 95x8, 185x8, 5 sets x 235x8
Incline Bench Press - 45x8, 95x8, 5 sets x 185x8
Wide Grip Bench Press - 45x8, 95x8, 5 sets x 185x8
Flat Bench Dumbbell Fly - 45x8, 5 sets x 45x8

Dumbbell Row - 35x8, 4 sets x 50x8
Pronated, Medium Width Grip Lat Pulldown - 45x8, 4 sets x 90x8
Narrow, Neutral Grip Pulldown - 4 sets x 95x8
Iso Low Row - 4 sets x 140x8

Bench Press work was pretty painful.

I clearly overshot on lowering the weights for lat work, and as mentioned above, I'm going to completely redo this. This workout surely induced functional overreaching in my biceps.

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Saturday 5/19/2018 - Back to Squatting, Yay!

High Bar Squat 1RM - BWx5, 135x5, 185x5, 225x5, 275x5, 315x2, 365x1, 405x1!
HBS Back Off Sets - 3 sets x 325x2
Barbell Shrugs - 45x20, 95x20, x20, x13
Hip Adduction - 150x12, x12

Plan is to peak for another squat max out next week. 405 was pretty easy, and it was clear that my quads were the weak point, and they weren't recovered yet from the previous work out, so I should definitely be able to considerably more with a week of peaking.

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Sunday - 5/20/2018 - Shoulders, Triceps, Biceps

Barbell Overhead Press - 45x8, 95x8, 6 sets x 145x8
Ez Curl Bar Upright Row to Forehead - 6 sets x 50x8
Barbell Face Pull - 6 sets x 45x8

Close Grip Bench Press - 45x8, 95x8, 6 sets x 195x8
Close Grip Incline Bench Press - 45x8, 2 sets x 185x8, 185x7

Preacher Curl with EZ Curl Bar - 40x8, 60x2

Shoulder work was horrifically difficult to finish.

Close grip pressing for triceps was also horrifically painful.

Biceps were totally overreached.