Dunk a basketball

[cun2x]

I haven't been able to sleep well the past 1.5 weeks, and now I'm getting pain on my right knee. So it looks like I won't push this cycle anymore, and reset starting this Thursday.

I started with:

Squat: 185 x 5
Bench: 125 x 5
Pendlay Row: 105 x 5
Press: 97 x 5
Deadlift: 255 x 5

I took 4 weeks to build up to my old PR (my 4th week is the old PR), and after 9 weeks, here's the results:

Squat: 210 x 3
Bench: 140 x 3
Pendlay Row: 120 x 2
Press: 102 x 3
Deadlift: 255 x 1

I'm planning to start the Texas method, like outlined below:

Day 1
Squat 5X5
Bench Press 5X5
Pendlay Row 5x5

Day 2
Back squat 2 x 5 (80% of day 1 squat)
Press 3 x 5
Chin ups 3 x max reps

Day 3
Squat 1X5
Bench Press 1x5
Dead Lift 1X5

For this cycle, I'll focus on driving up day 3 weights. I'll try to start getting PR at week 4, and try to set PR for 2-4 weeks. What do you guys think?
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[Kyle]

Cun2x,

The pain in your knee might be agrivated from doing all the plyometric drills.

Kyle

[cun2x]

I've got knee pain before after playing basketball, and I got a relief from it by doing foam rolling on my IT band. However, this time the pain resides on a different area. I played around with a tennis ball yesterday, and found that rolling the tennis ball on my right peroneals and calf muscle (see http://www.t-nation.com/readTopic.do?id=1259323) eliminates the pain. Today, the peroneal feels tender again, and the knee pain reappears, so I'll do some tennis ball rolling again tonight.

I've started playing pickup basketball once a week again, so I'll reduce my plyo session to 1 per week, or even eliminate it, depending on how my knee feels.

[cun2x]

Kyle,

What do you think of my last cycle, and my plan for the upcoming cycle?

Problems with my last cycle:
1. The deadlift volume is just too much for me. I went from 1 set of 5 every week to 4 x 5. I thought ramping up slowly will condition me to 4 sets, but apparently not.
2. I didn't eat enough. My weight is at 165 lbs in the beginning of cycle, and stays that way until 2 weeks ago. Then it starts to drop 2 lbs, and then suddenly a day after a basketball game, I weigh 159 lbs. My caloric intake stays the same the whole cycle, so it's probably a bit of overreaching and losing too much water.
3. I have no idea why my press is not going up, although the bench press and rows are. For my press, after ramping up, I can increase the poundages once, and then it stops for 3 weeks. After I drop the reps to 3, it increases once, and then it stops again.

Things I will do on the next cycle:
1. Drop deadlift set to 1 again.
2. Start adding 500 calories to my last cycle calories. I'll experiment with the increase until I can get about 2 lbs of extra bodyweight per month.
3. No idea what I can do about the press.

[Kyle]

Kyle,

What do you think of my last cycle, and my plan for the upcoming cycle?

Problems with my last cycle:
1. The deadlift volume is just too much for me. I went from 1 set of 5 every week to 4 x 5. I thought ramping up slowly will condition me to 4 sets, but apparently not.
2. I didn't eat enough. My weight is at 165 lbs in the beginning of cycle, and stays that way until 2 weeks ago. Then it starts to drop 2 lbs, and then suddenly a day after a basketball game, I weigh 159 lbs. My caloric intake stays the same the whole cycle, so it's probably a bit of overreaching and losing too much water.
3. I have no idea why my press is not going up, although the bench press and rows are. For my press, after ramping up, I can increase the poundages once, and then it stops for 3 weeks. After I drop the reps to 3, it increases once, and then it stops again.

Things I will do on the next cycle:
1. Drop deadlift set to 1 again.
2. Start adding 500 calories to my last cycle calories. I'll experiment with the increase until I can get about 2 lbs of extra bodyweight per month.
3. No idea what I can do about the press.

Given the time you've been training that your best bet would be the Texas Method for awahile.

a big jump in pulling like you did probably did not help you much either. Some people can deadlift like that and others cannot. I find the better set/rep/frequency for pulling to be around 3x3 1x's per week.

I think sticking to 3 good compound movements will benefit you, as you get stronger you will increase jumping ability. Just out of curiosity you may not be strong enough to do plyometrics and be capable of asborbing that much loading weekly, what is your squat in ratio to your bodyweight?

Kyle

[cun2x]

My current goal is to get to 1.5 x bw squat. I'm currently at about 1.3 x bw squat. My plyo is not a true plyo, nothing like depth jump or anything like that. It's just to help me get "lighter on my feet". I listed what I did for my "plyo" on the 5th post or so on my thread. I'll put it up again below:

For the low intensity plyo, I took this from Kelly Baggett's Vertical Jump Development Bible. It's basically ankle jump, 4 star drills, jump squat (no weight), slalom jump, lunge jump and low squat ankle jump.

[Kyle]

My current goal is to get to 1.5 x bw squat. I'm currently at about 1.3 x bw squat. My plyo is not a true plyo, nothing like depth jump or anything like that. It's just to help me get "lighter on my feet". I listed what I did for my "plyo" on the 5th post or so on my thread. I'll put it up again below:

Whats the sets/reps you'll be doing?

Kyle

[cun2x]

I did 1 set of each exercise. Everything is about 10-20 reps. The whole thing took about 5 minutes. The idea is just to be "smooth" and get used to jumping motion.

[cun2x]

Plans for the weights used for first 4 weeks (set PR on week 4):

Day 1 (5x5)
Squat: 160 -> 170 -> 180 -> 190 -> +5 lbs / week
Bench press: 105 -> 110 -> 115 -> 120 -> +2-3 lbs / week
Rows: 90 -> 95 -> 100 -> 105 -> +2-3 lbs / week

Day 2 (light)
Squat: 20% of Day 1's weight
Press: 90 -> 95 -> 100 -> 105 -> +2-3 lbs/ week
Chin up: 3 x as many as possible (start easy for the first 3 weeks)

Day 3 (1x5)
Squat: 185 -> 195 -> 205 -> 215 -> +5 lbs / week
Bench press: 127 -> 132 -> 137 -> 142 -> +2-3 lbs / week
Deadlift: 230 - > 240 -> 250 -> 260 -> +5 lbs / week

Thoughts?

[Sentinel]

i wanna add some stuff. thanks for pm'ing me. ill drop by often.

ill also help u out with what i can.

more later...