Viking Strength....Let's hope

[BigA]

Switch to the 4 days again. I repeat a lift once every 4 days and the difference in my recovery just due to that one extra night of sleep is absurd. I used to grind through on a 7 day schedule doing TM and now I am seeing that I might still have some LP potential going on an 8 day schedule! Maybe you are one of those guys who cannot tolerate training that frequently and that's ok. I have had my share of unsuitable/poor programming for me (and still do probably but I am intent on getting through intermediate programming myself for the sake of experience). Trucking on through when no progress is being made and other factors are accounted for was just a big waste of time for me. Since you are an intermediate, you don't have to wait that long to see if a program works. Just do it for 1.5-3 months (depending on your progress) and evaluate from there. If you make literally no gains in 1.5 months, switch it. Don't do what I did and press for 6 months using the same program hoping that it works.

Also, I don't know what your life outside of lifting looks like, but, unless you absolutely love your job/other hobbies, you will need lifting. I have other hobbies that I love more than lifting and I still need it. When my back was injured, I legitimately did not expect my psyche to be so affected by the lack of lifting because I have a pretty fulfilling life outside of it. But, it seems that lifting filled a certain aspect of my life that is unique and I think that the same thing will probably happen to you since you are aware of what is possible for someone to lift, given a good program and consistent training. So, don't waste even more time taking time off of lifting, you will almost certainly regret doing so.

[MattimusMaximus]

Switch to the 4 days again. I repeat a lift once every 4 days and the difference in my recovery just due to that one extra night of sleep is absurd. I used to grind through on a 7 day schedule doing TM and now I am seeing that I might still have some LP potential going on an 8 day schedule! Maybe you are one of those guys who cannot tolerate training that frequently and that's ok. I have had my share of unsuitable/poor programming for me (and still do probably but I am intent on getting through intermediate programming myself for the sake of experience). Trucking on through when no progress is being made and other factors are accounted for was just a big waste of time for me. Since you are an intermediate, you don't have to wait that long to see if a program works. Just do it for 1.5-3 months (depending on your progress) and evaluate from there. If you make literally no gains in 1.5 months, switch it. Don't do what I did and press for 6 months using the same program hoping that it works.

Also, I don't know what your life outside of lifting looks like, but, unless you absolutely love your job/other hobbies, you will need lifting. I have other hobbies that I love more than lifting and I still need it. When my back was injured, I legitimately did not expect my psyche to be so affected by the lack of lifting because I have a pretty fulfilling life outside of it. But, it seems that lifting filled a certain aspect of my life that is unique and I think that the same thing will probably happen to you since you are aware of what is possible for someone to lift, given a good program and consistent training. So, don't waste even more time taking time off of lifting, you will almost certainly regret doing so.

Thanks BigA, I appreciate the time you took to reply to my whining haha. I think I was just having a one-off bad session. I'm hoping it was from the tail-end of my nasty cold I fought through.

I agree with you 100%, I NEED lifting in my life or else I'm miserable. Lifting is like therapy sessions for me. If I'm on a lay-off from lifting I definitely get negatively affected even though I have a very good life outside of lifting. I know if I gave up lifting I would be miserable but when training is going bad I sometimes contemplate a break. It's just in my blood to train though... even though I'm not that great at it lol.

I think it's important, sometimes, to include my thoughts in my log whether they are negative or positive... even if it's just for myself. That way I can see where I was at mentally as well as physically when training was either working or not working.

[MattimusMaximus]

BW: 236.4 lbs (AM weigh-in)



Volume Bench: 5 min rests/beltless/T&G/volume PR!

245*5 (@7)
245*5 (@7)
245*5 (@7.5)
245*5 (@7.5)
245*5 (@8)

Intensity Press: 5 min rests/volume PR!

190*1 (@8)
190*1 (@8.5)
190*1 (@8.5)
190*1 (@9.5) Form Issue
190*1 (@9)

Light LTE: 2 min rests

105*12 (@7.5)
105*12 (@9)

Light BB Curls: 2 min rests

105*12 (@8.5)
105*12 (@9.5)



**Volume PR's all around! The bench volume PR in particular is a massive win for me!

**Sometimes my 3 year old won't fall asleep on her own so we have to either sit or lay down in her room with her until she falls asleep. I accidentally fell asleep myself for about 2 hours tonight, so my planned workout sesh was a little later than I was wanting. I felt sooooo groggy and thought this workout was going to royally suck but I was pleasantly surprised!

**Bench felt pretty easy but sometimes I get overly excited during a set and start bouncing the weight too much. So those final sets I tried to control the reps more which is why the bar speeds appears to slow, but it's on purpose.

**Press felt great except that 4th rep that looked like a grinder. I just got out of position because the final rep was much easier. RPE is definitely an interesting animal in that depending on the movement my RPE's can be quite different. For example, I can't grind out deadlifts very well at all so something that looks like an 8 or 9 will look like a typical 8 or 9, but squats and presses I've been known to grind through pretty good so even though bar speed slows right down for those lifts I might actually have a few in the tank and I'll know it based more on feel. I suppose all that time spinning my wheels grinding between 9.5-10 wasn't all a waste after all.

[MattimusMaximus]

**PM bodyweight weigh-in: 241.4 lbs



Volume Squats: Under 6 min rests

315*5 (@6) beltless
330*5 (@7)
345*5 (@8.5)
345*5 (@9)
325*5 (@9)

SLDL: 5 min rests/beltless

290*5 (@7)
305*5 (@8)
305*5 (@8)

Light BB Pendlay Rows: 2 min rests/beltless

180*10 (@8)
180*10 (@8.5)

Light Chins: 2 min rests

BW*8 (@8)
BW*7 (@9)
BW*6 (@9)



**Played around with RPE on the fly during volume squats tonight. Didn't go quite as well as I'd hoped but I blame myself for not guesstimating the weights a little better. Even 5-10 lbs lighter for each set would have been good I think. Fatigue reared her ugly head right on time during set 4. Set 5 felt like I could have kept grinding because the strength was there but everything was pretty fatigued at that point. Original squat plan was 325*5x5 tonight so this actually equated to a little bit more overall tonnage (not much) than had I stuck to the original plan. 8300 lbs vs 8125 lbs, or +175 lbs

**SLDL's felt pretty good and I played with the RPE a bit as well. Seemed to get the hang of it better on those vs the squats!

[MattimusMaximus]

BW: 237 lbs



Intensity Bench: Paused reps/PR

285*3 (@10) PR!

Volume Press: 5-6 min rests/vol PR

155*5 (@7.5) beltless
165*5 (@8)
165*5 (@8.5)
165*5 (@9)
155*5 (@8.5) beltless

Heavy LTE: 2 min rests

125*8 (@8.5)
125*6 (@9.5)

Heavy BB Curls: 2 min rests

140*10x2



**Just didn't have much energy tonight. I screwed up the percent calculation for RPE @9 bench by using my touch and go bench max... forgetting that I wanted to do paused reps... oops! Sucks I maxed it out though since it took a lot out of me. This was an official PR though. My old 3RM was 385 touch'n go so this smokes that since both were max effort.

**Volume PR for the presses tonight too! Original plan was 155x5x5 but I played with RPE and got some more poundage in there. Feels good to set some PR's after several months with nada.

**Tri's were toast by the time I got to LTE. Even BB curls felt heavier than normal so I obviously kicked my own ass tonight. Still figuring out RPE and how I program it into my training. I like it a lot and I'm thinking I want to keep volume between @7-@8's and intensity @8's-@9's. So I hope I know what I'm doing!

[MattimusMaximus]

BW: 240.1 lbs (PM Weigh-in)



Intensity Squat: 5 min rest

380*3 (@9)
380*3 (@9)

Intensity Deadlift: 5 min rest

390*3 (@8.5)
390*3 (@9)

Heavy BB Pendlay Rows: 2 min rest

205*6 (@7.5)
205*6 (@8)

Heavy Chins: +55 lbs/EMOM (set every min)

295*2 (@8)
295*2 (@8.5)
295*2 (@9)
295*2 (@9)



**This session felt superb considering the nasty work week I had. I thought tonight was going to be a dud for sure. Glad I was proven wrong!

**Squats couldn't get into the groove but they didn't feel all that heavy even though the warmups did. Filmed all main sets and included one set of Rows for something different.

[MattimusMaximus]

BW: 237.6 lbs



Volume Bench: 5-6 min rests/Volume PR!

265*3 (@7.5)
265*3 (@7.5)
265*3 (@8)
265*3 (@8.5)
265*3 (@8.5)

Slingshot Bench: Completely New to This! Just fooled around with it for a set/paused reps

265*7 (@didn't count RPE but it was easy)

Intensity Press: 5 min rests

185*3 (@failed 3rd rep)
185*3 (@10)

Light LTE: 2 min rest

107.5*12 (@8.5)
107.5*9 (@9)

Light BB Curls: 2 min rest

107.5*12 (@8.5)
107.5*12 (@9.5)



**1 year old threw up the other day randomly and couldn't keep stuff down for a morning. 3 year old threw up in her bed and came to sleep in our bed. Wife was feeling extremely nauseous yesterday, and now today I've had no appetite (not that that's a bad thing lol) and I've been nauseous most of the day. This session I felt extremely nauseous throughout so I should count myself lucky I got this training in and didn't toss my cookies during any lifts!

**Man, people warn you that when your kids start getting involved in other kid activities like daycare or sports that they come home with more germs and the whole family gets sick more. They weren't kidding! I don't remember a year where I've been sicker than this year. We started going to indoor playgrounds because it gets cold up here in Alberta but I'm starting to think they are an illness infested cesspool... that and my daughter started dance a few months ago and I've actually witnessed other kids sneezing and hacking on each other.

**Went pretty well tonight despite feeling horrid. Press failure was obviously due to technique breakdown since I got it on the 2nd set. Slingshot is fun but I have to figure out how to program it in. Triceps were trashed and I think that was from the extra Slingshot set.

[MattimusMaximus]

BW: 240 lbs (PM weigh-in)



Volume Squats: 5 min rests

340*3 (@6.5) beltless
355*3 (@7.5)
370*3 (@8.5)
370*3 (@9)
355*3 (@8.5)

SLDL: 4 min rests/ beltless/dbl overhand

315*3 (@7)
330*3 (@7.5)
330*3 (@8)

Light BB Pendlay Rows: 2 min rests

182.5*10 (@8)
182.5*10 (@8.5)

Light Chins: 2 min rests/BW only

240*7 (@8)
240*7 (@9)
240*8 (@9.5)



**Overall felt pretty good. Just getting over the tail-end of some kind of stomach bug that wiped out our whole family and everyone at work. I didn't get too affected by it other than some moderate nausea, low-grade fever, and a slight loss of appetite for a day or 2. Didn't seem to affect my training much though! Even worked a double shift yesterday (16.5 hrs)!

**Squats went well and didn't feel heavy at all but I was having trouble with the weight shifting onto my toes tonight. Tried to compensate the other way and went too much on my heels hence the @9 with 370. No vids tonight.

**Was surprised how easy bumping the weights up for SLDL's was. Still relatively new to this exercise so I'm probably off on my RPE scaling when guesstimating a workout.

***Just finished watching "Godless" on Netflix the other night and I thought it was awesome! But then again I love westerns. Super psyched for Red Dead Redemption 2!!

[MattimusMaximus]

BW: 234.7 lbs



Intensity Bench: Paused Reps

275*1 (@7)
300*1 (@9) PR!
300*1 (@9.5) PR!
300*1 (@9.5) PR!
300*1 (@10) PR!

Slingshot Bench: Paused Reps

315*3 (@9.5) Weight PR for Bench

Volume Press: 4 min rests

155*3 (@6) beltless
165*3 (@7.5) beltless
175*3 (@8)
175*3 (@8.5)
175*3 (@8) better form

Heavy LTE: 2 min rests

127.5*6 (@8.5)
127.5*5 (@9.5)

Heavy BB Curls: 2 min rests

142.5*10x2



**Major triceps fatigue tonight but very happy with the results! Blasted an old 1RM bench PR and even performed it in a more difficult way. I'm estimating my 1RM now around 310 lbs. I'm hungry for that 315 though so that's why the Slingshot set at 315! It may have been a greed set but I also wanted to test it out since I'm new to the slanger.

**pressing went so well considering the benching that occurred before!

Just filmed sets 2-6

[MattimusMaximus]

BW: 243.4 lbs (Pm Weigh-in)


Intensity Squats: 5 min rests

380*1 (@7)
400*1 (@8.5)
410*1 (@9.5)
410*1 (@10)
390*1 (@9.5)

Intensity Deadlifts: 5 min rests

390*1 (@7.5)
410*1 (@9)
420*1 (@9.5)
420*1 (@9.5)
420*1 (@10)

Heavy BB Pendlay Rows: 2 min rest

207.5*6 (@7)
207.5*6 (@8)

Heavy Chins: BW+57.5 lbs/EMOM

301*2 (@9)
301*2 (@9)
301*2 (@9.5)
301*2 (@10)


**Finishing off a training cycle tonight. Things went rather well and I'm excited for what the future brings for me with the use of RPE.





**Finishing "Dark" on Netflix tonight... I'm enjoying it!