Anthony King's Log

[Anthony King]

LP is here.

Ran LP for about 13 months, had some injury layoffs that prevented me from squatting, so it wasn't 13 months consecutive. Feel like I got solid results, nothing stellar, but huge progresss since I started out pretty lanky and completely detrained when I started.

Stats & 5rm’s

39yo 6'0". 220lbs. (started at about 180 in Feb. 2014)

End of LP 5rm's
Squat 330
Bench 223.5
Press 143
Deadlift 382
Power Clean— I don’t want to talk about it.

I might have been able to get a tiiiiiiny bit more more out of the LP, but I was having recovery problems, even using the two days of rest btwn. sessions on Advanced Novice at the end. I failed 335, partly due to recovery issues, but I don’t see those recovery issues clearing up consistently enough to keep trying to run the LP.

At this time of year I have to do a lot of firewood cutting and work around the property I live on (a large old dairy farm). Most of that work is on the weekends, so I’m going to put my heavy day on Thursday to have plenty of rest.

I worked with John Hanley in my advanced novice period and I like the high-volume, high-frequency pressing routine he set up for me, I’m going to use that for the bench and press.

But I’m going to use an HLM set-up for squats and pulls for now. I don’t think I could run the Texas Method or a volume-instensity program on squats right now. Perhaps in the winter when I don’t have as many other responsibilities.

I’m pretty torched right now and am resetting the squat by 10%. That should give me a few weeks to work back up to PR territory and to also get my body adapted to cutting and stacking a couple cords of wood on the weekends.
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First Session (H) notes are weight x reps x sets

Squat 300x5x3
That was harder than I thought it would be. First set was uuugggggly. Weight shifting to toes out of the hole. Second set better. Last time I squatted heavy was 4/29, so probably a little detrained.

Bench
233x1, 253xfail, 225x3
I used this day to play around with some singles on the bench. I’ve lost some weight in the last week even though I’ve been eating a lot. Bench didn’t feel strong at all. I almost got 226x5 last week.

Deadlift 373x4,1
Was going for a set of five. Deadlift seems to detrain the least amount of all the lifts.

All in all, not bad. Haven’t had a real heavy session in a week so there’s a little detraining, but will start working up from here.

[HandPlaneSteve]

Well done AK!

[Dave Paauwe]

subbed!

[Simon Rest]

Good LP. i lose the motor pattern on squats too. 2 weeks not squatting and I'm all over the place.

[Anthony King]

Haven't logged in a few days.

There pressing programming I'm doing is something John Hanley cooked up. It is a high volume program with an intensity day at the end of the week. The only think I've done to it is put the intensity day at the beginning of the week, on my (H) day. The other two days are high volume sets across, trying to keep the RPE at 8-9. On two off days there are optional presses @7. Focus switches between press and bench each week for me.

Anyway,

Friday May 8
Chins 7min amrap = 22
Bench 170x8x3 @7's

Saturday May 9
Light Squat 240x5x2
Press 116x8x2, 7x2, 2
GHR 10x3

Hadn't pressed in a while and it showed. Also can't do press 2.0 for 8's. Have to mix up 1.0 and 2.0 for reps. This kinda effed me up.
Very worn out, lifted first thing in the morning.

Monday May 11
"Medium" day was much better that the light day. Recovered well from cutting wood over the weekend. I think I'm on the right track. By the time I'm hitting PR's again my body should be pretty used to cutting, splitting and stacking wood most of Saturday and Sunday, and I should be nice and fresh by the heavy day on Sunday.

Medium Squat 275x5x3
Press 124x6x4 (RPE's were btwn 8 and 9, so good there)
Power Clean 120x3x5

Weird rib/lat injury felt good enough to clean again. These were pretty light. Just getting back on the horse. Never learned to clean well in my LP.

Oddly hot here this weekend. I ate a lot and drank a ton of water while cutting wood but still shed a couple pounds. Maybe just water? Don't want to lose weight quickly.

My power clean will need a lot of work before it qualifies as heavy enough to be my "medium" pulling exercise, but my deadlift never stalled on the LP, so I'm hoping to power clean twice a week, keep the DL going up, and hope the frequency of clean can get me into non-terrible territory on that movement. If deads stall before that I'll switch things up.

[Anthony King]

"Heavy"

Squat 308x5, 284x5x2

Press 140x4, 130.5x4x3

OK, so far everything on schedule. Went for a very modest number on the press since I've lost some weight. Squats were solid. But then . . .

Deadlift 378xfail, then fail, then 356xfail, then waited 10 minutes and . . . fail.
By this point I was so torched I just went inside.
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Suspect the problem is not eating enough combined with some midweek physical labor that burned up my lower back. Deadlifts have always been the easiest lift for me. I've never failed so dramatically. I need to up my macros considerable. The firewood work that I'm doing is causing me to lose weight quickly. I gave it one week on about 3K cals, and I'm down nearly five pounds. That's way too much in such a short time.

Oh well. I'm in a little reset because I knew I'd need to adjust to the chainsaw work. Disappointing, considering I pressed 143x5 and deadlifted 382x5 at the end of LP. But I'll get the food sorted out as I run the numbers back up to my LP PR's.

Squat form felt very good, at least.

[Dave Paauwe]

If you're gonna act like a lumberjack, you better eat like a lumberjack.

[Anthony King]

If you're gonna act like a lumberjack, you better eat like a lumberjack.

True.

Redid macros so that I'm eating a minimum of 3200cals each day. More when I cut wood. Reversed the accursed weight loss, but I'm still down a few pounds.

Woke up too early today and couldn't go back to sleep. Felt knackered when I went out to the garage. I don't like lifting early but on Saturdays I have to.

Squat: Light 252x5x2

Bench: Volume 185x8x4

Deadlift 329x5x2

I'm planning to clean on light days but after the deadlift debacle last session I needed some reps. Set these at 90% of what I plan to do on Thursday and two sets of five felt right.

[Anthony King]

Yesterday:
Press 111.5x8x3 @7s
Chins amrap 7min = 26

Today:
Squat: Medium 284x5x3
Bench: Volume 199x6x4
Power Clean 125x3x5

Rack on the power clean felt better, even automatic. Still racking with my feet out very wide. Gotta work on landing in a squat stance after the pull.

Bench was scheduled for 194 but that seemed too low. Will have to feel out the starting weights until I've been through each press rep range once.

[Anthony King]

Conditioning Day

Press 118x6x3
Chins amrap 7min = 29
HIIT: Bicycle Hill Sprints :20/1:40 x 7
These seemed like a good idea. I live on a steep hill. Hadn't done any HIIT in a while. These were brutal. Not quite as bad as the prowler, but a substantially more nauseating than the C2. Probably should have stopped after six rounds. Spent 15 minutes on the floor afterwards, breathing heavily and asking myself "Why do you do this?" Crazy quad pump and shaking legs when I parked the bike. Nausea scale: 3 out of 10. Going to do HIIT on Tuesdays from now on.