BigA's Log

[BigA]

Squat (no belt + no wraps): 345 x 5
Press (no belt): 145 x 5, 145 x 5, 145 x 5, 145 x 5, 145 x 5
Total BW Pull-ups (greasing the groove): 8.5
Barbell Curl: 90 x 5, 90 x 5, 90 x 5
Lateral Raises

Morning Bodyweight: 250

[BigA]

Squat (no belt + no wraps); 350 x 5 (ID)
Press (no belt): 162.5 x 2, 162.5 x 2, 160 x 2
BW Pull-ups: approx. 10 (greasing the groove)
Hammer Curls, Lateral Raises

I switched around ID and VD this week due to time. I think I might keep it this way.

[BigA]

SLDL (no belt + hook grip + chalk); 385 x 5, 385 x 5, 385 x 5

BW Pull-ups: 3 total

[BigA]

Squat (no belt + no wraps): 320 x 5 x 5 (VD)
BW pull-ups: 8 total

I squatted a day early and I will squat a day early on Monday as well so that I get back to MF squat schedule. It was a challenging session. I predict Monday will be more difficult but we shall see.

Morning bodyweight: 249.2

[BigA]

Press (no belt): 147.5 x 5, 147.5 x 5, 147.5 x 5, 147.5 x 5, 147.5 x 5

Decided to call it a day.

I'm having a hard time gauging fatigue with this greasing the groove program for pull-ups. Plus, it's not a true greasing the groove, that would entail doing pull-ups throughout the whole day and I don't have a home gym yet. I will go back to a modified version of what I was doing before, adding in weighted belts. I posted a question on Andy's forum about it and I will see what he says. While I feel like I didn't see this through to the end, I also feel like I was still making progress on the other program. I had been gaining weight for a while so I was still technically getting stronger. Now that my weight has stabilized, I think more gains are to come. I have a hunch that this is the correct decision but I will see. I hope it works out.

Edit:

Andy replied to my post and based on his recommendations, I am going to do this for upper body pulling:

Day 1

Weighted pull-ups: 3x3 (using independent sets)
Barbell Curls: 1x5, 2x10 (heavy set, 2 backoff sets)

Day 2

BW pull-ups for higher reps: 3x10+ (I am sure it will take me a long time to hit 3x10 though)

[BigA]

Squat (no belt + no wraps): 355 x 5 (ID)
Front Squat Isometric Hold (no belt): 355 x 10 sec x 3

The last squat rep was ugly. My butt came up first and I folded forward, I could feel the upper back back rounding. I credit this partially to my slightly truncated training week last week. My intention was to get my squat schedule back to MF so I squatted Tues and Fri last week and Mon this week. So each session had 2 days of rest in between instead of 3 so I wasn't totally recovered. However, I was recovered enough to make all my reps today so I'm happy about that. I wonder if I will have higher supercompensation effect this Fri because of this.

I will try to start doing front squat isometric holds consistently again. I felt like they were beneficial and were hitting the upper back hard in ways that presses (due to lack of weight on bar) and deadlifts (placement of bar in hands) do not.

[BigA]

Press (no belt): 162.5 x 2, 162.5 x 2, 160 x 2
BW Pull-ups: 3, 3, 2.9
Barbell Curls: 90 x 5, 55 x 10, 55 x 10
Lateral Raises w/ 25 (each hand)

No PR's were set today. I am starting the new pull-up and curl programming as recommended by Andy. I am feeling a little bit systemically overtrained. I just have to make it through tomorrow's deadlifts and then I can catch up on sleep.

Morning bodyweight: 249.2

[BigA]

SLDL (no belt + hook grip + chalk): 390 x 5, 390 x 5, 390 x 5

As expected, deadlifts were absolutely brutal today. This was one of those character forming sessions. For a moment, I considered calling it a day after the first rep of the second set but I stuck with it and grinded out many of the reps. I've noticed that with the deadlift, I can almost always pick it up if I can mentally push myself to do it. With the squat and especially the press, I can't do that. I can usually predict when I am about to fail a rep on these 2 lifts. The prediction is more accurate with the press than with the squat.

Anyways, I am glad that I pushed through. I got in the necessary volume and now I can catch up on my sleep which has been pretty haphazard lately.

[BigA]

Squat (no belt + no wraps): 325 x 5 x 5 (VD)

I was going to do front squat isometric holds but I was just exhausted after the squats. I will try and do them tomorrow.

Morning bodyweight: 249.4

[BigA]

Press (no belt): 150 x 5, 150 x 4, 150 x 4, 150 x 4, 150 x 3
BW pull-ups: 3, 2, 1
Lateral Raises

Not that great of a workout today.

Post workout bodyweight: 253.2