The Constant Intermediate

[broseph]

8/15/17 Squat Deadlift B

Aimed for a "heavy" triple here, leading into test week in a few days. There should still be some fatigue built up, and today's numbers are about where I expected them to be. (weak sauce)

Squat 405x3 @8. Hoping to hit ~415x5 on Saturday.

Deadlift 475x3 @8. Hoping for ~485x5. I haven't deadlifted anything heavy in a loooooong time, and my hand skin has gone soft and supple. Might have to strap up on Saturday.

Abwheel 3x20

Even though I'm weaker, I'm really excited to get some solid 1RM estimates next week so I can start logging progress again.

[broseph]

8/16/17 Bench B

Bench 335x3 @8. Not bad.

Chin BW+140 x2. Never did that before, so... PR?

Close Grip Bench 305x3x3, supersetted with:
EZ Curlz 148x 8, 8, 10

[broseph]

Time to move forward. Here's the plan.


Similar to what I was doing prior to losing all my strength and a little bit of fat. I changed the spirit of the program though, with less swing from volume to intensity, and more focus on middle ground. I'm paranoid that what I was doing before was just allowing myself to display what strength I already had- getting DIFFERENT rep max PR's every 4 weeks shifted the focus from actually getting stronger to just playing with new numbers. I will probably focus on a 3-5RM for each lift for a few cycles to see if I'm ACTUALLY getting stronger this time.

[broseph]

8/19/17 Squat Test

Bodyweight 213. This number is now the daily norm, not the weekly low. I guess 3100 Calories is not enough. Bumping up to 3300.

Squat 415x5 @10. Right about where I thought I was; e1RM~480.


335x2x5. This is supposed to be @7, and after the 5RM, 70% of projected max is about right.

[Tim K]

Back on the gainzZz train! I like the 8x3 with minimal rest periods. I've often thought about doing something like that in the interest of time and staying away from failure. Almost like a more structured version of a density block.

[broseph]

8/21/17 Bench/Press Test

Bench 345x5 @10 (PR) e1RM~390


I wish I knew why my bench is so resilient. I've lost weight. The last 2 days have been spent working odd hours, eating 2 yuge meals/day, and getting little sleep. Then I PR my bench press. How can I get my squat and deadlift to be like this?

(70%=275) x2x5. Felt a lot easier than the squat 2x5 @70%.

Press 190x5 @Irrelevant Press RPE. e1RM~220

(70%=155) x2x8. Felt much easier than everything else's 70% so I did 8's.

Back on the gainzZz train! I like the 8x3 with minimal rest periods. I've often thought about doing something like that in the interest of time and staying away from failure. Almost like a more structured version of a density block.

My thoughts exactly. I like the feeling of getting 25 minutes of solid medium-heavy lifting done. The thing I hated about density blocks was that I was always trying to "game" my rep and rest strategy; it proved very frustrating for my personality even though it resulted in gainz. The 8x3 with 3:00 rests suits me much better. Which probably means it's not effective.

[Tim K]

Bench 345x5 @10 (PR) e1RM~390

Damn. Great lifting.

[broseph]

8/22/17 Deadlift Test

Squat 355x2x5. Supposed to be 3 sets, but I had some funny knee pain. No big deal.

Deadlift 495x3 @9.67. Definitely couldn't have pulled another rep, but could've used a little more weight.


For Test Week I've decided to go for 5RM's on everything but deadlift. I figured a that would provide a little training stimulus for the week instead of it just being a test-out, but a 5RM deadlift would bleed unnecessary fatigue into the next cycle (for my current goals).

Abwheel 2x20. Forgot about the third set, took off my shoes, and put my kneeling pillow and abwheel away. Obviously, redoing all those steps was out of the question.

Nice work!

Damn. Great lifting.

Thanks, friends. I'm really excited to go after that 405 bench while maintaining DYEL legs status.

[broseph]

8/23/17 Medium Bench/Press

I weighed in at 212 this morning. Probably a fluke, but I'm going to log it so I can say I officially lost 20lbs.

Bench 275x3x5 @EZPZ. supersetted with:
BW Chins x3x12 @same

Press 165x3x5 @EZPZ. supersetted with:
EZ Curl 158x3x5

Even though press was light weight (yeah buddy) I got really lightheaded during each set. Lifting is weird.

[Tim K]

Even though press was light weight (yeah buddy) I got really lightheaded during each set. Lifting is weird.

The last two times I've pressed I almost passed out on my 155 warmup single. No problems after that. Weird indeed.