The Constant Intermediate

[broseph]

8/25/17 Week 1 Squat/Deadlift A

Wife and I are going on a little camping trip for the weekend away from the children, so I thought I would get a quick "maintenance workout" in with a few medium-light sets on each lift. Once I started warming up the squat, however, I realized I was fresh enough to just do next week's squat/deadlift session as Rx'ed.

Squat 390x5x3 with 3:00 rests. I initially programmed 3x5, but I just love these timed triples so damn much. It feels so good to lift every rep super fast/explosive/solid, keep my heart rate up the whole time, and get hot and sweaty (sure sign of a good workout).

Deadlift 445x2x3 with 3:00 rest. Only 2 sets since I juuuust pulled a heavy triple 3 days ago. I kept my heeled shoes on too. Felt super solid, but the bar starts at mid ankle and it feels like I'm pulling it a mile.

No time for curlz and my elbows hurt.

[broseph]

48 hours away from the children. It was glorious. The only reference for time that mattered was sun up and down.

Logging the fact that we did ALOT of walking/hiking, and I ate mostly fat, sugar, and a little protein. This way I can blame the weekend for any upcoming poor lifting.

[broseph]

8/28/17 Week 1 Bench/Press A

Bodyweight this morning: 211? That would make -21 total, but I'm just going to call it a solid -20.

Bench 325x 4, 5, 5. Don't know what the problem was.

Press 185x 5, 5, 7. Gotta make up for that lost bench rep.

That's it. Felt weak and tired.

[broseph]

8/29/17 Week 1 Squat B

Squat 365x3x5 @idontknow. Lifted later than usual, felt weak, first set was hard, last set was easy.

RDL 365x3x5. These are getting heavy.

Abwheel 3x20

[broseph]

8/31/17 Week 1 Bench B

Bench 295x5 @EZPZ, 305x2x5 @7ish

Chins +90 x3x5

Close Grip Bench 275x8, 8, 6. Elbow started feeling funny on that last set, so I stopped short.


EZ Curlz 158x3x6

[broseph]

9/3/17 Week 2 Squat Deadlift A

Bodyweight 213 (+1 from last week). I ate a lot of fast food this week, but stayed within my macro limits. Still, I think maybe they underestimate the calories in that stuff? I'm now in gainz mode, so weight gain is good, I'm just not sure at what rate for my current level of advancement.

Squat 390x8x3 with 3:00 rests.

Deadlift 445x3x3 with 3:00 rests. Was scheduled to do 4 sets, but that 3rd set was nearly @10. It's my own schedule, so fuck it, I do what I want.

Straight bar curls 95x3x15.

[broseph]

9/4/17 Week 2 Bench Press A

Bench 325x8x3 with 3:00 rests.

Press 185x8x3 with 3:00 rests. These were crisp and strong. Felt real good.

Cable Row 220x3x6.

[broseph]

9/6/17 Week 2 Squat B

Squat 365x5, 375x5, 385x5. Last set @8

Rack Pull 475x5 @8.

Abwheel 3x20


Musings: I've kept my heeled squat shoes on for the last few deadlift sessions, just to try it out. It makes the lift feel very solid, but a little more difficult- especially towards the top. Which is opposite of what I thought it would feel like. Today was the first time rack pulling in heels, and it felt much harder. Planned to do 495x5, but 455 felt very heavy as a warmup. So I ditched the shoes and loaded up 475 and it was pretty easy.

TL;DR: I won't be pulling in squat shoes anymore. Maybe it's time to get some flats with arch support vs my Meijer brand Chuck Taylor knock offs that are falling apart.

[broseph]

9/7/17 Week 2 Bench B

Bench 295x5, 305x5, 315x5 @7-8.

Chins +90 8x3 with 3:00 rests. I actually only rested ~2:00 between sets, and got 5 reps on the last set. Weighted chins, for me, seem to have a very steep drop off point, so taking a near 5RM weight for sets of 3 ended up too easy.

Close Grip Bench 295x5, 300x5, 305x5. Supersetted with:
EZ Curlz 158x3x7


Musings: When I first started using RPE, I had been doing a lot of consistent training and had a really good idea of what I was capable of lifting day to day. I think I assigned RPE's based on these intuitions. Now that I'm unsure of my strength levels, I'm finding it much more difficult to confidently rate a set, hence the ramping sets the last couple days. I guess what I'm saying is that RPE, as I understand it, is not a very useful tool for me.

The general idea of staying away from failure and not burning out on near rep-maxes all the time is usable. But the exact numbers escape me, especially for anything less than @9. Maybe Hanley's fancy computer thing-a-ma-jig would be helpful.

[JFick]

Trying to catch up since my return.

Looks like you had an overall successful summer cut. Nice work.