Press day. Got a little greedy and went for 175 as my press single even though I was still feeling some significant DOMS from bench day. It never had a chance. However, I probably could have hit 5 at the supposed 90%, and might have even had 10 for the 80%. This suggests to me that I suck at heavy singles and need more practice there. I'll try to figure out how to work that in. Other than that it was some benching at 80%, dips for assistance, and I even resorted to the pec deck for a titty pump.
So this was a 25 lbs deadlift PR. Again, probably one that had been there for the taking for a while had I bothered to test a single, but now it's official! It felt slow, but was probably faster than it felt. Probably had a bit more there. Somewhere in the course of my deadlifting I managed to tweak my mid back a bit, so I just hit some easy stuff real quick and called it a day. Still feeling the tweak today, twisting or even taking a deep breath hurts a bit. I'm sure it's nothing serious, just a minor annoyance.
Today was bench day, but since you hit a top single every workout on the No Plan Plan, Andy Baker suggests rotating through some variants. Not gonna go full Westside or anything, but I'll probably do a couple of variants and come back to the regular lift every third week or so. Today I opted to try pin benches, and everything was a PR because I've never done them before! I beat my best ever bench with a 255 pin bench, and it moved well enough that I went a little crazy and tried 265. It was close enough that I think 260 might have gone, but 265 didn't. I was in a bit of a hurry, so afterwards I super setted some cable flyes and LTEs, and just because I wandered past it on my way out of the gym, spent about a minute and a half banging out a rest pause set of leg raises on the captain's chair.
10-11-2019, 06:07 PM
Dillon Spencer
10/11/19
Front squats 295x1 (1PR)
Zercher squats 225x3 205x5 (PRs)
45 degree back extensions BWx15x3
DB rows 65x10x3
Curls 65x8+3,3,3 rest pause
Well, squats were a mother loving catastrofuck today. My plan for this No Plan Plan was to stick with the standard LBBS until I got back up to a single at 405 before fucking with any variants. However, my back is still bugging me so I figured I should try something lighter. Was debating between front squats, pin squats, or box squats. I'm gonna go ahead and say I chose wrong, seeing as how I hadn't front squatted in damn near two years. Working up to a single at 295 was fun, and smashed whatever my previous PR was by probably 100 lbs. However, my wrists are not adapted to heavy front squatting. The rest of me probably could have handled more, but I called 295 the top single because my wrists felt like shit. Backed off 10% for my triple, and my wrists totally gave out after the first rep. It was so bad I missed a hook on one side trying to rack it, and then jacked that wrist up even more lifting it back in, while a dumb fuck trainer stood two feet away watching it happen without moving to help a brother out. Should have just dropped it on his foot. That was the end of front squatting.
Figured I might as well keep doing something with similar mechanics, so switched to Zercher squats, which I've always kind of liked. Granted, I liked them a lot more when I was weaker. Getting air in between reps was tough. All the fuckery made squats take way too long, so I just blasted through a bunch of stuff to get a bit more work in for the "pulling" muscles and got the fuck out of there. Just hope my wrists aren't so jacked up it affects pressing tomorrow.
So I ended up with a nasty cold over the weekend and had to hold off on my workout until Monday. Wasn't sure how it would go, but I was pretty pleased all things considered. Hit a PR on the pin press, and then did a few back off triples at 90% of it. Doing an 80% AMRAP of pin presses would have been silly. Did some incline benching because all the flat benches were occupied. Next were dips, and then I just fucked around with the cable stacks for some super sets with the time I had left. Last but certainly not least was a big recovery meal of Thanksgiving turkey and mashed potatoes!
10-16-2019, 08:47 PM
Tswezey
Crazy good process. So after this long what would you say has worked best for you rep wise on volume and intensity? The 5x5s for volume and 1x5 with intensity or switching it up? Also did you like hitting deads twice a week? I’m trying to tweak mine. I started the Andy Baker TM 4 day split and my deads/squats have stalled and almost regressed since I started. Not sure if trying to dead high volume one day and then hitting a set of 1-3 reps very heavy once a week is taxing me out or what..
10-21-2019, 10:19 AM
Dillon Spencer
Well it's been a while since I was running a real 4 day TM, but I started off with 5x5s for volume and 1x5 for intensity day until I started to doubt my ability to get the next 1x5, then switched to a rotation of 1x5, 2x3, 5x1 for intensity day. If I were to go back and do it again I'd do some cycling of volume day too. 5x5, 5x4, 5x3, and then back to 5x5 with more weight. I liked deadlifting twice per week. On volume day I did 2x5 at 80% of my intensity 1x5. Some people like to use a variant on that day, but I stuck to conventional. It definitely worked pretty well for me, and I'll probably do something similar again in the future.
10-21-2019, 10:45 AM
Dillon Spencer
10/16/19
Rack pulls 455x1 (PR and no belt) 495x0
Leg press 3 PPSx12x3
DB curls 35x10x3
45 degree back extensions 95x12x3
This sucked. The only thing that went according to plan was the curls. Reaggravated the back tweak during my warm up rack pulls, but decided to see what I could do anyways. Worked up to a succesful single at 455, which is only 5 lbs more than my deadlift PR. However, I forgot to put my belt on for it so probably could have managed a bit more. Maybe not though, my back was definitely giving me trouble. Just for shits a belted up and threw a fifth plate on each side. It went about as well as I could have expected, which is that it didn't budge. Decided to use 455 as my top single, and backed off all the way to 405 for my triple, but the back was having none of it. Didn't budge. Called it a day for rack pulls.
Squatting was definitely out, so I decided to use the leg press just for the sake of doing something. I would have preferred more weight and lower reps, but this was as much as I could pile on before my back started acting up. Even getting in and out of the fucking this was very unpleasant. Did my curls while I rested. Did some back extensions while holding a barbell in a snatch grip just for a bit of posterior chain work.
Well this was a nice contrast to the previous workout. Back was better, but still not great. Pressing even the empty bar pissed it off, so I did incline instead. Wanted to do seated presses with back support, but they were all in use. What surprised me was close gripping 245 for a single, and having it be less of a grind than my 250 bench PR. Don't know if it was just a good day, or if I've managed to get stronger in the couple of weeks since then, but it would suggest that I can top my 250 bench next week. After that was a little cable and curls circuit and some LTEs.
10-28-2019, 07:17 AM
Dillon Spencer
10/27/19
Back rehab workout
Tempo squats 255x3x6
Cocaine deadlifts 275x2x5
Tempo pulldowns 140x8x3
This workout was all about trying to do something for this bloody persistent back tweak. It's not agonizing or anything, but it just doesn't want to go away. Most of the advice around here is for low back pain, but this is up around mid back. Tried some of the same things for it though. Feels about the same today, but nothing I did yesterday made it any worse, so at least there's that!