Yep, that just might be it.
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11/4/21 - Thursday
SQ - L
45x10x2
95x5
135x1
185x1
225x1
255x5x2 @ 5'
OP - V
45x5
75x1
105x1
115x1
132.5x5x5 @5'
DL
135x4
185x2
225x1
275x1
305x1- double overhand fail, then mixed
325x5 - Straps @ 8'
Music — After listening to a podcast this morning with Frank Bello, bassist for Anthrax, and his discussion about collaborations and covers (specifically "Bring the Noise" with Public Enemy and "Got the Time", a brilliant cover of a brilliant original by Joe Jackson), I created my own soundtrack for this workout. Top Picks -
- Public Enemy - GRID f/ Cypress Hill & George Clinton, Burn Hollywood Burn f/ Ice Cube & Big Daddy Kane;
- Anthrax - Caught In A Mosh, Got The Time (because it really is that damn good of a tune/cover, especially with Frank's chugging bass lines).
Notes —
- SQ - Light day, nothing of note, other than the DOMS and tiredness that I was expecting from Tuesday's Volume (280x5x5) session just wasn't there. A bit of both, but nothing that concerned me.
- OP - Volume day. I need to recalculate either these or my Intensity day. Based on Tuesday's 140lb Intensity reps, these 90% reps should be 126lbs. Either that or I need to bump my Intensity singles up to 147lb+ for my next session. I'll have to mull this one over, as that's a 7lb+ jump.
- DL - After the way that last Saturday's 320lbs cruised, I had been thinking all week about jumping 10lbs for this workout. But then I thought about my Volume/Heavy Squats on Tuesday, where I had gone into Saturday's DL with ~2 weeks without a heavy pull. So I opted to be smart about it. Running up through my warmups, I wanted to see where my double overhand was - it's not 305lbs, as it started peeling out of my fingers as I passed my knees. Not wanting to impact my work set, I swapped to mixed grip and it went fine. The 325x5 went fine and I suspect the 330x5 would have been OK, although quite a grind for the last rep.
-- Finishing up this 325x5, I was in a rush, since a Snow & Avalanche workshop I was to attend was starting in just a couple of minutes; it's already time to be sharpening the saw for the upcoming snow season. So instead of dropping the last rep to the floor to unload the bar, I decided to walk it forward and place the bar in the J-hooks. Just a dumb idea. Nothing bad happened, other than missing the left J-hook (it was only a few inches off the floor), but it was just a dumb idea.
Since you have the microplates for this, you could reduce the jumps in your volume press to 2 lb or even 1 lb for a little while. That would slowly get your volume/intensity ratio back to around 0.9 while still increasing the weight on both days. I've been giving serious thought to doing this myself for the exact same reason.
That's certainly an option that I hadn't considered. It would likely be the route that I would take if I was going to be able to make an uninterrupted run for the next 1-2 months. But I've scheduled myself so that that's not possible (after tomorrow I'll be out again for another 10+ days). That and we're headed into snowboarding season soon, when the focus will be on intensity instead of volume until next spring, when it's back to the LP for a bit.
But that has me thinking about how to approach my winter intensity sessions on the two presses. Last winter I was still adding 2.5lbs to each lift, but dropping to 2x3's with back-off sets. Perhaps it's time to try keeping it at x5's, but only adding 1lb once they start slowing down due to lack of volume and/or frequency (since I'll get only one session per lift per week during that time).
Re: Hook Grip
God bless you for being able to hook it for reps.
I hook infrequently, and usually only when I'm doing singles under 400. In fact, I only hook singles. Rep work hurts too much, and as I said to Mr. B earlier - "I'm a wussy".
We hatesies the hook grip, we do!
I do DOH on all my warmups sets to 315 or so, and straps after that
Haha. I even read that in Gollum's voice.
11/6/21 - Saturday
SQ - H
45x10x2
95x5
135x3
185x1
225x1
250x1
285x5x5 @ 5'
OP - I
45x5
75x3
105x1
130x1
145x1x5* @ 1'
BP - I
45x5
95x3
135x1
165x1
195x1
212.5x5* @ 5'
PC - L
65x5
95x3
115x13
125x1
135x3x5 @ 3'
Music — Top Picks from SiriusXM's Corridor of Covers on Liquid Metal, Crossover Thrash Covers, 10/4/21 - Slayer vs D.R.I., Violent Pacification; Anthrax vs Discharge, Protest and Survive; and many more.
Notes — Rolling into another 10+ day planned break, so I did some shifting of the program to beat myself up just a bit, knowing that I'll be able to recover.
- SQ - Heavy/Volume Day instead of going with a typical Medium Day, since I'll be out for the next 10+ days. I could feel a bit of this weeks volume, having done the last Heavy/Volume Day on Tuesday, with a 90% Light Day on Thursday. But all went well.
- OP - This was +5lbs over Tuesday's Intensity Day. See comments above about adjusting Volume and Intensity weights, where I split the difference with this +5lbs; they went up just fine and I think that I could have pressed the +7.5lbs, but no need to get greedy. Besides, I didn't even realize it until I was doing one last scan of the spreadsheet that these 1x5 singles marked a PR for Presses, as I had only done 1x2 in the Spring (5 June) at this weight when I had completely stalled on the Press and had to reset/shift to Nick's Intermediate Press Protocol. So there you go, Hooper, even with my inconsistent training schedule this summer/fall, the increased frequency seems to help.
- BP - All-time PR for for any rep scheme. I benched a 209lb single at a powerlifting meet back in 2019 and since then, every time I get up to 210lbs for any rep scheme, I reset, usually due to a planned break for other activities (y'know, because I'm Lifting to Live, not the other way around). Well, I'm about to take another break, but managed to squeeze in one more session to get this PR. The bar path was ugly, even bouncing off the left J-hook on rep #4, but I got the lockouts just fine. Once I got it back in the hooks, I looked up at my alignment marks and realized that I had set up on the bench about 2" too high towards the head. But it still counts.
- PC - Clearly I was distracted during the warmups and jumped from 65lbs to 115lbs, skipping the 95x3, but it worked. It had been a couple of weeks since I had done these (21 October was the last time), but since it's "Light", I wasn't concerned. All went well. Since I was going to be out for a bit, I did toy with the idea of adding another heavy Deadlift day here, but jumped on discretion, as that would have been 3 heavy Deadlift days on top of two Heavy/Volume Squat sessions this week. I certainly don't need to beat up my lower back right now with that volume and intensity.
I suspect the increase in frequency is helping my presses too. The bench is at new PRs, and I get to go for my first legit PR increase in the overhead this week.
Probably a good call on the cleans over deadlift. Besides, might as well head into the break by ending on a fun, fast lift. :-) Enjoy!