My first intermediate log (May 24, 2021-?)

[CommanderFun]

Thursday 6/17/2021

Press 147.5x5
Bench 202.5x5x5
Pulldowns 167.5x12, 152.5x12x2

Last press rep was a little slow. These are probably going to be the lift that gets run out the fastest, and I'm sure that's pretty typical. It wasn't so grindy that I'm gonna cycle to two triples next week, but I probably will have to within the next few weeks.

Bench was hard pushing, but got through it all without any grinds.

Fucked up weight on the first pulldown set, slid the pin into the wrong spot and ended up going 15 pounds heavier than I wanted to. Still managed it, though.

[CommanderFun]

Friday 6/18/2021

Deadlift 365x5
Squat 235x5x5

Deadlifted in the belt again. This time I had it up quite high, seemed to actually work, or at least didn't hinder anything with my form. Good set, last rep was a bit on the slow side but not very grindy.

Squats still felt like death, even at 235. I was absolutely exhausted. I was able to get them done, though.

[CommanderFun]

Monday 6/21/2021

Weigh-In: 288.6 pounds

Bench 230x5
Press 135x5x5
Pulldowns 155x12x3

Bench was hard at the end. I'm wondering if my setup wasn't entirely on point. Presses were hard but managed. Pulldowns got real grindy on the last set. Probably going to move them up to 3x10 for next time.

[CommanderFun]

Tuesday 6/22/2021

Squat 280x5
Power Clean 137.5x3x5

I swear, I cannot get my left foot to stop going completely flat and twisting inward a bit in the middle of a heavy squat set. It's making me furious. I did try something out of the box today on a warm up set, tried a thumbs-around grip. it got my wrists pretty extended, but they weren't holding the weight of the bar, the shoulders were still doing that. Overall the bar was very stable. I may try doing the whole workout like this on Friday, see if I like it. That fucking left foot though...

Power Cleans were okay. There were a few less than entirely smooth catches, but nothing seemed close to a miss.

[CommanderFun]

Thursday 6/24/2021

Press 150x5
Bench 205x5x5
Pulldowns 152.5x10, 157.5x10x3

Big press PR today, a bit slow toward the end but still good. I'm wondering if I should be doing the hip bounce for all reps on these intensity sets. I've been doing it to start the first rep off, and just using regular stretch reflexes for the rest.

Bench was hard but managed them all. Kind of a trend with these. Always "felt hard, but did it". I'm just going to keep looking out for really grindy last reps to indicate shit needs to change up.

Did an extra set of pulldowns. I accidentally loaded the wrong weight for my first set, so I did three more with the CORRECT weight. Maybe that'll keep my brain from fucking up loading these in the future.

Next week, I am going to try 5 pound jumps on the pressing movements, see how it goes. May be a bad call, but I want to try it and see what happens. Worst case scenario is a week setback in progress.

[CommanderFun]

Friday 6/25/2021

Deadlift 370x5
Squat 240x5, 240x4

I think the bumper plates at LA Fitness are a little bit smaller in diameter than the setup I had at home, so my deadlifts at the gym probably have a few inches added to the ROM. Still, I'm not gonna call it a PR until I get 390 for 5. Felt good though. Hard, but good.

Squats were an entirely different story. The thumb-around grip experiment did lead to me being able to control the bar on the shoulders much better, and the first set was actually pretty good. Second set comes around about 5 minutes later, and toward the end it hit me, that old knee pain again. Had to cut off the set because it hit me really sharply when I went down for rep 4 and very nearly lost the rep. I tried to salvage the workout by picking up with another set, but the pain persisted and was fucking my technique up. I am thinking tomorrow I might try going in again, and this time making it the first workout of box squats. Maybe doing those for a while will help with this issue, as has been recommended elsewhere. Figure I'll start it off like a novice lift, finding a weight where it feels like one or two more will be a struggle, and then do two more sets of 5 with it, and start improving from there. 3x5 box squats twice a week.

[CommanderFun]

Saturday 6/26/2021

Box Squat 185x5x3

Went in early today to try and rig together a good box squat setup. Think I got one. Seemed like having about 5 of 55 pound bumper plates stacked up amounted to a good height to get me to depth. 6 had me at parallel or a little above. Worked these up just like a starting novice lift, empty bar upward in sets of 5 until it felt like doing a few more reps would be trouble. I also deliberately slowed the eccentric of the movement to about 2 seconds going down. There's a lot of talk about eccentric movements being beneficial for connective tissue out there. Most importantly, no pain from the knee. Still got great work in on the posterior chain and the quads though.

[CommanderFun]

Monday 6/28/2021

Weigh-in: 290.2 pounds

Bench 235x5
Press 140x5x5
Pulldowns 160x10x3

Upping the weights by 5 was actually manageable. Presses felt hard as hell by the end, but I summoned up the power of greyskull (and a very straight bar path) and pulled it off.

[CommanderFun]

Wednesday 6/30/2021

Box Squat 195x5x3
Power Cleans 140x3x5

Had to push yesterday's workout to this morning. Girlfriend had a family emergency yesterday and I had to accompany her. I still get the tendon pain on those lighter warm up sets for even these box squats, but it's gone for the work sets. Power cleans were weird, sloppy in the earlier sets, got better toward the end. I think I started overthinking what I was doing again in the beginning. Fucked around a bit on machines afterwards for shits and giggles after my workout, since I was alone and not on any sort of time constraint. Apparently I have become very good at seated leg bicep curls without ever doing seated leg bicep curls. My calf raise is TERRIBLE, though. My left foot is just such a shitshow.

[CommanderFun]

Thursday 7/1/2021

Press 155x5
Bench 210x5x5
Pulldowns 162.5x10x3

I don't think I have ever hit a grindier sticking point in a press up until this point. I had that thing stuck almost above my head for at least 5 seconds of constant pushing before I finally got it high enough to get under it. I might have been tempted to stop, but I wanted that fifth rep bad. Tried hip-bouncing every rep in this set instead of only rep 1 like I usually do on intensity days. I'm not sure if maybe that grind happened due to a bar path error. Overall though, this 5 pound jump was probably overdoing it. I'm not sure if maybe I was having a bit of a recovery issue though. The three workouts stacked on top of each other this week, along with me having eaten kinda light two of those days could be a factor. I managed the rest of the workout ok, but had this nasty headache going throughout the whole thing. Another thing that may have actually been caused by recovery issues. Tacking on an extra meal today just to be on the safe side, and two potatoes with my before-bed shake.