Pistol's Log

[Mr.City]

Time to up the calories even more, my friend. Perhaps it's time to McDouble your motivation.

[Pistol Pete]

I've been trying to do it on healthier foods, I do have the metabolism of a jack russell terrier after a case of red bull and a pound of blow though so it might come down to that. Going to try one more week with non fast food and 6500+ calories (food journal time too I'll keep you posted), if that doesn't work I'm following Dr. Nick's orders "if you're not sure about something, rub it against a piece of paper. If the paper turns clear, it's your window to weight gain.

[Pistol Pete]

Jan. 24th

Sq
275 5,4,5

BP
160 5,5,5

DL
290 5

Stepping into my second set of squats my stance was narrower than usual and lost focus towards the end. Doing 275 again next session to nail this weight and going to try 285 after but I get the feeling it's time for the 5lb jumps from here on.
BP
Still adjusting well to the increased weight, had to work for the last rep
DL
Feeling good, end of the week will be about 90% of current 1RM so it will be interesting.

Bonus:
Up 3-5 lbs from Thursday, rest/increased food/cutting out the bullshit workouts have hopefully solved this problem.

[Pistol Pete]

Jan. 26th

Squat
275 2,5,5,5

Press
80 5,5,5

Power Clean
160 5,5,5

Squats were fun today, started out with a bar that had no knurls in the middle and after my 2nd rep on the first set it slid halfway down my back and I just let it go rather than mangle my shoulders/back. Got some funny looks, but I was just laughing. Talked some kids doing bench beside me into swapping bars after explaining what happened, 5x3 went up without much fuss after that.
Press is down to 80 and doing 2.5lb increases from here on up, also going to reread the form as this felt tougher than I think it should've.
Power Clean
I'm starting to have to get under the bar a little more instead of just cleaning it up to the shoulders.

[Pistol Pete]

Tweaked my glute in early Feb. after I took care of that (thank you Starr) an old shoulder injury resurfaced. So it's been little discouraging but back to SS now after some rehab there. Still working on shoulder which only bothers me during BP now so taking it light.

April. 12
Squats
225 5,5,5
Reset the squats and narrowed my stance compared to where I was (very wide) this felt more difficult than I thought it would might consider going even a little lower on the reset with the stance change, will evaluate next workout.

Press
105 5,5,5
This felt good because when I stopped in Feb. I had peaked at 95lbs for 3 sets of 5 failed at 100 on the last set.

DL
310 5,
Pretty easy, think I have Starr to thank for that. Still double overhand no hook grip pretty sure I'll get to a point I can't lift it off the ground before my grip fails.

I know this isn't usually the Press day but as stated above shoulder wasn't doing well with BP so I subbed it in. I'm going to try some light bench next time it comes up and see how it feels.
Body weight still 195 back to eating like a champ hoping to hit 205-210. At that point I"ll start tapering off the food, I'd be carrying an extra 20/25 lbs over last season and 80 minutes of running with very little conditioning work is going to be interesting...

[Pistol Pete]

Apr. 14

Squat
235 5,5,5
Went back to my original stance today just to see how it felt. Still hard squats, apparently taking a couple months off from squatting makes squatting hard again, hoping my legs don't take to long to wake up.

Press
108 5,5,5
Strange weight i know but no microplates at my gym, taped a 3lb dumbbell to the bar.
Did some light bench press and it felt alright, going to continue working the press every workout and do the Starr rehab for bench press at the end

Power Clean
170 3,3,3,3,3
No issues just switched to the 3's and I like it, let's me keep my form a little sharper.

[Pistol Pete]

Apr. 17

Squats
245 5,5,5

Press
110 5,5,3 +2 pushpress

DL
320 5

So after me boasting about my grip strength on the 14th, life or rather 320 lbs put my ego back in check.

I know many people say 1RM for a Novice is pointless, but I like to see how much it improves and it's motivating. So I did a pseudomax the gym closed before I could finish.
Pseudomax was 390 felt like I would've pulled a little more but never got to try due to gym closing. early March it was 350 so I did 350,360,370,380,390. I wasn't expecting a significant gain because I haven't been doing much (heavy) lifting since early Feb. with the glute injury. So really I was hoping for 10 maybe 20 lbs but this blew me away, and I really can't figure out how this happened. I haven't done heavy lifts since my last true max DL except for the last 2 workouts earlier in the week. WTF?!?

[Pistol Pete]

Apr. 19

Squats
255 5,5,5
Felt heavy going to start 5 lb increases, don't want to stall at 285 again.

Press
105 5,5,5
Great math skills = weight fail...
110 5,4
To annoyed to carry on after the weight fuck up and miss.

Power Clean
175 3,3,3,3,3

[Pistol Pete]

Squats
260 5,5,5
Squats continue to feel tough maybe I'm just being a mangina.

Bench Press
150 5,5,5
Warmed up and the shoulder felt good so bench is back in dropped it 15 lbs from last work weight and it felt like I wouldn't have been able to do much more, thinking 2.5 lb increases at this point, it stalled at 165 earlier in the year.

DL

330 5
Felt tough, after having my 1RM cut short on the 17th I wanted to see what it really was so 19th (405) but think I wasn't fully recovered from this.

[Pistol Pete]

Apr. 23

Squats
265 5,5,5
Changed gyms and lifting in front of a mirror I think is messing with me. I'm watching for my depth as opposed to feeling it and think I'm missing the bounce at the bottom. Going to try facing away from mirror Monday.

Press
110 5,5,6

I got cheeky at the end and was still feeling fresh so I wanted to know if I could do 1 more rep. This is a nice change for once seeing as how this lift has been my crux. Hopefully this pattern continues.

Power Clean
180 3,3,3,3,3
Have been making some minor technique changes to this lift for the last few days. Could tell when it was all clicking because I'd just about take it off the chin.