Chesty's Accountabilibuddy

[Chesty McLifty]

Congratulations on that 300 lbs squat, Chesty! That is a great feeling. 300s are that point where you start becoming one of the strongest guys in the gym (commercialized anyways) and start walking with your chin a bit higher when going past people on the leg extension machines haha.

That's true, I didn't see many people lifting 300 on any barbell lift when I used to go to a commercial gym. It was rare. Thanks for the positive words!

[Chesty McLifty]

Wednesday Sets x Reps 2/7/18 #26
Squat
warmup 2x5 45
warmup 1x5 120
warmup 1x3 180
warmup 1x2 240
working sets 3x5 305

Press
warmup 2x5 45
warmup 1x5 70
warmup 1x3 90
warmup 1x2 105
working sets 3x5 129

Deadlift
warmup 2x5 135
warmup 1x3 185
warmup 1x2 255
working set 1x5 300

Things are feeling heavier for sure. It still felt doable though. My grip is an issue on deadlifts. I thought I would be ok this time but had to switch to over-under after a couple reps. My pec, of all things, cramped up during deadlifts and made it painful. Press felt controlled and relatively easy.

Diet has been consistent but I have been feeling the stress from work and maybe missed 3 hours of sleep or so over the last couple days. Nothing major, just noting it.

[Chesty McLifty]

Friday Sets x Reps 2/9/18 #27
Squat
warmup 2x5 45
warmup 1x5 120
warmup 1x3 185
warmup 1x2 245
working sets 3x5 310

Bench Press
warmup 2x5 45
warmup 1x5 100
warmup 1x3 140
warmup 1x2 180
working sets 2x5, 1x3 200

Chin-Ups working sets 3 sets to failure
1st Set 7 Assisted
2nd Set 6 Assisted
3rd Set 6 Assisted

Roller-coaster of a session. I was a bit afraid of the squats because of how tough they have been feeling recently and a bit of SI joint pain. But wow, the squats were amazing. Totally solid, good bar speed. Got to depth easily and pounded them out. Yes, I did recount the weight and made sure it was correct.

I was then crushed when I failed the 4th rep of my last set of bench. I should have seen it coming because bench was always my weakest lift back in the day when I was screwing around in the gym with no program, and bench has been feeling tough lately, but it still made me sad. My triceps have always made me sad. I will back off down to 180lbs and start going up by 3lbs per session instead of 5lbs. That has been working well for my press. I think it's more important to just make measurable progress each session than it is to focus on the numbers. Gotta stay positive and looking forward to these sessions and failing a lot is not good for that.

I was finally able to get 6 or more reps on every set of chin ups, so going to move to a lighter assistance band.

2 successes and a failure. I'll take it.

Edit: Forgot to mention I have gotten a ton of rest over the last couple days. No work stress and just relaxing doing house stuff. Diet has been consistent with lots of protein.

[Chesty McLifty]

Monday Sets x Reps 2/12/18 #28
Squat
warmup 2x5 45
warmup 1x5 125
warmup 1x3 185
warmup 1x2 250
working sets 3x5 315

Press
warmup 2x5 45
warmup 1x5 70
warmup 1x3 90
warmup 1x2 110
working sets 3x5 132

Chin-Ups working sets 3 sets to failure
1st Set 3 Assisted
2nd Set 3 Assisted
3rd Set 3 Assisted

The magical 3 plates! Another ego milestone. Feels good.

Squats felt somewhere between moderate and hard. Press was easy. Chin ups were much harder with the lighter resistance band for assistance. I will adapt to them quickly though.

I have not been getting great sleeps lately but my diet is on point. I felt like I needed a lot of time between sets today but the strength was definitely there.

[Chesty McLifty]

Wednesday Sets x Reps 2/14/18 #29
Squat
warmup 2x5 45
warmup 1x5 125
warmup 1x3 190
warmup 1x2 255
working sets 3x5 320

Bench Press
warmup 2x5 45
warmup 1x5 90
warmup 1x3 125
warmup 1x2 160
working sets 3x5 180

Deadlift
warmup 2x5 135
warmup 1x3 185
warmup 1x2 260
working set 1x5 310

Squats were hard but not very hard. My right arm was having weird nerve pains after the squats, probably putting too much of the weight on my elbows. My arms were unstable and shaky during the bench because of this, but pushing didn't cause more pain, so bench was not too bad.

I decided to wait until the evening to do deadlifts to allow my elbow time to feel better. Worked well and got the deadlifts done. They were tough but doable.

Diet has been steady, but sleep has not been great lately. Next week will be better for sleep because I'll have less work to do.

[Chesty McLifty]

Friday Sets x Reps 2/16/18 #30
Squat
warmup 2x5 45
warmup 1x5 130
warmup 1x3 195
warmup 1x2 260
working sets 3x5 325

Press
warmup 2x5 45
warmup 1x5 70
warmup 1x3 90
warmup 1x2 110
working sets 3x5 135

Chin-Ups working sets 3 sets to failure
1st Set 4 Assisted
2nd Set 4 Assisted
3rd Set 4 Assisted

Had a really great session today. Woke up hung over and dreading this session because I felt terrible, but when it came time to lift, my body really got into it. I wasn't tired between sets at all. Squats felt very solid; my lower back is no longer feeling weird from my SI joint issue I was having. It feels like it went through an evolution and is no longer a bottleneck on my squats.

Press felt easy. It was nice to finally put the big boy plates on the bar for pressing.

I even managed 3 extra chin ups from last time.

This program is really fun. Today I solidly squatted a weight, at depth, that I wouldn't even want to look at two weeks ago. Two months ago I would have laughed at someone if they told me I would now be squatting 325lbs for 5 reps and it would not feel incredibly hard. 100lbs felt hard in the press and now 135lbs feels pedestrian. My bench is still unimpressive and my deadlift is "meh" to anyone but "some" people would at least be impressed at this point by my squat and press. When 3 months of sessions are over with, I'm going to write more.

[Chesty McLifty]

Monday Sets x Reps 2/19/18 #31
Squat
warmup 2x5 45
warmup 1x5 130
warmup 1x3 195
warmup 1x2 260
working sets 3x5 330

Bench Press
warmup 2x5 45
warmup 1x5 90
warmup 1x3 125
warmup 1x2 165
working sets 3x5 183

Chin-Ups working sets 3 sets to failure
1st Set 4 Assisted
2nd Set 4 Assisted
3rd Set 4 Assisted

Squats felt pretty easy this time. I have been getting a lot of rest lately and my diet has been consistent. Bench didn't feel hard but I have this annoying shaky arm syndrome that I blame on weak triceps. Overall this session felt like a breeze relative to the average. Very happy with this performance. Not much to really add here.

[Chesty McLifty]

Wednesday Sets x Reps 2/21/18 #32
Squat
warmup 2x5 45
warmup 1x5 130
warmup 1x3 200
warmup 1x2 265
working sets 3x5 335

Press
warmup 2x5 45
warmup 1x5 75
warmup 1x3 95
warmup 1x2 115
working sets 3x5 138

Deadlift
warmup 2x5 125
warmup 1x3 190
warmup 1x2 270
working set 1x4 320

This session felt terrible. I woke up today feeling like I was fighting off some illness and I felt really fatigued. Took a nap and still felt terrible. I was dreading this session. I took a ridiculous amount of time between sets and my knees and elbows felt really unhappy.

I managed to get through the squats with some difficult slow bar moments. Press felt ok except for the last rep of the 2nd set, which was a real grinder. But my body DID NOT like the idea of deadlifts today. They felt insanely hard. Even the warmups felt hard. There was all kinds of straining and shaking going on. I actually failed the last working rep and had no gas left in the tank. I'm going to try this weight again next time because I think this was just a bad day, but I'm going to start going up by 5lbs instead of 10lbs on deadlifts. I think I would need more volume to keep going up by 10s and I'm not ready to switch to a volume approach while I can still squeeze out some noob gains.

I think I was eating slightly less than I should have been since Monday too. That may have also contributed to this bad session. If anything, I need to keep increasing calories.

[Chesty McLifty]

Friday Sets x Reps 2/23/18 #33
Squat
warmup 2x5 45
warmup 1x5 135
warmup 1x3 200
warmup 1x2 270
working sets 1x5, 1x3 340

Bench Press
warmup 2x5 45
warmup 1x5 90
warmup 1x3 130
warmup 1x2 165
working sets 2x5, 1x3 186

Chin-Ups working sets 3 sets to failure
1st Set 3 Assisted
2nd Set 3 Assisted
3rd Set 3 Assisted

Well, whatever is wrong with me really has a grip on me today. I feel very fatigued, was taking a long time between sets, and my elbows were killing me during the whole session. I could only do half my squats and I am apparently moving backwards on bench. My diet has been fine and I have been getting a lot of rest over the past couple days. I'm not sure what's going on but the only thing I can think to do is try to eat and rest this weekend and see if I'm better on Monday. Maybe I will do a 10% reset on squats and see if that helps. Very disheartening.

[Chesty McLifty]

Monday Sets x Reps 2/26/18 #34
Squat
warmup 2x5 45
warmup 1x5 120
warmup 1x3 180
warmup 1x2 240
working sets 3x5 305

Press
warmup 2x5 45
warmup 1x5 75
warmup 1x3 95
warmup 1x2 115
working sets 2x5, 1x4 141

Chin-Ups working sets 3 sets to failure
1st Set 5 Assisted
2nd Set 4 Assisted
3rd Set 4 Assisted

Squat reset was easy work. Failed last rep of press. I didn't even mind that much because my joints were actually feeling really good today and I wasn't in pain or shaky. No excuses, it was just heavy. It was nice to go through the process of being butthurt about failing and getting over it.

Going to reset press. Since all my lifts are reset, I'm going to assume I am nearing the end of my novice progression. I think what I was feeling last time was a lack of recovery. I'm guessing my joints and nervous system had not recovered completely and I was trying to push it. The new plan is to push these resets until I can't anymore and switch over to some intermediate programming at that point. I only expected the novice stage to last a few months and that is pretty close to being done.

I ate and slept a ton over the weekend.