Just came here to brag

[granny]

Congrats on the PRs!

[tiny&mighty]

Congrats on the PRs!

Thanks, Granny!

Sooo... I'm trying to figure out a way to amend my program so that I am fresher for the deadlift, including the SGDL. It is not easy because I want to have my cake and eat it too.

Scheduling the squats and deadlifts on the same day was a good idea. My lower back is responding very well to that. Of course I still experience fatigue after the heavy day, but this split gives me ample time to recover from it.

The issue is that, in my stubbornness to keep either benching or pressing on every training day, my squat/deadlift days are getting way too long. Below 75 minutes is ideal for me, but going beyond 90 minutes does not work, especially if my last lift is the deadlift or a variation thereof.

Anyhow, I figured that I could do what everybody is doing (I'm not that special, right?), and adopt something that is more consistent with an upper/lower 4-day split, using the third method (PPST3 p. 154) for the upper-body lifts, while keeping the second method (PPST3 p. 151) for main lower-body lifts. I basically moved my pressing sessions around.

	Day 1	Day 2	Day 3	Day 4
1.0	Squat 2 X 3 Volume press 5 X 5 DL 2 X 3	Front squat 5 X 3 Volume bench 3 X 5 Snatch 5 X 3	Squat 3-4 X 5 Intensity press 5 X 3 SGDL 3 X 5	Intensity bench 3 X 3 Press singles 5 X 1 PC 5 X 3
2.0	Squat 2 X 3 DL 2 X 3	Front squat 5 X 3 Intensity press 5 X 3 Volume bench 3 X 5 Snatch 5 X 3	Squat 3-4 X 5 Press singles 5 X 1 SGDL 3 X 5	Intensity bench 3 X 3 Volume press 5 X 5 PC 5 X 3

Today was Day 2, and I tried Version 2.0. I took 95 minutes to complete, which is not ideal but still acceptable.

My expectations were pretty low given that my last 5 X 5 press was only two days ago. My upper back muscles were still sore from that session, and my lower back has not fully recovered yet. When my lower back is fatigued, the press irritates it, which is why I have been programming my press on squat/deadlift days so far. I prefer to press on a fresh lower back.

Also, having never pressed and benched on the same day, I didn't think I would do well on the second lift.

Front squat
137.5 X 3, 3, 3, 3, 3 (PR)
Still progressing nicely, despite the discomfort in my hip.

Intensity press
94 X 3, 3, 2, 3, 2, 2

All things considered, I am quite happy with this result, though I again had to rely on CONPLAN 15 REPS. Back in March when I did my first intensity press session at 94lbs, I only got 1 triple followed by 6 doubles, so I am calling today's session a success.

Volume bench
126 X 5, 5, 5

Even with fewer sets of 5, I was very skeptical about how this would go. I am pleasantly surprised. Oddly, set 1 was easy, set 2 was hard, and set 3 was limit, even with extended rest. That is very unusual for me. For the upper-body lifts, all my sets typically look pretty much the same. So it seems like doing the press first changed something. Who knows, perhaps this will turn out to be beneficial?

I am curious to see how this will affect my volume press session on Day 3... Regardless, I doubt I have a lot of runway left for progressing my upper-body lifts in a linear 5 X 5 or even 3 X 5 fashion. This seems like a good time to trial this 2.0 model, since I am bound to reassess how I run those volume sessions anyway.

With the bench, 5 X 5 has become too hard on my bones and joints. When the time comes, I might either try something like Example 23-6 in BBRx (p. 243), working 4 sets within a range of 4 to 6 reps, or Alexander Bromley's dynamic double progression while keeping it down to 3 sets within that same range. In the foreseeable future, I expect I will have to do something similar with the press as well.

Snatch
57.5 X 3, 3, 3, 3, 3 (PR)

Technique wise, the first 3 sets were pretty ugly (elbows unlocked at the catch). I didn't get it right until sets 4 and 5, but those look okay, including from the side view (as far as I can tell anyway).

A bigger concern is that I got light headed during every set. I will bring those down to 2 reps next time, but if this becomes a trend, I'm afraid I will have to give up on this lift. Probably due to my low blood pressure, I regularly get orthostatic hypotension. An example is that I cannot do burpees (tragic, isn't it?). Maybe this applies to snatches too. I find the snatch dangerous enough on its own. Call me a pussy, but if orthostatic hypotension becomes a regular occurrence on this lift, I am not willing to cross that line. I'd rather train fewer cool lifts than not train any.

[Richard Durbin]

Just a thought, my three day a week workouts take a long time on volume days with 5 minute resting, around 2 hours. Which is killer after work. So I’ve been doing my deadlifts first thing before breakfast (with some lat machine until I can do chins). Then my squats and press/bench after work. Total time is not any better, but I can fit it in better and I’m much more rested for squats.

[tiny&mighty]

Thanks for this, Richard. I am not a morning person, but this is definitely an option I will keep in mind!


I had to take an extra day off due to life. It was my 9-year-old nephew's birthday yesterday and, with the 3 hour drive to get there and then back, I didn't want to rush my training session yesterday morning. That's a thing I like with my every-other-day concept. Extra days off just schedule themselves in.

Today was odd though. We came back very late last night and didn't go to bed until close to 3 AM. As I was laying in bed and I reaching to turn off the lamp on my night table (which seemed very far away last night), I made a little sound to convey how hard this was. My husband said "Granny could have done it for 15 reps". Lately, a common meme in the house is to invoke Granny's work capacity to shame each other into not being pussies.

After I successfully turned off the lamp, I somehow managed to sleep until 1 PM, which is great. In the absence of an alarm clock, I am a world-class sleeper. However, this means that by the time I started training, I had only been up for 3 hours and, as I said, I am not a morning person.

Volume squat
200 X 6, 5, 5, 5

With this weekend's oddity, it seemed better to play it safe, especially with my lower back still showing signs of fatigue. Also, I was not very happy with the depth I achieved during my last squatting session. I therefore decided to stick with my current weights for another 4-day training cycle and focus on achieving proper depth before I allow myself to move on. As much as I am looking forward to squatting 2 plates, I don't want to cheat my way up there. Andy Baker's last podcast episode had a very good segment about this on Thursday.

The hip thing is definitely affecting my perception of how deep I am going. After much googling, it looks like a piriformis issue. There is a constant dull ache in my right glute, with some burning sensation in the groin area, typically when I rise from a squat or start walking around after prolonged sitting. Occasionally, I also experience some numbness in my outer lower leg. I have an appointment with a PT on Thursday; if he is remotely competent, I should have a clearer idea of what is going on and of what to do about it shortly.

Anyhow, I have decided that I am done with 5 X 5 squats for the time being. At this point I find that, for the most part, they have become an exercise in stubbornness and in time management. My subjective perception is that 4 sets is a stronger stimulus than 3 by a much greater margin than 5 sets are in comparison to 4. So I am going to go with the BBRx TM modification suggested in Example 23-6 (p. 243) and see how this goes, hence that 6th rep on today's first set.

Press singles
99 X 1, 1, 1, 1, 1 (PR)

Another day where I felt soft under the bar. I am surprised I was able to complete my 5 singles with such a lack of tightness.

I think I will be the first female SS-trainee to ever achieve her first sticker-club number on the press!

Snatch-grip deadlift
170 X 5, 5, 6 (PR)

Those went so well that I accidentally did a 6th rep on set 3 (I just lost count, I guess). This is 71% of my current deadlift (240 X 2 X 3), so I am entering the sweet spot mentioned in this article. My back angle remained straight throughout and I think it actually enjoyed this (my lower back feels better now).

With the small change in programming (doing press singles rather than my 5 X 3 intensity press session), today's workout was over in 80 minutes, while it took 105 minutes last time. I was in a much better place to properly focus on my SGDL.

[Mr. Bingley]

lol that 'granny' line is killer!

[granny]

My husband said "Granny could have done it for 15 reps". Lately, a common meme in the house is to invoke Granny's work capacity to shame each other into not being pussies.

ROFLMAO!!!

[tiny&mighty]

lol that 'granny' line is killer!

ROFLMAO!!!

True story, folks!



On a sadder note, today's training session didn't go very well.

Intensity bench
139 X 2, 2, 1, 2, 2, 1 (PR)

I guess this is what a dying lift looks like. Not a single triple again today, so I went with CONPLAN 10 REPS all the way. That single on set 3 was a misgroove, and on the last set, I didn't even try for a double as I was simply shooting for a total of 10 reps.

Not a huge deal since I don't care a whole lot about the bench. That said I'm not sure what to do about this lift. I guess I'll keep doing what I am doing until CONPLAN 10 REPS becomes impractical and then just shoot for fewer singles.

Volume press
85 X 5, 4, 5, 4, 4, 3

As I was anticipating, the press didn't react well to being performed after a pretty rough and quite long bench session. It could have been a lot worse though. I'm surprised I was even able to get 2 sets of 5 in there. I did a 6th set to get my total of 25 reps. Maybe I should take some weight off (again?!) to compensate for the fact that I'm doing those in a suboptimal state, or explore other programming modifications to give this session a better spot in my training schedule.

Power clean
90 X 3, 3, 3, 2, - (PR)

By the time I got to my first work set, I was 90 minutes into this training session. Zero focus, shit form. My right bunion started hurting after a bad landing done during a warm-up set; during set 2, I pulled something in my traps while dropping the bar on the floor after an awkward catch; and I smashed my left clavicle twice during set 3 and 4. At that point I realized that, by mindlessly trying to go through the motions, I wasn't going to get anything out of this. So I prematurely ended that training session.


The conclusion of today's trial of Day 4 reveals that it's not working at all. I'll have to take another look at my programming to better balance things off. At the very least, if I am to keep doing the Olympic lifts, I need to make sure I am fresh enough to give them the focus and effort they require.

[tiny&mighty]

Lalique days are back.

Squat
220 X 3, 3

So I ended up doing this session again since my depth was questionable last time. It looks much better today, though the hip is still sending me confusing signals about how deep I am going.

I saw the physiotherapist this morning. I am quite pleased with him. He was very supportive of my strength training hobby (and even seemed somewhat impressed...). He thinks the hip thing is tied to tightness in my lower back. Apparently, I lack a bit of range of motion in lumbar extension. He gave me an easy stretch to improve it and recommended lacrosse ball massaging for my piriformis and adductors. He even offered to stick a needle in my piriformis this morning, but I didn't want to reschedule this afternoon's training session. I'll do the stretch and the massaging for a month, and I'll go back for the deep needle therapy if the problem is still there at that point. All good.

Deadlift
245 X 2, 2, 2 (PR)

Just wow! Removing the press from this session was a great idea. I felt very keen and fresh for these and got this entire training session done in about an hour.

Form wise, I think those are the prettiest heavy deadlifts I have done in a long, long time. If this trends continue, I could hit a 2 X BW deadlift next week!



On a bit of a sadder note, my right tibia's periosteum got all inflamed again after Tuesday's power cleans. This has been a recurring issue over the past two decades; every physio and massage therapist I have consulted has attributed it to my having bunions, which causes my arches to collapse under poorly executed high-impact movements.

In any case, the Olympic lifts are off the table until further notice. Right now the inflammation is localized and causes manageable pain. However I do know from experience that if I am reckless about this, every step will eventually become excruciatingly painful. This is basically why I have given up on running even though I enjoy this activity and happen to be quite good at it (which might also explain why I have been responding so well to strength training).

Since doing Starting Strength, this is the third time I try to include the Olympic lifts but end up having to exclude them due to shin splints. I rarely take training advice from my fluff-inclined husband, but he has suggested that the Olympic lifts might be like running, and that perhaps I should accept that they are incompatible with my vulnerability to lower-leg injuries.

It sucks because I do enjoy doing those lifts and would love to get somewhat competent at performing them with decent loads. At the same time, they have limited utility for us masters lifters, and are typically useless for female trainees. As much as I am interested in doing them, I really don't need to, and maybe I should come to terms with that.

Obviously, today's PR makes that pill a lot easier to swallow. On the bright side, this also solves some of my programming issues, since my workouts will be shorter if I don't do snatches and cleans.

[Bill Anders]

Lalique days are back.

Outstanding!

[tiny&mighty]

Thanks, Bill! Glad to have you back!


Here is a late entry about this afternoon's workout.

Front squat
140 X 3, 3, 3, 3, 3 (PR)

Intensity press
95 X 3, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2

Volume bench
127 X 5, 5, 4
117 X 4, 3

So I have been keeping the front squat as a warm-up before I do the press, which does not respond well to being the first lift I perform. I get the fronts squats done in under 20 minutes, set up and warm-up sets included.

I am a bit disappointed that I could not get my 5 triples at 95; this was my last PR before the coaching experiment. I still managed to get my 15 reps, but this is getting quite long and taxing.

Like last week, the bench suffered from being performed after a pretty taxing pressing session. The very first set went relatively well; the last rep of the second set was perhaps my grindiest ever; and even after 5 minutes of rest, I was not able to get the 5th rep of the third set.

I had planned on doing 2 back-off sets to bring my volume back up a little, since my bench's progression has been slowly down lately. But even after removing 10lbs, I was unable to complete a set of 5. My arms were completely fried.

In one of Andy's podcast, I remember him saying that a given program rarely works well for all lifts. It looks like my upper-body lifts are not enjoying the upper/lower split and prefer a higher-frequency full-body type of split. Meanwhile, my squat and my deadlift have been responding well to the upper/lower split.

Currently, the deadlift is my priority, so I'm going to keep running this out until it stalls again. My press and my bench are in a pretty good place; hitting a bit of a plateau on those lifts is not the end of the world right now.

I know the SS standards are controversial, but I do find them helpful in assessing my lifts against each other. For my sex and size, Cat V is 104, 142, 199 and 263. So my squat is well into Cat V, my press and my bench are dangerous close to those numbers, but my deadlift is lagging behind. Prioritizing the deadlift therefore seems like a reasonable thing to do right now.

That said, I think I need to reassess the loads I use for my 5 X 5 sessions now that they are being performed after another upper-body lift. I came across a relatively old video from Andy where he speaks about volume days. He says that the main goal of volume days is the volume, and not the weight. I then read his article about 5 ways to do 5 X 5. So I think I'm going to try descending sets next time. This change is pretty low risk since I am already on a downward trend with the bench and the press. But the deadlift is doing well and that matters more to me right now.

In a recent podcast Andy also mentioned that constantly training with heavy loads is not sustainable forever. This is pretty much what I have been consistently doing since August. I am starting to feel that I will need to back off in the not-so-distant future. The aches and pains I have been experiencing seem to point in that direction. But I'm not ready yet since there appears to be more room for progress on my deadlift, and even on my squat.

This week I reached out to Andy about the programs he sells on his website. I basically gave him my background, my priorities and my training preferences, and asked which program he would recommend. I replied very quickly, which I found quite impressive. He suggested his Baker Barbell 5 X 5. I bought the program (so cheap!) and started looking at it as part of my reflection on a way forward.

Compared to what I've been doing, this program looks so freaking easy. This somewhat confirms my intuition that what I've been doing is not going to be sustainable indefinitely.

As I was reflecting on this, I received unexpected news late Friday afternoon. Since moving here, I have been doing a delightfully boring staff officer job in an unimportant headquarter. Given my employment history over the previous 5 years, I welcomed getting a bit of a break and enjoying some much needed work-life balance. I like the people I work with and, though my work is not very challenging or rewarding right now, I appreciate the flexibility and peace of mind it affords me. Boring work is underrated.

I was expecting to remain in this position for another 2 years, since 3-year posts are typical given my rank and occupation. I'm sure I would have become overly bored with this job at some point, but this had not happened yet. I was just grateful I could work normal, flexible hours; deal with a very manageable workload; and interact pleasant people in my workplace.

Well, I can now expect to start another job within a month or so, to replace someone who needs to be removed from her officer commanding position. I hear there is drama involved, and have no idea how demanding this job will be. If it's anything like my previous officer commanding job, my training will take a hit. I need to be prepared to reassess how I train. So the reflection I've been doing happens to be quite timely, though I was not expecting this upcoming change at all.