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Super Ape

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My 15-lb v-hold attempt was a struggle.

Set 1: hey, my shoulders are toast, better put this down and hold it longer.

Set 2: Eeeeeeeeuurghhh

Set 3: just barely get my upper body off the mat and accomplish something, please...

So, clearly that's staying in the routine. Definitely the kind of thing I wanted to overload with. That and physioball crunches will be staples, along with wood choppers.

I'm really having a hard time with chest, so I think the Golden 6 has to go. Plus my workouts are just too long, almost 90 minutes. Next week begins the upper/lower (M/T), then push/pull/legs (Th/F/Sa) splits with 2 off days.

Edited by Contentious C
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11 hours ago, Control said:

These are like the first sentences in this thread in weeks that I’ve understood.

Understanding is fine, but do you also agree with this? You don't really want to damn potato chips to hell, do you? I want to believe even @jstout will reconsider, once the chips are out of his reach and/or sight. Let's not do things we can't undo here, folks!

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So my gf is going to be hanging out with me most of next week, so I decided to end the current training cycle today. I was going to do a 'work up to a heavy 6' on the Safety Squat Bar with an 11 inch box...but I actually did some measuring and it turns out that what I thought were 13 inch and 12 inch boxes were more like 11.5 and 10.5. I don't really want to go lower than that so I actually went up to 14 mats, which is probably around 12.5 inches. Hit a fairly comfortable 6 at 100kg and decided to pull some singles. Hit 130kg which isn't technically a PR, but the 135kg ssb squat I hit around 10 months ago was with belt AND wraps, and the latter makes a huge difference. Plus this wasn't particularly grindy, and I only took about 3 minutes between attempts. So I think my squat is better than ever, could be quicker out of the bottom but the training with bands as made my lockouts beastly. I'd have to get used to the increased weight on my back, but I think a 4 plate squat (with wraps at least) is very achievable quite soon.

Next cycle is going to be very deadlift focussed - that doesn't necessarily mean lots of deadlifting, it does mean improving all the weak links stopping my squat from progressing.

I'll be doing an upper body based calisthenics workout on Tuesday, then I'll go to the gym with my girlfriend Thursday and do some lower body. I'll also be doing some recuperative work at home. But looking forward to the deload to be quite honest, I've probably never worked harder in the gym than in the last 30 days to get my lifts back on point.

I may do a post outlining my training template for anyone not understanding a word I'm talking about.

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I made the egregious call of trying to make chicken salad with non-fat cottage cheese instead of mayo, thinking the extra protein source would help.  Since I don't actually eat cottage cheese basically ever, I forgot it's just lumpy milk.  This...did not work out.

But oddly enough, it tastes fine.  Still needed a small spoon of mayo since it didn't stick together otherwise.  Might try Greek yogurt in place of the mayo next time for the binding effect (can't really do all yogurt, because I don't like the commercially-available low-fat chicken salad made that way, and I like my yogurt as yogurt).

Edited by Contentious C
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Ugh, double-posting!

Anyway, first day of split workouts in the books. Paaaaaaaaaaiiiiiin.  Paiiinn.  Pain.

My triceps feel like someone shoved a dead hamster or 3 into them.  Plus I whacked the back of my arm on something - or popped a blood vessel during the workout - and I have a bruise now.  But nevertheless, good workout.  Still took 90 minutes, but this was a shitload more volume and I didn't short-change my ab sets at all in the process.  It went like this.

  • Ryan Humiston's modified face pulls with TRX for warm-up
  • Pendlay rows (straps on the last set, otherwise grip it and rip it)
  • Incline DB press
  • Pull-ups (still assisted, I suck)
  • Dips (also assisted, I suck antagonistically)
  • Seated cable rows (going to swap out for T-bar rows next week, will do both on Pull days)
  • Coffin presses
  • Super-set of lying tricep extensions (lots of stretch on the long head) and curls, both done with EZ bar
  • Shoulder Execution Program
  • Abs (v-hold OHPs/physioball crunches/woodchoppers)

So, that's a lot.  My arms were so blown up by the end that I was just doing the super-set with the bar itself and no weight, and I could only get 3-4 reps on my last 2 sets of OHPs for my shoulders with 35 lb DBs.  I also see the value of driverless cars now.

Pros: felt good to not be utterly gassed by having to do Squats & Deads in addition to a bunch of other things.

Cons: Tomorrow is lower body, so I have to do BOTH Squats & Deads in addition to a bunch of other things.  Tomorrow's post will be 7 pages of "Paaaaaaaiiiiiiiin", because at least by then my arms will work (and nothing else).

Edited by Contentious C
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Yeah,  my upper body workout was kind of a letdown on Friday. I usually switch my dumbbell and barbell exercises, so I can judge by the barbell numbers. This week was dumbbell Incline bench and barbell flat bench,  but all the benches were taken. I grabbed some 80s, and went to town. Then when it was time to get on the flat bench,  I was too fatigued to beat my last flat bench day. I don't mind my gym, but 2 extra flat benches and an extra rack of dumbells would make a huge difference. It's just too many people with too little equipment to be able to get in a perfect workout. At least this week I didn't have to skip anything to make up on leg day,  but that little adjustment fucked up my progression tracking.  My lower body days are limited because of my back. I can't squat heavy or deadlift,  but I can load up on lunges. 65 lb. dumbbell Walking lunges suck, but it's the best compound movement i can do. Honestly,  I need to get some straps, because the hardest part of the last set is trying to hold on before my grip gives out. 

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Pull ups were never my thing, as in I could never do any. This past Thursday out of pure boredom while at a customer I hooked my paws around the top of their forklift's roll cage and managed to do three before I decided to stop before somebody thought I was losing my mind(I did, but years ago).

 

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13 hours ago, driver said:

Pull ups were never my thing, as in I could never do any. This past Thursday out of pure boredom while at a customer I hooked my paws around the top of their forklift's roll cage and managed to do three before I decided to stop before somebody thought I was losing my mind(I did, but years ago).

 

Any idea what has happened to you, weight or strength-wise? Going from zero reps to 3 (and possibly more) is quite the increase, if you haven't done anything in particular. Prior to this, do you recall when was the last time you attempted pull ups?

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Oh man, lower body day.  Ufff.

Not quite a horrible pain workout, but I'm definitely fried like a bucket of greasy chicken on the surface of Mercury.  Did the following:

  • Leg curls (we have a surprisingly good leg curl machine, and then one of the shitty ones that you lay on, so, good one it is)
  • Squats
  • Weighted hip thrusts (can already do bodyweight with that)
  • Deadlifts - 4 sets!
  • Leg extension (which I seriously haven't done in 20 years, but Ryan Humiston's advice about dropping the weight and slowing WAY down really does make the reps tear you up)
  • Hack squats (we have a machine that's for lame squats, but if you get crouched down into it well and get your feet out to the edge, it makes for a good hack squat)
  • Reverse lunges

Switched up the abs a little with an extra set of the v-holds and doing static holds instead of the woodchoppers, because Henry Cavill said so.

The real issue with all this wasn't volume or muscle fatigue.  It was that, after the 4 sets of deadlifts, I was neurologically WRECKED.  I could have pushed the other sets harder if I wasn't half-loopy after that. 

But, with Deads going on to my Pull days, it means Leg days will probably have all the other stuff, plus extra unilateral work, and hopefully I can really fuck up my quads those days.  Maybe RDLs if I can find the time, since they're so glute-dominant as to be a Leg instead of a Pull.

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Noez, more double-posting.  But it was Push day!  Push day was GLORIOUS.  I binged a bunch of Ryan Humiston's chest/shoulders/push workout vids and cobbled together the following:

  • Low/mid/high cable flys, 1 set/20 reps each position/2 passes through all 3 (6 sets total)
  • Seated landmine presses, 3x however many reps I could squeeze out
  • DB Incline Press, 2-second pauses at the bottom & at the top (not locking out arm all the way), 3x until my elbows gave out
  • Coffin presses
  • Dips
  • Cable Overhead tricep extension, 3x20 with relatively low weight
  • Compound set of French presses into lying tricep extensions, 3x10-12 of each exercise using the EZ bar again (no weight)
  • Modified OHPs - partials at the top of the movement (20 reps), Full ROM OHPs to failure, partials at the bottom of the rep to failure, 3 sets of these - could only get up 10-lb weights by the last set
  • Partial side laterals with 25 lb, 15-20 reps, Full side laterals to failure with 10 lb, incline (leaning into a bench) front raises into a row, 10 reps, 3 sets of this
  • Bus drivers with 15-lb dumbell, about 10 reps with each arm on top or until failure, 3 sets

This sounds like a lot, because it is, but the trick here was how little rest I took in between.  Once I finished one set, I took a few deep breaths or shook off whatever mental fatigue was hitting me, and I just jumped into the next set or the next exercise.  Everything through the Cable extensions probably took me 30 minutes, and then I was getting really gassed, and the rest took me another 20-25. 

But the pump - HOLY SHIT the pump.  I have NEVER felt a chest pump as good as what this got me started with, and by the time I was doing the compound sets, I couldn't even straighten my arms because my triceps were so blown up.  And I think because I only had one really heavy exercise in the whole batch (my pressing was done with 25 lb DBs or less), my level of neurological fatigue is practically zero.

I think I've hit upon something that could work really well for me, since boredom and lack of feeling like I'm progressing are easily my two biggest hurdles.  I can't just do the same workout over and over.  So, my split of Upper/Lower, then Push/Pull/Legs is probably going to go toward progressive overload and big compound lifts on the first two days, then using PPL to chase the pump and really hammer the everloving fuck out of myself with sheer intensity and extra volume.  And having so many different exercises means I can always swap in or out things that will challenge me in a different way. 

If tomorrow is Pull day, I'm going to have to come up with something really masochistic to punish my back sufficiently, though. That, and I have almost no rear delts, so I'm going to have to go on a fishing expedition for 2-3 things that really connect on those.

 

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4 actual workouts this week with fifth one tonight being mostly stretching and some ab work. I did do two sets of that v-hold press with 17,5 lbs and 26 lbs. Those were fine.

I kinda split the Monday workout in half, as I did everything usual, except for the extra weight Pull up, dip, reverse shrug combo on Sunday night and then did only that on Monday night. I used 55lbs for pull ups and 77lbs for the other two. 3 rounds of that and then dropping 11lbs per round until only body weight.

Tuesday night was a leg day with one set of as deep as the machine will allow squats with 154 and 264, then trying to get some depth with 308 and 352 (4 sets in total ) and then 3 sets of calf raises with 352.

Wednesday night was bench. I went up fast with 5x165, 5x226, 3x259, then 2 and a half with 286 and pretty much similar with 292. Then back down with 4x275, 4x264, 6x253, 7x242, 14x198 and something between 25 and 30 with 132. Two of the heaviest sets were pretty damn ugly, so I need to stay at that level until I get clean reps.

No trapbar this week since I arrived too late to the gym to get a real workout in before night shift, but I guess it won't hurt to give my nervous system an extra day off.

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Jesus fuck, Pull day was miserable.

I pulled my groin doing T-bar rows.  No, really.  I got set up in it and felt a string of something twinge all the way from my knee to my nuts.  NOT. GREAT.  You know what else is NOT GREAT?  T-bar rows!  Holy shit they suck and are so much harder than I expected.  This of course means I need to keep doing them.

Otherwise, it was just another day of nervous system wreckage as much as anything else. 

  • A handful of pull-up negatives to pre-exhaust/warm up
  • T-bar rows, 3x8-10, only 45 lb
  • Single-arm rows, arm close to side (trying to keep elbow from straightening), followed by wide rows, arm at 90 degrees to torso, 3x until my grip gave
  • Pendlay rows
  • Seated cable rows, 3x15, stretching on the negative and fighting my arm straightening again
  • Straight-arm pushdowns, 3x15
  • Giant set - Reverse-grip curls, narrow-grip curls, wide-grip curls, drag curls, all done with EZ-bar and no weight, 3 sets until my grip gave again
  • Isolated alternate DB curls, 3x6-7, 12 lbs
  • Drop set of cable curls, 3x15 or so (dropping the weight as I went when I couldn't rep out anymore at the given weight)
  • Deadlifts, 2 sets of 135, 1x5 of 205, grip gave out on the lighter sets even with straps

So there's a recurring theme of my grip being weak as shit.  Really, everything Pull-related is just weak as shit.  But I think the volume and structure of the bicep/forearm stuff will bring those along.  The early stuff really lit up my rear delts, too, so that's good.  And my back isn't pumped but definitely strained in a way I rarely feel, without being something that screams "injury". 

But I think I need to drop the Pendlay rows since they're so taxing in general.  I may bring back my old friend, the inverted row, in its place, and add in something else for more rear delt isolation that can get compounded with those.  The pushdowns were garbage, too, so I'll have to do those with the cable machine that lets you do a grip in each hand instead.

I also ordered some of the Dymatize Iso 100 powder, since Optimum Nutrition has discontinued their otherwise excellent Performance Whey Isolate.  Unfortunately, I ordered Vanilla, since it was cheap, and naturally it tastes quite a bit like that disgusting vanilla cake icing flavor that most of these end up having.  I may try dumping a scoop of cocoa powder into it to see if that helps; I'd rather not pay another $8 a container to get something less gross, but we'll see.

I have to stop typing now; even this hurts my forearms.  Ow.

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4 hours ago, Contentious C said:

So there's a recurring theme of my grip being weak as shit. 

I felt this in my soul.  I've always thought I had an uncommonly strong grip, but since I've started working out again I've realized that my grip might be strong, but my grip endurance is shit.  As the weight has gone up on my walking lunges and close grip seated rows, I realize that the biggest impediment in going up in weight is going to be my grip not my legs and/or back.  

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6 hours ago, Control said:

I’ve lost 15 lbs in the last two months, so at least I’ll fit back into my lecturing trousers for the start of term.

Oh, these are your 15 lbs? I found them within the past two months and just decided to keep them! Sorry! Right now, I no longer need a belt to hold up my good pair of jeans, like I did in June/ first half of July. If you need them back, I'll see what I can do?

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Speaking of T-bar Row, when we first equipped the gym at work, one of the first things we decided to order after bench and a squat rack was indeed T-bar row (do you call it a machine or a rack, or whatever?) thingy. I thought it was essential to have one, we got it for a good price, too. One would think that such an easy design would be hard to fuck up, but the one we got is the absolute shit worst one ever I've tried, ergonomy-wise. So, we were able to improvise a bit and use it for seated calf raises, but otherwise it has been used way less than it should. It's just that the lifting position is so messed up that getting a full or even good range of motion with it is really hard with any sort of real weight. It's a shame, since I do think it's very important to have the option of T-bar rows in your gym.

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I don't even know how that would work.  Pics or it didn't happen (or a link to the model of machine in question)!

It's going to be Leg day today so I might (sigh) have to train calves.  I have the worst connection possible with the inner part of my calf, the real meaty bit. I actually find it easier to flex when I have dorsiflexion (toes to shins) and flex my tibialis as well.  Sometimes I wonder if my body is just attached all wrong.  I think I'll have to try to putting some plates or a small step under my toes in the Smith machine and do calf raises that way, or use the crappy Nautilus leg sled for the same purpose, with my toes starting in dorsiflexion.  Not sure what the best option is going to be there.   I know I could change toe angle, too, but just doing that seated doesn't make me feel like it's changing the muscle involved.

The one big missing piece at my gym is a glute ham raise, as I started getting (for me) pretty massive hamstrings from doing a lot of the Athlean-X home workout stuff.  Between last February and last July, I had to buy the "athletic" cut jeans instead of the standards from Gap that I have worn for 15+ years.  But Nordic curls are even better for that, and I wish I could do them.  Frankly, it'd be better for doing hyperextensions and reverse hypers, too, but I have to kludge those as well (the standard hyper station makes me feel like I'm going to topple over at any second).  However, we have all these weird...wooden things?  EDIT: Oh, they're called Swedish Ladders.  And I think what I can do is set a bench at the right distance from those rungs, then use that as a Nordic station, as long as the bench doesn't move and my ankles don't feel terrible.  My skin has a weird reaction to heavy pressure and my pain tolerance for that is, for whatever reason, far lower than just about anything else. 

The Knees Over Toes guy has a few fairly interesting teaser videos that go into some of these kinds of things, but fuck him if he thinks I'm paying $50 A MONTH for access to any of that.  Then again, I could do it once (the 1st month is supposed to be 50% off?), download or screenshot (or write my own summaries) as much as possible, then jettison the subscription.

Edited by Contentious C
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Yeah, it took quite a bit of ingenuity, but we put a bench in front of the machine, then a block of wood beneath our toes, put only one plate of weights to each side of the rack, so we could still fit our knees to the bars where the weights are really supposed to go, then put small plates to the handle bars for extra weight and then start doing seated calf raises by lifting the T-bar up and down with our calves. Eventually, it was not worth the trouble, but I tried it a few times.

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Oof, Leg day.  Not quite as awe-inspiring as my Push day was, but rather close. My quads feel like I got smacked with a baseball bat.  My posterior chain isn't much better.

  • Leg curls, 3x20 of 50
  • Weighted hip thrusts, 3x20 of 155
  • RDLs, 3x10 (forgot my straps for the umpteenth time or I'd have done a lot more of these)
  • Squats, 3x8-9 of 135
  • Leg press, 4x20 of 135 with various foot positions - super close together, toes off the board 100% of the time for vastis lateralis, feet wide and knees drifting wide for vastis medialis, alternated sets with these positions
  • The first step of this hamstring variation I'm calling "Baby's first Nordic curl", 3x6-7.  These are HARD and they also lit up my hip flexors (probably a good thing)
  • Leg extension, 4x20 of 60 with the same foot/leg placement as the leg press
  • Landmine reverse lunges, 2x whatever until I tapped out on the day.  Didn't do these quite right - did them to the side rather than facing the landmine bar, but will fix that.

It's been a long time since I've been so happy to have a day off where I have nothing to do but sit on my ass and stuff food into my face.

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41 minutes ago, Contentious C said:

Oof, Leg day.  Not quite as awe-inspiring as my Push day was, but rather close. My quads feel like I got smacked with a baseball bat.  My posterior chain isn't much better.

  • Leg curls, 3x20 of 50
  • Weighted hip thrusts, 3x20 of 155
  • RDLs, 3x10 (forgot my straps for the umpteenth time or I'd have done a lot more of these)
  • Squats, 3x8-9 of 135
  • Leg press, 4x20 of 135 with various foot positions - super close together, toes off the board 100% of the time for vastis lateralis, feet wide and knees drifting wide for vastis medialis, alternated sets with these positions
  • The first step of this hamstring variation I'm calling "Baby's first Nordic curl", 3x6-7.  These are HARD and they also lit up my hip flexors (probably a good thing)
  • Leg extension, 4x20 of 60 with the same foot/leg placement as the leg press
  • Landmine reverse lunges, 2x whatever until I tapped out on the day.  Didn't do these quite right - did them to the side rather than facing the landmine bar, but will fix that.

It's been a long time since I've been so happy to have a day off where I have nothing to do but sit on my ass and stuff food into my face.

You must buy the pink Versa Grips so you will never forget them again. Reading about other people's suffering makes me happy! For your future gains, obviously! Please keep it up!

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Remembered my straps (moved them where my lock is), never needed them.  Typical.

Today's workout sucked.  I have barely slept the last 2 nights - partly my fault, partly some freak car accident that happened in our parking lot at 2:30 this morning.  I've probably had 8 good hours between the two days.

Still taking too long, and my likely-impinged right shoulder is getting balky doing anything with my arm overhead.  Tricep extensions were bad, and so were DB pullovers.  However, I'm going to keep doing both, because I felt a good connection with the pullovers (first time doing them).  I've never really felt where my lats insert after a workout before, but now I do, so they're staying in the rotation.  I may just try using 2 DBs and altering my grip to see how my shoulder handles it.

Had no time or energy to do the full ab stuff, so I just stuck to the physioball crunches, because I just have a better mind-muscle connection to those than anything else.  But I hit 4x15, so it's time to start overloading them with a medicine ball or a plate.  They would probably also be a good exercise to do while holding up a dumbbell on only one side.

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