A headache is weakness leaving the brain

Deadlift Day

Warmups:
5x135
3x225
1x315
1x365
1x405

Work Set:
5x445

Felt pretty good. I had to resist the urge to throw something heavier on there and try for some singles. Chalk seems to be making a big difference. I used to have issues with the grip opening towards the end of the set, and that has gone away with the reintroduction of chalk.

I'm excited about the weight, since most 1RM calculators will put 5x445 pretty close to or above 500. However, I'll probably wait until I can convincingly do 5x465 before I try a my first single over 500.
 
Squat day. Skipped press day this week since I had a birthday and decided to drink rather than lift.

Warmups:
5x135
2x225
1x275
1x315

Work Sets:
5x365
5x365

This didn't feel great. I was feeling pretty sick yesterday and didn't eat much. Also, this was my first time training in lifting shoes (Rogue Rip model). I liked the stability of the shoes, but my legs definitely felt different during the lifts. Since I got my working set at 405 last week and it felt heavy, my plan was to back off this week and try to do 5 sets at 365 and to work my way back up to 405 with more volume. Unfortunately, in the limited window that I had time to lift I only had time to get two sets in. The plan for next week will be to go ahead and move up slightly in weight and try to get the 5 sets all the way across. Once I've worked up to 5 sets of 5 at 405, I'll look at working upwards again with fewer sets.
 
Last edited:
Decided to go ahead and press today, since if I put it off to the next 4 exercise cycle, it would end up being nearly 3 weeks off from pressing. I wasn't particularly optimistic that this was going to be a good session, but was pleasantly surprised.

Overhead Press
Warm ups:
5x45
5x65
5x95
2x115
1x135
1x155

Work Sets:
5x185
5x185
4x185

I don't think I waited quite long enough on the third set. I had waited about 4 minutes and had someone ask if I had a lot of sets left. With just one to go, I figured I'd crank it out.
 
Deadlifts!
Warmup:
5x135
2x225
1x315
1x365
1x405

Work Set:
5x455

First rep of the work set felt heavy, and I didn't like the form too much, but subsequent reps felt much better. In an ideal world I would have delayed this workout by 1 day to try to get a bit more rest, but I'd like to get in a bench workout on Monday since I probably won't have time to lift again on Tues-Thurs next week.

My legs are going to be trashed for BJJ tonight.
 
Not a happy day.

Bench Press:
Warmup:
10x45
5x135
3x185
2x225
1x245

Work Set:
3x285

I was scheduled to do 2 sets of 5x285 today. In the first rep of the first set, I felt a sharp pain in my left pectoral. Being a dumbass, I did two more reps to verify that it was in fact an injury and not a figment of my imagination. I've had similar injuries on my right side - this is the first time I've seen it on my left. My general approach to this type of injury is to stop benching and focus on Press for a few weeks, then resume the bench with a significant deload.

Since I was at the gym, I figured I should do a useful set of something. My power cleans have always been poor (and I haven't done any since returning to lifting in June).

Power Clean:
5x135
5x155

I'll increase volume and weight over the next few weeks, though I haven't decided yet how exactly I'm going to program them.
 
I wasn't scheduled to lift today, but I found myself with some free time this evening. Since the Monday Bench workout was aborted, I figured it would be ok to Press again.

Press

Warmups:
5x45
5x65
5x95
1x115
1x135
1x155

Work Sets:
5x190
4x190

The last rep of the second set felt ok, but it was the first time I've felt unstable in the locked overhead position. I spent a bit of time in the lockout trying to figure out if I actually had a problem or not, and this may have ruined the last planned rep of the set. Next time I'll stay at this weight and try for 3 sets of 5 across.
 
I've been neglecting to log the BJJ workouts here for the last couple weeks. I'm going to try to resume, since I think I get some benefit out of writing up what I learned in class.

Today was primarily a standup class, where we drilled setups to hip throws, defense against hip throws, and alternative attacks once someone is defending against hip throws. Rolled with my instructor and got some pointers on half guard game.
 
Strong shit!

A few questions:
- Is this based on any particular (publicly available) program?
- What is your progression scheme?
 
Justice 4 All said:
Strong shit!

A few questions:
- Is this based on any particular (publicly available) program?
Click to expand...

Not at the moment. Right now I'm focusing on sets of 5 with linear progression each workout (which works out to about every 8-10 days in most cases). Once that definitively stalls (and I think it will soon in the Press, and likely the squat), I'll switch formally to Wendler's 531 and try to squeeze out another 10 pounds a month. I've intentionally kept my volume down (and generally stick to a single exercise per session) in an attempt to avoid injury. I've lost so much time to injury over the last 15 years that I think it makes sense to go ahead and design a program that may have suboptimal gains but which would avoid having me lose gains as I recover from injury. I haven't been fully successful in avoiding injury this year, but I haven't had any major problems.


- What is your progression scheme?
Click to expand...

I've been able to consistently add 10 pounds to my squat and deadlift per workout since June, with a few exceptions. On the press I'm trying to get 5 pounds per session, but that has slowed down a lot. I'm not quite ready to rule the press as stalled, but I'm pretty close.

Note that I've been reasonably strong in the past, and started lifting again in June after a year layoff. That (plus a ton of milk) has let me get away with linear progression far longer than most people.
 
Squat day

Warmups:
5x135
2x225
1x275
1x315

Work Sets:
5x375
5x375
5x375

Felt much better than last week. I was really tired late in the afternoon before I was supposed to lift. Considered drinking some coffee, but instead took a 5 hour energy drink that had been sitting in my fridge for the last 6 months. Made me a bit jittery, but woke me right up.
 
Sunday night BJJ. This is by far our biggest class (possible because nobody else in Austin seems to have a class on Sunday night?).

My instructor, a brown belt, is out for a week, and we had a guest instructor who was an experienced purple. It's always fun to train under a new instructor, especially one who's obviously passionate about teaching.

Worked through various attacks to the back from turtle, emphasizing techniques that open up other back attacks than RNC. We worked a number of introductions to a triangle from the back, although I had difficulty with these in part due to leg size and flexibility.

Got a chance to roll with a purple (our instructor), a blue, and a white. I was pretty pleased to complete all three rolls without gassing out too badly, as conditioning (for rolling) has been a major problem since resuming BJJ (I'm 40 pounds heavier than when I did this last year).
 
solid lifts plus Grappling

I'd post an appreciation pic but not sure of what?
 
Horrible deadlift day

Warm ups:
5x135
2x225
1x315
1x365
1x405

Work set (was supposed to be 5x465):
465 Fail
465 Fail
455 Fail

I'm not sure what happened, but this was pretty disappointing since last week was 5x455 and didn't feel that hard.

Suspicions:
1. I strained something in my upper back last night in BJJ. It's been painful all day, and it's possible that the aborted pulls were simply my upper back saying "no".
2. Diet has been a bit off for the last few days. I don't think I've been getting in the calories that I had in previous weeks.
3. Sleep over the weekend was poor.

The plan I think is to spend the next week stuffing myself with food (should be easy for Thanksgiving!) and resuming next week at 5x455. Assuming that goes ok, I'll try to repeat what was supposed to be today's workout in 2 weeks.
 
Since my instructor is out of town this week, I thought I'd pay a visit to my old training center. I did mostly no-gi training when I trained there last year (for about 9 months). I came back and did a gi class today. It was a lot of fun, and I got to roll with some people that I hadn't seen in quite some time.

Drills today was primarily on how to attack someone who is trying to pass by standing, and then some attacks from common positions at the end of the sweep.

Sparring was interesting. I was rolling against people whom I'd mostly done no-gi against. In one of the rolls, I tried what I've heard called the Chim pass, which is a pass that you can do without requiring posture. It's my go-to pass in no-gi (and I can get away frequently by being big and strong. Typically, it requires getting an underhook on one side. The problem that I discovered today in gi is that the underhook is subject to a wizzer attack in which my arm gets locked, and my opponent grabs my gi collar. There's no equivalent counter in no-gi (that I've seen), but this pretty much shuts down my pass completely. I'll need to work on more fundamental passes.
 
Press Day

Warmups:
5x45
5x65
5x95
1x115
1x135
1x155

Work Sets:
5x190
5x190

Shoulder felt a bit achy after the second set. Considered a third for about 5 minutes and decided to go home and ice the shoulder.
 
Squat Day

Warmups:
5x45
5x135
2x185
2x225
1x275
1x315
1x335
1x365

Work Sets:
5x385
5x385

I went into today's workout a bit nervous. My lower back has been feeling off since the horrible deadlift day from last week. It hasn't been hurting, exactly, but I've just been more aware of it, and something didn't quite feel right. I came close to skipping this workout in favor of a Press recovery day. Instead, I figured I'd take a slower warmup and see how the back felt. Normally I've only got about 4 warmup sets - today I went for 8. At the end of them, my back didn't feel weak, so I decided to go ahead and squat at prescribed weight. I did skip what should have been a third set at the end. I'll return to this weight next week and make sure I can get that last set and that my back is ok before pushing up again in weight.

I did have some problems today with the bar rolling slightly down my back (not far, perhaps a quarter to half rotation). This didn't badly inconvenience the lifts, but it was a little bit painful on my arms, and made it more difficult to rerack (I have a horrible squat rack that will be the subject of a future rant with photos).
 
I've been intentionally waiting on the lifting to make sure everything in the back is ok. Next session is likely to be deadlifts, so I want to make sure I'm solid before going back to 455.

Did the Monday night BJJ class at my old school tonight. Focus was primarily on reversals of takedown attempts. This was pretty helpful for me, as I have no wrestling background. Was happy to see that there was another strong, heavy (260 pound) white belt in the class. A lot of the people I roll against are much better than me, but I've got 80 pounds and a lot of strength on them, and a lot of our rolls turn into me and my excessive gravity pinning them and working for a submission that I can't get.
 
Deadlift Day!

Warmups:
5x135
3x225
2x315
1x365
1x405
1x425

Work Set:
5x455

Didn't feel great, but felt better than 10 days ago when I failed at this weight. I'm considering switching to belted lifts for everything over 400 pounds. I'll give myself another 10 day rest before deadlifting again, then go ahead and try the 5x465.
 
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