Sets of faahve

Dtp1979 · 18-01-2023 3:05pm

Welcome back

Mr. CooL ICE · 20-01-2023 9:49am

Deadlift: Up to 110kg for whatever amount of reps, usually 1-3. Just trying to drill technique. If I did a sloppy rep, I just stopped and waited a minute or two to get my head right. Grip is atrocious right now and a big limiting factor. Mixed grip made technique worse. Tried hook but stopped because I had no idea what I was doing.

Bench: 5x5 @ 55kg. Wrists started to hurt and yep, was gripping the bar badly. Moved grip in a finger and made sure to rotate properly and all good.

Some lateral raises and one-arm DB rows to finish.

Will try 4 days next week. More concerned with getting into the routine of going to the gym regularly than I am with what I do inside in the gym.

Mr. CooL ICE · 23-01-2023 9:44am

Ok, 4 days isn't happening this week due to something coming up. Next week it is

Squat: 3x5 @ 80kg. Was a comfortable temperature this morning and a t-shirt makes the world of difference with keeping the bar stable on the back. 80kg felt deathly heavy to unrack but my head went "you've squatted over double this ya wimp" and away I went.

Deadlift: 3x3 @ 100kg. Again, just trying to drill in a good setup and not slack off with my bracing. Used mixed grip without any issues this time. Plates left the ground a few times when pulling the slack, so oops.

Some one-arm DB rows and lateral raises to finish.

Mr. CooL ICE · 24-01-2023 10:13am

Bench: 5x5 @ 60kg. Some latter reps were a struggle so safe to say the initial neuromuscular adaptation phase is over and I'm just at the "weak but trying to get stronger" phase

Incline bench: 3x10 @ 30kg. Was always weak with incline but I really had nothing left after these

Supersetted lat pulldowns/lateral raises and then facepulls/DB curls. Shoulders got a workout alright

Dtp1979 · 25-01-2023 11:03pm

It’s hard getting back into it isn’t it. My bench is fairly consistent but squat and deadlift is gone to the dogs. Anytime I get back to decent weight deadlifting I hurt myself. That injury usually stalls both deadlift and squat. I feel I’m always back at square one. I’m gonna concentrate on lighter weight higher reps for now. Good to have you back on here mr.cage. The place is a ghost town these days

Mr. CooL ICE · 27-01-2023 10:58am

I just find it exciting because I've been away for so long. But I'm going to be in a different stage to you because my struggle is to actually arrange life to get to the gym. I really, really, really wish I could set up a home gym because I'd be flying long ago... until I also hurt myself.

Anyway, my long term plan was to go to the gym 4 days a week. However, my ability to get to the gym hinges on how often girlfriend works from home because if she needs to go to the office, I need to stay at home and get the kids ready. She only goes into the office on Wednesdays which leaves me wide open for a 4-day split. Unfortunately, she's just gotten word that she'll have to go in a second day, which messes up my plans. Not sure what to do in the long run now.

Mr. CooL ICE · 27-01-2023 11:04am

Paused squat: 3x3 @ 80kg. Recorded because I want to make sure my hips don't shoot back out of the hole, which they did a tiny bit. I need to work on this and nip it in the bud going forward while I'm still really weak. Earlier I can enforce good habits, the better.

Bench: 3x3 @ 60kg. Grand. Too easy, if anything.

Deadlift: 3x3 @ 100kg. My main issue with deadlifts is not tilting the pelvis enough, which means I'm kind of hinging at the lower back instead of hip. Worked on that today and it felt good 8 of 9 times. Oh, and grip is improving because these were all double overhand without a problem.

Finished off with lateral raises and one-arm DB rows.

Mr. CooL ICE · 27-01-2023 11:11am

Oh, also decided to go the whole hog and actually track what I eat. First time in my life doing it. Downloaded Macrofactor and decided I wanted to cut to 80kg by the time I go on a city break at the end of February. Started around 83kg and weighed at 81.1kg this morning.

App has me on 2020/2130 calories per day, depending on if I'm training or not. Daily protein target is a nightmare to reach and much effort has gone into reducing fat intake. Good thing is I'm rarely hungry doing this, which is probably due to the focus on protein intake.

No particular reason other than I wanted to see what it's like to track like this. The app is pretty cool and although it can be annoying trying to track absolutely everything, I've gotten the hang of it. Just can't wait til after holidays to see what careful bulking is like.

Mr. CooL ICE · 30-01-2023 9:31am

Pause squat: 3x5 @ 80kg. Recorded it and looking for the same thing as last week. It looks like it is still there; just not as pronounced. I'm not going to worry too much about it right now as I'm probably just seeing things. Main thing for me right now is my torso is maintaining tightness throughout the whole lift and I'm not slacking off on any aspect.

Deadlift: 3x3 @ 100kg. 9/9 good reps and all double overhand. Will not pussy about with this light weight any more.

Leg press: 3x15 @ 50kg. Only leg pressed a handful of times in the past. Actually researched proper leg press technique (RP videos) so I could feel like I knew what I was doing. 50kg was easy enough so useful as a starting point.

Finished off with lateral raises and one-arm DB rows.

Weekly check in with Macrofactor was this morning. Had 33 calories added daily. I probably weighed in lighter than expected a few days this week. Who knows. Teensy bit moar food om nom nom

Mr. CooL ICE · 31-01-2023 9:45am

Bench: 4x6 @ 60kg. Weight same as last week but slight progress on # of reps.

I had planned on moving on to incline bench but all incline benches were being used, so kinda made things up as I went along from there. Not having a proper plan/structure in place didn't help. Had the idea of working upper back and arms. In some sort of a mishmash order, with some sort of makey uppey supersets, I did some NG lat pulldowns, tricep pushdown, incline DB press, EZ skullcrushers, hammer curls and facepulls. Never did the one thing I'm trying to do every day - lateral raises. Oh well.

Mr. CooL ICE · 02-02-2023 10:13am

Squat: 3x3 @ 80kg again. Re-looked at my videos from the other day and my chest goes up when I brace. Just practised keeping it tucked. Felt weird, but think I got the hang of it.

Deadlift: 3x3 @ 110kg. Little bit more weight on the bar and 9/9 good reps. Aaand my repping was good, i.e. there was no faffing about, contemplating life between reps. Just reset, set my pelvis at the right angle, braced and stood up. You know, what you're supposed to do. And all with double overhand, but grip started to falter towards the very end.

RDL: 3x8 @ 70kg. Just looking to work my hammies a bit. Was easy, strength wise, but I'm unfit so was out of breath.

Did some one-arm DB rows and lateral raises. Did one set of lying hamstring curls at the very end, but wanted to do more but made a balls of my timing.

Mr. CooL ICE · 03-02-2023 9:40am

Bench: 4x8 @ 55kg. Tiring because my arms are just weak and triceps still sore from Tuesday.

CG bench: 3x8 : 50kg. Just more tricep work.

Supersetted lateral raises/tricep pushdowns and then hammer curls/lateral raises.

Could have done more this session but I was a little late getting to the gym and ended up chatting for too long. Oh well.

Mr. CooL ICE · 07-02-2023 10:20am

Forgot yesterday was a bank holiday until Friday. Decided to make this some sort of SBD day just to see what heavier weights felt like.

Paused squat: Went up to 100kg x 1, then 90kg x 3. Small but significant jump from last few weeks. Form held together well. 100 moved slow but was solid. Happy.

Bench: Went up to 70kg x 1, then 65kg x 3. 70kg was lol easy. Maybe my high rep tricep work from last week paid off a bit because arms weren't close to being tired.

Deadlift: Went up to 120kg double overhand and it moved fast, but grip was hard. 130kg moved fast to the knees, but I had to stop due to almost falling out of my hands. Quickly switched to mixed and yeah, it moved ok. But not practising mixed before it made it feel a bit weird.

Didn't have much time for accessories so did some really quick light, high-rep lateral raises and lat pulldowns.

Gonna stick with paused beltless squats for a while. Will probably start pausing my deadlifts going forward considering I'm far happier with my form compared to a few weeks ago.

Mr. CooL ICE · 09-02-2023 11:17am

Couldn't wake up this morning and was a disorganised mess. Got to the gym 15 minutes later than I wanted, which meant I needed to cut some things short.

Paused squat: 2x3 @ 85kg. Felt heavy. Moving on.

Paused deadlift: Up to 3x3 @ 110kg. Mixed grip from 100kg. They felt feckin great. Thought pausing them would kill me, but 9/9 good reps.

RDL: 2x8 @ 80kg. Again, felt great.

Supersetted chest supported T-bar rows/hamstring curls and lateral raises/light one-arm DB rows. I hate anything chest supported but they're a good reminder to keep core braced even if core isn't being used to move the weight. And if it feels like it sucks, I should probably do more of it.

Mr. CooL ICE · 10-02-2023 10:02am

Bench: 3x8 @ 60kg. Hard, but got the job done

CG bench: 3x6 @ 55kg. Also hard.

Then supersetted incline DB bench/lat pulldown, EZ skullcrushers/hammer curls and lateral raises/tricep pushdown. Finished with an AMRAP on facepulls. With the EZ skulls, I was more conservative as my arms were tired and I was trying a different movement. Had previously had elbows straight up and brought bar to top of head. After watching an RP strength video, I tried putting elbows a little forward and bringing bar to neck. Undecided if I'll keep this going forward.

Mr. CooL ICE · 16-02-2023 10:28am

Winter vomiting bug hit my house. Although I was unaffected, everyone else was, which meant I couldn't go anywhere that didn't involve electrolytes and food up until this morning.

Squat: 2x8 @ 80kg and 1 @ 90kg. Decided to do some higher reps to see how my conditioning is and yeah, it still ain't up to much.

Deadlift: 2x6 @ 110kg. First time going above 3 reps since coming back and loving my ability to rep without form breakdown. Just getting into a groove in a lift I have never really had a groove in before is satisfying.

Followed up with 3x15 on leg press and supersetted lateral raises/one-arm DB rows.

Think this is my 5th week back and I've only managed to go 1 week without missing a day. And I go on holidays next week. Kinda frustrating because it's hard to see myself being able to stick to any plan/program. But doing something is better than nothing.

Mr. CooL ICE · 16-02-2023 10:32am

Oh, and I hit a goal weight. Weighed in at 80kg and under over the last 4 days. Macrofactor is insisting my weight should be 80.5kg going by their algorithms but I'm losing weight faster than the app expects.

When I started tracking food, keeping fat down and protein up was hard. I used to see where my macros were at dinner time and if I had 200 calories left, I usually needed to have a protein shake (with water) to come close to macro targets. These days, I've incorporated various tricks to keep protein high during the day and end up sitting on the couch after the kids go to bed with digestive biscuits covered in nutella wondering "how TF am I losing weight doing THIS???"

Mr. CooL ICE · 17-02-2023 10:36am

Bench: 3x3 @ 70kg

Supersetted incline DB bench/lat pulldown, EZ skullcrushers/hammer curls, tricep pushdowns/lat pulldown (slightly heavier), then finished with lateral raises and facepulls.

Tired. Scales said 79.3 this morning.

Mr. CooL ICE · 21-02-2023 9:26am

Another week missing sessions. Will be on holidays this week so nothing until late next week. Guess this means another SBD day.

Paused squat: 2x3 @ 90kg. Grand

Bench: 2x3 @ 70kg. Grand.

Paused deadlift: 1x3 and 1x1 @ 120kg. Was doing something stupid in the triple but didn't know what and hadn't been recorded. Single afterwards was perfect though.

Finished with DB rows and lateral raises.

Mr. CooL ICE · 02-03-2023 10:14am

Had a great time in Berlin. Averaged 30k steps each full day, which should offset any weight gained from the beer, schnitzel and currywurst consumed.

Paused squat: 4x5 @ 80kg. Jaysus, this felt worse than I expected. Legs felt weak, but bracing was good. Pushed hips back and dipped chest on very last rep. 19/20 good reps.

Deadlift: 3x5 @ 100kg. Nice and light and most importantly, consistent, uniform repping. 15/15 good reps.

Followed up by leg press, leg extensions and supersetted one-arm DB rows/lateral raises.

Mr. CooL ICE · 03-03-2023 9:48am

Bench: 4x5 @ 65kg. Felt as heavy as could be after no bench in over a week.

Followed by incline DB bench x 15, supersetted EZ skullcrushers/hammer curls, supersetted lat pulldown/tricep pushdown and then some facepulls.

Mr. CooL ICE · 06-03-2023 9:55am

Looks like I might actually get through this week without missing a day. Therefore, to hell with pauses and to hell with being beltless.

Squat: 4x3 @ 100kg. Big jump, numbers-wise for me. Moved pretty well. But it was physically exhausting. I almost needed help unbuckling my belt (Inzer 10mm single prong). First time wearing it in well over a year didn't help.

RDL: 3x8 @ 80kg. Happy enough with the consistency of my deadlifts that I think I can do them once a week, which means RDLs instead today.

Finished with 3x12 leg press, 3x15 leg extensions and some one-arm DB rows.

I was truly physically wrecked after this session. Yeah, jump in weight might explain it but maybe being in a calorie deficit doesn't help right now.

Mr. CooL ICE · 08-03-2023 9:49am

Meant to post yesterday...

Had what felt like serious indigestion since Monday afternoon. Didn't sleep properly due to bloating. Didn't want to gym, but did anyway

Bench: 3x5 @ 70kg. Wasn't sure if I was too sick to train, but physical strength was there at least.

Finished off with some lat pulldowns.

Didn't do anything near what I wanted to do because I truly felt awful. Left early so I could get into Tesco at opening time to get some Rennie, which did nothing. Symptoms turned into something resembling a stomach bug. Could only stomach 1000 calories for the day.

Mr. CooL ICE · 13-03-2023 10:37am

Stomach bug all but gone. Still tracked food and was only consuming approx 60% of what I should have been, had I been healthy. Yesterday was the first full day of eating I had in almost a week.

Pause squat: 3x5 @ 80kg. Left belt off. This was difficult. Felt heavy and was draining. Definitely weak after eating so little recently.

RDL: 3x8 @ 80kg. Meh.

Finished off with some goblet squats because the leg press and leg extensions were in use. Just as well because because my energy was way down.

Mr. CooL ICE · 14-03-2023 9:50am

Bench: 3x5 @ 70kg. Same as last week. Felt heavier, but this is literally all I did last week, followed by sickness, so couldn't expect anything more.

Finished with 3x15 incline DB press, superset EZ skullcrushers/hammer curls, superset lat pulldown/tricep pushdown and superset lateral raise/lat pulldown.

Weighed in at 76.7kg this morning. I was expecting my weight to have rebounded upwards due to eating properly for a few days but it still seems to be falling off me. If I haven't put weight back on by the end of the week, might go to GP.

Mr. CooL ICE · 16-03-2023 10:10am

Pause squat: 3x3 @ 80kg. I usually wear a bar grip t-shirt but I purposefully didn't this morning and experienced bar slippage. Think the bar grip t-shirt allows me to place the bar lower than should be stable. Found the correct 'shelf' after a few warmups and it felt better, but bar was higher than normal. Notes have been taken.

Deadlift: 3x5 @ 120kg. First time pulling from the floor in two weeks and first time using a belt deadlifting in well over a year. My consistent form fell apart today and I'm not sure why. Perhaps my head wasn't in it properly. At a guess, maybe 10/15 good reps at best.

Finished with supersetted chest supported t-bar row/lying leg curls, followed by one-arm DB rows.

Weighed in at 76.4kg. Macrofactor had predicted I should be 78kg, but their algorithms obviously didn't account for weight loss due to stomach bugs. 78kg was my most recent goal weight and I reached it this morning, so program got updated. I opted to maintain and my calories and macros have jumped with the new goal in mind.

Calories: 2241 -> 2689

Protein: 148g -> 134g

Fat: 75g -> 90g

Carbs: 242g -> 335g

An extra 450 calories per day and it's mostly in carbs! Hell yeah. I currently have a nice daily routine where I can keep calories low and consistently surpass protein targets, but that'll have to change a bit now.

Mr. CooL ICE · 20-03-2023 10:16am

Squat: 1 @ 110kg and 3x5 @ 100kg. Bar grip t-shirt and was mindful about bar placement, which felt good. Threw a little more on the bar to see where my 1RM would be at and there was room for another 10kg on top of the 110kg. The 3x5 was tough but never in doubt. And form was dialled in with 15/15 good reps. Satisfying.

RDL: 3x8 @ 85kg. Easy, but did mixed grip.

Followed by leg extensions to near failure and some one-arm DB rows.

Missed Friday due to Paddy's day and will be missing tomorrow due to a funeral. Bench will be taking a hit for now but lower body stuff is motoring on.

On Thursday/Friday, I loaded up the carbs by way of bread and biscuits and surprise surprise, my digestive system responded badly. Bought a nice bit from the fruit and veg shop and have been using pears, dates, bananas, apples and orange juice as my extra carbs because I didn't want my body to hate me. And Macrofactor added another 45 calories per day after this morning's check-in.

Mr. CooL ICE · 23-03-2023 10:36am

Pause squat: 3x3 @ 80kg... again. Just ensuring I'm consistent with bar position without a bar grip t-shirt.

Deadlift: 1x130kg, 1x140kg, 1x150kg and 2x5 @ 120kg. Just wanted to see where my top end was at. 130 was air, as was 140. I actually laughed after 140 because I wasn't expecting it to be so easy and had intended on not going beyond it. But 150kg moved a little slowly but most importantly, form was tight and there was room for more. Thought the 2x5 @ 120kg was going to be like air but nope, was actually a little heavy.

Supersetted chest-supported t-bar rows/hamstring curls and then some one-arm DB rows to finish.

Just really, really happy with deadlifting these days. Squat and bench, I won't mention. But with my inconsistent, sporadic and unorganised training, I can't expect much more.

Mr. CooL ICE · 27-03-2023 9:22am

Forgot to post Friday...

Bench: 3x5 @ 70kg. Felt heavy. First time benching in 10 days so it was always going to feel weak, so not surprised

Followed with some usuals: 3x15 incline DB press, supersetted EZ skullcrushers/hammer curl, facepulls, lateral raises and lat pulldown.

Mr. CooL ICE · 27-03-2023 9:24am

Squat: Double @ 110kg and 3x4 @ 102.5kg. Felt dodgy due to bar slippage. Continued to purposefully not use a bar grip t-shirt and used one of the cheap bars, which was a crappy combination. Definitely felt a lack of upper back tension and had to adjust myself between reps occasionally. Happy with the double at least.

RDL: 3x10 @ 80kg. Meh.

Finished with some sets of leg extensions to near failure and one-arm DB-rows.

Sets of faahve

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