Return of the King

bigstar wrote: »

podge did a different type of 5x5 (bill Star i think). instead of 5 straight sets you ramp the weight up to a last of 5, he had a calculator for it too, but if your sick of 5x5 maybe is not what your looking for.

I'll look into that in the coming weeks. I will probably try something else first but no harm in reading up on it.

kevpants wrote: »

Let me know if you need help deciphering Westside. I waded through so much crap trying to figure it all out I may as well pass on what I learned.

Sounds good! Do you have a link or one pager which describes where to start and how to work out lifts and %'s, etc?

brianthebard wrote: »

I was just curious whether a lack of deloading might have contributed to the squat fail, afaik you've done a lot heavier before. I don't know if I'd recommend it but 20 squats seems to have helped me a lot the last while

That 5/3/1 bandwagon is full to the rockers. I'll wait and see how you lot get on first!

Yeah the squat failed as I'm knackered and not eating enough the past few days (on purpose).

I like 20 reps actually. I will include a few to get past bodyweight. Currently only tried 60 and 65kg.

Thanks for the input, all.

Unfortunately not. I got 3 into my mouth but could not swallow.

I blame the psylium husks.

Saturday May 9th:

Bench Press
20kg - 1x10
40kg - 1x5
60kg - 1x3
70kg - 1x2
82.5kg - 5x3 ... personal best. Got videos of all the sets which I'll compile and post later
20kg - 1x20
---
Power Clean & Press
20kg - 1x5
30kg - 1x5
40kg - 1x5
50kg - 1x5 ... got videos of the 30, 40 and 50kg sets before battery died. Crap angle though.
60kg - 1x2 ... personal best & smashed one of my new years resolutions i.e. PC&P 60kg for 1 rep
62.5kg - 1x1 ... personal best, come on!
65kg - 1x0 ... fail & roar
65kg - 1x1 ... personal best, oh yeah!
---
Pull Ups / Chins
90 reps as follows:

• 5x6 ... palms away i.e pull ups
• 11x5 ... palms to face i.e. chins
• 1x4 ... chins, failed 3/4 of the way up on the 5th rep (i.e the 90th rep in total) so dropped off and didn't count it
• 1x1 ... chins, ... and the 90th

Pull Through ... superset with pull up/chins
11.25kg - 5x8
21.25kg - 2x8

Face Pulls ... superset with pull up/chins
11.25kg - 5x8

External Rotation ... superset with pull up/chins
1.25kg per arm - 5x8
---
Run 2km (10:23, ~175 cals) ... intervals

• 400m @11kmph
• 100m @14kmph
• 400m @11kmph
• 100m @14kmph

• 300m @10kmph
• 200m @14kmph
• 300m @10kmph
• 200m @14kmph

---

Bodyweight 77kg on the dot this morning. Was under 77kg yesterday morning. Pleased to have lost about 2kg in the past couple of weeks. I will be happy when I get down to 75kg as that means a double bodyweight deadlift is just 150kg - a nice round number.

I love Saturday morning training. No time constraints.

Bench rocked. 15 reps at just 5kg below old 1 rep max.

Power Clean & Press rocked. One new years resolution down! There is something incredibly cool about picking 65kg up from the ground and pressing it out overhead. I'm guessing push press is valid for the power clean and press?

Pull Ups / Chins rocked. Was knackered in the last sets though.

Running was tough after all the stuff before.

Started with the psylium husks yesterday. Will post up measurements of before and after in a couple of weeks.

In summary: legandary session after two crappy ones earlier in the week.

Sunday May 10th:

Walk 5.6km

Stop A: ~5 mins Skipping

Stop B: ~1km warm up jog, then 3 rounds of the following:

• Sprints 400m (100m slow, 100m fast, 100 slow, 100m fast)
• Push Ups x10
• Bodyweight Squats x10
• Sit Ups x10

Again, as with last Sunday, the sprints were done over two football pitches length on length.

• 1st 400m in 1:26 --> 16.7 kmph (200m split was 40 secs)
• 2nd 400m in 1:26 --> 16.7 kmph (200m split was 40 secs)
• 3rd 400m 1:31 --> 15.8 kmph (200m split was 41 secs)

me last week wrote:

Going forwards my initial aim is to beat 90 secs for 400m which equates to 16kmph.

As you can see I surprised myself and got under 90 seconds twice today. Even my 3rd and slowest set today was faster than my fastest last week.

Next aim is to get under 1 minute 25.

Lots of DOMS from yesterday: biceps / triceps / pecs and lats.

Cheers. The weight is ~94% of my 1 rep max so the reps have to be low enough. Trying to get myself used to the extra stress at near maximal weight.

Thanks for the analysis Hanley. I should be paying you :pac:

Hanley wrote: »

-you need to tighten up. It looks like you've just lay down on the bench and started pressing with no thought to set up (pinning your shoulders, getting your feet back a bit to have a solid platform etc)

I spent a good bit of time before most sets wiggling around and trying to pin my shoulder together. You cannot see it here as I cut those bits out to stop the compilation being like 5 mins long.

I seem to loose any tightness as soon as I unrack the bar.

Hanley wrote: »

-your descent is a bit screwy.... looks like you're flaring your elbows too much and taking the bar down to high. I say this because on some of the reps you're adjusting mid way thru and moving the bar forward to make toching easier. This will kill your power off your chest since you're in a bad position

Ok, I'll think about this next time. Elbows in and bar more towards nipples.

Hanley wrote: »

-try not to snap your elbows at the top. A solid lockout's good, but that's all you need. No need to really put an emphasis on it cos it can wreck your elbows pretty quickly.

Ok. I'll bear this in mind. Will have to watch the vid again to see this. Wasn't aware of it.

Hanley wrote: »

More importantly tho, what are YOUR thoughts on the vid? what do you think you need to work on??

I think my bench is pretty shakey. Swaying all over the place and often gripping at different widths with each hand. It looks even worse when I watch it back. It is easy to block these thinks out when you aren't video'ing stuff.

Hanley wrote: »

Btw that's seriously good going. There's no way I'd do 94% 5x3.... with a tight set up your max might actually be a lot higher!!

Nice one. Hopefully my 1 rep max has increased in the past few months. I'll work on this stuff you mentioned. Thanks!

Thursday May 14th: 6:30am - 7:20am

Squat
20kg - 1x8
30kg - 1x4
40kg - 1x4
50kg - 1x4
60kg - 1x4
70kg - 1x4
80kg - 1x4
90kg - 1x4
100kg - 1x4
70kg - 1x20 ... 20 rep pb
---
EZ Curl (bar = ??kg)
bar +10kg - 1x10
bar +20kg - 1x10
bar +20kg - 1x5
bar +10kg - 1x10
---
Run 2km (10:31, ~175 cals) ... intervals

• 400m @11kmph, 100m @17 kmph
• 400m @11kmph, 100m @17 kmph
• 300m @8kmph, 200m @17 kmph
• 300m @8kmph, 200m @17 kmph

---

Squat felt good, probably due to not making bits of myself with the Deadlift on Tuesday. Looking forward to finding out what my new max is in a few weeks.

5x5 on squat and deadlift is more or less out the window now (today would have been squat 100kg 5x5: week 6). Not bothered. I learned something from it. i.e. don't do weeks of 25 rep deadlifts at 90%+ when you are going to try squatting 25 reps at 90% plus 2 days later.

Thursday May 21st: 7:30-9pm

Walk 5.6km ... of which from 1km to 2.5km was a run

Stop A: ~10 mins Skipping ... managed one non stop set of 258!

Stop B: ~1km warm up jog, then 3 rounds of the following:

Sprints 400m (100m slow, 100m fast, 100 slow, 100m fast)

• 1st 400m in 1:26
• 2nd 400m in 1:33
• 3rd 400m 1:25 ... pb ... this is the 3rd week doing these so I'll start recording pbs now

Good to be out exercising after taking time off to study for the past week.

Saturday May 23rd:

Bench Press
20kg - 1x10
40kg - 1x5
60kg - 1x3
70kg - 1x2
80kg - 1x1 ... video to follow
85kg - 1x1 ... video to follow
90kg - 1x1 ... personal best. At last!!!!! Absolutely chuffed with myself. Video to follow
75kg - 1x5
70kg - 1x5
60kg - 1x10
---
Mini 35kg Barbell Thrusters
1x5 ... warming up and trying to get a feel for how to attempt Fran

CrossFit - Fran in 24:08

• 21 thrusters (35kg) / 21 pull ups
• 15 thrusters (35kg) / 15 pull ups
• 9 thrusters (35kg)/ 9 pull ups

Fran nearly killed me. Used a mini 35 barbell for the thrusters. Good job I didn't try it with 45kg Absolutely wrecked afterwards. The pull ups were proper dead hang ones. I need to learn to "kip". I guess that would have knocked a bit off the time. I'm assuming kipping is easier than dead hang. Maybe I'm wrong. I have to admit that a lot of my pull ups on Fran were not full range of motion. Maybe 60 to 70% were.

Next time I may try it when totally fresh (i.e not after a bench pb) and use 20kg to get a bit of conditioning going. Will try and do it once a week


Bench PB at last! - Yay!

Bodyweight 76kg this morning.

It took me from 10pm until 4:30am to get the fitness records thread up and running in the early hours. Got 4 hours sleep and then went to the gym so happy enough with my performance when you take lack of sleep and a plate of apples for dinner last night into account :pac:

90kg bench felt fine. It was as if everything went into slow motion before I lay down on the bench. I looked up at the clock and though "10:15am - nice time to set a pb". I then listened to the music and thought "random song - ah, nice song to set a pb to". And then I did it. Yes!

Long time coming so pardon my revelry. My last pb was 87.5kg set back in maybe September 08.

Thanks

BossArky wrote: »

85kg - 1x1 ... video to follow

BossArky wrote: »

90kg - 1x1 ... personal best. At last!!!!! Absolutely chuffed with myself. Video to follow

Saturday May 23rd: afternoon

Walk 5.6km