[grole]

31/03/2012 5/3/1 C3W3D4

Squat
20kg x5, 60kg x5, 75kg x5, 90kg x5, 110kg x5, 122.5kg x3
137.5kg x1 (PR)

As per my plan for this week I intended to just do the prescribed reps following the 'not doing jack s***' assistance program. All of the lifts went as planned, and everything felt as heavy as it should. In terms of weights 137.5kg is the heaviest weight I have actually squatted even though it is quite a way below my 'calculated 1RM' so I was pretty chuffed with the session.
Now the funny thing is that 137.5kg has a certain significance in terms of what it isn't . To be specific it is not a 3 plate squat because it is just 2.5kg short.
Naturally, I couldn't leave things as they were so I took the small plates off and put 3 big plates on each side (actually 25kg + 20kg + 15kg as I only have 4 20kg plates), rested, tightened my belt as far as it would go and set up for the lift with a good deep breath and took the bar off the hooks.

140kg x0

Unfortunately things got a bit 'exciting' as I lowered down into the hole and my velcro belt decided that it didn't want to play any more and popped. Now it is the wierdest sensation when the surface you are using to brace your abs against suddenly gives way and is probably enough to totally screw up the lift. Adding in a loud 'oh f***' was definitely sufficient to kill off any remaining abdominal pressure and nullify my valsava maneuver.

After dropping it onto the safeties, I unloaded the bar, put it back onto the hooks and reloaded it. After a rest I tightened my belt (but not to the max) and repeated the attempt.

140kg x1 (PR)

A bit messy on the way up as I felt a hint of a good morning beginning, but I managed to correct and continue. I will count the PR though.

A somewhat exciting end to an interesting week.

[grole]

03/04/2012 5/3/1 C4 W1 D1

Press
20kg x5, 27.5kg x5, 32.5kg x3, 35kg x3, 40kg x3
45kg x6

Chin ups
2 (+3 negatives), 1 +3n, 2 +3n, 1 +3n, 1F +3n.

Press BBB
10 each of 25kg, 25kg, 22,5kg, 22.5kg, 20kg

OK session, but a bit disappointed with only 6 reps on the last set. Chin ups and BBB sets were supersetted. I didn't seem to get the usual rapid fatigue with the press BBB sets. Annoyed that I couldn't get the second rep on the last set of chins. Still feeling sore abs from last week on the chin ups, but my sore right elbow was ok during them. Elbow still gives twinges when I pick up things from the floor though.

50 mins total time including travel and set up, so fairly quick overall.

[grole]

04/04/2012 C4 W1 D2

Deadlift
65kg x5, 87.5kg x5, 112.5kg x5, 130kg x5
147.5kg x5

Lifts felt fine all the way to the top set, which felt a bit heavy. After I lowered the bar on the 4th rep I had a strange sensation that I can only describe as a sort of wave of light headedness that went from my abdomen up to my head and then quickly disappeared. I stood up, paused for a few seconds and as I felt fine did the 5th rep without any problem. Left it at that (I was originally aiming for 6 reps).

Not sure what caused that funny feeling, perhaps related to my breathing betwen the reps or the release of abdominal pressure at the end of the rep.

[grole]

06/04/2012 5/3/1 C4W1D3

Bench
25kg x5, 32.5kg x5, 40kg x3, 42.5kg x3, 50kg x5
55kg x9

Kneeling AWR (Supersetted with Bench BBB)
5,5,5,5,5

Bench BBB
5x10x30kg

Everything happened as it should and not much really to comment on. Could probably have gone heavier with the BBB sets, but to do that would need to modify my spreadsheet to give different percentages for bench vs the other lifts.

[grole]

07/04/2012 5/3/1 C4 W1 D4

Squat
20kgx10, 60kg x5, 75kg x5, 95kg x5, 112.5kg x5 (10 shoulder dislocations before each set)
127.5kg x6

Squat BBB
67.5kg 20-20-10

Chins
2,1,2,1,2

Shoulders felt a bit stiff and tight from yesterday's bench session so did 10 shoulder dislocations with a wooden staff before each of the warm up sets.

Squats felt good once my shoulders loosened up a bit, but I did seem to run out of steam a bit quick on the main set. 1 rep over prescribed reps was good enough though.

Tried out a 20 rep idea for the BBB sets that I saw in another log on Ironstrong. Doable but I was definitely slowing down and breathing heavily at the end of each set.

Did the chin-up reps afterwards rather than supersetting them with the BBB sets like I usually do.

[grole]

08/04/2012

Went out for a gentle run this morning just to try to ensure I get a bit of blood flowing through my legs. I actually felt more trepidation about the run than I did about the 20 rep BBB sets yesterday as this is the first time running since about June last year due to my foot injury. My foot specialist lifted the ban on 'impact on the foot' in February and told me I could ease back into running and such as and when I felt comfortable with it.

So after a bit of procrastination as I tried to decide whether to run in walking boots, normal training shoes or vibrams I put the vibrams on and ran a couple of miles at a gentle pace in the rain. Resisted the temptation to try sprints and just took things easy.

I am really glad I went now. It felt good to be running again.

[grole]

Well, no squat related DOMS have visited so far which is a good thing. Apart from a little minor soreness yesterday my foot seems OK too.
My calves on the other hand were painful when I got up this morning. One of the consequences of jumping back into Pose style running (on balls of feet rather than heel striking) in the Vibrams rather than easing in to it.

09/04/2012 5/3/1 C4 W2 D1

Warmed up by moving a bunch of weight plates, bar and various other bits and pieces 50-60m into their new home.

Press
20kg x5, 27.5kg x5, 32.5kg x3, 37.5kg x5, 42.5kg x5
47.5kg x5

I little bit tougher than expected this morning, not helped by doing 5 reps instead of 3 at 37.5k and 42.5k. I forgot I was supposed to be on 3s again. All 5 reps at 47.5 felt ok but the 6th rep refused to rise above my chin.

By this time I had been at the barns for two hours so I decided to go with the Jack s*** program and skipped the assistance work. Starting to feel like I am making a bit of a habit of this.

Calves feeling fine though now.

[grole]

11/04/2012 5/3/1 C4 W2 D2

Deadlift
70kg x5, 87.5kg x5, 102.5kg x3, 120kg x3, 137.5kg x3
155kg x4

I really must resist the temptation to sort out bits and pieces in between sets!
During the weekend I moved my scaffold squat rack between barns. The old barn had a slight slope downwards towards the front of the rack, which wasnt a problem as I assembled the rack to be level on that floor surface. Unfortunately the new location seems to have a slight slope in the other direction. This meant that the rack had a visible tilt to the rear.
This morning after the 137.5k set I decided to tweak things so that it was level again. It should have been simple job, just loosen the clamps on each of the front legs and adjust so everything is level again.

I had a bunch of issues getting the front poles to move at all and ended up loosening a whole bunch of cross brace brackets, which in turn suddenly lead to everything moving a bit too easily. Anybody watching would have found the whole thing extremely amusing as I frantically tried to hold everything together with one hand while retightening various scaffold brackets with the other.

After about an hour of faffing about I now have a scaffold structure that leans about 15 degrees to the front and is totally unusable as a squat rack. In the end I just leant it backwards against the rear wall.(to stop it from falling over to the front) and left it. I made an attempt at the final set, getting the calculated goal of 4 reps but my focus and concentration were totally blown and I was well and truly out of time. I was hoping for 6 reps but that didn't happen.

Rushed home, showered and skipped breakfast so I could get into work on time.

[grole]

13/04/2012 5/3/1 Cycle 4, 3s week, Day 3

Bench
25kg x5, 32.5kg x5, 40kg x3, 45kg x5, 52.5kg x3
57.5kg x8

Kneeling AWR (Supersetted with BBB)
5,5,5,5,5

Bench BBB
10,10,10,10,10 @ 30kg

All went well, benches felt good and only felt difficult at the end the main 57.5k set. As always the AWRs were tough.

[grole]

14/04/2012 5/3/1 C4 3s week, D4

Squat
60kg x5, 75kg x5, 90kg x3, 105kg x3, 120kg x3
135kg x4

Squat BBB
75kg 20,20,10

Chin ups (supersetted in with BBB sets)
2,1,2,1,2

Some days everything just comes together and the lifts just feel right. Today was not one of those days!
For some reason I was struggling with everything this morning, physically and mentally. The bar didn't feel comfortable on my back from the start, the weights felt heavy even in the warm up sets.
On the other hand, 'not feeling like it' is no bloody excuse so I had to JFDI.
Managed all of the lfts and hit my rep goal on the main set so not all bad, but was really feeling it in my abductors and around the hips (my legs were fine though).
The first 20 rep set was definitely not completed with single breaths between reps, and I ended up doing them in 3-5 rep batches with 2 or 3 breaths between them. Things finally seemed to come together on next set and I managed 18 reps with a single breath per rep and finished the set after a couple of extra breaths.

[grole]

Been a bit of a busy week, haven't got around to updating my log.

Mondays training postponed due to early start at work then missed on Tuesday due to oversleeping.

Wed 18/04/2012

5/3/1 C4 W3 Days 1&2

Press
20kg x5, 27.5kg x5, 32.5kg x3, 40kg x5, 45kg x3
50kg x5

Deadlift
70kg x5, 87.5kg x5, 105kg x5, 130kg x5, 147.5kg x1f,f WTF!
165kg x0 (Not attempted)

The session seemed to be going well right up to the penultimate DL set. The first rep went fine, but when I went to pull the second rep up I couldn't even budge it off the ground. I stepped away from the bar for about 60 seconds, refocussed and set up again. Same story again.

Not sure what was going on there. Perhaps my long working hours recently caught up with me or the pressing drained me more than I realised.

Friday 20/04/12 Day 3

Bench
25kg x5, 32.5kg x5, 40kg x5, 50kg x5,
62.5kg x5

Bench BBB
5x10 30kg

All good.

21/04/2012 D4

Squat
20kg x5, 60kg x5, 70kg x5, 90kg x3, 112.5kg x5, 127.5kg x5
142.5kg x3. PB (New 1rm, 3rm)

BBB
75kg 20,20,10

Very pleased with session. Set a new 1RM and managed 3 reps at that weight. The 20 rep BBB sets also felt a lot more solid than last week.

[grole]

23/04/2012 5/3/1 C4 W4 D1 Deload week

Press
20kg x5, 25kg x5, 27.5kg x5, 30kg x5
35kg x5

Press BBB
5x10 20kg

Chin ups (Supersetted with BBB)
1,1,1,1,1

[grole]

25/04/2012 5/3/1 C4 W4 D2 Deload week

Deadlift
70kg x5, 80kg x5, 95kg x5,
112.5kg x5

Deadlift BBB
3x10 70kg

Pull ups (Supersetted with BBB)
1,1,1

Not much to say on a deload week. Right elbow started giving me some grief with the pull ups, and decided after 3 rounds of BBB Deads + Pull up that 3 rounds was sufficient on a deload week.

My elbow seems to be getting more painful, might need to see the Doc about it as it has been giving me grief for nearly a month now (since my squat collapse at the end of last month).

[grole]

27/04/2012 5/3/1 C4 W4 D3 Deload week

Bench
25kg x5, 30kg x5, 35kg x5,
42.5kg x5

Bench BBB
3x10 25kg

Kneeling AWR (Supersetted with BBB)
3,3,3,3,3

A standard deload session really. Decided to only do sets of 3 for the AWRs.

28/04/2012 5/3/1 C4 W4 D4 Deload week

Squat
60kg x5, 70kg x5, 80kg x5, 90kg x5
100kg x5

Squat BBB
60kg 20,20,10

Chin ups (Supersetted)
1,1,1,1,0.75

Didn't quite do the prescribed weights for the main sets as I went for the lazy loading option and went up in 10kg increments. Was only going to do the standard ses of 10 for the BBB sets, but 60kg felt so light I couldn't bring myself to stop at 10 reps. 20 rep sets weren't all that difficult at this weight, but still breathing heavily at the end of both sets.
Last chin up was a bit borderline and although at the time I thought 'that will do', I can't bring myself to claim the rep now I am typing it up.

[grole]

30/04/2012 5/3/1 C5 W1 D1

Press
20kg x5, 25kg x5, 30kg x3, 35kg x5, 42.5kg x5
47.5kg x5 (Goal 7)

Press BBB
5x10 25kg

Chin-ups (Supersetted with BBB)
2,1,1,1,1

Not the best of sesions. Press felt tough at 42.5k and failed on 6th rep at 47.5k. The chins were meant to be alternating doubles with singles, but failed on second rep on 3rd and 5th set.

Not going to read too much into it though. Hopefully just a slightly off day.

[grole]

Deadlift
70kg x5, 90kg x5, 107.5kg x3, 117.5kg x5, 127.5kg x5
150kg x5

Just the main course today. Started late and had to clear up a load of mess caused by a 'grain pipe' full of dust and grain that appeared to have dropped about 30ft to the area where my rack and wooden bench were. May have to replace bench as it seems to have taken some damage.

I approached the lifts with some trepidation after my failure before I even got to the main set a couple of weeks ago. Also a bit concerned about my recent elbow troubles.

I managed the prescribed weights and reps, but no more. Better than a fail.

[grole]

Bugger!

I went to the barn to train this morning and as soon as I drove the car in to the barn I could see that there was something missing.

1 Bar, 170kg of weights and my plate rack. All gone!

No training!

Guess I am going have to join that rowing club gym after all. There doesn't seem to be much point in replacing the stolen stuff unless I have somewhere secure to store it.