Category: Training Log

My workouts, analysis at end.

3/13/22 Dynamic Effort Lower Body

5 20 yard sprints at 50% Effort

10 box jumps at 20 inches.

Speed Squats With Safety Squat Bar
205 x 2 for 10 Sets
Work up sets:
245 x 1
295 x 1

Speed Deadlift – Conventional
230 x 2 – 5 sets.
Worked Up Sets:
315 x 1
435 x 1
Need to take smaller jumps here.  120 pounds was a bit of a jump for me.

Reverse Hyper
205 x 12 – 4 sets.

Pull Throughs
60 x 10 – 3 sets

Hip Thrust Machine
50 x 10
50 x 10

Walking Lunges
1 trip

Pulldown abs
60 x 20
60 x 20
60 x 20

Laying Leg Curls – Some

Seated Hip Abduction – Some

3/14/22 Dynamic Effort Upper

This was more of a rep effort day than a real dynamic day, but whatever.

Barbell Rows
135 x 5
185 x 5
235 x 5
185 x 10

Incline DB Bench
30 x 5
40 x 5
50 x 5
60 x 5
80 x 5

Pushups
11, 11, 11, 11

Tate Presses
50 x 5
50 x 6

Scap Pullups
5, 5, 6

Cable Rows – Some

Tri Pushdowns – Slower eccentrics
3 sets

Db curls – Some

Leg Raises
15, 15

3/16/22 Max Effort Lower

Close Stance Squat
315 x 1

Squat
135 x 4
Fell backwards with 135 and  called it quits because everything is messed up.

Promptly went into more of an offseason type training after this

3/17/22 Back and Bis

Wide Grip Rack Pulls
135 x 10
225 x 5
225 x 8
225 x 5

TRX Rows for Scap Movement
10, 10, 10

Lat Pulldowns – Some

Scap Pullups
5, 5

DB Curls

3/18/22 Pressing Stuff

DB Bench
20 x 5
30 x 5
40 x 5
50 x 5
60 x 5
75 x 5

Pushups
15, 15

Close Grip Bench Press With shoulder Saver Pad
135 x 5
135 x 5
135 x 5

DB Flys
15 x 8
15 x 10

DB Shoulder Press
15 x 10
20 x 10
30 x 10
40 x 8
50 x 8

Band Pull aparts – Some

Cable Pushdowns – Some

DB SkullCrushers             
20 x 5
20 x 5
20 x 5

It was had to pack my shoulders for more than 2 reps of anything.

Analysis and Thoughts

This was a week where my workouts really went off the rails.  I just am getting too tired and not recovering.  This is showing up by me being tired all the time.  I am also becoming very clumsy in my everyday life.  Falling backwards a step with 135 on my back for squats was the final straw.  I am taking the next several weeks to just refresh my body and start cleaning up all the small problems I can find.  My body needs to chill out a bit so that is what I am doing now.

This week was a deload week for me.  I mostly just cut the volume back and chilled out in the gym.  I had my trashy shoulder checked out by an athletic trainer this week too.  These are the workouts I did this week with analysis.

3/6/22 Dynamic Effort Lower – DELOAD Mode

Speed Squat with SSB
115 x 1
175 x 1
175 x 1
225 x 1
265 x 1
315 x 1
I just warmed up some and did singles on these I just wanted to get a little work in without much volume.

Speed Deadlifts – Conventional
245 x 1
335 x 1
425 x 1
These we reasonably quick, just did a few good reps to keep it all going.

Low Box Goblet Squat
15 x 8
25 x 8
40 x 8
Doing these to work on hitting depth better and using quads more.

Reverse Hypers
195 x 12 – 4 sets

Hip Thrust Machine
25 x 10
50 x 10
50 x 10

Seated Hip Abduction Machine
Did Some

Walking Lunges
Did 1 trip across gym.

Laying Leg Curls
Did a few light sets.

Leg Raises
12, 12

3/7/22 Dynamic Effort Upper – DELOAD Mode

Incline DB Bench
20 x 10
30 x 10
40 x 8
50 x 8
70 x 6 (Lost tightness in back so quit here)

Pushups
4 sets of 10 reps.
These really help my shoulders as far as serratus anterior health.

Barbell Rows
135 x 5
135 x 5
225 x 5
245 x 5

Close Grip Pulldowns
Did some.

Cable Rows with scapular movement.
Did some.

DB Shrugs
50 x 12
Elbow was not liking these, so cut it here.

3/9/22 Max Effort Lower Deload Mode

Close Stance Squat with Safety Squat Bar with Mini Bands
115 x 2
175 x 1
175 x 1
225 x 1
265 x 1
315 x 1

Safety Squat Bar Good Mornings
115 x 3
115 x 3
135 x 4

Reverse Hypers
200 x 12 – 4 sets.

Belt Squats
90 x 8

90 x 8
90 x 8

TRX Squats for Range of Motion
15 reps

Leg Raises
15, 15

Still working on quads, I think in time I will get them brought up and heavier squats will happen easier.  My legs still just don’t want to bend.

3/10/22 Max Effort Upper Deload

Bench Press
185 x 1 
Did this pain free, which was the goal.  Cut it here because I don’t want to push things with all the rotator cuff work I have been doing.

Chest Press Machine
Some

Inverted Rows on TRX
Some

Pulldowns
Some.

Pushups
15

I was tired, so I treated this like a real deload day and just barely did anything.  I just got the body moving a bit.

Analysis

This week was a deload week to cut back on the fatigue I have been feeling.  I am now running all my training in 3 week cycles.  This means I can stick a deload week in between these cycles if I want to.  I can also stack them back to back.  I don’t know if this is optimal for gains in the gym, but I can make progress doing this.  I do know it gives me a bit more energy to do other things outside the gym, which is the priority at the moment.

On my max effort day this week I played with attaching mini bands to the bar while squatting.  This proved to be rather fun and provided some needed variety.  My brain likes variety in training so bands might be a way in the future for me to get that.  I only get about 50 pounds of tension in the top with these so its just a bit of tension to have fun with.  Sooner or later I’m sure I’ll jump into stronger bands.

The big thing that happened on the training front this week is that I went to go see the athletic trainer folks at the facility I work at.  I work at a combo physical rehab and gym center so I have free access to athletic trainers at times.  I had them check out my shoulders.  My rotator cuffs might have some small tears or weakness.  This might explain the pain I have had in all pressing exercises lately.  They gave me some exercises to help with this.  It is my hope that this means I can put together a good run of healthy benching and take a run at some big numbers.   Until I get these exercises going well I’ll be taking it more chill on the bench training.  I think until my rotator cuffs get stronger it would be a bit silly to push the limits.

This week had some good sessions and a lot of disasters in the gym.  Lots of lessons were learned and progress was made.  Scroll to the end to read about the lessons, my analysis and more.  First however, the workouts.

2/27/22 Dynamic Effort Lower

Safety Squat Bar Speed Squat
245 x 2 –  10 sets

Speed Deadlifts Conventional
225 x 2 – 5 sets
Worked up to:
335 x 1
405 x 1

Belt Squat
180 x 3
180 x 4

Reverse Hypers
185 x 12 – 4 sets

Deep Box Squats
Did these with bodyweight for 3 sets of 6.

Light Laying Leg Curls -Did Some.

Pulldown Abs
60 x 15
60 x 15
60 x 15

My quads really didn’t feel like I could fire them during this workout.  Quads will need a lot of work.

2/28/22 Dynamic Effort Upper

DB Incline Bench
60 x 5
70 x 8

Speed Bench Press
175 x 3 – 8 Sets.  (This felt too heavy and was moving slow)
Work up singles.
205 x 1
225 x 1

Tate Press
45 x 8
45 x 6

Pulldowns –  Did a lot.

DB Shoulder Press
30 x 10
55 x 4 (Lat Popped here)

Lateral Raises – Some

Facepulls – Some

Cable Rows – Some

Hammer Curls – Some

Leg Raises
12, 10

Was hard to set up tight on bench.  Back was really spent from lower body day on prior day.

3/2/22 Max Effort Lower

Sumo Deadlift
445 x 1
500 x 1 (Lifetime Deadlift PR)

Close Stance Lift
225 x 3
225 x 5
225 x 5

Walking lunges – 1 long trip

Reverse Hypers
190 x 12 – 4 sets

Pulldown Abs
60 x 15
60 x 15
60 x 15

Laying Leg Curls – Some

Seated Hip Abduction With Band – Some.

3/4/22 Max Effort Upper

Shoulder and Triceps are all jacked up.

Shoulder Saver Pad Bench Press
185 x 1
205 x 1 (quit here and was smart)

Pushups
10, 10

Barbell Rows
135 x 8
225 x 7
225 x 5

Chest Support Row Machine
180 x 8
90 x 10
90 x 10
90 x 10

Cable Rows – Some (focused on scapular movement on these)

DB Shrugs
60 x 10
60 x 10
60 x 10

Facepulls- Lots

Trouble setting shoulders again on bench.  Need to work posture and remove fatigue.

Analysis

My upper body training felt like garbage this week.  My tendonitis issues in the right triceps have creeped back in.  My shoulder has also been giving me pain.  I feel as though I am reaching a point with my training that if I can keep healthy then my strength will be there.  Not getting beat up has become the number one priority with my upper body training.  I have tactics to keep healthy I must now simply prioritize them.

Once cause of these junky shoulders is that my back muscles have not kept pace with my chest and delts.  My shoulders have rolled far more forward than is optimal.  This is a problem I can fix.  I have figured out a simple plan for this.

1. Do more pushups.  These train the serratus and really help with my shoulder health.  In general the more of these I work in the healthier I feel.
2. I should start doing targeted rotator cuff work.  I usually just throw this stuff in for a couple sets here and there.  I think short extra workouts for these might be the way to go in the future.  I am already in the gym all the time anyways so throwing this stuff in in a 10 minute workout shouldn’t be that big of a deal.
3. I think I am going to start pushing barbell rows and other back exercises harder and get stronger at them. 
4. I am working to remove overall fatigue more to be able to better contract my lats on pressing exercises.  Currently I have been digging myself into a real fatigue hole.  I can fix that. 

My hope is that these measures will improve my shoulder health enough to keep training the bench press moderately hard.  I don’t want to have to escalate to talking to doctors about this.  As weird as the bench press and upper body training is going for me, my lower body training is going good.

This week I hit my first 500 pound deadlift.   So it was a good training week alone off of that alone.  I hit that lift on March 2^nd.  On December 31^st my max deadlift was 430 pounds.  I bring that up because the 430 was a lifetime PR, and two months later I have added 70 pounds to a lifetime PR.  This is a really good rate of improvement, especially given my age and how long I have been training.  This merits a bit of analysis, because I think there are some takeaways here.  So what do I credit with this fast improvement? 

I have been taking a few more heavy deadlifts in training.  Training specificity does matter and I have been working up to heavier deadlifts more often in my training.  I feel like this is definitely improving my comfort level with the heavy weights.  I have just been sprinkling a few more heavy lifts into my training and I think this is helping.  This is not what I believe is the biggest reason though for my improvement. 

The biggest reason for my improvement is that I can tell is that I have been hitting the reverse hyper machine very hard.  I have been doing 4 hard reverse hyper sets as part of most leg workouts.  I also use reverse hypers for around 3-4 sets as warmup for a lot of my workouts.  I just have been doing a lot of reverse hypers.  This is making my back very strong and helping with my overall bracing.  I really credit this focus on posterior chain development as bringing up my deadlift so fast.  I didn’t have a reverse hyper until now and am obviously benefiting from it.

This fact does bring up a point of criticism with my own training.  I have been using the reverse hyper to bring up my posterior chain.  This machine has made it very easy for me to do so.  Before I had this machine though, I should have been finding a way to bring up my posterior chain.  I had a lot of tools to get this job done.  I was not diligent enough with my pursuit of strength though.  A mixture of Romanian deadlifts, pull throughs, back raises and other exercises could have gotten this job done.  This would have taken some thought to get the mix right though.  The Reverse Hyper Machine has been easy though, I just hop on it and do some work.  This has gotten me results, but also exposed how lazy I can be about my training.  I wasn’t stuck with a deadlift before, I was stuck in my ways of thinking.  I really wasn’t thinking at all to be honest. 

That being said I have the intention to just ride this reverse hyper wave as far as I can.  I know I can get a lot stronger at them in the coming months.  I am eager to see if that will drive my deadlift up even more.  This experiment will be fun and teach me even more about training.  I can do more weight but I had to back off because I was accumulating too much fatigue by improving too fast them.

I was increasing my reverse hypers workload so fast that in like a 2 week period I more than doubled my workload.  This lead to some massive fatigue issues.  I have backed off though and planning to add more volume in slowly in the future.  I have gotten good results from the current training volume I am doing but I got very greedy.  I thought I could just push the volume and get gains even more faster, this was a mistake and really messed me up from a fatigue standpoint.  As I stated before I’ve been making very good progress.  I should have been happy with that and just rode that out, but I got stupid.  I would encourage you not to get stupid like that. 

So that was my week of training.  Next up is a bit of a deload and plotting how to go onwards and upwards.