Tuesday, May 18, 2010

Get Strong

Workout of the Day:

Strict Press 5, 5, 5+ @ 65/75/85% 1RM

Deadlift 5, 5, 5+ @ 65/75/85% 1RM (dead stop between reps)

Weighted chin ups 10, 10, 10, 10, 10

Good Mornings 10, 10, 10

Dips 15, 15, 15, 15

Strict toes to bar 15, 15, 15

Sent mom home today so a little bummed. Won't see family again until the end of June... time to get focused for the home stretch.

No ill effects from yesterday apart from the soreness in the left ankle, so it seems my body was able to handle the workload. Good sign so far. This afternoon’s session brought me back a couple years to my days of hard core strength training, and I liked it. Tore a page from Wendler’s 5/3/1 scheme but just combined 2 of the days so I’ll be able to rest later in the week. The percentages were based on 90% of a 1RM, not an actual 1RM, as instructed by the 5/3/1 plan. This calculated my weights to be 50 kg, 57.5 kg, and 65 kg for the strict press, and 115 kg, 135 kg, and 155 kg for the deadlift. If I felt weak yesterday, I felt STRONG today. My third set of presses I got 9 repetitions, and my third set of deadlifts I got 10. I was especially happy with the deadlifts. 10 with a dead stop between at 155 kg is definitely a record for me. I felt evenly distributed fatigue and I think I could’ve maybe even gotten 1 or 2 more if I’d been willing to let the form slide a bit at the end.

The assistance work was pretty tough. A lot of sets and repetitions that my body isn’t used to so it was good. I did the first set of weighted chins with 10 kg, quickly realized that wouldn’t keep up, and switched town to 5 kg for the remaining 4 sets. For the good mornings I used 60 kg for all sets and felt great. Looking to bump this up each week going forward.

Tomorrow is a rest day, followed by the sandbag chipper on Thursday. Perhaps the most ambitious thing I’ve programmed in awhile, so we’ll see how it goes.

3 comments:

  1. I am pretty sure you already have 5/3/1 stuff. this is a easy one I found that I used while I was doing wendler
    If you are on week #1-
    Set #1 is 5 reps @ 65% of your "working" one rep max.
    Set #2 is 5 reps @ 75%
    Set #3 is 5 reps (or more) @ 85%
    If you are on week #2-
    Set #1 is 3 reps @ 70% of your "working" one rep max.
    Set #2 is 3 reps @ 80%
    Set #3 is 3 reps (or more) @ 90%
    If you are on week #3
    Set #1 is 5 reps at 75% of your "working" one rep max
    Set #2 is 3 reps at 85%
    Set #3 is 1 rep (or more) @ 95%
    If you are on week #4, you are "Deloading"
    Set #1 is 5 reps at 40% of your "working" one rep max
    Set #2 is 5 reps at 50%
    Set #3 is 5 reps at 60%


    Your stuff is truly awesome. I have been following your blog for a while. It really helped me think outside the box while I was in Iraq.
    Thank you and good luck at the games!

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  2. Hey Blair

    Only lately i found the 5 3 1 and i'm working according to the 1 day a week routine (improvising with heavy DBs when i cant get to the gym).
    As for the assistance exercises, how do you choose which ones to preform and how many of them? (meaning number of exercises not sets and rep scheme).
    will you do chinups, dips and goodmornings each session? or switch between different assistance exercises each session according to what heavy lifts you did that session?

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  3. Mike, good stuff. appreciate the contribution and i'm glad the blog helped you while you were in iraq. hope it continues to back home.

    Zvi, for the assistance i'll switch between different exercises depending on the main lift. for now i'm going with wendler's recommendations mostly. he doesn't like to overdo the number of exercises, which i agree with.

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