Back on track

Just back from a whole week off and did 2 training days back to back on Saturday and Sunday. I’ll do pretty much anything this week and next week is back to PL when I get back to a more regular schedule; that’ll be good for training since I’ve been a bit lazy these days. Here’s what I did so far…

Saturday: did some accessory muscles training. Did some bis and tris work, grip stuff, shrugs for the traps, neck on the SB and some pallof press for the abs.

Sunday: full body training in an alternated fashion between one lower and one upper body exercise.

A1- RDL   135 x 8, 185  2 x 8

A2- DBs bench  90s  3 x 8

B1- 1 leg squat off box  3 x 6/leg

B2- Seated rowing  3 x 10

Grip stuff with hex DB hold and plate pick on the gorund + combination of both. Finished with little, very little ab work.

That is it; next training is probably going to be thursday or something like that…and Saturday “we turn the switch ON!”

Saturday – max squat

A- Box squat up to 285 x 1…which was not too hard

B1- Rack pulls from knee 315 x max reps (5,6) 3 x

B2- Chin ups +25lbs x max reps (5,6) 3 x

B3- DB bench 100s x max reps (4-6) 3 x….I wanted to impose some kind of a big stress on my body before the week off, so I pulled that trio out.

Then Menard still wanted to do some tough shit, so we did 2 rounds of MB circuits doing chest passes, scoop throws, side slams (both sides) and stomps on the floor each for 10 reps. After this we did some RC (retarded conditioning) as Hamer would call it to finish it off. I don’t remember the exact same order but we did: bw squats, jumping jacks, seal jumping jacks, alternating lunges, mountain climbers, crunches, 1/2 crunches, side planks, push ups, plank, split shuffles. Each for 30 sec. without rest for 6 straight minutes.

Good enough for me; I am now off for a full week during which I will still stretch and foam roll as often as possible. Then it’s back to powerlifting for January in the westside template. Here are my goals for 2008:

- Hit 315 on the bench before the end of the year

- Get my squat up…I have no specific numbers right now but this should be my main focus (it has to go way over 375 before the end of the year; 400 would be amazing)

- Do more neck, traps and grip work

- Do more trunk work (abs, lower back)

- Use more bands for ME (straight or reverse)

That’s pretty much it. We’ll see how it goes comes January.

Max out

I decided that I would do a max effort of the Big 3 before taking a week off totally from training which I didn’t since…actually I don’t remember when was the last complete week off but I do remember taking 4-5 days off back from Pittsburgh in August. So here’s the plan 1 ME exercise every other day for the last week with some accessory stuff.

Monday:

A- Deadlift  up to 1RM = 385…I probably pushed to about 97% my actual max and BTW I’m doing these gearless

B1- DB bench 95 x 6  100 x 5

B2- Seated rowing  2 x 6

Wednesday:

I didn’t feel like training in the first place but turned the switch on (thanks to Ryan for now being able to do that).

A- Bench press  up to 1RM = 245, 265 x miss twice..didn’t try for 255 ’cause I was too pissed off for missing 265 which I should’ve done. The 1st time the bar kinda rolled in my hands so it was screwed from there…then put the wrist wraps and still didn’t hit it.

B1- 1 leg squat off box  with 12lbs DB  2 x 6/leg

B2- Reverse face pulls 2 x 12

Then I did some random grip stuff derived the RMU stuff we did this summer…I caught a lot of attention in the gym doing that! that was funny.

I’m out,

DL

Saturday – deload…

A- Squat  205  1 rep every 30 sec. for 10 min.

B- Bench press  185  1 rep every 10 sec. for 3 min.

C- Seated 1 arm row  5 reps with right, 5 reps with left alternating for 3 minutes

Then I did some ab work doing the rollout and the plank and I finished with some light biceps curls…That was IT.

DL

Deload

Monday: did some random stuff BW, BB, etc. I did push ups, chin ups, 1 arm DB row, BB complex 6,6,6,6,6. Then I did some curls and grip stuff. That was pretty much it…I think…

Wednesday:

A- Deadlift 225  1 rep every 30 sec. for 10 minutes

B- Parallel grip chin ups BW  1 rep every 10 sec. for 3 minutes

C- 1 arm push press DB  50  1 rep every 10 sec…did that for 2 min./arm

D- Seated row to neck with rope in the same fashion 3 min.

E- planks  2 x 75 sec…then did 1 set of dead bug 1 leg raise

That was it and actually VERY good for a deload training. I managed to train with moderately heavy weights without getting burned out…and worked on my deadlift form in the meantime. DL’s rating for this training is 10/10!!

Out.

Saturday – TB deload

A1- alternate reverse lunges with 20s 2 x 20

A2- DB bench 50s 2 x 15

A3- 1leg RDL 30, 35 2 x 10/leg

A4- Seated rowing with double D handles 2 x 15

A5- Pulley pushdowns 2 x 15

A6- Overhead shrugs 2 x 15

A7- DB dorsi flexions 2 x 15

A8- Prone internal rotations 2 x 15/arm

B1- Ab rollout 3 x 8

B2- 1 leg raise 3x

B3- McGill’s crunch 3 x

C1- zottman’s curls 2x

C2- wrist roller 2x

C3- BB 2 fingers hook jold 2 x

C4- hand grippers with collar 2x

Tuesday – TB

I’ m due for a LONGGG deload phase and maybe a week off; I’m totally burned out…with all the stresses of the job, the HUGE intensity of my trainings ’cause of beta-al, and the shit.

Warm up with jump rope 30/30 for 5 min.

A- Squat up to 1 rep with 295…it was so hard!

B1- 1 leg squat off box with 10lbs  3 x 6/leg

B2- Pull ups  3 x 8

C1- GHR on 45 degrees back extension…that sucks pretty much btw  3 x 12

C2- Seated cleans  3 x 12

That’s it, I was really not feeling it for GPP…so f*ck it!!!

Sunday – TB

A- Hang snatch  65 x 3, 75 x 3, 85 x 3, 95 x 3…good speed

B1- 1 leg DBs bulgarian squat  3 x 6/leg  35s…easy

B2- DB bench  85s x 6, 90s x 2 x 6

C1- Reverse face pulls  2 x 12

C2- Ab rollout  2 x 8

GPP-  BB complex: RDL x 6, bent over row x 6, front squat x 6, push press x 6, back squat x 6…..me you pace with Mat for 10 minutes with 95lbs BB.

Thursday – TB

Had a real big day 2day…still managed to get a little training in, so here it is:

A-  Speed bench  135 x 4, 165 x 3, 205 x 2, 245 x 1

GPP- 1a. RDL+bentover row with 115  x 30 sec., then 30 sec. rest, then 1b. jump pull x 30 sec. and rest again for 30 sec. before going back to 1a.  Did this for 10 straight minutes.

That was it and it took me 25 minutes.  Good enough for me. Beta alanine is working real good; this GPP combo would have been freakin hard normally, but I managed to do it for 10 minutes and didn’t even had a hard time finishing it up.