Post your workout from yesterday.

[jwdb1fish]

Well, after struggling to keep up with Whitebird and his wife three months ago, I set out to get back into tip top shape by my 44th bday. Goal was to be able to bench 405 for two reps, and equivalent strength levels across the board.

I hadn't put anything on the bench over 250 along the way for my chest workouts and focused on getting higher and higher with my reps while never putting less than 225 on the bar either.

Today I threw some weight on to check my progress-

This pyramid up was all pause reps-

225 x 2
250 x 2
275 x 2
300 x 2
325 x 2
350 x 2
375 x 2

Then a quick 2min rest before a set of 225 to failure with no pauses-

225 x 19

I kept my back flat on the bench the whole time. I think if I played with my grip and pulled it in an inch along with arching my back I could at least get that 405 for one rep.

The next week and a half I'll hit chest twice in a similar low rep/heavy weight approach and try and hit that goal on my birthday coming up on march 12th.


Everything is right about that level across the board, but legs are admittedly lagging. No skipping leg day here, and I can squat more than I can bench by a mile, but I need to step it up.

Only cardio I'm hitting is a one mile run 3x/wk.

Overall I'm not doing too bad for a grandpa

[Scooby24]

Damn son, you're looking at over 400 max. That's fan-fucking-tastic for someone from the stone ages.

[shaun y]

good work man. i really hope i can rep 405 on bench before i rep 700 on deadlift

long arm problems

[jwdb1fish]

Originally Posted by Scooby24

Damn son, you're looking at over 400 max. That's fan-fucking-tastic for someone from the stone ages.

I ain't no spring chick


I feel like I'm in the last couple of years that my body is going to accept heavy lifting, but between my kids and the people I workout with my mind doesn't want to accept that fact.

After being impressed with how far Albatross has come along, I wanted to give it another go of climbing that mountain.

I should have plenty of years left with high rep/medium weight training like I have been doing, but sometimes ego gets into the way and it's hard to not crank it back up until I learn the hard way that I should have listened to my body.

Enjoy your 30s while you have them, and thank you!

Originally Posted by shaun y

good work man. i really hope i can rep 405 on bench before i rep 700 on deadlift

long arm problems

List of shit I'll never do in my lifetime-

1. Deadlift 700 pounds.

[DanenGraham]

400# bench... Jesus, thats awesome JW.


My progress, or lack there of over the last 4-6 months has been disheartening to say the least. Sprained my ankle about 3 weeks ago and took a break from legs. Just now getting back to doing squats/DL and feel like now is a good time to change up everything. Did the 5/3/1 for 4 months and max strength is still about the same if not less than when I started. I'm guessing if I stuck with it a year I would probably see some progress, but its really slow.

What I didn't like about 5/3/1, is only working the main lifts one time a week heavy. I was doing 5x10 on Bench/OHP/Squats at 50-60% as an accessory, but feel like OHP is the only thing that was benefiting from that much volume.

My sleep schedule and getting enough sleep is my failing point I think. I can only sleep for about 3 hrs at a time and stay up way to late now that I'm back on second shift. I max benched 215 probably 6 months ago, failed 205 recently. So something is majorly wrong. All my lifts feel slow and weak and have been that way for months.

[jwdb1fish]

Originally Posted by DanenGraham

400# bench... Jesus, thats awesome JW.


My progress, or lack there of over the last 4-6 months has been disheartening to say the least. Sprained my ankle about 3 weeks ago and took a break from legs. Just now getting back to doing squats/DL and feel like now is a good time to change up everything. Did the 5/3/1 for 4 months and max strength is still about the same if not less than when I started. I'm guessing if I stuck with it a year I would probably see some progress, but its really slow.

What I didn't like about 5/3/1, is only working the main lifts one time a week heavy. I was doing 5x10 on Bench/OHP/Squats at 50-60% as an accessory, but feel like OHP is the only thing that was benefiting from that much volume.

My sleep schedule and getting enough sleep is my failing point I think. I can only sleep for about 3 hrs at a time and stay up way to late now that I'm back on second shift. I max benched 215 probably 6 months ago, failed 205 recently. So something is majorly wrong. All my lifts feel slow and weak and have been that way for months.

Thanks Danen!

But I haven't hit 400 yet. I've plateaued over the years a few times and adding 30# to a lift might as well have been adding a ton of bricks

I have some rest/timing issues too with the nature of my job, and some good planning can help to offset that challenge.

Since you didn't list it as a problem, I'll assume you are eating enough to get stronger

[DanenGraham]

I feel like my eating/diet is still decently good. 4-5 meals a day around 3000cal, try to hit 200g protein every day with my two small shakes included. I have been maintaining right around 192-197 bw for 6 months now. Don't want to gain anymore bw unless my lifts go way up and I can justify being over 200. I'm just to weak to weight that much IMO. I would be happy where I'm at if I was 150-160 bw range with same lift totals.

I hate to make excuses for my lack of progress, but feel lack of sleep has to be the main thing. Otherwise I'm just not doing enough or trying hard enough.

[sebaz]

6am jiu jitsu open rolling, 8x 5minute rounds with 45 second rests

6pm teach kids BJJ (kind of a 50 minute warmup for the adults class )
7pm warmup/ drill for 1 hour, then 6x 5 minute rounds of live rolling with 45 second rests

[jwdb1fish]

Update-

I was working in Greenville, SC for a little over a week and just flew back Sunday, which was my birthday. No gym, just an all in one machine at the hotel.

I went for the 405 Monday when I got back and failed. Got it 4" off my chest and it stuck. The douche canoe spotting me just let it stick and then start to come back down and I had to tell him to fucking help.



This new breed of gym bitch clogging up the weight room is a joke, but it was my only option. I felt a shoulder twinge and called it a day without finishing the workout.

I'm adjusting my approach. Going to work with 300# for reps until I can get 11 clean ones and then go for the 405 again. I went back after it today and the shoulder was fine.

I got 8 reps with the 300#, with a nudge from my spotter on the eighth rep.

Gimme 3-4 weeks and I'll try and hit the goal again!

[shaun y]

I couldn't bench 405 until I hit 315 for like a dozen or so

[shaun y]

https://www.instagram.com/p/BSUig4oj38H/

aiming for low 700s at my meet in KC on 4/29

[shaun y]

https://www.instagram.com/p/BSmgRXpj6Pq/

finally 700 on deadlift

[shaun y]

https://www.instagram.com/p/BTh3Mf1lFKW/

Had a pretty decent meet at Impact Gym in KCMO on Saturday. Got to meet Sylva who was there for his first ever meet. I ended up winning my weight class by a hundred pounds but I feel like I still got a lot left in the tank. I totaled 1752 but I'm pretty sure I got 1900 in me in the next year or so.

[jwdb1fish]

Nice!

[DanenGraham]

Felt good today. I was supposed to do 305 3x5 squats. Went for a new max instead as its been about 8 months of zero progress/poor sleep. Loaded up 350 and got it. I have no idea how low I got, but my form held up okay. Speed was decent too with no hard pauses or slow downs. I will probably reset and drop back down to 270 and see if I can get up to 315/320 for 3x5 over the next month or so. Previous best was 335 last year.

I also pulled 410 DL a few weeks ago. My grip strength seemed a little better as I was able to hold the bar at lock out, where when I did 405 the bar started coming out as soon as I locked it out.

Bench and OHP still suck and are about the same.


EDIT: I also changed back to first shift at work and have been sleeping better the last month.

[Diamond Star]

Random stuff over last few weeks.

Diet, sleep, and physical labor have been all over the place with our recent home purchase.

Squats - not all in one session
325 and 365 x 15 one session
225 x 15, 20, 25 couple weeks after

Banded leg press - high reps
3-7 pps x 25 reps plus drops.

Sldl
365 x 10
405 x 8

Pressing numbers
DB shoulder - 105's x 15 x 3
Incline - 125's x 20

Arms - lagging
Calves - still that of a 12 year old

[jwdb1fish]

All alone at an empty gym today, so I just did a bunch of light weight and high rep sets. Here's 225 x 17. I would have went for a couple more had there been a spotter-





Video URL: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z6w1-vQ1WPM




Would have liked to have hit 20. Meh...

[shaun y]

way to go man! high reps are hard if you never train volume like that. you could easily hit twenty if you trained that for a couple more weeks

[DanenGraham]

So JWs 225x17 got me wanting to try and max out and hit 225 again. Just went down to the gym at work, warm up felt good, hit 205 easy that I failed 3 months ago. So was pumped up. Slapped 225 on, asked for a spot, went down pretty fast, tried not to bounce it off my chest but I'm sure I did at least a little. And pushed it up without any hard pauses or stops.

I have been wanting to hit 225 for like a year now, so I'm super happy about this. My previous max was 215 and I did that at least 6 months ago.

In the last 2/3 months after I failed that 205. I went back to a LP program with my mico 1.25 plates, and started at 150 3x5 twice week adding 2.5 every time. Got up to 187.5 for 3x5. I then added another day for 3x a week, dropped down and started at 150 and working up to 165 3x5 with the last set paused. Doing the same weight all week long, then making a 5# jump so did that for three weeks now.

I would like to keep benching 3 times a week, but I have been sacrificing my OHP day and only hitting some lighter DB seated presses instead as an accessory. So probably just going to go back to the LP with 1.25 plates and just keep resetting if I dont hit 5 reps the last set.

Anyway, pretty weak in the grand scheme of things. But the strongest I have ever been, at least on bench.

Now I got to hit 250

[DanenGraham]

Other lift maxes that I hit a month ago

Squat was at 335, put up 350
DL was 410, pulled 420
Both of those went up without any hard stops or pauses, with no belt. So feeling good about those for now. This was also at a body weight of 200-203

Todays bench max I was at 191-192 body weight. Been cutting the last month, so also happy as I figured all my lifts have dropped.

[BuddyLee]

I pretty much just do HIIT on a regular basis. Frequency depends on how much my 40 yr old joints can take. Some weeks it's every day, others its 3 or 4.

[DanenGraham]

Originally Posted by BuddyLee

I pretty much just do HIIT on a regular basis. Frequency depends on how much my 40 yr old joints can take. Some weeks it's every day, others its 3 or 4.

How has your progress been? I know you were trying to drop the body fat and get more cut up. Getting there? Or beer

[BuddyLee]

Originally Posted by DanenGraham

How has your progress been? I know you were trying to drop the body fat and get more cut up. Getting there? Or beer

I'm not really measuring. I was trying to drop body fat. Getting cut up, well sure that would be great but I don't live that lifestyle.

Simply put, I feel better when I'm working out like this. It really works with my lifestyle. After several months of it I took a couple week break. When I got back into it, it was harder, so clearly I had made and lost progress.

Without strict measurements it's hard to quantify that into numbers. I do know that high protein isn't needed with this kind of workout, so I don't need 1g per lb or anything like that. I've actually worked on upping my daily fiber intake up to about 50g and I think that's the kick my diet needed.

Still a lot of tweaking and such to figure my body out. It doesn't seem to respond very easily to anything but low carb which I don't have any interest in keto or shit like that.

[jwdb1fish]

Great job, Danen!!

Originally Posted by BuddyLee

I pretty much just do HIIT on a regular basis. Frequency depends on how much my 40 yr old joints can take. Some weeks it's every day, others its 3 or 4.

What's wrong with your joints?


Bad genetics???

[BuddyLee]

Originally Posted by jwdb1fish

Great job, Danen!!





What's wrong with your joints?


Bad genetics???

Depends on the workout. There is one in the Insanity series that is pretty much all jumping/leaping/then into squats/the leaping out of squat position/etc shit. The next day my knees fucking hurt.