Saturday, August 18, 2018

Week 6 and 7 and NOT BROKEN

I dropped subtle hints to my awesome wife about a book I wanted and surprise surprise on my birthday what did I get. I've read most of the book a few times since then so I'll kick this one of with a quick book review. 
This book is written by guess who....Jim Wendler of course and is titled 5/3/1/ Forever. Much to my dismay this will never come out in kindle format, paper version only. His latest book and packed with 269 pages of information so this booked is jammed with many different training plans. I would highly suggest if interested in getting this book also purchase one of his earlier books like Beyond 5/3/1. These two books make an ideal combination and give you all the information you need to create programs for yourself. 
The book itself has lots of information but finding it is a pain in the ass. The contents list part 1 - beginning part 2 - training/programming part 3 - conditioning/recovery and that is it. Its not broken down into any further details so if you find a training program you like or something else you best mark the page. Not sure why he did it this way but a mistake in my view. Overall written in plain no holds barred Jim style, which keeps it simple to understand. All the programs have been used and refined by his clients so they work. I have my eyes on a program called 5's Pro Forever, which I'll start into after my next competition in September and blog in more detail later how this one works. As with all his programs nothing fancy and complicated to figure out.
Alright now into week 6 of training. Highlights for me was squat 365 x 3 RPE9, bench 315 x 3 RPE9 and sumo deadlift 455 x 1. Was happy with all my training that week and kept all of my assistance work up. The deadlift I'm basically loading in a wave pattern so this week I even debated not deadlifting at all. In the end I work up to one heavy set for a rep and called it. My hip flexors and a few other parts are starting to take a shit kicking from lifting all this heavy stuff go figure. But my lower back is holding up so all is good :). 
Onto week 7 I took a slightly different approach to my training this week. I eliminated my bench press on Day 1 and just kept it to shoulders and back work. Instead of going with a programmed amount of weight for my top set, I worked my way up to a top set of 3 reps that was at 8 or 9RPE for military press, bench press and squat. I was happy with my military press hit, 165 for 3 reps and 375 for 3 reps in the squat. Bench went slightly backwards from last week but I was pausing all my reps this week which makes a huge difference. Deadlift should have been on the wave up but again my hip flexors etc are feeling beat up still so I did some heavy work with regular stance deadlifts and they actually felt pretty damn good. My top set was 455 x 3 8RPE. Was going to load 495 on the bar but got side tracked with explaining powerlifting to somebody and 15 mins later....I decided to move onto my next exercise which was pin squats. These actually went fantastic. Set the spotting rack so I would hit parallel and worked up to a top set of 365 x 3 RPE8.
I keep it simple and if you want to learn a simple 5 step process for deadlift setup have a look at these two videos, they are pure gold.
My bench press workout this week which is very different from all my other lifting this week and something I do NOT do on a regular basis. I can only handle this type of volume/intensity for short durations of 3 weeks max and 1 workout per week.
Bench Press all paused reps CAT style 225 x 5, 275 x 3, 295 x 3 5 sets total with same weight and reps
Pin Press Bench Press middle position 315 x 1, 335 x 1, 365 x 1
Bench Press static hold top position 405 1 set 10 sec hold.
Train smart gym rats





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