[Mdawg]

Weird session today. My elbow was still sore before lifting but felt a lot better after benching - weird.

Bench: 50,60,70,80,92.5 x 5. PB I've been working on using leg drive during the last few weeks and this flew up, very pleased.

Deadlifts: 150 x 1, 160 x 1. Got a rugby match tomorrow so I thought a heavy set of 5 would be a bad idea. Went for some medium - heavy singles instead, thought these were pretty good. No idea why I'm shaking a bit on the 160 though.





Rollouts.

Stretching / foam rolling.

[Motorbiker]

(Original post by Mdawg)
Weird session today. My elbow was still sore before lifting but felt a lot better after benching - weird.

Bench: 50,60,70,80,92.5 x 5. PB I've been working on using leg drive during the last few weeks and this flew up, very pleased.

Nice PB.
Thought i would come check out your blog as i do occasionally read it but have never commented.

Will be interesting to see your bench progress over the next few weeks on Madcows...

It looks like a fairly decent program tbh the more i look at it. Will just have to leave my ego at the door and drop the weights for a few weeks like you did when you dropped back to 85 from 92.5. Good luck.

[Mdawg]

(Original post by MHorman)
Nice PB.
Thought i would come check out your blog as i do occasionally read it but have never commented.

Will be interesting to see your bench progress over the next few weeks on Madcows...

It looks like a fairly decent program tbh the more i look at it. Will just have to leave my ego at the door and drop the weights for a few weeks like you did when you dropped back to 85 from 92.5. Good luck.

Thanks, I'm hoping to hit around 100x5 in the first progress phase. Although going to have to see how this elbow thing pans out...

[Motorbiker]

(Original post by Mdawg)
Thanks, I'm hoping to hit around 100x5 in the first progress phase. Although going to have to see how this elbow thing pans out...

Yea. Although, considering you'd hit 90*3*5 before i was surprised you didin't get 92.5*5 when you first attempted it. Or is it the ramping up of the weights that makes it tough?

[Mdawg]

(Original post by MHorman)
Yea. Although, considering you'd hit 90*3*5 before i was surprised you didin't get 92.5*5 when you first attempted it. Or is it the ramping up of the weights that makes it tough?

Yeh it's probably because I wasn't used to ramping at all. A previous warmup for 90 * 5 probably would have been:

bar * 10 * 2.
40*5
60*3
80*1

[Tango189]

(Original post by Mdawg)
Yeh it's probably because I wasn't used to ramping at all. A previous warmup for 90 * 5 probably would have been:

bar * 10 * 2.
40*5
60*3
80*1

What would you say is good for a 100*1?

[Mdawg]

(Original post by Tango189)
What would you say is good for a 100*1?

Same as before but add in a single of 90.

Anyway had a rugby match + probably an hour of cycling in total today. Squats tomorrow going to be interesting, that is if my elbow is up to it.

[Mdawg]

So it turns out I managed to roll my sprained ankle during rugby, kind of meh because I'm not sure how long this will put me out of running / squatting for. It doesn't feel anywhere near as bad as last time though and I tried some bodyweight squats today which felt ok.

Went for a light session as I was feeling really stiff from yesterday:

Press 60kg x 5,5,5. Tried these belted, felt good.

Rows 60kg x 5. 70kg x 5,5.

[Mdawg]

26/02:

Decent-ish session today.

Bench 50,60,70,82.5 x 5.
95 x 3. All very easy, but forgot my backoff set again!

Deadlifts 147.5kg x 4F. Couple of things going on here. Firstly the bar kept rolling around which meant I was taking too long positioning the dam thing between reps. It was also starting to slip a bit which means I'm probably coming to the end of the line with my trusty double overhand grip. Plan for this is to learn mixed grip with back off sets and continue DOH until it feels less weird to do mixed, then switch and get a second wind of progress!

Face pulls.

Foam rolling.

[Tango189]

I tried and got 100kg today on bench which is a PR by 5kg since Thursday's 95kg by doing 20x8, 40x5, 100x1 which felt easy so did a single on 102.5kg then some backoff sets on 90 and 80kg, guess I don't need much of a warm up though I did some incline benching after

[Mdawg]

(Original post by Tango189)
I tried and got 100kg today on bench which is a PR by 5kg since Thursday's 95kg by doing 20x8, 40x5, 100x1 which felt easy so did a single on 102.5kg then some backoff sets on 90 and 80kg, guess I don't need much of a warm up though I did some incline benching after

I guess warming up is just an individual thing. Congratz on the 2 plate bench, feels awesome when you first get it!

[The Blind Monk]

(Original post by Mdawg)
Deadlifts 147.5kg x 4F. Couple of things going on here. Firstly the bar kept rolling around which meant I was taking too long positioning the dam thing between reps. It was also starting to slip a bit which means I'm probably coming to the end of the line with my trusty double overhand grip. Plan for this is to learn mixed grip with back off sets and continue DOH until it feels less weird to do mixed, then switch and get a second wind of progress!

Just try doing a mixed grip on your warmups. Most people find that it's pretty natural/easy to switch over. You should be much stronger instantly from using a mixed grip. Most people are because the mixed grip stops the bar rolling/allows you to hold more. I would struggle to pull 3 plates DoH but can rep it mixed for example.

[Mdawg]

(Original post by The Blind Monk)
Just try doing a mixed grip on your warmups. Most people find that it's pretty natural/easy to switch over. You should be much stronger instantly from using a mixed grip. Most people are because the mixed grip stops the bar rolling/allows you to hold more. I would struggle to pull 3 plates DoH but can rep it mixed for example.

I'll try and explain the issue I'm having with it. I'm going right hand under and I feel like when I take my normal stance, the right hand has to go wider than when I'm using DOH in order to feel comfortable. Hands being wider is inoptimal as you have to pull with worse leverage I believe? I end up focusing on my right arm position too much and I'm concerned that it may distract me from pulling technique. It's unfortunately something that's not easy to video, but I'll try and get one up of my next session and use mixed grip then.

[The Blind Monk]

Your supinated hand is always going to be wider. It feels pretty natural to me. Just try it for all of your working sets. There is definitely a lot of carryover for most people from using a mixed grip. Stopping the bar rolling in your hands more than cancels out the miniscule leverage difference between the double overhand grip and the mixed grip. If you're a crazy ****ed (preferably with big hands) you could always try hook gripping the bar?

[Mdawg]

(Original post by The Blind Monk)
Your supinated hand is always going to be wider. It feels pretty natural to me. Just try it for all of your working sets. There is definitely a lot of carryover for most people from using a mixed grip. Stopping the bar rolling in your hands more than cancels out the miniscule leverage difference between the double overhand grip and the mixed grip. If you're a crazy ****ed (preferably with big hands) you could always try hook gripping the bar?

I am definitely going to switch to mixed, was just hoping that I could get it feeling less awkward before trying work sets with it. So it's ok for me to move my supinated hand wider than my pronated, or should they both be the same width and wider than when I take a DOH grip?

[The Blind Monk]

Your supinated hand will be slightly wider than your pronated hand. That's normal and fine.

[Mdawg]

Alright thanks for the advice, I'll get a video up asap.

[Tango189]

(Original post by Mdawg)
I guess warming up is just an individual thing. Congratz on the 2 plate bench, feels awesome when you first get it!

Thanks mang, had a very nervous walk to the gym as I only managed to get 95kg last week for a single and I had quite a crowd watching the first set on 100kg. I'll try 105kg next time so we have equal 1RMs so we can have a good race to increase the bench by 15kg to 120kg, if I get it that is

[Mdawg]

(Original post by Tango189)
Thanks mang, had a very nervous walk to the gym as I only managed to get 95kg last week for a single and I had quite a crowd watching the first set on 100kg. I'll try 105kg next time so we have equal 1RMs so we can have a good race to increase the bench by 15kg to 120kg, if I get it that is

Sounds good, but if I hit 100x5 in 2 or 3 weeks then I'm going to take a crack at 120 then!

[Mdawg]

Surprisingly good today consider I've slept pretty badly the last two days. The ol' 200mg of caffein pre workout when you dont sleep really does the trick.

Strict Press: 70kg x 5,5,5. PB Really happy with this, was expecting to not get 1 set of 5 and have to do a reset. Belt may have made the difference, they felt really easy.



Rows 80kg x 5,5,5.

Squats: 100kg x 5,5,5 Took these light today as I haven't squatted properly in 10 days due to my ankle / elbow. They were easy but my form was poor, a lot of buttwink. It feels like every time I take any sort of break from squatting I need to almost re-learn good form when I come back.

I think I'm going to start pressing only once a week and at the end of the session. I enjoy it and it's obviously going well but at the end of the day it's not a main lift and I need to focus on my bench / squat quite a bit more.