[ReTurd]

what do you eat during your average day?

[Mdawg]

I don't really have a good diet, I live in what is essentially catered accomodation at uni. Just tend to aim for 180g protein and enough cals to maintain / slowly bulk.

[Mdawg]

02/03:

Managed to mess up the 2nd finger of my right hand playing rugby the day before, which made benching a bit awkward, so quite happy with today.

Bench: 50,60,70,82.5,95 x 5. 70x8. Still quite fast, no grind.


Deadlift: 147.5kg x 5. Changed to mixed grip, felt quite a bit easier as Monk said it would. No video, will get one for 150kg though and upload.

Face pulls.

Foam rolling / stretching.

[Mdawg]

Finger still giving me some trouble and feeling tired, today was okish:

Bench 50,60,72.5,85 x 5. 97.5x3. 72.5 x 8. This felt messier than it should have done but still not really grindy.

Squats 105kg x 5,5,5. Easy but still butwinking, meh.

Pendlay rows 80kg x 4. 60kg x 5,5. Was just too tired to do these properly.

Stretched / foam rolled.

[Mdawg]

Good-ish today:

Strict Press: 80kg x 1. Just wanted to try this, went up with not too much difficulty.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WBQxDgzMlWM

Deadlifts: 150kg x 5. Quite a lot of form notes to make on this. Firstly I've just switched to mixed grip and although it doesn't feel too awkward I feel like I'm spending too much time messing around with my grip and thus not focusing on general form as much as I used to. Therefore I'm not pulling back as well as I was and this is leading to my hips shooting up, making it basically a SLDL and my back is rounding more. Also although my elbow is naturally slightly bent at lockout, the mixed grip hand is probably not locked out, which is a potential risk of bicep strain.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Rr84...StP38MebxwQg0=

Last but not least my bum is showing

Face pulls

Stretching / foam rolling

[Mdawg]

Good today on the whole:

Bench: 50,60,72.5,85,97.5kg x 5. Still having issues with grip due to finger injury but this wasn't too bad again. 100x5 should be on the cards.

Squats: 110kg x 5,5,5. Not reallly happy with my form, flexibility seems to have taken a nosedive, but this was really easy anyway so I'll keep adding weight.

Pendlay Rows 80kg x 5,5,5. Need to get these video'd again.

Stretching / foam rolling.

I'm going to have a pretty heavy week coming up in terms of drinking so this is my plan to minimise the damage.

Sunday - Bench, deadlift.

Wednesday - Bench, row, squat.

Friday - Press, deadlift.

Going to be drinking very heavy on sunday and thursday with moderate drinking throughout the week most nights. Will be interesting...

[Tango189]

Good work on the bench, I'd say you're way past me now. I'd be happy with 100x5 in three weeks so 120kg is going to be hard to get with good form anytime soon.

[Mdawg]

(Original post by Tango189)
Good work on the bench, I'd say you're way past me now. I'd be happy with 100x5 in three weeks so 120kg is going to be hard to get with good form anytime soon.

What's your best set of 5 thus far?

[Tango189]

(Original post by Mdawg)
What's your best set of 5 thus far?

Like 87.5kg or 90kg lol. I seem to be crap at them. I can get 100kg for singles for a couple of sets now though with good form and back when I was inclining a month ago I got 85kg x5 on that after flat benching. I'll be dropping weight and increasing reps in a couple of weeks to increase volume a bit then go back on 100kg +.

[Mdawg]

(Original post by Tango189)
Like 87.5kg or 90kg lol. I seem to be crap at them. I can get 100kg for singles for a couple of sets now though with good form and back when I was inclining a month ago I got 85kg x5 on that after flat benching. I'll be dropping weight and increasing reps in a couple of weeks to increase volume a bit then go back on 100kg +.

I don't think that's being crap at them at all. I first hit 100 when my bench on SS was about 3x5 of 85 I think. I got to 3x5 of 90 pretty quickly at the end of September, but it's taken me a long time, for a number of reasons, to start making progress again since then.

What program are you on?

[Tango189]

(Original post by Mdawg)
I don't think that's being crap at them at all. I first hit 100 when my bench on SS was about 3x5 of 85 I think. I got to 3x5 of 90 pretty quickly at the end of September, but it's taken me a long time, for a number of reasons, to start making progress again since then.

What program are you on?

Made it myself but I do switch it around quite frequently as long as I get decent volume in for compounds every session, strength, mass and fat loss has been great since September time.

[Mdawg]

Good today, despite meh sleep and no caffeine:

Bench: 50,62.5,75,87.5 x5
100x3
75x8

Deadlift: 152.5kg x 5.

Face pulls.

Benching again on Wednesday.

[Mdawg]

14/03:

Good session, lots of reasons why it could have gone wrong but hit some nice lifts today:

Bench: 50,62.5,75,87.5,100kg x 5 PB



First time I've video'd my bench ever. Things to work on: legs all over the place, bar slightly low on chest, elbows flaring too much on push, negatives too fast.

Squats 115kg x 5,5,5. Fine.

Rows 80kg x 5,5,5. Really not doing well on these atm, might change to chins / pulls.

[Smack]

Nothing wrong with a fast negative. The more time you spend straining under the negative, the less energy you have for the press out. I can get much better power off of my chest if I can reverse a fast eccentric, maybe it's a stretch reflex or something.

[Mdawg]

(Original post by Smack)
Nothing wrong with a fast negative. The more time you spend straining under the negative, the less energy you have for the press out. I can get much better power off of my chest if I can reverse a fast eccentric, maybe it's a stretch reflex or something.

I agree with this when pressing. However when benching, sometimes a fast negative can either mean bouncing off the chest (I don't think I do this) or losing some tightness in the upper back / lats (this is more likely). Both of these obviously aren't too good.

[Mdawg]

Mixed today, had a mild drinking session last night and was feeling slightly lethargic:

Press: 72.5kg x 3,3,3. Fine with this.

Deadlifts: 155kg x 1. Very meh, but I tend to have crap sessions once in a while for no good reason. For example I got 137.5x0 a few weeks ago, but since then I've had a clear run up to 152.5x5. I don't think this is a stall given my 152.5x5 wasn't that hard and I've pulled 160 DOH before. Just got to man up next time and get it done.

Face pulls.

[Mdawg]

Pretty meh today. I'm back at home and forgot how bad the equipment setup generally is. Both power cages are in front of mirrors so it was difficult to squat properly as I couldn't fix my head. The bench press is really bad; the bench isn't wide enough to get my back on properly and it's set up in a way that I can't tuck my feet under.

Bench: 52.5,65,77.5,90x5
102.5kgx2.
77.5x8.

I'm pretty sure this is to do with the setup, none of the sets felt at all good or stable. I'm going to have another go at this and see if I get used to it, otherwise I may not have a choice but to reset. This is a massive shame since I was progressing so well on this at the college gym.

Squat 115kg x 3,3,3.

Chins: BW x 8,8.

[Mdawg]

Disappointed again today, similar story as last time with equipment being somewhat worse than I'm used to. The cage that I pressed with didn't have a setting that was the right height, making setting up properly very difficult. Must use the other one next time.

Press 72.5kg x 3. This was really slow and hard so I left it there.

Deadlift 155kg x 1. Going to reset down to 140.

Face pulls.

[Mdawg]

Bit better today.

Bench 102.5kg x 2. No choice but either do some BB work or reset this. I'm going to go for the latter and hopefully build a little strength over the next few weeks, then get an instant boost when I'm back at uni with decent equipment.

Squat 115kg x 5,5,5.

Pendlay Rows 80kg x 5,5,5.

Decline sit ups

(Original post by Tango189)
...

Looks like you may win this after all bro, I don't see myself being able to bench well again until I'm back at uni in 4 weeks time.

[Mdawg]

I reset both my bench and deadlift today:

Bench 90kg x 5. Still feeling awkward.

Deadlift 140kg x 5. Easy.

Chins x 8,8,6

Face pulls.