DCR - Can you believe how much I am in heaven?

[Renascent]

Kreator / Endless Pain

*nods*

[DCR]

5/28/23

Squats 45,135,205x10 240x8 255x6 272.5x4 240x9
Bench Press 45,135,165x10 192.5x8 210x6 220x4 235x2 210x6
Press 130 x3s x4r

Session notes:

That was all that I could handle. If I’m gonna want to do any assistance work (and I am, having been turned way back onto it by that Phillips program), doing two main movements in a session on this progression isn’t at all sustainable. I’m gonna rethink this into a three day thing, which will jive with the good advice that folks here have provided in the past few weeks. The mental block, which I will overcome, is the idea that frequency is king for a natural lifter, which did work very well… until it didn’t, and I kept bashing my face against the same walls for the past two years.

Metal rec of the day: Krallice / Crystalline Exhaustion. Finally showed up on Spotify a year later, along with its follow up (but not the new one released earlier this month). Krallice may be my favorite metal band, and the turn from their dissonant/mathcore-y mid period to the hellish atmospherics that began on Demonic Wealth has been very welcome to these ears. The entirely unexpected Burzum-isms on this one are even more so - this is really good stuff and inarguably the black metal that they’d left behind for a bit there, but somehow both more advanced and more subtle. (For those who know and may be offended by the Burzum reference, yes I agree that Varg is a human turd who should have been shivved in prison. That said, frustratingly, the first four records are transcendent shit. I wish it wasn’t so.)

[Renascent]

Burzum

I still haven't checked them out -- not because of any particular feelings about Vikernes, but because I just keep forgetting.

I'm seeing the name all over the place, though, so I'll have to give it a listen sometime this week in the office.

[DCR]

Burzum

I still haven't checked them out -- not because of any particular feelings about Vikernes, but because I just keep forgetting.

I'm seeing the name all over the place, though, so I'll have to give it a listen sometime this week in the office.

I spent the past 48 hours down the rabbit hole in an effort to not lead you astray, and fuck I need a shower. It had been a long minute since I’d checked in on Vikernes. I had no idea that he’d ended Burzum years ago, and was unfamiliar with anything that he’d said / written in at least a decade. Having reacclimated myself, and despite knowing all of the old background, I was appalled, which really takes some doing.

I hadn’t put any thought previously into why I’ve never blinked at loving Burzum, when I wouldn’t be caught dead chasing down NSBM generally. Part of it certainly is the lack of ideology in the music (as far as I’ve always known, and it’s entirely unintelligble anyway). The bigger thing, though, is the inextricable link to the most creative scene that metal’s ever birthed (yes, in my view, more so than the California thrash scene and the Florida death metal scene). If you’ve gone down the path of Darkthrone / Emperor / Immortal / Enslaved / Satyricon / Ulver / and other lesser known but related oddities, Burzum is there, beckoning. On the other hand, one has to actively seek out the likes of Grand Belial’s Key (and if one does, one can fuck right off).

I digress.

Fortunately (or not), on the music side, I most definitely am not leading you astray. My main question to myself was whether to recommend that you just check out the masterpieces (Hvis lysett tar oss and Filosofem), or whether in good faith I also could push their forebearers, the self-titled debut (with the Aske EP) and Det som engang var. Confirmed: they are as great in their own right as I had recalled, and you may appreciate their primitive savagery (especially the self-titled) over the later experiments with mood and repetition. This all is essential, intentional early black metal.

[DCR]

5/31/23

Deficit Deadlifts DOH 115x10 135x8 142.5x6 152.5x4 135x10
Barbell Curls 75 x3s x6r
Barbell Rows 140 x3s x6r
Pullups x3s x4r
Jump Rope x141 jumps

Session notes:

On the one hand, I was so damn sick of squatting after doing so at every session for years. (Accomplishing nothing!) On the other, this non-squat day that I’ve built in is incredibly unsatisfying. Worse, I’m gonna need to build in another one, because the squat/bench day isn’t sustainable on this progression. Maybe upper/lower would work/feel better? Or upper/lower/carry once that’s no longer funny.

Incidentally, I skipped lifting yesterday because the day before was a “carry” day: furniture and stuffed contractor bags. Was wrecked.

Curls first are killing my rows and pullups, but the main movement must trump.

Metal rec of the day: Burzum / Det Som Engang Var. Where it began to get interesting.

[DCR]

6/2/23

Squats 45,135,205x10 240x8 255x6 272.5x4 290x2 255x4 and there goes my lower back (set was supposed to be 6 minimum, had to rack the bar)

Session notes:

Well that's it. Given past experience with this precise issue, I know that very likely I don't squat anything heavy (by my sad standard) for several months. That's months of progress down the drain, and I'll be another half a year or so down my aging road by the time I'm back. Hate to be such a mope but more and more it looks like I'll never top my 1RM squat from what now was four years ago.

There's a lot to work on. I've posted a few squats here - they look good, mainly for the depth. In reality they are trash. Every break is jerky, never with the sense that both legs and hips are breaking simultaneously or evenly. Foot pressure is all over the fucking place. I rarely remember to stay tall and am hunched / crushed in the hole (which likely is what did this; I've always felt that it was when this happened previously). My abs are never flexed and it feels off / like nothing's happening when I try. I'll have to start over, again, keeping all of this shit together, likely in a very low rep progression along the lines of what @Fossil has been doing with his front squats. Other than that, for lack of anything else fun to do, I'm going to bench three times a week and become a big machine guy.

Fuck.

Metal rec of the day: I can't think of anything angry enough. Maybe Nightbringer's controlled fury. Pick an album.

[augeleven]

Dude that sucks. Embrace the machine life. Get swole af. Squats are for the fall/winter bulking season anyway.

By the way Im really enjoying only squatting once a week, with a second light front squat day. Us olds need time to heal.

[mbasic]

(squat stuff)

Back squats just fucking suck for a lot of people. Don't sweat it.
Fuck squats. There's plenty of other (better) ways to build big/strong legs.

Lately I like lunges, and I liked lunges when I was a kid too.
One leg is nearly doing all the work, but yet your back is really not doing that much.
It will seem wonky at first because of the balance issue, you'll get used to it.

[Renascent]

I figured the next time I posted in your log it'd be about Burzum, but I guess that can wait.

Do you end up doing any sort of rehab stuff during layoffs from heavy squats?

Like augeleven said, I'm becoming more comfortable with the idea of just squatting once a week. I still feel like I should squat more often for progress, but nothing has really panned out well under that mindset. Form seems more consistent with more frequency, but I seem to hold on to leg mass better with unilateral shit anyway, and staying on top of accessories might help maintain some strength.

I guess I'm saying that you might be able to make the most of the machines without having to do too much work to regain anything when you return to heavy barbell squats.

[Zak]

Wow, this sounds like a real drag. Heal up quick.

Definitely echo the low frequency advice. Young or old, strong or weak, I just think it makes the most sense for the most people. Maybe in the minority on this site but my experience is what it is.

Train the lift, let everything heal, come back next week and add a little. No rush.

Good luck man.

[Hardartery]

6/2/23

Squats 45,135,205x10 240x8 255x6 272.5x4 290x2 255x4 and there goes my lower back (set was supposed to be 6 minimum, had to rack the bar)

Session notes:

Well that's it. Given past experience with this precise issue, I know that very likely I don't squat anything heavy (by my sad standard) for several months. That's months of progress down the drain, and I'll be another half a year or so down my aging road by the time I'm back. Hate to be such a mope but more and more it looks like I'll never top my 1RM squat from what now was four years ago.

There's a lot to work on. I've posted a few squats here - they look good, mainly for the depth. In reality they are trash. Every break is jerky, never with the sense that both legs and hips are breaking simultaneously or evenly. Foot pressure is all over the fucking place. I rarely remember to stay tall and am hunched / crushed in the hole (which likely is what did this; I've always felt that it was when this happened previously). My abs are never flexed and it feels off / like nothing's happening when I try. I'll have to start over, again, keeping all of this shit together, likely in a very low rep progression along the lines of what Fossil has been doing with his front squats. Other than that, for lack of anything else fun to do, I'm going to bench three times a week and become a big machine guy.

Fuck.

Metal rec of the day: I can't think of anything angry enough. Maybe Nightbringer's controlled fury. Pick an album.

I read through the last couple of pages of your log to get an overall feel. For a guy with lower back issues I would say your approach is less than optimal. Going heavy/low rep, also no bueno. Not everyone can train low rep high %1RM/RPE with regularity and certainly not without other accessory work related to your weakness (Which is not high volume high bar squats). Find the Glute kick back machine and use it. Do GM's or more RDL's, not extra squat sessions. Do hip activation work. Do those weird feet way out in front of you squats in the Smith Machine with whatever you can handle for sets of 8-10.
Higher reps direct low back work is low risk, fatiguing, and generally constructive in addressing persistent low back issues over time. The weird squat in the Smith machine will alter your form in part by strengthening the muscles that allow you to squat more upright and less squashed. Simply squatting allows your strengths to improve until the weak point cracks under the strain, you simply must focus on the weakness for overall health and improvement. Lunges or Bulgarian Squats wouldn't hurt either. And stay away from most of the machines for a while, they equally let you work the strengths without fixing the weaknesses.

[alek]

That sucks, man. I hope you make a much quicker recovery than you expect.

Now may be a good time to try doing something new with “squats”, whatever they may look like—hack squats, leg press, belt squat, whatever…

[DCR]

That sucks, man. I hope you make a much quicker recovery than you expect.
Now may be a good time to try doing something new with “squats”, whatever they may look like—hack squats, leg press, belt squat, whatever…

Yup. In that regard, recently from your log:

I really can’t say enough about pushing the leg press really hard. It was a great stimulus but not very fatiguing. Yeah, it may have been a little squirrelly to walk sometimes, but systemic fatigue was minimal. And I was recovered well enough in two days to set pr’s.

You’ve really got me thinking about this now. Once I run this squat progression to the point where twice a week isn’t funny anymore, I’m gonna try this, maybe with the hack squat machine. Gotta wander around that side of the new gym and see what they’ve got.

I guess it’s not funny anymore.

Thank you for the advice and good sentiments, and also to @augeleven , @mbasic , @Renascent , @Zak , and @Hardartery . I’m living in a new state where I know no one, and my girlfriend dutifully tried to understand but doesn’t at all, so this is where I got to mope and hope for some good advice. You all had some; it’s just funny (sad) that it mirrors a lot of what was said to me before today.

I figured the next time I posted in your log it'd be about Burzum, but I guess that can wait.

Sentences that I didn’t expect on my 2023 bingo card.

Do you end up doing any sort of rehab stuff during layoffs from heavy squats?

LOL no, I’m an idiot. In the past I tried (and miserably failed) a few times to push through the injury and then gave up and started up again with the empty bar, with no change. The closest that I came to doing anything different was, last time, I started over with front squats, and then moved back to back squats once things seemed reasonably copacetic.

This time, I’m not touching anything lower back related for a week. I have a desperate fantasy that by doing so, I’ll be fine and able to pick right back up next Friday, but chances are slim. Earlier I iced my back on the floor and, if I were even the slightest bit less strong in the upper body, I'd not have been able to get up. Took me nearly five minutes, which is longer than you think when you're on the floor and don't want to be anymore.

Even if the desperate fantasy does surprisingly end up being the case, I’m done with this shit that I've been doing. (Squatting hard twice a week, with deficit deadlifts on the sessions in between, just a chef's kiss of dumb "programming.") Gonna take y’all’s advice, for real. Squat once a week, and broaden my lower body horizons.

I really fucking hate unilateral work, but here we are.

[Renascent]

I really fucking hate unilateral work, but here we are.

I'm certainly no reliable authority on rehab shit, but...

Like mbasic said, I'd look at lunges for the sake of maintenance, and to tease out any imbalances that might possibly be at play. Unilateral shit always feels awkward to me starting out, but the body adapts to it more quickly than one might think.

I like Hardartery's suggestion about viable accessory work for the back: light weight, high reps. Low-risk movements to build up some endurance.

I was also thinking about what alek pointed out regarding the leg press. I'm starting to think one can still build a respectable back squat without actually having to back squat. If I still had a gym membership, I'd take full advantage of the lower body machines available, especially shit that works the legs in the transverse plane.

[mbasic]

Balance wise, lunges get better set by set in the workout, and week by week as you get stronger.
I like walking lunges for quad focus, as it seem you shift the weight to the front leg, and push the body up.
Where as stationary lunges, where you step out in front, and the step back to where you were standing is more of an ass thing.

Your ass will be terribly sore, I would do them every leg workout to some degree or another (at least one or two sets, or lighter weight)
to keep the DOMS at bay.

When I hurt my back years ago, stepups were another alternative. In my case, it seems these things (lunges, stepups, etc) would barely use your back a bit to provide a form of active rehab also.

[DCR]

This morning it took me five minutes to get out to the point of being sat up with legs over the side of the bed, trying to stand, and another five minutes before I actually could stand and not fall back. Scary, but, once I got up and moving - started right off with a neighborhood walk - it became clear that there was a marked improvement over yesterday. Have had a good number of brutal, stop in my tracks and take a minute to breath twinges, and decided anything in the gym would be a bad idea (I could bench, but getting up would be an issue), but my outlook is positive.

Having a plan helps, and that plan starts with lunges per @mbasic’s and @Renascent’s suggestions. The stumbling block here is that any kind of forward lunge fucks my knees fast - part of why I squatted so damn much is that, my unimpressive numbers aside, they feel great on my knees and always have been a great thigh builder for me. I’m gonna have to go with reverse lunges or a split squat variation.

As for non-barbell squat bilateral stuff, there was a great leg press at this gym I trained at a few years back, in which each leg was on its own track. It was incredible how hard it was both to push generally, but also finding out just how unbalanced I was. If my current gym has such a thing (I don’t know because I’m new and haven’t explored that room at all), I’ll be all over it, along with those Smith machine squats that @Hardartery suggested. If not, I’ll prioritize the Smith, with a “normal” leg press for further assistance.

In order to keep moving both yesterday and today, I’ve done a bunch of air squats, concentrating on keeping as tall as possible. Interesting: doing so significantly cuts my depth, with hams fully taught. Leaves me about two inches below parallel, which is probably half a foot higher than my usual squat.

[cgeorg]

Air squats and general fold-in-half motions (use your hands to walk up and down a wall/bed/chair whatever to support as needed) always help me recover more quickly from those things. IME, don't be afraid to lightly weight squats (goblet with a dumbell or whatever, even empty bar) after a few days.

Lounging for a while with the lower back rounded in extension usually makes for a pretty rough standing up.

[DCR]

goblet squats

My favorite squat, for rehab or anything else except bragging rights.

[DCR]

As much better today as yesterday was over the prior day when it happened, so moving in the right direction. I’ve continued to do a lot of air squats, and a ton of walking. Also crediting the amount of beer that I drank today. I’ll be back in the gym tomorrow for some benching and my first foray into light lower body accessory work.

Funny thing, Bromley put up a lower back focused video the very day that I fucked myself up:



He says this…

Simply squatting allows your strengths to improve until the weak point cracks under the strain, you simply must focus on the weakness for overall health and improvement.

… in about twenty different ways, especially when discussing reverse hypers.

Got it.

[DCR]

6/5/23

Bench Press 45,135,165x10 192.5x8 210x6 220x4 235x2 247.5x1 220x6
Pullups x3,3,4,4
Squats 45 x3s x5r
Step Ups BW x3s x10r each side
RDLs 45 x3s x5r
Roman Chair Leg Raises x3s x10r

Session notes:

Back was bad this morning, but got back in the gym anyway. I should’ve had more of a specific idea of a rehab split and of what to do before I rolled in, because I spent an awful lot of time just looking around and considering options. Started with finishing the bench wave I’d been on, to begin on a satisfying note. @Zak, question - I noticed that you bench as infrequently as you squat. Did that work for you in building your strength, or if it merely your current approach because bench strength isn’t particularly useful in strongman so you’re sorta maintaining? I ask because unlike with squats (and deads) where higher frequency may be questionable, more frequent benching really does make a big difference for me, or at least did up to a point. @Renascent, interested in your thoughts here as well as I believe you’re also a once a week bencher, albeit with some significant overhead work in between.

Anyway, from there,

- I made it a point throughout the session to emphasize abdominals and to avoid the spinal extension / APT in which I’ve done nearly every movement since… well, since ever, other than a few brief and failed experiments with retraining myself to neutral spine/hips. This time I need to succeed. I started with pullups, which seemed the best way to get some back work in a few sets after the days off, and performed them with legs just slightly forward to engage the abs and avoid my usual extension/gut protruding forward.

- Moved on to restarting squats, using Alex Bromley’s bracing cue of flexing quads, then glutes, and abs, locking the ribs down, and then descending. I have tried this before over the years (he’s very far from the only dude to push it, in contradiction to the slight extension / push your abs out crew) and always abandoned it, but today I insisted. I found it extremely difficult to figure out how to initiate the movement from this braced position at the top, my knees initially were not pleased, and it cut my usual depth - always a source of pride for me (dumb, I guess) - by probably 8-10 inches. Here’s me and my double chin giving it my best:



Internal awkardness aside, I think those look… pretty damn good and probably far better than my usual Donald Duck squats?

- Took @mbasic’s step ups recommendation and was glad that I did. Good thigh pump and zero lower back stress.

- Started RDLs from scratch, with the same bracing as for squats. That resulted in a much shorter ROM, but felt the hams well and my back didn’t hurt, so fine.

- Ended with sightly bent leg raises (not knee raises) in one of those fucking awful Roman chairs where the thing is angled back like 30 degrees, maybe more, presumably so that one can get a huge ROM but which really just forces one’s back into a giant arch. I actively shoved my lower back flat against the pad, which meant doing partial reps, with which I was fine. My abs are stunningly weak, will continue these and other direct movements until they’re not.

Metal rec of the day: Allfather/And All Will Be Desolation