SSD: Still not respectable

[stuffedsuperdud]

Squats today:
45lb x 10
135x10
225x8
315x5 RPE 6 or so...optimistic
335x5
355x5
365x5 RPE 8? Some discomfort in the meaty part of my low back but nothing major
325x5 backoff tempo squats no issues

My PT has me pushing the squat harder nowadays to try to get it back to respectable levels. So far so good....? Maybe I'll get back to teh four-playt club?

[stuffedsuperdud]

Some recent lifty things:

Squat: Got again to 365lb x5, RPE 7-8 or so. Motion feeling better as right knee function improves.

Press: Up to 80kg x4 and 83kg x 3

Bench:
45lb x 10
135x10
185x6
195x5
205x5
215x5
225x5x2 LOLOLOL 2-playt club. Now I can try out for JV football.

[stuffedsuperdud]

Press:
20kg x a lot
40x10
50x8
60x6
70x5x2
80x4.5....just couldn't get that last rep

Row:
20kg x 20
40x10
50x10
70x8
80x5
90x5
95x5

Deadlift:
70kg x 10
90x8
110x6
140x5
150x5
160x5
170x5 RPE maybe 9...

[stuffedsuperdud]

Back....

I had to take an accidental deload because I was called out of town for a week to join two sales guys for a gander through LA, and then we had corporate shenanigans for another week, mostly involving us being forced to stay on the clock until ~1AM, giving face to visiting customers as well as our distributors in Europe and Asia Pacific. A lot of booze was involved for both weeks.

Here's what I remember consuming
Guinness x1
Rye old fashioned x4
Manhattan x1
Sazerac x1
Shot of mezcal x2 for some drunk's birthday
Jack and coke x2
Anchor steam x1
Some tiki mess that was mostly vodka x1
Rusty nail x2
Laphroaig neat x1
Jameson and ginger x2 ($21 a pop at Oakland Arena...fuck that shit)
Revolver x1 (old fashioned derivative from Bourbon & Branch)
Some craft IPA x3
Taj Mahal lager x2
Goose Island IPA x1
Vodka soda x1
Gross bourbon soda thing from a dive bar x1
Mystery drink x2 (made at one of those faux-speakeasies where you tell the bartender with the handlebar moustache and penny farthing what it is you like...I'm not much for social media trash but these drinks, made by a dorky girl dressed like Helen Keller, were delicious.)

Needless to say, I was bloated or hung over basically the entire time. Our guests all had a good time so there's that I guess.

A lot of these came from a series of gay bars (Wasn't my idea but according to one of the flaming sales guys, I am "a strong ally, and kind of gay-adjacent" so I'm down). Touched a lot of dongs and had a lot of guys touch mine and....welp as much as I'd like to be unconventional, not even the hottest guy in the room did anything for me when as I stood there cupping his sweaty balls through his translucent banana hammock. My coworkers suggested optimistically that maybe I should try blowing him to get into it more but alas, one look at two hot girls making out on the street outside
mostly confirmed what we all already knew.


Anyhoo I tried lifting today expecting the worst but survived warmups. I then did (supersetted):

Press:
20kg x 20
40x10
50x8
60x6
70x5
75x5
80x6 I think this is some sort of rep PR?
80x4

Bent row:
20kg x 20
40x10
50x10
60x10
70x8
80x6
90x5
95x5

So we're not licked yet.

[stuffedsuperdud]

The other day was no fluke. I am now able to bench 225 for easy fahves like a proper high school student. Also been riding the Airdyne a lot and eating less because I've been joking about COVID saving me from having to take my shirt off these last two summers, but the borrowed time seems to be up very soon.

[stuffedsuperdud]

Press (cleaned):
20kg x a lot
40x10
50x8
60x6
70x5
80x6,5

Bent row:
20x20
40x10
50x10
60x10
70x8
80x5
90x5
95x5
100x5

Tempo deadlift:
90x10
110x10
130x10

Bench:
45lb x 20
135x10
185x8
195x5
205x5
215x5
225x5
230x5
240x3 Rep PR
245x1 lifetime 1RM PR

Well, call them pseudo PRs in that bench was by far my weakest lift because I trained it the least. I've been hitting it harder recently to hang with the bros at the PL gym I am at these days, and lo and behold it's going up. I am also able to hit a better bottom position and come out of the hole stronger these days because of the improved elbow function so that's nice. Noob gains after 11 years of barbell training, baby.

[mgil]

PRs are PRs. You’re finally transforming your OHP strength into something laypeople can relate to.

[stuffedsuperdud]

PRs are PRs. You’re finally transforming your OHP strength into something laypeople can relate to.

Heh thanks. We'll see where this goes. Working on that deadlift too, but also struggling with sore low back (in the meaty part to the right, where the spinal erectors transition to the glutes, which I think goes back to an injury from late last year that went untreated. I can power through the discomfort but it does leave me gunshy to go heavy, plus I'm uncomfortable for a few days later. Tried to push it anyway today and did:

Deadlift:
20kg x 20
70x10
110x8
140x5
150x5
160x5 low back uncomfortable starting here
170x5

Backoff slow mo deadlifts:
110x6x2

Mega backoff....uh....not quite a rack pull but the above-knee part of a deadlift:
70kg x20x2 which seemed to clear up the discomfort

[stuffedsuperdud]

Still struggling with my low back but it seems to be responding to my active attempts at cleaning it up. Probably about 9 months too late for Starr protocol though heh...

Good morning:
45lb x 20
135x10
185x10
225x10

Squat:
45x20
135x10
225x10
315x10 RPE...7?
didn't want to be stupid though
225x17. Was going for 20 but Jeezus if breathing squats aren't just the worst. The weight never felt heavy but my legs seized up anyway.

[stuffedsuperdud]

Still here, still benching to see what happens:
3 second pause bench
45lb x 20 (no pause)
135x8
185x3
195x3
205x3
215x3
225x3x2 RPE....7 ish

Talked to some of the PL guys about technique for the first time ever and they made a few pointers about scapular retraction, maintaining tension and cueing myself to push the bench down while pushing the bar up. Basic stuff for anyone who has ever thought actively about benching but new to me, as I've always just wiggled under the bar and gone through the motions in an embarrassed manner.

Airdyne: 2 min hard, 1 easy x 10 intervals. Fuck this thing.

[stuffedsuperdud]

Still here:
Squat:
45lb x 20
135x10
225x10
315x10
325x10
225x20 20RM PR for what that's worth RPE = hard to say with these rep schemes. Felt like I could do this all day but then felt sick after re-racking and did the "no no no no no no I'm fine no no don't think about it..no no...oh it's happening.....bllllleeech" puke that you get when you wake up still drunk. It's fine.

Things are slowly coming back together a little bit.

[stuffedsuperdud]

Did some miscellaneous dumbbell work:

Shoulder circuit (front raise, lat raise, reverse fly) 20lb for 3x10
DB OHP: 50lb DB x10x3
Raised rear leg split squat with 20lb dbs 2x5

[DCR]

225x20 20RM PR for what that's worth RPE = hard to say with these rep schemes. Felt like I could do this all day but then felt sick after re-racking and did the "no no no no no no I'm fine no no don't think about it..no no...oh it's happening.....bllllleeech" puke that you get when you wake up still drunk. It's fine.

This is fucking awesome - the PR, the aftermath, all of it. Congratulations and hope you had a good meal later on.

Separately, wtf is with your bench / press ratio? Please excuse me if it’s addressed already somewhere back in your log.

[stuffedsuperdud]

Today, stuck in a hotel gym, so some dumbbell nonsense:

DB windshield wipers: 30lb x10x3 (elbow rehab)
DB power clean and push press: 50lb x10x3
DB swings: 40lb DB for 2 sets of 50
DB overhead triceps extension: 50lb x12x3
Pushup side planks with 10lb DBs (deconditioned core): 3x5

225x20 20RM PR for what that's worth RPE = hard to say with these rep schemes. Felt like I could do this all day but then felt sick after re-racking and did the "no no no no no no I'm fine no no don't think about it..no no...oh it's happening.....bllllleeech" puke that you get when you wake up still drunk. It's fine.

This is fucking awesome - the PR, the aftermath, all of it. Congratulations and hope you had a good meal later on.

Separately, wtf is with your bench / press ratio? Please excuse me if it’s addressed already somewhere back in your log.

Thanks! Squat has always been proportionally my best lift (I'm one of those weirdos who can squat more than I can dead) so it's kind of fun pushing it in a new way. With these nagging inexplicable injuries / pain points clearing up, training has become more fun again.

Re: the bench, my training / logging has been pretty inconsistent for the past few years due to the demands of my job (long nights with customers + lots of travel), but for a long time I was big into Olympic lifting, where pulling and overhead strength are king and bench press is deprioritized. You might or might not be familiar, but for most O-lifting coaches/programs, even strict press is a bit controversial and programmed on a case by case basis; this is even true for the classic Soviet templates, which we on the softer side of the Iron Curtain consider rather brute strength-oriented. Seems like they do a lot of push press though.

During this time, I liked OHP so coaches generally weren't opposed to me doing it for fun, since the weight that you can OHP is usually lowish compared to your snatch or jerk, so it didn't really affect recovery, so it became relatively strong. Interestingly, my coach when I lived in DC actually did program bench sometimes as an accessory, but I usually skipped it since the bottom position bothered my elbow, and just did more OHP. Well, these past few months, my elbow had recovered some, and being at a PL gym this past year, it was kind of lame being the only guy with a sub 315 bench (heaviest one I've seen here was like 440 raw...yikes), so my PT who has been doing my remedial programming figured it'd be a good change of pace to push it some, and might contribute to my slowly improving elbow, so here we are, trying to drive it up a bit. The iron is hot right now so I'm going to keep pushing it to see where it lands. Not sure what I will do after after I exhaust the noob gains, but for now it's fun.

[DCR]

@stuffedsuperdud, gotcha. Good luck with the benching and enjoy the noob gains. I claimed forever that my favorite lift was the deadlift, but finally resigned myself to the fact that, no, I am a bench bro forever.

[stuffedsuperdud]

Ahhh I'm kind of the opposite, hence never training it much. A lift that you need to lie down and shimmy into an apparatus for just never really appealed to me. I like to tell myself that clean and jerk, that is, hoisting the heaviest weight possible from ground to overhead, is the purest lift, but I don't do it much right now because of my front rack so....no better time to do the things I've been avoiding, right?

Bench!
45lb x10x2
135x10
185x6
205x3
225x3
235x3
240x3
250x1 1RM noob PR
225x3
235x3

Supinated rows:
40kg x8
50x8
60x8
70x8
80x8 RPE.....7? Need to ramp up.

Single leg reverse hyper:
45lb x10x3 each leg

[DCR]

Ahhh I'm kind of the opposite, hence never training it much. A lift that you need to lie down and shimmy into an apparatus for just never really appealed to me.

I grew up in New Jersey. It’s like a genetic predisposition to want to bench.

Bench!
…
250x1 1RM noob PR

Dude, that’s nice. Most folks’ noob bench gains end somewhere south of two plates. It’s going to be very interesting seeing how far you can go and how fast, with your already significant general strength and your strong press as a base/driver.

[stuffedsuperdud]

@DCR thanks! Now, full disclosure, when I ran LP the first time ever, I was, like a lot of noobs, married to 5's coupled with endless resets. I remember I finally petered that one out at 237.5lb for 5,5,4. The reps were all ugly grinders, RPE 10s across, and for the last several weeks of LP I had gnarly tendonitis in my right shoulder. I had gotten into Olympic lifting at that point and quickly lost interest in pushing it any further.

So that's the long way of saying that this isn't a totally clean slate, and my LP ended up higher than average the one time I LP'ed the bench

Recently, in a hotel gym because this is the life I chose

Friday:
DB windshield wipers for elbow: 30lb x10x3
DB power clean + push press: 50lb x10x3
DB shoulder circuit, 20lb x10x3

Saturday:
DB windshield wipers for elbow: 30lb x10x3
DB strict press: 50lbx10x3
DB shoulder circuit, 20lb x10x3
Elevated rear leg split squat: 35lb DBs. Really relearning how to load that right quad smoothly. What a mess it turned into hahaha but we're on our way back up.

[stuffedsuperdud]

Funzors:
Squat:
45lb x10x2 to wake up the right quad
135x10
225x10
315x6
335x3
355x3
375x3,4 => was hoping for 5 or 6 on the last set but lost the tension on the way up on rep 4 and leaned forward instead, with my back rounding/stretching. Racked the weight and quit while I was still winning.

235x20 20RM PR on account of never having tried it before

^The fun backoff set. Took a dose of Haribo 15 minutes before to mitigate any metabolic unhappiness and did the reps in clusters of 3-4. No discomfort at the end and ready for 245 next week.

[stuffedsuperdud]

I was on a work trip in San Diego this week that was pretty obnoxiously disruptive for training but I won't complain because San Diego is my favorite American city / metro area by far. Mostly I was just drunk* during the down time because when in the beer capital of the world..... I did manage to get to the hotel gym and did the usual DB nonsense:

DB shoulder circuit
DB raised rear leg split squat
DB OHP supersetted with DB rows
DB power clean and push press as conditioning
etc. etc.

*This time around I discovered Amplified Ale Works in Pacific Beach and gleefully drowned myself in their Nyctophobia (quite possibly my new favorite imperial stout ever...sorry Bourbon County...) and Phase Shifter. 10/10 would drink both again. Highly recommended.