Exodus Strength

1.5BW Bench isn’t far off.

Nice work!

Congrats, @PatrickDB!

Nice bench! It's good to see progress!

Thanks, everyone!

Nice job, dude! You never post on IG so it’s hard to keep track.

@PatrickDB, you still training?

@KarlM, I am! Things have been a little rough lately (food, sleep, what are these?), but check out this 325 pull from last Friday. It felt like I had 340 (double bodyweight) but alas, I had backoff triples to do.

Nice!

Yeah, those were nice. Especially considering how long your back lever looks.

You still alive, brother?

I was curious if you've done research into "deep practice". I read a book recently called When Violence is the Answer by Tim Larkin and he talked a lot about the benefit of slow training to master mechanics and myelinate the proper motor programs (this was in the context of martial arts/self-defense training). He referenced two books that discussed deep practice in more depth: The Talent Code by Daniel Coyle and Deep Work by Cal Newport. I started reading Coyle's book yesterday and it's been quite interesting. Are you familiar with either work?

The reason I ask is that it reminds me somewhat of interleaving (in the sense that it provides error detection). I've been playing around with tempo work in my warm-ups recently, and while it's still early, I feel like I've had improvements in my form (particularly on squat). I thought it was interesting that Mike Tuchscherer is a fan of tempo work as well (though it was in the context of injury prevention [which, as I'm thinking about it, could still be related to form improvement] - viewtopic.php?p=84901#p84901).

Anyway, just curious to hear your thoughts. Hope training (and life) are going well.

MattNeilsen wrote: ↑Sat Jun 02, 2018 3:21 pm You still alive, brother?

Yes. I've read the Cal Newport book and while I don't know of any relevant research, I think everything Newport says (both in that book and his other ones) is spot-on.

I stopped lifting and watching what I eat in September to focus on school. It was probably a suboptimal and lazy decision, but I got a lot done academically, so I don't necessarily regret it. (Let the record show that I hit a 355 pull w/ straps, over double bodyweight, before I stopped.)

Anyway, I'm trying a more moderate approach. My gym is closer now (only ~30 minutes away) so lifting is less of time commitment. I started back up again about a week ago, weighing all of 147 lbs. Doing a few sets of 6 front squats at 95 pounds crippled me with soreness for ~5 days. People asked if I had some serious illness, but no, I just forgot to eat.

So I'm making friends with the barbell and whey protein again, and when I have numbers that aren't entirely embarrassing I might post a log.

PatrickDB wrote: ↑Fri Jan 25, 2019 10:00 am

MattNeilsen wrote: ↑Sat Jun 02, 2018 3:21 pm You still alive, brother?

Yes. I've read the Cal Newport book and while I don't know of any relevant research, I think everything Newport says (both in that book and his other ones) is spot-on.

I stopped lifting and watching what I eat in September to focus on school. It was probably a suboptimal and lazy decision, but I got a lot done academically, so I don't necessarily regret it. (Let the record show that I hit a 355 pull w/ straps, over double bodyweight, before I stopped.)

Anyway, I'm trying a more moderate approach. My gym is closer now (only ~30 minutes away) so lifting is less of time commitment. I started back up again about a week ago, weighing all of 147 lbs. Doing a few sets of 6 front squats at 95 pounds crippled me with soreness for ~5 days. People asked if I had some serious illness, but no, I just forgot to eat.

So I'm making friends with the barbell and whey protein again, and when I have numbers that aren't entirely embarrassing I might post a log.

Nice to have you back!

I'm training 3 days week, doing mostly sets of 6, and drinking a half-gallon of Fairlife chocolate milk every day.

I have basically zero quad strength and high bar back squatting is wrecking me. Still doesn't feel smooth.

Gaining water/glycogen weight rapidly.

More updates forthcoming.

Front Squats/Press/RDLs/Push-ups/Chins today. Doing overhead squats with a dowel or towel on my off days and for warmup is helping me hit depth on my actual squats without much fuss. Quads still abysmal.

Squatted in my sneakers today because I appear to have lost my lifting shoes. I may have left them at the gym on Friday and maybe someone put them somewhere—I didn't look too hard today because I thought I just left them at home, but nope. In any case they were a half-size too large, so I ordered new ones on Amazon to hedge my bets.

Friday's bodyweight was 153, today's was 151 (basically on an empty stomach).

Welcome back, Patrick. The barbell always waits patiently for you. Be conservative, take your time to re-establish good eating habits.

Thanks Kyle.

Still lifting. Front squats feeling better today. Shoes that fit right are very nice.

@MattNeilsen The new Cal Newport book Digital Minimalism is good, too. Similar topic, different take.

I missed Friday, Monday, and Wednesday due to travel. Now I have a massive sinus infection and tomorrow is doubtful. Also, weight was basically stable since my last post, so I need to up calories a bit. It appears the gain was indeed just water weight.

I realize this sounds a little dismal, but I am happy to be lifting again. With consistency things will sort themselves out.

@Hanley, what's your current preferred flavor of novice program? I was doing an A/B thing where A was Bench/HBBS/DL + chins + pushups, and B was Press/FS/RDL + chins + pushups, and the main lifts were in sets of 6. But something tells me that in the short term I should stick with just one kind of squat (let's say high bar) and switch the RDLs for DLs. (So DLs every session.) I believe I'm very limited by familiarity with the motor patterns at the moment. (Don't think too hard. I'll miss a few more days in March because I'll be out of town again, so optimizations won't mean anything...)