Grizzly Adam's Montana Method Log

[GrizzlyAdam]

AMBW: 332.8
Outside temp: 28 degrees
Duration: 80 mins

Deadlift: 135x5, 225x3, 315x1, 365x1, (belt/straps) 405x1@6, 425x1@7, (hook grip) 445x1@8, (straps) 405x1x3, 365x3, 335x5 (90 seconds rest)

-E1RM = 481
-I didn’t have tape for my thumbs, so I’d decided just to use straps. But then I talked myself into pulling the top single with a hook, and I’m glad I did. It hurt a bit, but not for long.



Squat: 135x5, 225x3, 255x3x4 (90 seconds rest)

-Way too easy. I’d meant to do 60 seconds rest and just forgot.

DB Hammer Curlz: 35x10x2

[GrizzlyAdam]

Got in a quick training session this morning before heading to the airport (going south for a few days to visit family).

AMBW: 332.2
Outside temp: 23 degrees
Duration: 32 minutes

Press: 45x5x2, 95x5, 115x3, 135x2, (belt) 155x1@6, 165x1@8 (got forward), 170x1@7.25, 155x1x5, 135x3,5 (1 min rest)

[GrizzlyAdam]

Not feeling great today. I was in South Carolina over the weekend, and I had barbecue, beer, and biscuits from the moment I landed until I left to come home. It was delicious, and I am paying for it now. Bodyweight was way up and I feel bloated, plus I had some terrible reflux last night. Ah well. We live, and maybe we learn?

Training session in the garage, 8:40-9:50pm.
Outside temp: 40 degrees
AMBW: 338.0

Squat: 45x5x2, 135x5, 225x3, 275x1, (belt) 315x1@6, 330x1@7.25, 340x1@8.25, 315x2@9, 275x3@7, 255x5@easy

-The double with 315 was stupid. I could have done it for a triple @8 before the top single, but after that single, everything changes. I know this, so I'd planned two singles at 315. But I got greedy, and I paid for it a little. My knees felt kind of inflamed, and I had to take a longer rest before the 275 triple (about 3 minutes - everything else was with 90 seconds rest).



Deadlift (no belt): 335x3x5 (60 seconds rest)

-Hook grip for set 1, straps for 2-5. All easy.

DB Hammer Curls: 35's x10,10,8 (60 seconds rest)

[slowmotion]

Not feeling great today. I was in South Carolina over the weekend, and I had barbecue, beer, and biscuits from the moment I landed until I left to come home. It was delicious, and I am paying for it now. Bodyweight was way up and I feel bloated, plus I had some terrible reflux last night. Ah well. We live, and maybe we learn?

You should have passed on the biscuits.

Training session in the garage, 8:40-9:50pm.
Outside temp: 40 degrees
AMBW: 338.0

Squat: 45x5x2, 135x5, 225x3, 275x1, (belt) 315x1@6, 330x1@7.25, 340x1@8.25, 315x2@9, 275x3@7, 255x5@easy

-The double with 315 was stupid. I could have done it for a triple @8 before the top single, but after that single, everything changes. I know this, so I'd planned two singles at 315. But I got greedy, and I paid for it a little. My knees felt kind of inflamed, and I had to take a longer rest before the 275 triple (about 3 minutes - everything else was with 90 seconds rest).



Deadlift (no belt): 335x3x5 (60 seconds rest)

-Hook grip for set 1, straps for 2-5. All easy.

DB Hammer Curls: 35's x10,10,8 (60 seconds rest)

Nice work. Especially with those really short rest times between sets.

[GrizzlyAdam]

You should have passed on the biscuits.

Nice work. Especially with those really short rest times between sets.

Thanks, Jan! I think you are right about the biscuits.

[GrizzlyAdam]

AMBW: 336.4
Outside temp: 48 degrees (loving this warm spell!)
Duration: 80 minutes


Bench (1 ct pause):
45x10x2, 135x5, 185x3, 225x2, (belt/wraps) 240x1@6, 252.5x1@7.25, 265x1@8.5, 195x4x6 (90 seconds rest)

-E1RM = 281
-Tonnage = 5437.5




Press:
135x3, (belt/wraps) 150x3x4 (3 mins rest)

-Tonnage = 2205




Pendlay Rows:
185x8x3 (90 seconds rest)

[Wilhelm]

Looking again, i think maybe you have a little better angle than i thought. But you can evaluate that.
Closer to 90 degrees is less favorable.
My post may still have some value. Dunno for sure. : )


@GrizzlyAdam I'm just going to repeat what @Skid commented on on my bench.
It looks like you could touch lower.
Hard to tell from the angle, but it looks like probably your elbows are pretty well flared at the bottom.
If you touch lower, your ROM will also be less since you'll be hitting more on the high point of your arch.

But my understanding is the most important part relates more to shoulder joint health long term.
Touching lower puts your arms at an angle to your body closer to 45 degrees, and protects from the ill effects of being near 90 degrees at the bottom.
My arms still don't get to 45 degrees, and i don't know that that is a magic number anyway, but fully flared at the bottome is to be avoided.
"tucking" can be overdone too though, and just touching at the right spot puts you in a good position more or less by default.
The tucking cue, or "protect your armpits" for lat tightness, is a detail i haven't had much time to work on/explore as i'm just trying to get the basics down still.

I'm sure i could be missing other key points relating to this, but it's what i've taken away from the advice i recieved.

I think the general idea also involve the elbows flaring out as you press, so they stay under the bar as the movement progresses.
That happens naturally as far as i can tell.

Hope this is useful for at least looking into.
You want to keep those shoulders healthy.

[GrizzlyAdam]

@GrizzlyAdam I'm just going to repeat what @Skid commented on on my bench.
It looks like you could touch lower.
Hard to tell from the angle, but it looks like probably your elbows are pretty well flared at the bottom.
If you touch lower, your ROM will also be less since you'll be hitting more on the high point of your arch.

You want to keep those shoulders healthy.

This is really helpful. I looked at several bench videos, and my elbows seem to be around 70-75 degrees at the bottom, then shoot out close to 90 on the ascent. I've actually tried to "tuck" more in the past, and couldn't get it to work. But I never thought about lowering the touch point. That might fix it without me having to consciously change the angle. I'll experiment.

[GrizzlyAdam]

Forgot to weigh this morning, but I've been good about sticking to my macros this week. Hopefully I've undone the damage from my barbecue binge last weekend. I'm floating along without a set program right now, but I'm playing around with incorporating some of the HPS stuff into a four day split. We'll see what happens.

Duration: 9-10:30pm
Outside Temp: 27 degrees

Deadlift: 135x5, 225x3, 315x1, 365x1, (belt) 405x1@6, 425x1@7.5, (straps) 425x1@7, 380x3x4 @6-7

-E1RM: 480
Tonnage: 5815



Squat: 135x4, 225x4, (belt) 255x4x5*

-Tonnage: 5100*
*I lost count. Could have been 4x4. Could have been 4x6. Need to pay better attention.

Curls: 35's x10,10

[GrizzlyAdam]

My Mr Heater Big Buddy shut off early in this session when my propane tank ran out. So I rushed through a bunch of upper body volume and got out of there.

AMBW: 331.2 (progress!)
Duration: 9:30-10:40pm
Outside temp: 30 degrees

Press: 165x1@7, 172.5x1@7.75, 152.5x3 @8, 135x5x2, 135x4x3 (2 mins rest)

TNG Bench: 195x5x6 (90 seconds rest)

Banded pull-ups: (blue & green bands) x3,4,3,3

[GrizzlyAdam]

So, I get forward on my squats. It's a recurring thing. Usually not a major issue, but kind of always present. Last night, I started out pretty well and worked up to 350x1 at around RPE 7. That's very good for me, but on video I saw I was right at parallel. Decided to redo it, since I was feeling strong anyway. The second time I ended up way forward on my toes. Part of the ascent felt like I was doing calf raises. It still wasn't more than an 8.5 or so, but threw my mechanics off for the rest of the session. Even doing backoffs at 260, I kept tipping forward, and my knees started to hurt. For the last two sets I did triples with a very slow descent. That seemed to help, but it's frustrating because multiple 5's at that weight should be really easy. I ended up taking over an hour for a squat session that shouldn't have been nearly that long. I decided to push deadlifts to Tuesday since it was already late, and just finished with some band-assisted chins.

AMBW: 329.1
Outside temp: 39 degrees
Duration: 9:15-10:35pm

Squat: 45x5x2, 135x5, 225x3, 275x1, (belt) 315x1@6, 335x1@7, 350x1@7 (to parallel), 350x1@8.5 (to depth, but way forward), 260x5x2, 260x4, 260x3x2

E1RM: 380
Tonnage: 6550



Banded chin-ups: blue & green bands x4x4

[GrizzlyAdam]

Quick and easy upper body session tonight. In and out in an hour.

AMBW: 328.4
Duration: 9:30-10:30pm
Outside temp: 27 degrees

Bench (1 ct pause): 225x3x5 (2 mins rest) - Tonnage = 3375

Press: 140x4x4 (2 mins rest) - Tonnage = 2240

Hammer Curls: 35’s x10x3

[GrizzlyAdam]

Got in a bit of squatting last night, and while I was still getting forward on some reps, it was much better.

AMBW: 329.8 (probably time to lower my calories again )
Outside temp: 39 degrees (hoodie for my warmups, then lifted in a t-shirt!)
Duration: 7:35-8:10pm

Squat: 305x3x4 (tonnage=3660)



Banded pull-ups: blue & green x4,4,4,6

[GrizzlyAdam]

First day of Hanley programming for the HPS experiment!

HPS Week 1 - Hypertrophy Day

AMBW: 330.1 (Super Bowl party last night)
Outside temp: 27 degrees
Duration: 80 minutes

Bench: 200x5x3, 200x4x4 (all below @6) - 90 secs rest

CGBP: 170x16

Squat: (belt) 260x5x3 (@6,7,7), 260x4x3 (@6,7,7) - 3 mins rest

Deadlift: (hook first set, then straps) 340x3x5 (all below @6) - 2 mins rest

[slowmotion]

It'll be interesting to see how you will progress on the Hanley program.

And those deads

Deadlift: 135x5, 225x3, 315x1, 365x1, (belt) 405x1@6, 425x1@7.5, (straps) 425x1@7, 380x3x4 @6-7

looked really smooth!

[GrizzlyAdam]

It'll be interesting to see how you will progress on the Hanley program.

And those deads looked really smooth!

Thanks, Jan! Deads have been feeling pretty good. I'm hoping this new programming will help squat and bench join the party.

[GrizzlyAdam]

HPS Week 1 - Power Day

AMBW: n/a
Outside temp: 37 degrees
Duration: 90 minutes

Bench: 170x5, 200x4, 225x2 @5ish, 240x1x2 @6,6.5



Squat: 230x5, 260x4, 305x2 @7, 325x1 @7.5



Deadlift: 290x3, 340x2x2, 390x2 @5.5, 410x1 @6.5



Bro block: Superset of presses (125 lbs) and mgil rows (70 lbs) - 7 rounds in 12 minutes

[GrizzlyAdam]

HPS Week 1 - Strength Day

AMBW: 327.4
Outside temp: 32 degrees
Duration: 1 hour 50 minutes

Bench Press: 225x3x5 (2 mins rest), 200x4x3 (1 min rest) - all @5-6, but my triceps were toast by the end

Squat: 305x3x4 (3 mins rest) @6,7,7,7 - I do better with squat reps if I think of them as singles. As in, focus on making each rep move fast, then fully reset before the next. Obvious, I know, but when I start "thinking ahead" my form gets sloppy.

Deadlift: 390x2x3, 390x1x4 (2 mins rest, hook grip for first double and first single, straps for the rest) - everything was around @6.5 or so. Started feeling heavy toward the end, but still moved pretty fast.

Bro block: Dumbbell presses (50 lb db's) alternated with mgil rows (75 lb db's) - 4 rounds (3 reps each) in 5 minutes. Had to cut it there because I was out of time.

[GrizzlyAdam]

Site's back - time to log!

HPS Week 2 - Hypertrophy

AMBW: 328.0
Outside temp: 33 degrees
Duration: 90 minutes

Bench: 240x1 @6.5; 210x5x3, 210x4x4 (90 secs rest) - all @6

CGBP: 180x13

Squat: 265x5x3 @6.5, 7, 7.5; 265x4x3 @6.5, 6.5, 6.5 (3min rests)

Deadlift: 350x3x5 (2 mins rest) -all under @6



Two of my three solar lights went out within fifteen minutes of starting the workout, but the third somehow held on the rest of the time. Video is super dark, but I'm going to try YouTube's lighting enhancement feature and see how that does.

[GrizzlyAdam]

HPS Week 2 - Power Day

Power day is fun.

AMBW: 327.0
Outside temp: 49 degrees (didn't even turn the heater on!)
Duration: 80 minutes

Bench: 170x5, 200x4, 230x2, 240x1x2 @5.5, 250x1 @6.5 (2 mins rest)



Squat: 235x3, 265x2, 310x1 @5.5, 330x1 @6.5 (3 mins rest)



Deadlift: (all hook grip) 300x3, 340x2, 390x2 @6.5, 415x1 @6.25, 450x1 @7.5-8 (3 mins rest)



Bro block: Press (127.5 lbs) and mgil rows (75 lb DB)