Training week of Monday March 24th - Friday the 28th 2014. Week 1 of 7 week cycle 5-3-1

Military monday - Body Weight: 212.0
100 rep curls empty curl bar + warmups
work sets
117x5
135x5
153x5

CAT training
126x3  8 sets

Pull Ups
wide grip 5 sets of 10 trying to to all the way down.

Dips superset with 12 rep 60lb cable bicep curl
bw+45lbs x10 5 sets.

Notes: actually ended up doing last cycles numbers by accident but it was good, because it felt heavy with weight loss, and my form was garbage, luckily I am getting called on this, we will see if I can do this better next week without turning each press into a screwed up back breaking incline press. If that happens then I will drop weight.
    The 100 rep warm ups with the curl bar are to help my biceps, and it really helps them not hurt, I do them on any day they are feeling bad, but no matter what I do them on military and bench day.
    Pull ups - All though they are always miserable, they are slowly getting easier, I dont see why I should do a bunch of lat pulldowns if I cannot even lift myself up and down on a bar for a couple of sets. and they are way tougher.
    Dips - pretty freaking excited with these. I always sucked at them and they used to hurt, but through slow steady progression they are getting stronger. and now I am doing them with a decent amount of weight. Goal of 100lbs at the end of the year would be awesome, we will see! Since I have started getting massage therapy it has helped alot with the ability to do dips, as well as stretching every night before bed.


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Tuesday Deadlifts - Body weight: 210.6 - if drops any more I will increase caloric intake
warmups
work sets
302x5
350x5
395x7

CAT training
325x3  6 sets

GHR
40lbx15  3 sets. these were tough! But got them done. superset with really light back extensions

GHR situp
30lbx10 4 sets.

Notes: Deads were fine, felt a little heavy, but still got them done and they do not seem very slow so we are going good, not to mention we are getting closer and closer to actual max. Unfortunately after my deads my back was feeling pretty beat up. I have been dealing with alot of back problems and they keep going away and coming back. so I did the speed pulls with a belt. Also why I did the really light back extensions, and lower back feels pretty weak. Still need to figure out more about this because I need to find my weakness.

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Thursday Bench day - Body weight: 210.2
100 rep curls empty curl bar + warmups

work sets
175x5
200x5
226x8

Slanger
245x3
275x3 - felt good

CAT training- only did 2 sets but was feeling beat, and we were there forever. so cut

strict bb row
145x10  5 sets

pushups with feet elevated on bench
4 sets of 10  with orange band twisted over neck +chain around neck

walking with sled

Notes: the last 3 reps of my 225 bench were ugly has hell with all kinds of butt raising. not liking feeling weak with the bad back and experimenting form. the Slanger felt awesome, I want to start over loading with it on week 1, 3, 4 and 6. bringing back the barbell rows. doing them strict now.
Pushups were difficult but awesome. getting stronger.
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Friday Squats - Body weight: 209.4
Pre-hab: Make shift reverse hyper. 15 reps for 3 sets. hang from knee raise stand for 4 sets of 30 seconds. 2 trips walking with 25lbs on sled, high knees belt up high near sternum. see video
warmups
work sets
225x5
258x5
295x4+2 form broke down

One leg extensions
40lbsx15-20  3 sets

GHR situp
30lbx10 4 sets.

Pre-hab/rehab. same as beginning of training day.

Back is getting better through this pre-hab/re-hab work. going to start doing it every day I am at the gym. I also have an inversion table coming that will help a lot. Squats were not ideal, I was sitting down not back and still need to work on this form, it is very frustrating, but eventually I will get it down. Alot of struggle but resilience is key.

Rehab work

Weeks training video

Back at it, a deload week. and the New Goals going into these next few months

Back to doing this training log. I have been tracking all my training of coarse, but I have just been super lazy with writing it on here. oh well no excuses, going to start just once a week posting my training for the week and a compilation video of the weeks training instead of separate videos each day

deload week this week.
I pulled 432-ish for 7 on my last heavy week last week, which was the most i had pulled in a while, due to many different things. and I am feeling fine now, but for some reason my back was just not happy afterward, and did not feel that great on friday when I was supposed to squat. Normally, and a few months ago I probably would of said screw it, and squatted through it, but I have learned, taking it easy for a day and hitting it hard again in a week is alot better than hurting myself and not being able to go heavy for a month or maybe even two. Go for broke in a meet, but train to lift another day.
So squat I just did speed work.

this deload week I did everything as usual except on squat and bench day.
I recently received a Sling Shot in the mail, and have been anxious to use it, so I did my super light weight deload, then worked up to 225, and did 10 reps with the sling shot. only a couple were paused but I dont care, it was nice to just bang that out. it was not very hard at all, just the 10 reps made me tired haha.

     Squat day I just put 135 on the bar. I am doing some tweaking with my squat form trying to figure out what works for me still. but it seems promising.

NEW GOALS!!!!!

I came to the realization that I had some un-needed fat. Now I was not the fattest kid on the block, and I think I hid my fattiness pretty well. But especially after my friend did a body fat percentage test on me with those damn calipers that squeeze my tubby stomach I realized I had WAY too much fat.

24.9% body fat I guess. SO some changes are being made. First of all, I am not a body builder and do not plan on ever being one. However, I do not believe we have to be fat to be strong, and I sure as SHIT do not want to be. I am aiming to get down to anywhere between 10-16% body fat, I understand that is a large gap but shit, it'll be practically 10% less than what I am! The goal is slow and steady, I have read about, and it makes sense that you lose weight too fast in an attempt to lose fat and you can give up preciously earned muscle. I will be modeling my new food intake on the Zig Zag diet, not sure if Dr. Squat aka Dr. Fred Hatfield came up with it, or popularized it, I just know I came across it on his website. if you are more interested you can click the "Zig Zag" link. to Sum it up really simply, I will eat at a caloric deficit on days I am not training or just doing cardio, and on days I train I will eat excess calories, with the idea of losing fat on non training days, and gaining/maintaining muscle on training days. The goal is to lose between 1.5-2lbs a week. Honestly I am not aiming to lose weight, and do not really want to, I would rather stay the same weight and look alot leaner, because then that would mean im jacked, but if it were that easy, every person lazier than me (which is pretty damn easy to be) would do it. I am hoping I will not loose too much strength but we will see. It seems with diets, sorry "food intake changes" and "meal plans" you can only trust what works for someone else as a possible outline, but in the end you have to do it yourself and see what works.

SUM IT ALL UP

Ok so new goals I am working towards for lifting:

• Stay Strong and keep getting stronger
• Get leaner (not trying to be a body builder) but you dont have to be fat to be strong and powerful. Chuck V, Matt Kroc, and a TON of powerlifters back in the day were pretty damn jacked.
• Keep up with the Blog, once a week will be easy, that equates not going on facebook for 10 minutes.
• Keep up with mobility as I have been, stretching every night.
• Once I am down to a decent leanness and body fat percentage, I really want to eat some "not so perfect food" once a week. for mainly one meal. my goal is on my last day of each training week, so after squats on friday, just going home and either making some beastly burgers, bomb pizza, or something rewarding. Or seek out an amazing burger like Chris Duffin does. I love the fact that guy seeks out a bomb burger and fries combo each week.