Dylan's Intermediate Training Log

[dylanamus]

Most of you are aleady acquainted with me, but I feel an introduction and summary of events is in order.

Biology

Age: 27
Height: 158cm / 5'2
Weight: 60kg
Body Fat: 14.5%


Training History

Started a mutated version of Strong Lifts December 24 2008 using a dodgy portable bench press and 5 foot standard barbell. Prior to this I had not done any weight training worth mentioning at all, other than some really light Olympic lifting in high school 9 years before. After starting SL, I stuck at it until my back squat reached around 60kg and finally invested in my own power rack and Olympic barbell set. I also created my first ever training log, which has been paramount to my success thus far.

I then started doing SL precisely as prescribed for the next 6 or so months. After that I moved in with my parents temporarily and only had access to my barbell, so I created a custom routine reovlving around power cleans and deadlifts. After 2-3 months on that routine and setting a new PR on deadlift and a body fat peak of 23% I moved onto the 20 Rep Squat program for 10 full workouts spread over around 2 months eating on a calorie deficit to try and undo the fat I had gained. And here I am today with the following reteptoire under my belt:


Current PRs

Squat: 1x20 @ 100kg -- 3x5 @ 127.5kg -- 1RM 150kg
Deadlift: 1x5 @ 130kg -- 1RM 160kg
Bench Press: 3x5 @ 72.5kg -- 1RM 80kg
Overhead Press: 3x5 @ 60kg -- 1RM 70kg
Bent Over Row: 3x5 @ 70kg
Power Clean: 5x3 @ 75kg -- 1RM 80kg
Pushups: 55 in first set - 3x5 @ 32.5kg
Chinups: 22 in first set -- 3x5 @ 15kg
Pullups: 17 in first set -- 3x5 @ 12.5kg


Mid Term Goals as a 1RM

Re-establish old PRs within 2-3 months, while cutting to 12% BF

Squat: 150kg
Deadlift: 160kg
Bench: 80kg
Press: 70kg


Long Term Goals as a 1RM

Hopefully achieve these goals on the Texas Method and see if I can get to 10% BF before needing to bulk to see further progress on lifts.

Squat: 165kg
Deadlift: 180kg
Bench: 90kg
Press: 75kg


The first phase of my Intermediate Training will be starting the Texas Method. I will be continuing to eat under maintenance calories on the Anabolic Diet in the order of around <2000kcal on Volume and Intensity days and <1600kcal on other days.


TEXAS METHOD ROUTINE


OHP WEEK

VOLUME
Squat 5x5
OHP 5x5
Seated DB Press 3x10
BBR 5x5
Weighted Pull-ups 3x5

RECOVERY
Front Squat 3x3
Bench Press 3x3
DB Floor Press 3x10
BBR 3x3

INTENSITY
Squat 1x1/2/3
OHP 1x1/2/3
Deadlift 1x1/2/3

--------------------------------------------------

BENCH WEEK

VOLUME
Squat 5x5
Bench Press 5x5
DB Flys 3x10
BBR 5x5
Weighted Dips 3x5

RECOVERY
Front Squat 3x3
OHP 3x3
Standing DB Press 3x10
BBR 3x3

INTENSITY
Squat 1x1/2/3
Bench Press 1x1/2/3
Deadlift 1x1/2/3

--------------------------------------------------

Thanks again to Medhi for creating Strong Lifts and for providing such an invaluable forum and thanks to everyone who has supported and inspired me on my journey so far. It has been an unforgettable experience and I look forward to hearing from you all on the second stage of my path to getting stronger!

[guru]

Let me be the first one to wish you on this log too.

Good luck with the program & all your goals. With your strength & genes, I'm sure the long term goals will be realised in short term & you'll soon be fishing for new long term goals.

[holvoetn]

Good luck, Dylan.

I am sure this is going to be an interesting journey

[Vlad]

Good luck with the program!

[Sid]

Very impressive numbers at your bodyweight! Good luck with the TM.

[pagangoddess]

The ironslayer moves on to the next challenge. I'm sure you will live up to your nickname in this round as you did the last.

[Kathy]

Ditto what everyone else said. Look forward to reading about your progress on the TM program.

[dylanamus]

BENCH WEEK 1

VOLUME
Squat: 115kg 5,5,5,5,5
Bench Press: 62.5kg 5,5,5,5,5
DB Flys: 10kg 10,10,10
BBR: 60kg 5,5,5,5,5
Dips: 10 close, 10 wide, 10 close grip

I used a timer to ensure every rest was a maximum of 3 minutes.

When I got to 100kg on my squat warmup, I knew I was having a bad day. I felt like a few were hard, after recently managing 20 in a row! 115kg was tough work 5x5 and I did come pretty close to failing. It's going to take me a while to get back into high intensity lifting and it's been half a year since I last did full 5x5 volume and that was a shock at this weight too.

I couldn't get comfortable on bench. It looked like the right side of my chest was sitting lower than my left and the barbell was hitting the right spotter first too. I can't figure it out! Everything is flat! Only got hard towards the last couple.

Kept the flys nice and slow and controlled. Need more weight though.

Rows were text book. No dramas whatsoever.

Being my first real go at dips and having shoulder injury in my past, I decided to play it safe and stay with body weight alone. I could have done more than 10 per set, but decided to cap it off. I will go with 5kg 3x5 close grip next time.



Calories: 2203kcal | Carbs: 14.2g | Fat: 138.9g | Protein: 229g


Thoughts after first workout. My 1RM PRs are looking far off right now! Hopefuly my CNS just needs to be rebooted back to strength training. I can see this getting quite hard on a cutting phase, but I'll man it out until it becomes counter intuitive.

Thanks everyone for your well wishes!

[Vlad]

Good workout!

Re: bench - it could be that you are not retracting one of the shoulders, or maybe stop retracting it at lockout. This could cause what you described. I have a problem that is maybe similar to yours: my left arm seems to be slightly weeker, and with heavy weights, the left side of the barbell sometimes gets higher at lockout. Seems strange that the weeker arm pushes higher, doesn't it? But the reason is that my weeker left shoulder blade loses retraction, and the bar gets higher on the weeker side.

[dylanamus]

BENCH WEEK 1

RECOVERY
Front Squat: 80kg 3,3,3
OHP: 52.5kg 3,3,3
DB Standing Press: 13.5kg 10,10,10
BBR: 60kg 3,3,3

Timer set to 2 minutes between sets + assembly time between exercises.
Total time 40 minutes for TM. Nice.

Tabata Punch-outs/Squats
8 Minutes of 20/20 cycles (OMG)

Weights were good choices. OHP felt heavy (just having a bad day, I guess). I had to improvise with the standing press as I didn't have enough weights. 13.5kg was the max without putting on the massive 5kg Olympic plates. I'd say 15kg per shoulder would be the sweet spot for 10 reps for now anyway! Expecting new DB set this week anyway!



Total workout time from beginning to end (including tabatas) 1 hour. Awesome!

Calories: 1578kcal | Carbs: 20.5g | Fat: 98.7g | Protein: 154.2g

[dylanamus]

Vlad, thanks for your thoughts. I had a closer inspection of the rack, and it is in fact on a lean-to in the direction that supports my experience. It's not the ground, it's just the rack is assembled that way this time, or has twisted to one side since being assembled anyway. I wouldn't be surprised if what you said about the shoulders is happening at the same time though, otherwise, how do I explain my chest looking slanted - it should just be the bar! I'll try and straighten the rack out and pay close attention to my technique next time.

[atypical1]

Hey, I missed this log when you first started it. I really like how methodical you are in your logs (this and the diet ones).

How often do you increase the weight on this program? If weekly do you add it on your volume or intensity day? How did you choose your starting weights?

james

[dylanamus]

Hey James, glad you found my new log. Methodical is a nice way of putting it hehe

The focus of TM is to improve your 1RM, so after setting the first lot of 1RMs the idea is that you should be able to aim for slightly higher the next time around. Volume is supposed to follow suit, but is a bit of a wild card used at your descretion.

The weights I started with were based on 10% less than my old PR 1RMs to accomodate my loss of mass and strength, then around 80% of those weights to get a starting weight. Some lifts I rounded up, some down a bit from those figures. Front squat is just 70% of back squat and dumbbell exercises are just estimates, whereby I want to be able to complete the full 10 reps while getting very close to failure. I may reduce sets to 8 reps to keep increasing weight later down the track.

I will be increasing weights on volume day by 2.5kg each day a lift is repeated, so once a week on squat. Recovery day will follow suit and mimmick volume day at lower reps. If I am finding I am not recovered by Intensity day, I will either lower weight or volume on Volume day or Recovery day. Right now though, I really want to get my Volume lifts back up to where they were. I really do feel quite a bit weaker since not backsquatting at 5RM for mmm 5 months or something - well and losing 10% body weight.

[dylanamus]

BENCH WEEK 1

INTENSITY
Squat: 142.5kg: 60x8, 80x4, 100x3, 120x1, 130x1, 140x1, 145x0, 142.5x1
Bench: 87.5kg: 40x8, 60x5, 70x2, 77.5x1, 82.5x1, 87.5x1, 92.5x0, 90x0
Deadlift: 140kg: 90x5, 120x2, 140x1, 150x0, 145x0

Calories consumed until before workout, 1000kcal. Most recent intake, 250kcal two and a half hours prior. INSUFFICIENT. I started the workout feeling peckish, but not hungry. By bench I was very hungry. By deadlift I was starving and my stomach was growling. Next intensity day, I will eat my main meal as soon as I get home from work and workout 2 hours later at 7:30. I will see how this improves my performance next week.

I had planned on doing some Tabata intervals after this, but I was simply too hungry!

Squat marginally exceeded my expectations. I'm quite pleased with this result and I expect I can beat my PR in a few months.

Bench was a pleasant surprise. Not only did I beat my PR, but I exceeded it by 7.5kg and almost nailed 90kg, which is supposed to be my long term goal.

Deadlift was a disaster. I knew things weren't going to go well when 90kg felt like a major effort. Like I stated above, I had completely ran out of energy by this stage and was struggling to concentrate, let alone recruit maximum strength. I rushed through my warmup, ramping numbers a lot more dramatically than the other lifts - this couldn't have helped either. The 150kg attempt didn't even budge and my back didn't appreciate it. I was hoping 145 would move, but all I could do was get the bar to bend before my back started complaining. Haven't felt like this since since the last time I shot for a 1RM on deadlift about 6 months ago (not including the PR I set 2 months ago). Hopefuly better meal planning and more frequent high intensity attempts will see this improve rapidly.


Thoughts to take away from this workout: 1RM is a unique beast. CNS requires repeat stimulation at high intensity for maximum output. Squats woke my body up and reminded me of what high intensity really is - this should impove my volume sets. Hopefuly once a week high intensity sets are enough to get my DL back up where it should be. If eating changes don't see rapid improvements, I will consider adding DL assistance to volume day.

The next DL and Squat 1RM (in 3 weeks) session should clearly illustrate the difference better planned warmups and eating methods make.


Calories: 2373kcal | Carbs: 23.6g | Fat: 164.2g | Protein: 201.3g

[holvoetn]

Hey, don't beat yourself too much for it.
It looks like you know what went wrong and what you need to do about it.
Just don't make it happen again