Haven’t squatted on a Friday Night for a few weeks, for some reason I love squatting at this time (I know, pretty sad) – a nice way to finish the working week.
Squats felt OK after a couple of weeks off, my plan going forward is to try and add an extra rep(s) next week as opposed to increasing the weight.
Threw in some front squats at the end, I really can’t get to grips with these. I have tried cross arms, clean grip and using straps on the bar but they all feel shit. The least shit is the arms crossed method, the major issue is that when the bar is feeling solid and stable it is choking me, so I let go of it a bit and the next thing it feels like it is going to roll off?
As usual with this, the weight isn’t the issue but keeping the bar on my shoulders is. I really want to try and figure this out, so will be doing a few sets at the end of each session.
Little rant – WTF is wrong with people. Some fucker let their dog shit all over my front lawn. I just don’t understand what is going through the owner’s head – not the dogs fault. I do not condone violence but there should be a new law passed that allows you to beat the shit out of the owner if you catch them allowing their dogs to do this (any implements/weapons allowed).
Squats – parallel
20kg x 8
60kg x 8
80kg x 5
100kg x 5
120kg x 3
140kg x 3 (belt)
160kg x 6 (belt)
Pause Squats – paused at the bottom for a count of 3, below parallel
140kg x 3, 3
Front squats – buried ATG
60kg x 8
80kg x 3
90kg x 2 – bar sliding off shoulders
RDL’s – 10kg plates for greater ROM
60kg x 5
80kg x 5
100kg x 5
130kg x 7
Cable leg curls – one leg at a time
Not sure of weight x 12, 20, 20
Standing cable rope crunches
1/2 stack x 12
Full stack x 15, 15
Spent the last five and half days resting up and eating a shit load of junk and also a stack of “healthy” foods too, which equates to a tonne of calories consumed. This included a few chocolate Easter eggs, I’m not even a big chocolate fan, I just ate them coz they were there. The only exercise I’ve done is a couple of long walks which is what I needed.
Hit up some bench, doing the 5 x 5 still and banged out 4 sets of 5. I wasn’t 100% sure of getting set 5, so dropped the weight and done some reps instead. Going after the 5 sets on Sunday and this should prime me nicely for it.
On the negative my left elbow is jacked up, all the rows apart from the rope rows hurt like hell. I really don’t want this to get any worse so am dropping anything that makes it hurts until it is healed up.
Also WFT is it with partial reps on the bench press, I know I’ve said this a few times before but I was training mid afternoon (day off work) and all the college students etc were in the gym. Most of them were doing a partial bench, lowering it about 3 inches before pressing it back up? The pinnacle was a couple of clowns doing DB bench and one of them was lowering them just a couple of inches??? Surely one the reasons you use dumbbells is to get a big stretch at the bottom and use a full range of motion. Too many ego’s in the gym wanting to handle weights they aren’t strong enough to using a full range of motion, so they end of doing this bastardized short range of motion bullshit. The worrying thing is that these kids are the future and not one the them were bench pressing properly – how difficult is it to bench using a full range of motion!!!
Bench
20kg x 12
60kg x 8
80kg x 8
100kg x 5
127.5kg x 5, 5, 5, 5
100kg x 12 (1st and last rep, paused on chest)
DB Rows
30kg x 12
50kg x 20 – left elbow really hurt on these
Cable Rows
50kg x 12
80kg x 8 – left elbow too sore to continue
60kg x 12 – as above
Cable rope rows
25kg x 12
35kg x 15 – these didn’t hurt my elbow
Wasn’t feeling great today – everything felt slow and heavy, not sure if I am coming down with kids cold/coughs (hope not).
Basically just “punched the clock” as they say and done a bit of everything. My left elbow is also flaring up with some kind of tendinitis and was killing me on the pulldowns.
The plan now is to take a good few days off and rest up. On resuming, I will lay off the close grip benching for a few weeks as I am pretty certain this is what set off my elbow – really don’t want it to get any worse.
Reverse barbell curl
20kg x 15
DB Curls
12.5kg x 15, 13, 13, 15
DB Hammer Curls
12.5kg x 15, 13, 13, 15
* worked curls in between sets of close grip’s
Close grip bench – 2 fingers of each hand on the smooth part of bar
20kg x 15
60kg x 10
80kg x 6
100kg x 6
120kg x 8*, 6
100kg x 11
*1 assisted rep, spotter was over overenthusiastic - I am pretty certain I could have ground up that 8th rep without any help
Standing strict military press
60kg x 10, 8
Leg press
100kg x 10
150kg x 6
200kg x 6
250kg x 6
370kg x 10
Hammer pulldowns
2 plates per side x 10
3 plates per side x 12
Behind the neck pulldowns
55kg x 10
70kg x 12
Curl grip pulldowns
70kg x 12
* Left elbow was killing me throughout these pulldowns
Asthma has been getting the better of me in the last week or two, probably due to the weather getting warmer. Hopefully my breathing will settle down soon but will probably up my meds in the meantime, which sucks balls seeing I have got by on minimal dosages in recent months and even stopped taking them for a while.
What this meant was I had real trouble catching my breath today, which extended the session from a planned 40-45mins to an hour. Apart from this everything else went well.
Below are my total poundages done today:
Rows – 8000kg / 17,600lbs
Bench – 5105kg / 11,232lbs
Total 13,105kg / 28,831lbs
This was an increase of 1610kg from last weeks figures (11,495kg/25,289lbs), so all is good on this front.
Benched an easy 5 x 5 at 125kg with no spotter, so next week I want to go for 3 sets of 5 reps at 127.5kg. The problem is the rowing and asthma combo, at the moment the asthma f*cks me badly on these. If I can get my breathing better by next week, then I should be able to get 4 sets of 18/19 reps.
DB rows
30kg x 15
50kg x 17, 17, 17, 20 (wanted to finish strong)
Worked these rows in between sets of pressing below
Bench
20kg x 12
60kg x 10
80kg x 8
100kg x 5
125kg x 5, 5, 5, 5, 5
Had my son’s 1 month celebration (a week late) today, it is a Chinese thang and traditionally a celebration meal was had when a baby made it to a month, as back in da day there was high mortality rate. We had a family gathering at one of the nicer Chinese buffets – 16 of us in total but ironically none of my side of the family could make it, which meant I was the only Chinese person there (not including my kids who are mixed race – half Chinese, half caucasian). Not eaten any Chinese fast food for a while, so the initial MSG, salt and sugar hit was overwhelming. Managed to polish off 5 plates and by the end of it, my tongue had that familiar feeling of being blasted by boat load of MSG. Awesome stuff, can’t beat a good Chinese buffet and even better my missus’ dad AKA granddad was kind enough to pay for it all!
Obviously I used my vast buffet experience to load up on protein, avoiding anything green and more importantly carbs – what f*cking divvy bloats themselves up on carbs in a buffet – I never understood that? Hopefully I don’t get biten with an almighty gout attack from eating all the stuff I shouldn’t do, to offset this I have been drinking a load of water throughout the day. My secret weapon is a litre of water with the juice of 1 lemon and 500mg of Magnesium before bed, be prepared to have to go to the toilet multiple times during the night though.
My missus had won a voucher to hire a bouncy castle in the pre-school Xmas raffle, so we used that today to keep the kids entertained afterwards. I was really surprised no one was sick from bouncing around after lunch – my eldest son had two plates of puddings! I still remember the first buffet I went to which was in Hong Kong, I was 11 years old and I thought I had gone to heaven, I seriously couldn’t stop eating and as soon as we got home I threw up on the sofa – ha, ha and I didn’t even have a bouncy castle as an excuse – just plain old pigsy-ing.
Had the day off work and squatted right after breakfast and was feeling nauseous and a bit asthmatic, so decided to do some heavier weight instead. Also my little back tweak of last week still hasn’t fully gone away so decided to belt up for the first time since the 26th December.
It felt really weird wearing a belt for the first time in just over 3 months but at the same time everything felt a lot tighter as expected. I would say it felt damn good to belt up and squatting is so much EASIER!!
Didn’t go mad on the weight but went up to 160kg for a pretty easy set of 5 reps. I then dropped the weight to 145kg, rested 3 mins and done 9 reps, breathing got a bit hard due to the asthma but the weight felt a shed load lighter than going beltless – it’s crazy how much a belt helps even though mine is a pretty cheap belt and not one of those super thick power belts.
The 3 months of beltless squatting has definitely got me stronger and if I continue to reacquaint myself with the belt, then the weight will go up quickly. Now I need to decide whether to go back to using the belt full time or continue beltless? Undecided at the moment but I am leaning to belting up again, what I might do is 3 months of belted squats and then 3 months of beltless squats.
3 mins of stationary bike
Squats – below parallel
20kg x 12
60kg x 8
80kg x 5
100kg x 5
120kg x 3
140kg x 3 (belt)
160kg x 5 (belt)
145kg x 9 (belt)
RDL’s with 10kg plates for greater ROM
60kg x 5
80kg x 5
100kg x 5
120kg x 10
* lower back still sore when locking out
I knew 100% that I could double 142.5kg this week by how 140kg felt last week.
I guessed right and doubled 142.5kg. However this didn’t go up as easy as 140kg did last week, so next week’s 145kg is a bit of an unknown. I know I can get a single for sure but would really like the double, will have to wait and see and really attack it. One thing that might help is if I can find a decent spotter and get them to un-rack the bar for me, so far I have been un-racking the weight myself.
Went after 9 reps with 120kg afterwards but failed dismally, lucky I had a spot for this otherwise I would have stapled myself like a divvy. I was thinking about this afterwards and came to this conclusion, personally I don’t think it is a bad thing being stapled, at least it shows you have balls and are giving 100%. Just make sure there are other people in the gym or you will be well and truly be f*cked, unless that is – you can do the “roll of shame”.
This pretty much burnt me out and I totally forgot to do my pulldowns today.
DB curls
12.5kg x 15, 12, 12, 12, 12, 12
DB Hammer curls
12.5kg x 15, 12, 12, 12, 12, 12
Supersetted the curls above with the pressing below
Close grip bench – 2 fingers of each hand on the smooth part of bar
20kg x 12
60kg x 8
80kg x 5
100kg x 5
120kg x 3
142.5kg x 2
120kg x 8 (failed on rep 9)
100kg x 8
Strict standing one arm dumbbell press
20kg x 8
35kg x 8 (left arm), 10 (right arm)
27.5kg x 20
Lying DB extensions
22.5kg x 11
Got the week off and the sun has been shining which means BBQ weather and water pistol fights with the kids. Is there anything more tasty than meat or fish cooked over charcoal? Just need to be careful with the carcinogens though, I read somewhere if you marinate your meat then it reduces the levels of carcinogens.
Here is a good recipe by the way, to make even chicken breast taste good (even though I eat it all the time, I usually can’t stand chicken breast).
Butterfly a kilo of chicken breast fillet and marinade (see below) for at least 4 hours in the fridge.
Marinade – juice of a fresh lemon, grate 2 garlic cloves, 3 tablespoons of olive oil, teaspoon of chilli flakes, grated lemon zest.
After it has been marinated - cook over the charcoal (make sure there is a covering of white dust over the coals before cooking), be careful not to overcook, as the fillets are butter-flied it will cook quicker. Season with salt after cooking and serve with rice and salad – I’m telling you it’s the nuts!
I serve with 2 sauces – encona west indian chilli sauce and a garlic creme fraiche sauce. To make the garlic sauce, combine a tub of cream fraiche (preferably full fat, half fat sucks ass) with half the juice of lemon, 2 grated garlic cloves and salt to taste – awesome!
Not a massive fan of gas barbecues, might as well grill the meat indoors or the sin of sins – George Foreman it up. Charcoal gives the food an awesome authentic smoky flavour.
