The Forge: Open Gym

10/10/2020

10/08/2020

Warm up and work sets were good. I messed up the weights into the first rd of work sets using using c1/W3 weights. Corrected for second and third sets but that meant i did 71,76,85% of TM. I guess thats good? Speed at 270 felt great. Lots of focus on moving my hips and shoulder up at the same time. Last week I noticed my butt going up first and my back following.
Supp work was a EMOM at 195 which six months ago wouldnt have been in the cards so i’m happy there.
Asst work was with a 7.5 # vest. Probably because it is after the DLs and the Chins but those dips suck. I’m really worried if I continue to increase weight vest it will start impact work lifts so I’ll need to be careful there. I also changed the additional assistance from 10 rds of 5 to 5 rds of 10. This was for expediency but also realized at these weights i’m not strength training, so increase reps for hypertrophy 🤞🏻. I broke on HLR in rds 4 and 5 because my grip was gone.
No conditioning today because deadlifts.
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#531

10/07/2020

Adventures in conditioning:
Stack wood. A f**k ton of wood.

10/05/2020

Kicking off cycle 2 week 1 with back squats. Couple of things have changed here from the first cycle.
- Timing. Squatted first thing this morning which is different than my normal 11am lift. Nutrition and general stiffness may have played factors here.
- Supp Work. Changed from a super set to a 10 min EMOM to focus on the squats.
- Met-Con. Combined the balance of assistance work into a met-con. It was small reps and light weight but I haven't moved consistently like that in a few months so i felt it.
Work sets were slow. There were a few external factors that may have influenced that speed. First thing in the morning training, no real mobility beforehand, general stiffness from a lot of yard work yesterday but in the end, this was mental. I still have a mental block on back that prevents me from stacking on significant weight. Reps were slower than C1W2 lift at 245 #.
Supp sets on the other hand were fast. A 10 min EMOM the first 5 minutes were done in about 20 seconds including rack and prep (thats fast for me). Things started to slow down at the end but I was happy with speed and form.
Assistant work saw the weekly increase in weight vest to 7.5 #, I am adding 2.5 # per week throughout this challenge. I am still able to slip through the pull ups and the dips without breaking and form feels really good so I am happy here. As mentioned above I changed the assistant work form super sets on the supp work to a met-con at the end. It was easy movements at light weight so it should have easy but I felt it. Not in met-con shape. Took just under 10:00, thats a 4 second/rep movement speed which isnt bad, and that weighed by a walk and prep to do HLR.
No conditioning today.
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#531

10/03/2020

#531

09/30/2020

No hill ascents. Take off vest while on airbike. About 28 minutes total. 3 on bike, four on foot.
#531 #

09/29/2020

Back squat bar speed today. Tracking descent as well as ascent on the squat. Previous tracking recorded exceedingly high time for each rep. I realized today that i tracked against a slow-mo video. So this is more reasonable.
Happy 260 was better than 270. I definitely has a mental going into that 270 lift so i’m happy here.

09/28/2020

The volume at these percentages are going to leave a mark. Warm Up and Work sets felt strong. I used imovie to compare each rep from this 260 # attempt to the TM test at 270 #. 260 was faster and more explosive that 270 so I’ll take it. Work set was 95% of TM. Also, something to note, 260 was the third set in June when i first came back from the summer’s leg injury. I put it on my shoulders and couldn't even think about going down so I count this as a win.
Supplemental work was speedy at 215. First rd was rough after the work sets but once everything was oiled up again I was moving fast. Reps 1-3 were fluid, sometimes not even a breath/brace at the top, just up and down. 4 and 5 were harder and towards the end required a bit of rest at the top but the bar speed still felt good.
Assistant work saw a +2.5 # weight increase from last week to 5 #. This is still light for me but I dont want to sacrifice my work and supplemental sets for assistant work. Pull ups and dips were unbroken and speedy. I remain amazed how much this strength training has assisted my control and speed on pull and chin ups. ITs awesome. Barbell curls increase +10 # to 65 #, HLR were easy.
No Conditioning today. I suppose I should start layering in hard conditioning on squat and deadlift days but I cant make the time work and both of those days are scary for me and tend to lead to injury so I dont want to push it. I’ll stick wiht the 4xweek easy conditioning for now.
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09/23/2020

09/19/2020

This was probably a little more than ‘easy’ conditioning. Its basically what I did last Wed but time/distance cut in half ... and more hills. I wanted to increase the stimulus on the walk but having more hill ascents that lead directly to the airbike. The only real recovery was the 100m downhill and even that sucked.
Also, if we’re counting pennies, my driveway/hill is 240m down and back so this ended up closer to a 1.3 mile encumbered walk. I lost the abikity to track any metrics on airbike so, i just went after it, maybe a 6-7/10.

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09/19/2020

Light day on bench press but a whole slew of new stimulus entered the game. Also probably worth mentioning I slept awful last night, up feeling ill till about midnight then toddler kept waking up between 3-4. REM sleep is precious, enjoy it while you have it.
⁣Warm and work sets were pretty easy, super set bench press and KB Rows. I kept going back and forth on the KB row vs the bent-over bb row. Over the summer when i was doing Wednler’s ‘Beefcake Training’ i did BO row’s twice a week and really thought it helped improve my deadlift. It seems for this challenge I am introducing all new stimulus and KB rows were one of them. Did 50 # today and it was ok. I did them very slow to increase time under tension. In the next few weeks, I’ll add weight, maybe 2.5 # per week, get me up to 80 # rows towards the end. Bar speed on the last lift (180 #) felt good too, see video above.
Supplemental work was bench on the minute. 125 # was light and irritatingly 10 # below 135 # so felt like I was in high school again but thats where the math put me so ‘trust the process’ I guess. Also, felt an old bench press injury flare up on my right shoulder about the second set in, really focused on using my chest to push and push through my feet to take load off of shoulder, seems to have worked but a visit to the chiro to get things in line is due next week.
Added single leg romanian deadlifts with the landmine barbell for the ‘single leg/core’ category. I was back on forth on d**g this since it’s not a ‘sanctioned’ movement but my theory is if barbell lunges compliment the squat than SLRDL compliment the deadlift. I took it obscenely light, 50 # between the barbell and the plate but given my history with injury on the deadlift stacked with a new movement on one leg, taking it slow i a better bet.
I had every intention of doing 10 rds of 10 Push ups and 5 face pulls but the aforementioned strain on my shoulder cut that out of the plans.
Conditioning was a 1 mile encumbered walk with a 42 # vest.
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09/17/2020

Deadlifts. Fu***ng Deadlifts. This is the third workout in the 12 week BBS Challenge, the first two were manageable, almost recovery but this volume, on deadlifts. Man. Fu***ng deadlifts. I felt it today.
Warm up and Work sets were a super set of DL/Chins/Dips. I am still doing bodyweight on the gymnastics movements but I think I am going to start layering in weight each week as I progress through BBS. Maybe 2.5 total. That finish BBS with 30 # weighted gymnastics movements which isnt unreasonable, before I started 531 I was regularly doing 20 # weighted chins and dips.
For the supplemental work I was going to superset like I did for Squats but that 5x260 # i felt. Then I was going to do 5x185 # every two minutes but the first set took 15 seconds so i made it an amrap. On a personal note, I am really happy with this. I have a love/hate relationship with deadlifts and I tend to be more cautious around what weights I throw around on DLs. 185 # would have a been a 531 struggle. The fact i am pounding through that weight on an EMOM is encouraging.
After the warm up, work and supplemental sets I still needed to hit the 100 rep RX for assistant movements so I put together a neat little FDO (“For display only”) super set Workout. First time in I cant even remember that I did tricep extensions, Kept the weight light on both Ext and Curls intentionally. I’ll prob do the same here as I will with gymnastics, gradually stack more weight, maybe 2.5 or 5 # each week. In an unrelated note, tricep ext set my old tendonitis on fire. Gonna need to be proactive about that if they stay in the assistant rotation.
If there is ever a day to eat, it’s post deadlifts. Been devouring food since I got in. Dont think that will stop till I go to sleep.
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