2022 Round-Up and 2023 Goals

This past year has been…interesting…to say the least. If I were to try and describe it in a pithy manner, I’d say it’s been a series of successful disappointments.

Two years in a row I was preparing for the Tesla Hertz 100 Mile Ultramarathon on Long Island, NY. In 2021, I had to withdraw and defer my entry to 2022 because my best friend was getting married on the same day as the race (the jerk), and I was raring to go for the 2022 race. Training had its ups and downs, and for the most part I’d say it was positive. I started the year with the intention of running a 12-Hour race on a 3.1 mile looped course as a gear test and mental prep for the 100. This started off frustratingly. Just as I was rounding out the first mile of the first loop, I had stepped slightly off trail to get around a couple runners that were walking side-by-side, and stepped on a root and cranked my ankle pretty badly. I was able to ‘walk it off’ as I kept on going, just repeating to myself “you’re not made of glass.” I was doing pretty well with the ankle for the most part, and while it was a little painful it wasn’t too bad. I was able to keep going for another 17 miles, before getting overeager on a downhill and rolled the same ankle twice in rapid succession.

After the double roll, I walked it in to finish the loop and opted to have a little sit down, along with some food and a change of socks. Pulling off my shoes and socks I watched as my ankle swelled up to at least twice its normal size. I knew I was done, but needed to keep trying. I swapped the socks, laced up and got back on the trail. I tried to run and walk, but I just couldn’t keep pushing on the ankle and had to tap out. I made it out to 4 hours, and while I consider it a DNF, it technically wasn’t as timed races are simply meant to cover as much distance within the time limit.

I was pretty bummed as I couldn’t put any weight on the ankle the next day or the day after, and had it checked out. There was no break, which was a huge positive, and went into physical therapy. The PT was fantastic and got range of motion back within a week and I was able to start putting some weight on the joint again. I got back into lifting, and was comfortably able to start getting some running back in after about a month. Around this time I opted to connect with Complete Human Performance and hire a coach to program my ultra prep. I realized that I had no idea what I was doing, and was simply flying by the seat of my pants. I got paired with Nickademus de la Rosa, who has been an absolutely fantastic coach, whom I’ve now been working with for 9 months. As we built up the running volume, we dialed back the heavy lifting and focused on single leg stability and ankle strengthening to bring my ankle back into running shape.

We opted for another tune-up race in June to test out gear, hydration and nutrition strategies. This was a 60k taking place on a 15k loop. I crushed the first loop very comfortably, but the second loop took me down a notch. I sat down after the 2nd and realized everything was cramping up. I tried to start the 3rd loop and my left hip and leg were completely shot. The cramping made it feel like the muscle was going to rip off the bone every time I started to run. There were some miscalculations along the way, and by some I mean it was replete with miscalculations. I basically ignored my nutrition and hydration strategies, which lead to the cramping, and didn’t consider the climate/temperature, so instead of overcompensating I massively undercompensated for the humidity and weather. At 30k, I had to tap out.

From here, we continued building out to Tesla Hertz. Training was generally pretty good, although because of family obligations along the way I missed some key higher volume weeks and ended up only really hitting 4 weeks of serious running volume, rather than 8-10 that would have been ideal. The programming from Nickademus was solid, but I was unable to meet the requirements along the way.

Long story short, I had to tap out after hitting 60 miles of the 100. This was the farthest I’d ever gone in my entire life, and I did it generally without stopping. I managed to pull my hamstring very early on, and I was still able to keep going for 60 miles. So while this was technically a failure on my part, I still felt super accomplished and generally happy with my performance. I didn’t make any major mistakes along the way with nutrition or hydration and if it hadn’t been for the hamstrings, I think I could have kept going.

Anyway, here we are at the end of the year. Post-Tesla Hertz, we’ve entered a lower volume but higher intensity phase of training, but the last 2 weeks have basically been a wash because I came down with the flu and felt like death. C’est la vie.

On the flip side, I’m back to lifting on the heavier side, following a bit of a conjugate/concurrent training split. Originally, I was lifting 3x per week, but I’m going to mess around with 4x per week split with 2 lower and 2 upper going into the new year. This week starts the new training cycle, so here’s how it will look combining running and lifting:

Day 1: 400-800m Intervals + ME Lower – Heavy squat 1-5 reps @ 9-10, Heavy single leg work, RDLs, abs

Day 2: Endurance run + ME Upper – Heavy bench 1-5 reps @ 9-10, heavy rowing, upperback and biceps

Day 3: Endurance run + DE Lower – Speed squats and speed deadlifts/ME deadlifts (alternating weekly for pulls), heavy single leg work, abs

Day 4: 200-400m repeats + DE Upper – Speed bench, heavy shoulders and vertical pulling

I’ve got a few hard goals for this year, but I think they’re all doable:

  1. Sub-4 hour marathon: Running the Millbrook Marathon in April
  2. Complete 60k: Going back to the Redwing Trail Challenge for redemption after cramping out last year
  3. Squat 400, Bench Press 275-300 and Deadlift 500

So it’s all doable stuff, I think, just need to stick to the programming and keep my nose to ground.

Anyway, maybe I’ll actually log my training for this year…unlike what ended up happening for 2022.

Hybrid Conjugate – Cycle 1

Let me start off this post with an exercise breakdown for each training day, and then I can go into more specifics:

  • Day 1 – Strength
    • Bench Press (Heavy) – 2+ set
    • Bench Press (Volume) – 2 sets of 6 reps
    • Speed Bench – 8 sets of 3
    • Pull-ups – 3 sets of 5-10
    • Barbell Rows – 2 sets of 4
  • Day 2 – Strength
    • Low Bar Squat (Heavy) – 2+ set
    • Low Bar Squat (Paused) – 2 sets of 6
    • Snatch-Grip Deadlift – 2 sets of 8
    • Speed Deadlifts – 8 sets of 2
    • Front Squat – 3 sets of 15
  • Day 2 – Running
    • Tempo run (30-90 minutes)
  • Day 3 – Running
    • Recovery run (30-60 minutes)
  • Day 4 – Strength
    • Deficit Bench Press – 4 sets of 5
    • Close-Grip Bench Press – 3 sets of 6
    • Lateral Raise – 3 sets of 8
    • Barbell Curl – 2 sets of 8
  • Day 5 – Strength
    • Low Bar Squat (Tempo) – 3 sets of 8
    • Split Squat – 3 sets of 8
    • Romanian Deadlift – 2 sets of 8
    • Walking Lunge – 4 sets of 15
    • Ab Wheel Rollout – 3 sets of 8
  • Day 5 – Running
    • Tempo Run (30-90 minutes)
  • Day 6 – Running
    • Long Run (2-6 hours)
  • Day 7 – Running
    • Recovery Run (20-40 minutes) or Rest

My plan during the first cycle was to wave the intensity percentage for the heavy work, so that I went from 82% to 92% for a 2+ set from week 1 to week 3, and then wave back down to 85% to 95% from week 4 to week 6. For supplemental work, I worked with a volumizing approach, by keeping weights static each week, but increasing the number of sets. Speed work was waved similarly to the heavy work. And the hypertrophy work maintained volume week to week, but I increased intensity each week.

I’ll talk about some highlights in a minute, but let’s go over the mistakes:

  • Pushing volume through more sets was the wrong approach. I forgot one of the basic tenets of this style of programming is to the bare minimum necessary to make progress. I’m better served by pushing the intensity for fewer sets rather than forcing additional volume each week. For example, I went from 2 sets of 8 on snatch-grip deadlifts, and instead of getting stronger on the movement, I was pushing the number of volumes with a static weight. so I worked up to 6 sets of 8 with the same static weight. This probably did help get me stronger, but I also dramatically increased the wear and tear through sheer volumization.
    • As a subpoint to this one, I was following a volumizing approach with more than one exercise per workout, and taking the volumizing too far. Each cycle is 6 weeks long and I was adding another set each week, that’s just too long without any progression to the load, and deload of the volume.
  • Not setting hard RPE caps on work sets to auto-regulate intensity and effort. I was pushing pedal to the metal too often, rather then at pre-determined times. This left me very exhausted and while beneficial in the short-term, it would have been a recipe for disaster in the long-run.
  • Pushing too much intensity on the tempo work. I was attempting to hit tempo ranges for 30-60 minutes straight, and this type of work is just too stressful to maintain week-on-week.
  • Last mistake, not keeping long run intensity low enough to have a solid aerobic benefit. I was pushing too far into the moderate intensity range for my long runs, and this can have an net negative impact.

All that said, there were some highlights to this first cycle of the program:

  • Bench Press – 205×7 @ 9
  • Squat – 270×10 @ 8
  • Snatch-grip Deadlift – 275×8 for 3 sets

All that said, I’ve rectified the mistakes from the last block with my lifting, and I’m still working on cleaning up the running aspect, but just laying bricks right now. Seeing some serious progress with the lifting so far.

I’ll start providing weekly updates on training after this.

Hybrid Conjugate

After much screwing around with various training templates/programs, and really trying to figure out what fits just right into my training week (and my normal life week), I finally wrote something down that I think will work pretty well. I tested it out for 1 full 6-week cycle, and I think I’ve got a pretty good handle on how I want to program moving forward.

Well, let me back up a little bit and give a little color to what I’m trying to do. I’ve been lifting weights for a long time, but my background is more in endurance sport with a history of competitive swimming. After highschool, and through college, swimming fell away and martial arts took over. I focused on competing in karate at this time, but I was still consistently lifting each week. Years ticked by, and running entered my life. I loved running. I loved the freedom of moving my body through space and trying to get my body to do it as efficiently as possible.

In 2009, I attempted my first marathon. I was somewhat undertrained, having only logged 1 long run of 18 miles in preparation, but I figured I was signed up so I might as well give it a go anyway. Twenty miles in, and my legs started cramping up, by mile 21 I had to sit down and weight for the race’s emergency vehicle to swing by and ride back to the start. Not exactly my proudest moment, but it is what it is. I knew I wanted to get back and run the marathon again at some point, but this is where lifting really started to take over.

Anyway, flash forward to 2020 and the pandemic started. I was working from home which was great for trying to lift consistently, but it also meant that I was spending 12 hours per day staring at a computer screen, and the only sunlight I saw was the reflection of the sun off of my computer monitor coming from the window behind me. I realized that I needed to simply get outside and get fresh air, so I bought a new pair of running shoes and got back on the roads. Around this time was when I re-read the book Ultramarathon Man, by Dean Karnazes. I’ve read this book more times than I an remember and each time it’s gotten me amped up to start running again, but this time I think it’s really sticking. After running consistently for a few months, I signed up for a marathon in April 2021.

Over the last few years, I’ve had a habit of picking up training books that I’ve heard about, one that I grabbed was called The Hybrid Athlete by Alex Viada. I’ve talked about him in a previous post, but bottom line the man is inhumanly strong and has incredible levels of endurance. Plus, he trains others to do the same thing.

I’m using his training templates as guidelines on how to progress my own training moving forward, and I think I’ve finally made a bit of a breakthrough, in terms of setting up my programming. I’m going to include the general layout below, and in subsequent posts I’ll outline how I programmed the first Cycle and the problems I think I made and how I’m fixing them for the second cycle.

Program Structure:

  • Day 1: Upper Strength – this day is a combination of force production (heavy work) and rate of force production (speed work), with a heavy.
  • Day 2: Lower Strength and Tempo Run – another combination of heavy and speed work on this day, coupled with a run. Ideally, I would want the run to happen earlier in the day as this is my priority, but it really doesn’t matter much as there’s sufficient amount of time in between to allow for enough recovery to keep one workout from interfering too severely with the other.
  • Day 3: Recovery Run – just a shake out run, get some bloodflow through the lower body after the beating it got the day before. This can be done on the AirDyne or bike as well, the idea is simply to move at a low intensity.
  • Day 4: Upper Hypertrophy – volume and intensity is the name of the game here. Muscle loss is a pretty significant concern in this type of program, so hypertrophy training is emphasized.
  • Day 5: Lower Hypertrophy and Tempo Run – as above, volume and intensity is key here as hypertrophy stimulus is important to maintain muscle mass on this kind of a program.
  • Day 6: Long Run – depending on the type of race being trained for, this can go anywhere from 1 hour up to 6 hours (or longer if training for an exceptionally long race). As I’m training specifically for a marathon, I’m looking at 1-3 hour runs primarily.
  • Day 7: Rest or Recovery Run – as above, just getting blood flowing. If/when I’m training for an ultramarathon, this will become a secondary long run every 3 or 4 weeks to have back-to-back long runs.

So there it is, the general program structure. On the strength days, volume is relatively low and intensity is relatively high, for the express purpose of pushing maximal strength. On the hypertrophy days, the volume is increased fairly significantly, and intensity is moderated. Sets are controlled based on RPE, with the RPE being waved upward each week, and resetting mid-cycle. I’ll talk about this more as I get into cycle specifics.

Anyway, this is a fair amount of work, and it might look like it will be counterintuitive, but seeing as I’ve completed the first cycle, I have a pretty good idea of what is and isn’t working. The main point here is the consolidation of stressors, and maximizing rest time as much as possible. With the above program structure, my lower body days are particularly intense, but upper body days provide full lower body recovery, and Sunday is either another light/easy run, or it’s a day completely off.

Here we go again!

Oh! Well, would you look at that! It’s a new training program…again! And guess what, I have a completely different training focus this time around. Isn’t change wonderful?

Anyway, the point of the matter is that I’m a little sick of training ‘for powerlifting.’ Mainly because, I’m never really training for powerlifting. I’m using the big 3 lifts (squat, bench press and deadlift) and just force feeding these competition-style movements on my body without really ever thinking about the purpose, and function.

The fact of the matter is that I’m horribly de-trained, and de-conditioned to these movements. I’m doing myself no favors by guesstimating my maxes, to estimate training maxes, and then I’m force feeding relatively high intensity (as percentage of training max) into these lifts every week. My body just doesn’t care for it. The smarter, and more effective, approach would be to take very low percentages, and high volume and gradually work my way up into moderate intensities, and then start working into the heavier intensities over time.

The long and the short of it is that I’m disenchanted with the competitive powerlifts. They’re fine movements and can be great for developing general strength, but using the straight bar can be taxing if you don’t put in the appropriate effort to achieve the necessary mobility to get into the right positions. And so, my priorities have shifted quite a bit. I’m focusing more on endurance training, and getting faster on my feet for longer distances. I have on my bucket list a desire to eventually run a 100 mile ultramarathon, but I’m not jumping straight into that head first. I’m going to start with a half-marathon at the end of this year (not an official race, but I’m going to train and taper as if it is an official race), and then an official marathon in April 2021. Ideally, I’d like to shoot for a 50 or 100 mile race at the end of 2021, or even 2022.

My plan is to take the long view and avoid injuries and backtracking.

To that end, I’m still lifting, but with a much more generalized focus with an emphasis on developing upperbody muscle, and building on lower body strength with some hypertrophy. I’m lifting 2 days per week, in 2 week blocks, so that’s 4 sessions per block.

Each workout utilizes 4 movements, repeated progressively over the 4 workouts. First block was the SSB squat vs. 80 pounds of chain working up to a 6RM, followed by staggered stance trap bar RDLs for 3 sets of 10, then flat dumbbell bench press for 3 sets of 20, and then pull-ups with 1 set of max reps, and then myo-reps with 25% of the top set.

This worked pretty well, I got to a fairly decent point on the squats, hitting 255 for a set of 6 with 80lbs of chain. This second block is a little different, I’m using the front-foot elevated zercher split squat for 3 sets of 6, then sumo block pulls for 4 sets of 6, keeping dumbbell bench press and continuing to progress the weight and then finishing with more pull-ups but using a more strength-volume approach with 5 sets of 6 to start and adding reps each workout.

Next block will be a little different again, with some changes to the lower body movements, and haven’t really decided if I’m going to change the upperbody stuff yet, but I guess I’ll figure that out as I go.

Starting Strength – Week 4/Day 1

Well this workout turned out to be a real doozy that just put me in a bad head space.

I figured that given I had skipped my Friday workout from the week prior that I would either be super low energy, or very high energy and I would go by feel on the work sets depending on how the warm-ups all felt. Squat warm-ups were ‘meh’ at best, but by the time I got to my top set with 285, I was feeling ok, so I figured I’d get a few extra reps for a low volume AMRAP. This went fine enough, but I was feeling some low back fatigue, which tells me that my warm-up protocol isn’t doing enough to fully open up my hamstrings and hips.

Bench press was fine, no real issue here, actually did pretty well on the top set and I’m happy about that.

Deadlifts were a complete crap shoot. Warm ups were feeling fine until I was setting up the warm-up set with 185lbs and felt a spasm in my lower back. I figured it was something that would pass and paid extra attention to my set up for the next few warm-up sets. But getting to 275, and I realized that just nothing was feeling right. My back was getting progressively worse and feeling beat up. I stopped it there.

After, I started to think of my track record with injury, and I came to a bit of a realization. The times I experience the most injuries is when I’m trying to force-feed the competitive lifts and not focusing more on tissue load tolerance and overall mobility and stability.

To that end, I’m once again making a shift in my training. I’m going to go to a 2 days per week training program: 1 lower and 1 upper. No competitive lifts, just variations, and focusing more on a bodybuilding style of lifting.

For my lower day, I’m going to do front squats and SSB squats, with an emphasis on feeling my quads and glutes working, while working to minimize my lower back movement. Aside from that, I’m definitely feeling the need to start getting more cardiovascular training in. To that end, with the weather warming up, I’ll be hitting the roads again, trying to increase my mileage gradually each week. The plan is to run 4 days per week, but as long as I get 3 days, I’m happy.

Here’s the lift from this day:

A1. Low Bar Squat – 3×5/5/5+ @ 285lbs

  • 45x10x2
  • 95x5x2
  • 135×5
  • 185×3
  • 225×1
  • 275×1
  • 285x5x2
  • 285×5+ (7 @ RPE 8)

B1. Bench Press – 3×5/5/5+ @ 170lbs

  • 45x20x2
  • 95×10
  • 135×5
  • 170x5x2
  • 170×5+ (11 @ RPE 8)

C1. Conventional Deadlift – 3×3/3/3+ @ 295lbs

  • 45×10
  • 135x5x2
  • 185×3
  • 225×1
  • 275×1

Starting Strength – Week 3/Day 3 (5/15/2020)

So this workout didn’t end up happening, and while at first I found it frustrating on 5/15, and thought about pushing the workout to the weekend, I got more comfortable with the idea of just skipping it entirely. This is one workout, and it won’t set me back by skipping just one. I can’t make it a habit or an issue that effects consecutive training sessions, but it’s acceptable. Besides, after 3 weeks of pushing fairly hard, I could do with a little de-load and rest, and that’s just what I did…well sort of.

The twins’ birthday was on Sunday, so we spent all the free time we had on Friday (during and after the workday), and then all day Saturday getting a bunch of things set up for the kiddos to have fun. So, in my opinion, totally worth it!

Here’s what was planned, and what I will be doing on 5/18 instead.

A1. Low Bar Squat – 3×5/5/5+ @ 285lbs

B1. Bench Press – 3×5/5/5+ @ 170lbs

C1. Conventional Deadlift – 3×3/3/3+ @ 295lbs

Starting Strength – Week 3/Day 2 (5/13/2020)

Well now, this was another surprising workout. I walked in expecting to hit some plus reps, but nothing significant, and squats completely threw me for a loop. The first work sets just didn’t feel amazing, but as I got into the top set, everything seemed to click and I was able to really push a great top set for 12 reps. Seated press was mediocre, but I think I can attribute that more to fatigue from the squats, so I’m not unhappy about how it went. That said, I did see a fairly significant drop off in reps today compared to last pressing session, so just something to keep an eye on as I progress.

Deadlifts were fine, nothing crazy, but definitely still feeling some of the squatting fatigue so deadlifts were not amazing. That said, again, I’m not unhappy with how the set went. I’m definitely starting to feel the effect of the weight on my grip as I keep going up in weight, so that I’m feeling the need to adjust my grip much earlier in the set and I’m basically just holding the weight in the hooks of my fingers. I’m going to try and have a deeper grip from the get go, and see how that works farther along in the set.

A1. Low Bar Squat – 3×5/5/5+ @ 275lbs

  • 45x10x2
  • 95x5x2
  • 135×5
  • 185×3
  • 225×1
  • 275x5x2
  • 275×5+ (12 @ RPE 8)
    • Cardio was more of a limiting factor than my actual leg strength, but that’s ok. I’m gradually getting better and that’s all that matters to me right now.

B1. Seated OHP – 3×5/5/5+ @ 105lbs

  • 45x10x2
  • 65×5
  • 85×3
  • 105x5x2
  • 105×5+ (7 @ RPE 9)

C1. Conventional Deadlift – 3×3/3/3+ @ 285lbs

  • 45×10
  • 135x5x2
  • 185×3
  • 225×1
  • 275×1
  • 285x3x2
  • 285×3+ (10 @ 8 RPE)
    • If I had taken a full grip reset, I definitely had another 2 reps, if not more than that in the tank, just trying to remain conservative in estimating my RPEs.

Starting Strength – Week 3/Day 1 (5/11/2020)

I knew this was going to be a challenging workout, and lo and behold, the workout delivered. It was challenging, but damn did it feel good at the end. I was able to hit just about all of the numbers that I’d wanted to hit and more importantly at the RPEs that I’d wanted (approximately speaking).

It’s interesting to see how the workouts get more and more challenging each day. Which is to be expected given weights are just going up linearly, but it’s nice to see that I’m still able to hit relatively high volume on the AMRAP top sets (+10 on every top set, thus far). I’m hoping I’ll be able to keep this up for some time to come. That said, I’m definitely dealing with some serious knee pain in my left knee after this workout. Going to have to do a serious amount of rehab/PT work to see if I can bring the inflammation down and make the knee feel good for the next workout.

Here’s the breakdown:

A1. Low Bar Squat – 3×5/5/5+ @ 265lbs

  • 45x10x2
  • 95x5x2
  • 135×5
  • 185×3
  • 205×1
  • 225×1
  • 245×1
  • 265x5x2
  • 265×5+ (10 @ 8 RPE)

B1. Bench Press – 3×5/5/5+ @ 165lbs

  • 45x20x2
  • 95×10
  • 135×5
  • 165x5x2
  • 165×5+ (11 @ 9 RPE)

C1. Conventional Deadlift – 3×3/3/3+ @ 275lbs

  • 45×10
  • 135x5x2
  • 185×3
  • 225×1
  • 275x3x2
  • 275×3+ (12 @ 8 RPE)

I’m considering how to move forward once things really start to get challenging (near the 315lbs range on squats). I started to consider alternating Squats and Deadlifts, rather than squatting 3 days per week.  Given the condition of my knee, this might be the perfect kind of respite between squat sessions, but not sure if I want to do that yet.

The other consideration is the simple fact that squatting and deadlifting in the same session is a significant challenge, which I probably won’t be able to keep up for very long. Specifically with the higher volume approach I’ve been using. Granted after 6 weeks, I’ll start alternating deadlifts and hang cleans, which will provide this break, but I’m beginning to think I’ll need to start alternating the 2 a little sooner than expected. Just have to see how the next couple of weeks end up going. As long as I can hit the requisite repetitions each workout, there’s no reason to make any drastic changes to the programming.

Starting Strength – Week 2/Day 3 (5/8/2020)

Another great workout! I wanted to get in and just hit some moderately intense top sets on squats and deadlifts (around a 7 RPE), and really push the seated OHP. I stuck to the plan and it all worked out pretty well, I think! Squatting was a little wonky, I was just pumping through the reps so my form was a little off, but not to a dangerous level, I’m happy to say, next week, I’m going to work on getting a little more dialed in on my set up and reps, and minimize pumping out reps. I still want to get a set of 10+ for the AMRAPs when possible, but I need to be able to do this while maintaining somewhat consistently solid form.

Seated press went much better this workout than it did on Monday when I tweaked my trap. Luckily, the pain from that strain diminished fairly quickly, and didn’t have a significant impact on my neck mobility the day after, as is often the case when I do this. I was happy to hit the 10 reps, and I think if I’d been more judicious in how I was performing the reps, I could have potentially gotten 11 or 12, but for today, 10 reps was a max effort set by the last rep.

A1. Low Bar Squat – 3×5/5/5+ @ 255lbs

  • 45x10x2
  • 95x5x2
  • 135×5
  • 185×3
  • 225×1
  • 255x5x2
  • 255×5+ (10 @ 7 RPE)

B1. Seated OHP – 3×5/5/5+ @ 100lbs

  • 45x10x2
  • 65×5
  • 85×3
  • 95×1
  • 100x5x2
  • 100×5+ (10 @ 10 RPE)
    • This was a fun set to do! Honestly, the 2 sets of 5 preceding the top set were challenging. I was having a hard time with my breathing and was getting light headed occasionally, so I wasn’t sure how the top set was going to go, but I figured I’d just go for broke and hope for the best. What was nice was that I had no issues with my breathing when performing the AMRAP, the reps were fairly smooth, and was able to get through the first 6 without having to re-breathe, and then basically did 4 singles to finish off the set of 10.

C1. Conventional Deadlift – 3×3/3/3+ @ 265lbs

  • 45×10
  • 135x5x2
  • 185×3
  • 225×1
  • 265x3x2
  • 265×3+ (13 @ 7 RPE)
    • I definitely had more in the tank, and I’m being very conservative when I say a 7 RPE on this set. I barely had a grip on the bar, and it was simply hanging from my fingers rather than actually crushing the bar in my hands. Just something to consider, but again, I have to maintain the grip rule to stop the set, and I’m happy with this top set.

Starting Strength – Week 2/Day 2 (5/6/2020)

Wow, that’s all I have to say today…wow! This workout surprised the hell out of me. I didn’t expect it to go nearly as well as it did, especially considering how the last training session went. I went in expecting to just hit the prescribed/minimum reps for each lift and heading out, but as I got warmed up and hit the first couple of working sets on squats, I realized that I had much more gas in the tank that I realized.

Last training session, I did the squats with a full reset on each rep, but that was because I didn’t have the energy to maintain a brace for multiple reps back to back. Today, I was on the other side of whatever was afflicting me last time. Squats felt locked in and tight, although I did experience a weird twinge in my lumbar region, but nothing came from it so I’m happy to say the least.

A1. Low Bar Squat – 3×5/5/5+ @ 245lbs

  • 45x10x2
  • 95x5x2
  • 135×5
  • 185×3
  • 205×1
  • 225×1
  • 245x5x2
  • 245×5+ (12 @ 8 RPE)

B1. Bench Press – 3×5/5/5+ @ 160lbs

  • 45x20x2
  • 95×10
  • 135×5
  • 160x5x2
  • 160×5+ (13 @ 9.5 RPE)
    • I think I might have 1 more rep in me on the top set, but frankly, I just didn’t trust my triceps to get me through it.

C1. Conventional Deadlift – 3×3/3/3+ @ 255lbs

  • 45×10
  • 135x5x2
  • 185×3
  • 225×1
  • 255x3x2
  • 255×3+ (12 @ 8 RPE)
    • Given the weird twinge I mentioned feeling during squats, I was expecting this to be a super sub-par showing, with some kind of issues in my back…and yet, somehow, nothing went wrong. I honestly called it at 12 reps simply because I got bored with doing more. RPE was relatively challenging, but I think I’m overestimating the effort. I probably could have gotten another 5 or more reps if I had reset my grip, but given my grip-release rule, I didn’t bother pushing it.