2020)

This was another solid and challenging workout, so much so that I actually couldn’t complete the whole thing in under an hour, as such, I got no aerobic work on the Airdyne. That said, I definitely enjoyed the overall challenge.

Three-hundred reps of close-stance squats was painful. Between my knee not being happy for at least the first 40 reps, and then the pump that developed in my quads, I was in agony. The super set with wide-grip pull-ups was a good compromise to get some tension off of my legs, and while the volume was generally low (only 50 total reps) it felt good on my back.

Straightforward workout:

A1. Heels touching close-stance squat – 300 total reps

A2. Wide-grip pull-ups – 50 total reps

A3. Dips – 100 total reps

A4. Sumo Block Pulls (4 mats) – 50 total reps

A5. Olympic ring fallouts – 50 total reps

A6. Glute-ham roller hamstrings curls – 50 total reps

Total time: 1:03:54

It actually took over the full hour to get the whole workout done, ended up with 15 reps on hamstrings curls and 9 reps of the fallouts left at the end of the hour. Took some time to work up the will to get through those last reps, my hamstrings were shot, I had bile in my throat feeling like throwing up, and I was just shot.

It’ll be nice to drop the intensity significantly on tomorrow’s workout with some single-leg work (I’m thinking reverse lunges) with a controlled tempo and only 50 reps per leg, and push the volume on my upper body with some inverted rows and push-ups. It’ll probably be good to increase the overall volume on my hamstrings/lower back work too.

I guess we’ll see how I’m feeling tomorrow morning!

Get Healthy – Workout 3 (4/9/2020)

Ok, so workout 3 in the books and it was another good one. I brought the intensity up again as far as lower body work was concerned and went for a much higher volume with a harder unilateral variation (Bulgarian split squats), and then kept the intensity fairly high on the following moves with slow-eccentric push-ups, and body weight scarecrows, which are basically pull aparts using the Olympic rings and your body weight as resistance. These are incredibly challenging and very taxing on the rear delts and upper back.

The nice part about this workout is that it was relatively short, so that I was able to finish the whole thing in less than 40 minutes, and still get a decent amount of time on the Airdyne for some aerobic work. Happy with the workout overall.

The rest of the weekend didn’t work out as well from a training perspective as family-related engagements came up, and kids occupied all of my time. But that is what it is, just have to get back to it today.

Here’s the last workout:

A1. Bulgarian split squats – 150 total reps per leg

A2. Controlled-eccentric push-ups – 50 total reps

A3. Scarecrows – 50 total reps

A4. Back Raises – 50 total reps

A5. Ab wheel rollouts – 15 total reps

Total time: 37:53

B1. Airdyne – 21:30

Get Healthy – Workout 2 (4/8/2020)

So, you remember how I said I was going to wave the intensity and volume workout to workout, and how in theory that would give me alternating days with a greater degree of aerobic conditioning compared to others? Yeah, that didn’t exactly work out the way I had planned with this workout.

Somehow, I completely unsuccessfully managed to wave intensity in the direction I had planned. I made this workout harder today than yesterday’s workout! Yesterday, I did 200 reps of bilateral work, and today I did 100 reps per leg of unilateral work. Generally equivalent, but for me, unilateral work is twice as hard as bilateral, so the overall stress was likely higher. For the upper body push, I did 100 push-ups yesterday and 100 dips today; at face value this seems equivalent, but with a push-up you’re only moving approximately 60% of your body weight, whereas with dips, it’s your whole body…oops, increased intensity again. For my upper body pull, I did 100 pull-ups yesterday, and did 100 inverted rows today – in this case I properly adjusted intensity. I was similarly successful with the hamstrings targeted movement, 50 reps on back raises yesterday and 50 reps on glute ham roller hamstring curls today. Where I kind of went off the tracks the most was by doing 50 reps of sumo block deadlifts. I want to work my technique with super light weight here, and I successfully did that, but after all of the volume that I did 50 reps was a lot. I super set this with 100 reps of standing band pulldown crunches, which was fun.

All in all, it took me far too long to finish the whole workout once I added in the deadlifts. Without deadlifts, I would have been able to do around 25 minutes of conditioning. Instead, I had 5ish minutes left in the hour.

Here’s the workout:

A1. Front-Foot Elevated Split Squat – 100 total reps per leg

A2. Dips – 100 total reps

A3. Inverted Rows – 100 total reps

A4. Glute Ham Roller Hamstrings Curls – 50 total reps

A5. Sumo Block Deadlft (3″) – 50 total reps with 135 lbs.

A6. Standing Band Pulldown Crunches – 100 total reps with a Light Band

Total time: 51:43

B1. Belt Squat Marches w/ Light Band – 3:24

I’ve never done this before, but figured it would be a good general conditioning movement to hit my glutes and hamstrings for a few minutes. I definitely severely underestimated this exercise, and loved the feeling that I got in my hips. I’m going to be using these a lot moving forward.

So there you have it, that’s my workout 2 for this training block, and one that I will repeat next week when I get back to it in the rotation.

Get Healthy – Workout 1 (4/7/2020)

As I said in my blog post, I’m going to be focusing more on proper movement patterning by way of primarily body weight exercises. Yes, I will be doing some deadlifting with a very light weight on the barbell, but aside from that, every exercise I will be doing will be body weight focused.

In a way, this decision is somewhat convenient given the current COVID-19 pandemic and the closure of gyms, so this might help to give you some ideas for your own training if all you are able to do right now is body weight type stuff for the time being.

Of note for the workout below, I took nothing to complete failure, except for maybe the pull-up volume but that’s simply due to my base level of strength on vertical pulling is fairly low, so the total volume I wanted to accumulate was relatively high. Additionally, everything was done as non-competing super sets. For instance, I did a set of body weight squats, and then went immediately into pull-ups. I went back and forth until I accumulated the total volume for one of those exercises (squats), and then started super setting the pull-ups with push-ups, and so on until all exercises were completed.

My goal for this workout was to get all of the calisthenic/strength work completed within 30 minutes. I had no idea how long this would take, but the point was to be able to devote 30 minutes to aerobic conditioning. Unfortunately, that didn’t happen, but I did restrict myself to 60 minutes for the whole workout. In general, I think this is a good idea, and will give me a good barometer for progression over time.

Here’s the workout:

A1. Body weight squats – 200 total reps

A2. Pull-ups – 100 total reps

A3. Push-ups – 200 total reps

A4. Back raises – 50 total reps

A5. Olympic ring fallouts – 50 total reps

Total time: 40:30

B1. Airdyne – remainder of the hour (18:42 total time)

With the squats, I moved around my stance every set, and tried to hit my lower body from a variety of angles. Generally, my knees felt a ton better after about 60-75 total reps of squats, and I’m hoping that number will improve over time. I did the same with pull-ups moving my grip in and out, and supinating and pronating as I felt like. Push-ups were done on handles (The Perfect Push-up) and back raises were done with very strict tempo. For the Olympic ring fallouts, I set the rings to the height from where I do inverted rows, and started with my feet at the back of the squat rack, and fell out to the front of the rack.

I have a few concepts for progression moving forward from here:

Faster completion
Fewer sets per exercise
Pain free execution of movements

Over the next few weeks, I’ll be able to gauge my progress mostly based on feel, but the number of sets per exercise will speak directly to my conditioning and work capacity.

As far as fatigue management, and periodization across the weeks, I’ll be taking a slightly undulating approach. I’m going to try and have 4 different workouts that I will rotate through every 4 days, with the goal being to workout 7 days per week. The workout above is focused almost entirely on bilateral movements and a very high volume. The next workout will be moderated down in terms of volume, and will use 1 or more unilateral movements. The workout after that will go back up to a higher volume overall, but still utilizing unilateral movements, and then back down for the 4th workout with a return to some bilateral movement. That’s the plan at least, we’ll see how it all goes as I move forward. The majority of the unilateral/bilateral switches will occur with my lower body movement selection, simply because I don’t have the capacity yet to do any upper body unilateral body weight movements. Maybe one day.

Get Strong Second (Get Healthy First)

As life has a tendency to do, and more importantly, as my body has a tendency to do, I’ve again experienced some kind of an injury last week. Frankly, I’m both glad and frustrated that I can’t say I hurt my back while lifting…on the flip side, it is simply just frustrating to have to say that I injured my back in my sleep. I’m sure I slept on it funny or something, but whatever the actual cause, my back has been hurting since I woke up Friday morning.

It forced me to push my Friday workout back to Saturday, and then again to Sunday due to life circumstances. Further and further it’s gotten pushed back, and here I am, now on Tuesday, still with any achy back and a small, but fairly major epiphany.

First off, I am going to get in my workout today, I’m definitely at the point that I need to get some movement to get my back feeling better, so that will mean making some training adjustments, but I need to train.

Secondly, in my desire to pursue a newer training program, I forgot a most basic training principle: get stronger.

You might be wondering how I haven’t been focused on this principle, but it’s true. I love training concepts and programming principles, I love reading about them and trying them out, but from a holistic level, none of these principles mean anything when you’re simply just weak.

And I am weak as fuck (or AF, as the kids say these days).

What benefit am I really getting from “speed benching” with 95-115 lbs on the barbell? The same question applies to squatting or deadlifting with 185 lbs.

Simply put: none.

I’m not going to try to finish out the training block as I had originally planned (sticking with the program is important, obviously), but I am going to keep moving. My back is still a mess, and I’m experiencing a fairly significant anterior pelvic tilt. This is generally caused by weak abs and tight hip flexors, among other things, so those are the things that I’m going to be working on.

As I said in the title, Get Strong Second, but getting healthy first is more important. I don’t need heavy loading, and I don’t need a multitude of overly complex programming. I need regular movement, and consistent motor unit recruitment. Once I feel like my base level of physical conditioning is up to par, I will start back up with a basic linear progression (outlined below), but for the time being, I need to start focusing on super light movement mechanics, like body weight squatting, push-ups and deadlifting with an empty barbell, while striving to improve weak links. These weak links are going to be my hamstrings, glutes and core.

Basically right now, I’ll be hitting some kind of movement every day, with an intent of developing my GPP. This will mean some combination of 3-4 of the following: of squat pattern (bilateral or unilateral), some upper body push (generally push-ups), and some upper body (generally pull-ups or inverted rows), deadlift technique work (sumo and RDL), hamstrings and hip work (back raises and glute ham roller hamstrings curls) and abdominal/core work (generally ab wheel and fallouts, as well as some isolation work through flexion and rotation movements).

I’m going to try to avoid overly programming things, I just want to aggregate total volume across the workout and get my heart rate going while hitting the appropriate weak points throughout. Theoretically, the 3-4 exercises should take no more than 30 minutes, which will leave me 30 or so minutes for some aerobic conditioning work by way of weight vest walking and airdyne biking.

Once I’ve reached a condition that I feel is sufficient to start putting in some real work, I’ll take a full week to determine maxes for the main movements I intend to use for the time being (SSB squat, close-grip bench press, sumo deadlift), and then start hitting some straight linear progression workouts. For now, I’m thinking I’ll go with a basic Starting Strength-esque progression where I will perform all 3 movements every workout.

Note: This deviates fairly significantly from Starting Strength programming for a number of reasons:

I’m using a specialty bar for the squat,
I’m performing the sumo deadlift,
I’m performing the close-grip bench press
I’m not alternating my pressing movements each workout
I’m not alternating my pulling movements each workout (generally alternating deadlifts with power cleans).
I’m doing significantly more volume on deadlifts, which is normally prescribed as simply 1 set of 5 reps.

Based on my maxes from the last week of this Condensed Conjugate cycle, I’ll take 75% and perform a 3×5 for squat and bench press, and a 3×3 for sumo deadlifts. I like having some volume for my deadlifts, so this should feel pretty good overall, I think. One more thing that I will add is that I’ll perform an AMRAP on the last set of each lift, depending on how I’m feeling. If I get to the last set and I’m just tired and want to finish the workout, then I’ll just do the requisite reps, but if I’m feeling good on one or more lifts, I’ll throw in an AMRAP and see where I can go with it.

Anyway, this all still a few weeks away, but for now I need to remember the goal, which is to get strong holistically. Take this linear progression as far as I can take it before attempting to throw in any more advanced programming concepts.

Condensed Conjugate – Week 1/Day 3 (ME Lower/DE Upper)

Wow, this was a really challenging workout. There is no other word for it. I was completely smoked after the ME Lower work, and then the DE Upper took me for a whole new spin. I didn’t have nearly the strength capacity that I thought I would have on the speed work, but I’m ok with this. Just a stepping off point as I get my programming dialed in.

I did make one big adjustment on the fly and brought my total volume way down today. Since I planned on increasing the lower body volume by incorporating a super set of trap bar deadlifts with my ME Lower work (front squats), I realized that I couldn’t handle the same amount of squatting volume, nor could I manage an equivalent number of sets for trap bar deadlifts as I had planned.

Additionally, my DE Upper work straight weight loading was lowered from what I programmed, and I didn’t do a close-grip AMRAP set after the speed work. And then the accessory work took a huge hit, even though I actually hit a decent PR on my pull-ups.

Anyway, here we go:

A1. Front Squat vs. 1 Chain per Side – Work up to a heavy set of 5 (RPE 7-8)

BWx20x2
45x10x2
45×10 (add chains)
95×5
135×5
185×5
- I wanted to hit a conservatively heavy set of 5. I definitely had way more gas in the tank for a top set, but since it’s the first week of a 3 week cycle, I didn’t see any reason to go balls to the wall. I had originally planned to use 2 chains per side, but figured 1 chain per side was fine for the first, especially since I haven’t used any accommodating resistance in a long while.

A2. Low Handle Trap Bar Deadlift – 1×10

75x10x4
165×10
185×10
- Just feeling the movement out, as a simple super set with the front squats. Opted to use low handles as I want this to have some carryover to my conventional deadlift, in terms of range of motion.

B1. Front Squat vs. 1 Chain per Side – Down sets 2×5 @ 80% of top set

150x5x2
- Originally had planned to hit 3 down sets, but was feeling my body starting to flag a bit as I hit the first down set. Opted to only do 2 down sets, additionally because of the accumulated fatigue resulting from the trap bar pulls super set with the front squats.

B2. Low Handle Trap Bar Deadlift – 2×10

185x10x2
- Again, just getting the work in. I’m very happy with how these moved. The weight was challenging enough, given the number of repetitions I was doing, as well as given the lack of pulling that I’ve done.

C1. Speed Bench Press vs. Doubled Mini Bands – 95x3x9

45x20x3
45x5x3 (add bands)
95x3x9
- Ok, using new doubled mini bands took me for a ride! Doing the sets with the empty bar was eye opening, and then the first 3 sets with 95, that were meant to be warm-up sets actually scared me a bit. In retrospect, if I had taken sufficient rest between the first 3 sets, I probably could have used the programmed weight. That said, I’m still happy with how these felt. I didn’t bother monitoring my rest intervals between sets, but just made a point to go again before I was fully recovered. I think I’ll keep the weight static for this wave, and just increase the sets for the next 2 weeks.

D1. Pull-ups – 2xAMRAP

10/7
- I’m really happy with that first set of 10. It’s the first time I’ve been able to do 10 pull-ups straight in a long time. So this first set was definitely a PR, especially given how easy the set felt for the first 8 reps. The second set was still pretty good, and then I was done.

D2. Dips – 2xAMRAP

20/10 (7+3)
- This is where I really decided to cut this short after the second super set. The first super set wasn’t terrible, but when I couldn’t hit the requisite reps for the second set, I knew I was toast. I just didn’t have it in me to gut it out for a few more forced reps to hit the reps.

I’m really excited to see what kind of progress I can make on this cycle as I move forward with the increased weekly volume and overall intensity that I’m hitting these workouts with.

Condensed Conjugate – Week 1/Day 2 (Upper Supplemental)

Alright, so here we are on Day 2 of this new block with an upper body supplemental workout and damn it was a solid day! Everything was more challenging than I had hoped for, but frankly, it’s all to be expected. It’s the morning after while I’m typing this and I am seriously sore, but also really looking forward to my ME Lower/DE Upper workout this evening.

Here’s the workout:

A1. Dumbbell Bench Press – 50x20x3

10x10x2 (Dumbbell Flyes) + 10x10x2 (Press)
30x10x2
50x20x2
50×12
- This was a really great weight to start with. I took 2 minutes rest intervals, which I thought would be more than enough to get all 3 sets of 20, but instead only got 2. The first set was fine, the second was a good challenge set, and the 3rd set really got my pecs burning. I’m going to repeat this weight again next week and see if I can get all 60 reps.

B1. American Cambered Grip Bench Press (Grip 2) – Heavy set of 6, repeat for total of 4 sets

38x10x2
88×6
128×6
148x6x2
148×5
128×6
- Again, far more challenging than I thought this would be. The extra range of motion makes benching with this bar ridiculously challenging. I thought I would be able to get all 4 sets with 148, considering it’s mockingly light for me, but like I said, that range of motion really challenged me. This is especially true given the dumbbell bench I did first.
- Not sure what was going on during the 3rd set, but my right arm was having trouble really locking out the weight. I can’t tell if it was an issue with my shoulder or my triceps, but everything felt awkward.

C1. 2-Arm Dumbbell Rows – 50x10x5

50x10x5
- Nothing to really write home about. My lower back felt a little funky, but not too bad overall. I used the squat rack to lean against as I was bent over, and I think this helped a lot.

D1. 1-Arm Barbell Row – 55x10x3

45×10
55x10x3
- Again, nothing to really write home about. I’ve done these with a little more weight and more volume, but just wanted to get the reps all in and reintroduce the movement without killing myself. I think this did the trick.
- I need to adjust my stance to try to really make the movement hit my lats rather than my upper back and traps.

D2. Barbell Russian Twists – 55x10x3

45×10
55x10x3
- First time doing these, and I have my work cut out for me. On the bright side, I did feel it challenging my core pretty significantly.

E1. Barbell Curl – 45x8x5

45x8x4
45×5
- I can’t remember the last time I actually made an effort with my biceps work, but I’m honestly happy I did these. My biceps will always be a weak point for me unless I do something to improve them. I get ample triceps work through all of the pressing I do, but biceps tend to be lacking.
- Tried to really feel the contraction hard on each rep, just bringing the bar to my chin and keeping my elbows tucked to my sides. Last set was really, really challenging and I went to true concentric failure on that 5th rep.

Condensed Conjugate – Week 1/Day 1 (Lower Supplemental)

A1. Close Stance High Bar Squat – Work up to heavy set of 6, repeat for 3 total sets

BWx20x2
45x8x2
95x6x2
135×6
185x6x3
- Sleeveless and beltless, 2 minutes rest between sets. This was challenging, took forever for my left knee to feel comfortable under the load, and my mobility is definitely questionable. That said, my knees did eventually stop hurting, and I was able to get all 3 sets with decent range of motion, and minimal ankle collapse (I think).

B1. Romanian Deadlift vs. Monster Mini Bands – Work up to heavy set of 8, repeat for 4 total sets

45x10x2
45×10 (add bands)
95×8
145x8x4
- Not great, it took me a while to figure out the band set up, but I eventually got there. I was feeling these more in my glutes than my hamstrings mainly because the bands dropped off so fully at the bottom of the range of motion, so my hamstrings really didn’t get a great stretch. That said, as I increase the straight weight load each week, I’ll probably have that fixed up.

C1. Back Raises – 3×15

BWx15x3
- Stuck with body weight for these for the time being, and really focused on a steady pace for each rep with a solid contraction at the top and a solid stretch at the bottom. Really enjoyed how these felt on my hamstrings.

C2. Reverse Lunge – 3×15

BWx15
10×15
20×15
- These were pretty brutal. I got bored doing just body weight on the first set, so I added one dumbbell. That felt ok, but I wanted more, so I grabbed the second dumbbell on the third set, and that really hit everything just right. Going to work on getting all 3 sets with this loading next week before increasing volume or overall loading.

D1. Ab Wheel Rollouts – 3×10

BWx10x3
- Nothing to really write home about these, except for the fact that I was able to get decent sets of 10, which had been a challenge in the past. I want to put more emphasis on my core training over this 3 week block and see if that helps my lower back issues, and more importantly my anterior pelvic tilt.

____________________________________________________________________________________________

Overall, a great first supplemental day getting into this block, let’s see how the soreness feels moving into the next few days!

Kicking of the 2nd Block

So, here we are, on the cusp of kicking off the 2nd block of my Condensed Conjugate programming. We’re also in the midst of a global pandemic that has basically left everybody quarantined at home in some capacity. I live in New York, north of the New York City, which means that while we aren’t in a full-on lock down, and we are actually allowed to leave the house, I am still working from home full-time and all gyms are closed. This includes the MMA gym that I had been training at.

The initial reason I’d settled on this condensed conjugate set up is simply because I wanted to have the time available to train Brazilian Jiu Jitsu. Now that this isn’t an option, I’m faced with the choice of breaking away from the condensed conjugate structure and following a normal 4 day microcycle, or continuing on. I’m thinking that continuing with the planned structure makes the most sense, but now I have ample time to add in extra training days so that’s what I’m going to do.

My basic plan here is to follow a lower/upper type of split, in which I’ll utilize more bodybuilding focused rep ranges, as I’d like to develop a greater level of hypertrophy, as well as improve my conditioning a bit through the higher volume.

My plan for the next 3 weeks is the following:

Lower Supplemental Training:

A1. High Bar Close Stance Squat – Work up to a heavy set of 6, and then repeat for a total of 3 working sets.

B1. Romanian Deadlifts vs. Monster Mini Bands – Work up to a heavy set of 8, and then repeat for a total of 4 working sets.

C1. Back Raises – 3-5 sets of 15

C2. Reverse Lunge – 3-5 sets of 15

Adding load is optional, depending on how challenging the unloaded version is.

D1. Ab Wheel Rollouts – 3-5 sets of 15

Upper Supplemental Training:

A1. Flat Dumbbell Bench Press – 3 sets of 20

B1. American Cambered Grip Bench Press (Grip 2) – Work up to a heavy set of 6, and then repeat for a total of 4 sets

C1. 2-Arm Dumbbell Rows – 5×10

D1. 1-Arm Barbell Row – 5×10

D2. Landmine Russian Twists – 5×10

E1. Barbell Curl – 5×8

____________________________________________________________________________________________

This set-up is obviously much higher volume than my standard training days where I focus more on heavier loading and more explosive lifting, but that’s basically the point. I honestly don’t know how this macrocycle is going to go, this is a significant increase in total volume across the microcycle, and it might be shooting me in the foot for the 2 main training days. My hope is that the increased squatting volume will continue to help my knees feel better, and bring up my overall squat strength again as that has been lagging behind fairly significantly with such a big gap between squat training days.

Extra Workout – 3/26/2020

Since the whole coronavirus (COVID-19) issue has really effected my work schedule, I haven’t really spent much time outside. So for this workout, I made it a point to get outside into the sunlight, since the weather warmed up, and get some real fresh air.

With my knees in the condition that they’re in, running is out of the question for the time being, so I went for a 2 miles walk with a weight vest on. I tried to keep a fairly brisk pace, but even still I only made it in a little over 30 minutes. Not an amazing pace, but not terrible really. Unweighted, I can usually walk at 15 minutes per mile pace, so this is just a little slower than that. Just something to work at over time, as I progress over the next few months.

After the walk, I decided to do some shadow boxing (unweighted of course), just to kick the cobwebs off on my boxing…I didn’t get rid of all of the cobwebs, because everything was rusty. Just hit 3 2-minutes rounds, with 30 seconds rest in between.

Now, I know I said running is out of the question, but frankly, I lied a little bit. I really shouldn’t have done any running, but I had a sudden urge, so I did a few short sprints. They were probably only 10 yards or so, and I paid for it the next day with increased knee, hip and back pain, but no regrets over here. It felt good just to get my lower body moving dynamically and explosively!