Slicin' and Dicin'
- Thread starter Dustin07
- Start date
Dustin07
Legend
yeah I get that! at least its a reasonable flight from Houston, you still have the 1hr time change to contend with but travel kinda loses its novelty after a while. I used to love it and lately I've somehow kinda grown bad at it. I think its a little bit of a subconcious thing, not wanting to do it so much anymore that I tend to be scatter brained when its time to pack/prepare.
amen, and between forcing in time with the wife late Friday night and the jet lag, I really needed that Saturday recovery.
MrKleen73
Legend
It's a change in priority, the good news is with the wife home, she can probably pick up the slack to pack for you and not even not notice it as a chore. My wife has taken over my packing just because she wants to make sure I have everything. She has a checklist she uses now. LOL Even if I pack myself she will come home and go through everything to make sure I didn't forget anything. Yeah, she spoils me a bit. 
Dustin07
Legend
ha, yeah I felt very uncomfortable having my wife drive me to and pick me up at the airport. I'm used to having hard flight times and parking the car at one of the local lots, then taking a shuttle into the airport etc. it adds around 30-60 minutes each direction. this time she dropped me off and picked me up which was AWESOME. I did tell her I felt weird about it, but it was a huge relief, one less thing to stress over. plus her picking me up at the airport meant we could go straight to a little dinner date instead of her waiting for me to get home around 10pm, in which case she would have already been sound asleep no doubt.It's a change in priority, the good news is with the wife home, she can probably pick up the slack to pack for you and not even not notice it as a chore. My wife has taken over my packing just because she wants to make sure I have everything. She has a checklist she uses now. LOL Even if I pack myself she will come home and go through everything to make sure I didn't forget anything. Yeah, she spoils me a bit.
MrKleen73
Legend
I would say that is an improvement all around. Also there should be no guilt or odd feeling if you look at the opportunity you are providing her, I am sure she wants to take things off your plate since you all took work off of her plate. She will want other ways to feel she is contributing and you have to allow her that. It's hard for a super self sufficient person to do that, but we all often forget to allow others to be generous to us, when we are givers by nature.
Dustin07
Legend
oh yeah I agree with all that, just doesn't feel very masculine having the wife do my pick up and drop off haha. you probably hit the nail on the head though with normally trying to be self sufficient and then accepting this help.
on the flip side even though we are learning how to tighten budgets and whatnot with less income I will say life at home has been pretty great. Her stress level is like zero, even with the step daughters chaos and moving back in for a while. trading her income for this lifestyle so far has been a blessing. only 1 week in and like I said, does require some big financial changes and learning a tighter budget but so far it feels worth it.
MrKleen73
Legend
With what I know you value, it is no surprise to me that home life has improved. Not only does her not working save money in the obvious reasons, but you will find many other quality of life benefits for both of you that will likely be worth more than the money she was bringing in to both of you.
Dustin07
Legend
Squats
5 x 125, 155
3 x 185
5 x 200, 230
10 x 260
Joker
3 x 280, 300
BBB
5 x 10 x 155
Notes
Pulled the cord at 10 reps.. I need to do more learning cause 15 seems silly. I likely had 13, maybe 15 if I redline the tach but my conditioning right now is definitely feeling 10+ rep sets
Last week I realized I had completely forgotten about my knee injury. Seems have zero effect on me now, so only thing holding me back at this point is grit and hard work.
Hoping for a second session tonight but I have some late work appts so not sure yet....
5 x 125, 155
3 x 185
5 x 200, 230
10 x 260
Joker
3 x 280, 300
BBB
5 x 10 x 155
Notes
Pulled the cord at 10 reps.. I need to do more learning cause 15 seems silly. I likely had 13, maybe 15 if I redline the tach but my conditioning right now is definitely feeling 10+ rep sets
Last week I realized I had completely forgotten about my knee injury. Seems have zero effect on me now, so only thing holding me back at this point is grit and hard work.
Hoping for a second session tonight but I have some late work appts so not sure yet....
MrKleen73
Legend
Man, if you had near 15, do it... That is what the AMRAP is for. Nothing builds like a Widow Maker set of 20 on squats. It is the big hypertrophy push of Dogg Crap training that pushes the volume. You can recover from it, let it take you deep and enjoy the fight!
You are supposed to redline the tach on the AMRAP set. I mean it stands for As Many Reps As Possible.
You are supposed to redline the tach on the AMRAP set. I mean it stands for As Many Reps As Possible.
Dustin07
Legend
I'm wondering if I should test my squat 1RM to adjust numbers. Been doing some research and my app currently shows (for TM's):
squat 307.5
deadlift 412.5
bench 295.5
OHP 181.5
more research on my programming. Currently set up to continually increase TM as long as I hit at least 3 reps on week 3, so my big AMRAPS do not indicate what follows. makes me feel better about maybe limiting myself to 10 on week 1 and 8 on week 2. as long as I always hit 3 reps on the final week, I continue to progress upwards.
AI thinks I should manually adjust my TM on squats to 335lbs. I experimented with the app just now to see what that would look like and
Cycle 4
Week 2
Squat 3 x 300lbs (AMRAP).
which I hit today as a joker set. so IDK, maybe this is the way to go since I hit 300 x 3 pretty easily today as a joker set.
AI is such a bro:
squat 307.5
deadlift 412.5
bench 295.5
OHP 181.5
more research on my programming. Currently set up to continually increase TM as long as I hit at least 3 reps on week 3, so my big AMRAPS do not indicate what follows. makes me feel better about maybe limiting myself to 10 on week 1 and 8 on week 2. as long as I always hit 3 reps on the final week, I continue to progress upwards.
AI thinks I should manually adjust my TM on squats to 335lbs. I experimented with the app just now to see what that would look like and
Cycle 4
Week 2
Squat 3 x 300lbs (AMRAP).
which I hit today as a joker set. so IDK, maybe this is the way to go since I hit 300 x 3 pretty easily today as a joker set.
AI is such a bro:
Dustin07
Legend
I'm starting to wonder if the answer could be somewhere in the middle. you pointed out earlier that maybe my upperbody lifts were too close to real maxes, or maybe your point was that I was sorta sandbagging my lower maxes. right now I feel like both things are kinda true. so far on week 1 of bench, I'm hanging in there, but I'm not sure if I just bump my TM on squats up THAT much yet, but maybe a little more makes sense.
next weeks RX on squats is 12 x 275 lol.
300 x 3 sounds a lot more appealing!! (actually it would be 9 to beat PR on cycle, but 9 is a little far fetched for me. I think my best ever was 10 at 290lbs. )
Dustin07
Legend
man thats true. the biggest thing for me was her stress level, thats sorta why I brought that up in greenmachine's log. I haven't been stay home from work sick in 10 years, but I feel like my wife was getting under the weather every few months and her job was just destroying her psyche. It was property management so she was on the daily dealing with tenants not making rent (lost jobs, divorce, etc) and then the owners who would not receive rent and now at risk of missing mortgage payments so her empathy was taking a big hit since all day long she was the brunt of everyones real life stress, IMO. I had to get her out of there.... its been a full month now and she sure seems happy!
Segansational
Well-known member
Glad to hear the knee issue is gone!
MrKleen73
Legend
Yes, I thought your upper body lifts were a little too close to your maxes, specifically bench.
What @Hyde says about bumping 20 on the next cycle makes sense to me.
This is where building muscle, bodybuilding work is harder than power lifting. You have to decide if you are purely strength or if you are trying to grow as well. A set of 12@275 & 3300lbs of volume is going to be more hypertrophy inducing than 3x300 and 900lbs of volume. It is also a much harder set.
Another consideration is with your particular muscle fiber make up, if you want to add size working in a slightly higher rep range is just going to feed into that. You have more Type2A fibers than most of us, which have more strength endurance compared to type 2b which are more explosive but run out of steam faster. To really work those fibers you are going to have to go out into the deep to maximize growth. So if you are wanting a bit of a hybrid situation that will help you gain more muscle tissue, or maintain it in a cut the slightly higher reps are more than likely going to be the better tool for you.
I think Claude has a good point on increasing things, just remind it you are working on a specific program that dictates your weights and you will change it at the beginning of the next cycle, so be patient.
Dustin07
Legend
You guys think the same thing on deadlifts too, then?
I was looking at what my programming is like if I shift my TM from 412 to 430 and it changes my top set this week to 5-10 reps at 365 vs 5-12 reps at 350.
Yeah that gives me a lot to ponder, I hear what you are saying and I can see how top set AMRAPs till the puke would have a big benefit. My earlier hypertrophy years were very high volume with +2" on my legs, and possibly my chest as well, but I never squatted over 300. most of my work was like 100+ reps with 95-155lbs (like 10 set WODs) and millions of air squats, goblets, etc. so massive conditioning, big (although unintentional) hypertrophy, but low top end strength. I could run a mile in 6 minutes, slam out 20 deads at 225, and go run another mile in 6 flat again easy, but I could not squat over 300 and at that time I think my deads peaked around 435, maybe 450 one time.
oh man you've given me a lot to think about.... I mean I'm quite happy with current size overall, not really trying to get bigger, and I think I have the frame for a 500/405 on dead/squat, probably quite a bit more even. I originally just fired up the 531 to make sure I maintained some focus during a time where I didn't have any specific goals, I just wanted my sessions to be productive, but now I'm enjoying playing around with higher numbers again.
Dustin07
Legend
I appreciate you guys pipping in. a lot of thist stuff I probably "know" but sometimes I gotta bounce it off the sounding board or you get stuck in your own wind tunnel making questionable decisions. Like those AMRAPS, if I'm hitting 15+ reps at 260lbs on a squat, but its destroying me, it makes me wonder if thats going backwards. its also the PTSD I carry from when I used to run 531 and I'd hit massive burnout after 3 cycles. Like I"ll never forget hitting 13-15 reps at 385 on deads. In theory, that would calculate to a 551lb deadlift but at that time in my life I never passed 450 and my recovery was tanking hard on that volume.
On the flip side, I'm a little worried if I only go in and chase those shorter rep sets like 3-5, even if they are quite hard (I know I"ll recover better regardless) I dont' want to leave too much on the field. I think joker and BBB type work help in that scenario, but even with Joker reps I could fall into a trap of essentially hitting near term 1rm efforts on accident way too often.
So I sorta think my approach this week seems smart... 10 x 260 (instead of 15), and 3 x 285,300 (instead of 1 at like 330, 340 etc).
appreciate that! I hit that 485 lifetime PR the day before my wife's Surgery, I think it was Dec 4th 2023. I pulled 500 from the rack so I have at least "held" 500 which feels better than having quit at 485. But that was also the heaviest I have been since like 2009 and I needed to shift gears. After cutting down from 207+ back into the 180s I noticed my legs had atrophied a lot since I spent a year on deadlifts and neglected squats.
I'd say today I could pull 440 pretty clean, and I think my lifetime best 365 squat is on the table if I was fresh. My birthday is in October and I've been toying with the idea of trying to keep this 531 programming consistent and progressive until then to see if I can't hammer out a few PRs for my 44th.
Bench should be a pretty safe bet for a PR with almost 3 months of training since my all time best is 305 but lately I have easily been able to grab 295 singles and that 250 x 8. 310 seems like its definitely there now if I prepped for it, but I'd love to see if I can take 315 in Oct.
I also don't want to add anymore weight to be honest. I'm at 197lbs this morning and starting to accept I need xl shirts now haha
On the flip side, I'm a little worried if I only go in and chase those shorter rep sets like 3-5, even if they are quite hard (I know I"ll recover better regardless) I dont' want to leave too much on the field. I think joker and BBB type work help in that scenario, but even with Joker reps I could fall into a trap of essentially hitting near term 1rm efforts on accident way too often.
So I sorta think my approach this week seems smart... 10 x 260 (instead of 15), and 3 x 285,300 (instead of 1 at like 330, 340 etc).
appreciate that! I hit that 485 lifetime PR the day before my wife's Surgery, I think it was Dec 4th 2023. I pulled 500 from the rack so I have at least "held" 500 which feels better than having quit at 485. But that was also the heaviest I have been since like 2009 and I needed to shift gears. After cutting down from 207+ back into the 180s I noticed my legs had atrophied a lot since I spent a year on deadlifts and neglected squats.
I'd say today I could pull 440 pretty clean, and I think my lifetime best 365 squat is on the table if I was fresh. My birthday is in October and I've been toying with the idea of trying to keep this 531 programming consistent and progressive until then to see if I can't hammer out a few PRs for my 44th.
Bench should be a pretty safe bet for a PR with almost 3 months of training since my all time best is 305 but lately I have easily been able to grab 295 singles and that 250 x 8. 310 seems like its definitely there now if I prepped for it, but I'd love to see if I can take 315 in Oct.
I also don't want to add anymore weight to be honest. I'm at 197lbs this morning and starting to accept I need xl shirts now haha
MrKleen73
Legend
Just a personal opinion here, but I think if you are worrying about recovery you should be limiting your joker sets, not the AMRAP. With how much lower your volume is now than before, recovering shouldn't be much of a problem for you. The AMRAP in this instance is kind of what brings the progress, so if you are limiting it for work in the 90% range just to feel heavy weight in your hands regularly IMHO you are probably limiting your progress.
Mentally with your muscle fiber make up I totally understand your desire to get the heavy weight in your hands. Being a bit more on the strength endurance side of things, your top weights are likely to fall off a bit faster if you don't touch the heavier ranges regularly. So that can probably get into your head, but that is just a CNS efficiency thing that 3 weeks of liftin in the 90% + range will bring right back. So in regular training you don't really need to do that, just a few weeks out before you choose to test things to bring that CNS efficiency back.
Dustin07
Legend
OK thats good feedback. with these minor adjustments I'll stay the course here then, give the AMRAPs hell, and see what unfolds. I agree on Joker sets potentially overtaxing me, thats something I've been mindful of but its really hard for me to determine best use of output. Yesterday I racked that thing at 10 reps thinking I had 12 in me, but uncertain of 15. if I had hammered out the full 12-15 it would have been a soul crushing effort. but with a few minutes of recovery, I was able to easily grab those 3 rep joker sets. if not for time contraints I had briefly pondered a 3 set of 3 at 315. (so 285, 300, 315).
so perhaps I'm not giving enough credit to those amraps, maybe they are conditioning me better than I realize if I can take a breath and come back and hit my triple at 300 like I did. Mentally, its a lot easier to wrap my head around a quick single or triple compared to the agony of knowing I need 15+ reps at a new weight.
gphagan1
Legend
Whichever direction you choose I’m sure is going to work for you. I agree with Kleen on the benefit of the AMRAP sets helping to build muscle as your strength increases. But like I said, I believe whichever direction you choose will work for you because you have made some great gains in strength and physique in the first 3 cycles with no signs of slowing down, so I think the gains will keep coming.
Hyde
Legend
I would bump squats the 20lbs this next cycle but probably keep deads to the normal 10lb TM increase. Reason being you don’t want to change too much at once. Things are working; you can extra bump deads the following cycle if you still feel the need. You’re just finding squat SO light that you can’t execute the AMRAP and leaning too much on Jokers.
And to piggyback on that, use Jokers sparingly. If you take them more than once a week, or almost weekly on the same lift week to week, you are probably doing too many.
And to piggyback on that, use Jokers sparingly. If you take them more than once a week, or almost weekly on the same lift week to week, you are probably doing too many.
Dustin07
Legend
thanks man. I think what I'm realizing is longevity is the goal here. after many burnouts with this type of training. Klokov almost killed me, LOL! I'll never forget my 4 x 9 set of squats on Klokov Jr. I think I stopped the programming that day.Whichever direction you choose I’m sure is going to work for you. I agree with Kleen on the benefit of the AMRAP sets helping to build muscle as your strength increases. But like I said, I believe whichever direction you choose will work for you because you have made some great gains in strength and physique in the first 3 cycles with no signs of slowing down, so I think the gains will keep coming.
nice thing about 531 is there is some serious flexibility between Jims "I'm not doing jackshit" approach, Jokers, BBB, etc. My past 3 cycles have had a mix. there were days were I could not get extra volume in and days like yesterday where I did pretty well with jokers and BBB.
Its good to see you put it that way. "squat SO light that you can’t execute the AMRAP". so I'm not entirely crazy for thinking that even AMRAPs should have a limit is what I'm hearing if I understand you correctly.
I mean 15 reps at 155lbs is probably nearly as taxing for me as 15 reps at 225-250 in some ways.
Hyde
Legend
I would personally not exceed 12-13 reps on AMRAP barbell work. There comes a point where risk of injury from mounting exhaustion supersedes potential benefits. There is nothing a 20-rep squat can give you (hypertrophy-wise) that a Hacksquat, Powersquat, Legpress, Beltsquat or similar machines cannot do as well, but there’s much less risk to the back and you can just focus on the work.
There’s a reason Dante chose machines for widowmakers, and not a barbell like in the old Super Squats program. SS was basically for early intermediates that would not have the mileage (or be steroid users) to make it as risky.