Bye-bye BBing BS: Journal of my 5x5 a la madcow2

[Guinness5.0]

I'm gonna order that book right now.

 

[Jim Ouini]

I'm GUESSING that some improvement in explosive strength would go a long way toward helping me with my sticking point.

I'm guessing here too, but I think my clean pulls have helped my dead, even though my stance is different.

I'm gonna order that book right now.

You will love it.

 

[blut wump]

I'll fire him off an email and ask about shipping to the UK.

Guinness5.0, I did power cleans instead of rows this run. I remember during the Volume phase feeling really in control of my deadlifts. I almost broke it by going too heavy on box squats on Wednesdays. A slight downside to the cleans over rows is that I'm finally thinking of spending a couple of weeks getting my biceps back. It's also quite a technical lift and, even now, I sometimes can't explode enough at the right time and just hit myself in the chest and don't have the confidence to try ducking underneath the bar.

Jim, that's how I try to think of my deads. How it actually goes in practice might be another matter. I recently got a new phone with a video camera so I might make use of it and post up for some criticism if the gym owner doesn't object to filming in the gym. I've only ever caught my knees on the way back down but that was another thing the guy mentioned: that I start too far out from the bar. I did that 495 rack pull at the end of the second or third week of volume. I thought it boded well for hitting 400 on the dead by the end. I'm hoping that a tweak in technique will give me a free boost in weight lifted.

 

[Guinness5.0]

I'll fire him off an email and ask about shipping to the UK.

Guinness5.0, I did power cleans instead of rows this run. I remember during the Volume phase feeling really in control of my deadlifts. I almost broke it by going too heavy on box squats on Wednesdays. A slight downside to the cleans over rows is that I'm finally thinking of spending a couple of weeks getting my biceps back. It's also quite a technical lift and, even now, I sometimes can't explode enough at the right time and just hit myself in the chest and don't have the confidence to try ducking underneath the bar.

I guess it's worth mentioning that I'm not new to power cleans. I did them for four years in high school for football and had the third-best 3rm on the team (245 lbs).
I really liked them and I look forward to doing them again.

 

[blut wump]

I guess it's worth mentioning that I'm not new to power cleans. I did them for four years in high school for football and had the third-best 3rm on the team (245 lbs).
I really liked them and I look forward to doing them again.

Nice weight. I got myself up to 90Kg (205 lbs?) this run for 1x3. It's a really enjoyable movement. I kept feeling that if I could just explode better in the middle that I'd have more but doing them last after squats and bench makes it harder.

I ordered the book. They do international shipping.

 

[Guinness5.0]

Week 9

TUESDAY

Man this was a screwy day

Squat: Bailed during warmups- did a double w/ 365 and felt pain in my spine. Damn.
Bench 3x3: 305 (w/ a touch spot on the very last rep)
Row 3x3: 295
Power Clean: 3-4 sets w/ 225 just to feel it out/get reacclimated, then a triple w/ 245, then failed at 275, then got 275

Comments:

-I had no clue that my back would hurt (usually if it affects my lifting I'll know about before I get to the gym) but even w/ 315 it started to feel "wrong", then w/ 365 it became clear I should abort.

-I was pissed from the lack of a good squatting session, so when I started to tear down the bar from rowing, I thought "what the hell". I always do a power clean w/ 225 on it to re-rack the bar when I finish my rows, so I tried a set with it for grins. Got 5 easy, did a couple more sets, added weight until I hit 275. My friggin traps are BEAT today. I think these are gonna be in my next run (a 4 week mini-cycle).

-(Stifles tears)- Well this is it- the first run is over. Overall I'm thrilled with the progress I've made. Now it's time to put the finishing touches on my next program and keep making gains. I'll start a new journal as this has been a valuable tool in terms of motivation and progress-tracking.

-Almost forgot: weight is up to 252 for a 6 pound increase. I think most of the muscle went to my legs and back (though my shoulders improved notably as well), and a couple pounds of fat went to my belly. During the middle of the run I think I actually leaned out a bit, then I made a conscious effort to wolf down everything in sight and discovered $1 double cheeseburgers at McDonald's so caloric surplus wasn't a problem

-Of course thanks are due to madcow for making us aware of this program and sticking around to help us all out.

 

[Jim Ouini]

Grats on finishing...I was semi-emotional when I finished my 1st run through too. I think it comes from the fact that you finally feel like you have a sweet program that works and a better understanding of how to train after years of spinning your wheels (by 'you', I mean 'me' )

Any idea of your starting/finishing numbers on the big 3?

Nice powercleans BTW

 

[Guinness5.0]

Any idea of your starting/finishing numbers on the big 3?

Well, it's hard to say for sure, but I'll do my best to give a decent idea.

Deadlift improvement:
About two-three weeks before I actually started the program I was reading anything/everything MC posted and realized that my DL form was unacceptable- I'd start to dl by loading a bb at hip level in the power rack, picking it up and doing touch-and-go reps from there, so I NEVER did a true DEADlift. The first day I did them right I couldn't even pull 365 (I used to work up to 405 for 8 reps with my [ugh] "technique"). Now I can pull somewhere b/t 435 and 455.

Squat:
This one's tougher to quantify, b/c I was just getting back into squatting naturally ( I had gotten a bit lazy and relied on leg presses and hack squat machines- ). On my last AAS cycle, which ended in early feb., I was working up to sets of 365x6. Now I can do 405 for a triple AFTER two triples w/ 395 (as of last week) and if things would have gone normally yesterday I'd have attempted 425 for a triple. I could probably do 8 or so with 365 if I had to guess, and I'm going deeper than before.

Bench:
This is tough too b/c I had pretty much dispensed with benching altogether in favor of heavy incline db presses and hammer machines (this is tough to admit now ). On that AAS cycle I was working up to 315 for sets of 5 during the last couple of weeks but the last reps were generally forced reps. Last week I did a triple with 315 completely untouched.

I feel I should mention to anyone reading this that the drugs I used back in Jan/Feb were test and tren, two compounds known for superior strength gains. Though the dose wasn't crazy, it sure wasn't low at 700mg test/week and 350 mg tren/week. Knowing what i know now I sure as hell would have skipped the sauce in favor of actually training properly and achieving my goals naturally.

 

[Jim Ouini]

Nice.

Your program prior to 5 x 5 sounds EXACTLY like mine - touch and go deads starting from a rack (sometimes I wouldn't even do the 'touch' part lol), incline db + hammer for chest, 'half' squats (although to be honest mine are still broken).

We must've read the same magazine