RipStone's 5x5-GFH journal

[RipStone]

Congrats on the 200 x 3 bench! That is my short term goal. now lets se the 200 x 5 PR on monday!

BELIEVE- YOUR ARE THAT STRONG
A lot of times that last rep is a matter of believing you can do it... no mental bolcks.

Thanks.

Actually, I am gonna go for 192-5x5 cus I never really did 192x5 cus of a crappy spotter. I jumped ahead of myself cus I felt that I could handle more weight and I would have been able to do 192x5 if it wasnt for the spotter grabbing the bar pre-maturely.

Its amazing how much an optomistic attidtude will do for your lifting....or for that matter for everything in like.

 

[RipStone]

Monday, Week 14

(all loads in pounds)

squats:
-95x5
-135x5
-185x5
-215x5
-250x5(got 5 reps in, but took a pretty big pause between reps 4 and 5. form was okay...nice depth and i stayed back on my heels. the thing that wasnt so good was that i could feel myself slightly going into a "good morning" posistion on the ascend. also, i am having some discomfort in my hips. not so much when i am squatting, but more like throughout the day. kinda worried about this. perhaps a joint issue??)------> PR!!!

bench press:
-95x5
-135x5
-155x5
-175x5
-195x4( didnt even go for the 5th rep. i knew it wasnt going up. i dunno even know how solid the first 4 reps were...probabaly werent brought down low enough. i dunno what is wrong with me, but i seem to be able to nail the triples on friday, but when i go for the fives i have a mental block or something).

BB rows:
-70x5
-95x5
-115x5
-130x5
-145x5(i reset these back a few weeks in order to have better form. i got 5 reps in at parallel so i am happy)

weighted hypers:
-50x12x3
-50x8(decided to go with less weight, more reps today for hypertrophy purposes).

Abs;
- cable crunches: 90x15x2

-knee raises: BWx12x2

Comments: not a very good workout today. my intensity was no where to be found. i am pretty sure this is due to lack of sleep last night and the night before. i probabaly should not have even lifted today. i hate to say this, but i defated myself before i even went for the bench press PR. i just didnt have the energy.

Question: My progress has been crawling latley. I am wondering what you guys think about a reset/deload? I think I might need it in order to take some stress off my CNS. I mean I have been going at it hard now for over 3 months and I have been having to make a lot of changes to the orginal program in order to milk out some progress, but the progress is still slow. So, maybe I should reset the program and do everything verbatim to the orginal program...what do you guys think?

Thanks for reading and helping

 

[djeclipse]

Congrats on the Squat PR. Sorry to hear about your troubles with bench press. Lack of sleep could be a part of it. You're able to get 200 for the tripple so you have it in you. What about going for 193 x 5 or something like that, somethig in between 190 and 195 for 5?

For your weighted hypers, is that 50lbs at 12 reps, 3 sets?

 

[RipStone]

Congrats on the Squat PR. Sorry to hear about your troubles with bench press. Lack of sleep could be a part of it. You're able to get 200 for the tripple so you have it in you. What about going for 193 x 5 or something like that, somethig in between 190 and 195 for 5?

For your weighted hypers, is that 50lbs at 12 reps, 3 sets?

thanks . yea, at least I got one PR today.

yea, 50lbs, 3 sets, 12 reps a set. the 4th set was just 8 reps cus i was getting a lot of lactic acid in my lower back and i didnt want to be too sore tommorow, heh.

BUMP on my question in my other post(today workout). Could use some opinions please...

 

[RipStone]

wednesday, week 14

READ FIRST PLEASE

So I woke up today and I again was feeling tired and didnt have the drive to go workout. I kept on trying to get myself pumped up, etc, but I just could not. This is the 2nd straight workout were I had this problem. And from what you will see with the workout numbers below, combined with the tiredness, and the lack of mental intensity I believe I am expierncing sings of overtraining...

front squats:
-bar x 8
-115x5
-135x5( for some reason I just could not get comfortable with the bar posistion today, so for the remaining 2 sets I just did light back squats)
-175x5x2

OH press:
-75x5
-90x5
-110x5
-127x6 (the one bright spot in my workout today. This is a 1lbs PR, plus for some reason I did an extra rep.)--------> PR!!

sumo deadlifts: ( As you guys recall, I was doing GMs the last 2 weeks, but my hamstrings were feeling pretty sore from the hypers on monday[yet another sign I am not recovering] so I decided to do DLs, which is more of a full body movement and less likely to use hammies[ although I know DLs were hammies too] )

-135x5
-185x5
-225x5
-275x3m (WTF! My old PR was 280x5 and these 3 reps just sucked ass. I could tell my upper back rounded way too much. Also, there was no way in hell I was getting the 4th rep up so I just stopped after 3 in order not to risk injury.)

chins:

-BW+15x5x2(same as last week)
-BW+15x4(-1 rep, and I felt weak as fuck with these, so I decided to just do BW reps for the last 2 sets)
-BWx6(oh c'mon, last week I did BW+10x5 for my 4th set)
-BWx5 (fuck!)

Abs:

-standing cable crunches: 60x12x3

-various swiss ball exercises done in a circut

more comments: I am frustruatred and bewildered. I am defintley having signs of overtaining....feel tired, lack of focus, and weaker. I know its not my diet cus my weight is actually up a little from last week(I weighed myself today just to rule out this varaible). I know the program works so that is out of the question. So it has to be recovery. Cus if it wasnt recovery and my linear gains simply stopped, I would not be getting weaker. But its wierd cus some exercises are still progressing, but then again I feel like shit so it has to be recovery. So what should I do? I am thinking of a couple options and would really appreciate everyone's advice...

a) reset the loads back 3 weeks. it would serve as a deload
b) maybe i need to change the means of training. in other words, start a new program. i mean i guess its possible that i have just about finished milking linear progress so i need to do a different program.

HELP!!!!!!!

 

[anotherbutters]

If you have the info to hand, how about a little summary table like this and a pat on the back for getting this far? Congrats on running it for 14 weeks - same as me!

First off, don't worry too much, your world isn't coming to an end. I know I got stuck and didn't really know what to do when I stalled. To be honest, I probably should have carried on another week, just to make sure there was nothing left. It sounds like you could do with a bit of a break, which is how I felt.

Anyway, you knew you'd stall at some point and knew you'd have to change something, so this isn't unexpected. I took a week off, but I probably won't do it again because it upset my rhythm and it was too much of a change - too much of a deload. Personally, when I stall again, I'm going to try swapping to a different set/rep scheme, dropping the weight enough to give me at least 4 weeks of progression and starting over. I expect the different set/rep scheme will be refreshing and the reset will act as a mini deload.

 

[RipStone]

Thanks for the reply AB. I did a table of my progress a little while back, but I will make an updated one as well.

You are right, I knew linear progress would stop at one point, just kinda hoping I could last a little longer. And you are also right....I feel like my world in ending for some reason, lol.

Anyway, what I am also worried about it the fact that I am tired, couldnt get focused at the gym, and actually got weaker. This leads me to believe I am overtraining.

So, AB(and others) how do you think I should go on from here? You mentioned working with different rep/set scheme and resetting back 4 weeks....how would this look on paper?

Again, thanks for the reply.

 

[anotherbutters]

I felt like my world was ending too, lol. Just don't take a week off and then hurt your back when you jump back into it. THEN you'll know about lack of progress!

Sure, when you get into overreaching, you might get a bit weaker. Or it could just have been a bad day. That's why I wondered whether I ought to have carried on for a few more days, just to make sure.

On paper, I wasn't sure about different set/reps. I'm currently working with triples on some lifts and Sir BW kindly pointed out Prilepin's table. I'm doing flat 5x3 for bench and rows on Monday and military on Wednesday, and I'm ramping 8x3 for bench and rows on Friday. I haven't thrown in any back-off sets or cut down to singles or doubles (aka the SF 5x5's triple on Fridays), but I'm not too concerned about that. I'm starting easy and increasing the weights weekly. I expect it might last for about 10 weeks, then when I stall, I'll change it again, probably back to standard SF 5x5. And then when I stall yet again, I might try sets of 8, or try a higher workload like a mini load. Or I might try 8 reps, going down to doubles and singles over a period of weeks as things get hard, to keep the intensity increasing. Just playing basically, so long as I can keep the weights going up and setting a few PRs each time I ramp up.

I'll probably stick with the same exercises on the same days, just play with the intensity and volume.

There are plenty of other things you can try, but the above is what I'm thinking of doing for myself.

 

[RipStone]

That plan sounds pretty good man....I might follow the anotherbutters/madcow SF 5x5 program Thanks for the link too. I will have to study that. What are you doing for squats and deadlifts....standard 5x5 protocol?

BTW, here is my progress over the 14 weeks...

lift......................starting 5RM........current 5 RM…….for the math impaired
bench press......... 175lbs................193lbs…………… +18lbs
squat.................. 225................... 250.………………..+25lbs
deadlift................ 245.................. 280.……………….+35lbs
row.................... 135....................152.………………..+17lbs
OH press..............115....................127.……………….+12lbs

weight: 161lbs to 166.5lbs.

appearnce: look bigger, yet I dont notice any body fat gains. if anything, maybe even more defintion.

 

[anotherbutters]

Congrats on the strength gains, but I think you might have robbed yourself a little bit by only eating enough to put on 5.5lbs of bodyweight in 14 weeks. If you want to stay trim then fair enough. I went a bit crazy to be honest, actually setting myself a target of 1.5lbs per week gain, and it shows.

Deads and squats, I'm running standard 5x5. It's all in my journal

EDIT: Oh, and the idea of changing to a different set/rep scheme wasn't mine, it was something Glenn Pendlay posted on here. I certainly can't take credit for that!