Bench: light day (225x5x5)

Thurs, 30 Mar 17

Bench: 135x10, 185x2x5, 225x5x5

Short, sweet and to the point.  My shoulder was still pretty tight today, but I managed to loosen it up enough to hit depth.  Finished up with some pumpy shoulder work to get some blood in there. (low pulley crossover, 17.5 x 20, 27.5 x 2 x 20.

Deadlifts - heavy (425 max)

Weds, 29 Mar 17

Deadlifts: 225x5 conventional, 225x5 sumo, 315x2x5, 365x2x5, 405x4x1, 425x1

My circulatory system was certainly having a hard time today.  I needed to sit down fairly quickly after the 405s, and had to take a knee at 425.  I ripped a callous off as well.

I've been giving some thought to what I'm going to do after this cut.  While I am strong-ish, and do look like I lift, I think I'd rather have prettier muscles, even if it means I won't be able to lift as much.  My cardio health needs to come up as well.  I've been looking at a Pull-Push-Legs style plan.  Three times a week lift, with two or three days cardio.  Likely walk/running.

The key difference, aside from reps, appears to be not trying to be so efficient at lifts.  ie - With a powerlifting bench it's whatever is needed to move the most weight over the least distance.  With a bb style bench it's whatever activates the pecs the best - make the lightest weight hard to move.  To transition the mechanism seems to be to take a standard PL type lift first - say on pull day start with deadlifts and move the weight at a high enough tempo to tax the nervous system without fatiguing the muscles.  So in my case of 425 I'd probably rep out sets at 335-340 until I was fried.  The other two movements would be barbell row and chins, all high rep stuff.  Push day looks like bench, military shoulder press or seated shoulder, and dips.  Last is legs, squats, leg extensions for quads, and seated calf raise.  Sets would likely be 5x5 with a rest-pause-repeat for the last set/rep until failure.  (Think Dogcrapp)

Anyhow, that's where things stand right now.  I really don't want to lose strength BEFORE starting a new program, so the cut will continue on exactly as I have been doing it.

Bench - er upper body day

Tues, 28 Mar 17

Bench: 0

I couldn't hit depth with just the bar, and putting a plate a side on didn't improve matters.  My right shoulder just was too tight to get the bar to my chest, and it still hurt, no matter how I positioned myself .  I decided to just do a bunch of upper body work with light ez-curl bars (close grip and palm down wide grip curls, tricep extensions, high rep up 40, 50 and 60 lbs.  I then did a bunch of upper body machine work.  A little disappointing, but it is what it is, and injuring myself won't help anything.  I'll try again Thurs.

Squats: light day (315x5x5)

Mon, 27 Mar 17

Squats: 135x10, 225x10, 315x5x5

Uggghhhhh.  I walked into the gym yawning my face off.  The 315s were fast and snappy.  It was funny when one of the trainers came up and said, "Saw you hit 3 plates bro, good work".  My response, "yeah, it was light day."

Squats - heavy day (425 max)

Fri, 24 Mar 17

Squats: 135x10, 225x10, 315x2x5, 365x2x3, 385x1, 405x1, 425x1

Everything felt good today.  I felt strong going into the session and decided to do a heavy day.  Managed to squat the 425 with a bit of uneven footing,  It wouldn't have passed with white lights at competition, but hey, I'm not competing.

Bench: Light day (225x5x5)

Thurs, 23 Mar 17

Bench: 135x10, 185x2x5, 205x2x5, 225x5x5, 185x10

Went well, I was happy to be able to do the 5x5, and the finish with 185x10 was just icing on the cake.

mmmm cake.

Anyhow, I tried to do another set after that, but I didn't wait long enough and it felt crappy on the unrack - so I called it a day and went back to the office.

Deadlifts: Heavy day (425 max)

Weds, 22 Mar 17

One Arm Deadlifts: 225x4x3
Deadlifts: 315x2x5, 365x5, 385x2, 405x1, 425x1

Mixed it up a bit today with some one arm deadlifts.  The tricky part of those is definitely the balance lol.  I started out pretty good, but by the third set there was definitely nothing level about the bar lol.  I started getting dizzy around 385, and didn't have anything more in me after the 425.  I'm not whining too hard about it, some loss of strength is to be expected while dieting, and hopefully I don't have too much longer to go as I'm really fighting to hold onto every bit of muscle I have.

Bench: heavy day (265 max)

Tues, 21 Mar 17

Bench:  135x10, 185x2x5, 205x2x5, 225x2x5, 245x2x3, 255x2, 265x1

Pretty decent.  Took about 30 mins, not a lot of messing around.

Squats, heavy day (405 max)

Mon. 20 Mar 17

Squats: 135x10, 225x2x5, 315x2x5, 365x3, 385x1, 405x1

The top single was heavy, but I did manage to squat the 405, albeit I had to change my leg position to finish the movement at the top.  So, hanging in there, but didn't feel like I should try to pound out more singles after the shaky rep.

Squats, light day (315x8)

Sat, 18 Mar 17

Squats: 135x10, 225x10, 315x8, 6, 6

Not too bad.

Deadlifts: heavy (425 max)

Fri, 17 Mar 17

Deadlifts: 225x2x5, 315x2x5, 365x3, 405x1, 425x1

I don't think I had a 445 in me, but that's ok.  Back to work next week which should be positive in regards to not playing video games all day and eating all that protein. I'll do some light squats tomorrow.

Bench: light day (225x3x5)

Thurs, 16 Mar 17

Bench: 135x2x10, 185x2x5, 205x5, 225x3x5

Static holds: 315x10 a few secs each.

Added a few static holds.  Unrack, extend arms fully and hold.  Pretty hard - 315 seems a million miles away.

Squats, heavy day (385x2x1)

Tues, 14 Mar 17

Squats: 135x2x5, 225x2x5, 315x2x5, 365x3, 385x2x1

Couldn't get into the 405, didn't have it in me today.  I've been slacking off a bit, taking some vacation time from work. Still losing weight.

Squats: heavy day (405x4x1)

Thurs, 9 Mar 17

Squats: 135x10, 225x5, 315x2x5, 365x2x3, 385x2x1, 405x4x1

I felt like squatting today, but didn't have the energy for a big endurance session. So I kept the squats heavy, and didn't spend a lot of time on them.

Deadlifts, explosiveness work. (405x5x1)

Weds, 8 Mar 17

Deadlifts:  225x2x5, 315x2x5, 365x2x5, 405x5x1

Could have sworn I did more reps, but that's what I did.  It just FELT like more.  I used straps up until the heavy singles.  The goal was to pull from the floor as fast as I could.  For the singles I went strapless (and backless, in a lovely black evening gown with deadlift socks), and pulled as fast and hard as I could.  I definitely saw stars and was sweating up a storm.

Bench, heavy day (265 max)

Tues, 7 Mar 17

Bench:  135x5, 185x5, 225x5, 245x2x1, 265x1

Had to wait to get a bench, so I arsed around with dumbbells, curls, cable pulls, etc while waiting.  Got some good pump and stretch.  Once I got a bench I just hopped on and worked my way up to a few heavy singles.  I was actually surprised I hit the 265 because I really felt like crap during all the mess-around work and thought I'd be too fatigued to do anything heavy.

Squats, heavy day (405x5x1)

Mon, 6 Mar 17

Squats: 135x10, 225x5, 315x5, 365x3, 385x2, 405x5x1

Short and sweet.  I'm down 25 lbs of weight so far, and managing to hold steady on the weight on the bar.

Squats, light day (315x5x5)

Fri, 3 Mar 17

Squats: 135x10, 225x10, 315x5x5
Leg Press: 4x10, 6x10, 8x2x5, 10x2x5

Had plenty of time left over, so did a bunch of leg press work.  Even though the squats were light, they were taxing - I kept them snappy with only about 2 mins between sets.  Definitely made me breathe heavy.

Bench: light day (225x5x5)

Thurs, 2 Mar 17

Bench: 135x10, 185x2x5, 205x5, 225x5x5

Bench went well.  Finished with some upright rope cable rows and some rope tricep pushdowns.

Deadlifts, so so day (425x3x1)

Weds, 1 Mar 17

Deadlifts:  225x2x5, 315x5, 365x5, 385x3, 405x2, 425x3x1, 315x5 (sumo), 315x3 (snatch grip)

I got dizzy at the top sets today, couldn't seem to shake it so I stopped at 425.  Still, not bad.  Did a few reps with the two other grips/styles - but I was so tired by then I couldn't keep going.