12 May 2012
Cycle #2
Agile 8 + DeFranco's Gewd stuff. Wasn't as sore today compared to the previous two days. May get a foam roller for myself so I can do some rolling at home. More rolling, less soreness.
Squat: 5x115, 5x140, 3x165 + 5x210, 3x235, 1+"1"x265
All the reps felt good, no lower back strain. Had a real tight and low barbell position on my back. I felt the bar firmly against my anterior delts when I squeezed the bar. I think I lowered the bar a bit too slow on the 1 repper. I have a habit of doing that when I'm not mentally confident of completing the rep. I still cranked it out with fair ease. I went for another rep, but a slight lean forward and my form crapped out. I got the weight up, but if anything it was more like a good morning.
Boring But Big 60%
Deadlift: 10/8/8/6/10 x 170
Pretty tough. For the first four sets, my stance was a bit wider. I set the stance up such that it was about the spacing I would take when prepping for a jump. This form put considerably less if any stress on my lower back. However, it also made the lift much more difficult for me. Knurling scraping against the shins hard was discouraging when I lifted this way. Narrowed my stance on the last set and it was a breeze. It was only afterwards, though, that I realized it was easy because I was lifting with my back and not my legs.
Hanging Leg Raises: 10/8/6
Not bad. One thing I did differently compared to different sessions was crunching my legs upward once my knees reached as far as they could. I'm not sure if this is necessarily part of the exercise, but it definitely burned my abs quite a bit.
Tabata Sprints: 4x20-10
My route is still up in the air at the moment. For this session, I used a nearby parking lot. The first half of the sprint was flat and then the second half was about a 10% incline. Normally, for tabata sprinting sessions, people go for 8 sets for a total of 4 minutes of hell. Seeing as how I'm just starting, I decided to first start with just 2 sets, but ended up doing 4. The first sets were really easy. So I got cocky and went for another 2 sets. The fatigue hit me hard during the third and fourth sets especially once I hit the incline portions. My legs went limp and felt like I was lugging tree trunks when I walked back. I'm going to do 3 sets for another 2 weeks and then add another set on the proceeding weeks.
11 May 2012
Cycle #2
Agile 8 + DeFranco's Went into the workout after recovering from feverish day before. My entire body was aching a lot- especially the legs, inner thighs. Foam rolling was definitely not pleasant, but the body felt much much better afterwards. Noticed that on the floor shoulder stretch that breathing in and out deeply got me to hold a deeper stretch. Kept my zip up hoodie on for the entire workout to keep the body warm.
Bench Press: 3x10xBar + 5x120, 3x135, 3x155
Used PL arch on the second set. Don't remember what I did on the last set, but I cranked out 2 extra reps. I had a guy spot me, so the extra confidence probably helped out. I did a 4th rep, but the guy pretty much did most of the lifting.
Boring But Big 60%
Press: 5x10x50 +** DB Row: 5x10x30 **
These were pretty grueling. I stopped twisting my torso and made sure to keep it parallel to the bench when pulling the dumbbell during dumbbell rows.
Curls: ** 3x10x30 + Tricep pushdown: 3x10x30 + Face pull: **3x10x25
Still pretty easy. I think I've got the hang of the face pull exercise. People give me strange looks in the gym when I do them.
09 May 2012
Cycle #2
Agile 8 + DeFranco's Felt the foam roll on the upper back and lats today. Upper back and lats started getting sore a bit before noon today and foam rolling got to some tender spots, especially the lats. Thinking retrospectively, I think I'm going to stick with the chin-ups instead of doing the lat pull downs. I'm getting more bang for the rep with chin-ups than with lat pull downs.
Deadlift: 5x115, 3x140, 3x175 + 5x210, 3x240, 1x270
These felt very strong today, pulled with exceptional ease. I took a note from Wendler's book and assumed a stance as if I was jumping to set up. My stance was noticeably wider than what I previously lifted with. Used regular grip on the 5 and 3 repper sets. Alternating grip on the last set.
Boring But Big 60%
Squat: 5x135 + 5x10x165
As I write this, I'm still lightly disoriented from the exhaustion suffered after finishing these. One thing I changed was to do quick triple or quadruple reps in quick succession with one breath. I found that resetting and going from a dead stop really hindered my ability to recover and sustain enough energy on subsequent reps. Of course, with that in mind, I made sure not to "divebomb" the reps. I got one frustrated grunt out on the 9th rep on the 4th set because my body started shutting down at the start of the 8th rep- its never failed to get my body jolted from going to sleep on me.
Ab Wheel: 10/8/6
These didn't strain my back as much as before. One thing I changed with the way I descended on the roll out was, to roll out and keep my arms perpendicular to the roller until my body was in a push up position on my knees. From this position I then roll my arms out until my body is close to parallel on the ground. Then, when going back, I simply reverse this. I partitioned the lift this way because before I would bring my ass back before rolling my arms back to get myself into pushup position. This was putting unnecessary strain on my back and taking out upper ab involvement.