I figured I may as well post one of these myself...
As I've posted elsewhere, I went most of the winter with very few workouts, getting very sick and losing a ton of weight. I was actually down to a mere 190 lbs for a while. Currently, I'm back up to 208 lbs. A lot of what I lost was muscle. I know because I lost strength, and because if I hadn't lost muscle during that period, I would have been absolutely shredded.
So now I am soft, but I don't care. I want my strength back. I'm eating slightly over maintenance, and gaining weight very slowly. I don't plan on cutting for a very, very long time. I could really care less about fat right now.
When I first came back from being sick, I decided to retest my 1 RMs. With deadlifts, I was barely able to get 385 lbs an inch of the floor. There was no way it was coming up any further. That really sucked!
So... currently, I'm doing a strength focused HST variation. I started out doing 3 sets of 10 on everything using roughly 80% of my 15 rep max, and am building up to the most I can do for 3 sets of 10. I was alternating, but found that workouts were going too fast, so I've rethought what I'm doing a bit.
Since my strength levels were so screwed up, my maxes were pretty difficult to measure correctly. I've just kind of estimated some of them, estimating on the low side for some of them. I've already adjusted deadlifts and rows, since they were too easy to start off with, but I've really had a hard time gauging where I'm at with clean and press and with high pulls.
At the moment, my workouts look like this:
Deadlifts
Pendlay Rows (Alternating with Weighted Chins)
Weighted Dips
Clean and Press (Alt with High Pull)
I've dropped squats completely, just because I don't really care about my squat. I just want to get my deadlift back up and push it beyond my previous 1 RM. Good news is that it looks like I regained my strength pretty quickly.
The other day, my brother and some of his friends came over. We ended up fooling around deadlifting in the garage. Maybe that's weird, my neighbors seem to think so. But it's fun to sit around deadlifting through the afternoon. We started out wit 225 lbs on there. My brother managed to pull it for one rep. He's only 120 lbs, so that's pretty decent I suppose. His friend Robert, who is about 130 lbs, pulled it for a couple reps. There was a third guy there, Ben, who pulled it no problem.
We pushed it up to 245 and Robert pulled that for two more reps. I pulled it easy enough, as did Ben. So... we went up to 315, Rob tapped out, unable to get it off the floor at all. No surprise though, 315 lbs is a lot for someone his size. Ben pulled it with a bit of effort. I pulled it, it was kind of hard, but wasn't too bad.
So we go up to 385 lbs. Ben can't do it. I do it for a couple reps. We stick another couple 5s and a couple 2.5s on there. 400 lbs even. I get one rep, but second rep is a no go.
That was pretty cool. Kind of broke my progression, but I don't think it will matter.
Anyway, last night's workout. I hit what is supposed to be my 15 rep maxes a couple workouts ago, but I'm going to keep pushing the 3x10 until I can't add more weight, at which point I plan to drop down to 2x10 and work up to my approximate 10 rep max - I will refigure these based on my new 3x10 max (which is basically my 15 rep max..)
Deadlifts
3x10x245 lbs
Rows
3x10x155 lbs
Clean and Press
3x10x115 lbs
Weighted Dips
3x10xBW+15 lbs
Deadlifts were tiring, but I got all the reps without any real problems. I had to rest a good couple minutes between each set. Rows... I'm happy with these. My strength is returning at a good rate. All the reps were easy. I'm trying to really focus on my form with rows. My form isn't bad or anything, I'm just being absolutely sure not to raise my torso at all now. Sometimes during the later reps, I start to rock, I guess to help the weight up, but I'm not allowing this anymore.
Clean and Press... I really think I'm going to start doing these outside. Lowering the bar sucks. I'm not really sure where my max is with these, I'm trying to find it. Two 35 lb plates for 3 sets of 10 was hard. It felt like I was doing cardio. I think I can do more weight though. I guess I'll find out. Maybe two 45s next time. That would be great.
Dips really are surprising me. They are a breeze, which is puzzling since I tested my bench the other day and had a hard time with a mere 185 lbs, which is pathetic. I really hate bench. Dips will have to do from now on.
Afterwards, we screwed around with weighted hypers, played around with pulldowns and face pulls just for fun. Finally, we did SLDLs. I used the bar that I had used for rowing and did that for 2 sets of 10, so that was 155 lbs.
As I've posted elsewhere, I went most of the winter with very few workouts, getting very sick and losing a ton of weight. I was actually down to a mere 190 lbs for a while. Currently, I'm back up to 208 lbs. A lot of what I lost was muscle. I know because I lost strength, and because if I hadn't lost muscle during that period, I would have been absolutely shredded.
So now I am soft, but I don't care. I want my strength back. I'm eating slightly over maintenance, and gaining weight very slowly. I don't plan on cutting for a very, very long time. I could really care less about fat right now.
When I first came back from being sick, I decided to retest my 1 RMs. With deadlifts, I was barely able to get 385 lbs an inch of the floor. There was no way it was coming up any further. That really sucked!
So... currently, I'm doing a strength focused HST variation. I started out doing 3 sets of 10 on everything using roughly 80% of my 15 rep max, and am building up to the most I can do for 3 sets of 10. I was alternating, but found that workouts were going too fast, so I've rethought what I'm doing a bit.
Since my strength levels were so screwed up, my maxes were pretty difficult to measure correctly. I've just kind of estimated some of them, estimating on the low side for some of them. I've already adjusted deadlifts and rows, since they were too easy to start off with, but I've really had a hard time gauging where I'm at with clean and press and with high pulls.
At the moment, my workouts look like this:
Deadlifts
Pendlay Rows (Alternating with Weighted Chins)
Weighted Dips
Clean and Press (Alt with High Pull)
I've dropped squats completely, just because I don't really care about my squat. I just want to get my deadlift back up and push it beyond my previous 1 RM. Good news is that it looks like I regained my strength pretty quickly.
The other day, my brother and some of his friends came over. We ended up fooling around deadlifting in the garage. Maybe that's weird, my neighbors seem to think so. But it's fun to sit around deadlifting through the afternoon. We started out wit 225 lbs on there. My brother managed to pull it for one rep. He's only 120 lbs, so that's pretty decent I suppose. His friend Robert, who is about 130 lbs, pulled it for a couple reps. There was a third guy there, Ben, who pulled it no problem.
We pushed it up to 245 and Robert pulled that for two more reps. I pulled it easy enough, as did Ben. So... we went up to 315, Rob tapped out, unable to get it off the floor at all. No surprise though, 315 lbs is a lot for someone his size. Ben pulled it with a bit of effort. I pulled it, it was kind of hard, but wasn't too bad.
So we go up to 385 lbs. Ben can't do it. I do it for a couple reps. We stick another couple 5s and a couple 2.5s on there. 400 lbs even. I get one rep, but second rep is a no go.
That was pretty cool. Kind of broke my progression, but I don't think it will matter.
Anyway, last night's workout. I hit what is supposed to be my 15 rep maxes a couple workouts ago, but I'm going to keep pushing the 3x10 until I can't add more weight, at which point I plan to drop down to 2x10 and work up to my approximate 10 rep max - I will refigure these based on my new 3x10 max (which is basically my 15 rep max..)
Deadlifts
3x10x245 lbs
Rows
3x10x155 lbs
Clean and Press
3x10x115 lbs
Weighted Dips
3x10xBW+15 lbs
Deadlifts were tiring, but I got all the reps without any real problems. I had to rest a good couple minutes between each set. Rows... I'm happy with these. My strength is returning at a good rate. All the reps were easy. I'm trying to really focus on my form with rows. My form isn't bad or anything, I'm just being absolutely sure not to raise my torso at all now. Sometimes during the later reps, I start to rock, I guess to help the weight up, but I'm not allowing this anymore.
Clean and Press... I really think I'm going to start doing these outside. Lowering the bar sucks. I'm not really sure where my max is with these, I'm trying to find it. Two 35 lb plates for 3 sets of 10 was hard. It felt like I was doing cardio. I think I can do more weight though. I guess I'll find out. Maybe two 45s next time. That would be great.
Dips really are surprising me. They are a breeze, which is puzzling since I tested my bench the other day and had a hard time with a mere 185 lbs, which is pathetic. I really hate bench. Dips will have to do from now on.
Afterwards, we screwed around with weighted hypers, played around with pulldowns and face pulls just for fun. Finally, we did SLDLs. I used the bar that I had used for rowing and did that for 2 sets of 10, so that was 155 lbs.
