ExRx.net

Well, you were off by a factor of 2 (the plates are 10#, and the pulley is 1:1), but you were right on with the 8 plates. I did 7.5 today, 10 reps on the last set, gas left.

So is that heavier than you'd expect an old decrepit guy to do for FPs? As my press dies, my pull comes to life. Hmmm.

Well, I ran the rep coefficient on the number of plates. They could have been 1# or 5# or 20# or whatever and it still would come up the same number of plates.

I applaud your conservatism, though. Now you know you can get 8 plates next time for 5s.
The more I train, the more I read about thinking, the more I think that's the key - when doing a pre-determined number of reps in a workout (i.e. 3 x 5), set a weight you are 100% certain you'll get with hard work. When in doubt, drop the weight a little. Looking at my journals, I made the most progress when I undershot my potential maximums and got in my reps then when I got a little greedy and did 5/5/4 with a couple extra kg.


I'll echo the deload. Well worth it. I've got a friend restarting his strength workouts and I told him to do it every 4th week. Either take the week off, or drop the reps 50% for the same weight. Maybe overkill, but he's my age, and it's better for him to slow up a bit than to go heavy for week after week until he's overdone it.

And I tend to spend a lot of time approaching an effective training weight, then changing the routine before I get there.

Any special reason why?

I think the push/pull/legs routine you have going is a good framework. If you really like changing the workout, just assemble a pool of exercises for each one and swap them around.

Stupidness. Or interrupting for injury or to do a bench program with Sam!


Thanks. I like it too, and I'm going to do just what you are suggesting. I won't change it a lot each time.

I think I'll take out bench for a while, maybe replace it with some push-up variations. Face-pull stays. Bulgarians stay. Chins and press stay. Step-ups are good, but I'll take them out for now, and start conventional squats, body-weight progressing to goblet or front squats. Back squats I'll save for later. The core stuff I'll mix up more.

Time to revamp the routine. I'm planning to do this every 6 weeks--4 weeks seems too soon to change.

The basic template is:
Legs
Push/Pull (mostly done as supersets, but I may change this from time to time)
Core

Mostly 5x5, 3x3 on DL, and 3x12 on the core stuff.

For legs I'll rotate three exercises, Bulgarian split squats, full squats (starting with BW, then to light goblet squats, and probably to front squats), partial ROM DL (keeping consistant 10" height for now).

The push/pull will rotate two supersets; chins/push-up variations and press/face-pulls. I'm thinking about trying the chin/pu set as a Tabata set, 20 sec chins, 10 sec rest, 20 sec pu, 10 sec rest, repeated 4 times, counting reps to sort of "score" the workout.

The core will rotate between 4 exercises, plate switches, side planks, captain's chair and Pallof press. That alternates rectus with oblique work.

That has a lot of continuity with what I have been doing, but changes a couple of exercises, and changes the order a bit. By cycling 3 lifts in one of the spots and 4 in another, the workout will be the same only once in 12 times, or so my simple math would tell me.

New workout goal: Keep face pull ahead of Peter.

Damn you, now I have to get up to 30s on my Bulgarian split squats next time. Damn, damn, damn.

How deep do you go on Bulgarians? I assume that I should try to get below parallel like any other squat, but I'm having trouble getting everything right (bench height, distance from bench) so that I can without the back knee hitting the floor before I'm parallel.

Well, I'm only going to 27.5, if that gives you an margin!

It does. They don't have 27.5# dumbbells at DeFranco's. I go to 30 or I stay at 25.

How about a 25 in one hand, a 30 in the other?

I'm training in a gym where you need to be able to bench 300+, squat 400+, or play on ESPN before they let you touch the iPOD. Do you think I'm going to get really far grabbing one of each weight like that?

Just pretend that you didn't notice.

Doesn't ESPN cover MMA fights? You'll be on soon.

Heh. They just put up a video of a guy squatting to earn his "iPOD rights." I bet they'd notice. :)



I gotta start fighting again first. I figure next year sometime. Priority one is getting back in fighting shape. Priority two is some health insurance that'll cover me when I get popped in a match or training. You know, one that doesn't consider "stupid enough to fight MMA" as a pre-existing condition.