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Awesome lifting Totz.

5 reps with 555 for rack pulls is just beastly. And then a 605 to finish up... and then you tried chins!! 3 x bw+70lb for chins would be pretty darn good @ 220lb bw if you were fresh, let alone after just lifting half a house!

Hope the personal probs resolve themselves soon. That sucks. You definitely need those extra 45s though. I have just over 700lb if I use all my small plates but I don't think they'd all fit on the bar so I will get hold of another pair of reds sometime soon. That'll give me 528lb in 18" plates alone which I'm going to need if I want to try to keep up with you and the Quadman.
 
What? Looks like I'm about to get owned!
Never tried the rack pulls before. My sticking point is on the bottom, and there's just one cure for that: deads.
 
Tot...this log is motivational.

Great job on all the PR as well as the bulk!

I keep tuning in to this log to see what you are going to do next!
 
Life dictated SD occured again... After those rack pulls I last posted about, I started feeling real bad. I tend to get bronchitis easily and I've been struggling with it since then. This is the same sort of thing that took me down a year or two ago, after it eventually turned into pneumonia. That sucked.

Anyway, I started up again on Sunday, just some light 10s. I'm doing a fairly standard HST with low volume until I feel better. It can sometimes take up to a month or more for the tightness and pain in the lungs to go away, so I'm not going to push for 1 RMs for a while.

Bodyweight is down... 218 lbs so far. I don't think I've lost a lot of muscle, it's probably just because I haven't been lifting or eating a lot for a couple weeks. Measurements aren't much different except waist which dropped half an inch, so maybe I just spontaneously lost fat somehow?

Anyway, I'm going to head out to the garage in a moment and do some 10s.
 
Even if you did lose muscle, you have muscle memory on your side. Are you still going to be bulking, or has the cut just begun?
 
I'm not tracking calorie intake right now, I'm just trying to maintain... I'm still following a 16/8 IF schedule most days though, except for days off of work. I just want to keep my strength gains until I feel well enough to start pushing hard again.

I think I've finally learned my lesson about 1 RM attempts too. More than a couple in a week always seems to decimate my immune system and result in getting some sort of illness afterward. So... maybe I'll just work on hitting new 1 RMs for just one upper and one lower body lift per cycle.
 
Well, the 1 RM lifts are a lot of stress on the body, so I am not at all surprised. Perhaps some anti-inflammation therapy would do the trick? This is where I go ahead and market high EFA intake.
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Maybe you could just regulate lifting your maxes for one week only?
 
I actually keep a relatively high fish oil intake and my fat intake overall is higher than most, so I don't think that is the problem. I just don't have a real great immune system...

Anyway, today was my last day of 10s for my Weds routine. I did deads first... I think I'll have to do chins and dips tomorrow or perhaps later today if I feel up to it. Keep in mind that I never actually tested my maxes and based it off my 1 RMs. Apparently I need to update my calculator that I have on my spread sheet... using 500 as my 1 RM for deads, it said my 10 rm should be 390. Well, I got 390, but... using 390 as my 10 rep max with this 1 rep max calculator, my 1 rep max should actually be 520... And according to that calculator, my 10 RM should have only been 372.
So, I'm not really sure what to think. I actually felt I could have gotten an 11th and possibly a 12th rep. My second set, I only got 5 but I kind of gave up at 5 because my right hand thumb kept rubbing on my pants with each rep and ended up bleeding. Might have to wear gloves next time, except gloves (and straps, for that matter) mess up my grip and always make me pull less than I could otherwise. Could be a mental thing, not feeling the bar in my hands or something, I don't know.

So... after my 5s, I have a new goal for my deadlift. I know those calculators are just estimates, but it would be cool if I really could pull 520.

I should probably keep this in mind for my next A workout, which is squats, bench, rows and skullcrushers. I don't want to kill myself doing more than I should be capable of.
 
Oh, I found the problem with my calculator. It was a typo. The 10 RM is supposed to be .744 of the 1 RM. I had entered in ,774 instead. Oops.
 
390 for 10 is a great achievement. According to the exrx.net 1RM calculator I need to get 375 for 10 in order to get a 500 1RM. My experience tells me that I need to lift more than 375 for 10 in order to get a 500 pull. I always find the estimated 1RM calc is overly optimistic for me. Might be different for you.

I managed to get around splitting my thumb open by taking a slightly wider grip. Gloves kill my grip too. Horrible things.
 
Yeah, I'm going to have to experiment with a wider grip or just wear nonabrasive clothing when I deadlift for reps, I suppose. I haven't had many issues with this during deads before, mostly just during rack pulls. It is really distracting and pretty much ruined my second set.

I find those calculators are usually off by about 5-10 lbs either way, plus it depends on how I feel that day... but my hope is that by the time I finish my 5s and possibly 3s if I do them, my strength will have increased enough to at least do more than 500.

I'm kind of happy about the 390 x 10, since technically that is a PR for me. I haven't tried for a 10 RM for deads in so long that it doesn't really mean much though.

I'm leaving dips and chins for tomorrow.
 
Just a short update.

This has been a bad month for me. Bodyweight is down to ~213 lbs. Some of it is fat loss, as I've lost a fair bit on my waist, but I've also lost about half an inch on my arms.
I'm having various problems in life and, as a result, I haven't been able to eat very well for the last several weeks. I've also only been lifting sporadically due to time constraints and other things. Hopefully my life will be less stressful soon...

Anyway, I started a regular 5x5 just to have some clear direction. I'm using the standard madcow intermediate 5x5 spreadsheet. I lowered some of my maxes a bit when I entered them in because I feel I have lost some strength along with the bodyweight I've lost.
Though on paper, the workouts look easy, they are kicking my ***, and I only just did the second workout today. This might be because I kept the rest between workouts fairly short, since I don't have a lot of time to spend out in the garage.

Here is what today looked like:

Squat
135 x 5
170 x 5
205 x 5
205 x 5

Incline Bench
100 x 5
125 x 5
145 x 5
165 x 5

Deadlift
265 x 5
320 x 5
375 x 5
425 x 5

Incline bench felt uncomfortable. This was a 45 degree incline, by the way, as my bench only goes with 0, 45 or 90. It didn't feel good on my shoulders. Flat bench, however, gives me no issues.
I think I may need to work on my squat form or figure something else out. I think my form is good and I go to below parallel, but my lower back felt fatigued only halfway through the deadlifts. I think this was because of squats. I may need to focus on a more low bar positioning... I don't know, it would help if I could get videos right now but I can't, or if I had someone trained who could watch me.

Anyway, hopefully this works out. And hah, according to the madcow spreadsheet, by the end of the cycle, my 5 RM for deads will be 515 lbs. Somehow I think that is a rather... uh, optimistic forecast. But who knows, if I start packing in the calories again, maybe.
 
That's some tidy deadlifting considering you have been losing weight. If you get 5 reps with 515lb I will weep publicly!
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All the best with getting your life back in order. As if it wasn't hard enough to make progress anyway!
 
<div>
(Totentanz @ May 30 2008,4:15)</div><div id="QUOTEHEAD">QUOTE</div><div id="QUOTE">I don't have a lot of time to spend out in the garage.</div>
that makes thing rough, especially w/ a massive deadlift like yours.


best of luck Tot!
 
Well, I hadn't done 5x5 in quite a long time and I think I forgot how deceptively not easy it is. Haha.

I guess I may have been depleted or something because I'm back up to 218 as of yesterday. I started getting in more calories on Friday, though I'm not counting, just trying to pack in the food. I'd guess I'm getting a little more than maintenance.

Today:


Squat
135 x 5
170 x 5
205 x 5
235 x 5
275 x 3
205 x 8

Bench
105 x 5
130 x 5
155 x 5
180 x 5
210 x 3
155 x 8

Row
105 x 5
130 x 5
155 x 5
180 x 5
210 x 3
155 x 8

I'll comment on how it went later.
 
Well, I have missed a couple workouts, and today I did my workout over at this guy's house instead of at home. He has a power rack and a ton of weights, but... he has this squat machine that he really wanted to show me:
http://www.tuffstuffitness.com/commerc....90.html
I'm not sure if that is the exact same thing, but you get the idea. Anyway, I did my 5x5 squats on this instead, though I didn't follow the weights I had scheduled for today and ended up doing a lot more than just 5x5:
135x5
205x5
255x5
305x5
355x5
370x5
405x5
455x5
505x1

Uh... wow. I mean, I know this is a machine, so the squat is probably a lot easier than normal, but it didn't feel that much easier. I think partly it was the fact that the machine forced me to have good form and also that I didn't have to worry at all about injury, plus I had three people watching me which made me want to show off rather than be conservative.
Anyway, I was real happy with that. I can't walk now though, so maybe it wasn't so great of an idea.

I'm probably going to be going over there each weekend and I'll just do squats on his machine that day, but do them normally with a barbell at home on the other days.

He really wants me to come over and try to find my max with rack deads soon, since he has a lot more weights than I do, which has been the limiting factor for me with these.

Anyway, not much of an update other than that. I'm just excited that I found someone nearby who has the same passion for lifting that I do.
 
Tot, that machine is interesting... serves a dual purpose with the plate tree as well. Do you know how much he paid for it?
 
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