Assistance lifts

Tuesday September 30






Weight: 178 3/4 lb

No ice-cream or sweets of any kind for two days and I drop another pound .. I'll take it.

Morning:

Z-Health: Neural Warmup Level 2

Tubing / Evil Wheel Complex: 2 sets
A1: 1 x 10 Tubing Goodmornings
A2: 1 x 5 Evil Wheel On the knees Rollout, 5 sec hold, Rollback

Afternoon:

Barbell Goodmornings:
95 x 1 x 10
135 x 2 x 10

The two sets with 135 was definitly harder. Also reaching back to hold the bar in place does put my tricky left shoulder in an uncompromising position .. I may have an alternative grip using straps or bands.

Tactical Grip Pull-ups
BW x 3 x 5

Not bad for my 2nd day of resuming pull-up training. Again, long rests between sets. Tacticals are starting to feel more natural after avoiding them for almost a year.

While investigation Westside Barbell I ran across the GoHeavy forum. Some very helpful lifters there made some great recommendations regarding deadlift training: Apart from the Goodmornings, KB Front squats, Tony Foster (600+) advised to add barbell rows, reverse hypers, rack pulls. Mark Lesniak also recommended training some Sumo's along with conventional pulls.

Wednesday October 1

Weight: 177 1/2 lb

Yesterday was a 70% PN compliant day with some poor food choices (pizza and ice-cream) but I still dropped another pound due to having to stay up past 1:30am while working on an software architecture specification due next Monday. Taken together that these are very demanding documents to write for me and that I don't snack after dinner, the result is to burn more calories than one would expect!

Morning:

Z-Health: Neural Warmup Level 2

Tubing / Evil Wheel Complex: 2 sets
A1: 1 x 10 Tubing Goodmornings
A2: 1 x 5 Evil Wheel On the knees Rollout, 5 sec hold, Rollback

235 x 1 x 5 Conventional Deadlift
210 + (18.5 chains) x 2 x 5 Sumo Deadlift

Today I mixed conventional with sumo deadlift as recommended by both Pavel in PttP and Mark Lesniak, Powerlifter and poster at GoHeavy. The sumo's really hit the hips hard.

Evening:

Double 24kg x 1 x (3, 2) MP
Double 24kg x 1 x 5 Front Squat

Double 24kg x 1 x 5 C&P
Double 24kg x 1 x 5 Front Squat

Double 24kg x 1 x (1,2,3) MP Ladder
Double 24kg x 1 x 5 Front Squat

Double 24kg x 1 x (1,2,3) C&P Ladder
Double 24kg x 1 x 5 Front Squat

Double 24kg Chain (non-stop sequence of one rep per lift):
A1: Double 24kg x 1 x 1 C&P
A2: Double 24kg x 1 x 1 Thruster
A3: Double 24kg x 1 x 1 Push Press
A4: Double 24kg x 1 x 1 Jerk
A5: :30 rest
Total: 5 chains

Double 32kg x 1 x 5 Swing
Double 24kg x 1 x 10 Swing
40kg x 3 x 15 Swing
Double 24kg x 1 x 10 Swing

This was a high volume press day for me at 25 reps per arm .. a far cry from the 100 per arm recommended by volume freak,Master RKC, The Dain of Pain, Kenneth Jay. Note that the younger and much stronger pair Dustin Silveri, RKC and Taikei Matsushita, RKC II are having
great success with this heavy volume approach.

Previously, I had mixed my complex-style paired lifts with a grind (MP, C&P, FSq) and ballistic (typically swings). Tonight I used pairs of two different grinds, a press and squat, and it was considerably more taxing. As a result, the number of swing sets concluding the session was pared down. Also, I added a double 24 chain to mix things up.