I quit lowyat. I'll log somewhere else. Ask darklight for anything and everything. He has all the answers. Goodbye. Thread closed.

This post has been edited by Npad: Apr 10 2017, 08:28 AM

Week 1 Day 1 (7 November 2016)

Squat (Lowbar) 95kg x 5 x 4
- RPE on this one was probably around 8. It wasn't difficult but I kept getting out of breath. I feel like I was out of shape though the weight felt light and moved really fast. Shows my conditioning is shit.

Manpon Press 70kg x 5 x 5
- Great pressing session. Weights moved fast. Each set felt like I had at least another 1 rep left in the tank.

Deadlift (complete reset) 125kg x 3 x 3
- Form was not the best on this session as I am still getting used to the cue to rock the hips back. Felt some rounding on the lumbar, not good. RPE was maybe 8. Got it done but wasn't as satisfied.

Accessories.
- Did Kroc rows 40kg and DB bench press 30kg. Just some fluff and buff to work on the chest muscle. Did some abwheel half-assedly. Man I was beat by the end of the session.

Week 1 Day 2 (8 November 2016)

Speed Squat (Lowbar) 100kg x 6 x 2
- Speed squats baby. This was a fun session. Rest time was limited to 50 seconds. 100kg was spot on, weight moved fast, wasn't out of breath and no form breakdown. RPE was 7.

Bench Press (Paused) 65kg x 5 x 3
- Bench felt great this session as well. Each rep was paused a good 2-3 seconds on the chest and the weights moved very fast without any form breakdown. The heavy dumbbell bench presses I've been doing really helped with my weakness in off the chest strength. RPE was around 8.

Deficit Deadlift (Touch and go) 110kg x 3 x 5 AMRAP
- Great deadlift session as well. The goal for deficit is to hammer off the floor weakness I've been having. I haven't had any problem with lockout once it reaches my knees. This session I AMRAP the last set with 7.5 reps. Failed the 8th rep, maybe because I forgot to put on my belt on that last set. Stupid. RPE was probably around 8. I really gotta get my conditioning up. I can't seem to stand any sets with more than 3 reps. Hopefully by week 3 my body will get used to the workload, if not I'll add a conditioning day on the weekends. God I hate doing conditioning.

Accessories.
- Did some skullcrusher and curls with the EZ curl bar loaded with 10 kg. I did 3 x 10 I think. Then lat pulldown with 60kg 3x10 with meh effort. Deadlift really killed me this session. Then I did suitcase isometric hold with 30kg dumbbell strapless. My hands were killing me but it was alright. Obliques are fried. Did 3 sets of 30 seconds holds on each side.

This post has been edited by Npad: Nov 11 2016, 05:01 PM

Week 1 Day 3 (10 November 2016)

Squat (High bar) 85kg x 4 x 5
- High bar. I hate high bar. I love the fact that it trains my quads and promotes a more upright squat but it's just so bloody painful. My right calf was screaming at me to stop I had to roll it out with the foam roller between sets. Hopefully it'll get better because I really don't wanna do front squats. Last time I did high bar my right calf was pulled and I couldn't walk for days. I hate high bar. RPE was at "why do I do this to myself" level.

Bench Press 60kg x 5 x 5 AMRAP
- This was volume session for bench. 60kg felt really solid. I can feel my technique is getting better. No deviations in bar path and I was able to maintain similar speed throughout. AMRAP set I achieved 10 reps. Light weight baby.

Deadlift (complete reset) 115kg x 10 x 1
- What what? 10 sets of singles? Yeah you read that right. This is speed/technique session for deadlift. I wanted to get more practice in, without killing my CNS. 10 singles with 30 seconds rests in between was the answer. Weight moved very fast indeed. Getting my form dialed in. RPE was maybe just a 7.

Accessories.
- Did light DB (26kg) bench press for 3x10 and barbell rows (70kg) for 3x8. Skipped ab work because I was just lazy. I'll try to up the weights next week.

Impressive lifting stats for your weight class.You actually lifted 2XBW for deadlift almost 2X for squat and more than 1XBW for bench within the first year you power lift. Mind me asking how tall are you?
Since you mentioned about row as well, curious how much you lifted for overhead press.

This post has been edited by van_takawa: Nov 13 2016, 11:36 PM

I'm short, like 155cm short. Thanks man, I've been chasing that 3 plate squat for half a year now. I really hope to get it by year's end. I'll test it the week before Christmas, if I get it, it would be the best gift ever.

For overhead press, I don't do them much. I don't even program them into my routine. I probably do them once every 3 months, if that. My shoulders don't like it. Most people, when I say that, they'll say my form might be an issue. Maybe it is but I don't want my shoulders to interfere with my bench press training, which is more important to me. But to answer you, last time I did OHP was 50kg for 5 reps. For rows, I'm crazy in love with that type of movement. Horizontal rowing to be more specific. Kroc row, barbell row, tbar row, landmine row, cable row, etc. Love them all.

Week 1 Day 4 (11 November 2016)

Squat (Low bar) 110kg x 3 x 3
- Heavy a.k.a. high intensity squat day. Was supposed to do 107.5kg but body felt great on this day so decided to do 110kg. Weight was heavy as usual but it moved fairly smoothly. The speed was ok, as expected of a heavy load. Form was nice. Current stance feel really awesome, the slightly wider than shoulder with toes pointed forward stance. Moved my hands about an inch towards myself and I found it to keep my upper back a little bit tighter. Gonna keep doing that from now on. One thing to note was the slight shift in the weight balance towards my toes on some reps, which suggest that flat shoes might not be very suitable no more. Overall, great sesh. RPE was 8.5.

Bench Press 65kg x 3 x 3, 70kg x 2 x 3
- Also heavy bench day. Competition paused bench on this day. Nothing much to say really, weight moved very easily and very quickly. I might have programmed my max a bit too light this cycle but it's too early to say that. I'll see how I feel on week 4. But yeah, RPE was 7. I know I had at least another 3-4 reps in each set.

Deadlift (Touch N Go) 115kg x 3 x 5 AMRAP
- I did volume deadlift on this day. Still quite light weight because we're at the start of the program, but it kicked my ass nonetheless. Last set I managed to get 8 reps in. Overall great deadlift sesh as well.

Accessories.
- I did neutral grip pullups on this day. Surprisingly, it's getting better. I can do 5 reps with relative ease now. Woohoo! Progress! Did 3 x 5 on this session. Then I did some tricep extension and curls. Gotta do them arms man.

This post has been edited by Npad: Nov 22 2016, 09:48 AM

Alright. Nice log btw. Keep it up. Consistentcy, good form, good food, we will all reach our goals.

Fuck, I missed Monday and Tuesday. Will go today, but that means this week's sessions is cut short from 4 sessions to 3 sessions. Brodin forgive me. On a brighter note, I just bought a new car. Woohoo!

That's it, I'm calling this whole week off. I'll restart next week as week 2. Food poisoning and squats don't mix man. I did manage to train last night but felt like death the whole time. I might as well spend my effort into recuperating to get back into it next week.

I'm back on track. Last week's food poisoning made my recovery really terrible with low energy levels. Guess you can't get much nutrients from your food if you keep shitting them out. My training sessions (went twice) were really shitty, figuratively and literally. I had to shit between squat sets man, not good. But I'm back this week. I'm restarting week 2 of the program.

Week 2 Day 1 (21 November 2016)

Squat (Low bar) 95 x 1 x 5, 4 x 4
- Volume squats today. First set I did 5 reps. Planning to keep increasing 1 rep per set so by the end of the 6th week I'll be doing 5x5 of the squat. Been having some calf issues, mostly cramping. Had to roll between sets which was annoying. I suspect that this is because I reduced my sodium intake beginning October because I was showing signs of high BP. Will increase my intake a bit for the next few weeks and see where it takes me. This session was easy. Out of breath, sweat like hell, but the weights moved fast and form was good. I'm also experimenting on bar placement to be a bit higher than usual, somewhere between low bar and high bar like John Haack does it. This is yielding a more upright squat, just a bit but the movement feels a lot more powerful.

Bench Press 65kg (TnG) x 5 x 5
- Today was supposed to be manpon press but I forgot my yoga block in the car. Since Monday is international bench press day, I was not gonna let go of an empty bench. So instead I did volume bench. 65kg felt light today. My form is getting dialed in. I'm having some issues with my butt coming off the bench from the leg drive. I think it's a small matter I can fix with a tighter setup. Overall RPE was about 7. The weight was flying up and down with so much speed it felt like an empty bar.

Deadlift (complete reset) 125kg x 3 x 3
- Heavy session for deadlift today. I'm working on getting my setup and form right on every rep so I began taking my time setting up. Explosive on the way up and slowed down on the way down. I paused at the top for a few seconds to get some grip work in and my grip felt solid, even more so that hook grip. I just can't get used to hook grip. Mixed grip all the way. So what if my lats might get imbalanced, I ain't no bodybuilder. Overall this was a great session. Weight felt light. RPE was probably around 8.

Accessories.
- I only managed to squeeze in 1 accessory movement on this day due to time constraints, heavy dumbbell bench press. I managed to do 30kg 2 x 8, 1 x 10. The last set of 10 reps was a PR so I'm gonna up the weight next week.

Week 2 Day 2 (22 November 2016)

Squat (Low bar) 100 x 6 x 2
- Speed squats on this session with 50 seconds rest in between. I felt a bit beat up, my recovery isn't going as well as I'd expected it to be. Will increase calories a bit and sleep better. At the end I was exhausted but weight moved very quickly and with good form. Which I am very satisfied with. I started increasing my salt intake this week too and it seems to be helping with the cramping I've been getting on my calves lately. Sodium and potassium ftw! RPE, I don't know what RPE it was, I was too busy trying to breath. Short rest times is torture by design I tell you.

Bench Press 70kg (paused) x 5 x 3
- Competition bench press with a long ass pause at the bottom. The programmed weight was 65kg but I was working in with some other folks and they were using 70kg. I figured I could do 70kg so why not. I'm loving the progress I'm making on bench press, 70kg was my 1RM back in March, it was my 2nd attempt in meet before, and now it feels like a 5RM with pause. RPE was about 7. Very pleased with this session.

Paused Deadlift (complete reset) 110kg x 3 x 3
- Another deadlift variation that I'm doing to hammer the off the floor weakness. This session was great. Programmed weight was 105kg but went with 110kg because it was easier to load the bar with. I paused at the knee for about 3-4 seconds for each rep before finishing the movement. Nothing much to say really. It was a great deadlift session. My ass is sore as fuck today though.

Accessories.
- Again I didn't have much time today so I could only manage 2 sets of 8 of barbell rows at 70kg. Oh well, as long as my main workout is done then I'm happy.

PS, I'm gonna edit the program again for the 5th iteration. I think heavy squat and heavy bench day would be best done on Thursday since I'll get a break on Wednesday. And all the variation movements I can do Friday. Time to rearrange.

PPS, the tweaked program is edited into the OP already check it out.

This post has been edited by Npad: Nov 23 2016, 11:03 AM

Week 2 Day 3 (23 November 2016)

I was supposed to take a rest day yesterday but due to life, I can't make it on Friday. So I gotta make up for it. Hence the mediocre training session I had yesterday. I had to skip squats because my quads, hammies and glutes were having none of it. So a chilled out session it was. Only did 2 exercises, 2 damn it! Shortest training session ever.

Manpon Press 75kg (paused) x 3 x 5
- I missed manpon press on Monday so I wanted to do it on this session. The weight didn't feel all that heavy though my biceps and forearms were screaming the entire time. Bar speed was great, bar path was consistent. Supposedly hit 5 x 5 but my arms nagged too much so I had to stop at 3 sets. I'm showing signs of under-recovery. Damn I should have taken the day off. But it's alright, the pressing session went great IMO.

Sumo Deadlift (Touch & Go) 130kg x 2 x 5
- Frustrating. That's how I describe sumo right now. I seem to have forgotten how to sumo. Everything feels so foreign, even my stance and form didn't feel familiar at all. I managed to bruise my left knee as well as the bar keeps hitting only that motherfucking knee on the way down. After the session my lower back was really pumped as well, which usually indicates that I used too much of my lower back instead of just bracing. My form was definitely shit. I'm gonna program sumo at a much much lower weight from now on

Accessories.
- Didn't do nothing for accessories.

Week 2 Day 4 (24 November 2016)

This session I was showing signs of overtraining, probably because I couldn't take Wednesday off. There's that CNS tingle I feel every time I move. My big toe on my left foot was giving me problems (swelling) which was weird and my hips were in so much pain that I had to take 5-8 mins rest between my heavy squat sets. Even my damn elbows were feeling the strain even though I wasn't using them directly in squats. In the end, I ended up with only doing squats and some accessories for the session .

Squats (Lowbar) 110kg x 3 x 3
- Warmups on this session was okay, hips and feet weren't giving much of a problem. Once I reached my working set though, I can feel fatigue build up so much in my hips. The weights moved fast like it should, it's only 110kg after all. But after each set, I'm sprawled on the floor in my pool of sweat because my legs were on fire. Tried rolling them but didn't help as much. That's when I knew I should call it a day after squats. Went and finished the 3x3, quite satisfied actually with how 110kg moved with my condition at the time.

Accessories
- I was supposed to do some heavy bench press but elbows didn't feel up for it. Ended up doing 2x10 supersets on the cable station consisting of seated rows, shrugs, bicep curls and face pull. Gave me a good pump and kinda helped with the pain I had on the elbows. 10/10 would recommend the superset. The cable station doesn't have enough weights for me anymore to do seated rows. I'm using the whole stack with little challenge. Does anybody have any tips of adding weight to a cable station?

If this was me a year ago I would have pushed through, do something stupid and end up getting injured. After 2 shoulder injuries and 2 lower back injuries I've learned to back off now. Time to recover, gonna eat and sleep a lot the next 3 days so I can hit Monday with appropriate intensity.

This post has been edited by Npad: Nov 25 2016, 09:17 AM

Week 3 Day 1 (28 November 2016)

I got a new toy today. A set of 1.25kg Olympic plates. Woohoo! But I went to the gym immediately after work and couldn't stop by to pick it up at home so didn't get the chance to use it on this session. Next time.

Squat (Low bar) 95kg x 2 x 5 , 95kg 3 x 4
- Volume squat day. I revised my program and was supposed to do 97.5kg on this session but I didn't have my 1.25kg plates with me. Decided to go with 95kg and continued last weeks progression. The weight moved fast and smooth but there were a few reps here and there where I almost stumbled forward. I tried a slightly wider stance, it felt a bit weird as it uses my adductors a bit more but I think I'll continue to experiment with different stances. Overall, good session with weight at RPE8. Rest was timed to be around 3 mins.

Bench Press 65kg x 5 x 5 AMRAP=8
- The revised program now has me benching 65kg for volume, up from 60kg. Woohoo! Nothing much to say about this one. Was easy with the AMRAP set I got 8 reps total. I could have gone for 10 even but I didn't wanna waste my energy and fatigue. RPE7.5 at the most. Loving the progress on bench.

Deadlift (complete reset) 130kg x 3 x 3
- Heavy deadlift day today. I cleaned up my setup and it feels a lot more solid now. I do take longer to initiate the pull costing me some energy but I think it's worth the effort to setup the best that I can. This session was awesome. I held on to the weight at the top for 1-2 breaths for almost every rep to train my grip a little bit and it didn't falter one bit. RPE8 at the most for this session.

Accessories.
- I was feeling great on this session so I went hard on the accessories. I did flat dumbbell bench press 32kg 3 x 8, Kroc row 40kg 2 x 8, and lat pulldown 60kg 3 x 10. All of them felt challenging but nothing too difficult. Awesome session.

This post has been edited by Npad: Nov 29 2016, 09:25 AM

Week 3 Day 2 (29 November 2016)

Another day and another incomplete session. Didn't have much time today and completed just one exercise. Oh well. I probably need to modify the program once more to accommodate to this lack of time I've been having lately. I hate skipping exercises.

Bench Press (paused) 70kg x 5 x 3 AMRAP=7
- Bench was awesome this session. I did complete pause (2 count) for the first 4 sets without much difficulty then I decided to touch and go the last set to do an AMRAP which I got 7 reps. Good bench session. RPE was 8.

Alright, just an update. The past 3 weeks I've noticed that I'm always tight on time and I end up skipping the programmed accessories, which in my opinion is counterproductive. 2 and a half hours is a lot to ask for, from either me or the people around me. So I've decided I needed to tweak the program, again, for the 6th time. Well, that's the learning process I guess. As long as my lifts are going up, then I know it's working. So the 6th iteration of the program is here with way less programmed accessories and only 4 compulsory movements a session. I also reduced squats and deadlifts to only 3 sessions per week from the usual 4 sessions a week. I feel like the fatigue build up is sometimes a bit much too much on the previous iteration, so we'll see how goes. I'll add it to the OP. Gonna start it on week 3 day 3.

Week 3 Day 3 (1 December 2016)

I got another new toy today, a vbar handle which I'll use for doing landmine rows and cable rows. My stupid gym did not have none of that handle. I gotta bring this handle every session that I'll need it which is a bit annoying.

Squat (Low bar) 115kg x 3 x 3
- Heavy squats for this session. Hips were still not 100% okay, but I could manage the movement. The weight moved fast and easy, didn't time my rest though. Couldn't give a fuck. The weight was RPE8.5. I don't know about squats man, it never feels easier to be honest. I'll test in a few weeks so I'll know if it's working or not.

Bench Press 72.5kg x 5 x 3
- This session called for heavy competition bench with pause for at least 1 count. I noticed some problem in the descent of the movement as I slam the barbell on my sternum, causing some pain. Practice for controlling the descent of the barbell will take a higher priority for now. RPE8 on the weight, moved fast and easy. Good session.

Deficit deadlift (Touch & Go) 120kg x 2 x 5
- I misloaded the barbell on this session which was idiotic for me. So instead of 3 sets, I did 2, needed to leave some fatigue for the next day. The weight was easy though which surprised me, easy RPE7.5.

Accessories.
- Did one accessory movement today, just the landmine row 60kgx3x10. The handle performed remarkably, loving it.

This post has been edited by Npad: Dec 3 2016, 09:03 AM

Week 3 Day 4 (2 December 2016)

Deadlift (Touch & Go) 125kg x 3 x 5
- The previous session where I misloaded the bar for deficit deadlift took its toll on me, I was a bit more fatigued for this session than I am comfortable with. The programmed rep scheme was to AMRAP the last set but I just felt a bit too tired to go past rep 5 on that last set. The lower back pump was insane. Took me 10 of foam rolling and just sitting down before I could walk comfortably. Definitely a tough session but I made it through. The weight wasn't heavy, in fact it moved fast, just really fatigued. RPE9 is more appropriate for this session.

Manpon Press 72.5kg x 5 x 5
- I love manpon press. It really allows for a big overload and trains the lockout for bench press. This session was great. I have some pain in the elbows but nothing I couldn't handle. The weight moved a bit slow on this session but form was alright. Overall RPE8.5 for this session.

Accessories.
- I did flat dumbbell bench press 32kgx2x8 and seated cable rows 195lbsx3x15. The elbows are bothering me a bit so I need to remember to do more lightweight curls in the next few weeks.

Week 4 Day 1 (5 December 2016)

I'm loving my 1.25kg plates man, they're awesome and I ain't sharing. I see you looking at my plates Omar, fuck off.

Speed Squat (Lowbar) 107.5kg x 6 x 2
- Speed squats this session with 70 seconds timed rest between sets. I feel like as these get heavier the rest times will get longer. 70 seconds seem just right for this weight. The weight moved fast and easy. Body is a little beat up from not eating and not resting enough during the weekend. However, I wasn't so out of breath like I was a few weeks ago so that's good. RPE8 on this session.

Bench Press (Paused) 72.5kg x 5 x 3
- I need new wrist wraps. There were a few scary moments where I felt my wrist flicked forward a bit. Anyhow, these felt great. I first touched this weight again last week and I'm getting used to the feeling. The descent problem I had last week is getting hammered away and I feel more in control of the weight, though the pause could use a bit more work. It didn't feel that difficult either. RPE7.5 on these.

Deadlift (deadstop) 137.5kg x 3 x 3
- Deadlift didn't feel so fly this session. It felt heavy even though in theory it shouldn't feel that heavy. I gotta say my setup and form is getting much better though. I can feel the engagement of the hamstrings and glutes a lot more and my lower back feels a lot more solid.The weight moved in a slow but constant manner. Wasn't so satisfied with it but I got it done. Oh well. RPE9 on these.

Accessories.
- Only did Kroc rows for this session and I changed up how I do them. I lower the weight and for the first set I'd do 8 reps and on the second set I'd do AMRAP. I'd increase the weight once I reach 20 on the AMRAP set. So this session I did 34kg x 8, 15. I'll try to hit 20 reps for this weight next week. I feel like this saves some time and ends up being a bit more challenging to my conditioning and overall strength. A strong back leads to a strong squat and deadlift after all.

Week 4 Day 2 (7 December 2016)

I'm down with flu and sore throat and I'm not feeling super fly so decided to reduce training from 4 days to 3 days this week. I'll still squat, bench and deadlift 3 times this week with similar intensities but I'm doing less accessories to help recovery.

Squat (Lowbar) 97.5kg x 5 x 5
- Volume squats on this session. It felt alright, the weight moved at a decent speed but it could be better. I felt as if my lockout could be better as well on this session but I was more concerned about getting the work in. Also had issues with balance and my heel rising up on a few reps. Not my best day. RPE8.5 on these.

Bench Press (Touch & Go) 65kg x 5 x 5 AMRAP=6
- The poor performance continued on with bench. My elbows were feeling a bit stiff and the weight felt heavier than it should. Also some issue with my left scapula detracting on a few reps as well, so I know my form was breaking. The weight moved at a decent speed though, and I was able to maintain a good bar path. RPE9 for bench on this session.

Paused Deadlift (to knees) 107.5kg x 3 x 3
- Since I wasn't feeling it I decided to do my paused deadlifts to knees only and do them beltless. I paused at knee level for 2-3 counts and it felt really good actually. I had to use straps because my hands were killing me. I felt lightheaded after set 3 because I held my breath too long on the last rep. 0/10 would recommend pausing too long. You could pass out! RPE8 on these.

Accessories.
- I did lat pulldown 60kgx3x10 as a finisher for the day. I need to add more weight to this exercise as it feels non challenging now. 60kg used to be quite heavy for me.

This post has been edited by Npad: Dec 8 2016, 04:20 PM

EDIT: I think, I think the demon has been slayed once and for all.

Oh ya, MPA is opening registration to MPA championship next year this Monday (12/12/2016). Those thinking to join a powerlifting meet, I'd highly recommend it if you are able. Weak, strong, guy, girl, young, old, doesn't matter. If you can squat, bench and deadlift, you're gonna have a lot of fun. Spots get filled real quickly, usually on the day it opens, so don't dally.

This post has been edited by Npad: Feb 6 2017, 01:08 PM

I told you not to dally. Spots filled up in 42 mins after the registration was opened. I'm just glad I secured a spot. Meet is in March, time to train with a purpose. 400kg total here I come!



Oh yeah, I didn't train on Monday because I took a short vacation to Singapore zoo, which was awesome and very helpful to my mental. Woohoo! I feel heaps better now. Gonna continue training this week but I'll take it easy. Meet prep begins in January.

Week 5 Day 1 (13 December 2016)

Just got back from a short vacation in Singapore and my body is tired as fuck. I drove long hours and slept short hours so decided to take this week a bit easy and work on some issues, the main one currently being APT and super tight muscles. So programming can all go to shits.

Plan for this week is to do some compound, foam roll and hit abs hard.

Squat (Lowbar) 3RM test. 100x3, 110x3, 120x3.
- On this session, I tested my 3RM but my spine didn't feel all to well when I got to 120kg. The weight moved ok. As usual, when it gets heavy, it slows down around the sticking point. 120kg wasn't that much of a struggle but was definitely challenging. Not sure if it's just an off day or my squat has regressed, either way I'll find out on the last week of December.

Accessories.
- Ended up being a super short session because I wanted to get a foot massage. Calves were killing me. For accessories I went and did landmine rows with my brand spanking new V-bar handle 50kgx3x8.

Week 5 Day 2 (14 December 2016)

Unexpected PR is the best kind of PR man. After an appalling session with my squats the day before, on this session I decided to just chill out, and by chill out, I mean deadlift my face off simply because I love to deadlift.

Deadlift (Deadstop) weight as below:
- 111kg x 3
- 121kg x 3
- 134kg x 3
- 139kg x 3
- 143kg x 3
- 148kg x 3
- 153kg x 2 (bad lockout on 2nd rep)
- 158kg x 2
- 166kg x 1

- The weird numbers on the weight is because I used the lbs bumper plates the gym had. Super stoked that I could pull 166kg as a new 1RM for my conventional deadlift. About 4 months ago my 1RM was about 153kg. I think I might stick with conventional for now because sumo really fucks up my hips. For this upcoming meet I'll train and compete with conventional. 400kg total doesn't seem too impossible now. I might even get to 420kg.

After the 1RM deadlift I was dead. Went home straight after and no accessories got done. Not too bad for a chilled out session.

Week 6 Day 1 (19 December 2016)

Finally I went to train. The deadlift PR really killed me that day so I took Friday off. Fuck it. Besides, star wars is top priority. It's holiday time anyway so I didn't want to do too much volume and increase my fatigue.

However, I managed to get a new bench press PR on this session, a whole 7.5kg higher than what I previously benched back in August. I was feeling great and the bar was moving nicely so I decided to give it a shot. Bench press 4 days a week really works wonderfully for me. The training went as follows.

Bench Press with weight as below:
- 20kg (barbell only) x 50 for warmup
- 40kg x 10 (T&G)
- 50kg x 8 (T&G)
- 60kg x 5, 5, 5 (T&G)
- 65kg x 5, 5, 5 (Paused)
- 70kg x 5, 4, 3 (Paused)
- 75kg x 3, 3 (Paused)
- 80kg x 3 (Paused)
- 85kg x 2 (Paused)
- 90kg x 1 (Paused) This weight was RPE9.5, definitely couldn't get a 2nd rep even if I tried.

- This was the best Christmas present ever man. I've been very frustrated with my bench the entire year, with shoulder injuries here and there. There was a time when I couldn't even raise my arms above my head. Finally, that 1RM budged and I know the program is working. I'm inching towards that 2 plate bench, who knows I might go YOLO and try it at the meet in March. Lesson learned, to bench more, you gotta bench more, like a shit ton of a lot more.

Accessories
- I did landmine rows 60kg x 3 x 10 and seated cable rows 195lbs x 3 x 15 after bench for some back work using my V-bar handle. Nothing too serious. Awesome training session overall.

Week 6 Day 2 (21 December 2016)

Another day another injury. I was doing some light squats for warmup with 80kg and on my 2nd rep I feel a strain/sprain on my lower rib cage on the right side. Now, whenever I brace using the Valsalva maneuver, it hurts. Hell, last night it hurt to breath. Stopped squatting right there and then and did some fuckarounditis movements that didn't hurt that tender spot for hour. Did some leg press, leg extension, and push press (this hurt a little bit but was bearable).

Well, I'm gonna be a curl bro the next few sessions then. Hopefully I heal up enough by January to start my new meet prep training. My plan to test squats next week will have to be postponed. I was planning to test on this session but then this shit happened. Frustrating but it ain't nothing to lose sleep over. I've dealt with injuries like this before and I came back stronger each and every time.

So, I've laid out my training plan for this upcoming meet in March and decided to share it here because it will be easier for me to find later. If there's any glaring mistake in the programming I'd appreciate any constructive criticism especially from those way more experienced than me. Also if anybody wants to try a competition prep style of training, please feel free to run it.

MPA Championsip 2017 Meet Prep Training Plan

So for now, I'll be a curl bro and not log my training from now on till I begin the meet prep in January. I'm going for Christmas holiday next week and I wanna recover as soon as possible from this bloody pulled rib muscle. S/B/D will have to take a backseat for a while.

I don't know if anybody follows me on here, but if anybody does, I'll see you in 2017. Merry Christmas and happy new years everyone. May your squats always be to depth. See ya!

This post has been edited by Npad: Jan 6 2017, 12:00 PM

Christmas Holiday Training (25 December 2016)

Well, I can't stay away from the iron. I was feeling fat and lethargic from all the food I've had from the Christmas celebration. And I was hungover. What's a better cure than to just hit the iron and sweat it all out. Haha. Found a gym nearby grandma's house here in Penang and went for a walk in.

Squat (low bar) 110kg x 3 x 3
- No chalk sucks. Hands were wet, back was wet. The barbell had literally 0 knurling. No AC sucks. It was hot as two hells in there. The safety on the squat rack was not adjustable and it was too tall as well. Stomachache halfway through. Could you tell that this wasn't the best session ever? Owh well, got it done nonetheless. RPE whatever. Why the fuck do I record this RPE thing anyway? =.=

Bench press (paused) 60kg x 8, 65kg x 6, 70kg x 5
- No chalk really sucks lah. But hey, I got my brand spanking new Titan Titanium wrist wraps as a Christmas present and I was excited to test it out. It was great. No flexion on the wrist whatsoever, like a hand cast I tell ya. Great bench session, got a good pump.

Accessories
- This gym had a dedicated landmine row thing, complete with a platform and shit. Damn! I wish we had that in our gym back home. Did landmine rows 40kg x 2 x 10. Fun little finisher. After that I felt like an overheated car and had to call it a day. I'm so glad we have AC in our gym back home. I cannot imagine training in that heat too often. I might get heat stroke.

Lol... Which gym u went to? Well learn to train without aircond then!!! None of the gym i frequently visit ( 3-4 depending on my location) in Penang are equipped with air cond.

Damn man, I don't know how you do it. I felt like I needed a fresh t-shirt after every lift. I went to orient fitness express on Jalan Perak. Should have went to the orient fitness gold in Gurney paragon, I passed by that place yesterday and it looked so damn sweet with their crossfit box style setup.

Maybe im used to it. I remember once i was at a gym in my hometown. Everything looks so......nice... tidy and fully air cond. Least to say, its quite an attractive gym from the outside. However, i couldnt concentrate much during my workout. Its too quiet and comfy for my liking. Hahahaha.

Meet Prep Week 1 Day 1 (2 January 2017)

I'm finally back from holiday and gotten into my daily routine again. Disappointingly, I didn't get to train at all during the holidays (only once on Christmas day) and I found that it really affected my conditioning and work capacity. Pleasantly surprising though, was the fact that I actually lost weight and retained most of my strength, so that's good.

Recently I've made the decision to cut for this meet and compete at U67.5kg class instead of the U75kg class. I am currently at 76.0kg. In the next 7-8 weeks I aim to cut down to 70kg. The final 4 weeks of training I plan to maintain at 70kg and on weigh in week I will water cut to 67kg. 3kg water cut is easy, done it before without any difficulty at all. If I can maintain my PR's, or break them just a little bit, but at a much lower bodyweight at this meet, it will be a victory in my books. I sure hope I don't destroy myself on this cut. Alright, with the updates out of the way,here's the training log for this session.

Bench Press (Touch & Go) 65kg x 3 x 5
- Started off with bench at a light weight and small volume. I'll increase the volume next week once I get my work capacity up again. I programmed to do 5x5 on this session but I was too damn tired. 3x5 seemed like appropriate for the session so I ended it there.

Squat (Lowbar) 90kg x 3 x 5
- Same thing with squats. 90kg was easy, but doing it for 5 reps take my breath away. It's okay, first few session I need to make sure I don't kill myself so I'll take it easy this week. Programmed 5x5 but did 3x5 just like bench. Another thing to note was the cramps in my legs after squats. I suspect this is due to low sodium and potassium intake during the holidays. Will resume my normal sodium and potassium intake and supplement to combat this.

Accessories.
- I finished off the session with chest supported T-bar rows 30kg 3x10. Nothing much to say about it.

Meet Prep Week 1 Day 2 (3 January 2017)

God damn the gym was packed. Where'd all these people come from? Surprisingly on this session I felt a lot more energetic and the workload didn't affect me like the previous session did. The volume is still low though. I'll attribute the poor performance of the previous session to the fatigue from driving down from Penang to KL and lack of electrolyte in my body. Excuses as usual.

Deadlift (deadstop but T&G on last) 125kg x 2 x 3, 125kg x 1 x AMRAP=8
- Deadlift felt a bit foreign to me on this session. I noticed some lockout weakness instead of the usual off the floor speed weakness. "Glutes weren't firing" is what the Internet would usually diagnose it to be. Maybe my form ain't the best on this session or my body kinda forgot how to deadlift but I don't think it's anything to worry about. I'll see if I still have this issue in week 3, if so I'll have to change deadlift accessory movements to assist lockout instead of off the floor speed. RPE8 on these sets, moved fast and easy. AMRAP set was just me showing off to a bunch of new years resolutioners, 125kg seemed to impress them a lot even though it's quite pathetic really.

Bench Press (competition paused) 67.5kg x 5 x 3
- Bench felt great on this session. The new wraps feel like they give me an extra boost, though I know that's mostly mental. I've noticed some issue of the bar not landing on the same spot on my chest on each rep. Again, this might just be a practice issue than an actual weakness issue. I'll let it slide since it's first week and everything. The weight moved fast and easy as well, RPE 8.

Accessories.
- For back I did seated cable row 195lbs x 3 x 10 since the lat pulldown was occupied to the brim. Finished off with flat dumbbell bench press 30kg x 1 x AMRAP=8. Glad to see my dumbbell pressing strength is still there.

Meet Prep Week 1 Day 3 (5 January 2017)

Funny how the gym was empty on this session. A lot of people prefer Mon, Wed, Friday schedule maybe. It'd be surprising if a lot of those new year's resolutioners had quit by now already. January is not even over yet damn it. Stick to the plan. Anyhow, wore my soft suit on this session and it was awesome. I love my SBD soft suit. Also my cut is going well. I'm on track with my goal of losing 0.75kg to 1kg a week.

Bench Press (Competition paused) 70kg x 3 x 3, 72.5kg x 2 x 3
- I started off with bench instead of squats because suddenly Thursdays became international leg day. Had a scary rep on set 2 of 70kg when my wrist flicked forward. One of the downsides of wearing wraps a lot. I need to limit my wraps usage to sets above 70kg only and work on my wrist/forearms strength. Overall though, the session felt great. The weight moved fast and easy and the reps were getting more and more consistent, hitting the same spot almost every time. RPE 8.5 on this session.

Squat (Lowbar) 87.5kg x 3 x 8
- Sets of 8's are death. I felt strain and fatigue like I've never felt before. And this was only 65% of max. I incorporated sets of 8 for squats because the old training style for it didn't really pay off. I gained a lot in bench using high frequency, high volume and high intensity. I gained a lot in deadlift with high intensity, moderate volume and weakness focused movements. For squats I did high frequency and high volume but not much gains. So this time around I'm trying high volume, low frequency and moderate intensity and see where it takes me. That's why 3 x 8 came into the picture. I've never done more than 5 reps for any working sets before. RPE "I'm gonna die" on this session. I think it will improve as the weeks go by. One more comment, I think I've been squatting too low so I'm gonna start filming my squats to check and try to rectify the depth problem. I need to learn to squat below parallel and not ass to grass all the damn time.

Accessories.
- Finished off with pull-up 3 x 5. I hate pull-ups. No accessories were done this week at all.

Meet Prep Week 1 Day 4 ( 6 January 2017)

This session didn't happen as life has a way of telling you not to train. Halfway through my warm-up I received a call saying my sister in law got into an accident. Thankfully she's fine but I couldn't continue my training for the session afterwards. All is well. I'm starting my week 2 today (Monday) and I'm scared but excited at the same time for the humongous volume to come.

Keep it up man. Good work.

Meet Prep Week 2 Day 1 (9 January 2017)

Finally, I can go full beast mode again. Last week slump is over! Switched up my training this session by doing day 2's main movement and day 1's accessories due to every other gym goers going for every single piece of equipment I need. But ain't nobody ever deadlifts so the platform was clear. Anyhow, some update on the weight cut. Morning weight today (10/1/2017) was 74.8kg. Woohoo! Started of with 76.0kg exactly a week ago. On track to U67.5kg class. I'll wait till CNY to inform MPA of the weight class change. If I can get to 71kg-72kg by CNY eve, then I'm pretty sure I will be able to make weight come weigh in day for U67.5kg.

Deadlift (deadstop) 135kg x 3 x 3
- This weight feels really light on this session. It went up fast with no breakdowns in form. No grip issues as well so I'm happy. RPE 8 on these. I've lost some weight and bodyfat so my belt ain't as tight as I'd like it to be but I'm still much too fat to use the next hole down on the belt. So what I did was pull up my belt up to right below my rib cage. This position was way more comfortable than the usual position. I'm gonna stick with this belt position for a few weeks and see how it goes.

Bench Press (competition paused) 72.5kg x 5 x 3
- Felt like I had to rush on my bench on this session because so many people were lined up to use it after me. Mondays are international chest days after all. I mean I offered to share but noooo, they'd rather wait they said. Oh well, then wait. Weight felt solid today. Moved fairly easily at good speed. RPE 8.5 on this session. At this point I felt as if my pecs are no longer the limiting factor, it's my triceps now. Off the chest strength is great currently, it's just my lockout that weren't so pretty on some final reps of this session so it's definitely something to look into. Bar path was great though. Hit the same spot on the chest each reps with a good 1-2s pause.

Deadlifts (to knees) 102.5kg x 3 x 5
- This was a fun little assistance movement. Sheiko likes to program these for his athletes so I figured I'd try it out. It focuses on the off the floor strength and hammers the shit out of the hammies and glutes (figuratively, NOT literally). I'm so damn sore in the backside today. I like these, highly recommend it. More practice in the first part of the movement, I believe it will yield a good result. RPE 7.5 on these. I finished each set with a full ROM rep that double pauses at the knees to make it even more difficult. Fun times.

Accessories.
- For accessories, I did:

V-Bar landmine rows 60kg x 3 x 10
Skullcrusher EZ curl bar 10kg x 2 x 15
EZ curl bar curl 10kg x 3 x 10.

-Gawd I forgot how much I hate doing arms. I have small biceps okay, don't judge me!

This post has been edited by Npad: Jan 10 2017, 09:32 AM

Thanks man.

Its funny how i feel the same abt arms as well. I hated it then, i hated it now. But i love the pump though. Hahaha

It's just so mind-numbingly boring!

Meet Prep Week 2 Day 2 (10 January 2017)

It's amazing what pizza can do to your training. It's almost like a performance enhancing drugs AKA steroids. Cheated on my diet on this day and went full fatty mode, ate 7 slices of the regular pizza sized slices, 2 slices of dessert pizza, tons of carbonated drinks and 7 pieces of chicken drummets. I felt so sinful.

Squats (lowbar) 95kg x 5 x 4
- So I've been tweaking my squat form the past few sessions and I think I've found the sweet spot where the hip crease goes below the top of knee, AKA below parallel. I've been struggling with squatting too low and not activating my quads more and this session really shows the vast difference some slight form changes can make. The weight went up very easily and I didn't spend as much energy as before when attacking this weight. RPE was 7 at the most. I felt more quad activation and more power out of the hole, rather than relying on momentum. Great session overall. The pizza helped most probably. Haha.

Bench Press (touch & go) 67.5kg x 4 x 5, 1 X AMRAP=5
- On this session I've decided to not wear my wrist wraps to help maintain healthy wrists. The weight was nothing much to write about, it was easy. RPE 7.5. I did practice on my form a lot more here and played around with foot positioning and ended up being most comfortable with feet flat on the floor. I feel more traction and activation of the quads for leg drive with flat position rather than on the toes position which GPA allows. I do however love to raise my head up at the bottom position of the lift so I'm glad that GPA allows that too. If I compete in IPF sanctioned meet one day I need to remove that head positioning habit.

Squats (lowbar) 87.5kg x 3 x 8
- Remember last week I complained sets of 8's being death. Not so much on this session. Something about not going ATG and the pizza, definitely. This was a great session and gave me a lot of practice. Not once did my barbell hit the safeties that I set to be about 3-4 inches below parallel with my SO checking and confirming that I hit proper depth. RPE 8.5 on these. A bit winded at the end but not dead like last week. I need to start filming myself but I keep forgetting to take the damn tripod with me all the damn time.

Accessories.
- For accessories, I did:

Dumbbell bench press 28kg x 3 x 8 (getting easier everyday)
Lat pulldown 60kg x 3 x 10 (also getting easier everyday)

what kind of programming you did.. i read the program you put in earlier post, but what is it based on? sheiko? GCZL etc.

where do you train..

My programming evolves constantly. On each cycle (usually 6 weeks) I find what works and what doesn't so its's current form is the 6th iteration. That's what I use for regular off season training.

Right now since it's on season, I'm doing a DUP based meet prep program, kinda. The program is in the first post. It's a meet prep so it's more focused on getting stronger in the 3 lifts rather than getting stronger in general.

The bench press part of it is based on Matt Disbrow's deathbench program. I split his program from 2 days to 4 days and reduce some of the accessories because I couldn't recover adequately from his original template. It's quite famous, just google it.

For squats, it's inspired by Sheiko's style of submaximal lifting. On off season I squat 3 times a week while undulating the volume/intensity ala DUP style, on meet prep I squat twice a session, 2 sessions a week. Volume on one day, heavy-ish and technique on another. Keeping my fingers crossed since squat is my weakest lift and slowest in terms of progression.

For deadlifts, I'm not sure what it was inspired from. I just found what works for me, which is weakness focused movements, moderate volume and high-ish intensity as compared to squats and it's currently working well. To deal with fatigue I spread the session across the days I train. Also helps that I simply love deadlifting, so I really don't mind doing it daily if my body permits.

As to where I train, I train in a commercial gym in Cyberjaya. Not really comfortable in revealing too specific details online to be honest, hope you understand.

I see.. im also doing meet prep for MPA. I am on sheiko programming now..

No problem man.. just asking in case you train nearby my area..

I like to try other gym that can do powerlifting.. since not many gym have decent barbell and racks

Hell yeah Sheiko looks good man. One of these days I gotta run it but I'm a stubborn bastard in doing things my way. You doing which Sheiko for the prep? 32-29-37? I believe that's the one that was suggested to me before. Or the intermediate load one? There's so many of them. Which class are you competing in by the way?

My gym sucks man, 1 power rack, 1 bench and 1 platform. Barbells there suck too, very mild knurling and whippy as hell. But it's closest to me so I can't complain. It's filled with cardio bunnies and machine huggers so I never really have to wait for the one and only rack there.

This post has been edited by Npad: Jan 11 2017, 11:40 AM

Im doing intermediate load, my friend is coaching me for this meet.. i am also not familiar with sheiko programming, 1st time doing it

Im competing in 100kg weight class, around 1 year lifting experience.

want to try around the gym? im thinking of going outlaw this weekend, they have eleiko bars and plate

This post has been edited by gondarz: Jan 11 2017, 02:12 PM

I'd love to man, but weekends are a no go for me when it comes to training. Family comes first.

A lot of these nice gyms are just too far away for me. I just live too far from everybody else. QLS, Outlaw, Honey Badger, War3house, Vi Fitness in Seremban 2, all too far from me.

Where do you train if you don't mind me asking? QLS got them Ivanko plates recently and the texas bars. We'll use those bars at the meet so it might be worth it to train there too once in a while. I'm planning to train there the week I test my openers which I'm guessing to be around 2 weeks out.

Super excited to hear there's a fellow powerlifter in here man, looking forward to seeing you there. I'll be in the U67.5kg class.

i train at Muscle Theory at sunway..its just a regular gym but decent to train at..

well i understand, lucky my wife understand im competing, so she allows me to train harder until the competition lol

Meet Prep Week 2 Rest Day (11 January 2017)

In an effort to help with my cut I've decided to try

But seriously, I went swimming yesterday. Did 2 laps of that backwards swimming style (can you tell I don't know shit about swimming) and hit the quads, hammies and glutes considerably hard. Stan Efferding advocates active rest to promote recovery so this is my experiment to see if this is true. If anything I'm more sore. Shit! Don't think it'll affect my performance today too much though.

I hate rest days.

On the brighter side of things, morning weight reading was 74.5kg today. 6 more weeks of this bloody cut and I'm done.

Meet Prep Week 2 Day 3 (12 January 2017)

I did day 4's workout on day 3, like I did in the beginning of the week. Meh, it doesn't matter. On this session I learned the importance of exercise arrangement. There's a reason Sheiko always puts bench press between the first and second lower body movement. I went and did my deadlift and deadlift assistance movement and it really compromised my bench press workout. So kids, don't be rearranging your program willy nilly.

Deadlift (touch & go) 115kg x 2 x 5, 1 x AMRAP=8
- Adductors were sore as fuck on this session, really no idea why. I don't think I swam that hard the day before. Nothing a good roll on the foam roller can't fix. The weight felt a bit heavier than it should but I managed to maintain good bar speed and form. RPE 7 on the regular sets, RPE 8.5 on the AMRAP set.

2.5" Deficit Deadlift (touch & go) 115kg x 3 x 5
- Here was where the mistake was made. I wanted to get over with deadlifts for the day since the weight is practically the same with the main movement. I used a 35# plate for my deficit board and to be honest it felt a bit too high. I might go a bit lower next week since on this session, I felt some shearing force on my spine and that't no good. The weight was heavy-ish like before but moved easily. RPE 8 on all sets. Grip was amazing though, held the weight for a bit on the last reps to get some grip training in.

Manpon Press (touch & go) 77.5kg x 5 x 5
- I love manpon press. On this session I really hammered my lockout hard. But, since I foolishly did deficit deadlift before this one, I kinda ran out of fuel and getting all around fatigued. My last set was horrible with the bar going out of position on the first rep and me failing on the last. My spotter was there to save me, phew. RPE 8.5 on these. Shitty last set but I felt I had a good workout. Also, my wrist wraps really hurts to wear. Is it because I wear it too tight or my wrists are just pussies? The stability is worth the pain though.

Accessories.
Kroc Rows 32kg x 2 x 15, highly recommend these as it will train your biceps, back and abs really really hard. Grab a weight you can do for 15 reps, then AMRAP it for 2 sets. Once you reach 20 reps, move up in weight. I attribute my deadlift gains to these a lot.

Ab Medley 42.5kg x 2 x 5. My version of ab medley is 5 reps barbell rollout followed immediately by 5 reps suitcase deadlift on both sides. this usually kills my abs good and I make good progress in my lifts when I progress in this. I highly recommend full contact twist to be added to the medley as well, but I just couldn't last night.

Meet Prep Week 2 Day 4 (13 January 2017)

I should ban training on Fridays I tell you, something always comes up. This session was cut super short, but I did manage to get some good work in. Went off after bench press.

Squats (lowbar) 115kg x 3 x 3
- The main focus of this session on squats was to nail depth. I filmed myself every set to figure out my depth and out of the 9 reps, only the last rep I went below parallel with the rest being ass to grass even though I actively tried to avoid that. It still feels like I'm quarter squatting though, but I'll keep practicing. RPE was 8 on this session. Wasn't anything too difficult. Gonna post some form checks among other powerlifters and see what I can improve on my technique.

Bench Press (competition paused) 72.5kg x 3 x 3
- This session was a bit weak because of the manpon press I did the day before. I'll need to keep in mind to not do manpon press before a heavy bench press session as it compromises my triceps. RPE 9 on these sets.

This post has been edited by Npad: Jan 14 2017, 09:40 AM

Meet Prep Week 3 Day 1 (16 January 2017)

Didn't feel well today and took a medical leave from work. Still went to train though after sleeping the whole day to recover.

Deadlift (deadstop) 137.5kg x 3 x 3
- This deadlift session took out a lot of energy out of me. Maybe because I was sick, maybe because I couldn't focus, but it didn't feel like the best session ever. My setup went to shits in one of the reps on the last set. Got it done though, RPE 8.5 on these. Bar speed was good. Form was good. Next week I will start filming deadlifts as well to check on form.

Bench Press (touch & go) 67.5kg x 5 x 5
- I experimented a wider grip on this session and felt quite comfortable with it. My wrist might have some issue with the grip but with wraps solving that problem, the triceps no longer becomes the limiting factor. Setup was a bit weird though, have to get used to the bigger arch. RPE 6 on these, #macambarkosong. Will continue with this grip width.

Pull to knees (deadstop) 102.5kg x 3 x 8
- Conditioning is a lot better this week despite me not being 100% on this particular session. I can feel this movement working the hammies real good and I'm getting more powerful and explosive at the bottom portion of the deadlift. Hopefully, my lockout won't give me troubles but so far it's good. RPE 8 on these.

Accessories.
- For accessories, I did:

Lat pulldown 60kg x 2 x 10, 1 x 12
Dumbbell bench press 28kg x 2 x 8, 1 x 10

Meet Prep Week 3 Day 2 (18 January 2017)

This week just isn't going the way I planned it and I'm forced to hustle and "program" on the fly due to time. I'm not a fan of deciding what weights, what exercise, etc when I'm already at the gym but what can you do right? Shit happens. Had to skip Tuesday and went on Wednesday, which I had to cut short an hour of training time. Ended up going home after bench and that was half an hour later than when I usually leave the gym. Hopefully today's session will be better.

Squats 97.5kg x 6 x 4
- My number one goal for this squat session is to fix my form and depth. I filmed myself every set and found that I was still going down into the hole way too fast and not being in control. Depth was still a bit too low but nothing too extreme like before. Feet stayed planted though so that was good. I slowed down everything to maintain proprioception of my hips and quads and on the 2 last sets I think I kinda nailed it. Felt more power out of the hole and engaged the quads more. All from slowing shit down. RPE 8 on these, nothing too serious. Loving squats at the moment.

Bench Press (competition paused) 72.5kg x 5 x 3
- Wide grip is my grip, really loving my current setup. It feels really secure and strong off the chest and my triceps don't need to work as hard. Downside? I need a liftoff for the heavier weights. Wrists feel a bit off too but straps can deal with that easily. RPE 7 on this session. I really want to film myself benching but currently that's rather difficult due the gym's layout. One of these days for sure.

Accessories.
- For accessories, I did barbell rows 70kg x 3 x 10. I just had to end the training session with at least one rowing accessory. I think next time I'm doing Pendlay rows instead. This exercise kinda aggravates my back.

Meet Prep Week 3 Day 3 (20 January 2017)

Like seriously, this week kinda sucks. I missed 2 sessions and on the previous log which was basically a replacement, I had to cut that one shirt too. So on this session I was playing catch up and ended up being in the gym for 3 hours, a first time for me.

Squats 90kg x 3 x 8
- I've been following and emulating Richard "The Ant" Hawthorne very closely with his squats because he's so short just like me. Thanks to that I'm getting better at judging depth and engaging the quads for a more explosive concentric. My form is getting more stable with less bounciness which was pointed out to me in my previous form check. Overall, I'm happy with the progress I'm making with squats. RPE 7 on these. Sets of 8's used to be death 3 weeks ago, now it feels just nice. My conditioning is better and I've become more efficient in the movement.

Bench Press (competition paused) 75kg x 5 x 3
- Also a good session on bench. This weight was my 1RM a year ago. Now I can rep it out no problem. Form also getting better on bench, making full use of the rules set by GPA. As big as an arch I can get, heels up, and wide grip. I believe 100kg on meet day is not a far fetched idea. RPE 7.5 on these. Seriously, my pecs and all the muscles related to bench seem to be able to handle a rather large weekly INOL number. Suggested weekly INOL is between 2-3, my current program on bench has weekly INOL between 4-6. Current limitations are elbow health. With the frequency and intensity I'm benching, my elbows get pretty beat up so whenever that happens, I rehab it with lots and lots of curls.

Pin Squats 100kg x 3 x 5
- Now this, this is a movement I should have started doing a long time ago. With pin setting at hole 5, I was able to identify so many issues with my squats namely, descent speed too fast, unbalanced bar, unbalanced force distribution between legs, lower back rounding when reps get sloppy, depth too low. After this session I gotta say I bettered my form simply because it gave me practice in the range of motion that I needed. Was able to engage the quads more too, so I'm sure it will translate to a bigger squat later. RPE 8 on these.

Deadlift (touch & go) 120kg x 2 x 5, 1 x AMRAP=8
- Deadlift feels solid today. Even though lower back was really fatigued from all the squats I was able to perform these with general ease. I asked a gym bro to slap my upper back before set 2 and I have to admit the bar feels lighter after that. I'm sure there's a connection between the pain and activation of the CNS in a fight or flight response that allows people to handle bigger weights. I'm definitely doing that next time I handle heavier weights. RPE 8 on these, nothing too difficult. Form was awesome too, no breakdowns whatsoever.

Accessories.
- For accessories, I absolutely hammered my back and biceps on this session:

Landmine row with V-Bar handle 60kg x 2 x 10, 1 x AMRAP=15
Seated cable rows with V-Bar handle 195lbs x 3 x 15
A bajillion reps of all kinds of curls at light weight. Didn't even count the sets or reps. Eased the pain I was having in my left elbow. It was also mind-numbingly boring. Got a really good pump though. Look ma, I got biceps.

Meet Prep Week 3 Day 4 (21 January 2017)

Elbows were giving issues on this session. It just hurts. I couldn't bench, row, nor do anything that involves my arm. Ended up doing squats and deadlifts only. I did afterwards went to some cheapskate shop (supersave) and bought some cheap ass elbow sleeves to keep some compression and warmth in my elbows, which in theory, will reduce the pain and keep the joints more fluid. Can't afford none of that SBD elbow sleeves man.

Squats 117.5kg x 3 x 2
- First 2 sets went ok but the last set went to shits. I shifted forward and almost fell, scary. Anyhow, I think I finally ironed out all the small details of my squat like depth, belt positioning, foot positioning, etc. I think I finally got it. I will keep practicing the current form. RPE 9 on these, was quite difficult. Felt like I was pushing the weight up really slowly when in fact it was quite fast as the video review shows.

Paused deficit deadlift 115kg x 3 x 3
- This was a first time for this movement. I picked it to spend more time in the off the ground zone of the deadlift and hopefully will translate to a more explosive max deadlift later on. Deficit was 2" tall but enough to make it really challenging. Quite pleased with it to be honest. Basically combined the benefits of a paused deadlift and a deficit deadlift altogether. RPE 9 on these as well.

Accessories.
- No accessories were done on this session due to elbows giving issues.

Meet Prep Week 4 Day 1 (23 January 2017)

The cheap ass elbow sleeves I bought works well enough. Elbows were kept warm and adequately compressed so the pain was mitigated during squats and bench. And in other news, I really hate my belt right now. Hole 4 is too loose and hole 5 is too tight. Hopefully in 3 weeks I can fit into hole 5. Or if I get CNY bonus I'll buy a new damn belt. Having my eyes on Beast Genetics lever belt on SIG.

Squats 102.5kg x 6 x 4
- Squats moved rather well today. Currently I'm working on removing another bad habit of mine where I drive my hip way too hard which causes me to be unbalanced. There's a difference between being explosive and being wasteful of energy. Driving the hips forward and the back up too hard until the bar can bounce of your delts, that's a waste of energy and a form issue. Pleased with this session, RPE 7.5 on these.

Bench Press (touch & go) 67.5kg x 4 x 5, 1 x AMRAP=9
- A little bit out of touch with bench on this session. I kinda "forgot" how to bench? First 2 sets I wasn't in the groove, didn't engage the leg drive, didn't retract my scapula fully. Something about touch & go style that causes me to forget my cues. I'm just more used to competition paused style of benching I guess. By set 3 though I got my groove back. RPE 7 on these. AMRAP was RPE 9. Probably could have gotten another rep in but I didn't have a spotter. Also, I'm learning how to lift off myself by having my butt off the bench when I lift off and setting it back down once I have the bar set up on top of me. Cool trick to know.

Squats 92.5kg x 3 x 8
- I squatted fast this time and really burned my quads. I still have some balancing issue but nothing I can't deal with by simply slowing down. Very good session for quad building. RPE 8 on these.

Accessories.
- For accessories, I did the following for a finisher:

Landmine row with V-Bar handle 65kg x 2 x 10, 1 x AMRAP=15

Preacher curls of unknown weight, set, or reps. I just mindlessly curled the EZ bar for a pump. Wanted to do skullcrusher but this being Monday, it's international dumbbell bench press day. Not one free bench was available I tell you.

Meet Prep Week 4 Day 2 (24 January 2017)

Why are noobs and other gym goers at my gym in general, just adamant about using the suicide grip on the bench press and loads up way more weight than they can handle? Don't they know why suicide grip is called suicide grip? SMH. I hate my gym sometimes. One of these days one of these fuckers will off themselves on the bench I tell you, I just hope I won't be there to witness it. Had to work in with someone like this on this session.

Deadlifts (deadstop) 142.5kg x 3 x 3
- Felt a little lethargic and messed up on some of the cues during this session, so I decided to film myself. My lower back feels neutral, but the video makes it hard to assess due to all the fat, shirt and belt around that general area. Next week I'll wear my soft suit only during deadlift for a proper form check. RPE 8.5 on these. Wasn't particularly difficult but like I said I was lethargic a bit. Speed of the barbell was good though.

Bench Press (competition paused) 75kg x 5 x 3
- Elbows still giving me issues on this session. Last week it was more of my left, on this day it was more of my right. Sleeves helped a bit but the pain was still there. Had to take long breaks between sets, seeing as it is my max effort day.Weight moved fast. As expected rep 3 of each set slows down a bit as I begin to lose tightness but I only need to do 1 rep at the competition, no biggy. RPE 8 on these no problem. My feet setup is getting better too. I manage to use my adductor to basically clamp onto the bench and keep my butt set down. Allows me to push off with my legs for a stronger leg drive as well.

Pull to knees 107.5kg x 3 x 8
- Conditioning is still shit I suppose since I almost passed out on set 2 of these. Haha. Wasn't difficult, was just really exhausted. Got a good pump on me hammies, erector and glutes.

Accessories.
- For accessories, I did the following:

Dumbbell bench press 30kg x 3 x 8

Seated cable rows with straight handle 195lbs x 3 x 15

Guess what came in the mail today? I finally pulled the trigger and bought myself the Beast Genetics Lever Belt that I've been eyeing the past few months. I'm so stoked to try this shit out! Can't wait to get off work and get home.

Meet Prep Week 4 Day 3 (26 January 2017)

Rushing for time today so can't do much commentary on the log.

Main lifts:

Deadlifts (touch & go) 125kg x 2 x 5, 1 x AMRAP=10

Bench Press (competition paused) 75kg x 3 x 3, 77.5kg x 2 x 3

Deficit deadlifts 115kg x 3 x 5

Accessories:

Kroc Rows 34kg x 2 x 15

Lat Pulldown 60kg x 3 x 10

Meet Prep Week 4 Day 4 (29 January 2017)

I went to Kuching this Chinese New Year holidays and tried to get some training in. That did prove to be quite difficult as most gyms were closed. I ended up getting a training session on this day at some ghetto gym where I tried out my new SBD knee sleeves. Did I tell you I bought knee sleeves? I bought a pair on Friday and they're expensive and they're awesome. Very short session on this day as I was overheating as per usual at a ghetto gym. Didn't feel my best as well as I may have pulled something on my hammies after squats so went home shortly after that.

Bench Press (touch & go) 70kg x 5 x 5
- I really don't know about this gym's equipment. Everything felt light. Like seriously, 70kg felt more like 60kg. RPE 7 on these. Wasn't very productive because I didn't have chalk and couldn't push myself. The bench was wobbly, the barbell was super rusted. I hate going to ghetto gyms sometimes.

Squats 130kg x 1 x 3, 120kg x 2 x 3
- I didn't really follow any programming on this day for squats because everything just felt off. I accumulated some volume with my warmup sets and reached a top set of 130kg, after which I dropped back down to 120kg. Still getting used to the sleeves which caused some form changes but either way got it done. RPE 9 on top set and RPE 8 on back off sets.

Accessories.
- For accessories, I did pullups x 2 x 8. I can do 8 now!! Haha.

Meet Prep Week 5 Day 1 (1 February 2017)

First day back in Cyberjaya and back in my good old gym. Guess I'm cutting my training sessions from 4 to 3 this week, again. Oh well, can't be helped. I went all out beast mode on this session from all the pent up energy from the holidays. I tried to get some training in Kuching but it just couldn't happen from all the festivities. Besides, my hammies felt 100% now. Back to the grind.

Squats 105kg x 6 x 4
- I finally got used to the new sleeves on this session and the weight moved pretty flawlessly. The sleeves really give a pop in the hole and keeps my knees warm and fuzzy. No more knee pain or fatigue. My quads are more engaged and I feel more power as I drive the weight up. RPE 8 on these. I also changed another small thing in my form this session, which is my grip. I wrap my thumb around the barbell instead of the usual over, shamelessly copying Jesse Norris' grip. It allows for a much tighter back at the sacrifice of my wrist comfort but after putting on my wrist wraps, it works out just fine. Great squatting session. My hips weren't tight like before and my hammies are back to 100% capacity.

Bench Press (touch & go) 70kg x 5 x 5
- I've decided to up my touch & go weight to 70kg. Though I usually AMRAP the last set on these 5x5 benches, I dialed it down and went for the minimum reps only as to save energy and get used to the load better. RPE 7.5 on these. Most difficult part was the hand-off, which if I was without a spotter, I found it was really difficult as the bench hooks are a tad bit too high. Good session nonetheless. I also experimented wearing my belt on 1 of the set and found that it might help my stay a bit tighter when handling bigger weights. Gonna test it out more in the coming weeks.

Squats 95kg x 3 x 8
- Even more squats. The weight was a bit scary at first but it wasn't that difficult. It felt like cardio though. I was left gasping for air for a couple of minutes after every set. Pleased with the 3x8 squats, really reinforces my technique and form. I'm getting better at minimizing my walkout as much as possible, keeping upper back tight AF, hitting depth without going to low, maintaining good control on the descent and driving my feet through the ground to use my legs more. RPE 8.5 on these.

Deadlift (touch & go) 130kg x 3 x 5
- Like I said, only 3 sessions this week so I'm trying to get in as much of the volume work as I can. Deadlifts felt easy this session. Sucks that I forgot my long socks because the bar kept scraping my shins and thighs. Again, I was supposed to AMRAP the last set but dialed it down to minimum to not kill myself. Nothing much to say about deadlift this time around. Weight moved fast and easy. Grip was good. Belt was awesome. RPE 8.5 on these.

Accessories.
- I wanted to do 2 rowing movements on this session but cut it short. Went and did V-Bar Landmine Row 70kg 1 x 10. Just had no energy to go on after that so decided to pack up and head home. Overall great session. Felt like I had a deload over the holidays.

Meet Prep Week 5 Day 2 (2 February 2017)

Brutal session on my back on this day. My erectors have never been this sore in a while. Part of the reason was probably because the belt was a bit too loose. Last night I went ahead and made it a bit tighter, which made me doubt my decision to get an L size instead of an M size belt. Owh well, I'll bulk up again after the meet so no worries.

A little update on the cut and weight class. MPA already replied to me saying that I've been moved to the 67.5kg class, so by hook or by crook, I cannot back down from my cut now. The cut has been going up and down. I've been successful at keeping my weight between the 74kg-75kg range but finding it difficult to break the 74kg barrier. I'm 5 weeks out from reaching my goal weight of 71kg, so I gotta buckle up and lose at least 500 grams a week on average. If I can get to 71kg I can easily water cut 3kg-4kg on competition week. Cutting makes me so anxious.

Alright, on with log.

Bench Press (competition paused) 77.5kg x 3 x 3, 80kg x 2 x 3
- Started the session with max effort bench in the hopes of saving energy for the deadlift. Usually if I deadlift first, my bench suffers but not the other way around. RPE 8.5 on 77.5kg and RPE 9 on 80kg. I'm playing closer and closer to my max and I can feel that it's helping me handle bigger weights. I also had to self lift off on the 80kg sets and I'm proud to say it was quite manageable. It does take away some energy from the actual work so I'll definitely want to have a lift off on meet day. Great bench session. I can feel my form getting more dialed in and more efficient.

Deadlift (deadstop) 145kg x 3 x 3
- I was having grip issue on this session, not because the grip was failing but my hands felt shredded from the knurling. I take care of my hands and remove the callous once they get too big, but it just hurts this session. Powered through it though and didn't get any skin tear. RPE 8.5 on these. Speed was still good. Didn't feel as tight as I wished because the belt was a bit too loose. Can't easily adjust a lever belt, that's the downside.

Paused Deficit Deadlift 120kg x 3 x 3
- This movement felt really brutal on this particular day. I felt the tension in my hammies, my lower back, even my calves. Tried to maintain a 1-2s pause mid shin at a 2" deficit, but I probably paused for much shorter than that. Felt a bit lightheaded at the end of each set, almost blacking out. Supposed to do 115kg but decided to up the weight and I think it's a good decision. 115kg was a bit too light the previous time I did this movement. RPE 9 on these.

Accessories.
- For accessories, I did 2 back movements which I feel are definitely improving and that makes me happy:

- Pull up BW x 2 x 5, 1 x AMRAP=7
- Lat Pulldown 60kg x 2 x 10, 1 x AMRAP=12

Yo check out the OP man, I revamped the entire damn thing to look a bit more pleasing to the eye. It will also serve me better in recording my current stats and programs.

Meet Prep Week 5 Day 3 (3 February 2017)

Decided to try something a little different on this session, might be something I'd like to do every squat days. I basically worked up to a heavy single of RPE9 in the beginning of my workout as a warmup, after that I did my normal squat programming. This is basically a bastardized Bulgarian method of squatting. I feel this will give me more practice in the heavier range as I am currently always is the submaximal range of weights for squats.

Squats 130kg x 1 x 1, 122.5kg x 3 x 3
- Managed to reach a top single of 130kg on this session. Was quite conflicted on calling it RPE9 since the speed out the hole was really fast but it felt heavy as hell on the descent. Either way, I was happy that I could hit 130kg with relative ease. After that I dropped it to my working weight of 122.5kg and those were RPE 8.5 on their own. Sets of triples at heavier weight is no joke. Also, I tightened my belt the night before and now it fits really snug and tight. Quite difficult to latch at times but the support is well worth the effort.

Bench Press (competition paused) 75kg x 5 x 3
- I was supposed to do manpon press but I forgot my yoga foam block in the car. Owh well, no harm in practicing the competition movement more. The weight moved fast and easily, RPE7.5 at the most. I did however encountered some issue in losing a little bit of tightness in the hole as I pause, but I think that's just because I wasn't paying attention. I believe wearing a belt might alleviate that issue but that also means I would need a spotter, which I don't always have. I'll just have to keep in mind and focus on maintaining tightness the entire duration of the movement. Also, I've decided that I'm sticking with pinky on ring width for this meet, ain't no time to practice new form. I will experiment with index on ring width come the next off season after this meet.

Pin Squats 105kg x 3 x 5
- Pin squat is the devil I tell you. It forces you to really slow down your descent as to not slam the barbell into the pin and stay balanced, at the same time it removes any stretch reflex whatsoever so you have to rely entirely on your actual strength. This was a great session, but brutal nonetheless. I've never felt so much soreness on my VMO. RPE death on these. I really recommend this movement as it teaches you depth, balance and just overall strength.

Accessories.
- For accessories I did some more chest workout for the weekend pump and a back workout to complement it:

- Dumbbell Bench Press 30kg x 3 x 10 I used to be able to only do 8 reps on these, now I can do 10. Definitely seeing improvement there.

- Seated Cable Rows (straight handle) 195lbs x 3 x 15 Also improvement in this accessory movement. 15 was my max AMRAP a few months ago, now it's an easy working weight for me. I can't increase weight on the damn cable machine so I can only increase reps. I aim to be able to rep this weight up to 30 reps soon.

This post has been edited by Npad: Feb 7 2017, 02:35 PM

Weight Cut Log (6 February 2017)

So here I am, contemplating if losing weight is worth it. I've been confirmed to be in the U67.5kg class and as of today, I'm still stuck in the 74kg-75kg range, for the past 3 damn weeks. Obviously, something drastic needs to be done. I know exactly where the pitfalls are in my diet currently, it's the dinner at home which I usually have no control over, and the damn late night McD runs (those nuggets and ice creams are too good man).

From the weight loss trend, it seems that the current diet is ideal for a recomp/maintenance as my recovery has been quite fantastic despite the amount of volume I'm doing in the current. This week marks the beginning of the week 6, which is the last week of hypertrophy block, so the plan is to maintain the same exact diet for just 1-2 more weeks depending on how well my recovery goes.

Week 7 is the beginning of my strength block and week 9 is when I begin the peaking block. The plan is right now to maintain the same diet up week 8 or 9 where my training volume will decrease quite significantly. After that I will begin PSMF in the hope of losing about 4-6kg of fat by competition week (Competition date still TBA as of now). Projected duration of this PSMF diet is 2-3 weeks, depending on when the meet is and how bad I'm doing in losing weight. On meet week I will up the calories a bit to go for maintenance to improve recovery, while doing some water/sodium manipulation a.k.a. water cut, and hopefully, make weight on weigh in day. I will make weight damn it!

So the plan for my PSMF is as below:

Plan of attack

Duration: 2-3 weeks
Calories: 800-1000 calories/day
Protein: 160g/day
Carbs: 20g/day (from veggies)
Fat: 20g-30g/day (from protein sources, lean meat is not easy to eat)
Goal: Reach 70kg by competition week. Water cut on competition week and increase calories to just below maintenance level up to 2 days out from weigh in day.

Meal Plan

Breakfast: 2 scoops of ON 100% whey (240cal, 50g protein)
Lunch: Fried chicken & tofu / Grilled lean steak & a bit of veggies (300cal, 35g protein)
Dinner: 2 scoops of ON 100% whey & scrambled egg with 5 egg whites & 1 whole egg (400cal, 75g protein)
Electrolytes: 1500mg-2000mg of sodium & 750mg-1000mg of potassium supplement
Coffee: A shit ton
Water: 2 liters to 3 liters a day, excluding coffee and shakes

As you can see, this is quite a terrible/pathetic looking plan but this is what's been suggested to me in order to maintain/increase my performance. If I start too soon, I risk compromising my strength gains from my current hypertrophy block. I also want to decrease the amount of time I spend doing this, because I know, this is gonna suck balls. Is it worth it though? I don't know man, there are a few monsters in this weight class as well. I might have a shot for 3rd place maybe. Most people would suggest to not bother with weight manipulation unless I have a shot at winning and/or setting world records, but I am of the opinion that there is value in practicing these things. I learned a lot during my last water cut and I'm sure I'll learn a lot about how to be shredded after running this plan, and that is valuable practice for future meets. So, even if I don't win this meet, if I manage to break or even maintain my own PR at a much lower bodyweight that is still a victory in my books. And I'll learn a new skill along the way.

bro, u sure the pairing the above calorie and carb intake with strength training gonna be a wise choice?

To be completely honest, I have no clue. I have no idea how my body reacts to very little carbs and calories because rarely have I done that before. From what I've read online and what others have suggested, this seems to be a good practice to do around the end of a strength block and the beginning of a peaking block, which is when I'm aiming to do this. The volume is very low compared to now. For example, currently in hypertrophy block I'm doing about 7000 kg worth of squat volume a week. On peaking block I'll be doing about 3000 kg of volume, and it goes down by 1000kg of volume a week, which is a very significant decrease in energy and recovery demands. I'll keep the log updated about the diet and we'll see how it goes. Keeping my fingers crossed through.

My take on your approach is water cut 2-3 kg is fine, losing fat just before a meet is not a good idea imo, you may lose strength in the process.

Yup, that is my concern as well. I just have a lot of fat to lose so I might have some buffer there, the slow and steady method of fat loss is just stalling really badly for me currently. We'll see, if I succeed then this can be a guide for others. If I fail, then we can all learn what not to do. Worst thing that can happen is I don't make weight, no big deal.

Meet Prep Week 6 Day 1 (6 February 2017)

I'm bolding the title from now on, it just looks cooler.

I continued doing what I did last week on squats by doing heavy singles up to RPE 9 before going into my working set. Oh ya, and I bought new shoes specifically for squats. Well, its not Romaleos or Adipower or even Sabo, just a pair of Admiral futsal shoes but the stability it provides compared to chucks is way better. And it's red. Now all my gear is color coordinated. Woohoo!

Squats 135kg x 1 x 1, 107.5kg x 7 x 3
- 135kg was my gym 1RM since August last year. I hit it twice in the gym on 2 separate occasions (both felt like death) and missed it on my previous meet, so it was with great pleasure that I was able to hit this as a top single of the day. It was surprisingly very easy. Walkout was perfect (3 steps walkout), depth was very low (I think I went 2" below parallel), speed was really fast. Adding the heavy singles was a great idea, it really gets me accustomed to handling bigger weights. The working set went really fast as well, 107.5kg moved at RPE 7.5. Overall very pleased with this squat session. Turns out, good shoes, good belt, and good knee sleeves really do make a difference. Too bad I didn't bring my tripod to record the set. I'll be sure to bring it the next squats session this week as I'll attempt to break this PR.

Bench Press (touch & go) 70kg x 4 x 5, 1 x AMRAP=9
- Bench felt a bit off on this session. It was probably the shoes as I wasn't that used to the way it grips the floor, or something, I don't know. But it just felt really heavy in my hands the entire workout. My leg drive wasn't up to par and my upper back wasn't as tight as I want it to be, also felt really fatigued from squats. Oh well, it happens. RPE 8.5 on these. I was able to salvage the terrible session by going AMRAP=9 on the last set which is a rep PR for me at this weight.

Squats 97.5kg x 3 x 8
- This was the worst sets of 8's I've ever felt. While my conditioning has improved, the added heavy singles in the beginning of the session and the general lack of energy from going at a caloric deficit really zapped my energy to abysmal levels. By the last set, it was REP10 for me and it took all the testicular fortitude I could muster in order to finish the set. I was a heaving by the end of it, gasping for breath. The weight did move well though. The speed slowed down by the last set and the last reps, but the form didn't break down significantly. Overall, I hated this but it was good. Thank God this is the last time I'm doing this torturous shit, finally done with hypertrophy block this week.

Accessories.
- For accessories I did Lat Pulldown 65kg x 3 x 10. I was supposed to do some landmine rows as well but my body wasn't having none of, so I packed up and went home shortly after.

This post has been edited by Npad: Feb 7 2017, 09:09 AM

Nice bro. Keep up the log. I enjoyed reading it and atb for yr meet.

Thanks man. I'll definitely write up a meet report once it's done. And also weigh in report. I'm so damn excited for this meet.

Meet Prep Week 6 Day 2 (7 February 2017)

I did it, I finally broke the 74kg plateau barrier. Weighed in last night at 73.8kg. Finally the cut is going somewhere. It's been stuck for weeks damn it. Now I only got 4 weeks to get this cut done or I'm gonna have to do the bloody PSMF thingy. I hope I don't have to resort to that. The session on this day was, meh. It wasn't bad, wasn't great, just "ok" as Saitama would say. It happens.

Deadlift (deadstop) 150kg x 4 x 2
- I've been feeling a lot of general tightness in my lower back as of late. I've been taking my time to foam roll and stretch very lightly before every session in order to prime my body to lift, but I'm guessing the fatigue is just catching up to me. 150kg went great on this session. It moved rather fast, but a bit on the low end. Not as explosive as I'd like but the power is there. No form breakdowns as far as I can feel from my own body's feedback. RPE 8.5 on these. I'm sure I could have thrown in another 3 set but you gotta stick to the program man.

Bench Press (competition paused) 77.5kg x 5 x 3
- The off feeling on bench continued on from the previous session. This time, my left bicep even cramped up on set 4 and on set 5, my bar path swayed backwards causing me to to really fight the bar to remain stable. I don't know what's going on exactly with my bench but again, I have a feeling that the fatigue accumulation is at its top end. The weight wasn't that heavy, it moved pretty fast in my opinion, just that the session was a bit difficult on this particular day. Probably I shouldn't have deadlifted before bench but I really wanted to give more focus on deadlift on this day. RPE 8.5 as well on these though the last set might qualify for an RPE 9.5-10. Almost died there.

Deadlift to Knees 112.5kg x 3 x 8
- I was surprised at how easy this exercise felt when I did it. I can feel my off the floor speed and technique has really improved the past 6 weeks with the bar consistently following the same path and at the same speed when breaking off the floor. Heck I think my hammies has exploded in size. RPE 7 on these. The only concern I have currently is the fact that at the meet we'll be using a deadlift bar instead of a stiff bar which I'm currently training with. A deadlift bar has the tendency to fuck with an explosive type lifter as the whip causes the bar to break off the floor a bit later as compared to a stiff bar, which breaks off as soon as you initiates the lift. I guess I won't really know until meet day, unless I go to QLS and play around with the deadlift bar one of these days.

Accessories.
- I did my usual 2 rowing movements today as accessories:

- Kroc Rows 32kg x 2 x 12. I feel like my Kroc Rows has gotten a bit weaker. May be a result of fatigue or just no energy but it just felt so sluggish on this session.
- Seated Cable Rows (straight handle) 195lbs x 2 x 15, 1 x AMRAP=17. Planned progression for this exercise is to do AMRAP on the last set each time till I reached 20, then I'll try 20 for each set.

Meet Prep Week 6 Day 3 (9 February 2017)

So, on this session, the gym's air conditioning broke down, hell the entire mall didn't have air conditioning. Being a fancy commercial gym, they didn't even have a damn fan. It was hot. So hot I felt like I needed to chew my air before inhaling. Every 2-3 sets I had to change T-shirt. It was not fun last night. BUT, I did manage to hit a new all time PR on squats, that's definitely a plus. Aaaand I went home after that, because I felt like I was overheating. Fuck that. Even today I feel a little bit sick. I'm very susceptible to heat unfortunately. Turn the heat up and I get sick very easily.

Squats 140kg x 1 x 1, 125kg x 4 x 2
- As usual I work up to an RPE 9 single. On this session, I planned on trying 140kg since 135kg went up rather easily the previous session. Once I got to 135kg here, I knew 140kg was in the bag. Attempted it and hit it, without much difficulty. At the time it felt like RPE 9 but after reviewing the video, it looked a lot more like an RPE 8 since the barbell didn't slow down much at all on the way up. Others around me mentioned that I could have added at least 5kg to it. Usually I'll classify an RPE 9 as a classic grinder where the barbell really slows down at the sticking point, but that didn't happen here. I'll take my 140kg, which was my squat goal last year, and leave the actual test for the platform later. After that I did my programmed squats for the day, which was RPE 8. Very very pleased with this session despite the hellish heat and the less than optimal sleep the night before.

Meet Prep Week 6 Day 4 (10 February 2017)

I told you I'm very succeptible to the heat, felt a bit sick on this session with a bit of a sore throat and a slight fever. I felt lethargic like hell on this session despite eating lots more carbs and fats for lunch prior to the training session. It also doesn't help the fact that I forgot my log book so I had to work from memory of what I programmed in for the day.

Bench Press (competition paused) 80kg x 5 x 3
- I decided to start the session with bench press as I felt too fatigued to begin with deadlifts. My energy levels just felt really low on this day. I toyed around with my form a few times, put on the belt, removed the belt, etc. I've decided to stick with no belt for this meet as I felt like my bar path was too deviated when I have it on and I just can't get my arch as high as I need it to be. I don't think I have the time to change my form. One day I'll get a bench belt for this purpose. The weight felt heavy as 88% should feel like, but I was rather pleased with the way the bar moved. It was relatively fast and consistent on sets that I didn't fool around on. RPE 8.5 on these.

Deadlift (touch & go) 132.5kg x 2 x 5, 1 x AMRAP=6
- Deadlift was slow on this session. It didn't feel like a drag but it just felt so slow. My explosiveness was not there on this session. Even the reps were not clean as the left side of the barbell keeps descending faster than the other. Last AMRAP set I failed at 6 reps because my grip failed. I forgot to put on the strap but it's okay, it was much needed grip training. RPE 8 on these, just some light volume work.

Accessories.
- I dragged my ass across the gym to force myself to do at least 2 rowing accessories. I was so lethargic by the end of deadlift. I did Lat Pulldown 65kg x 3 x 10, followed by T-Bar Chest Supported Rows 35kg x 3 x 8.

Meet Prep Week 7 Day 1 (13 February 2017)

Shit it's been a very busy few days and I couldn't update my log till today. Anyhow, some updates. MPA just announced the meet to be held at Utropolis Marketplace on 25th & 26th March, so this gives me about 6 weeks out including this week. So, if you want to see what a powerlifting meet is all about, feel free to come over and spectate and that includes you lingleeyen

On with the log. This day marks the first week of the strength phase, which I'm not too good with. I'm okay with planning for volume and such but peaking is not something I have much of a knack for. I programmed to do all 3 big lifts in a day for this week and the next but decided against that for this week only since I want to do my opener for squats and deadlift twice this week to get more accustomed to heavier weights. Those 2 I'd rather not be on the same day so that's what I'm doing this week.

Squats 135kg x 1 x 1, 120kg x 4 x 3
- 135kg was my gym 1RM for a long time, it crushed me at MPA SAM 2016 back in August 2016. Now, it is my opener. I began my workout on this session by working up to a heavy single with 135kg as daily minimum. I'm running a Bulgarian-esque style peak for squats. If I feel great on that particular session I'd go heavier, if not, I need to at least be able to hit 135kg. I'm really happy to say that it was RPE 7.5-8 at most. Felt really fast and explosive, and light as well to be honest. I used to feel this weight as really heavy on my back. I could have went heavier but I was feeling a wee bit tired and fatigued. After that was some backoff sets with 120kg. I failed set 5 as I shifted the load to my left side too much causing the barbell to hit the safeties and couldn't recover. RPE 8.5 on these. I stopped at set 4.

Bench Press (competition paused) 77.5kg x 5 x 3
- I had really really tight hips on this session. I have a feeling it might have been because of the long hours of being seated. I flew back and forth from Kuching over the weekend and had a whole day of product seminar training at work on that day. Leg drive felt horrible and my hips and lower back were complaining the entire time. The weight itself wasn't that heavy. The bar path did sway backwards on some reps because of the terrible leg drive I got from the tight hips. Overall though, I felt that it was a good session. RPE 8 on these. Bench has not been affected by this cut as of currently so I'm quite pleased with it.

Accessories.
- I finished off the session Landmine Rows 65kg x 3 x 10 while watching a fellow gym goer deadlift with the most terrible form I've ever seen. What do you do in that situation? I've always been the kind that if somebody didn't ask I should just shut the fuck up but man it was horrible seeing him deadlift like that. Oh well. Didn't do too much volume on this session.

Valentine's Day Workout (14 February 2017)

Couples who lift together stay together, or some shit like that. We were gonna go for a date that evening but she wanted to squat, though it had to be a really really short session. I tagged along to fool around at the gym so I didn't bring my chalk, belt, roller, nothing. Figured I wasn't gonna do any serious lifting since I wouldn't have enough time to even warmup properly.

I ended up pulling a beltless, chalkless PR of 157.5kg for a good RPE 8.5. My fingers slipped at the top right as I locked out the weight. Heaviest I've ever pulled beltless before was 130kg I believe, a long long time ago. A Valentine's day well spent.

Meet Prep Week 7 Day 2 (15 February 2017)

I lift on the 26th March in Flight E which is on Sunday. I don't know how to feel about it, on one hand, I don't need to take an off day from work on Friday to weigh in, on another hand I'll be absolutely destroyed come Monday. I'll take leave on Monday lah I think.

On this session I went ahead and worked up to a good heavy single for deadlift. I also learned that after max effort on deadlift, I can forget about trying to put in some volume work because the muscles just wouldn't fire due to CNS fatigue. Fried CNS is real yo. So now I know better in how to plan my training, working up to a top single at RPE 9 on the deadlift prevents me from doing any volume work for it while for squats, the same strategy works quite well and allows me to handle more weight. For bench, well I can bench about 15 to 25 reps everyday in the 80%-95% with no trouble in recovering. Elbows might hurt a bit but nothing a bajillion curls and better form couldn't help.

Deadlift (deadstop) 166kg x 1 x 1
- 166kg was my 1RM previously tested in December. It was slow and grindy before, on this session this weight moved very smoothly with adequate speed, as the video review confirms it. RPE 8.5-9 on this with at least 1 rep left in the tank. I might take this as a second attempt depending on how my opener feels on the meet day, which I think will be 155kg. I will tackle deadlift exactly how I did back in August. Back then I opened with 155kg but failed both subsequent attempts at 167.5kg. The goal for this meet though is to at least hit 175kg, with a 180kg being a cherry on top. Working up to this weight I did get some volume in so it wasn't all that bad. I couldn't get any more work in however, after reaching the top single. My body just said nope, I'm done.
- Ramp up weight:
70kg x 4
90kg x 3
110kg x 3
130kg x 2
142.5kg x 2
152.5kg x 1
157.5kg x 1

Bench Press (competition paused) 70kg x 7 x 3 superset with Barbell Pendlay Rows 60kg x 7 x 3
- I wanted to save some time on this session by supersetting my rowing movement with my bench press. For bench, the weight felt light here. I managed to deal with the tight hips I got the day before so my setup got much better. I had some pain on my left elbow on set 3 and I think I figured out why my elbows have been complaining lately. It's the position where I touch my chest. I experimented with that throughout the session and I found out that if I went a bit lower than normal on my chest, about 1" lower, I get more pec activation and my elbow pains get reduced significantly. Some days I wish I have a coach to point these things out for me, sigh. It was a good session though, I learned a lot of new things. RPE 7.5 on these, didn't feel all that difficult.

Meet Prep Week 7 Day 3 (16 February 2017)

This session was really a meh session. I felt like I was dragging myself to get shit done. My left elbow was really inflamed and it was complaining throughout the workout. I've identified it to be one of the tricep tendons and I have a feeling it's because of the high frequency squatting and benching. It doesn't hurt to bench but it does hurt to stabilize the damn bar which is pretty damn important. Powered through it and made it safely though, thankfully. One thing about meet preps is that I know I will always have some sort of pain throughout the cycle. Last time it was my shoulders. This time it's my elbows.

Squats 135kg x 1 x 1, 122.5kg x 5 x 2
- Like I said, it was a meh session. My daily minimum of 135kg felt heavy on this day, about RPE 8.5. Speed was a bit slow in the middle and again I lost some tightness in my upper back coming out of the hole. I think my hand positioning is not exactly ideal but I doubt, at 6 weeks out, that it is a good idea to play around with a huge variable such as hand placement. The back off work after that felt a bit heavy too, about RPE 8. On set 3 I hit the safety bar on my left side, causing me to lose balance and failed the set, couldn't recover the rep. This makes me think that I might be leaning to my left side a bit too much due to some muscular imbalance, probably a side effect of mixed grip on the deadlift.

Bench Press (competition paused) 80kg x 3 x 3, 2 x 2 superset with Dumbbell Rows 24kg 5 x 5
- 80kg is really difficult unrack on my own especially with a bum elbow. It felt painful to stabilize at the top but if I twist my hands inwards as if to bend the bar, the pain subsides. Huh... Maybe I've been holding the barbell wrongly all these years. The weight moved fast and efficient though, especially with the slight adjustment on where I touch the barbell on my chest, which I experimented on during the previous session. RPE 8.5 on these. I could have done 3 reps for each of the last 2 sets but I didn't feel like pushing it too far. Can't afford an injury now man. I supersetted with dumbbell rows. I didn't call them Kroc rows which I always do as I only did 5 reps per hand per set at only 24kg. Hardly anything difficult but good enough as an accessory for this block.

Accessories.
- I decided to get a pump on my quads before I went home to aid recovery of the lower body, so I did Leg Extensions x 3 x 20 at some random weight. I didn't bother checking, it just felt alright.

Meet Prep Week 7 Day 4 (17 February 2017)

Aight, this entire week has been painful. Started getting elbow pains on Wednesday and it got worse on this session, up to the point that I didn't dare to do the programmed manpon presses after my squats. My warmup felt terribly awful with the bar swaying back and forth with 0 consistency, so I took that out of this training session. Plan is to take a deload next week, I think my body needs it. While deloading, I plan to do a mini crash diet, eating 150g of protein a day, whatever fat that comes with that and 0-30g carbs, full on keto. I don't think I'll need the carbs on a deload week so I hope to accelerate my fat loss a bit. As of writing I am sitting at 73.6kg with 0 drop in strength. I need to hit 71kg-72kg in another 4 weeks.

On with the log.

Squats 115kg x 6 x 2
- The goal with this squat session is to train my speed and upper back tightness. I programmed the weight to be slightly heavy but still something I can handle for 6 sets. The entire session was a bit miserable due to my left elbow and my setup couldn't be as tight as I'd like it to be. The weight did move fast and easy though so no big deal there. I practiced my walkout a lot also in this session. Off season I will train a 2 step walkout ala JP Cauchi's form but for now, I'll stick with my 3 step walkout. RPE 8.5 on these which wasn't too bad. Lower back was complaining a bit though so I had to be extra careful. I pretty much squatted, deadlifted or did a combination of both 5 straight days this week and my lower back was starting to really show signs of fatigue.

Deadlift (deadstop) 132.5kg x 8 x 2
- I didn't get to do any volume work for deadlift prior to this session so I decided to add these in. 8 x 2 is perfect for when I'm trying to train for speed and to limit the fatigue on my CNS. Truth be told I didn't even break a sweat after this deadlift session, as compared to my squats which had me soaking wet in sweat. Speed was a bit slow as well like my squats, I just felt a bit beat up after a long week of training. Good session though. RPE 8 on these.

Accessories.
- The gym was a mess on this day. I just can't stand it when plates are strewn about the platform and power rack where I usually train all the time. So for a cooldown accessory I did Plate Cleanup 10 x 10 (or something like that). Fuckers just don't put their plates back on the plate tree. It's right fucking there. Boils my blood man.

Meet Prep Week 8 Day 1 (20 February 2017)

That elbow pain I had last week, it's almost gone. But I'm not gonna risk a real injury by not giving it time to get back to 100%. My lower back is feeling a bit fatigued too the past few weeks. That is why I've decided to take this week as a deload week. I have no set program for deload. Basically I'll be doing a much lighter version the competition SBD and maybe 1 or 2 accessories. I'd rather take this time to work on technique and form rather than work on getting some work volume in, so I'll be doing sets of doubles and triples only, even though some of the weights are like my 10RM weights. Also, since it is deload week, I will be avoiding carbs this entire week to help me with my cut. I won't be training really hard so I don't think the loss of energy will be much of an issue. This will give me a greater deficit which will hopefully let me break my weightloss plateau.

On with log. Aight, I'm also gonna note the RPE of each weight next to it instead of putting it in the comments to make it easier for me to pull out the data for when I need it next time. And I'll underline the exercise I did, just for tidiness sake.

Squats 95kg x 6 x 2 @RPE 6, 130kg x 1 x 1 @RPE 7.5, 135kg x 1 x 1 @RPE 8
- 95kg was a joke for sets of doubles. I don't think anything below RPE 7 is beneficial in terms of training aside from being warmups. I've done this weight for 8-10 reps before. Either way, it was much needed rest for my back and elbow. I focused on speed, form and technique on this session, reinforcing some cues that I tend to forget. I'm currently thinking of pulling my hands inwards a bit more to create better tightness in the upper back which has been an issue for me the past few weeks. It's risky to changing form this near to a meet but I think it will be beneficial. Next session will be an experiment to find the best hand placement. The top single of the day was basically my opener/daily minimum. It should've been much easier than RPE 8 but I think that's just fatigue and lack of energy. Next time I'll do the top single in the beginning of the session like I always did.

Bench Press (competition paused) 60kg x 6 x 3 @RPE 7 superset with Dumbbell Rows 26kg 6 x 6 @RPE whatever
- Bench felt weird the first few warmup sets and working sets. It was as if I forgotten how to bench; bar path inconsistent, bad unrack, butt coming off the bench, scapula detracting on
some reps. I got my shit together after set 2 though and got my groove back. Again, I focused on form, technique and speed to reinforce cues. Elbow held up pretty well too, so that was good. No pain whatsoever so I think I can go a bit heavier the next session. Superset is proving to be a really good way to save time so I will continue doing this going into off season later, despite the extra effort to set up the exercises I want to do.

Deadlift (deadstop) 110kg x 6 x 2 @RPE 6.5
- Deadlift was great on this session. I hardly even sweat on these but I achieved what I intended; to give rest to my back and work on technique and form. I found that shorter setup at the bottom produces a much smoother rep every time so from now on I will try to spend as little time as possible setting up my grip. Not much to say about deadlift for now, it's been going really great lately.

Accessories
- Again, my accessories consisted of cleaning up the gym of plates strewn about the general vicinity of the platform and power rack. I couldn't give a fuck about the rest of the gym but I just have to have my "temple" clean and tidy. Quite a good cool down exercise to be honest even though I'm filled with spite the entire time.

Meet Prep Week 8 Day 2 (21 February 2017)

This session felt like one of those grind days, where you just grind and grind even though you're fatigued, tired, and want nothing more than some massage and lots of sleep. The lack of energy is not that bad IMO, I can live with this. Keto is easy so far, the hunger is very unsubstantial. Besides, it will be only for a week. What's bothering me is the fact that everything felt strained, everything felt fatigued, everything felt sleepy. It was still a deload session so the weights I moved weren't that heavy but still, it just wasn't one of those great sessions. Well, grind is the name of the game.

Squats 130kg x 1 x 1 @RPE 7.5, 135kg x 1 x 1 @RPE 8.5, 100kg x 5 x 2 @RPE 7
- Funny how 135kg done in two days in a row turned it from RPE 8 to RPE 8.5. I experimented with a new grip today. Much narrower to get my upper back as tight as possible. It felt different, now the bar position on my back is more mid bar than low bar. I found the walkout to be a tad more difficult as well as the bar became more difficult to balance. However, I did in fact engage my traps and rear delts a lot more and my elbows could get below the bar more comfortably which in turn reduced my elbow discomforts. Plus my wrists weren't hurting as well as now the weight of the bar is mostly on my back and not my hands. I will need to practice this form as I think this might as well be the form for me.

Bench Press (competition paused) 65kg x 5 x 3 @RPE 7 superset with Barbell Rows 110lbs 5 x 6 @RPE whatever
- In the previous session, my elbows didn't hurt but my form was a bit fucky. This session, my left elbow did give some issue but it wasn't anything I couldn't handle. The weight moved fairly consistently and I was really pleased with that. Technique was on point, bar path was good, arch was getting better. Overall a great bench session. I discovered in this session the reason why my butt has been shooting up from the bench when I perform a paused rep. It is because of lost of tightness from the self unracking technique I talked about a few posts before. I just couldn't reset my setup properly with the bar right above my face. Best solution, get a hand off on heavier sets and unrack normally on lighter sets instead of the butt off unracking technique.

Deadlift (deadstop) 130kg x 5 x 2 @RPE 7.5 superset with Abwheel Rollout 3 x 8
- I'm really loving the concept of a giant set/super set where I can get a lot more done with less time. I've decided to add some abs component after deadlift as I have been neglecting abs a little bit for the past few weeks. It actually helped my deadlift because my abs were engaged more and I was able to create a more rigid core via Valsalva. I did feel some lost of tightness in my upper back on this deadlift session though but I think that's just due to fatigue. I practiced my technique on this session and I feel confident with a short setup now. The setup starting from grip setup all the way to lift initiation takes around 1-2 seconds now and my reps feel a lot more explosive and powerful.

Accessories
- I think I might remove accessories as I intend to do giant sets starting on my off season later. All giant set/super set and it saves a heck of a lot of time.

Meet Prep Week 8 Day 3 (24 February 2017)

This session did not have any planned workout, I went to the gym with the goal to just do what my body feels like training. Turns out it wasn't that bad. I didn't like the non-structure of it though so I cannot be doing that often.

Squats 135kg x 1 x 1 @RPE 7.5, 140kg x 1 x 1 @RPE 8, 110kg x 5 x 2 @RPE 7
- Squats felt awesome on this session. I went ahead and tried my PR of 140kg again for shits and giggle and guess what, it wasn't so hard at all. I did slow down at the usual sticking point but the whole rep was smooth without much struggle at all. I can gladly say that the new hand placement is definitely helping since I can keep my upper back much tighter making the rep smoother. After the top set, I did some doubles for some volume. Overall, great session. I have a feeling that my squat will eventually overtake my deadlift one day as I can feel like my deadlift progress is slowing down.

Deadlift (deadstop) 142.5kg x 10 x 1 @RPE 8
- I decided to train my setup and speed on this session so I slapped on 3 plates and pulled 10 singles. Speed was good. Slowed down by set 7 but that's pretty normal. Wasn't heavy per say, but I was definitely feeling the fatigue from the squats beforehand.

This post has been edited by Npad: Mar 9 2017, 04:17 PM

Meet Prep Week 9 Day 1 (28 February 2017)

It's peaking week baby. Time to lift some heavy ass weights and train my CNS to fire the muscular motor unit I've built throughout the hypertrophy weeks and the months of bulking before. Deload last week really helped in letting me recover so that I can come back stronger this week. I also bought some bands of unknown tension from SuperSave for really cheap to do some reverse banded squats on this session.

Squats (singles) 130kg @RPE 7, 135kg @RPE 7.5, 140kg @RPE 8
- Ever since last week I really deviated from the training plans I've programmed in the beginning of this prep cycle. I've been going for a day to day feels based programming ala RTS a bit, and I found it to be better in the way that I don't feel like I'm sandbagging just to finish up the preplanned workout. On this session I squeezed in a lot of volume in my warm-up to my working weights. I only did 3 singles and they felt great. my all time 1RM of 140kg felt like something I could push to do for a triple. Squat strength is definitely coming out of the woodworks and I can't wait to test it out on the platform.

Reverse Banded Squats of unknown band tension (singles) 150kg@RPE 7.5, 160kg @RPE 8.5, 170kg @RPE 10
- I could have measured the band tensions at the bottom position of the squat but I decided against it to keep the mystery alive, for now. The aim for this exercise was for me to not get intimidated by big weights. Seeing more than 3 plates on each side is a bit scary when you've never threaded into that territory before. I also wanted to have a feel of heavy weights on my back, hence the reason I let the bands stay loose at the top. I might measure the bands tension next week when I want to dial in the exact weight I am doing. The session went great in my opinion. I crushed that 170kg squat, even with bands, I was really glad I could grind it all the way up. It really helps with the mental side of things.

Squat Walkout 180kg for 10 seconds @RPE Death
- This was one of the longest 10 seconds I've had in recent memory. Unracking this weight (4 plates) was no joke, it really took all my effort to stay tight and not collapse under it. The usual rack height I used was a bit too tall as well as I got so compressed that I lost about 0.5"-1" in height, maybe. All I know is that it didn't clear the J-hooks the way it usually does. It was difficult to even rack it back up as I had to tip toe a bit and I really felt drained from staying tight the entire time. It felt good though, allowed me to really dial in my walkout. As my squats get heavier, I cannot afford to waste energy in being inefficient with my walkout.

Bench Press (with competition commands) 70kg x 5 x 3 @RPE 8 superset with Barbell Rows 110lbs 5 x 6 @RPE whatever
- I had my GF to give me commands on this session. I usually have no frame of reference to how long I should pause, getting these commands really help ingrained the habits of waiting for the commands and to actually get the bar to stop on top of the chest to get that press command. Weight moved fast and easy but there were some inconsistencies on some reps on where the bar touches my chest. All I can do is keep practicing. Next training session will be maximal and supramaximal weights on the bench. This will be fun.

Accessories
- I did some supinated front raises with a 4kg dumbbell while waiting for my GF to get done. Got the shoulders moving and warm, a very good prehab exercise if you have the time.

This post has been edited by Npad: Mar 9 2017, 04:17 PM

Meet Prep Week 9 Day 2&3 (2&3 March 2017)

I'll admit, I slacked this entire week in either logging my training, planning my training or both. I caught the shutter bug recently, and I've been reading photography tutorials, searched the garage sales for camera and lenses and all that jazz. I got quite the obsessive personality so when something new caught my eye my entire attention will go to it. Finally got my first DSLR this past weekend and for now, my attention can go back to logging my training. This log will be a bit different than normal as I can't do commentary on things that happened a while back, as I can't exactly say how I felt or the RPE for those sessions. It will be quite pointless, but nonetheless, it will be a reference point on what numbers I've hit this week.

2 March 2017

- Bench Press 75kg x 5 x 3

- Deadlift Singles
- 142.5kg
- 152.5kg
- 157.5kg

- Sumo Deadlift Singles
- 142.5kg
- 152.5kg
- 157.5kg
- 166kg

3 March 2017

- Squats 100kg x 5 x 3

Bench Press Singles (with competition command)
- 80kg
- 85kg
- 90kg

I really need to get a Slingshot to properly overload the bench press. That's definitely next in my equipment acquisition list.

Meet Prep Week 10 Day 1 (6 March 2017)

It's the 2nd week of peaking and over-reaching. This session was the last heavy session for deadlift before hitting only openers next week and some very light work the week after. Only 3 more weeks, I am currently feeling a lot stronger and I'm ready but the nerves are starting to hit me. Also, some updates on my weight, last week my lightest was 71.9kg, this morning was 73.1kg. This is definitely because of the carbs I eat during the weekends that's making me retain water. When I went to a medical checkup on Saturday I was 71kg! I'm not sure which scale to trust now. I know for a fact that I am losing fat, I just gotta trust the process. It's still a bit nerve wrecking though. I will make weight no matter what.

Squats (singles) 130kg @RPE 7, 135kg @RPE 8, 140kg @RPE 9
- The reason I did squats on this session was to warm up. I didn't put in much volume work in the warm up leading up to the top 3 singles and I even forgot my knee sleeves. I was wearing my chucks which I wear only for deadlift. Safe to say I was out of my elements. I did still manage to hit 140kg even though it was a bit of a grinder. I am feeling very confident with my squats right now, my setup is way tighter and secure, my descent is slow and controlled, and my ascent is more explosive to get me through that stupid mid point sticking point.

Deadlift (singles) 155kg @RPE 8, 166kg @RPE 8.5, 171kg @RPE 9
- All singles today. Well I did some touch and go with weights below 100kg for warmup but after that, I focused on singles and getting the bar moving as fast as possible, while being as smooth as possible. I hit a new all time PR on this session with 171kg. I expected as much, I would've been disappointed if I didn't manage to get that. A new problem reared it's ugly head and that is my damn grip. My left hand could barely hold on to 171kg, even though the whole movement was actually pretty easy. It was smooth and fast, much smoother than my opening weight of 155kg. In the end I only managed to hold the barbell at the top for maybe 1 second after lockout, after which it just slipped through my fingers. I'm not sure if I could increase my grip strength in 3 weeks but damn it I will try. Gonna add in some isometric holds for the remaining few sessions I have.

Accessories
- I did cardio for once, first time in this entire damn cycle in fact, I think. Me being a fatass, I chose the seated bicycle machine and just cycled for 10 mins while maintaining heart rate at 145BPM. Got quite the sweat going.

This post has been edited by Npad: Mar 9 2017, 04:18 PM

Meet Prep Week 10 Day 2 (7 March 2017)

I'm logging the training from this session about 2 days late, because yesterday, some idiot decided to ram my car from behind while I was waiting for the red light to turn green. Fuck my life. Now I don't have a car to go to work for the next 2 months and it ain't even my fault. This is some added stress that I really don't need to prep for this meet man. I'm quite bummed to be honest. Nevertheless, life goes on. Training goes on.

On this session I basically bro it out. Did some feet up bench press as to let my lower back recover a bit. It is a bit painful, seems like the old injury flared up again. Doesn't hurt when I squat or deadlift though. So I'm pretty sure it's because of my arch on the bench. I don't think the technique is at fault, I think I just need a deload on the back as I'm quite beaten up in that regards currently.

Legs Up Bench Press(Competition Paused) 70kg x 5 x 3 @RPE 8.5 superset with Barbell Rows 70kg x 5 x 5 @RPE 8.5
- Like I said above, I wanted to give my lower back a break. Doing leg up bench press allows me to stay tight while remaining as flat as I can. A Larsen press is way more difficult and probably more useful for the intention I had on this session, but I really didn't want to do something that was wildly different variation of the bench press. Supersetted with barbell rows as usual to increase my efficiency and conditioning. Not much to say about it really, was quite easy and I worked up a good sweat.

Flat Dumbbell Bench Press 26kg x 3 x 10 @RPE 6
- I did this one purely out of vanity sake. I was being a bro essentially. I chased the pump and boy was I pumped. Quite sore today though, not sure if that's good or bad. Very easy weight that I think I could do at least 15-20 reps each set. I'll incorporate a lot of these in my off season later. I need bigger pecs.

Tyre Flip ?kg x 3 x 8
- The gym recently opened an outdoor section where they have a large tyre, a battlerope, a grass turf and large variety of plyo boxes. I played around with tyre flips on this session, simply because it was fun. It's nice to work out shirtless once in a while getting all dirty with a damn tyre. Really worked my forearms and traps doing this. I think I might be able to improve my grip strength as well as conditioning if I incorporate more of these. No idea how heavy the tyre was though, it was light enough even my GF could do it for a few reps with ease and her max deadlift is 95kg.

This post has been edited by Npad: Mar 9 2017, 04:19 PM

Meet Prep Training Reflection

I was looking at my training plan for this strength/peaking phase and man do I suck at following a program. More so than that, I think I really suck at writing a program when it comes to peaking and overreaching.

Base building and hypertrophy is easy, I have a good idea of what works well currently. Full body workout works best. For squats, multiple sessions per week with an emphasis on submaximal weight ~70%-80% works well. Also, huge volume for squat works well. No need for fancy variations. For bench, extreme frequency and going ~75%-90% and undulating volume works best. So if I train 4 times a week, I need to bench 4 times a week. I also need to perform at least 1 variation per session to assist any weak points. For deadlift, a shit ton of variation works well. Just 1 session of normal deadlift a week is fine, with weights ranging from 75%-85% with medium volume. The assistant variations are what I think contributed the most to my deadlift gains recently, as I really pounded on the off the floor speed weakness.

However, for peaking and overreaching, there are so many factors that I did not even consider at the time of the writing. I neglected the effects of the accumulated fatigue on my joints, the weight loss plan, feasibility of doing multiple singles at above 90%, and much more. I've learned that doing banded variations allow me to go supramaximal which helps mentally in being confident, and physically in allowing me to experience the weight in a controlled manner. I also learned that my elbows can't take the constant abuse when going near 100% on squats or bench so the exercise selection needs to be revamped. I will probably write a review and lessons that I've learned coming off of this training cycle later after the meet or during weigh in week where I don't expect to be training much.

Anyhow, I didn't train yesterday as I couldn't get to the gym on time. No car remember. My ride was a bit late but it's ok, no harm done. Today, I am planning to do banded squats again to train at supramaximal weights and probably some light weight bench press. I am going off program and by feel. Next week is opener practice week so it's all on cruise control from then on. All I gotta do is make sure I stay healthy all the way until game day. I can do that at least.

Meet Prep Fuckarounditis (12 March 2017)

Who said one can't fall into the traps of fuckarounditis coming into a meet?

Last week has been shitty to say the least. I didn't get to train on Thursday and Friday because of transport issues and such. All because some idiot decided hit my car.

Anyhow, since it was a boring Sunday with no plans, me and GF decided to go do some bouldering at PCP. Fun little conditioning session. Sweat balls man. And my forearms, gawd... I'm just still too fat for rock climbing or bouldering I think. Just holding on to my own body weight took a lot of effort. At least I had a good forearms workout to hopefully improve my grip strength.

Also, on Saturday I went to the hospital to get the results of my medical check up. I'm healthy as an ox, except for the part where my good cholesterol is a bit low. I'm also very obese according to BMI, but we all know how "well" that applies to people who lift. However, it's apparent that my hate of cardio is affecting my health. The doc prescribed 30 minutes LISS cardio at >100BPM at least once a week to combat this. I knew avoiding cardio was gonna come back to haunt me one day. Welp, this coming off season I'll program a cardio and conditioning day I guess, since we have the tyre outside anyway. Actual powerlifting training will be 3 days so total training days will be 4 days a week as per usual.

Meet Prep Week 11 Day 1 (13 March 2017)

Final heavy sessions this week. I'm not entirely sure if I will deadlift heavy this week though, I might just work up to my opener and do some isometric holds on those. My body is feeling strong, but a deload/total rest is definitely needed very soon. I feel very beat up. Bodyweight has been hovering about 72kg-73kg range so I have about 5kg to water cut. That's about 7% which, while feasible, is definitely on the high side. Nothing to lose sleep over though, I can do this.

Squats (singles) 130kg @RPE 7, 135kg @RPE 8, 140kg @RPE 9
- I worked up to 140kg on this session. The feeling of the top single was really heavy, I actually thought I stopped in the middle of the squat but reviews from my training partner (my GF) says otherwise. The bar moved fast and without much struggle. It didn't stop as I perceived, nor did it slow down. I am confident to hit 135kg as my opener then 142.5kg as my second for a small PR. I will then go for either 145kg, 147.5kg or 150kg depending on how I feel on meet day. I am definitely aiming for that 150kg though.

Banded Squats (singles) 145kg @RPE 7, 150kg @RPE 7.5, 155kg @RPE 8, 160kg @RPE 9, 165kg @RPE 9.5, 170kg @RPE 10
- I looped the bands a bit differently this time as compared to the last time I did banded squats. I made it so that it has less tension in order to make the movement more difficult. It shows when 170kg was RPE 10. I was literally stuck in the middle and grinded like hell to get it up. I was loud, I was screaming, I didn't hold back nothing on that last single. I'm ready. There's nothing in my attempt list that my back can't support. The only issue is standing back up with it. Slight thing to work on is staying tight while racking the weight. I noticed my self losing tightness when racking the weight causing me to collapse a bit. I need to keep myself tight even after the movement. I experienced some pain in my ribs and spine due to this on this session as I was compressed without my muscles bracing for it.