Adarq.org

196.6lbs this morning. Pretty excited to lift today. I've been getting good sleep and the weather has gotten much better here in NYC. I'm sure I'll hit 375x5 on squats today.

Once you let your body go concave (the opposite bend of waist that you are trying to avoid) your putting load on low back and wont be able to get back up.  Negatives are ok, personally i prefer the on floor rather than bench with arms on a ladder or a bar above the head so your much more vertical.   Just go down as far as you can to go back up.  I look at dragon flags as more of a test than an exercise.  Would rather the bulk of training come from heavy leg lifts or crunches.  If you can knock out straight leg lifts on slant bench w a 30-50lb dumbell your abs are strong imo.

That'll work my hip flexors primarily and abs secondarily. I want to do the opposite of possible. It's one reason why i loved the ab pulldowns so much... it's the only time i've ever gotten an ab pump in my life. A freaking pump. im my ABS. not a burn! a PUMP. i sat down to take off my shoes after the workout and my stomach was in the way!!!

i also liked them because i could increase resistance on them consistently until the weight stack is maxed out, or i started lifting off the ground (at which point i would need to hook my ankles under something).

if only the ab pulldown went up to 200lbs and was facing another machine that i could hook my ankles under...

^ Have you tried them with knees bent? Reduces the distance from your torso to your feet, so it makes it easier... I still can't even do just one like that though

re: dragon flags: was confused why you would find them so challenging so i looked up a couple of videos. i have been doing them wrong, lol. if you curl your torso instead of keeping it straight they are not terribly hard. gonna try to do real ones tonight.

curl your torso? what do you mean? i feel like the torso is exactly where you have to curl, and everything from the naval and down stays in a straight line

When I fatigue on my squats I just fail with good form. It's not like my upper back starts caving or something. I guess I have a pretty strong back and abs? My performance drops off very quickly on my squats. As soon as a rep gets hard, the next one gets VERY hard, and the one after that is a fail. It never looks like it on video though. My 5th rep on my latest squat vid felt like a near fail...

But yea, fat guy abs are the best. Its especially fun when I'm around 10% bodyfat, and i had a bunch of food/water leading to a food baby. Don't flex and it looks like i have a turtle shell for a stomach.

Week 102

Monday - 02/29/16

-= Workout Log =-

ATG Squat
135 x 8                                >> 3min rest.
135 x 8                                >> Man I'm so disappointed... 5th rep was so difficult.
185 x 5                                >> Plus then I waited 3min and could only hit 6 reps with 325?!
185 x 3
225 x 3
275 x 1
315 x 1
365 x 1
405 x 1
370 x 5 PR
325 x 6

Bench Press
45 x 15                               >> 3min rests.
95 x 8                                 >> Moving up to 240lbs next session.
135 x 5
185 x 3
225 x 1
235 x 6 PR
235 x 5 PR
235 x 4 PR

Romanian Deadlift
225 x 5                              >> 2min rests.                           
275 x 2                              >> Moving up to 370lbs next session.
315 x 1   
365 x 8
365 x 2
365 x 1

Incline DB Bench Press
75's x 8                     >> 2min rest.
75's x 5                     >> Dropped dammit.

Calf Raise Machine
420 x 5                            >> 60sec rests.
495 x 10 PR
495 x 10 PR
495 x 8 PR

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uaV6iKWtZ8I" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uaV6iKWtZ8I</a>

Woke up 196.6lbs again today. And didn't even poop.

I rested up nicely over the weekend. Don't feel as sick. I highlllly doubt I could do 405x3 again, probably not even 395x3 yet. But whatever. Switching to 5 rep work. Aiming for 370 for 3x5 later today.

^^ Frequency has always been king for my big lifts. I think benching 3x a week would help a ton as you say. I can't fit that into my schedule right now though... unless I throw in some light benching the day after my regular bench days. I plan to do this for my RDLs to get them back up to par through neural re-gains.

Instead of doing daily undulating, I like to mix rep ranges into the same workout. If I go heavy only once a week, it'll feel heavy by the next week again :/ And if I go high reps only once a week, I feel like I never develop the lactate resistance to keep it up if I only do it once a week. Twice a week is good though. There's also research showing that mixing rep ranges int he same workout is optimal for both strength and hypertrophy. Considering I can only bench heavy twice a week I'll probably keep mixed rep ranges.

If I stall too much on this 3x5 thing... I'm going to raise volume by keeping the 3x5 but then doing some crazy random shit like 2x12 after one day, or paused reps 5x3 another day, whatever the hell i think of. Anything at all.