Quagmire911 Lifting Journal

[Quagmire911]

Yeah don't give up on the squats yet. But i definitely think that soon you should take a week off. I will be doing that myself sometime in april. Need to regain energy and get back on top of things. You can't work hard all the time haha

Enjoy your drink

Yeh yeh. Bloody squats. F****** 220 is hard, what a *****.

I ended up not having the drink, will be fri/sat though, or both I might take the week sooner, need a psychological rest more than anything. Have a few aches etc that never fully go away from week to week as well.

I'm going to have to make flexibilty and integral part of my training, this is what is f****** things up on the squat. I suppose it is more an activation/imbalance issue more so though, flexibility isn't terrible-apart from hamstrings.

 

[Quagmire911]

Monday

Nothing special today, but it was alright. I think I will max out next week and then have a week off, but I might just take the week off. I'll see if I think I can hit the numbers I want or not. Here it is:

Bench 90kgx2-Stalled here. Failed at the same point as last week. Rep two was easier than last week and I gave three a better go but it wasn't too be. I felt pretty strong today as well.

75kgx8(PR)-Just made this. One rep more than last week, but I took longer in between the sets.

Seated D.b press-20kg-1x12 1x8 (PR)-Technically a PR, but I skipped the rack and speed work so that is probably why I got this.

T-bar rows-90kgx6-Didn't like my form. Think I used legs way too much to hoist it up.
80kgx8-This felt a lot better form wise.

Chinups-+5kg 1x8 (PR)-Good stuff. Seeing consistent progress with small weight increases.

Then did some GHR negatives and worked on box squat form. Hamstring flexibilty has improved but still has a way too go. I am going to work off as low a box as possible with a wide stance. I can hit ass to grass with a wide stance pretty comfortably whilst keeping my arch. So I will see how I get on with that.

That is pretty much it. Will probably switch to close grip or incline bench when I enter the next phase. Don't see too much else changing. Whatever rack bench I do I think I will use a lower weight and higher reps, can't really see progress doing it after the full rom stuff.

As far as a break is concerned I am at that stage psychologically where I just need a week off. I have a few aches and pains that don't go away. Well everything is pretty much back to normal, but my lower back needs an extra week before it will feel spot on. It has had too much over compensation recently. So that is that, until Thursday...

Quagmire

 

[I-tallionStallion]

Cool next week is MAX week! Sounds exciting Quag Decent session. Keep it up.

 

[Quagmire911]

Thursday

An alright day I suppose, wasn't terribly exciting:

Deads 160kgx2-This equals my best on sumo and is a PR for conventional. Before the set I was hoping for three, but after two I decided I would leave it at that. Maybe would have got it, but I wasn't confident enough to give it a go. It would have been a real grinder and the risk of injury would probably have been high. The second rep I could feel my upper back unstraightening again, think the first was good though.

130kgx10(PR???)-I think this may be a best but I am not sure. Wasn't really happy with the form in the latter reps. My upper back is a weakpoint. Actually my whole posterior chain is THE weak point.

Wide stance box squats(Few inches below parallel)x2-60,80,60,60,60-Liked the speed and technique with 60. When I went up to 80 something wasn't right so I brought it back down. I think the difference between doing these now and 6 months ago is I am sitting back on the box a lot further with the shins at perpendicular or just past, I think this is what makes the numbers take a nosedive. This set was focusing on speed and technique, although it was probably still a bit too light. Probably something around 70ish would work well. I'll see how I will incorporate these when I come back after this week off. My 1rm on squats is probably around 115x1 so 60% of that is around 70, and I am sure Louis says to do doubles in the 60% range.

GHR negatives-2x8-I think I may be able to do a full negative now for a rep or two. However it still may only be 90% of the way down, it is hard to tell. I am slowly but surely getting stronger on these. Not sure how many negatives it is before you can do a positive-if anyone has any ideas please let me know, would nice to have something to aim at. Still a long way to go until I can get full ghr's for 2x5 or whatever, I am very determined on this now.

I then pissed about trying to decide what to do for abs, as ever I can't decide and don't like situps. Don't really have equipment for hanging leg raises either. So yeh, ab work was a piss about.

Bi curls 2x8-15kgDB-I have really weak ****ty bi's. Probably one of my worst places on my body is my upper arms. At around 175ish they are something like 13-14", and that is flexed. At 5ft 9" and a bit, this is terrible. They didn't really grow when I put 15-20lbs on either. *Sigh*, I like to ignore them

Then did some grip work. Decided I would hold 40kgDB's in either hand for as long as I could. I got 50seconds which I thought wasn't too bad. Think I will keep doing this and try to improve on it.

Then did some more pissing about and tried out some squat jumps. Basically what I was doing was starting in an ass to grass position and jumping onto a box. Not sure how high the box was, I used 8 squares, which is roughly 3-5" above parallel if I was too squat onto it. Worked up to jumping on to it with some weight and did bw+50kgx1 which I thought wasn't bad for a first attempt.

Well that is that. Time for some recuperation. Ain't going to bother maxing, bench I'd get 95x1, 97.5x1 if I was lucky-so there's not much point when I want the 100. Deads I want 182.5x1 and I am sitting around 170x1 so that is also out. Squats I wouldn't even bother.

For the week off I will still be doing some cardio and eating relatively cleanly whilst keeping protein at at least 1.5g. Might try and do some rock climbing or hill walking if I can finance it. I reckon I will keep on with the GHR negatives and definitely work on flexibility.

That is all, until whenever...

Quagmire

 

[Rampage1]

hey quag..just wondering how much weight you have gained? you have been on this journal for a while but dont seem to mention your weight gains recently!?

 

[Quagmire911]

Keep in mind that I am not so much in this for the size, although I have gained weight when I have wanted to:

Here is the breakdown:

Started early February. From then to March I was acclimatizing myself to the gym, didn't do everything 100% correctly but I was using compounds and so saw tremendous progress. However around this time I wasn't eating to gain and was doing a lot of football and a bit of boxing-so my weight stayed around the same. My lowest was 148 and probably single digit bf.

From then until late May I got on a bit of a better structure and continued with strength gains, put on a bit of weight when I quit the boxing. I also purposefully ate more and was having a raw egg shake every day. Weight got to 153-156, which is what it had been before I did any boxing. Was probably around 10% bf.

From late May/early June to late July is when I saw the bulk of my gains. This is the period where Warboss Alex trained me and I did everything to the letter (mostly hehe). Started off around 156 and went to 165 I believe around mid/late July. I then stayed in the general 165-168 range for 5 months or so. This was simply because I chose to stay this weight and was eating to maintain. Before I had been very fit and the extra weight coupled with a little less cardio made things harder, so I wanted to normalize myself to the weight and get used to it. Not necessary, but my preference.

Around December I started eating a little more again but was generally lazy with diet and not eating so cleanly. The main problem infact was alcohol. Over December/January I went up to around 176 at the heaviest and I reckon around 14/15% bf.

I am currently in the process of trying to lean out a bit and am sitting around 173. However, with it being Easter weekend and my going to a party tomorrow night, progress this week will be non-existent. I will probably be back to 175 by Monday .

If I had really wanted to I could have been 190+ by now. I have, in my opinion, above average genetics and can put weight on quite easily. Growing up in school etc, I was always a good stone or two heavier than most and also a bit shorter. I am around 5 9" and a bit.

So there you have it. The weight goal at the moment is 180lbs at 10% so I probably have at least 5lbs of fat to lose and 10-12lbs of muscle to gain. Not in a good place financially at the moment so it is difficult to eat properly to gain and do it cleanly which is all I am interested in. So until I get some money coming in, it will be difficult to buy the amount of meat/eggs/whey. I was meant to be working by now but training was postponed. I am still 17, so it is early days.

I believe that covers your question,

Quagmire

 

[Mad Manic]

Yes weak arms because you don't really train them, you get what you put in. They don't really grow with compounds as those work the big muscle groups as primary. I'm surprised you neglect triceps, they're crucial for good benching. Even though I have an arms day, I do heavy CG Bench and with Bis heavy olympic curls. If you want to get better at squats you're going to need to do it first.

Your problems are Squats, Hamstrings, Arms ...

Day 1

Squat: 3 x 5
BO Row: 3 x 5
Military Press: 3 x 5
CG Pull Ups: 3 x 5
BB Curls: 3 x 5
Ab Work: 2 x 15

Day 2

Bench: 3 x 5
SLDLs: 3 x 5
WG Dips: 3 x 5
WG Pull Ups: 3 x 5
CG Bench: 3 x 5
Calf Work: 2 x 15

I think that's a much better routine than the one you're currently doing.

MM

 

[Quiksilver]

I have really weak ****ty bi's. Probably one of my worst places on my body is my upper arms.

From experience, the best way to get bigger biceps is to use them alot.

I'm roughly the same size as you and last june I was curling 45-50lbs per arm for 8-10 or so reps, because I used them frequently. I made sure to never overtrain, but I threw theory to the wind and experimented lots of different methods to get them stronger.

Try a couple months of high volume, then try a couple months of low volume.

In the grand scheme of your body, biceps don't mean that much, so forget what you've learned about how 'biceps' grow, and experiment to find out what makes YOUR biceps grow.

 

[Rampage1]

yes, well answered quagmire! gigitty gigitty

 

[Quagmire911]

Yes weak arms because you don't really train them, you get what you put in. They don't really grow with compounds as those work the big muscle groups as primary. I'm surprised you neglect triceps, they're crucial for good benching. Even though I have an arms day, I do heavy CG Bench and with Bis heavy olympic curls. If you want to get better at squats you're going to need to do it first.

Your problems are Squats, Hamstrings, Arms ...

Day 1

Squat: 3 x 5
BO Row: 3 x 5
Military Press: 3 x 5
CG Pull Ups: 3 x 5
BB Curls: 3 x 5
Ab Work: 2 x 15

Day 2

Bench: 3 x 5
SLDLs: 3 x 5
WG Dips: 3 x 5
WG Pull Ups: 3 x 5
CG Bench: 3 x 5
Calf Work: 2 x 15

I think that's a much better routine than the one you're currently doing.

MM

Ahhh MM, if you would look back over my journal you would see I have included every exercise you have listed. As for a "much better" routine I would disagree. You do not know why I stall or how to fix it.

For most of my training career I devoted a specific exercise to tri's and bi's. My tri's have come a long way and seem to be doing fine with the training I have in place. Biceps, they are more of a problem and I have yet to find a solution. It is rather arbitrary to say "weak arms because I don't really train them", I have used several different protocols and indeed if you read my comments you would see my problems lie with only bi's, not tri's and contrary to your statement, my forearms are one of my biggest assets.

As far as your comment "If you want to get better at squats you're going to need to do it first.", what do you mean by it? I have trained squats for all of my 12 month lifting career. Numerous rep ranges and several methods. I am not really interested in your advice, indeed when I posted here several months ago and on Iron addicts the advice was pretty terrible. I got some bs about psychological problems and something from you about having stalled. Luckily for me I have some initiative and actually do some research to find out what is going on.

Please do not bother posting back and try to argue your case.

And Quik perhaps bi's are a strong point for you. My insertion points are terrible and thus I will never have strong, large bi's-not that I am bothered. However I would agree I need to find something that works for me.

Good night

 

[Quagmire911]

Went in and did some testing today. More specifically I was using the parameters outlined in the Poliquin thread I made a day or two ago. Also tested some other stuff. Here it is:

Close grip bench (about shoulder width)-This will be roughly 90kg. I didn't go in and do it but it should be around this if not a little higher. Doesn't really matter, I know where the weakpoints are anyway.

Behind the neck press-55kgx1-I don't think I would have got 57.5 and definitely not 60. The ratio Poliquin gives is between 64-66% of the CG bench so as a minimum it should be 57.5. Using the 66% and if my CG is really 95, it should be at least 62.5. So basically I am a little behind on the overhead pressing. It will therefore feature in my routine.

Seated dumbbell press-I didn't actually do this today, but Poliquin says the weight used on each dumbbell should be roughly 29% of the CGbench. My best is 20kg 1x12 1x8. I would be able to do 22.5x8/10 for a set and I should be doing around 25-27.5x8. So again, I am a little behind and will work on overhead stuff.

Scott barbell curl-I did 40kgx1 here and missed out on 45kg. I should be able to do around 42.5 and I don't know whether I would have got it. So I need to make sure and include some bi work in.

Reverse curl-EZbar+25kgx2-Not sure how much the Ez weighs. I have read it is around 25lbs which is 10-12kg. I was meant to get around 27.5-30kgx1 on this, so I passed easily.

Single-Arm External Rotations-8kgx10-Meant to be able to do 8-9kg for 8reps. Did 8x10 and probably could have got another 5-10 reps. So I passed this quite easily as well.

Incline barbell press 45 degrees-80kgx1-This was a challenging rep. Probably would have made 82.5x1. Should be able to do around 75-80, so I passed this one.

The other one on the list was chins and I was meant to be able to do around 75kg. That is around bw for me and I can do that for at least 10 reps so that Is an easy pass.

Lat pulldown-100kgx1-Pretty near my max, and this was the most the machine went too. This suggests I would be able to do a chin with 25kg or so extra for a rep, which sounds about right.

That was the upper side of things complete. Basically my overhead stuff is a little behind so I will need to bring that up. I also want to include incline I think and bring that up a little and will include some bi work as well.

I have also been looking a lot into quad/ham strength ratios etc. I couldn't really find an exact figure from anyone with decent knowledge, however Poliquin said this: You should be able to front squat around 85% of what you back squat. From what I gather a figure lower than this shows weaker hamstrings as that was what the column was about. So I did front squats for the first time:

Front squats-95kgx1 100kgx0-Now I know I can get 115kgx1 on the back squat so I should be able to do at least 97.5x1. However taking certain things into consideration: I should be able to do higher than 115 on the backsquat, progress has been really **** because of bad form. I think my hamstrings were lagging behind but I think they are catching up. The above suggests they are still have a little way to go but aren't too far off.

I have decided that I am going to drop back squats for the time being and go with front squats. I know I can hit ass to grass without any problems and maintain an arch, something I can't do without going really wide on the back squat. I was originally going to switch to a wider stance for the BS, but I have decided it will be beneficial just to drop them for at least a phase and see how I get on. From what I gather there is very good carryover from one to the other. I will need to work on flexibility some more to be able to hit depth properly and maintain an arch/neutral spine. I have been doing a lot of dynamic stuff and mobility is coming on really well. Recently I have been getting some lower back pain with back squats and it was because of the rounding at the bottom of the lift. I am also recovering from lordosis so I think it would be beneficial in this regard as well to switch things up. And also just in general the change should get things going again. I felt really good with the form and if you use bad form the bar falls forward and you can't do it anyway which is good. The only thing was that it is nigh impossible to breathe whilst doing these. Apart from that I am quite excited to give them a go.

Then moved on to finish off with some GHR negatives:

1x5
1x2-And then: Out of know where on the third rep without thinking about it I didn't use my hands and did a half positive. I kind of stopped in shock and flopped back down onto the bench. I then put my mind to it and did:

GHR's 1x3- Out of know where! Very happy with this.
Then did 1x5.
Then I added 2kg to my chest and did 1x3 just for kicks

Well there you go. I have been doing glute activation after mobility drills and I think the big difference today was that I incorporated my glutes in the movement properly. This felt really good and I was very pleased.

After that I finished off with some mobility drills.

Well I think that is enough for just now, this is beginning to turn into a novel so until next time...

Quagmire

 

[Mad Manic]

Close grip bench (about shoulder width)-This will be roughly 90kg. I didn't go in and do it but it should be around this if not a little higher. Doesn't really matter, I know where the weakpoints are anyway.

Quagmire

Your max Bench is 92.5 kg, that means your max CG Bench is around 85 kg, and that's a tad optimistic since you don't even do CG Bench. BTW I think switching to front squats is a good idea, it's good to vary things. Infact I may do that myself when I start cutting on April 1st. Might put them at the end of a Quad and Ham routine though and do higher reps, think that holding a lot of weight across my shoulders might be awkward.

MM

 

[Quagmire911]

Max bench is now about 95-97.5kg, and I am quite close on CG-remember I did it two months or so ago and was around 80kgx3. So I estimate it around 90kg give or take 2.5kg.

I have done 90kgx2 twice now on flat bench, that is why I am saying it is 95-97.5kg. Not tested but it will be at least 95.

I appreciate your concern

Ps-On the front squats, better not to do higher reps. Hard to breathe and also your upper back fatigues before your legs do. Poliquin recommends keeping the sets below 7 reps. If it feels awkward then you need to work on your wrist flexibility. My first time today and it didn't feel bad on my shoulders, just the fact that it was crushing my lungs .

 

[Mad Manic]

Max bench is now about 95-97.5kg, and I am quite close on CG-remember I did it two months or so ago and was around 80kgx3. So I estimate it around 90kg give or take 2.5kg.

I have done 90kgx2 twice now, that is why I am saying it is 95-97.5kg. Not tested but it will be at least 95.

I appreciate your concern

If you can only do 90 kg x 2 yet you believe that you could max on 95-97.5 kg that suggests you are very fast twitch fibred on your push muscles. Regarding front squats, I'll see what I can do with them, but I think it's best I kill my quads on hack squats first then do front squats. That way less weight across my shoulders, also it will be legs/quads that fail first which is what I want.

MM

 

[Quagmire911]

If you can only do 90 kg x 2 yet you believe that you could max on 95-97.5 kg that suggests you are very fast twitch fibred on your push muscles.

MM

I am confident I'd get 95, it would be very tough though. I highly doubt 97.5. I actually hit 85kgx5 but my sticking point causes the problems with 90kg. I get it off the chest on rep 3 easily and then stall.

 

[Mad Manic]

I get it off the chest on rep 3 easily and then stall.

That's triceps then that's the weak link.

MM

 

[Quagmire911]

That's triceps then that's the weak link.

MM

I would agree, they aren't a strong point.

 

[I-tallionStallion]

MM...i like how Quag has told you many times not to post in here and yet you do hahaha

Btw Quag...i tried a GHR ghetto style...and it was friggin hard. I managed a very struggling rep.

 

[Quagmire911]

MM...i like how Quag has told you many times not to post in here and yet you do hahaha

Btw Quag...i tried a GHR ghetto style...and it was friggin hard. I managed a very struggling rep.

I did them for the first time yesterday And not just one Used my ass properly in the movement.

I don't mind what MM has to say, I realize that different methods work for different people-he doesn't realize that not everyone can do reasonably high volume. And I don't like how he puts people down and generally doesn't congratulate people on progress. And I think he is a knob for saying my bench was 4" from the chest, if it had been 4" further down it would have been in in my chest cavity He can come to Glasgow and spot me if he likes

Ps-And not everyone wants to be Mr.Olympia. And that wasn't just for MM, quite a few people are needing told.

 

[ProDJ26]

keep it up