The Martial Artists' Training Log

[bushido_man96]

10/4/2019

Strength Training

Warm-ups: 5 box jumps, 5 med ball throws, 5 med ball slams.

Squats: 45x5, 135x5, 225x3, 275x1, 330x5, 330x5, 330x5.

Press: 45x5x2, 75x5, 95x3, 115x1, 130x5, 130x5, 130x5.

Deadlifts: 135x5, 205x3, 225x1, 275x1, 315x5, 265x5, 265x5.

Stretch: kick stretches and sat in the stretching machine.

I had trouble with the deadlift grip today. I don't know if I didn't use enough chalk, or what, but on the last rep, I completed the rep, but on the way down, it slipped out of my hands. On the last backoff set I did, I had to go to the hook grip to do it.

10/7/2019

Strength Training

Warm-ups: 5 box jumps, 5 med ball throws, 5 med ball slams.

Squats: 45x5, 135x5, 225x3, 275x1, 335x5, 335x5, 335x5.

Bench Press: 45x5x2, 115x5, 135x3, 165x1, 195x5, 195x5, 195x5.

Deadlifts: 135x5, 205x5, 225x3, 275x1, 320x5.

Stretch: kick stretches, quads, back/hams, and sat in the stretching machine.

More issues with the deadlift. I completed the set, but it felt like I wasn't able to hold my lower back in extension. I don't know what the deal is, but when I put the belt on for my work set, it seems to cause me issues in moving the bar forward, and in setting my back (or it could just be the weight). So I've got to figure something out there. Might need to back off an rework it a little, focusing on back extension.

[bushido_man96]

10/9/2019

Strength Training

Warm-ups: 5 box jumps, 5 med ball throws, 5 med ball slams.

Squats: 45x5, 135x5, 225x3, 275x1, 340x5, 340x5, 340x5.

Press: 45x5x2, 75x5, 95x5, 115x1, 132.5x5, 132.5x5, 132.5x5.

Barbell Rows: 95x5, 115x5, 150x8, 150x8, 150x8.

Lat Pull-downs: 132.5x8, 132.5x8, 132.5x8.

Stretch: kick stretches, quads, shoulders, and sat in the stretching machine.

The squat is getting tough, but feels very rewarding.

[bushido_man96]

10/11/2019

Strength Training

Warm-ups: 5 box jumps, 5 med ball throws, 5 med ball slams.

Squats: 45x5, 135x5, 225x3, 275x1, 345x5, 345x5, 345x5.

Bench Press: 45x5x2, 115x5, 135x3, 165x1, 200x5, 200x5, 200x5.

Deadlifts: 135x5, 205x5, 225x3, 275x3, 275x3.

Stretch: kicks stretches, quads, shoulder dislocations, and the stretching machine.

So, today was a mixed bag. The squat session was a grind. Finished all the sets, but man, they were tough. Bench press felt heavy, but felt good, and my bar speed was decent. I miss-grooved the last rep of set 3, which felt weird, and I'm not sure what I did to upset the rep, but I was able to drive it up, so no misses. With deadlift, I backed it off and put the belt on, a notch looser, to try to get more used to how it feels pulling heavy with the belt on. I was able to keep my back locked in, but to be honest, my back was fried from the squats, and has been feeling fatigued all week. It may be time to adjust the programming on the squats. I'm so thrilled I've been able to drive the weight up on this exercise; these are PR weights each week; I've never squatted that much until now.

Bench seems to be coming along so slowly, but it is coming along. I think starting next week I'm going to be cutting the jumps to 1.5 lbs per, and see how long I can keep driving with the novice linear progression.

[bushido_man96]

10/14/2019

Strength Training

Warm-ups: 5 box jumps, 5 med ball throws, 5 med ball slams.

Squats: 45x5, 135x5, 225x3, 275x1, 300x1, 350x5, 315x5, 315x5.

Press: 45x5x2, 75x5, 95x3, 115x1, 135x5, 135x5, 135x5.

Deadlifts: 135x5, 205x5, 225x3, 275x5, 275x5.

Stretch: kick stretches, quads, back/hams, shoulders, and sat in the stretching machine.

The first set of squats was a crusher. I'm moving to one heavy set followed by two back-off sets. Also upping the volume on the deadlifts, and focusing on keeping my lower back locked in place.

[bushido_man96]

10/16/2019

Strength Training

Warm-ups: 5 box jumps, 5 med ball throws, 5 med ball slams.

Squats: 45x5, 135x5, 225x3, 275x1, 300x1, 355x5, 320x5, 320x5.

Bench Press: 45x5x2, 115x5, 135x5, 165x1, 202.5x5, 202.5x5, 202.5x5.

Barbell Rows: 95x5, 115x5, 152.5x8, 152.5x8, 152.5x8.

Lat Pull-downs: 135x8, 135x8, 135x8.

Stretch: kick stretches, back/hams, quads, and shoulders.

First set of squats was a crusher again.

[bushido_man96]

10/18/2019

Strength Training

Warm-ups: 5 box jumps, 5 med ball throws, 5 med ball slams.

Squats: 45x5, 135x5, 225x3, 275x1, 300x1, 360x5, 325x5, 325x5.

Press: 45x5x2, 75x5, 95x3, 115x1, 137.5x5, 137.5x5, 137.5x5.

Deadlifts: 135x5, 205x3, 225x1, 300x3.

Stretch: stretching machine only today.

Now, I don't quite recall, but I may have blacked out in the hole of rep 5 of the first set of squats. I remember sitting back and going down, and I remember finishing and racking, but the bottom is...I'm not sure. It was frickin' heavy, and it's the heaviest I've ever lifted.

For some reason, on these heavy sets, I keep getting a bit forward with the weight on the second rep, and I really have to grind it to keep from falling forward. Focusing on sitting back farther on the way down helped in the later reps.

This weekend, I'm going to be looking into some programming options for the squat, as I think I've pretty well run out the novice progression with it.

[bushido_man96]

As I had mentioned in my previous post, I'm looking at changing the programming approach for my squats now. The number of heavy sets across I can do now is limited, and have been running off one heavy set and two back-off sets. But now I'm at the point that I don't think I can run the heavy set up any more, and the linear progression has pretty well run it's course on the squat. Coupling that with the hope that my work schedule changes at the end of the month and I'll be back into TKD classes at minimum once a week, I'm moving to an intermediate programming for the squats. After mulling over some options, I'm going to give a Heavy/Light/Medium (HLM) approach a try.

Looking over my log, the last weight I did for three sets across was 345, so I think I'm going to set the program up from that point, and try to move forward. I'm going to "ease" into this change, and hopefully, I can make it work.

Monday will be my "heavy" day, and the goal is to get to where I can do 4 sets of 5 reps across. Wednesday will be a "light" day, working at 90% of Monday's weight at 2 sets of 5 reps, and Friday will be a "medium" day at 95% of Monday's weight for 2 sets of 5 reps.

Once this is set in motion, the goal will be to add weight, probably 5 lbs, to work sets on the following Monday, and the light and medium days will get calculated off of the new heavy day weight. With the added stress to the legs being done in TKD class, the lighter sessions will be welcome.

Fast-forward to....

10/21/2019

Strength Training

Warm-ups: 5 box jumps, 5 med ball throws, 5 med ball slams.

Squats: 45x5, 135x5, 225x3, 275x1, 345x5.

Bench Press: 45x5x2, 115x5, 135x3, 170x1, 205x5, 205x5, 205x5.

Deadlifts: 135x5, 205x5, 225x3, 280x5, 280x5.

Stretch: kick stretches, quads, shoulders, stretching machine.

So, working into the new programming for the squat. That set of 345 was hard, and next week, I'm supposed to do 3 sets of 5. We'll see how that goes. If I need to recalibrate the weight I work with to start this off, I will.

[bushido_man96]

10/23/2019

Strength Training

Warm-ups: 5 box jumps, 5 med ball throws, 5 med ball slams.

Squats: 45x5, 135x5, 225x3, 275x1, 310x5, 310x5 (90% of Monday).

Press: 45x5x2, 75x5, 95x3, 115x1, 140x5, 140x5, 140x5.

Barbell Rows: 95x5, 115x5, 135x3, 155x8, 155x8, 155x8.

Lat Pull-downs: 137.5x8, 137.5x8, 137.5x8.

Stretch: kick stretches, quads, hams, glutes, back, shoulders, and stretching machine.

[bushido_man96]

So, I got sick on Thursday last week, and had a bad weekend overall, with a colitis flair and something going on with my inner ear, causing me extreme dizziness. So I missed my Friday and Monday workouts.

10/29/2019

Strength Training

Warm-ups: 5 box jumps, 5 med ball throws (very lightly), 5 med ball slams.

Squats: 45x5, 135x5, 225x3, 275x1, 300x5, 300x5, 300x5.

Bench Press: 45x5x2, 115x5, 135x3, 170x1, 190x5, 190x5, 190x5.

Stretch: just sat in the stretching machine.

Still not feeling great, and it wasn't a great workout.

[bushido_man96]

10/31/2019

Strength Training

Warm-ups: 5 box jumps, 5 med ball light tosses, 5 med ball slams.

Deadlifts: 135x5, 205x3, 225x2, 275x5.

Press: 45x5x2, 75x5, 95x3, 115x1, 135x3, 135x3, 135x3, 135x3, 135x3.