Deep thoughts with MantisShrimp...live from the Paradise Garage

[MantisShrimp]

Going straight for the "queerest journal name" award.

I couldn't think of an appropriate name for this new journal. I tend to do a lot of weird thinking and musing which may or may not be useful to other people, I tend to think it leans toward "may." My previous journal was ostensibly based on some aspect of Yates training, but to tell you the truth I never really studied it that hard. It was mostly a brain fart.

THIS new one is based roughly around the principles of DC training. Let me speak about that mother****er Dante. Here is a guy whose broomstick stretches on his website basically fixed my shoulder problems for me, before I ever even heard about Doggcrapp or Dante. He seems somewhat abrasive and a little egomaniacal at times, but he also balances it out, you might even say negates any suspicions of ego, with a healthy dose of self-deprecation and comedy. More importantly, almost everything I read by him, wrt training, I find myself agreeing with on an intuitive level. So in an effort to avoid pissing off [some of] his rabid elitist minions who seem to make a living out of urging people away from DC as if it were their favorite underground band heavily invested with large parts of their personal identity, I will only go so far as to say this is a "pseudo-DC" training journal.

The principles I am most concerned with are as follows:

1. Strength equals size, nobody gets incredibly strong and remains small.
2. Lift very heavy for 4 weeks, cruise for 2. To be determined, based on recovery.
3. Always, always log progress in a worksheet.
4. Extreme stretching is vital to every exercise. Failure is not the end of a set. Stretching is. (I will probably gimp out on some of these.)
5. Rest/Pause, static holds, and negatives are to be used to finish a regular RP set. (I have always been a fan of rest pause and its cousin 5x5.)
6.All sets but one (the rest paused) are warmup.
7.Heavy eating and protein are very very important to any kind of HIT.
8. A nine day on/off split schedule is used, as opposed to 2/1/2 MTRF split or 3 day MWF full body week. I am going to float this back and forth by a day, in order to accomodate my social life and cardio goals.
9. Failure to achieve growth for 2 consecutive workouts results in a change to the next exercise for the body part.
10. 2.5lb weights are your friend, using them, in addition to tracking/logging is key.
11. Progressive load is everything, the graph needs to be constantly going up or you rotate.


I won't be tracking my lifts here so much as in the last journal because I am using a spreadsheet now to track them EXACTLY instead of half assed. That way, when I create a convenient little progressive load broken line graph which starts to go DOWN insead of up, I can print the ****er out and put it on the wall of the paradise garage to taunt myself. I will upload a template of it here shortly, in case anyone is looking for some ideas of how other people organize their workouts. One thing I am gonna add to the template is a recurring months macro, so that you can copy a worksheet, change the name to the new month, change the month and year in a coupla fields, and then the days and dates will all line up perfectly per the macro. This will be crazy useful.

Speaking of which, back to the point. This journal marks the successful ditching of the smith machine and the build out and deployment of my TDS power rack in my new weight room, the Paradise Garage. I am quite excited. Finally back to real lifting. The garage is plenty ****ty, full of spiders and crickets. I shoulda never been so lazy as to use the smith merely because it was there.

So today I just finished split one. Moving from smith to free hammered like 30 pounds off my lifts, it was humiliating. But it's worth it to no longer have to use that homoerotic piece of gear. If I can be a full 10-15% weaker on free weight, wtf kind of strength was I being deprived of? It had been so long since I last lifted free/olympic that I didn't even notice how handicapable the smith made me. Smiths are for rehab.

[MantisShrimp]

Picture of the new power rack and the illustrious paradise garage

[MantisShrimp]

Relatively basic spreadsheet I am using to track progress, version 1.0.
To change later probably.

[Slack]

Picture of the new power rack and the illustrious paradise garage

good stuff maynard, kinda like my gym

[MantisShrimp]

I just 3 miled in 28:40. My fastest time ever, by about a minute. 530 cals, paced between 6 and 7 mph.

[ScruffNeck]

Picture of the new power rack and the illustrious paradise garage

So how do you like it so far?

[MantisShrimp]

So how do you like it so far?

It's pretty cool, takes some getting used to. Definitely a very durable piece of equipment. The bench leaves something to be desired, but the rack is SOLID. I think I may have cracked the ass cushion on the bench tonight, just KNEELING on it to do a leg curl. Talk about cheap gear...that's gonna get shipped back if it gets any worse.

Using pins and tapping the pins during lifts really helps promote symmetry and form, I noticed. If both sides hit at the same time, you're balancing the weight well. Pullups are a little hard because the ceiling height is such that your head hits the ceiling at the point where the chin goes just above the bar, so technically pullups are possible, but you have to do them slowly. Which could be a good thing...you know, you cheat and try to use momentum to get through the set, and you get a skull full of ceiling!

[MantisShrimp]

Copied from here:
http://forum.bodybuilding.com/showthread.php?t=605374

This is embarrassing. In an attempt to cease being a lightbulb, I started working legs about 3 months ago. Recently I got and built my rack, and tonight was my first squat day, and I was psyched. I haven't squatted since class in high school (over 15 years,) so I figured I'd start our working form at 135. Yeah yeah, some people start with the bar. But I figured 135 isn't much, I can clean it, I can overhead it.

Well it's almost my 8 rep max!

Granted, I could 1RM around 200 and "partial/cheat" 1RM maybe 250 or more, but for the squats that count, high rep (in this case, 8x4x2/14 rep was the target but 20 rep is the ultimate target) ATG full squats, 135 is damn close to my max! I could maybe 20 rep it if I got lucky.

Is this normal for someone just starting out? My legs aren't that weak, I've trap bar deadlifted 420, this is embarrassing. Maybe I have weak glutes, or hips? Or just a lack of knowledge and feel for the exercise? Please tell me my ATGs will go up, because tonight, weight wise, was pathetic.

Burn wise, well I can barely walk, so I did something right.

Tonight's lesson is humility: you can think you're strong, but if your max ATG squat has a 1 in front of it, you're not strong.

[MantisShrimp]

Legs are sore as **** from squats. Can barely walk. Yesterday was supposed to be a light cardio day. Yeah right. I just sat here and ate. It's funny, one of the reasons I avoided squats for so long was because I thought they would SLOW ME DOWN and MAKE ME FAT. Aside from people actually CLAIMING this fallacy, I think you also tend to develop a sort of subconscious stereotype over the years, when you see a certain type of person doing a certain lift. In school, it was mostly the football linemen who were working in the power racks and doing the big squats. They were often fat, and slow, although really strong. But the thing is, it wasn't the squats making them slow, it was their priorities...their job is to be strong and massive, and so fat doesn't hurt them. But this had NOTHING to do with why noone else was squatting--it was entirely because they were pussies and posers.

So let us revisit the squat myths debunked:
-Bad for knees
-Slow you down
-Make you fat
-Cause you to grow a goatee and pick on people while drunk.

Actual squat truths:
-Very anabolic, release lots of T
-Fun and visceral
-Give you more confidence because you STAND better (DLs too)
-INCREASE your speed and jumping power

[MantisShrimp]

Upper day. Highlights from today include my first ever DUMP OF THE ****ING WEIGHTS and an untimely and annoying mid-workout **** attack.

I totally dumped 135 during military press. Just plain forgot the collars. It was loud as ****ing getout. One disc starts sliding (it's a new bar, very oily) and I was like OH **** OH **** trying to counterbalance it and it just goes schooooooop! (pause) BLANNNNNNNNNGGDANGDANGDANGDAANGNAADANGGGG!! on the concrete floor and my ears start ringing...and here goes the bar the other way, like some sort of T-Bar row gone wrong and I am trying to stop it but it's too heavy and it just catches me too off guard so I actually THRUST the bar down toward the floor across the pins to minimize the distance the second disc has to fall. schlooooooop....pause...BLAAAAAAANNNNGG!@!#@#!

I'ma fuggin douche! I am now THAT DOUCHE!! I AM A DUMPER!!!
STABS SELF IN FACE

Anyway, I managed to pull of a RP flat BP set with 210 today, ego got a little out of control and I tried 215 and got it by 7 instead of 8, so I dropped 5lb off and finished the RP set and counted it as 210. 215 NEXT TIME.

RGBP SUX on a friggen barbell. Hurts the wrist like crazy. Need either a tricep bar or an EZ bar, or I have to drop this lift.

I had to drop my military down from 135. Maybe I could get a full RP x 8/14 @135 in military when fresh, but following bench and tri, forget it. I dropped it down to 95 just to piss myself off.

I can only do 4 ****in hammer grip pullups. Thus makes me feel like a total douche. Granted, I neglect my lats a bit and I weigh 225, so it aint bad, but I want to ADD weight, I want to have to buy a belt. I'm carrying 10-15 lbs of excess fat so if I lose that and continue doing **** like I did today (hammer grip negatives) that number should shoot up to like 15.

Finished with horzontal plane back work on seated rows, I love having this bitch on my new rack. 120lbs and it was easy, that lift is gonna jump up.

[-calvus-]

LOL...... You've joined the elites. I think my first dump was at a friends house. I ended up sticking the bar with the lone weight through the sheetrock. We ended up just moving the couch over it. I was 12 and have periodic nightmares every so often. Welcome aboard.

[MantisShrimp]

LOL...... You've joined the elites. I think my first dump was at a friends house. I ended up sticking the bar with the lone weight through the sheetrock. We ended up just moving the couch over it. I was 12 and have periodic nightmares every so often. Welcome aboard.

Despite how scary and idiotic weight dumping is, it's also pretty funny on some level....reminds me of a cartoon

[MantisShrimp]

My lats are still sore from Thursday's pullups. I was so mad at myself not even being able to lift bodyweight 8 times that I started doing negatives and hangs pretty indiscriminately. It doesn't matter if you weigh 225+, if you can't even do 8 reverse grip or hammer chins (not to mention regular pronated pullups) then you deserve sore lats, if not a smack in the nuts.

Today was leg day. My **** was barely healed from Tuesday. That's 5 days. Walking around with my gf over the weekend she's all like "hurry up! walk faster!" and I'm like 'y0, **** u can't you see I'm waddlin like a zombie over here." She was also not happy to wake up and notice that I'd eaten all of her protein bars. Girls just don't comprehend what "4000 calories" really means. that means, if you don't nail it down or pee on it, and it has protein, I'm eatin it. Even then I might eat it. I had a ****in bug in my food the other day and I ate it because I didn't feel like fishing it out, and those things have a lot of protein.

I dubbed my power rack the "altar of sacrifice," after the Slayer song which was playing today while I squatted 155x22 ATG RP. I'm thinking of a cool way to etch it into it or something, maybe with a pentagram for effect.

I think my standard for RP is that it doesn't MATTER how you get the last 10, the first 10-12 must be continuous, and they were. Deep squatting is not easy stuff. Feels great though. I rly need to hit the tread for 5 mins and stretch before squatting tho, this is true. You can't just jump in and start squatting. Also I've noticed that it's easier to finish a squat if you lean into it and let the hip drive take over from the tired quads. While I believe this is good for safety and getting up a rep that you absolutely can't get up, not a good thing to do constantly.

I've got my rack on pin 9, which is full squat, and some of these reps are actually hitting the pins. Squatting without the bounce is ****in hard.

All my weight went up today, squat 20lbs, leg curl 10lb to 80, barbell curl 10lbs to 90lbs. As usual, the hardest thing to get myself to do is abs. I just can't stop finding abs to be ghey. Everytime I see a swiss ball I wanna run it through with a 16 penny nail.

[IceDragon]

Hey there mate!


Looking good so far there...although hopefully you're okay after your dump the other day lol. I'll keep an eye in on you, okay? I'm kinda nosy like that

[MantisShrimp]

Hey there mate!


Looking good so far there...although hopefully you're okay after your dump the other day lol. I'll keep an eye in on you, okay? I'm kinda nosy like that

Tell you what, eat about 4-5k calories a day, make part of that consuming one entire box of raisin bran, and you'll be able to throw a line anyone who's drowning in the toilet, or snake out clogs with what you produce!

[IceDragon]

Tell you what, eat about 4-5k calories a day, make part of that consuming one entire box of raisin bran, and you'll be able to throw a line anyone who's drowning in the toilet, or snake out clogs with what you produce!

I was talking about the weights dump...

Anyway, keep it up bro, doing good. I like your gym btw...very um..."bare" I think the word is. lol

[MantisShrimp]

Comedy of the day. Well maybe not, it could be a serious condition but I'm not gonna panic over one blood test...doctor says I have hypogonadism, my test came in at 236 ng/dL, normal is 241-827. Which means, after I get my test results in 2 weeks, I may be prescribed steroids. At which point I will start hanging out in the Steroids forum.

Funny because I have none of the typical markers really, other than low body hair, sex drive isn't terrible, I have the ability to add mass, and I have plenty of anger. But if I can get steroids justifiably and legally, hey, fire it up. If there are guys out there who have 800 ng/dL and they are still considered normal, I want some of that action, because having 1/4th of the maximum normal test level is a ripoff as far as weight training goes. Plus I want hair on my back, and roid rage.

[MantisShrimp]

Crushed my targets today:
165x20 ATG squat RP
85x20 leg curl RP
100x14 standing BB curl RP

This program is brutal and I can feel an overreach creeping up already, I don't sleep enough even tho I eat like mad. Key is high protein. People can complain and complain until the cows come home about how I am using too much protein powder but the bottomline is this--I don't care. If food source protein is unavailable to me, or I am too lazy to acquire it, then powder it IS. The important thing is that I keep my protein up near 2g/lb, and I don't give a **** if I have to eat my basement crickets to do it. I just got bloodtested and the trace proteinuria I had a year or so is now gone, so my kidneys are fine. Time to go get a casein shake, it's 5hrs PWO.

[MantisShrimp]

Haven't been updating much, because I am logging in excel. This program is very tough and I have to eat quite a bit and sleep a lot just to recover in time. But I think it's just about right. I still can't do 8 pullups, bu then again, I don't know many people who can pulldown 225x8...heh

[MantisShrimp]

Today was pretty hardcore, I am typing slower than my normal 80wpm, more like 30. First of all, I was striving to avoid my third consecutive failure with 215x14RP. To some extent I accomplished this, I got 7 reps instead of 8, and then pulled off the other 4 and 2 rep phases w/ a negative. But the 7 rep could have been just as easily attributed to the fact that I bought a kinda ****ty and wobbly bench, and I spent about 2 reps worth of time adjusting my back with the weight in the air, which is STUPID and yo **** that bench, I am gonna have to replace it, TDS really underdid themselves on this one, I've encountered more stable DP benches.

I gave myself the lift, and put any doubt to rest by absolutely punishing my triceps so hard on CGBP (about 10 reps over) that I had to DROP my weight 10lbs on BTN press because I couldn't even rep todays weight. Which is fine, lower weight on BTN is safer anyway. I pushed next weeks CGBP challenge up 10lbs. I'll take bigger triceps, for $1000 Alex. The lock is where rep 8 of 215 died and I almost NEVER have problems with lockout, it's always at the tricep transfer point about 4-6 inches off the chest.

My pullups suck, I did not go up one rep. 5x225 (bodyweight.) Came to the conclusion that 1-2 sets at 5 and 3 reps is just not granular enough so in tandem with the 3-4 times I have failed to go up on pullups, it is time to go to pulldowns.

Rack pulled 320x20. That was insane, I just added 10lbs at random. My rack pulls will be going up faster bc I have switched to alt grip.

[IceDragon]

Come on Mantis...you can do this! Need me to kick your arse?

Any other news from the doctor? I don't actually know what that is mate, but will it be affecting you in any other way than what you've already put? Nosy aren't I? lol.

[Smokeeater]

[QUOTE=MantisShrimp]

Funny because I have none of the typical markers really, other than low body hair, sex drive isn't terrible, I have the ability to add mass, and I have plenty of anger. QUOTE]
"Plenty of anger". UH HUH. I guess that's what you were talking about. Seriously though, take care of yourself.

[MantisShrimp]

"Plenty of anger". UH HUH. I guess that's what you were talking about. Seriously though, take care of yourself.

Anger is controllable, and it doesn't necessarily mean I am an irrational person, which is the link you are trying to make, I'm sure. I have pet peeves like anyone else, and one of my big ones is when people try and chip away at productive people, as I felt you were doing in Squats' thread, along with some other people. I have no favor toward him, I don't even know him, it rubbed me the wrong way. Why don't you start an investigative thread of your own. Hopefully noone will **** all over it.

[MantisShrimp]

Gotta give Diesel's ready4war some credit. First time I tried it, I thought it tasted like ****in latex balloons and pushed me a little too far into that sweating, anxious stim territory. But the other night I woke up after 4-5 ****ty hours of sleep and I was supposed to SQUAT for PRs. Well, I coulda skipped but I said **** it and chucked a whole scoop of r4w in my pre/during/post blender, and I was raging like mad. I ordered more. Sometimes the body is not in sync with the workout schedule, and we have to sync it with mean ass supplements. Well of course this can cause illness and overtraining in the long run, but the key is that you mortgage a little health DURING the workout and make it up by eating more that day and the following day, and sleeping more. My legs are pretty destroyed. I also found that using juice in place of water in the blender gives a nice blood sugar boost. I mean, if you need 10x the energy for 1 hour, and 1x the energy for the other 10 hours afterward, why not frontload it or steal it from later?

[Smokeeater]

Anger is controllable, and it doesn't necessarily mean I am an irrational person, which is the link you are trying to make, I'm sure. I have pet peeves like anyone else, and one of my big ones is when people try and chip away at productive people, as I felt you were doing in Squats' thread, along with some other people. I have no favor toward him, I don't even know him, it rubbed me the wrong way. Why don't you start an investigative thread of your own. Hopefully noone will **** all over it.

"Squats" is an argumentative, ignorant, contrary DICK. Go read the current thread about Captain of Crush grippers, or, the thread about chalk. He's a knucklehead, which is all fine and dandy, but when he get's OBNOXIOUS, it's time to "calm" him down. He doesn't need, or deserve, anyone defending him either. BULLIES, rub me the wrong way, and that's what he starts acting like. The internet has spawned a "new breed", of internet or "E-Thug", as they call it, mostly made up of little jerkoffs that are afraid of their own shadow in real life. He needed the brakes put on, and I did that. If I have to act like the "new sheriff in town" so be it. You and your friends should actually appreciate it.

[MantisShrimp]

Isn't this getting kind of ridiculous? Can we stop this in my journal?

[Smokeeater]

Isn't this getting kind of ridiculous? Can we stop this in my journal?

We sure can. Just get together with a couple of your buds (you know who), and UNDO the negs. It's a FAIR request, for a somewhat UNFAIR deed (that really was NONE OF YOUR BUSINESS). If you do, or don't, I personally won't bother you, but it's the RIGHT THING TO DO. Thanks in advance . (don't take too long though). Thanks again .

[MantisShrimp]

We sure can. Just get together with a couple of your buds (you know who), and UNDO the negs. It's a FAIR request, for a somewhat UNFAIR deed (that really was NONE OF YOUR BUSINESS). If you do, or don't, I personally won't bother you, but it's the RIGHT THING TO DO. Thanks in advance . (don't take too long though). Thanks again .

A) I was gonna rep you back, but the way rep spreading works, I can't.
B) I don't have any "buds" or alliances.
C) Rep begging is against the rules of this board, and is bannable. Rep extortion (implying that someone has to rep you for you to leave them alone) is even more bannable. So don't even think for a second that you have some upper hand on me. I took you off ignore as a courtesy, hoping you had something valuable to say, and instead I am feeling like I wanna report this post to the mods. If your next post in this journal doesn't pertain to at least some positive criticism of some aspect of my training, then that is exactly what I will do. As for the rep, I will return it when I am able. Never forget that "rep power" is built into this board for the convenience of the user, to use at their discretion in order to vote for or against posts they encounter. Taking it personally is kinda imbecilic.

[Smokeeater]

A) I was gonna rep you back, but the way rep spreading works, I can't.
B) I don't have any "buds" or alliances.
C) Rep begging is against the rules of this board, and is bannable. Rep extortion (implying that someone has to rep you for you to leave them alone) is even more bannable. So don't even think for a second that you have some upper hand on me. I took you off ignore as a courtesy, hoping you had something valuable to say, and instead I am feeling like I wanna report this post to the mods. If your next post in this journal doesn't pertain to at least some positive criticism of some aspect of my training, then that is exactly what I will do. As for the rep, I will return it when I am able. Never forget that "rep power" is built into this board for the convenience of the user, to use at their discretion in order to vote for or against posts they encounter. Taking it personally is kinda imbecilic.

Huh??? Uh, OK. Upper hand? rep begging? I'm not sure what you mean. Imbecilic? Damn. Ok.

[Newbydubie]