Adrianne's Team GST Training and Nutrition Journal

[adriannec]

Today's workout went like buttah. I ate a couple hours ahead of time and was ready for deadlifts. I love them and Lift Day is my favorite workout of the week. Not sure if I like paused deadlifts better or just plain ole, pull like normal ones.

Sumo Deadlifts at 70% - 6, 6, 12 on the AMRAP set
Chin Up Grip Pulldowns w/3-4 second negative - 5, 5, 5
DB OHP - 11, 8, 6
Cable Curls w/Rope - 3x12
Hanging Leg Raises - 2x15

After those slow pulldowns, my triceps decided to completely bail on the rest of the workout. I was trying hard on the final two sets of OHPs but it wasn't happening. Pretty much the reverse of this went down.



By the time I walked out, I was in desperate need of food despite eating pretty close beforehand. Sign of putting everything into the workout though so I'll take it.

[Tpocalicious]

I feel ya with those tris and OHPs! ;^)

[adriannec]

It felt good to get back after my couple rest days. I can still feel some soreness in my lower abs from the leg raises and surprised at pec soreness. Leftover from Thursday's workout. Not bad but it's there. Thankfully it worked itself out well during the warm up sets. Bench up first today followed by paused squats so that I can get some power coming out of the hole.

BB Bench Press at 75% max - 5, 5, 8 on the AMRAP. So the AMRAP was the same as last week with 5 lbs added to the bar. Yeah!
Paused Squats - 5, 5, 5 and somehow no tears. LOL!
Close Stance Leg Press - 10, 10, 10
DB Lat Raises - 12, 12
Kneeling Cable Crunches - 15, 15

I intended to do 3 sets of 12 on the leg press, but the squats killed me. Legs were too pumped to get those two extra reps.

Afterwards The Kid wanted to go driving. She's learning and I've got a manual transmission. Does it count as intervals with my heart rate? Each time she started and stopped it was like work/rest intervals. OMG. My poor car will never forgive me.

[LynnInAla]

It felt good to get back after my couple rest days. I can still feel some soreness in my lower abs from the leg raises and surprised at pec soreness. Leftover from Thursday's workout. Not bad but it's there. Thankfully it worked itself out well during the warm up sets. Bench up first today followed by paused squats so that I can get some power coming out of the hole.

BB Bench Press at 75% max - 5, 5, 8 on the AMRAP. So the AMRAP was the same as last week with 5 lbs added to the bar. Yeah!
Paused Squats - 5, 5, 5 and somehow no tears. LOL!
Close Stance Leg Press - 10, 10, 10
DB Lat Raises - 12, 12
Kneeling Cable Crunches - 15, 15

I intended to do 3 sets of 12 on the leg press, but the squats killed me. Legs were too pumped to get those two extra reps.

Afterwards The Kid wanted to go driving. She's learning and I've got a manual transmission. Does it count as intervals with my heart rate? Each time she started and stopped it was like work/rest intervals. OMG. My poor car will never forgive me.

Yay for 5 lb increase and same AMRAP! I guess it's a good thing the driving lesson was after the workout, your legs may have been too tired for squats and leg presses if the lesson was before. I would imagine you were doing some isometric leg presses on the floorboard of the car!

In my opinion: Teenager + Driving lesson = Interval Workout

[jsari23]

Strong Curves is a great glute program if you're looking for one to run on your own. It's very well written and balanced.

Ive been thinking about strong curves or some modified version of it (more upper body too) I like to workout at least 5 days a week (sometimse 6) so I have to see how to balance stuff out)

Afterwards The Kid wanted to go driving. She's learning and I've got a manual transmission. Does it count as intervals with my heart rate? Each time she started and stopped it was like work/rest intervals. OMG. My poor car will never forgive me.

haha good luck, I learned to drive on manual, took a little but once I understood the why and the how it kinda clicked, like picturing the gears and clutch and stick and how they work together

[adriannec]

Ive been thinking about strong curves or some modified version of it (more upper body too) I like to workout at least 5 days a week (sometimse 6) so I have to see how to balance stuff out)

haha good luck, I learned to drive on manual, took a little but once I understood the why and the how it kinda clicked, like picturing the gears and clutch and stick and how they work together

I think you'd be surprised at how effective Strong Curves is with just the 3 days and not a lot of upper body isolation. He also addresses in the book about how to turn it into 4 days and add extra upper body work if you need it. If you're lifting heavy and adding weight frequently, you shouldn't need more than 4 days as that can hit you hard.

The compound upper body work is decent and he talks about adding 3 sets of isolation work onto the end if you feel like you need more. Like bicep curls after one workout, tricep pressdowns another, and lat raises on the third. The hard copy of the book is worth a read even though you can find the program online for free.

[adriannec]

Lift Day, LIFT Day! It's my favorite day of the week. I have to say that I'm really liking the twice a week deadlifting. Ha, even if I'm only 2 weeks into it so far. It's going well and I can already tell that strength is increasing the past couple weeks based on the AMRAP set. I added 10 lbs to the bar this week for the deadlifts since I did 12 reps on the AMRAP last week.

Today I still managed 11 with the added weight. Felt solid and no back issues. The OHP were a little harder to do than the deadlifts. I was supposed to do 3 sets of 5 and the weight was the same as last week. On the final set, I managed 6 just for the heck of it.

Sumo Deadlifts at 77.5% max - 6, 6, 11 on the AMRAP
BB OHP at 77.5% max - 5, 5, 6
DB Hyperextensions - 15, 15, 12
Cable Face Pulls - 15, 12

My body was done by the last sets of the hypers and face pulls. It's surprising how much only a few heavy sets takes out of you. I never would have believed this a couple years ago when I was all about the volume. Scale hasn't moved up yet either with this last increase so if I'm still at 134 - 135 by this weekend, more food is coming.

I say this as I'm sitting here hungry again already. LOL!

[Tpocalicious]

Nice strength gains, Adrianne! :^D
(Ooh, deadlifting twice a week?)

[adriannec]

Nice strength gains, Adrianne! :^D
(Ooh, deadlifting twice a week?)

Playing around with it. The big three are all twice a week now to build up some strength. I've got a mix of PR work along with paused or speed work. So one deadlift day is PR with the AMRAP set and the other is paused deadlifts. Loving it so far.

[adriannec]

Second bench press of the week was today with some slow negative work. I started out with the deficit lunges to complement the paused squats on Sunday. Those went well but I definitely need to foam roll my left quad. It was not happy and I had to leave a rep behind on the last 2 sets.

Loved the bench presses. The intent was to explode up and slowly lower back down, repeat for 5 reps. The first couple reps had the "explode" and the last few had "explode through mud" speed going. The slow lower really lit up my pecs and triceps. I usually don't get a pump in my shoulders for some reason, but by the time I got to the OHPs they really felt it. No way was I getting 15 goal reps there.

Triceps totally died on the pressdowns. The weight I used last week after non-slow bench presses wasn't happening. I lowered twice and still hit failure way early. Sign of giving it all though so I'm happy. I'm more interested in building the big lifts and the accessories are just fun fluff right now.

Deficit Lunges - 8, 7, 7
BB Bench Press w/70% of 1RM with slow negatives - 3x5
DB OHP - 13, 13, 11
Tricep Pressdowns - 12, dropped weight for 2nd set and managed 8, dropped weight again for 3rd set and got a piddly 4

[adriannec]

Soreness was still there this week but it eased up quite a bit from last. I've been foam rolling and that really helped, although in the moment of foam rolling not so much. Today has my favorite paused deadlifts. I usually use 60-70% max but from the deadlifts earlier in the week I know my max has gone up so I tested the first set out at 80% and was good even with the hold.

Chin Up Grip Pulldowns at 77.5% 1RM - 6, 6, 6
Paused Deadlifts at about 80% 1RM - 5, 5, 5
Seated Cable Row - 3x12
Bicep Curls w/Rope - first set with DBs since someone was on the rope x 13 reps, then cables 12, 8 reps, biceps died
Ab Crunch Machine - 2x12

Why deadlifts with a pause? My sticking point when the weight gets heavy is either keeping my lower back neutral or just having the strength to get it off the floor. By adding in a pause right above the floor with a lighter weight, it helps to build strength at the weak point, practice keeping things thight, and get past that plateau.

I incorporate a pause of about 1-3 seconds using 60-70% 1RM load. The pause is about 4-6 inches off the floor. I just go by feel. You can pause at different times depending on your own weak point. Just as you break the floor, at around mid-shin, at around knee height, and even at mid-thigh before lockout are options to try based on your needs/goals.

I like these for a few reasons:

1. It forces you to keep the bar in close to your shins since you can't pause and hold a heavy weight away from you.
2. It helps with the cue to keep tension and form while you hold, especially in the lats.
3. It allows you to increase time under tension with lower weight than you'd use for reps and still have a form of progressive overload.

Ha, I was also asked the other day if I could do splits like my daughter can. I wasn't sure I could actually managed without losing a leg, but decided to give it a try AFTER deadlifting. Didn't want to risk messing up my lifts. LOL. Not bad for a first try in probably 40 years.

[Tpocalicious]

1. Paused deadlifts, you say. . . intriguing! May play with this while I'm in the lower weight ranges.

2. Splits. Holy cats! #IMPRESSED

[adriannec]

Today's workout in the books. It was a tough one but I felt awesome after finishing. The squats were supposed to be sets of 3 with 80%, but I felt pretty decent in the first set so I added 5 lbs for the second and managed another 3. That went so well that I added another 5 lbs for the 3rd set and still got 3. LOL, so I added a 4th set.

Squats are my enemy so I wanted to take advantage of the crushing I was doing and live in the moment there. I could definitely feel it by the time I got to the leg presses. I was aiming for 12 reps per set but barely got 10. Happy with it though since I bumped up those squats and had an extra set. Definitely gave it my all.

BB Low Bar Back Squats - 3x3 with 80%
BB Bench Press - strict with slow negatives
Frog Stance Leg Press - 3x10
Rear Delt Flyes - 2x12
Kneeling Cable Crunches - 2x15

For the strict bench press, you are starting at the bottom from a dead stop with each rep so that you don't use momentum. Press up as explosively as possible. For the slow negative, pause at the top and lower as slowly as you can back down.

I use about 70-75% of my 1RM and do as many reps as I can for 3 sets. This allows me to work on time under tension and build endurance at the same time. The dead stop at the bottom helps me get past a sticking point and work on that portion of the lift without momentum. I have another day where I do bench presses normally as the core lift.

I lift alone without a spotter and today's bench presses called for using the free BB. Without using the smith machine, the BB in the bench rack isn't safe so I used the squat rack and set the safety rails.

A few tips:

- Pull the bench into the rack and adjust the rails. Test the height by laying down into position with an empty bar to make sure the rails are set at the correctly.
- If the rails don't hit right above your chest at the bottom due to the spacing of the hooks, put the bench at a very slight incline to align it better without shorting the reps.
- Do about 3 warm up sets of increasing weight as you work up to your working weight. Don't take warm up sets to failure.

[LynnInAla]

BB Low Bar Back Squats - 3x3 with 80%
BB Bench Press - strict with slow negatives
Frog Stance Leg Press - 3x10
Rear Delt Flyes - 2x12
Kneeling Cable Crunches - 2x15

Squats-that you don't like, BB Bench w/negatives, AND Frog Stance Leg Press in one workout. Wow. Those Frog Stance Leg Presses are tough, especially when someone has you doing them x20. Of course those x5 have me cussing too.

[adriannec]

Squats-that you don't like, BB Bench w/negatives, AND Frog Stance Leg Press in one workout. Wow. Those Frog Stance Leg Presses are tough, especially when someone has you doing them x20. Of course those x5 have me cussing too.

I'm glad to be staying away from the 2x20s for a while. I'm not sure I could take the burning. LOL. The different techniques and frequency seem to be making a difference in squat strength. I'm doing squats twice a week. Once is with the AMRAP as a core lift and the other day has either speed squats or paused squats. Yesterday was the core and from the numbers, my max is up 12 lbs or so in the past 3 weeks. Not bad!

[adriannec]

One of my favorite workouts of the week today - OHPs and deadlifts. Based on the reps that I got with the OHP, I don't think there's been any progress there so far. I "could" just be an off day but I don't think so. I ended up having to hit the gym earlier than planned and didn't have time to eat before. Hoping that's it, but next week will show for sure.

BB OHP with 80% max - 3x3
Speed Deadlifts with 65% - 3x3
DB Hyperextensions - 3x15
Cable Face Pulls - 2x12

I'm working on speed deadlifts this week to complement last week's paused deadlifts. I plan to alternate them every other week. One workout has deadlifts with a heavier percentage of my max (70-95%) as the core lift, and the other I'm doing paused deadlifts (60-70%) or speed deadlifts (60-65%) like today. It helps to work on speed off the floor.

To do them, you use a lighter weight since it's hard to pull with speed at heavier weights and you do fewer reps so that form isn't compromised. You definitely don't want to pull hard and fast with near max or for reps or you'll be at risk for injury. It helps to develop power and explosiveness that translates into getting the bar off the ground with heavier weights.

It also is a way to allow you to deadlift twice a week without crushing yourself. If you try pounding away at max deadlifts two times a week, that gets hard on the body. This way you're working on heavy once a week, and technique at lighter weight and lower reps another. Added volume and extra fun.

[adriannec]

You may AMRAP, but do you AFSAP? Sometimes it's easy to get stuck in a rut in the gym. Do you ever wonder if the weight you're using is truly challenging? Maybe you're holding back mentally because you have a number stuck in your head as the end point of the set or maybe not.

Here's a great way to find out. Try using a technique called AFSAP (As Few Sets As Possible). Aim for your total number of goal reps but don't stop at a specific set number. Just do as many reps as you can with form and control until you can't do any more. Stop and rest between sets as usual, and repeat until you reach your total goal reps.



For example, if you've been doing 3 sets of 12 reps, aim to do 36 total reps in as few sets as possible. If that means you do 16/16/4 or 12/10/8/4, you're doing 36 reps either way. However if you do 16/16/4, then you know you're capable of more weight for 12 rep sets and you should bump up.

Since you're going hard on every set to get as many reps as possible, you'll know if the weight you're using is truly challenging and you can adjust if needed. It's important to know if you're pushing yourself and not to keep using the same weights. Don't let your mind hold you back from progress.

[Tpocalicious]

Intrigued by the AFSAP idea. . . may play around with this. . .

[adriannec]

Intrigued by the AFSAP idea. . . may play around with this. . .

You'll get them in your programming. Right now strength is going up quickly, but it slows eventually and I put them in at that point.

[Tpocalicious]

Things to look forward to! ;^)

[adriannec]

Two workouts crossed off and catching up on the journal. Yesterday I wasn't feeling it since I was hitting the gym later in the day. I swapped days so that I did deadlifts. LOL, I can deal with those since they're my favorite. I actually decided to just channel my mood into the deadlifts and bumped my planned 80% to 95% max and went for a PR. Mission accomplished. I pulled hard and felt awesome after the three sets.

Sumo Deadlifts with 95% max - 6 on the AMRAP, 3, 3
Chin Up Grip Pulldowns with 80% max - 5 on the AMRAP, bumped up weight to 85% and did 3, 3
Seated Cable Rows - 3x12, 10, 11
Bicep Curls w/Rope - 15 for first set and then someone stole my rope so I did another 15 with a BB for the 2nd set
Hanging Leg Raises - 2x12

Finished out the week today with WO4:

BB Bench Press with 80% max - 6 on the AMRAP, bumped to 90% and did 2, 3
Smith Deficit Lunges - 3x5
DB OHP - 3x15 - Finally crushed all 45 reps!
Tricep Pressdowns - 2x10, 8

[adriannec]

For many, doing step ups on a high step where your knee is higher than hip height is problematic. It can cause you to swing your arms, push off with your back foot too much, or cause balance and alignment issues which bother your knees and hips. Even with just bodyweight.

Here’s an exercise variation I program to target the glutes and hamstrings but doesn’t cause the same issues as the high step ups – deficit lunges. The range of motion is similar to using a high step where your knee is higher than hip level and the working muscles are the same. You can vary the step height based on your own height, limb length and fitness level.

To add weight dumbbells are an option, but I prefer using the smith machine. The smith helps take the balance issue out of the equation and allows you to progress in weight without worry of falling over. It also allows you to just barely touch your back foot down so that you aren’t pushing off with it and you can’t swing your arms to assist you. This keeps the work in the front leg.

I did these as part of today’s workout in 3 sets of 5 reps per leg. Use a slow and controlled motion to lower, pause at the bottom for time under tension, and push through your front heels while contracting your glutes to stand.

[LynnInAla]

Two workouts crossed off and catching up on the journal. Yesterday I wasn't feeling it since I was hitting the gym later in the day. I swapped days so that I did deadlifts. LOL, I can deal with those since they're my favorite. I actually decided to just channel my mood into the deadlifts and bumped my planned 80% to 95% max and went for a PR. Mission accomplished. I pulled hard and felt awesome after the three sets.

Ha! When I first read this I thought you did 2 workouts in one day! Congrats on the PR.

[Tpocalicious]

OHPs!!!!! Yeah Baby!!! :^D

[adriannec]

Ha! When I first read this I thought you did 2 workouts in one day! Congrats on the PR.

Oh gosh no. I just adjust the schedule instead of doing two workouts in one day. I'd be pretty worthless for round 2 if I didn't.

OHPs!!!!! Yeah Baby!!! :^D

Boom! It's my weakest so I'm determined to get it in gear there.

[adriannec]

Sunday fun day! I had to wait for The Kid to get off work to hit the gym. She made me promise to wait so I managed. I did take a walk while I killed time. The gym was surprisingly crowded for a Sunday when we got there. Usually it's empty. The rack was open so that's all I cared about.

BB Bench Press with 80% max - 3 but it felt easy
BB Bench Press with 85% max - 3, 3, 2 ... LOL, then I did the math for realz when I got just 2 reps. Realized it was actually 95% max.
Paused Low Bar Squats - 3x3 with about a 2 second pause at the bottom
Medium Stance Leg Press - 3x12, 10, 10 OMG, this took every bit of mental energy to do
Kneeling Cable Crunches supersetted with Rear Delt Flys - 2x15 each

Afterwards I messed around with a few random sets of single arm rows and pulldowns using an ankle cuff on my upper arm. It's an experiment for someone with an injury that prevents holding weight. Conventional methods make rows very difficult so I'm working out some ideas. The test sets I did were very promising subs for DB bench rows and close grip pulldowns. No hands required.

[adriannec]

My favorite workout of the week happened yesterday. This week I started an over-reaching phase to take advantage of the extra calories. So on the core lift (the first exercise each workout), I work up to the planned percentage of 1RM in warm up sets. If the warm up at the percentage goes well, I add weight to hit a PR in the rep range.

So for example, this week's deadlifts were at 80-85% of my current 1RM. I worked up to that weight in my warm up and did 3 reps. It felt like I could do more, so I added weight and went for a PR for 3 sets of 3. It turned out that the weight I used for 3 was my former 1RM. Not bad progress for the month. I'll be doing this for another 4 weeks or so before taking a deload week.

Sumo Deadlifts - 100% old 1RM - 3x3
BB OHP - 95% old 1RM - 3x3
DB Hypers - 3x15
Cable Face Pulls - 2x15

I was planning to use 85% on the OHPs but was still feeling good and bumped up the weight there as well. Definintely seeing some nice strength increases with this split. Extra calories are being put to good use so far. Scale is still steady at 2100 calories. I may be averaging a little higher than that. I have 2100 as my goal but a couple days I was hungry and just ate a little more.

[Tpocalicious]

That's awesome about those new 1RMs and hitting 3's with your old maxes!!! :^D Get it, Adrianne!!!

[adriannec]

Rolling through this week like a beast aiming for new PRs. So far so good. I read an interesting article about how to identify imbalances in your body using 1RMs, and then how to resolve some of those imbalances with accessory work. All of the lifts were in relation to your squat max. For example, front squat should be about 85% of back squat, deadlift should be 120% of your back squat, etc.

It got me very curious so I did some testing on my front squat max since I haven't done those in forever. I found that my front squat is about 10-15 lbs short of 85%, but it's also the first time in about a year. Not necessarily a sign of an imbalance yet and I bet it comes up fast. Bench was about 25 lbs short, OHP was a little short, and deadlifts were well over.

I was surprised at the deadlifts, not so much with the others. My bench and OHP have come up in the last couple weeks with this push and I'll probably add some more with the overreaching phase going on now.

Front Squats - Did 3RM testing and then 3x3
BB Bench Press with 85% 1RM - 2x3 and then did an AMRAP set of 4 reps
DB OHP - 3x15
Tricep Pressdowns - 2x12

[adriannec]

Last workout of the week done and two rest days in a row coming up. I'm excited about how this past two weeks went with bumping up my max numbers. I used last week's 3 rep numbers to get a preliminary guess at the new 1RMs so far. Squats are up 9 lbs, deadlifts up 13 lbs, pulldowns up 8 lbs in the last month.

Keeping with the process this week, I do warm up sets on the core lift and work my way up to 80-85% of my old 1RM. If the warm up set there feels solid on the first set, then I add weight for the working sets and aim for 3s. I was shocked at the pulldowns today. I definitely doubted as I increased the weight there, but still hit 3. Lots of effort but it was done.

I went with 75% of 1RM on the paused deadlifts instead of 70% since I wanted more weight than last time. Singles are coming next week.

Chin Up Grip Pulldowns w/100% of old 1RM - 3x3
Paused Sumo Deadlifts w/75% of old 1RM - 3x3
Seated Cable Rows - 3x12
Bicep Curls w/Rope - 2x12
Ab Crunch Machine - 2x12