On December 13 2012 06:56 infinity21 wrote: Oh yeah, don't do bench and chins on the same day if you can help it.
Why? I find press and chins on the same day worse, so I always do them on bench day.
Because both chins and bench use your pecs so your performance should decrease. I just do press, chins, and bench all on different days.
Chins use your pecs? Wut?
I definitely find them easier to do on bench day, but as long as the chin/row/clean/whatever you're doing is done after the press, it wasn't too big a concern imo.
@mordek: you can always stack plates to give you a boost so you don't have to jump
I have the option of climbing up the squat rack safety bars but you look like a boss jumping up with 50lb on you. I like to think its more practical/functional if a situation arises in real life haha. On my 90lb attempt I almost lost my grip in one hand which may have affected my first pull. It's kind of an arbitrary restriction I put on myself
Well I do vanilla SS, so there is no day I am not doing either bench or press, and they are the important things for me.
Additionally I do chins on bench day and dips on press day. I would probably get more out of chin and dips if I didn't press before but whatever - bench and press are the priority.
On December 13 2012 06:56 infinity21 wrote: Oh yeah, don't do bench and chins on the same day if you can help it.
Why? I find press and chins on the same day worse, so I always do them on bench day.
Because both chins and bench use your pecs so your performance should decrease. I just do press, chins, and bench all on different days.
Chins use your pecs? Wut?
I definitely find them easier to do on bench day, but as long as the chin/row/clean/whatever you're doing is done after the press, it wasn't too big a concern imo.
@mordek: you can always stack plates to give you a boost so you don't have to jump
I have the option of climbing up the squat rack safety bars but you look like a boss jumping up with 50lb on you. I like to think its more practical/functional if a situation arises in real life haha. On my 90lb attempt I almost lost my grip in one hand which may have affected my first pull. It's kind of an arbitrary restriction I put on myself
Damn, I don't know if my shoulders can last jumping up with 70+lb lol
Zatic: yeah that's the stupid thing about SS imo. You should be working on pushing & pulling evenly, not focusing on just one. When you need to switch up your program, I'd keep that balance in mind.
There is always going to be overlap if you add a 4th compound exercise into the programm. Since there are basically 3 basic movements (Squat, Push, Pull), the last exercise is always going to suffer. So you basically have to sequence the exercises during the workout in terms of importance, and of course so that they don't interfere much with each other. And different things work for different people there, as all above posts already show. For me, if I start a workout with weighted dips, my forearms are just gonna be spend for everyting I do afterwards. And Bench and Dips together don't work that well either, so I like OHP and Dips. And with Chins and Pull-Ups, more often than not I feel those movements first in my lower back and abdominals, strangely enough. We are all unique snowflowers. Chins and Dips are just way too good exercises to not do them after you have some serious training time under your belt. The SS 3x/week with 3 exercises each is just a little bit too limiting in the long run, unless you are about pure powerlifting and don't care about anything else.
My current workout structure is OHP: M, work up to a heavy set of 5 and do some volume after chins: W, heavy weighted 3x3 and volume after Bench: F, doing random stuff atm; been going for 1RM lately front squat: MWF, max out squat nemesis style back squat: TuTh, max out squat nemesis style
Basically I've structured it so my pecs are fresh for chins and since chins don't put excessive stress on pecs, I'm ok for bench too. Then I get 2 rest days to recover for OHP.
It's been doing wonders for my front squat and OHP but I'm struggling with chin-ups atm (used to be just one heavy set of 5 + volume or RPT style). Thinking of adding some bw or lightly weighted pull-ups on Mondays or Fridays for added volume. Haven't really settled down on bench yet so not sure if that's stalling or not.
I am most happy about the press, since last year that was my worst exercise by far. Second is probably bench, because I was aiming for 90kg before Christmas and just nailed a perfect 5-5-5 on Wednesday.
Squat is what I still have huge problems with. It just seems I can't progress past 100kg with decent form. If I load more I just can't get below parallel and squat less deep with every session (that is what happened in February last year). Fixing my squat will be my priority for 2013. I added frontsquats out of frustration about my squat and at least that is going better than the backsquat.
I didn't make my second Christmas goal though: 2x BW DL, but just barely failed it. 142.5 @ 72kg BW currently. I am really happy with DL generally though.
I maintained between 70-72kg BW all year, which is fine I guess. Aiming for 75kg eventually, but I have no time set to reach that goal. I don't care about weight or aesthetics that much really.
The most important thing I learned: Consistency is EVERYTHING. I made very little progress if at all during the summer, when I was missing a lot of workouts and sometimes didn't do anything because of traveling. Then back home from November to December during which I didn't miss a single workout I broke PRs basically every single time . It's an amazing feeling to just get stronger every day.
Final success story from my last workout: When I walked in the hottest girl in the gym approached me and asked me for advice on her squat. She usually hangs out with all the huge pumped up bros but said I am the only one who looks like he knows what he is doing.
I am most happy about the press, since last year that was my worst exercise by far. Second is probably bench, because I was aiming for 90kg before Christmas and just nailed a perfect 5-5-5 on Wednesday.
Squat is what I still have huge problems with. It just seems I can't progress past 100kg with decent form. If I load more I just can't get below parallel and squat less deep with every session (that is what happened in February last year). Fixing my squat will be my priority for 2013. I added frontsquats out of frustration about my squat and at least that is going better than the backsquat.
I didn't make my second Christmas goal though: 2x BW DL, but just barely failed it. 142.5 @ 72kg BW currently. I am really happy with DL generally though.
I maintained between 70-72kg BW all year, which is fine I guess. Aiming for 75kg eventually, but I have no time set to reach that goal. I don't care about weight or aesthetics that much really.
The most important thing I learned: Consistency is EVERYTHING. I made very little progress if at all during the summer, when I was missing a lot of workouts and sometimes didn't do anything because of traveling. Then back home from November to December during which I didn't miss a single workout I broke PRs basically every single time . It's an amazing feeling to just get stronger every day.
Final success story from my last workout: When I walked in the hottest girl in the gym approached me and asked me for advice on her squat. She usually hangs out with all the huge pumped up bros but said I am the only one who looks like he knows what he is doing.
Holy shit, the difference in your progression from Nov 15 compared with the rest of the year is just insane. I've been lucky enough not to have much interfere with my lifts over the last year, but my gf hasn't been as lucky and her graphs would probably look almost exactly the same. Consistency really is super important.
Also, awesome success story. I had somebody ask me what exactly I was training for recently because I have a very strange training style. I seem to only do strength training...
I'm pretty happy with everything, especially the last two months. Bench had a really shit year until the last month, so my goal will definitely be to improve it. OHP always moves at a snails pace but I'm still optimistic I can improve it consistently. Squats and Deadlifts always go well.
EDIT: Comparing my graph with zatic's, I seem to reset way more often than you do.
Every time I check mine I get a little bummed. I feel like I made progress but the charts don't really show it... If only I hadn't injured my SI Joint I think my squat/deadlift would have been nice to look at.
Nice progress all Fitocracy charts are really sweet.
After 4 reps I lost count and had to ask the girl holding my phone
I'm not exactly happy with my form. On the last rep of the second set I leaned so far foward the bar was resting on my neck, which hurt for a good minute afterward. I didn't want to kill myself, but I really didn't want to fail 3x5 so I did the last set lowbar. Fucked my left arm again, but I did it, weight felt like babby with lowbar.
So, I made it. It might not have been perfect form, far from it, but I squatted 2plate 3x5. Unfortunately, because of my arm injury, I could neither bench nor deadlift for the last 2-3 months of this year.
My new goals are for june 2013. I'll start with focusing on healing my arm, then dropping down to 90kg bodyweight again.
Summer break is 3 month +-1 week, which means I've got a shitload of free time. I'm planing on becoming the best version of myself, which is basically a shitload of gym, poker and going out.
Goals include getting insanely ripped, and then fucking strong. I'm also adding tons of overhead work, as benching ruins my shoulder.
Starting monday, I'm gonna squat 3 times a week, and do a pull variation every other day+pull ups. Press variation every day (OHP, Klokov Press, Push Press, Jerks from rack). I'm also doing fasted walks and arm work on mornings.
Trained light today, I'm subbing my class team on a 7 a side rugby tournament tomorrow so wanted fresh legs. Hopefully I won't die of a heart attack.