My video is a bit more raw.
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Did an easy 3 sets of 10 at 40kg with the Manta Ray. Good to get started. Donât think it was enough to be sore tomorrow so might try it again after work, if I can.
Felt a bit light headed afterwards, canât be arsed with being ill.
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Well I gave my legs a good hammering yesterday with 3 sets of DB squats followed 2 sets of deadlifts. Hardly felt it this morning but Iâve been rushed off my feet, so I can foresee delayed agony tomorrow instead.
At the moment Iâm doing an upper body, lower body split so 4 sessions a week, with 2 swimming sessions and Tabata instead of running but will be trying to have 2 jogs this week to get the old Achilles working properly.
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Squats then Deads is good.
I really wanted to do some Good Mornings afterwards as the Manta Ray makes me hit the quads a bit more, just couldnât be arsed.
To get back into things I might just nip out whenever I can and just do something. I usually start adding exercises and the sessions get longer (not massively long), which is fine once out there but the thought of all the exercises sometimes puts me off. Smaller chunks for now I think.
Thatâs partly why I went upper - lower body split. Nice short sharp sessions with the bigger compounds not all crammed into one difficult to stomach workout.
My leg workout including some calf raises and dynamic warm up takes 30 mins, and the upper body one takes 30-45 mins .
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I will just have to be disciplined and stick to whatâs planned I suppose. Last time I started adding Squats on upper body day, just to get more volume, and it escalated from there.
I like 30 to 40 mins but was getting up to an hour and sometimes over that in the end.
If you just did the big three, and squats every workout you would grow. Slightly imbalanced as I think youâd need chins or rows as your pulling movement but principle is right.
Adding squats to any workout means you should dial back the volume of others stuff otherwise youâll pay in terms of time and then draining of enthusiasm.
I focused on my lower back and legs due to sciatic pain so neglected upper body mostly and ended up doing token exercises. Will be better this time.
Iâve started doing push ups again at leastâŚ
Slightly disappointing that Iâve dropped from being able to do 6 pull ups to just oneâŚ
Rather than attempting the push ups I was able to do before and getting disappointed/frustrated I started with 4 x 10 push ups with a minutes rest and have been upping by 1 push up a day.
On 11,11,10,10 as of yesterday
Should I have days off, or fine to do this daily?
On Saturday I felt like I was coming down with the cold that the rest of the family has had. Decided I would try the club ride but just do the easier paced ride. Did the main ride, felt ok (and had lots of fun) although heart rate was higher than expected and I didnât feel very fresh at all. Had fuck all speed on sprints. Feel completely wrecked todayâŚprobably worse than after the 190 miler back from holidayâŚ
Should have listened to my body I reckon 
Ah well
Iâd do it daily so long as your numbers are going up - if it plateausâs then you need a rest/ more time for recovery.
Once im back in to the swing of things and i stop aching (tris and lats hurt today following dips and chins yesterday) Im prob going to try whole body workouts to see how it goes, i suspect ill need 2 rest days so will 4 sessions in 10 days.
Deads. Flat bech press, Chin ups, dips, arnoldpress, squat. (Not necessarily in that order or all on the same day)
When doing big compound lifts would you recommend 5x5 with the same weight or increase the weight and reduce the reps with each set? Never been sure on this.
Iâve been pretty ârelaxedâ about my diet for the last couple of months. Itâs not had any drastic impact on weight, but I fancy trying to lower body fat a bit. Iâve been having pretty hefty portions of pasta and rice so will weigh those, and I also cut out the (again, fairly generous) syrup that Iâve been having on my porridge in the morning Iâve also been treating myself to something sweet after dinner most nights so will try and resist. That should be ~300 calories down a day easy
5x5 is based on gentle incremental increases in volume lifted. So you pick a weight and do 5 working sets of 5 reps with strict timed rests in between. If you fail on the 4th set and only do 4 reps, and then 2 reps on the 5th set, then in the next training session you shoot to get 5 on the 4th set, and hopefully 5 or close as on the 5th set.
Once you can do 5x5 with good form then increase the weight by a reasonably small increment and start again at the next session.
Stronglifts is good at emphasising starting with an empty bar and only increasing by small increments and essentially going through all the gears rather than trying to go from 1st to 4th in one leap. Whilst youâre re-learning and adapting then its probably good to practice your rhythm and use 311 tempo - 3 secs lowering, 1 sec flexing, 1 sec lifting.
In terms of order - Iâd always recommend starting with your weakest bodypart/ movement first - for guys this is usually legs/ squats! Also squats use 67% of your muscles so its better to do these when fresh.
Based on your list I would usually follow this sequence -
- Squats
- Deads (but only limited numbers of sets, or alternate 5x5 and 1x5 between squats and DLs between sessions)
- Bench press
- Chins
- Arnold press
- Dips
Until you can do 25 (5x5) full range dips and chins, then I would do as many concentrics (lifting) and then balance of 5 reps in eccentric (lowering) for each set. Again I wouldnât try and do 25 negative reps straight off or youâll make yourself so sore you wonât want to train for a week or more! Iâd start with 5 and add - 1 or 2 each session.
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Looks like sound advice. Thank you.
Edit to add. Did legs this evening, starting with 5x5 squats at 25kgs (20kg last time) peice of piss tbh. Will do 30kg next time and creep my way up the weight over the next few weeks. Hopfully there will be significantly less DOMS in the days ahead.
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Managed 10, 10, 10, 10 then 11, 10, 10, 10 the next day , then 11, 11, 10, 10, but tonight only managed 11, 11, 11, and failed at 7 on last set. What does that mean?
That should have been in reply to @crimsondonkey regarding daily push ups
Hmm. Not enough sleep/ recovery; not enough protein; not enough energy on the day, etc etc.
Take a day off and do something else.
Do you know where you failed - i.e. Before the concentric , during it, on the eccentric? Which muscle gave out?
Got half way up and couldnât push
Do you know specifically what gave out - which part of your arm/ shoulder?
Not sure tbh triceps possibly
Not sure if i need to eat more protein. I need to think about my diet. Meals are healthy but Iâve been pretty lax about eating sugary rubbish on top. Cutting that out, Iâll need to replace it with something- even if I donât equal the same number of calories.
Needs to be convenient to prep in the morning and take to work. I think Iâll have quark with my porridge. Gone off the rank egg porridge monstrosity I was eating when losing weight last time.
Is it better to do 3 sets of push ups rather than the 4 I chose (pretty arbitrarily) chose to do this time? If soâŚwhy?
Whatâs your average daily intake at the moment? Also is your diet running a surplus, deficit or balanced daily calorie input to activity?
One approach is to use compounds like press ups to surface the weak link in the chain - then do âaccessoryâ work to build strength in this area and then go back to your compound and you should be able to do more reps/ load. So for triceps something like lying tricep extensions, French press etcâ.
I would normally persist and persevere with a compound due to its overall mass building for strength and size. However if you hit a genuine plateau - ie no more reps or weight for 3 consecutive workouts, then the accessory work would be where I would go next.
If you donât buy it then you canât eat it. Sort yourself out!
Depends what your goal is. If youâre still looking to do 30 straight press ups in one set then I would stick at 3x10 and rather than adding reps or sets, I would gradually reduce the rest between sets slowly.
Its a flawed response that most lifters fall into, that when they plateau that they try to volume their way out. Thereâs usually two reasons -
- Something wrong with diet, sleep, form, recovery etc, or the intensity is too low
- Theyâve reached the natural end of that cycle of improvement and they need to lay off and let their CNS recover