Yeah I can imagine.....

I have realized that I can't go a week off and expect to come back stronger...you know how all these powerlifters believe that before a meet you simply must take a whole week off? Well...I think instead of a whole week off I should use a MUCH lower % of weight and keep going at it.

Oh...DH, I bought an ab roller from amazon for $13 and it came in today. Thats how I did the standing rollouts - boy those are hard as hell!

^^^ Definitely. Lower the intensity and frequency. I'm not a big fan of entirely taking a week off. My buddy Pat who competed this weekend did some ME work 2-3 weeks before the competition. Then he did some moderate work the following week. Last week he went to the gym twice and just did some light stuff. Then he squatted 900 on Saturday and barely missed a 565 bench right before he smoked 675 on DL. I talked to him about taking time off and he agreed...no way he could have done that if he hadn't been in the gym in 7 days.

^^^ Exactly. Damn, bro...you train with some powerful people :)

Neural preparadness seems to be the first thing to go. This actually is being backed up by research as well. But it kind of depends on your state of preparedness before you take the week off. But I hardly ever do a week without some activity.

Haha I don't train with them. When I get healthy, then I will. A couple of the guys want me to. I've been putting it off because I don't want to get in the way. That guy I mentioned isn't the strongest person in the gym either, which is pretty cool.

Eric: I had no idea there was research done on this. Pretty cool, sir :)

Ross: Wow...if that isn't strong...wow. When you do get healthy and fit again (which I hope is soon), I hope you train with them and get strong as fuck :D

Well I'm just remembering off the top of my head but basically it seems like most of the strength loss, on average, for about the first two weeks tends to be neural with very little to no muscle atrophy yet but that sort of slowly increase as the time increases. It's nothing definitive of course but, I think you can pretty much bet that that's where most of the strength loss comes from and it explains why it is so quickly regained.

This is old news to people who have been in the strenght world for a long time of course but as for as "scientific' evidence it wasn't always as clear-cut.

I understand :) Thanks!

Beginning Thoughts:

I was so not into this workout. The first rep of Front Squats put me off because I just found the exercise weird....but, I powered through till the 5th set and by that time I was in such a good mood I decided to do some fun stuff :)

Workout:

Front Squats:
225 lbs x 3 reps x 5 sets
I was going to do just 3x3 because I am so not used to do more than 1 rep for front squats lol....

Good Mornings:
95 lbs x 3 reps
115 lbs x 3 reps
135 lbs x 3 reps
155 lbs x 3 reps
175 lbs x 3 reps
195 lbs x 3 reps
215 lbs x 3 reps
225 lbs x 3 reps
Quality Volume Training right there...:D

Flat Dumbbell Bench Press:
60 lbs x 10 reps
70 lbs x 10 reps
80 lbs x 6 reps

Dumbbell Rows:
75 lbs x 5 reps
85 lbs x 5 reps
90 lbs x 5 reps

Overhead Dumbbell Side Bends:
10 lbs x 10 reps x 3 sets

Videos:

Overhead Squats from Extra Workout 2:

YouTube

Clips from Extra Workout 3:

YouTube

Overall Impression:

I hope everyone is having a good week....

Cheers, y'all! :)

gm's looked really good man.