Tuesday Oct 24th

Squat 5@225,245,275,300,335
Bench 5@175,195,225,245,275
Row 5@140,155,175,195,215

Hypers 12@25,25
Situps 12@25,25

Good day today.Felt stronger than ever, no problems.

You said you just finished week 7. Same here. I figure I still have another week but maybe more...at that point I will probably drop a few of the ramp up sets, say sets three and four, to 2 or 3 reps. That shoud cut down of fatigue and allow me another week or two :) . Then I may continue to play around with it depending on my lower back which may need some rest or greater variety.

Edit* I actually finished week 8. Damn. I still have more in me...

I'm hoping to get a few more weeks out of this before I start to do that, but that is a great idea. Looks like you have a few more weeks in you aswell. My lower back is taking a beating aswell, the deadlifts with the last two sets are killer. My chest and Legs seem to be holding up good.

Do you have your weights recorded anywhere?

Bench = 342.5x5 (yeah I have weird weights).
Deadlift = 445x5
A2G squat= 375x5

That's where I currently am. I could project my maxes pretty accurately from that.
I'm basically a good puller and sucky at everything else :biglaugh: but my bench and squat only recently started moving good again on this program and the WS4BB upper/lower I did before.

I have an old back injury to tell the truth it's the JS Rows that really take the toll after a while. I can actually switch to supported rows on my bench and continue with pretty much the same weight so that's prob what I'll do so that my deadlift doesn't hurt me. But I'm really the opposite in that my deadlift barely registers but everything else is getting heavy as shit.

Oct 30

Squat 5@225,245,280,310,345
Bench 5@190,210,225,255,285
Row 5@145,160,180,200,220

My right shoulder is killing me, the heavier I go the worst it gets. I will be starting to take Animal Flex pak, hopefully this starts to help. It was sore all last week even with a couple extra days off. I though I would start again yesturday and carry it over as if I never took days off, but that was a mistake. I only got to 285 , 3 times bymyself, needed a spot to hit 5. I will be carring this weight over untill next Monday, hoping that the shoulder gets better and I should be able to hit it for 5 on my own next week.
If not I will drop the weight a bit and make another run at it.

Eric, your lifting some heavy weight. What did you start at, at the beging of this program?

Good luck, looks like you have a few more weeks in ya

I take it you wanted to know what were my 5 RM's at the beginning and not the weights I began the program at :) . This is what I estimated them at. I never bother to actually find them cuz imo there is no real advantage to taking the trouble when I can guesstimate pretty accurately and then undershoot conservativele on my starting weights. So:

squat 355 (so that's huge improvement to me :) )
bench 330
deadlift 405

I obviously underestimated my deadlift so I was able to make some big jumps there. I've only recently let myself train it seriously because of my lower back so I presently learning my capabilities to my great pleasure. Bench I won't even talk about. It's taken me years to get to this. On squat I have little bouts of great improvement and then lots of stagnation.

On your shoulder make sure your elbows are tucked in and your shoulder blades retracted/shoulders down. You may want to think about doing a little rotator cuff work in the future. My shoulders give me fits sometimes and some pain accumulates but what I do is a towel stretch afterwards followed by the broomstick stretch that DC recommended. Makes them feel great afterwardsAs well as some general rotating and stuff. I do very light rotator cuff stuff once a week.

I put a shoulder pre-hab article series at the end of the injuries sticky.

If your are failing to make the lifts as a result of shoulder pain as opposed to anything else then you definitely should be taking care of them. Mine hurt me some but they are not what causes me to fail if you see what I mean.

I see what you mean.It is getting to the point where I'm not making the lifts due to my shoulder. I will be doing some rotator cuff work and have in the past. I try to ice the pain a few times a week and I will be going for a massage in a few days to try and brake apart the scar tissue (it has helped in the past). I will see how my workout goes tonight (with the incline press). I will be getting in a desent stretch.

Thanks for the advise, I will read your article when I get a break today.

Not my article I just linked some from T-Mag. I know, but it's good.

If your are not dealing with a fresh injury then you can go ahead and use heat also. There are all sorts of opinions on this and I'm not sure if ice has much thearpeutic value past beginning stage of an injury but some people like the idea of alternating heat and cold. Personally, my shoulder problems are more general wear and tear from years of doing stupid shit. I've never had an acute injury.

I will say I think incline presses suck if they are anything past 30 degrees or so and I stick with overhead presses which imo are better on the shoulders than a high incline.