The Basics.

I’ve been thinking about The Basics. As in, just pounding out the basics. Which makes me wonder just how I got to this point in the first place. I’m coming up at a point where I started tracking all my workouts a year ago. Last year, on this day, this was my workout:

Pull-up: 6, 3, 2
Back Row: 20 @ 50? lbs, 8, 8 @ 55? lbs
Tibia Dorsi: 2 x 20 @ 33 lbs
Deadlift: 10, 10, 8 @ 95 lbs
Shrug: 2 x 15 @ 95 lbs
Hip Adductor: 15, 10 @ 120 lbs
Hamstring Curl: 2 x 5 @ 120 lbs

And the day before, this was my workout:

BB Overhead Press: 3×8 @ 55 lbs
BB Bench Press 10 @ 60 lbs, 2×8 @ 65 lbs
Hip Adductor 2 x 10 @ 100 lbs
Squat 3×10 @ 95 lbs
Standing Calf Raise 2 x 15 @ 95 lbs
Decline Sit-up 2 x 15 @ 10 lbs

A take on a push/pull, if it wasn’t obvious.

Aside from the fact that I had silly isolation exercises (shrugs, adductor/abductor, hamstring curl, etc), what pops out at me was that I was squatting and deadlifting 95 lbs. Which makes me wonder how I did it. Was it all just n00b gains? According to my logs, by March 10th, I was squatting 135 for 3×9, and deadlifting 115 for 3×6.

A month later.. What the hell? Man, my memory is bad. I knew I toyed with overhead squats, but I don’t remember actually doing them for a month. Just the bar, maybe 55 lbs. Yes! Now it’s coming back to me. Think this was when I figured out how to nail Romanian Deadlifts, starting with 115 lbs for 3×10, working my way up to 165 lbs for 5×5 in one month’s time. This was back when I wasn’t so concerned with sets and reps. If I did more reps, I’d do less sets. If I did less reps, I’d do more sets. Same day, May 9th, I have marked that I squatted 175 for 5×5. What the hell? I wonder how my form was.

I remember the time I hit failure on front squats. I was trying 5×5, and I hit failure on the second rep of the fourth set. Logs indicate it was May 14th. I was front squatting 125 lbs.

I made a lot of progress in a relatively short amount of time. So naturally I’m a little frustrated when it’s February 2007 and I just haven’t made that kind of progress again. But how? Maybe some of it was n00b gains. Neural inhibition and such. My programs were relatively simple then. What carried me through May and June was more or less an A/B full-body split. I’d do a squat variation one day, do a deadlift variation the other, toss in a upper body push and pull, and that was that. Yeah, there was some other crap in there, but I remember how I set it up.

I guess I’m scared. It pissed me off that I couldn’t pull 255 last December. Three attempts, and I couldn’t do it. Did I not warm-up properly? Did setting a squat PR exhaust me? I don’t know. I don’t want to think that I just randomly peaked and that’s that. Then again. That month of June, I’d deadlifting all month. I haven’t done any deadlift-specific stuff in a long time.

I’m thinking about the leg days that HGM had. Did I get stronger? I don’t know. Did I bust my ass? Absolutely. Maybe if I had been eating more, I would have grown. Maybe supersets will be useful at some point. They’re fun. They make me feel like I’m killing myself. But strength? I don’t know.

It pisses me off that every other person who has done Phase III of HGM ended up loving it and made good gains, meanwhile I was just spinning in circles. That pissed me off! I thought for sure I’d break my PR. That never happened. But if I remember correctly, it wasn’t my legs that gave out, it was my grip. Snatch-grip destroys your ability to hold the bar. I rack pulled 275 lbs the other day, and my grip was just fine, damn it. (Actually, the reason I picked 275 lbs is because I’ve RDLed it.)

The basics. I didn’t get those gains by thinking too hard. I didn’t get them by doing more sets than I needed. I’d walk in excited every single day because I knew I was going to do something I’d never done before. If that doesn’t make you excited to lift, you better check your pulse. I need to keep this all in mind. I don’t need to overkill myself every time I lift. Stimulate, don’t annihilate.

Deficit deadlifts. 6×4 @ 185 lbs. All very good, clean reps. Part of me wonders if there will be some neural inhibition which will hold me back, since I’m doing straight sets. The body likes to become more efficient at things. But that’s overthinking. In fact, I’m doing the opposite. I’m lifting below where I normally deadlift, so I’m getting greater range of motion. A month from now, when I go back to the floor, I should pull at least 10 – 20 lbs more than what I’m deficit pulling. 195 lbs. 205 lbs. 215 lbs. 225 lbs. I own those numbers. 235 lbs. And finally 245 lbs, the number that is mocking me. I shouldn’t even mark it as a double, I know I bounced that second rep a little. But when I break that PR and pull 255, it won’t be a single. It’ll be for reps, from a deficit.

This is really what’s on my mind lately. I usually just keep it to myself because I know 99% of my friends wouldn’t have a goddamn clue what I’m talking about.