Long-Term Plans. in Exerbabble III

That’s how much thought I’ve put into this. I made a separate place for my 2015 logs, and it’s only November 2014. The obvious question is, “If you have all these plans for 2015, why don’t you do them now?” One, I’m stressed out to all hell and can’t put that kind of pressure on myself. Two, concurrent with the possibility of missing workouts due to stress, I want to have at least four months uninterrupted to do Maximum Strength. I’ll get back to that.

Most of us have a mental image in our heads of what our “ideal self” looks like. Some time in our lives when we thought we looked our best. While there is a certain picture from fall ‘06 which appeals to me, I think more recently to a picture from the summer of ‘11. It’s kind of a joke with Elissa, because her mom ‘liked’ it, much to her discomfort. “MY MOM LIKED A TOPLESS PICTURE OF YOU.”

Link for those inclined.

Oh sure, I’m sucking it in. But who doesn’t? At the time, I joked, “I’m eating like crap, drinking, and skipping the gym, and in the best shape of my life.” Lost on me at the time was just how much hard work I had put in to get to that point. I was looking over my old logs (OD archive text file) and I realize I’ve really lost sight of how dedicated I was.

I did 8 cycles of 5/3/1, and over four months of Starting Strength through 3 deloads.

Holy hell.

At the end of each, I felt like I had made “minimal” progress. Yet, in the months after, it’s almost as if my strength rebounded. Fatigue masks fitness, as they say. After Starting Strength, I tore through two months of a fat loss cycle and dropped my bodyfat. I think part of why I was so motivated was because I was really goddamn sick of heavy weights. It makes sense for me. I lost motivation during fat loss because I want to lift heavy things. If I’m sick of lifting heavy things, bam, I can just focus on fat loss. In other words, it’s good to stick higher rep stuff in between strength cycles.

The big picture plan is to do Eric Cressey’s “Maximum Strength”, which should take 4-5 months. That’ll place me finishing around May, which will be a good time to do one or two cycles of fat loss “for the summer”. By that point, I’ll be sick of fat loss and ready to start anew. I’ll do a week of testing maxes, even though Maximum Strength ends with testing maxes. 5/3/1 predicates using “current” maxes. : ) I’ll then take a full week off, and start pounding through 5/3/1.

Though 8 cycles of it, I learned some things. One: I made zero progress on overhead pressing. To that end, I’m going to do push presses. Two: My god, I hate front squatting. It was the first time I really front squatted in a routine for any length of time, and it was so terrible. I’ll do back squats this time. HOWEVER. Those front squat assistance sets built character, and I need the quad work. Same with the high-rep deadlifts for 5x10. By the last cycle, I was doing 205 lbs for sets of ten. No wonder my traps are bigger. Also, this time, I want to do weighted chins and DB rows as part of my maximal work.

Roughly, I want each day to be:

BB Push Press 5/3/1
Weighted Chins 5/3/1
DB Shoulder Press 4x8
Wide-Grip Lat Pulldown 4x8
BB Curl 3x8
Cuban Press 2x12

Deadlift 5/3/1
Deadlift 4x8
Barbell Bridge 3x12
Plank 3x

BB Bench Press 5/3/1
DB Row 5/3/1
DB Bench Press 4x8
BB Row 4x8
Dips 3x
Face Pull 2x12

BB Back Squat 5/3/1
Front Squat 4x8
Step-up 3x12
Back Extension 3x12

We’ll see what it ends up being. Looking over my logs, it took a two or three cycles to settle into what assistance work I liked. I previously did three sets of dips and chins for “arms”, so it’s not like that’s out of the ordinary. But, the time it takes to warm-up and perform the 5/3/1 sets for the pulls (chins and rows) might mean cutting volume elsewhere. I HAVE to keep this under an hour. But, I’ll feel that out when I get to it.

As far as numbers, I’ll reiterate my strength goals for the end of 2015.

Deadlift: 405 lbs
Squat: 275 lbs
Bench: 205 lbs
DB Row: 100 lbs
Chin: +100 lbs

It’s good to have a bigger picture in focus. If I follow through on this, I can look back here and see what I tweaked, where I fell short or smashed through my goals. To strength!

My goals have narrowed and my specific mesocycle has evolved since this, but I’m keeping it up for posterity.

Last updated November 23, 2014