Hey to the 10s of people who might randomly click on this as they wander through the forums. I’m a huge fan of the barbell medicine guys, have run the 12 week strength 2 times, and just recently finished the 3 day hypertrophy program.
This time on the 12 week program, I am going to try very hard to be honest with the RPE and not overreach and try to turn the program into LP.
I’m 37 years old, 5’9’’, 177 pounds. I lift in my garage in the morning before work, and my 7 year old usually joins me about halfway through.
Hypertrophy template seemed to help the bench numbers go up, but Deadlift has been stalled since the end of the first round of the 12 week strength program. I was doing intermittent fasting religiously for like 2.5 years, with an eating window between 8 and noon each day. IF may have hindered my gains, so I’ve started to eat a bit more.
Going to make some real gains this time through though. Wish me luck.
Woke up at 4:40am to make sure I got the session in before heading to the train station for a couple days in NYC for work. Got it done, but rest periods might have been a bit squeezed here.
Squat no Belt
215x4 @7
235x4 @8
255x4 @9
240x4 @8.5
240x4 @9
My lifting week starts every Sunday, which means I am usually joined in the garage by at least 2 out of my 3 kids. Today, it was all 3 kids. We had the 1949 Disney film Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad on in the background and the kids were shooting baskets and swinging around on the rings. Good times.
Back to the grind. Got a bit of a late start, had to rush in to make the wife coffee mid-session, but overall good session. It was cold in the garage this morning, my son joined me about 15 minutes into the session and basically sat huddled by the space heater for the first 20 minutes he was in there.
Hands were still torn up from last Thursday, so after the first set of 5, I went with hooks, which is probably why RPE was 7. Warmups were feeling really good (225x5, 275x3) while I was increasing the weights, so I felt like 375 try was a good idea, but it felt pretty heavy.
Been trying to eat more lately, and last night had my first all out binge in a while, just plowing through leftovers in the fridge and cleaning off kids plates after they’d finished. I weighed in at 179.6 pounds this morning. Having kept a steady waist line this entire year, but adding around 10 pounds of bodyweight, I guess its mostly lean mass coming on, but seeing those numbers tick higher is hard psychologically to get over as someone who has always been focused on losing body fat.
As far as the session, felt pretty good, and I definitely was looking to push a few extra sets because of the overfeed last night.
Squat no Belt
4x210 @7
4x235 @8
4x255 @9
4x240 @8
4x240 @8.5
4x240 @9
Time flies, already done with 3 weeks on this round. I put in the work this morning. Got to the garage at 5:40am, still struggled to finish everything in time to make the wife coffee and the kids breakfast starting around 7:15, but I am trying to stick with the program as written and do that 3-4 minute rest times vs. shorter times I’ve done on previous runs through the template.
Hi DadLifts, those calluses look really painful, is it just the hex bar that causes them? My calluses used to look like this when i was holding the bar incorrectly, too deep in the palm of the hand. Since i changed my grip, they became much better. You might already know this, but if not it will certainly help: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9OK-S3ZJZxQ
Patchy, thanks! It does happen only on Hex bar, but I do develop really thick calluses over time on conventional DL, so thanks for the tip, I will take a look.
Can’t believe I’m already on week 4. I’m getting old. Today’s garage session to start the week was a family affair. We had the Eagles game on (game was on early because it was in England), and my 11 year old read the last 14 pages of Harry Potter 4 to my 7 year old, while my 9 year old listened. We paused for each round of Pendlay rows, but otherwise, it was all good!
I’ll be keeping an eye on your log, we have similar size, age and strength levels and I’m also running the 12 Week template. This is my first time working through it, but so far I like it, just started week 2.
Was maybe a bit under-slept today, but got after it anyway this morning. It might make sense to push my Day 2 workout to later in the day if possible, because the Sunday workout I did yesterday finished around 10:30am, and I started this morning at 6am, didn’t get a full 24 hours of recovery between sessions, which I think is a flaw with starting the week with a Sunday workout.
Went for 380 today after the warm-ups felt pretty good, but the grip just wasn’t there, I need to go back and review hook grip mechanics or switch to mixed. That 400 lbs e1RM remains elusive.
Comp Bench - self lift off, like always
230x1 @8 - I went for a higher number today and in contrast to DL, it felt good at 8 RPE
190x4 @7
190x4 @7
190x4 @8
190x4 @8
190x4 @8
e1RM - 249lbs
3-0-3 tempo squat, no belt
145x10 @7
155x10 @8
165x10 @9
160x10 @9
Happy Halloween! Kids were up super early bouncing around the garage gym super excited about Halloween. We crushed Trick or Treating this evening and I way over ate, which is good, because I’m chronically under fed. So, maybe by tomorrow I’ll those sugar gains.
Squat, no belt
215x4 @7
240x4 @8
260x4 @9
245x4 @8
245x4 @8
245x4 @9
e1RM - 301
Slingshot
215x4 @7
235x4 @8
252.5x4 @9, this was actually an accident. On one side I had a 5 pound weight and had a 2.5 pound weight on the other side! I was trying to do 250, but it was early in the morning and I spaced.
235x4 @8
235x4 @8
235x4 @9
Weighed in at just above 180 lbs, up 2 lbs from yesterday, not yet a trend, probable reflective of the extra carbs consumed for Halloween, this is up from around 174 in July, but waist hasn’t changed.
Weight 180.6 today, I had popped up to 182.5 for a single day, but better adherence the next day got me back closer to 180. Always hard to let myself put on weight after growing up a fat kid. Anyway, to the session this morning. I had the bright idea of staying up late because of the extra hour, but I ended up waking up earlier than I wanted to. Despite the lack of sleep, squats were moving well on the way up, so I went for 5 extra pounds than I was shooting for on the first single, and it felt like a legit 8RPE, not an overreach, which I was pretty happy about. That led to heavier work sets to that likewise felt good.
Week 5, Day 2
Monday grind, 6 sets of DL and Bench made it an extra long session, hard to see how I could actually get it finished if I went with 4-5min of rest as mandated.
Deadlift w/Belt
345x1 @7 - This final warm up set felt heavy, was going to go with 380 for single, but decided after this to back it down to 365
365x1 @8
305x4 @7
305x4 @8
305x4 @8
305x4 @8
305x4 @8
305x4 @8
e1RM - 394 lbs
Comp Bench
235x1 @8.5, bit of an overshoot here, but warmups felt good and 230 last week felt good
195x4 @8
195x4 @8
195x4 @8
195x4 @8
195x4 @8
195x4 @8
First time doing floor press. I was pretty surprised to see e1RM at around the same level as my comp bench. Clearly I need to work on leg drive, engaging my chest and using an arch in my comp bench to get those numbers up…
Touch n Go Bench
185x4 @7
205x4 @8
215x4 @9
205x4 @8
205x4 @8
205x4 @9
SLDL
205x10 @7
225x10 @8
250x10 @9
235x10 @9
Getting it done again this week. Going to play pickup hoops tomorrow at 5:30am, going to count that as the HIIT portion of GPP, hope I don’t get injured. Basketball much more likely to hurt myself than lifting heavy weights!
Transition Week. Good timing because I’m traveling a couple days this week and will lift at a commercial gym in Dallas this week. This morning’s session felt great, no pressure from the wife, kids were in and out of the garage and not fighting. I think everyone was cutting me some slack because tomorrow is the wife and my 14th wedding anniversary.