Weekend Update: Fatigue, NX Level, and A Whole Lotta Chest Hair

Monday:

Pendlay Rows: 260X123123123

DB Bench Press: 3x10

Dips/ Face Pulls/ Curls circuit

Tuesday:

Squat: 385x123123123

Snatch: 152x2x5

Barbell Bulgarian Split Squat: 5x10

Thursday:

Clean and Push Press: 210x123123123

DB Bench: 5x10

Single Arm Row: 4x8

Friday:

Dead Lift: 485x12312312111 (holy shit this sucked)

Holy crap I am feeling it this week.  The fatigue from the last five weeks has definitely caught up with me.  My shoulder prevented me from doing barbell bench press on my upper body days.  Pendlay rows felt crazy heavy.  Dead Lifts on Friday completely wiped me out.  Squats… felt pretty good.  That’s the way it goes usually.  One or two lifts will be going awesome while others stagnate or slide back a bit.  I completed all the reps I set out to complete so I can’t be too upset.

Next week is the last week of this accumulation phase.  I’ll probably repeat the weights from this week.  After that I’m going to take a few days to rest up and then I’m going to switch to a max strength phase.  Intensity (weight being used) is going to stay high but my volume will drop way down.  I’m going to be working in the 1-3 rep range on my main lifts and then in the 6-10 rep range for my accessory.  The sets will be way less than what I’ve been doing.

I’m going to have two heavy sessions each week and two or three light sessions each week.  I’m going to write up two or three heavy workouts for upper and lower body and the same for the light workouts.  I’ll then just rotate the workouts.  So week one will be heavy upper and lower #1 and week two will be heavy upper and lower #2.  It’s kind of hard to explain so I’ll lay it out in a future post.

I’m going to an engagement party today for my friends Lance and Katie.  I’ve never been to one before.  I heard the dress is going to be business romantic so I’ll be keeping the top two buttons of my shirt unbuttoned, my chest hair dancing in the wind.  Not sure what’s more romantic than that. 

With this accumulation phase I’ve been eating a lot on my lifting days (weekends too).  I’ve gotten my weight to be consistent around 200 pounds.  This is where I want to stay.  Once I switch to my max strength phase I’ll work to keep my weight at 200 but slowly (talking months to yearish) dropping fat while building up muscle.  Recomposition diets can be effective but you have to give them a while to see any results.  Dropping fat or gaining weight can be done relatively quickly but doing both at the same time is difficult at best.  It’s hard to sit on two horses with one ass.

NX Level celebrated its 7^th year anniversary this past week.  I’ve been there for just under six and it’s been amazing to watch it grow into what it is.  Awesome clients and a great group of trainers that care more about results and building lasting relationships with clients than the bottom line.  In most things if you take care of the former the latter will work its way out.

Get your ass here if you care about sports.

I went a little crazy on Amazon a few weeks ago and now have a stack of five books or so that I need to get through.  Some are on training concepts and others are just books that I wanted to read.  This means I’ll probably be doing a recommended reading post again in the future.  If anyone has any suggestions on some good reading materials I’m all ears.

That’s all I got for this week.  I hope everyone does some awesome stuff this weekend.  Because if you don’t then what the hell is the point?