Log

[Chris Salvato]

100x3x5 is impressive - nice work man!

What is your bodyweight?

I pushed 95x3x5 as a PR @ 180# or so. Since then I haven't been able to reproduce my results but I think that will happen this Wednesday...then maybe I can do 100x3x5!

That aside...nice work!

[Brandon Oto]

BW currently about 175.

These dips have been terrific, for morale if nothing else -- can't remember the last time I had linear progress like this. I'd actually like them to stall out so I can test a 1RM (which I've never had for dips, but looks like it must be pretty solid) and move on to some other stuff (I think the box squats have about stalled at this point). A friend and I are going to be doing some Westside stuff and I really need to start doing a little more metcon.

But this is just a gas... seems to be one of the few lifts I'm really a natural at.

[Brandon Oto]

Hit 110 but failed on last rep of last set -- and buddy notes I'm starting to flirt with short depth. The end might be nigh, at least for 3x5. Full logs later.

[Oliver Gould]

Update your log! You're wasting a golden opportunity to brag about your dip #s. You could be reaching so many more people...

[Brandon Oto]

Yuk yuk yuk.

6/17/09

New gym; going to Gold's across the street.

BS lowbar
wanted to feel free squats again
bar
95 feels odd, but powerful and fast, and light
135 same business
185 um, piriformis sore?
215x1 pretty heavy, actually
215x5 vid. felt heavy! but looks decent on vid. going deeper than I realize. some knees slide.
215x5 again, heavy. but manageable.
215x5 again, ditto. some favoring of right side and some hip shoot.

Weighted dips
BWx5
25x5
50x3
75x1
105x5
105x5 shaky as shit
105x5 last a motherfucking grinder; true max, thought I'd fail
kinda sketchy, short chain on belt, had to use 4 25s and a 5, narrow-diameter dip handles.


6/18/09

Knees feel good enough to move to front squats, which is truly what I need more than anything (quads most of all, glutes would be good, upper back would be good). Will start very careful and light and keep them perfectly, esp. not letting butt shoot up a ton so it just ends up as another BS-like ham exercise.

FS
bar
95x5 did six or seven sets at this weight, feeling it out

Weighted dips
BWx10
25x3
50x1
75x1
110x5
110x5
110x5 f5
possibly missing depth on a few juuuust barely. sticking point seems to be awfully high -- I guess right around 90 degrees on elbows.


6/29/09

FS
same business, trying to stay upright as possible and cut out hams, no knee pain, nail down form. definite emphasis on knees staying OUT the whole time, and upper back as erect as I can manage.
bar for many reps
65x6
95x5 a touch inconsistent but good, no pain
115x5 pretty good. can't decide how wide to put feet.
135x5 good enough
155x5 okay, so that's getting heavy, a bit of butt shoot (the wrists tell you).
145x5 okay, but still a little butt rise, and the knees sure want to come in.
135x5 okay. toes out pretty far is definitely better, lets me really force those knees out.
feeling the "box squat muscles" quite a bit (abductors), I guess probably because I have them now...

Weighted dips
BWx5 deep
25x5
50x2
75x1
105x5 going deeper than before, for fear of short ROM. hard.
105x5 f3 deep. oof.
105x5 f3. same business.
that durned depth. wish I had a better sense of where parallel is.

Weighted situps
Roman chair, to horizontal
BWx5
25x5 plate on chest. easy.
25x5 plate behind head. hard.
25x5 ditto
25x5 ditto. hip flexors cramping up some.


6/30/09

Sprinted for the first time in forever. Wore FiveFingers -- by necessity. Can't find my regular crosstrainers so all I can run in is these or my spikes. So forefoot striking for sure.

Jogged 400
Drills
Tabata sprints, reversed (10 on, 20 rest). Knocked me the fuck out respiratorily (should've brought inhaler) by third round or so. Did basically 400m, or 5 rounds. Form actually felt quite good, and speed too at very beginning, and didn't notice calves. Collapsed for a while then ran 400 again to finish off, was already revved so that was rough. Stretched and bounced.


7/2/09

FS
much stretching and loosening up.
same business, really keeping it vertical, knees out, back extended
air
bar
bar
65x5
115x2
135x2 feeling heavy
145x2 felt heavy, but good
155x2 felt aight. vid: http://degreesofclarity.com/fitness/...ats_7-2-09.mov
155x2
155x2 heavy. really feels like the force is coming from forcing the knees out, a la the box squat muscles (glutes I guess). they're tight too.
155x2 same business. knees are NOT coming in.
155x2 bit more hip shoot, otherwise ditto. vid: http://degreesofclarity.com/fitness/...ts2_7-2-09.mov

Weighted dips
BWx6 deep
25x5
100x1
125x1 pretty easy
150x1 f failed pretty high up (elbows at 90 I guess) and fell through... SO close. too many plates (6 25s) to stabilize with the legs, so it was swinging a fair bit, maybe just lost balance?
150x1 damn close but got it. psyched up to all hell and pushed through... adrenaline charged for a while after.
100 to failure. got 4 or something and fell through.
BWx7 to max depth and max velocity out, rattled the cage.
BWx1 superslow negative. felt that one.
Went for the max. 150, I like it.

Weighted situps
Roman chair, to horizontal, hollow, plates behind head.
BWx6
25x7 fast as possible. arched out on last 3 reps. hip flexors cramping a little.
25x7 same business. arched on last 3. legs a touch bent.
25x7 same business. finished with one more rep with brief hold at horizontal.


7/3/09

Wanted to run but calves still haven't fully recovered. Rowed instead.
Warmed up 5 mins
Tabata row. Wanted 10/20 but monitor wouldn't let me set less than 20s work, so did 20/20 to compensate. Was a bit too much rest frankly, but a regular Tabata on rowing is fucking apocalyptic if you truly go fast. Ended up settling into 1:40 paces or so, pretty gnarly by the end. No real cooldown, just bounced once I recovered. FEET really hurt... probably from rowing in leather walking shoes.


7/7/09

FS
stretching and loosening up
barx6
barx5 better
95x5
115x3
135x2 hmm... sat down when done and felt shooting pain in left lumbar when I round.
155x2 gotta control those knees, they really want to dive. pretty good.
160x2 heavy but aight.
160x2 aight. left hip a little tweaked?
160x2 real heavy. left hip just behind point did something ugly (strained) at bottom of 2nd rep. flexor I guess.
155x2 aight. didn't feel the left hip during, but it complained after.
stretched some. suicide stretch helped.
155x2 same business.

Weighted dips
BWx5 deep
trying out the bizarre harness I constructed from webbing, cord, duct tape, and carabiners.
25x5 short; plates hit ground
75x5 very short... much swing
125f a little short and way wobbly
fine, back to regular belt
75x6 full depth and slow, to failure
75x1 superslow negative

Pullups
Wide grip, focusing on lats.
6
6
just for fun.

Weighted situps
Roman chair, to horiz, hollow, plates behind head, slowish
Bwx7
30x7 arched a bit on last few
30x7 ditto
30x7 arching a little earlier

pretty beat.


7/8/09

Sprints. Wore Vibrams. Jogged 400, form drills, then inverted Tabata. 5 rounds/400 meters, then wanted to do more but seemed to tweak left calf some. Oof. Called it quits.

7/10/09

FS
hip flexors are TIGHT. trying to stretch em out.
air
bar
95x3
135x2 oy damned flexors
165x2 okay. shot some on 2nd rep; let's try and avoid it next time.
165x2 good, no shoot. flexors cramped up after.
165x2 gyaaah flexors. left knee felt a bit.
165x2 same business. pretty good.
165x2 GOOD one.
oof. pretty long rests.

Weighted dips
New scheme is: resetting weight to whatever's necessary and working back up using FULL DEPTH (as deep as possible on the bars I'm using). Otherwise same scheme.
BWx5
25x5
50x5 getting heavy
60x5 have to push a little. about right.
60x5 LG

Weighted situps
kinda pause-resting between reps, not quite continuous.
BWx5
35x7 felt good. tough, but only arched on last. flexors tired!
35x7 arched WAY out on last 2, hurt a little.
35x3 arched out on 3rd and stopped.


7/11/09

Instead of sprinting, went to sword practice, planned to do some sprints at the end. As it happened I did a fair amount of running during, including some all-out sprints, and we ended with ~20 minutes of football, so that worked out well. Wore Vibrams to fight and cleats for football. About 3 hours. Got kinda toasted in the sun.

Pleasantly sore all-around next day, inc. hams for first time in a while. Calves feel pretty good.


7/14/09

hip flexors still sore/tight. this shit is becoming the main limiter on my training/recovery. knees feel kind gnarly.

FS
bar
bar
95x3
135x2 better
155x1
170x2 first weird, second good.
170x2 dang, almost choked myself on the bar
170x2 jeez these feel like damned box squats on my glutes
170x2 having to hype up for these. getting the dizzies after.
170x2 good. vid, but poor angle, can't see much (http://degreesofclarity.com/fitness/...s_7-14-09.mov). looks generally okay though.
long rests

Weighted dips
deep
BWx5
25x3
65x5
65x5
65x5 LG
good stuff

Bent-over DB rows
25x10
35x10
35x7
35x7
short rests, fast, just threw these in; might keep doing em as a lat thing and because I'm not doing shit for pulling otherwise, plus wake up the hams a little. doing to hang, not from the floor.

Weighted situps
these have been giving me a solid ab and oblique soreness
BWx7
35x7 no arching! but whoops, wrong weight.
40x7 arch on last
40x7 arch on last 2
I may be stopping just a tad short of horizontal on these. don't care either way.

[Brandon Oto]

7/15/09

Some reasonable soreness of upper back etc, about right.

Sprint day... track with Dan. Wore spikes.

Ran 400, form drills, stretched, then 100m repeats, max-effort down, walk back and go again after maybe hacking up a lung.

Managed 5 rds. Dan was spent, I maybe had one more in me, but stitching up, calves starting to complain, and asthmatic. Rested a bit then jogged another 400.

Had some decent speed, felt like, and the recovery was definitely enough; calves ended up more or less the limiting factor, and those didn't really complain until the last round, although the final 400 made them annoyed.

[Brandon Oto]

7/17/09

Knees are really feeling beat-up. Kinda worn-down in general, sore throat, hip flexors gnarly, etc. Thought about taking a rest day, then thought about just doing upper-body, then finally settled on regular workout but some easy DLs instead of squats.

Tried a few regular DL and was feeling knees even then, so tried RDLs for the first time.

RDL
135x7ish
155x6ish
155x5
155x5
Took all from floor for first rep and descended to just below knees. Slow down, fast up. Really felt lats bigtime from holding bar in, and felt the hams for sure. I like 'em.

Weighted dips
deep
BWx5
BWx3
25x1
70x5 slowed on last couple
70x5 on nerve
70x5 on nerve. LG a little. kinda unstable.

Weighted situps
BWx5
45x7 jesus. thought: what if I fail? what am I going to do with this huge iron plate behind my head? drop it?
45x4 arched on last 2 and stopped. these are rough.
45x2 arched a little and stopped.

Bent-over DB rows
40x7
40x7
40x7
fast and thinking about elbows


7/18/09

Took the sprint day off and spent most of the weekend doing very little, sleeping a lot, eating cookies, and doing copious icing/stretching/rolling. Tons of tennis ball rolling on glutes and flexors. Usual "rest break" stuff.

[Júlíus G. Magnússon]

Nice work on the dips. Do you have any plans for trying out the bench or shoulder press? Would be interesting to see how all that dip strength translates to those lifts.

[Brandon Oto]

It would indeed especially as those lifts historically never increase for me ever.

To be honest I'm having such good results with these I'm loath to quit with them; the next obvious time will be once I stall out on this present progression (full ROM 3x5), but as long as I'm still enjoying them I'll probably just move to some other dip protocol then. Low reps maybe.

I might test some presses or whatever if I get a chance, but to be honest I'd be very surprised if they performed well, since even if I'm generally stronger by then, I just haven't been doing those lifts. Bench is probably the most plausible... but whatever.

For me, the ONLY downside to dips is that they're kind of a pain in the ass to set up and arrange (loading plates and whatnot). I'm real glad that I don't have any shoulder trouble with them as I understand that's fairly common.

[Brandon Oto]

7/20/09

FS
air
barx5 left knee won't let up
barx3
95x2
135x2 FUCK, left knee really bad
155x1 very weird rep... choked self at BOTTOM. gah knee.
experimented a little with foot positions at bw. knee seems worst when I push knees "out' farther than my toe angle. try with toes out more to line it up.
155x1 better
175x2 real heavy but okay, but kneeeee. stopping if this doesn't improve.
175x2 felt better, but afterwards knee gaah
calling it quits.

Weighted dips
deep
BWx5
25x3
50x1
75x5 LG
75x5 LG. on the nerve. first rep real easy.
75x5 LG, and almost lost balance on 4. pretty unstable in hole in general with these; lots of elbow movement etc. last one real tough. on the nerve.

Weighted situps
BWx5
45x7 arched last 3 a bit
45x6 arched on last and stopped
45x5 arched on last and stopped

Bent-over DB rows
20x10
45x7 getting heavy
45x7 ditto
45x7 ditto. feeling lowbar a bit.


7/21/09

Sprints. 100m intervals with walk back. 6rds. Ghetto timed one for ballpark, around 13.88. go go speedy gonzales. pulled right hammy some. calves not too bad.


7/24/09

Brought Oliver along. Rests shorter than normal for that reason.

FS
trying pressing abs OUT to tighten core. seems to help stability out of hole.
bar
bar knees feeling fairly poor. L worse.
115x3
135x1
stretched again
155x1
175x2 slightl/acceptable HS
175x2 same business
175x2 little better
175x2 abs out, helps. knees are ouch.
175x2 better. knees bad though.

Weighted dips
deep
BWx5
25x5
50x1
80x5 unstable but good
80x5 good
80x5 f5 juuuuuuuuuust missed it. on the nerve. right near the top ground to a halt and had to touch down on the step with one toe to pull out (well, I did, felt like I had to). olly mentioned something about not getting quite the very bottom of the depth on the last set so I really deepened it for this one, that may have caused the trouble.

Weighted situps
BWx5
50x6 arched last 2
50x3 arched last 2
50x2
wrong weight - should have done 45 again if I'm working up to 7s. clearly a lot.

Bent-over DB rows
20x7
50x7
50x7
50x7
heavy. very cheaty of course, and getting somewhat more vertical with these; maybe try bending over more so they don't turn into shrugs.


7/27/09

No sprints during weekend, was in Monterey with Natalie. moved her stuff to new place, knees felt it a little, tons of up and down stairs, oddly enough patellae seemed highly mobile afterwards, especially medially (seemed a bit caught laterally) -- weird. tracking mediocre to bad though.

pretty much spent the weekend eating a bunch, lounging around, having lots of sex, sleeping. knees feel quite decent now.

doing lots of icing, trying to make it frequent and regular. knees mainly, calves when they want it from sprinting, and hip flexors when I bother taking off my pants.

FS
air
bar eh
bar better. toes less out.
95x3 narrower still, feels decent
135x2 okay
155x1 L knee really hurt on that
180x2 L knee felt afterwards. heavy.
stretched quads again
180x2 knees not too bad; feeling em but not painful. choking on bar though.
180x2 decent. vid from front.
180x2 knees are bilaterally oof but not sharp painful. LG. vid from back. LOOKS VERY WEIRD -- looks asymmetrical, left knee going way more out than right. trick of the camera angle or no?
180x2 real dizzy. LG. hips shot on second. suspecting there is some kind of optical illusion in here from the squat rack versus the wall/mirror. might cause me to set up wrong.

Weighted dips
deep
BWx5
25x5 DB
50x1 DB bottom to top
80x5 challenging and slowish
80x5 tough! lots of lateral back-and-forth of weighting, particularly seeming to favor the left side.
80x5 f5 fuuuck. close but not super close. lost balance some on 4th rep which made it much harder, that may have contributed to this. also no nerve, trying to cut down.
making sure to get that last bit of bottom depth; let's not get in the irreversible habit of shortening. made it tougher for sure. not really difficult getting out of hole (limiter triceps rather than chest probably), but when I bomb down with the speed I need to bounce out it seems to make stabilizing the whole movement harder so I'm more likely to lose balance and that affects the lift.

Bent-over DB rows
taking a bit more rest now with these
25x5 feeling delts and shoulder stuff. guess I'm not 100% recovered.
55x7 sloppy and cutting top of ROM a tad? (not always hitting chest)
55x7 same business
55x7 same business. getting pretty vertical. let's try and bend over more.

L-hang then tuck hang, less than 20s total. just generally beat. Headed out with no real stretching. Little bit at home. Knees feel pretty good by now, but feel slightly ill.

Insight: At this point I think there may be value in NOT pushing the knees way out -- keeping them tracking, of course, but with the toes more in, so that the whole knee flexion is just more forward. This is based on what seems to feel better now on stairs etc. Knees way out had its time as I was too far in the other direction but by now I think it may have started doing the opposite of what I want; now the prescription may be not too much either way but goldilocks tracking.


7/28/09

Sprints with Dan. jogged 400, stretched, then ran. spikes whole time.

100m intervals in "flying"/strider fashion -- started slow, built up to all-out pace for a few moments around middle, then gradually slowed again. rest 20s then repeat. I did 10 (I think), dan 7. lungs sounded like an accordion. did some barefoot drills after.

liked it; knees had zero trouble, calves minimal, was able to do quite a bit more volume than if we'd run all-out, and it seemed much more forgiving on the joints etc (no pulls, no pains) than bombing out from a dead stop

icing at home, knees feel pretty good