Chest & Back

15 Degree Incline DB Press
55's/12, 70's/10, 80's/9, 90's/5, 100's/1, 95's/3, 85's/7

Chins
BW/12, 25/7

Max Rack Shrugs
225/10, 225/10, 225/10 

Barbell T-Bar Rows
160/10, 170/8, 180/6, 180/8, 190/6

* Boot camp tomorrow, Sunday, Monday, lifting again on Tuesday. 

Hex Bar Deads & Overhead Press

Hex Bar Deads
240/10, 330/5, 380/5, 410/3, 410/3, 410/5

Overhead Press
bar/20, 95/5, 135/5, 145/5, 155/5, 160/4, 165/3

* Nice session. OHPs felt good and I was happy with the 410/5 on the last set of deads.

Back

Chins
BW/14, 15/7, 15/6, 15/7, 25/6

Barbell T-Bar Rows
160/10, 170/8, 180/6, 180/7, 190/5

Hex Bar Shrugs
225/12, 225/12, 225/12

* Going to try to make a Sunday morning boot camp, then the usual Monday night one, and back to hex bar deads on Tuesday. 

Overhead Press & Chest

Overhead Press
bar/20, 95/5, 135/5, 145/5, 150/5, 155/5, 160/5

15 Degree Incline DB Press
80's/9, 85's/5, 90's/5, 100's/1, 80's/9

* Good volume with overhead press. It made the chest suffer a little, as one would expect. Solid workout overall. Boot camp tomorrow. Back on Friday.

Hex Bar Deads

Hex Bar Deads

240/10, 290/5, 330/5, 360/5, 380/5, 400/3, 400/3, 400/3, 400/3, 400/3

* 10 sets....a lot of volume....felt good.

Testing Week- Lesson Learned

Testing 

As suspected, I didn't meet any of my goals this time around. Lesson learned- don't start boot camp classes when you are simultaneously running a 1RM program. On OHPs, I was able to get 176/1 without trouble, but when I tried 196, I knew instantly that it wasn't going to happen. With deads, I worked up to 451/1 easily, but 481 was pie in the sky. I didn't even bother attempting Zerchers.

The thing is, though, I am not even really all that disappointed because I am just really loving this boot camp scenario. I get such a high after each class and it's been motivating me to eat better, as well. So, the end result is that I am going to stop 1RM training for a while and concentrate more on multi rep maxes and mix in some 5x5's or 5x3's. The boot camp also does a tremendous amount of low weight, very high rep lower body work- tons of squats and lunges. So, for the time being, I am going to use hex bar deads as my main lower body strength movement with occasional Zerchers to supplement.

Because these classes are pretty much always full body, I don't really need to do any supplemental lifts in the gym. I'm thinking my lifting sessions will consist of 15 degree incline DB presses, hex bar deads, OHPs, chins, T-Bar rows, shrugs, occasional Zerchers, and other movements when I feel like it. I've been running pretty much the same thing for quite some time now, anyway, so I am looking forward to this change.

I did do some chest tonight, as follows:

15 Degree Incline DB Press
70's/10, 80's/10, 90's/5, 100's/2, 105's/1

80's/10 is a 10RM on this movement and 105's/1 is a 1RM.

Chins
13 

* I have one more boot camp class this week, but I won't lift again until next week because I am visiting my parents over the weekend. 

Strong 15, Week 10: Light Week; Chins, Chest

Zercher Squats
bar/15, 160/5

Overhead Press
bar/20, 100/5

Hex Bar Deads
250/5

Chins
15 (PR!!! Finally!!!!), 10, 9

15 Degree Incline DB Press
70's/10, 80's/8, 90's/4, 90's/5, 90's/4

Max Rack Shrugs
225/10, 245/8, 245/8

Pec Deck
160/20

* Boot camp is tearing me up!! Stronger tonight, though, than I was last week after all the boot camp. I'm still not sure when I am going to test next week. The best thing about boot camp is that I really don't have to do any other cardio or accessory work because we do tons of abs and light weight movements for time. 

Strong 15, Week 9: Zerchers & Hex Bar Deads

Zercher Squats
bar/15, 153/5, 178/4, 208/3, 228/2, 268/1, 273/1, 283/1, 228/3 (paused)
 
Hex Bar Deads
235/5, 285/4, 335/3, 380/2, 420/1, 380/3

I was concerned about how this would go in light of my boot camp sessions. Last night, we did a lot of light weight timed deads and lunges. When he told us that's what we were doing, I instantly thought about tonight's session and was like "oh shit".

Zerchers went well enough... the singles all felt heavy, but were never in question. Dare I say that the paused set of 228 felt awesome and was as smooth as I could ever hope.

Now, deads were a different story. The sets of 5, 4, 3, and 2 were all fine. However, 420/1 was super difficult. The next two sets were supposed to be 430 and 445. I got 430 about halfway up and had nothing left. I just skipped to 380/3, which was harder than I would have liked.

So, the end result is that I am now concerned about testing week in two weeks. Maybe my body just needs to get used to the boot camp and since this was the first week, I suffered a bit. It probably also didn't help that I trained squats and deads at the end of the week...the 5th consecutive day of training- after 3 boot camp sessions and an OHP session.

Next week is the super light week of Strong 15, so I am not concerned about that.

Maybe I will skip the first boot camp session during testing week and do my testing at the beginning of the week. Not sure yet, but I'll come up with something.

After the testing week, I will still have a few more weeks of boot camp. (maybe even continue beyond that if I like the results). Therefore, I won't start another Strong 15 right away, and instead come up with a different strength template that may go better with boot camp. Of course, if it is simply a case of body adjustment and just getting used to the new training style, maybe I can resume with another Strong 15 sooner than I think now.