Workouts for Saturday 6 to Friday 12 February

OK, so week one after my deload.  Here we go, this is where things get serious. 

My goals

For what it is worth, my current goals are:

• a double bodyweight pull up;
• a 2.5x bodyweight conventional deadlift; and
• bench 100kg (220lbs).

Progress so far and notes

I had fun deloading…

But I also sneaked in another max deadlift attempt and (fortunately for my sanity) hit 180kg (395lbs) this time.  So I just have another 7.5kg to go before I get to 187.5 (415lbs), which will be 2.5x bodyweight once I shed the winter flab (I weigh 80kg at the moment but I’ll drop 5kg easily come April/May time).

So what’s the plan?

The plan is to adhere more closely to (what I understand of) the Westside (or more exactly the WS4SB) principles for a while as follows:

• keep to a pure upper and lower split;
• switch up assistance work if it isn’t working or stalls;
• identify and strengthen weaknesses;
• keep to doubles (lower body) and triples (upper body) with short rests on repetition day; and
• rotate my max effort exercises more frequently than I used to.

As regards rotating max effort exercises, to begin with, I’m going to try the following upper max lifts in a 4 week cycle:

• Bench 5RM + wide grip pull up 5RM
• Dip 5RM + elbow flexor pull up 5RM
• Bench 3RM + wide grip pull up 3RM
• Dip 3RM + elbow flexor pull up 3RM

If I feel I want more variety, for presses I may introduce incline bench and/or the viking press and for pulls I may include close and wide grip chins.

For lower body maxes, I’ll probably keep to 5RM for as long as I can and try pistols, zerchers, lumberjacks and (maybe) back squats to a box.

Without further ado, here is the workout plan

Saturday – Upper (max)

Sunday – Lower (repetition)

Tuesday – Upper (repetition)

Thursday – Lower (max)

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