re: Daily Strength Check-In

I do warm up sets. 1x5x65% of the working set, and 1x3x85%. That’s probably not enough though.

I need the rdls. It’s been recommended by others. I need to learn the form.

Overall I’m still trying to figure out the form. Seems like when start with keeping the bar against my legs I get my thighs too low. Conversely, when I focus on not getting my thighs so low I tend to lose contact with the bar, travels too far out front.

I’m 6’2” with a long torso to leg ratio, but I think it’s not extreme enough to limit lifting with proper form. I just need to work it more.

Today, wk5 d4 and damn I’m tired:

Bench 2x4x220, 1x6x220, 1x3x225, 1x2x245, 1x1x270, 1x20x135

Back to my bench 1rm today, so that’s very cool.

Squat 3x10x155

Preacher curls 3x10x85, 95, 105

DB Tricep Extensions 3x10x75, 85, 95

AB curls 2x10x85, 1x12x85

DB Incline Press 3x10x60s

Curious if anybody has run Hepburn 10 singles. Looks like a fun interlude to push up 1rms. I’m going to stick with the Rippler for a while, but no harm thinking several months out.

Relevant comment from reddit user, this makes me want to jump back into Hepburn:

A few moderately strong people and myself were doing Hepburn style training for a while. I worked up to 565/405/661 in the gym at 242 doing almost nothing but Hepburn for a year and a half. It's still one of my favorite schemes because it automatically cycles volume and intensity at a slow enough rate to make progress for a long period of time without a lot of thinking. It's almost Sheiko-esque, but without all the complexity and spreadsheets. However, I am going to recommend you NOT follow the Power/Pump routine like Hepburn originally laid out in his book. I am going to point you to a thread on (stay with me now) T-Nation where a fellow named Twiceborn who worked with Doug later in his life made some terrific suggestions.

Once we started following Twiceborn's advice, dropping the pump routine all together and following the 4x3 to 10x3 (or 4x1 to 10x1) progression, things really started to gel. The old routines were simply too much to recover from and took way too fricking long. It seems, if Twiceborn is credible, Hepburn grew to believe the same.

I followed a similar Bench/Squat, Press/Deadlift scheme. Always did some upper back stuff, abs or posterior, and gunshow work at the end. It was much easier to plow through the assistance stuff and put some effort into it once we switched to the modified progression. One thing I did not do that Twiceborn suggested was start with the "A" routine (singles). I started with the "B" routine, using around 75-80% of my 1RM. I would run that for about three cycles, adding ~10 to lower lifts and ~5 to upper lifts before switching over the "A" routine using 90% of my 1RM. For a little bit of swoletrophy, I would sometimes follow up the Hepburn sets with a dropset of 10-15 reps.

quote:

---

Eta: I was writing when you posted that last comment. Yeah. That looks good. I will definitely keep it in my back pocket for after the Rippler.

---

That was a pasted comment from Reddit. That’s how I ran it though. I added curls, side/rear lats, leg extension/leg curls

Anybody else already accomplished or shooting for the 2-3-4-5, meaning 200lb press, 300lb bench, 400lb squat, and 500lb deadlift?

I’ve only really started training consistently in this last year after a couple previous linear progressions in my 30s (43 now), but I think I can get there. Well, barring injury, I should have the 2-3-4 by the middle of this year, but not sure I can get to 5 on the deadlift.

I deadlifted 370 for 5 this Saturday, but it wasn’t easy.

I’d love to get there, but it’ll be a while. I’m focused on 1000 lbs on b/s/dl and a 315 bench. Sitting at 270/325/355.

We are talking lifting those as 1RMs, right?

quote:

---

Anybody else already accomplished

---

I have. The current goal is 4-6-7 but a 700lb deadlift isn't achievable for me. I'm too old and short armed. I looked through my training logs the other day regarding bench and for 2 years i've been between 375 and 410. And those swings followed weight gain/loss. In other words, I would have to get to 250 to progress further on bench, and no reason to do that.

I'm in that same boat. I can't remain at this body weight and body fat levels to be healthy, but my bench press and press are more closely pegged to my weight/fat levels than squat and deadlift. If I lost 50lbs it's very realistic that my squat and deadlift would be higher than they are now, so long as I keep training, but my presses will not do the same. Doesn't mean I'll be weak or even weaker, because as long as my relative strength is where I want it to be I'm happy, but these kinds of strength milestones will be harder to achieve or maintain.

I plan on doing my own combine next week, 40 yard time, shuttle drill, bench press, all of it I can do solo I'll do it. Don't know how I'll manage vertical jump exactly. Why did he do 135 instead of 225?

135 for 51 is impressive. I haven't done more than maybe 12 reps on any bench press set.....probably ever, so I don't expect to be able to do 225 for that many. I'm hoping for about 20-25.