Training for Tier 1

[snake]

So I've been off the grid for a little while. Had the field exercise and then a recovery period after it. I tried starting up Green protocol a few days after coming in, but my body was still too weak. Struggled with weights 70% of my max, it was no use. Did a lot of active recovery instead and now I'm back on track. Feels great!

I did the tests to calculate my loads for the continuation protocol, I'm going with Fighter + Green. Feels like a nice fit even though I'd like to go for 3 sessions of max strength per week instead - but as I've heard it's not really suitable with Green Protocol.

Results June 2017 after Base Building
Front squats, 90 kg, 5 reps
Military press, 55 kg, 3 reps
Weighted chins, 24 kg, 4 reps
I've experienced a tremendous strength development just these past 3 weeks during Base Building. Very excited for what will come during the Green protocol.



Week 1.1 Green Protocol
Monday: Max strength. Front squats, 72.5 kg, 5x5. Military press, 42.5 kg, 5x5. Weighted chins, 10 kg, 5x5.
Tuesday: 10 km run in 58 minutes. Body was a bit wrecked after the strength session the day before.
Thursday: Max strength. Front squats, 72.5 kg, 5x5. Military press, 42.5 kg, 5x5. Weighted chins, 10 kg, 5x5. Every rep felt smoother, and a bit lighter than during Monday. My body's getting it again.
Friday: 6 km run in 37 minutes. Body felt a bit wrecked again. I just keep showing up and putting out and I will progress. No judgement in advance. Just keep being consistent and analyze after a little while down the road.
Saturday: Easy run, ~5.5 km in 40 min. Every 5 min I did 10 push-ups, 10 air squats.

Next week:
Front squats, 82.5 kg. Military press, 47.5 kg. Weighted chins, 15 kg.

[TangoZero]

So I've been off the grid for a little while. Had the field exercise and then a recovery period after it. I tried starting up Green protocol a few days after coming in, but my body was still too weak. Struggled with weights 70% of my max, it was no use. Did a lot of active recovery instead and now I'm back on track. Feels great!

I did the tests to calculate my loads for the continuation protocol, I'm going with Fighter + Green. Feels like a nice fit even though I'd like to go for 3 sessions of max strength per week instead - but as I've heard it's not really suitable with Green Protocol.

Results June 2017 after Base Building
Front squats, 90 kg, 5 reps
Military press, 55 kg, 3 reps
Weighted chins, 24 kg, 4 reps
I've experienced a tremendous strength development just these past 3 weeks during Base Building. Very excited for what will come during the Green protocol.



Week 1.1 Green Protocol
Monday: Max strength. Front squats, 72.5 kg, 5x5. Military press, 42.5 kg, 5x5. Weighted chins, 10 kg, 5x5.
Tuesday: 10 km run in 58 minutes. Body was a bit wrecked after the strength session the day before.
Thursday: Max strength. Front squats, 72.5 kg, 5x5. Military press, 42.5 kg, 5x5. Weighted chins, 10 kg, 5x5. Every rep felt smoother, and a bit lighter than during Monday. My body's getting it again.
Friday: 6 km run in 37 minutes. Body felt a bit wrecked again. I just keep showing up and putting out and I will progress. No judgement in advance. Just keep being consistent and analyze after a little while down the road.
Saturday: To come.

Next week:
Front squats, 82.5 kg. Military press, 47.5 kg. Weighted chins, 15 kg.

This log gets the Oscar for visuals....awesome post-Base results too!

[DocOctagon]

I've experienced a tremendous strength development just these past 3 weeks during Base Building.

Great job!

I just keep showing up and putting out and I will progress. No judgement in advance. Just keep being consistent and analyze after a little while down the road.

This needs to be stickied in neon flashing lights on the front page of the forum.

[snake]

Thanks for the support TangoZero and DocOctagon, it warms my heart!

Cycle 1, Week 2
Monday was a travel day - still managed to sneak in a strength session at a gym I passed by. Just getting it done, a bit pressed for time so had to cut down on the sets toward the end.
5x5 front squats, 82.5 kg - felt as easy/taxing as 72.5 kg exactly a week ago. Huh.
5x4 military press, 47.5 kg
5x3 weighted chins, 15 kg

Tuesday: Orienteering with my big brother, that fucker stills beats me even though I'm without question in better physical shape. Will get another chance next week to beat him. 5 km track, was out just over the hour.



Thursday: Strength
5x5 front squats 82.5 kg
5x5 military press 47.5 kg
5x5 weighted chins 15 kg.

Friday: Endurance run 10 km, 56 min. I still feel the strength sessions the day after, my body is tired and performance in running is decreased.

Saturday: Easy ruck 3 km with 16 kg in rucksack.

[snake]

Cycle 1, Week 3 - Heavy work

I've noticed the tendency that I'm so damn tired after each strength session during my runs; the strength work is eating up too much of my resources that running gets hammared way too hard. Also gym sessions are taking forever, spending 2 hours in the gym is not uncommon. It just doesn't feel reasonable. So instead of doing 5x5 twice a week, I thought I'd do 5x3 three times a week instead - more sessions, slightly lower volume. Trying this out now, I actually noticed difference already during the Thursday run!



Monday: Strength
Front squats: 5x5 92.5 kg. This is my max. 100% focus every single rep and still I had to cheat a little bit to get it up. At least 5 min rest in between each set. Very heavy.
Military press: 52.5 kg 5 reps/52.5 kg 4 reps - form is deteriorating fast. I step down to 50 kg for 5x3.
Chins: 20 kg, 5x5. Easy day.

Tuesday: Orienteering, 5 km. I finally beat my brother with over 20 minutes, got placed as number 3 of 15 people starting. Best result ever so far, felt amazing running the course. Out for 50 min.

Wednesday: Strength
Front squats, 90 kg, 5x3.
Military press: During warm-up I felt my left shoulder acting up. While going for heavier weights it screamed. Oh fuck. Backed off entirely.
Chins: 20 kg, 5x3. Easy.

Thursday: 9 km run, 52 minutes. Felt like a breeze. So much running joy!

Friday:
Front squats, 90 kg, 5x3.
Shoulder mobility and rehab.
Chins: 20 kg, 5x3. Easy.

[snake]

Cycle 1 Week 4
I'm reading Easy Strength by Pavel Tastsouline and Dan John - it's like taking an peek behind the curtains for the Tactical Barbell Strength book, the principle is the same. Giving a lot of food for thoughts, and getting a deeper feel for why to feel fresh after the strength sessions and that you're still building strength anyway! I recommend it. Almost at the same time I found a study pertaining to strength and muscle gains for athletes using 1-2 strength sessions per week as opposed to 2-3 strength sessions per week while keeping the volume constant. The group splitting up the strength work into 2-3 sessions per week had considerably larger muscle and strength gains after the study period. A little further inspiration for my 3 sessions per week programming while keeping the volume constant.



Monday: Strength
Front squats, 75 kg, 5x3. Going deeeep on these now, my leg strength has definitely improved. Awesome using full range of motion, ass to grass. I can however feeling myself losing form during the last 2 reps each set. Nothing that's dangerous, just disturbing not to be crisp all the way.
Military press: 40 kg, 5x3. Going slow, feeling in the limitations of my shoulder. Felt alright with 40 kg, thankfully.
Chins: 12 kg, 5x3.

Tuesday: 7 km run in 50 minutes. Slow tempo yet still very taxing. I was gassed out the whole session, no clue why - maybe the deep squats had something to do with it.

Wednesday: Mobility work out in the sun - super sweet.

Thursday: Strength
Front squats, 75 kg, 5x3.
Military press: 40 kg, 5x3. I'm getting into finding the abdominal pressure for these - much more power and much more stable in the lift!
Chins: 12 kg, 5x3.

I'm taking the rest of the week off from the programming, starting the week long Orienteering competition on Sunday. Will try to get in two strength sessions next week nonetheless - sticking with the weight progression, cutting back sligtly on the volume.

[StayGrey]

Awesome log Snake

Regarding Easy Strength, it was really really good in theory, but in practice I lost 1RM strength on half my lifts and barely maintained on the remaining half. It was a little too minimalist in terms of volume/per lift/per session to really stimulate anything or cause change/adaptation. I ran it for a little over 40 days. You might get different results; just my experience with it.

[Maxrip13]

Awesome log Snake

Regarding Easy Strength, it was really really good in theory, but in practice I lost 1RM strength on half my lifts and barely maintained on the remaining half. It was a little too minimalist in terms of volume/per lift/per session to really stimulate anything or cause change/adaptation. I ran it for a little over 40 days. You might get different results; just my experience with it.

I second this for easy strength. If you have been training hard for a long period the break and recovery will give you a massive boost initially, but after a while the improvements stop and you start to lose previous RM. It works really well if strength isn't a massive focus and you haven't followed decent programming before.

It's great to cycle in occasionally, but not to build an entire long term program around. I find this with a lot of pavels stuff having similar experiences with S&S and PTTP.
Dan's OLAD program followed STRICTLY is an excellent way to reboot your CNS and love for training.

[snake]

Thanks for your input StayGrey and Maxrip13! I really appreciate it, I'll make sure to keep the lifting volume up during the weeks.

Cycle 1 Week X
So the orienteering competition is over. I participated in one of the most challenging classes regarding technical difficulty and length. I was absolutely hammered each and every session - I ran between 14 - 16 km in raw terrain with the added feeling of frustration of not finding the fucking checkpoint mixed in with relief when I finally found them suckers. It was bloody hard, both physically and technical of finding the points. People usually ran the courses in around 1 h 15 min, I was out several times over 3 hours. I stayed with it. Great experience.



Fortunately I could laugh at myself with the others, hung around with people who compete at an international level and they were seriously amused hearing about my escapades in the forest. Also met a few SF guys, great to see older people being super fit.

After I did my daily race I worked on my mobility, did som light KB work, chins, muscle-ups, handstands and whatnot to just activate those capacities in the body. Will get in 1-2 strength sessions now before the land navigation mountain marathon next weekend. I'm looking forward to getting into a good training routine again before we're heading out into a longer field exercise with work.

I had a few questions earlier I'd love to have your input on, at the moment they've escaped my mind. All is well.

[snake]

Cycle 1 Week X
Monday: Went to a Ido Portal session. It was fun and challenging.

Tuesday: Easy strength.
Front squats, 75 kg, 3x3.
Military press, 45 kg, 5x3.
Chins, 12 kg, 5x3.

Wednesday, Thursday were rest days for the Mountain Marathon. 50 km spread out over 2 days where you have to carry a backpack with rain clothes, tent, sleeping bag, spare change of dry clothes and stuff like that due to security reasons. The run is done in two men patrols.



Friday: First day of Mountain Marathon 50 km. I had a fucking blast. We waded through streams, ran on snow fields and climbed mountain after mountain (of course all the checkpoints were on the peaks). All in a gorgeous surrounding and a smiling sun. After a few hours I started feeling my right knee acting up when I ran downhill, the knees surely took a big pounding. After a while it started hurting while climbing as well. At the last checkpoint I couldn't fucking walk properly so I limped to the finish and lost over an hour. We were out for around 8 h 40 min and still finished in the middle of the class. I've got a great urge for coming back next year and really going for it.

I had to throw in the towel during the next day, my friend who I ran with found a new companion and had a hellish day since the guy weighted like 45 kg and was demonic fast. Instead I hung out at the finish/base camp and helped the organizers to pack it all up and transport the stuff back to civilization. Eased the bitterness a little bit. I also saw a doctor at the base camp and she diagnosed me with runner's knee. The suggestion was to see a physiotherapist for rehab and work on my running technique.


Question
Weight vs range of motion. In squats, how do you think about putting on weight on the bar if you can't maintain perfect form and also not going as deep as you can with a lighter weight?
For now I'm trying to stay on as a heavy weight as possible while still maintaining full range of motion as well as form, even though I could probably put on a few extra k's at the expense of slightly impaired form and shallower depth of motion.