John Phung

For the handful of regular readers, you probably noticed that my posting frequency looked liked it had gassed out recently. Well, my family-in-law came to visit for the past couple of weeks, meaning I would be forced to take extra rest days from my regular training.

It also meant extra time to recover from the grind of perpetual PR's I've been setting everyday for the past few months.

It's like a forced de-load based on stuff happening outside of my basement home gym.

To sum up the last 2 weeks, I went to Niagara Falls for a few days, Toronto for a few days, went to a few buffet restaurants, got sick, did a lot of walking around, went sight seeing and a lot of wait training while everyone went shopping.

Didn't get thrown off the PR train though! I did manage to squeeze in some training sessions and hit a few new personal records:

6 Personal Records

High Bar Squat (Paused, No Belt): 510 x 1 (1RM)

+10 lb PR!

Got stuck at the sticking point momentarily. Always feels a lot longer than it actually is.

Paused Bench Press: 315 lb x 6 (6RM)

Missed the 4th rep on paused RGBP because of allergies/bloody nose with blood running down my throat/too weak/excuses, so got this instead. 4 reps would have been a PR.

Paused Bench Press: 320 lb x 5 (5RM)

Front Squat (Paused, No Belt): 330 lb x 5 (5RM)

Paused Front Squat: 425 lb x 2 (2RM)

+60 lb PR! Been chasing a 2 rep max for some time. Somehow ended up with 3 reps in the past instead of 2. After a couple of weeks of inconsistent training and hours of cardio (walking), I'm finally weak enough to get a 2RM.

Paused Reverse Grip Bench Press: 330 lb x 6 (6RM)

An EZPZ, getting-back-into-the-swing-of-things PR.

Stuff You Should Read

1. Squats Are Not Hip Dominant Or Knee Dominant. Some Biomechanical Black Magic by Greg Nuckols
   • This one weird trick helped me squat more weight (Anonymous Internet "lifters" hate me). Special guest appearance by me! haha
2. Everything You Think Is Wrong With Your Deadlift Is Probably Right by Greg Nuckols
   • I really should deadlift one of these days...
3. Anatomy Video Tutorials by Gregor Winter

Weekly review is back! For the time being at least.

Basically a "weekly review" is a weekly post summarizing my progress for the past week, training updates, bragging listing PR's achieved, and stuff I find interesting on the topic of strength training that I think is helpful.

I used to post a weekly recap, but stopped for some reason.

Training Updates

I've been doing the Texas Method ...and then slowly started experimented with my own programming (which was basically Texas Method at the core), and now it's totally different.

Because of time and energy constraints, curiosity and a desire to get the most out of the least amount of effort, my training is basically this:

1. Hit A Personal Record Every Day
2. One Exercise Per Day

So far, so good. I think I'm at ~60-70 PR's in a row now. And not bullshit PR's in useless exercises either. All the exercises that I track and attempt PR's on are supportive of my main lifts, which are the 1RM in the squat, bench press and deadlift.

Workouts are short and focused because I'm only doing 1 exercise, and my top set is usually a PR attempt, with the occasional back off sets or another PR attempt.

I'm interested to see how far I'll go with this, as far as strength gains are concerned and how long I can keep this up.

Warm Ups

Over the past 7 months or so, I've removed foam rolling and mobility work. At first, it was because I didn't have the time. But now, seeing that not doing any of those didn't impact my training at all (except make it shorter), I've decided not to include them in my warm up. Unless something is overly tight, or I want to foam roll my thighs to prevent them from cramping during the OHP.

Currently I'm experimenting with cutting a set or two during my warm ups.

For example, my reverse grip bench press warm up used to be:

• 45 x 10
• 140 x 5
• 230 x 3
• 280 x 1
• 330 x 1
• 370 x 1

Now, it's:

• 45 x 10
• 140 x 5
• 230 x 3
• 320 x 2
• 370 x 1

It's one less set, but I'm doing 2 reps at 320 instead of 1 rep at 280 and 1 rep at 330. The time it'll save is small for each workout, but over the course of a lifetime, I'll be saving a lot of minutes!

Personal Records

Hit 9 PR's this past week!

Actually, it's more like 8 plus an EZPZ instant PR barely worth talking about (paused bench @230x10). Still a PR though.

Anyways, here they are:

Paused High Bar Squat: 515 x 2 (2RM)

Thought my eyeballs were going to pop out while trying to grind the 2nd rep of 555 lb x 2 (missed the 2nd rep).

Overhead Press: 245 lb x 4 (4RM)

Missed on the 4th rep on the 1st attempt at this. Quads started cramping. Took some time to stretch out my legs before attempting this again. +5 lb PR.

Front Squat: 430 lb x 2 (2RM) & 315 lb x 9 (9RM)

+10 lb PR! Was contemplating another rep. But during the silent contemplation, I could notice a little less blood going to my brain from the bar being across my neck, so I re-racked it.

Wanted 10 reps with LMAO3PLATE, but it was getting increasingly difficult to breath with every rep. Ran out of air :/

Bench Press (Reverse Grip, Paused): 410 lb x 1 (1RM), Bench Press (Paused): 330 lb x 3 (3RM) & 230 lb x 10 (10RM)

I was thinking about going for 405 lb x 2, but pretty sure I would have missed the 2nd rep, so I went for a less difficult but still difficult 410 lb paused RGBP for a +5 lb PR.

Also got in some regular bench press work. Middle of my back cramped up on the 4th rep with 330 lb. Did 230 lb x 10 for the hyper trophies.

Paused Low Bar Squat: 550 lb x 1 (1RM) & 500 lb x 3 (3RM)

+30 lb 1 rep max. 500x3 matches my low bar squat 3RM, and my high bar paused 3RM.

Stuff You Should Read

1. YOUR WARM UP IS MY WORKOUT by Emevas
   • I agree with this.
2. The Science of Steroids by Greg Nuckols
   • No plans on taking sterons, but still an interesting read.
3. “Wall Squats” Help To Fix Squat Technique by Boris Sheiko
   • Wall squats is something I'm going to try. I find myself leaning forward too much, and I think this might help.

A miss and a couple of rep PR's this past week:

Overhead Press: 270 lb x 0

The 265 lb press felt somewhat easy last week, so I wanted to give 270 lb OHP a shot.

DAMMIT! Felt so close.

Low Bar Squat: 460 lb x 6 (6 Rep Max)

Felt tough, but looks OK.

Reverse Grip Bench Press: 315 lb x 7 (7 Rep Max)

Missed the 2nd rep attempting 380 x 2 (would have been a 2RM), so I decided to go for an easy'ish PR and fill out an empty box in my personal records table.

I want to bench 315 lb for 10 reps in the future, but stability seems to be an issue for me during high rep ranges for the reverse grip bench press. Gotta nail 300 lb x 10 first.

Stuff You Should Read

1. The Science of Squatting by Brad Schoenfeld
2. Deadlift Training Tip by Steve Goggins

A couple of PR's this past week:

Deadlift: 530 lb x 1 (No belt 1RM)

No belt, with a hook grip. Not hard, but not easy.

Missed at 550 lb after, dammit.

The deadlift is my worst lift :/

Overhead Press: 265 lb x 1 (1RM)

FINALLY...an OHP 1RM!

I missed at this weight a few times. Glad I finally nailed it.

Made a small modification to my grip (narrowed my grip - something I wrote about on All Things Gym, but forgot about until today) and all my reps felt a whole lot easier.

Could be a long shot, but hopefully I can press 275 lb (2 x 45 lb and a 25 lb plate on each side of the bar) by the end of the year. Only 10 more pounds to go!

Stuff You Should Read

1. Failure Minus One by Marty Gallagher
2. Tuggin' Tips: Advice on Deadlifts that Changed My Life by Mike Hedlesky