Mark Brown
March 31, 2022
The time I spent in the gym this past winter, though not quite over here in Iowa, definitely did the job I wanted it to do. It even surprised me in certain ways. I didn’t expect my squat to increase in overall strength like it did. I also learned how to better craft a lifting program and recognize what levels of load I should be doing to increase strength. The last part has already come in handy during weeks I started lifting back in the garage, which is started week 11. I know my targets and I know how to get there. This is how I will do that.
Going back to the garage to lift means all of my specialty bars come back intro play. That is both exciting and challenging because all of those pieces do something in particular very well. Working them all into one cohesive plan isn’t as easy as it sounds. I found through my training last fall that lifting progressively heavier into strength and peak phases eats into my ability to do every lift I want to do. It’s one thing to have the availability to do something, but quite another if it doesn’t align with what needs to be done. Training with only dumbbells and straight bars for the first 9 weeks of 2022 made me appreciate straight bars more. I know I have stated in the past that having 6 specialty bars made me see how limited a gym, especially a commercial one, is but I learned that by doing a very select variety of lifts a straight bar was all I needed. I will not let that lesson go away for a 10 months. The squat bars themselves represent a challenge all to themselves, especially when skill work is necessary on both the safety squat yoke bar and the cambered bar.
The best part of training in the garage is I can arrange my training week in a way that makes the most of my time. During the winter I moved legs/back to Monday/Friday and chest/shoulders to Wednesday/weekend. The primary reason for that is to avoid the days where chest was the primary muscle group done by the other lifters. I snuck some isolation work in on Tuesdays to work some hypertrophy on arms and lats. It was a good set up and I got the lifts in how I wanted to get them done, which is the biggest challenge of the commercial gym. However, I noticed the effect of doing isolation work on my arms, specifically triceps, that impacted my Wednesday session. I have never minded sessions being extra hard because of fatigue because working into fatigue a major part of what I do. I understood by the end of February 2022 that an arm day before a press day is ultimately not ideal. That means the change I am making to my spring plan is to move chest/shoulders back to Monday or Tuesday/Friday and legs/back over to Wednesday or Thursday/weekend. That day arrangement is much more ideal. I do very much like doing legs after working because I’m much warmer and I do genuinely feel much more ready to squat and deadlift after 20,000 steps.
Now that we know a daily schedule of lifting and rest, the lifting itself is going to continue mostly along the lines of what I did last fall with some minor tweaks here and there. I have learned quite a bit in that time and it would be idiotic not implement changes. The plan is to work in 2-3 week waves on the main movements. Those main movements are likely to be but not limited to the following: Two board press with the shoulder saver pad, chain and/or banded press, box squats, free cambered squats, banded pulls and block pulls. I found these lifts to be exceedingly useful for developing strength. I got a proper adjustable box for using last December so it will be slightly different from using the bench last year. The feeling is quite different. The main for my second chest/shoulder day will be just a regular chest press with the American press bar. I can already see that bar pushing me higher and harder with my current workload centric programming of sets and reps. The bar is a killer. The weekend leg/back day will be back in the gym primarily because of the leg press and I want to maintain the skill of a straight bar squat.
The supplemental lifts is where the program does the most changing from the gym to the garage. I found the narrow grip bench press to be so helpful last fall that it’s just part of the plan from now on. The specialty bars really show their value here in the supplemental lifts. Standing overhead press will be replaced with a log press, Arnold press will be replaced by seated overhead press with the American press bar, pin presses become much easier to dial in, and viking press enters the program. If I can figure out how to do a JM press well, then it will also get in there on Tuesdays. The cambered bar can also be used for bench press as well if I feel like going that direction. I will be utilizing all of the specialty bars that I own in some form or another.
Accessories will change some through the addition of equipment that I only keep in the garage. The “grenade chain” I got from EliteFTS last year is a tricep pulldown that isn’t like anything else that I do. It is 3 connected steel grenade shape balls. Each one produces a slightly different result. It truly is a fascinating piece of equipment. At some point I will end up getting a neutral or almost neutral grip lat pulldown bar. Pete’s preacher bench is steeper than the gym’s so I take full advantage of that. It is my primary bicep builder in the garage.
In the weeks I have been back in the garage, week 11-13 at the time of this posting, I’ve made good strides in consistently hitting sets of 3 on main and supplemental lifts. I believe it is definitely possible to put 10 pounds on my bench press max by the end of the 12-16 week block. I’d like to see my max go from 295 to 315 by the end of the year. I have pulled 405 and 415 pounds from deadlift mats stacked 3 inches off the floor in successive weeks. The signs for strength and muscular development are pretty high from early indication.
Life Through Lifting 