So last week we did those clusters. They were so fun (insert eye roll) so we did them again. Well, to be honest, we've been doing each microcycle for 2 weeks, which for Anto and I has been very helpful.
I come from a background of Conjugate training where max effort work was rotated weekly. Not a bad thing, as you'll see in our upcoming training cycles, but lately it's been good for me to keep it the same for 2-3 weeks, especially on movements that I needed to hone in on the positions and mechanics.
So Monday we start our clusters and one of the guys from our IPA powerlifting team strolls in. (He works midnights so can't train with the team). So he jumps in with us. As he's watching my cluster sets, he's seeing the struggle. He's been trash talking Christian about meeting him at 198 and battling it out. So of course he starts saying how he's gonna catch Christian on these clusters and blah blah.
So now it's Christian's turn to do his sets.... 3x3 w/ 15 sec rest. Rest 3 minutes and repeat 2 more times. It's tough this week. It's hot as heck in the gym and we both increased our weight from the previous week. Christian finishes and now it's the other guy's turn.
He does his first cluster and you can see he's kinda like, "Yeah, this isn't so bad." 3 minutes rest rolls by pretty quick and by the end of that second 3x3 cluster, he was struggling. He laid down and when his 3 minutes of rest was up, he walked up to the mono and tried to get set. He pulled back and said he needed just one more minute because his eyes were losing focus.
We immediately stopped him there.
Kid fell back to the floor and for the next 30 minutes paced around the gym, walking outside for air, drinking Gatorade and Pedialyte. He could not recover. After razzing him a bit, we found out that all he ate prior to coming to the gym was 12 tater tots.
12. Tater. Tots.
I don't care who you are folks. 12 tater tots isn't going to cut any training session let alone a heavy lower body session. Even for shift workers, you have to find a way to get some food in prior to training. Waking up at noon and training at 2 is the same as someone waking up at 6 and training at 8am. While you may only be able to get one meal in, it better be a good one.
MONDAY
1. Cambered bar cluster sets w/ 3 chains each side- 3x3 w/ 15 sec rest. Rest 3 min. Do 3 clusters. - working weight @ 175
2. Chain lunges 2 sets
3. Smith machine squats - 3x10
4. DB stiff leg deads - 4x10
TUESDAY
1. Shoulder saver close grip with chain - 3x5, then giant drop set of chains @ 105
2. Chain flyes 3x8 +6 partner eccentric resisted
3. Laterals - 4x12
4a. Spider crawls - 3x45 seconds
5b. Face pulls - 3x45 seconds
THURSDAY
1. Conventional deadlift - Max 3, reset reps @ 310
2. Single arm lat pulldowns - 4x10 each
3. Bentover rows - 3x10 @ 115
4. SSB goodmornings over the preacher curl bench - 4x15
FRIDAY - out of town
We were gone on Friday so we trained in my friend's basement. Cool set up with enough to get in a good accessories day.
1. Bradfords - 4x8
2. Upright row - 4x12
3. Incline curls - 4x10
4. Hammer curls - 4x15, 12, 10, 8
5. Kick backs - 4x10
6. TRX triceps - 3x12
7. Jump rope - 20 on, 40 off for 6 minutes