Weight is down to 198. Part of that is probably from deloading off creatine. 

SSB narrow stance squats

240 x 15
290 x 10
330 x 7

Bench press
275 x 6
Drop-sets of 225 x 7, 185 x 8. 135 x 10, 95 x 15, push-ups x 7, bar x 15

Dumbbell rows
125s x 8, 8, 9
-
Super-set with facepulls 

My goal was to rep 240, knowing my hip pain wouldn't let me approach max weights. Realized after I could probably keep going. There was pain but manageable. Knee hurt on the first attempt at 225 but more warming-up and keeping tight remedied that.

Experimenting with drop-sets on the bench press since they work so well with squats on a calorie deficit.

I'm thinking about returning in the evening to do heavy belt squats and get in some curls. Keg runs too. I have in mind to do both ATG narrow squats and heavy belt squats to cover all my bases in absence of my normal heavy squats.

Shoulders were a little sore from VR boxing yesterday. That's OK, prepares me for actual martial arts training again. It's IMPOSSIBLE for me to go light in that game. The opponent throwing knockout blows just causes me to react in kind. I was delivering bombs.

OH, something I'm not sure I mentioned. I bench wider now. It's harder for me. I've always been a fairly close-grip bencher, with pinkies in the ring or inside that even. Now it's ring finger, or a little past that approaching middle. Took  advice from Louie Simmons on benching wider as a way to progress on the bench. Interesting how that coincides with squatting narrower (advice I've heard from Dave Tate or Matt Wenning, can't remember which).

Workout was finished in one hour, pleased with the pace and difficulty level that brought me. The gift of injury.

 Yesterday I VR boxed for approximately 30 minutes and went on a jog. Went out and saw the new Dragonball movie in theaters afterwards, which was great. Had the theater to ourselves. Only problem is I didn't want to sleep when we got back home.

Woke-up today and did 5 minutes on the bike, 30 burpees, and some Muay Thai kicks to open up my legs and hips.

I have two different styles of burpees. The first is using my knuckles on the floor and not squatting all the way down (those two traits don't have any relation or bearing on each other, it's just how I've done them. The knuckle support is just from my martial arts background).

The second is more contractile and less ballistic, squatting all the way and doing a push-up.

Both are hard in different ways but I can definitely do more the first way. Today I did the second, and felt a little knee tenderness but no pain.

 My thigh pain has been bothering me to the point that I could not squat without pain yesterday, and that was a light day. After a lot of experimenting and some knee pain I was able to do high, narrow-stance SSB box squats with 225 for 20 reps. Still had thigh pain but it was manageable. I will always find a way. 

Super-setted that with 225x20 deadlifts. First 10 regular, last 10 stiff-legged. Attacked next the upper-body with heavy band presses for 4 sets of 15-20 and super-set that with pull-ups. At the end, I did a 40-second pull-up. I have a minute in me, but the eccentric part started to strain my biceps as they lengthened and that'd be the dumbest thing to injure one of them on.

Yukon squats

430 x 5, 5, 5

* This was hard, especially the final rep. Thought hard about whether to continue after the first due to pain in my right upper leg/hip area, which has been bugging me for awhile when I sit for extended periods or squat heavy. Felt worse today. So I'm happy I conquered this after getting sets of 3 last week. I think I've ridden this out as long as I safely can making no changes on linear progression while on the calorie restriction that I am. 

Bench press

295 x 3, 4, 2

275x5, 225x5, 185x5, 135x8 drop set

-

Super-set with dumbbell rows x 115s x 10

Keg curls, facepulls, lat raises, keg runs

* Just went into a feral frenzy here and on the bench drop sets. It started off with my guest coming over and unexpectedly showing up in my training area. Goofing off, I started making Arnold grunts and impressions, which actually hyped me up to push super fiercely. 

Cheat day today. Time to eat.

Left knee was hurting after that squat session so I spent yesterday doing a lot of VR exercising in the boxing sim Thrill of the Fight, which is unique among other offerings on the platform in that it has no videogamey stamina bar and the only thing limiting your striking is your own physicality. It's just a great piece of software for $10 and I've gotten a lot of mileage out of it. The biggest drawback is that opponents do very little dodging and mostly just turtle-up. Adding some bobbing and weaving on their end would make it feel a lot more fluid.

SSB narrow ATG squats

240 x 5

240 x 12

260 x 10

* Listened to a podcast with Matt Wenning about training what you suck at and it bothers me my quad-dominant squat has been so untouched. That's also because it hurts my knees, which I previously had written here are actually at a very good place now. However, on rep 5 I felt sharp knee pain in my left so I reracked and added knee sleeves. Adding those and concentrating more on knee flare fixed it. 

SSB good mornings

150 x 12

170 x 10

Incline dumbbell press

80s x 10, 8

50s against band x 8

-

Super-set with dumbbell rows

115s x 10, 10, 8

Did some more shadow kickboxing yesterday afternoon, about 10 min of a YouTube home Muay Thai workout, and 1 hard hill sprint. Just as I was about to swim laps, the pool got occupied, but I had gotten a decent workout in already on top of my morning burpees and shadow boxing. So I took the opportunity of extra time to make a nice meal and then drove my dad to help him grocery shop.

 Woke-up at 6:15 this morning and decided I wanted Monday to start under my terms so I did 60 burpees and some shadow kickboxing for a total of 12 minutes. Going to be making myself sit-down and log all these missed little sessions and dietary news more.

Axle clean once and press

180 x 5, 5, 5

-

Super-set with chin-ups

10, 10, 10

Sumo deficit deadlifts
Up to 450 x 1
*  Actually fell back and had to chuck the barbell doing this with 405, yikes. Added some dirt under the patio pavers I was standing on so my heels are a little bit higher, before it was like I was standing on an ever-so-slight incline. 

SLDLs
315 x 10

Done in under an hour. 

My supervisor today, chilling on the reverse hyper:

SSB lunges (non-alternating reps)

150 x 8, 8, 8

Super-set with good mornings

150 x 8, 8, 8

• I was thinking about upping the weight today but geez, going as deep as I do on the lunges makes this amount a great challenge. Really sinking into the single leg I have to work with and then exploding up to get outta the hole. Good feeling to have my knees healthy enough for this. By the

Decline push-ups

30, 20, 10, 10, 12, 14, 10

Super-set with pull-ups

20, 10, 10, 10, 10, 10, 10, 10, 10

Dips 

12, 10

Axle clean once and press

175 x 5, 5, 5

-

Super-set with pull-ups

10

50 x 5 - drop-down to bw x 3

50 x 8

Deadlifts

505 x 3

Solid little workout before work that ticks off all the numbers. Giving my back a break by only cleaning once which allows for increasing the weight I can press. 

5 reps on the deadlift would have been nice and probably possible, but 3 felt like a good place to stop and I'm inching my way back into heavy weight after my back felt so lousy last week. May just keep it at 3 for now as I continue to go higher, and then add reps later as a means of progression.

Using the reverse hyper throughout the day including before and after this session.

Yukon squats

425 x 5, 5, 5

Bench press

290 x 4, 5, 4, 4

-

Super-set with dumbbell rows

115s x 8, 8, 8, 8

* Switched the rep numbers for the first two bench sets from last week (chickened out on the first set and gutted through to get the 5 on the second), interesting how that worked out. And added an additional rep on the last set. Rest times were 3 minutes while last week I let myself rest longer.

Close grip bench

225 x 9

-

Db rows x 115 x 8

Iron Woody band press downs x 16

-

 Keg curls

170 x 10

Really pushed the pace today. Funnily enough was listening to an ancient iron radio episode ( they've sadly stopped updating recently so I'm going back to episodes I was listening to 10 years ago for old-time sake) and they were talking about letting yourself get everything done, time be damned. I'm at a phase in my training career where I'm really benefiting from time pressuring myself. It feels so great to get under the bar to bench, feeling tired on the first rep, and still crank out multiples.

My current approach to benching is keep upping the sets and reps until I can get five across the board with 290. 

Been 5 days with the assembled reverse hyper now and my back is feeling better. I state that with apprehension because anytime I try something new I logged that only for it to be a temporary form of pain relief, but I think this is doing good. Still some back pain when I wake up which tells me my mattress is a culprit here. But I'm looking forward to seeing how much I can push deadlifts this week.

Been using the reverse hyper throughout the day, just busting out reps of 10 to 20 as I step outside or come into the house.