Them Gains

It’s been a few months since my last post, but I’ve been keeping up with my workouts and continuing to gain levels. I’m up to level 34 and 220,000 points on Fitocracy and more importantly I’ve been seeing some decent gains on my lifting and fitness in general. My bench press is up to 235 for 2 reps, squats are up to 255 for 5 reps and my deadlift is at 365 for 1 rep. Since I have no spotter or power rack I’m not planning to go above weight I can squat at least 5ish times and bench 2 to 3+ times (no 1 rep maxes.). I’ve only just started working overhead press into my routine, since I had been doing handstand push-ups for shoulders and I’m coming off of a minor shoulder injury. My max press so far is 112.6 for 2 reps, using an ez curl bar that I clean from the floor. The grip is taking a little getting used to but it seems to work.


I’ve gotten bit more serious about improving my lifts and have spent quite a bit of time researching workouts and exercises to improve my routine. My goal right now is to get in each of the major compound lifts—squats, deadlifts, bench press and overhand press—once per week as well as pull-ups, chins and dips along with other supporting exercises to fill in the gaps. I had been doing pull-ups three times a week, which led to some injury problems with my left lat; I think once you start getting into weighted pulls you just need more than 2 days to properly recover. I’ve also had some issues with my left shoulder, so I’m starting to work on shoulder flexibility and warmups with shoulder dislocations and YTL raises and being more conscious about form and keeping the shoulder blades tight while lifting. This seems to be helping a lot.


My weekly routine looks something like this:

Monday- Squats, overhead press, unweighted/low weight pull-ups, chin-ups, dips (high reps)

Tuesday- Cardio (running 3-4miles), Core work

Wednesday-Bench Press, Deadlift, Inverted Rows, resistance band exercises(biceps and tricep isolation), dumbbell shoulder exercises(front, side and rear raises. No heavy presses.)

Thurs- Miscellaneous cardio/high intensity infernal training. Running, cycling, heavy bag, jumping rope, etc. Whatever I feel like doing. Core work

Friday-Heavier weighted pull-ups, chins and dips. Handstand push-ups/lighter overhead press. Misc leg exercises if they aren’t too sore. (Barbell glute bridge, hack squat, pistol squat)

Saturday- Cardio, longer duration run or bike(45min-1 hour+). Core work

Sunday- Rest



I sprinkle in a few other things like push ups, calf exercises and grip work here and there, but don’t really do them on a normal schedule. This regimen has been going pretty well so far and I like having a balance of 3 days of lifting and 3 days cardio. It does, however, push a lot of lifting into each lifting session so I feel pretty destroyed after each one. I may swap some of the days around to optimize my rest. Deadlifts two days after squats can get a bit hairy.