In the last entry, I took you through the reasons and rationale for my goal of a 320 kg deadlift.  Since then I have actually been doing some training I am currently on week 5 of the programme which has been modified heavily from the outset.

Frequency

The original intention was for the programme to take place over 3 sessions a week with the deadlift.  After the first week, I knew that 3 times per week was going to be too much for me to recover from no matter how light the middle session was.  I needed more time to recover from session to session.

I think I could have managed a 3x per week programme but the total intensity would need to be much lower than it currently is and I would need to be looking to progress over a slower time frame.

I ended up going with a 2 time per week split and moving the extra 60% volume work into my warm up sets for the heavier sessions.  The programme now looks like.

Monday – Squat and Bench

Tuesday – Deadlift (medium) and Bench assistance

Wednesday -Rest

Thursday – Squat and Bench

Friday – Deadlift (heavy) and Bench assistance

Saturday – Rest

Sunday – Rest

This split I think offers a pretty good balance going forward however I am still experiencing a lot of stiffness at the weekend after the heavy session, however, it tends to have cleared up come Tuesday.

I still don’t think I should be experiencing the amount of stiffness I am so I think for blocks going forward I need to look at alternating intensity and volume perhaps on a week to week basis to allow me to work on one aspect while not overloading my lower back or glutes so I can maintain the training volume and intensity better.

Sometimes life means you have to sleep in bunk beds in a Bus travelling up and down the country.

Adapting your training around life

The programme has been adapted to other aspects not just how my body feels.  Recently my long term Girlfriend received a job offer down in London.  She has accepted and moved down south to start her new role this, of course, means a big change for my home life and a lot more travelling for myself.

I am currently in week 5 of the initial planned 6-week block, however, I am heading down to London for a long weekend on Thursday so I won’t be able to perform 2x deadlift sessions this week.

This coupled with how stiff my back has been all weekend means I am going to use this week in the programme to lower the overall intensity and up the volume for a week.  Hoping this will freshen me up for next week when I should be able to get my normal training week in.

This is an example of why I never lay out any more than 6-12 weeks in fleshed out detail as almost every programme needs modification due to injury, illness or just life.  So I would advise anyone who writes their own training or follows plans made by others to always be mindful of this so you can be adaptable, changing your training focus for a week doesn’t mean you are abandoning your goal.

What it looked like 5 weeks ago and what it actually looked like.

Originally my planned volume and intensity chart for the 6-week block looked something like this.

After the modifications that we have already discussed and some mishaps (such as accidently lifting twice the volume I was meant to with 242 on week 3) this is what it actually looked like.

As you can see the difference between the planned programme and what actually transpired is pretty pronounced.  A lot of this is down to me adapting the programme so I can perform it week in week out and a little bit of human error!  However, the skin and bones of the programme remained pretty much unchanged as regarding loads and volumes on heavy sets with the exception of week 5.

Progress towards my goals.

I have set three milestones with sub-goals for each larger milestone for the programme on my way to achieving the ultimate aim of the programme to deadlift 320 they are as follows.

In an ideal scenario, I would like to achieve every subgoal before attempting a milestone lift and these will be built into future programmes.  For 302.5, I will look to achieve sub goal 3 during my heavy session on week 6 of the current block.

Following on from successfully achieving this goal I will reevaluate for my next programme and move forwards from there.

That will conclude this entry to for more regular updates follow along on my training log or watch my weekly vlog series.

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Marc