Really cool Tom have you had the straight bar muscle up for a while? What helped you the most in achieving it?

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Nosy parker... ;)



I'd be well happy with 1kg a month. I've put on about 1.5-2kg since November (72.5 > 74 now), but I am leaner than I was then. I know - 'eat' more', but jeebus, it's difficult to eat much more than I already do if I have any hope of staying fairly lean. I do properly pack it in!! :D

Congrats on the muscle ups man, you're flying!


EDIT: Perfect example... just weighed myself after typing this. Down to 73.5kg. Seriously, you should see the amount of food I ate over the weekend. Saturday night in particular. I mean, properly HUGE amounts of food. Low fat cheesecake (tonnes of it), bagels, flapjacks, curries, crumpets with jam... 8 pints and totally wasted yesterday as well. Jeez!

Can't complain though I suppose. Eating all that and losing weight? I'd buy that for a dollar.

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Workout log

MONDAY 11th JUNE 2012
Strength
- Squats
BAR x10
60kg x10
100kg 3x5
- Chin-ups
BW x10
OAC Neg 3x2 (per side)
- Dips
BW x10
20kg x5
45kg x3
65kg x2
60kg 2x4
- Farmers Walks
50kg DBs x1 short, 2 long
Holds 2xF
Dips were shit, squats got me some cramping but it's nice to be back. Starting out light to allow my ankle to get used to the weight.

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I'm going to keep the loose grip in mind next muscle up attempt - Thx Tom. I believe that for most people the straight bar muscle up is tougher than the ring muscle up (the transition part).

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TUESDAY 12th JUNE 2012
Skill/Core/Flexibility
- Skipping
- HS Work
- Standing Rollouts 2x12
- Wall Walks 3x3
- Stretching
Various
Dislocates 3x15
- Vacuum 3x45s
Right then, got a copy of 5/3/1 today. Looked through it and it looks good, pretty much every exercise I do is in the book in some form or the other so it looks like I'm on the same page as the author. Plus he seems to like weighted dips and pull-ups so it feels right.

I'm going to start 5/3/1 next week, starting with the 4 day week. Mo/Tu/Th/Fr. Saturday will be calisthenics as usual and I'll see if I can't throw some conditioning in on the off days. Not sure exactly how what I'm going to do for assistance, but Monday will probably be OHP 5/3/1, OAC progressions and heavy dips. Interesting how he recommends high reps for DB rows and shrugs, will see how that goes. This week I'll get a grip of my numbers for next week.

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My Log.

WEDNESDAY 13th JUNE 2012
Strength
- Squats
BAR x10
60kg x5
100kg x3
110kg x3
120kg x2
- OHP
BAR x10
40kg x5
50kg x2
55kg x4
60kg x1
- Deadlift
100kg x5
140kg x2
165kg x1
160kg x2
- Farmers Walks
55kg x2 short (2nd broken)
Holds 3xF
Squats weren't great, and deadlifts were complete shite. Probably because I haven't done them in 2 weeks, but still. I'll use these numbers for my 531 starting numbers anyway, as you're only as good as your last race. I've decided to start doing OHP from the floor, cleaning it up at the beginning of each set after reading through Nails' log. I think this is the first time I've got 1 plate up for OHP, so that's good. After Friday's bench I'll calculate 1RM and 90% of that and list my starting weights.

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Yeah sometimes it won't go up one cycle, I think I have only had that 3x so far though on any of my lifts so it isn't that often until you get stronger. I think that is the advantage to what I'll be able to do and round to the nearest kg, it will be the tiniest increments all the time.



Just wanted to add here, strict straight bar muscle ups are much harder, around about the same as a medium width ring muscle up, maybe a little harder than that, but even slightly kipping a bar muscle up (as I did when I did them) will eliminate much of the hardest portion of the movement and make it a lot easier. If you want to work on an explosive pull, then slightly kipped MU will be a good option, if you want to build maximal strength through the ROM then strict is better.

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My log

THURSDAY 14th JUNE 2012
Skill/Core/Flexibility
- Skipping
- HS Work
- Plank x5 minutes
- Wall Walks 3x3
- Stretching
Back wasn't up to rollouts so just a long plank. Once I start 531 next week this will just turn into a conditioning or flexibility session.

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It isn't so much the deadhang as the 'complete' transition. To improve the grip you need work on doing some gooseneck pull ups at the start of your sessions, check them out on beastskills.com

Hmm, I'm pretty sure that when your lifts are lower even 2.5kg will make it increase by enough to make a difference each week, as 2.5kg is a bigger percentage of 50kg than it is of 100kg (duh), but only if you are able to make them smaller jumps. That is part of the reason I forked out $100 on micro plates, cause I can load to the nearest 0.5kg now.

Yeah I think you have the loading right, start at 90% of your max, then add 5kg a cycle to squat and dead, 2.5kg a cycle to bench and overhead. The weight you are adding is to your training max as well, not each set. So your template might look like

Cycle 1 training max(90% 1RM) S-130kg, D-165kg, B-90kg, OH-50kg
Cycle 2 training max(90% +increment) S-135kg, D-170kg, B-92.5kg, OH-52.5kg

Then each set is taken from those values.

I just use this formula for 1RM calculator, if you search jim wendler in an App store you can get an easy calculator for it.

(weight lifted)x(reps completed)x0.0333 + (weight lifted) = rough 1RM for example
(100)x(5)x0.0333 + (100) = 116.5kg 1RM

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My log

FRIDAY 15th JUNE 2012
Strength
- Bench Press
BAR x10
40kg x5
60kg x3
80kg x3
95kg x4
80kg 2x5
- Pul-ups x15, 10, 10
- DB Rows
30kg x10, 15, 15
- Plyo Press-ups 3x15
Did bench first to get numbers for next week. Thinking about it perhaps it wasn't smart to get the numbers for squat, OHP and DL on the same day, I'm pretty disappointed with my performance on Wednesday especially regarding DL. I've repped that weight a lot better than I did. Oh well, at least the weight will manageable! Pull-ups are slacking and those DB rows are hard work.

OK, so I'll post my starting weights for Cycle 1 of 5/3/1. I've rounded some numbers a bit to make it more manageable.

1RM (90% actually due to 5/3/1 programming)
OHP: 57.5kg
Deadlift: 155kg
Bench: 100kg
Squat: 120kg

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