Travis Voss' Training Log

I am hopefully prepping for the UPA meet in IA in November. If my back injury doesn't hold me back, I fully intended on entering the meet.

Here is the screen capture from my app that I use to log workouts (won't actually allow me to post it). I went with the lower body A first as it fit with my training partner's schedule better. I am trying to be very cognitive of his training as I don't want to get in the way of what he is doing.

I inadvertently misloaded the bar for the first set so I just went with what the next prescribed weight and continued from there. I tried to work with these fast. Last few sets I had to pause on the final few reps to catch my wind and continue.

170 X 12
165 X 12
170 X 12
175 X 12
180 X 12

I averaged around three minutes of rest between each set.

Video of the sets is on Facebook as the forum doesn't appear to allow me to post links for a week.

Man that looks like cardio to me Nice work and I will check out the video now.

Anything over 5 reps is cardio, right? I'm going to cardio all week. Thanks.

How breathing on these sets? Looks like you are doing 4/5 reps each breath....That how you normally do your rep work?

Yeah that might be something I need to work on, I'm not sure. I tend to hold my breath at times during sets.

Last night I went through the Upper A portion of my training. I kept the rest below 3 minutes. All reps felt fast and solid. I didn't need to rest at any point to catch my breath this time on the main lift.

105 x 12
110 x 12
115 x 12
120 x 12
125 x 12

For the bent rows, I did get a bit over zealous and went for 105 X 12 X 5. I had to rest-pause the last set once to get through all the reps.

Felt like some good work. I am interested in seeing now how the rest of the week goes as I hit some of these lifts for the second time. I haven't done each lift more than once a week in years.

Man Kyle is killing you with these high rep sets

I know. I haven't done this much cardio since Basic

Last night was my lower/upper day. I started out with conventional deads. I pulled all of these as fast as I could. Felt like I had good speed. The program called for 60lbs in chains, but we only had 40. I didn't adjust the bar weight to account for the lower chain weight. All were done with 30 seconds of rest between.

235 X 2 X 8

The program called for me to do paused bench next. I may need to keep my pauses just a beat longer, not sure. I started at my top weight from last session and worked up. Fourth set, the reps started to slow down, so I dropped the weight 5lbs. I had to take a rest-pause on rep 8 and then went back at it. I felt like I could fire out the last 4 reps from there but the 12 rep I just hit a wall. It simply wasn't going to go up. I should have taken a second rest-pause.

125 X 12
130 X 12
135 X 12
140 X 12
135 X 11

Sleep hasn't been great and coming in earlier in the morning after working out in the evening last night had me not all that fired up for this day. I got through it, though. All work felt good and I think I chose the right weights for all the exercises. I didn't have access to a leg extension so for the quad extension exercise I chose reverse barbell lunges.

Pullups bw (175) x 12 x 2
Seated DB Shoulder press 45 x 12 x 2
Reverse Lunge 85 x 12/leg x 2
Seated banded hip abduction - red mini band x 12 x 2
External banded shoulder rotation - red band x 12 x 2

Looking good man. Speed on the pulls was great.

I hadn't been eating the best and had a long day of family fun so my energy was low, but I did power through them. The speed wasn't all there. I was bound and determined to finish the sets, though. Rest was right between 4.5-5 minutes.

Squats
200 x 10
205 x 10
210 x 10
215 x 10

Battling a cold/allergies, but came in feeling good for this workout. Did my thoracic spine mobility beforehand to warm up. Bench went really well, I think. Speed was good. Pauses felt solid. Eager to see how the second bench day feels.

Paused Bench
135 X 10
140 X 10
145 X 10
150 X 10

Barbell Rows
I decided after struggling through to finish off my last workout with the rows that I would dial the weight down a good bit and focus on keeping these fast and the form tight.
95 x 12 x 5

Looking good man. You ever try benching with a belt on?

I use to wear a belt when I would use a bench shirt, but haven't since. You find it helps you?

For me yes I feel it allows me to stay tigher. It may just be in my head but it's how I bench now lol

I'll get the video of Friday's work up tomorrow. Things are still feeling good through this. Excited to start the testing phase next week.

Friday
Sumo deads
235x2x8 with 40lbs of chains. All felt fast, clean, and good.
Paused bench
150x10
155x10
160x10
165x10
The last couple of sets slowed some but not enough that I felt I should drop the weight down.

Kept the accessory work light today. Haven't done some of these in awhile.
12x2 hanging knee raises
65x12x2 barbell curls
70x12x2 hamstring curls
20x12x2 cable hip adduction
Blue rogue band spatula retraction 12x2

I feel like I messed the editing all up but here is the video as promised.

Hope I am doing this testing phase right. The prescribed first squat workout was to work up to two 5 rep sets at an RPE of 7 on both a low and high bar squats. I don't have a lot of experience with the RPE system so it was a bit of a challenge to really feel out what weight I could do a set of 5 on and be in that 7 "zone". The low bar squat is my normal competition squat. Later in the week calls for a beltless squat so this session I wore a belt. I picked 315 which is 20 lbs less than my previous unwrapped 5RM so I felt that would be a good RPE 7 and felt it went pretty well.

For the high bar squat, I wasn't sure what weight to pick or really how it would all feel. I haven't done high bar squats in quite awhile so it was a bit of a challenge. I unracked 275 and fired off two and thought it was too light so I racked it and loaded 295. The 295 set was probably more of an 8 than a 7, I'd guess, but I also didn't take as long of a break between the low bar squats or the 275 to 295 set as I maybe should have. All in all it was nice to get a bit higher up in the weight and I was happy that there were no adverse affects with my back.

Last night called for a close grip and wide grip bench for a top set of 5 reps each at RPE 7. Like the high bar squats the night before, I haven't done either of these in awhile so it was a learning experience feeling out my warmups to pick the weights I wanted to use. I did a set of 205 first with the close grip and felt too easy so I loaded 225 and rested up.
225 felt pretty good. I think I could have done 5-10 more lbs and still stayed in the RPE 7 range but decided not to rest up and try again calling this pretty close I just went on to the wide grip.

Wide grip was interesting to start warming up on. I typically have more of a medium grip width with my outer palm just touching the rings lately. To start, I put my hands all the way out where my index finger was just on the ring. The pressure I felt in my wrists caused me some concern so I moved my grip in to where the ring split my index and middle fingers. This felt much better but there was still some discomfort as I increased weight. I loaded up 195 for my first attempt at a RPE 7 set, but this time I added my wraps to aid with my wrists. The difference was incredible, the weight moved fast and there was no discomfort. I decided to load up 215 and take a rest. Like the close grip set, I felt like I could do another 5-10lbs and stay at an RPE 7. My fourth rep was a little slow because I came down out of my groove so I decided to call it a set and a night.

For the record, I believe my normal competition bench 5RM is around 240-245.

This day called for beltless squats and paused squats for a top set of 3 reps each for an RPE of 7. My energy felt low, but I still felt like I performed pretty well with the sets compared to Monday's session and compared against my performance with these lifts in the past. In both instances, like the rest of the week, I feel I had another 5-10lbs I could have added and stayed within the RPE 7, but didn't feel like it warranted resting up and taking another set.

Beltless Squat
305 x 3 @ RPE 7

Paused Squat
265 x 3 @ RPE 7

Looked easy on the paused squats. Nice work.

Thanks, yeah I feel like I could maybe have added a bit more weight but didn't feel like it was worth resting up and taking another set. Still figuring out what a 7 feels like.

Felt pretty good this day. All reps felt pretty dialed in. I didn't get Kyle's critique until after the session so I was still bringing my head up and watching the bar path. I am starting to get a feel for the RPE and knowing myself and my abilities am able to find the weight range without too much trouble now. This medium width grip is my current competition width so it has felt the most natural thus far.

We have about 40lbs of chains so I loaded the bar to 205 for that set. Still felt pretty good. My triceps did get a little tired toward the end but nothing major.

Medium Grip Paused Bench
240 x 3

Paused Bench with Chainz
205+40lbs in chainz x 5

I am going to start off right here by saying I probably went slightly overboard on this. This is MY lift and I haven't gone over 275 on it in easily 2 months with my back injury so I needed to battle a few mental demons and test that as well as just test for programming. I included not only my top set in the video, but the preceding lift to document speed. They were all slow. I felt hesitant to just go for it, but at no time did I feel like I was really struggling. I had been training sumo leading up to the last meet, so the 395 final pull on conventional is easily the most I'd done on that variation in 4 months. I had some minor cramping in my low back that I easily stretched out after the set.

The sumo lift is where I attacked my demon a little. The 365 set felt like all the others, slow but easy. I was getting a bit tired and wanted to get over the 405 hump so I loaded to 415 which is easily 50lbs less than what I know I can do. It ended up maybe being more of an RPE 9 than an 8, but I was very happy to complete the lift. No worse for wear this morning other than just some general workout soreness. I may toy with the scheduling next week and try to squeeze all lifts in M-F and have the weekend to recover. I haven't really decided that part yet.

Conventional Deads
395 x 1

Sumo Deads
415 x 1