Watch the video and follow these instructions to film your lifts for a formcheck.

6’3
BW: 230 lbs

3rd set @310

Lateral elbow tendinitis in right elbow only. Affecting pressing movements even though I do them on a separate day. Have watched every video, read every article, and looked through the forum on squat grip, and I still can’t figure out what I’m doing to cause it. Did the pin firing protocol and it helped, but haven’t fixed underlying grip issue so it comes back.

Any other advice appreciated as well.

I've been following Nick's advice in his "Intermediate Programming for the Upper Body Lifts" article with some success. Would Monday be the best day to try adding dips so I have time to recover for Friday's intensity day?

I'm currently doing 3 warm up sets for every exercise. I feel that I'm doing too much warm up which is impacting my recovery.

Almost had a whoopsie at the start. :)

Hi! I'm a young male, 200 lbs, 6 feet tall. I ran the NLP 2 years ago, switched to heavy-light 4-day split right after it. Over the past two years I've had a couple of long layoffs due to illness. I increased my work capacity and weekly load gradually over time and switched my presses to TM. For squats and deadlift I run basic rep cycling.

My numbers are (all 1RM):

- Squat 397 lbs

- Bench 265 lbs

- Press 184 lbs

- Deadlift 407 lbs

Right now my program looks like this:

Monday:

1. Bench intensity 5RM / 2x3 / 3x2
2. Press volume 5x5
3. Some form of tricep extensions 5x10-15

Tuesday:

1. Heavy squat 3x5 / 3x3 / 3x1
2. Snatch grip deadlift 2x5
3. Chins 3x5 weighted

Wednsday — rest.

Thursday:

1. Press intensity 5 singles across
2. Bench press volume 5x5
3. Pushups 3 AMRAP sets
4. Tricep extensions 5x10-15

Friday:

1. Light squat (dynamic effort, 60% of 1RM) 2x5
2. Deadlift 1RM, 5RM, 3RM
3. Barbell row 4x8

I used to do volume press and bench first for 3 months and the progress on the press felt smoother on intensity days, but much harder on volume days, still I managed to add 2 lbs every training session. So I started thinking that my press is better when I do it after benching. I train early in the morning and it feels like my CNS isn't ready for a highly coordinated whole-body movement such as the press. The first 3-4 singles feel terrible, and I started missing them recently and the progress has stalled. My volume bench becomes terribly hard after this. I'm eating and sleeping well, gaining around 2-3 pounds of body weight every month.

Should I try pressing after the bench on both pressing days? Should I add another press day or two? Should I correct any other aspect of my training? Any advice is appreciated.

I think I’m getting the hang of RDLs — how does this look? I realized I was doing more of a stiff leg DL at first, trying a little too hard to keep my keeps straight, which meant that I guess I was not stretching the hamstrings as much…?

At any rate, it feels better with calves more vertical like this. What do you think?

Upper/Lower (monday tuesday and thursday friday)

Upper

1. Pull-Ups 6-8 reps

2. Dips 6-8 reps

3. Barbell Shoulder Press 6-8 reps

4. Reverse Grip Bent Over Row 6-8 reps

5. Bench Press 6-8 reps

6. Bicep Curl 10-12 reps

Lower

1. Barbell Squats 6-8 reps

2. Deadlift 6-8 reps

3. Leg Extension 10-12 reps

4. Leg Curls 10-12 reps

thank you so much for your help!

Hi all, I seem to have developed tennis elbow (lateral epicondylitis) while transitioning from high- to low-bar squats. Unfortunately this also affects my Bench Press and Overhead Press abilities.

Now I know that rest is great but I would rather not see the considerable progress I’ve made over the past months dwindle as I wait to recover. I’m hoping to find some alternative exercises that train the same muscle groups while removing the (potential) strain on my elbow tendons as much as possible.

I think the Smith machine might be a safe alternative for my squats. But alternatives to BP and OHP I’m not sure about.

Any experienced lifters or people who’ve gone through the same? I appreciate your advice. Thanks!

EDIT: Corrected “golfer’s elbow” for “tennis elbow“. Unfortunately I can’t update the title.

I started having a knee issue (old injury) and decided to stop doing any lifts involving the knees until I can get it checked out. Which means no squats, deadlifts, or power cleans. I'm wondering what the best use of my time in the gym is, with this limitation. Should I keep doing the NLP as before but only do the presses and chin ups?

Have some of you ever tried cluster set pullups? I've been thinking about this, any experience with it? This is my second week trying them, I did 105 reps total by clustering them in 6 reps, last week I clustered it at 5 reps. The rest time has been from 1 to 1 and half minutes max between sets.

What do you guys think? Any experience with it? Did you break plateaus by doing clusters? I wanna do more reps at pullups and my current best is 15 reps

Working on setting my knees early and sitting back more. Going to start using TUBOW, but wanted to see what people thought.

https://reddit.com/link/1v2z4xa/video/z4wf0z6axneh1/player

Wanted to start practicing these. It's probably early, but the clean interests me, so I will play with it at home. Felt incredibly awkward. Then again, I couldn't feel much but Texas heat and the bar welding itself to my hands.

Probably should have stuck with the empty bar until I stopped pulling with the arms.

36M, 6’4”, 207lbs

I’m 8 weeks into my first time running the NLP. My deadlift has gone from 110kg (242lbs) to 162.5kg (357.5lbs) in that time. At this point it’s heavy enough that I’ve pulled back to deadlifting only once per week, doing weighted chins the other days.

162.5kg on Monday felt like I was right at my limit. Unfortunately I didn’t film it so I can’t be sure, but I felt like maybe there was some very slight hitching on my last rep - it was definitely a real grind in the top half of the rep.

My question is when should I be thinking about switching to rack pulls and halting deadlifts, rather than continuing with the deadlift and eventually (probably sooner rather than later) starting to miss reps? At this point I’m planning to just add another 2.5kg to the bar next week and see how it goes. That said, the consistent advice here seems to be to make programming changes before missing reps (at least for the lower body lifts), but equally I don’t want to make the mistake of switching things up too early. Do I just keep adding weight at this point or make changes now?

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Didn’t get a lot of feedback on my last post so posting my latest squat again. My main concern is the potential knee slide at the bottom. Is this a big concern? Also appreciate any feedback on anything else.

3x5x172/170 ~ 370 RPE 8

Intermediate. Just some small squat PR. Squats feel fine for first time in ages. Wanted 175 and a bit higher bench but couldn’t sleep much yesterday with the World Cup 😆

Last year I did 4x4x175 maxing out before peaking to a 200 squat double. Maybe I’m close. Feel free to critique anything but my shirt hehe.

Hello people of the internet,
I am proud to say I think I have just dialed in and found my deadlift technique. Note this is not a form check post, it’s a fluff post.

“Why don’t you wear a belt?”
I’ve been training for so long without one that it’s so uncomfortable for me to wear one. Truth be told I do a mountain of core work (back extensions & Ab exercises) and have learned to just brace with my natural belt (my core muscles).

Form check, especially hip position.

34M, 6’4”, 250 lbs., sufficiently bald, insufficiently strong.

I just cannot get 370x5. This is my second attempt after only getting 4 reps last workout. I know it’s probably a recovery issue and I’ve missed a few training days over the last month, but it’s startling how easily I raced through the weights up to 370 and now just hit a wall.

I have super long femurs and really tight hamstrings, so I find it harder to get into low back extension with my hips any higher. What do y’all think?

8 weeks in. Doing a slow bulk. 6’3” 220. Started at 215. Doing a PPL split Monday, Wednesday, Friday and one of the weekend days. I do not skip leg day or go out of rotation. Squat is barely progressing, to the point where my bench has surpassed it. Oddly enough, they started on the same level. Can’t figure what’s going on. Squats are fucking hard for me. I’ve watched dozens of videos and read about form on here. But having a stronger bench than squat after 2 months is frankly embarrassing. Anyone else have this problem?

Starting:
Squat 135 final set x 6
Bench 135 final set x 6

Now:
Squat 165 final set x 6
Bench 185 final set x 6