Decided to go with a deload week as per Andy Baker's guidelines HERE

Instead of reducing the load for each exercise or reducing the volume, Baker's advice is to reduce frequency a little bit.

So training 4 days per week you go down to 3 days per week. Everything else stays the same.

If you train 3 days per week on a full-body template you stay with 3 days but you change the training to an upper/lower split to spread out the work more.

The problem with some traditional deloads is you reduce the load and volume too much and then you 'detrain'.

This is a solution to that problem. It's the first time I've tried it so we shall see how it goes!

Monday- Upper- Press 165x4, 145x5, 135x6/ Semi-Sumo Deadlift 255 5x1/ BB Curls 10,10,8

Tuesday- Bike

Weds.- Squat 275x3, 255x3, 245x4,235x4/ Semi-sumo DL 295 4x1

Thurs- Bike

Friday- Bench 215x3, 205x5,5/ Press 115 x3x6/ Semi-DL 255 5x1

Sat- sled dragging

Notes

• The week started strong. Press felt solid. Got a little more lower back extension that I would like on the top set. Have to work on that.

• Squats have been frustrating as I have switched things around lately but they will come around. Just another day of trying to find my groove here. Nowhere near where I want to be on these with my technique or weight/volume. Patience..

• My love for the Semi-Sumo Deadlift continues. I can train this movement fairly hard and not have the lower back soreness I get from conventional or the knee pain I sometimes get from a regular sumo stance. A work in progress here but 295lbs which is about 87% of my estimated 1 rep max felt easy. Not much longer before I get to the end of this daily dose deadlift plan and I take a few days off then test my max.

• Bench was disappointing. After a nice run of workouts where the weight increased, I decided to go for sets of 6 and I only got 4 on my first set and there was no way I would get more. A few factors at play- sleep has been less than ideal lately- AND haven't been eating as much. Both combined are not a good combination for bench pressing.

• Still working on the nutrition- trying to find the right balance of meat and rice each day. I really want to give the Carnivore diet a good 30 days but I'm not ready for that yet. Taking out carbs already has drained me quite a bit and I need to eat more meat to make up for it but haven't been doing so. It's a work in progress.

That's it for this week. Thanks for reading and if you have any questions about my programming or your workout plan, shoot me an email.

I respond to all emails personally.

Next week I will be moving closer to the end of the Daily Dose Deadlift Plan, with the following week testing my max.

Also going to change up some rep ranges on the lifts. I will decide tomorrow or Monday if I am going to continue with this "deload" and lift 3 days next week or go back to 4 days.

Striving for improvements every day with the knowledge that there is no perfection.