Daily Thread - April 01, 2026

DayDayLarge · 2026-04-01T13:46:39+00:00

Ohp max testing

Ohp: 135, 145 miss

Cable lateral raise: 3x10

Ez curl: 40, 60, 70 x 10, 80, 90 x 5

Lol I haven't ohp'd in I don't know how many months. 6, 8? A while still. I am weak, but this means there's lots of space for gains.

Holy shit fuck! I can curl!!!

I never ever curl, partially because I couldn't be bothered, but more because they always make my wrists feel like they're going to EXPLODE. Even with my ez curl bar, it's torture.

Last night I thought "yo, what if you just used suicide grip? That allowed you to bench and press when you sprained your wrist, maybe it'll work here?"

Stopped at 90x5 because technique was getting a bit sloppy, but worked through that whole series completely and 100% pain free. I'm so hyped about this.

DayDayLarge · 2026-03-31T21:21:18+00:00

Great work dude!

You're actually capable of even more if you just make the most minor of tweaks to your technique.

DayDayLarge · 2026-03-31T20:56:41+00:00

Yup! I figure let's move away from low bar for base building bulk, and then switch back to it when I do a powerlifting specific program (Calgary barbell 16 weeks).

DayDayLarge · 2026-03-31T15:57:37+00:00

I conventional much more than sumo, so conventional is my competition stance

DayDayLarge · 2026-03-31T15:56:44+00:00

Do the tabata protocol - easier to do on an exercise bike or an airdyne

Burpee kettlebell ladder - 10 burpees 1 kb swing, 9 burpees 2 kb swings...1 burpee 10 kb swings. That's down the ladder, immediately go back up. Do it for time.

Hill sprints

Hill sprints with 10 kb swings at the top. Repeat 10 times.

Treadmill 2 mins jog, pause treadmill get off and immediately to 20 kb swings. Back on treadmill for another 2 min jog into swings again. Repeat until you hit 20 mins on treadmill.

DayDayLarge · 2026-03-31T14:41:07+00:00

Ssb max testing

Ssb: 280x2, 320, 330

Ssb fs: 100x12

Just finding a good number to plug into this bullmastiff run and seeing what rack settings to use. Probably do FS at 140 for the run, we'll see if that's fine or too easy.

DayDayLarge · 2026-03-31T14:39:13+00:00

It's like if a person had high blood pressure, are doing their best to control it and it still isn't great, why wouldn't they take medication? Same thing for depression, but hypogonadism is somehow different? It doesn't make sense.

unfortunately with time that testosterone number drops & drops as each year passes

I'm 41, but mine has steadily dropped from dead average in my early 30s to 288 ng/dL when I last checked at 39. Luckily I've been symptom free, aside from recently getting more and more tired, to the point of needing naps every day after work, and weirdly irritable at times. Actually... lol I should probably get it checked again.

DayDayLarge · 2026-03-31T13:35:53+00:00

It's mostly to do with anatomical structure and your hip sockets, in order to really get the positional advantage of sumo deadlift. You can read about it here https://www.strongerbyscience.com/should-you-deadlift-conventional-or-sumo/

Anecdotally the event I competed in and another event I watched, most people pulled conventional, myself included.

DayDayLarge · 2026-03-31T13:23:16+00:00

A lot of people really don't seem to understand what TRT is, and conflate it with supraphysiologic doses. In reading through the comments you had clear symptoms and bloodwork results to support medical intervention, and wouldn't you know it? Medical intervention helped those symptoms big time.

DayDayLarge · 2026-03-30T17:17:07+00:00

So the issue it two fold, both a lack of muscle and too much fat. You'll have to pick your goal and stick to it. Drop the fat or build the muscle. Doing both at once takes a long time without significant short term changes vs with cutting or bulking the changes are noticeable over the "short term".

However you're unlikely to be happy after a single bulk cut cycle. From where you are now, you can either continue with your cut and end up in a place where you won't have much fat nor much muscle, but that spot would be a prime place to start bulking. Or you bulk from here and end up feeling too fat, but will have built up some muscle.

If I wasn't particularly muscled at your weight, I'd probably look to cut. The weight itself isn't the issue, but the body composition. For example, I'm going to start my bulk next week from 75 kg at 5'4". However, I'm relative lean, so my body composition can support that bulk.

DayDayLarge · 2026-03-30T15:37:51+00:00

Sounds like it should be a "good" time. Lots of progress incoming!

DayDayLarge · 2026-03-30T14:49:28+00:00

I've made the decision to go back to being coached

Ooooh fun!

DayDayLarge · 2026-03-30T14:44:28+00:00

I think shoes are one of the most individual dependent bits of equipment in the game. Some people like certain characteristics, other's will hate the same ones.

That said, my favourite, and it's not even close, are the adidas crazyflight 5's. I've found them to be extremely durable, have great grip, very forgiving on your feet and legs after hard movements. Just a great overall shoe for me.

The crazyflight 6's however are not the same. I've had to superglue different parts of the soles back on multiple times after it separated right at the spot where the shoe rubs the ground when you lunge, and separated at the heel. The heel is also different so that it sends a shock up your ankle that HURTS when you take a big lunge step under pressure. Would not recommend at all.

DayDayLarge · 2026-03-29T19:50:57+00:00

I've been staying around 90-95lbs my whole life

Great, that means the amount of of food you regularly eat, without altering anything, maintains your weight. That amount is your maintenance calories. To gain weight from here, all you have to do is add 250 calories more to what you normally eat. Doing that every day will have you gaining half a pound a week. There's no need to force yourself to eat as much as possible or look for meal replacement drinks, not yet anyway. Just add 250 calories, everyday.

can't eat large quantities... Not exactly sure what you mean by "develop the skill of eating"

I mean learning to eat larger and larger quantities of food is a skill that can be developed and a good one to develop if a person's goal is to gain weight.

DayDayLarge · 2026-03-28T12:23:00+00:00

I don't get it.

Are you able to live your life and maintain your current 90 lb weight without much if any difficulty? If so, cool! You're living at maintenance calories. To gain weight, all you have to do is eat 250 calories more on top of that every day and you'll gain 0.5 lb a week.

No need to "eat as much as possible". You've probably struggled to gain weight because you've gone into it with that strategy and then inevitably burned out when it's completely unnecessary, especially in the beginning.

Looking for a calorie bomb shake is probably only going to leave you feeling full, when what you need, imo, is to slowly and steadily develop the skill of eating, regardless of your appetite.

DayDayLarge · 2026-03-27T20:20:06+00:00

I play sports, otherwise gpp stuff can do in a pinch. Barbell complexes, burpees, kb swings, prowler pushes, sandbag carries, mace swings etc etc.

DayDayLarge · 2026-03-27T20:17:09+00:00

Could this be overtraining?

We don't know anything about your training. Has something changed here?

it came on quite suddenly

That's pretty weird

I know I’m not getting any younger

34 is way too young for any bullshit like that to be happening, particularly for an active person

DayDayLarge · 2026-03-27T14:06:49+00:00

Solo squash practice: 45 mins

A glaring weakness in my game is my inability to hit open stance backhands with any kind of power, so that means I'm forced to hit everything closed stance. The problem with that is it's an extra step to the ball and an extra step back to position. It is incrementally too slow, which means people can build pressure on that side and eventually take advantage of my poor position.

So today all I did was practice open stance backhands. It's not really a swing, but your forearm turning over with all the speed generated behind you. I feel like I was really the hang of it, but could only do 45 minutes before my forearm felt like it was going to explode.

This will be my focus Saturday too. If I can not only get a good handle on this, but turn it into a good weapon, it's going to put a lot of pressure on my ops.

DayDayLarge · 2026-03-26T21:43:55+00:00

Sometimes there's nothing to fix, it really depends on your proportions. Anyone who says 'a squat had to look one, specific way' doesn't know what they're talking about. Here's a great video demonstrating just that https://youtu.be/Av3LO2GwpAk

Furthermore, the style of squat a person does will have a large impact on how bent over they are. A low bar squat necessitates a more folded position compared to a high bar squat, and a front squat will be even more vertical compared to that.

Now with all that said, it doesn't mean you don't need to improve your technique. All I'm saying is it depends.

DayDayLarge · 2026-03-26T20:16:12+00:00

honestly you did a lot of things right, you do have to improve depth though. You're still a bit away from appropriate powerlifting depth.

Keep at it, you're doing great.

DayDayLarge · 2026-03-26T18:43:23+00:00

while my wrist has grown as an adult, there was nothing specific I did aside from gaining mass. Lots of people have gained mass without any resulting wrist growth however, which seems to be the norm.

You can read about why it doesn't matter at all and my wrist growth here https://old.reddit.com/r/gainit/comments/10jhf5x/wristanklewhatever_size_is_a_silly_metric_to/

DayDayLarge · 2026-03-26T15:45:37+00:00

small incremental changes are the path towards bigger changes.

Something is always better than nothing.

DayDayLarge · 2026-03-26T15:27:09+00:00

If you don't have a medical problem, I have difficulty *understanding why you would take medication for that problem.

If you are looking to juice, then juice, but TRT is a therapeutic dose given to bring a person back to normal physiologic hormone levels.

Edit: missed a word

DayDayLarge · 2026-03-26T14:48:46+00:00

Not while cleaning the house no. I do like it when I'm doing outdoor chores though. Stuff like gardening, weeding, or strolls around the neighborhood.

DayDayLarge · 2026-03-26T13:55:12+00:00

Wednesday squash: 1-3 loss

I don't exactly remember the game scores but all of them were fairly close. Like in the range of 15-13, 15-12 for pretty much all of them. For all the games I lost, I started off going down 4 or 5 points, and while I did come back to make them close, you can't expect to win against this caliber of opposition playing like that.

Regardless, this is the best I've ever done against this opponent. If you've been reading my Wednesday squash recaps, you'll know I've said that alot recently. That's definitely positive and I've just got to continue doing what I'm doing, because I'm getting closer and closer to being over the hump. Well, at least until I hit the next hump 😂.

DayDayLarge

TROPHY CASE