If you go the tire route, I’d suggest drilling a handful of large diameter holes in the tread with something like this: 
If you get rain water in it it’s a pain to drain without that.
If you go the tire route, I’d suggest drilling a handful of large diameter holes in the tread with something like this: 
If you get rain water in it it’s a pain to drain without that.
YES! I have been in the process of organizing my garage for a month now, and we have sooo many tools and bits and pieces of random things that I am not always sure of what they are.
That thing was one of them. Had a pile of a few different sizes, had no clue what they were, couldn’t really describe it well enough to find on Google. Now I know. My mind is calm. Thank you, haha.
In short terms, I’m starting to train them. First of all I started doing Brian Alsruhe style training which definitely upped my core strength by virtue of doing a lot of it, all the time. It definitely decreased my ability to brace though, because it puts you on a clock as part of the giant set format. I found my big lower body lifts were getting sloppier and less technical, rather than more. So I’m planning to keep giant sets for a big supplemental/assistance giant set with some core work to hit that angle, and try clusters for my main lifts to try and ingrain solid technique and bracing while still getting the volume in. It’s a trial, that may well fall flat on its face. But my plan for squat day coming up is roughly this:
Jumps x ~10
Squats: warm up, then 3 “clusters” of 5 singles at ~85%
Giant sets:
Paused or front squats
Explosive squat work
Lower back
Core
Some kind of awful “finisher”
Edit: I’m already nervous about the idea of using this for deadlifts, due to the neurological demands of the lift so I’ll trial with squats first.
Good luck. How does your front squat compare to your back squat?
Where did you get the idea for the clusters?
Another idea you could play with for your main lift would be 6x2, and either increase weight every week (three increments before one decrement) or add reps until you reach 6x5. To get heavy weights in you could ramp to 1-2 reps at 90% as your warmup.
I have no idea, honestly. I don’t really care either, it’s only a supplemental movement. The main idea is to help me get the bracing right.
I was looking for ideas to get some volume in with heavier weights for push pressing and remembered the gains I’d had using clusters for deadlift in the past. Read a bit more and it seemed to fit the bill pretty well, in theory, so let’s see how it works in practice.
That’s also workable, and something I’ll likely use for some things. I don’t like increasing volume very much, because everytime I do that the workout turns into a slog by the end.
I did a couple of months of using clusters last year, had really good results. Don’t really know why I stopped!
That’s pretty good to know. How did you use them?
I don’t see them getting used a lot here, but everyone who uses them seems to get results.
May I post suggestions ![]()
I agree. I find it a lot harder to skip core work when it’s baked into a gnarly giant set
Always. I don’t promise to do them though.
Warmed up to a heavy double, then just kept doing singles with that weight, about 15secs rest between reps, racking bar in between. Then stopped when bar speed slowed.
Sounds pretty similar to my plans.
Did you do it for all lifts?
Just looked back at my log, did it for main/first lift, on an upper lower split, with a back off set after. Did assistance with double rest pauses.
Worked really well for weighted pull ups but I was about 2 stone lighter then. I guess all my pullups are weighted now.
I like that, I might try that too.
Tha is man
So gyms will be reopening 25th, which sounds like good news. However, they won’t be open 24hrs a day, so I’ll have to find time during daylight hours to go. I’m torn between trying to rearrange my whole week, just to get the occasional bench session in, or just keeping with my current plan for a while and forgetting bench.
Forget bench and smash push ups.
@Frank_C Even better idea: forget bench for a few weeks and smash conditioning and push ups.
I’ve been a little bit absent for a week or two, works just gone a little crazy trying to help a colleague through a difficult situation. There have been a few small sessions thrown in that I haven’t logged, but not much worth talking about. The good news being that my weight has nearly dropped to my target weight, and with gyms reopening, I’m planning to start my push towards Christmas and the ADD challenge early. So the plan:
For the next few weeks, until gyms reopen, I’ll start my ADD challenge program, minus bench day. Calories will be kept to a very slight weekly deficit so I can still hit my target weight before gyms reopen.
Once gyms reopen, I’ll be hitting the program full blast from now until Christmas, with deloads applied as needed. I’ll be doing it with the aim of gaining “some” weight, however I have absolutely zero experience of gaining weight without also getting fat so I’m not quite clear how to keep a handle on this. Any ideas or input massively appreciated, this is well outside my wheelhouse. @Voxel @alex_uk @Frank_C @aldebaran
Don’t know, mate.
I don’t feel comfortable giving advice on this as I’m having a tough time figuring it out for myself. Weight manipulation either up or down tends to fuck me up.
Recently, what I’ve resigned myself to is ensure a slight surplus (maybe 5-10% on training days) and less carbs on an off day which almost automatically puts me in a deficit those days. Not really pushing to move the scale, and just up calories if the training seems to warrant it.
I’m trying to improve my main lifts 10-15% every ten to twelve weeks. If I don’t seem on track, and recovery is otherwise good, I’ll eat some extra for a few days.
Ballpark calorie estimates determined by weight in kg x35 for training day and x25 for off-day.
Somewhat partial towards this article recently
Also, nothing wrong with gaining for eight weeks and doing a two week minicut.
Thanks for that one man, I’ll read it more thoroughly when I have the patience and energy to be figuring out how to read the text through the ads. I remember reading Clays training articles before and thinking they seemed pretty common sense and straight forward, so it might be just the right thing.
Eat for maintenance and life will give you opportunities for cheat meals and they will slowly add to the scale.
Family BBQ, food at work, or just the occasional cheat meal will do the trick.