Happy Birthday man…thanks for the response…left my log at work but when I go in tomorrow I’ll PM you some of the stuff I have been doing.
Hope your having a great day where ever you are! Happy Birthday!
All the best for your 30th. As always, it’s great (and unfortunately too rare) to see someone with your drive and focus. Stay strong.
Happy Birthday young fella… think, 5 more years and you can come and hang with the cool kids in the over 35 forums… lol!
“There are times when a man should be content with what he has… but never with what he is.”
Heracles: Thanks so much man, I truly do appreciate your advice! i think I was doing quite a few things wrong because I was learning how to pull from Starting Strength, but that is pulling conventional, when i do more of a hybrid stance. i think what you said make so much sense! thanks for it brother!
MIM: Like I said, I am definitely going to put this to use! But no i have never felt like I was going to fall backwards at all! I must be doing a lot wrong!
just rob: It definitely helps brother! Thanks! The good news is that i have the strength that i do whole having form this messed up…when it all gets straightened out, I should gain a good bit pretty quickly!
Lift and eat: I definitely am going to brother, BTW i resent the Non-cyborg comment and am now officially making it my business to get back to that status!
OG: Great to see you back around here again!
Power GnP: Man, I always treasure the advice you give brother, keep it coming! What you and some others have said makes so much sense in my mind. When i am doing touch-a-go reps of deads, my first pull is always by far the hardest, and I always blamed this on the rebound off the floor (Which no doubt doesn’t hurt) but my following reps are always done completely different because in order to keep my tightness I retract my shoulder blades and bend my legs down.
The weight always feels twice as light on all of these reps…why i never figured this out it idiotic to me…This is exactly why I need to be around good people at a serious gym…
i mean it is ridiculous…when i do Touch and go with 500+ lbs the first one almost bursts my spleen and then I can just keep reping them out until my grip goes…Why did I not figure this out sooner…I blame you and your distracting capri pants! Thanks so much for the advice again man!
Kross: “giant green donkey dick” made me laugh. Dude you know I don’t judge people by how much weight they pull, That, to me, is relative. It is about the work they put in…and if I do not hit a goal of something, i can usually trace it right back to poor preparation on my part. And in this case, not taking the time to keep adjusting and learning better forms and preforming better reps of deads, it lead to a big fail.
That is where the disappointment comes in…Everyone who reads and posts here knows that i respect them and the work they are doing, i just hope that everyone can learn from my publicly posted mistakes! Thanks man, and no you don’t suck big green donkey dick!
PJ84: and that, my friend, is why I love you! But you honestly think that when i am laying in bed at night I will not be thinking up new ways to make a 700 lb look stupid easy!?!? haha thanks man!
The Dude: You know I can’t be mad at you big guy! you had me at whore!
Enjoy the pain: I hope it helps brother! if you need any more help with it, just ask away! and thanks man!
Power Gnp, Kross, mateus, cap juniper, Heracles, deltaone,johnydylan, OG,gebaker, MIM,aut-x-rs, and of course bunny (It’s good to see you back around these parts man!)
Thank you all so, so much for the happy birthday wishes and kind words, coming home and seeing all of this meant more than all of you know!
***Well just got back in country and haven’t slept or eating much of anything besides beef jerky for a few days…It was a HORRIBLE way to spend a birthday, but now i have a few days to recoup, chill out and celebrate! Today when i walked through my door, my girl had bought me a box of lucky charms (one of my favorite foods as a kid)…
Being it’s my birthday and all, for the next few days i will be eating some serious junk i would not touch the rest of the year…such as lucky charms…
Being, home alone, i went directly to the kitchen, pulled out a mixing bowl, dumped the entire box in, and ate them all…Now that I have finished the responses and the sugar coma is slowly taking over my brain, I am going to fall asleep and stay that way until October…
It is my plan to hit the gym tomorrow to start the new program…and now the I have “Magically Delicious” power flowing through my veins, I don’t see how I can do wrong…
It’s good to be home, and thanks again everyone!
Maybe 30 won’t be so bad…
[quote]Alpha wrote:
Maybe 30 won’t be so bad…
[/quote]
It’s not. I’m nearing 32 now and feel better than ever … most days 
[quote]Alpha wrote:
Kross: “giant green donkey dick” made me laugh. Dude you know I don’t judge people by how much weight they pull, That, to me, is relative. It is about the work they put in…and if I do not hit a goal of something, i can usually trace it right back to poor preparation on my part. And in this case, not taking the time to keep adjusting and learning better forms and preforming better reps of deads, it lead to a big fail. That is where the disappointment comes in…Everyone who reads and posts here knows that i respect them and the work they are doing, i just hope that everyone can learn from my publicly posted mistakes! Thanks man, and no you don’t suck big green donkey dick!
Maybe 30 won’t be so bad…
[/quote]
Oh, I know you don’t judge on weight moved but by if they are “putting out” (not that kind). I understood what you meant I was just referring to your “Suck Less-ness”. Just funnin.
And 30 is not that bad. I hit it over 4 years ago. So long ago I don’t remember it. haha
Are you now moving to more metcon/conditioning stuff?
My two cents on sumo deadlifting: it might be worth trying to bring your hips closer to the bar. Much, much closer. I don’t think trying to get more leverage by leaning back (so that you would fall over if you let go) is the way to go in sumo.
To get an advantageous hip position, for your height, I think the only option is to take a wider stance - there simply isn’t room to open up the hips (get them vertically as closely aligned with the bar as possible) with that narrow a stance. If you look at some not-half-bad sumo lifters, e.g. here IPF Powerlifting WC 2009 Men 75 kg DL - YouTube
you’ll notice the one thing they all have in common is a very close hip position. The lift is as vertical as is feasible.
One thing that I have found helpful is to really pull yourself down into the start position. As you descend, really fight to keep your hips forward, close to the bar. This is something of a pre-stretch for the lift also. YMMV.
Just saw this.
welcome back, and still tearing it up.
Love the programming, I’ll back track and read it all when I have time
kmc
Thanks for the programming piece, gave me some thoughts for my next one.
I love reading that kind of stuff anyway as I always learn something or think of something in a different way, which keeps things developing nicely. Like you said to someone else though, there’s so much to read and learn if you want to, that there’s really not enough hours in a lifetime!
Hope you enjoyed your bday treats and don’t have a massive post sugar crash lol!
The dude: Yea man, i would agree with you…sometimes i just feel like I am running out of time…I’m not even sure what i am racing against…just sometimes feel like it… Luckily i don’t believe what they say about the masses…otherwise I’d probably be fat w/ low T-levels and dying because i have a brain tumor…
Kross: yea man i will be hitting more conditioning and higher rep to kind of “Deload” for the next month or so…nd trying to get my back back in shape…we will see how it all goes…
aut-x-rs: yea man i think you are right…i honestly am getting some high hopes now that i am looking at my deadlift form differently now…But again, thanks so much for the advice man, believe me, it will go to good use…
KMC" great to have you back brother! just hit some recent PR’s and have big plans for this next year, keep checking in and making sure i am not all talk brother…really it is great to have you back around these parts!
Lift and eat: thanks man…and I totally agree with you…just getting someone else’s perspective on things and change so much…just look at me and this deadlifting of late!!! I am just glad that a few of you still want to hear what i have to say about training!!! Thanks man!
****I finished the night off with 1.5 Pappa john’s large pizzas and quite a few drinks! Honestly though, I can’t keep up this eating bad stuff! it is so good going down, but then I feel like Ralph Machio in Karate kid 3 for the rest of the night!!
Tomorrow goes right back to eating clean…it is amazing how your body will actually reject bad food once you haven’t had it for a while…Just goes to show you something I guess…
Again, thanks for all of the love of late everyone! you all are great…the next 6 are for you! God help my workout tomorrow!..it is just too bad we all can’t be sitting around a table having a few together in person right now…
You know how to Partay!! Lucky charms and Pizza…(was it veggie thin crust? thats my FAVE!!)
Glad you enjoyed while it lasted…now get back to the gym!
[quote]mom-in-MD wrote:
You know how to Partay!! [/quote]
ha ha that reminds me of this
“Mid-Life Crustacean”
Brief Summary: Mr. Krabs realizes that he is old, and hangs out with SpongeBob and Patrick, believing them to be cool.
SpongeBob SquarePants: Hello, Mr. Krabs. Are you ready to party?
Mr. Krabs: I’m ready to party! Are you ready to party, SpongeBob?
SpongeBob SquarePants: I’m ready to party! Are you ready to party, Patrick?
Patrick Star: I’m ready to party! Are you ready to party, SpongeBob?
SpongeBob SquarePants: I’m ready to party! Are you ready to party, Mr. Krabs?
Mr. Krabs: I’m ready to par-tay! Are you ready to par-tay, SpongeBob?
SpongeBob SquarePants: I’m ready to par-tay! Are you ready to par-tay?
Patrick Star: I’m ready to party! Are you ready to party?
SpongeBob SquarePants: I’m ready to party! Are you ready to party, Mr. Krabs?
Mr. Krabs: I’m ready to par…
MIM and the Dude: i woke up feeling like the weird random robot in Rocky IV…and my tongue has a weird magically delicious film on it…It has been nothing but clean food for me today!
I went for a long LSD run this morning as punishment for my ingested crimes…
Then chased it with 8 hill sprints…it was a puketastic thing to do with a hangover…
Hey alpha-
Few questions:
What do your LSD runs look like? Do you go for time or distance or a certain speed? I used to be one of those guys that used to think doing LSD runs would be totally catabolic and I would waste away but you have shown me that I was just justifying laziness in my mind.
Also, I understand that it takes a lot of time and is pretty boring to post your diet all the time, but I do miss you diet updates. Are you still doing the one solid meal a day thing with lots of shakes?
Lastly, your bench press is incredibly impressive. Have you always been such a strong presser or was there certain exercises that helped you get it up to where it is now. I really want a 405 bench press by my 24th bday in September and I am about 30-40lbs away yet. I have been tempted to just gain a bunch of weight to improve my leverages and get it but I realize I would be a lot happy staying at my current weight around 210. Any advice?
Thedude- it’s sad really that I know exactly what episode you are talking about…
I know I’m late, but better late than never, happy (belated) birthday Alpha! I’m sure you will continue to inspire people for years to come! All the best.
PS By the way it all adds up, I’m pretty sure you’re Batman!
Hey Alpha,
Do you find rucking too much makes the weight fall off? And make you change your diet - throw in some more carbs, etc?
I will be humping a bit soon, just wanted your advice on how to eat to keep muscle and not get blurry
And still loving your work…
ajweins: My LSD runs are just a kind of active recovery thing I do on the back roads and in the woods near my house, it is a much of a mental get away as it is exercise…for this reason i seldom push myself on them. It is like taking a long walk, to look around and appreciate what i am blessed with and get things into perspective that i often blow out of proportion…just at a faster pace…
I actually used to think the same thing about LSD run (that they were the devil) but the more you ask around the more you hear about impressive athletes/Body builders doing them…even Arnold (in his prime) said that he ran 3 miles 3 times a week…It sure never made him weak and small…
Now I am not saying go out and run for miles everyday…That I am sure would not be too advantageous to your goals, but keeping your heart a little healthier and recovering with a little easy exercise beats sitting on the couch in my mind any day.
I will start posting my diet again, I just didn’t realize people were that interested in it…And the amount of solid food I get in a day directly correlates with the amount of time I am away from home because of the job…But on most days, yea it is still 1 solid meal with the rest shakes…
and the bench…Ok, well I have always been a decent presser, but was stuck BADLY at 365 for months…355 would go, but 365 was a truck to me…So I did a lot of research and started working on my form…at first my max press dropped considerably, but then it slowly creeped back up surpassing the 365 mark and is still moving forward to this day…all of that to say…IMO it is ALL about your form…
You need to figure out if most of your pressing power comes from your tris, chest or delts…once you figure that out, then you can fix your form to accentuate your strengths, and bring up your weaknesses…I am a chest presser so my arms are more out to the sides than most people’s. If i were more of a tri presser I would keep them closer to my sides…I hope that makes some sense…
You can also do direct work on your sticking points…But if I were to give my favorite accessory movements to up my bench, they would be weighted dips, BW dips, BB Incline, floor presses, rack deadlifts, DB rows, BB Rows, and plate front raises…If I didn’t answer your question just shoot me a follow up man. Thanks for asking
jhlrees: Thanks man! and believe it or not, you are not the first person to claim that i am Batman! Now if only i could work out that independently wealthy thing…
BadMF: You know man, I honestly have never done enough rucking to really notice that happening…but I know it definitely will…I will have to refer you to Dirtysouth, my representative of rucking, for his expertise on the matter. but I would say, if you are doing it for a certain selection or LONG test, i would say ruck more in the preparation than not just to get your feet toughened so you don’t get as many blisters and problems…Your body knows what size it is and will come back quickly once your goals change again…The muscle memory alone will help you gain the muscle right back…but being crippled because of tender feet would be a huge kick in the nuts man…Let me see if I can get Dirty to help you out on this…Thanks for asking man!
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“Study strategy over the years and achieve the spirit of the warrior. Today is victory over yourself of yesterday; tomorrow is your victory over lesser men.”
“In fighting and in everyday life you should be determined though calm. Meet the situation without tenseness yet not recklessly, your spirit settled yet unbiased. An elevated spirit is weak and a low spirit is weak. Do not let the enemy see your spirit.”
“Generally speaking, the Way of the warrior is resolute acceptance of death”
“Do nothing which is of no use.”
-Miyamoto Musashi
*READ: The Book of Five Rings by Musashi…and apply it to whatever you are passionate about…the dude was a visionary…
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29 May 2010: Training
Training A:
Insert: As fast as possible:
21 Reps Dead hang Pull-ups
21 Reps 105lb Squat Presses
15 Reps Dead hang Pull-ups
15 Reps 105lb Squat Presses
9 Reps Dead hang Pull-ups
9 Reps 105lb Squat Presses
Strength: Giant Sets 4x8
1a. Squats: 315/8, 345/8, 375/8, 395/8
1b. DB Rows: 110/8, 120/8, 120/8, 120/8
1c. Flat BB Bench: 110/8, 120/8, 120/8, 120/8
1d. Ab: Toes to bar, 4 Sets of 8 Reps
2a. Rev Grip BB rows: 185/8, 185/8, 185/8, 185/8
2b. Weighted Dips: 135/8, 180/8, 180/8, 180/8
2c. Ab: Toes to bar, 4 sets of 8 reps
Extract: As fast as possible:
21 Reps Dead hang Pull-ups
21 Reps 105lb Squat Presses
15 Reps Dead hang Pull-ups
15 Reps 105lb Squat Presses
9 Reps Dead hang Pull-ups
9 Reps 105lb Squat Presses
Notes:
I know all of the weights seem extremely light for me, but that is the whole point…i am trying to get the mind/muscle connection back, and am really working on my form…
everything felt fine, but I am getting some serious lower back cramps which are about as fun as syphilis…
You would not have believed how much this made me sweat…i guess the combination of switching things up to something new, and the higher volume did me in! i was feeling sick, sweating like crazy and was sucking wind! this usually happens for the first week for something new for me though…
Overall a good session, but i did feel funny working so hard with half of the weights I have been accustomed to for the last month…ahhh ego, get back in check…
I’ve been following from the start and this is inspirational stuff, man. I usually just shut up and listen and learn but I was wondering why you don’t ramp up on your giant sets? Maybe I’m jumping the gun as this is your first workout after the max effort stuff but just curious as many guys (especially on here) advocate ramping up.
Also, on a non-training note, The Book of Five Rings is on my list to ead, what’s slowed me up from buying it is the huge number of different copies/translations, care to recommend a decent one? I’ve heard some are below par and kill the spirit of the book…
Thanks!