230 @ 5ft 10! Shiii! Straight up beast. Same height as me yet I weighed in at 188lb this morning, still going for 485 deadlift tomorrow though #retreatswithmyonlydecentlift[/quote]
I’m far from being a beast. about 5’ out of the 5’10 is straight up adipose tissue, so not very beastly.[/quote]
Pretty sure your bench/military/squat indicate you still hold a lot of mass on me though bro! 230 is big, and you can’t have put on THAT much fat since your display pic!
230 @ 5ft 10! Shiii! Straight up beast. Same height as me yet I weighed in at 188lb this morning, still going for 485 deadlift tomorrow though #retreatswithmyonlydecentlift[/quote]
I’m far from being a beast. about 5’ out of the 5’10 is straight up adipose tissue, so not very beastly.[/quote]
Don’t sell yourself short man. From the pictures I’ve seen/added mustaches to you look pretty damn solid.
@jake_j_m and samoth: thanks guys. Compared to the layman I suppose I look decent, but naturally there is always room for improvement.
Did some SSB GMs along with ab wheel rollouts. Felt like my head was going to explode and in the off chance it didn’t the SSB would probably rip my head off. In short they suck and should probably help my squat and deadlift. I’ll definitely give these a good try in the near future.
Lower back rolling
Internal/external hip rotation
Band adduction/abduction
Hip flexors
Hammie flossing
Hip loosification
Glute ungluing
Band pull aparts n dislocates
Shoulder tornadoes
Oly Squat
2x305 @8
1x325 @8 —> left knee felt weird, decided to go to low bar
somex1x325, somexsomex225 —> talk about a fish out of water
Even while warming up my left knee felt weird. Probably a combination of poor mobility, lots of sitting, and constraint by denim walking.
Low bar squatting felt sooooo awkward. Lesson learned, don’t stray away from low bar squatting lest I act a fool. Now I’ll be going back to low bar squatting. While doing so I need to stay patient and not let a lack of decent execution get the best of me. In time it will come back.
Mobility triad of secksi suppleness (the 3 things I’ll be focusing on mobility-wise):
External and internal hip rotation
Should suppleness for low bar squatting
Whatever comes up that needs attention, right now that weird feeling I get in my left knee while squatting. Which may be aided by more ext/int hip work.
This week will be a transition block (i.e. do w/e I feel like doing), then next week I’ll start something a bit different.
[quote]AquaCruzer wrote:
Low bar squatting felt sooooo awkward. Lesson learned, don’t stray away from low bar squatting lest I act a fool. Now I’ll be going back to low bar squatting. While doing so I need to stay patient and not let a lack of decent execution get the best of me. In time it will come back.
[/quote]
Dya mean high bar squatting felt so awkward? Or are you doing olympic style/stance squats but with low bar position mindblown
[quote]AquaCruzer wrote:
Low bar squatting felt sooooo awkward. Lesson learned, don’t stray away from low bar squatting lest I act a fool. Now I’ll be going back to low bar squatting. While doing so I need to stay patient and not let a lack of decent execution get the best of me. In time it will come back.
[/quote]
Dya mean high bar squatting felt so awkward? Or are you doing olympic style/stance squats but with low bar position mindblown[/quote]
Well I started off with high bar then switched to low bar after a single w/ 325. Stopped high bar b/c my left knee was feeling weird. I basically forgot how to low bar squat.
[quote]AquaCruzer wrote:
Well I started off with high bar then switched to low bar after a single w/ 325. Stopped high bar b/c my left knee was feeling weird. I basically forgot how to low bar squat.[/quote]
I’m intrigued by the whole high bar/low bar, oly/pl squat thing. I’m hoping that by training high-bar, olympic stance squat I see better leg growth but also, if I decide to compete or truly max out, I could potentially take off my olympic shoes, switch to converse, wider stance and low bar position, and then potentially squat quite a lot more then I can olympic style. in “bigbens” chalk talk videos he talks about one of his friends doing that approach succesfully.
[quote]AquaCruzer wrote:
Well I started off with high bar then switched to low bar after a single w/ 325. Stopped high bar b/c my left knee was feeling weird. I basically forgot how to low bar squat.[/quote]
I’m intrigued by the whole high bar/low bar, oly/pl squat thing. I’m hoping that by training high-bar, olympic stance squat I see better leg growth but also, if I decide to compete or truly max out, I could potentially take off my olympic shoes, switch to converse, wider stance and low bar position, and then potentially squat quite a lot more then I can olympic style. in “bigbens” chalk talk videos he talks about one of his friends doing that approach succesfully.
I find this interesting for my goals.[/quote]
I was hoping that by doing a ‘harder’ style of squatting (high bar) which works the legs more, and seeing that strong legs are important for a raw squat, that oly squatting would help. I’m sure my legs got at least a bit stronger, but the main thing was I forgot how to low bar squat. Now I know that I need to stick to how I would compete. I also have a feeling that a lack of ab work probably contributed to the low bar awkwardness.
I’m not really sure if you could train your high bar squat up in the hopes of increasing your low bar squat really. You might see some gains due to more quad strength, but at the end of the day, a high bar and low bar squat are very different lifts. High bar squats, at least from what I have noticed, take the hips/hammies/lower back out of the movement to a degree and switch the emphasis on the quads. This is purely to make you better at clean and jerking, as the catch position of a clean (where you bounce out of the hole after you catch the bar and utilize a stretch reflex to get up) is greatly assisted by TRUE atg high bar squatting. Yes high bar squatting is more difficult than low bar squatting, but thats purely because its as close to a front squat as it is to a low bar PL style squat.
Also, I have found knee issues (which have been killing my oly squat progress lately…) when high bar squatting to be very closely related to hip abductor, quad and ITB tightness. Might be worth a look!
[quote]phlegms wrote:
I’m not really sure if you could train your high bar squat up in the hopes of increasing your low bar squat really. You might see some gains due to more quad strength, but at the end of the day, a high bar and low bar squat are very different lifts. High bar squats, at least from what I have noticed, take the hips/hammies/lower back out of the movement to a degree and switch the emphasis on the quads. This is purely to make you better at clean and jerking, as the catch position of a clean (where you bounce out of the hole after you catch the bar and utilize a stretch reflex to get up) is greatly assisted by TRUE atg high bar squatting. Yes high bar squatting is more difficult than low bar squatting, but thats purely because its as close to a front squat as it is to a low bar PL style squat.
/my 2 cents[/quote]
I have definitely realized that. I mainly was hoping for increased quad strength, but I’d rather have the technique down for low bar squatting and add some accessory work for more quad strength.
[quote]phlegms wrote:
Also, I have found knee issues (which have been killing my oly squat progress lately…) when high bar squatting to be very closely related to hip abductor, quad and ITB tightness. Might be worth a look! [/quote]
I’ll definitely be loosening things out. Thanks for the input man!
[quote]phlegms wrote:
I’m not really sure if you could train your high bar squat up in the hopes of increasing your low bar squat really. You might see some gains due to more quad strength, but at the end of the day, a high bar and low bar squat are very different lifts. High bar squats, at least from what I have noticed, take the hips/hammies/lower back out of the movement to a degree and switch the emphasis on the quads. This is purely to make you better at clean and jerking, as the catch position of a clean (where you bounce out of the hole after you catch the bar and utilize a stretch reflex to get up) is greatly assisted by TRUE atg high bar squatting. Yes high bar squatting is more difficult than low bar squatting, but thats purely because its as close to a front squat as it is to a low bar PL style squat.
/my 2 cents[/quote]
You make interesting pointz. I may have to try some low bar/olympic stance singles after my high-bar squatting to see how it feels.
Lower back rolling
Internal/external hip rotation
Band adduction/abduction
Hip flexors
Hammie flossing
Hip loosification
Glute ungluing
Band pull aparts n dislocates
Shoulder tornadoes
Squat
1x365 @8 —> much easier than I thought it was going to be
1x395 @9 —> barely a 9, belt on but shouldn’t been one notch tighter, once again easier than I thought it would be
0x425 @11 —> unracking and set up threw me off specifically the descent (obvi), I definitely feel like I have this in me
Overall happy with squatting went. Had no trouble finding an acceptable groove. With more practice, things will improve. In addition to quad and post. chain work, lots of abs and upper back work should help. Plus working on shoulder mobility should help with getting a better set up. The past few week’s mobility work seems to have helped the bottom of my squat feel better.
Bench press
1x295 @8.5 —> felt a bit heavy, wasn’t able to get my lats into it
1x315 @9.5
0x325 @11 —> probably shouldn’t have attempted this
Benching was decent, but something didn’t feel quite right. With 325 my chest/shoulders kinda gave out as I was lowering it in the last inch or two. I most likely don’t have 325 in me quite yet, all in good time.
Deadlift
1x405 @8 —> could’ve been a tad faster, need to be more patient off the floor
0x445 @11 —> didn’t commit to the pull
0x445 @11 —> belt on one notch too tight, bleh didn’t commit to the pull again
1x445 @10 —> belt on one notch looser, omg worst rep ever
Pullling was meh. I need to get my shoulders further back and sit back more. This technique problem tells me I need to really focus on strengthening my hamstrings, glutes, and lower back. The rep w/ 445 almost looks like a paused deadlift. Paused pulls may have ingrained some bad technique since my technique wasn’t great to begin with.
While today’s numbers weren’t ideal, today did achieve the goal of letting me know how my lifts stand at the moment and most importantly what I need to do to improve.
That DL was a little funky huh. I wonder if the pauses are really causing a faulty movement pattern. My cycles have been set-up with pauses in the first week only. Every other variation is bands or blocks (mostly blocks). I think block DL (or rack pulls) set-up about mid-shin or a little higher would work awesome for you. Awesome lifting.
[quote]chazdaman wrote:
That DL was a little funky huh. I wonder if the pauses are really causing a faulty movement pattern. My cycles have been set-up with pauses in the first week only. Every other variation is bands or blocks (mostly blocks). I think block DL (or rack pulls) set-up about mid-shin or a little higher would work awesome for you. Awesome lifting.[/quote]
Yeah, I figured the pauses may have messed things up. I’m definitely going to be doing block pulls. Thanks man!