I haven’t done back extensions in a while either. Both of my current gyms have sub-standard hyper benches. The one gym has one that kind of teeters side-to-side when you get onto it. SCARY!
Just keep working on your mobility drills and goblet squats. Squat love will soon have you captivated!
today sucked. thought i’d try a protein shake pre-gym since i was hungry. didn’t sit so well in my gut so i didn’t have my usual pre-gym coffee. will try a handful of nuts + coffee if i’m in that situation again.
warm-up eva / softball rolling.
10kg goblet squat 1x5 controlled 1x5 dynamic
15kg goblet squat 2x5 slow 1x5 dynamic
this really does seem to be the perfect warm-up for me. they are getting smoother faster. nice practice of pulling hips through / pushing knees out. still surprise myself at how i can be fairly comfortable with a narrower stance than i think i can.
front squats 5x5.
20kg 1x5
25kg 1x5 felt fairly smooth and easy so:
30kg 5x5.
fairly happy with that since i haven’t really done squats properly for about a month now. more weight would have been possible but i want to work on pulling hips through / pushing knees out hard a bit more at this weight before adding some.
cleans.
30kg powerclean x2, clean x1.
call that a warm-up:
feeling pretty tired / lethargic. lack of caffene, i think.
35kg 1, 1, 1
37.5kg 0, 1, 1
38.5kg 0, 0, 1, 1, 0, 0, 0
35kg 1
hmm. was aiming to do ‘10 reps to max’ but ended up with 8. 10 is probably too many, especially if i’m going to miss (which doesn’t count as a rep but takes some effort anyway). need to rethink this probably. also there isn’t much point squatting before cleaning when i’m not squatting the max weights and the movement is warmed up with goblet squats anyway. need to rethink the order.
snatch.
had programmed for 8-10 x3 (volume). there wasn’t any way that was going to happen. played a bit with up to 20kg but felt slow after all the above. felt light! but pretty tired by now (took 1 1/2 hours already). bailed. bailed on my ab work, too 
today’s program needs a re-think. probably reverse the order (snatch, clean, squat). guess i’ve independently discovered why things tend to be done that way.
I have a hard time doing snatches after cleans because the cleans tire me out. I also need to eat something between snatches and cleans most of the time and sometimes before squatting too. I’ll drink coffee or green tea while I’m working out if it’s not too late but I’m thinking about some sugary drinks or something for when I get lethargic mid workout.
I’m still trying to figure that part out. I think snatches have to be first for me though.
[quote]alexus wrote:
but pretty tired by now (took 1 1/2 hours already). bailed. bailed on my ab work, too
today’s program needs a re-think. probably reverse the order (snatch, clean, squat). guess i’ve independently discovered why things tend to be done that way.[/quote]
That was a long workout. I can’t imagine having any “oomph” in my legs at all for snatching after already having squatted and cleaned for 1 1/2 hours!
I guess the experts know best as far as the order is concerned.
i think you have the right idea with changing the order–and the order you thought to me makes sense.
For me snatches are hardest, followed by cleans or c&J’s, followed by any type of squats. I like to do my hardest, most tasking exercise first then i can float a bit on the remaining ones that don’t wear me as much.
yeah, the order i came up with was screwey. the rationale was that squats are my priority so do them when fresh. squatting before cleaning helps me clean more weight since i have the confidence that i can indeed stand that weight up since i squatted it already. snatches are oh so fun.
but yeah, snatches need to be done when fresh. while i will do max squatting before max cleaning there isn’t any point squatting before cleaning when i’m not squatting the weights i’m cleaning (e.g., when i’m doing 5x5).
TRAINING (am after pm last night)
general warm-up.
eva / softball rolling.
goblet squats 10kg 1x5 controlled, 1x5 dynamic, 15kg 2x5 controlled, 1x5 dynamic
note to self: focus on hard lumbar arch rather than dynamic
SNATCH (30 minutes max - otherwise i’d never do anything else!)
warm-up bar drills (powersnatch, drop snatch, hang snatch)
20kg triple, 25kg triple, 27.5kg 2x triple.
note to self: 27.5kg might be a bit much for a triple. focus on extending properly and fast drop under. get more fired up!!!
PUSH-PRESS 5x5
25kg 1x5 warm-up.
feeling lethargic at this point and really wanting to bail but really not wanting to have to post that i bailed!!!
got some coffee and had a smoke then back to it:
30kg 5x5. this is a bit sad for me since i was almost at 1x5 strict press when i used to train them more. focusing on getting a good leg drive and using abs rather than hanging on with my lumbar spine.
CHINS - 10x1 done during rest. jump to grab the bar (so from dead hang) 2 using legs a little on the wall. 2 no legs. 3 using legs a little. stepper for the last 3 reps (so not from dead hang).
CALF RAISE TO DORSIFLEXION: 4x10 done during rest.
BACK EXTENSION:
1x10 unweighted warm-up
7.5kg 1x10
10kg 1x10
12.5kg 2x10
only really feeling anything for the last two sets. more weight? guess so. wondering whether GHR and back extensions do the same thing, really. maybe i should hold the weight out in front of me rather than clutching it to my chest…
PLANKS:
my punishment for bailing on them yesterday.
5kg 60 seconds x2.
7.5kg 60 seconds.
think i should do 90 seconds, really, since these only really start to burn after the first 60 seconds. there was wobbling, though. will get to 10kg before i increase the time (having a 5kg and 2.5kg plate on me is a bit unweildy).
fact is that if i’m going to take 40 minutes to warm-up with my rolling / goblet squatting (as i really think i should) my training is going to take 2 hours. apparently this isn’t uncommon for Oly lifting (if you only train once per day) and most of that time is sitting on your butt resting anyway. i don’t think i’m aiming to do too much (only 4 or sometimes 3 exercises + core). will get better at distributing some throughout (like the calf raises and chin-ups today).
need to eat something during training though, i think. trail mix? nuts and some dried fruit. will see how that works out for me tomorrow (max day yay).
couple hours sleep before work…
oh my god trail mix!..that’d be good if you need a burst of energy. Bananas do the trick too!
for not for not feeling it, you got a lot of work in! good seesion!
“got some coffee and had a smoke then back to it”
rofl. alexus, you are the shit.
ever try caffeine pills instead of drinking coffee? I used to drink coffee pre-workout but I noticed soon after that my veins in my arms and shit would go away, so I guess coffee vasoconstricts. Not good, more blood flow during training = better. caffeine pills ftw (just ordered Java Stim from Poliquin… most expensive caffeine pills I’ve ever ordered, $37 I think for 3 month-supply).
also… my training takes forever, usually 2-2.5 hours. My work sets are pretty average in terms of volume, but my warm-up, and warm-up sets can eat time away. for example… I will foam roll everything, use a LAX ball on my feet/piriformis, use the stick on my calves/quads/add’s. Then I’ll go through my mobility routine, that’s 15-20 mins right there.
Then a bar warm-up, then my warm-up sets for my first exercise, which always takes long because it takes me awhile to get in the groove, technique-wise. Then I’ll switch exercises, and grease the groove again for that if the movement is complicated enough… That’s why I love shit like: push press, squats, etc, in my program… 'cause I know it won’t take long. 
i have wondered about caffeine pills, how long do they last?
I like monster or coffee–liquid caffine stuff- because they don’t really last that long. I can never take any sort of stimulant that’s a pill because it lasts way too long …and i need to sleep whenever i can. I fear a caffine pill would take too long to feel any affect, and then by the time it does, I’m over it and I can’t sleep.
i think i read somewhere that pills take around 20 minutes to be absorbed by the gut but different kinds of pills might have different absorption rates… i swear i took a good hour to absorb something once after a good feed of fish and chips…
sublingual ingestion (under the tongue) is much much faster… i’m not sure if we can absorb coffee or caffine pills that way… thats where my first sip of coffee sits, though, just in case.
those caffine pills sound interesting. the only ones i’ve seen are over the counter ‘no doze’ or similar which appear to contain less caffine than the average cup of coffee… i had to look up ‘vasoconstriction’ with wikipedia because i wasn’t sure what it was. looks like caffine does that. why would the pills be different than coffee with respect to that?
good to know i’m not a weirdo with my warm-ups, andy. couldn’t believe i only really got 3 work sets of snatches in 30 minutes :-/ i know this isn’t crossfit, but jeepers… i so wish i could train 2x per day.
Congrats on your first comp!!
So different from a PL comp…very quiet 
Do you make up your own training??
Great job for completing the workout, even if it was only for not wanting to write that in your log. I think that way too.
Hmm… try the weight behind your head on the back extensions. You should definetely feel it then.
I hate to hear how discouraged you are about the time it takes to finish training. I wish I can do something ;(
well, caffeine takes awhile to hit you. caffeine pill that is. I usually take it 45-60 mins prior to lifting. So I’ll down 400mg of the stuff (2 pills), chill for 15 mins while I eat my Finibar, then hit the gym and do my warm-up. Start with one 200mg pill though. When I first tried 'em I took 600mg at once. That workout was insane, and not in a good way. Felt like shooting myself.
My workouts take forever too. I skip for a few minutes, play with the bar, look at some youtube videos, do some snatches, grumble about them and look at more videos, plus recording all the lifts and looking at them when they go wrong to try and correct … it ends up taking a long time!
I haven’t figured out how to eat for these long workouts yet either. Right now I’m eating ice cream before I workout and munching on fruit, drinking coffee and sometimes chocolate throughout the workout. This is a new problem for me because my workouts were rarely more than an hour before.
Last week I did some days with my squats in the morning and that was nice for my evening workout but my squats weren’t as strong. I might do that again next week though. Keep us posted on what works!
lol @ you watching videos… if I’m having a really shitty day at the gym, I’ll literally pull up youtube on my phone and start watching slow motion lifts, and go at it again, haha… this shit is so annoying sometimes, but I don’t see myself training any other way…
and check out some Finibars… those things rock.
TRAINING: max day!!
Warm Up:
eva / softball rolling
10kg goblet squats 2x5
15kg goblet squats 1x5 slow 1x5 dynamic.
bar work (powersnatch, overhead squat, drop snatch, hang drop snatch - seems to be working okay for now)
SNATCH:
20kg double
25kg double
27.5kg double
30kg 2x1
32.5kg single
33.5kg single (why couldn’t i get that for the comp!!!)
34.5kg - PB attempt: 0, 0, 0. dammit
32.5kg single
fairly happy with this. will definitely profit from more reps with around 25-30kg. some of todays attempts involved muscling it around a bit. still, that means i got stronger lol. 35kg (major goal for me) is so close i can smell it… especially since the little collars i use to keep the plates on probably weigh .25-.5kg each…
CLEAN / FRONT SQUAT:
20kg 1x5 squat
25kg 1x3 squat
30kg clean, squat double
35kg squat, rest, clean
37.5kg squat, rest, clean
40kg squat, rest, failed clean.
moved the the uprights (so not powercleaning into position anymore)
40kg 1, 0, 1, failed clean.
argh.
35kg 6x3. failed last rep on last set. these felt pretty good actually. good work weight for triples. was only going to do 3x3 but felt so good i thought i’d double it.
Abs:
10kg plank 60 sec
10kg plank 60 sec
15kg plank 60 sec.
these don’t feel particularly hard… will get to 20kg then build the time back to 90 sec, i guess. have found a way of maneuvering the weight into position myself.
made a mix of sultanas, almonds, dates, and walnuts. started munching once snatches were finished. this seemed to work pretty good. chocolate coated coffee beans would be perfect, i reckon… bit too expensive, though.
there was this skinny dude in the gym tonight doing a perfect ATG squat with his weight on his heels and a hard lumbar arch in bare feet. the weights weren’t stellar but it was about the most perfect squat i’ve seen. i complimented him and he said ‘yeah, some old dude was amazed i could squat so low’. turns out it just comes natural to him and he hasn’t really worked on his squat at all. he seemed to have trouble understanding that other people couldn’t do it as easily as him. damn.
debra i wonder if you might have more luck with snatching in the morning and doing your strength work in the evening. i read something somewhere about how squats in the morning can be a bit problematic for some people (to do with how the lumbar spine stretches out during sleep and compresses during the day). if i could train twice a day i’d try that. except i’d probably prefer to snatch 2x per day heh. your chocolate suggestion is what got me thinking of chocolate covered coffee beans. mmmm…
MOM - yeah, i’m making up my own training at the moment. can’t seem to get myself excited about programs that i’ve seen and my training priorities are a bit different from most (need to focus a lot on rehab work and relatedly squat rehab work). i also try and put certain exercises on certain days when i know people are around who will help motivate me through / give me feedback or advice on that component.
weight behind my neck, nikki? that sounds… suicidal. i think i’d lop my head off. maybe i don’t quite get what you mean…
Alexus, nice workout! lol I get stronger because I’m not getting it right too. Not too bad a side effect!
Morning snatching…that might be worth a try. I’m kinda dumb and uncoordinated in the morning so that might be a problem It’s possible I’d be late for work everyday getting caught up in my snatches! As long as I don’t make too much noise it’s something I could try.
Andy, I have a box of Finibars that I forgot about too. I don’t know how people did this before youtube!
[quote]
there was this skinny dude in the gym tonight doing a perfect ATG squat with his weight on his heels and a hard lumbar arch in bare feet. the weights weren’t stellar but it was about the most perfect squat i’ve seen. i complimented him and he said ‘yeah, some old dude was amazed i could squat so low’. turns out it just comes natural to him and he hasn’t really worked on his squat at all. he seemed to have trouble understanding that other people couldn’t do it as easily as him. damn. [/quote]
Skinny guy was tall or short? MiM seems to think my squatting is due to my height. I’m testing the theory =)
I’m sure you got the image right about weight behind the neck. I like it because it feels so combat-ish and it’s my favorite place to put the weight. It’s most comfortable for me and it gets my back so good.
That mix sounds so delicious. Glad the food during training helped. I love munching during a workout. Nuts are definetely awesome for energy, usually what I munch on when I feel the need. Don’t feel that need a lot, sadly.
Saw some progress in that workout, good for you