Can you feel your lats from the inverted rows?
Time to breath. 
We all need some of that!
deload?
I did think about starting a log, I’m shy about somethings but the complete opposite at times too. But it might be good for me, especially after my nervous breakdown I had over a bad session. I really needed to vent and be brought back to reality, and besides y’all seem like an effervescent bunch of peeps.
Yes I have a coach, or well the lifting club I joined has at least one coach on the floor at all times, I try to stick with the same one for the time being.
Sounds like you’re going through the same thing as me right now with the DoMS from a new routine. I bet you’ll adjust within the next two weeks and it will stop hurting. I’m praying that’s what happens
One thing that does seem to help is about twenty minutes of moderate cardio using non-stressed muscles and then tons of foam rolling. It’s the next best thing to a sports message. In anycase, great training and I look forward to following your progress!
I’m ashamed to admit it, but I’m getting some sadistic pleasure from reading about your progress with the RSR and relief that I’m not doing it. When you said that the 6x4 day was “hard but did them”, I thought “you just wait until next week!” (Insert evil laugh here. I don’t know how to spell an evil laugh).
IMO don’t worry about whether things are ‘activating’ or not. If you go down and get back up, that is all that matters. Completing the RSR (which I’m confident you will) is a rite of passage and your concept of what is hard work will be forever changed.
Most people find the 6 x 6 and 4 x 4 day the toughest, get through those and it’s plain sailing to a big new PR!!!
Great effort so far, keep at it.
And should you foam roll your Achilles tendons? Not sure about that.
The RSR is supposed to get harder. This is a good thing.
Feeling tired? Do like I’m doing and take a day off.
Loving the RSR in here! Embrace the DOMS, rest if you need to, and most important KEEP SQUATTING!
BTW, just saying… I love your log. So much WIN with an introspective flair.
powerpuff - yeah, deloads and recovery from injury / surgery etc is a really good time to do all the things one doesn’t normally get time to do. prehab stuffs. feels like ‘just stuffing around’ but think i’m learning to have greater respect for it. realizing that that is the kind of stuff that enables me to get PB’s sometimes or just have a good training session with things activating properly.
MOM - sort of… not really. a little stiffness is all. I think I need to make it easier (raise the bar literally rather than figuratively). or even play around with broomstick rows or something like that just to try and feel my lats again. figure out how to contract them again. i need them for Oly Lifting too, apparently. Contracting the lats is supposed to help the bar move back towards you in the first pull. I’m not using them at present for Oly Lifting, pretty sure.
nimain - yes(ish). the idea was for me to go easy on everything EXCEPT squats. i remember now. i had forgotten that. i… think i’m coming up to bio-dictated deload time so some of that might well be going on… but my squat program doesn’t give me a rest for about 4 weeks 
i might need to take a week out from it (repeat week one or maybe week two or something like that).
minimaltechno - i’m shy sometimes, too. i really have found nothing but support here, though. well… i get a good talking to, sometimes, but i deserve it and it is only because people care I haven’t met anybody yet who learned Olympic Lifting who doesn’t say that learning it is frustrating as hell at times. especially for people who already have a background in strength training, i think. wasn’t so humbling for me since i didn’t need to take weight off the bar to learn - took me a while of learning before i was strong enough to lift the bar!!! but i still find it very frustrating how sometimes the bar just doesn’t seem to want to play the way it will sometimes.
ironcross - yes indeed to foam rolling! my gym is about 15-20 minutes walk away and i walk to and fro so that (along with whatever other walking i need to do during the day) probably takes care of my cardio. never really thought about that helping recovery, though. i suspect it does.
brett - thats okay. i was getting some kind of sadistic pleasure trying to peer pressure you into that 8 or 10 or however many minutes squat routine ha! i was actually surprised that the 6x4 felt hard because i have done more weight than that for a 5x5 so i thought it would feel much easier. i’m not obsessing over my form. do the best i can with that, basically, and just do the bloody squats already (think my form is pretty passable even if far from ideal). think it only felt so hard because i was having some balance issues and was a little on the ball of my feet to prevent falling over backwards which made it harder to use glutes to drive hips through to get out the hole. think my hip flexors were still a bit tight so not sitting into them tightly / holding lumbar arch as tightly as i usually do. i’m dreading the 5x6… 6x6 really will be a matter of hoping for the best… i don’t know that i’ve got doubles of my max in me, too, since i don’t even know if i’ve actually got my max in me since i only got it for 2 singles once. and the 4x4… well… the routine gets harder thats for sure.
nikki - i think i’ll take sunday off. squats tomorrow. sunday off.
veggie - thanks. glad i’m not boring everyone to tears
TRAINING:
was meant to do squats but decided to do them tomorrow instead. lots of rolling and mobility work today so hopefully the squats will feel smooth next week (when the program gets harder). spent a lot of time trying to get smooth comfortable positions for snatches, too.
was going to work up to a max after things felt smooth but people around… couldn’t get into the zone.
think i’ve figured it out… the album i listen to is something my body is very familiar with (used to use it for varied intensity cardio). there are certain moments that are optimal for pulling the crap out of the bar for the second pull (pretty crucial for me to make the lift). if i can just crank my i-pod and listen to how my body feels… i naturally get everything organized (bar in position, plates on the bar hard, wrist wraps adjusted, chalk, squat down and get a good grip of the bar - check) so i’m ready to pull the bar so the music peaks for the second pull.
thats why i can’t work in with anyone.
or talk to anyone.
damn i’m ocd about lifting.
Read your OCD comment and had to laugh! My gym has 3 different brands of plates. I am so OCD about loading the bar that I have to have matching plates and they both sides need to be loaded EXACTLY the same… you know, if one plate is on in on direction, the other side of the bar has to match like a mirror image. I actually scavenge the gym sometimes to get things perfect. Crazy, yes. Makes me feel good, yes. People look at me like I’m nuts, ABSOLUTELY!
It is perfectly ok to not want to chat or work in, no sweat.
You say “OCD about lifting” like its a bad thing. 
oh YES the plates have to match. and be mirrored, as you say. i guess it isn’t a bad thing… but it does create oh so many little things that can interfere with my getting in the zone if everything isn’t just right…
playing around today as wanted to take some vids. doesn’t look to me as though i’m getting much better… but oh well, plenty to be getting on with fixing.
edit - what is crapping me off the most about these is how my hips are still rising early. like, almost before the bar leaves the ground and definitely before it has moved, like,one inch. when that happens it seems to have flow on effects (the bar swings out, i don’t finish the pull, because the bar is swinging i either miss it forwards or back or CHEAT by jumping forwards). KEEP YOUR FRIGGING HIPS DOWN ALREADY!!!
i messed up the squats. cut them one set short. dammit. still, at least it was a light day (doubles) rather than my cheating on one of the harder ones
You’re pretty hard on yourself, y’know. Your hip mobility is definitely improving (and it’s a fuckload better than mine!)
^^^^this^^^^
cereally, your squats are gorgeous. I don’t know enough about oly lifting to say anything, but to my eye they were bee-utiful. Good work alexus!
nice front squats, those are perfect. love the effort.
I have some pointers on the snatch that I hope can help.
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‘Set’ yourself better. Before your pull, get your hips lower, and tighten up your whole back. Your back is kind of slouched, so make sure you just get in a pattern/routine of ‘setting’ yourself before lifting the bar. Getting the hips lower is the important part though. Not so much on the first pull… a lot of lifters will start in the ‘set’ position with a low hip position, but then their hips will come up a lot. That’s not that big of a problem, IMO. It’s not optimal, but some lifters just do that (you and me because we are taller). Jon North does it, Urik Vardanian does it…
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Finish higher… you bring the hips in quite well, just stand tall with the barbell! Really finish upright on the pull (without shifting weight to the forefoot, of course).
I thought that the vids were amazing.
The front squats are stellar. Being tall and still getting down like that whistle. And your knees don’t cave at all. Color me green with envy.
I did some front squats today and I still have a problem with my left leg taking over. I’m also sure that my right knee was trying to cave in as well.
[quote]Nikki9591 wrote:
I did some front squats today and I still have a problem with my left leg taking over. I’m also sure that my right knee was trying to cave in as well.[/quote]
Try to do some glute activation work (in both hip extension and hip abduction), particularly for the right glute. Also, try stretching your right psoas before performing the glute work. A tight psoas may be inhibiting the right glute. At least, that’s what happened to me when I would lean to one side.
Yup I do the same thing. I’ve been doing a lot of glute work to fix it. My psoas are a bitch.
Also helps to think about spreading the ground with your feet, too. Basically, imagine you’re standing on a sheet of newspaper and then try to tear it down the middle. That helps me with the knee cave.
How tall are you, btw?
Front squats looked purdy…
Cal - er, yes. my hip mobility is improving. i had forgotten about that. i thought i really hadn’t gotten better than my last vids (which is why i hadn’t bothered to take them for so long) but my practice of squatting down to start each snatch rep has resulted in better hip mobility, yeah
thanks
cholulalula - thanks
andy - er… the front squat angle is a little deceptive… a side on view would reveal: i’m leaning forwards a bit and my butt is back behind my ankles rather than over them (because my stupid ankles still won’t let my knees come forwards).
also… it is a little bit subtle… but i’m driving up (weakly) with my quads rather than driving up more powerfully with my glutes pushing my hips forwards and up. the last set looked the best to me… and the plate loaded squats. i think i need to get my knees frogging out more on my ascent. i’ll try my best to take some vids when things are feeling really smooth to compare…
FINISH THE PULL!!! got ya! also set my back. yup. need to get serious about lat activation and rows and stuff…
with respect to the hips… i have a theory… vids would help, but i need to get vids when i’m doing things a bit better (which is hard because i’m not that good :-p )
the idea is to keep my hips down through the first pull. doing so sets me up for a vertical second pull. if my hips rise during the first pull i inevitably do a horizontal second pull (the bar swings in an arch). if the weight is light enough i can catch the bar even though it is arching by muscling it around. when the weight gets heavier i can’t do that. i’m reluctant to drive it properly (to finish the pull) when i know driving it will send it in an arch.
so… if i keep my hips down… THEN extending properly seems to result in things being pretty good but if my hips rise early extending properly results in my missing it when the weight gets up because of the arch.
does that make sense?
apparently people always will deviate from keeping the hips down in the first pull when they get close to max. the issue is that they don’t deviate at submaximal weights whereas i do. their deviation during the first pull gets rectified (because their body is better used to the positions) whereas my deviation during the first pull fucks everything else up (because i’m still struggling to fix up bad habits of horizontal hip drive).
more practice…
fairly happy that the vids confirmed what felt like i was messing up… so much to work on
nikki - i’m starting to notice a-symmetries, too. catching funny and pretty much standing up the catch using one leg. ugh. will need to try and sort that out at some point.
MOM - i’m 5"7 so not heaps tall. longish femurs… mostly i look so weird when i’m squatting (like an uber long legged freak) because i don’t have good enough ankle flexibility so i need to sit my ass down behind my ankles instead of over them (most noticable on the snatch vid)
well yeah I hear ya. All I can say is, get the reps in and don’t focus so much on keeping the hips down, but keeping the chest up. 1) Set yourself, low hips, tighten lats/back, 2) chest up, 3) extend knees.