Beginners Gains

Training
881

TRAINING:

eva rolling warmup with ankle, hip, thoracic mobilizations (same old)

snatch mobility warm-up… all the way to 3 misses @40kg. it just feels too heavy. that is the problem.

RSR FRONT SQUAT (session 3/3 week 4/6 - only 2 weeks to go!)

warm-up: 15kg 1x5, 20kg 1x5, 25kg 1x5, 30kg 1x3, 35kg 1x3

work sets: 4x4@40kg (90% 1RM)

done.

wah! little bit of leaning forwards / cheating. really really really really really want to get through this without a failed rep.
i feel tired. cumulative fatigue from this program, thats for sure. also an early start with functions work (which gave me a good bacon, egg, sausage, and mushroom breakfast).
will do the next (light base) session on saturday then look at having a couple days before hitting the 3x3@95%.

882

It has to do with your vid ‘first pull’, on seconds 55, you go over your knees (slow enough) and then you explode from the hang position. My coach was working on getting me to go slow over the knees then go, but I didn’t quite get what he meant until I saw that video of yours. Anyway I’ve had a mental block ever since I banged up my knee good. So I guess my question is can you talk me through what exactly you are doing on that?

You and me both, need to figure out some meal plans, need to recover better.

883

[quote]sbmart2 wrote:
Don’t forget the fun part of your olympic lifting. If you’re not getting paid, there is no reason to put your body, mind or spirit under stress over all of this. You’re a beautiful woman with a healthy body. There will always be someone stronger and weaker than you, shorter and taller, skinnier and bigger. As long as you’re healthy, you are already ahead of many!

With all the gushiness being said, you may try decreasing your training by 2-3 days for strength and weight gain (I believe I read that you’re working out 6-7 days a week).[/quote]

well said! :slight_smile:

884

Well done, 4 x 4 done and dusted!

Plain sailing from now on. I think I added an extra rest day around this point too, if memory serves.

I agree with DD, adding a bit of muscle won’t do you any harm at all.

885

minimal - the long story is this:

http://www.cathletics.com/articles/article.php?articleID=49

the short story is this:

i’m trying to keep my hips down / chest up through the first pull to set me up for a vertical explosion in the second pull.
that makes the weight feel a lot heavier than it would if i let my hips rise up a bit, and so the bar moves slowly from the floor even though i’m trying to pull it fast.

i’m not succeeding… but that is what i’m aiming to do.

sbmart - mom - TRAINING. Rest. Are we happy :-p Feeling exhausted, truth be told. I need Nadia to start another log. Masch, too.

Would you train half as much if you could make better gains than you are making now?

I’m not sure… I LOVE to train. Perhaps… Not quite sure about this… But perhaps more than I like seeing progress. Perhaps. Still thinking on this.

Brett - thanks. i’ve realized i haven’t been following the weekly periodization part of the RSR. instead of choosing 3 days per week to train on (so alternating 2 base 1 hard and 1 base 2 hard sessions per week) I’ve been thinking ‘one or two days rest as i see fit between squat sessions’. i think i’ve basically been taking 1 day before the base and 2 days before the not-base. i might even take 3 days for the harder sessions from now on… not sure on this… my priority is to get the reps.

yep. i’ll try and add some muscle… i will.

886

Everett (the difference between a deadlift and a first pull):

in a maximal effort deadlift, no matter the starting position of the hips, they will assuredly rise faster than the shoulders and wind up in a higher position, unless started at a height at which the knees are nearing full extension.

[a stiff or straight legged deadlift]

This phenomenon is quite simple: in a low-hipped position, the angle of the knee is such that its mechanics are quite disadvantaged. That is, it’s very difficult to extend the knee under the full load. Because the body knows what to do, it will naturally begin extending the knees with minimal bar movement until the angle of the knee is such that it can bear the full load and begin moving the barbell along with the rest of the body. This is a very obvious adjustment to relieve the legs (meaning the quads) of some of the work and shift more of it to the back and hips. In the weightlifting world commonly referred to as unloading the legs… it has to do exclusively with the fact that in such an instance, the quads are not strong enough to move the weight.

A high-hipped, shoulders-a-mile-over-the-bar, bar-over-mid-foot starting position is remarkably easy to learn and immediately put into practice. This is, in my opinion, the primary reason it’s become more popular among those unexposed to the weightlifting community.

[It results in fairly constant momentum rather than an increase in momentum of the bar]

The fact of the matter is, the first pull is actually quite difficult technically. It’s no easy task to navigate the knees while maintaining correct posture, balance and bar position…

[especially if you have long femurs]

…and quite difficult in terms of strength. Beginning with the hips higher and the knees more extended eliminates the bulk of these complications by eliminating the bulk of the knee extension from the movement and creating a movement dominated by hip extension. This can quickly get novice lifters performing more successfully by avoiding a part of the lift that creates problems for them…

But I can’t do it!

That’s because you have little girly quads… This more upright pulling posture demands much greater quad strength than the high-hipped start, and consequently, if your quads are not strong enough, you won’t be able to maintain such a posture as the load increases. This doesn’t mean you’re beyond hope. It just means you need to adjust your training accordingly and shore up the weak spots instead of giving up, crying about it, and sticking your ass back up in the air.

887

CHEERS!

The first rule of fight club is…“The point is that the sole purpose of the starting position and first pull are to allow an optimal second pull.” I’ll just let that sink in before I start worrying about anything else. Besides I think I have a couple of weeks before my coach bothers me about the first pull again.

I have to remind myself often (well maybe hourly) but don’t forget to prioritise AND THEN try to squeeze everything you want to do ;-p
Maybe some days rest is the priority, the bar will still be there.

888

yes.

i’ve read that everett article about 9 times now and each time i read it i learn something new.

it is important not to get paralysis by analysis (something i’m definitely guilty of).
but it is also important to have a conception of what it is that you are aiming to do.
i struggle with that balance.

i think the main thing i’m taking from the rest discussion…

is that training 6 days a week is a lot of training. so if there are a few of those days a week that i don’t feel like training i should not train rather than think ‘you lazy shit…’ and make myself go anyway. it isn’t very often that i don’t feel like training… but there certainly have been more days that i haven’t felt like it while doing the RSR. i really will not go if i don’t much feel like it (so long as i go a few days a week). so tonight… i didn’t go. working tomorrow… will see how i feel tomorrow evening…

889

That’s good that you’re taking some rest days.
I think that you can handle the 6 day training. You’re just very critical of yourself and point out what you do wrong more than what you do right, so people assume that you need to train less. That you’re training hard for no progress, but I feel that you’ve made a lot of progress. That is just cut-and-paste advice if you ask me.

You also have to determine when you need the rest day and when you just don’t want to go to the gym. So I think that will pose a problem for you sometimes.

890

[quote]alexus wrote:

Would you train half as much if you could make better gains than you are making now?

[/quote]

Honestly? Yes I would train less.

I like when I make gains in the gym because during most of life I have no idea if I am making any progress or succeeding, but I did hit that new PR. <For me this is a nice little boost.

891

taking a few more days off will help in your quest to gain a little muscle mass.

I train 3-4 days a week.

892

Okay…After this I’m dropping the whole rest thing for strength. You’re a big girl, so ultimately you know what’s right for you. Since you’re making an effort to rest, I feel that I should make one suggestion on your resting technique. It’s a technique because it’s actually a part of training. Make a schedule of gym days and rest days and rest weeks and stick to it! This will help you mentally, so you don’t feel weak for not going. Being mentally strong enough to adhere to the rest periods will keep you from “hating” on yourself. Maybe down the road when you have found more balance, you can go on how you feel!

Remember, rest days don’t necessarily mean couch time. Walks, friends, meditation, etc. are great things to keep you fulfilled while not at the gym!

893

[quote]alexus wrote:
sbmart - mom - TRAINING. Rest. Are we happy :-p Feeling exhausted, truth be told. I need Nadia to start another log. Masch, too.

Would you train half as much if you could make better gains than you are making now?

I’m not sure… I LOVE to train. Perhaps… Not quite sure about this… But perhaps more than I like seeing progress. Perhaps. Still thinking on this.

[/quote]

Alexus: You know I’m struggling with similar issues. Right now, I’m in the happy place of seeing gains in my running and in my lifting. So, I don’t have decide whether I desire a particular journey or a specific destination.

And honestly, I have confidence in my training. I’ve worked to build up my work capacity. Arachne is a honey badger; I am a plow horse. So, I don’t think I’m even flirting with over-training.

I do take schedule deloads; I highly recommend that too. I know a lot of people train intuitively but I could never do that. Training days are training days. Feel shitty, suck it up. Rest days are rest days.

894

Re: diet and training–I was just thinking about this recently.

I think the 6 days a week of training is fine but you have to have a diet to support it. And sleep schedule too. If you are lacking in either then you ultimately have to cut back on training or you won’t make gains.

I do a lot of volume but it’s fueled by bacon, lots of fatty steak and baconators mixed in with all the usual good stuff like berries and spinach and whole eggs. I don’t consider those cheats but fuel. I don’t mean baconators everyday but maybe a bit more often than you’re eating now? (that’s if you get them there :wink: ). Steak is so expensive but if you’re not eating like Prof X you should be able to get a big fat one here and there. Or eating an entire rotisserie chicken once in a while, skin and fat and all! :=) …that may be overkill right away, but you get the idea.

My performance and my ability to recover plummets when I clean up my diet too much so this has shown me how important fatty, calories laden, high cholesterol meals can be to recovering from heavy training. To remedy this I have more naps and try to get longer sleep at night. I don’t know if it’s the fat, extra protein, cholesterol or just simply calories but it’s something! I think there is a pattern among the PW logs of Nutella eaters cough masch and people who like their food and high volume training.

I’d seriously have a look at what you’re eating if the recovery isn’t going how you’d like. I don’t have any facts but maybe smoking is hurting you too? I never trained when I smoked but I did lots of mountain climbing and my recovery is way better now then it was then but it was a different time, different work and different everything about me so I can’t say for sure. I do know that I recover really well now and I’m a hog about sleep and a glutton with food, whereas a lot of my much younger male friends who eat like dieting teenage girls are having a hard time with their training. You could conclude genetics but I don’t see that necessarily when there are other things to look at still.

It wouldn’t be a bad idea to schedule rest days because if you’re like me you have to force some rest on yourself, but I don’t schedule them because life and other responsibilities has a way of forcing them on me anyhow.

Also not everybody responds to the same training schedule. What Koing says about quality over quantity is right, too.

895

This song made me think of you, talking about smoking and nutrition concerns. The chocolate milk is probably a good idea. :slight_smile:

896

Debra is spot on about the not-clean eating and decreased recovery/progress!!! So spot on! Even when I knew via tracking calories that I was eating a surplus of clean food, I didn’t see the progress overnight that happens with fatty, carb- loaded meals that are supposedly bad for you. One problem with this is that, at least on me, that kind of eating combine with heavy lifting makes my waist go away. But if you look at many of those who gain strength quickly, you notice a little bit of fluff around the waist on all of them. Choices…

897

i find strength in my sausage gut a lot :smiley: but also i get hyped when i look good.

I think you’ve just got to go with your biofeedback. You’re becoming more and more aware of how your body reacts to training. Trust that gut :slight_smile: Some day swill be crap no matter what you have in the fuel tank.

basically I offer mixed advice–but good vibes :slight_smile:

898

Yeah I’m not sure about my diet and recovery either. I can get away with not eating so squeaky clean if I’m doing workouts that just tear down muscle or even just endurance workouts, but Oly lifting feels so different. I know I’m still adapting to it. It feels like my nervous system is the thing that’s not recovering properly, so gotta find what works for that. And maybe an extra 30 - an hour sleep wouldn’t hurt. Some mental down time as well.

899

training:

yesterday: rest.

today:

active mobility stuff:

holding the plate in front of me i can just worry about keeping my torso as upright as possible without worrying about balance. i’m simply unable to get my hips above my ankles in the bottom of the squat. my knees won’t come in front of my toes and i can’t get my hips forwards anymore.

without the plate i need to lean my torso forwards to balance on the descent. i need to get my shoulder above rather than behind the bar a bit more for the start position. it is hard for me to do because i’m sitting my hips so far behind it. need to get my shoulders over it a bit more, though, and try and get it moving back from the floor instead of bumping out around my knees. seem to be extending well - except not quite finishing the hip extension. which of course is the crucial bit.

because my hips are behind my midfoot instead of over them it changes the mechanics… i can’t use hip extension (glutes and hamstrings) to get out the hole. need to initiate the ascent with my hip flexors / quads. it does make my squat a lot weaker since i need to rely on those weaker muscles to be the main movers. it is unrealistic for me to compare my front squat numbers against strength standards etc because what i’m doing is far removed from how most people front squat.

my squat always will be weak. i won’t be able to pull the bar properly for the olympic lifts, too, since i can’t get my hips in close to the bar from the floor, either.

oh well. can only do the best that i can do.

900

i think… i need to go back again to what this was supposed to be about for me in the first place. the movement. i wanted to be able to move properly. it is more qualitative than quantitative. i don’t have ‘my knees are moving 0.39mm more in front of my toes than last month’ measurements. that is about how fast that kind of ‘progress’ is for me.

the whole point was that doing the olympic lifts with proper form was a symbol of flexibility, mobility, and strength for me. that i didn’t know whether it would be possible for me to do them properly. but i wanted to try because trying would most likely result in my moving in that general direction than not trying.

so… a lot of my training sessions are like that vid. 60 minutes of rolling and mobilizing and stretching and maybe 6 or 8 snatches up to a max or else just a whole bunch of trying to hang out around the general vicinity of one position or another and transitioning between them with 20-25kg’s.

strength work is different, i know. last week i got stuck into my ‘assistance’ strength exercises (pressing, rowing, chins, push-ups, GHR). when i do those i need time to recover. don’t do those seriously more than 3x per week in order to make strength gains. yes.

also be careful with the oly lifting. trying to move near max weights quickly also takes time to recover from. CNS takes a bit and doing it everyday results in the bar moving slowly and my movements being sloppy (body tries to protect itself).

but the mobilizing stuff… i need to do as much of that as possible, really. and i do it in the gym. don’t really do it at home.

i do eat chickens debra. wasn’t going to admit it lol. i’ve been known to eat a whole chicken after 6x6 squats (for example). or more usually to break it into 2 or 3 meals. i’ve started getting chickens a couple times a week. i think they do help with my recovery around heavy sessions. i tossed the skin to start with but i’ve started eating it now. yeah, lets see what a little more fat does for me. i don’t know what a baconater is but it surely sounds good. i’m guessing it has lots of bacon??

had a lot of functions work. took it out of me / my ankles / my feet basically. hence the time off… will do the RSR base training session tomorrow (after 3 days rest - really just needed to mobilize today).

try not to get too depressed about the fact that i basically can’t squat.

be gentle with myself. RSR is 6 weeks. i’ve been deloading after about 4 (bio-dictated). worked through it. now i’ve collapsed, basically. just going gentle… by the end of this week i’ll be back into it and finish up those last two weeks.