BTW your weighted pull ups idea is probably very good in terms of reducing risk of elbow angering. I read a (I think) Dan John article about pull ups and it said adding weight is often better than adding reps in terms of avoiding elbow irritation.
My own elbows are much better. I completely ditched pull ups (which sucks but was necessary) and until mid December all my squats are done with the SSB. That means I’ve eliminated the two things that messed my elbows up. I’m also doing a ton more curls which seem to be very therapeutic.
Come mid December I’ll start straight bar squatting again but only for my heavy squats. I’ll still use the SSB a bunch.
Hopefully that combined with the curls will let me start doing pull ups again sometime mid 2016 without upsetting the elbows.
The joys of old age…
Oh, and often in training logs if I use the fast reply option it doesn’t work. Never had an issue replying to an individual post using the link.
BTW your weighted pull ups idea is probably very good in terms of reducing risk of elbow angering. I read a (I think) Dan John article about pull ups and it said adding weight is often better than adding reps in terms of avoiding elbow irritation.
My own elbows are much better. I completely ditched pull ups (which sucks but was necessary) and until mid December all my squats are done with the SSB. That means I’ve eliminated the two things that messed my elbows up. I’m also doing a ton more curls which seem to be very therapeutic.
Come mid December I’ll start straight bar squatting again but only for my heavy squats. I’ll still use the SSB a bunch.
Hopefully that combined with the curls will let me start doing pull ups again sometime mid 2016 without upsetting the elbows.
The joys of old age…
Oh, and often in training logs if I use the fast reply option it doesn’t work. Never had an issue replying to an individual post using the link. [/quote]
Was supposed to do farmer’s walks today but strongman training was cancelled due to the haze.
Went to the gym to help spot some of my boys for their lifts.
Messed around with the bench and worked up to a 80kgs paused single.
Was supposed to do farmer’s walks today but strongman training was cancelled due to the haze.
Went to the gym to help spot some of my boys for their lifts.
Messed around with the bench and worked up to a 80kgs paused single.
Pull Ups 15x5
TOTAL PULL UPS DONE FOR THE DAY:75
[/quote]
Just wondering, how are you finding the pull ups impact on your bench? I can only guess it would be very positive.
Was supposed to do farmer’s walks today but strongman training was cancelled due to the haze.
Went to the gym to help spot some of my boys for their lifts.
Messed around with the bench and worked up to a 80kgs paused single.
Pull Ups 15x5
TOTAL PULL UPS DONE FOR THE DAY:75
[/quote]
Just wondering, how are you finding the pull ups impact on your bench? I can only guess it would be very positive. [/quote]
Haven’t found them to have much impact on my bench so far, maybe I feel a tad bit more stable. I can say for sure that doing pull ups after every single set of deadlifts ain’t a great idea though.
Was supposed to do farmer’s walks today but strongman training was cancelled due to the haze.
Went to the gym to help spot some of my boys for their lifts.
Messed around with the bench and worked up to a 80kgs paused single.
Pull Ups 15x5
TOTAL PULL UPS DONE FOR THE DAY:75
[/quote]
Just wondering, how are you finding the pull ups impact on your bench? I can only guess it would be very positive. [/quote]
Haven’t found them to have much impact on my bench so far, maybe I feel a tad bit more stable. I can say for sure that doing pull ups after every single set of deadlifts ain’t a great idea though.
[/quote]
I can definitely see how that might not be so enjoyable.
My Thoughts, Reflections, Personal Feedback:
Did most of my workout, leaving out the other assistance stuff. Ain’t exactly feeling well today, presses to pull ups to going to the washroom to blow out my nose. Felt like I was doing a circuit for the most part. Got 4 for the 3 on the presses, was going for 5, oh well.
Was able to access the strongman equipment today. Did a few walks of farmers at 60kgs and one at 80kgs. Speed generally looking quite good. Still playing around with where I plan to grip the farmers to get the most speed off the floor/speed while walking. Other than that, did some snatches and clean/jerks, just playing around. Can only do a full snatch for maybe 40kgs. I’ll work on them more in the far far future. As for the clean/jerk, managed to get a real ugly 80kgs muscle clean of sorts and a push jerk. Technique for both lifts sucks. To be fair, didn’t exactly do them for the past 3-4 months. Will ease into them as the time comes.
TOTAL PULL UPS DONE FOR THE DAY:25
Hell, the pull ups are getting more and more tiring. Will auto regulate, still wanna get the 500 by end of the week though. At a grand total of 215 pull ups so far with 3 days left, this should be possible. Will look into decreasing pull up volume next week whilst doing them weighted the following week.
My Thoughts, Reflections, Personal Feedback:
Failed my 3 on the squat. First time failing a last set for 531, must be the box jumps and “dynamic stuff” from yesterday. Hip flexors a lil messed up right now. I’ll recover and I’ll get back to it next week, no worries.
[quote]Benanything wrote:
Hell, the pull ups are getting more and more tiring. Will auto regulate, still wanna get the 500 by end of the week though. At a grand total of 215 pull ups so far with 3 days left, this should be possible. Will look into decreasing pull up volume next week whilst doing them weighted the following week.[/quote]
Try cutting down the pull up volume for a couple weeks (maybe around 100 where it’s just warmup and doesn’t really take effort) to make sure you fully recover rather than remain at borderline. It would probably be a better idea to keep the volume low while doing weight pull-ups for at least a month until you shift the focus back to bodyweight pullups for high volume. This is something I have found to work long term.
Was supposed to do farmer’s walks today but strongman training was cancelled due to the haze.
Went to the gym to help spot some of my boys for their lifts.
Messed around with the bench and worked up to a 80kgs paused single.
Pull Ups 15x5
TOTAL PULL UPS DONE FOR THE DAY:75
[/quote]
Just wondering, how are you finding the pull ups impact on your bench? I can only guess it would be very positive. [/quote]
Haven’t found them to have much impact on my bench so far, maybe I feel a tad bit more stable. I can say for sure that doing pull ups after every single set of deadlifts ain’t a great idea though.
[/quote]
Try not to do so much or between sets if it affects the main lifts. It is just assistance work. What I have found to work well when doing pullups is to focus on quality. I typically do sternum pullups and lead with the chest. My elbows stopped aching when I focus on pulling my shoulder blades down and getting my ENTIRE back tight rather than just completing a rep. I feel this is the most important aspect that is overlooked with pull-ups and chin-ups.
I have done the same thing with barbell rows keeping my entire back, hips and hamstrings tight while executing each rep. Instead of doing reps with 225 lbs, I’ve been getting as much volume as I can with 135 lbs using relatively strict form. Some momentum is used at the very end but the entire back, hips and hamstrings ALWAYS remain tight until the set is completed. Although my bench hasn’t shot up yet, I feel a huge difference in terms of stability over the past cycle so I plan to stay committed with this style of execution. I flare my elbows out and perform them like a reverse bench press, touching at the same point on my chest as for the bench as well.
When doing all this pulling work, focusing on muscle recruitment of the entire back will help you get stronger and not just better at doing more reps or more weight. I believe this will provide the best carryover to the main lifts. It’s something I’ve been learning so I thought it would be useful to share.
My Thoughts, Reflections, Personal Feedback:
Did no pull ups today. Generally feeling tired, not gonna get the 500 pull ups this week, its fine. Gonna rest up. Supposed to have more assistance work but meh, sometimes resting is fine. Got 3 for my 3 set and its fine. Bench looks… I ain’t sure to be honest. I feel like I’ve more in me but its fine. Name of the game is long term sustainable progression after all. Oh and my left hip flexor is mega annoying right now, I can feel it while walking and shit, hopefully, it gets better soon.
EDIT: Hip flexors are worse than I thought. Even doing a bodyweight squat causes some amount of irritation.
My Thoughts, Reflections, Personal Feedback:
Everything felt slow as shit. Feeling tired and beat up. Can’t wait for the deload. Considering skipping the squat workout this Thursday depending on how my hip flexors feel. As you can obviously tell, didn’t do any assistance work. Just gonna use this as a opportunity to rest up.
just looked through one of my first forum posts on T-Nation, pretty darn disappointed at myself. It’s been a year and my deadlift is pretty much still the same.
[quote]Benanything wrote:
just looked through one of my first forum posts on T-Nation, pretty darn disappointed at myself. It’s been a year and my deadlift is pretty much still the same.
Don’t be disappointed in yourself. It happens. Instead, focus on fixing it.
Here are my suggestions:
Cut yourself some slack. You’re a hard worker, but unfortunately you’re also a mean boss to yourself. Look through your posts, and I rather think you’ll find very frequent mentions of feeling sick, feeling tired, feeling crap, etc. That should tell you something. Deadlifts are taxing as @#$% and if you train feeling less than good a lot of the time, that’s probably the one lift guaranteed to suffer.
Much as it will suck, drop your pulling load. Pull heavy (over 85%) at most once per fortnight and at that load never for more than a double. That doesn’t mean stop pulling, it just means the vast majority of your DL training should probably sit between 55% and 70% of your max. That’ll let you do three very important things: firstly, you’ll recover a ton better; secondly, you’ll be able to work on getting your technique just right; and thirdly, you’ll be able to work on speed.
For example, over a fortnight your deadlift training could look something like:
One day: 8x2@60%, less than a minute between sets. That’s a kind of dynamic effort approach. Add 5% every time you repeat it until you hit 70% and then go back to 60% but opposite stance. When you’ve done that, you’ll be six weeks in and could go and test for a new max or do another three week run from a deficit something.
At least three days no DL
One day: 3x5@70% competition stance, again adding 5% every week. Same as above, at 80% go back to 70% and pull opposite stance. You can set it up so you always do the opposite stance to day one. However, after six weeks I’d probably say don’t do deficits or anything but go 75% to 85% instead.
At least five days no DL
Third day
3 to 5 heavy singles at 85%, competition stance. Add 5% each week until 95% then drop back to 87.5% adding 5% until 98.5% then drop to 90% adding 5% until 100%.
That’d take care of 9 weeks, and as long as you didn’t run yourself into the ground on the other lifts I’d be surprised if you didn’t have a new PR by then.
Did some tire flips. Did 1 walk of farmers. Messed around a bit, figured might as well just do my 1+ set for my presses today(instead of tomorrow). Did 60kgs x 2 followed by 2 singles.
60kgs x 2
My Thoughts, Reflections, Personal Feedback:
Will be skipping the squat session for this week. Doing the bench session sometime later this week. Next week is deload. After that, I’ll run 531 with a far more conservative set of maxes, keeping in account fatigue and recovery and time management and a bunch of other shit. Oh and school. Don’t forget school.
[/quote] Will be skipping the squat session for this week. Doing the bench session sometime later this week. Next week is deload. After that, I’ll run 531 with a far more conservative set of maxes, keeping in account fatigue and recovery and time management and a bunch of other shit. Oh and school. Don’t forget school.
[/quote]
That sounds like a very good call, and a plan that will deliver results.