Awesome. Jordan seems like a cool guy.
Glad it all seems like you’re good
To go.
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You can’t actually see it, it’s a small bump that can only bulge out as big as a finger tip if I brace and strain. I would have to be under 10%bf to have any chance of seeing anything, and even then I’m not sure because my belly button always sank inwards significantly.
Anyway, it’s nothing to worry about for now. I just want to find out what I can do to minimize the risk of it getting bigger, like maybe put my belt over it or do/avoid certain exercises. If Feigenbaum has been lifting with one for over a decade then I should be fine, the surgery doesn’t sound like a huge deal either. I just wasn’t sure about what to do and wasn’t really able to make an informed decision until now.
Now the new problem is I missed a squat workout! Well, sort of.
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Yeah, he came 3rd at USAPL nationals a few years ago, before everyone was totalling 1000kg in the 74 class.
Wednesday, January 29 - Main bench day
Bench press
370x3 - Ties a PR but it wasn’t even a struggle, last time it was a crazy grind with my ass off the bench and everything. Unfortunately my camera ran out of memory mid set, but I would call it RPE 9.5, there is a chance I could still do another rep if I tried. I will see if I can do something like 380x3 in a couple weeks. I need about 420 for the open bench record, looks like I can make it happen.
Down set:
335x6 - I think this is a PR, not sure though.
Floor pause DB flys
75’s x10, 10 - I should have done another rep or two on the first set, I was just a bit cautious because this is some heavy weight for flys and I wanted to keep technique strict too. I wouldn’t mind doing cable flys or something like that instead, but that would require going to a commercial gym which will suck for a number of reasons. Maybe I will just stop pushing these at some point. I stopped doing flys for a while but then it started to feel like I wasn’t really using my pecs on bench and my shoulders started getting a bit achy, I was doing OHP every week then too. This is sort of like a pec activation exercise.
Front raise
60x15, 12
superset with:
Side raise
25’s x15, 11
I beat last week by a few reps on both, maybe from being lazy on the flys and not squatting anything significant on Monday.
W external rotation
super mini band x3 set
So this went well. I just need some big squats and deadlifts in the next week and I will be happy again.
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Friday, January 31 - Deadlift day
Deadlift
560x1 - I wanted a triple and would have settled for a solid double but this felt harder than expected and at the moment I didn’t think that pushing for a hard double would have been worth it. It moved alright I guess, call it RPE 8.5. It’s 93% of 600 and looked like 90-something for sure. Deadlift is not going my way lately.
505x3 - straps - This didn’t feel right, but I guess it has to do with the straps because on video it looked like I could do 3-4 more reps. Also motivation was down after the top set.
I think half of my recent deadlift issues are in my head. On squat and bench it feels like the weights lift themselves but this damn deadlift bar doesn’t want to even get off the floor. I have shitty leverages for deadlifting and it doesn’t even look like I have any particular weak points, the whole thing is just weak.
Barbell row
355x10 - could have done a couple more but trying not to overdo the cheating
Chin ups - close neutral grip
bw+55x8
Barbell curl
115x16, 12
These damn deadlifts, just don’t want to cooperate.
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Glad to see you deadlifting again
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Maybe if u stopped showing off on rows you’d be recovered enough to deadlift more haha
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I never really stopped. I just did an extra light squat session on Monday but I figured out the hernia thing before I had a chance to skip a deadlift session. I think the whole thing messed with my head a bit.
If I was trying to show off I would have done a couple more reps.
I’m trying to figure out what I can do to get my deadlift back on track, I had a bunch of PRs for a few weeks and then nothing for about 2 months. I think I will start back with sets of 5 and add some RDLs, maybe just one hard set of each. It seems like adding more stuff is not the way to go for me these days but I’m not doing much volume to begin with.
Also it kind of seems like when I’m doing between 3-5 reps on deadlift is when I see progress, if I start doing heavy singles and doubles I don’t make much progress. Deadlift has been a struggle for me for a while.
Saturday, February 1 - 2nd Bench day
Slingshot bench
425x4
390x7
Making some progress on this
JM press
295x5 - This is getting a bit ridiculous, I need to drop the weight down and do more reps. Although JM Blakely said he was doing over 500 for doubles and triples when peaking for a meet.
270x7
Neutral DB pushups
+light+super mini bands x9, 5 - I was planning to load this with weight in a back pack but then I started looking at it and the light band is supposed to be 50-80lbs of tension. If I put 75-100lbs in my backpack, as heavy duty as it is, I could imagine it tearing and smashing my ankle or something so I decided against it. Then I was going to use the mini band but I grabbed the super mini instead but it was too late to turn back… whatever.
Monday, February 3 - Squat day
Squat with wraps
560x1 - Didn’t go as planned, but I wasn’t sure how it would go anyway. My hips shot back coming out of the hole and the bar drifted forward a bit, it wasn’t a huge grind or anything but it wasn’t what it was supposed to be and if I did another rep like that I probably would have failed so that was that.
I didn’t really know what to expect after not doing any real squatting all last week (2 weeks since an actual squat workout). I figured it would go one of two ways, either I would be extra recovered and basically peaked and get a boost in performance, or, as it turned out, things would feel off and it wouldn’t go well. It wasn’t absolute shit, but definitely a step backwards. Warmups didn’t feel great either, everything over 315 felt heavy. At least I hit depth, that’s the only consolation.
Down set:
505x3 - I told myself I would go for 5 reps to make up for the shitty top set but the knee wraps said no. The pinching and scraping feels worse and worse on each rep, any determination I had was gone by the 3rd rep. It wasn’t hard though.
So I’m a bit disappointed with squats today, but not surprised, and at least I’m able to keep squatting unlike I was thinking last week. Reading about intestine strangulation and gangrene had me fearing for the worst. Usually when people say “I should have listened to my doctor!” it’s after fucking themselves up worse, I should have listened to my doctor and squatted something heavy.
Hatfield squat
535x6 - This didn’t feel too bad, not sure what’s wrong. Maybe because I wasn’t too fatigued from the earlier stuff. I’m just going to keep pushing the weight up rather than trying to do more reps because 6 is about the limit of where it feels like I’m drowning, even with 100lbs less.
Band leg curl
light + super mini bands x15, 11
So I’m 12 weeks out from the meet, registration isn’t open yet so I’m not signed up. This is just one shitty day, shouldn’t make a difference in the larger scheme of things. Usually when stuff like this happens I come back the next week and set a PR, so that is the plan.
Just a few thoughts about training volume and such:
One of the main arguments in favor of higher volume is that it will help to improve technique with the competition movements. This is definitely true for someone who has technical errors even with lighter weights, like trouble hitting depth, hips shifting to one side, knees caving in, hips rising too fast and so on.
However, for a lot of people, myself included, technique is not really a problem with lighter weights and technical issues only become apparent in the range of maybe 85% and up or when pushing a set close to failure. So in this case, technique-focused work needs to be either very heavy, pushed close to failure, or both. How much volume can you actually do like that and still recover?
Squatting in knee wraps complicates this further since wrapping lightly vs. tight as you will wrap in competition can feel totally different, if you are having issues with something like hitting depth (which I do to some degree, and is a common issue in wraps) then doing a bunch of work in loose wraps with 75% on the bar is probably not going to help.
While the idea of MRV (maximum recoverable volume) makes sense in theory, here we are not just looking to recover but to see results on a regular basis. I have done way more volume than what I do nowadays and still was able to recover, but progress was very slow and aches and pains were common. If you are barely recovering half the time then it’s quite likely that you are sabotaging your own progress. Unless of course you see for real that you are making good progress like that, but often this isn’t the case.
It seems to me that the body has limited resources available for growth, recovery and adaptation and that if all resources are being used up just to return to the baseline then nothing is left over to grow or get stronger. In traditional Chinese medicine they have this concept of what they call “chi”, basically life force, I don’t see any better explanation than that for what I am talking about here. It’s like you deplete your life force by doing too much, and worse if you aren’t eating or sleeping well, then not only do you feel like shit outside of training but progress will be minimal at best.
There are studies (including a recent one that Schoenfeld was involved in) showing strength gains with as little as one work set. The Schoenfeld one had a group doing one set and the other doing 5 and both saw equal strength gains while the 5 set group gained more muscle. You need enough volume to at least maintain muscle mass (unless you are taking enough drugs) and one set is unlikely to be enough, but the threshold is lower than most people think.
A lot of the strongest lifters only do one work set and little or no assistance work. Andrey Malanichev and Marianna Gasparyan do just that. Daniel Bell is not far off. CC Ingram used to train 6 days a week with high volume but had her best performance after working with Sergey Ponamarev, Marianna’s coach, and cutting training back to 3 days a week with barely any volume. If you need to gain mass or can’t perform the lifts with decent technique then this isn’t the way to go, but there is something to it.
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Haha. Hey man, at least you’re squatting heavy again and not doing some 20 rep cardio squats lol
Don’t even remind me of that.
I will be back in business soon enough.
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Do you ever wonder if part of why your deadlift is feeling off and you’re having bad days is because you read too much? Like maybe you’re clouding your own response to your body because you’re constantly reading about what is optimal for people or what works for small groups.
There is probably something to just being a real chill dude with some retard strength who just does what the coach says lol
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No, when I was setting PRs every week I was doing the same thing. My deadlift was doing good until I had something in my mid-upper back cramp up a couple months ago and I didn’t really push it for a couple weeks, I had a few good sessions since then but progress slowed down.
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Wednesday, February 5 - Main bench day
@guineapig will be proud of me for buying a new bench. It’s supposed to conform with IPF specifications according to the manufacturer (Bells of Steel) except that it’s not part of a combo rack. It threw me off slightly but I’m not complaining because I need to get used to this since it’s the same as what I will use in a meet.
Bench press
375x3 - First two were good but something went wrong on the 3rd, after watching the video a couple times I realized I hit the safety pins as I brought the bar down. I wonder if I brought the bar down unevenly, not really sure how that happened or if I hit both pins. I get three red lights for the last rep, ass lost contact with bench (although barely it appears), hit the hooks, plus uneven extension of the bar. But at least it went up.
The thing with this bench is that the padding is thick, my old bench barely has any padding and on this one once I put 345 on the bar I felt like I sank in slightly, just a different feeling on my upper back and shoulder blades. The old bench is also narrower, which is by no means an advantage but I got used to it. The benches at meets always felt better but I suppose that cheap bench was throwing me off a bit. This one is also not so slippery, has a sort of rippled surface for more friction, not like rubber pad but the old one was like polished marble.
Down set:
340x5 - Could do another rep but too many eye-popping grinders is bad for your health. I didn’t slide up the bench, hit the hooks, or lift my ass off, so things look alright. I’m going to aim for 380x3 next week.
Floor pause DB flys
75’s x12, 10
Front raise
65x10, 9
superset with:
Side raise
30’s x10, 9
W external rotation
super mini x 3 sets
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I found out last night that this meet I was going to sign up for is not going to be in Ottawa, instead it’s in Brockville which is a small town about 1.5-2 hours drive away. This makes it seem way less appealing, because I’m not going to drive there early in the morning for the meet and back home after (no idea when it will end and a long drive after a meet won’t be fun) so I would have to spend a couple nights in a hotel in a place I don’t really want to be, and chances are that the meet will end up being real small with a bunch of novice lifters.
I wouldn’t mind going somewhere else, in May there is supposed to be an IPA meet in Montreal and EPC says they are in the process of scheduling their next meet. There is also WRPF in Quebec City, although the next meet is at the end of March which is a bit soon. I even looked at CPU (the IPF affiliate here) just to see what they have, they have a couple meets in the summer in Ottawa and a few others here and there around Ontario. But you have to do this stupid online anti-doping course (I already know how not to take drugs) and the whole thing just leaves a bad taste in my mouth. If I can total 727.5kg (just over 1600) at 120kg without wraps I qualify for provincials and nationals, and in another 6 months I’m pretty sure I could do much better than that, but that’s like the last resort to me.
I think I’m going to wait and see what EPC comes up with, or maybe go to Montreal.
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Too good for small towns are ya?
If it looked like it was going to be a good meet with some decent lifters then I wouldn’t mind, but spending a bunch of money to go out of town for something that might be 20 novice lifters doesn’t sound like a good plan. The EPC and WRPF meets always have a lot of the top lifters in the country, sure I’m not going to win anything but that would be a more exciting atmosphere. I might still go to that meet but I’m going to wait and see what my options are. I don’t like the feeling of being a big fish in a small pond if you know what I mean.