The goal was to do a few sets and determine what might be a good future weight for 4 sets of 10. Without failures, pukes or emotional arousal. The Ol’ Exploratory Deload.
This is a collection of moves that is really tough for my crooked shoulders and hips to do without twisting and messing up my back or shoulders.
I’m not sure if it’s best to use barbells Super light, or to modify the motions using machines and supported motions ( chinese row, machine pressing) or to use DBs to allow for natural wrist alignment, or mess with reverse bands or something to deload the bottom of lifts.
Stroller push, 2 laps. It’s about 12 minutes to the end of the street and back. I’ve been doing a lap a couple times a day lately because it’s the best way to take care of the dogs and the baby. For the next little while, once a week I’ll do 2 laps.
BW was 225 even this morning, and I had pizza for dinner Saturday and lunch Sunday. Back on track! Scale weight doesn’t necessarily mean anything and it’s probably just dehydration, but all my manically obsessed bros know that it’s nice when the numbers move.
Bench Press, Hold at Sticking Point ( 1-2 inches from lockout) x 35 count
Goblet Squat Hold, Parallel x 35 count
Romanian Deadlift Hold, Around Knees x 35 count
Narrow, Neutral Seated Cable Row Hold, At Sternum x 35 count
Tibialus Raise x 15
Single Leg Calf Raise x 15
3 pairs
I didn’t like the bench press hold, maybe it was too light. I might rig up something so I can push the barbell into an immovable resistance near the sticking point.
The other moves felt pretty good. Squats, deads and seated cable rows have been trouble for my crookedness, and during the long holds I was able to get into these positions then mini adjust my position to fine tune what my body was doing. I feel like I’ve said the same thing after every workout this week.
A thing from CT that I really really liked was isometric contrast: first rep with a 6 secs pause, second with a 5 secs pause, third with 4 secs, fourth with 3 secs, fifth with 2 secs, sixth with 1 secs, seventh with no pause
Learning the correction position and adjust it, and slowly transfer it to an actual speed
It’s Christian Thibadeau’s take on a Conjugate Plan. Instead of using different weights or sets/reps, Thibadeau uses different types of “contractions” so you have a Concentric Focused day, where you lift weights. Then an Eccentric focused day with slow lowering of the weights and an Isometric Day where you use holds and pauses.
It’s broken up into “Blocks” 3 or 4 weeks long. This one is Hypertrophy focused, and supposed to last 4 weeks. This past week I did like an easy, half speed “Walk Through” to figure out how to do long-ass holds and slow slow lowerings, and to find good weights to use. And to deload and calm down from what I did last month. I called it “Week Zero.” This week I’ll follow the script more closely.
I liked the Isometric Contrast when I messed with it a few times. (That’s cool about Learning then Transfering, I like that thought) Double pauses and mTor are cool too. To try out Thib’s stuff I was going to do a push/pull/legs split, with 3 lifts per day, one iso contrast, one with pauses and one mTor.
Then I thought about it and decided to follow Thib’s directions (full body, only one type of contraction per day, small number of lifts) instead of doing my own thing. This program is out of his book “Theory and Application…”. I think maybe it’s kind of primative compared to what he’s putting out now, but I already own this book and everything is right here at a glance, easy to follow, so I’m gonna run it.
The holds were supposed to be 40 seconds, I just gave myself a little room to grow into the program.
At one point were you doing some routine where every day was Isometric focused? Have you ever tried the Layers approach where you use all contractions on one day?
Oh yes I got this book a few months ago! It might be old be he speaks highly of it and that the principles there are still the same.
Yes I did the Omni thing for a while with him, and also the first 3 weeks of Jacked 31 before lockdown hit. It was really efficient. I plan on redoing some Omni stuff (most likely actually do the whole Jacked) this winter
I did do the layers at some point also but not for long and I don’t remember why? Injury, something else? So I can’t attest or remember anything other that it was fun
Cool stuff from Stuart McGill. Flossing your spine to stop nerve pain. Last month my neck was all to hell for weeks from a pinched nerve and the McKenzie Method (chin tucks and neck extensions. At first those moves were too painful so I had to use a rolled up towel to support my neck and “shorten” my spine so I could go through the ROM ) fixed it.
For lower back issues McKenzie said to do lots of press-ups (a move where you hump the floor and super arch/extend your lower back). That may work pretty well but I was always to afraid to get into that position when my back was hurt. In this video McGill shows a different way to do the same thing, only it looks way easier and less painful. Pretty cool.
Great info from Thibadeau’s forum about how much work to do and how to adjust workload depending on how you’re training. And cool ideas about rotating from high volume to low volume blocks. And a easy little plan to track 3 markers to monitor recovery.
"Here’s the thing…
Volume is the most individual thing there is when it comes to training.
How much volume can one require (minimum required volume), tolerate (maximum recoverable volume) and what is optimal not only varies from person to person, it will vary for an individual throughout his training history (it can even fluctuate in the short term).
Here are some intra-individual things that can influence what the ideal training volume is:
Age (past a certain age, it is harder to recover from training)
Sex (women tend to be able to tolerate more volume then men)
ACTN3 type (ACTN3 XX people take longer to repair muscle damage than ACTN3 RR people)
Anabolic hormone levels (those with higher testosterone, growth hormone and IGF-1 levels can recover more easily and rapidly from training)
Stress levels (the more stress you are under, even psychological stress, the lower the tolerable workload is)
Immune system function (the immune system drivers muscle repair, a weaker immune system means poorer recovery)
Experience level (the more experience you have training, the more adapted your body is and the more volume it can handle. HOWEVER at one point, if you dramatically increase strength, it can increase the time it takes to recover from your heavy workouts)
There are other life/individual factors that can have a major impact:
Nutritional status (you can recover from more physical work when you are in a caloric surplus vs. a deficit)
Sleep status (the amount and quality of sleep affects how fast you can recover from training)
Level of physical activity (someone who works construction will not be able to tolerate the same volume as a store clerk)
And there are other training variables that affect how much volume you can do.
Intensiveness of your sets (the harder you push each work set, the harder it is to recover from them and the less volume you can do)
Type of exercises (its harder to recover from big compound lifts than isolation work, the amount of each affects how much volume you can do)
Training frequency (the more often you train and the less days off you have, the less daily volume you can do)
Exercise novelty (it’s easier to recover from exercises you have been doing a long time than from new ones, especially if they are complex)
Intensity/load (doing work above 90% of your max is harder to recover from than lighter work)
And there are other factors involved.
That’s why you can have two effective training systems that recommend dramatically different training volumes.
I know that this answer will probably frustrates you because it makes it seem like mastering the proper volume periodization is a lost cause. It’s not. Because you don’t have the burden of being at the optimal volume at every session for the training to “work”. The appropriate volume zone is normally fairly wide for an individual (there are extreme examples who absolutely need to keep volume minimal).
Normally 3-4 work sets of 4-6 total exercises per workout is recoverable by most (if they train around 4x per week). To that, you can have short periods of higher volume followed by a week of lowered volume.
Some recommendations I can make:
When you increase volume for 1-2 weeks, follow by a week of lowered volume (the more volume you added, the lower your go on the low volume week)
When you start a new training block, especially if it uses a lot of new exercises or methods, use a lower volume than usual
The harder you push your sets, the less total sets you should do in a workout
When you use an intensification method on an exercise (rest/pause, drop set, cluster, etc.) do less sets per exercise than you normally would
It is very effective to alternate periods of high volume/lower intensiveness with periods of lower volume/higher intensiveness. This can be from block to block or within a block.
Adapt volume depending on sleep, nutrition and feeling. The athletes I train must send me three numbers daily: 1) their body weight, 2) how good they feel on a scale of 10, 3) the perceived quality of their workout on a scale of 10. If no.2 drops down, we will lower volume same if their body weight drops down when they are not trying to lose weight. I actually find body weight to be a good measure of trainability when an athlete is not trying to lose fat. If someone is eating enough to maintain or gain body weight, and it suddenly goes down a few pounds, it often indicates under-recovery."
Plate Loaded Griller x 15+
Band Tomahawk x 25+
Kettlebell Arnold Curl x 15+
3 rounds
Kettlebell Wrist Extensions x 15
PJR Pullover x 15
Incline DB Curl x 15
3 rounds
Standing Hip Flexion x 9
Lunging Hip Flexor Stretching x 7
4 pairs
Today was the “Gap Workout” where you do stuff that wasn’t hit by the official trainings. I did arms.
I’ve been sprinkling in some Knees Over Toes Guy stuff. Tibialus raises, hip flexions, deep lunges, 1 leg calf raises, and Eccentric Nordic Hamstring Curls. I’ve done lots of these things in the past, only I didn’t have much direction and didn’t build up enough reps or weights or ROM. Dude’s systematic approach seems cool. I should be dunking soon.
Tibialus Raise x 10
Single Leg Calf Raise x 10
5 pairs
Already less pain and twisting than last week. That’s good. I was lifting the same weights as the pimple faced high school mini-bros. Maybe that’s not great. Left side upper ass (piriformis?) got a little tight so I’ll keep and eye on that.
Try this stretch, but take it easy and go slow. If you start to intense you’ll just torque your lower back. You want to stretch out your piriformis to take pressure off your lower back, not stretch out your lower back. Anyway…
Here a picture of the muscle you want to lengthen.
(MOVE SLOW) Cross the “bad” leg over the “good” leg, pulling the “bad” knee up and across your body to the opposite shoulder.
(TRY TO RELAX) Gently, slowly hug the knee of the “bad” leg towards your chest. Gently apply more pressure as you Imagine Your Piriformis Muscle Lengthening. Slowly move into the stretch. Use the tension to feeeeel your piriformis relax. Develop that mind muscle connection.
Breathe deeply. Pull in air and imagine that you are inflating your lungs so much they are filling up your chest then down into your whole hip area. Inhale, stretch, and relax your piriformis, relax your lower back and inflate your lungs. Feel the tension come off your lower back and hip as you breath and gently “brace.”
While your still gently pulling your “bad” knee towards your opposite shoulder and hugging your knee towards your chest with the arm on that side use your other arm and grab the ankle of your “bad” leg. Slowly and gently pull that heel towards you to put more of a stretch on your piriformis.
Keep breathing. Keep relaxing. While your hugging your knee and gently pulling on your ankle start Internally Rotating your foot. Circles “in” with your toes going Away from the tightness. That should loosen up everything from the top of your foot, up along your ankle and calf into your quad or IT band, and then right up into your glute and piriformis.
You can also try to loosen it up by rolling around on a foam roller or a lacrosse ball or tennis ball. In a pinch you can even use the rubber ball at the end of a tricep rope. All those glute and hip muscles and the piriformis are real short and dense so sometimes it’s easier to mash them.
Not sure how popular it is back in the UK (it wasn’t when I left 16 years ago). But down here in Kangaroo land there is a thriving lacrosse scene. My suburb has a club that was founded in 1898, it has teams from juniors all the way up to seniors. I have never played but it looks like fun.
