Box Squats:
20x2x5
(Added green bands)
20x5
60x3
80x2
100x2
120x2
(Added Metal Pro Squatter)
140x5x2
150x2
160x2
Front Squats:
80x8
90x6
100x4
Glute/Ham Raises:
BWx15
BW 15x12
BW 20x12
BW 25x8
Ab Pulldowns:
130lbx3x10
Pretty pleased with my technique. Knees out, sitting back, good hip drive. Improvements needed: keeping the back arched as I hit depth, and really driving the head back into the bar out of the hole. Was absolutely fucked by the time it came to front squats though, so cut those short.
Manic schedule with work and life meant that I only had a chance to squeeze in three sessions in each of the last couple of weeks. Not a major problem - I was scheduled for a deload anyway so just had an abbreviated down week. Back on it on Monday.
Absolutely brilliant session last night. Seriously good. I hit a fairly comfortable 5kg PR in the (raw, conventional) deadlift, and my training partner got an all-time PR of 325kg! Great energy in the gym, and it paid off big style.
All that was missing was some confetti, a stripper and a singing/dancing midget troupe. That would have been fitting given the number of deadlift PRs. Nice work by you and your training partner.
was gonna ask mate - do the BPC do any raw stuff? How many comps a year? I am getting bored of waiting for the GBPF…got til the end of Nov to wait til!!!
Thanks guys - it certainly was one of my better sessions!
novaeer - we save the strippers and dancing midgets for really important PRs, like the time I busted out a set of 16 rear delt flyes with the big ol’ 20lb dumbbells, beating my previous best of 15.
Adam - the BPC doesn’t have a raw division, but the GPCGB does. Unfortunately, whilst the GPC is fantastic from an organisational and preparation point of view on a European and world level, I know plenty of people who say that it’s British affiliate, the GPCGB, doesn’t quite match that at national level. Aside from qualifiers and the nationals itself (which the GPCGB and BPC run in tandem) I don’t think either fed has a dedicated national-level meet in the calendar. You could always do the UK Open with me - it’s centred around novice lifters and there will be plenty of people going raw there.
Cheers Killerb - my floor press pretty much sucks, so it’s a movement I should work on more. I’ve spoken to the gym owner about getting dancing midgets and strippers for future PR celebrations; not optimistic that it’ll happen.
Squats:
60x2x5
100x5
120x3
140x3
160x1
(Added Metal Ace briefs)
180x3
200x2
220x2
(Added Metal Pro Squatter)
240x1
(Added knee wraps)
260x1
SSB Box Squats:
(All sets performed with 2 sets of chains per side)
90x3x6
Glute/Ham Raises:
BWx15
BW 15x12
BW 20x10
BW 25x6
I’m much more satisfied with this session that the numbers might suggest I should be. However, I had two objectives last night - get comfortable using a makeshift monolift solution, and squat a reasonable weight in the briefs/suit bottoms combo for the first time - and I achieved them both.
It started badly when I got held up at work, so began training late. That meant I had to rush through my warm-ups so that I could get onto the heavy stuff before my training partners had to disappear into the Friday night. Anyway, we were using chains hanging from the top of the rack to catch any potential dropped weights, and the safety pins to rest the bar on instead of J-hooks. When I arched the bar off the pins, my training partners simply pulled them out, I squatted, and they slid 'em back in. This set-up was suggested to me by novaeer and it worked pretty well. We had a minor problem - but I’ll expand on that another day. Everything felt good, didn’t struggle when I added the suit bottoms, and sank 260kg nice and deep. No video though - sorry. I would have jumped to 275kg to get the 600lb squat, but there’s plenty of time for that another day, and we were really getting short on time last night by this point. So, I bid farewell to my comrades in iron, and finished up with some ‘fun’ assistance.
My pressing has been fucking horrendous recently (even worse than usual, and it’s usually bollocks), so I’ve decided to try a high-volume approach rather than high-intensity as I have been leaning towards recently. That meant the trusty old 5x5 performed with a static weight. Not the most fun training protocol, but tried-and-tested. Starting light and giving myself room to build up some steam. To be honest, this session was pretty dire - pull-ups and dips were crap.
Haven’t you been working the shirt a lot lately? When I made my biggest improvements in the shirt, my raw numbers for overhead and bench went in the crapper. Hell, even now my strict OH press is downright pathetic; past shoulder injuries are partially to blame, but really it didn’t do anything to help my bench and I gave up on caring about it, lol.
[quote]novaeer wrote:
Haven’t you been working the shirt a lot lately? When I made my biggest improvements in the shirt, my raw numbers for overhead and bench went in the crapper. Hell, even now my strict OH press is downright pathetic; past shoulder injuries are partially to blame, but really it didn’t do anything to help my bench and I gave up on caring about it, lol.[/quote]
Good point - yes I have been doing a lot of shirted work in recent weeks. My overhead press has always sucked, relative to everything else, so I’m not about to cry about being weak now…
