The meet was sandwiched between the morning judging and night show of a bodybuilding contest, and so they only took 30 lifters. I liked the idea of a quick meet, but it also meant that there wouldn’t be any fooling around between attempts.
My squat opener felt great, exactly like it should. Second attempt was a hair slower through the middle than I would have liked (of course, it always feels slower than it looks on video). Regardless, I was bound and determined to hit 590 and didn’t think twice about calling for it. This was the first time, ever, that I have missed a squat on depth. And while I want to be ticked off with the call, it was unanimous. And I don’t want a gift. Plan and simple, I squatted the weight and it wasn’t that much of a struggle. Just got to drop it a little bit deeper. I will have 600 by the end of the year.
I also got to witness a 23 year old, 220lber raw squat…820! He totaled somewhere around 1950. Damn
Something just seemed to click with my bench a few weeks ago. I was setting up tighter, creating more torque (as Dr. Starrett would say) and controlling the weight. I may have actually left 5-10 pounds on the platform here.
Opening deadlift threw the brakes. While it wasn’t tough, it should have moved a lot faster than it did. I’ve been spoiled by our whippy bar and this one had some stiffness to it. Plan was 560 on my second, I backed it down thinking about my total as opposed to a PR, didn’t think it would go down on this day. Got a little more focus and 550 out of the way. At this point, I decided that I wanted to be back over 1500 and that would determine my last pull. 575 would put me at 1505. The total ties my all time best and puts me back over 1500 for the first time since 2010.
While I had a good day, dropping that 3rd squat an inch lower would have made it a great day…
Congrats on a solid meet bro and good luck on your next one… I have never done a raw meet but I am going to attend one this summer, next year I plan on lifting in it but I am far from ready, I have to switch gyms before I can even consider trying… no power racks for squat and DL are against the rules!! Blah! Anyways good luck on your next meet…
1arm Landmine Press superset with ghr
50 x 10
60 x 10 x 3
Facepulls
mini band x 25 x 3
Landmines superset with facepulls
25 x 10
50 x 8 x 2
Already itching to get back on the horse. The only ache I had going into the meet was in my elbow and only when squatting, so I’m going to use the safety squat bar for this cycle and push on my beltless, wrapless squat.
leg extensions superset with hack sqt
100 x 15 x 4
fat bar RDL
135 x 15 x 4
preacher curl machine superset with rdl’s
80 x 15 x 4
A bit of a disappointing session. Had the urge to push heavier on the deads, and a massive headache holding me back. So I focused on getting a little pump in the quads and arms. At least I got something accomplished.
[quote]mahwah wrote: deadlifts
warmup…
455 x 5 x 3 (+2)
hack sqt
180 x 15 x 4
leg extensions superset with hack sqt
100 x 15 x 4
fat bar RDL
135 x 15 x 4
preacher curl machine superset with rdl’s
80 x 15 x 4
A bit of a disappointing session. Had the urge to push heavier on the deads, and a massive headache holding me back. So I focused on getting a little pump in the quads and arms. At least I got something accomplished.[/quote]
Yea that sounds like a god quad superset… Back in the day me and a buddie of mine would squat then go straight to leg ext and on that we’d have like 6 plates… we would try to hold it at the top each rep… My squat went from about a 490 to 575 in about two months…
lateral raises superset with facepulls
20 x 20 x 3
cable pushdowns superset with lat raise
150 x 20 x 3
Schedule has freed up to allow for a 5th workout in the week. Gonna use it to get in some extra whatever-I-need type stuff. Obviously, went for the shoulders today.
I dropped the pins 2" from where I was working previously. It’s getting closer to a dead squat than a lockout, bar is about an inch above my belt when setting up.
add single ply Phenom
365 x 3 - to 3 board
385 x 2 - to 2 bd
405 x 1 - to 1 bd
425 x 1 - touch
pullups
bw x 15 x 4
facepulls superset with pullups
90 x 20 x 4
dips
warmup…
+135 x 15 x 4
GHR
+25 x 6 x 4
So, pretty good bench day today. Seems I still have some momentum going from my meet prep, so I’m gonna run that as long as I can. Probably could have bumped up a little more on my triples, but knew I wanted to do some overload work. Was planning on my slingshot when one of my buddies brought in 3 shirts for me to play with.
Being only my second time in a shirt, I went with the least aggressive of the 3 (I think) and worked my way down. Pretty proud of myself for getting 425 to touch, much less lock it out. I don’t know how those equipped guys do it, that shit hurts my tender virgin armpits. Maybe I’ll leave them in this training cycle and see how it progresses. Or maybe I’ll go back to my sweet, gentle slingshot.
SSB Squats beltless +90 lb chain
360 x 3 x 4
380 x 3 x 4
btn Push Press
215 x 3
235 x 3 x 3
215 x 3 x 3
band pull aparts / ab wheel
3 sets
RDL’s
225 x 20 x 3
I love being in the gym by myself. I can focus and get shit done. Squats felt good, although there was some breakdown in form in the last couple of sets. The SSB hammered on my mid-back.
The push presses were a 5lb PR for triples and I just didn’t feel completely comfortable with my technique. Finished with some work sets at a lighter load to reinforce better movement.
High rep rdl’s suck. But I do look forward to the reward for getting them done.
I need to be more forceful with my lockouts, especially when I’m grinding. It is the weakness of my deadlift and you can see it on the last couple reps of each set. I find it hilarious that I can be so quick with the bar until it hits about mid thigh…
[quote]mahwah wrote:
I need to be more forceful with my lockouts, especially when I’m grinding. It is the weakness of my deadlift and you can see it on the last couple reps of each set. I find it hilarious that I can be so quick with the bar until it hits about mid thigh… [/quote]
We should start a club lol.
lateral raises - front raises - close grip pushups
3 sets of 20-30
hang & swing
40 x 50…20 x 30…10 x 15
6-1-13
squat lockouts
535 x 2
555 x 1, 2, 1
515 x 3
incline db press
90 x 10
105 x 10
110 x 10 x 2
db shrugs / machine row
3 sets of 25
Finally hit a speed bump. The plan going in was 555 for 4 doubles. Where I struggled was finding the groove on my 2nd reps. If I didn’t start from a perfect position, I couldn’t break the bar off the pins. So, since I only have 1 more day planned for lockouts in this cycle, I’ll work up to a 1RM and base my next round of lockouts (for reps) off of that.