Lo/Rez: From CGA to EGA

Training Training Logs
161

Dear LoRez,

Apologies for posting out of the blue like this. I’m about 40+ years old and recently decided to get off my butt to do some exercising. Cardio has gone fine but lifting weights has not been good. I’ve weak upper body strength and lifting some weights has made me realize that my shoulders are somewhat tight and there’s pain on and off. Elbows have pain as well.

From googling, I found the book “Shoulder Pain? The Solution & Prevention, Revised & Expanded” by John M. Kirsch M.D. on Amazon and read some of the reviews. I tried hanging on a Monkey Bar on the tip of my toes and it helps somewhat. It’s early days, only been a week. I find it helpful but I am not sure whether I’m doing it right or not. I know I should get the book but I don’t have a Kindle. The paperback seems to be an earlier version, so I’m still undecided.

I found your post from Google and you mentioned earlier that “The actual routine isn’t much. Spend 10 minutes a day, doing completely relaxed 10-30 second hangs, with whatever rest you want.”. I was hoping you’d be kind enough to clarify:

  1. What sort of hanging position the body is in, whilst you’re hanging? Is it something like the one below?
    The Passive Hang - YouTube

  2. How far are your hands apart on the bar? Shoulder width or closer?

  3. Are your hands facing the face (chin-up) or away from the face (pull up)?

  4. Are there any precautions or issues that is important mentioning before or during the program? Since my shoulder is already not too great, it’d be pretty scary if it gets worst if the hanging exercise is done wrongly… :frowning:

  5. How effective do you find it personally? How often do you do it? Is doing it DAILY a bit too much?

  6. More specifically, how many sets do you do each time? For each set, how many reps and how long do you hang? How long the rest in between?

Thanks for reading this. Hope to hear from you soon and any feedback would really be appreciated. :slight_smile:

162

Hey man. I was perusing and noticed your micro plate issue. Apologies if you’ve solved it and I missed it, but the way I solved that issue was heading to the hardware store and buying 2 lengths of chain and 2 small carabiners. A couple of minutes of quick math and research on the chains you’re looking at (I think mine are 5/8 galvanized), and you’ll at least land in the ball park in terms of weight. That chain loop fits on the barbell pretty well. I think Mine ended up right around 1.25-1.5 lbs each.

163

[quote]TX iron wrote:
Hey man. I was perusing and noticed your micro plate issue. Apologies if you’ve solved it and I missed it, but the way I solved that issue was heading to the hardware store and buying 2 lengths of chain and 2 small carabiners. A couple of minutes of quick math and research on the chains you’re looking at (I think mine are 5/8 galvanized), and you’ll at least land in the ball park in terms of weight. That chain loop fits on the barbell pretty well. I think Mine ended up right around 1.25-1.5 lbs each.[/quote]

On this topic, another brilliant idea a buddy of mine had was to just throw ankle weights onto the bar. Strap them on and use a collar to keep them on the bar. Some are even adjustable, so you can increase or decrease your microloading.

164

[quote]T3hPwnisher wrote:

[quote]TX iron wrote:
Hey man. I was perusing and noticed your micro plate issue. Apologies if you’ve solved it and I missed it, but the way I solved that issue was heading to the hardware store and buying 2 lengths of chain and 2 small carabiners. A couple of minutes of quick math and research on the chains you’re looking at (I think mine are 5/8 galvanized), and you’ll at least land in the ball park in terms of weight. That chain loop fits on the barbell pretty well. I think Mine ended up right around 1.25-1.5 lbs each.[/quote]

On this topic, another brilliant idea a buddy of mine had was to just throw ankle weights onto the bar. Strap them on and use a collar to keep them on the bar. Some are even adjustable, so you can increase or decrease your microloading.[/quote]

Solid idea. I actually did this when I trained at home as I didn’t have any 2.5s. I had to make the chains though since 2.5 was the lowest I had and didn’t think to look for smaller ones lol.

165

Back from vacation.

Slight Incline Axle Presses: 115 x 5, 5, 7
Farmers Walks (heavy week): 170 per side x 50’, 50’, 10’ - w/straps

Presses went up slowly. Left shoulder positioning is just unstable right now. My shoulder blade wants to gravitate to a different place than I want it to be. I should have called it at 7 reps, but went for an 8th. Got it up, but ended up all twisted in order to get it up. Asymmetries suck.

Bumped up the weight on the Farmers. Switched to my hiking boots instead of my normal slip-on driving shoes. My feet and ankles felt much better for it. They had been hurting intermittently over vacation. While the arch support in my boots is still a bit “off”, having some support seemed to be much better than having none.

However, after the first 10’ of the 3rd set I was spent. I think in actuality my grip was failing (the straps were slipping too), but I was just mentally done by that point.

166

[quote]agewisdom wrote:
Dear LoRez,

[…]

I found your post from Google and you mentioned earlier that “The actual routine isn’t much. Spend 10 minutes a day, doing completely relaxed 10-30 second hangs, with whatever rest you want.”. I was hoping you’d be kind enough to clarify:[/quote]

Let me first say that this book and program didn’t seem to be quite the panacea I was expecting. It seemed to stretch things out on my left side to the point that I’d say I was a bit “over-stretched”, and that caused some instability when I went back to pressing. But that was unique to me, and just to my left shoulder.

That said… this is still a good book, and helped “fix” a lot of other things. If I were to point you to a single book, right now I’d recommend “Treat Your Own Rotator Cuff” by Jim Johnson.

I’ll still answer your questions though:

[quote]1. What sort of hanging position the body is in, whilst you’re hanging? Is it something like the one below?

[/quote]
Yes, exactly like that. Hands should be facing forward, with everything relaxed. The idea is that everything stretches out, and that the humerus (upper arm bone), applies some slight pressure to the coroacromial ligament all of which helps to increase your range of motion overhead.

Shoulder width.

Away/pull-up.

I’m sure there are, although the author suggests that this will help everyone.

If I remember correctly, he says things may be uncomfortable for the first couple weeks, but eventually as things sort themselves out it becomes better.

Once things became easy for me, I stopped getting any noticeable benefit from it. I also started noticing more instability on my left side when pressing, which seemed to be from stretching the capsular ligament (I’m just guessing).

I stopped doing it around that time.

The Jim Johnson book/program is a more thorough approach, I think.

Really it was by feel. I set a timer for 10 minutes, then hung for as long as I felt comfortable, then off for a bit, then back on until the timer went off.

The goal is to work up to hanging for 10 minutes straight, per the author. To start, I’d do a set of 10-20 seconds, take a rest for about the same time, and repeat.

I found the Harbinger Lifting Hooks to be very useful when doing this. It lets you hang with a very loose grip, so that your grip strength is not the limiting factor.

Hope some of that was helpful.

167

[quote]TX iron wrote:
Hey man. I was perusing and noticed your micro plate issue. Apologies if you’ve solved it and I missed it[/quote]

Sure, no problem, and thanks for the idea. I actually just switched out from my barbell to my axle (which is ~1.9" instead of 2"), and the plates fit just fine. I’ll keep that in mind when I switch back to the barbell.

168

Dear LoRez

Many, many thanks! That was indeed very helpful and I think you’ve given me enough information that I can bypass the book.

I’ll check out the Jim Johnson book/program that you mentioned and hopefully it helps me out a bit more. Really appreciate your kind assistance. :slight_smile:

Hoping your shoulder gets better soon. By the way, a belated Merry Christmas and Happy New Year 2016 to you :smiley:

169

[quote]agewisdom wrote:
Hoping your shoulder gets better soon. By the way, a belated Merry Christmas and Happy New Year 2016 to you :smiley:
[/quote]
Same to you, on all accounts.

170

36 degrees, sunny.

I have to say my left shoulder feels a bit sore from yesterday’s workout. Front side, dull pain when in certain positions. Not bad, but this wasn’t there yesterday. Right side feels fine.

I read up on Paul Anderson’s Progressive Movement Training routine, and then proceeded to do something similar for my squats today. Used the “Smith” bar apparatus from a page or two ago, basically chains with a loading pin, so the weights are on the ground at the bottom position. Decided to go the chain route because I can graduate the weight a lot more precisely than with the pins in my rack. And just because.

Measured the chain lengths to the top of the squat at 44", and dropped it down 4" to 40" to start.

So…

40" of chain, 295 pounds, for 2 x 20.

Then a couple sets of hammer curls with the neutral bar.

From:

[quote]Routine Seven

Although I am not claiming that this routine is new with me, I feel that I have done more experimenting with it than anyone else, and in turn have written more about it than any other instructor. My personal name for it is Progressive Movement Training. This is the only time I am going to ask you to deviate from my rule of thumb of always doing the actual movement, because I feel with all the reps you have been doing in the deep knee bend you are pretty well in the groove and will not get out of the groove in the time that you spend on the Progressive Movement squatting routine.

The real trick to it is repetition variation as well as lengthening the movement. The idea of doing this in the squat is to start off with a quarter squat lift in a power rack, or a squat rack with some type of guards running up each side to keep the weight from falling out in case of a loss of balance.

By starting off in a quarter squat, you should use a weight about 100 pounds more than your best full squat. I realize this is a very light weight in comparison to what you can quarter squat with, but this is part of the plan. I recommend doing about 20 to 25 repetitions in the quarter squatting movement with the particular weight that fits your ability, performing 2 sets. The 20 to 25 repetitions will constitute a set. I want you to do this every day. After doing the two sets you are going to feel, especially in the beginning, that you are not accomplishing very much and you will not get very tired. Every three days, lower the bar or raise the body, which will come out to the same results, about three inches. When lowering the bar three inches, knock off 3 reps. Continue the 2 sets of 17 to 22 reps, according to what you started with, for three days, ten raise the body or lower the stands again some three inches, knocking off 3 repetitions per set. Continue doing this until you have worked just as far down as you possibly can into a full squatting position. Always start the lift in the bottom position. After you have worked down just as far as possible, cutting your repetitions all the way down to 2, rest about two or three days and then try your limit in the squat. I believe that you will find that you have gained quite a bit of strength during this drawn out Progressive Movement routine. You can do your upper body and back exercises as usual, if you feel you can perform all of them.

Much of your recovery ability and your strength progression is up to you as an individual. I am giving you routines that I feel are the ultimate in power building, and many of them quite unique. Much thought and experimentation have gone into these, but one thing I have learned through experimenting with other athletes and on myself is that each and every one is an individual. You must learn to judge your repetitions, and especially your sets according to your personal ability and responsiveness to the exercises themselves.

Another tip on doing this routine is to use one-inch sheets of plywood for the height graduation. If you will cut these one-inch sheets of plywood just square enough for your stance in the squat allowing safe foot room on each side, you can stack them up as you lengthen the movement. I have given some ideas on squat racks for this including the power rack?s use, but you may even go so far as I have in the movement, if finances will allow. I use the heavy quarter squat racks with bumper jacks built in and I can just raise and lower them at will. If you cannot afford to build such equipment, or if at this time you do not wish to, either power racks or squat racks with extra guards built up on each side will work out more than adequately for the exercise.[/quote]

Rebirth of the Juggernaut: Brute Force and Ignorance (Part 1)
171

“Smith” bar / improvised Harvey Maxime bar setup.

1024×1365 446 KB

1024×1365 309 KB

Works pretty well.

172

If you ever get the itch, that bar you just built is also a chain yoke. Could be some more variety to add to your training. Chain yoke is supposedly brutal to the core.

Always love the inventiveness in your log. Lots of cool stuff.

And I have those same plates, haha.

173

34, sunny. A touch of ice on the ground where there were puddles. Used my olympic lifting shoes.

Wide Neutral Grip Presses: 87.5 x 5, 5, 7
40" PMT Squats: 315 x 5, 2, 20, 20 (first two sets with regular bar; second two with axle)

My back isn’t used to having a loaded bar on it anymore. I was pretty sore/bruised from yesterday, and I just couldn’t handle the pain from it. I just switched out to the axle, and other than having a tendency to slip off a bit, it worked pretty well. Seemed to distribute the weight better. Just had to throw 12.5 on each side to compensate for the lighter bar.

Also, shoulders and elbows felt great with the pressing. Nothing hurt or twinged or anything at all.

174

[quote]T3hPwnisher wrote:
If you ever get the itch, that bar you just built is also a chain yoke. Could be some more variety to add to your training. Chain yoke is supposedly brutal to the core.[/quote]
Yeah, the swinging adds a completely new dynamic.

I don’t think I’m ready to add any yoke stuff in yet though… Knowing me, it will eventually happen, just not yet.

175

New Years Review and Plan

As far as training goes, this wasn’t the greatest year. Made some progress in some places, but kept hurting myself and/or wearing myself down. Learned a lot though, and this latest round seems to be a genuine improvement on both fronts.

As far as life goes, things went pretty well. Got a start into actually spending some time in the outdoors. Worked with two builders and an architect to design a house, and signed the contract last week. Got engaged (also, last week). Made some major work changes, going from being a professional Windows developer to a professional iPhone/iPad developer. Learned two new programming languages in the process. Learned to cook a bunch of Sichuan dishes. And a bunch of other stuff.

For 2016.

Goals are still the same. Become a better overhead presser. Become a better deadlifter. Become more like Kazuya Misihima and Jin Kazama.

Joint stability and core strength (and just strength) seem to be my biggest limitations, so address those in the process.

Training plan, as of today, looks like:

  1. Squats using ROM Progression (per Paul Anderson routine), somewhere between 3 and 6 times a week. 3 sessions at each height before lowering 3" and dropping 3 reps. Work down to 2 reps (total drop of 18"), then start over.
  2. Farmers walks, once a week, cycling weights and distance; 4x100’ with light weight, 2x100’, 2x50’ with medium weight, 4x50’ with heavy weight.
  3. Three press days a week. Slight incline axle press, neutral grip overhead press, slight decline axle press. Greyskull programming of 5,5,5+ and adding 2.5lbs per session, with a 10% reset when 5,5,5 isn’t reached.
  4. Hammer curls with the neutral grip bar, every few days, whenever/however I feel like it.

The ROM Progression Squats are more about adding volume and slowly working toward getting my body able to squat again. If I could do parallel squats without my knees getting wonky, I’d have started there. So instead I’m going to start from the top and hopefully reteach my body.

The Farmers are to help balance some things out, and improve dynamic core strength, since that’s one of the failure points in my overhead pressing, and possibly one of the reasons squats hurt me right now. They also seem to make me overall “better and stronger”. Even if that’s just in my head, it’s a good reason to keep doing it.

The presses are to, well, improve my pressing. By rotating the press types, I’m looking to build a better base/shelf in my upper body, and to just improve all the pressing muscles in my arms, chest and shoulders.

Hammer curls are mostly for vanity. They’re one of the few curl variants that’s not painful. Plus, I’m certain there’s actual lifting and injury-prevention-related benefits.

176

Congratulations on the life stuff!!!

177

[quote]furo wrote:
Congratulations on the life stuff!!![/quote]

Thanks. It’s been kind of a big year.

–

Today. 30 degrees, sunny with gusty wind (24 degrees windchill)

40" PMT Axle Squats, 315 x 2 x 20

I’ve been donning my winter gear for the last few sessions, but it’s been really windy the last couple days. That’s been wreaking havoc on our apartment heating since while it’s fairly air-tight, the wind keeps forcing itself in.

My olympic lifting shoes have air vents in them to help them breathe, which also means, air vents to freeze my toes.

Next session I drop the chains 3". 315 at this height isn’t really a big deal, but my upper back is still not conditioned for holding a bar yet. It’s certainly strong enough, just bruised up a bit right now.

178

36, grey, hazy, ground covered with snow, ice and slush

Slight Incline Axle Press: 117.5 x 5, 5, 7
37" PMT Axle Squats: 315 x 2 x 17

Incline pressing went well. Left shoulder felt a bit more stable and these just went much better than the 115 a week ago.

Opted to not do Farmers today since it was way too slippery.

Lowered the squats 3". The weights got to swinging quite a bit which made things even more difficult. Almost lost my balance forward on one rep. Bar felt much better on my back today; not nearly as bruised.

Legs were burning on these. First time I’ve felt that in a long time.

179

39, wet from snowmelt

(7" ROM) 37" PMT Axle Squats: 315 x 2 x 17

The very first rep threw me forward, since I wasn’t centered and the weight swung. It’s really a weird feeling being thrown around like that.

That said, I think the instability from the swinging will be very good for me. It’s kind of a like a really hardcore wobble board. I think it’d be really hard to go through a few cycles of this and not end up much stronger from it. There’s never a perfect groove, so it just forces your body to figure it out, on every single rep.

I also think I’m starting to understand the genius of how Paul Anderson set these up. By dropping the reps every time the ROM increases, the TUT of the sets stay about the same. Although I’m not sure 2 full ROM reps will take quite the same time as 20 quarter squats, the basic idea seems sound.

–

Also, it’s really nice to see how much logging is going on still in here. And nice to see some new logs with the new year.

180

Now that I can get in here…

I’m not sold on the new site design, but given that the engine (Discourse) was developed by Jeff Atwood and company… the guys behind Stack Overflow… they may know what they’re doing. We’ll see how it pans out.

I’m using a Chrome plugin to switch things back to a black background though.

–

Today. 45 degrees.

Wide Neutral Grip Overhead Presses: 90 x 5, 5, 8
7" ROM (37" chain) PMT Axle Squats: 315 x 2 x 17

The presses went up pretty well. No shoulder pain or anything. A touch of wrist pain on the last reps of the last set, just like last time. Not enough to be a problem, but enough that I should start considering wrapping my wrists for the last set. Managed to add 2.5 pounds AND another rep.

The squats were surprisingly uneventful. Didn’t get thrown around this time, and they just went up and down, and up and down. Noisy though, since the plates rattle around every time the loading pins hit the ground.

Lowering the bar/shortening the chains tomorrow.

Looked around Jamie Lewis’ site a touch regarding the progressive ROM Anderson squats. Found an old post where he said he finally made progress by doing them more frequently than once a week. Given that Paul wrote “I want you to do this every day”, he probably meant that. So I’m doing them every day.

That said, I may back off to 3x a week or something depending on how things go. So far they’re going well by doing them every day, so I’ll keep that up for now.