Lo/Rez Training

Training Training Logs
441

[quote]barbedwired wrote:

  • does olympic squatting build or maintain the deadlift? I was under the assumption lowbar did…unsure of olympic?[/quote]

I don’t know actually. I do know that my max deadlift was something like 190 for 5 (when I tried a 5x5 and then stopped lifting). And then I didn’t do a single deadlift for almost a year and a half, but I did work through a couple rounds of 20-rep squats. Something like 5 months total of that with a break in the middle.

Then I retested my deadlift and it was 305.

There was clearly some carryover from those squats. They weren’t olympic squats though.

That’s a good idea. I’ll probably stick with conventional for a bit, and then add in snatch-grip later on once I’ve got a better feeling for what’s going on.

442

[quote]chobbs wrote:
We’re getting alot of snow in the Fort…stock up on food for teh bulk![/quote]

It was bad last night, but seems to be good today. So I dunno.

But I’ve got plenty of food here.

443

PRs tonight: 285 @ Pin 6 20lb PR; 385 @ Pin 7 10lb PR

Squats
bottom holds with 45, then 45 overhead
45, 95, 135, 155, 175, 195, 205, 215 x 2 … and I took a break; was running low on energy and replenished that
185, 195, 205, 215, 225 x 2
235, 245, 255 x 1; 265 x 0 (this was 10lbs more than last week’s Tuesday workout)

Pin 6:
225, 245, 255, 265, 275, 285 x 1 (20lb PR)
295 x 0

Pin 7:
295, 305, 315, 325, 335, 345, 355, 365, 375 x 1
(I got bored here, just decided to hit my previous PR. I did that, and started putting the plates away. Then I changed my mind and decided since I had more in me, I probably should just go for it.)
385 x 1 (10lb PR. I could have done more.)

Pin 8:
skipped

–

I’m starting to hit the part where the “CNS Fatigue” is catching up to me motivationally. The research on this is actually pretty interesting. Basically the volitional ability (willpower) starts dropping as the biological markers show higher levels of stress, e.g., as the T/C ratio drops. Interestingly though, performance doesn’t decrease. For example, two PRs tonight even though I really really didn’t feel like training.

On a related note, work took a lot out of me today, as did a stupid fight with the girlfriend last night. Not really a fight. She snapped at me mid-conversation and then kept escalating things. Bitches be crazy. I hung up once I realized things passed the point of no return. Haven’t heard form her at all today. So… that didn’t help my mental state.

Anyway, just keep trucking along. Make it through this week, deload next week, and then to a less intensive squat regimen. With benching. With deads. I’ve got a ways to go.

–

Regarding that whey, it turns out I actually did manage to go through 1lb of that awesomely flavored whey isolate in 5 days… and that was restraining myself.

444

[quote]Overtraining, by definition, reflects diminished performance. Coaches and athletes and gym lifters would never concern themselves with stress or overtraining if it had no impact on 100m times, on 1R M performance, on the 10K run. We care about overtraining precisely because it limits what we can do.

That means performance, irrespective of biological stress markers, is our number one indicator. Even if all the right signs are there, can you be overtrained when you’re still hitting PR numbers?

Back in 2001, Dr. Michael Hartman and Glenn Pendlay put this idea to the test, coaching a team of weightlifters through a grueling training cycle designed to push them to their limits. Throughout the training, the lifters, all squatting and doing the Olympic lifts many times each week, were tested for levels of testosterone and cortisol.

Hartman and Pendlay hypothesized that the ratio between these two hormones (the T/C ratio) would provide a marker of overtraining symptoms. As predicted, after several weeks of extreme training, lifters were coming in with crashed T/C ratios. But despite crashed-out hormones and fatigue so crippling that some of the lifters could barely make it up the stairs to the gym, something remarkable happened.

“We still had several lifters set all-time PRs at the end of a week in which we worked up to a max five times,” says Hartman.

While the T/C ratio rebounded after the training cycle, and the rebound correlated with strength gains, their research also demonstrated that while any heavy-enough training will make hash of the hormonal profile, it’s still possible to keep making PR lifts.

Are you really overtraining if you’re still hitting PR numbers?[/quote]

– from ‘Squat Every Day – Thoughts on Overtraining and Recovery in Strength Training’, by Matt Perryman

445

Squats

bottom holds, overhead holds (these are getting better, but I’m still not there)
45, 95, 135, 155, 175 x 2
– today I started working on my descent speed, trying to get better at using the stretch reflex. And at 175, I managed to hurt my right knee, a pain right under the knee. I added my knee straps and was careful for the rest of the session.
185, 195, 205, 215, 225, 235, 245 x 2
255 x 0

Work Sets:
225 x 3 x 2

Normally when you’re stiff, as you warm up, you should get looser. On the other hand, it seems I start out loose and then get tighter. I figured it was just a matter of adaptation, just getting used to daily squatting, but so far it hasn’t gotten any better. It seems to get worse as the weeks go on. It builds up during the session, and then goes away after an hour or two.

So I did a bit of thinking about the exact feeling and what might be causing it. I started running through a checklist. Hydration is good. Calcium is good (with all that milk). Magnesium is good (epsom salt [magnesium sulfate] baths and nighttime supplementation). Sodium is good (rice-a-roni seasoning + extra sea salt). Potassium… hm.

I remembered that my workout powder hasn’t had electrolytes in it for awhile. So maybe the potassium is the culprit. I looked at a few places in town, trying to find some generic electrolyte powder/pills but no luck. Just picked up some potassium and took 5 or 6 of them.

Maybe that’s it. Maybe this “tightness” is actually something like “micro-cramping” caused by insufficient mineral salts.

–

Since I don’t think I’ve written it down, my supplementation currently looks like:

  • 5000 IU Vitamin D
  • 400mg Magnesium, as a mix of lactate, aspartate and citrate
  • 600mg n-Acetyl Cysteine (anti-oxidant)
  • 500mg Phosphatidyl Serine Complex, with 100mg Phosphatidyl Serine (cortisol reduction)
  • 400mg Ibuprofen (anti-inflammatory)
  • 6g (3 tablets) Dessicated Liver (heme-iron and B12)
  • and now some Potassium

Sporadically I down a shotglass worth of fish oil. This hasn’t been consistent but should be.

Also, at this point, it would probably make sense to switch to something like ElitePro Minerals. I’m probably not getting enough zinc or selenium either.

–

Other notes, my sleep has reduced quite a bit. I used to sleep 9 or 10 hours, hit snooze repeatedly and generally be groggy and out of it for a few hours after waking. Now I’m sleeping 6-7 hours, waking up before my alarm, and actually feeling awake. Other than elevated cortisol levels, I can’t really explain it. If it was fitful sleep, that would be a better explanation.

Could be the Vitamin D (which I wasn’t taking regularly). Could be something else.

Now, I’m not waking up feeling super alert and rested – which only happens once or twice a year – but it’s much better than before.

446

Food for thought you might want to consider ditching a intraworkout powder I dont know if youve experimented with and without it but when I used to try to do intra stuff it would just fuck me up cause I wasnt downing enough water, because it wasnt dilluted enough or whatever. Typically I’ll down a gallon of water in an hour and a half session, which works for me. Might want to give it a shot ditching intra and just getting carbs pre and post

447

[quote]PlainPat wrote:
Food for thought you might want to consider ditching a intraworkout powder I dont know if youve experimented with and without it but when I used to try to do intra stuff it would just fuck me up cause I wasnt downing enough water, because it wasnt dilluted enough or whatever. Typically I’ll down a gallon of water in an hour and a half session, which works for me. Might want to give it a shot ditching intra and just getting carbs pre and post[/quote]

What were you using for intra?

The intra was nice for the long layer workouts; there was a serious difference toward the later sets with vs without. (And I did it both ways.) On the other hand, with these pretty short squat workouts, it doesn’t seem to make much of a difference.

I don’t really use it as a protein source, more just to sustain momentum in the gym. It works well for that. As far as “optimum nutrient timing” and all that jazz, I have no idea. I don’t use it for that.

But yeah, thanks for the suggestion. And yeah, you do need a lot of water. I use like 20oz or so for 50g powder.

448

Squats

45, 95, 135, 155, 175, 195, 215 x 2
235, 245 x 1

(Maybe it was 255, I don’t remember.)

–

Last night, I fell asleep on the couch and spent most of the night there. I woke up with horrible sinus coughing bullshit today. (That, I think, could be because of the potassium and or zinc, both of which were new as of last night.) It’s like all my sinuses had loosened up and now everything was coming out. Bleh.

So I was exhausted today. I left work a bit early, came home, and napped for 90 minutes or so.

It was 10pm by the time I went out and lifted. Today was supposed to be overloads with pin squats, but out of respect for my neighbors and the noise, I just quickly ramped up and got out of there. Usually I’ll switch to 10lb increments when I hit 195, but I just stuck with 20 until 235. Basically just in and out.

Usually I’d push until I missed. As soon as a rep might be really grindy I’d stop, but today as soon as it wasn’t snappy I stopped.

My right knee hurt here and there up and down the stairs from whatever I did to it yesterday. Good otherwise.

I’ll just bump today’s planned workout to tomorrow.

449

Underestimated how much time I’d need to do this over lunch.

Squats
45, 95 x a few. Felt some tightness in left glute. Rolled it out.
135, 155, 175, 295, 215, 225, 235, 245 x 2 – working on explosiveness
255 x 0 – just fell into the hole with no hope
250 x 0 – slightly better, but yeah, no

Set things up for pin squats. I’ll just ramp up from the low pin later today.

Hip flexors tightened up during the workout again. Better than before, but not happy about it.

450

I’m in

451

[quote]nkklllll wrote:
I’m in[/quote]

Nothing much to see here. Squats. More squats. And even more squats.

Actually, I’ll add some overhead and/or benching back in next week. That’ll be new and exciting.

452

Squats, squats and more squats? That sounds like my kind of log. Unfortunately I’m injured and can’t squat with that much regularity.

453

Squat session 2. Because 2 squat sessions in 24 hours isn’t enough, I needed 3.

Squat … from pins

Warmups, freesquats with bar

Pin 6: 135, 185, 225, 245, 265, 275, 295, 315 x 1 (30lb PR)
Pin 7: 335, 355, 365, 385, 405 x 1 (30lb PR)

Ok, so I was pretty fresh for these. And had recuperated with 1) protein and carbs, 2) milk, 3) rockstar recovery, so I got my electrolytes in.

Oh, and 4) I was messing around with nicotine gum, because of that Shugart article from forever ago. I was trying to see if it would help wake me up from my tiredness, since the Rockstar actually made me a bit sleepy. It helped a tiny bit to wake up.

  1. I had some music playing with a nice upbeat groove. I always lift in silence.

So… technically PRs, but not under the same conditions.

HOWEVER, and I think this is important, I hit 315 at pin 6, when before I only thought I could hit 265 or whatever. Literally last week, all I could do was 265 from here. I’m pretty sure I didn’t add 50lbs to my squat in a week, so I think two things affected that. 1) it was in my head with some psychological self-imposed limits or something, and 2) my positioning under the bar is better… my stance was just a touch wider, although this was still truly lifted with my legs not my back.

Pin 6 is just an inch or two above parallel. Maybe more, but in my head it’s only an inch or two.

Which means my max is probably higher than I realize, if I just work on my form a bit.

–

Tomorrow is my old Friday: ramp + 2x 90% clusters.

Sunday is my old Saturday: ramp to 80% and screw around with another lift or three

And then I’m done. 3 weeks complete. A week of deload, and then retesting for a real max.

–

Mostly for my own record, and if anyone missed it… how to make homemade loading pins for cheap with parts from Home Depot.

http://tnation.T-Nation.com/free_online_forum/sports_body_bigger_stronger_leaner/diy_loading_pins

This is what I’ve used to work on some ROM progression with my overheads. The pins in my rack don’t go high enough to do it otherwise.

454

Also I forgot to mention. I stopped at 405 because I didn’t feel like doing more. I could have.

I think 405 is enough for my back to adapt to right now. 475 was too much; it left me sore for a few days, wincing a bit every time I reracked the bar.

455

Best Gym Video Ever

456

[quote]LoRez wrote:
Let me preface this by saying I appreciate that you care enough to say something.

That being said, there’s a reason why I’m doing things this way. I’m training this frequently because if I don’t, I’ll stop training. If I miss one day, one day will turn into three days, will turn into a week, into a month, etc. This is the ONLY way I’ve found to keep myself training regularly and consistently. If you ask just about anyone, it’s not ideal, I realize that. But it’s the only thing that works for me.

Likewise, if I don’t keep myself actively thinking about this, I’ll think about something else, put my focus there, and quite frankly forget about training. So I keep myself thinking about this. Does that mean I overthink things way way way beyond anything reasonable? Yeah. It also means I’ve been able to keep training.

However, if you actually look through my log, you’ll see that for as much rambling thoughts I have, my actual training has been consistent, the lifts have been consistent, the training methodology has been consistent. That, believe it or not, is a huge step for me. I can barely do that anywhere else in my life.

Clinically, these are textbook Adult ADHD symptoms. Yes, I’ve been diagnosed, yes, it’s a real psychiatric issue, and no, I haven’t been responsive to any treatment. So I find ways to live with it.

Given that… I’m not starting from a “what’s ideal”, I’m starting from a “I need something simple enough that I can do it every day but still make progress”. That’s where training every day, and borrowing ideas from Olympic weightlifters has fit in well.

The most rapid progress I’ve ever made on my squat 1RM, my mobility and flexibility, and my leg size has been in the past couple weeks. Moreso than 5x5 or 20-rep squats ever did. Again, is this ideal? I don’t know. But it’s working for me.

And It works for Nick Horton’s gyms (unassisted). It worked for Broz’ gym (some/all were assisted). It worked for the American weightlifting team back when we were winning golds at the Olympics and before drugs really came onto the scene. It worked for the Bulgarians after drugs came on the scene. I’m not sure what we think we know about recovery is actually right.

Likewise, is drinking roughly a gallon of milk a day a good or ideal thing? Probably not. But that’s been the ONLY way I’ve been able to get down enough calories to keep my weight from not going down. I have constant sinus drainage and nausea, and after 4 surgeries/procedures to address those, as well as several trials of medications, nothing has worked to make those things go away. So I learn to work around it, and drinking high volumes of milk helps. If I had a normal appetite, and didn’t wake up coughing and feeling like throwing up every single morning, it might be a different story. But that’s my burden.

So that’s where I’m coming from. If you have solutions that work for my unique circumstances, I’m all ears.[/quote]

I’m probably a bit late to the game here, but I may have some suggestions if you don’t mind me getting on the soapbox for a minute.

First, Pat has the right idea. You seem like a fairly intelligent and reasonable guy, but to be brutally honest here, I don’t think you’ve made anywhere near the progress you could’ve made within the time you’ve been training.

I get if you have to train 6 days a week. But do you have to lift 6 days a week? You might be better off using 2 of those days to work on conditioning, mobility, and flexibility. If lifting 6 days a week is a must, then you’re going to have to moderate your intensity VERY carefully. This means no more failing reps. EVER. Even on heavier days. To be honest, I don’t ever try and push my 1RM except to find out what it is before a meet (and during the meet obviously).

Another part of moderating intensity is heavy/light days, and setting up the order of your training intelligently. How much you can get away with depends on your body, recovery protocol, and training split. It’s a delicate balance, but you can work with it if you’re careful and listen to your body. And if you’re going to push the envelope, consistency is a must. As well as scheduling deloads in an intelligent way.

As far as the milk goes, it’s not terrible. IMO, the importance of diet is overrated on the internet. Yeah, as you progress you will have to clean it up or you will put on more fat than muscle. Not a bad idea to clean it up if you can for health reasons, in any case. But if it’s working in the meantime (and you still have a lot of gains to be made), I don’t see any reason to stop.

Good luck.

457

[quote]Apoklyps wrote:
…to be brutally honest here, I don’t think you’ve made anywhere near the progress you could’ve made within the time you’ve been training.[/quote]

That’s fair. I haven’t.

The short answer basically comes to 1) injuries [from not knowing my body well enough; i.e., lack of experience], and 2) poor program choice [from lack of experience], and 3) not knowing enough / trusting myself to tweak a program [again, lack of experience]

I made progress, but most wasn’t really in the realm of strength or physique, if that makes any sense.

I don’t have to, no, but I prefer to.

I’m going to deviate just a bit, then get back to training.

The simpler and more consistent things are, the easier it is to understand how changes affect things. As a general principle, I think that’s common sense. What I’m trying to do with my training (and my life) is to simplify and make things consistent.

There’s a couple routes to that path. The first is to understand where you are, and start paring things down to simplify things. The other is to find a way to create a clean slate, and slowly add to it, adjusting as necessary.

As far as the first approach:
I can manage that with a complex software system, but that’s because the work is performed by components that, in and of themselves, behave consistently. However when I try that with myself, I can’t seem to get it to work, because almost nothing about me, myself, behaves consistently.

Expanding to training, no matter how consistent my training might be, the rest of my life I haven’t been able to get into order. My sleep varies somewhere between 5 and 12 hours, the time I eat varies considerably, the amount I eat varies considerably, etc. etc. This complete lack of consistency, more than anywhere else, seems to be the source of a lot of problems.

So I’m taking the second approach. My work will always be inconsistent, but the rest doesn’t have to be. For the last few weeks, I’ve been able to go into work and leave at roughly the same time (this is new to me); to eat the same foods (milk, beef, noodles/rice + whey/casien); to train consistently (squat ramp + work sets); to spend the rest of the time resting, relaxing, reading.

Yeah, I realize stuff like that seems pretty normal and easy for most people. Those people are lucky.

And to be honest, I’m not even that consistent with this. Sometimes I’ll work from home in the mornings, sometimes I’ll work from the office. Sometimes I’ll train over lunch, sometimes I’ll train after work, sometimes I’ll train late at night.

Even these few things I have trouble managing with any consistency. Stuff that everyone else seems to be able to do… easily.

So yeah, it’s definitely easier/better for me to lift daily, and with the last three weeks, squatting daily with the same basic template has helped.

I’m trying to avoid letting the little bits of chaos/inconsistency grow and throw everything off track. So far it seems to be pretty well managed.

458

[quote]If lifting 6 days a week is a must, then you’re going to have to moderate your intensity VERY carefully. This means no more failing reps. EVER. Even on heavier days. To be honest, I don’t ever try and push my 1RM except to find out what it is before a meet (and during the meet obviously).

Another part of moderating intensity is heavy/light days, and setting up the order of your training intelligently. How much you can get away with depends on your body, recovery protocol, and training split. It’s a delicate balance, but you can work with it if you’re careful and listen to your body. And if you’re going to push the envelope, consistency is a must. As well as scheduling deloads in an intelligent way.[/quote]

There’s a gap here. In the context of what you’re talking about, that makes plenty of sense. However, when you say 1RM and I say 1RM, we’re talking about different things. Likewise for missing/failing a rep. It’s basically the same words, but a different language.

That’s not supposed to be defensive, just explanatory. It took me awhile to wrap my head around this stuff. It’s just a completely different way of looking at it.

At a very basic level, when I say “ramp to 1RM”, most people interpret it as “ramp to 100%”, when in reality it’s more like “ramp to 85-90%”. When I say “miss”, most people interpret it as “grinding to muscular failure”, when it’s actually “this rep isn’t going to be 100% crisp, clean, explosive, so I’ll stop”.

A far as explaining terms:

Here’s a running analogy, since I used to be a runner. Lets say you’ve got 400m runner. In training, when he’s fresh, he can run a hard 400m in about 60 seconds. Give him a few minutes to recuperate, and his next 400m, running at the same intensity, will be something like 63 seconds. Does it again, 65 seconds.

Next day, comes in fresh with a night of sleep, he can run a 60 second 400. Assuming nothing throws him off, 60 seconds is what he can hit when he’s pushing himself hard.

This is his “training max”.

Now, let’s say he has a bad day, girlfriend broke up with him, bad sleep, whatever. Pushing himself at what feels like the same intensity, he’s only able to run a 65 second pace. However, no matter how much shit happens and how bad he feels (barring injury), he’s always able to run at least a 65 second pace.

This is his “training minimum”.

Since this is real life, and there are good days and bad days, and they can’t be predicted, you get fluctuations. Some days he’s able to get 60, sometimes 62, sometimes 65.

What he’s able to do that day pushing himself hard is his “daily max”.

Ok, so ramping it up a notch, lets say there’s a track meet, and winning the state championship comes down to him. And the guy he’s trying to beat, they’re neck-and-neck the entire race. With all this pressure, intensity, completely psyched up, he manages to run his 400m in 55 seconds.

This is the “actual/competition max”. (And the only thing most people mean when they say 1RM.)

–

Given all that, this style of training is all built around the daily max. It’s an autoregulating approach that basically works like this.

  1. figure out how you’re actually performing today; is this a strong day or a weaker day (ramping to a daily max)
  2. now do some work sets, scaled to how strong you are today

It’s the work sets, their intensity and volume, that determine whether you get stronger. 5x5 at 70% (of the daily max) on a good day should feel the same as 5x5 at 70% on a bad day, even though the actual weights are different.

The idea is to give the body a consistent stimulus relative to its current state.

–

The “daily max” is just a yardstick for the real work, but irrelevant in and of itself. Serves mostly as an extended warmup to activate as many muscle fibers as possible.

And then, from that point, manipulating the volume and intensities of the worksets are where these programs really are at.

–

In effect, for the most part, you’re letting your body self-adjust the intensity and load.

CT has his take on it. Mike Tuchscherer has his take on it with his RTS/RPE training. Abadjiev has his approach. Broz has another. Nick Horton, yet another.

Out of those, Nick Horton seems the most open, having experimented with several approaches and tested with “normal” people, having them squat every day and seen great results. Not high level athletes, just people who would rather be doing some real lifting than crossfit.

Does that mean it will work for any lifts besides squats and the O-lifts? I don’t know. It might.

But this is the path I’m going to give a chance for awhile. 3 weeks hard, deload. Repeat.

459

The true litmus test will be my progress. Always.

I’m not forgetting that part.

460

[quote]LoRez wrote:
“this rep isn’t going to be 100% crisp, clean, explosive, so I’ll stop”.
[/quote]

Ah, okay. Thanks for the clarification. There’s still one thing I don’t like about this approach though. Completing reps is very much a psychological game. It builds confidence in your ability to handle heavy weights. Trust me, this makes a huge difference. For example, I had a huge mental barrier trying to deadlift 200kg for the first time. I kept failing 200kg and it took me about 6 months to go from a 195kg max to a 200kg max. After I hit 200kg though, it only took about 6 weeks to get my max up to an easy 220kg.

The lesson here is that, in reality, I had the strength to lift 200kg for a long time, but I couldn’t because of a psychological barrier. A lot of this game is psychology. Don’t create barriers to your success needlessly.

As far as the food and sleep consistency goes, TBH, I think the importance of that is overrated on the internet. I have ADHD (I’ve found meds to be very helpful, but they are not a magic bullet and kill my appetite) as well, and I’m also in a fairly demanding schooling program (I’m in my last, read: busiest, year before hopefully entering one of the more competitive med schools in Canada). I’ve got a young son too. So you can imagine that my life is probably in shambles most of the time as far as consistency goes LOL. Life always gets in the way of lifting for everybody. The good news is that you can make good gains anyway. Missing out on some sleep/calories semi-regularly isn’t that big of a deal as long as you make up for it somewhere else. Sure, you may not make progress as ideally as someone who has the time to dial everything in perfectly, but you still can progress. For me, sleep is less important than calories. I try to set a rough protein target every day (a good amount from shakes, for better or worse) and eat enough that I’m getting on average enough to make gains/recover. A couple days of undereating every week isn’t going to hinder gains so much. Consistently averaging too low in calories will.

You don’t necessarily have to eat ridiculous amounts to make gains either. Yes, weight moves weight. However, most people get way too hung up on scale weight. I did too for a long time. My approach to bulking has since changed. I’ve been eating fairly close to maintenance for the past while. Haven’t gained a pound in the past 3 weeks. In that time, though, my arms have increased in size, my waist has decreased, and I’ve hit PRs. So I would consider that bulking in a successful way.