I’m optimistic that i won’t have to do that but we’ll see. I’ve been pretty lucky to stay injury free so far so I’m not keen to push this in the event it gets worse. FWIW I feel like I could get into bench position. Its the actual hinging movement of picking something up that hurts.
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I bench with heels up too and when I grind my back tightens up a bit,but that might not be the case for everyone I guess
Update: felt about the same this morning but I was able to go up and down the stairs with full laundry baskets and chase my son around at his soccer class no problem, so thats encouraging. I really want to do this meet in NJ in January as it’ll be my last chance to compete probably before summer 2017. So I think I’m going to train with the mindset that I’ll be doing bench only and just be pleasantly surprised if I feel good enough to go full power. I don’t want to squat and pull unless I can actually push those lifts hard and get a PR total. So thats the plan for now.
Oh, and Chris Taylor has a used double-ply bench shirt he is willing to give me to play around with. So who knows, maybe I will go geared for this meet. Might as well have some fun with it.
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Meet prep begins today, 10 weeks out from RPS North American & New Jersey State Powerlifting Championships. As of now, the plan is to go bench only. I will play around with this bench shirt once I get it and decide if I want to compete in it.
In order to push my bench 100% and learn the shirt, I will be following the Metal Militia style of bench programming. This means 2 big training sessions per week, one for low-end raw strength and one for lockout and shirt practice. It will be a lot of bench volume and I am ready.
I will also add a third day for lower body so I can assess my recovery from this minor injury. It will likely consist of mobility and stretching, light squats, banded good mornings, some leg extensions and leg curls to maintain the size of my legs, and some sledmill walking. If I feel good enough to lift at 100% I will go full power raw for the meet. That doesn’t mean feeling good enough to train. It means good enough to go over 500 lbs on my squat and deadlift on meet day. So this will be assessed week-to-week.
Weighed in at 223.8 this morning. I will be eating to gain and get stronger, and bench a metric ton. If I am sitting around 230 or less at a week out I will cut to 220 for weigh-ins. If not, 242 it is. Lets get it!
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MONDAY 11/21/2016 - 10 WEEKS OUT
Wide-Grip Bench: Warmed up with triples then working sets were 245x3, 255x3, 265x3, 275x3, 285x3, 255x5, 265x4
Decline Bench: 175x5, 205x5, 225x5, 245x5, 255x5
4-Board Press: 275x3, 315x3 - first time ever using a 4. Hardly any ROM at all.
3-Board Press: 315x3, 335x2.5 (slight spotter assist on the last rep)
2-Board: Missed 335, then hit 315 clean for a single.
Icline Bench: 135x5, 185x5, 205x3, 205x4
Rope Extensions: 20 lb x36, x25
Lat Pulldowns: 120x2x10, 125x2x10
Shrugs: 180x10, 230x3x10
This was a lot of volume and took 2.5 hours, but I didn’t have any trouble making it through. Since I’m only training hard 2x per week I should have plenty of time to recover for the next session. I don’t expect my lower body sessions to interfere, however if I feel good enough to squat and pull in this meet I will rearrange in a few weeks.
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THURSDAY 11/24/2016
First lower body day since tweaking my back. I was very stiff and it took me a LONG time to warm up and get loose. Lots of hamstring and back stretches, squat-to-stands, cossack squats etc … Some bodyweight reverse hypers on the GHR seemed to help.
On to squatting - about a ton of sets with the empty bar playing with my stance til I got comfortable. Was planning on going up to 135 but once I finally got loose I powered up to 315 for a single then a double, then called it a day. I actually felt good once I got up there, albeit a little slow. Still, an encouraging day. The next indicator will be seeing how my back feels tomorrow morning.
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SATURDAY 11/26/2016 - 9 WEEKS OUT
Bench - grip slightly closer than competition-grip. Started working up:
Barx3x3, 95x3, 135x3, 185x3, 225x3, 245x3, 255x3, 265x3, 275x3, 285x3, 295x2.5 (slight spotter assist on last rep). Kind of just put his fingers under the bar as I grinded it out. Not sure how much it actually helped but yeah, this is what I get for continuing to train at a commercial gym.
Switched to a competition grip and hit 295 for a single, then missed 305 which would have been a PR match. Was likely just gassed from the previous sets because I felt pretty good working up.
Switched to 2-board: 305x1, 315x1, 325x1, 335xmiss
Switched to 3-board: 335x1, 345x1, 355xmiss
I actually don’t remember if I had to switch from a 2 to a 3 at 325 or 335, but it was around there.
Hit some tri’s while waiting for a rack:
Pushdowns: 100lb x10, 115lb 2x10
Rope Extensions: 25 lb x40, x25
Rack Lockouts (mid-range, about a few inches off the chest, same close-ish grip as earlier): 135x3, 185x3, 225x3, 245x3, 275x3, 295x3, 315x3, 325x1
Finished up with pulldowns 125x10, 130x10, 135x2x10
Shrugs: 270x4x10
The volume on these bench days are killer. My entire body is sore today. I know it will pay off though as long as I eat, sleep, and recover properly. Didn’t get the bench shirt yet but am anxious to play around with it.
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Hard Work
By: Sebastian Burns
Nothing is accomplished without work, and in terms of upping your lifts; it is almost the most important factor. Most people believe that they are working hard in the gym. I will tell you straight out that 99% of lifters are not working as hard as they could be. Lets take a look at some common mistakes made by people who are trying to get their lifts up.
First you must have a good attitude towards the work. You cannot go into the gym thinking, “Man I have to do all this and I don’t really feel like it”. Sure, there are days that we don’t feel like training. If you are going to take the time to go to the gym, load all the weight, and get all your friends together to help spot, you need to forget all other bullshit and put your mind into the work. When I go in to train I know right from the start that the work is going to be hard, and there is a chance I will get hurt and I may feel like I got hit by a truck for days to come. One thing that most people say to me is “Wow, how do you do so much work?”, well I do because I make myself feel like I have to. I say to myself, “This is all I know and this is all I have, and I will kill myself in this fucking gym if I have to.” I want to get my lift and I want to be the best lifter I can. I want to always be the last lifter in the gym. I will be the one there for hours after everyone leaves. I will never quit until I know I have killed myself.
Here is some other shit I hear sometimes when I am working out with people.
“I worked all day or all week and I am tired”. This one really gets me going. I don’t give a fuck, we are here to do work and I don’t care if your arm is half torn off. I also worked all day or all week and my drive to do the work is high because I will succeed, and while you are complaining about your hard work I will use your complaining to piss me off to do even more work.
“My head is not in it tonight” Well your body is here so you might as well get your fucking head in it. While you are in the gym there is nothing more important than getting the work done regardless of what is on your mind. If it is woman problems or financial problems you must learn to separate yourself from that bullshit. Do you think some girl gives a shit about your workout? Well she doesn’t and she is probably talking to or hanging out with some other guy while you are there working out. So forget about her and if it is money that is bothering you quit lifting and go get a better job because there is no money in lifting.
“I’m spent man, I don’t have anything left” If you say this than that means that you do not have a drive to succeed. There has been many times where my body has hurt so bad and I had not hardly eaten that day, but I want to better myself and I want to get the work done. The easy thing to do here would be to just go home and rest. I know for a fact that someone else out there is not going to just leave. They will stay and do the work no matter what. How do I know, because I am that lifter.
“My shoulder, pec, or elbow is bothering me” Well you need to realize that lifting weights will beat your body all to hell. There will always be something that does not feel quite right when you reach the upper level of weight training. I am not saying train with injuries, but I have actually heard people say my shoulder is bothering me a little so I am going to stop. While I am standing there with a huge swollen lump on my shoulder, a loud grinding going on, and can barely straighten my arm out because of elbow pain. I want to scream fuck you! Now I am going to stay here and work even harder because you are a little Bitch.
There are many more things that piss me off, but I am sure some of you have heard these excuses, and that is all they are; excuses for not wanting to do the work. Or god forbid you have said some of these yourself. I will list a few things that you can try if you want to work harder.
-
Go thru your whole workout. Then go thru it again. -
Go thru an exercise then do it again. -
Be the last person out of the gym. -
Use your training partners slacking to piss you off to do more work. - Act like all you have is this workout and you are going to make the best of it
-
Don’t be afraid to kill yourself during a workout. -
Know that your mind is much stronger than your body. -
Yell loud at people who are not doing work.
Most of all just start loving the work. It is the only thing you have that will help you get what you want.
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Awesome @FlatsFarmer. Maybe you could tell the bench program I’m running is taken directly from a Sebastian Burns piece where he describes the training he followed with Bill Crawford and the other Metal Miliia guys. He always advised that the volume is meant to be killer and that most guys want to scale it back after a month. I’m determined to NOT be one of those pussies which is why I’m spending extra attention to eat and sleep enough. Since I want to learn benching in a shirt, the MM philosophy seemed perfect leading up to this meet. Thanks!
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I’m not too familiar with the Metal Militia style, except for the tons of boards and rack stuff, but that old article always got me fired up.
It’s cool to see you using the program, I hope you have some fun with the bench shirt. Also, I’m glad your back is feeling better.
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@FlatsFarmer thanks! It actually feels about the same. There’s no pain, just discomfort and a lot of stiffness through certain ranges of motion. Basically it doesn’t affect my everyday life, but it likely wouldn’t survive a meet prep of heavy squatting and pulling right now. I’m kind of on a week-to-week basis as I get a feel for how long it’ll take to heal up fully. Hard to predict since this is my first actual lifting “injury.”
TUESDAY 11/29/2016
Back felt better this morning so I made the decision to squat today.
Squats went
Barx5
95x5
135x5
185x5
225x5
275x5
315x5
365x5
385x5
405x3
Deep 2-Second Pause Squats: 335 3x3
Finished with 275 3x8
Lots of volume and it felt great. Took plenty of rest to make sure I was at full strength for each set. I moved my stance in a bit to take some stress off the posterior chain and that felt pretty good. Maybe I should give oly shoes a try?
Finished with:
Ab wheel 4x10
SS with:
Band pull-aparts 3 x many
EZ Bar Curls 80lb x12, x12, x5
Going to try to deadlift this weekend and see what I can do sumo-style. If I feel this good there is no reason not to go full power in January.
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Just made the switch to Oly shoes myself and I like them quite a bit.
How wide is your stance? I always squatted wide and used chucks. Today i went about shoulder-width and I can see why oly shoes are preferred by some. I’ll try anything once but kind of don’t want to shell out a few hundred bucks just to find out I don’t like them after all.
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I think it you do go with Oly shoes, Adipowers would work best as their heel is marginally lower. I think they’re the Adipowers, the ones that don’t look like Nike Romaleos.
I have the Adipowers and like them alot. With Chucks I would always go very wide, well outside shoulder width and the squat just never felt right for me. WIth the Oly shoes I don’t need to go more than shoulder width and the movement feels much better.
Happy New Year!
I hope your back is feeling better.