Magick's Training Log

Regarding your biceps, I wasn’t able to make a correlation but tell me if you see a pattern between your biceps and the db curls you do 5x5 or 3x5 (I would assume these are your 5,6,7 rm loads for your curls?)

Also you mentioned how your not a fan of your grip, there are plenty of articles, members who have offered excellent advice on grip work, my favorite; farmers walk, if that is not an option hold your last rep/ set, all reps/ sets, etc for time or a specified time on your deadlifts.
I’m sure you can find something that works for you.

Stay strong brother

[quote]Is the left shoulder only higher when you your pressing? standing press? bench press?(have someone look at you when you bench, or are you able to tell that your left and right shoulders are asymmetrical while benching?)
Or is it higher in everyday life activities as well. [/quote]

Only when I get into position for the OHP.

I know I used to have some sort of asymmetry when benching. Basically I leaned heavily to the right when the weight started to get heavy and I just felt really unbalanced.

But doing cherry-picked days (this is where the protraction/retractions come from) from the Diesel Crew shoulder rehab program and face-pulls more or less got rid of it.

Didn’t seem to help the OHP all that much though.

-No difference in the rows thus far. Left side is slightly weaker though; the DB doesn’t come up as fast as if I did the rep on the right side.

[quote]
Regarding your biceps, I wasn’t able to make a correlation but tell me if you see a pattern between your biceps and the db curls you do 5x5 or 3x5 (I would assume these are your 5,6,7 rm loads for your curls?) [/quote]

Na, bicep pain comes only during the bench press. I think the issue was that I placed some load onto my left bicep (where the pain is) somehow due to poor back positioning. Tinkered with the back position for the last couple of weeks and found one where the pain went away. So, for now, everything seems great.

The curls are something I just do with no real intent or programming behind them. I just have small biceps and I figured I should slowly get that worked on.

Regarding grip- I’ve done those for a while but none of them helped. Ultimately just pulling as heavy as I can with chalk was the solution.

I just don’t like using chalk because it takes time to clean up, so I prefer not to use it unless I plan on actually doing proper hard work on the deadlift. I recently got some straps so I’ll probably use them for the TnG instead. No real point having grip being a limitation on those.

[quote]young n wrote:
I see you don’t have any specific core work, any reasons?
It is common for the standing press to be one of the first movements to stall on the core lifts. And before I make other suggestions can I ask how tight you are when your pressing? How much tension do you build up? How much do you brace your core? Are feet staggered? If you want you could post a video.[/quote]

As tight as I can, but I know it’s not tight enough. I have a difficult time getting tight on the OHP for some reason.

Unfortunately, a video cannot be filmed because the one thing that my current gym is anal on is videos =(

I don’t do core work because I generally lift in the morning, before work and studying. So I really have to make it as short as I possibly can. I figured I could leave out core work until later, but if you think I should do them then I’ll start finding ways to consider them.

Weds-4-30
Squat -
95lb/115lb/135lbx5

OHP-
95lb, 5/5/3
Fuck you OHP. Tempted to give up with the standing press and move onto something else right now.

DB row-
85lb, 3x5

[quote]magick wrote:
OHP-
95lb, 5/5/3
Fuck you OHP. Tempted to give up with the standing press and move onto something else right now.[/quote]

I’ve read a lot of 50s/60s writing on overhead pressing, back when it was in vogue.

There seemed to be two basic approaches to deal with stalling. One was to switch to behind-the-neck presses until that stalled, then move back to the front. The other was to move to seated presses until those stalled, then back to standing.

The Front/BTN variant was mostly in the bodybuilding publications; the standing/seated variant was mostly in the strength/olympic lifting publications (powerlifting wasn’t really a thing yet).

For what that’s worth.

You could also drop the weight and switch to doing 10-12s or something for awhile too.

Where are you failing on these anyway? Are you getting weak in your core, or are you weak off the chest, or are you getting stuck around the “sticking point” (usually somewhere from the nose to the top of the head)?

re: sticking points.

If it really is your triceps like you mentioned in the past, one thing you can try is to load up the bar and do lockouts. You can just work the range of motion over a single set. Unrack at/near the top. Press out. Lower a couple inches, press out. Lower a couple inches beyond what you just did, press out. Eventually you should find that point where its weak and you can just work that.

You can also work eccentrics if you take the time to recover. Load it up maximally or supramaximally, jerk the weight up, slowly lower it. Do that for a few reps at the end of your workout.

You may want to take a look at the articles by Charles A Smith over on the Dezso Ban site. “Pressing Schedules” is a good one. “Power for the Press” and “Power for Pressing” might give you some ideas. Also, “Power Rack Triceps Schedule” if it really is your triceps.

I’m pretty sure it’s a sticking point, and I think weak triceps that can’t lock the weight out is the issue. But then again I also have what appears to be a whacky left shoulder and I’m pretty sure I can be much tighter than I am currently with the OHP. For some reason I just can’t get myself to squeeze all the muscles and such…

I think I’ll try the lock-outs you talk about first, just to see what’s going on. Beyond that, switching over to just doing a lot of volume is probably my plan now. I like the OHP and would prefer to do it; it’s just incredibly frustrating that I see virtually no improvement.

Thurs-5-1
TnG deadlift-
135lb, 3x5

Superset of BB bench (135lb) and chin-ups.
5x5 on the BB bench and 5x5 on chin-ups.

Incline DB Retraction-20lb
Prone “Y’s”-5lb
Prone internal rotation- 5lb

Fri-5-2
Gonna start logging every weight I move now, just to clarify what I did for warm-up to myself.

Squat-
95/115/135/155lbx5
175, 3x5

Back at it. Legs feel great. Reset to 175 and plan on going up 5lb a week while doing 3x5 again.

OHP-
45lb, 3x10
Completely restarting OHP. Gonna focus mostly on form. Now that my bench is going up again, I hope the OHP will benefit from it and I’ll start seeing an improvement couple of months from now.

DB row-
65lbx5
85lb, 3x5
These feel easy now. But left side is much less explosive than the right side.

Sat-5-3
Front Squat- 45/45/45/65/85lbx5
105lb, 3x5

These are painless on the wrist with straps, which is good. Thought I could get up to 135lb, but 105lb felt challenging enough.

Superset of BB bench (135lb) and chin-ups.
Bench warm-up- 45/45/45/65/95/115lbx5
5x5 on the BB bench and 5x5 on chin-ups.

Mon-5-5
Squat-
45/45/45lbx5
95/115/135/155lbx3
180lb, 3x5

OHP-
45/45lbx5
55lb, 3x10

DB row-
60lbx5
90lb, 3x5

Treadmill run. speed 8.0, 12 times.

I’m still following.
Keep up the good work.

Stay strong brother

I’ll do the lunges you mentioned tomorrow. I forgot about them.

Tues-
Front squat-
45/45/45/65/85lbx5
105lb, 3x5

Holding the bar in place and everything feels a lot better.

Superset of BB bench (135lb) and chin-ups.
Bench warm-up- 45/45/45/65/95/115lbx5
3x5 on the BB bench and 5x5 on chin-ups. Benches done normally, no bounce or anything close to it.

Face pull (60lb)
5x10

Did that lunge thing young n. I didn’t notice anything in the mirror, but I did see that the left side feels tighter and I need to put in more effort to get it shrugged up all the way.

[quote]magick wrote:
Did that lunge thing young n. I didn’t notice anything in the mirror, but I did see that the left side feels tighter and I need to put in more effort to get it shrugged up all the way.[/quote]

Oh man, I forgot about that.

Some food for thought you said a few post ago that doing the diesel crew rehab helped balance out your left to right differences on the bench press, and as far as I know and have seen you only seem to be doing the rehab drills in a horizontal plane (retracting and protracting) ever thought about trying it in a vertical plane (depressing and elevating.) Think that might help with the shoulder issue you got on your overhead press?

Stay strong

You’re absolutely right. I didn’t do them because they were hard, and they were probably hard for a reason!

Time to start doing all of them.

Weds-5-7
Squat-
45/45/45lbx5
95/115/135/155lbx3
185lb, 3x5

OHP-
45/45lbx5
55lb, 3x10

DB row-
70lbx5
90lb, 3x5

Thurs-5-8
Hang power-clean-
45/45/45lbx5
65lb, 2x3
95lb, 6x3

The whole “violently shrugging and moving the weight up” isn’t happening yet.

Superset of BB bench (135lb) and chin-ups.
Bench warm-up- 45/45/45/65/95/115lbx5
3x5 on the BB bench and 3x6 on chin-ups.

3x10 of-
Incline DB Retraction-20lb
Prone “Y’s”-5lb
Prone internal rotation- 5lb

Hour and a half of judo today. First time in over a year and a half. Good God I’ve gotten rusty. I can’t even do a proper shoulder roll anymore!

But things are coming back quickly. Already getting my legs back by the end of randori.

Let’s see how sore my body is tomorrow.

Fri-5-9
Squat-
45/45/45lbx5
95/115/135/155lbx3
190lb, 3x5
Best squats I’ve done in a long time. Felt explosive and easy.

OHP-
45/45lbx5
60lb, 3x10

DB row-
70lbx5
90lb, 3x5

Woke up with my back feeling real sore. It showed on the DB row. These felt heavier and more exhausting than usual.

Sat-5-10
Body feels more sore than yesterday. DOMS sucks.

Front Squat-
45/45/45/65/85lbx5
115lb, 3x5
Getting more used to the bar positioning and keeping the arms up.

Superset of BB bench (140lb) and chin-ups.
Bench warm-up- 45/45/45/65/95/115lbx5
3x5 on the BB bench and 3x6 on chin-ups.

Face pulls-
60lb, 5x10