Sorry for the interruption, Marko, but for the first time I hear that a private company, as a fitness company like Rucci’s gym can organize a tournament that is a part of the IPF or national federation. This is unthinkable in my country, only the national powerlifting federation can do it. Even though there are 2-3 competitions organized by some gyms they are just unofficial, like local garage meetings for 10-15 well-known comptetitors. That’s why all of our strongest powerlifters (and we have some european wnd world champions) go to compete abroad for other federations outside the IPF or in private tournaments.
I see in FB that this Rucci’s gym has scheduled many meetings for 2020 so what’s the consequences for the competitors?
wait, then how do they get away with that crap?
I’ve been smoking pretty regularly for the last decade and getting fatter. My ability to work is garbage, need to emphasize that for 2020.
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Woke looking pretty similar to yesterday as far as I can tell.
@BOTSLAYER because lots of people like the idea of being in a federation that doesn’t let other people in, is what I can see. It makes them feel superior.
@queen_cobra it works like this as far as I understand. The IPF makes agreements with a national federation to become affiliated. This national federation effectively becomes a delegate of the IPF. Any results in meets it sanctions count towards qualifying for IPF events. The agreement will usually provide that the national federation has to follow certain IPF rules (equipment, drug testing, etc). How the national federation is run is often left up to its directors.
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In relation to the competitions Ruccis Gym has scheduled, I would guess they simply make whichever ones that were APU meets GPC meets. If someone wanted to compete in an APU meet, they will have to find a different one.
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Couldn’t they still run them as long as an affiliate of the APU is there or judges are affiliated ? The gym is only the venue, as long as equipment and rules are to standards surely its OK ?
They of course may not want to because of the falling out and in that case I get it completely,
That’s the ridiculous thing, the Ruccis WERE APU officials. My understanding was that it was deemed conflict of interest to have an APU official acting as a meet director for an APU meet.
Yer I agree that sounds fkn stupid. They personally have nothing to gain from it and the APU grows membership and attendance through more access to well run competitions. All the shite that goes on with power lifting feds it is a wonder anyone competes at all!!
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At a guess the APU directors didn’t like the fact that the Ruccis were well regarded by pretty much everyone and worked with GPC. With the Ruccis in the APU chances of APU lifters seeing how well run and inclusive GPC is was much higher, when the APU directors would have hated that. Like PA, they want their lifters segregated and unquestioning.
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Came back from Sydney today. The smoke around Sutton Forest was fucked. Putting my shoes on in the morning felt a little funny moment in my mid back, but it was fine. Or so I thought.
Todays training
30 seconds each side of
Couch stretch
Pigeon stretch
Supine twist
Hurdler stretch
Squat
Worked up to
3x4x396 lbs
The Phantom wraps I ordered arrived today so I figured I’d throw them on for the last two sets. Straight out of the pack they’re surprisingly easy to wrap for how stiff they are.
1x396 lbs, wraps at six revolutions - on the way up something went in my mid back. You can actually see me wiggle on the video.
I knew this could happen given the drive, but that little moment in the morning should have made me warier.
Either way, no more squatting (it was 5x4). Or front squatting, which I was meant to do 2x7 of.
Split squats
2x12 - did these with bodyweight, I didn’t want anything pulling me to either side or loading my spine
Lat pulldowns
4x8x154 lbs - could feel the tightness where my lats and erectors meet, but it was fine
Back raises
50 - 2x25 which I think helped
Then added 3x10 bracing hip thrusts with the stretches I used when I last messed up my back. Hamstrings and glutes were tight AF, which figures because that’s usually what I find when my back is off.
Hey ho, I took a chance and it didn’t pay off, but I don’t think this is as much of an issue as last time.
All up an hour and 10 minutes.
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Uh oh I hope it’s only a minor issue.
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Quick question if you have time, when it you find you could do working sets with that heavy of a squat? i’ll be getting my programming done by Bryce at Calgary barbell (hopefully we meet this month to discuss) but my squats always seem so wild in weight where my bench and deadlift hold steady within 10 percent on any given day if that makes sense.
Wish you quick recovery brother, good luck!
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Me too. So far it looks like it is. It’s tight and a sore but none of that for want of a better word deep scary weirdness that I had before nationals.
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Sure thing. It’s actually a very good question @tireguy and takes us into the realm of how heavy you should lift in training, which is a disputed matter. I doubt I’ll be able to give you a quick answer, so bear with me.
The quick answer is that I could use around the 400 lbs mark for working sets when my max was around 450 lbs, sometime in mid 2015. It’s a truthful answer, but largely unhelpful to you.
It boils down to just because you can do something doesn’t mean you should; and in the context of training, especially for powerlifting, being able to do something has no bearing on whether it is beneficial.
From where you sit, 3x4x396 lbs is working sets with a large weight. Fair enough, close to 400 pounds isn’t light by any stretch of the imagination. To me, 3x4x396 lbs is 3x4x72.5% with the percentage calculated from my working max. My working max, like absolutely everyone else on Team Panora, is 92.5% of my last meet PR. You’ll notice that the majority of successful systems tend to use a working max of some kind, usually sitting around 90% of your last PR.
I was using around 400 lbs as a working weight when my actual max was around 450 lbs, like I said. I’m now using around 400 lbs as a working weight when my actual max is 589 lbs. My squat went from an all time best of 540 lbs to a new PR of 556 lbs during a six month period where the heaviest working weight I used was 413 lbs (based on a meet PR of 500 lbs in a lighter class). In that period the majority of my working weights were between 240 lbs and 390 lbs.
In the seven or eight month period it took me to take my squat from 556 lbs to 589 lbs, the heaviest working weight I used was 485 lbs. Most of my working sets were between 275 lbs and 440 lbs.
So you can look at that not so brief account and see that I’ve been using around 400 lbs as a working weight successfully for a while, and that it has relatively little to do with what my actual max is.
My experience has been that the less weight you can use outside of peaking, the better. If I can build a 700 lbs squat training with weights mostly under 500 lbs, why would I use weights approaching 600 lbs? We have a guy on our team peaking right now, who squatted 765 lbs for a fatigued max. In the accumulation period leading up to his peak, he didn’t squat anything over 650 lbs, and most of his squat sets were well below 600 lbs. He uses exactly the same sets, reps and percentages I do, just like the other 200 or so people using the system.
I don’t need to feel heavy loads during training because I know I can handle them when I need to - because the system works. This is significantly different to what you hear from many other powerlifters. Their approach is that you need to feel heavy loads regularly to stay accustomed to them. It’s bullshit. If you need reassurance that you can handle heavy weights, one of two things is happening. Either you have no confidence in your abilities, which is a close to death sentence in any sport or endeavour; or you have no confidence in your training, which is almost as bad.
One of the best ways to decide how to set your training weights is Prilepin’s chart. Some will object that it was developed using weightlifting numbers so doesn’t apply to powerlifting. They ignore the fact that it has been used successfully in powerlifting for decades as a guide. It gives you a very good idea of how many sets of how many reps to perform with a given percentage of your max (or working max, which is better).
The second element is to bear in mind the impact of fatigue during training, which is to make you appear weaker. Over the course of a training cycle reps for a given weight will drop, weights will feel harder and you will think you have become weaker. Except, this process is an essential part of training because you need to generate fatigue in order to adapt to it, which is what makes you stronger. When you are carrying just about as much fatigue as you can, you peak. You push your body a little past what it can do (overreaching), and then carefully keep it in that state for a short period. Then you rest. After that rest, you are in a state or super compensation (I think that’s the word), where your body has temporarily adapted to overreaching, and you can display the new strength you worked so hard to build. Then you rest again, and start back at accumulating fatigue.
The third element is managing that fatigue during training so you don’t let it get to a point where you get injured. So you deload, regularly and religiously. How you feel when deload comes around doesn’t mean anything, you deload. The further into accumulation you go, the more important deloads become because you are carrying more and more fatigue. All the deloads do is reduce the fatigue just enough to let you accumulate more.
A fairly simple example (and very effective in practice) over a year would be
January-May accumulation training using 92.5% working max deloading every fifth week
June-July peak, compete, deload
August-September hypertrophy focused training using the 50-60% range of 92.5% working max (taken from July meet PRs)
October-February accumulation training, etc.
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The more I learn the less I know, crazy. Thank you for explaining that to me, I appreciate it immensely.
That makes a lot of sense, since starting powerlifting I basically have only been given very loose guide lines and technique critique. I’ve never followed a program and two years ago I had never deadlifted or squatted before lead alone any weight. in this time I got noob gain and went from a 260lb - 500lb deadlift, sub200lb - 430lb squat and 220lb - 320lb pound bench. But I used my old bodybuilding methods of if im not doing the extra someone else is. But its since stalled and I could never figure out why, as majority of the time I train alone so until I kept a log here I never tracked anything.
It baffled me as I could pull 485 for 3 beltless no problem but could never hit 500 for the longest time. I took two whole weeks off without any training aside from daily push ups, went to the gym gave 500 a try and almost fell backwards it came up so fast.
I need to read more on everything powerlifting.
I needed to hear this, feeling my decision to actually acquire a coach is more right than ever.
Thanks again, I forgot to follow you on Instagram but I will tonight after work… youll notice my name pop up. Cheers!
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I’m really, really glad I could help.
It’s a learning process, and can be counterintuitive. One rule that I have found really useful is if you can use a lighter weight, do. Use as little weight as possible. Save the heavy weights for peaking and meets.
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Another example of going above and beyond to help. This is why I consider you to be such a great ambassador for your sport.
Hope your backs recovered.
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Aw man, thanks. I’m just happy I can help.
Back’s stiff as shit right now, but managed a couple of bodyweight squats without any real alarm bells so that’s a positive. At least this time I’ve got a very fair idea what happened, why it happened and what I need to do to fix it.
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Damn long car drives! I hope you bounce back fast mate
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How do those wraps feel? I know a lot of people like them, but I have also heard people say they feel like steel wool or tree bark.