MarkKO's Training Log

Training Training Logs
101

Heavy squats with my friend Joel today. My head is congested as all hell, but apart from that I feel pretty decent.

Acid test for narrower squats.

Today’s training

2x3 407 lbs squats. I was going for four sets but the congestion isn’t helping.
1x6 407 lbs wrapped squats, wrapping by Joel. Holy craps the narrower stance gives me pop with wraps and Joel wraps a good knee. The narrow stance works. If my breathing was better I reckon I could have gotten eight.

Wrapped squat 6x185 kg Slingshot wraps: Wrapped squat 6x185 kg Slingshot wraps - YouTube

Hack squats
3x8 @ 407 lbs

Bench press
5, 4, 5 at 185 lbs. Joel gave me some great tips on tightness: start my leg drive as the bar comes down and don’t stop driving until you lock out. Works great, bar speed and arch improved.

Bicep curls
3 sets at 40 lbs for l/r 7/6, 6/6, 6/6

Bench and DL speed work tomorrow.

102

[quote]MarkKO wrote:
Heavy squats with my friend Joel today. My head is congested as all hell, but apart from that I feel pretty decent.

Acid test for narrower squats.

Today’s training

2x3 407 lbs squats. I was going for four sets but the congestion isn’t helping.
1x6 407 lbs wrapped squats, wrapping by Joel. Holy craps the narrower stance gives me pop with wraps and Joel wraps a good knee. The narrow stance works. If my breathing was better I reckon I could have gotten eight.

Wrapped squat 6x185 kg Slingshot wraps: Wrapped squat 6x185 kg Slingshot wraps - YouTube

Hack squats
3x8 @ 407 lbs

Bench press
5, 4, 5 at 185 lbs. Joel gave me some great tips on tightness: start my leg drive as the bar comes down and don’t stop driving until you lock out. Works great, bar speed and arch improved.

Bicep curls
3 sets at 40 lbs for l/r 7/6, 6/6, 6/6

Bench and DL speed work tomorrow. [/quote]

Very nice man. Honestly not a whole lot I see personally that needs improvement other than just getting used to the wraps and the new stance. Really crank them down there is no way I could squat that low with wraps on as tight as possible and you def give plenty of lead way with depth.

Only thing I will say as you fatique you can tell your upper back is rounding over. I can’t tell but I used to have this problem alot worse before I started wrapping my thumb. When I wrap my thumb I get a level of tightness in the upper back I honestly can’t come close too with out. But you can see the weights actually start to roll forward as you reverse which is a sure indicator you are getting loose as you reverse out.

With aax weight you may not and most likely won’t have the strength to pull it back. When I’m in wraps the only thing I focus on is the upper back tight, breaking the bar, head back into the bar, then knees out. Let the wraps take care of everything else and learn to time them off the pressure in the back of your knee. Atleast that’s what I do.

103

Hey, Mark, I tried out the glute cue and bending the bar during my squat workout tonight, I think it definitely helped on tightness and bar speed. I’ll be ordering some esf heavy wraps and the P2 prong belt tomorrow morning. Thanks for the tips and stuff.

104

[quote]Reed wrote:

[quote]MarkKO wrote:
Heavy squats with my friend Joel today. My head is congested as all hell, but apart from that I feel pretty decent.

Acid test for narrower squats.

Today’s training

2x3 407 lbs squats. I was going for four sets but the congestion isn’t helping.
1x6 407 lbs wrapped squats, wrapping by Joel. Holy craps the narrower stance gives me pop with wraps and Joel wraps a good knee. The narrow stance works. If my breathing was better I reckon I could have gotten eight.

Wrapped squat 6x185 kg Slingshot wraps: Wrapped squat 6x185 kg Slingshot wraps - YouTube

Hack squats
3x8 @ 407 lbs

Bench press
5, 4, 5 at 185 lbs. Joel gave me some great tips on tightness: start my leg drive as the bar comes down and don’t stop driving until you lock out. Works great, bar speed and arch improved.

Bicep curls
3 sets at 40 lbs for l/r 7/6, 6/6, 6/6

Bench and DL speed work tomorrow. [/quote]

Very nice man. Honestly not a whole lot I see personally that needs improvement other than just getting used to the wraps and the new stance. Really crank them down there is no way I could squat that low with wraps on as tight as possible and you def give plenty of lead way with depth.

Only thing I will say as you fatique you can tell your upper back is rounding over. I can’t tell but I used to have this problem alot worse before I started wrapping my thumb. When I wrap my thumb I get a level of tightness in the upper back I honestly can’t come close too with out. But you can see the weights actually start to roll forward as you reverse which is a sure indicator you are getting loose as you reverse out.

With aax weight you may not and most likely won’t have the strength to pull it back. When I’m in wraps the only thing I focus on is the upper back tight, breaking the bar, head back into the bar, then knees out. Let the wraps take care of everything else and learn to time them off the pressure in the back of your knee. Atleast that’s what I do.[/quote]

Thanks man, much appreciated. I’ll start wrapping my thumb again. I’ve been going thumbless for a while because it stresses my elbows less but since they seem happier overall there’s no reason for me not to at least try wrapping them.

Next time I wrap my knees I’ll try for maybe 10 revolutions and see how it goes.

105

[quote]Destrength wrote:
Hey, Mark, I tried out the glute cue and bending the bar during my squat workout tonight, I think it definitely helped on tightness and bar speed. I’ll be ordering some esf heavy wraps and the P2 prong belt tomorrow morning. Thanks for the tips and stuff.[/quote]

Glad to hear it helped. You’ll have fun with wraps and belt. Let me know what you think of the wraps, as I think EFS ship to Australia.

106

[quote]MarkKO wrote:

[quote]Destrength wrote:
Hey, Mark, I tried out the glute cue and bending the bar during my squat workout tonight, I think it definitely helped on tightness and bar speed. I’ll be ordering some esf heavy wraps and the P2 prong belt tomorrow morning. Thanks for the tips and stuff.[/quote]

Glad to hear it helped. You’ll have fun with wraps and belt. Let me know what you think of the wraps, as I think EFS ship to Australia. [/quote]
I’ll let you know how I like them/how they treat me. The stuff has been ordered now, I can probably tell you in two weeks how I like the wraps.

Also, a note about the shipping to Australia, you might get raped a little hard by shipping costs. It is incredibly expensive to ship to Australia from the states, I think it took a bit over 50 dollars just to ship a book or two to my brother when he was interning near/in Sidney a few years ago.

107

Damn, love your intensity man. I don’t know how people get psyched up like that, slapping themselves and stuff, hahaha. Oh and what kind of shorts are you wearing cause I’ve been looking for new shorts that don’t throw me off when I’m squatting when they rub against my thighs. I’m sure you gon get that 230kg squat real soon.

108

[quote]Destrength wrote:

[quote]MarkKO wrote:

[quote]Destrength wrote:
Hey, Mark, I tried out the glute cue and bending the bar during my squat workout tonight, I think it definitely helped on tightness and bar speed. I’ll be ordering some esf heavy wraps and the P2 prong belt tomorrow morning. Thanks for the tips and stuff.[/quote]

Glad to hear it helped. You’ll have fun with wraps and belt. Let me know what you think of the wraps, as I think EFS ship to Australia. [/quote]
I’ll let you know how I like them/how they treat me. The stuff has been ordered now, I can probably tell you in two weeks how I like the wraps.

Also, a note about the shipping to Australia, you might get raped a little hard by shipping costs. It is incredibly expensive to ship to Australia from the states, I think it took a bit over 50 dollars just to ship a book or two to my brother when he was interning near/in Sidney a few years ago.[/quote]

Cool, thanks. Yeah, I know, postage is ridiculous. Still, if they’re good it’ll be worth it not to mention no-one stocks them out here. Inzer, Metal, Titan, APT, Slingshot: sure, if you’re prepared to wait for them to get back in stock because they tend to sell out fast. EFS? Nope.

109

[quote]Benanything wrote:
Damn, love your intensity man. I don’t know how people get psyched up like that, slapping themselves and stuff, hahaha. Oh and what kind of shorts are you wearing cause I’ve been looking for new shorts that don’t throw me off when I’m squatting when they rub against my thighs. I’m sure you gon get that 230kg squat real soon.[/quote]

Hehe it didn’t work so well though did it? I was too greedy, should’ve gone for 225 or 227.5. I’ll know better for next time. But, you’re right, I’m pretty confident I’ll get 230 kg soon.

110

Still quite congested thanks to this damn head cold but it’s finallly clearing. Luckily apart from a headful of concrete I feel fine.

Speed bench and DL today. For my speed days I’m trying to cut my inter set breaks a shorter so they’re more like what the actual dynamic effort has. I like it. It makes me work a little harder, and because the loads aren’t huge it is workable.

I did get a bit of a scare though. Went into DL, and for speed day I use sumo which I always feel really tightens up my lower back from hole my my torso in position. Everything is fine and on the second rep of the seventh double right as I lock out I hear a crack/pop in my lower back and it feels like a knuckle being popped. Spent about five minutes freaking out until it spawned on me that a) I wasn’t in any actual pain, my low back was just tight from sumo as usual and b) if I’d messed something up in my back I’d be in a ton of pain.

Today’s training:

8x2 150 lbs bench press vs bands (very light tension, maybe 10-15 lbs at the top)

7x2 341 lbs sumo DL

3x8 135 lbs incline barbell press

Alternating pull ups/tricep pushdowns
5/8@65 lbs, 4/8@65 lbs

Bunch of glute/lower back stretching

111

Happy to say my back isn’t messed up, just a tiny bit tight which training took care of. I was still super cautious going into it just in case. I was meant to do squats against bands today and heavy DL tomorrow, but I decided just to hit heavy bench and maybe do some super light squats just to feel out my back.

Apart from bench it was more a playday than anything.

Today’s training

Front squat 11x231 lbs
Squat 15x231 lbs - I dropped way too fast and got a bunch of buttwink but they felt good.

Bench press
4x2 @ 225 lbs
1x3 @ 225 lbs - tried for a fourth but lost all tightness on my chest.

Barbell rows
12, 12 and 9 at 225 lbs - grip was fading so I used straps for the third set and ended up too narrow.

All up a good session. The first reps for bench felt nice and fast and I think I’ve improved my arch too. I might put up a video later.

112

Here’s my attempted 4x225 lbs bench. I trained at my mum’s house today, I pop by every couple of weeks to see how she’s going and check her lifts.

113

That’s probably why my most asian parents aren’t too supportive of their kids going to gyms and stuff, most parents would’ve freaked if they ever saw a vid of this. Anyways, I too have a tendency to lose tightness when I’m benching, what are you doing to fix it? And damn, your mum sure has a nice gym over there, so how are her lifts? She seems decently in shape for her age, that’s for sure.

114

Hey, Mark, the wraps arrived. I haven’t had the chance to test them out on heavy squats (my belt didn’t arrive, and I couldn’t borrow one yesterday). Is it normal for your legs to go a little numb around where you wrapped?

Also, what happened in that bench? You kind of just fell apart in the fourth rep, if you stayed tight and pushed you probably could’ve gotten it.

Also let me make some comments about form, disregard it if your coach is having you do this/doesn’t think it is an issue.

  1. Your elbow is in front of the bar essentially doing a miniature JM press

  2. you flare way too early/kind of just let your elbows drift out right at the
    chest, think about tucking your elbows/pulling the bar apart

I am not sure if you want your elbows that flared at the bottom, if so, I recommend getting them like that at the top instead of letting them drift like that at the bottom. If not, tucking/pulling the bar apart is very important. You had some weird shit going on the fourth rep where I think thinking about tucking the elbows to engage the lift would help.

For the wrists: try wrapping your wrist wraps higher and try to get it like a caste, that is one of the methods I see recommended a lot. Since I don’t have wrist wraps and have had that issue, I just focus on gripping the shit out of the bar and starting with my wrists in the right position and keeping them like that.

Those are just some thoughts, talk to your coach about it if you think it might be an issue, disregard what I say if it goes against what he has been telling you. Your camera angle might just be playing tricks on my eyes.

115

It looks like you lose tightness when you lockout. What if you do a pause 1" before lockout and continue to the next rep instead of fully locking out? In theory this would help to maintain tension throughout to keep your position. It’s basically the opposite of a spoto press where you’re forced to keep tension in your chest at the bottom of the lift. I’m going to try this out myself, lol.

116

[quote]Benanything wrote:
That’s probably why my most asian parents aren’t too supportive of their kids going to gyms and stuff, most parents would’ve freaked if they ever saw a vid of this. Anyways, I too have a tendency to lose tightness when I’m benching, what are you doing to fix it? And damn, your mum sure has a nice gym over there, so how are her lifts? She seems decently in shape for her age, that’s for sure.[/quote]

To fix it? More benching. I’m fine for the first rep, fine for the second and on the third it gets harder to keep tension simply because the muscles run out of gas. I get tighter over my whole body for bench than any other lift. I’ve found PL bench is hard to do for reps.

Her lifts are ok for where she’s at. She’s 70, weighs in around 59 kg. Currently her best lifts are 65/30/75. Her squat is going to get a lot higher, she’s projected to hit 3x3 @ 65 kg next week and she’s learning wraps so I figure a max of around 75 kg in a few months. Bench is a tough one because her left shoulder has some calcification. DL is by far the strongest (sumo)

117

[quote]Destrength wrote:
Hey, Mark, the wraps arrived. I haven’t had the chance to test them out on heavy squats (my belt didn’t arrive, and I couldn’t borrow one yesterday). Is it normal for your legs to go a little numb around where you wrapped?

Also, what happened in that bench? You kind of just fell apart in the fourth rep, if you stayed tight and pushed you probably could’ve gotten it.

Also let me make some comments about form, disregard it if your coach is having you do this/doesn’t think it is an issue.

  1. Your elbow is in front of the bar essentially doing a miniature JM press

  2. you flare way too early/kind of just let your elbows drift out right at the
    chest, think about tucking your elbows/pulling the bar apart

I am not sure if you want your elbows that flared at the bottom, if so, I recommend getting them like that at the top instead of letting them drift like that at the bottom. If not, tucking/pulling the bar apart is very important. You had some weird shit going on the fourth rep where I think thinking about tucking the elbows to engage the lift would help.

For the wrists: try wrapping your wrist wraps higher and try to get it like a caste, that is one of the methods I see recommended a lot. Since I don’t have wrist wraps and have had that issue, I just focus on gripping the shit out of the bar and starting with my wrists in the right position and keeping them like that.

Those are just some thoughts, talk to your coach about it if you think it might be an issue, disregard what I say if it goes against what he has been telling you. Your camera angle might just be playing tricks on my eyes.

[/quote]

Very, very normal. Wraps are not comfortable when you have them on right. Your feet can go numb and it can feel like your patella is being pushed into the knee. You just need to learn them and get used to how they feel and you’ll get them progressively tighter which will mean more carryover. Shame the belt didn’t arrive.

Thanks for all those cues. They’re actually precisely what I used to do, and it made life really hard. This is a new method for me and feels much better. It actually does keep my elbows in a good position, I think its the angle that makes it look odd. I used to tuck a bunch more and it slowed me down a ton and also wasn’t comfortable.

In the fourth rep all that really happened was my muscles couldn’t keep the tightness I needed. For bench I pretty much get tight from ankle to neck and it takes a bunch of energy to maintain that for reps.

118

[quote]lift206 wrote:
It looks like you lose tightness when you lockout. What if you do a pause 1" before lockout and continue to the next rep instead of fully locking out? In theory this would help to maintain tension throughout to keep your position. It’s basically the opposite of a spoto press where you’re forced to keep tension in your chest at the bottom of the lift. I’m going to try this out myself, lol.[/quote]

That makes a ton of sense. Thanks, I’ll try it.

119

Going to take today and the weekend off training and then pick up where I’d be on Monday.

The congestion isn’t going away as fast as it should and I’m sick of the glands under my tongue swelling up and pushing my tongue down my throat. Any time that improved a bit, I’d come back from training and it’d be worse again.

Nothing serious but I figure I’ll be better off getting right before training more.

I hate missing training, but for all my pissing and moaning all I’m missing is a day.

Of all the things I’ve had to learn for training, not to worry about missing a day here and there due to illness is by the far the hardest.

I have to keep telling myself that out of the thousands of days I will train over my lifetime, a day or two here and there don’t mean jack shit.

120

[quote]MarkKO wrote:

[quote]Destrength wrote:
Hey, Mark, the wraps arrived. I haven’t had the chance to test them out on heavy squats (my belt didn’t arrive, and I couldn’t borrow one yesterday). Is it normal for your legs to go a little numb around where you wrapped?

Also, what happened in that bench? You kind of just fell apart in the fourth rep, if you stayed tight and pushed you probably could’ve gotten it.

Also let me make some comments about form, disregard it if your coach is having you do this/doesn’t think it is an issue.

  1. Your elbow is in front of the bar essentially doing a miniature JM press

  2. you flare way too early/kind of just let your elbows drift out right at the
    chest, think about tucking your elbows/pulling the bar apart

I am not sure if you want your elbows that flared at the bottom, if so, I recommend getting them like that at the top instead of letting them drift like that at the bottom. If not, tucking/pulling the bar apart is very important. You had some weird shit going on the fourth rep where I think thinking about tucking the elbows to engage the lift would help.

For the wrists: try wrapping your wrist wraps higher and try to get it like a caste, that is one of the methods I see recommended a lot. Since I don’t have wrist wraps and have had that issue, I just focus on gripping the shit out of the bar and starting with my wrists in the right position and keeping them like that.

Those are just some thoughts, talk to your coach about it if you think it might be an issue, disregard what I say if it goes against what he has been telling you. Your camera angle might just be playing tricks on my eyes.

[/quote]

Very, very normal. Wraps are not comfortable when you have them on right. Your feet can go numb and it can feel like your patella is being pushed into the knee. You just need to learn them and get used to how they feel and you’ll get them progressively tighter which will mean more carryover. Shame the belt didn’t arrive.

Thanks for all those cues. They’re actually precisely what I used to do, and it made life really hard. This is a new method for me and feels much better. It actually does keep my elbows in a good position, I think its the angle that makes it look odd. I used to tuck a bunch more and it slowed me down a ton and also wasn’t comfortable.

In the fourth rep all that really happened was my muscles couldn’t keep the tightness I needed. For bench I pretty much get tight from ankle to neck and it takes a bunch of energy to maintain that for reps. [/quote]
Oh, okay. I had been up for 20+ hours at that point, so I guess the camera angle was messing with me. Anyway, I guess we just have different proportions/strengths, so some cues that work for me don’t work for you and vice versa. I am glad you figured out the issue with excessive tucking and that stuff.

Thanks for the advice about the wraps. I was worried I might’ve been wrapping too tight/was cutting circulation off too much.