[quote]Destrength wrote:
[quote]MarkKO wrote:
[quote]Destrength wrote:
[quote]MarkKO wrote:
Speed bench and deadlift today. My lower back’s still a bit stiff but I think this may be something to do with the impromptu thruster workouts I get in the evenings, also known as ‘jumping’ by the little one. His favourite thing is for me to hold him under the arms and basically use him like a vertical sandbag to do thrusters. He weighs around 35 lbs and I did around 60 yesterday in two lots.
Today’s training
Bench press vs bands
8x2 @ 160 lbs + 20ish lbs
This is my sixth set. I think my technique is getting better, but still a ways to go.
Sumo DL
8x2 @ 363 lbs
Barbell incline press
3x8 @ 135 lbs
Kroc rows - tried these standing, feels good
Three sets @ 110 lbs: L/R 19/17, 6/6 and 8/8
Tricep pushdowns
3 sets @ 65 lbs for 8, 8, 6[/quote]
Sorry for being overly officious (I try not to), but are those bands losing tension at the bottom? Try doing one of the following: adding another couple of cinches to the bands, doubling lighter bands (micro minis if you like a lot of bar weight for DE work, minis if you like less bar weight and more tension), or use a set or two of chains instead.
If the bands lose tension in the bottom of the lift then it does some weird shit to your form and doesn’t carryover well. Part of the benefits of bands too is that it tries to slam you down, and that helps build good eccentric and reversal strength. If tension is lost, then that benefit gets lost when the tension is lost in the bottom because it is no longer pulling you down. [/quote]
You are absolutely right, the bands are losing tension at the bottom.
I’m going to sound kind of stupid here, but how would I add another cinch? That’d probably remove the slack at the bottom and add an extra 10 to 20 lbs overall at the top.
At the moment I just loop the band through itself if you know what I mean, in the way you’d do around the anchor points on a power rack.
All your other suggestions are great, but while the gym I train at is decent it ain’t no black iron gym. Those are my own bands, and there isn’t a chain in sight. They do have some bands, but they’re pretty crappy. [/quote]
Cinching means putting the bands through each other. So single cinch would be feeding it through once and just draping it over the bar, double cinch means before you drape it over the bar you feed it through again (this isn’t what doubling is though), triple cinch is… etc. Also to be fair, I have been using bands a long time and only a month, month and a half ago did I learn what it meant to cinch the bands. It took me much much longer than I am proud of to learn what all of the terms about bands meant. I like to cinch my bands four times for squats at home (since my anchor points are plate adjustable dumbbells and I load them up with a 45 per side for lights and below).
I’d recommend starting at whatever quantity of cinches that it doesn’t hang loose at then add another cinch just to be sure and to provide some tension.
What company did you get those bands from? They look about the strength of average bands, maybe strong.
Another set up you can use is just use one (because that is probably the most tension you need at the moment) and double it over your bench. That may be too strong for you at the moment if you are using anything heavier than light bands (light bands would probably add about 80-100ish pounds at the top per band with that set up).
To double a band like that, just slide it under the bench and set it up so each end of the band is on the collars of the bar while the middle of the band is still under the pad that you lay on. The drawbacks with this set up is that it is hard to line it up with your bench stroke (in my opinion) and it is hard to balance the bands, and with how wide your grip is and your flare your elbows might be touching the bands at the bottom or mid.
If you can afford them, I recommend setting aside some of your personal entertainment money (I have no idea if you have that in your budget lol) and buying lighter bands at some point, or working an extra shift at some point. I recommend starting with a set of micro minis and minis. That is 40 pounds at the top and 90 pounds at the top. They’d cover most of the dynamic effort cycles you’d want to use at the moment.
If you want any information on bands, dynamic effort method, or anything like that just hit me up in my log or yours. I am really familiar with that type of stuff.
Also, how do you do you periodize your type of training? It looks like wizardry to me. [/quote]
Ok, thanks. That sounds easy enough. I think if I double cinch them it’s going to increase the tension enough. I’ll definitely hit you up for DE information if/when I need it.
I’ll also look into getting some lighter bands. These are pretty cheap ones made by Force USA which is an Australian company selling reasonable low end Chinese made stuff. The bands are meant add at most 50 lbs each when fully stretched. From using them for squats I’d say that’s fairly accurate. For my squats with a single cinch they’re not fully stretched at the top but close to and add around 45 lbs each. I know they’ll almost lift a 62 lb kettlebell so I’d estimate their actual tension fully extended would be maybe 55 lbs or a bit over.
As to how I periodise my type of training, well, there’s a question. I’m hoping it looking like wizardry is a compliment of sorts but I know it looks a bit odd. It’s kind of simple really, though.
I managed to work with very simple linear progression for around six months when I started powerlifting. All I had to do over that period around the three month mark was drop the increases and extend the time between increases.
By the end of the six months I felt kind of beat up so I looked around at periodisation. I immediately didn’t feel good about block periodisation and at the time didn’t feel I had enough knowledge to run a conjugate style of training. I kind of liked the idea of wave periodisation, and had a crack at setting up a program based on that. What it ended up being was pendulum periodisation. I’d do a couple of light/sped sessions, a couple of heavy sessions, a couple of reasonably heavy assistance sessions (main lift variations treated as a main lift to get more out of them) and then a couple of very heavy sessions. Then I’d cycle back to the speed work but add weight to everything. All this is done in blocks of two days with rest blocks of two to three days. That was initially to fit around work but it turns out to suit me so well that I think I’ll keep it like that even if my work doesn’t require it.
I started that at the beginning of the year and haven’t moved far from that approach since then. All I did was tweak it to improve my recovery and performance.
For the last five weeks I’ve been using my most recent iteration of this approach which is arguably the most different and changed yet. What I’d found was that the back to back heavy days were getting a little too hard for me to recover from so I changed things up to have each block going speed on day one and heavy on day two. I run that for four weeks, a total of three blocks each broken down into two two day mini blocks. Then I do four weeks of day one heavy and day two hypertrophy with the same three blocks. The only difference is that I change deadlift variations in the second four weeks cycle to be a variation that makes me pull lighter loads to balance the increased volume for hypertrophy. I also change up some assistance work between cycles.
The load progression is also much slower on this system. For heavy days I go 4x3 and one joker set at 85% in the first block, 4x2 and a joker at 90% and 4x1 and a joker at 95% in the second and third blocks. Speed days I do 8x2 at 60, 65 and 70% per block. Then I add 2.5% to the load and start at 4x3 plus a joker set, etc. Except for DL, where I just use a lighter variation.
Currently I’m a block away from finishing my first speed/heavy cycle. Then I’ve got the heavy/hypertrophy cycle, a week or so off and then a meet.
Arguably I may do better switching the cycles so that I do heavy/hypertrophy cycle first and the speed/heavy later but time will tell.
I really hope that makes sense.
