Mathineer's Log

Training Over 35 Lifter
81

[quote]mathineer wrote:
sfp wrote:
skidmark wrote:
I bought a set of power rings that I used on my last rack. I’m going to bring them out again for stuff that one would do with blast straps.

Do you have any more info on these? Sounds interesting.

There are a couple of links on that page that show more exercises. Also, the Crossfit folks do a lot of exercises with rings, which are pretty much the same thing. You can check out the Crossfit site for some of those (if you dare to risk flirting wih the darkside). My understanding is they make a lot of exercises harder, like dips, chins, pullups, pushups, etc, because you’re working against an unstable surface so you bring a lot of “stabilizer muscles” into play. Don’t forget to put your feet on a bosu ball! :-)[/quote]

I have a set of blast straps, and have done a lot with them. I really like them. Doing chins with them is fantastic, but you really need to attach them to something fairly high up. I was wondering if there’s something similar for a power rack, but I’ve always thought you wouldn’t get the instability (because of the lack of sway due to the relatively low height of the rack) that makes the blast straps nice. I’m curious to see if there’s a good solution out there.

82

[quote]skidmark wrote:
18" is a high box for me when I sit on it and I’m 6’ with long legs. If you’re just touching an 18.5 inch chair then you are definitely high.

This is okay as long as that’s what you’re training for. I’ve seen it recommended for jumping sports to do 1/2 and 3/4 partial squats since that’s the place in the movement where most of the power comes from.

But is that what you want?[/quote]

Oh, I’d love to be able to squat lower, but due to an old injury and arthritis in one of my knees, that sucker just won’t bend any further. I might be able to hit 16", but I’d be coming up against a hard stop in the joint.

I have a similar problem in one of my elbows (result of a broken humerus from, of all things, arm wrestling). Bone spurs grew around the joint limiting how far I can bend it. I’m not sure if that has happened in the knee, or if the ligaments are just too tight as a result of the surgery. When I go to an ortho doc about the knee, their eyes light up with dollar signs and they say, “Knee replacement!” Anyway, the elbow guy cautioned against coming up hard against the stop, because that would just cause more bone spur growth further limiting joint range of motion.

I mentioned some of this at the beginning of my thread. I fully expected you guys to memorize all of it! There will be a test! :slight_smile:

83

[quote]soldog wrote:
mathineer wrote:
Angry Bovine Cycle #2
Week 1/Session 1 (A)

A1 Flat BB Bench 180# 5x5
A2 T-Bar Row 190# 5x5

B1 Overhead BB Press 110# 3x3
B2 1 Leg Calf Raise 80# 3x5

C Squat 210# 5x5

D1 Chin 0# 3x5
D2 Dip 0# 3x5

Did the squats to a chair 18.5". Not box squats - just touch the chair as a depth indicator - keep me honest!

My original plan was to alternate (squat 5x5, deadlift 3x3) with squat 3x3, deadlift 5x5) so I’d get quads and hammies in each session. Then I decided maybe that’s really too much, and I’d just alternate squat 5x5 with deadlift 5x5 every other session, but get more aggressive with the intensity. Comments and suggestions welcome !

Alternating days between squats and deads sounds good to me.

You are squatting high because of the limited bending ability of your knees - right? That range will probably get you good strength for mountain climbing. Do you incorporate step-ups in your training?[/quote]

Soldog get’s an A+! :slight_smile:

I do step ups. I used to incorporate them into my weight workouts with dumbbells, but now that I’m focusing on just a few exercises, I do them with bodyweight as part of calesthenics circuits on non-weight-training days.

84

[quote]sfp wrote:
I have a set of blast straps, and have done a lot with them. I really like them. Doing chins with them is fantastic, but you really need to attach them to something fairly high up. I was wondering if there’s something similar for a power rack, but I’ve always thought you wouldn’t get the instability (because of the lack of sway due to the relatively low height of the rack) that makes the blast straps nice. I’m curious to see if there’s a good solution out there.[/quote]

How have you set yours up?

My basement ceiling is only a few inches above the top of my rack, so there isn’t anything very high to hook them to. In fact, I set up the chin bar on my rack upside down so I can stand flat footed while holding on to it. To do chins, I just bend my knees to get full range of motion. This gives me more room at the top to get my head above the bar without banging it against the ceiling and waking my wife up in the morning. I guess something like that could give you a few more inches of instability. I don’t know if that would help much.

85

[quote]mathineer wrote:
skidmark wrote:
18" is a high box for me when I sit on it and I’m 6’ with long legs. If you’re just touching an 18.5 inch chair then you are definitely high.

This is okay as long as that’s what you’re training for. I’ve seen it recommended for jumping sports to do 1/2 and 3/4 partial squats since that’s the place in the movement where most of the power comes from.

But is that what you want?

Oh, I’d love to be able to squat lower, but due to an old injury and arthritis in one of my knees, that sucker just won’t bend any further. I might be able to hit 16", but I’d be coming up against a hard stop in the joint.

I have a similar problem in one of my elbows (result of a broken humerus from, of all things, arm wrestling). Bone spurs grew around the joint limiting how far I can bend it. I’m not sure if that has happened in the knee, or if the ligaments are just too tight as a result of the surgery. When I go to an ortho doc about the knee, their eyes light up with dollar signs and they say, “Knee replacement!” Anyway, the elbow guy cautioned against coming up hard against the stop, because that would just cause more bone spur growth further limiting joint range of motion.

I mentioned some of this at the beginning of my thread. I fully expected you guys to memorize all of it! There will be a test! :-)[/quote]

My apologies. I should have been paying better attention.

86

[quote]mathineer wrote:
skidmark wrote:
18" is a high box for me when I sit on it and I’m 6’ with long legs. If you’re just touching an 18.5 inch chair then you are definitely high.

This is okay as long as that’s what you’re training for. I’ve seen it recommended for jumping sports to do 1/2 and 3/4 partial squats since that’s the place in the movement where most of the power comes from.

But is that what you want?

Oh, I’d love to be able to squat lower, but due to an old injury and arthritis in one of my knees, that sucker just won’t bend any further. I might be able to hit 16", but I’d be coming up against a hard stop in the joint.

I have a similar problem in one of my elbows (result of a broken humerus from, of all things, arm wrestling). Bone spurs grew around the joint limiting how far I can bend it. I’m not sure if that has happened in the knee, or if the ligaments are just too tight as a result of the surgery. When I go to an ortho doc about the knee, their eyes light up with dollar signs and they say, “Knee replacement!” Anyway, the elbow guy cautioned against coming up hard against the stop, because that would just cause more bone spur growth further limiting joint range of motion.

I mentioned some of this at the beginning of my thread. I fully expected you guys to memorize all of it! There will be a test! :-)[/quote]

I watched your video. Have you tried a wider spacing of your hands on the bar? That along with bringing the bar a couple of inches lower on your chest may help you to touch if you want. Also you might want to check out Ricky Dale Crain. He had hip replacement surgery a couple of years back and did a 600lb squat recently.

87

[quote]skidmark wrote:

I mentioned some of this at the beginning of my thread. I fully expected you guys to memorize all of it! There will be a test! :slight_smile:

My apologies. I should have been paying better attention.[/quote]

Aw, geez. Now I feel bad. I’m just glad you’re checking in to my thread at all.

This brings up a question, though. If below parallel defines a full squat, how low is 1/2 and 1/4 squat?

88

[quote]Ironmantrw wrote:

I watched your video. Have you tried a wider spacing of your hands on the bar? That along with bringing the bar a couple of inches lower on your chest may help you to touch if you want. Also you might want to check out Ricky Dale Crain. He had hip replacement surgery a couple of years back and did a 600lb squat recently. [/quote]

Are you talking about the squat or the bench press? When you said to bring the bar lower on my chest I got confused. I know MarauderMeat recommends bringing the bar further down the back. Is that what you mean?

Ultimately, the physics of the configuration requires that the bar be above the feet. If it’s further forward, you’re going to fall forward, and vice versa. It would seem to me that putting the bar further down your back would require you to lean further forward from the hips to keep the bar over your feet. By the same token, your upper torso is more erect with the front or goblet squat so that you can keep the center of gravity of the weight over your feet.

I do have some hip and ankle mobility issues to go with all of my other problems. Since the max angle my knee can bend is fixed, maybe I could squeeze out a bit more depth by raising my heels up on a board.

I really, really suck at both overhead and front squats. For the front squats, my elbow won’t bend far enough to hold the bar on my chest. I guess shoulder mobility is the problem with the overhead squats. I do seem to be able to do goblet squats, however. Maybe I should try Zerchers?? I could probably handle more weight with them, since I’m limited to the heaviest dumbbell I have with the goblets.

89

[quote]mathineer wrote:
skidmark wrote:

I mentioned some of this at the beginning of my thread. I fully expected you guys to memorize all of it! There will be a test! :slight_smile:

My apologies. I should have been paying better attention.

Aw, geez. Now I feel bad. I’m just glad you’re checking in to my thread at all.

This brings up a question, though. If below parallel defines a full squat, how low is 1/2 and 1/4 squat?[/quote]

I always think of it as the angle of the thigh relative to the floor. parallel squat has the thigh parallel to the floor with the knee and hip bone level to each other. Anything where the hip goes below the knee is too hard on my ego and I don’t measure them. Thigh @ 45 degrees is a half squat. Other fractions of a squat measured in a similar fashion. I’ve found that anything above at or above a half squat is a back strengthening exercise and doesn’t do much for the glutes unless it’s really overloaded.

90

[quote]mathineer wrote:
sfp wrote:
I have a set of blast straps, and have done a lot with them. I really like them. Doing chins with them is fantastic, but you really need to attach them to something fairly high up. I was wondering if there’s something similar for a power rack, but I’ve always thought you wouldn’t get the instability (because of the lack of sway due to the relatively low height of the rack) that makes the blast straps nice. I’m curious to see if there’s a good solution out there.

How have you set yours up?

My basement ceiling is only a few inches above the top of my rack, so there isn’t anything very high to hook them to. In fact, I set up the chin bar on my rack upside down so I can stand flat footed while holding on to it. To do chins, I just bend my knees to get full range of motion. This gives me more room at the top to get my head above the bar without banging it against the ceiling and waking my wife up in the morning. I guess something like that could give you a few more inches of instability. I don’t know if that would help much.[/quote]

I haven’t used them in the past few months because they’re in storage, but in the gym I used to go to there was a staircase where I could attach the straps to the rails, and the height was just perfect. It was probably about 11-12 feet up.

91

[quote]skidmark wrote:
mathineer wrote:
skidmark wrote:

I mentioned some of this at the beginning of my thread. I fully expected you guys to memorize all of it! There will be a test! :slight_smile:

My apologies. I should have been paying better attention.

Aw, geez. Now I feel bad. I’m just glad you’re checking in to my thread at all.

This brings up a question, though. If below parallel defines a full squat, how low is 1/2 and 1/4 squat?

I always think of it as the angle of the thigh relative to the floor. parallel squat has the thigh parallel to the floor with the knee and hip bone level to each other. Anything where the hip goes below the knee is too hard on my ego and I don’t measure them. Thigh @ 45 degrees is a half squat. Other fractions of a squat measured in a similar fashion. I’ve found that anything above at or above a half squat is a back strengthening exercise and doesn’t do much for the glutes unless it’s really overloaded.[/quote]

You don’t squat with a protractor by your side? Wow, you are really a newb.

92

[quote]sfp wrote:
skidmark wrote:
mathineer wrote:
skidmark wrote:

I mentioned some of this at the beginning of my thread. I fully expected you guys to memorize all of it! There will be a test! :slight_smile:

My apologies. I should have been paying better attention.

Aw, geez. Now I feel bad. I’m just glad you’re checking in to my thread at all.

This brings up a question, though. If below parallel defines a full squat, how low is 1/2 and 1/4 squat?

I always think of it as the angle of the thigh relative to the floor. parallel squat has the thigh parallel to the floor with the knee and hip bone level to each other. Anything where the hip goes below the knee is too hard on my ego and I don’t measure them. Thigh @ 45 degrees is a half squat. Other fractions of a squat measured in a similar fashion. I’ve found that anything above at or above a half squat is a back strengthening exercise and doesn’t do much for the glutes unless it’s really overloaded.

You don’t squat with a protractor by your side? Wow, you are really a newb.
[/quote]

Straight up, man. Need a freakin’ T-square too to be a badass lifter.

93

[quote]mathineer wrote:
Ironmantrw wrote:

I watched your video. Have you tried a wider spacing of your hands on the bar? That along with bringing the bar a couple of inches lower on your chest may help you to touch if you want. Also you might want to check out Ricky Dale Crain. He had hip replacement surgery a couple of years back and did a 600lb squat recently.

Are you talking about the squat or the bench press? When you said to bring the bar lower on my chest I got confused. I know MarauderMeat recommends bringing the bar further down the back. Is that what you mean?

Ultimately, the physics of the configuration requires that the bar be above the feet. If it’s further forward, you’re going to fall forward, and vice versa. It would seem to me that putting the bar further down your back would require you to lean further forward from the hips to keep the bar over your feet. By the same token, your upper torso is more erect with the front or goblet squat so that you can keep the center of gravity of the weight over your feet.

I do have some hip and ankle mobility issues to go with all of my other problems. Since the max angle my knee can bend is fixed, maybe I could squeeze out a bit more depth by raising my heels up on a board.

I really, really suck at both overhead and front squats. For the front squats, my elbow won’t bend far enough to hold the bar on my chest. I guess shoulder mobility is the problem with the overhead squats. I do seem to be able to do goblet squats, however. Maybe I should try Zerchers?? I could probably handle more weight with them, since I’m limited to the heaviest dumbbell I have with the goblets.[/quote]

sorry I should have been more specific I meant bench. I referred to RDC because of the joint replacement. He also wasn’t supposed to squat that heavy ever again.

94

[quote]skidmark wrote:
You don’t squat with a protractor by your side? Wow, you are really a newb.

Straight up, man. Need a freakin’ T-square too to be a badass lifter.[/quote]

Are we makin’ a little fun of the poor ol’ mathineer here? And I was planning on measuring my joints (Not that one! Getcher mind out of the gutter!), and making a body diagram of me squatting to see how close to parallel I could get, theoretically speaking…

95

Angry Bovine Cycle #2
Week 1/Session 2 (B)

A1 Flat BB Bench 190# 3x3
A2 T-Bar Row 200# 3x3

B1 Overhead BB Press 105# 5x5
B2 1 Leg Calf Raise 80# 5x8

C Squat (chair) 220# 3x3

D Deadlift (stands) 240# 5x5

D1 Chin 0# 5x5
D2 Dip 0# 5x5

96

Walked 3 x 1 mile at work (breaks and lunch).

Dreadmill: 2 miles @ 5%/3mph with (20 pushups, 20 stepups each leg, 20 ab rolls at the end of each 0.5 mile).

Worked up a nice sweat. Damn, I love to sweat. I used to love a 6 mile run on a hot summer day when you’d finish up with sweat pouring off of you like you just stepped out of the shower…

97

Angry Bovine Cycle #2
Week 1/Session 3 (C)

A1 Flat BB Bench 70/5 120/5 160/5 180/5 190/5
A2 Bent Row 70/5 120/5 160/5 180/5 190/5

B1 Overhead BB Press 50/5 70/5 90/5 100/5 110/5
B2 1 Leg Calf Raise 20/5 50/5 70/5 80/5 90/5

C Squat (chair) 100/5 160/5 180/5 200/5 220/4

D Deadlift (stands) 140/5 190/5 210/5 230/5 250/5

D1 Chin 0
D2 Dip 0

I’ve had a really bad week at work, and today was the worst day of the week. I’ll be working all Mother’s Day weekend. Anyway, I made for a short workout, cause I wuz goin’ out drinkin’.

The squatz felt hard. The deadlifts were a PR. I’ve never lifted 250 for more than a single before. I felt something in my traps up by my neck tweak a bit on these, but if felt fine afterwards. In fact, several of these were PRs (more than I’ve repped at that weight ever before.

Also, my weight was 170.6 this morning, the lowest for the year so far.

I ended up taking it easy on the beer, and coming home early. I know, I know, that’s just crazy talk!

Anyway, now that I’m starting to really push my limits on the heavier (for me) weights, I can see how even the volume I’m doing will start getting in the way of recovery before too much longer. I’m starting to understand why some of these programs are structured the way they are. Before, when I was doing the high volume, lighter workouts, stuff like Madcow just seemed like hardly enough to be worth doing.

98

[quote]mathineer wrote:
Angry Bovine Cycle #2
Week 1/Session 3 (C)

A1 Flat BB Bench 70/5 120/5 160/5 180/5 190/5
A2 Bent Row 70/5 120/5 160/5 180/5 190/5

B1 Overhead BB Press 50/5 70/5 90/5 100/5 110/5
B2 1 Leg Calf Raise 20/5 50/5 70/5 80/5 90/5

C Squat (chair) 100/5 160/5 180/5 200/5 220/4

D Deadlift (stands) 140/5 190/5 210/5 230/5 250/5

D1 Chin 0
D2 Dip 0

I’ve had a really bad week at work, and today was the worst day of the week. I’ll be working all Mother’s Day weekend. Anyway, I made for a short workout, cause I wuz goin’ out drinkin’.

The squatz felt hard. The deadlifts were a PR. I’ve never lifted 250 for more than a single before. I felt something in my traps up by my neck tweak a bit on these, but if felt fine afterwards. In fact, several of these were PRs (more than I’ve repped at that weight ever before.

Also, my weight was 170.6 this morning, the lowest for the year so far.

I ended up taking it easy on the beer, and coming home early. I know, I know, that’s just crazy talk!

Anyway, now that I’m starting to really push my limits on the heavier (for me) weights, I can see how even the volume I’m doing will start getting in the way of recovery before too much longer. I’m starting to understand why some of these programs are structured the way they are. Before, when I was doing the high volume, lighter workouts, stuff like Madcow just seemed like hardly enough to be worth doing.
[/quote]

Ha - you’re doing better than I am - you trained then went drinking beer. I skipped the training and started drinking.

99

You can train while drinking. Drop sets - starting at 12 oz. If you feel the need to go heavy, start with the 16 oz. or use the two handed method. Great for bulking up!

100

Looking good!

I like that your a fellow small guy!!!
Im just under 180

kmc