Members Kicking Ass on a Consistent Basis

Training Powerlifting
21

[quote]dalle wrote:
ashylarryku great progress :), is there a certain program you are following ? [/quote]

Thanks, dalle! I’m currently doing the Indigo strength program. I don’t ever see myself straying from CT’s principals and methods tbh. I have done several programs in the past. Some were successful and some not so much:

Advanced German Volume Training
The advanced version uses 10 sets of 3-5 reps instead of 10x10. My pressing strength skyrocketed during this program. I don’t know if it was a combination of school and me not being used to high volume training, but I lasted about 40 days on this before I just had to quit. My grip was going to crap, everything felt heavy, and I got sick. But, this taught me that what I thrive best on and do well with his high volume, low rep training.

5/3/1
This is great for my squat and deadlift, but terrible for my bench. I just think I need more volume for my bench to progress. But, I did run this again about a year ago, combing it with CT’s HP Mass principals, and it went much better. After my 5/3/1 set of the day, I would stay on that exercise and get more sets in via wave loading with sets of 1-3 reps.

I definitely enjoyed it, and I could see myself going back to this, but adding HFS to everything. I know everyone looks down at combining programs, but I think there’s a difference between blindly cutting and pasting workouts together in hopes for something magical, and combining certain methods with each other to create something you understand and think would work well together.

CT’s programs
I loved HP Mass. After a while, though, I got tired of basically doing the exact same workout over and over again. I enjoy his newer work with the Indigo project much better, because there is much more variance from session to session, and High Frequency Strength (HFS) is one of the his best ideas. I added 50 lbs to my squat and 55 lbs to my deadlift in less than 4 months training with HFS.

Once you can get over the mindset of only working a muscle group once or twice a week, it really is amazing. It was kind of hard at first, though, because I always wanted to go too heavy. I still have this problem to an extent, but I’m much better at it. If you’re working the same lifts 4 times a week (or even every day if you want) you have to make sure it’s something you’re able to recover from for the next day.

I also have done typical BBing type splits, and they were ok. But, I did these in my first year of training, so obviously just about anything will bring progress then is you’re honestly working and focusing on recovery as well.

22

I think Adam impresses me the most in that he has come from the lowest point(please don’t hate me sweet prince) to being good. I get the feeling that some of the other guys started out bigger/stronger and have done really well to seize their potential, but I feel that Adam made his own potential by working harder and smarter. Absolutely no offense was meant to the other posters named, yall are rocking.

23

Great posts in here guys.

24

I really appreciate that, mmat. I wish I had done done sports or trained with others in high school. But in a way, I’m glad I didn’t. Basically all of my friends that I know who played sports in high school and trained are not even staying active now. I’m glad I got bit by the iron bug when I did, rather than be forced to train if I wasn’t passionate about it.

I think that’s why all of the guys who I knew that trained in high school don’t even stay active now. They always dreaded going to weights class at 6:30 in the morning during the summer, and I’m sure they can’t stand the thought of lifting weights.

25

[quote]frankjl wrote:

[quote]Spock81 wrote:
K I am going to list my people before you respond so I don’t forget haha

Um this guy named Frankjl or something? He seems very wise/strong/humble.

Kameron Ross is supa awesome. IF ya’ll get time you should check out his log.

Scoop-ster AKA 2-SCOOPS

DoveOfWar never posts anymore, but I used to watch his lifting video’s before my workouts :frowning:

and yah of course the usual STB M.Meat type people who I am convinced aren’t even human so they don’t count, haha. [/quote]

Damn that kinda looks like my name there. I kept a log for a long time before life kicked me in the balls but I started posting again earlier this week. While it’s always good to be noticed, I’m too far away from my own goals to consider myself strong. Thanks for noticing, I’ve learned a lot from the other people mentioned in this thread.

[/quote]

SEE!! ^^^^ That right there is why I picked you! You’ve got a powerlifting heart, yes indeedy. I can just tell these kinda things, heh.

26

[quote]Achilles of war wrote:
As ashy and spar said, incredibly flattering ect to be mentioned. Thanks.

I wrestled all my life and did not get into powerlifting until last year. I had always done the big three but no formal approach other than pound out reps here and there.

I am a large supported of Smolov. I was pushed into it by a great Dler named Peter Rubish, best thing i did was take his advice and run it. I am going to continue into the intensive phase and hope to be as close to a 650 raw squat as possible by the end of summer.

Eat, Lift, Sleep, Repeat. PL is a great sport.

Any questions just lemme know here or in my log. I hope to compete by October and be as close to a 1700 total as possible.

Dove does not post as much, he has a big boy job, but he is an inspiration as well. He has put up some crazy numbers and gives lots of advice when approached.
[/quote]

Did you run Smolov jr for bench and the full smolov for squat and dead? Did you do any other assistance besides the prescribed lifts?

Here is my problem with smolov and why I haven’t done it, and why 5/3/1 didn’t do much for me. I got this idea for training from marauder and has worked good for pretty much all my lifts - I love training with supramaximal weights - reverse bands / chains / boards - anything that can help me overload what I can currently lift. For me, repping a light weight never did much shit for preparing me to handle HEAVIER weight. If, however, I can rock 360 off a 3/4 board, you bet your ass 315 feels light as shit on the chest and I feel confident from the second I grab that weight in my hands. For example - when I was stuck at 275 I was able to rep 225 for 10, but anything over 275 wasn’t moving much. Since implementing Meat’s suggestions, I have hit 315 in the gym once (and failed many times prior lol), however, I struggle for anything over 6-7 reps with 225.

Did you have similar concerns before jumping on smolov and how did you address them?

Thanks!

27

with all the shit in a cyclone flying around this site, it is post such as this that renew my hope in my iron brothers that not all are poo flinging doo.

Thank guys. . . and gals (spock81) for saving my iron faith in humaninty !

28

[quote]mlekava000 wrote:

[quote]Achilles of war wrote:
As ashy and spar said, incredibly flattering ect to be mentioned. Thanks.

I wrestled all my life and did not get into powerlifting until last year. I had always done the big three but no formal approach other than pound out reps here and there.

I am a large supported of Smolov. I was pushed into it by a great Dler named Peter Rubish, best thing i did was take his advice and run it. I am going to continue into the intensive phase and hope to be as close to a 650 raw squat as possible by the end of summer.

Eat, Lift, Sleep, Repeat. PL is a great sport.

Any questions just lemme know here or in my log. I hope to compete by October and be as close to a 1700 total as possible.

Dove does not post as much, he has a big boy job, but he is an inspiration as well. He has put up some crazy numbers and gives lots of advice when approached.
[/quote]

Did you run Smolov jr for bench and the full smolov for squat and dead? Did you do any other assistance besides the prescribed lifts?

Here is my problem with smolov and why I haven’t done it, and why 5/3/1 didn’t do much for me. I got this idea for training from marauder and has worked good for pretty much all my lifts - I love training with supramaximal weights - reverse bands / chains / boards - anything that can help me overload what I can currently lift. For me, repping a light weight never did much shit for preparing me to handle HEAVIER weight. If, however, I can rock 360 off a 3/4 board, you bet your ass 315 feels light as shit on the chest and I feel confident from the second I grab that weight in my hands. For example - when I was stuck at 275 I was able to rep 225 for 10, but anything over 275 wasn’t moving much. Since implementing Meat’s suggestions, I have hit 315 in the gym once (and failed many times prior lol), however, I struggle for anything over 6-7 reps with 225.

Did you have similar concerns before jumping on smolov and how did you address them?

Thanks!
[/quote]

x2 on this I don’t always handle supramaximal weights but if I don’t handle heavy shit consistently, when I move up it feels INCREDIBLY heavy. I also got a lot of my training ideas from meat

29

[quote]florelius wrote:
I think Jab1 are kicking alot of ass in his log, so I think he deserves to be listed as one of those
ass kicking guys/gals.

[/quote]

x2

30

[quote]jacob-1310 wrote:

[quote]florelius wrote:
I think Jab1 are kicking alot of ass in his log, so I think he deserves to be listed as one of those
ass kicking guys/gals.

[/quote]

x2[/quote]

x3

His front squat specifically has been getting beast lately.

31

[quote]mlekava000 wrote:

[quote]Achilles of war wrote:
As ashy and spar said, incredibly flattering ect to be mentioned. Thanks.

I wrestled all my life and did not get into powerlifting until last year. I had always done the big three but no formal approach other than pound out reps here and there.

I am a large supported of Smolov. I was pushed into it by a great Dler named Peter Rubish, best thing i did was take his advice and run it. I am going to continue into the intensive phase and hope to be as close to a 650 raw squat as possible by the end of summer.

Eat, Lift, Sleep, Repeat. PL is a great sport.

Any questions just lemme know here or in my log. I hope to compete by October and be as close to a 1700 total as possible.

Dove does not post as much, he has a big boy job, but he is an inspiration as well. He has put up some crazy numbers and gives lots of advice when approached.
[/quote]

Did you run Smolov jr for bench and the full smolov for squat and dead? Did you do any other assistance besides the prescribed lifts?

Here is my problem with smolov and why I haven’t done it, and why 5/3/1 didn’t do much for me. I got this idea for training from marauder and has worked good for pretty much all my lifts - I love training with supramaximal weights - reverse bands / chains / boards - anything that can help me overload what I can currently lift. For me, repping a light weight never did much shit for preparing me to handle HEAVIER weight. If, however, I can rock 360 off a 3/4 board, you bet your ass 315 feels light as shit on the chest and I feel confident from the second I grab that weight in my hands. For example - when I was stuck at 275 I was able to rep 225 for 10, but anything over 275 wasn’t moving much. Since implementing Meat’s suggestions, I have hit 315 in the gym once (and failed many times prior lol), however, I struggle for anything over 6-7 reps with 225.

Did you have similar concerns before jumping on smolov and how did you address them?

Thanks!
[/quote]

the crazy thing about powerlifting is that what works for one person will totally do shit for another. I"ve tried pretty much everything and the supramaximal approach works best for me. not only does it work for me, but when i find a movement that has good carryover, it works fast. i dont’ have to wait through an entire cycle to find out whether it works or not. i make progress weekly. for me, the titan/slingshot has given me the most on my bench lately. i would say since i added them this year, i’ve put over 20lbs on my bench. as for deads, chains give me the biggest bang for my buck. the sweet spot for me is chain weight in the range of 150lbs plus straight weight. for squats, again, chains or squatting against bands give me the most carryover as well as doing a ton of front squat work.

my point in all of this is that i had to do a lot of trial and error to find the movements that work for me. reverse band bench press is a form of supramaximal work that may work for plenty of people but does shit for me. the secret is finding the movements that work for you. i’m sure their are plenty of people that continually do shit that doesn’t work but they don’t even realize it. just because i can bench over 700lbs with reverse bands doens’t mean i’ll add anything to my raw bench. this is the secret to getting stronger- knowing how to determine what movements make your competition lifts go up and which ones just make you stronger at THAT lift. you have to take your ego out of your lifting. It’s easy to just go in and get strong at your variations but it’s an entirely different thing to go in and use variations that will make you stronger at your competition lifts. this is what separates the people that progress in competition and those that don’t.

32

^^What Meat said is perfectly true. He has impacted a lot of my training since entering into a PL style lifting regiment.

I too love super maximal loads, and it works well for me. However do not under estimate Smolov’s loads.
Week 3 of the intensive phase has me squatting 585 4x3, not light IMO even with a 600+ squat.

I have completed smolov for squats, I would never run it for DL being that I do not like the volume scheme for pulling personally. For squats I think it was the best decision i ever made, I went from struggling with 500x3 to an easy 500x8. The last week of the Smolov base-meso I did 10x3@525.
-Main point is that Smolov really teaches you to 1.) get comfortable with the motion of squatting 2.) Learn to work past soreness such as lower back stiffness, hip flexors, ect and 3.) adapt adapt adapt.

85% of a 1rm +30lbs hits hard, so do not worry about the weight being to low.

As for JR, I did run JR for my bench, I have not really maxed out on bench, but i did hit a 405x2 set a few days ago, and worked up to a 410 single that was not too taxing, being i think im good for more weight. (bench is a hard movement for me). I think the Base-meso is your best bet for squat, i wouldnt waste my time running JR for squat.

I think the JR is great for bench, IF you have healthy shoulders and are willign to stretch all the time. If not it will ruin you.

For DL I think i will get the most out of a program following guidelines like the coan/philipi. I also like reverse band work + heavy rack pulls + deficit deads. I am actually goign to be trying sumo out for the first time tomorrow being that I feel the stance might be easier than conventional for me.

All in all there are sooooo many different programs out there, and soo many different athletes excel with different regiments. The biggest thing that I have taken to heart this past year was eating enough, sleeping enough, kicking ass and not screwing around when in the gym, and not drinking often -.-

*Edit: btw 5/3/1 didnt really work for me either, I think it is a great program and i will run it some day when i have a 700 squat ect. But I picture it better for those in need of that 15 lbs every 6 months, rather than us in lower numbers that can handle adding 50-100

33

[quote]ashylarryku wrote:

[quote]jacob-1310 wrote:

[quote]florelius wrote:
I think Jab1 are kicking alot of ass in his log, so I think he deserves to be listed as one of those
ass kicking guys/gals.

[/quote]

x2[/quote]

x3

His front squat specifically has been getting beast lately.[/quote]

I agree with that! Check out phlegms’ front squatting too.

SamMcLoughlin has started making ripples with his pulling too. And He isn’t near where he wants to be yet!

34

Awesome stuff here!

All this talk recently made me go and get a maddog slingshot. It arrived this week, just in time for my ME bench work on Friday.

It is AWESOME. Can’t recommend it enough! Took it a bit light, because I knew the groove would be different (It is!), but I felt very strong and safe at the bottom. Left me with some brusing on my biceps but fuck it. Worked up to 315 for 2 sets of 3 and htey were fast and strong. I will keep it in my rotation and only time will tell, but so far so good. At the bottom it feels exactly like a reverse band in a way it stretches nicely and really helps you catapult. I like it better than the reverse badn though, because you are not as limited in you plane the wya the band returns the bar to always the same plane plus you have to do more work stabilizing the weight.

35

Nice, I definitely think i will be adding the mad dog to my arsenal soon. I know meat used something like a titan ram or what not that looked promising as well. I wonder which is better for training carry over into raw lifts.

36

I read up on both and honestly, you won’t go wrong with either the Titan or the Slingshot. Meat has had experience with both so he can share better, but I believe he mentioned something that the RAM was closer to his normal bench stroke than the Slingshot. The Maddog slingshot is pretty stiff, so you will need a lot of back to just spread it sufficiently to grip the bar wide. I had no problme adjusting to the stroke (it slightly mimics a bench shirt, but nothing ridiculius). Price-wise they are also identical so its really up to you. Just remember that the Maddog is a double ply and will give more pop than regular one. Its up to you.

I also felt I wanted to support Mark Bell (he invented the slingshot). His shit on supertraining.tv is good and he gives a lot to the PL community.

37

I haven’t used my slingshot properly yet. I’ll post about how it goes.

38

thanks spock and LM!

39

Grettiron is definitely worth mentioning. Everytime he posts a vid of his lifting it looks like he puts in over 9000 percent effort.

40

D’awwww, you guys are so sweet. Recap of the last [training] year.

January 2011: Started WS4SB Part III after I fully recovered from an L4-L5 fracture. Made some great gains on that program.

October 2011: Broke my fibula, ankle, tore every ligament in my ankle, as well. Not fun.

December 2011: Went back to the weight room full-tilt. Ran a strict Westside program for about a month. Wasn’t sure if I made any gains, but my strength was damn near the same as it was before I broke my leg, so I’d say that it worked.

January 2012: Walked into Quads Gym in Calumet City, IL. Talked to the owner about signing up there, and that’s where I got the chance to starting training with Ed Coan. The rest is history.

I think the biggest thing for me so far has been being in the presence of the greatest powerlifter to ever get under a bar. I have totally changed my programming around. My split resembles that of a bodybuilder, actually. Monday is chest and tris, Wednesday is legs and back, Friday is shoulders, and Saturday is light back and bis.

In my time training with Ed, I’ve gone down to about 11% bodyfat from about 13%, took my bench from 265 to 305, completely remodeled my squat form and made it bulletproof, currently busting my ass to not suck at deadlifting and chasing a personal goal of mine of a 225 strict overhead press. I think that might have to wait till after football, though. My bodyweight has pretty much stayed the same, but I’ve added a lot of overall size, mostly to my arms, legs, back, and chest.

I finally have a meet picked out and I’m going to ask Ed about it on Monday. It’s July 28 at Lance’s Gym in Chicago; not sure which federation, though. I’m looking to totall over 1100 at 17 years old and most likely in the 198 class. I’m trying to gain some lost weight back, so that should help with my numbers a little more.

Honestly, the fact that I’m being trained by the best hasn’t really set in yet. I think it well once I finally step onto the platform. I can’t descibe what the experience with Ed has been like. I’ve learned a lot about not only lifting, but life, too. Ed is a great man and almost a second father (can’t replace the awesome one that I already have!) to me. I’ve become pretty good friends with him and my other training partners.

I’m not sure how much longer I’ll be able to keep lifting like I am. I wish I could do it until I die, but life happens and shit changes. As of right now, my plans are to keep trianing with Ed until my football season starts, go back to Quads when it ends, and continue to get strong(er). From there on, it’s trying to become the best soldier I can be (while still training for powerlifitng). I plan to become an officer in the U.S. Army once I gradute college. I have some scholarships and college interviews lined up for me, so things will be steadily working themselves out.

This is what powerlifting is all about. Although the numbers may be individual, a team worked together behind the scenes to make that total possible. Thanks to everybody on here who has helped me through individual lifting struggles and has made me feel like “one of the guys” on here. I know that we most likely won’t ever meet in real life, but I’m glad to have a “family” here on T-Nation.

CS