Modi this is beyond phenomenal! Congratulations! Maybe Pavel’s claim of 100 pounds in 16 weeks will become a reality!
I’m really afraid there are going to be a lot of people trying Smolov that have absolutely no business doing it. People that have NOWHERE NEAR your squat endurance and ability to cope with high squat intensity. I just hope they don’t get injured before they fizzle out after a week or two.
Anyways, this is absolutely tremendous, makes your results on the 13 week Sheiko cycle look like a big pile of puke . . . I really wonder if you shouldn’t be doing a CMS/MS cycle considering how you handled the Smolov base cycle.
[quote]mrodock wrote:
Modi this is beyond phenomenal! Congratulations! Maybe Pavel’s claim of 100 pounds in 16 weeks will become a reality!
I’m really afraid there are going to be a lot of people trying Smolov that have absolutely no business doing it. People that have NOWHERE NEAR your squat endurance and ability to cope with high squat intensity. I just hope they don’t get injured before they fizzle out after a week or two.
Anyways, this is absolutely tremendous, makes your results on the 13 week Sheiko cycle look like a big pile of puke . . . I really wonder if you shouldn’t be doing a CMS/MS cycle considering how you handled the Smolov base cycle.[/quote]
Thanks! I agree with your sentiment. I’m not sure I could have handled Smolov though, without doing Sheiko first. I’ve thought about the CMS/MS cycle, but won’t make any decisions until after the Smolov Intense cycle.
I can’t really say that I expected to add 50lbs this cycle, or that I expect to add another 50 after the next one. I’d be very happy with a 600+ Squat. Hell, I’m happy already with 6 plates. I’ll take what I can get out of the next cycle. But I won’t pretend that I’m not very pleased with the results from the past month.
[quote]Modi wrote:
I’ve thought about the CMS/MS cycle, but won’t make any decisions until after the Smolov Intense cycle.
[/quote]
There is a guy on the Sheiko forum, maybe benburgess? who said he has another CMS/MS cycle that he likes better. Thought you might be interested if you choose to go down that route.
[quote]mrodock wrote:
So now you have an elite deadlift AND squat, what is going to get that bench above 400?[/quote]
Fucked if I know. Been working on that for 2+ years.
However, even with a 400 bench I wouldn’t have my elite total yet, so I still have plenty of work to do. I figure I need atleast a 600 Squat, 650 DL, and a 405 Bench to get there.
Or drop down to 242, and I’m pretty sure that involves less food and less beer.
[quote]Modi wrote:
mrodock wrote:
So now you have an elite deadlift AND squat, what is going to get that bench above 400?
Fucked if I know. Been working on that for 2+ years.
However, even with a 400 bench I wouldn’t have my elite total yet, so I still have plenty of work to do. I figure I need atleast a 600 Squat, 650 DL, and a 405 Bench to get there.
Or drop down to 242, and I’m pretty sure that involves less food and less beer.[/quote]
Come on down to the 220s with me. You’d practically be starving or dying of thirst…
I guess that’s what I get for looking at Rippetoe’s book. For the 165 class his numbers work out almost exactly, but obviously not for the 275 class.
Yeah 242 would be a change of life at this point, haha.[/quote]
Was that in Starting Strength or Practical Programming? I know I’ve run across it before.
242 would be doable. I could see myself sitting in the low 250’s and dropping down for a meet, but I wouldn’t do that until I already had the numbers to total elite, which would be 1607+.
Was that in Starting Strength or Practical Programming? I know I’ve run across it before.
242 would be doable. I could see myself sitting in the low 250’s and dropping down for a meet, but I wouldn’t do that until I already had the numbers to total elite, which would be 1607+.[/quote]
My left shoulder was more than a little sore from softball practice yesterday. I tweaked something in the back of the shoulder during one of my swings, and kept batting anyways. Doens’t feel like anything major, so I’m not too worried, but it took a little while for it to loosen up. I actually used the bands before and after the session, and have a bag of ice on it now.
I did all my warmups as full Squats and save the Negative for the last rep. My left shoulder was still bothering me today, so it was difficult to get tight under the bar. I cut out my 365 and 455 warmup reps just to save on wear and tear. When I loaded 495 it felt like a ton. I just did a walkout with 545 to get used to the weight since I didn’t want to Squat it. It felt like a ton as well. 595 didn’t feel any better, but I took it down nice and slow to pin number 10. I think my CNS may be in a state of shock from Saturdays Max Effort testing.
I did some Lat Pulldowns and Face Pulls to get the blood flowing to the shoulder and it felt much better afterwards.
I finished up with some Explosive Jumps for lack of a better term. I squatted deep and jumped as high as possible (did these outside), landed back in the jump position and did 10 reps as high as possible. I was easily 4-6" off the ground on these. I think my vert has doubled.
The Switching Phase calls for speed. Plyometrics, hops, bounds, Box Squats, Power Cleans, etc. I think I’ll switch out the Power Cleans on Wed. and get in some Speed Deads instead. I don’t want to push my shoulder right now if I don’t have to. Friday I’ll do Box Squats but I’m going to use the SSB, which should feel fine. I’ll use Westside loading and set/rep parameters for these.
It felt strange Deadlifting today. I haven’t DL’ed in over a month. The weight felt fine, but it took a little while to find my groove. I will probably stick with the same weight next week and just add in two more sets.
I needed to do some other plyo-type stuff today, and since my basement ceilings are about 7’2" I’m kind of limited. I decided to do some box type jumps up my bulkhead. 3 steps is 27" up and 32" out. I was tempted to try the fourth step, but didn’t want to risk missing a step and screwing something up. Next week, I may put a 4" box at the bottom and try 4 steps, which would really be about 3 1/2 steps.
I’m slowly adding weight to the Lat Pulldowns while my left shoulder heals. Slower than I had hoped…
A) DE SSB Yoke Bar 12" Box Squats
barx10
155x8
245x5
295x2
335x2x10 (60 sec rest)
B) Lat Pulldowns
120x10x3
C) Face Pulls
redx12x3
D) Foam Rolling
Quadsx10
I-T Bandx10
Hamstringsx10
Piriformisx10
My left shoulder is starting to feel a little better, but I decided to use the Elitefts Yoke Bar to keep the strain off it, as well as my elbow. I haven’t Box Squatted for many months, and these felt good to throw back into the program. I also haven’t used the Yoke Bar in quite a while. These felt pretty good today, and I’m happy with the speed.
I moved up another 10lbs on Lat Pulls, and no pain, so hopefully everything is moving in the right direction. Softball practice was cancelled this weeked due to Easter, and that will definitely be good for the healing process.
Last week the Squats and Negatives felt like a ton starting at 495. This week 495 felt like 135 on my shoulders. Last week I just walked 545 out to get used to the weight, and this week I squatted it and it went up like butter. Interesting how that works.
I took a video of the negative at 605 because I tried explaining to some people what a negative was and they universally said “Oh my, that sounds terribly dangerous. Aren’t you afraid you won’t be able to lift it and you’ll hurt yourself?” I explained I had safety bars in place to stop the weight and even used chains on the negatives just to be safe. “Oh I understand all that, but what if you get stuck at the bottom?” Whatever, hopefully the video is self-explanatory.
Lat pulldowns felt good today, I went up another 10lbs and my shoulder held up fine. I even threw in some mini band rear delt pullaparts. Hopefully I’ll be at 100% going into next week when I start the Smolov Intense Meso Cycle.
Video of 605 Negative Squat (for the sake of the elderly that fear for my life):
[quote]Modi wrote:
I took a video of the negative at 605 because I tried explaining to some people what a negative was and they universally said “Oh my, that sounds terribly dangerous. Aren’t you afraid you won’t be able to lift it and you’ll hurt yourself?” I explained I had safety bars in place to stop the weight and even used chains on the negatives just to be safe. “Oh I understand all that, but what if you get stuck at the bottom?” Whatever, hopefully the video is self-explanatory.
[/quote]
