My Road to Elite

Training Training Logs
41

[quote]mrodock wrote:
Today I saw a flyer for a powerlifting “meet” at the gym I recently joined. It is designed for people that have never competed and will have judging based on USAPL rules. It is on February 28 so I will be finishing this program between February 18-22. Not exactly sure how my workouts will look leading up to the meet, and what exactly my attempts will look like but I’m starting to think about it.

So this thing is free and no travel so it will be a good opportunity to get a feel for a lot of things with no investment. I was going to test my 1 rep maxes right around that day anyways so this will be great.[/quote]

I would counsel you not to change your training AT ALL leading into the week before the meet…not at this point. Just take the last week off from lifting, deal with any weight issues, and go lift.

You will have an awesome time. Remember, open with something you can triple on a bad day. If you are not pausing your benches, start now.

42

[quote]Ramo wrote:

I would counsel you not to change your training AT ALL leading into the week before the meet…not at this point. Just take the last week off from lifting, deal with any weight issues, and go lift.

You will have an awesome time. Remember, open with something you can triple on a bad day. If you are not pausing your benches, start now.[/quote]

Okay, I will not change my training, will have 6 days off the way it looks.

I will not worry about the weight as it is not really a competition with weight classes and you weigh in the morning of. I will probably be around 170 and not worry about it.

Do you think it would be okay to wait until I get to sets of 3, in less than 2 weeks to start doing pause benches? My repping is starting to get stronger and I want to keep moving with that for a couple more sessions.

Week 5 is a deload week where I would be doing something like 3x3x315 wednesday and 1x3x325 on sunday. I am hovering pretty close to overtraining and was wondering if I should do a more drastic deload that week before intensification starts. If so, do you have a recommendation. The first of four intensification weeks will start something like this: 3x3x335 and 1x3x350.

43

[quote]mrodock wrote:
tom8658 wrote:
If you liked Starting Strength, you’d probably also like Rippetoe’s other book, Strong Enough.

Regarding your experience on SS, could you explain the following :

…I would do ramp up sets by 10-15 pounds each set until I found my work set weight…

I took it to mean that you did three “heavy” sets after your warm-up sets, ramping the weight each set, so if you had hit 175x5 in the last session, you would do something like:

(warmup)
185x5
195x5
205x5

I have yet to read Strong Enough, thanks for the recommendation.

Here are my first few workouts for squats

Fri. 5/30
1x5x115
2x5x135
1x4x145

Sun. 6/1
1x5x155
2x5x160

Wed. 6/4
1x5x185
1x5x195
1x5x200

Fri 6/6
lost

Sun. 6/8
lost

Wed. 6/11
3x5x235

Fri. 6/13
3x5x245

Sun. 6/15
3x5x255

Then I started having trouble adding 10 pounds per workout so I dropped the weight down to 240 and started adding 5 pounds a workout while doing front squats once a week.

Now I don’t think what I did was ideal, but the only point I wanted to make was that starting at 3x5x135 and adding 5 pounds a workout would have been a much slower process, I think a person would do well to be aggressive while remaining careful they aren’t missing a bunch of reps.

One interseting point though is that I hit 2x5x300 on 8/24. I didn’t do the last set because the first 2 were extremely tough and I was testing my squat max a few days later. Anyways, I did the math and if I would have started at 3x5x135 on 5/31 and added 5 pounds every single workout I would have gotten to 3x5x300 exactly on 8/24. Pretty interesting. Certainly I wouldn’t have increased my front squat to 3x5x215 had I only hit my back squat every workout. Now I’m not entirely sure what to think about all of this, haha.
[/quote]

Thanks. That’s great progress, especially for someone training alone and not gaining weight.

Check out Strong Enough if you get the chance, it’s definitely worth a read.

44

[quote]tom8658 wrote:

Thanks. That’s great progress, especially for someone training alone and not gaining weight.

Check out Strong Enough if you get the chance, it’s definitely worth a read.[/quote]

except that i gained 20 pounds during that period, haha

will do!

45

I’m starting to think the best way for me to realize my powerlifting potential is over the next year to drop about 10 pounds of fat, currently 172, around 14%, and gain 20 pounds of lean mass. That would put me in the 181’s. I’d like to put a decent amount of that mass on my upper body, I think in the long run it would really help my bench. I have the chest of a prepubscent girl . . . wait, no prepubscent boy. I always try to give myself a break.

46

I just watched Wade Hooper squat 815 in single ply gear at 181, absolutely amazing

47

5x5 Week 3, 2nd Session

Front Squats
3x3x225

Bench 5RM
1x5x152.5
1x5x163.75
1x5x176.25
1x5x187.5
1x5x200

Reverse Flyes
2x8x20
2x10x15

Speed Deads
15x1x245
30-35 sec. rest

Chins
5x5x12.5

Speed deads were nice and quick. Was glad to hit my 5RM on bench as I only managed 4 reps with 195 last time. I had been adding 2.5 pounds per week on chins but this week I added 5 pounds and that went well. So good session, hope I feel great on Saturday, want to finish the volume/loading phase really strong.

48

[quote]mrodock wrote:
I’m starting to think the best way for me to realize my powerlifting potential is over the next year to drop about 10 pounds of fat, currently 172, around 14%, and gain 20 pounds of lean mass. That would put me in the 181’s. I’d like to put a decent amount of that mass on my upper body, I think in the long run it would really help my bench. I have the chest of a prepubscent girl . . . wait, no prepubscent boy. I always try to give myself a break.[/quote]

Heheh. Now he sees the light. A little extra mass never hurt anyone. Good luck with the weight gain.

49

[quote]Modi wrote:

Heheh. Now he sees the light. A little extra mass never hurt anyone. Good luck with the weight gain.[/quote]

It takes me awhile to catch on and thanks!

50

5x5 Week 3, 3rd Session

Squats 5RM
1x5x247.5
1x5x267.5
1x5x286.25
1x5x306.25
1x5x325

Bench
4x5x192.5
1x4x192.5

DB Reverse Flyes
3x10x15

BB Row
5x5x150

Gorilla-ups
1x10
1x9
1x7

DB Flyes
1x12x20
1x10x25
3x8x30

Hammer Curls
3x10x25

Very glad I hit 325 for 5 on squats. Had to grind on 4 of the 5 reps but did a better job of staying upright.

Pissed I missed my last rep on bench. Just couldn’t lock it out. Will still try to add 7.5 pounds for next Sunday provided I feel pretty decent.

BB Rows went really well, felt like the perfect weight, form was quite good.

I have to pick up my ab wheel from the school gym.

51

Looks like I will need a change in lower body programming. I am coming dangerously close to a pulled groin and I really don’t want to chance an injury, especially this early in my career. So I will back the hell off squats immediately. I don’t think I was quite ready for the combination of high intensity and higher volume.

I will go pretty light today on squats, probably work up to a set of 5 at about 190 or something. Maybe I’ll squat 3 times this week (all very light) then I will start squatting 5 days a week, working up to a “heavy” set of 5. Pavel outlines this approach in Power to the People. I will probably start with around 200 pounds and add 10 pounds each day until I get to about 300 and then start adding 5 pounds a week.

I’ll think through the numbers after I see how this week goes. After a week, maybe a little longer I will do heavy walkouts, I don’t want my body to get deconditioned to feeling heavy weight, particularly before a meet.

I am going to attack the deadlift though, I lift conventional so I should have no real issues. I’m going to work up to a heavy single today, probably not max out, and then do speed deads on Sunday. I’ll post a video tonight if my computer doesn’t treat me like shit, if it does, it will be posted tomorrow.

(I squat really wide for the record). I am wondering if this programming might be more intelligently applied to an olympic squat for about 3 weeks then move back into my powerlifting squat (somewhat slowly). Any feedback would be awesome.

Well, I’m off to work on my groin!

52

I used to use a very wide Squat (feet out to the power rack) and always battled with a groin pull. I moved my stance in considerable until things got better, and now have found a comfortable compromise with my toes 3-4" in from the edges of the rack.

I think if you are lifting without a suit, you may find a slightly narrower stance to be more beneficial, certainly while you are healing anyways. I would play around with foot position and find what works best for you. Some people are better suited to a narrow stance, and some to a wider stance.

53

[quote]Modi wrote:
I used to use a very wide Squat (feet out to the power rack) and always battled with a groin pull. I moved my stance in considerable until things got better, and now have found a comfortable compromise with my toes 3-4" in from the edges of the rack.

I think if you are lifting without a suit, you may find a slightly narrower stance to be more beneficial, certainly while you are healing anyways. I would play around with foot position and find what works best for you. Some people are better suited to a narrow stance, and some to a wider stance.[/quote]

Thanks a whole lot for the feedback Modi. I went pretty narrow with the stance today (taking a deload week) and I’ll slowly creep it out to a few inches away from the edge of the rack and see how my strength is. I also was squatting with my feet at the edge of the rack.

54

Deadlift videos:

11/30/08:

1/14/09:

If you click on “more info” on the right part of the page you’ll see some of my preliminary comments. I’m not happy with my form. 11/30/08 was the very first time I ever videoed my deadlift so I give myself a little bit of a break, but my current gym allows video cameras so I will video every heavy deadlift session until my form is nearly perfect.

I do think there is a fairly substantial improvement in form with the 475 deadlift compared to the 455. I know I have a shitload of work to do though, one of the main things is sitting back instead of sitting down right before I pull and no back rounding. On the 500 deadlift I think the weight just started pulling my back into a more rounded position. Probably good I only do max effort stuff once every 1.5 months for now, haha. I will be pulling around 90% a lot more often now though, particularly until my form gets a lot better.

55

5x5 Week 4, First Session

Squats (narrow, no belt, deload)
3x3x275

Bench (recovery)
1x5x135
2x5x150

Deadlift
1x5x225
1x3x275
1x2x315
hook grip

singles (mixed grip)
1x365
1x405
1x440
1x475
0x500 (missed at knees)

BB Row 5RM
1x5x130
1x5x140
1x5x150
1x5x160
1x5x170

Dragon Flags
3x20

I talked to the gym owner who is a powerlifter and he advised me to narrow my stance on squats and see how that felt. Well before I talked to him 95 pounds felt like shit with a wide stance. So I narrowed my stance significantly and 3x3x275 felt pretty good, didn’t bother my groin at all. So I’m not sure what I should do with squats for the rest of this 9 week cycle. I could just progressively widen my stance out slightly as I feel comfortable, finish doing my deload week this week, then try to add weight with triples for the next 4 weeks. Any advise would be appreciated.

My deadlift form really needs work. I will NOT neglect doing the competition lifts. I do feel until I get at least 85% of my 1 rep max I really can’t tell anything about my form, and once I get around 95% I really start to find out what breaks down. I’m happy I am progressing on barbell rows, I think it is why I was able to break 500 off the ground reasonably well (I couldn’t break 475 off the ground on 11-30-08.)

Okay, that’s plenty for now.

56

I wonder if Mr. Stephan Korte has the answer for my squat.

I am doing a “fairly” high volume for the squat, but a pretty high intensity (I think I’m too much of an intermediate for this approach, lift too much to recover like I did on Starting Strength, not advanced enough that my body can handle volume and intensity paired together on the lower body competition exercises. I wonder if I narrow my stance a little, get through the next few weeks alright if I should hit my squat with Korte. Ramo, thoughts?

As long as I keep averaging around 25 pounds increase to my deadlift every 1.5 months I am not changing too much in terms of programming.

57

Anyone know of any really good profile views of the deadlift by guys like Coan, Bolton, Gillingham, etc.? Even if I have to purchase it, I really think it would help.

I’ve seen some really great videos of Eric Talmant from the profile view but he is pulling sumo.

58

[quote]mrodock wrote:
Anyone know of any really good profile views of the deadlift by guys like Coan, Bolton, Gillingham, etc.? Even if I have to purchase it, I really think it would help.

I’ve seen some really great videos of Eric Talmant from the profile view but he is pulling sumo.[/quote]

This is a good video with Bolton/Magnusson almost profile view. The last one of Bolton is a true profile view.

Just remember that won’t pull like anyone other than yourself. Your leverages will be different, and you will need to find the best position for your leg/torso length. You also don’t have a PL gut to get in the way of your setup. Most of the big guys have to work around their stomach, otherwise their position off the floor might look a little different than it does.

59

[quote]Modi wrote:

This is a good video with Bolton/Magnusson almost profile view. The last one of Bolton is a true profile view.

Just remember that won’t pull like anyone other than yourself. Your leverages will be different, and you will need to find the best position for your leg/torso length. You also don’t have a PL gut to get in the way of your setup.

Most of the big guys have to work around their stomach, otherwise their position off the floor might look a little different than it does.[/quote]

That is a FANTASTIC video, thanks! Bolton’s technique is so damn efficient. Right, I’m certainly working with different proportions/leverages/etc., but mainly I wanted to see where their knees were in relation to the bar . . . I knew mine were out of position, I just wasn’t sure how out of position.

Thanks again man, really appreciate it.

60

[quote]mrodock wrote:
I wonder if Mr. Stephan Korte has the answer for my squat.

I am doing a “fairly” high volume for the squat, but a pretty high intensity (I think I’m too much of an intermediate for this approach, lift too much to recover like I did on Starting Strength, not advanced enough that my body can handle volume and intensity paired together on the lower body competition exercises.

I wonder if I narrow my stance a little, get through the next few weeks alright if I should hit my squat with Korte. Ramo, thoughts?

As long as I keep averaging around 25 pounds increase to my deadlift every 1.5 months I am not changing too much in terms of programming.[/quote]

You can’t just do the squat portion of the 3x3 and something else for your other lifts. Is that what you are proposing?

If you want to do the whole thing, of course it’s a good idea, but I’d take a couple days off before you start, and absolutely resolve to finish the 8 weeks no matter how you feel (significant injuries excluded, of course).

Nothing worse and less productive than hopping from one approach to another.

And rest assured, no matter what approach you take, 25 pounds in six weeks on any lift is not going to last long.