Front Squat
5@45
3@55
2@65
2@75
1@80
2@85 (ramp to 2RM)
3x4@75
SSB
3x6 @ 80, 1x10 @ 60
RDL
1x20 @ 60
GHR (ss: weight vest ab-wheel)
~50 or so reps on the GHR. Less on ab-wheel
Didn’t wear the vest for the first set of GHRs and then just kept it on. I actually brought a vest to the gym today…
My hips are starting to feel beat up. Was thinking about starting to alternate Front Squats and Zercher Squats but I felt it worse during my SSBs today. Will tweak a little. This is more squatting volume than I’ve gotten away with in the past so wouldn’t be too surprising if this can’t be sustained.
I want to maybe slow down the tempo on these. Saw on my watch how long a set of 10 took me.
Iso-dynamic Contrast Horizontal Cable Row
3x7 Weights various, and one 6-8-10 drop set
Then I took a deck of cards (well, on my phone because I forgot to bring one) and did
Hearts Sumo Deadlift High Pull (30 kilo, think 40 would have been better. Heavier but less weird ROM wise)
Clubs Deficit Pushup
Spades Burpee Lateral Jumps
Diamonds Kettlebell Snatch (24kg)
went for 25 minutes, got to card 39.
@T3hPwnisher I almost assume you’ve already done conditioning like that but might be one to do if not. Got the idea from Alsruhe
I tweaked my back taking the trash out yesterday. Slightly higher than before. It’s on the side. Going off of what my PT has said that sensation is in the past one of my ribs isn’t where it is supposed to so guess I’ll have to find time in my schedule to get some help with that.
I was happy with how the weights moved today, I was not expecting to progress yet again given how active I’ve been. It’s not like I log everything I do.
The sweat from the conditioning today was delightful. Met a guy I was supposed to train with today as I was finishing up and he expressed he was happy our schedules mismatched today. I think that is a good metric for doing some good work.
Running, first day of couch to 5k. Figuring that since I can already run a 5K if I add it in slowly to my workload it won’t have that much impact on recovery. This is however the least important thing to me so if it can’t be sustained, out it goes.
Bouldering for about 90 minutes and did some endurance at the end on auto-belay
Fingers were tired so, kept bouldering easy. No hangboarding.
Forearm stuff
2021-09-22
Trap-bar deadlift, worked up to 3 @ 170 then did 3x5 @ 155 and 1x36 @ 110.
Romanian deadlifts, 1x8 @ 60, 3x8 @ 80 with two pauses both up and down. But sometimes I missed a pause. Very easy to auto-pilot
By then I had amassed 70 reps or so on the ab-wheel, and by now my gym-friend was out of gas and asked if we could skip back. I felt okay with that today. Then we did BFR for bis and tris and I managed to get some decline leg raises in there too
but I used less momentum than John does here. I have really long legs which I find is a really easy way to cheat sometimes if it is possible to get a lot of momentum going early.
Log Press 7,6,6,5+1 @ 45
Seated DB Savickas Press 4x45s+ worth of work (had to go a bit lighter indeed)
Set up an adjustable bench in front of two cables and did rows, kind of like this
but pulling from below rather than above as I had a faulty memory of the movement (removed YouTube from my phone!)
Tons of BPAs and face-pulls inbetween
Tried some decline leg raises at the start but still felt hammered since my last session so I ended this session with GHRs and single leg KB deadlifts for 3x10 of each, so 60 reps posterior work, but targeting different functions of the glutes/hams.
Evidently, I missed a rep here but I’m not too surprised. Won’t worry about it until it becomes a theme.
Oh yeah, did this for warm-up
I used to do it a lot back in the day. It made itself known, as it were, during the BPAs and face-pulls. Muscles were fire.
@j4gga2 I found something that you wrote. Could you elaborate? What are the effects of horizontal pressing if not internal rotation of the shoulder and how would reaches serve to solve that? I know the postural restoration institute are big on reaches, but I had the assumption that is more to undo tight lats by bringing the serratus anterior up to snuff.
Zero sleep, or maybe an hour, I’m pretty sure I never fell asleep but. With that in tow, I presumed I’d fail to progress on Front Squats today so decided to swap movement to spare myself the sensation of failure.
Zercher Squat
10@bar
5@40
2@50
2@60
2@70
2@80
2@90 (PR!)
2@100 (PR!) A lot of form failure but, I’m going to count it anyway
Straight away, we can see that both horizontal pulling and pushing share 5 of 6 joint movements in the upper body, whilst reaching only shares 1.
You are absolutely correct that pressing imposes an internal rotation moment at the shoulder. The thing that’s often missed is that the latissimus dorsi is a primary internal rotator of the humerus as well. Therefore, pulling also imposes an internal rotation moment at the shoulder. In contrast, due to the posterior tilt of the scapula that occurs with reaching exercises, as well as the increased rotator cuff activity (that occurs due to reduced stability of the scap), reaching imposes an external rotation movement at the shoulder.
At another (theoretical) level, pushing and pulling both impose similar demands on the ribcage. During a heavy push, the interscapular muscles (traps, rhomboids) are working hard to stabilise the scapula, whilst the anterior thoracic muscles (pectorals) are working hard to produce the movement. This applies an anteroposterior pressure to the thorax. The activity of the interscapular muscles also serves to protract the ribcage, which is associated with the extension posture PRI like to talk about. During a heavy pull, the interscapular muscles and lats are prime movers, again producing a strong posterior compressive force on the ribcage. If the chest is supported, the combined weight of the body and the implement pressing into the pad produces an anterior compressive force, resulting in A-P compression much like a heavy pull. If the chest is unsupported, then the activity from the erectors and lats tends to produce a strongly protruded ribcage, as often occurs in pressing. Therefore, as typically performed, horizontal pressing and pulling have the same effect on the shoulder and thorax.
In contrast, reaching exercises require a certain degree of relaxation of the interscapular muscles and lats. A complete reach also requires the ribcage to shift posteriorly, relative to the athlete’s bass of support and scapulae, a motion of retraction. This is the opposite of the posterior compression associated with presses and pulls. Pectorals do not have a strong moment arm to produce adduction at the top of the reach, and therefore do not produce anterior compression. Instead, the prime mover in a reach is serratus anterior, which instead produces a laterally compressive force on the thorax, and also assists the aforementioned ribcage retraction. As such, reaches have a net effect of laterally compressing the thorax, and allowing the ribcage to expand A-P, the opposite of a press and pull. It also exerts more ER on the shoulder. Therefore, a correctly-performed reaching exercise is the only antagonist to the horizontal pull.
Now, in that post you linked, I went on to say that athletes should strive for a 1:2 to 1:1 ratio of reaches to pulls, I do not agree with that anymore. Specific cadence and breathing strategies on horizontal presses and pulls can reduce the strong A-P compression forces I was talking about earlier, without worrying about programming lots of reaching. Furthermore, I am cautious to promote any strong biomechanical explanation of pain, in light of the biopsychosocial model. At this point, I’m not convinced that any of this actually matters that much, unless we are dealing with athletes already in pain, or athletes at the upper echelon of performance.
Thank you for the expansion. I don’t really have any follow ups. I much appreciate the table. To me, it appears that most training programs do not adequately offset volume that translates to internal rotation at the shoulder.
I agree. Most upper-body exercises emphasise shoulder IR, this is where the popularity of face pulls (which emphasise ER) comes from.
However, I’m not the biggest fan of face pulls as they still emphasise scapular retraction and ribcage protraction. Hence, my recent training has been consistently featuring isolated external rotation exercises
AM: Centurion Walk 20 minutes (this is a weighted vest walk with 15 kilos)
Learned on a Dan John podcast that 30lbs or so is what the centurions had as a weight limit as the Romans somehow arrived at the conclusion that it was a weight a man could carry essentially every single day which matters if you are going to walk over to Egypt and conquer it.
Can see a million and one reasons I didn’t get my reps in today.
Savickas DB Press
4 sets
Cable Row underhand grip 4 sets
BFR biceps & triceps
Wanted to get some conditioning in, and had a session eyed but my elbow did not want to suffer a KB snatch. Did a push-up ladder on parallettes instead. Start with 1, stand up, then 2, stand up, … up to 7, and then back down again. At the 7 rep I did 8 reps of ab-wheel roll-outs. Didn’t really get conditioned but it was tough to do push-ups after BFRs so at least I learned that. Also, the chest had to do more work this way.
I’m going to state exploring doing them on different days so it eats less time and mental boredom. One set of exercises per day. I’ve been so lazy I’ve done finger rolls at the end of my wrist curls. So, they aren’t really that heavy.
Posting this here to remember,
3-5 minutes rest
Set 1 (warm-up): 10-20 reps at 60% of BW
Set 2: 10-12 reps @ 100% of BW
Set 3: 10-12 reps @ 100% + 20-30lbs
Set 4: 5-10 reps @ 100% + 30-40lbs
Set 5: 3-5 reps @ 100% + 40-50lbs
Build up to 5 rep max
Thought 2
Been playing with the rings I have at home and I can do dips again pain-free! I have to lean forward quite a bit, like, my torso is really hunched over, but yay! I wonder if I could have dips as a main movement rather than bench. And maybe, I don’t know, as I don’t want to re-release the Kraken that is shoulder pain during dips (as that is a movement I use during my sport) this progression method might be appropriate?
I love these, and they’re pretty simple to get in regularly within a workout. I usually throw in a set after anything I do where I’m picking the bar off the floor: snatches, cleans, RDLs, rows, etc etc. Just strip a little weight off the bar and away you go.
You could try out the wrist roller. You can hit flexors and extensors, the concentric and eccentric, and work your fingers, thumbs and your forearms, all in one set.
