I am pretty sure I am going to do a UPA Meet in Cleveland on Dec. 3rd. Today we wanted to work up to our openers. So today we got into full gear just to feel it out.
Squats
bar x many sets and many reps
155 x10
245 x5
335 x1
335 x1
add metal briefs
425 x1
515 x1
add suit, straps down
605 x1
straps up
655 x1 (ugly rep here. I could not get comfortable to save my life. I came up with the weight but lost my balance)
655 x1 (smoke show – took my feet in a little bit)
Deadlift (hanging EliteFTS Average band … bar with no weight was about 2" below my knee … maybe 35-45 pounds off at the floor)
145 x3
235 x3
325 x3
415 x1
505 x1
595 x1
645 x1
Today felt good. Was a good confidence booster going into the meet. I want to open around 640 or so, and my goal is 720. I’ll put a video up of the last squat, it was deep and fast. This should be no problem going into the meet.
Kept the rest intervals really short all day today. I really like this style of training.
I ended up drinking a lot of whiskey last night. Being an Ohio State football fan, that will happen. I’m still kind of in shock they ended up beating Wisconsin in the final few minutes.
Deadlifts against EliteFTS Average Band
145 x5
235 x3
325 x3
415 x1
465 x1
505 x1 (+10lb PR)
Dimmel Deadlifts
225 x8
Back Extensions w/ Cambered Bar
bar x12
bar x12
bar x12
Today I felt like I was getting sick but faded off in the afternoon. I didn’t know how this session was going to go and almost decided to not come in. We usually don’t pull heavy on this day, but I can usually be talked into training heavy.
The pulls against the band was a 10 lb PR, and was refreshing because my deadlifts have been feeling like shit.
I think my meet attempts are going to be about like yay:
Squat
640 (should be an easy opener)
680
720
Bench
400 (loose shirt that I know I can touch in)
445 (much tighter shirt)
460 - 475ish
Deadlift
600
660
700
For the bench, I still don’t know what I can touch with in the newer, tighter shirt so I want to take an easy opener with a loose shirt first.
I really want to take a stab at 700, despite the fact that I’ve never put on a DL suit and my pulls haven’t been feeling very good.
haha I see you changed the log name. Good luck with the gear and the meet. And based on the video you lift at lexen xtreme? That must be pretty awesome.
[quote]ragoo wrote:
haha I see you changed the log name. Good luck with the gear and the meet. And based on the video you lift at lexen xtreme? That must be pretty awesome.[/quote]
Haha yeah the name change was long overdue. Thanks for the well wishes.
Today would generally be another heavy floor press day with the chains but I really needed to take some weight to my chest in the tighter shirt. 4 weeks out from the meet and I haven’t touched anything yet with straight weight. So the group decided to do a shirt week.
add Metal Shirt
405 x1 (about 3" high)
435 x1 (about 2" high)
445 x1 (touched, but my ass came off the bench trying to)
Good work today. The last set came right up, I just had a real hard time touching. I think I’ll have to revisit my plan and take ~460 on my 2nd set just to be sure I can touch. I don’t think it will be too hard to lock it out, and leaves me with somewhere around 480-490 on the 3rd. While I’d like a big bench, I wouldn’t be heart broken if I just made my opener seeing as though I’m still relatively new in it.
Today we wanted to give our shoulders a break, and use the safety squat bar. The next 2 weeks are going to be somewhat similar to the Big Iron Gym’s “circa max” squat cycle. I’ll get into more details about that later, but it’s going to be brutal.
SSB Box Squat w/ Strong Bands (probably ~200 at the top)
bar x10
165 x3
add briefs, belt
255 x3
345 x3
add knee wraps
395 x1
435 x1 (+40lb PR)
The knee wraps here were just so I could feel them out. Having rarely used knee wraps, we thought it would be a good idea to put them on here just so I could get used to them.
Deadlift against Chains
145 x3
235 x3
325 x3
415 x3
415 + 2 chains per side (4 total) x1
everyone else here worked up adding chains. I sat these out.
515 + 4 chains per side (8 total) x1 GRINDERRRRRR
The chains are 20 pounds each and they are completely off the ground about 3" from the top of my pull. So at the top this was ~675 pounds and I’d say at the bottom it was somewhere like 585 or so.
I have mixed feelings about this pull. First, it was dumb for me to do this since I pulled heavy on Tuesday. But like I mentioned, I can usually be talked into training heavy.
Secondly, I felt like my form was way off where it needed to be. Again, this could be because of Tuesday or the fact that I just took a heavy heavy squat 30 minutes before this.
All of that being said, it was great to pull this. This was an absolute grinder from the start to the finish.
The next 2 weeks are going to be the most painful couple of weeks of the whole cycle. Basically, we worked up to our openers in full gear both weeks, then add reverse bands and take 2 more sets to get used to the heavier weights. Come meet day, hitting an opener becomes trivially easy as you’ve already done it 4 times during the training cycle.
I went in on Sunday to do my DE Bench. Everything felt slow and my elbows were hurting so, so I did some lat & upper back work and cut out.
Last night, Tuesday 11/8 was Lower Assistance. I took it easy with everything because Friday is going to be a real kick in the pants.
Glute Ham Raise
BW x6 (pad was not in a good position)
BW x10
BW x10
Speed Pulls (really tried to work my form out here)
135 x5
225 x3
225 x1
315 x1
315 x1
315 x1
315 x1
365 x1
365 x1
Most of my form work comes through speed pulls. The last couple of weeks I’ve been doing speed pulls with a wide stance to strengthen my hips. As a result, I kind of “forgot” how to deadlift right. I am getting no leg drive out of the bottom of the pull. So this week I slowly started trying to piece everything back together and by the time I was done I found a few things I was doing wrong and feel a lot more comfortable going into the meet.
I cashed it out here. The way I see it, I’m not going to get a whole lot stronger before December 3rd. What’s more important now is hitting some big lifts the next 2 Friday squat sessions leading into the meet.
Raw Warmups
bar x10
95 x5
135 x5
185 x5
225 x5
275 x2
315 x1
add tight Metal shirt
405 x1 (nowhere close to touching)
455 x0 (didn’t touch)
455 x1
At this point I was a little disgusted with myself. So we moved over to another bench and hung the bands to do some overload. As we were loading the plates on the other bench, I tried to touch every single weight to my chest just to feel the shirt out.
Reverse Average Band
225 x5 (came about 4" from touching)
315 x3 (touched all of these)
405 x1
455 x1 (starting to get the groove of this)
475 x1
500 x1 (I couldn’t touch this weight a few weeks ago)
This was a good idea. I feel completely confident touching even low weights now. Before I wasn’t pulling my stomach up to the bar, I was just letting the weight hover. Secondly, I’m more confident in letting the weight come down faster where as before I was lowering it too slowly.
Shirt off, start close grip benching
Close Grip w/ Reverse Average Bands
315 x15
315 x14
Then did a couple of sets of chest supported rows and bounced.
Today was the first overload day. The idea is to work up to your opener then overload 2 more sets with reverse bands. Broke down about like yay:
Squat, warmups (raw – to parallel box)
bar x15
bar x10
150 x5
240 x5
330 x2
add briefs, remove box
440 x2
add suit, straps down
530 x1
620 x1
straps up, wraps on
650 x1
add reverse average band
750 x1
810 x0 (+10lb PR attempt)
The last set @ 805 I did not get setup correctly. For the life of me, I could not force my ass back so my knees ended up bending first. However, the weight did not feel unbearably heavy (unlike last time where I thought I was going to die). I started to descend, and was not comfortable with it as it didn’t feel right and just decided to call it there. I am disappointed I didn’t set a PR, but I think it was the right call.
Guys watching my form said that when I unracked it, my hips weren’t in a good position which is why I had problems getting my ass back first.
Deadlift (doubled mini bands, off 5" pads)
145 x1
235 x1
325 x1
415 x1
505 x1
I should’ve called it here but went to 535 and missed it.
I feel beat to shit today. Going to eat and then spend tomorrow stretching and trying to recover.
I did some bench assistance work on Sunday but I’m not even going to bother to post it. Both bicep tendons are strained / inflamed and I couldn’t do anything without being in a lot of pain. I’m looking at seeing a massage therapist because my upper back is completely locked up.
Today we were just going to take it easy since we’re about 2.5 weeks out of the meet.
Lower Assistance
Good Mornings w/ SSB Cambered Bar
bar x10
135 x10
225 x20
275 x8
275 x8
Stiff Leg Deadlifts out of Belt Squat
2 plates per side x12
2 plates per side x12
2 plates per side x12
Reverse Hypers
140 x10
140 x10
140 x10
140 x10
Standing Ab Pulldowns
130 x15
Weighted Ab Crunch Thingers
20 x15
10 x15
Thursday we’re going to have another shirt week where hopefully I demonstrate my mastery of the bench shirt. Friday is another squat opener / overload.
Last full gear session until the meet on December 3rd. I knew going in to today that it would be a real ball buster.
Squat
raw warmups
bar x10
150 x10
240 x5
330 x1
add briefs
460 x1 (take off 3 plates, add 2 100’s to each side)
and suit bottom
550 x1
loose straps on
640 x1
670 x1 (half way between my opener and my 2nd attempt)
add reverse grey bands
750 x1
820 x1 (+20lb PR)
We got some videos of it that we are going to try to put up. The rep @ 670 was probably the fastest rep I’ve ever done in full gear. This was very re-assuring going into the meet. I don’t see any reason why I won’t hit my goals (720 squat) this meet.
[quote]Intangible wrote:
Jesus that’s some heavy weight man. You ever get freaked out by having close to a 1000 pounds on your back?[/quote]
The #1 rule at the gym is “If you’re scared, go to church”
The supportive gear helps, the crew helps. With that much weight, we often video tape our heavier sets and watch for minor breakdowns in form so we can immediately correct them. At first it was very overwhelming but you start to adapt.
I took 2 days out of the gym today because I came down with some kind of respiratory infection. Typically, I’d train through this but with the meet 1 week out I didn’t want to risk not being 100%. Today I felt a lot better.
This was the last squat session before the meet, and it was a deload-ish week. We were supposed to work up to some percentage of your opener in just briefs. It broke down like this:
The meet went well. Attempts broke down like this:
Squat
660 – fell back, re-set & re-grouped, crushed this well below parallel – 3 whies
710 – lost tightness in the hole, fell backwards, no lift – 3 reds
715 – stayed tight the entire time, hit the hole and blew threw it at 100 mph – 3 whites
On my 2nd attempt I forgot to tighten my straps down. I fixed this on the 3rd attempt and crushed it.
Bench
390 – loose shirt. During warmups I had problems with my ass coming off the bench so on this attempt I used no leg drive. Struggled a little more than I would have liked but locked it out.
430 – add tight Metal shirt. Touched easy, but my left wrist bent backwards on the way up and I couldn’t lock it out – no lift
430 – everything went well this time, touched easy and threw it back, locked it out.
Deadlift
570 – warmups felt slow. A little bit of meet magic though, and this weight flew off the ground.
630 – hit this well too (+5lb PR)
660 – this was the right call on weight but I was too out of my mind and broke my form down and missed the lift.
Ended up 715 / 430 / 630 for a 1775 total. I definitely left some weight on the platform this meet. I’m hungry for more, looking at a July meet and an Elite total.
This week has been awesome. I went to a commercial gym. I walked on a treadmill. Gym sessions didn’t last 6 hours. I used machines, and dumbells. I spent an abundance of time stretching and doing soft tissue work.
Today I just wanted to get in and get some work in.
5-way shoulder mobility
Foam roll upper, lower back
Stretch hips & hams
