Spidey: Eudaimonia

Training Training Logs
521

[quote]Spidey22 wrote:
Thanks for the advice guys, always appreciated. MarkKO, yeah I’d love to see some of the programs you’ve used, especially for Squat because yours kills mine haha

I managed to string to solid workouts together in a row, so hopefully this is some momentum building.

Squats: Ok, I did something I’ve never really done before, and I liked it. I ramped up weight as opposed to straight sets. Warning, I accidentally made a squealing/yelling noise on rep 4 of my video, no idea why lol
225x5 (beltless)
245x5 (beltless)
265x5
285x5
305x5

Franken Fronts:
185x2x8

Some Lunges and assisted Pistol Squats

Was in a bit of a rush, actuallly going ziplining with Jskrabc from off this site lol.

I once again got shit sleep, and after about 4 hrs of not really feeling like I was getting much out of rolling around half awake, I woke up, chugged some coffee, and decided to hit my session early and get it out the way. Ended up being a solid one. I’ve never really ramped up in weight before, and Idk why. Especially considering most the time I don’t feel like I’m even ‘on’ until about 3-4 sets into my working sets most days. Just felt really warm and grooved once I got to 305. Form wasn’t perfect but honestly it’s better than it’s ever been at 300+ and especially considering my weight loss (definitely a PR BW wise) I’m happy with it.

Think I’ll play around with the ramping, at least on volume day, where I’m less concerned about getting in a certain amount of work in with a certain weight, and more so concerned with just getting in a decent amount of reps in general. Hopefully it’s enough of a change to keep things moving. Thanks halcj, saying the Texas Method is what made me think of doing it lol[/quote]

Nice! Ramping is a great way to go, I’ve been using it for a while now.

Squat’s looking good, but I’d really recommend hitting up some conventional DL or good mornings to work on strengthening your lower back to eliminate that forward pitch you get coming up. Box squats would probably help too.

It isn’t the biggest deal in the world since you’re comfortable, but it does take a bunch of weight off the bar that you’d otherwise be able to shift.

522

[quote]MarkKO wrote:

Nice! Ramping is a great way to go, I’ve been using it for a while now.

Squat’s looking good, but I’d really recommend hitting up some conventional DL or good mornings to work on strengthening your lower back to eliminate that forward pitch you get coming up. Box squats would probably help too.

It isn’t the biggest deal in the world since you’re comfortable, but it does take a bunch of weight off the bar that you’d otherwise be able to shift. [/quote]

yeah I’ve been doing some deficit Conventional Pulls on my first leg day every week, and I do some seated GM’s on the Coan Program. Hopefully that helps here down the road.

523

This is pretty much it. Enjoy! I think it’s prettykbvious what I did when

524

The first rep looks really good and as the reps go on it looks like you lose a bit of tightness in the glutes at the bottom of the lift. But as MarkKO stated, you could also be losing tightness in the erectors and that loss in tightness is running down the chain. You do a good job at firing the glutes to open the knees in the first rep but fatigue sets in and your knees move in.

It’s bothering me that the problem is still there, lol. I’ll make one last suggestion that you can follow if you think it’ll work or just continue with your current path which I think can still help you solve your problem. I won’t be offended if you don’t follow it - I just thought of it while training and thought it would be worth the suggestion.

Do the progressive ROM training outlined by T3hPwnisher again using sumo DL. Use only a weight that allows you to keep your back neutral while firing your erectors, lats and abs hard. Open up your knees to a point where you feel you can create significant tension in both your hip flexors and glutes (not extremely wide or extremely narrow). Use a weight that forces you to hold your technique and never lose full body tension throughout the entire movement. You need a rigid torso and tension in your hips from both your glutes and hip flexors (knees shouldn’t be moving in and out, just tracking in the same direction as your toes). Instead of using the same weight each week, allow flexibility to drop the weight if you compromise full body tension and a rigid torso - if you want to keep that previous weight, you need to work for it without compromising technique. You’ll have to put your ego aside and stop thinking about the weight on the bar, focus on muscle recruitment and executing the movement pattern of your chest/shoulders going straight up and pushing your hips forward (this is really important). For squat, choose a variation you suck at and work on full body tension throughout the range of motion. The main focus is to build the movement pattern through your sumo deadlift.

When done, do the progressive ROM training again but this time for box squat. Same approach as before with emphasis on building the core - abs, erectors, hip flexors and glutes - while maintaining full body tension. Choose a deadlift variation you suck at and build that while focusing on the above. You should progress to the point where you maintain tightness throughout the entire ROM for both the deadlift and squat. This progression makes sense in my mind but if you aren’t convinced then just ignore it, lol. I think you’ll still understand the reasoning behind it.

I emphasized keeping a neutral spine only for this progression. If you like using a bit of thoracic flexion for deadlift in the future then go for it but for the above, the focus is on keeping everything rigid to ensure the thoracic flexion doesn’t affect tightness anywhere else as you’re still developing the movement pattern.

Consider doing this beltless as well. IMO, a belt interferes with the learning process.

525

[quote]lift206 wrote:
The first rep looks really good and as the reps go on it looks like you lose a bit of tightness in the glutes at the bottom of the lift. But as MarkKO stated, you could also be losing tightness in the erectors and that loss in tightness is running down the chain. You do a good job at firing the glutes to open the knees in the first rep but fatigue sets in and your knees move in.

It’s bothering me that the problem is still there, lol. I’ll make one last suggestion that you can follow if you think it’ll work or just continue with your current path which I think can still help you solve your problem. I won’t be offended if you don’t follow it - I just thought of it while training and thought it would be worth the suggestion.

Do the progressive ROM training outlined by T3hPwnisher again using sumo DL. Use only a weight that allows you to keep your back neutral while firing your erectors, lats and abs hard. Open up your knees to a point where you feel you can create significant tension in both your hip flexors and glutes (not extremely wide or extremely narrow). Use a weight that forces you to hold your technique and never lose full body tension throughout the entire movement. You need a rigid torso and tension in your hips from both your glutes and hip flexors (knees shouldn’t be moving in and out, just tracking in the same direction as your toes). Instead of using the same weight each week, allow flexibility to drop the weight if you compromise full body tension and a rigid torso - if you want to keep that previous weight, you need to work for it without compromising technique. You’ll have to put your ego aside and stop thinking about the weight on the bar, focus on muscle recruitment and executing the movement pattern of your chest/shoulders going straight up and pushing your hips forward (this is really important). For squat, choose a variation you suck at and work on full body tension throughout the range of motion. The main focus is to build the movement pattern through your sumo deadlift.

When done, do the progressive ROM training again but this time for box squat. Same approach as before with emphasis on building the core - abs, erectors, hip flexors and glutes - while maintaining full body tension. Choose a deadlift variation you suck at and build that while focusing on the above. You should progress to the point where you maintain tightness throughout the entire ROM for both the deadlift and squat. This progression makes sense in my mind but if you aren’t convinced then just ignore it, lol. I think you’ll still understand the reasoning behind it.

I emphasized keeping a neutral spine only for this progression. If you like using a bit of thoracic flexion for deadlift in the future then go for it but for the above, the focus is on keeping everything rigid to ensure the thoracic flexion doesn’t affect tightness anywhere else as you’re still developing the movement pattern.

Consider doing this beltless as well. IMO, a belt interferes with the learning process.[/quote]

That progression actually makes sense in the case of anyone having issues with progressing using full ROM. I often forget I’ve been really lucky and overlook how useful progressive ROM work is. It does look tortuously slow, though. Worth it, but still tortuous.

What I’ll say from my experience with sumo so far is that of all the lifts it is the one that forced me to work on firing my glutes and that helped my squat a bunch - although my squat and sumo stance are well nigh identical, so that may have something to do with it.

526

[quote]MarkKO wrote:
This is pretty much it. Enjoy! I think it’s prettykbvious what I did when

thanks dude! Will look over this tonight

527

lift206 I’ve pretty much thought to do something exactly like that. I’m going to finish out the Coan DL cycle before doing anything else though, just because I don’t want to jump ship on a ‘structured’ program like that.

My concern is, well first I’ve never heard great things about box Squats for raw lifters. Secondly, I just don’t have a box. Thirdly, first week of August I move, and will be lifting at a commercial gym, so I’m not sure I’ll even be able to use my Mats and stuff. I’m going to call up my school gym, see if maybe I can just keep them there? But idk I feel it’ll be a liability they won’t want.

I am hoping that maybe switching to more ‘ramping’ style rep schemes, as opposed to just straight sets, will maybe help with form. Getting an equal amount of reps, similar volume, but with more weights that I KNOW I can control with only 1-2 sets being outside my real comfort zone, will maybe aid in ingraining those motor patterns. I also agree, I’m usually pretty solid for 1 rep, but doing multiple reps it’s hard to maintain the tightness. I used to have that issue with Bench, where I’d get SO tight and have so much leg drive I’d almost just feel like jello after one rep, but I learned to be ‘tight’ but not overly tight. I find that’s a little harder with Squats, because the difference in feeling from being 100% tight vs 90% is huge, and so even though it’s 5 rep set, it’s hard to NOT try to get as tight as I would for a 1RM, which honestly isn’t maintainable for 5 reps I’d assume (just because breathing and stuff)

528

3rd Week of Coan program. RIP

Sumo DL: Took a video, but it’s like extremely disoriented and idk. Weight moved ‘slower’, but I felt more hip tension and torso was stiffer. So I guess it’s ‘better’ form, but it’s hard to maintain obviously
440x2
365x6x3 (speed, 90s rest)

A1 Chins: BWx3x8
A2 SLDL: 255x3x8

B1: Rows: 185x3x8
B2: Seated GMs: 105x3x8

Then some holds from the chinning bar.

Workout was good. 405 and 425 felt really heavy for some reason, but 440 felt really good. I need to ‘fall back’ just a little more, though, to really wedge myself better.

529

[quote]Spidey22 wrote:
lift206 I’ve pretty much thought to do something exactly like that. I’m going to finish out the Coan DL cycle before doing anything else though, just because I don’t want to jump ship on a ‘structured’ program like that.

My concern is, well first I’ve never heard great things about box Squats for raw lifters. Secondly, I just don’t have a box. Thirdly, first week of August I move, and will be lifting at a commercial gym, so I’m not sure I’ll even be able to use my Mats and stuff. I’m going to call up my school gym, see if maybe I can just keep them there? But idk I feel it’ll be a liability they won’t want.

I am hoping that maybe switching to more ‘ramping’ style rep schemes, as opposed to just straight sets, will maybe help with form. Getting an equal amount of reps, similar volume, but with more weights that I KNOW I can control with only 1-2 sets being outside my real comfort zone, will maybe aid in ingraining those motor patterns. I also agree, I’m usually pretty solid for 1 rep, but doing multiple reps it’s hard to maintain the tightness. I used to have that issue with Bench, where I’d get SO tight and have so much leg drive I’d almost just feel like jello after one rep, but I learned to be ‘tight’ but not overly tight. I find that’s a little harder with Squats, because the difference in feeling from being 100% tight vs 90% is huge, and so even though it’s 5 rep set, it’s hard to NOT try to get as tight as I would for a 1RM, which honestly isn’t maintainable for 5 reps I’d assume (just because breathing and stuff)[/quote]

I’m a raw lifter and I’ve found box squats pretty helpful for sumo and also with a good carryover to my squat. I guess maybe its because I squat quite wide so its very hip/glute/ham dominant. I’ve also noticed that while apparently raw lifters tend to fail out of the hole and geared lifters towards the top, my sticking point is in the middle so maybe my squat’s dynamics are between the ‘average’ raw lifter a geared lifter - which is why I find box squats useful. Either way, I’d give box squats a go. I don’t have one at my gym so I just use a bench. I don’t get to go as deep as I normally would but its close enough that I find good carryover.

I’m not sure about tightness for squats (definitely been there with bench, first rep is tight and each subsequent one gets looser - but we all know my bench sucks): I just take time between reps to get some breath back and honestly, I feel as tight on my last rep as my first, sometimes moreso because I know how exhausted I am and how much I need to be tight not to fail. Check out any of my squat videos and you’ll see I tend to take a while between reps. A kind of rule of thumb I have is lock out, exhale, take three to five deep breaths, take air, get tight and go again.

530

[quote]Spidey22 wrote:
lift206 I’ve pretty much thought to do something exactly like that. I’m going to finish out the Coan DL cycle before doing anything else though, just because I don’t want to jump ship on a ‘structured’ program like that.

My concern is, well first I’ve never heard great things about box Squats for raw lifters. Secondly, I just don’t have a box. Thirdly, first week of August I move, and will be lifting at a commercial gym, so I’m not sure I’ll even be able to use my Mats and stuff. I’m going to call up my school gym, see if maybe I can just keep them there? But idk I feel it’ll be a liability they won’t want.

I am hoping that maybe switching to more ‘ramping’ style rep schemes, as opposed to just straight sets, will maybe help with form. Getting an equal amount of reps, similar volume, but with more weights that I KNOW I can control with only 1-2 sets being outside my real comfort zone, will maybe aid in ingraining those motor patterns. I also agree, I’m usually pretty solid for 1 rep, but doing multiple reps it’s hard to maintain the tightness. I used to have that issue with Bench, where I’d get SO tight and have so much leg drive I’d almost just feel like jello after one rep, but I learned to be ‘tight’ but not overly tight. I find that’s a little harder with Squats, because the difference in feeling from being 100% tight vs 90% is huge, and so even though it’s 5 rep set, it’s hard to NOT try to get as tight as I would for a 1RM, which honestly isn’t maintainable for 5 reps I’d assume (just because breathing and stuff)[/quote]

I’ve done box squats in the past and they didn’t work. If I do them now, I’ll get more use out of them. It’s not about the movement itself, it’s about the quality and the way in which it is done. Not everyone does them the same and it’s hard to distinguish that visibly. It works for raw powerlifters, or any lifter for that matter, that know how to maintain full body tension. I was actually thinking that you should just lightly tap the box so it’s not a true box squat. You could use mats, books, etc. whatever is consistent in height and can be incrementally changed. I was more focused on the partial ROM because it’s much easier to maintain full body tension over the shortest and strongest ROM. The progression challenges you to keep that feeling of tightness over a longer ROM each week. You could even progress using pin squats. IMO, it doesn’t really matter - the main focus is maintaining tension and progressively increasing ROM.

Many of the variations that people do when they plateau on the competition lift like partial, static holds, heavy eccentrics, paused, pins, etc. all seem to teach or emphasize full body tension. People swear by certain lifts and really all of these lifts help people to recruit as many muscle fibers as possible. Don’t limit yourself to only the select strongest muscle groups, learn to use all of the muscle groups and then train them all to work to their maximum capability. They should all be working every single rep throughout the entire ROM of that movement. The tricky muscles are the stabilizers that don’t really do any work since they don’t change in length, but they certainly make work easier for the primary movers.

My view on lifting has evolved recently. I’m more focused on muscle recruitment and strengthening the movement pattern while the weight comes along for the ride. The weight doesn’t dictate what I do. It now makes sense what Richard Hawthorne said a while ago, “Move weight, don’t let weight move you.” The weight on the bar is just a byproduct of how effectively you train/work your body.

It doesn’t really matter if you follow the program I’ve outlined, as long as you understand how to maximize your strength potential and eventually learn how to get everything working effectively together. The above program won’t work if you aren’t intentional with your repetitions. The focus shouldn’t be on the weight. I would apply this philosophy to any program. Once you get all the muscles firing together and learn to make them work all the time, it is a lot easier to make tweaks to your leverages throughout the rest of your lifting career.

531

One other thing to mention is that controlling a weight isn’t exactly the same thing as maximum muscle recruitment or full body tension. The weight could be light enough that your strongest and weakest muscles are firing, but the inactive muscles may still be inactive.

532

that’s a lot too think about Lift206. I really do want to try the ROM progression, or something like that. I think overloading and stuff like that to learn proper tension and stuff would really help me. I just need to figure out if I’ll be able to do it long term at a commercial gym. lol.

Thanks for all your help. Regardless, right now I’m going to try and be much more intentional with my movements. Even yesterday, just focusing on staying in position as opposed just go as fast as possible with Sumo, has my abs and obliques REALLY sore, even though I wore a belt. So I think I’m getting there

533

[quote]Spidey22 wrote:
that’s a lot too think about Lift206. I really do want to try the ROM progression, or something like that. I think overloading and stuff like that to learn proper tension and stuff would really help me. I just need to figure out if I’ll be able to do it long term at a commercial gym. lol.

Thanks for all your help. Regardless, right now I’m going to try and be much more intentional with my movements. Even yesterday, just focusing on staying in position as opposed just go as fast as possible with Sumo, has my abs and obliques REALLY sore, even though I wore a belt. So I think I’m getting there[/quote]

Sounds great. Being intentional is the key and the movement variations are just tools to help you get there. What I think about is: I want to fire all these muscles and thrust my hips forward, rather than thinking move X amount of weight up. The latter happens on the platform when it doesn’t matter how you get the weight up as long as you’re within competition rules. The former ingrains the movement pattern in training and ensures consistent training of muscles. You know exactly which muscles you need to fire so don’t let them slack off.

I have a feeling you’ll be making great progress so keep it up.

534

Just a quick thought - band or chain work with a large difference in loading between the top and bottom portions of the lift would seem to be ideal for this purpose (described by lift206), and would allow you to continue to lift through the full ROM without losing tension. Also, pin squats would be great for “tension training” too, though obviously their effects would be different; just try not to get distracted by such variations and lose (or never gain) the ability to squat normally with proper tension etc.
I’ll add that I’d still favour a simple squat progression for now, but either approach will work.

535

[quote]halcj wrote:
Just a quick thought - band or chain work with a large difference in loading between the top and bottom portions of the lift would seem to be ideal for this purpose (described by lift206), and would allow you to continue to lift through the full ROM without losing tension. Also, pin squats would be great for “tension training” too, though obviously their effects would be different; just try not to get distracted by such variations and lose (or never gain) the ability to squat normally with proper tension etc.
I’ll add that I’d still favour a simple squat progression for now, but either approach will work.[/quote]

Certainly I can attest to bands really ramming home the importance of upper back tightness and maintaining a vertical bar path. My only concern would be that significantly loading the top would be counterproductive. Perhaps just adding an extra 10 to 20% may be better.

I say this simply because when I first used my bands for squatting I got the shock of my life at how much harder it made the top of the movement when I had 60% of my max on the bar. The bands brought it closer to 80% at the top and that was a hell of a change to adjust to. It’s a great help now I’m more used to it.

536

Thanks guys, I’m very open to implementing some banded or partial work after my main movements. Any guidelines or suggestions on how to do so, I’m all ears. I’ve got a a good kind of method for my main work right now with ramping and stuff, so I think targeting my assistance work properly with some stuff to teach full body tension would be great!

Flat Bench: Liking the ramping stuff, top set moved fast, but didn’t want to push it today. Should have rested closer to 20 seconds as opposed to 10 for the rest pause ‘legs’
205x3
215x3
225x3
195x8
195x8+3+1

Paused Wide Grip Bench: Not going to aggressively push weight with these, just get better with reps
175x3x6-8

Tris + Delts Iso

Good workout. I did sets of 3 all the way up from 135, but figured those didn’t do much training effect wise. The ramping seems to have given me a new life. Working up to a heavy triple for awhile, then dropping down to 85-90 percent of that for a 2 backdown sets, one of being rest-paused, seems like a good set-up for this day. Looking into some of CT’s stuff, I’ll probably do either wave loading or 5/4/3/2/1 thing with my Squats tomorrow, something to get some good ample volume without running myself into the ground.

537

Yeah good plan with those, 5/4/3/2/1 is very good. 1/2/3 wave ladders are a nice way to ramp too, and it means you don’t get nervous doing the singles because you know you’re expected to hit three reps with the same weight later on, so you can practice your set up for singles and doubles nicely, AND you don’t feel too bad on the triples either because you’ve already lifted the same weight for two easy low rep sets and are fired up neuromuscularly to go.

538

[quote]halcj wrote:
Yeah good plan with those, 5/4/3/2/1 is very good. 1/2/3 wave ladders are a nice way to ramp too, and it means you don’t get nervous doing the singles because you know you’re expected to hit three reps with the same weight later on, so you can practice your set up for singles and doubles nicely, AND you don’t feel too bad on the triples either because you’ve already lifted the same weight for two easy low rep sets and are fired up neuromuscularly to go.[/quote]

Yeah that’s kind of what I’m looking for. I’ve realized for my straight sets, a lot of the time I didn’t feel like I really had everything firing until 3rd or 4th set, and by then I was already a good deal fatigued. Working my way up seems to get my CNS firing or whatever. I definitely think I can get myself out of this rut with some wave ladders and such.

Any advice on implementing some of the band/pin stuff? Idk if you’ve utilized it much if any

539

[quote]Spidey22 wrote:

[quote]halcj wrote:
Yeah good plan with those, 5/4/3/2/1 is very good. 1/2/3 wave ladders are a nice way to ramp too, and it means you don’t get nervous doing the singles because you know you’re expected to hit three reps with the same weight later on, so you can practice your set up for singles and doubles nicely, AND you don’t feel too bad on the triples either because you’ve already lifted the same weight for two easy low rep sets and are fired up neuromuscularly to go.[/quote]

Yeah that’s kind of what I’m looking for. I’ve realized for my straight sets, a lot of the time I didn’t feel like I really had everything firing until 3rd or 4th set, and by then I was already a good deal fatigued. Working my way up seems to get my CNS firing or whatever. I definitely think I can get myself out of this rut with some wave ladders and such.

Any advice on implementing some of the band/pin stuff? Idk if you’ve utilized it much if any[/quote]

I’ve used bands a couple of times, but not consistently in my own training (I don’t have the equipment for it and haven’t yet needed to try it); I have, however, used some lifts from pins.

I currently use OHP and bench from pins, and sometimes substitute squats with SSB squats from pins - for all of these, it seems the best general (i.e. when not fixing a specific flaw) approach is to set the pins about 1/6th of the way along the movement, so you work almost all of the range of motion but get a slight head-start to accelerate more from the beginning. These lifts all require good stability and tension to get the bar moving from a deadstart, so might help you with that.

Another good lift is the sumo deadlift from blocks, which I’ve used a couple of times, and others seem to like it a lot - maybe ask Reed about these and the band work, I think he has more experience with them.

540

Sounds like some good suggestions. I’ll also add that it might be a good idea to focus on a range of motion where you can focus on muscle recruitment. If you can’t stay tight over a long ROM when starting off, just start off small and increase it over time. I’ve actually done this for mat pulls even though I’m not doing a specific ROM progression program. I started at 8 mats at the beginning of the year for mat pulls and now 6 mats feel about the same, even with more weight. Eventually I’ll move down to 5 mats (3.75") for all my mat pull work.