Current stats: Age - 27 ; Height - 5’9" ; Weight - 235-240 ATM
Meet lifts (single ply): Squat 650, Bench 501, Deadlift 562, Total 1713
Best Raw lifts (gym only so far): Squat 500, Bench 385, Deadlift 575 (briefs on so not totally raw; I won’t pull raw unless I do a raw meet)
Right now my goals are to get a 405 bench, 550 squat, and 600 deadlift, all raw except I’ll be wearing briefs for the deadlifts. The deadline for this goal is 9/1/09. These will all be gym lifts. I’m also putting some conditioning work into the mix because I’m a slob right now that can’t climb 2 flights of stairs without huffing and weezing like Fatty McGee. If the conditioning starts to hurt my strength work I can tone down the intensity and readjust my goals in that area. But it’s been going well so far.
Based on my meet lifts, I think the raw lifts should come along fairly soon. Recent training has seen PRs falling like crazy, and every week I’m getting more and more comfortable in my raw technique, which differs a little from geared technique in the squat and bench.
My general training template goes as follows:
M - Squat, Legs, Abs (sometimes deadlift)
T - Condition or off
W - Bench, Chest, Tris
R - Condition or off
F - Back, Bis
Sa - Shoulders, Traps, maybe condition
Su - Condition or off
Only performing one lower body day a week has really been helping with my hip (dislocated a year ago and it is semi-arthritic now). I had been deadlifting on Friday every week but I was spending the rest of the week limping around like a gimp. I figure this arrangement is more suitable for longevity, and pulling every week wasn’t helping it go up anyhow.
I also used to bench twice a week, one day ME and one day RE or DE, but I found that to be far too demanding with the shirt work I was doing. Now I’m lifting raw and could probably get away with adding it back in but I don’t see the point if I’m making gains as is. Saturday is more of a bodybuilding-type, get some blood in there day now and my shoulders feel great because of it.
For my conditioning I’ve been using my new Econo-Prowler. This is the most masochistic training tool I’ve ever used. I do sprints with it with 70lb, going 30 yd down with the low handles and then 30 yd back pushing the uprights. My first session I attempted to do 5 of these sprints with 60 sec RI. I got 1/4 of the way through rep 4 and tossed my cookies all over my neighbors driveway. Session #2 I finished rep 4 just in time to sprint to the planting next to our front door and projectile-vomit green Gatorade all over the bark. Session 3 I upped the RI to 90 sec and I made it through all 5 without yakking, though I was nauseous for over 2 hours after.
So yeah, I’m a fan of the Prowler. My goal is to get to 10 sprints with 90 lb and 60 sec RI by mid-August. I will first progress by dropping the RI by 10 sec/week, then add sprints (from 5 to 6, 6 to 8, and 8 to 10), then add 10 lb a week. If all goes to plan that should take me til the week of 8/10 to accomplish. Maybe I will be better off with smaller adjustments every session as opposed to bigger ones every week. We’ll see how it goes and I’ll fix it on the fly.
OK, that about covers what I’m doing and why. Let the training re-commence.