I’ve decided to hold off on starting another serious training cycle until early April. My coach will be gone for a few days next week. And then it’s Spring Break for my kids. Until then, I’ll just play around in the gym.
I’m not considering Westside at this point. But thanks for the feedback. I am looking into Gillingham’s programs. I know what works for me in terms of reps (nothing high) and weight (can’t go too sub-maximal). So whatever I decide will need to meet these requirement. I do, however, plan to switch up my accessory work and try some new things.
My coach seriously wants me to switch to wide-stance sumo DL. He has spoken with several elite sumo lifters (PMPM’s coach, for one), who have given good advice and are willing to help me. Looks like I’ll be training at a PL gym an hour away from home during the summer months to take advantage of additional coaching.
I’ve decided to hold off on starting another serious training cycle until early April. My coach will be gone for a few days next week. And then it’s Spring Break for my kids. Until then, I’ll just play around in the gym.
I’m not considering Westside at this point. But thanks for the feedback. I am looking into Gillingham’s programs. I know what works for me in terms of reps (nothing high) and weight (can’t go too sub-maximal). So whatever I decide will need to meet these requirement. I do, however, plan to switch up my accessory work and try some new things.
My coach seriously wants me to switch to wide-stance sumo DL. He has spoken with several elite sumo lifters (PMPM’s coach, for one), who have given good advice and are willing to help me. Looks like I’ll be training at a PL gym an hour away from home during the summer months to take advantage of additional coaching.[/quote]
I was being a little facetious with the Westside comment. The Jackyl’s/Gillingham stuff creates great results, that is for sure. Dang nice folk too.
Driving an hour to the gym in the summer would be tough for me, but you are probably at a point in your development where quality coaching is really necessary. How old are your kids Snap?
Love your new avi. Pretty pic of you, and makes me think about all the things I love about Colorado.
Silverton to Urey. Telluride. It’s just soo hike-tastic. Makes me want to get out the John Denver.
Hard to arch with the pulled muscle in my back. So I kept the weight low.
Paused ATG Front Squat
10/45
10/65
8/75
5/85
3/95
Then played with my wide stance. It’s unbelievable how wide I can get and still hit powerlifing depth. There’s gotta be a point where I can no longer handle heavy weight even though my flexibility is intact. So I’m going to experiment with this during my next training cycle. I’m going to video how wide I can get and still hit depth because it’s really crazy wide. Also going to vid my front squats because I’m curious if they look as good as they feel.
There was a recent T-Nation article that talked about squat stance. One of the things that was mentioned was that different people are structurally different with respect to the ball and socket construction of the hip joint. Yours might be such that a wider stance is a more natural movement for your joint. Lucky. I think it is meant to be better to go wider if you can since it reduces the distance the bar has to travel.
Where is the most “powerful” position for your feet? (Usually this is the position from which one can jump the highest.) Just intellectual curiosity, I know it’s pretty much “proven” that low-bar, wide feet is where one can squat the most for powerlifting.
Hmmm, after I wrote that, I realized that the Europeans don’t go that wide, so basically I don’t know nuttin’ after all.
Powerpuff: My kids are 12 and 10. My daughter has long gymnastics training sessions, which allows me time to train.
Alexis and Punnyguy: I think I’m more flexible in a narrow stance but more powerful in a wide stance. Since training wide-stance squats, I feel way more tight and in control. I always feel like I’m on the verge of a one-way trip to the floor with narrow-stance squats. Because I’ve made this distinction, I believe that I can train ATG front squats without hurting my wide-stance PL squats. They’re two entirely different lifts for me.
Soldog graciously videod all my lifts at the last meet. He has my failed third attempt squat. I’ll post that later. It was a weight I should have hit, but I think I set up narrow and didn’t stay tight. Live and learn.
[quote]FarmerBrett wrote:
And isn’t Brad Gillingham stuff generally pretty high volume?[/quote]
There’s nothing above five reps, I don’t believe. I can handle volume as in the number of sets, just not high reps. But I’ve eliminated it for squat/DL because the training is too sub-maximal for me. I may follow his raw bench program. Speaking of which, here’s another angle of my third attempt bench at 104.5 lb. Looks so damn easy in the video, like I’m nowhere near my max. And check out my grip: it’s a tricep press! I easily could have hit a bodyweight bench that day. Or more.
Also, here’s another angle of my one and only successful squat at 198 lb. I am re-posting it because I think my depth looked highly suspect in the original vid I posted. Plus, I love, love George’s commentary in this clip. He’s a great cheerleader! It just kills me how easy this was.
I didn’t post my third-attempt squat failure because it was filmed from far away and, thus, hard to see much of anything.
I’ve decided to hold off on starting another serious training cycle until early April. My coach will be gone for a few days next week. And then it’s Spring Break for my kids. Until then, I’ll just play around in the gym.
I’m not considering Westside at this point. But thanks for the feedback. I am looking into Gillingham’s programs. I know what works for me in terms of reps (nothing high) and weight (can’t go too sub-maximal). So whatever I decide will need to meet these requirement. I do, however, plan to switch up my accessory work and try some new things.
My coach seriously wants me to switch to wide-stance sumo DL. He has spoken with several elite sumo lifters (PMPM’s coach, for one), who have given good advice and are willing to help me. Looks like I’ll be training at a PL gym an hour away from home during the summer months to take advantage of additional coaching.[/quote]
By chance ,is the Gillingham program like the one I chickened out of? Regarding doing NASA and the Mono Lift. The Mono in Nasa if fairly new. But you do understand that you don’t have to use it. You can elect just to walk it out as you would in the USAPL.
That is wonderful news that you’ll be training sumo DLs! Well, wonderful news for me since hopefully I’ll learn something from you as you chronicle this endeavor.
Since training wide-stance squats, I feel way more tight and in control. I always feel like I’m on the verge of a one-way trip to the floor with narrow-stance squats. Because I’ve made this distinction, I believe that I can train ATG front squats without hurting my wide-stance PL squats. They’re two entirely different lifts for me.
Had a nightmare. A guy broke into my hotel room and was chasing me. Woke up with my heart racing a million beats per minute. That should suffice as my cardio for the week.
Finally finished putting together my squat program for the next training cycle, which I decided to begin today after all. I will squat twice a week. I think I am going to DL conventionally only twice a month. Even though it’s my best lift numbers-wise, I don’t really enjoy it and find that it’s incredibly hard on my body. I will probably sumo DL light weights every week. I still don’t have a plan yet for bench.
[quote]kpsnap wrote:
Had a nightmare. A guy broke into my hotel room and was chasing me. Woke up with my heart racing a million beats per minute. That should suffice as my cardio for the week. [/quote]
True story: I just get into a hotel room in NC and sitting at the desk waiting for laptop to fire up. I hear a couple quick taps at the door (which was in direct sight) and a second later I hear the lock pop and door opens.
Big black guy standing there with keys in one hand and a screwdriver in the other.
I say “Uh, hello?”
He says “What are you doing in here?”
I say “This is the room they gave me”.
He looks at the number, looks at me, pulls out a clipboard from behind his back. Looks at me. Looks at the room number. Looks at the clipboard. Looks at me and says “I need to fix that light”-- nods at lamp in front of me.
I say, “Uh, have at it!”
We both start laughing and he was apologizing for coming in like that. I tell him no worries, no big deal.
I say “Lucky I wasn’t givin’ it to the wife!”
He busts out with this huge laugh and says “That ‘a been ruckus then fo’ sho’!”
LMAO! Really nice guy. After he finished up I told him to tell his boss I said he deserved a raise.
I’m not considering Westside at this point. But thanks for the feedback. I am looking into Gillingham’s programs. I know what works for me in terms of reps (nothing high) and weight (can’t go too sub-maximal). So whatever I decide will need to meet these requirement. I do, however, plan to switch up my accessory work and try some new things.
I was being a little facetious with the Westside comment. The Jackyl’s/Gillingham stuff creates great results, that is for sure. Dang nice folk too.
[/quote]
Is there something wrong with Westside. I’m barely out of starting strength, so I dunno. I’m googling Gillingham now…
First day back with the new training cycle. Unfortunately, I didn’t get in the gym until 7:45 pm and ran out of steam before I could do all the accessory work I had planned. I must say that I’m enjoying training raw again. The weights feel so light and manageable. It will be quite some time before I’m back in the gear again.
Wide-Stance Squat
5/45
5/65
3/85
2/100
3/5/120
Then I played with my stance with just the bar to see how wide I could get and still hit depth. I know I’m doing some serious neck craning. This cues me to keep a tight arch in my back but is probably bad for my neck. I may have to enter a local NASA meet just so I can try wide-stance squatting out of a monolift. A different beast, I suspect.
GMs
5/45
5/65
3/5/85
My numbers are finally going up on GMs. I was a bit concerned that these might hurt my back. But not at all.
Then played with conventional and sumo DLs. Light ROM pulls because of the tweaked back muscle from pulling at the meet.
Conventional DL
8/135
Sumo DL
5/135
Conventional DL
5/155
Deficit Sumo DL with Feet to Plates
5/95
Good Girl/Bad Girl
2/8/95
I will add in additional squat accessory work next week when I have more training time.
