Rack Pull Personal Training
Today was almost all rack pulls with Sam. I think he was aiming to do more of a full body by getting a bit of benching, deadlifting, and squatting all in, but that’s not exactly how the plan went. I’ve been following my meal schedule for the past 5 days and I feel like I’ve been eating just enough to keep my energy at the gym and not feel overly hungry/full at home. The real test will be over the next week once I’m back at the office.
Since I thought I’d be doing more than rack pulling today, I took Sam’s word and did a full body stretch and warmup. I got in some kettle bell front squats and shoulder press and limbered up my lats and hips with bands. Nothing was special about the first third of the workout. I ramped pulling triples and then doubles into the low 300’s. I had to drop my hook grip at 315 since I was losing my confidence in holding the bar, and that’s the last thing I want. At 315 Sam also had me start to superset with the TRX to start hitting my rear delts, lats, and upper back. The strategy is that if I can lift the weight after doing these other movements that will be putting strain on my body, how much better would I be when I go to really pull for a max? I worked up to 375 and shot for a double, but could only manage to pull a single. I still find rack pulls more difficult than conventional deadlifts.
My major take-away from the rack pulling was my setup phase when I take the slack out my my arms. I’ve been having trouble at heavier weights trying to take the slack out and load up my hamstrings right after. The (obvious) step I was missing was driving my feet into the floor when I take the slack out of the bar. I was waiting until I went to load my hamstrings. By not driving into the floor when I remove the slack, I end up loosening up so when I’m trying to load my hamstrings, I have to re-adjust to try and take the slack out again. It’s a vicious cycle! I’ll be sure to keep that in mind when I’m doing my conventional deadlifts (and rack pulls, obviously) next time.
After the rack pulls, I was supersetting overhand barbell rows with isometric holds on the back extension stand. We kept the rows really light but started stacking on weight for the isometric holds. After a few rounds of rowing, we kept the weighted back extension holds and superset with weighted planks instead. My back was getting pretty beat up by this point, but it was cool to see that the first set of weighted planks was really easy. The following few sets definitely got harder and harder though. Solid workout though.
Push Pull Training
Sam let me know yesterday that I was safe to get some benching in today. I figure I’ll likely end up training legs tomorrow (maybe even get back into squatting with a barbell, which would be awesome). I decided I’d focus on pushing today, but for all of my accessory work I’d try to do supersets with some pulling movements. It definitely had me pumped up.
I warmed up with a few pushups, some scapula mobility movements, and some banded stretches for my pecs/shoulders. I got right into benching starting with the bar and then 135 for 5 and 185 for 5. I made a jump to 205 and I could tell that I’m used to having someone unrack the weight for me now since bringing the weight out was the hardest part. I took the time to get the bar settled into the right spot, and I was easily able to pound off three reps. I went to 215 and noticed the same thing… tricky to unrack, but I could find the sweet spot and the bar came down easily and went up easily for two. I did 225 and 230 for singles. The mental stress on me for unracking the weight definitely takes its toll, but I did notice at 230 that the first few inches (6-8) off my chest were easy, then there’s a sticking point, and then the last few inches are easy again. Kind of interesting, so I’ll mention it to Sam tomorrow.
After stopping at 230, I did 3 sets of 10 at 155 supersetting with some TRX pulling. Next up was pushups for sets of 20 and 15 supserset with another TRX pulling variation. At this point I felt pretty pumped up which was an awesome feeling. Pushups certainly aren’t getting any easier for me yet, but I need to put in the time to get good at them. My last main movements were assisted dips (I know I know… assisted… weak…) supserset with wide grip pushups. The dips took my triceps from uncomfortable to hurting pretty fast.
The last bit of the workout was biceps and core. I hit standard dumbbell curls and hammer curls along with ab wheel rollouts and situps holding a medicine ball between my feet. Afterwards, I hit up the stair master for a tiny bit of cardio (only 10 minutes). I did three two-minute intervals of taking two steps at a time and doing a high knee raise, which I’m using to mimic some of the glute and hamstring activation I do with Sam. I finish my cardio with my glutes really fired up.
Legs Personal Training
Sam didn’t cheat me out of the planned workout tonight; I definitely got to train legs. Tonight was an interesting focus that Sam had said we’d be shifting to, and that’s speed and explosiveness. In all my years of training speed work and explosiveness are things I’ve basically neglected until working with Sam, so now we’re actually scheduling time to get it done. Let’s just say my legs definitely took a beating, and I didn’t even need to squat with a barbell.
We started off the session by doing some aggressive hamstring stretches. I had a band on the bottom of my foot and I was supposed to be able to flex my glutes and get my foot 90 degrees in the air. No way. My left leg was pretty close but not on my right side. Sam came over and got some other bands strapped up and did some pulling where I’d be required to squeeze all of the muscles in my leg and glutes and then release as he adjusted the tension in the band. Looks like I have some work to do there.
The first bit of work was around jumping. I don’t play sports and I never have. Jumping for me is something that feels a bit silly to do because I literally never have to do it. However, I totally understand how that translates into a lot of the movements I do when lifting. So, I’m completely open to getting awesome at it (I just feel silly and clumsy). Sam had me do a circuit of kettle bell front squats, double vertical jumps, and then medicine ball slams. I think doing the circuit once and taking a break would have been awesome for a few rounds. But Sam capitalized on what I’m terrible at: keeping my breath. Instead, Sam had me only do the circuit twice, but each time in the circuit was actually two times through. Follow? It was 4 complete times through, but no break between 1 & 2, and 3 & 4. Each time I got to my second go through the circuit, my legs would start to tremble when doing my kettle bell front squats. Were they that beat up? I don’t really think so, but when you can’t catch your breath it makes squatting really hard. Felt amazing to actually say I did it after though.
From there, I worked on my step ups with the barbell. I think I’ve made a huge improvement here, and I’d like to attribute some of it to my time on the stair master actually performing this motion where I lift my knee and flex my glutes to take two steps at a time. It sounds kind of silly (and I stole the idea from bikini competitors doing this when I’m drooling over Instagram videos), but my glute activation is certainly better, and I can keep my balance better too. We finished off by doing walking barbell lunges. I only worked up to 115 lbs, but it was a challenging weight for where I got to in my workout.
Cleans Personal Training
I had the day off from the gym yesterday to attend a friend’s wedding. It often feels like crap to skip out on a day at the gym, but it was an amazing day to be part of. I can lift any day, but it’s not every day my friends get married. After preventing the world’s worst hangover by drinking in the realm of 3 liters of water over night, I was actually surprisingly well rested by the time I had to train with Sam today. Today we’d be pulling and focusing on cleans.
We didn’t really waste any time getting into it. I had stretched out my ankles, hamstrings, and hips pretty well before I started with Sam and even snuck in a couple of really light deadlifts. I just wanted to use them to test for any tightness in my legs/hips/glutes, which did happen to prompt more stretching for my hips. The first small chunk of the workout was focused around pulling from slightly below the knee into a full extension and a bit of a shrug at the top. The goal was for me to be able to identify where in the range of motion I’d need to go up on my toes to really nail that extension and where on my legs the bar needs to make contact as I go into full extension. Even with just the bar I could feel my lower back starting to tire out. Once this pattern had been practiced for a bit, it was time to clean.
I only stuck around 95 lbs for my cleans, but the goal of course was not to hit any large weights here. This was my first time actually doing cleans under supervision. I was having a lot of difficulty trying to do a clean without just pulling the bar vertically and making zero contact with my body. To re-phrase that, I could pull the weight up to get it on my shoulders, but my body was avoiding the bar entirely as I ripped the bar up. I was never leveraging my full extension to rocket the bar up. It turns out I was still winding up to do these pulls like I do for deadlifts, despite the fact that the bar is right below knee level. This resulted in me sitting back when I should have actually been over top of the bar. It made cleans incredibly difficult because when I needed to get hip drive into my full extension, my legs had already been brought forward to the bar.
It took quite a few attempts until I was finally doing multiple cleans in a row. I’d still say that most of the sets had some pretty gruesome reps involved, but I can say with confidence that I’m getting the idea. I can grasp (for the most part) when certain things need to happen, but it’s difficult for me to time it all together properly without getting paralyzed by over-thinking. I left the session having completely numb thumbs (they’re still tender and half numb as I type this) from doing hook grip the entire time. That’s right! I kept it the ENTIRE time.
Cleans Personal Training
For the second day in a row now, my traps have been absolutely gassed. I did a big push day yesterday and managed to fight through it, but today my traps were just as sore. Sam said we’d be doing back today, and he didn’t lie. What I didn’t know is that we’d be doing more cleans to jack up my traps even more. Yay for cleans!
The goal of the workout was to get a solid back pump and really just hammer it hard. I guess the initial intention wasn’t to focus on cleans, but hey, things happen. I started off by supersetting some really light deadlifts with barbell rows. We kept the rest periods incredibly short so even though the weight wasn’t really a factor, it was still a matter of going through the motions that hammered my back. We upped the weight on the deadlifts and modified the secondary movement to really target the upper back. How do you think my traps started to feel?
After the deadlifting supersets, we moved to deadlifts into full-extensions. I already didn’t like where this was going… It’s basically a power shrug at the end of a deadlift. We kept this light and supersetted with another upper back accessory movement. Finally, I transitioned into cleans from the ground. I was having a really difficult time getting a full extension going into a clean when I pulled from the ground, so we modified it such that I could start from below my knees. My forearms got so jacked up by the end of this that I could barely squeeze the bar, and my left wrist lost essentially all range of motion. I know I’m not supposed to be reverse curling the bar, but I’m sure I had a few reps where it happened.
I finished up the workout with some cable pulldowns and mixed-grip pullups. It was definitely a good finished that really had my lats tired out. Finally, I did a big set of medicine ball throws for core. Not the slams today, but the kind where I situp and launch the ball with my lats. I find the first half go smoothly, and the second half my core just starts to fail. I’m pretty worried about how my traps wil feel tomorrow.
Deadlifting Personal Training
I haven’t written in a little while, but I’m definitely still lifting every day. Last night I had got together with some close friends I don’t see all that often, so we were out pretty late and I didn’t get much sleep before today’s training session. Not to worry though, because I feel like deadlifting with Sam today actually went really well. It gave me a good excuse to nap afterwards too.
After I had warmed up my quads and hamstrings and rolled out my back, it was time to get to work with Sam. We started with a few sets of pulling 135 and 225. Nothing fancy. Just getting warmed up with some lighter pulls. Once we made it into the 275-315 territory, I stopped pulling fives and went for doubles. From there, I worked up to 355, 375, and then 390 for a PR. 375 and 390 were for singles, and the difference in technique between the two was pretty big. I knew that when 390 started coming off the ground it wasn’t going to look pretty, but I was determined to pick it up. Sam unfortunately described it as me individually loading each vertebrae as I straightened my back and stood up. Not what I wanted to hear, but it was a top set… so I was kind of expecting that to not be pretty. We tried setting me up for a second attempt but I didn’t get it off the ground.
We finished up deadlifting with a couple of doubles back around 345 which felt pretty good. Next up was some variations of back extensions. The first, I was laying down on the platformed hanging over the ground by about an inch or two. Form there with my legs held down I had to do shorter ROM back extensions. After a few sets of 15 my lower back felt rock solid. Then Sam had me get on the GHR stand to do full ROM back extensions with a kettle bell. That movement definitely crushed my spirits. My back was completely fried after that. I finished up the workout with a plank followed by an isometric hold for my lower back.
A new advancement in my cardio came up yesterday too. I’ll probably start to do treadmill sprints on my non personal training days. I had someone demonstrate how to get on and off the treadmill when it’s at high speeds, so I’m pretty confident I can start to safely incorporate that into my workouts.
Shoulders and Back
Today I hit up the gym a bit earlier than usual. I actually went in with a friend to give her a few lifting tips where I could and to give each other a bit of motivation for our sprints as a finisher. Actually, it was really so that I could train delts and back, hang out with her, and then get some mental/emotional support from her while I attempted to run sprints. I help her lift, she helps me sprint. Fair trade, right?
Started the workout with some shoulder mobility stuff with bands. Typical warmup after training with Sam for a while now. I got ramping by 20 lbs on military press from the bar up to 125 lbs. I went up to 135 for a single after that and left it there. Still had a wee bit in the tank, but I wasn’t chasing anything super heavy today. The only other big barbell movement we hit up was underhand barbell rows. My grip was pretty soft without chalk but I hit up a few sets of six at just over a plate and focused on keeping as horizontal as possible (using my knees as shock absorbers, as Sam says).
We did a few rounds of pullups and the lat pulldown machine right after that. I started pointing out to my friend some small technical things in her pulling motions (i.e. leaning too far back and having arms track too far in front of her body). Little tweaks to actually pull with her back instead of her biceps/shoulders, but she was definitely getting it.
We finished the workout off with a few different core exercises including weighted medicine ball situps, planks, and some medicine ball twists. I hadn’t done twists in a while so I’m a bit nervous my obliques might be feeling it tomorrow when I go to squat. Finally, we ran sprint intervals on the treadmill for 10 sets of 30 seconds on with 30 second breaks. The first half was okay, but my lack of cardio quickly caught up. This workout was hours ago and my throat still keeps getting the odd tickle in it from breathing really hard. I’ll definitely keep up with the sprints though.
Box Squat Personal Training
Tonight was a night that I’ve been waiting for for a while now. Tonight was legs with Sam, and since we’ve gone back to my wider power stance for squatting, I’ve been able to squat comfortable without my ankles rolling in. Tonight we got up to a decent weight to assess my squat form based on my current style and then I finally got to box squat. Sam pointed out the way I want to squat (which is how I was training before him) is certainly setup to be for a box squat. Yes!
I had a pretty solid stretching session before I trained with Sam. I tried to get in a half hour early to really loosen up my legs and hips before squatting. I got my quads stretched out, and then worked on my hamstrings by using the bands to pull my leg in two directions as I tried to fully stretch my hamstring. We got right into squatting from there though. I started with the bar, then single plates, then 70 pound jump to 205, then 225, 245, 265, and 275 all for 4 reps each. I actually squatted 275 for a single the other night and considered that a recent PR after not back squatting in months. When I made the 20 lbs jump to 295 I started to break down. I hit three reps, and they were all pretty rough. I’m definitely weak in the hole now, and I could really feel it. The descent felt really controlled, but once I was looking for that quick turn around in the hole my body just felt weak. Something to work on though!
After my top set, I dropped back down to 225 and Sam filmed me so I could see what I look like. I definitely got a glimpse of my body tipping a bit too far forward when trying to drive out of the hole. The first couple reps I didn’t really see it, but on rep four when I was getting tired it was obvious. Again, something more to work on. With that said, Sam decided it was time we got onto the box. We went over the technique for pushing back and opening up the knees and hips to slowly descend, how to sit back properly (by pivoting at the hips and not hyper extending), and then how to stand back up. I did a few sets of this at 135 just to go over the motions, and then we tacked on some chains to see how that would feel. My big concern was not wanting to rock into the weight to stand back up, but I think I was getting it by the end.
The rest of the workout was a lot like our other leg workouts as of late. I got some step ups in, some Bulgarian split squats, and some glute ham raises. My hammies felt pretty beat by the end of all of it, but I still think I’m going to hit legs again tomorrow!
