[quote]Spock81 wrote:
AHH I want to be the female lifter version of you! [/quote]
Why thank you very much pretty lady. Let me know if there is any way I can be of help.
Strangely, I have two little sisters that are nothing like me.
2/18/12 Heavy deficit pulls:
VIDEO:
So, for whatever reason, I felt like deep fried asshole when I woke up this morning. I have no clue why. I did my stretching and warmups, and still felt sluggish as all hell. Even my plyos, jumps, and chins felt slow. So, I got pissed and just said “To hell with all of this, we’ll see what happens.”
Warmups were the same as always.
Deficit pulls:
135X10
225X5
315X3
405X3 ← this felt like a bajillion pounds.
495X1 ← felt slightly better.
545X1 ← felt like 15 bajillion pounds.
585X1 ← 20 LB all time PR. Felt slow and heavy, but I guess its nice to know that I can power a rep home when I have to.
Deads from the floor:
365X10 for 3 sets. I broke down and used straps for these, as the callouses on my hands are starting to fall apart. Time to break out the razor blades then let them heal for a bit. Will be doing most of my pulling rep work with straps for about a week. This happens to me about twice every year. I was actually feeling significantly better after these three sets.
Decline sit ups:
3 sets of 15 reps.
Done. Good day despite feeling like I was sleep walking. Plan is to sleep for about 12 hours and recover. On the bright side I won’e have another heavy day until Thurs. so I should be good by then.
Speed bench and standing OHP tomorrow. Actually looking forward to it.
excuse me sir… please don’t sniff ammonia caps, yell like a blood-crazed Viking and then drop over 500 lb to the floor, you’ll scare the other gym members
awesome deadlift vid
Well ain’t that just a thing of beauty! I am totally going to get my deadlift to look that pretty someday, mhmm! Mark my words, it shall be done!
Holy mother of god that was a beastly pull. It seems like every time you post one of your sessions more awesomeness appears.
I recall that you were/are following 5/3/1 to some extent. Would you mind explaining how you set up your training and what makes you choose the exercises you perform?
Awesome pull
2/19/12 Speed bench and OHP.
Felt a much better today. An extra long sleep was just what I needed.
VIDEO:
Warmups: Stretching, jumps, band pull aparts, and a few chins.
Speed bench:
worked up to 205+doubled mini bands X3 for 5 sets. Felt fast and explosive.
Standing overhead press:
barX15
95X8
135X5
185X5
225X5
260X3 Felt ok. Got real lightheaded after rep 3, so I racked it. Will probably play with my rep scheme some next time.
chins:
BDW X10 for 3 sets
BDW X 5 dead hang reps for 2 sets
bent over rear delt DB flies:
someX8 for 3 sets.
Straight bar curl, football bar tricep press combo set:
someXsome for 3 sets.
Done. Good day on the whole. Speed deads on Teus.
[quote]fr0IVIan wrote:
excuse me sir… please don’t sniff ammonia caps, yell like a blood-crazed Viking and then drop over 500 lb to the floor, you’ll scare the other gym members
[/quote]
Lolz. Thanks for stopping in bud.
Sir, I would kindly inform you that you are mistaken. My gym has all of its rules and policies prominently displayed around the lifting area. I will illustrate with pictures after my next session.
Also, Vikings kick ass.
[quote]Spock81 wrote:
Well ain’t that just a thing of beauty! I am totally going to get my deadlift to look that pretty someday, mhmm! Mark my words, it shall be done! [/quote]
Ma’am, consider them duely marked. I will hold you to this now.
[quote]caveman101 wrote:
awesome deadlift vid[/quote]
Thank you sir.
On an unrelated note, I find your avatar disturbing…
I didnt see a bernie, or any celebration of any kind after the heavy stuff.
No swag man, no swag.
[quote]mmatt wrote:
Awesome pull[/quote]
Thanks man. Now onward, for the road never ends.
[quote]AquaCruzer wrote:
Holy mother of god that was a beastly pull. It seems like every time you post one of your sessions more awesomeness appears.
I recall that you were/are following 5/3/1 to some extent. Would you mind explaining how you set up your training and what makes you choose the exercises you perform?[/quote]
Thanks for the kind words my friend. Lets see if I can give a coherent answer.
Well, about mid Jan., when I first found this gym, I shot the shit with the owner of the place and he told me he was hosting a push pull meet on the 17th of March. I sat down for a bit and thought on how I would set up my training in a way that would give me the best shot at getting the highest two lift total possible. I came up with this basic structure:
Day 1: Heavy bench day.
Day 2: off
Day 3: Heavy deadlift day.
Day 4: Speed bench day.
Day 5: off
Day 6: Speed deadlift day.
Day 7: off
The above is the ideal, but there is some wiggle room for the random shit that life throughs at you. Bassically, the only hard and fast rule of it is to always take a rest day prior to the either of the heavy days. If you absolutely must lift heavy two days in a row, then take the following two days off and just stretch/walk and what not. The speed days can be done back to back with little trouble if need be.
As far as the selection of lifts goes, I sort of tested where I was on each of the big three when I first got to Irving.
I benched 405 touch and go, but hit a sticking point mid way up. At first, I came up with the slingshot. Theory here was that it would allow me to move a supramaximal weight off of my chest, and then I would power it through the rest of the range of motion. I ditched it for a couple of reasons:
-
I started lifting too heavy with it. I hit 500 touch and go with it the first time I ever used it, and then had to have my spotter touch the bar with 515 the next time. This by itself was not my desired outcome.
-
It feels like a guide of some kind. Its difficult to put into words, because its not like benching with a shirt(I used an inzer single ply closed back shirt in high school) but for whatever reason, the groove with the slingshot just felt very different than without it.
I then chose the floor press with a pause, because I think it best replicates that sticking point mid way through a full range of motion bench. Also, Meat does them, and he’s a strong bastard.
For heavy deadlift day, I first went with block pulls because I have had major problems with hitching in the past. I took those as far as I could, and felt it was time for a switch.
I chose deficit pulls because I wanted to give them another shot. The last time I used them I was pretty retarded with my programming. I worked up to a single with 545, then a few days later did a pretty heavy squat, then did a rather heavy incline press, and some heavy cleans and overhead presses in a about a weeks time span.
I then thought it would be a good idea to do some heavy deadlift volume work by doing deficit pulls with 500X3 for 5 sets. I then went somewhat on the light side for about 5 days and tried to pull heavy from the floor. In short, the last time I ran them, I don’t believe I gave them a chance to work properly, so I am having another go at it, and am so far pleased.
It has also been a long time since I have hitched any of my deadlifts(this a product of doing RDLs till I was blue in the face for over a year), but I have failed at a couple of deadlift attempts this past fall by failing to break the bar from the floor. It happened twice and may have been related to other things(stupid programming, work stress, or something else) but I have NEVER had that happen before. I am attempting kill this problem before it fully developes.
Those are my thoughts behind my heavy movement choices. I’ll now go thourgh each day how I incorporate the whole 5/3/1 ideaology and auxillary lift choices:
Day 1: Heavy bench day. Here, and on each day really I strive for balance. In the past, I had made pretty decent strength gains when using antagonistic pairings, and thats what I do here. So, I do a heavy bench variant, and then prefer the pendlay row as its pairing movement. I do this because of all the row variations, I feel like it mimicks the bench presses decent the best. I set up so that I row the weight to me in almost the exact same path as I lower the bar on a bench press.
Next, I pick another press horizontal press that doesn’t bother my shoulders. Currently, its flat DB presses. Then I do a DB row variant(normal or each rep paused on the ground) or I will do a giant combo set with a cable row, a tricep push down/press, and a curl constituting one set, kind of like a mini circuit. Again, looking for balance and just overall volume here. Intensity drops as the training session goes on, and a bodybuilder might call this stuff “pump work” or whatever.
Day 2: heavy pull day. I go for something heavy on the pull movement, and then really work my posterior chain(hams and glutes) and abdeominals with a lot of volume. After the heavy deadlift variant, I take the intensity and weight way down, and crank out a lot of reps with little rest. I like circuits and combo sets here.
Day 4: Speed bench and overhead press day: For the bench press, its all about speed and technique. I think the consesus from all of the smart people is that it takes several billion reps to become technically proficient at a lift. So, I perform the competition lift as perfectly and as explosively as possible with some form of light accomodating resistance, either chains or light bands. Again, focus here is most placed on rowing the weight to my chest, maintaining tightness/arch, and explosively driving the bar to lockout. Every rep.
Now, I still care about my overhead numbers, so they go right after speed bench. I went back to the strict press here cause its been about a year since I have done them, and I want to not suck at them anymore. Next I do chins, again for balance. Either with added weight or just bodyweight for reps. Then, I do something specifically for rear delts.
This is also for the sake of balance/shoulder health. Then I finnish up with some random arm crap. This is for balance again. I view training arms kinda like training your abdominals. It sucks and is boring as hell, but its got to get done for injury prevention and what not.
Day 6: Speed deads: Here, I prefer chains for deads, as bands are a pain in the ass to set up. Again, focus is on technique/explosiveness same as bench. Next, I perfom some squat variant. In one sense, this is performing a hip dominant lower body lift and then following it with a knee dominant lower body lift. I am doing back squats here in an effort to maintain my squatting numbers while they take a backseat to deadlifting for this meet.
I am also working on my sticking point here, which is loosing upper back/torso tightness out of the hole. Here I am playing around with accomodating restistance and pauses to accomplish this, but it is secondary to my deadlift progress at this time. Besides, I don’t know how to stop squatting, and its something I hope I never learn. I then finnish the session with some high rep abdominal work.
5/3/1:
While I no longer incorporate the loading perameter or the percentages, I do incorporate a few of Wendlers overall themes from his book. Namely, balance, as I have talked about above in a couple of different places. Also my lower body days are essentially the triumverate template structured to what I hope works for a push pull meet. Staying NOV is also important.
Lastly, I do my best to not take things to absolute failure and grind myself into dust. This takes a lot of cerebral effort as my instinct is always to train myself into the dirt. However, I did that for a long time, and only progressed to a certain point, then exceeded my recovery abilities.
Warming up: This is important. I stretch thouroughly each session, and do a full body stretch routine before every lifting day. I have no idea what its name is, but its all of the stretches I did when I played high school football, plus various band pull aparts and shoulder dislocates. Yeah, that probably was not the most helpfull. I also do jumps leading up to my heavy sets. These are either broad jumps or box jumps. I don’t track PRs for these. I just try to wake myself up as much as possible and be explosive. Chins for low reps also serve this purpose.
Now the true test for all of the above garbage will be March 17th. Then I will find out if any of that rambling mess is worth a fuck.
I hope I answered what you were asking with all of that. The super condensed version is that I set up a structure to hit the highest push/pull total possible and picked lifts based on my personal weaknesses and what I needed to improve, while trying my best to not be a pussy.
^ Ok, now anybody that actually bothers to read all of that gets an e-cookie on me.
[quote]DixiesFinest wrote:
I didnt see a bernie, or any celebration of any kind after the heavy stuff.
No swag man, no swag.[/quote]
Yeah, I know. I’ve been way to mellow these past few lifitng days. Will do better next heavy day.
[quote]DoveofWar08 wrote:
^ Ok, now anybody that actually bothers to read all of that gets an e-cookie on me.[/quote]
Please tell me where to get this e-cookie!
How do you like that gym, man? I competed at the MetroFlex in Ft. Worth earlier last year. The owner, Rendy is a pretty cool ass dude and has a kick-ass operation going.
Good shit going on in this log. Gonna check it out more often.
Great pull man! Real jealous of the gyms you guys have there. Iv never seen 2 racks in one gym.
I really appreciate that you took the time and effort to type all that down. Answered everything and more! I have a feeling come meet time, you’ll put up some rather pleasing numbers.
^ See attached for the e-cookies.
[quote]TheTexican wrote:
[quote]DoveofWar08 wrote:
^ Ok, now anybody that actually bothers to read all of that gets an e-cookie on me.[/quote]
Please tell me where to get this e-cookie!
How do you like that gym, man? I competed at the MetroFlex in Ft. Worth earlier last year. The owner, Rendy is a pretty cool ass dude and has a kick-ass operation going.
Good shit going on in this log. Gonna check it out more often.[/quote]
Thanks for the kind words dude. I have not made it over to the Metroflex in Ft. Worth yet, as I am only about 20min away from Metroflex Midcities. This place is pretty cool. We are currently working on getting a wood center deadlift/oly lifting platform built. Should kick ass.