Time to add the work from the end of my workout yesterday (2/24/14)
Cable Rope Pushdowns
10x25
10x30
10x50
10x50
10x50
10x50
5x50
10x35
10x35
5x35
10x35
I had a good pump going in both arms after this. Yesterday was a good day of lifting.
I am reading a lot about Madcow.
He claims that there is no such thing as a “Madcow Program” and that the work that gets attributed to him is from Bill Starr and Glenn Pendlay.
Is this true?
I have been going through his posts from the old geocities website backup server.
I am off to find some food before my deadlift workout.
Yesterday’s lift (2/25/14)
Deadlift
5x135
5x185
5x225
3x275 (First time I ever did double overhand with 275. Felt easy.)
3x315
3x355
6x405 (Pretty sure this is a new PR. I failed rep 7 above my knees. I immediately stripped the bar, got a quick sip of water and…)
3x355 (Felt easy. I held it at the top for about 20 seconds. I immediately stripped the bar, got a quick sip of water and…)
3x315 (Very easy. I held it at the top for 40 seconds.)
Leg Curl
10x60
10x80
10x100
10x120
10x130
8x130 (Dead stoppers. This is the same as last week.)
15x100
15x100
15x100
15x100
15x100 (This was a 10x70 last week.)
(Felt like I had good form with all of these reps. Some odd knee feelings were noted during my heaviest sets of leg curls. No pain though. Not a big deal, but I wanted to make a note of it.)
My knee is feeling pretty good. I am happy with this lift.
My back feels all lit up from the rowing and deads.
Later today I will do the limber 11. I may also choose to do some shrugs and grip work.
Limber 11 complete for the night.
Some of this stuff puts a ton of pressure on my knees, elbows, and wrists.
Does anyone have any advice no alleviating pressure in these areas?
I am trying to baby these areas a bit, due to my training being hard on my joints recently.
I am going to go shoot some pool, and then afterward, I may go do those shrugs and grip work.
My wrists have been feeling weak lately also
My lift from 2/28/14.
Press
5x45
5x95
3x105
5x130
3x150
4x165 (Paused. Failed 5 after a few inches off chest. First one almost didn’t go up. It stalled a bit in the middle.)
4x150
6x135
Pull Up
10/7/7/7/7/7/5 (Wasn’t happy with first or second set, but they all felt great afterward. Good reps.)
Dips
10/10/10/10/10/5 (Felt better than last week.)
I was pretty happy with this lift.
If I would have done what I normally do, I would have done a workout on the 1st.
I chose to take time to go watch Richard Hawthorne, Andrey Malanichev, and Dan Green deadlift.
My back was a damn wreck all day. Sitting in the car for 3 hours killed my lower back. Standing in a crowd around the area where everyone was lifting for 5 hours killed my upper back. Sitting in the car for 3 hours back just finished me off haha.
I didn’t eat well yesterday. I couldn’t leave my spot. I had a great spot. I was probably 3 feet from all the action.
I ate breakfast (goulash and milk), had a free protein shake made with off brand powder, and half a pepsi in my new shaker cup. Then I ate a ton of Wendy’s on the way home. I fell asleep at 10 and woke up at 11 this morning. I only got 4 hours of sleep the night before as well. I ate right before I went to sleep that night though, so that was a good idea.
I am taking today to recover. I have some videos I will put up.
They are of my own lifting, and of some of the Arnold classic.
I will comment more on all of this later.
Tomorrow will be an assistance day, followed by Squat day.
I will not take a day off like I normally do after assistance day, as I have already taken two off in between my Press workout and what will be Squat workout.
Hopefully this allows my knee to heal up a bit more too. It has been feeling good lately. It was a bit stiff yesterday from all the standing and sitting in cramped positions though.
Ok, so here are my thoughts on my experience at the Arnold Sports Festival.
Lots of shiny booths with pretty girls selling things. Kind of stereotypical stuff from most booths. Nothing was all that exciting. I got to see a lot of famous athletes in the strength community. I was given a free shaker cup and a packet of protein powder.
The vast majority of people there didn’t even look like they lift. I am talking in the 99% range. There were people that looked like they were trying to show off their muscles. People were wearing all kinds of ridiculous shit. Shirts that were literally 1 inch of fabric in the back, small t-shirts, cutoffs, various website/supplement company’s gear. Of the people who looked like they lift, you could tell all of their time was spend bench pressing. Nobody had a back, or shoulders, or legs. I didn’t even see a decent set of arms that was on someone who wasn’t wearing a VIP pass. Plenty of guys wearing rhinestones on their jeans and furry shit on their T-shirts.
They had a bench press “competition” open to the general public at one of the booths. Everyone’s form was awful. I could point out like 5 things that were wrong for each individual. I didn’t realize that people were that terrible at pressing. That being said, there were a lot of people who put up good weight. It kind of makes me wonder if they cleaned up their form, what would happen. I used to think he was crazy, but Dave Tate is probably right. You really can add 50 lbs to someones bench in a few months if you made them use good form and warm up properly.
Anyway…Of the people who were noteworthy that I got to see-
Richard Hawthorne: He looks small in pictures, but he has the traps of a 275 lb bodybuilder. He has one of the shortest pulls ever. The guy is a genetic freak. I wish that I would have gotten to see him squat too, but he was only there to deadlift. He pulled 600 pretty easily. Lots of reps in his warmup.
Andrey Malanichev: Looks just like he does on the internet, maybe a bit smaller in person. He was being real silly and light-hearted. Much respect to him for that. Not everyone there looked like they were enjoying themselves, but he looked like he was having a blast and loving every second of it. I think he pulled 815. It looked easy for him. He warmed up mostly with singles. After, he spent probably 5 minutes talking about how Ed Coan was the greatest of all time.
Dan Green: I mean holy shit is Dan Green huge. Easily one of the most muscular people there. I have never seen someone that large. It blows my mind that he makes a weight cut to 220. I don’t even know how that is possible. I mean he looks like he could cut into the 275’s. He pulled in the 860’s with ease, and just missed two attempts at 905. He was making huge jumps for his warmups. He did 5 reps conventional before switching to sumo for the rest of his warmup. His lockout was the most explosive thing I have ever seen. I mean, on the whole it was nuts. His whole exhibition was just insanity. He is so jacked that he looks like the product of a radioactive waste accident, or like he lived next to an old nuclear test site and the radiation caused him to mutate into a beast that just happened to lift weights. He looked like a cartoon character he was THAT big. He only cracked a smile one time. Otherwise he was really quiet. Never talked loud enough for anyone to hear.
Also at the demonstration, that I was able to pick out-
Jay Nera and Sam Byrd: Obviously big guys, but nothing like Dan Green. My mind can’t even see how Dan Green lifts in the same weight class as them. If I had no idea who Dan Green was, and someone walked up to me and said that he lifted at 220. I would have never believed you. That is how much bigger he was then these guys.
Brandon Lilly: Looked like you would expect. I almost didn’t recognize him. He shaved the beard he had down to a goatee. He was up moving around at a hobble. He seemed to be recovering well. He talked about “the only thing that will make you stronger is time.”
Ed Coan: The man looked like he was just built to lift. I can see him being 30 or 40 lbs bigger back in the day and just wrecking lifts. He wasn’t very tall. Maybe 5’5". I now understand just how important genetics are in this sport.
After the exhibition I saw these guys in the order of…
Rich Piana: Largest arms I have ever seen. His upper chest, rear delts, and traps were ridiculous as well. The only thing I could think of was that he had to have had massive arms. His triceps were the size of basketballs. I have a picture with him. Seriously. Basketballs. Even if he used synthol, still damn impressive stuff. He was perhaps the nicest guy you could imagine. I talked to him about rear delt development and trap work. I figured he was tired of talking about arms.
Kai Greene: Just got a glimpse. The line was huge to meet him. He was massive. I expected him to be though, and he was standing behind a counter so maybe it wasn’t as shocking.
Kevin Washington: Looked big, but he was carrying around a lot of extra bodyfat too. Still impressive. I liked seeing him a ton though. You couldn’t have planned it better. I was heading toward the exit, when suddenly the doors blasted open and he walked in. Immediately I heard 3 or 4 guys yell stuff like “Hey HULK!” and “The HULK is here” and “Go get 'em HULK!” He was wearing headphones and stormed in. It was silly, but also pretty badass entrance altogether.
If you don’t know who he is then here…
Yeah, it is a bit done up because he isn’t that much farther than a lot of other guys in the game, but still. Keep in mind he has said that he wants to break the BP world record and be a pro wrestler some day.
Mark Bell: I am a bit disappointed here, I have to admit. He may have just been having a bad day, but he seemed like one of those fake smile guys. I was there when Malanichev and his crew were there. He would talk to Malanichev or one of the other people with him, smile, make a video with them, and as soon as he would turn away, his smile came right off his face and he had the look of “get me the hell out of here.” I couldn’t get him to come over and talk for my life. He didn’t look all that big. He almost looked like a disproportionate bodybuilder in a tight T-shirt. It didn’t help my overall perception that he had a free Power Magazine that was all about himself and how he was a “powerlifting mogul” and all the forced slang and shit in his rag. Didn’t seem like a very humble/people friendly guy.
Malanichev was there, and while he was standing around. He was eating a massive bag of skittles. I called his name and he turned around. I pointed to his bag of skittles and threw him a most muscular pose, then pointed back to the skittles and did a front double bicep. He smiled and laughed real hard. And pointed to the skittles and made a muscle haha. I think he understood that I was trying to convey that it was his skittles that made him strong haha. He offered me some, but I asked for a picture. Despite not knowing more than what I could estimate to be 10 words in english, he was a very nice guy, and as stated before very polite and light-hearted.
I had a good time at the Arnold. Some of it was fantastic. Other parts were a bit disappointing. I think I did a good job of summing up the highs and lows though.
I wish I would have gotten to see a few more people while I was there, but it got too crowded to move, we were sore and tired as hell, and people were starting to piss us off, so we decided to leave.
I also wanted to mention that I watched parts of 2 separate meets. I couldn’t tell if the second one was geared or not. Some of the competitors at the second competition looked like they were having a hard time walking and needed help into their singlets, but I couldn’t tell.
They were on Saturday. They were the SSP Nutrition Raw Bench Challenge, and the Rogue Pro American Invitational.
The weights being moved were crazy. I know that the first competition was raw, but again…I couldn’t tell about the second one.
I noticed that Richard Hawthorne needed some help into his singlet. I mean it looked really tight, and he would have someone take the shoulders down in between attempts. These guys were struggling to get it over his shoulders too. It didn’t look comfortable. He even had to leave for a moment to change into it. I am not sure if his lift was raw.
Malanichev and Dan Green didn’t seem to have this problem.
Now some of these competitors suits were pinching he hell out of their legs. I mean I imagine that when they take those singlets off that there will be huge red marks where the singlet was.
Bear in mind, I have never even used a weightlifting belt. I have no Idea what a squat/deadlift suit looks like, or if there are multiple kinds of them.
Does anyone have any info on this? It was kind of confusing the hell out of me haha. I know always thought Hawthorne was mostly a raw lifter.
Either way, I was absolutely pumped to watch. It looked awesome. I can only imagine how exciting it would be to be up there on stage. I felt like I was having an energy dump just watching.
I really wanted to go this year but it just didn’t mesh with my schedule. Sounds kinda like what I was afraid of, douchers everywhere, string tanks, and not as many as advertised free samples.
Thanks for the writeup.
I was actually in Columbus for the weekend, but for other reasons. I’d kinda forgotten about the Arnold until I saw the signs.
How much did it cost?
[quote]LoRez wrote:
Thanks for the writeup.
I was actually in Columbus for the weekend, but for other reasons. I’d kinda forgotten about the Arnold until I saw the signs.
How much did it cost?[/quote]
It was $10 to park and $15 to get in.
Did you get a slingshot while you were there?!?!
[quote]chobbs wrote:
I really wanted to go this year but it just didn’t mesh with my schedule. Sounds kinda like what I was afraid of, douchers everywhere, string tanks, and not as many as advertised free samples.[/quote]
Some of it was like that, but a lot of it was exactly like that.
Lots of bb.com shirts on little skinny guys for example haha.
[quote]chobbs wrote:
Did you get a slingshot while you were there?!?![/quote]
Unfortunately I did not. They were only $25 and Mark Bell was there to ask questions, but as I said he didn’t look like he wanted to be there.
Also they had like 185 lbs in weight to use, so I wouldn’t have gotten a great trial of it.
I should have just bought one.
Lots of training updates are going to be posted shortly.
The lift from 3/3/14.
Chin Up
10/9/6
5/5/5/5 (Decided to do sets of 5.)
5/5/4 (Neutral grip.)
Face Pull
10x50
10x65
10x80
10x87
10x95
10x95
10x95 (Pain in bicep was exascerbated, so I decided to go down in weight.)
10x87
10x87
10x87
10x87
20x72
20x50
Standing Straight Bar Curl
70 lbs for sets of 10/10/10/10/5
Dumbbell Rear Lateral Raise
20 lb dumbbells for sets of 12/12/12/12/10/10/10
I woke up this day with shooting pains in my left bicep. It didn’t really bother me until face pulls. It would happen at random times, and my hand would get a bit weaker and my wrist would pronate a bit when it would happen. I think I just slept in an awkward position one night. I tried cracking my back and various other things, but nothing worked.
Here is my lift from yesterday. (3/4/14)
Squat
10xBW
5xBW
5x45
5x135
5x185
3x225
5x290 (Felt heavier than they should have in my opinion.)
3x330 (Felt ok.)
5x370 (Big PR. First two were paused. The third was beautiful form TNG. Rounded a bit on 4. Rounded more on 5.)
3x330 (Paused. Easy.)
5x290 (Paused. Child’s play.)
(This is a rep PR, a weight PR, and a paused PR all rolled into one workout.)
Leg Press
10x400
10x490
10x600
1x690 (Used a different leg press. I’ll explain below. Grinder rep.)
(I set this up to be easier on my knee and limit range of motion to where my paused squat is. This lift regressed last week, but due to the different machine and set up, I don’t think I will consider this regression. That was the slowest leg press rep I have ever done, and that was all that I had in the tank for that day. These were with higher foot placement and a relatively narrow stance.)
I rode the exercise bike for 5 minutes at half resistance to cool down.
The left bicep was feeling a bit better. There was a chiropractor at the gym and he looked at my arm. He said that he didn’t think it was a biceps tear and that it was just a pinched nerve like I though.
My knee felt fine the whole lift, and was definitely doing better than last week. The odd thing was that it had a bit of an odd feeling with my squat warm ups, but it was fine with the heavy weight.
If I think of anything else to add I will when I think of it.
I did the limber 11 today (3/5/14) minus the piriformis work because it is hard on my knee. I did some wall sits too.
I may do trap work and shoulders later on tonight.