[quote]csulli wrote:
Hey seems like you’re having a rough patch in your lifting; I really hate to see that man. I’m just gonna throw some shit out there, and hopefully some of it might help you in some way.
I haven’t seen much form talk. Video your lifts and post some of them up and go into some detail on how your form is going on each. What is your bench form like? I do notice you have trouble with the lockout on deadlifts (just like me). What’s your deadlift form like?
It does look like you miss reps too often. It doesn’t really make sense to me why missing reps is so bad, because I always though that just meant you were giving 100% effort. But you’ll just have to trust me and take it from people a lot stronger than us that it’s bad. Ed Coan would set up his meet cycles like 14 weeks out and never miss a single lift going into the meet. If you ask some of the strongest raw lifters out there today how many lifts they’ve missed in training in the last year, I guarantee they could count them on one hand (I think Brandon Lilly said like 2 in an entire year of training). This includes rep maxes and everything. Again, I know it seems like this would just stress your muscles more and make them stronger, but all sources seem to indicate that the negatives outweigh any positives. It is very taxing on your body and perhaps even worse, you are basically practicing failure. You can feel when you’re on your last rep. Don’t try to gut out more than you can successfully complete.
I notice you do the BBB style template where you train the complementary main lift with sets of 10 after the heavier lift sets. Have you ever done it with the same lift each day? Like doing your squats and then BBB squats and bench followed by BBB bench or even some other template all together. I always felt better hitting all legs on one day, all back on one day, etc. rather than mixing it up. Just something to try maybe if you wanted to experiment a little bit. You could also experiment with some different accessory lifts. Pause squats, RDL’s, close grip bench, incline bench, and dips are fantastic.
I think the most important thing by far though is having the right attitude. Seems like your spirit has been a bit drained. Trust your body’s ability and lift like a savage. Fuck your sleep, fuck your drinking, fuck what you ate, fuck if you lost weight (just lift at 198 anyway), if your diet and sleep are shit, it’s not optimal, but that doesn’t mean you need to beat yourself down about it. All of these things are mentally draining you and causing stress and weakness in your body. Just say fuck it, I’m strong and I’m going to go smash some weight. Your body can go without sleep. It can go with subpar nutrition. I think the fact that you get in a bit of a mental rut over this stuff is just as bad or worse as having bad sleep and diet in the first place. More important than your program or your diet or your nutrition is your attitude. Attack the weight like a goddamn animal. I hope I don’t get flamed too badly for saying that lol. I’m not saying it’s okay to have horrible sleep and diet, but if your sleep and diet has been horrible, stressing yourself out over it isn’t going to help shit. Your body is a powerful machine and it can perform if you make it.
Think about that before every set. Don’t ever go through the motions, and don’t ever talk yourself out of lifting intensely because of how weak or sore your body is trying to convince you that you are. I’m guilty of it all the time, but I’m trying to get better as well. You can lay there and do 3 sets of 10 on chest supported rows and that’s fine. But look at Chuck Vogelpohl. When he does 3 sets of 10 on chest supported rows he pulls on it so savagely that the entire front of the apparatus comes off the ground like 2 inches every rep. On paper it’ll look the same, but believe me there’s a huge difference.
Anyway, just a wall of text for some food for thought.[/quote]
I just wish that I had someone just tell me what to do. I dont know how to not miss lifts and progress constantly. I feel like eventually, I am going to miss. I feel like it is inevitable. I have no problem doing it, but I get so carried away with the progress portion of everything, it gets nuts sometimes. As soon as I get a plan down, I am going to deload and hit it again as hard as I can without burning out again. Check out my thread in the PL forum if you haven’t already.
http://tnation.T-Nation.com/hub/trivium#myForums/thread/5638905/
