[quote]phlegms wrote:
Good to see you back at it again Ben! Very much looking forward to future updates. I see you traveled in Ireland a bit, what did you think of the place? I’m always interested to hear what tourists think of Ireland as I’ve lived here for 15-years (ish) and have a pretty strong love/hate relationship with the place… [/quote]
Ireland for me pretty much equaled failed meal experiences haha just about every single meal I had there was a fail with the exception of breakfasts. people were very nice and the countryside was gorgeous, but driving anywhere was a hellish experience… roads were much narrower, there is usually a curb or stone wall instead of a shoulder, your on the opposite side of the road and car so everything feels weird and all the people who were friendly, kind and courteous in person were not that way in their cars haha. plus I couldn’t find any gyms except for the Dublin university rec center which was not the greatest facility for free weights that I have ever seen haha[/quote]
Good stuff man, I pretty much agree with everything you said and this is supposedly my home country! And the Dublin University gym you lifted in is my current gym (I go to college there). I must of been lifting there at some stage when you were hanging around! If I had known you were going to be in Dublin I could of suggested a couple of “off the beaten track” gyms with decent equipment. Small world! [/quote]
haha that’s crazy! wish I woulda known, I tried squatting there but the bars had no knurling and rolled about 3 inches down my back so I scrapped it and focused on benching and pullups. The facility was pretty awesome though if I was prepped to swim or use any of the other things they offer I think I would have gotten much more out of it! P.S. I felt much bigger than just about everyone in the gym but everyone it seemed had huge calves!?!? is that from all the rugby and soccer? I felt calf deficient and yet yoked while I was there haha
[quote]phlegms wrote:
Good to see you back at it again Ben! Very much looking forward to future updates. I see you traveled in Ireland a bit, what did you think of the place? I’m always interested to hear what tourists think of Ireland as I’ve lived here for 15-years (ish) and have a pretty strong love/hate relationship with the place… [/quote]
Ireland for me pretty much equaled failed meal experiences haha just about every single meal I had there was a fail with the exception of breakfasts. people were very nice and the countryside was gorgeous, but driving anywhere was a hellish experience… roads were much narrower, there is usually a curb or stone wall instead of a shoulder, your on the opposite side of the road and car so everything feels weird and all the people who were friendly, kind and courteous in person were not that way in their cars haha. plus I couldn’t find any gyms except for the Dublin university rec center which was not the greatest facility for free weights that I have ever seen haha[/quote]
Good stuff man, I pretty much agree with everything you said and this is supposedly my home country! And the Dublin University gym you lifted in is my current gym (I go to college there). I must of been lifting there at some stage when you were hanging around! If I had known you were going to be in Dublin I could of suggested a couple of “off the beaten track” gyms with decent equipment. Small world! [/quote]
haha that’s crazy! wish I woulda known, I tried squatting there but the bars had no knurling and rolled about 3 inches down my back so I scrapped it and focused on benching and pullups. The facility was pretty awesome though if I was prepped to swim or use any of the other things they offer I think I would have gotten much more out of it! P.S. I felt much bigger than just about everyone in the gym but everyone it seemed had huge calves!?!? is that from all the rugby and soccer? I felt calf deficient and yet yoked while I was there haha[/quote]
It really is a terrible place to squat, the cages they have don’t seem to cater for average sized dudes so you either have to calf raise up to get the bar or dip down too low for it. It kinda sucks! And don’t let the calf sizes of the rugby team fool you, I’ve been there during coaching sessions with the team. The squats they were doing are more of a calf raise than a squat in terms of depth! I can imagine how huge you would of felt in there, I’m only 170lbs and most of the time I feel like one of the more jacked dudes in there haha! Overall, fantastic university, terrible gym!
[quote]phlegms wrote:
Good to see you back at it again Ben! Very much looking forward to future updates. I see you traveled in Ireland a bit, what did you think of the place? I’m always interested to hear what tourists think of Ireland as I’ve lived here for 15-years (ish) and have a pretty strong love/hate relationship with the place… [/quote]
Ireland for me pretty much equaled failed meal experiences haha just about every single meal I had there was a fail with the exception of breakfasts. people were very nice and the countryside was gorgeous, but driving anywhere was a hellish experience… roads were much narrower, there is usually a curb or stone wall instead of a shoulder, your on the opposite side of the road and car so everything feels weird and all the people who were friendly, kind and courteous in person were not that way in their cars haha. plus I couldn’t find any gyms except for the Dublin university rec center which was not the greatest facility for free weights that I have ever seen haha[/quote]
Good stuff man, I pretty much agree with everything you said and this is supposedly my home country! And the Dublin University gym you lifted in is my current gym (I go to college there). I must of been lifting there at some stage when you were hanging around! If I had known you were going to be in Dublin I could of suggested a couple of “off the beaten track” gyms with decent equipment. Small world! [/quote]
haha that’s crazy! wish I woulda known, I tried squatting there but the bars had no knurling and rolled about 3 inches down my back so I scrapped it and focused on benching and pullups. The facility was pretty awesome though if I was prepped to swim or use any of the other things they offer I think I would have gotten much more out of it! P.S. I felt much bigger than just about everyone in the gym but everyone it seemed had huge calves!?!? is that from all the rugby and soccer? I felt calf deficient and yet yoked while I was there haha[/quote]
It really is a terrible place to squat, the cages they have don’t seem to cater for average sized dudes so you either have to calf raise up to get the bar or dip down too low for it. It kinda sucks! And don’t let the calf sizes of the rugby team fool you, I’ve been there during coaching sessions with the team. The squats they were doing are more of a calf raise than a squat in terms of depth! I can imagine how huge you would of felt in there, I’m only 170lbs and most of the time I feel like one of the more jacked dudes in there haha! Overall, fantastic university, terrible gym! [/quote]
haha I guess we are in a sense of general agreement for the situation as it pertains to the gym , So you good sir have my utmost respect to be able to do work in there, I have always felt spoiled training at my home gym but it was never more obvious than when I was accross the pond
Talk about a 180…
Today was the exact opposite of yesterday in terms of training session… I actually had a great workout and was able to finish it, apparently 3 weeks in europe destroyed my squat but my bench and deads were left pretty unscathed! booyah!
Close grip Bench
185x5
225x5
250x4x2
265x3x2
285x2x3 (paused both reps on each of these)
265x3x2
250x4
215x6
185x8
Deads (let the surprise begin!)
135x3
225x3
315x3
365x4
425x4
add belt
495x3x2
565x3
635x2x3 (what the heck?)
635x3 (seriously blew away my expectations since my squat was so negatively affected by the vacation)
various tricep movements
10x5
Toes to bar
10x3
posing practice
I have lost about 8 lbs since I left 3 weeks ago so I need to work on getting some of that back so that I can cut for the meet instead of trying to bulk for it haha all in all I’m ecstatic with how today went. My deads should have been as screwed up as my squats but they survived the break and while my bar speed wasn’t what I’m used to it being the weights kept moving and so I can’t complain. This is a good sign for how things are getting back on track, I’m excited as opposed to yesterday when I was depressed haha
decided to put together a bigger hi light/catch up video of my last few sessions both right before my trip and now after may take me a day or too sorry for the lack of vids but I hope it’ll all be more epic as a result!
great log mate, not suprised you couldnt find a decent place to train over here. im incredibly lucky with where i am.
just a quick question - what would you say kept you lean while eating for sheiko and powerlifting in general?
[quote]caveman101 wrote:
great log mate, not suprised you couldnt find a decent place to train over here. im incredibly lucky with where i am.
just a quick question - what would you say kept you lean while eating for sheiko and powerlifting in general? [/quote]
quick answer while running sheiko I could pretty much eat anything and stay lean the crazy high volume keeps my metabolism through the roof and gaining weight is a really slow process on it so I generally stayed pretty lean. Regardless I try to keep my diet clean year round. I usually avoid fried, foods highly processed foods, and sugar except pre and post workout. When I want to cut a little bit of weight and lean up a bit more I throw in about 10-12 min of HIIT cardio a day in the form of stairs. (I’m a big proponent in quality over quantity when cardio is concerned) overall the high amount of clean less processed food combined with the high volume workload keeps me pretty lean year round. I can go into more detail if you’d like but that’s the basic outline of what I do.
quick write up before bed…
Squat session #2 back in the states, because of my schedule I have had to squish my sessions together and today marked 4 in a row… you can guess I’m not a fan of easing back into it… anyway yesterday I hit a bunch of crossfit workouts with my Best friend Adam Bighill who has a week off from playing in the CFL and came down and stayed with me. Crossfit with a Pro football player is brutal nuff said. Either way i sucked it up and hit squats today and it was better but not great still.
Close Grip Bench
135x5
185x5
215x4
250x3x2
285x3x5 (paused every rep and long paused every final rep Bench is feeling great)
Squats
135x5
225x3
315x5
365x4
425x3x2
add belt
485x3x2 (was not digging how these felt so I called an audible)
405x3x2 (super deep Paused squats)
405x5 (^^^^^)
Close grip Bench round 2
190x5
230x5
265x4x3
265x7 (just gassed at this point )
Flys SS w/ leg press
45x10x5
4 PPSx8x5
Made it through in 1 piece despite the horrible feeling squats. I was not really mad with the squats because the reps I did (however difficult) were all legit my form was breaking down from fatigue but I didn’t cheat any reps this whole workout so I know that I am putting in the work I need to get better. My movie maker is still all jacked up so I may have to resort back to some less hi-tech vids to get these up but I am keeping track of them all. I’m off to bed now to wake up bright and early to head to kent for a deadlift session with my good buddy Pro LW Strongman Zack McCarley. I don’t have a plan so this one should just be fun. I’ll be starting another 6 week Sheiko training block on monday to prep for my meet. the plan is to work just as hard as I did in this run through, get just as strong or stronger) and then NOT LEAVE THE COUNTRY FOR 3 WEEKS RIGHT IN THE MIDST OF MY ALL TIME STRONGEST AND BECOME WEAK AGAIN… Should be easy with the fire I have lit in me right now
[quote]pbclax1 wrote:
NIce work brotha, are you still running sheiko?[/quote]
Yup, just finished my last training block. Starting up my next one either tomorrow or Tuesday depending on how my shoulder is feeling. After 4 weeks of running it before I reached what I would consider my all time strongest just before leaving. I am about 8 weeks out and will run another 6 week block and then reassess at 2 weeks out to see what my body really needs going into the meet
[quote]pbclax1 wrote:
NIce work brotha, are you still running sheiko?[/quote]
Yup, just finished my last training block. Starting up my next one either tomorrow or Tuesday depending on how my shoulder is feeling. After 4 weeks of running it before I reached what I would consider my all time strongest just before leaving. I am about 8 weeks out and will run another 6 week block and then reassess at 2 weeks out to see what my body really needs going into the meet[/quote]
Nice man, what meet are you doing?
[quote]pbclax1 wrote:
NIce work brotha, are you still running sheiko?[/quote]
Yup, just finished my last training block. Starting up my next one either tomorrow or Tuesday depending on how my shoulder is feeling. After 4 weeks of running it before I reached what I would consider my all time strongest just before leaving. I am about 8 weeks out and will run another 6 week block and then reassess at 2 weeks out to see what my body really needs going into the meet[/quote]
Nice man, what meet are you doing?[/quote]
My buddy Justin Randal is putting on an SPF meet in Lynwood WA on Oct 15th that I am planning on hitting my RAW 1700+ at 198. I did his meet last year and won my class but went 4 for 9. A combination of a 30 lb cut and some training mistakes I had made set me up for some disappointment (squat depth and butt movement on the bench) I promised myself that it would never happen again and I would prove it t the same meet.
[quote]pbclax1 wrote:
NIce work brotha, are you still running sheiko?[/quote]
Yup, just finished my last training block. Starting up my next one either tomorrow or Tuesday depending on how my shoulder is feeling. After 4 weeks of running it before I reached what I would consider my all time strongest just before leaving. I am about 8 weeks out and will run another 6 week block and then reassess at 2 weeks out to see what my body really needs going into the meet[/quote]
Nice man, what meet are you doing?[/quote]
My buddy Justin Randal is putting on an SPF meet in Lynwood WA on Oct 15th that I am planning on hitting my RAW 1700+ at 198. I did his meet last year and won my class but went 4 for 9. A combination of a 30 lb cut and some training mistakes I had made set me up for some disappointment (squat depth and butt movement on the bench) I promised myself that it would never happen again and I would prove it t the same meet.[/quote]
You’re gonna kill it man. Looking forward to reading about it.
[quote]mmatt wrote:
Have you always pulled sumo or was there a transitory period?[/quote]
When I first started deadlifting in my weights class at school my coach told us to try both forms and see which was most comfortable. This is the method for picking a form that I still recommend to any beginning lifter. once we decided which felt the most natural to us we went with that one. A few years later I started heavily implementing conventional pulls into my training to balance some weaknesses and so my conventional pull has developed alongside my sumo pull (625 conv. Raw untested in a few years/705 sumo Raw), but as long s I keep training them both I feel like my sumo still feels more natural and so I will keep using it as my primary pulling form.
[quote]pbclax1 wrote:
NIce work brotha, are you still running sheiko?[/quote]
Yup, just finished my last training block. Starting up my next one either tomorrow or Tuesday depending on how my shoulder is feeling. After 4 weeks of running it before I reached what I would consider my all time strongest just before leaving. I am about 8 weeks out and will run another 6 week block and then reassess at 2 weeks out to see what my body really needs going into the meet[/quote]
Nice man, what meet are you doing?[/quote]
My buddy Justin Randal is putting on an SPF meet in Lynwood WA on Oct 15th that I am planning on hitting my RAW 1700+ at 198. I did his meet last year and won my class but went 4 for 9. A combination of a 30 lb cut and some training mistakes I had made set me up for some disappointment (squat depth and butt movement on the bench) I promised myself that it would never happen again and I would prove it t the same meet.[/quote]
You’re gonna kill it man. Looking forward to reading about it.[/quote]
Thanks brotha, looking forward to hitting it hard!
while running sheiko I could pretty much eat anything and stay lean the crazy high volume keeps my metabolism through the roof and gaining weight is a really slow process on it so I generally stayed pretty lean. Regardless I try to keep my diet clean year round. I usually avoid fried, foods highly processed foods, and sugar except pre and post workout. When I want to cut a little bit of weight and lean up a bit more I throw in about 10-12 min of HIIT cardio a day in the form of stairs. (I’m a big proponent in quality over quantity when cardio is concerned) overall the high amount of clean less processed food combined with the high volume workload keeps me pretty lean year round. I can go into more detail if you’d like but that’s the basic outline of what I do.