8 February 2011
Today's squat workout was weak, like the benching yesterday. Last week both went pretty well, so this was pretty surprising.
Squat:
Warmup 3 sets
285 lbs. x 3 (felt great)
325 lbs. x 3 (surprisingly heavy)
365 lbs. x 5 reps
Each rep of that last set felt like a maximum effort and no. 5 almost buried me. Considering that I squatted 380 for an easy six reps only two weeks ago this is pretty disheartening. That said, I have been running a caloric deficit for about two weeks now, perhaps the lack of food is finally starting to catch up with me.
Super-deep narrow-stance squats 225 lbs. x 4, x 3, x 3
Leg press:
4 plates x 6
5 plates x 5
6 plates x 5
5 plates x 5
Bent-legged good-morning: 135 lbs. x 5, 185 lbs. x 3 sets x 5
Weighted abdominal work on incline board 3 sets
Tuesday, February 8, 2011
Monday, February 7, 2011
Kepler Telescope: Finally Doing The Right Thing
Heard about this on the awesome Bill Maher show, and it's unbelievable:
Kepler Telescope
After all the cash spent in assorted douchebaggery, mankind takes a step in the right direction. Perhaps the number of people "into crazy" is going down.
"Kepler Mission Scientific Objective:
The scientific objective of the Kepler Mission is to explore the structure and diversity of planetary systems. This is achieved by surveying a large sample of stars to:
1. Determine the abundance of terrestrial and larger planets in or near the habitable zone of a wide variety of stars;
2. Determine the distribution of sizes and shapes of the orbits of these planets;
3. Estimate how many planets there are in multiple-star systems;
4. Determine the variety of orbit sizes and planet reflectivities, sizes, masses and densities of short-period giant planets;
5. Identify additional members of each discovered planetary system using other techniques; and
6. Determine the properties of those stars that harbor planetary systems"
Science one, idiotism zero (it's still way ahead, but we're getting there).
Stay intelligent!
Kepler Telescope
After all the cash spent in assorted douchebaggery, mankind takes a step in the right direction. Perhaps the number of people "into crazy" is going down.
"Kepler Mission Scientific Objective:
The scientific objective of the Kepler Mission is to explore the structure and diversity of planetary systems. This is achieved by surveying a large sample of stars to:
1. Determine the abundance of terrestrial and larger planets in or near the habitable zone of a wide variety of stars;
2. Determine the distribution of sizes and shapes of the orbits of these planets;
3. Estimate how many planets there are in multiple-star systems;
4. Determine the variety of orbit sizes and planet reflectivities, sizes, masses and densities of short-period giant planets;
5. Identify additional members of each discovered planetary system using other techniques; and
6. Determine the properties of those stars that harbor planetary systems"
Science one, idiotism zero (it's still way ahead, but we're getting there).
Stay intelligent!
New 5/3/1 Program - Week 5, Day 1
7 February 2011
Decided to make some changes to my weekly schedule:
Pressing was lacklustre - probably due to excessive pressing volume in the past week; combined with the bottoms-up work I've started doing it will probably take some adaptation. However, I don't want my main lifts to suffer, so I'm reducing the number of reps and adding weight to my dips. Pullups I can still handle.
Abdominal work - I have been doing it almost daily, both in the gym after lifting and at home. This is too much. I will do one heavy day (incline board situps with weights behind head) and one regular day (incline board situps at different angles of elevation and/or hanging leg raises), then perhaps just a single set on the other days. I think the volume is doing my lower back in.
Lower back is sore by the time I get to deadlifting, which equals shitty deadlift performance; for some reason grip is weak too - I don't know how to deal with this one, it's probably due to the high (for me) volume of kettlebell work I've added in on Saturdays. I will keep at it and just hope it goes away. Alternatively there is a good deadlift program that I'd like to try - keep doing 5/3/1 for the other 3 lifts but switch to this one for the deadlift.
Anyway, today's toils:
Bench press:
Warmup 2 sets
215 lbs x 3
245 lbs x 3
275 lbs x 7 (felt a good 10 lbs. heavier)
Bottom-position bench press:
225 lbs x 2
235 lbs x 2
245 lbs x 1
255 lbs x 1
275 lbs x 1
285 lbs x fail
So now I have set a goal of bottom-up benching 285 lbs.
Pullups 5x5
Dips unweighted 1 set x 10, +45 lbs. x 4 sets x 5
EZ bar bicep curls 3 sets
Barbell skullcrushers 3 sets
Preacher curl machine 3 sets
Tricep pushdown 3 sets
Incline board situps 3 sets
Decided to make some changes to my weekly schedule:
Pressing was lacklustre - probably due to excessive pressing volume in the past week; combined with the bottoms-up work I've started doing it will probably take some adaptation. However, I don't want my main lifts to suffer, so I'm reducing the number of reps and adding weight to my dips. Pullups I can still handle.
Abdominal work - I have been doing it almost daily, both in the gym after lifting and at home. This is too much. I will do one heavy day (incline board situps with weights behind head) and one regular day (incline board situps at different angles of elevation and/or hanging leg raises), then perhaps just a single set on the other days. I think the volume is doing my lower back in.
Lower back is sore by the time I get to deadlifting, which equals shitty deadlift performance; for some reason grip is weak too - I don't know how to deal with this one, it's probably due to the high (for me) volume of kettlebell work I've added in on Saturdays. I will keep at it and just hope it goes away. Alternatively there is a good deadlift program that I'd like to try - keep doing 5/3/1 for the other 3 lifts but switch to this one for the deadlift.
Anyway, today's toils:
Bench press:
Warmup 2 sets
215 lbs x 3
245 lbs x 3
275 lbs x 7 (felt a good 10 lbs. heavier)
Bottom-position bench press:
225 lbs x 2
235 lbs x 2
245 lbs x 1
255 lbs x 1
275 lbs x 1
285 lbs x fail
So now I have set a goal of bottom-up benching 285 lbs.
Pullups 5x5
Dips unweighted 1 set x 10, +45 lbs. x 4 sets x 5
EZ bar bicep curls 3 sets
Barbell skullcrushers 3 sets
Preacher curl machine 3 sets
Tricep pushdown 3 sets
Incline board situps 3 sets
Saturday, February 5, 2011
Kettlebell and Cable Madness!
5 February 2011
Today I did the kettlebell work first. It was simple and straight-forward:
One-arm KB swings @ 35 lbs. x 200 reps (100 per arm), interrupted several times to gasp for air
One-arm KB clean and military press (cleaned twice, then pressed one after the second clean): 53 lbs. - 62 lbs. - 70 lbs. - 78 lbs. Repeated once for each arm.
Much easier than cleaning and pressing a dumbbell of equivalent weight. The 78 lb. kettlebell went up easily even with my left arm.
As for cables, I did something from the Syd Devis book All About Strand-Pulling - his third month course. I will from now on follow this progression in my cable training - best to heed the words of a champion expander puller and notable oldtime strongman:
One-arm FCP, anyhow - resistance used: three orange cables (OOO)
One-arm upward push, anyhow - two greens and a yellow (GYG)
Two-arms FCP, anyhow - two yellows and an orange (YOY)
Two-arms back press, anyhow - GOG
Dislocation, anyhow - double oranges
Overhead downward pull, knuckles out (substituted for press behind neck) - YRY
Two-arms upward front chest pull, legs apart - double reds
One-arm military press - double greens (too light - next time I'll try triple reds)
Assistance exercises:
Front lateral raise - double reds x 10
Bicep curl - ROR x 10 per arm
Behind-the-back lateral raise - single orange x 10
Some of these exercises are new to me, it was an interesting experiment. As prescribed, I did all of these for five consecutive reps and will be adding one rep until I get to 10, after which I will add resistance.
This should be a good alternative routine, I had stalled on the one I was doing before which just consisted of rest-pause sets with as much resistance as I could use. Hopefully the wisdom of Syd Devis will help me out of the slump.
Today I did the kettlebell work first. It was simple and straight-forward:
One-arm KB swings @ 35 lbs. x 200 reps (100 per arm), interrupted several times to gasp for air
One-arm KB clean and military press (cleaned twice, then pressed one after the second clean): 53 lbs. - 62 lbs. - 70 lbs. - 78 lbs. Repeated once for each arm.
Much easier than cleaning and pressing a dumbbell of equivalent weight. The 78 lb. kettlebell went up easily even with my left arm.
As for cables, I did something from the Syd Devis book All About Strand-Pulling - his third month course. I will from now on follow this progression in my cable training - best to heed the words of a champion expander puller and notable oldtime strongman:
One-arm FCP, anyhow - resistance used: three orange cables (OOO)
One-arm upward push, anyhow - two greens and a yellow (GYG)
Two-arms FCP, anyhow - two yellows and an orange (YOY)
Two-arms back press, anyhow - GOG
Dislocation, anyhow - double oranges
Overhead downward pull, knuckles out (substituted for press behind neck) - YRY
Two-arms upward front chest pull, legs apart - double reds
One-arm military press - double greens (too light - next time I'll try triple reds)
Assistance exercises:
Front lateral raise - double reds x 10
Bicep curl - ROR x 10 per arm
Behind-the-back lateral raise - single orange x 10
Some of these exercises are new to me, it was an interesting experiment. As prescribed, I did all of these for five consecutive reps and will be adding one rep until I get to 10, after which I will add resistance.
This should be a good alternative routine, I had stalled on the one I was doing before which just consisted of rest-pause sets with as much resistance as I could use. Hopefully the wisdom of Syd Devis will help me out of the slump.
Friday, February 4, 2011
New 5/3/1 Program - Week 4, Day 4
4 February 2011
Deadlift:
Warmup 2 sets
255 lbs. x 5
295 lbs. x 5
335 lbs. x 13 reps (a puker)
One-arm DB rows @ 105 lbs. x 15 each arm (rest-pause)
Back raise 3 sets x 10
Leg curl 3 sets
Breathing KB shrug 35 reps from 26 to 70 lbs. and back
Hanging leg raise 3 sets
Ab wheel rollouts from knees 2 sets
My deadlift is suffering from being the last exercise of the week - the lower back is severely beat up by the time I get to it. Will have to figure out a way around this. Grip is also fried and I feel the bar slipping even at light weights. Fewer sets of abdominal work will also be in order.
Deadlift:
Warmup 2 sets
255 lbs. x 5
295 lbs. x 5
335 lbs. x 13 reps (a puker)
One-arm DB rows @ 105 lbs. x 15 each arm (rest-pause)
Back raise 3 sets x 10
Leg curl 3 sets
Breathing KB shrug 35 reps from 26 to 70 lbs. and back
Hanging leg raise 3 sets
Ab wheel rollouts from knees 2 sets
My deadlift is suffering from being the last exercise of the week - the lower back is severely beat up by the time I get to it. Will have to figure out a way around this. Grip is also fried and I feel the bar slipping even at light weights. Fewer sets of abdominal work will also be in order.
Yuri Vlasov, Author?
One of my favorite blogs just published an old interview with weightlifting great Yuri Vlasov.
Apparently this superb lifter, who set twenty-eight world records and won two Olympic medals (a gold and a silver), four World and six consecutive European championships in his sport of choice, was also a distinguished and published writer. Considered a nerd due to his bespectacled appearance, Vlasov, by profession a radio engineer, went on to crush all stereotypes both about weightlifters and about men of education.
Not to be accused of slowing down, six years ago (at the age of seventy) he lifted 185 kgs in a Masters' competition. And is still writing. A true legend.
Apparently this superb lifter, who set twenty-eight world records and won two Olympic medals (a gold and a silver), four World and six consecutive European championships in his sport of choice, was also a distinguished and published writer. Considered a nerd due to his bespectacled appearance, Vlasov, by profession a radio engineer, went on to crush all stereotypes both about weightlifters and about men of education.
Not to be accused of slowing down, six years ago (at the age of seventy) he lifted 185 kgs in a Masters' competition. And is still writing. A true legend.
Thursday, February 3, 2011
Starting Strength - An Alternate Approach
First of all I would like to state that the topic "Starting Strength" has nothing to do with the well-known, excellent book by Mark Rippetoe on teaching the powerlifts plus the overhead press (but I would recommend everyone read this book, which can be found here; and no, I am not making any money off promoting M. Rippetoe's work - I recommend the book because it's great).
What I have been playing around with recently is developing the most important part of any lifting movement - the commencement of the lift. This would be the racked position in the overhead press, the bar placed on the chest in the bench press, "the hole" in the squat, bar on the floor in the deadlift, etc. In all the mentioned examples except the deadlift, the lifter performs an eccentric motion before the concentric part and makes use of the stretch reflex to assist him/her in the concentric portion. The overhead press performed from the rack does not benefit from this effect, but if the weight is pressed after a clean some of this stretch-shortening does occur. In the bench press and the squat this effect is especially prominent. As a consequence, the starting position (e.g. push off chest in the bench press) is often undertrained.
I believe that were a lifter to improve his or her starting strength (i.e. the power developed in the start of the motion), the "regular" full-range lift will increase too. More power off the bottom in the squat equals better bar acceleration, hence the easier overcoming of the dreaded "sticking point". This is by no means my idea, as it has been espoused for years in the writings of authorities like Brooks Kubik. I have selected the following exercises to help me develop better "starting strength":
Bench press - press from the bottom position to lockout
Overhead press - press from racked position to eye level
Squat - deep squats several inches below parallel alternated with bottom-position squats (both work very well, especially with a pronounced pause at the bottom)
Today's training:
Clean&Press:
Warmup 1 set
130 lbs x 5
150 lbs x 5
170 lbs x 12 reps
Press from "rack" to eye level:
135 lbs x 5
165 lbs x 5
185 lbs x 4
205 lbs x 3
Pullups 6 sets x 5
Dips 5 sets x 10
Incline bench DB curls 5 sets
Tricep pushdowns 3 sets
Preacher curl machine 4 sets
Incline abdominal board situps 1 set
What I have been playing around with recently is developing the most important part of any lifting movement - the commencement of the lift. This would be the racked position in the overhead press, the bar placed on the chest in the bench press, "the hole" in the squat, bar on the floor in the deadlift, etc. In all the mentioned examples except the deadlift, the lifter performs an eccentric motion before the concentric part and makes use of the stretch reflex to assist him/her in the concentric portion. The overhead press performed from the rack does not benefit from this effect, but if the weight is pressed after a clean some of this stretch-shortening does occur. In the bench press and the squat this effect is especially prominent. As a consequence, the starting position (e.g. push off chest in the bench press) is often undertrained.
I believe that were a lifter to improve his or her starting strength (i.e. the power developed in the start of the motion), the "regular" full-range lift will increase too. More power off the bottom in the squat equals better bar acceleration, hence the easier overcoming of the dreaded "sticking point". This is by no means my idea, as it has been espoused for years in the writings of authorities like Brooks Kubik. I have selected the following exercises to help me develop better "starting strength":
Bench press - press from the bottom position to lockout
Overhead press - press from racked position to eye level
Squat - deep squats several inches below parallel alternated with bottom-position squats (both work very well, especially with a pronounced pause at the bottom)
Today's training:
Clean&Press:
Warmup 1 set
130 lbs x 5
150 lbs x 5
170 lbs x 12 reps
Press from "rack" to eye level:
135 lbs x 5
165 lbs x 5
185 lbs x 4
205 lbs x 3
Pullups 6 sets x 5
Dips 5 sets x 10
Incline bench DB curls 5 sets
Tricep pushdowns 3 sets
Preacher curl machine 4 sets
Incline abdominal board situps 1 set
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