They are good for flexibility/all around athleticism but as far as carryover to the big 3, i doubt overhead squats are going to do anything significant.
They are good for flexibility/all around athleticism but as far as carryover to the big 3, i doubt overhead squats are going to do anything significant.
That's a fair point. I may just use them as part of an extended warmup, since I'm not using all that much weight anyway.
Heavy Upper (1-rep week)
Bench Press: 5@135, 3@185, 1@225, 245, 255, 2@262
Dumbbell Bench: 10, 8, 7 @ 100
Cable Row: 4x12@170
Face Pulls: 2x15@80
Rear Delt Flys: 2x12@80
I got this weird feeling of joint soreness on my left elbow for my last set of benches. I've had the same thing happen to me before. I think I must have a tendon or something that's snapping over my elbow joint to make it feel that way. Regardless, it's not a bit deal, but it does feel funny.
Some of the last few cable rows were cheated. I'm still not used to doing such high reps, but hopefully it does something good for upper back mass.
Yikes. A month without doing heavy lower body work has made me much weaker. I couldn't even hit a set of 5 at 315 for back squats (and I'm not even sure I hit depth for all of them, but my back squats were always a little weak.), and the deadlifts at 365 felt hard. 365 is usually an easy warmup weight for me.
Next week is deload week, then it's back to heavy lifting again. I'm looking forward to getting back to my program.
I may have to adjust the weights I use for my lower body work, since I estimate that my maxes have fallen by (maybe) 30 pounds or so on each, maybe more for the deadlift.
If I actually take Wendler's suggestion and do 85% of 90% for my next 5-rep week, that should come out to 279 and 363 for the squat and deadlift respectively using my old maxes, which seems doable. I should probably do the same for my bench (using 275 as my max, so 210 as my 5-rep working weight), but I kind of like putting up heavy weights. Perhaps my ego has gotten the better of me...
Light Upper (Deload week)
Speed Bench: 8x2@145 (no bands today)
Close-Grip Bench: 3x4@215
Pullup: 4x5@50
Military Press: 3x4@140
EZ Bar Preacher Curl: 2x4@80
I never feel like I'm doing anything to my body during the deload weeks, the two that I've had anyway, but I suppose that's the point. The elbow thing is still there, but it's nothing serious and went away after the speed benches, which I guess acted as a warmup.
Light Lower (Deload week)
Speed Squat: 8x2@185
Power Clean: 2@70kg, 80kg, 90kg, 5@100kg (easy, bwahahaha)
Front Squat: 2x4@225
Oly Squat: 2x4@225
Power cleans went up real easy. It's good to be able to do them again.
There's definitely something funky going on with my lower back and front squats. This last injury happened after a set of front squats. This time, again, I felt something pull funny during a front squat set, but I wisely stopped before I injured myself (again). This is odd, because I thought front squats were supposed to put less pressure on your lower back, not more. The pulling sensation seems to come from a horizontal muscle from my spine to the top-left of my left glute.
The only things I can think of are (1) I'm rounding my back slightly at the bottom (which is when the pulling sensation happens) and (2) I'm not bracing my core sufficiently. With back squats, even deep back squats, I'm perfectly fine except for the first set right after front squats, when a little residual pain lingers.
Plus, I forgot to do abs today. Whoops. That's what I get for using an online log only and not updating my written one any more!
I certainly hope so! The last time this happened, I was putting up some new PRs a few months after, but that was when I switched over to PL-style squatting instead of Oly-style squatting. My deadlift might have gone up marginally as well.
My back is still a little funky from Thursday's front squats, but it's not so bad that I can't lift. The pistols were easier than usual, probably because of the light weight from the previous "heavy" sets and the new shoes.
Based on my workout from 5/10, I'm thinking that it may not be a good idea to jump right back into the weights I was using previously, so here's my plan. For the bench press, I'll stick with my current weight (using 280 as my new max, 275+5). For the squat and deadlift, I'll be using 90% of my old max as my max for the next cycle, so 328.5 and 427.5 for the squat and deadlift respectively. I'll be increasing the maxes by 20 lbs per cycle until I reach my old weight, after which I'll go back down to 10lb jumps.
This weekend is Memorial Day weekend, and I'll be down in NY to see my brother, so I plan on going M,T,T,F instead of T,T,S,S. Thankfully, this past week was a deload week so I won't run the risk of going too heavy too frequently.
Felt the onset of a headache after the first set of military presses, so I took it a little easy after that. Plus, my back is bothering me (again, arg!) a little, but not so much that I'm going to skip workouts. I think it just needs some good stretching and foam rolling. I don't think it's serious because, like last time, I can stretch out the pain.
Light Lower (5-rep week)
Speed Squat: 8x2@185
Power Clean: 2@70, 80, 90, 1@100kg*
Overhead Squat:** 2x8@60kg
Oly Squat: 2x8@225
* Couldn't do more than 1 without my back acting up too much. The second one failed because I couldn't generate enough power. Blegh. Fortunately, I didn't reinjure myself. If anything, it felt better after than before. Bizarre.
** No front squats. Something about front squat bar placement makes my back flare up wickedly, so I'll replace then with overhead squats for now.
Yay on the bench press. There wasn't much (if any) pause at the bottom, and I did fewer warm-up sets, so that probably explains the higher reps, but it feels good anyway.
Boo on the dumbbell bench. Part of the reason for the (much) lower reps is that I tried to get a 10th rep on the bench press and failed completely. Still, I'm willing to give up a few reps on the dumbbell bench for a few pounds on the bench press.
Cable Row reps fluctuate because I'm not very strict with the last few reps of each set, and whether I stop the set or not depends on how strict I feel with myself.
(Currently posting from my Blackberry on the bus.)
Heavy Lower (5-rep week)
Back Squat: 5@135, 225, 10@280
Deadlift: 5@135, 225, 315, 10@365
Pistols: 3x8@1
Ab rollouts: 3x5 (well, 5 5 3, since I cheated by moving the bar under my shoulders for the last two)
Light Upper (3-rep week)
Speed Bench: 8x3@60kg + red bands
Close-Grip Bench: 7, 8, 6 @ 215
Pullup: 10, 9, 8, 7 @ 50
Military Press: 8, 7, 5 @ 145
EZ Bar Preacher Curl: 2x8@80
I had an experienced powerlifter check my form while doing speed benches. Here is a list of things I need to keep track of:
Tuck elbows (make sure that my upper arms are pressed against my lats)
Foot placement (move my feet further back)
Hands in (my original hand placement was a little too wide for tucked elbows)
Shoulders back and down (there should be an arch across my upper back as well as along my spine)
Slower descent
Watch wrist drift (for some reason, my forearms tend to drift toward my head at the bottom of the bench)
And maybe some other stuff that I forgot. That's a lot of stuff! Tucking elbows definitely helped, though. I have pretty big lats compared to the rest of me, and the weight I was using was much easier at the bottom of the lift.
I've been stalled with close-grip bench for a while. Sometimes, I feel like I should just go to 225 and damn the consequences. I tend to have bigger problems reaching rep targets than weight targets.
Heavy Upper (3-rep week)
Bench Press: 3@135, 185, 225, 5@250
Dumbbell Bench: 10, 8, 6 @ 100
Cable Row: 4x12@170
Face Pull: 2x15@80
Rear Delt Fly: 2x12@90
I could have gotten a few more reps on the bench press, but I stopped for no reason that I can remember now. Otherwise, an uneventful workout. It was shorter than usual (I finished in less than an hour), so I must have taken shorter rest periods, but I don't usually time those anyway.
Heavy Lower (3-rep week)
Back Squat: 3@135, 225, 275, 4@315
Deadlift: 3@135, 225, 315, 365, 6@405
Pistols: 3x8@0
Ab Wheel Rollouts: 3x5
Wow, my back squats suck. I thought part of it was the injury, but maybe I'm just weak. I'll have to figure something out if I want them to catch up to my deadlift. I think my back squat and deadlift maxes are about 120lbs apart right now, which, for the weight I'm moving, is pretty big.
I probably had a few more reps in me for the deadlift, but I decided to call it after 6 reps because I wasn't sure I could maintain good form.
Speed bench felt ok. I'm not normally able to move 145 as quickly as I did today, so I think I'm doing something right. Unfortunately, nobody was around to check my form.
I decided to go up to 225 for close-grip benching because 215 wasn't going anywhere. The reps were a little bouncy, so I probably got a few more reps that I otherwise would have if I had used a slight pause at the bottom.
Something funky happened to my elbow during speech benches. It's the same problem as before (a sore tendon of some sort), so it should be fine in a few hours, but it did put a damper on the rest of the workout.
Pullups were ok only. I ate something that disagreed with me slightly for lunch, so I was getting a little woozy.
I may have misremembered the number of reps I did for the military press, as it's a bit higher than normal.
On another note, I saw a guy doing easy sets of 5 with 455 on the back squat, going to good depth (definitely past parallel, but not quite a full ATG squat). Apparently, he's going to be training at my gym for the whole summer, so there's yet another person I can learn from and/or train with. Good stuff. It makes a huge difference to me when I train with people who are stronger than I am. It's hard to get motivated when everyone else around you is doing foo-foo exercises.
Light Lower (1-rep week)
Speed Squat: 8x3@185
Power Clean: 2@70kg, 80kg, 90kg, 100kg
Full Clean: 3@110kg
Overhead Squat: 2x8@70kg
Oly Squat: 2x8@255
Ab Pulldowns: 15, 15, 10 @ 190
Woodchoppers: 3x15@50
I felt weak today. I moved more weight than usual, but it was not with the (very little) speed and coordination that I usually have.
Cleans felt OK. My elbow was acting up a bit from whatever I did to it when benching last Saturday. It felt good to do a 110kg full clean. I should be able to power clean that for at least a single, but it feels like 110kg is close to my max right now, which I guess isn't too surprising. I'll hopefully be back to 120kg sometime in the future, but I don't plan to train for this specifically for a while.
My grip was too wide for the first set of overhead squats, which made my shoulders a bit unstable. The second set was actually easier than the first.
Back squats were good. Only a little niggling pain in my left lower back.
Bah, I should have gotten more on the bench press. 2 reps is no improvement from a couple months ago. My elbow was acting up a bit as well. I'm glad next week is a deload week. The gym I usually go to will be closed during the weekdays next week, so I think I'm going to go even lighter than a normal deload week.
This was a pretty good workout. I think I'm almost fully repaired now, so no more excuses . I had a little left in the tank for both the squats and deadlifts, though I'm sure that I would have gotten less on deadlifts if I had pushed my squat, which I maybe should have done.
Next week is deload week. I'm looking forward to it, since my elbow, and today my shoulder, have been bothering me a bit. I don't think they're anything serious, but a couple days of light work should do the trick. This deload week will be lighter than usual because the gym will be closed June 8-12.
I also just learned that they may be getting rid of the power racks, Olympic lifting platforms, and bumper plates at my gym. What a pain. Some of the regulars and I are trying to figure out what to do. We've floated the possibility of going to TPS, but if we do, I doubt I can go regularly. It's a 1-hour commute each way, and I train four days a week. I love lifting, but not so much that I'm willing to take 8 hours of my week to do it, on top of my regular training.
I went to TPS (Total Performance Sports) today, which is a highly-rated gym in the Boston area that specializes in strongman and powerlifting. The gym itself is pretty amazing. It has everything you need (boards, bands, chains, a monolift, GHR machine, the Prowler, and more). Best of all, the default music is great for lifting. No more Taylor Swift! Unfortunately, it's quite far away from where I live, and the gym itself is a little small. I may go there a couple times a month to take advantage of the equipment, but I doubt I'll be able to make it regularly.
The one hour travel is quite a bit. If you can make it there 1x per week even, you will be making more progress. I used to drive 3hours each way 1 day per week to train with a group of guys before I got my own training group, it was worth the drive for me.
I think Eric Cressey's gym is called something else. TPS is run by CJ Murphy. The link is http://www.totalperformancesports.com/. I actually completely forgot about Cressey's gym. I may suggest it to the folks I was training with as an alternative, though I think it's even further away than TPS.
I was considering doing a 1-time-per-week deal, but the trainers who were there said that their powerlifting team comes in at 4:30 on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. I work full time at a professional job, so I won't be able to make those times.
There were a couple strong people there when we went yesterday, so I'm sure we could set something up at a better time for full-time workers. There was one guy who was shorter than me but maybe the same weight (175-180) who was doing 3-board (I think) presses with 405, and one guy who was easily deadlifting over 500 (he may have gotten 600, but I didn't see it). They're strong relative to me, anyway =).
I skipped Thursday's workout because (1) it's deload week for me and (2) the gym I usually go to is closed. I just did some calisthenic drills (pushups, pullups, L-sits, handstand pushups, basic ring work, 100-lb sandbag carries/squats/lunges) instead.
Today's workout felt fine. I think I'm starting to get the hang of the bench press, but there was nobody around to check my form, so I'm not quite sure.
Light Upper (5-rep week)
Speed Bench: 8x3@135 + red bands
Close-Grip Bench: 8, 6, 5 @ 225
Pullups: 10, 10, 8, 8 @ 50
Military Press: 8, 8, 5 @ 145
EZ Bar Preacher Curl: 8, 6 @ 85
So I up the weight in close-grip bench and my reps stay almost the same. Go figure. Maybe I'm just bad at reps. My rep-max for close-grip is definitely 8 (the last was a struggle). According to some calculators, that puts my close-grip max at 275ish and my flat max at over 300. Then again, I don't really trust those calculators, but it feels good anyway =).
Nothing much else to report except for a crazy pump in my arms during pullups. That rarely happens. Maybe it was something I ate...
I seem to have an irritated tendon somewhere below my thumb along edge of my hand that makes it a bit hard to do overhead squats. Otherwise, not a very eventful workout. I was pretty thrilled to get a bunch of singles on the cleans at 110kg. I believe I was pulling them high enough to power clean them because they kept thudding down on my collarbone(ish area), but I don't quite have the confidence to catch them high.
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