Speed pulling

Tonight was another good night, however this muggy November weather is giving me a case of the horribles.  I've had pretty bad chest congestion for like two weeks, that's my only symptom.  Congestion and coughing.  It's starting to get on my nerve.  So I got some Mucinex extra strength and took it before I went in. Guaifenesin is the main ingredient so it's kind of a stimulate, so with the high humidity and that in my system I was sweating even more than normal. Got texted to see if I could get in a little earlier to help spot a friend.  I'm helpful like that, that and when you're benching over 450 it's helpful to have someone around you know that can deadlift more than 100 pounds.  Good crew in there tonight, and the guy I usually train with showed up too which was nice, so naturally I punished him with the time between sets of our speed work.  8x2, 315 off the 3" deficit block.  All were done beltless and they all went up pretty speedy, made me feel good. After that dropped the block out just pulled the 315 for a set of 8.  It's funny how big of a difference that block makes, actually standing on the floor it felt like I was damn near doing a rack pull with it.  Did some nice and light bent over rows for reps, heavy yes and nos, and ended with some short stroke behind the head pulldowns.  Haven't weighed myself in a couple of weeks, probably around the 330 mark which is where I need to be right now.  Other things seem to be going pretty good.  Still not really mentioning them in great detail because I'm worried I'll jinx it, but everything kinda seems like it's completely on point right now and that's pretty terrifying.

ADM is Spanish for OMG!

Yeah, that title has nothing to do with anything.  Anyhoo, good night tonight.  Went heavy on the hammer strength shoulder thing.  There will be a pic of that right about... here

So, that was my last set, I got it for a single, 4 plates, 1 quarter, and a 1 five on each side.  Fortunately on the 4 plate 4th set I only went for a double, if I had tried a triple there's no way I could have locked out the last one.  Anyhoo, finished up with some rear-delt work, triceps, and a few sets of curls.  So anyway, last night saw a friend I haven't seen in a while.  A beautiful ginger man.  After hugging me he commented "Damn you're hard to reach around"  That was awesome.  Also apparently I've changed shape a bit which is a good thing.  Then went by work and hung out with a friend and went to Steak and Shake, there I learned Steak and Shake still pretty much sucks, but the company was good.  

Legturday!

Damn, I was reaching with that title.  So, lets see, before gym stuff non-gym stuff, yes I do stuff other than train.  The greyest of Thursdays and blackest of Fridays has passed.  Holy shit, according to the pedometer on my phone I walked nearly 15 miles contained inside Sears over that 30 hour period.  My attempts of sleep Thursday night were shot thanks to going to Waffle House and eating horribly greasy food with a friend and staying out way later than I should have.  The horribly greasy food lead to not being able to sleep much even after I had gotten home.  Kept having to go between Hardware and Receiving so I was pretty beat.  But the times were good.  Anyhoo, alarm went off this morning and I was dragging after the past two days.  Finally got to the gym, got in some legs, I had gotten a bit dehydrated after the past couple of days my lower back was pretty tight so skipped squats and leg presses today and focused on leg extensions and leg curls.  Felt decent, nothing too great, 8 sets of 8 with the stack on leg extensions and 120 for 5 sets of 8 on leg curls.  At least I got a hug and told I smelled good by a hulking he-beast.  So really that's all you need to feel good.

Gravity, the great equalizer.

All in all, tonight sucked at the gym.  It happens, I don't like it but it does.  Any way, first the good then the bad.  Did bench rack lockouts about 4-5" off my chest.  Went to 500, it went up but damn it went up slow, felt like an eternity under there.  So, this pissed me off so I dropped back to 405 and fired it out for a set of 8.  That made me feel good.  Well, that was the good, now the bad.  That 500 went up so damn slow.  Yes that was good that it got up, but I seriously should have gotten it with more speed than that.  Almost wondering if the tightness in my upper back was what was hindering me, but not really sure.  Tonight I was suppose to do regular flat bench HOWEVER, the person who who said they were going to be there to spot me help me in my shirt was a no-show.  That means I'll get a flat bench number to work off of with only 6 weeks prep time which sadly means my meet prep is kinda thrown off to the point that I might be screwed, but we'll see.  So, that's enough of the bad.  Think I'll attempt to sleep.  Sleep has been pretty shitty the past few nights, not sure why.  Hopefully that'll get fixed so I'll get some rest before the blackest of Fridays, and uh, the greyest of Thursdays.  Damn opening on Thanksgiving stores. Oh yeah, thanks to seeing the Captain America: Civil War trailer I'm probably going to end up rereading all of Marvel's Civil War, so that'll probably screw up a lot of that planned sleep.

A pulling we will go...

Tonight felt pretty amazing.  Rack pulls, second pin off the deficit block.  Warmups because it's cold and I'm old damnit!   225 for a few, 315 for a couple, 405x1, 495x1, 545x1, 565x1, 605x1.  Felt pretty amazing getting that 605.  At this point I was pretty much willing to say the back is healed up.  Not too bad, 2 weeks, not quite Wolverine speeds but easily Sabertooth(sorry, geek moment there).  Seriously, tonight was damn awesome.  Okay, so after that I pulled the block out and dropped to 495 and repped that 7 times.  Once again, that felt good too, I was blown up like I had just actually had to cardio when I was done, but I didn't mind because my lower back felt strong.  After that finished up with some heavy assed abductors and adductors and some mildly heavy one armed rows.  All in all pretty great night.  Still pretty sure the TB500 helped a ton in the recovery and I still have 5 more doses.  That's enough rambling for tonight.  Wednesday is heavy bench day so that'll be fun.

Shoulder Sunday Funday

Tired as hell thanks to getting up early, going to train, then to work.  Damn people enjoy the hell out of some deals on tool boxes and ratchet sets.  Anyway... this morning was good, got to the gym, the heat was set to 62 degrees which is nice because since it was 62 in there it was pretty comfortable, just takes longer to warm up.  Today was a rep day for shoulders, used the hammer strength machine, plate and a quarter on each side for a set of 12, two plates a set of 12, two plates and a 10 on each side for a set of 12, two plates two 10s on each side for a set of 12, and 2 plates and a 35 for a set of 12.  Could have finished out a little stronger but since I had to work tonight I decided to go a wee bit easier.  Followed up with some heavy rear delt flies on the pec deck/delt fly machine, I use the stack on there for 3 sets of 8, then some super setting some straight bar triceps pressdowns with rope triceps pressdowns 3 sets of 15/10 and then some Gerry extensions for triceps.  Ended with some biceps, few sets of heavy curls.  By the time I left my arms looked totally huge.  I mean, they did when I got there but still.  Anway, nothing too interesting, tomorrow will be heavy deadlift day.  Probably be rack pulls unless nothing changes.  I'll try to be more interesting again at some point.

Injury? Training? Pt 6

Yeah, hopefully the last time I'm using this title for a while.  Had to add the question mark behind the training because thanks to getting over a minor cold and not wanting to affect people at the gym I decided to not go this morning.  Feeling pretty great right now so tomorrow morning I'll get my shoulders and supplemental accessory work done.  Thanks to working late I'll have to get a morning session in which aren't my favorite but has to be done.  I'm sitting here with my TENS unit on my back and knee.  Both are feeling great, can't even tell my back has had a pull recently, which is handy since Monday is heavy deadlift day.  I'm probably going to do rack pulls again, haven't really decided on accessory moves for it yet but I need to get some good mornings in.  Wednesday afternoon got a call from work wanting to know if I could come in at 7am on Thursday and work till 4.  So with cleaning up the warehouse to get ready for the blackest of Fridays it was almost like 9 straight hours of accessory work.  This helped me really test something.  At that point I was 5 doses into my TB500 which I got out of hope it would heal my back up quicker, and right now I have no doubt it did.  However, if you've known me since my wee squat lockout accident in 09 you know my ankle has hurt sometimes horrible for about 6 years now, fortunately I have a high pain tolerance so I just suck it up and go on about my day, work around it in the gym or whatever I need to do so I don't bitch about it too much.  Which seems odd since bitching, more like ranting, about things is right in my wheelhouse.  At any rate, my ankle is about 90% pain free at the moment.  That's fucking amazing.  Not having odd limps after I take my shoes off after a long shift or anything.  Starting to think there's something to this stuff.  I'm not expecting this to be a permanent fix but I am interested in seeing how long of a temporary fix it will be.  Actual lifting stuff in the next one.

Injury? Training Pt 5

Tonight was pretty f'n amazing.  It was dynamic effort bench night, broke out the bands for the first time in at least 6 months, might be closer to 9-10.  My back was pretty tight after deadlifting last night but not too bad.  When I first got on the bench to warm up I was a bit worried I wouldn't be able to get my arch, but I kinda pushed through it and got myself tucked.  Was a bit sore getting up but that went away pretty quick.  Wanted to make sure the back wasn't going to crunch up so my working sets started with 2 sets of doubles 225, went fast and smooth, 2x2 245 once again fast and smooth, 2x2 265 felt really good and moved fast, decided to make a bigger jump, 295 1x2 still fired up up quick.  305 1x2 this one wasn't as fast as I'd like but the speed was good.  I was using my purple bands so that's around 100 pounds extra at the top of those sets so felt really amazing.  Didn't really pay a lot of attention to my sets/reps of straight bar triceps press downs.  Used 200 pounds, it was probably 6-8 sets of 10-15 reps.  At this point my arms, chest, and shoulders kinda felt like they were going to explode which was nice.  Used the rear delt fly machine, the stack on it for 3 sets of 8, I'm thinking that's around 200 pounds, and finished with palms facing incline dumbbell benchpress with 80s for 3 sets of 10, at that point I was just shaking so that seemed like a good stopping point.  My third dose of TB500 comes before bed tonight.  I think I'm noticing something but I'm a bet hesitant to talk about it until I can confirm it, so that'll be the cliffhanger.  Pretty sure after leg day this week I'll have to drop the "Injury?" from the post titles which means I'll actually have to think of titles again.  Too much pressure man.


#training #powerlifting #injury #injurytraining #randomcrap

Injury? Training Pt 4

Today wasn't really any different than yesterday.  Didn't require any NSAIDs and didn't really feel any lower back pain which was nice.  So I figured might as well go in and do my dynamic effort deadlifts tonight.  Good group in the gym again tonight, one of the guys asked what I was doing tonight, I said speed pulls.  His reply "Worried about the speed?"  my reply "Nah, it's the pull pulling too much that has me worried."  Warmed up with 135 because I don't think you can warm up any lower than that.  Did a few sets of 5, everything felt good.  Went to 225, pulled that for 2 sets of 3 beltless, it felt good but at that point I was like "Yeah, I should belt up for 315."  On 315 I stopped at 5 sets of doubles, they all felt great, speed was good, I could have pulled faster but was worried about my back.  After every set I'd pull the lever on my belt slowly like "Oh shit, please let the back still be there."  It was.  Finished up with some hip abductors, adductors, and some standing side bends off the cable machine.  Easy-peasy.  Didn't want to do any sort of row to play it safe.  As I sit here and type this my lower back is a little tight, but more so in my abs and obliques, must have been holding them extra tight on all the deadlifts tonight which is handy.  Tomorrow is dynamic effort bench, which means I'll get to use bands.  That should be a fun time.




#training #powerlifting #injury #injurytraining #randomcrap

Injury? Training Pt. 3

Woke up this morning, no twinge getting out of bed and getting moving. Woke from a mid-afternoon nap, once again no twinges. Didn't use an NSAID of any kind today. Did take my second dose of TB500. Went to the gym, did the Hammerstrength military press machine. Went up to 4 plates and a quarter on each side and got it once. Going in I felt maybe I had two but my mind was ahead of my body on that. Followed that up with some short range overhead dumbbell presses to get the blood flowing into my shoulders. 60 for 2x15 and 1x30. I felt a bit groovy on that last set so I kept going. Then some simple triceps press downs and machine curls and called it a night. Back is feeling really good, tomorrow is dynamic effort deadlifts, normally I'd do them from a three inch deficit block but I won't tomorrow. That should be more than enough of a test for my back. On Sunday nights we usually play the 80s channel but man they were playing some slow assed shit tonight. Trying to press something heavy over your head while Take My Breath Away by Berlin is playing is a bitch. Side note, apparently bitch is the only curse word I haven't taught Swype on my Nexus 6p since I got it. Don't worry, I've got my favorites covered.

#training #powerlifting #injury #injurytraining #randomcrap

Injury Training Pt 2

Good sense is something I've never been accused of having an abundance of but today I listened to it.  Should have been squat day, however squat day turned into leg extensions and leg curl day.  It was pretty good, best part is, with the exception of Sweet Ass and Goldilocks I couldn't have been more happy with the people that were there(I've given a couple of nicknames in cause that wasn't obvious.)  Everyone that I enjoy training around and talking to were there so it was pretty nice.  Kept the leg extensions pretty simple, 150 pounds, 8 sets of 10, and leg curls 120 pounds 4 sets of 20(that's a clever reference!) As I was finishing up I briefly considered leg presses but I didn't want to curl up my lower back at all so once again that good sense thing kicked in.  It's odd reading that I have that.  Once again left the gym with a pump, that still seems odd, I'm blaming it mostly on the l-arginine I'm taking again daily.  Getting up at 9 to go to the gym my back was a little sore but I had no trouble getting out of bed and getting my socks on.  I haven't even had a twinge in it today so that's meant no need for the tramadol or cyclobenzaprine which is nice.  Also, had my first dose of TB500 yesterday.  Still too early to tell if it's helping but we'll see, 9 more doses to go.  Right now I'm about 75% sure I'll be able do do my speed pulls on Monday.  Might do one set and change that but we'll see.


#training #powerlifting #injury #injurytraining #randomcrap

Injury training

Felt pretty good today, the meds really took care of a lot of spasms which was great.  Worked this morning, basically walking around all day scanning shit.  Came home, had a wee nap, then went to the gym.  Was suppose to be a heavy bench night, but wasn't sure if I'd be able to hold my arch right to bench so I just used the hammer strength incline military press.  If you raise the seat all the way it's like a very high incline bench press.  This was way tougher than I thought it would be.  Usually I just use it for shoulders so the seat is all the way at the bottom.  Going to have to throw those into the rotation.  Followed that up with a new row machine we have to work my lats, I know rows and a bad back?  But, it has a chest pad you sit against so it's just straight up lat work.  Finished with some triceps press downs.  The new cable machine has way more weight on it than our old one did, but I still do the stack on those for sets of 12-15.  Left with a nice little pump.  I seem to be enjoying that more than I'd think. My weight today was 344, so that's 19 pounds over what I was at my last meet.  That thoroughly explains why deadlift suit was so tight.  I'm almost afraid to get into my bench shirt.  I'm going to drop back down to 325-330 for the meet.  Enough rambling for tonight.

Injury update No. 1

So, woke up this morning and straightening up was kinda tough, so I decided to go see the doc.  I had to go for some lab work this week anyway so that killed two birds with one stone.  Fortunately/unfortunately it isn't my first rodeo with a lower back pull, so my doc gave me "the usual" shot of Toradol in the office and some tramadol and cyclobenzaprine.  I love toradol, hurts to move, get a shot, two hours later you can move again.  Then the rest just kinda help hold off the spasms.  Back was well enough that I had no trouble working tonight even moving several air compressors.  My training will be a bit slower, won't do a heavy bench day like I had planned tomorrow but I'll see what I can do when it gets here.  I think since I'm currently in training for a meet I'm going to give TB500 a shot.  I've heard really good things about it, I'll post some updates on how that's going too.

Take 2.

So, Monday I went in after work for my heavy pulling day.  Was suppose to be deadlifts.  Had a few realizations.  One thing I like about the conjugate/Westside style is that you have flexibility in your primary lifts.  What I was doing, there was none.  I was suppose to deadlift so I deadlifted.  The other realization was that at my current weight, 342 I can't get down to get the bar in my deadlift suit, straps up or down does not matter.  So, I've got to drop about 12 pounds for it to fit right.  That'll be easy.  I didn't even feel like deadlifting, so after pulling 500 once very off balanced because of my suit I decided it wasn't meant to be and I'd try again tonight with something I'm more comfortable with.  So tonight I went in, did rack pulls from the bottom pin while standing on 3/4" plywood.  Pulled 500 really easy, went to 550, it wasn't easy.  A nice grind but I got it no problem.  Problem came when I was putting it back down and I felt a slight lower back pull.  It's not excruciating fortunately, but it came with nice timing since I'm going to the doc this week for a checkup anyway.  Been over a year since this happened so I should have been expecting it.  Anyway, so now I get to try to rehab this a bit while training for a meet, that should be even more interesting.

Shoulder Sunday Funday

Despite some pretty interesting forearm pain shoulders were pretty fun today.  Today is the last day of my training week, it's generally shoulder with some optional accessory work.  Generally triceps and if I'm feeling froggy some biceps, but I still feel I work them enough with rows.  Since I started in receiving at work with all the truck unloading and box opening I've been having some pretty bad forearm/wrist pain that flares up randomly.  Fortunately today began my, lets see, it's been called transfer/promotion/upgrade, however I like the term "graduation" that a dude I work with uses so that's what I'm going with.  Anyhoo, hopefully not having to unload 500+ boxes and open another 150 will cause some of those flareups to, uh... flare out!  Oscar Wylde like wordplay there.  Since I have heavy deadlifts and heavy bench this week my shoulders were mostly for the dreaded reps and mostly accessory moments to increase blood flow and what not.  Great video on it by Dave Tate that everyone should watch.  I'll link that down below but I assume anyone reading this has already seen it or heard me talk about it.  Today was some nice Hammer Strength incline/shoulder presses(as much as it pains me to say it, I love that machine), rear delt flies, then some straight bar triceps press downs and a move I've come to call Gerry Extensions, since a dude named Gerry was the first person I ever paid attention to doing them.  Felt good and as much as I don't really train for a pump I left with a pretty awesome pump today and it felt good.   That's enough for today I think.

 

Squats are evil fun...

So, it's been 10 weeks since I've been able to do squats.  Thanks to an old injury flaring up my ankle has been hurting so bad over those few weeks that walking was a bit of a pain but I just kinda sucked it up.  Deadlifting hasn't been too bad on it, but even a body weight squat made me want to scream.  I kept it kind of easy last night, just to 325 for singles.  First one made my ankle made a lovely popping sound that I could hear over the music.  That was a bit disturbing but I managed to finish.  Today it doesn't feel great but I haven't wanted to scream.  Fortunately all the deadlifting and deadlift accessory work I do always hits my hips/glutes/hamstrings so I'm pretty good as far as no soreness in those areas today.  I'm disappointed with the weight I used, but since I'm just getting back into the swing I'm trying not to dwell on it.  Plus only training for push/pull so it's not like I'd need to have it way up there.  However, personally I want to have it way up there.  But we'll see...

On an unrelated note, I noticed something at the gym the other night.  If your phone is bigger than your arm, don't get an armband to hold your phone for music while you train.  That's a fun tip.

Light bench day?

I'm not going to say tonight was a good night but it certainly wasn't a bad night.  It feels awkward doing my light days to a failure set, this will take some getting used to, fortunately, there's 5 more light bench days between now and Jan 30th.  315 close grip to failure on my top set.  After I was done the guy I asked to spot me said something along the lines of "You were going close on that."  So I said "Yeah, the way I'm programmed right now my light days I'll do close grip."  Another guy said "That's a light day?"  That made me feel good, I only managed 7 reps and that 7th one was a pretty massive struggle but I got it.  Did some incline dumbbell presses for the first time in maybe a year as an accessory.  It was odd, I had forgotten how much I loved them.  Decided to play it safe on those and use the 80s since they're far less bent than the 90s and 100s, but did 3 sets of 15, control was nice and smooth, changed hand position on each set.  Normal first, turned in slightly for second, then palms facing for the third.  That palms facing on incline felt pretty amazing, so the fact I only got the got the 315 for 7 wasn't as disheartening.  Ended with some banded triceps pressdowns and some one armed rows.  

Only slightly unrelated, I've been ravenous lately.  Just some rough numbers about 1200 calories more than normal.  Need to attempt to slow that down on non-training days.  

Begins anew...

So, I'm going to knock the dust off this thing.  A friend has started logging her training and inspired me to start doing it again, while I probably won't be that dedicated to updating daily, I'll try to hit the highlights.  So, I'm 13 weeks out from my next meet.  I have the numbers in my head I think I can hit.  I have the numbers in my head I want to hit.  The goal is to get the can closer to the want.  I start 13 weeks out, that way I have a 1 week deload before the meet.  Once again, I plan on doing push/pull. I'm doing this training cycle a bit different, alternating weeks between heavy/light.  Heavy days will be doing singles, light days will be using between 55-65% of my current one rep max on deadlift days and 62-72%.  And I'll probably talk about any random thing that pops in my head.


Tonight worked out pretty well, nice and simple primary lift was deficit deadlifts, 315 for 3 sets of 5.  No belt since it was a light night, fortunately I didn't have to unload a truck today so I went in pretty fresh.  The deficit block I use is about 3" so the pulls felt pretty long but good.  Unfortunately it was far too muggy for a November, about 70 and rainy so it felt kind of oppressive in the gym.  Because of that probably took longer between sets than I should have, but at least I had good company.  All the pulls went nice and smooth, didn't feel horribly taxed so that means 325 2 weeks from tonight.  Standing band situps, stiff legged deadlifts, and I did a couple of chinups just to see how hard they were at the moment.  The answer to that is very, but I was able to get my 337.2lb ass off the ground, so I'm calling that a mini-victory.

Tomorrow will be light bench day.  We'll see how that goes.