Post Coming Back From Injury Log

[zmcdole]

Two weeks off from lifting proved to have a pretty large impact on my bench. LOL, 5x5 with 315 was kinda hard. Should come back quickly though.

Oh and I made it to the 2nd round of the TSA sponsorship thingy. Fingers crossed.

[zmcdole]

405 x 5 x 5 squats last Saturday
3rd set first and last reps paused
4th set same
5th set all reps paused

425 x 5 x 5 deads done tonight

[zmcdole]

Bench
365 x 1 paused
405 x 1 paused
335 x 5 x 3 sets paused
Shoulder felt ok, but still a little unstable. It seems to be getting better and better.

SQUATS (high bar/no belt)
405 x 1 paused
455 x 1
475 x 1
495 x 3 PR

Squats are coming back very fast. I'm actually pretty surprised. I was hurting pretty bad after taking two solid weeks off.

[zmcdole]

BENCH (tuesday 20th)
345 x 5 x 4 sets paused POR
DB INCLINE (very slight incline)
70 x 15
100 x 10

TRICEP PUSHDOWNS VBAR
3-4 sets of a lot of reps

My shoulder feels ok and last week's 405 was fairly smooth. However, my work capacity is not there right now and a 5th set of 345 paused wasn't gonna happen. POR is the best grip width for me right now, but I can tell I'll need to train it and close grip exclusively to get back to where I want to be. I just don't feel explosive or like I can generate a whole lot of bar speed right now. Hopefully that will improve. I may start doing close grip workouts one week and POR workouts the next for a little bit. Hell I may even get back on the floor again.

[zmcdole]

SQUATS (high bar)
405 x 1
455 x 1
495 x 1
545 x 2 tied all time high bar PR
455 x 5 x 2

Finished with a lot of leg curls. Like 4-5 sets of 10. Very light and it made my hammies sore. I'm gonna go back to squatting low bar/comp stance every other week with high bar speed squats on the weeks in between. I still plan on going for a single rep PR while high bar. I'm thinking 585-600 here in the next few weeks.

[USMARINE8152]

Looks good man. Questions? How are you going to set up your training this go around and do you feel that speed work actually well....works? There's that huge debate of raw lifters and speed work blah blah blah. Curious what your take is

[zmcdole]

Looks good man. Questions? How are you going to set up your training this go around and do you feel that speed work actually well....works? There's that huge debate of raw lifters and speed work blah blah blah. Curious what your take is

i'm not really sure how I'm gonna structure my training this go around and it looks like I'm not competing again until this summer. However, the way I did it for my last meet seemed to work well. I'll still lift each lift once a week minus deads and I'll stick to (at least try to) every other week for that. I'll rotate 5's, 3's, and doubles/singles, but this time I'll do several weeks of 5's, several weeks of 3's and then finish with doubles/singles. Also looking forward I'll probably use a 12 week prep cycle instead of 16. 16 weeks is too many for me now. So I'd probably run 4 weeks of 5's, 4 weeks of 3's, with the last 4 weeks being doubles and singles while tapering volume.

I will use speed work because I do see value in it. I cannot squat and pull heavy inside of the same week. I find that pulling heavy and then squatting for speed to work well. I can up the volume of my squat workout when doing speed and get the same effect. Plus working on being fast and explosive is ALWAYS good. Then on weeks I squat heavy I won't pull. This schedule works for me because I can never hit depth after pulling heavy and pulling every other week keeps my hammy happy.

As far as whether or not speed work works, I'll say that I really think it's varies from person to person. Some people will benefit because they just aren't good at being fast or explosive and practicing that is helpful in my opinion. I did read a pretty interesting article on speed work that Greg Knuckols shared. It basically said that speed work is beneficial and will elicit strength gains. Hope that is an informative post.

[zmcdole]

BENCH FROM WED
365 x 1 paused
405 x 1 paused
315 x 5 x 3 sets paused close grip feet up

I felt faster and more explosive. Also, my shoulder is starting really feel better and more stable.

SQUAT (last night/low bar belt only)
405 x 5
495 x 5
545 x 1 fast
585 x 1 slow/got forward

545 felt about as good as it's ever felt. There are two kinds of bars at LVAC. They have one texas bar floating around and it is a little less whippy/floppy than the 500lb rated clunkers they have everywhere else. Next time I go over 545 I'll try and find that bar.

[USMARINE8152]

i'm not really sure how I'm gonna structure my training this go around and it looks like I'm not competing again until this summer. However, the way I did it for my last meet seemed to work well. I'll still lift each lift once a week minus deads and I'll stick to (at least try to) every other week for that. I'll rotate 5's, 3's, and doubles/singles, but this time I'll do several weeks of 5's, several weeks of 3's and then finish with doubles/singles. Also looking forward I'll probably use a 12 week prep cycle instead of 16. 16 weeks is too many for me now. So I'd probably run 4 weeks of 5's, 4 weeks of 3's, with the last 4 weeks being doubles and singles while tapering volume.

I will use speed work because I do see value in it. I cannot squat and pull heavy inside of the same week. I find that pulling heavy and then squatting for speed to work well. I can up the volume of my squat workout when doing speed and get the same effect. Plus working on being fast and explosive is ALWAYS good. Then on weeks I squat heavy I won't pull. This schedule works for me because I can never hit depth after pulling heavy and pulling every other week keeps my hammy happy.

As far as whether or not speed work works, I'll say that I really think it's varies from person to person. Some people will benefit because they just aren't good at being fast or explosive and practicing that is helpful in my opinion. I did read a pretty interesting article on speed work that Greg Knuckols shared. It basically said that speed work is beneficial and will elicit strength gains. Hope that is an informative post.

Dude much appreciated. Great response. I use to do speed work and feel like I need to get back to it. Thanks again and looking forward to your off season journey

[zmcdole]

BENCH
355 x 5 x 4 sets tng last set
315 close grip x rest pause (6,1,2)

DEADS
405 x 2 x 6 sets speed reps
pulls felt pretty good and I'm messing around with a higher/leeman type belt position. I know it's only 405 and even slight form break downs don't matter with this weight, but I felt as explosive as I can remember pulling conventional. Maybe I can finally get some progress going with my conventional pulls. I'm back to pulling every other week and on my off week I'm doing weighted back raises with an emphasis on using glutes as much as possible as well as GHRs.

SKWATS
455 x 2 x 6 sets of speed reps
405 x 2 x 2 paused
Leg curls x a lot




Oh and I decided to start tracking tonnage so.....
SKWATS = 7080lbs
BENCH = 9935lbs
DEADLIFTS = 4860lbs

Interesting.

[zmcdole]

BENCH
365 x 5 sets of 3 all paused
I had another set or two in me I think, but I wanted to be able to progress a few more weeks a this weight before I added weight to the bar.

315 x 5 paused close grip
315 x 4 paused close grip feet up

Tonnage: 8310

[CooCooCaChoo]

Do you plan on altering your training based on the tonnage observations?

[zmcdole]

Do you plan on altering your training based on the tonnage observations?

Yes. I'll follow it to see what I can handle volume wise and then refer back to it to progress later on to ensure adaptation. Obviously, I could just look back and say, "Well I did 365 for 5 sets of 3 before, so I need to do more than that next time." Maybe it will be a waste of time even thinking about it or recording, but I'm going to anyways. LOL, we'll see what happens.

SKWATS
455 x 5 x 5
tonnage: 11,375

My goal is to reach 495 x 5 x 5. That will absolutely be my top end if I'm able to achieve it. I'm either not squatting at all next week or I'll high bar for speed. Regardless, I'm seriously considering squatting and pulling very other week. So one week I'll deadlift and the next I'll squat. Sounds crazy, but I still cannot pull sumo with frequency, volume, or intensity. I'm wondering what would happen if I were to get a little weird with when and how often I squat and pull.

[zmcdole]

Deadlifts from last Monday
455 x 5 x 4 sets
495 x 2 sumo couldn't get set up well and felt weird

Tonnage: 10,090

BENCH from last Tuesday
365 x 3 x 6 sets (short pauses) bar speed slower than last week's, but more volume with some still in the tank
315 x 5 x 2 sets paused
Tonnage: 9720

My shoulder was not right and I'm tentatively blaming doing back work the day before. I did more volume and included exercises I had been laying off of and I think that annoyed my shoulder. From here on out I'm either going to do some light back work the same day I bench and or do some lighter high rep stuff on a separate day after benching. I'll be finishing up my volume work here in the next week or two as I approach my top end for paused triples.

[zmcdole]

[zmcdole]

Bench
365 x 1 paused
375 x 3 paused
225 x 20
225 x 15
shoulder didn't feel too good during the 1st two sets so I decided not to push it with heavier weight. It's looking like I may end up getting an MRI. If it's not feeling quite a bit better with training adjustments by the end of next week I'll get it looked at.

[zmcdole]

Squats
475 x 5 x 5

Tonnage: 11,875

Felt ok and I feel like I've still got a shot at 495 x 5 x 5 which would be an all time volume PR. I switched over to my heeled shoes to see how that feel and I think I'm gonna keep them on for a bit and use them with wraps and see if it makes a difference. I feel like it may help me maintain a slightly more upright position by pushing my knees forward a touch which should move my hips forward a touch. We'll see. I don't think I've used my heeled shoes in wraps since I came back from my injury.

[zmcdole]

[zmcdole]

[zmcdole]

Bench
I took it easy again and feel things out.
375 x 3 paused
315 x 10 tng close grip

DEADLIFTS (conventional)
475 x 5 x 3 sets
500 x 6 dead stop
My best ever rep out with 500 is 8 I believe and that was tng. I'm pretty sure I could have done 8 or more dead stop while fresh. I'm FINALLY starting to feel good about my conventional pull. I'm using a Leeman style belt position and I can really feel myself accelerating after I break the floor. I've got one more week of 5's and I'm gonna take 495 x 4-5 sets of 5. Then I'll deload and move to triples.

[zmcdole]

Last two workout vids:

[zmcdole]

Been a bit since I posted. I got super sick over spring break and was basically sick for an entire week. I lost 10lbs and my workouts since then have suffered a little, but I'm expecting a nice bounce back.

BENCH (the day I got sick)
365 x 5 tng 2 sets
315 x 5 spoto presses 2 sets

BENCH (the week after being sick bw at 220)
355 x 5 paused 2 sets
355 x 5 tng 1 set
315 x 5 x 2 sets spoto presses feet up

DEADLIFTS (bw 224)
405 x 5 x 2 conventional
405 x 5 sumo
495 x 1 sumo
PAUSE SQUATS (high bar)
407 x 2 x 3 sets

I'm gonna start pause squatting high bar after my deadlifts. Looking back at my last full power meet prep I was squatting every week (alternating high bar/low bar comp stance) and pulling every other week and that seemed to work pretty well for me. Vids later.

[zmcdole]

[zmcdole]

Bench Press
365 x 1 pause
405 x 1 pause
365 x 5 x 3 sets touch and go
315 x 5 x 2 spoto presses
275 x 5 paused close grip

Lots of push downs

[zmcdole]

SKWATS
455 x 5 x 3
415 x 5 x 2 paused








Tonight's Bench
365 x 1 pause
365 x 1 por pause
365 x 5 tng
370 x 5 paused
375 x 5 tng
315 x 5 x 2 close POR larsen presses
315 x 5 x 2 spoto presses (one set feet down/one set larsen)

Dang now that I look at that I did a lot. Vid later.

[zmcdole]

[zmcdole]

DEADLIFTS 3" deficit
415 x 1
465 x 1
505 x 2
415 x 3 belt
415 x 3 x 3 no belt
315 x 1 x 4 or 5 sets from floor

PAUSE SQUATS
420 x 2 x 4

[zmcdole]

BENCH
365 x 1 paused
405 x 1 paused
375 x 5 x 2 sets paused
380 x 5 tng
405 x 1 paused equal to or better than first single @405

DB BENCH
130 x 8 paused

Lots of pushdowns

SQUAT
475 x 5
495 x 5
HIGH BAR
455 x 5 x 2 sets
PAUSED LOW BAR
415 x 5 x 1 set
415 x 1 felt hammy tweak so stopped.

Making decent progress and I'm feeling stronger and better each week. I'm just not explosive right now. Gotta fix that.

[zmcdole]

Bench
365 x 1 paused
405 x 1 paused
375 x 5 (1st 3 reps short paused last 2 tng)
375 x 5 all short pauses
455 x 3 slingshot short pauses

CLOSER GRIP SPOTO
335 x 5
335 x 4 feet up




Deadlifts (mixed in some hook grip)
515 x 2 from 3" deficit conventional
425 x 3 x 2 sets 3" deficit conventional
425 x 1 x 2 sets sumo from floor
425 x 3 x 2 sets 3" deficit conventional

BB ROWS ascending reps
225 x 5
225 x 6
225 x 7
225 x 8

[zmcdole]

Bench From Tuesday
365 x 1 paused
415 x 2 paused
365 x 6 paused
315 x 5 Larsen press

Squat from Friday
505 x 5 x 2 sets
455 x 5 high bar
Had to shut it down because my hamstring said FU.