Building Curves

[ilovethe80s]

I've resembled that remark a time or two!
Tough luck with the smolo squat run, but we do need to be able to walk when we are 60

we are zombies who are after synovial fluid and abdominal connective tissue instead of brains, haha

Yeah, the smolov thing is frustrating because all the will is there, but the body is just not having it. Even in that week that I had it though, I got a lot out of it technique-wise. A few months of work crammed into a week.

[ilovethe80s]

Bench
Bench 3 x 5 (125)
Paused single @ 125
Cable Row 3 x 5 (115)
Rack chins (pronated grip 2 x 8)
Rack chin (supinated grip 2 x 8

Set 3 I hit the hooks hard and nearly knocked myself off the bench. Retake was fine. I'm safe to progress linearly on this for a little bit yet. Throwing in a paused single following benches, it's the little confidence boosters like that that make a huge difference for me.

Cable rows instead of my usual bb rows. One of my lifting resolutions was to assess my accessories honestly and be a little nicer to my body - don't do it 'just to do', or that seem good on paper, think of why, how is it helping my lifts, and if they bother an injury or surgery site more than the targeted muscles, then forget it. These didn't pull out intestines the way bb rows do.

Left the gym with a muscle pump (have not seen that in a while!) and imaginary lat syndrome, felt good. Then packed up the boys and headed out for:

Conditioning
Football drills, sprints and random circuits at the track/ field. So fun now that my boys are old enough for this. We all came home covered in mud.

[ilovethe80s]

Off today but just weighed myself and am 138.8 lbs in jeans and hoodie (?!?!?) I started carb cycling the day I quit smolov, I consume a LOT of carbs normally (love seasoned steak fries) and I guess all that was just holding some bloaty weight on me. The mornings after the 'low' days I feel tighter all over.

I was planning on trying CBL but maybe my 'cut' might not need to be as aggressive as I thought. A friend just told me that the scales at meets are usually a few pounds light, I was planning on a half a pound a week, but now wondering if I should just cut some water to make 132.

Scared to start the creatine again as that usually keeps an extra 5-8lbs on me.

Sat on the floor last night with a baseball on a point between my adductor and ham on my crappy side, a tennis ball on a ham trigger point under the other side, leaning against a wall with a tennis ball crammed into the side of my hip, with a kid on each leg boring the ball into the spot, just shifting position every so often for like 30 minutes while they watched a movie.

My hip is not feeling as terrible today. Was going to wait for my squat suit to arrive before doing any dynamic squats but might go ahead with it tomorrow.

[RyouBakua]

pretty good bench the other day

looks like we both did chest



have you tried Con-Cret?

i tends to bloat less and it agrees with my stomach

[ilovethe80s]

pretty good bench the other day

looks like we both did chest

have you tried Con-Cret?

i tends to bloat less and it agrees with my stomach

thanks, + I have heard others mention Con-cret on here. I have a new bottle of micronized creatine (the other one I had was grainy to the point it would sit at the bottom of your drink and then you had to chew it!). If the one I just got is a bust, I'll try out the con-cret.

[ilovethe80s]

Dynamic Squat
Dynamic Box Squat 12 x 2 (120)
Squat 5 x 5 (165)
Ball Hamstring Curl: 10/ both legs, 10/left, 10/right, 10 both legs x 2
Calves on leg press: 1 x 20

Strong strong strong. Those dynamic squats flew. I am relieved, I know that whatever small gains I got off my brief smolov romance might not be retained since I (obviously) cannot maintain the intensity, and my lifts could even drop off a bit. But every thing today was EASY.

My whole squat depends on my upper half. Let the chest sink, and I end up in a good morning and barely graze depth. I squat best if I don't 'think' about my lower half at all and put all my focus in the chest being lifted.

Some cues that help me not sink - look higher. I was looking at a notch in the rafters and was sinking a bit. Picked one notch closer, and problem solved. Looked straight ahead for a moment mid-lift and boom, bar comes forward and we have good morning again.

Unfortunately, that good morning thing always seems to happen on the first rep of each set. Not good, because in a meet, you get one rep. I had penned in just to do 3 sets, sbut they were so easy, changed it on the fly to 4. But wanted to get that first rep right, so did one more set, Nailed it, even paused in the hole- I was so please with my positioning I had to take a moment

So again, thank you smolov, though you tried to kill me, I would not be where I am at this point if not for you. I feel confident to up the weight anther 5 next week, which will bring me to 170 for 5. I don't think I have repped 170 since my knee surgery. Single yes, but even for like, 3 reps, no.

Ball ham curls followed because I really wanted to light up my hams and butt and feel those squat muscles. I think I might like to throw in a few of those as glute activation before squats. Those lit up my calves as well, so just a single set of 20 raises finished them off.

[geek23ka]

im glad to hear the smolov did you some good, instead of just hurting you.

did the toddler run the sprints with you guys, too? our toddler loves to run around but he will randomly sprint for the road so i have to keep my eyeball on him the entire time.

when is the next meet?

[RyouBakua]

glad the squats went well

thanks, + I have heard others mention Con-cret on here. I have a new bottle of micronized creatine (the other one I had was grainy to the point it would sit at the bottom of your drink and then you had to chew it!). If the one I just got is a bust, I'll try out the con-cret.

all ill say is that Con-Cret will mix COMPLETELY with a spoon.

no grit, no sand, GONE

[ilovethe80s]

im glad to hear the smolov did you some good, instead of just hurting you.

did the toddler run the sprints with you guys, too? our toddler loves to run around but he will randomly sprint for the road so i have to keep my eyeball on him the entire time.

when is the next meet?

omg he did, it was so funny. He did burpees! I locked the fence so he could not escape, and there was nobody else on the field, but he stayed close. Except he got run over during football, I mean he took a hit - 6 year old colliding with 4 year old at full speed and poor little froglet in the middle. He cried for like, one minute and he was back to normal.

Next meet is either March 16 (SPF) or March 23 (RPS). I think I want to do the RPS one but of course I have to wait a bit and see what the kids birthday party invite schedule is

glad the squats went well

all ill say is that Con-Cret will mix COMPLETELY with a spoon.

no grit, no sand, GONE

Ok I'm sold! As soon as I finish this batch I just got, I must try this con-cret

[geek23ka]

awwww! it's amazing. toddlers must be made of rubber. how cute he was doing burpees! lol.

march is great. lots of time to devise your Wile E Coyote plans.

[ilovethe80s]

awwww! it's amazing. toddlers must be made of rubber. how cute he was doing burpees! lol.

march is great. lots of time to devise your Wile E Coyote plans.

Oh, the second I croaked on smolov, the poster board came out. lol! I feel back on track now. Will try to post revised plan if I can get it into a nice list or non-posterboard format

[ilovethe80s]

Bench
Bench 3 x 5 (128) (warm up: bar/10, 65/8, 95/5, 115/4-hit rack, 125/5)
Paused Single - 128
Unrack/ hold - 1@200
CG Bench (hands inside smooth silver) 2 x 8 (95)
Lat Pulldown 3 x 8 (95)
DB Shoulder Press 2 x 8 (30's)

Wobbly bar on first work set, fixed in later sets. Glute activation pre-bench might not be a bad idea to resist the urge to just park my butt on the bench. it seems my chest/ shoulder set up determines my squat, and my core and leg stability determines how well I bench.

Bar path, I need to focus on a spot on the ceiling just like with squat. If I hit the rack on the 2nd rep but not the first, it means my path was different each time.

My 5's are speedy, hopefully will drill the bar going up quickly and easily into memory and wipe out all the failures. When the paused single rolls around, I take a long pause and it feels like an empty barbell. I think I am safe to continue add weight again next session, but I am thinking of going 5 x 5 on bench rather than just 3 sets. It is tempting to progress fast and pile on weight, have to keep reminding myself that the point of all of this was to gain back confidence.

That unrack was a little too much in fantasy land. I like the unracks to be at least somewhat within reason of doing just a partial rep. But that one was just too much, I would not have dreamed of unlocking my elbows.

Finding it hard to maintain a deficit because I want to eat everything, but no loss of energy so far. 7 pounds in 3 months does not sound like much but for someone usually on the see food diet, i'm feeling pretty sorry for myself by the end of the night lol.

[ilovethe80s]

Heavy Squat
Concentric Good Morning (narrow stance, arched back): bar/5, 95/5, 135/5, 185/5, 205/3, 225/3, 245/3* 10lb PR
Squat 5 x 5 (170)
Paused Single - 2 x 1 (170)

This style of GM is usually a direct indicator of how my dead is doing, so based on that, I think all this squatting is doing my deadlift good.

Had a lot of hip flexor stiffness and pain for first half of squats, had to hit the pvc between sets. Didn't even feel like I was really hitting depth till maybe the 3rd set due to the pain, but then by the 5th, felt like I wanted to ramp up the weight (must resist the urge!) Takes my body a long time to get the blood flowing but once it does, no pain at all.

Easy paused singles at the end for confidence. I'm really building a tolerance for squats. Previously, 5 reps at any weight had me winded and seeing stars. Lately, I've been ready to go again with only a couple minutes of rest.

I think I am safe to move up my squat another 5 next session. Smolov would have had me doing 7 sets of 5 with 178 today... I'm not too far off? See, I did not need to cripple myself after all, lol.

[Getsum]

Gratz on the GM PR!

It looks like the squats are progressing nicely since you started them back up, good job!

[ilovethe80s]

Gratz on the GM PR!

It looks like the squats are progressing nicely since you started them back up, good job!

Thanks! I'm loving this linear progression business, I don't want it to end

[ilovethe80s]

Heavy Bench
Bench 3 x 5 (130)
Bench Paused Single 130
Reverse (orange) Band Bench Close Grip (hands on the silver) 2 x 5 (165, 170) 1x4 (175 - oops didn't mean to fail the last one)
Cable Row 3 x 5 (115)
DB Shoulder Press 3 x 5 (30)

All the benches went up today without much struggle, but I wasn't really happy with HOW most of them went up. Bar path was kind of all over the place, I'm unfocused, looking at the ceiling, the wall, talking to kids... everything went up because it was light, but had it been a max, it would not have. Was going to say for next week, just strip 10lbs off and work on speed, but maybe for now will just try to be a little more cognizant of these cues, and go ahead and move up another few pounds for next time. Or reset. Or stay where I am and add a couple more sets/ volume. Will have to think about it, baring in mind that the problem here is not strength, it is that I still don't know how to f*ing bench

Still have the disappointment from last bench session's unrack looming, so went for overload in the form of reverse band benching instead. Didn't mean to fail, but 165 was light, 170 was light, then 175 was heavy, who knew. I am not sure these will be a staple for me, I don't like how I handle them at the bottom. I feel an enormous sense of relief when the band tension kicks in and I relax at the bottom - NOT what I need right now - that is exactly my problem on the bench.

Shoulder pressing was light but I had to rush the rest of my session, so was fatigued.

My squat suit came in so I'm spazzing of course. Usually like to wait 72 hours between heavy/ dynamic days, and I just had my heavy day yesterday, but it has been so hard to finish squat sessions lately without the kids interrupting, and husband can watch them tomorrow. And I really want to try the suit!

[RyouBakua]

sets of 130 is pretty good benching


i understand how things are easy then a small addition makes everything heavy


putting on a squat suit is worse than a wetsuit

[ilovethe80s]

sets of 130 is pretty good benching


i understand how things are easy then a small addition makes everything heavy


putting on a squat suit is worse than a wetsuit

my bench fell so far off a cliff that my last meet's opener was just 130. If 5 are going up easily, hopefully next meet won't be a repeat performance.

I just tried putting on the squat suit. I got what I thought would be a loose suit, but I guess these sizes are not really geared to women, the back of it just goes straight from my back, forms a scalene triangle/ slope thing, like the fabric does not even touch my lower back, totally bizarre. If someone threw something at me and it hit the back it would probably fly back like a bullet. And they wonder why there are no women in this sport, haha. The one I got is the inzer champion suit which supposedly doesn't add hardly anything but should help with the hip. Can't wait to try it.

[ilovethe80s]

Conditioning/ sprints/ football with the kids today, and a long dog walk. Stretching with the tennis/golf balls tonight. Adductors/hams are pretty fried, hip flexors feel hot and uncomfortable. Wanted to try my new squat suit today but I know it is better if I wait to recover a bit.

I'm carb cycling but just wanted to log a few sample days here so I can know what numbers I was on for reference later. I'm using swole.me to track. I have 2 'low' days/ week and 2 high days (both my squat days), I am going to try and decrease to just 1 high day (heavy squat day only). I'm between 138-140 in the mornings these days. Low days are supposed to be 1600-1700 calories (with all carbs coming from veggies) but I have not made it that low yet, lol.

Moderate
149.3g Carbs
87.8g Fat
148.2g Protein
1900.5 Calories

Low
42.5g Carbs
100.3g Fat
179.6g Protein
1763.4 Calories

High
180 carbs
can't remember the rest, forgot to copy it
2100 calories

I might post pics of my butt later. Consider yourself warned, lol. I think it shrunk down some from all the squatting and the deficit (a good thing!)

[cmg1976]

Glad I peeked in here- you are strong! Will be reading along...

[Euqinom]

Conditioning/ sprints/ football with the kids today, and a long dog walk. Stretching with the tennis/golf balls tonight. Adductors/hams are pretty fried, hip flexors feel hot and uncomfortable. Wanted to try my new squat suit today but I know it is better if I wait to recover a bit.

Most therapists I know wouldn't triggerpoint on a daily basis. Give your sore spots time to recover!

[ilovethe80s]

Most therapists I know wouldn't triggerpoint on a daily basis. Give your sore spots time to recover!

I've been trying to make Sundays my adductor/ ham wring out day with gold balls and torture devices, and do contrast showers and light stretching the rest of the time. Luckily, it has been just regular muscle soreness and things lately as opposed to the death's door feeling I had on Smolov, so normal recovery methods have been sufficing The trigger point releases feel soooo good though, I wish I were better at it.

[ilovethe80s]

Dynamic Squat
Dynamic Box Squat 10 x 2 (130) - proper wide box squats in my new suit
Squat 5 x 5 (175, no suit)
Paused Squat Single - 175
Squat Walkout + hold - 225 x 2
Ball Hamstring Curl: 3 x 10
Calves on leg press: 1 x 20

5 x 5 at 175 a success. Toward the end, some squats felt heavy, and some felt like nothing, which means variation in technique. Drilling in proper technique and confidence was the goal, so I am not going to add again next session for 5x5 straight sets at 180 (my unwrapped max test just last month was only 185!) 10lbs/week with this volume is aggressive, but just what was needed to get the party started.

Trying to decide between continuing 5 x 5 straight sets - but just drop off 15 pounds and work on speed/ perfection on my way back up, adding 5lbs per session again (can drop to 5 pounds per week instead of 10 if things get ugly)

Or, switch to madcow's 5x5 (just for squat), so ramping up to a top set of 5. If I start it at 175/5, around six weeks of that with the 2.5% progression should have me around 200/5 so progress is decent there, too. Volume might be easier to handle and would take significantly less time. I do worry about some regression from the drop in volume though. I have learned not to change something if it is working so well, but I am getting tired.

Going to have another look at my vids from today and think about what the next best move is for the next 6 weeks. In March, I'll start taking some triples sets and singles and try out my wraps, but I don't want a single fail till then.

My favorite part of these squat days is always the paused single after those sets. Also partial squatted the 225 for an ego boost.

[ilovethe80s]

Glad I peeked in here- you are strong! Will be reading along...

welcome!

[geek23ka]

hey 80's. good squat day, girl.

ill say that madcow has worked surprisingly well for my squat. im stalled on bench and am confused about what to do about that, but that's always been my weak point. madcow did increase even my crappy bench, though. it was a happy surprise that madcow worked.

im gonna take a page out of your book (if i remember. i get scattered when i go in there) and do a walkout with a big number on my back. i think it would feel really good just to know i put it on my shoulders.

[ilovethe80s]

hey 80's. good squat day, girl.

ill say that madcow has worked surprisingly well for my squat. im stalled on bench and am confused about what to do about that, but that's always been my weak point. madcow did increase even my crappy bench, though. it was a happy surprise that madcow worked.

im gonna take a page out of your book (if i remember. i get scattered when i go in there) and do a walkout with a big number on my back. i think it would feel really good just to know i put it on my shoulders.

Thanks! Yeah, I guess it boils down to the volume at that weight is getting too much, and fatigue is dominating the last sets. I like the idea of doing the straight sets and getting used to a higher workload, especially since I have never done a full meet (where I actually max) before and imagine that when deadlift rolls around, you're wiped. I don't want to take this to exhaustion or where I start regressing or form goes to crap. I'm grateful for the gains, and think it is a nice buffer into the next phase.

Yes, do the walkouts! It really is such a confidence boost, all mental really. It is one of those things though where you are glad that you can train at home. In a gym, you'd load up the plates and somebody would walk over all interested, like 'hey you need a spot?' 'no, I'm just going to hang out here under this bar here and think for a minute.' lol

[Euqinom]

I've been trying to make Sundays my adductor/ ham wring out day with gold balls and torture devices, and do contrast showers and light stretching the rest of the time. Luckily, it has been just regular muscle soreness and things lately as opposed to the death's door feeling I had on Smolov, so normal recovery methods have been sufficing The trigger point releases feel soooo good though, I wish I were better at it.

Just curious: have you found an Active Release/Mylogenics therapist yet?

[ilovethe80s]

Just curious: have you found an Active Release/Mylogenics therapist yet?

I did! there are several to choose from within a 30 minute drive, actually making it there without kids is another story though

[Euqinom]

I did! there are several to choose from within a 30 minute drive, actually making it there without kids is another story though

Ah, right. Did not think about that.

[ilovethe80s]

Bench
Bench 95/5 115/5 125/5 130/5 133/5
Paused Single 133 (2 singles)
Hold 165
SA Row 3 x 8 (45)
Dip 2 x 8
Light Shoulder Press 3 x 8 (25)

Finally caught the kids cold. Also a knot in my trap, so didn't push it too hard today.

Cut myself some slack and ramped bench today instead of straight 5 x 5. Always, 115 feels hard, and my final set(s) feel easy.

My first single, I allowed the weight to sink when it got to my chest, felt myself relax and transfer the weight to my shoulders. My lats did not kick in at all. So I retook, brought the chest to the bar, squeezed hard and my lats pushed it up and it felt like an empty bar.

Another note - I need to not play hero with the lift off by trying to keep my hips on the bench. I basically have to set up my whole body over again that way.

Light on the accessories today because my trap is really tight and shoulder was a bit crunchy. Might be just achiness from the cold.

Weight this morning 139.4. It has been hard to maintain a deficit because someone left a giant bin of caramel popcorn here.