My Original Plan Was to Lift All of the Heavy Things

[Todayisforme]

Congrats on the PR's! You made that 250 look easy btw... I have soooo long to go before I get anywhere near there!

[VO2Maxima]

Nice squatting. That's kind of how deadlift is for me...some days everything goes up easy, other days I can't get weights that I've tripled the week before off of the floor.

Check PMs.

[itsagoodday]

Sheesh, I hope to get my back squats up into the range of your front squats! Your strength is seriously incredible. I did take your advice and suggestion and I'm doing my DLs with a snatch grip. Second week doing them and I really like them. It just feels more natural.

How are you and your mom doing? I've been thinking about both of you.

Thanks Adrianne! I'm so glad you like the snatch grip! Only downside I've found to those is that sometimes I'm over the bar and it makes me want to do an actual snatch. Then I remember that I've never done one and don't know anything about it, and that keeps me grounded

My mom's OK! She's going through her radiation treatments now, so feeling a bit low but nothing too terrible. We haven't heard back any results at all from all of her testing, but she's seeing one of the doctors that ordered the tests this week, so hopefully we'll hear something then. Best case scenario is nothing new turned up on them.

Congrats on the PR's! You made that 250 look easy btw... I have soooo long to go before I get anywhere near there!

Thank you! And you'll get there

Oh, it did surprise me though I've felt like my squat has always been my most underperforming lift, it tends to hover about 100 lbs below my deadlift, which is quite a big gap. If I can work with this squat enough to start closing the gap, I will be a very very very happy girl. Well, without the deadlift dropping lol. I mean, I guess having a lower deadlift would close the gap too, but I prefer to just bring the squat up

Nice squatting. That's kind of how deadlift is for me...some days everything goes up easy, other days I can't get weights that I've tripled the week before off of the floor.

Check PMs.

Thank you and thanks also for the PM, I will definitely check it out!

Randomly good / bad lifts are the most frustrating thing. I'm generally fine with that happening if I can figure out a reason like oh, I'm just tired or sick or something. But when something just won't click there's no obvious reason... totally drives me nuts. My deadlift tends to be weirdly consistent, for me it's everything else that's a roller coaster

[itsagoodday]

Friday 2/12 - Studio

Chest and Triceps

I had another half hour clear at my friend's studio, so just wound up doing all chest and triceps accessory stuff that I didn't have time for on Wednesday. Eh, not ideal, but it gets the job done. Didn't take notes, but included these:

Plate Loaded Incline Chest Press
DB Incline Flyes
Triceps Push-ups
Diamond Push-ups
Dips
DB Decline Triceps Press
Rope Triceps Extension

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Sunday 2/21 - Gym

I always prefer to hit legs day BEFORE back day, and not the other way around. But I want to make sure I get a second back day in this week, since I keep running out of days and haven't fit one in for the last couple of weeks.

Heavy Back Day

DEADLIFTS
5x135
5x185
5x225
3x250
3x275
1x300
1x315
(8x) 1x285

I'm trying to get used to taking slightly bigger jumps with the heavier weights. I'm extremely comfortable with 10 lb jumps, but people tend to think I'm nuts when I only take 10 lb jumps in between squat and deadlift attempts at meets lol. I get the reasoning behind that, really I do, you don't want to burn yourself out by spacing your attempts too close together. But I do love the confidence boost of telling myself "hey, it's only 10 more pounds!" So my goal is to work on 15-20 lb jumps more often, to see if I can learn to love them. Or at least, be able to live with them.

I'm also hoping to make 315 my new "no matter what" weight soon. I always like to have a known "no matter what" deadlift weight. That's the weight that I know I can always lift successfully, even if everything is against me. If I've got the world's lousiest bar, one foot in a crater and the other on a banana peel, haven't eaten in three days and can't remember my own name, at least I know I can still lift that weight. Technically, I'm not there yet with 315, but I'm not far off. Everything felt really heavy today but it still went up pretty smooth, so I'm getting there.

RACK PULLS (below the knee)
5x215
5x225
9x235 AMRAP
5x245

I've only had these scheduled on my second back day program (which I haven't gotten to recently), so I wanted to make sure I got them in today. I find these really hard to keep my lower back in a good position at the start, so I tend to keep the weight a little lower and just work on getting some reps in with the best form possible. The AMRAP may have been 10 reps, I lost count lol. I was going to AMRAP the 245 as well since 235 went so well, but my lower back informed me it was getting too tired, so I stopped with the 5. I don't argue with my lower back on deadlifts.

WG LAT PULLDOWN (with pause at the bottom)
10x80
8x90
5x100

V BAR CABLE ROWS
10x#6
8x#7
6x#8

Kept the superset on the pulldowns and cable rows, that works pretty well and keeps me moving. Lost one rep on the last set of pulldowns, but no biggie. Funny thing about these machines is that the weight increments on them aren't necessarily even, so moving the pin up one can result in weight jumps that are either disproportionately difficult or feels like there was no change at all. I love my gym, everything has such character

CHIN UPS
(8x) 1xBW

Too chunky for pull-ups crew. Sad thing is that five pounds lighter than this, I can get a couple of solid wide grip pull-ups. I took a break from both chin-ups and pull-ups for a while, but want to get back into them. Especially since I do need to get those five pounds off anyway, and I want to be ready to get back into full sets of pull-ups again when I get there Just worked on chin-up singles for today, with a hold at the top and slow decent.

That was a really long session at the gym, but I did run into a couple of people I hadn't seen recently. Powerlifter guy wanted to talk powerlifting stuff, which I'm always happy to do and that took a while on it's own

[VO2Maxima]

I'm trying to get used to taking slightly bigger jumps with the heavier weights. I'm extremely comfortable with 10 lb jumps, but people tend to think I'm nuts when I only take 10 lb jumps in between squat and deadlift attempts at meets lol. I get the reasoning behind that, really I do, you don't want to burn yourself out by spacing your attempts too close together. But I do love the confidence boost of telling myself "hey, it's only 10 more pounds!" So my goal is to work on 15-20 lb jumps more often, to see if I can learn to love them. Or at least, be able to live with them.

I feel like I read somewhere that women's first attempts and last attempts are usually closer together than men's...not just weight-wise, which would make sense given that we're lifting less, but percentage-wise too...I'd assume this has something to do with the "Higher Percentages?" subheading here: http://70sbig.com/blog/2012/08/pecul...male-training/
So it makes sense than your jumps are smaller. My bench jumps have been small, like 2.5kg, but the second meet I did, I let someone talk me into bigger deadlift jumps and that was fine too (my opener was pretty much a warmup weight that I think I've hit for like 5 in the past...35lbs between first and second attempt, 20lbs between second and third). I'd assume I'd probably put squat between the two but I don't really know since I've only done one full power meet, it was my first meet, and I was kind of pulling numbers out of my butt since it was the first time I was setting attempts in a meet environment.

315 is a solid "no matter what" weight. The only lift I even have a weight like that where I know I can lift it any day of the week is bench lol...I mean I can guess at one on squat and deadlift, but it'd be a pure guess.

[itsagoodday]

I feel like I read somewhere that women's first attempts and last attempts are usually closer together than men's...not just weight-wise, which would make sense given that we're lifting less, but percentage-wise too...I'd assume this has something to do with the "Higher Percentages?" subheading here: http://70sbig.com/blog/2012/08/pecul...male-training/

Interesting! Always nice to know I'm not a total freak For this meet, right now I'm thinking I'll probably make my first to second attempt jumps bigger, then stick closer to my 10-lb comfort zone for third attempts. That would also let me keep my first attempts just a little bit lighter and safer. I like the thought of further minimizing the risk of bombing out on squats or bench before I get a chance to deadlift. Man, would that suck.

The only lift I even have a weight like that where I know I can lift it any day of the week is bench lol...I mean I can guess at one on squat and deadlift, but it'd be a pure guess.

Oh, I don't have that ability with bench lol. I could try, but things would get ugly pretty fast especially since my bench is unreliable and I rarely use spotters People would be standing over my corpse shaking their heads and saying "But she told me ten minutes ago that she definitely had it!"

[itsagoodday]

Update on my mom - well, nothing terrible with the test results, but we did get a new issue on the radar. The CT scan showed 'moderate to severe hydronephrosis' of the right kidney and also some issues with that ureter. It's basically a backlog of fluid in the kidney because it isn't draining properly for some currently unknown reason. It could be related to her cancer, but it could also be caused by a lot of other things. I'm taking her into a urologist on Friday, so we'll figure out what's going on there. It's the kind of thing that could potentially damage the kidney badly over time, so it does need to be taken care of.

Update on me - I'm having some sort of sour stomach issue that's been showing up a lot lately. Honestly not sure if something in my diet is bothering me, or if it's stress related. Unfortunately I do have a lot of issues with different foods (I'm celiac, I also have intolerance issues with dairy and foods high in amines), so it could very well just be something I'm eating giving me some low grade feedback. That happens sometimes when I'm getting just a little tiny bit of something that doesn't agree with me, it's not enough to make me outright sick, but it can make me feel consistently lousy. What this particular issue is doing is also making me feel really pukey on heavy deadlifts, so with a meet coming up... I seriously need to lose that issue lol. Legit almost got sick a few weeks ago in the middle of pulling 320, and it was not cool. I've never, ever had that issue before. So I'm tempted to eat the most bland diet I can think of (chicken and rice) for a couple of days just to see if I feel better. At least then I'll know if it's food or stress. Also would probably be an effective way to kickstart that diet I need to do

-----------------------------

Anyway, gym stuff. I knew that doing heavy back yesterday was going to kill me for legs today. Ultimately the rack pulls just left my lower back a little too tired to attempt squats, so I kept things rolling with a chest day instead.

Monday 2/22 - Gym

Heavy Chest Day

BENCH PRESS
5x95
3x105
3x115
(5x) 3x125

Tried edging my grip out a little wider again, and wound up bringing it back in. I'll probably stick where I was last week, which was just slightly wider than the grip I had been using. Anything wider than that, I may try sneaking into my warm-ups and possible also some backoff sets, but it doesn't feel like a good idea to keep trying to force a wider and wider grip on working sets right now.

SLINGSHOT BENCH
3x135
3x145
3x155

I haven't done much work with the slingshot for a while now. Probably since before my last meet, now that I think of it. I do love it though, I think it does help me when I work it in occasionally. And it's fun And when I get mileage at handling weights substantially past my raw max, holding my actual max just feels really super light, which is a nice confidence boost. This is the red slingshot, I think last time I used it I was working up to 185x2 which is way WAAAAY past my max. Just starting off a little lighter to remember what the heck I'm doing.

INCLINE BENCH
8x115
6x125
4x135

DB INCLINE FLYES
12x30's
10x32's
8x35's

CABLE ROPE PUSHDOWNS
12x60
10x70
6x80

Ugh, a little too heavy at the end there.

DIPS
3x6 BW

The dip did dips. Oh, the misery. Trying to make sure I'm getting good depth on all of these.

This felt like a punch the clock kind of workout. Nothing great, nothing terrible, just getting the work done. I'm OK with that, if I didn't have days where I punched the clock, I wouldn't ever get to have great days

[VO2Maxima]

Sorry to hear about the health issues, with both you and your mom. Good luck with the bland diet thing, and also good luck to your mom at her appointment.

Slingshot sounds fun. Have watched plenty of friends use them, but never tried one myself. I'm weak off my chest and have a strong lockout though so I'm not sure it would actually be useful for me.

[itsagoodday]

Thursday 2/25 - Gym

Heavy Leg Day

SQUATS
3x175
3x185
5x195 AMRAP
3x205
3x215
1x225
1x230
1x235
(3x) 5x175 (no belt)

Haven't squatted in a week, and they just never feel right when I do that. The thing that keeps me in the best shape for squatting seems to be squatting. Go figure. I sometimes wonder if I'd be a good candidate for the squat every day theory.

Well, pretty much every rep had one heck of a lean today, just couldn't stay more upright to save my life. I guess the good news is that I can pull out of a good morning at 235. Depth felt fine and I didn't bother with any vids, I can't stand to watch my own suffering Legs were shot after this, all that leaning gives my hips, quads and back an extra beating. But I guess it's kind of like doing a back workout in the middle of your legs workout, so there's a silver lining to that cloud. Sort of.

LEG EXTENSION
10x35's
8x40's
6x45's

Skipped front squats because I sensed impending doom at the thought of them. I think those are going to get moved to a separate day so I can get more out of them, heaven knows I need to get better at them. Lost some reps on leg extension but otherwise ok.

SLDL
12x135
10x145
8x155

Not sure if my hamstrings were a little tight or it's just because I haven't done these for a little while, but boy were these hitting me right in the feels. Holy hamstring stretch, batman.

My weeks just aren't working out quite the way I'd hoped in terms of getting my workouts in. Much though I love concentrating on one main movement a day plus accessories, I keep coming up short at the end of the week. Like geez I didn't get a second day of that in, or oops I missed that completely. So with my meet coming up in two months, I think I'm going to have to rewrite my workouts. I really think I do better benching and squatting 2-3x a week, mostly heavier work with possibly a third day either lighter volume or a variant of the movement (floor press or db press for bench, front squats for squats). I just need to figure out how to fit the most important stuff in and not keep me at the gym for 2+ hours each time lol.

Speaking of... not expecting to get a workout in tomorrow as I'll be getting my mom to multiple medical appointments including the new urologist to figure out what's going on with her kidney. So aiming for the weekend to get some heavy stuff in again! And very excited as I picked up my light bands today (had been on loan at my friend's studio), and intend to figure out reverse band deadlifts hopefully next week. Really hope those work the way I want them to, but there's only one way to find out

[VO2Maxima]

I used to really like front squats. At some point recently though, I started really not liking them lol. I think I had to do them today though, bleh.

What kind of bands? EliteFTS, Rogue, something else? And do you use the short ones or the regular length ones?

Good luck at your mom's appointment!

[itsagoodday]

I used to really like front squats. At some point recently though, I started really not liking them lol. I think I had to do them today though, bleh.

What kind of bands? EliteFTS, Rogue, something else? And do you use the short ones or the regular length ones?

Good luck at your mom's appointment!

Front squats, ugh. Maybe I'd like them more if I weren't so horrible at them. Nah, I'd probably still hate them

I have a set of Rogue bands, actually have a selection of the long and short, micro to average resistance. They're great, love 'em! (Honestly, if I could buy them again I'd get the EliteFTS... purely because for some reason they put theirs on sale all the time, and Rogue never does.) I've had them out on loan for quite a while, need to start gathering them back to myself so I can actually use them at locations other than my friend's studio. I've been tracking down videos of women doing reverse band deadlifts so I know how to set them up, and the long light bands seem to be the way to go. I think I'd be able to set these up in my cage at home really easily, but I hate deadlifting with the bar I have at home. So I'm first going to try to set them up in the cage at my regular gym, I'm just a little worried that the mono attachment on their cage may get in the way. Hmmmm.

My mom's appointment was... interesting. She's headed back to surgery again. Enough with the surgeries, ma. Basically they need to figure out what is causing the constriction of the right ureter, which is what is damaging that kidney. It's not an infection, and they don't see any signs of kidney stones. So top two guesses at this point are either scar tissue from her previous abdominal surgeries, or new tumor growth from her cancer. While her recent tests didn't show any definitive signs of the cancer spreading more, according to the urologist (also a cancer specialist) there are several "questionable" lesions in that area that actually could be cancerous, they just don't know enough to say yes or no currently. The surgery is the week after next, they'll check out some of those questionable areas and place a stent in the ureter to open it up. The stent is temporary, but they're worried the kidney could be destroyed if they don't do something to help it out. They're having her keep up with her radiation treatments around the surgery, so she's like "well, at least you're capable of carrying me around". Functional strength FTW

[adriannec]

Gah, I sure hope they find a simple fix for your mom's kidney. Like remove scar tissue and all is good. My mom had some kind of surgery years ago where they had to put stents in her ureters to "stretch" them somehow. You both are in my thoughts quite a bit. I love the positive outlook you both have AND the bond between you. I know it's a rough time (understatement I know!), but you both are amazing for each other.

I hope you're stomach is better too. The bland diet might sort it out for sure and at least give you an answer on food vs stress. Plus if it's enough to get you down on the scale, you might crank out some pull ups. I know that's not the goal but hey, pull ups!

[VO2Maxima]

Wow, good luck to your mom. Keeping you guys in my thoughts.

Thanks for the band information. Not that I plan on buying bands right now, going to just use the gym bands for now, but eventually.

[Todayisforme]

I hope your stomach is feeling better. At certain points in my life I've been stressed enough that simply leaning over was enough to almost make the evacuation mechanism kick in. You're certainly under enough stress right now to cause sensitivity, I do hope you find a workable solution to it.

Good luck to your mom! At least she is in the position they can try to do something to fix her kidney/ureter issue, it's unfortunate it requires another procedure. I hope they do it with a laparoscopic procedure or something similar so it is less invasive.

You're lifts are very impressive! So many things I want to try to hit now haha


What's a slingshot bench?

[itsagoodday]

Gah, I sure hope they find a simple fix for your mom's kidney. Like remove scar tissue and all is good. My mom had some kind of surgery years ago where they had to put stents in her ureters to "stretch" them somehow. You both are in my thoughts quite a bit. I love the positive outlook you both have AND the bond between you. I know it's a rough time (understatement I know!), but you both are amazing for each other.

I hope you're stomach is better too. The bland diet might sort it out for sure and at least give you an answer on food vs stress. Plus if it's enough to get you down on the scale, you might crank out some pull ups. I know that's not the goal but hey, pull ups!

My mom's awesome, we get along really well. Everybody loves her, she is just a sweet, sweet lady. The GYN who had to originally tell her that she had cancer was so upset that she had to give my mom that news. We all sat and talked about it for a while, then I got my mom to laugh about something and suddenly she was fine with everything. We wound up just sitting around, cracked some jokes and laughed about life and whatever else until the end of the appointment. The Dr pulls me aside as we walk out and goes "your mom is AMAZING!". LOL. She probably doesn't have too many cancer-related appointments that end funny.

Ah yes, pull ups inspiration!!! I do always love it when I can drop enough weight to be able to do those again, I do need to remember that, thank you

Wow, good luck to your mom. Keeping you guys in my thoughts.

Thanks for the band information. Not that I plan on buying bands right now, going to just use the gym bands for now, but eventually.

Thanks I think Rheta may have the EliteFTS ones, judging by the colors anyway lol.

I hope your stomach is feeling better. At certain points in my life I've been stressed enough that simply leaning over was enough to almost make the evacuation mechanism kick in. You're certainly under enough stress right now to cause sensitivity, I do hope you find a workable solution to it.

Good luck to your mom! At least she is in the position they can try to do something to fix her kidney/ureter issue, it's unfortunate it requires another procedure. I hope they do it with a laparoscopic procedure or something similar so it is less invasive.

You're lifts are very impressive! So many things I want to try to hit now haha

What's a slingshot bench?

Sounds like the stent insertion itself isn't a huge deal. I've been doing some reading, and it looks like some people just go in and get a new one every four months or so, since they don't last forever. They do knock you out completely, but the procedure itself doesn't take long. It sounds like my mom's will be a bit more involved as they'll be doing some exploration and analysis type stuff, but hopefully nothing too major. It's outpatient and she's scheduled in the morning, which is always nice for timing.

My stomach is feeling better, before I went to the trouble of completely changing up my diet, I had a brainwave and instead removed the one supplement that I've been trying recently. Good old basic creatine. I read that 5-7% of people who try creatine may experience stomach or GI upset. Well, leave it to me to be in the 5-7%, seriously. So I think that's it, but the big test will be when I deadlift heavy next time, so hopefully in the next couple of days I'll be able to draw some conclusions on that theory

The slingshot is a fun little bench gadget. It's pretty much just a big elastic band with armholes, you wear it when you bench and since it helps give you extra push off your chest, you can overload with it and bench past your max. It's an awful lot of fun. I've been using the red one, which is a little more finicky to deal with, especially in terms of how to position it so it doesn't flip when it hits your boobs haha. The blue one is much, much easier to use, but you don't get as much of a boost out of it.

http://www.howmuchyabench.net/original-sling-shot

[itsagoodday]

Sunday 2/28 - Gym

SQUATS
5x145
5x175
3x205
1x225
1x235

Add wraps
1x245 - ok, technically there were 2 reps here but the first was sky high, so not counting it
1x255 PR - vid
(3x) 3x230



Squats felt much better today. I've been on the fence as to what I need to be doing with my knees in this stance. I tried not really doing anything with them the last time I squatted, and I'm now convinced that was why I was leaning so bad the entire time. So today I went back to pushing my knees out at the bottom of the squat to get depth. Yup, that works. So either (A) my knees get out of the way at the bottom of the squat so I can hit depth or (B) I don't hit my depth or (C) I wind up leaning trying to get my depth some other way. I'm not on the fence about the knee thing anymore, I have my answer and it's A Cool. I can work with that.

So the big question now is whether I want to compete with knee wraps or not. I've never competed with them. I wasn't planning on competing with them anytime soon. But I'm just having so much fun learning them. I feel great using them and it is nice to be adding more weight on the bar with them, I'll admit it. I think there's something to be said for doing something if you enjoy it. So I'm leaning towards yup, compete with wraps in April. In an effort to get more practice with them, I did the backoff sets of triples wrapped. That was a good idea, only downside was that the backs of my knees have some pretty awesome bruises surfacing now

Depth wise, I'll just need to start being more cautious about that as my meet gets closer. I'm borderline where I need to be, everything really just needs to be a bit lower for competition purposes. I'm finding it hard to feel my depth with my narrower stance, and then the wraps make it even harder to feel as well. But the fact that I'm really right on top of where I need to be gives me a lot of confidence, it's more like dropping it 1/2" more not 6" or something crazy.

BENCH
5x95
3x115
3x125

Ugh. It's been a long time since I benched right after I squatted, I forgot how much that can take out of you. Just felt tired from the beginning. So I think on the days when I squat first and bench second, it will be a heavy squat day, but not a heavy bench day. In fact, it might be the perfect day for slingshot bench!

SLINGSHOT BENCH
3x135
(3x) 3x145

Yeah, I like this idea This was also difficult and felt heavier than it should have, but it did let me work heavier than I otherwise would have been able to.

WIDE GRIP / NARROW GRIP BENCH - superset
(3x) 5@ x 95

Trying something a little different, since I do want to play with my grip width a little, but not on my heavy sets right now. So I tried doing 5 reps with middle finger on the rings for very wide grip, racked it and moved my grip to 1" inside of the rings for a narrow grip, then immediately did 5 more reps. It was an interesting experiment, but I won't do it exactly the same way next time. Narrow grip is harder than wide, so I probably need to do it first. And I probably won't superset them like this so I can use different weights on them. But I like the theory, I just need to tweak it a bit!

(1 LEG) LEG EXTENSION
12x40
10x50
8x60

(1 LEG) LYING HAMSTRING CURL
12x17.5's
10x20's
7x22.5's

DB INCLINE FLYES
12x30's
10x32's
8x35's

Not bad at all! I'm feeling really good about the decision to add chest work onto my leg day. And I'll reverse that as well and add leg work onto my chest day. So if I only get into the gym 3x a week, I'll have one heavy deadlift day, one heavy squat day with extra bench work and one heavy bench day with extra squat work. That gives me deads 1x a week, which they're fine with, and squats and bench 2x a week each, which they prefer. And if I can get into the gym more than 3x a week, I can work on whatever I think needs it. Feeling very positive about all of that

Oh, and for my weird gym story of the day. Random guy comes over to inform me that I would be able to crush a man's skull with my thighs. The weight lifter side of me was like "omg, my legs must look jacked today, that's awesome!!!" and the girl side of me was like "did he just call me fat?"

[VO2Maxima]

Congrats on the PR! Nice squat...looked easy.

If you compete with wraps in April, I am told that Rheta does an amazing wrap job...just throwing that out there.

[itsagoodday]

If you compete with wraps in April, I am told that Rheta does an amazing wrap job...just throwing that out there

Somehow I believe it!

A couple of the folks from the O35 and Iron Sanctuary will be there as well, I've competed in a couple of meets with them before. I was thinking I could probably ask one of them for a wrap job as well. My only concern is that right now I'm doing a pretty lousy self-wrapping job, and I'm not sure how well I would function with someone cranking them in 10x tighter than I'd be used to.

[Todayisforme]

Congrats on the PR! You made it look easy. Pretty sure I'd collapse and get myself entangled somehow! It wouldn't be pretty that's for sure.

I've been thinking about doing some higher 1-3 reps just to see what I can push because normally I stick to 8-12 reps with a weight bump every 6 wks. It's all new so I don't have the foggiest clue how to incorporate without buggering up my regular lifting. I was thinking of either throwing it in on the day off between my medium and light days, or just giving it a shot as a replacement on my light day every so often. Do you have any recommendations? I think it could prove to be a really good motivator when my body says no to the 12th rep lol.

Slingshot bench looks like entirely too much fun! I'll have to see if I can find one of those gadgets.

[itsagoodday]

Congrats on the PR! You made it look easy. Pretty sure I'd collapse and get myself entangled somehow! It wouldn't be pretty that's for sure.

I've been thinking about doing some higher 1-3 reps just to see what I can push because normally I stick to 8-12 reps with a weight bump every 6 wks. It's all new so I don't have the foggiest clue how to incorporate without buggering up my regular lifting. I was thinking of either throwing it in on the day off between my medium and light days, or just giving it a shot as a replacement on my light day every so often. Do you have any recommendations? I think it could prove to be a really good motivator when my body says no to the 12th rep lol.

Slingshot bench looks like entirely too much fun! I'll have to see if I can find one of those gadgets.

There's definitely something to be said for working in different rep ranges, they're all useful for different reasons. I think the general advice is that when someone is learning a lift, they do need to stick with the higher reps to get their form down. But once you're safe with form, no reason you can't work in some lower rep ranges from time to time. You could always think about doing an occasional test day, maybe once a month or even just once every couple of months. Test days are great to do right before a deload or vacation

[itsagoodday]

Wednesday 3/2 - Home Gym

Not a ton of time today and no extra time to drive to my regular gym, so home gym it was! Always nice to have that option on days like this

Heavy Back Day

DEADLIFTS
5x135
5x185
5x225
3x250
3x275

Add light reverse bands
1x275
1x300
1x320
1x335 - vid
1x350 - vid

Remove bands, no belt
5x240 - I was going to do three sets of these, but my back said it was time to stop. Fair enough, it worked hard today!

GLUTE HAM RAISE
(3x) 6xBW

Well, boom! My first time working with reverse bands, and it went well! And yes, I can lockout 350, which was the big question going in. I was a little worried I had them set up too loose and asked on the PL forum, but apparently that was a stupid question lol. The goal is to get no assistance at the top, which I wasn't, so apparently there's no such thing as having them too loose. Well, that's good news. Live and learn

350 felt heaaavvvvyyy even with the assistance off the floor, I don't know why it felt like it was 50 lbs heavier than 335 Oh well, still got it. This is my bar that I hate deadlifting with, so always happy to pull good numbers with it. It's thick, super stiff, bent, the knurling shreds my hands and it's actually shorter than a regular bar, and that makes it harder to pull with as well. I just keep telling myself to train with the lousy stuff at home, then the equipment at a meet will seem SO much easier

[VO2Maxima]

Nice deadlift numbers there. Lots of volume too...impressed you were able to get in the backoff set at all after the heavy reverse band work. Done with a crap bar makes it even better.

I will throw out a "make sure you play with a deadlift bar a few times before the meet" though. I knew someone who was fast off the floor and slower at lockout and only ever trained on a stiff bar. Come competition time, the bar was so whippy that it actually caused the bar to go down slightly when the bar slowed down and whip caught up...it was subtle, but we saw it in the video we took and it was enough to be red-lighted.

[thehobbes]

Hey OP, subbing to this, phenomenal lifting in here. Damn I don't know how some of you guys DL so much, mirin' hard. Nice form and control on those squat PR vids.

[Todayisforme]

There's definitely something to be said for working in different rep ranges, they're all useful for different reasons. I think the general advice is that when someone is learning a lift, they do need to stick with the higher reps to get their form down. But once you're safe with form, no reason you can't work in some lower rep ranges from time to time. You could always think about doing an occasional test day, maybe once a month or even just once every couple of months. Test days are great to do right before a deload or vacation

I was thinking tomorrow I might do about half my regular reps on my first work set and then throw some more weight on there, just to see what this old girl can do. It's my light day so my weight is down a bit anyway ~20% and I would normally do 12 reps for the warm-up and the work sets. If I drop everything to 6 I think I'd still have a decent amount of juice left in the tank and maybe be able to pull a few good numbers haha.. I'm so jealous of your numbers!

You make heavy weight look easy... it's inspiring! The back off sets... wow don't know where the energy came for those! Awesome job!

[itsagoodday]

Nice deadlift numbers there. Lots of volume too...impressed you were able to get in the backoff set at all after the heavy reverse band work. Done with a crap bar makes it even better.

I will throw out a "make sure you play with a deadlift bar a few times before the meet" though. I knew someone who was fast off the floor and slower at lockout and only ever trained on a stiff bar. Come competition time, the bar was so whippy that it actually caused the bar to go down slightly when the bar slowed down and whip caught up...it was subtle, but we saw it in the video we took and it was enough to be red-lighted.

Thanks! Great advice about the deadlift bar. I train out of three locations and it's a sea of stiff bars at all of them lol. Would love to get back out to Hercules and play with their deadlift bar again before the meet, just not sure if I'll be able to. Although I've been OK using RPS's Okie at meets, I seem to get along with it well. I know exactly what you mean about the bar whipping back after it leaves the floor though, that definitely catches me every time. So far it's just slowed me down hard when it hits and I can usually keep it moving and grind through it, but that would seriously suck to have the bar actually dip. I've always just tried to rip it off the ground as fast I can can at the start to hopefully have some momentum when the whip back hits, but then a little voice in the back of my head wonders if ripping it off the ground faster makes the whip worse??? Probably

Hey OP, subbing to this, phenomenal lifting in here. Damn I don't know how some of you guys DL so much, mirin' hard. Nice form and control on those squat PR vids.

Hi and welcome, thanks for stopping by! Hope you brought enough jerky for everyone

I was thinking tomorrow I might do about half my regular reps on my first work set and then throw some more weight on there, just to see what this old girl can do. It's my light day so my weight is down a bit anyway ~20% and I would normally do 12 reps for the warm-up and the work sets. If I drop everything to 6 I think I'd still have a decent amount of juice left in the tank and maybe be able to pull a few good numbers haha.. I'm so jealous of your numbers!

Dropping from 12 reps to 6 sounds like a really good plan to experiment with some lower rep work! You definitely don't have to go down to singles or triples or anything like that, plenty of people never do. For me, it's important to work up to the heavy singles since that's what I compete with. But if I weren't competing, I don't know that I'd ever go near a 1RM, or maybe very, very rarely. As everyone keeps trying to tell me (I listen occasionally lol), ultimately you build up strength and muscle through reps and volume. No really, I do listen. Sometimes.

[VO2Maxima]

Thanks! Great advice about the deadlift bar. I train out of three locations and it's a sea of stiff bars at all of them lol. Would love to get back out to Hercules and play with their deadlift bar again before the meet, just not sure if I'll be able to. Although I've been OK using RPS's Okie at meets, I seem to get along with it well. I know exactly what you mean about the bar whipping back after it leaves the floor though, that definitely catches me every time. So far it's just slowed me down hard when it hits and I can usually keep it moving and grind through it, but that would seriously suck to have the bar actually dip. I've always just tried to rip it off the ground as fast I can can at the start to hopefully have some momentum when the whip back hits, but then a little voice in the back of my head wonders if ripping it off the ground faster makes the whip worse??? Probably

Wait, you can control that?? Lol damn, I just have to pull it as hard as I can or it doesn't even crack the floor...too slow off the floor, I guess. On the bright side, slow off the floor means I never really have to contend with the bar whipping itself down. On the not so bright side, it's not completely uncommon for me to have the bar not even budge, and then it looks like I just way overestimated what I could pull.

[itsagoodday]

Thursday 3/3 - Studio

Well, yesterday was all deadlifts, and today was nothin' but squats. So much for accessories lol. I may try to get some dedicated time in for all the lovely accessories I've been leaving out in the next day or two.

Heavy Leg Day

SQUATS
12x135
5x185
2x225
(2x) 1x235

Add wraps
1x235
(3x) 1x255

Remove wraps
4x185
8x135

Worked out with my friend at his studio today and wanted his input on my sqwattin and questionable knee wrapping skills lol. I'm sitting there saying "Oh, I can never get the left knee wrapped well and I drop the wrap ten times doing this leg", and then of course I do a beautiful wrapping job. Or maybe I'm just an idiot.

So the 255 singles went well, I know the first one was high but depth on the other two felt good. The first one I was surprised when the bar felt too heavy because I thought we were still at 235, so wound up cutting depth something fierce. Ah, it's the sneaky add plates on when she isn't looking technique. That backfires when I freak out because the bar doesn't feel right though. That sneaking extra plates on trick works with me on bench, but on squats and deads I do better if I know what I'm up against

I realized belatedly that I actually had no problems squatting heavy today despite the heavy deads work yesterday. That surprised me. I think what may have happened was that the reverse band deads wore out my upper back, but pretty much avoided my lower back. Which does make sense, as I was getting help off the floor and then overloading lockout. So my lower back kind of got a day off with those. So maybe it's more specifically a tired lower back that makes squatting the next day hard. I know rack pulls will kill me from any decent squatting for days, and those are super hard on my lower back. Anyway, that bit of information is probably only interesting to me, sorry.

Also got my friend's thoughts on whether I should try competing with the wraps. He said I looked really comfortable using them, and if I was having fun with them then I should go for it. That's pretty much what I was thinking as well, so yeah, I'll probably compete in wraps for the first time. Cool

And just for a little bit of accountability on the diet front... goal is 1800-1900 range.
3/2 1858 calories
3/3 2130 - gah, second day and the extra protein bar killed me

P.S. Boys and girls, don't decide to start a diet seven weeks before your PL meet. Seriously, only idjits do this. And I do it before pretty much every meet. Yeah, well, welcome to my journal, where I make the same mistakes repeatedly despite knowing better than that

[itsagoodday]

Wait, you can control that??

That's what I want to know lol. One of these days I'll be able to train with a deadlift bar (at something other than a meet) and figure these things out. I watched a video a while back of a guy training for strongman, where they use the super long bars with a ton of whip. And they were saying... watch how he lifts very slowly and deliberately to control the whip... and I'm like WHAT?!?!

[thehobbes]

Killer squats again OP! Any date in mind for an upcoming meet?

Hi and welcome, thanks for stopping by! Hope you brought enough jerky for everyone

:: whips out 4 different jerky flavors ::

[SophieM]

I just have to pull it as hard as I can or it doesn't even crack the floor...too slow off the floor, I guess. On the bright side, slow off the floor means I never really have to contend with the bar whipping itself down. On the not so bright side, it's not completely uncommon for me to have the bar not even budge, and then it looks like I just way overestimated what I could pull.

This. Definitely this.