Last training session of the year. Sadly, it wasn't a very good session. Didn't perform well on squats and bench press, and generally didn't about anything care afterwards. My mind wasn't in it towards the end.
Squats
10xBW
10x20kg
5x40kg
3x60kg
1x80kg
1x95kg
2x5x105kg -- Left knee wasn't happy with me, so I had to change my step-out to keep it from crying, and decided to stop after 2 sets rather than going for a 3rd.
Bench Press
10x20kg
5x35kg
3x47.5kg
1x60kg
4x72.5kg -- Missed the 5th rep, wasn't tight enough at the bottom of each rep. So I decided to back off the weight and focus on keeping tightness at the bottom.
5x65kg
6x40kg
Assistance Work
Pull Ups
10, 7, 6
Band Pull Aparts
20
Lunges
6x20kg
6x40kg
DB Curls
2x20x7.5kg
DB Standing Triceps Extension
2x8x7.5kg
Hyperextension
2x20
Calf Raise
2x15x280lb + 10x220lb drop set
Monday, December 31, 2012
Friday, December 28, 2012
Balancing Out A Program
One muscle attaches to one side of a joint, and an opposing muscle attaches to the other side. The biceps are opposed by the triceps. The quadriceps by the hamstrings. The hip flexors by the glutes. The pecs by the rhomboids and mid-trapezius. And so on and so on. This is seriously important when it comes to training the body. This is more important to understand and respect than using the right rep range, enough sets, or even using the "best" exercises. This is more important than whether you do high intensity, high frequency, high volume, or some combination of those three. Whatever your fitness goal, this comes first. I was having a chat with a guy who's into crossfit the other week, and he said that he likes how all the movements in it are "functional," in that they replicate things you'll actually have to do, unlike bicep curls. Without getting into a rant about how I have to carry things in a bicep-curl-esque manner all the time, and yet never find myself in a situation where I need to squat all the way down and then throw something overhead, let me just say that perhaps thrusters and wall balls are functional, but if you don't train the opposing muscles properly -- even in a "non-functional" way -- you will run into muscular imblances, which can cause problems such as:
1. Bad posture/looking like a silly.
2. Stalled progress.
3. Muscle and joint injuries.
If any of these things sounds good to you, then be my guest and keep training without considering superior/inferior, anterior/posterior and medial/lateral muscular balance. I know that being a weak hunchback with knotted muscles and arthritis sounds appealing to me at times, so I wouldn't blame you.
Now, this is an area where programming can become a bit more of an art than a science. There's definitely science involved in knowing your anatomy, but applying your knowledge of anatomy in a way that's effective, efficient and pushes you towards your goals is very much an artform.
A passable understanding of anatomy is required here. Pro tip: if your exercise routine results in you getting sore in/growing muscles that you didn't even know existed, you probably shouldn't be writing any programs, since your understanding of anatomy probably isn't up to scratch just yet. That's not an attack, by the way, and I thoroughly believe that if you've read this far, then you have the ability to learn, and therefore down the track when you're more familiar with the human body you may be able to put together very good programs indeed.
Common Problems
I can't possibly go into details on all the ways in which people go wrong, so I'm just going to mention three generic issues that tend to arise with beginners. These issues tend not to happen so much with advanced lifters for a couple reasons. Firstly, as stated above, muscle imbalances, caused by imbalanced programs, tend to result in stalled progress (preventing someone from advancing) and injuries (preventing people from even training). Secondly, the people with the mentality required to become advanced lifters will also have the mentality required to do the research and learn about balanced exercise program on their own, or they'll be willing to defer the programming to someone they can count on to make the right choices for them (a competent trainer, or a coach in whatever strength sport they'll likely be involved in by the time they've reached an advanced level). Anyway, here are the three generic issues:
1. Mirror muscle training.
Boys are more notorious for this than girls, but both sexes have plenty of culprits here. Your "mirror muscles" are the muscles you can easily see in a mirror. A typical mirror muscle routine will involve exercises such as bench press, push ups, overhead press, bicep curls, sit ups, crunches, 30 other ab exercises, and maybe leg press and leg extensions. If you're lucky, the people who do these routines might add in some lat pull downs or chin ups, hamstring curls and calf raises.
Unfortunately, "out of sight, out of mind" doesn't make the posterior chain any less important for your musculoskeletal health and longterm progress. Even the few back exercises that may be used are often not the right exercises to balance out the mirror muscles, and are often done with lacklustre effort and/or form that favours the mirror muscles anyway. For example, if you train in a commercial gym, you've probably seen (or have been) someone doing lat pull downs, and instead of keeping their chest up and pulling with their lats and lower traps, they curl their trunk forwards, using their pecs and abs to pull the weight down. The technique, volume, intensity, and/or frequency required to make any posterior chain exercises effective just isn't there, if the exercises are there in the first place.
Mirror muscle training tends to result in bad shoulders, back pain, and knee issues.
2. Upper body only.
This is mostly a male thing. Guys want big arms and a big chest with 6 pack abs and a V-taper, yet have no interest in training their lower body. This is often coupled with mirror muscle training, and the mentality behind it tends to be the same: "Chicks dig big arms, a big chest and shredded abs, and no one can see your legs anyway." Funnily enough, guys with this mentality seem to be in it to attract women and increase their odds/frequency of having sex. As a Christian I could get into a great big moral lecture about that, but putting morals aside, apparently these guys are lacking the foresight to consider that sex usually occurs with the pants off, in which case she most probably will see your legs. I'd like to say that this tends to result in people looking like Jonny Bravo, but most people either get into more holistic goals or quit before that ever happens. You do see the occasional guy with 30 inch arms and 15 inch thighs, though.
When paired with mirror muscle training, the same shoulder and back issues are likely to occur as per mirror muscle training. If you do happen to train the upper body properly, but just omit training your legs, you probably won't hurt yourself...physically. Your pride might take a beating, though, when you wake up one day and either realise that your legs look ridiculous compared to your upper body, or that you've been training your upper body for 8 years and nothing's happened (oh wait, that sounds like skinny old me). Of course, strong legs allow you to stabilise yourself properly while lifting, and so the absence of quality leg training may limit your upper body performance, eventually putting a cap on upper body progression, but most likely if you get no results while not training your legs, it's because the same ignorance and/or unwillingness to learn about/apply leg training has kept you in the dark about/prevented you from applying other habits that would result in progress, like proper eating.
3. Lower body only.
This is one for the girls (mostly). Girls come to the gym wanting toned legs and a hot bum, and behave as if they're allergic to upper body training. Upper body exercises are either too hard/scary because "I can't lift that!!" or they're too hard/scary because "I don't want big arms and big pecs like a man!!" Or it's a combination of the two. Or it's something else entirely. Whatever the story, the same chicks that apparently dig big arms, a big chest and shredded abs on a man and won't see his legs anyway (according to his own reasoning above) tend not to want those same traits on themselves. In fact they tend to be the exact opposite. Lunges are to these girls what the bench press is to those guys, and good-girl/bad-girl machines (more professionally known as hip adductor/abductor machines) are to these girls what bicep curls are to those guys.
Guys with giant upper bodies but legs that are only fitting on Tweety bird have become a classic caricature of the dumb jock stereotype. However, the same caricatures aren't normally applied to girls with "toned" bums and thighs and no evidence of having ever trained the upper body. I suppose, at an extreme you might encounter some massive Ghetto booty caricatures, but they're seldom associated with fitness...rather they're associated with fatness and/or blackness.
Suffice it to say, toned legs, a toned bum and an upper body with little muscle mass is often considered hot when it's on a woman, so, when it comes to generalised standards of beauty, there's seldom much of an aesthetic negative to girls in the lower body only boat.
Functionally, however, this may be a different story. For starters, women still need to carry things and pick things up. You can't rely on men to do everything for you (even though doing manly things like opening jars for damsels in distress does help to validate our existence). In the gym, squats and deadlifts are some of the best builders of the bum and thighs, but if your upper body isn't strong enough to handle the weight, then you won't be able to do those exercises effectively. Even the leg press loads the weight all throughout your torso, which requires a strong trunk. So, outside of the gym, neglecting your upper body can be problematic, and inside the gym it can prevent you from getting the most out of your lower body training.
1. Bad posture/looking like a silly.
2. Stalled progress.
3. Muscle and joint injuries.
If any of these things sounds good to you, then be my guest and keep training without considering superior/inferior, anterior/posterior and medial/lateral muscular balance. I know that being a weak hunchback with knotted muscles and arthritis sounds appealing to me at times, so I wouldn't blame you.
My body goals for 2013.
Now, this is an area where programming can become a bit more of an art than a science. There's definitely science involved in knowing your anatomy, but applying your knowledge of anatomy in a way that's effective, efficient and pushes you towards your goals is very much an artform.
A passable understanding of anatomy is required here. Pro tip: if your exercise routine results in you getting sore in/growing muscles that you didn't even know existed, you probably shouldn't be writing any programs, since your understanding of anatomy probably isn't up to scratch just yet. That's not an attack, by the way, and I thoroughly believe that if you've read this far, then you have the ability to learn, and therefore down the track when you're more familiar with the human body you may be able to put together very good programs indeed.
Common Problems
I can't possibly go into details on all the ways in which people go wrong, so I'm just going to mention three generic issues that tend to arise with beginners. These issues tend not to happen so much with advanced lifters for a couple reasons. Firstly, as stated above, muscle imbalances, caused by imbalanced programs, tend to result in stalled progress (preventing someone from advancing) and injuries (preventing people from even training). Secondly, the people with the mentality required to become advanced lifters will also have the mentality required to do the research and learn about balanced exercise program on their own, or they'll be willing to defer the programming to someone they can count on to make the right choices for them (a competent trainer, or a coach in whatever strength sport they'll likely be involved in by the time they've reached an advanced level). Anyway, here are the three generic issues:
1. Mirror muscle training.
Boys are more notorious for this than girls, but both sexes have plenty of culprits here. Your "mirror muscles" are the muscles you can easily see in a mirror. A typical mirror muscle routine will involve exercises such as bench press, push ups, overhead press, bicep curls, sit ups, crunches, 30 other ab exercises, and maybe leg press and leg extensions. If you're lucky, the people who do these routines might add in some lat pull downs or chin ups, hamstring curls and calf raises.
Unfortunately, "out of sight, out of mind" doesn't make the posterior chain any less important for your musculoskeletal health and longterm progress. Even the few back exercises that may be used are often not the right exercises to balance out the mirror muscles, and are often done with lacklustre effort and/or form that favours the mirror muscles anyway. For example, if you train in a commercial gym, you've probably seen (or have been) someone doing lat pull downs, and instead of keeping their chest up and pulling with their lats and lower traps, they curl their trunk forwards, using their pecs and abs to pull the weight down. The technique, volume, intensity, and/or frequency required to make any posterior chain exercises effective just isn't there, if the exercises are there in the first place.
Mirror muscle training tends to result in bad shoulders, back pain, and knee issues.
2. Upper body only.
This is mostly a male thing. Guys want big arms and a big chest with 6 pack abs and a V-taper, yet have no interest in training their lower body. This is often coupled with mirror muscle training, and the mentality behind it tends to be the same: "Chicks dig big arms, a big chest and shredded abs, and no one can see your legs anyway." Funnily enough, guys with this mentality seem to be in it to attract women and increase their odds/frequency of having sex. As a Christian I could get into a great big moral lecture about that, but putting morals aside, apparently these guys are lacking the foresight to consider that sex usually occurs with the pants off, in which case she most probably will see your legs. I'd like to say that this tends to result in people looking like Jonny Bravo, but most people either get into more holistic goals or quit before that ever happens. You do see the occasional guy with 30 inch arms and 15 inch thighs, though.
Don't worry, you won't actually end up looking like this.
You'll quit before you gain an ounce of muscle in the fist place.
When paired with mirror muscle training, the same shoulder and back issues are likely to occur as per mirror muscle training. If you do happen to train the upper body properly, but just omit training your legs, you probably won't hurt yourself...physically. Your pride might take a beating, though, when you wake up one day and either realise that your legs look ridiculous compared to your upper body, or that you've been training your upper body for 8 years and nothing's happened (oh wait, that sounds like skinny old me). Of course, strong legs allow you to stabilise yourself properly while lifting, and so the absence of quality leg training may limit your upper body performance, eventually putting a cap on upper body progression, but most likely if you get no results while not training your legs, it's because the same ignorance and/or unwillingness to learn about/apply leg training has kept you in the dark about/prevented you from applying other habits that would result in progress, like proper eating.
3. Lower body only.
This is one for the girls (mostly). Girls come to the gym wanting toned legs and a hot bum, and behave as if they're allergic to upper body training. Upper body exercises are either too hard/scary because "I can't lift that!!" or they're too hard/scary because "I don't want big arms and big pecs like a man!!" Or it's a combination of the two. Or it's something else entirely. Whatever the story, the same chicks that apparently dig big arms, a big chest and shredded abs on a man and won't see his legs anyway (according to his own reasoning above) tend not to want those same traits on themselves. In fact they tend to be the exact opposite. Lunges are to these girls what the bench press is to those guys, and good-girl/bad-girl machines (more professionally known as hip adductor/abductor machines) are to these girls what bicep curls are to those guys.
Guys with giant upper bodies but legs that are only fitting on Tweety bird have become a classic caricature of the dumb jock stereotype. However, the same caricatures aren't normally applied to girls with "toned" bums and thighs and no evidence of having ever trained the upper body. I suppose, at an extreme you might encounter some massive Ghetto booty caricatures, but they're seldom associated with fitness...rather they're associated with fatness and/or blackness.
Suffice it to say, toned legs, a toned bum and an upper body with little muscle mass is often considered hot when it's on a woman, so, when it comes to generalised standards of beauty, there's seldom much of an aesthetic negative to girls in the lower body only boat.
Functionally, however, this may be a different story. For starters, women still need to carry things and pick things up. You can't rely on men to do everything for you (even though doing manly things like opening jars for damsels in distress does help to validate our existence). In the gym, squats and deadlifts are some of the best builders of the bum and thighs, but if your upper body isn't strong enough to handle the weight, then you won't be able to do those exercises effectively. Even the leg press loads the weight all throughout your torso, which requires a strong trunk. So, outside of the gym, neglecting your upper body can be problematic, and inside the gym it can prevent you from getting the most out of your lower body training.
Thursday, December 27, 2012
Training -- 27/12/2012
First time back in the gym in a week. I've been getting antsy. Between sets of deadlifts, I had a conversation with Mr Coach about my training over the next few months. He recommended that I forego the January meet so that I can work up to a better competition in March. He's probably right, but I'll think about it.
Squats
10xBW
8 pull ups
10x20kg
5x40kg
3x60kg
1x80kg
3x5x100kg
Bench Press
2x10 band rotator cuff
8 pull ups
2x5x20kg
5x32.5kg
3x45kg
1x57.5kg
3x5x70kg -- Thank God for spotters. Didn't need any assistance getting the bar back up, but they make a world of difference getting the bar out over the chest in the first place.
Deadlift
2x15x35kg cable row
5x60kg
3x80kg
1x100kg
1x115kg
1x130kg -- Somehow, I forgot to take a hook grip, and so it was just a straight double-overhand pull, which came crashing down just as soon as I locked out. Oh well, still got the rep, and with much better form than my top sets last time. After this came the "fun" part. See, I got this great idea that I'd like to take the squat nemesis workout, and apply it to my deadlifts today. This involves working up to a heavy single, then dropping down to 70% of that weight and working back up in triples, then dropping back down to 50% for 2x5 speed sets. All of this was just to accumulate a lot of volume with a decent load and good form, without it being impossible to recover from. Fro more information, check Nick Horton's explanation of his Squat Nemesis Workout and Program here. This was definitely more enjoyable than Smolov Jr, not that that's saying much.
3x90kg
3x95kg
3x100kg
3x105kg
3x110kg
3x115kg
3x120kg
2x5x65kg
Assistance Work
Barbell Curl/Lying Triceps Extension/Calf Raise (circuit)
2x12x20kg/10x20kg/18x280lb
Squats
10xBW
8 pull ups
10x20kg
5x40kg
3x60kg
1x80kg
3x5x100kg
Bench Press
2x10 band rotator cuff
8 pull ups
2x5x20kg
5x32.5kg
3x45kg
1x57.5kg
3x5x70kg -- Thank God for spotters. Didn't need any assistance getting the bar back up, but they make a world of difference getting the bar out over the chest in the first place.
Deadlift
2x15x35kg cable row
5x60kg
3x80kg
1x100kg
1x115kg
1x130kg -- Somehow, I forgot to take a hook grip, and so it was just a straight double-overhand pull, which came crashing down just as soon as I locked out. Oh well, still got the rep, and with much better form than my top sets last time. After this came the "fun" part. See, I got this great idea that I'd like to take the squat nemesis workout, and apply it to my deadlifts today. This involves working up to a heavy single, then dropping down to 70% of that weight and working back up in triples, then dropping back down to 50% for 2x5 speed sets. All of this was just to accumulate a lot of volume with a decent load and good form, without it being impossible to recover from. Fro more information, check Nick Horton's explanation of his Squat Nemesis Workout and Program here. This was definitely more enjoyable than Smolov Jr, not that that's saying much.
3x90kg
3x95kg
3x100kg
3x105kg
3x110kg
3x115kg
3x120kg
2x5x65kg
Assistance Work
Barbell Curl/Lying Triceps Extension/Calf Raise (circuit)
2x12x20kg/10x20kg/18x280lb
Wednesday, December 26, 2012
Starting Strength vs StrongLifts 5x5
Dave Tate describes progression in fitness (and indeed, anything) to go in 4 generic stages:
1. Shit
2. Suck
3. Good
4. Great
Starting Strength and StrongLifts 5x5 are both novice barbell programs built around major compound lifts with simple progression and a clear scheme to get you from shit to suck. The two programs are different but very similar, using most of the same exercises in a similar order, on a 3-day-a-week full-body rotation of two alternating workouts with linear progression. For some reason, the great similarities between the two programs seem to spark a lot of aggression online over the relatively minor differences, and thus the tyrade of arguments from people who, if they had the experience to warrant debating such topics would also have the experience to know that they're making mountains out of mollhills, commences.
Let's have a look at both programs.
Starting Strength by Mark Rippetoe with Lon Kilgore
Starting Strength is both a program and a book, which is now in its 3rd edition. I've only read the 1st and 2nd editions, so I'm not sure what modifications have been made in the latest edition, although I've heard that there's now a change in technique to the press, and the addition of pull ups after a couple weeks in the 3rd edition. If you've got a copy of the 3rd edition, you can correct me on that, or give further details, if you feel so inclined. But here's the program as of 2nd edition:
Day A
Squats 3x5
Bench Press 3x5
Deadlift 1x5
Day B
Squats 3x5
Press 3x5
Power Clean 5x3
You train a total of 3 days per week, adding weight to the working sets every session, so long as you got all your target reps with good form. The first time you perform each lift, with the help of a coach, you'll begin with the empty barbell for sets of 5 and add weight until you find your initial working weight, which is whenever the bar speed slows or it looks like any further weight increases will cause technique to break down. This might mean squatting 50kg, benching 40kg and deadlifting 60kg on your first session (just random numbers, don't treat these numbers as a recommendation). You'll also add weight each session according to how much you can safely progress by. For a lot of people, this means adding 5kg/session onto squats for the first fortnight, and up to 10kg/session onto deadlifts for the same period. As you get stronger and more skilled at the lifts, your ability to progress will decrease, and so 5kg jumps will become 2.5kg jumps, and 2.5kg jumps will become 1kg jumps (if possible -- you'll need smaller plates than most gyms provide to do this), etc. Eventually, you'll start missing reps. That means, you might be aiming for the prescribed 3x5, but instead only get 5/4/3 or 4/4/4 or some other combination that isn't 5/5/5. If this happens, you won't add any weight in the next session. Instead, you'll use the same weight, trying to get the extra reps. If you fail to get all your reps 3 sessions in a row, you'll decrease the weight by 10% and work back up. Once you've stalled and deloaded 2-3 times on the squat, it's probably time to move onto more advanced programming.
StrongLifts 5x5 by Mehdi
The first thing you'll notice about the StrongLifts 5x5 report, in contrast to the Starting Strength books, is that it's free. Unfortunately, the saying "you get what you pay for" rings with an element of truth here, as a great volume of the report is Mehdi selling his system, rather than teaching you how to lift. In contrast, in Starting Strength, Rippetoe goes to great lengths to talk about the individual lifts -- what muscles they develop, how to do them, common errors with corrections, how to warm up and even trivia about the lifts (all with a lot of photos and diagrams so that you can literally see what he's talking about). The StrongLifts 5x5 report gives less instruction and more sales. But, that's the e-book. Let's look at the actual program.
Day A
Squats 5x5
Bench Press 5x5
Row 5x5
Day B
Squats 5x5
Press 5x5
Deadlift 1x5
Unlike Starting Strength, StrongLifts does not involve the lifter spending time on the first session ramping up the weights to figure out a starting weight. Instead, the starting weight is purely and simply as little as the lifter can get away with. This means the empty barbell (20kg/45lb) for squats, bench press and press, and slightly more on the row and deadlift (officially 65lb and 95lb respectively, which is roughly 30kg and 40kg...personally I'd go lighter on the rows, especially if you have access to super-light 45cm plates at 2.5kg and 5kg, however most healthy young males probably won't have any problems with the 40kg deadlift, assuming they can learn appropriate technique). So, the starting weights are usually going to be lighter than in Starting Strength. The progression is also slower on StrongLifts 5x5, adding just 2.5kg/workout from day 1, with the goal of hitting a 225lb squat for 5x5 after 12 weeks. The working sets for squats, bench press and press are all 5x5 instead of 3x5, so there's an extra 2 sets in there, and 5x3 power cleans are replaced with 5x5 rows.
So then, which is better?
Frankly, it's an either/or situation. There are pros and cons to both these programs. Personally, I don't think either of them has enough upper back work to balance out all the bench pressing and overhead pressing, although the 5x5 rows rows of StrongLifts will do more to balance out the pushing than any amount of power cleans ever will. If you want to be good at power cleans, obviously a program that actually includes them will be better for that purpose than one that doesn't. When you're starting out, you want to do as many good reps as possible without wrecking yourself. I think doing 25 working reps (5x5) of most exercises at far too light a weight provides that potential more than 15 total working reps (3x5), however Starting Strength allows you to potentially start with heavier weights and progress more rapidly. It's also easier to recover from only 3 working sets than from 5, given an equal load, so once you've learned technique, Starting Strength may become preferable over StrongLifts 5x5. Instruction-wise, the Starting Strength books trump the StrongLifts resources many times over, in my opinion. Starting Strength provides one whole chapter per each of its 5 lifts. StrongLifts 5x5 only offers links at the back of the report to 1-pagers on the 5 lifts. Basically, if I were training a rank novice who doesn't need to have power cleans (or an equivalent movement) in their program, I'd prefer to start them on something like StrongLifts 5x5 but with the coaching of Starting Strength, and then back off the volume when the weights get hard (to something that more closely resembles Starting Strength, anyway). If I were training someone who needs to learn power cleans, I'm not sure I'd put them on Starting Strength for it, unless they're something like a rugby player. No matter who the person is, if I were training them they'd have more upper body pulling relative to upper body pushing than either of these programs provide, because I like people to not have dodgy shoulders. Whatever the case, both of these programs are for beginners to learn basic lifts on, and if you're a beginner, you just have to show up and consistently go through the motions in order to get results, so, as I indicated earlier on, getting into a heated argument over this is just plain silliness.
1. Shit
2. Suck
3. Good
4. Great
Starting Strength and StrongLifts 5x5 are both novice barbell programs built around major compound lifts with simple progression and a clear scheme to get you from shit to suck. The two programs are different but very similar, using most of the same exercises in a similar order, on a 3-day-a-week full-body rotation of two alternating workouts with linear progression. For some reason, the great similarities between the two programs seem to spark a lot of aggression online over the relatively minor differences, and thus the tyrade of arguments from people who, if they had the experience to warrant debating such topics would also have the experience to know that they're making mountains out of mollhills, commences.
Let's have a look at both programs.
Starting Strength by Mark Rippetoe with Lon Kilgore
Starting Strength is both a program and a book, which is now in its 3rd edition. I've only read the 1st and 2nd editions, so I'm not sure what modifications have been made in the latest edition, although I've heard that there's now a change in technique to the press, and the addition of pull ups after a couple weeks in the 3rd edition. If you've got a copy of the 3rd edition, you can correct me on that, or give further details, if you feel so inclined. But here's the program as of 2nd edition:
Day A
Squats 3x5
Bench Press 3x5
Deadlift 1x5
Day B
Squats 3x5
Press 3x5
Power Clean 5x3
You train a total of 3 days per week, adding weight to the working sets every session, so long as you got all your target reps with good form. The first time you perform each lift, with the help of a coach, you'll begin with the empty barbell for sets of 5 and add weight until you find your initial working weight, which is whenever the bar speed slows or it looks like any further weight increases will cause technique to break down. This might mean squatting 50kg, benching 40kg and deadlifting 60kg on your first session (just random numbers, don't treat these numbers as a recommendation). You'll also add weight each session according to how much you can safely progress by. For a lot of people, this means adding 5kg/session onto squats for the first fortnight, and up to 10kg/session onto deadlifts for the same period. As you get stronger and more skilled at the lifts, your ability to progress will decrease, and so 5kg jumps will become 2.5kg jumps, and 2.5kg jumps will become 1kg jumps (if possible -- you'll need smaller plates than most gyms provide to do this), etc. Eventually, you'll start missing reps. That means, you might be aiming for the prescribed 3x5, but instead only get 5/4/3 or 4/4/4 or some other combination that isn't 5/5/5. If this happens, you won't add any weight in the next session. Instead, you'll use the same weight, trying to get the extra reps. If you fail to get all your reps 3 sessions in a row, you'll decrease the weight by 10% and work back up. Once you've stalled and deloaded 2-3 times on the squat, it's probably time to move onto more advanced programming.
StrongLifts 5x5 by Mehdi
The first thing you'll notice about the StrongLifts 5x5 report, in contrast to the Starting Strength books, is that it's free. Unfortunately, the saying "you get what you pay for" rings with an element of truth here, as a great volume of the report is Mehdi selling his system, rather than teaching you how to lift. In contrast, in Starting Strength, Rippetoe goes to great lengths to talk about the individual lifts -- what muscles they develop, how to do them, common errors with corrections, how to warm up and even trivia about the lifts (all with a lot of photos and diagrams so that you can literally see what he's talking about). The StrongLifts 5x5 report gives less instruction and more sales. But, that's the e-book. Let's look at the actual program.
Day A
Squats 5x5
Bench Press 5x5
Row 5x5
Day B
Squats 5x5
Press 5x5
Deadlift 1x5
Unlike Starting Strength, StrongLifts does not involve the lifter spending time on the first session ramping up the weights to figure out a starting weight. Instead, the starting weight is purely and simply as little as the lifter can get away with. This means the empty barbell (20kg/45lb) for squats, bench press and press, and slightly more on the row and deadlift (officially 65lb and 95lb respectively, which is roughly 30kg and 40kg...personally I'd go lighter on the rows, especially if you have access to super-light 45cm plates at 2.5kg and 5kg, however most healthy young males probably won't have any problems with the 40kg deadlift, assuming they can learn appropriate technique). So, the starting weights are usually going to be lighter than in Starting Strength. The progression is also slower on StrongLifts 5x5, adding just 2.5kg/workout from day 1, with the goal of hitting a 225lb squat for 5x5 after 12 weeks. The working sets for squats, bench press and press are all 5x5 instead of 3x5, so there's an extra 2 sets in there, and 5x3 power cleans are replaced with 5x5 rows.
So then, which is better?
Frankly, it's an either/or situation. There are pros and cons to both these programs. Personally, I don't think either of them has enough upper back work to balance out all the bench pressing and overhead pressing, although the 5x5 rows rows of StrongLifts will do more to balance out the pushing than any amount of power cleans ever will. If you want to be good at power cleans, obviously a program that actually includes them will be better for that purpose than one that doesn't. When you're starting out, you want to do as many good reps as possible without wrecking yourself. I think doing 25 working reps (5x5) of most exercises at far too light a weight provides that potential more than 15 total working reps (3x5), however Starting Strength allows you to potentially start with heavier weights and progress more rapidly. It's also easier to recover from only 3 working sets than from 5, given an equal load, so once you've learned technique, Starting Strength may become preferable over StrongLifts 5x5. Instruction-wise, the Starting Strength books trump the StrongLifts resources many times over, in my opinion. Starting Strength provides one whole chapter per each of its 5 lifts. StrongLifts 5x5 only offers links at the back of the report to 1-pagers on the 5 lifts. Basically, if I were training a rank novice who doesn't need to have power cleans (or an equivalent movement) in their program, I'd prefer to start them on something like StrongLifts 5x5 but with the coaching of Starting Strength, and then back off the volume when the weights get hard (to something that more closely resembles Starting Strength, anyway). If I were training someone who needs to learn power cleans, I'm not sure I'd put them on Starting Strength for it, unless they're something like a rugby player. No matter who the person is, if I were training them they'd have more upper body pulling relative to upper body pushing than either of these programs provide, because I like people to not have dodgy shoulders. Whatever the case, both of these programs are for beginners to learn basic lifts on, and if you're a beginner, you just have to show up and consistently go through the motions in order to get results, so, as I indicated earlier on, getting into a heated argument over this is just plain silliness.
Monday, December 24, 2012
The Myth of the Myth of the Myth
I recently wrote about hamstring involvement in squats, and how both the above-parallel and below-parallel squatters are partially right and partially wrong with what they typically have to say on the matter. I'm going to do that again now, but this time on the topic of women's muscles.
So, here's how the discussion typically goes (at least on the bb.com forums).
Newbie: "Hi ladies, I'm new to fitness and need a new program. I'm looking to tone. What toning exercises should I do for my [insert body parts here; probably arms, abs and bum]? How much cardio should I do? I don't want to get all bulked up like a man!"
Veteran: "You can't tone muscles. You can only make them bigger or smaller, and gain or lose fat to change how visible they are. Women don't get bulky like men, that's a myth. Hormones, testosterone, blah blah blah. Starting Strength/NROL/read the stickies. Cardio makes you skinny-fat."
Outside of those forums, I don't want to know how the discussion goes, but from what I've observed the reply is usually full retard, and has something to do with high rep triceps kickbacks, good girl/bad girl machines, and/or yogalates on a bosu.
Okay, so, I'll attack the issue of becoming "too big/bulky/like a man" first. There are a few factors here:
1) Calorie consumption. You might be able to build some muscle mass without a calorie surplus, if you're using the energy stored in your fat to fuel the muscle growth. You don't really have much of a say in the matter of whether or not your body will recomposition itself like this, although if you are lifting heavy on an intelligently designed program with enough protein in your diet, it might happen. In this case you'll be fitter, stronger, perkier, and smaller at the same bodyweight. Most likely, though, you'll either be deliberately gaining weight in the hopes that some of it will be muscle, or losing weight in the hopes that most of it will be fat. For most people after the first 6-12 weeks of training, they will need to be consuming excess calories in order to gain weight and thus gain some muscle mass. Most women are so worried about being small and so fixated on 1200kcal/day diets that this will never happen. Never. Impossible. Forget all other factors -- if you don't eat you don't grow. But if you do happen to gain weight and thus gain muscle, and if it does happen to be more than you'd like to have gained, there's a simple solution: stop eating at a calorie surplus.
2) Hormone profile. Most people speaking in defence of women lifting weights will jump on the issue of women having jack-diddley-squat testosterone first. I feel that calorie consumption is a bigger issue, because you have to consume the calories to gain size. But testosterone will influence whether that size comes in the form of muscle or fat. Women have naturally low testosterone levels which tends to make them have less muscle mass than untrained men when they start out, gain muscle mass at a slower rate than men, and have a lower genetic potential for muscle mass than men.
3) No one gains muscle mass easily. Typically guys will eat at a calorie surplus of 500kcal/day over their maintenance levels, in order to gain about 0.5kg/week. After their first year or two of progressive training, this will typically reward them with a whopping 2.5-5kg new muscle mass per year, maybe even less. That means a lot of bulking and a lot of cutting for fairly small returns. Now refer back to points 1 and 2. Yeah. That's what I thought.
4) Toning rep ranges and exercises. Where did this idea even come from? Low reps bulk and high reps tone? What? No. Low reps build max strength, and high reps build strength endurance. In the presence of a calorie surplus, both will build some muscle mass (to varying degrees depending on the individual). In the presence of a calorie deficit, both will maintain some muscle mass (again, to varying degrees) so that the weight lost is fat. You train the muscles (or the movements that use the muscles), and you eat appropriately for your goals. On a related note, I've noticed over the years that women who don't want to get too bulky have a fitness-media-driven fixation with "lean muscles." "Oh, it's okay, I'm not going to bulk up doing this, because it'll give me lean muscles instead." I'm going to refrain from the bertstare that this sentiment thoroughly deserves for a moment, and inform you that all muscle is lean muscle. "But, what about--" no. All of it. All muscle is lean. If it's not lean, it's not muscle. Okay? Okay.
Your moment is up.
5) As Kyle says, if you did bulk up, would it really be so bad? Having extra muscle mass may or may not be pretty (in my opinion, most girls who have never done any serious strength training before would look a lot better if they did, but what's pretty to me may not always be pretty to you...you know, Eye of the Beholder Beast or whatever), but it will definitely be useful. Needing less assistance to transport your groceries to and from the car, being more capable of picking up your children/pets in your arms, and being able to outrun a cripple are all advantageous traits, and having more muscle mass will greatly enable you to acquire these traits.
Golly, them Beholders are pretty.
Now, onto the people telling you you'll never get bulky. Yes, I realise I'm now one of them after the above spiel, but there are a few misunderstandings that tend to come from the lifting crowd about our dearest newbie.
1) "Lifting a barbell won't make you accidentally wake up looking like this:"
Well, duh. Most people don't want to look like that, sure, but what makes you so certain that our dearest newbie thinks she's going to go from a petite princess to hulkzilla overnight? It's unrealistic, and I suspect even she knows this. However, she might gain 5lb in a couple of weeks, or 10lb over a couple months. This is entirely realistic, and may very well be too much in her eyes. 99.9% of the time, when asking how not to gain too much muscle, people won't tell you what "too much" is, but in a culture that seldom applauds any visible muscle on a woman, it's safe to say that the line between having pretty muscles and too much muscle is usually drawn somewhere before becoming an elite bodybuilder. For a lot of women, the concept of increasing their muscle mass by as little as 10% seems horrifying. I know, strange. But that's their issue, not yours.
2) Her goals are not your goals. This should be obvious, but often it isn't. If you can't comprehend that goals outside of your own exist, then you have no place giving training advice to anyone who doesn't want to be just like you. If you do understand that she has different goals but want to get her doing the same thing as you because you think your goals or your method is inherently better, you also have no place giving advice. I don't claim to be an expert on preparing for a full marathon, but I'm fairly confident that running Starting Strength as it's written with no additional work whatsoever is not the answer.
3) "Cardio makes you skinny-fat." Actually, no it doesn't. If you're completely untrained and deconditioned, cardio will make whatever muscles you use for it bigger. People who do nothing else but walking or running tend to have calves that put my lower legs to shame. If you haven't used a muscle before, and you start using it, it will be inclined to grow (to some extent) in order to accommodate the new activity. However, the extent to which the muscle grows will normally be significantly less if it's used for long distance low intensity activities than if it's used for short, all out efforts (such as sprints or heavy lifting). If you're an experienced lifter and you stop all lifting to do nothing but jogging every day, you probably will lose muscle mass, because weight training is better for building and maintaining muscles than cardio, however the addition of cardio on top of whatever else you've been doing is extremely unlikely to make you lose muscle mass. Now, I'm not saying that our dearest newbie shouldn't lift weights to get the body she's after (assuming that strength training will help with her goal, which it probably will), but there's no good reason to vilify cardio as a training tool, so long as it's used safely and for a sensible purpose.
Sunday, December 23, 2012
It's Official -- The World Really Did End on 21/12/2012
At first I was skeptical. After all, who wouldn't be? Claims that the world is going to end? Yeah right, I thought! But then, at 11 minutes after whatever hour it was here, things started happening. The ground groaned and the sky lit up red. Tidal waves 300m high raged in from the coast, earth quakes swallowed me whole, volcanos spat me back out, and then Sephiroth summoned meteor on me, and the whole ordeal was most unpleasant. We're all dead, the earth is destroyed. But DON'T PANIC! Once you get used to the universal necrosis, it's really not so bad.
You know, unless someone like Shinji Ikari gets a say in the matter.
You know, unless someone like Shinji Ikari gets a say in the matter.
Oh yeah, and this happened. Whoops. Prognosis doesn't look so good, after all.
Friday, December 21, 2012
Training -- Fri 21/12/2012
Squats
2x10xBW
10x20kg
5x40kg
3x60kg
1x80kg
2x10x90kg -- Considering the world's due to end soon, maybe I should have tried to make this one great widowmaker. Then again, maybe I'll need my recovery in check so that 24 hours from now I can calm people and ease them into the fact that they're all dead. On a related note,
2x10xBW
10x20kg
5x40kg
3x60kg
1x80kg
2x10x90kg -- Considering the world's due to end soon, maybe I should have tried to make this one great widowmaker. Then again, maybe I'll need my recovery in check so that 24 hours from now I can calm people and ease them into the fact that they're all dead. On a related note,
And this:
And for good measure, listen to "New Millenium" here:
Bench Press
10x20kg
5x30kg
3x40kg
2x50kg
2x7x60kg -- Weak my bench press has become.
Deadlift
5x60kg
5x80kg
3x100kg
1x115kg
2x3x125kg -- Form was not very good.
2x5x62.5kg
Assistance Work
2x8 Pull Ups
2x10 Band Rotator Cuff
2 sets of Lying Shoulder Extension
2x10x20kg Bent Over Lumbar Extension
DB Curl/Standing Triceps Extension/Calf Raise/Band Pull Apart (circuit)
2x15x10kg/15x10kg/15x280lb/15
Thursday, December 20, 2012
Photos From School's Out -- Gladiator
I came fully equipped with a punchfit wrap around my right wrist, TK's on my knees and my UGE lever belt around my waist. But, all my training and gear was no match for my opponent's increased size, and my ability to fall over even while standing still (true story). I've edited out the children's faces...seemed like a not bad idea with a public post.
Boo, Ryan, you suck! Get off the stage!
Wednesday, December 19, 2012
Training -- Wed 19/12/2012
Yesterday and today I've been helping out my church with a three-day youth project called School's Out, which consists primarily of fun, games, and all the food I shouldn't be eating since it doesn't fit my macros or calories. Today featured a tournament of activities including Gladiator using blow-up weapons on a blow-up stadium. I let the kids know it was serious business by stepping up to the platform geared up with PUNCHfit wrist wraps, my TK knee sleeves and my UGE lever belt. I also got beaten very quickly by one of the other team leaders. This afternoon we entered a pool by means of flying fox. There were 0.02 casualties. After it all, I made my way to the gym.
Squats
10xBW
10x20kg
5x40kg
3x60kg
2x10x80kg
Press/Cable Row
10x20kg/15x30kg
3x10x25kg/3x15x30kg with Fat Gripz (rows only)
Deadlift
3x5x60kg -- I'm finding it fascinating that conventional deadlifts with heavy weights don't make my shins bleed, and these light, fast deadlifts didn't either, but lately RDLs do.
Assistance Work
DB Curls/Standing Triceps Extension/Calf Raise (circuit)
15x10kg/15x10kg/15x280lb
10x10kg/15x10kg/15x280lb
Lying Shoulder Extension
3 sets
My shoulders and upper arms felt good throughout the session, which is a pleasant change of late. Hopefully they'll still feel that way when I bench again on Friday.
Squats
10xBW
10x20kg
5x40kg
3x60kg
2x10x80kg
Press/Cable Row
10x20kg/15x30kg
3x10x25kg/3x15x30kg with Fat Gripz (rows only)
Fat Gripz pretty much double the effective width of the bar where you hold it.
Supposedly this is good for grip strength.
Deadlift
3x5x60kg -- I'm finding it fascinating that conventional deadlifts with heavy weights don't make my shins bleed, and these light, fast deadlifts didn't either, but lately RDLs do.
Assistance Work
DB Curls/Standing Triceps Extension/Calf Raise (circuit)
15x10kg/15x10kg/15x280lb
10x10kg/15x10kg/15x280lb
Lying Shoulder Extension
3 sets
My shoulders and upper arms felt good throughout the session, which is a pleasant change of late. Hopefully they'll still feel that way when I bench again on Friday.
Tuesday, December 18, 2012
Squat Depth and Hamstrings
The other day I did up a post on the basic functions of the hamstrings: hip extension, and knee flexion via opposing angles of knee rotation. Now I'm going to follow that up with a topic that generates a lot of arguing each way, which is the hamstring involvement in squats, and squat depth.
The first time I did squats as an exercise, I was 15, doing bodyweight squats in a martial arts class. I can't recall any specific instructions on how to squat, but the instructor squatted to a legal depth, so I did the same. When I was about 16 or 17, after a long time of nothing but leg presses for my lower body (which annoyed me; I actually wanted to have strong legs but no one wanted to teach me how to safely put a bar on my back in the power rack), bodyweight squats were reintroduced into my programming, but I still wasn't taught how to perform any kind of loaded squat. I can't remember an instruction on depth, but I do remember the instructor saying something about sitting back and keeping my weight on my heels. I don't know if his made my bodyweight squats any better or worse than they had previously been, but they were definitely different.
It wasn't until I was in Cert III in Fitness when I was 19 that I was taught barbell squats. I was taught them the same way every gym instructor knows is the correct way to do them: knees bend to 90 degrees and don't go past your toes -- however 90 degrees was intended just as a starter tip, on the premise that the average PT client is horrendously deconditioned and will do bad things if they go much lower, not with the assumption that squatting lower is bad if you have the coordination to do so. When I was studying my Diploma of Fitness the next year, I was taught that once you go below parallel, the hamstrings deactivate, and it became day-in-day-out rhetoric. For all of 2009, I knew that hitting parallel or going lower was always bad for you. Of course, then I finished my Diploma, and started researching from sources other than my lecturers. I discovered a thoroughly contradictory mantra to what I'd been taught before, that the deeper you squat, the more involved your hamstrings become. Which is right? Which is wrong? Well, actually, there's some truth to both of these claims.
The truth is, hamstring involvement in any squat will be determined largely by hip angle relative to the knee angle. That's so important when analysing these claims from either side of the argument that it warrants repeating. Hamstring involvement in any squat will be determined largely by hip angle relative to the knee angle. If the range of motion at the hip increases, the hamstring involvement will increase (which is where those who say that increasing depth causes increased hamstring involvement get their argument from), however, if the range of motion at the knee increases, the hamstring involvement will decrease. Remember the basic actions of the hamstrings: hip extension and knee flexion. The basic movements of the squat are hip extension and knee flexion, so the movement of the hips load the hamstrings, while the movement of the knees deload the hamstrings. Whichever of those two joints has the greatest range of motion basically wins. Therefore, if the range of motion at the hips is 135 degrees, and the range of motion at the knees is only 100 degrees (angles that might occur in a powerlifting squat), there's potentially going to be a lot of hamstring involvement. Reverse those numbers so that the knees have significantly more movement than the hips, and the hamstrings will be doing very little, as we know to be true in front squats.
How does this apply, then, to partial squats? Well, if your limb lengths are anything like my own, then following the old advice of squatting to 90 degrees at the knees and keeping your knees behind your toes will (assuming you keep your back rigidly in neutral position and don't let your bum tuck under) result in the hips moving about 90-110 degrees, which of course means a greater range of motion at the hips than the knees, which enables a lot of hamstring involvement. If this statement (that squatting above parallel can in fact use the hamstrings a lot) offends you, go do a deadlift and figure this stuff out on your own.
The people who think of squatting to 90 degrees as standard tend also to think of keeping the knees over or behind the toes (never letting them pass the toes) as standard, also. These are the same people who say that squatting below parallel causes your hamstrings to deactivate. It warrants mentioning, at this point, that the further back you keep your knees, the further back your hips will be, since these rather rigid objects called femurs live between those two points. And the further back your hips go as you descend, the greater the range of motion will be at the hips. So then, what's going on with this claim (from the framework of keeping the knees back) that hitting parallel or lower deactivates the hamstrings? Surely these people would think otherwise, right?
Well, using their framework, they actually have a point. There are some people who can hit parallel with their knees behind their toes, and they are very glute/ham-dominant squatters. However, most people will do something wrong if they try this. Any of the following are reasonable to expect, and the consequences of any such blunders range from looking a bit silly and reduced productivity through to some pretty serious damage:
1. The lifter reaches the limit of their hamstring flexibility, and so they tuck their bum under to hit depth. Butt-tucking is really an act of unloading the glutes or hamstrings when they don't want to stretch any further, which takes tension out of the hip end of the hamstrings.
2. The lifter reaches the limit of their hamstring flexibility, and dips their knees forwards to hit depth. They couldn't keep their knees behind their toes, so at the last minute they let their knees pop forward, increasing knee flexion and again taking tension out of the hamstrings. It should be noted that most lifters who aren't hung up on keeping their knees over/behind their toes will let their knees drift forward earlier in the descent, so that the knees are as far forward as their needed for the required depth, and hamstring recruitment will then peak as the hips become parallel with the knees.
3. The lifter has the flexibility to hit parallel with the knees back, then keeps descending further, causing the hips to swing forwards as they come down. This isn't the same as the bum tucking under, as the spine remains neutral and the hips don't attempt to unload the built tension in them. If you ever watch an Olympic lifter squat, you'll see that their squats are generally ATG, but they're also still roughly parallel. Meanwhile, if you look at most powerlifters, the bottom of their squat his their hips still fairly high up off the ground. This is because the Olympic lifters typically let their knees drift further forwards, which also brings the knees closer to the ground, so for them to go ATG doesn't require them to go super-far below parallel (usually). Meanwhile, the powerlifter's shins will often be more upright, keeping the knees from drifting as far forwards, so that the hips will be further back to get the hamstrings firing hard for the lift. Once you hit parallel, because the femurs have a fixed length, the only way to stop the hips from swinging forwards as you descent any further is to pull the knees even further back, which is obviously not going to happen (and wouldn't be beneficial for keeping the hamstrings tight, anyway, since it would mean more knee flexion). Swinging the hips forwards does little (if anything) to increase the angle at the hips, but it does increase the angle at the knees. Such an action will take tension out of the hamstrings, rather than loading them any further.
Of course, if we remove the presupposition that the knees are supposed to stay directly over or behind the toes, and allow for knees to move forwards as far as is needed, then these issues are less likely to occur.
And that's all I feel like saying on hamstring involvement in squat right now. I'd like to note that while I've attempted to show that hamstring involvement can be quite high or quite low regardless of squat depth, and thus there's a bit of truth on both sides of the fence, this is in no way an attempt to say that squat depth is irrelevant when it comes to knee safety. There are a lot of things that could cause you to hurt your knees, of which faulty or subpar activation of the hamstrings is just one.
The first time I did squats as an exercise, I was 15, doing bodyweight squats in a martial arts class. I can't recall any specific instructions on how to squat, but the instructor squatted to a legal depth, so I did the same. When I was about 16 or 17, after a long time of nothing but leg presses for my lower body (which annoyed me; I actually wanted to have strong legs but no one wanted to teach me how to safely put a bar on my back in the power rack), bodyweight squats were reintroduced into my programming, but I still wasn't taught how to perform any kind of loaded squat. I can't remember an instruction on depth, but I do remember the instructor saying something about sitting back and keeping my weight on my heels. I don't know if his made my bodyweight squats any better or worse than they had previously been, but they were definitely different.
It wasn't until I was in Cert III in Fitness when I was 19 that I was taught barbell squats. I was taught them the same way every gym instructor knows is the correct way to do them: knees bend to 90 degrees and don't go past your toes -- however 90 degrees was intended just as a starter tip, on the premise that the average PT client is horrendously deconditioned and will do bad things if they go much lower, not with the assumption that squatting lower is bad if you have the coordination to do so. When I was studying my Diploma of Fitness the next year, I was taught that once you go below parallel, the hamstrings deactivate, and it became day-in-day-out rhetoric. For all of 2009, I knew that hitting parallel or going lower was always bad for you. Of course, then I finished my Diploma, and started researching from sources other than my lecturers. I discovered a thoroughly contradictory mantra to what I'd been taught before, that the deeper you squat, the more involved your hamstrings become. Which is right? Which is wrong? Well, actually, there's some truth to both of these claims.
I felt this space needed a picture.
Click here for the original.
The truth is, hamstring involvement in any squat will be determined largely by hip angle relative to the knee angle. That's so important when analysing these claims from either side of the argument that it warrants repeating. Hamstring involvement in any squat will be determined largely by hip angle relative to the knee angle. If the range of motion at the hip increases, the hamstring involvement will increase (which is where those who say that increasing depth causes increased hamstring involvement get their argument from), however, if the range of motion at the knee increases, the hamstring involvement will decrease. Remember the basic actions of the hamstrings: hip extension and knee flexion. The basic movements of the squat are hip extension and knee flexion, so the movement of the hips load the hamstrings, while the movement of the knees deload the hamstrings. Whichever of those two joints has the greatest range of motion basically wins. Therefore, if the range of motion at the hips is 135 degrees, and the range of motion at the knees is only 100 degrees (angles that might occur in a powerlifting squat), there's potentially going to be a lot of hamstring involvement. Reverse those numbers so that the knees have significantly more movement than the hips, and the hamstrings will be doing very little, as we know to be true in front squats.
How does this apply, then, to partial squats? Well, if your limb lengths are anything like my own, then following the old advice of squatting to 90 degrees at the knees and keeping your knees behind your toes will (assuming you keep your back rigidly in neutral position and don't let your bum tuck under) result in the hips moving about 90-110 degrees, which of course means a greater range of motion at the hips than the knees, which enables a lot of hamstring involvement. If this statement (that squatting above parallel can in fact use the hamstrings a lot) offends you, go do a deadlift and figure this stuff out on your own.
The people who think of squatting to 90 degrees as standard tend also to think of keeping the knees over or behind the toes (never letting them pass the toes) as standard, also. These are the same people who say that squatting below parallel causes your hamstrings to deactivate. It warrants mentioning, at this point, that the further back you keep your knees, the further back your hips will be, since these rather rigid objects called femurs live between those two points. And the further back your hips go as you descend, the greater the range of motion will be at the hips. So then, what's going on with this claim (from the framework of keeping the knees back) that hitting parallel or lower deactivates the hamstrings? Surely these people would think otherwise, right?
Well, using their framework, they actually have a point. There are some people who can hit parallel with their knees behind their toes, and they are very glute/ham-dominant squatters. However, most people will do something wrong if they try this. Any of the following are reasonable to expect, and the consequences of any such blunders range from looking a bit silly and reduced productivity through to some pretty serious damage:
1. The lifter reaches the limit of their hamstring flexibility, and so they tuck their bum under to hit depth. Butt-tucking is really an act of unloading the glutes or hamstrings when they don't want to stretch any further, which takes tension out of the hip end of the hamstrings.
2. The lifter reaches the limit of their hamstring flexibility, and dips their knees forwards to hit depth. They couldn't keep their knees behind their toes, so at the last minute they let their knees pop forward, increasing knee flexion and again taking tension out of the hamstrings. It should be noted that most lifters who aren't hung up on keeping their knees over/behind their toes will let their knees drift forward earlier in the descent, so that the knees are as far forward as their needed for the required depth, and hamstring recruitment will then peak as the hips become parallel with the knees.
3. The lifter has the flexibility to hit parallel with the knees back, then keeps descending further, causing the hips to swing forwards as they come down. This isn't the same as the bum tucking under, as the spine remains neutral and the hips don't attempt to unload the built tension in them. If you ever watch an Olympic lifter squat, you'll see that their squats are generally ATG, but they're also still roughly parallel. Meanwhile, if you look at most powerlifters, the bottom of their squat his their hips still fairly high up off the ground. This is because the Olympic lifters typically let their knees drift further forwards, which also brings the knees closer to the ground, so for them to go ATG doesn't require them to go super-far below parallel (usually). Meanwhile, the powerlifter's shins will often be more upright, keeping the knees from drifting as far forwards, so that the hips will be further back to get the hamstrings firing hard for the lift. Once you hit parallel, because the femurs have a fixed length, the only way to stop the hips from swinging forwards as you descent any further is to pull the knees even further back, which is obviously not going to happen (and wouldn't be beneficial for keeping the hamstrings tight, anyway, since it would mean more knee flexion). Swinging the hips forwards does little (if anything) to increase the angle at the hips, but it does increase the angle at the knees. Such an action will take tension out of the hamstrings, rather than loading them any further.
Of course, if we remove the presupposition that the knees are supposed to stay directly over or behind the toes, and allow for knees to move forwards as far as is needed, then these issues are less likely to occur.
And that's all I feel like saying on hamstring involvement in squat right now. I'd like to note that while I've attempted to show that hamstring involvement can be quite high or quite low regardless of squat depth, and thus there's a bit of truth on both sides of the fence, this is in no way an attempt to say that squat depth is irrelevant when it comes to knee safety. There are a lot of things that could cause you to hurt your knees, of which faulty or subpar activation of the hamstrings is just one.
A video of lifter Tom Martin doing partial squats in a manner that probably gave his hamstrings
plenty of work.
Monday, December 17, 2012
Training -- Mon 17/12/2012
Nice light session...still felt hard. I'm going to chalk it down to just being one of those days.
Squats
10xBW
10 pull ups
10x20kg
5x40kg
3x60kg
2x10x70kg -- This all felt fine, but energy levels were low, so I decided not to go for a widowmaker like I did on Saturday.
8 pull ups
3x10 band external rotator
3 sets of lying shoulder extensions for lower traps. Activation of the target muscles is getting better during these.
Bench Press
5x15kg Incline DBBP
2x5x20kg
5x30kg
3x40kg
2x10x50kg -- Still not feeling good, but at least this was doable.
Deadlift
5x60kg
3x80kg
1x100kg
5x120kg -- 5 weeks off from doing deadlifts did not do good things for this.
2x5x60kg
Assistance Work
Cable Row/Calf Raise/Lying Triceps Extension/DB Curl/Decline Sit Up/Side Bridge (circuit)
15x20kg/20x220lb/20x15kg/20x7.5kg/10/10 -- Just did 1 round, then decided to call it quits.
Squats
10xBW
10 pull ups
10x20kg
5x40kg
3x60kg
2x10x70kg -- This all felt fine, but energy levels were low, so I decided not to go for a widowmaker like I did on Saturday.
8 pull ups
3x10 band external rotator
3 sets of lying shoulder extensions for lower traps. Activation of the target muscles is getting better during these.
Bench Press
5x15kg Incline DBBP
2x5x20kg
5x30kg
3x40kg
2x10x50kg -- Still not feeling good, but at least this was doable.
Deadlift
5x60kg
3x80kg
1x100kg
5x120kg -- 5 weeks off from doing deadlifts did not do good things for this.
2x5x60kg
Assistance Work
Cable Row/Calf Raise/Lying Triceps Extension/DB Curl/Decline Sit Up/Side Bridge (circuit)
15x20kg/20x220lb/20x15kg/20x7.5kg/10/10 -- Just did 1 round, then decided to call it quits.
How the Hamstrings Work
Anatomy talk ahead. Prepare to glaze over.
The hamstrings are the muscles of the back of the thigh. The muscle group consists of three main muscles: semitendinosus, semimembranosus and biceps femoris. Yes, that's right, you have biceps in the back of your legs. Congratulations. Part of adductor magnus is also considered hamstring.
Leg curls work your hamstrings through knee flexion. Romanian deadlifts work your hamstrings through hip extension. Why do both of these different movements train the same muscles? The answer is that the hamstrings muscles have most of their origin points in the pelvis and their insertion points below the knee (for those who haven't studied anatomy, "origins" and "insertions" are both points where a muscle is connected to a bone via a tendon). The pelvic origin in the ischial tuberosity means that shortening the hamstrings from that end causes hip extension, the primary movement in all hinge-based movments (deadlifts, RDLs, goodmornings, hyperextensions).
In my opinion, things get a little more interesting around the knee joint.
The hamstrings, at their insertion points, wrap around behind the knee, and then attach onto the sides of the tibia. Semimembranosus and semitendinosus both attach on the medial side of the tibia, and biceps femoris attach on the lateral side. The angle that each muscle comes in, wrapping around to the side of the knee from behind, indicates that if the knee joint wasn't two adjacent balls in two adjacent sockets, but was a single ball-and-socket joint, then semitendinosus and semimembranosus would internally rotate the knee, and biceps femoris would externally rotate the knee. In practice, it is through the combined effort of all the hamstring muscles trying to rotate the knee in opposing directions that causes knee flexion. A fascinating little contraption the knee joint is.
Biceps femoris is interesting in its own individual way. Unlike semitendinosus and semimembranosus (as an aside, I'm rapidly getting sick of typing out these names) which just have one main origin and one main insertion, biceps femoris has two main origins. Biceps femoris is broken down into two heads: the long head and the short head. The long head has the conventional hamstring origin point at the ischial tuberosity, making it contribute to hip extension. However, the short head's origin point is on the femur, meaning that the short head of the muscle is mostly only involved in knee flexion. This gives some credibility to the claim that leg curls are an important exercise.
So, there you have a slightly more in-depth look at how the hamstrings work than the simple explanation that they do hip extension and knee flexion. Did your brain survive the read?
The hamstrings are the muscles of the back of the thigh. The muscle group consists of three main muscles: semitendinosus, semimembranosus and biceps femoris. Yes, that's right, you have biceps in the back of your legs. Congratulations. Part of adductor magnus is also considered hamstring.
Leg curls work your hamstrings through knee flexion. Romanian deadlifts work your hamstrings through hip extension. Why do both of these different movements train the same muscles? The answer is that the hamstrings muscles have most of their origin points in the pelvis and their insertion points below the knee (for those who haven't studied anatomy, "origins" and "insertions" are both points where a muscle is connected to a bone via a tendon). The pelvic origin in the ischial tuberosity means that shortening the hamstrings from that end causes hip extension, the primary movement in all hinge-based movments (deadlifts, RDLs, goodmornings, hyperextensions).
In my opinion, things get a little more interesting around the knee joint.
The hamstrings, at their insertion points, wrap around behind the knee, and then attach onto the sides of the tibia. Semimembranosus and semitendinosus both attach on the medial side of the tibia, and biceps femoris attach on the lateral side. The angle that each muscle comes in, wrapping around to the side of the knee from behind, indicates that if the knee joint wasn't two adjacent balls in two adjacent sockets, but was a single ball-and-socket joint, then semitendinosus and semimembranosus would internally rotate the knee, and biceps femoris would externally rotate the knee. In practice, it is through the combined effort of all the hamstring muscles trying to rotate the knee in opposing directions that causes knee flexion. A fascinating little contraption the knee joint is.
A lateral view of the knee joint showing where semitendinosus and semimembranosus
insert into the tibia, just below the knee istelf.
Biceps femoris is interesting in its own individual way. Unlike semitendinosus and semimembranosus (as an aside, I'm rapidly getting sick of typing out these names) which just have one main origin and one main insertion, biceps femoris has two main origins. Biceps femoris is broken down into two heads: the long head and the short head. The long head has the conventional hamstring origin point at the ischial tuberosity, making it contribute to hip extension. However, the short head's origin point is on the femur, meaning that the short head of the muscle is mostly only involved in knee flexion. This gives some credibility to the claim that leg curls are an important exercise.
So, there you have a slightly more in-depth look at how the hamstrings work than the simple explanation that they do hip extension and knee flexion. Did your brain survive the read?
Saturday, December 15, 2012
Smolov Jr, Day 8 -- Sat 15/12/2012
Back in 2004, the Australian Government launched a televised campaign with the following slogan:
Today, in 2012, I'm discovering the need for a new campaign, targeted at idiots in the gym by the name of Ryan who do bad things to themselves:
So I've indentified the cause of my issues over the last couple sessions. The dull ache that I felt in my arms was radiating down there from my shoulders. I wasn't sure on what I was feeling on Wednesday and Friday, but what I'm feeling today is a pain I've been all too familiar with in the past. The good news is I know how to remedy this: overhead presses, rotator cuff work, some funky posterior capsule stretching, and a good old fashioned deload. That, and generally sensible, balanced programming. The bad news is this means I won't be continuing through to the third week of the program. Oh well.
Squats
2x10xBW
10x20kg
5x40kg
3x60kg
1x80kg
1x100kg
3x112.5kg -- Form was ugly and my shoulders were not feeling promising. Decided not to take the heavy lifting any further, but not to call it a day, either. So I decided to strip some weight off the bar and do some light sets of 10.
2x10x60kg
20x60kg -- Then I realised that 60kg was too light for 10's, so I decided to see what I could do. I had the strength to go on after 20 reps, but my feet were getting sore after about the 18th rep, so I decided to complete a widowmaker and then put the plates away.
Assistance Work
Cable Row/Press/Band Pull Apart
2x20x20kg/10x20kg/10 -- Performed in a circuit with the 2x10x60kg squats.
Farmer's Walk
2x50mx22.5kg
Hyperextension/Calf Raise/Decline Sit Up/Side Bridge (circuit)
20/20x220lb/10/10
Today, in 2012, I'm discovering the need for a new campaign, targeted at idiots in the gym by the name of Ryan who do bad things to themselves:
So I've indentified the cause of my issues over the last couple sessions. The dull ache that I felt in my arms was radiating down there from my shoulders. I wasn't sure on what I was feeling on Wednesday and Friday, but what I'm feeling today is a pain I've been all too familiar with in the past. The good news is I know how to remedy this: overhead presses, rotator cuff work, some funky posterior capsule stretching, and a good old fashioned deload. That, and generally sensible, balanced programming. The bad news is this means I won't be continuing through to the third week of the program. Oh well.
Squats
2x10xBW
10x20kg
5x40kg
3x60kg
1x80kg
1x100kg
3x112.5kg -- Form was ugly and my shoulders were not feeling promising. Decided not to take the heavy lifting any further, but not to call it a day, either. So I decided to strip some weight off the bar and do some light sets of 10.
2x10x60kg
20x60kg -- Then I realised that 60kg was too light for 10's, so I decided to see what I could do. I had the strength to go on after 20 reps, but my feet were getting sore after about the 18th rep, so I decided to complete a widowmaker and then put the plates away.
Assistance Work
Cable Row/Press/Band Pull Apart
2x20x20kg/10x20kg/10 -- Performed in a circuit with the 2x10x60kg squats.
Farmer's Walk
2x50mx22.5kg
Hyperextension/Calf Raise/Decline Sit Up/Side Bridge (circuit)
20/20x220lb/10/10
Friday, December 14, 2012
Smolov Jr, Day 7 -- Fri 14/12/2012
Okay, you can pull out the "I told you so" banners now. Squats went just fine. Bench press, not so much.
Squats
2x10xBW
10x20kg
3x50kg
3x70kg
1x90kg
8x4x105kg -- Legs were good, back and abs were good, chest was up, all reps completed successfully. However, I constantly felt like the bar might collapse behind me at any moment, because my upper arms were feeling the dull pain and weakness that caused me to stop bench press early on Wednesday. Fortunately, my arms didn't stop me from squatting or cause me to fail, but, in an unusual turn of events, today it felt like I genuinely could have failed my squats due to my arms giving out. Between each warm up set, I did a lying shoulder extension to activate my lower traps.
Bench Press
2x5x20kg
5x40kg
3x55kg
1xFx70kg -- The bar went down onto my chest on the first rep, and that was the end of heavy benching for me today. Upper arms completely gave out. I felt like the 40kg 14yo boy who goes in and tries to lift 100kg on his first day in the hopes that he'll somehow be successful at it and look like a strong legend instead of a 40kg 14yo.
Incline Bench Press
2x10x20kg -- And then I decided screw this, I'm going home.
Squats
2x10xBW
10x20kg
3x50kg
3x70kg
1x90kg
8x4x105kg -- Legs were good, back and abs were good, chest was up, all reps completed successfully. However, I constantly felt like the bar might collapse behind me at any moment, because my upper arms were feeling the dull pain and weakness that caused me to stop bench press early on Wednesday. Fortunately, my arms didn't stop me from squatting or cause me to fail, but, in an unusual turn of events, today it felt like I genuinely could have failed my squats due to my arms giving out. Between each warm up set, I did a lying shoulder extension to activate my lower traps.
Bench Press
2x5x20kg
5x40kg
3x55kg
1xFx70kg -- The bar went down onto my chest on the first rep, and that was the end of heavy benching for me today. Upper arms completely gave out. I felt like the 40kg 14yo boy who goes in and tries to lift 100kg on his first day in the hopes that he'll somehow be successful at it and look like a strong legend instead of a 40kg 14yo.
This was me.
Incline Bench Press
2x10x20kg -- And then I decided screw this, I'm going home.
Thursday, December 13, 2012
Generalised Thinking About Stuff
I took a walk down to the shops today to buy some Pepsi Max for this evening. I took a mild hour-long detour on the way there, up, over and around some of the local mosquito bites that we like to pretend are hills. A couple days ago I took the dogs for a walk of similar duration, but they slowed me down, so I left them home today. I'm a bit mean on occasion.
The first Powerlifting Australia Brisbane meet of 2013 is on 20 Jan. Methinks I'll be competing in it, breaking my meetginity. If I do, I'll be competing in the 66kg weight class if possible (I'm currently between 67 and 67.5kg, so no reason why this shouldn't be achievable).
I plan on playing Dungeons & Dragons this afternoon. Don't disturb me while I'm nerding.
The first Powerlifting Australia Brisbane meet of 2013 is on 20 Jan. Methinks I'll be competing in it, breaking my meetginity. If I do, I'll be competing in the 66kg weight class if possible (I'm currently between 67 and 67.5kg, so no reason why this shouldn't be achievable).
I plan on playing Dungeons & Dragons this afternoon. Don't disturb me while I'm nerding.
Wednesday, December 12, 2012
Smolov Jr, Day 6 -- Wed 12/12/12
Apparently we won't get fun matched dates like 12/12/12 again this century, but I'm sure I can do some sweet romantic matchmaking of numbers over the coming years with a little creativity.
So, it's Day 6. I'm not sure whether I'm on the train to awesome town at the moment, or if I'm on the train to suck town. Pros: I'm at the halfway mark and not dead. Cons: The muscle tear on the first day; the subsequent lack of squat sets in the first week, I'm progressively finding it harder to give enough of a rat's gluteus maximus to get adequately psyched up to lift with the right intensity, in a related vein the lack of rat rectories and psychitute is producing a lack of tightness and aggression in both the squat and bench press, and today something in the general area of my humerus (maybe rear delt, maybe rotator cuff, maybe triceps, maybe neurons, maybe the bone itself) was pretty keen on not moving the weight. I look forward to when this is over. I had a 100kg bench press on my Christmas list, now I just have not doing Smolov Jr on the list. Still, I'll persevere, and see what I learn from this wave of self-abuse.
Squats
10xBW
10x20kg
5x40kg
3x60kg
1x80kg
7x5x100kg
Bench Press
2x5x20kg
5x32.5kg
3x45kg
1x55kg
4x5x65kg -- My arms were saying no, but I kept finishing each set. After the 4th set, I thought: "Maybe I just need to man up and keep going." About 12 seconds later my arms had a cry, and I amended that thought to: "I'm going to unrack the bar now and do something else."
Assistance Work
Band Pull Aparts
4x10 spread out between sets of squats and bench press.
Lying Shoulder Extension
I stopped counting after the third set. My left lower trap needed the activation. Performed between sets of bench press.
RDL/Calf Raise/Cable Row/Decline Sit Up/Side Bridge (circuit)
2x12x70kg/2x15x280lb/1x15x50kg, 1x10+5x50kg/2x10/1x15, 1x10
All of a sudden, RDLs have an apparent fetish for making my shins bleed. This never used to happen, and I don't much appreciate it.
So, it's Day 6. I'm not sure whether I'm on the train to awesome town at the moment, or if I'm on the train to suck town. Pros: I'm at the halfway mark and not dead. Cons: The muscle tear on the first day; the subsequent lack of squat sets in the first week, I'm progressively finding it harder to give enough of a rat's gluteus maximus to get adequately psyched up to lift with the right intensity, in a related vein the lack of rat rectories and psychitute is producing a lack of tightness and aggression in both the squat and bench press, and today something in the general area of my humerus (maybe rear delt, maybe rotator cuff, maybe triceps, maybe neurons, maybe the bone itself) was pretty keen on not moving the weight. I look forward to when this is over. I had a 100kg bench press on my Christmas list, now I just have not doing Smolov Jr on the list. Still, I'll persevere, and see what I learn from this wave of self-abuse.
Squats
10xBW
10x20kg
5x40kg
3x60kg
1x80kg
7x5x100kg
Bench Press
2x5x20kg
5x32.5kg
3x45kg
1x55kg
4x5x65kg -- My arms were saying no, but I kept finishing each set. After the 4th set, I thought: "Maybe I just need to man up and keep going." About 12 seconds later my arms had a cry, and I amended that thought to: "I'm going to unrack the bar now and do something else."
Assistance Work
Band Pull Aparts
4x10 spread out between sets of squats and bench press.
Lying Shoulder Extension
I stopped counting after the third set. My left lower trap needed the activation. Performed between sets of bench press.
RDL/Calf Raise/Cable Row/Decline Sit Up/Side Bridge (circuit)
2x12x70kg/2x15x280lb/1x15x50kg, 1x10+5x50kg/2x10/1x15, 1x10
All of a sudden, RDLs have an apparent fetish for making my shins bleed. This never used to happen, and I don't much appreciate it.
Maybe this is the solution. Not a very manly solution, though.
Monday, December 10, 2012
Smolov Jr, Day 5 -- Mon 10/12/2012
I've spend Friday evening, Saturday and Sunday away on church camp, and have most assuredly set back my cut by a week along the way. Oh well, it's December, the worst time of the year to be cutting. I under-slept over Friday and Saturday nights, and when I got home on Sunday I got to sleep around 10:30pm, then woke up at about 9:30am today, feeling like I could go another round. But, I had to get myself out of bed so that I could get to the dentist...and so that I could find out how to get to the dentist, since this was my first visit with this practice. Before heading over to the gym at about 1:15pm, I dropped in at the local grocer and bought a little popper of Musashi P30 to have as my pre-workout/breakfast. First time I've ever had it. Not something I'd normally spend money on, but it actually tasted pretty good and was smooth, unlike any protein powder I've mixed up at home.
Squats
15 banded pull ups
10xBW (no sleeves)
5 pull ups
10xBW (sleeves)
10 pull ups
10x20kg
5x40kg
3x60kg
1x80kg
6x6x95kg -- The weight went up much better than the first day I tried 6x6 at 95kg. My quads weren't entirely happy about doing work though. They got some foam rolling afterwards, to punish them for complaining. No injury issues.
Bench Press
10x20kg
5x30kg
3x40kg
1x50kg
4x6x60kg
5x60kg -- There was simply no power coming out of my upper body on the 6th rep, so it came an inch up, then changed its mind.
6x60kg -- And then my bench press was back to normal.
Assistance Work
Cable Row/Hyperextension/DB Curl/Calf Raise (circuit)
2x14x50kg/15/10x10kg/12x280lb
I'll take my promotional royalties now, thankyou very much.
Squats
15 banded pull ups
10xBW (no sleeves)
5 pull ups
10xBW (sleeves)
10 pull ups
10x20kg
5x40kg
3x60kg
1x80kg
6x6x95kg -- The weight went up much better than the first day I tried 6x6 at 95kg. My quads weren't entirely happy about doing work though. They got some foam rolling afterwards, to punish them for complaining. No injury issues.
Bench Press
10x20kg
5x30kg
3x40kg
1x50kg
4x6x60kg
5x60kg -- There was simply no power coming out of my upper body on the 6th rep, so it came an inch up, then changed its mind.
6x60kg -- And then my bench press was back to normal.
Assistance Work
Cable Row/Hyperextension/DB Curl/Calf Raise (circuit)
2x14x50kg/15/10x10kg/12x280lb
Friday, December 7, 2012
Smolov Jr, Day 4 -- Friday 07/12/2012
And so my first week on the program comes to a close. My quads are much happier, and I was able to get through all 10 sets. On the 8th set, my knee caved in on one rep, and it didn't cause reinjury, but I immediately realised how I hurt myself in the first place. Take home story: always drive your knees out as you squat.
Squat
10 pull ups
10xBW
10 pull ups
10x20kg
5x40kg
3x60kg
1x80kg
10x3x102.5kg -- I found today that the hardest thing wasn't the volume combined with intensity, it was being able to psyche myself up properly. When you've got 10 sets ahead of you, it's kinda hard to care so much about that first set. If this were dynamic effort work, it'd be a different story, but this isn't, so it isn't. However, after the 6th set, I started to get excited. "I'm about to do my 7th set. Only 3 to go after that!"
Bench Press
10x20kg
5x32.5kg
3x45kg
1x57.5kg
10x3x67.5kg -- Triceps weren't entirely happy with me today, and I was finding it hard to keep as tight as I ought to. I did about 5 sets of 20 band pull aparts between my first warm up set and last work set. I also did some foam rolling for my legs between warm up sets on the bench.
Assistance Work
RDL/DB Curl/Lying Shoulder Extension/Calf Raise/Side Bridge
2x10x70kg/20x7.5kg/20sec x1.25kg/10x280lb/10
I put blood on the bar doing RDL's. First time I've ever made my shins bleed from pulling, and it wasn't even a heavy or fast load, or over the knurling. Odd. The lying shoulder extensions are performed statically, and used to work the lower trapezius. I've been finding my right lower trapezius is doing its job, and lefty isn't, so it's time to isolate. The calf raise machine had something shoddy with the 240 and 260lb plates stopping me from inserting the pin there, so I went straight up to 280lb. Didn't feel anywhere near as heavy as I thought it would.
Squat
10 pull ups
10xBW
10 pull ups
10x20kg
5x40kg
3x60kg
1x80kg
10x3x102.5kg -- I found today that the hardest thing wasn't the volume combined with intensity, it was being able to psyche myself up properly. When you've got 10 sets ahead of you, it's kinda hard to care so much about that first set. If this were dynamic effort work, it'd be a different story, but this isn't, so it isn't. However, after the 6th set, I started to get excited. "I'm about to do my 7th set. Only 3 to go after that!"
Bench Press
10x20kg
5x32.5kg
3x45kg
1x57.5kg
10x3x67.5kg -- Triceps weren't entirely happy with me today, and I was finding it hard to keep as tight as I ought to. I did about 5 sets of 20 band pull aparts between my first warm up set and last work set. I also did some foam rolling for my legs between warm up sets on the bench.
Assistance Work
RDL/DB Curl/Lying Shoulder Extension/Calf Raise/Side Bridge
2x10x70kg/20x7.5kg/20sec x1.25kg/10x280lb/10
I put blood on the bar doing RDL's. First time I've ever made my shins bleed from pulling, and it wasn't even a heavy or fast load, or over the knurling. Odd. The lying shoulder extensions are performed statically, and used to work the lower trapezius. I've been finding my right lower trapezius is doing its job, and lefty isn't, so it's time to isolate. The calf raise machine had something shoddy with the 240 and 260lb plates stopping me from inserting the pin there, so I went straight up to 280lb. Didn't feel anywhere near as heavy as I thought it would.
Thursday, December 6, 2012
The Best Exercises for Gaining or Losing Size
The Best Exercise for Gaining Size:
Knife and Fork Curls. Perform at least 100 reps per day. This exercise is best performed with a heavy load of meat, vegetables and non-processed varieties of carbohydrates. Assistance work includes high rep Milk Curls and everything you do in the gym.
Today I'll be demonstrating the Knife and Fork Curl using a meat pie for my load. An oft' kept secret in Australia is that if you eat a meat pie now, that'll be the end of it. But if you don't, we will look for you, we will find you, and we will kill you.
The Best Exercise for Losing Size:
Push Aways. Perform for either reps or a 1RM daily. This exercise is best performed with cupcakes, ice cream or bagels. Performance with the same loads used for Knife and Fork Curls is not recommended. Assistance work includes moderate rep Knife and Fork Curls, moderate rep Milk Curls and everything you do in the gym.
I will demonstrate the push away using an icing-encrusted bun.
Knife and Fork Curls. Perform at least 100 reps per day. This exercise is best performed with a heavy load of meat, vegetables and non-processed varieties of carbohydrates. Assistance work includes high rep Milk Curls and everything you do in the gym.
Today I'll be demonstrating the Knife and Fork Curl using a meat pie for my load. An oft' kept secret in Australia is that if you eat a meat pie now, that'll be the end of it. But if you don't, we will look for you, we will find you, and we will kill you.
Step 1. Put knife and fork in hands.
Step 2. Insert fork into food and cut off the chunk of food around the fork.
Step 3. Initiate curl by pulling fork towards face.
Step 4. Insert into mouth.
Make sure you get this right. You don't want to miss a rep and let your efforts go in vain.
The Best Exercise for Losing Size:
Push Aways. Perform for either reps or a 1RM daily. This exercise is best performed with cupcakes, ice cream or bagels. Performance with the same loads used for Knife and Fork Curls is not recommended. Assistance work includes moderate rep Knife and Fork Curls, moderate rep Milk Curls and everything you do in the gym.
I will demonstrate the push away using an icing-encrusted bun.
Step 1. Push
Step 2. ....Away.
Wednesday, December 5, 2012
Smolov Jr, Day 3 -- Wed 05/12/2012
I'm feeling much better than I have been earlier in the week. It's amazing what the body can become accustomed to in such a short amount of time. I also obtained a pair of Tommy Kono knee sleeves today. At first it was strange squatting with them, but I got used to it pretty quickly.
Squats
2x10xBW
10x20kg
5x40kg
3x60kg
1x80kg
5x4x95kg -- One more set than I'd planned to do. I think I could have gotten all 8 sets if I'd tried, but again, being conservative. Not wanting to mess with my injury, and such.
Bench Press
10x20kg
5x32.5kg
3x45kg
1x55kg
8x4x65kg -- This was not fun. My left shoulder wasn't entirely happy about the whole ordeal, but 3 sets of 15 light band pull aparts and some stretching between sets helped me get through it.
Assistance Work
RDL/Calf Raise/Cable Row/Side Bridge (circuit)
2x15x60kg/20x220lb/13x50kg/10
Stretching and Foam Rolling
TK knee sleeves
Squats
2x10xBW
10x20kg
5x40kg
3x60kg
1x80kg
5x4x95kg -- One more set than I'd planned to do. I think I could have gotten all 8 sets if I'd tried, but again, being conservative. Not wanting to mess with my injury, and such.
Bench Press
10x20kg
5x32.5kg
3x45kg
1x55kg
8x4x65kg -- This was not fun. My left shoulder wasn't entirely happy about the whole ordeal, but 3 sets of 15 light band pull aparts and some stretching between sets helped me get through it.
Assistance Work
RDL/Calf Raise/Cable Row/Side Bridge (circuit)
2x15x60kg/20x220lb/13x50kg/10
Stretching and Foam Rolling
Tuesday, December 4, 2012
Update on Recovery
As of today, Tuesday the 4th of December, my body seems to be getting back on the bandwagon of recovering after training. As always, my pecs and anterior delts are completely DOMS-free. There is a very, very, very faint hint of soreness in my triceps, posterior deltoids, erectors, lats and traps. Hamstrings feel fine, glutes feel fine, calves feel fine, and there's a fairly normal, uninteresting level of DOMS in my quads and adductors. Jelly-leg syndrome is pretty much gone. There's a bruise on my right leg where the muscle got sad on Saturday. I've done some light stretching today, and all is good. Two more sessions of lifting this week, then off to a church camp for the weekend, and back to it on Monday.
I'm thinking I'll do 4 sets (instead of 8) of squats on Wed this week, 5 sets (instead of 10) on Fri, and hopefully be good for the full 6x6 on Mon, with normal volume thereafter. If my quads (or my injury) don't take kindly towards all the sets, then I might keep the volume back on squats, but I hope not to have to do that.
I'm thinking I'll do 4 sets (instead of 8) of squats on Wed this week, 5 sets (instead of 10) on Fri, and hopefully be good for the full 6x6 on Mon, with normal volume thereafter. If my quads (or my injury) don't take kindly towards all the sets, then I might keep the volume back on squats, but I hope not to have to do that.
I didn't enjoy doing this yesterday, but I think it helped me to walk today.
Monday, December 3, 2012
Smolov Jr, Day 2 -- Mon 03/12/2012
My quads have been like jelly all Sunday. Standing hasn't been too bad, sitting hasn't been too bad, the place in between has been pure evil, walking has been with the finesse one would expect from a car crash victim learning to walk again. Quads were feeling slightly better today. They manned up a lot when I started warming up for the squat, but I only did 3 working sets instead of the full 7. I was concerned in my previous post that I may have injured my quadriceps. I'm pretty sure there's a muscle tear there now, but I don't think it's my quads, I think it's my sartorius. I stopped squatting prematurely to give that a chance to not get reinjured.
Squats
3x5xBW -- First two sets holding onto the rack and hating every second of it. Third set not so bad.
2x5x20kg -- First set kinda awkward, second set getting a better flow and more comfortable.
5x40kg
3x60kg
1x80kg
3x5x90kg -- Felt fairly good, but again I stopped early to reduce the risk of reinjury (if I was really smart I'd just be doing high rep, light squats for rehab). I was slower on my reps than on Saturday, as a preventative measure.
Bench Press
1x8 Pull Ups
2x5x20kg
5x30kg
3x40kg
1x50kg
7x5x60kg -- Thankfully, this is still going ahead smoothly.
Assistance Work
Band Pull Apart/DB Curl
15/15x7.5kg
10/15x7.5kg
Foam Rolling and Stretching
Quads, glutes, hamstrings, calves, lats, thoracic
Decline Sit Up/Side Bend
8xBW/8x15kg
8x5kg/8x15kg
Now that I've cooled down, I imagine that when I go to get up after typing this my legs will revert back to their jelly-like state.
The swollen hot spot is right about where sartorius crosses over vastus intermedius above.
Un-fun fact: vastus intermedius is a deep quadricep muscle, and is covered superficially by the rectus femoris,
which is the only quadricep muscle that is both a knee extensor and a hip flexor.
Squats
3x5xBW -- First two sets holding onto the rack and hating every second of it. Third set not so bad.
2x5x20kg -- First set kinda awkward, second set getting a better flow and more comfortable.
5x40kg
3x60kg
1x80kg
3x5x90kg -- Felt fairly good, but again I stopped early to reduce the risk of reinjury (if I was really smart I'd just be doing high rep, light squats for rehab). I was slower on my reps than on Saturday, as a preventative measure.
Bench Press
1x8 Pull Ups
2x5x20kg
5x30kg
3x40kg
1x50kg
7x5x60kg -- Thankfully, this is still going ahead smoothly.
Assistance Work
Band Pull Apart/DB Curl
15/15x7.5kg
10/15x7.5kg
Foam Rolling and Stretching
Quads, glutes, hamstrings, calves, lats, thoracic
Decline Sit Up/Side Bend
8xBW/8x15kg
8x5kg/8x15kg
Now that I've cooled down, I imagine that when I go to get up after typing this my legs will revert back to their jelly-like state.
Saturday, December 1, 2012
Smolov Jr, Day 1 -- Sat 01/12/12
Well, today went much better than yesterday. My form was much smoother, and I hit all my target reps. I'll never be able to walk again, but such is life. I did some foam rolling before and after, which was mildly excruciating. Hopefully it makes tomorrow more tolerable. At least I won't be lifting tomorrow, so I've got some time available for recovery now, which I'll definitely need. I may have given my right quadricep more than it could handle, and I'm currently icing what I hope isn't a muscle tear (but if it is, it's definitely a mild one).
Squats
10xBW
10x20kg
5x40kg
3x60kg
1x70kg
6x6x85kg
Bench Press
10x20kg
5x30kg
3x40kg
1x50kg
6x6x55kg
Something to note about bench pressing with most typical powerlifting techniques is that it isn't a chest-dominant exercise. Bench is typically done outside of PL for pecs, but with this technique, I barely feel it in my chest at all. Today is no exception. Even though I reached technical failure yesterday, my chest isn't sore today, and other than some light tension in my pecs, there isn't much of a sign that they've even been used.
Assistance
DB Curls/Hyperextensions/Rear Delt Flys/Calf Raise (circuit)
20x7.5kg, 15x7.5kg/2x15/2x10x5kg/2x15x220lb
Calf Raises are getting back up to speed with where they ought to be. Funny what just showing up does. I think I prefer band pull aparts over rear delt flys, since there's tension through the full movement and I seem to get more middle traps/lower traps/rhomboids out of it. So I'll try and do them next time, rather than flys.
Squats
10xBW
10x20kg
5x40kg
3x60kg
1x70kg
6x6x85kg
Bench Press
10x20kg
5x30kg
3x40kg
1x50kg
6x6x55kg
Something to note about bench pressing with most typical powerlifting techniques is that it isn't a chest-dominant exercise. Bench is typically done outside of PL for pecs, but with this technique, I barely feel it in my chest at all. Today is no exception. Even though I reached technical failure yesterday, my chest isn't sore today, and other than some light tension in my pecs, there isn't much of a sign that they've even been used.
The muscle that takes a nap when Ryan benches.
Assistance
DB Curls/Hyperextensions/Rear Delt Flys/Calf Raise (circuit)
20x7.5kg, 15x7.5kg/2x15/2x10x5kg/2x15x220lb
Calf Raises are getting back up to speed with where they ought to be. Funny what just showing up does. I think I prefer band pull aparts over rear delt flys, since there's tension through the full movement and I seem to get more middle traps/lower traps/rhomboids out of it. So I'll try and do them next time, rather than flys.
Band Pull Aparts
Smolov Jr, Day 0 -- Fri 30/11/2012
I call this Day 0, because evidently I overstimated my abilities. Three weeks off will do that.
I started out the session with getting my new Underground Elite lever belt fitted, whilst doing some bodyweight squats to warm up and check that it was at about the right amount of tightness. Did a set of 10 bodyweight squats and was reasonably satisfied that the belt was not too loose and not too tight. Did a couple sets of 8 pull ups, and got into the lifting.
Squats
5x20kg
5x40kg
3x60kg
1x80kg
3x6x95kg -- Form wasn't as neat and tidy as it has been. Quads were hating me. After the third set, I started thinking maybe the belt was too loose after all, so I moved the lever in one notch. I think this was too tight, because when I attempted the next set, I think it was a lack of oxygen rather than muscle fatigue that caused me to stop the set.
4x95kg -- 2 reps short. And I was reasonably convinced that I wasn't going to get any more quality work out of my squats. In hindsight, I probably should have dropped the weight down to 60kg and done a few more sets just to work on form and get some more practice in.
Bench Press
2x5x20kg
5x32.5kg
3x42.5kg
1x52.5kg
3x6x62.5kg -- Form was much better than squats, but evidently the weight was still too high.
5x62.5kg -- I did get a 6th rep off my chest and back into the rack, but my right shoulder popped forward off the bench to do it (giving my deltoid the kind of work it hasn't experienced during the bench press in about 3 years) and I didn't lock out, so I'm not counting it.
So, on both the squat and the bench press, I only got in 4 sets, missing 1 or 2 reps on the 4th set, when I should have gotten 6 good sets. I did this session on Friday, and I'm typing this up on Saturday morning. I'm going to go back into the gym today and see if I can get 6x6 at 85kg/55kg, and work up over the next week from those numbers instead of the numbers I'd originally calculated.
I spent some time foam rolling my legs between sets of benching, and again after the assistance work, along with some stretching. I hate foam rolling, but I like the way I get to not be a complete and utter cripple the day after.
Assistance Work
RDL/Calf Raise/Seated Row (circuit)
2x10x60kg/12x200lb/8x50kg
These numbers are all short of what I could have done in a circuit 3 weeks ago, too. Lesson learned: even if you're doing 8 hours a day of physical work in your time off, you can still become rather deconditioned over a few short weeks.
I started out the session with getting my new Underground Elite lever belt fitted, whilst doing some bodyweight squats to warm up and check that it was at about the right amount of tightness. Did a set of 10 bodyweight squats and was reasonably satisfied that the belt was not too loose and not too tight. Did a couple sets of 8 pull ups, and got into the lifting.
Squats
5x20kg
5x40kg
3x60kg
1x80kg
3x6x95kg -- Form wasn't as neat and tidy as it has been. Quads were hating me. After the third set, I started thinking maybe the belt was too loose after all, so I moved the lever in one notch. I think this was too tight, because when I attempted the next set, I think it was a lack of oxygen rather than muscle fatigue that caused me to stop the set.
4x95kg -- 2 reps short. And I was reasonably convinced that I wasn't going to get any more quality work out of my squats. In hindsight, I probably should have dropped the weight down to 60kg and done a few more sets just to work on form and get some more practice in.
An Underground Elite lever belt. Same colour as mine.
Bench Press
2x5x20kg
5x32.5kg
3x42.5kg
1x52.5kg
3x6x62.5kg -- Form was much better than squats, but evidently the weight was still too high.
5x62.5kg -- I did get a 6th rep off my chest and back into the rack, but my right shoulder popped forward off the bench to do it (giving my deltoid the kind of work it hasn't experienced during the bench press in about 3 years) and I didn't lock out, so I'm not counting it.
So, on both the squat and the bench press, I only got in 4 sets, missing 1 or 2 reps on the 4th set, when I should have gotten 6 good sets. I did this session on Friday, and I'm typing this up on Saturday morning. I'm going to go back into the gym today and see if I can get 6x6 at 85kg/55kg, and work up over the next week from those numbers instead of the numbers I'd originally calculated.
I spent some time foam rolling my legs between sets of benching, and again after the assistance work, along with some stretching. I hate foam rolling, but I like the way I get to not be a complete and utter cripple the day after.
Assistance Work
RDL/Calf Raise/Seated Row (circuit)
2x10x60kg/12x200lb/8x50kg
These numbers are all short of what I could have done in a circuit 3 weeks ago, too. Lesson learned: even if you're doing 8 hours a day of physical work in your time off, you can still become rather deconditioned over a few short weeks.
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