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.

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.

Maybe this is the solution. Not a very manly solution, though.

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.

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

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.

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.

 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.

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.

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

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 didn't enjoy doing this yesterday, but I think it helped me to walk today.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.