A Middle Aged Adolescent (who cannot possibly be the only one)

[UnderstudyofNunedog]

Cycle 2 is off to a good start. Squats felt strong and easy, with a 5-pound increase from 3 weeks ago. While doing my presses, I felt a slight 'pop' in my trapezius, but finished my set. I've done this before, it feels like pulling a muscle, and now I get to do that cool thing where you can't turn your neck to look at things, so you have to rotate your entire torso.

The good news is that I still did the deadlift set right after, (well, right after popping some advils) and the accessory sets as well.

[Nunedog]

T - when you’re functional once more, get a video of a few of your press sets, and see if you’re chicken-necking or turning or doing something odd during the reps. If your head is out of place, pulling something is a risk.
More later, but I also do some resisted ‘neck-ups,’ front, back, and side to side, to keep things loose and strong (to some extent).

Below is the plan for the upcoming week. I have to dash a few Lakes away on business; the real question is whether I’ll have a moment to myself to finish this week’s work on Friday and Saturday.

I got my various numbers this week, except for the squats. The 410 triples went 3, 2, 2. I’ll hit that weight again next time around.

Stay tuned for more ancient weightlifting history, recollections of past exploits, or opinions no one has asked for, anyway.

Heavy-Light-Medium
Week of: 8/7/17 3 sets of 1 rep week
MONDAY
1. Squat (3x1) Tom 437.5 JC : 195+
2. Press (3x1) Tom 205+ JC: 95+
3. Deadlift: Tom (1x1) 525 second session
JC power cleans: 112.5, 115, 112.5

4. 3 sets heavy pull ups; 4 with 58
5. 3 sets of partial presses [Tom] holes 8-11-14 . . . 162.5, 165, 172.5
JC: [holes 3-5-7] 85, 95, 105
6. barbell curls: 117.5 for 4
7. abs: banded pull downs

TUESDAY - Conditioning
sled pull 2 miles; 45, 25

WEDNESDAY
1. Squat (80% of the original (3x5) Monday’s weight) x5, 2 sets Tom: 307.5 JC: 132.5
2. Bench Press (3x1) Tom: 285+ JC: 125+
3. Power Cleans 3x3 Tom: 235, to 272.5, 235
JC DEADLIFT single 265
4. 4 sets of heavy shrugs 545
5. abs: hollow rockers

FRIDAY
1. Squats: [90% of Monday’s weight] (3x1)
Tom: 395 JC: 180
2. Press: [90% of Monday’s weight] (3x1)
Tom: 190+ (best - 20 lbs.) JC: 87.5
3. Romanian deadlifts (off rack) 3 sets of 5 -
Tom: 390 JC 165, 167.5, 165

4. 4 sets of rows, pull ups; 5r muscle ups; 8 rope climbs
5. 3 sets of 5 partial bench presses; holes (L-5-8-11) 252.5., 272.5, 305 approx
JC: [holes L-4-6-8] 90, 115, 130
6. 3 sets 12 dumbbell curls
7. abs: T-bar sit ups

SATURDAY - Conditioning
swim 1 mile

[Nunedog]

I’ll tie up a loose end while I have the chance. My old coach has yet to pass along the next chapter on isotonic-isometrics, though we were talking about our old squat progressions from 35 years ago, which I’ll describe. It’s too soon to be reaching any conclusions, but when it comes to programming, I’m either learning that there’s more than one way to skin a cat, or these seemingly tall tales are variations on scientific principles I already know.

Two weeks ago I described the old Bob Hoffman Overload System, an isotonic-isometric approach to power training, done in a narrow, old school rack designed specifically for the purpose. An athlete (in this case, a shot putter) would train his press, squat, and deadlift by hoisting a weighted bar through a few inches of motion (isotonically) and then holding that load up against set of pins (isometrically) for a given time interval.
This was done at three different heights for each lift and only once at each stop. This was not many reps at all, but the loads were significant and always increasing, which made for very intense and effective strength training.

This high-yield recruitment of muscular motor units was (is) not without its risks, which is why for the most part my coach steered clear of it while coaching us 35-plus years ago. ‘You can pull muscles,’ he’s pointed out in epic understatement. In any of the exercises, if one were to relax from a contraction too quickly, muscles could be pulled.
(You knew this, right? Muscles do their ‘pulling,’ or tearing really, when they’re relaxing and lengthening, NOT when they’re contracting.)
He learned this from experience, but apparently the materials he was reading at the time featured plenty of warnings about it as well.
Having done this routine three times over three seasons in his career, he said the wear and tear was worse each time around. In the deadlift pulls, he injured his rhomboid muscles (near the scapulae) and in his last season he had to quit rack pulls altogether, as he he did a number on his intercostals and had difficulty breathing.
Mind you, it worked otherwise: he was heaving the shot record distances and quarter squatting over a thousand pounds for reps, and he did boost 440 pounds off his shoulders in a pressing motion - but there, ‘You start to pass out after you let go of the bar.’
Thus the wisdom of a shallow rack and plenty of pins. You might wake up in a heap, but at least the bar hasn’t come down with you.

He’s only knocked out one kid in his career, and that was in class, not the weight room. This was years before I got there.
Some kid was an unrepentant pain in the ass. The head of the coach’s department was an eccentric with a large class ring he’d turn inward for knocking miscreants in the skull. The French teacher, a priest, had a wooden paddle he’d use on those who didn’t turn in homework.
The coach figured he’d give this approach a try. When the time came, he sauntered down the aisle between desks, and the plan was to give the kid, who was turned away socializing, a glancing smack with the palm of his hand. Suddenly though, the kid turned around and straight into the full force of the swing.
He soared like a streamer out of his seat and was laid out on the wooden floor. The class went wide eyed and silent.
‘Oh, Christ,’ the coach thought. ‘I’m going to jail.’
After a few moments, the kid came to and asked if he could get a drink of water. He wasn’t feeling very well, he said.
‘Sure thing, buddy. Take your time. You go get anything you need.’
Luckily, the kid had no idea what had happened. The rest of the class turned to their books with renewed diligence, and years later at the school, this was only a dimly remembered legend.

He was pretty conservative with his weightlifters. The story that’s surprised me most is that apparently when I was a squirrelly little beginner, I had a tendency to collapse into a little ball at the bottom of my squats.
‘You are not going to add any weight until you learn how to keep your back straight,’ he informed me, and I was given an empty 20-pound bar and told to knock out four or five sets of 20 reps - every session until I got it right.
(This has been almost more than I can bear. I have always been a top tier squatter - a respected authority, I might point out - so much so that I’ve completely repressed the memories of my humble beginnings.)
In fact, the coach would hand me the bar and head out to the throwing circle with his shot putters and discus throwers, fully expecting that I’d grow discouraged and disappear. He’d come back in and be surprised to see me still there, listing to port or starboard possibly, but with the job done.
The earliest memory that I do have is setting myself apart from the other squirrelly beginners when we could finally lift actual weights. We were grouped around bars on the floor, taking turns. Two of us would hoist the weight in the air for the person standing in the middle. ‘Come on, you guys,’ I’d urge. ‘We’re supposed to be adding weight.’ They wanted no part of that.

Could it be, I’ve asked, that those sessions of 100 squats provided some kind of early foundation or conditioning that the other kids never had?
We’ve talked about the squat progressions that we followed. Simply put, they went 10-8-6-4 over a period of about eight weeks, with the weight increasing every session. We had two or three weeks of pyramids after that, to hit new maxes. The next progression would be front squats. Then, weeks later, we’d return to back squats.
The significance here is that in my 10’s and 8’s as a routine began, I could easily cover 150 pounds of increases. I’d start light, but this would make for a fantastic running start. By the time my reps fell to 6’s, I was way beyond where I did 6’s before, and I’d go from there.
As a high school senior, I back squatted 460 pounds in sneakers and gym shorts, not owning a belt. As a freshman in college I front squatted 405. I weighed 175.

This is interesting, the juxtaposition between a very low-rep system and high reps. I have a few thoughts on why the high reps worked, but I’ll wait until I hear more about what my coach was reading and thinking at the time. Just as he got away from Hoffman’s original Overload System, the Russians began publishing their findings.

Heavy-Light-Medium
Week of: 7/24/17 3 sets of 5 reps week
MONDAY
1. Squat (3x5) Tom 380 JC : 162.5
2. Press (3x5) Tom 172.5 JC: 82.5
3. Deadlift (1x5) 480 second session JC 232.5

4. 3 sets heavy pull ups REP SCHEME 6-4-6 (4 at 62)
5. 3 sets of partial presses [Tom] holes 8-11-14; . . . 165, 165, 172.5
JC: [holes 3-5-7] 85, 95, 105
6. barbell curls: 3 sets (4 at 117.5)
7. abs: banded pull downs

TUESDAY - Conditioning
sled pull 2 miles; 50, 25

WEDNESDAY
1. Squat (80% of Monday’s weight) x5, 2 sets Tom: 305 JC: 130
2. Bench Press (3x5) Tom: 252.5 JC: 107.5
3. Power Cleans 3x3 Tom: 235, to 272.5, 235 JC: 112.5, 115, 112.5
4. 4 sets of heavy shrugs 545
5. abs: hollow rockers

FRIDAY
1. Squats: [90% of Monday’s weight] (3x5)
Tom: 342.5 JC: 147.5
2. Press: [90% of Monday’s weight] (3x5)
Tom: 155 JC: 75
3. Romanian Deadlifts - off rack - 3 sets of 5
Tom 390, 392.5, 390 JC 165, 167.5x2

4. pull ups for 8’s
5. 3 sets of partial bench presses holes (L-5-8-11) . . . . 252.5, 272.5, 305
JC: [holes L-4-6-8] 105, 130, 145
6. 3 sets 12 dumbbell curls
7. abs: T-bar sit ups

SATURDAY - Conditioning
swim 1 mile

[Nunedog]

I have no news personally or history from the coach, so I’ll head in a different direction. In fact, it’s probably time for a little mental toughness, that here-and-now, put-up-or-shut-up aspect of the game that’s usually the first thing forgotten when you’re telling old war stories.
Actually, mental toughness, in the sense of overcoming challenges day in and day out, is too much of an uphill battle. It’s drudgery. Training is supposed to be fun. It can be tough, certainly, but the entire enterprise has to rest on a feeling deep down that the plan is working. ‘I got this. It’ll happen,’ should be the constant theme.
I’m reminding myself of this at a time when the numbers are a little rocky.

There’s nothing too wrong. Remember, I had that 10-pound reset upon our move six weeks ago, after realizing to my surprise that moving from DC to Cleveland took something out of me. A week ago, I hit some decent squat singles, but then the deadlift didn’t want to go. This week, the squats and the deads went for 5’s at 380 and 480, respectively, but reps four and five in the squat sets were real soul-searchers.
I’m not sure what I expected. I had done 380 for fives some time ago, and I bet they were soul-searchers then as well. The other day, perhaps figuring this was old territory, I must have expected to sail through them. ‘I’m supposed to be stronger than this,’ I worried when things got tough.

I learned an important lesson about success and self-image 20-plus years ago, when I was overseas and training with the Guam Judo Team. I was cannon fodder mainly and not part of the official team, but I was around when they received a grant from the International Olympic Committee that paid for a team from Tokai University to come hold a training camp. Collegiate Judo in Japan is brutal; this would be analogous to a local football club in the States working out with a Division One college team. After athletes graduate in Japan, the top athletes (who are not on the international team) will play in a corporate league which is no less hardcore. That’s whom we were training with: the pros, essentially.
They didn’t speak any English. We didn’t speak any Japanese, aside of one team member who was pressed into translating - not that there were a lot of conversations in the first few days. At the outset we encamped on opposite ends of the mat. They proceeded to tape just about every single one of their fingers and toes, which were all swollen or crooked. Their cauliflower ears, beneath crew-cut hair and above thick necks, were completely intimidating. We stared slack-jawed, like they were the Hanson Brothers foiling up. These guys knew pain, and they were fixin’ to dish some out.
You’d have to find a scene from F-TROOP or some other epic saloon brawl with bodies, furniture, and bottles flying to get a sense of the mayhem that ensued. We were the ones doing all the flying, of course. I personally logged quite a few hours. At each landing, I was also to discover that a body can be cracked like a whip, for maximum impact.
A lot of guys bailed in the first few days, which was probably what Tokai were waiting for, because once they had seen who was sticking around, they began the instruction. They clarified maneuvers that seemed too technical to pull off in combat. Soon, we could edge in and hit them as fast as hockey hip checks, the way they had done to us so many times.
In a few short days, we were feeling ten feet tall and bulletproof - and that’s when it hit me: the pros from Tokai had played us all masterfully. They had imparted upon us an appreciation of a set of skills and then convinced us we too had the ability to master them. We had survived a gauntlet and were worthy. Interestingly, the language barrier worked in their favor. Since we couldn’t ask questions on where things were headed, we were all the more transformed as the plan unfolded.

It wasn’t the Judo we learned that was important. It was the feeling of accomplishment. This brought me to a final coda that I’ve tried to remember as a teacher, parent, and human being ever since: the number one indicator of success in anything - Judo, weight lifting, being a doctor, lawyer, Indian Chief, husband, wife, teacher - anything - is self image. A person has to know, I got this. I belong. It’ll happen, in order to succeed in any endeavor.

This popped into my head recently, when the weights kept feeling heavier than they should have. I have to get back to the right mindset, I thought. I can’t hang around, hoping, wondering, or worrying about how things are going to go. If I sort out the big technical picture, then I can regain the confidence I need for performing at the edge of the envelope.
The move interrupted a trend of steady improvement, increases that were tiny yet consistent. This totality is something to be considered. What if adaptation is a singular process that exists over a long period of time?
Gainzzz, therefore, are not an accrual of singular stresses and recoveries, the way that thousands of stones make a pile. Gainzzz - is - a singular yet complex, integrated process all its own that exists over time, the way that thousands of stones, carefully arranged, build a pyramid.
All the work, the hosed up schedule, and building new platforms in late June and early July wrecked the finely tuned blend of stress and recovery underpinning the rising trend I was on. Not only was I not prepared for the numbers I stubbornly tried to hit, my reset has taken time to settle into a smooth routine.

I think it’s starting to come together - so I’ll get my swagger back. I’ve realized that I have to be patient and let my numbers work for me, wherever they are. Even after the reset, my squat triples last time were only doubles, but I figured I’d stick with that weight and let my motor units know what was in store. My singles a few weeks ago were only 7.5 pounds off my best, but they were slow and brutal. Don’t worry, I told myself. Enjoy the fight. Your body needs something to adapt to.
My partial presses were slowing down even before the move. In view of the entries I wrote (above) about the overload system, I’ve stopped worrying about getting sets of 5 reps in fairly consecutive fashion. I did five singles at each height last time around, with short rests and adding weight for each rep. This made for less wear and tear yet greater output - and bench presses Wednesday felt better than I expected.
They felt better than I feared - which might be a better word, I have to admit. The positive vibe is coming back, but I can’t know for sure that all is well for a few weeks, since real adaptation is so long term and subtle. Just knowing what’s going on makes me feel better. So much for mental toughness; I’d rather have mental smartness.

Heavy-Light-Medium
Week of: 8/21/17 3 sets of 3 reps week
MONDAY
1. Squat (3x3) Tom 410 JC : 177.5
2. Press (3x3) Tom 187.5 JC: 87.5
3. Deadlift: (1x3) Tom 502.5 second session JC power cleans 3x3

4. 3 sets heavy pull ups 6-4-6 REP SCHEME 4 with 58
5. 3 sets of partial presses [Tom] holes 8-11-14; . . . 165, 165, 175
JC: [holes 3-5-7] 85, 95, 105
6. barbell curls: 4 with 117.5
7. abs: banded pull downs

TUESDAY - Conditioning
sled pull 2 miles; 50, 25 (or something)

WEDNESDAY
1. Squat (80% of Monday’s weight) x5, 2 sets Tom: 305 JC: 130
2. Bench Press (3x3) Tom: 267.5 JC: 117.5
3. Power Cleans 3x3 Tom: 235, to 272.5, 235 JC: (1x3) deadlifts 245
4. 4 sets of heavy shrugs 545
5. abs: hollow rockers

FRIDAY
1. Squats: [90% of Monday’s weight] (3x3)
Tom: 370 JC: 160
2. Press: [90% of Monday’s weight] (3x3)
Tom: 170 JC: 77.5
3. Romanian deadlifts (off rack) 3 sets of 5 -
Tom: 390, 392.5x2 JC: 167.5

4. 4 sets of rows
5. 3 sets of partial bench presses holes (L-5-8-11) 255+, 275.+, 305+
JC: [holes L-4-6-8] 100, 125, 140
6. 3 sets curls
7. abs: T-bar sit ups

SATURDAY - Conditioning
row 6000 meters

[Nunedog]

This week saw progress, though not perfection, on regaining my training stride. I hit the 410-pound triples in the squat. They took all I had, so I pushed the 502.5 deads to Wednesday, and got them . . . for the most part. Two reps went up right away. The third was after two failed pulls and a long 45 seconds of composing myself, so while I got the tonnage I was after, it didn’t come all in one set.

The bench presses flew on Wednesday, 267.5 for triples, so this now means I have to spend some time dwelling on the mystery of rack presses. I have to lay out a few questions so I know what to look for among the works of Rippetoe, Zatskiorski, and Verkoshansky in the days ahead.
Specifically, I have to gain a better understanding of the physiology of strength development. How resisted movements create strength adaptations is the broad background, of course, but I want to know why some stimuli are more potent than others.

In other words, why is the rack work so effective? Who’s written about this, is it really that effective, and if so, why is it not more commonly practiced?
I think it’s pretty hot stuff, based on the success I’ve had with it in finally reaching that 300-pound bench this Spring, as well as a recent adjustment in my scheme based on a communique from my old high school coach.

A few premises first:
- in both the standing press and the bench press, in addition to the conventional sets and reps during the week, I’ve been doing three more sets of 5 partial reps in the rack. Each of these three sets would be at a different height - (and I’ve described all this before.) I made great progress, doing my fives at each height and adding 2.5 pounds every week until late this past Spring.
- At that point, I had to split up my fives, which meant doing three reps, say, taking a break and getting the last two.
- As with the conventional lifts, I had to reset the weights by 10 pounds following my move. The conventional lifts have been falling slowly back into line, but the partial fives remained stubborn.

- This was when I got the first write-up about Bob Hoffman’s Overload System, which I described a few posts ago. On the reps or time under tension sacrificed for the sake of increasing weight, the concept that sticks with me is this quote (of mine): ‘They had so little time in the grand scheme of things that they couldn’t worry; the programs worked so well that they didn’t worry.’
- Whether their fearlessness was based on faith or experience, I figured I’d roll with it, too. Focus on the weight, even if it costs reps. At a given height, I’d hit 5 single reps, with rests in between, and I’d go up each for each one. Last Friday, at the middle height, I could only hit three, but they were good, hard fights.
What about the last two reps, I wondered briefly.
‘Let go, Luke. Feel the Force,’ a voice said.

Two more premises must be remembered:
- a partial press begins at a given height, where it rests on the pins. It allows for no stretch reflex from the bar’s being lowered, or momentum from the bar rising from below the starting point.
- Therefore, taking a bar from the hooks, lowering it to pins, waiting 10 seconds, bracing up, and then boosting it creates more of a training effect than a conventional out of the hooks and touch-and-go press with the same weight.

OK, I follow that: recruiting a greater number of motor units means training a greater share of the particular muscles involved in a movement. With more of each muscle being brought to bear, an athlete can lift greater amounts of weight than otherwise.

Questions:
- How did my body know on Wednesday, during my conventional sets and reps, to use a Friday rack-work level of recruitment?
- Was it some kind of neurological ‘memory’?
- Does that mean that the nervous system, in a given lift, only has to ‘go there,’ to a high level of recruitment, a few times in order to establish that pathway?
(That would account for the Hoffman Overload gang’s indifference to losing reps or time under tension.)

I’ve always figured that the primary purpose of conventional sets is fatiguing the muscles to force adaptation. Actually, we already know this: a lifter knocking through sets of five, for example, will hit his or her first three reps pretty easily, but then four and five become a little dicey, since the cells involved have been depleted. The total depletion from a workout would then spur the cells not only to recover but inure themselves to a similar stress.
My guess is that the window for additional motor unit recruitment during a conventional set is pretty narrow. The lifter is churning along, reps four and five get rough, and the central nervous system, sensing trouble, gets at best only a few more motor units in on the act.
(This ties into a theory of mine on why as a teenager I had such success with high-rep programming - as mentioned in a previous post. I was of limited hormonal maturity, which probably meant a similarly limited ability in motor unit recruitment. Simply put, the high reps over several weeks of constant increases very thoroughly trained the relatively few motor units available.)

I might not have looked around Rip’s Forum or the larger internet enough, but I don’t see anyone talking about rack work. It’s probably too good a secret to let out.
Rack work moves the goalposts closer. A few months ago, when I was dying to bench 300, I would have loved to do the sets and reps that would bring about the necessary strength. However, I couldn’t will my body to handle those higher loads. Instead, I found a way to get more from loads I could handle. This shifted the entire strength curve’s placement on the graph. It was a massive gain for a First Down with great field position.
Am I crazy? Have I produced cold fusion in my kitchen sink?

Heavy-Light-Medium
Week of: 8/28/17 3 sets of 1 rep week
MONDAY
1. Squat (3x1) Tom 440 JC : 195+
2. Press (3x1) Tom 205+ JC: 95+
3. Deadlift: Tom (1x1) 525 second session
JC power cleans: 112.5, 115, 112.5

4. 3 sets heavy pull ups; 4 with 62
5. 3 sets of partial presses [Tom] holes 8-11-14 . . . 167.5 climb, 155, 177.5 climb, JC: [holes 3-5-7] 85, 95, 105
6. barbell curls: 117.5 for 4
7. abs: banded pull downs

TUESDAY - Conditioning
sled pull 2 miles; 50, 25

WEDNESDAY
1. Squat (80% of the original (3x5) Monday’s weight) x5, 2 sets Tom: 307.5 JC: 132.5
2. Bench Press (3x3) Tom: 285+ JC: 125+
3. Power Cleans 3x3 Tom: 235, to 272.5, 235
JC DEADLIFT single 245
4. 4 sets of heavy shrugs 545
5. abs: hollow rockers

FRIDAY
1. Squats: [90% of Monday’s weight] 3x1)
Tom: 395 JC: 180
2. Press: [90% of Monday’s weight] (3x1)
Tom: 190+ (best - 20 lbs.) JC: 87.5
3. Romanian deadlifts (off rack) 3 sets of 5 -
Tom: 392.5 JC 167.5, 170, 167.5

4. 4 sets of rows
5. 3 sets of 5 partial bench presses; holes (L-5-8-11) 260 climb, 280 climb, 305, climb
JC: [holes L-4-6-8] 90, 115, 130
6. 3 sets 12 dumbbell curls
7. abs: T-bar sit ups

SATURDAY - Conditioning
swim 1 mile

[Nunedog]

It’s not working. Sound ‘Retreat.’
I’m not getting my numbers - certainly not new ones, and I’m not even matching some older, lesser ones. My 5-3-1 progress has come in fits and starts at best since the move in early July, and now I’m sporting a muscle pull in my groin.
I’m losing interest and feeling old and beaten up, like an athlete at the end of a season. It’s crazy doing the same thing time after time, hoping for a different result, so I’ve made an important decision: I’m taking a week off to draw up a new routine.

I can’t complain. This 5-3-1, inspired by Andy Baker and featuring a heavy-light-medium progression each week, has served me very well for 21 three-week cycles. My numbers came a long way, and I learned a great deal. I still believe that true adaptation is a subtle function that exists over a broad expanse of time. Having upset the delicate balance of stress and recovery, I guess I never regained my footing. Am I topped out for my current bodyweight? It’s possible, but deep down I don’t think so.

Deep down I have zero interest in any 5’s, 3’s, or 1’s any time in the near future. Those kinds of weights are just too heavy. They won’t sit right.
I was about to say, I guess my central nervous system is fatigued, but then I remembered that my partial presses, the rack work I was raving about last week, are going beautifully. They’re the only things that are. If the CNS is hanging in, then the meat puppets doing all the work are shot.

Here’s the plan: after that week off, I’m going to start a high-rep progression with light weights for my conventional sets, complemented with some isotonic-isometric rack work for my assistance training. This will be an interesting experiment.
I need the physical and psychological breaks that lighter weights will afford me. The past two squatting days, I’ve hit sets of 20 with 95 pounds to rehab that groin muscle, and it’s felt wonderful, both to make that little bastard burn, baby, burn and to do something different. I’ve been reading my Verkoshansky and my Rippetoe. While SUPERTRAINING makes a passing reference to the fact that higher reps (8-12) at middling percentages build muscle mass, which would be lovely, though I’m not reading too much into that, Rippetoe’s PPST3 section for Advanced Trainees makes mention of higher rep progressions. It’s not unheard of in STARTING STRENGTH circles.

Rip states: “The advanced trainee has adapted to strength training to the point where a weekly training organization is no longer working. At this level of advancement, an overload event and subsequent recovery from it may take a month or more. Most lifters and strength athletes will never advance to this level unless they are active competitors in barbell sports or strongman competitions. It represents the results of years of work under the bar and most of the journey along the curve of adaptation potential.”
I don’t think I’m an advanced lifter. I don’t want to be; you might recall from an earlier piece that the criterion that determines whether someone is a novice, intermediate, or advanced lifter is the length of their rest interval. I don’t want mine to be any longer than a week, which marks me as an intermediate.
However, I do think I’m pretty high on my personal adaptation curve, and I have some decent numbers for a guy my age, but most importantly, even if technically I’m not Advanced, I sure as Hell have beaten myself up to the point that I need a month or more to recover.

I’ll have the details next week, but I’ve tossed around a few numbers, and I think I’ll start the proceedings with 3 sets of 10, using 65% of my best sets of 5. That will be 245 pound squats, 110 pound presses, 165 pound benches, and 310 pound deads. I won’t even feel these weights.
Since I’m an intermediate, I’m not resuming a linear progression day to day. I have to honor my rest interval. I’ll hit 90 percent of the numbers on Fridays, which sticks with the HLM approach, covers me in terms of volume, yet seems light enough to fool my recovering body. I’ll go up 10 pounds a week in the squat and dead, 5 in the bench and press.
A critic could say that certainly in the first six weeks I’m dilly-dallying with light weights, that I’m wasting time. I can accept that if it’s true. I’ll enjoy the break, as well as moving fast and moving well. The plan is not completely innocent, though; I’m going to try to push those 10’s up where they’ve never been before, and then my 8’s and 6’s into my old 5’s territory, the way I did back in school.

Last week, when talking about rack work, I threw open the question, ‘Who’s written about this, is it really that effective, and if so, why is it not more commonly practiced?’
By coincidence, the following Monday’s STARTING STRENGTH WEEKLY REPORT featured a question about isotonic-isometrics and a link to articles by Bill Starr. These make for a frustrating read at first, with a cast of thousands and a meandering storyline. The larger point would seem to be that this important little branch of science barely survived adverse circumstances here in the United States. A certain doctor named Zeigler, out drinking with the Russian weightlifting team after a 1954 competition in Vienna, catches word of a new form of training. In time, he pitches the approach to York Barbell’s Bob Hoffman, who wants nothing to do with it, despite the mounting evidence of its merit. Only when Hoffman sees an opportunity to build and sell power racks does he change his tune. He even stamps his name on the system.
However, at that same drinking session with the Russians, Zeigler also hears about their trials with strength enhancing drugs, so American experiments with Dianabol travel a parallel course with isometrics. Bill Starr, working at STRENGTH AND HEALTH, is among those who spill the beans on Dianabol and the advantage it’s given lifters from York, and the ensuing scandal just about blows the entire isometric enterprise sky-high.
Isometrics largely disappear from the fitness ‘scene,’ as it exists in the magazines of the day. One stubborn truth is very nearly lost as well: the isometrics work - pretty well, as a matter of fact, even among ordinary mortals not on Dianabol. A very few who knew this, or know it now, remain.

In America, that is. As the gang at Justice would no doubt agree, when it comes to the Russians it’s vital to draw connections between pieces of evidence. In MANAGING THE TRAINING OF WEIGHTLIFTERS, after the authors Laputin and Oleshko list isometrics as a prominent part of the tool kit, they describe how the Olympic lifts are broken into specific phases: the preliminary acceleration of the barbell from the floor, the final acceleration, jumping under [my words] and then driving upward in the ‘support position,’ - and so on. They then describe the very specific bodily motions that must take place in each phase. It’s hard to imagine a thorough training of any phase without rack work.
One Russian who’s been more than willing to testify is Yuri Verkoshansky, whose SUPERTRAINING, with the size and heft of a 45-pound bumper plate, is enough to swamp a team of lawyers for months. Verkoshansky reveals that isometrics would be 10% of an ‘average’ athlete’s training, in the eyes of many Russian coaches. Isometrics appear to have a very fast physical recovery time. He makes two interesting statements: ‘An appreciation of its value and breadth of application should restore isometrics to a place of importance in all training programs,’ and, ’ . . . it must be stressed that isometric training is not simply a matter of holding a static muscle contraction for a given time.’ These would indicate an anticipation of Americans’ unfamiliarity with the subject as well as the fact that, decades ago, as the Americans delayed and then botched the implementation of isometric training, the Russians quietly perfected it.

I also happen to be reading Jack Dempsey’s CHAMPIONSHIP FIGHTING. Writing in 1950, he expresses disbelief at the boxers who’ve taken to using the silly little taps most of us know as left jabs: ‘Most of them couldn’t knock your hat off with their left jabs . . . . Their jabs are used as shuttering defensive flags to prevent their poorly instructed opponents from getting set to punch,’ which is another weakness he condemns. Dempsey’s leading left he called a ‘jolt,’ into which he launched his entire bodyweight. It was as much a knockout blow as any other.
In his 70’s or 80’s, as he was stepping out of a taxi in New York City, he was approached by two toughs intent on relieving him of his wallet. He dropped one and then the other with crushing, whole bodied shots.
The Old Timers might know a thing or two we don’t. During the break, I’ll figure out my pin heights and starting weights for isotonic-isometrics.

[Nunedog]

I was just introduced to a neighbor who’s seen me pulling my Westside sled past her house. She shook my hand tentatively but then seemed mainly relieved as the conversation went on. Perhaps he’s not insane, or at least his wife is nice, she was no doubt thinking. Hopefully she can control him.
I had to explain exactly what it was I was towing behind me. ‘It’s about the size of a cafeteria tray, with a post in the center for a barbell weight plate.’
That cleared it up. For the life of her, she couldn’t imagine what it was. Her best guess was that I was dragging around an umbrella stand - which is actually pretty funny, and got me to thinking: I have a patio umbrella I could put in that thing. I should set it up the next time I’m out on a rainy day. I bet I’ll hear the deadbolts clicking on both sides of the street as I pass.

I’m about to start a training program that might seem just as crazy, a dual approach featuring a high-rep progression and isotonic-isometric rack work. I’ve figured out all my pin positions and starting weights, and after a fantastic week off from the usual grind, I’m excited to get going.
This is new territory for me, which means the whole adventure is an experiment, calling for some objectivity when it comes time to determine whether it’s a success or not. Therefore, I should set out some important statistics, namely the numbers I’m seeking to improve upon:

As I wound up the previous two years living in Maryland (ending in June 2017) these were my best - and very recent - lifts:
Squat: 445 - three singles in a workout
Press: 217.5
Deadlift: 530
Bench Press: 305
Power Clean: 270

Since moving to Ohio, I’ve seemed pretty spent. I deadlifted 510 for a single, 500 for three at one point, and benched 280 for a deuce.
My best stock-still, utterly strict press is 190, and in the rack, from the pins at chest level, I’ve benched 275 from a dead stop, 10 seconds after lowering it.

That’s where I am, or was, and hopefully where I’m headed once more - beyond it, with any luck. The high-rep conventional sets begin a progression from higher volume and lower intensity to lower volume and higher intensity, and ultimately, new peak performances.
The isotonic-isometrics will serve as the ‘targeted assistance work’ that Rip describes as ‘generally necessary in this type of program.’ If the partial presses and benches of the past few months are any indication, high level motor unit recruitment adds another dimension to training. It’s a vital dimension, a forgotten one, and extremely potent, I’ve been hearing from various sources.
The trick will be in not crushing myself. My starting weights are pretty conservative; if there are any surprises, I’d prefer them to be bigger increases than I expected, and this is also why I’m starting my conventional sets and reps with such light weight: I want to ease into this dual plan of attack.

I was informed by a friend the other day that despite my descriptions, it’s hard to picture a narrow old school rack.
Here’s hoping this link works: 1960s York isometrics rack - YouTube
If it doesn’t, you might have to track down some images of a ‘York Isometric Power Rack’ on your own.
The narrow vertical channel for the bar’s path is important for safety. Should there be any wobbles with a limit weight, the real danger is in any horizontal movement. Since I own a boxy, refrigerator-sized cage of a squat rack, this posed a problem.
My solution was to get a pair of 7-foot two-by-fours, which I can bolt vertically to the sides of the rack. They go about two inches behind the forward uprights, which now means I have a mini-rack a bit narrower than the one in the video.
The bar goes inside that space. It’ll only be traveling six inches vertically at a time anyway, and I have some sturdy pins that can contain it above and below.

My wife will not be following the Isotonic-Isometric part of the plan. The loss here will be some experimental data, but based on her experiences with partial presses, the hassle won’t be worth it. She was actually pretty good at the partials, better than I was as a matter of fact, in terms of how her partial reps weights measured up against her conventional maxes.
The truth of the matter was not that her reps were impressively high, but that her maxes were low. That’s the thing about women’s nervous systems: their less efficient motor unit recruitment does not ‘project’ that rep strength toward a max proportional to a man’s.
The partial presses never really pushed her maxes along. She’s also not the most aggressive lifter in the world. If I strolled into the garage in a headband, bright set of yoga pants, and a sequined shirt, pulling my sled with an umbrella behind me, and announced we were going to chuck it all and start Zumba, she wouldn’t bat an eye.

While power cleans are still listed for Wednesdays, we’ll see how many of these I do, based on the wear and tear from other, higher priorities.

Finally, if you Googled images of old power racks, you might have seen pictures of the old course booklets from York Barbell. I think back to my old high school coach and the kids who sent away for these 50-plus years ago. They’d tear open the manila envelopes and hold their futures in their hands. ‘Hell, yeah,’ they’d breathe. ‘I am on this.’

Dual progression: High Reps and Isotonic-Isometrics
Week of: 9/11/17
MONDAY
1. Squat: 3 sets of 10 reps Tom: 245 JC: 105
2. Press: 3 sets of 10 reps Tom: 110 JC: 52.5
3. Deadlift: 1 set of 10 reps Tom: 310 JC: 145

4. 3 sets heavy pull ups; 4 with 67lb kb
5. Isotonic-Isometrics PRESS 3 sets of 1 six-second hold
Holes (#6 - 10) 125, (#9 - 13) 110, (#12 - 16) 145
JC - dips
6. barbell curls: 115+
7. abs: banded pull downs

TUESDAY - Conditioning
sled pull 2 miles; 50, 25

WEDNESDAY
1. Squat (80% of Monday’s weight) x5, 2 sets Tom: 195 JC: 85
2. Bench Press 3 sets of 10 reps Tom: 165 JC: 70
3. Isotonic-Isometrics SQUAT 3 sets of 1 six-second hold
Holes (#9 - 16) 225, (#15 - 22 [top]) 245, (#21 - #3 upper holes) 295
4. Power Cleans 3x3 Tom: 185 - 225 JC: 95+
5. 4 sets of heavy shrugs 475+
6. abs: hollow rockers

FRIDAY
1. Squats: 3 sets of 10 [90% of Monday’s weight] Tom: 220 JC: 95
2. Press: 3 sets of 10 [90% of Monday’s weight] Tom: 100 JC: 47.5
3. Isotonic-Isometrics DEADLIFT 3 sets of 1 six-second hold; [blue mats and 2”x4’’’s]
Holes (black beams - #7) 275, (#7 - #2 close holes) 305, (#1 - 6 close holes) 385
JC: Romanian deadlifts (off rack) 3 sets of 5 reps 135

4. 4 sets of hanging (gymnastic) rows, with vest
5. Isotonic-Isometrics BENCH PRESS 3 sets of 1 six-second hold
Holes (#4 - 9) 155, (#8 - 13) 175, (#12 - 17) 235
JC: close grip bench press, T-Bar
6. 3 sets 5-6 barbell curls
7. abs: weighted sit ups; ab-mat

SATURDAY - Conditioning
row 6000 meters

[Nunedog]

In the little world I’ve created with this blog, I’ve awakened a few ghosts who’d like to have a word with me. They’re reaching out via the STARTING STRENGTH website, through a pair of recently republished articles that would seem to address what I’ve been up to.
‘Get a load of this,’ one of them must have chuckled up in the Great Barbell Club in the Sky. ‘Some guy down there is about to try isotonic-isometrics.’
If August 28’s link to ‘The Ultimate Strength Exercise’ was a bit of encouragement, then September 9 or 10’s ‘Doc Ziegler’ was a snarl of disapproval from Bill Starr and John Bosley Ziegler over my sweeping statements about rack work, Dianabol, and Russian genius. ‘Things are not that simple,’ they were saying, ‘and we sure as Hell don’t want you making any judgments about the drugs. Poor Ziegler is going to be forever consigned to history as the guy who brought steroids into strength training, but get your facts straight.’

I’m not making any judgments for a few reasons. Those were different times in terms of sports ethics, so I’m not sure it’d be fair to apply today’s standards to Ziegler. Every unearthed Starr article adds more to the story, and I haven’t ventured beyond Rip’s website. ‘Don’t reach any conclusions,’ Starr and Ziegler are cautioning. ‘One narrative does not a history make - and while you’re at it, has it occurred to you that you have narratives to add to your own history?’

That Doc Ziegler was a very capable thinker is without question. Whether he picked up on isometrics one night in Vienna with the Russians or had first read about experiments conducted by the Germans - and yes, Mr. Starr, you have written both - is immaterial. It would appear that he built upon a rough understanding and arrived at the isotonic, or load bearing, component on his own. The Russians had quite possibly already done so, yet this does not make Ziegler’s discovery in his home gym any less impressive.

The question of Which Came First is a little more interesting when it comes to the development of the anabolic steroid Dianabol. Which came first, the desire to create fantastically powerful athletes or help debilitated patients? Again, Mr. Starr, you’ve said both.
The tales are pretty tangled. Consider the context: Ziegler, wounded in World War Two, defies his own doctors’ expectations by hitting the weight room and overcoming his injuries. He then devotes himself to the sport of iron. By that night in Vienna in 1954, he’s also a doctor of some experience, so the idea of strength enhancing drugs cannot be entirely new.
He develops Dianabol in conjunction with CIBA Pharmaceuticals. However, this is precisely where Starr’s narratives break down, despite his attempts to glide along with a broad summary.
Why did Ziegler develop Dianabol? Was his true aim just to create super strong athletes? Was it a lucky coincidence that the drug would also benefit bedridden patients? CIBA in this case was not just an enabler in Doc’s tinkering; they were an unwitting accomplice to a hidden agenda.
Perhaps Ziegler was tapping into his strength background in an effort to help a broad range of patients. He and CIBA intended Dianabol to be a significant contribution to medicine with a mass distribution to hospitals across the country. The strength research would then be a side project in a far bigger picture. This is certainly plausible; the scale of Ziegler’s experiments always remained tiny and under wraps. He tried to keep tight control of the Dianabol inventory.
Finally, just to confuse the issue further: was the Dianabol a means of promoting his theories on isotonic-isometrics? Maybe it was vice versa.

If the truth is out there, the ghosts haven’t revealed it to me yet. They have raised an important point, however: if you just follow one of those narrative threads, you won’t get the whole story.
Furthermore, amidst all the clanking in my basement late at night, another pitiful moan registers loud and clear. Brilliant though he was, Ziegler didn’t realize that in getting involved with Hoffman he was making a deal with the Devil. It was Hoffman who laughed all the way to the bank from the thousands of power racks and Overload System booklets he sold. Ziegler had no share in the profits from a system he created. It was also Hoffman who grew careless with the dispensing of drugs to York lifters. Soon, the secret was out around the country, and the dosages were beyond anything approximating medical responsibility. Hoffman sidestepped any blame, and it’s Ziegler’s quiet experiments in his Olney, Maryland basement that have come under the harsh glare of history.

Here I am in my garage, decades later, teeing up for six-second isotonic-isometric holds, having not just tapped into a branch of science but a whole human drama. It’s gotten me to thinking about the interests I’ve pursued in my life. The lesson from Starr and Ziegler is that they’re a little more woven together than I realized.
Quickly: I was precociously strong as a high schooler and initially pretty successful as an Olympic style lifter, until that turned into a head-banging-against-the-wall ordeal. My interests turned elsewhere, namely endurance sports like running and swimming, as well as Judo. I was pretty good at the endurance stuff, but my Judo career, as much as I enjoyed it, was far less competitively successful. I segued into pre-war combative Judo and police and military techniques.
That branch of Judo made for a long and rewarding process of writing and studying history. However, it struck me not long ago why I wandered down that path: I was weak. I wasn’t lifting weights. Guys were crumpling me up on the mat. Put another way, if I were back in Guam 20 years ago but sporting a 200-300-400-500, things would have been very different. I would have been shipped off to the Kodokan, Judo’s Mecca in Tokyo. A whole new range of experiences would replace the ones I’ve had.
Why did it all happen this way? Was I tired, bored with weight lifting - growing up, changing? Did I give up because I didn’t know how to keep getting stronger? The answer in every case is yes, though I can’t just follow one narrative string. There’s more than one way to look at life.

Dual Progression: High Reps and Isotonic-Isometrics
Week of: 9/18/17
MONDAY
1. Squat: 3 sets of 10 reps Tom: 255 JC: 110
2. Press: 3 sets of 10 reps Tom: 115 JC: 55
3. Deadlift: 1 set of 10 reps Tom: 320 JC: 150

4. 3 sets heavy pull ups; 4 with 67lb kb
5. Isotonic-Isometrics PRESS 3 sets of 1 six-second hold
Holes (#6 - 10) 130, (#9 - 13) 115, (#12 - 16) 150
JC - dips
6. barbell curls: 115+
7. abs: banded pull downs

TUESDAY - Conditioning
sled pull 2 miles; 50, 25

WEDNESDAY
1. Squat (80% of Monday’s weight) x5, 2 sets Tom: 205 JC: 87.5
2. Bench Press 3 sets of 10 reps Tom: 170 JC: 72.5
3. Isotonic-Isometrics SQUAT 3 sets of 1 six-second hold
Holes (#9 - 16) 230, (#15 - 22 [top]) 250, (#21 - #3 upper holes) 300
4. Power Cleans 3x3 Tom: 185 - 225 JC: 95+
5. 4 sets of heavy shrugs 475+
6. abs: hollow rockers

FRIDAY
1. Squats: 3 sets of 10 [90% of Monday’s weight] Tom: 230 JC: 100
2. Press: 3 sets of 10 [90% of Monday’s weight] Tom: 102.5 JC: 50
3. Isotonic-Isometrics DEADLIFT 3 sets of 1 six-second hold; [blue mats and 2”x4’’’s]
Holes (black beams - #7) 280, (#7 - #2 close holes) 310, (#1 - 6 close holes) 395
JC: Romanian deadlifts (off rack) 3 sets of 5 reps 137.5

4. 4 sets of hanging (gymnastic) rows, with vest
5. Isotonic-Isometrics BENCH PRESS 3 sets of 1 six-second hold
Holes (#4 - 9) 160, (#8 - 13) 180, (#12 - 17) 240
JC: close grip bench press, T-Bar
6. 3 sets 5-6 barbell curls
7. abs: weighted sit ups; ab-mat

SATURDAY - Conditioning
swim 1 mile

[Nunedog]

At two weeks into the program, I have only so many notes to share. Everything seems to be going fine, both with the high reps and the isotonic-isometrics. My starting numbers with the rack work were pretty suitable, though the benches and deads were a little light.
To time the six-second intervals, I use the stopwatch function on my iPhone, putting it somewhere in my field of view. For the bench press, this means the phone is facing downward from a little bridge of two-by-four scraps at the top of my rack.

The isotonic-isometrics are a little disconcerting from the standpoint of wondering if I’m doing enough. The six second blasts themselves are pretty dicey, but then they’re done in a flash. I guess I’m thrown by how they don’t represent the same kind of hardship as ordinary reps. That’s the bargain we’re all used to: that time consuming slog of sets and reps, one after another, followed by fatigue and soreness; it’s the price of driving onward. This is neurological training, I keep reminding myself. I’m rewiring the system, laying in fiber optic cable, increasing bandwidth. I should be staying cool on the loads anyway, especially at the beginning, the books say.
Remember, I’m still seeking the answer to a question I posed back when I was raving about my partial presses. Some good, hard partials had just made the following week’s bench presses fly up, and I asked, ‘How did my body know (in conventional sets) to use a rack work level of recruitment? Was it some kind of neurological memory?’
Training my body to recruit more motor units and lift heavy, dead, uncooperative weight X made it more capable of handling weight Y in a conventional situation. The thing is, I never would have lifted Y if I had only trained conventionally.*
(* - by which I mean with normal up-and-down reps, with the usual stretch reflex)

Here’s what I think I’m doing: I’m training my unconscious brain in how it creates loading thresholds.
(Load thresholds are objective and absolute; loading thresholds are matters of perception.) The misery of starting X weight in a partial press or boosting and fighting it in an isotonic-isometric hold is perceived by the central nervous system as an apparently greater load, equivalent to Y.

The bottom two deadlift positions are where my body will shake a bit during the holds. At the very bottom position, I’m standing on a raised surface, so the bar starts from lower than usual. The isometric part of the pull engages just two or three inches above the bar’s usual deadlift start.
The standing presses can get a little sleepy, especially the very top. There I am, all belted up, holding my breath in a Valsalva maneuver, and straining my upper body. The cerebral blood flow slows, and the seconds counting on my iPhone start to fade into the distance. It’s a quick buzz.
I have to put the bar down carefully and say something sufficiently Zen or groovy, like a long, easy, ‘Yeah, baby,’ so my system will restore itself gradually. I’ll hold on to the bar and let myself sink from standing to hanging at arms’ length, at squat height, below.
It only takes a few seconds for the wooziness to disappear. The Russians recommend ‘relaxation exercises’ between rounds. They also caution, not in so many words, against going completely mental during each rep. A six second hold should ramp up slightly, with the maximum effort engaging in the final three seconds. This is excellent wisdom. It enforces a certain presence of mind, and the ramping up is vital: if you hit the upper pins and only try to hold position, you’ll come off them. You do have to drive hard.

In other news, 12-year-old Tennis Girl, whom I’ve written about before and who is now 13-year-old Rowing Girl, has deadlifted 200 pounds.
For the record, every skill in the STARTING STRENGTH toolbox applies to kids - with the exception of the linear progression. At ages 11 and 12, she was too hormonally immature to progress, in terms of load, from workout to workout - and still is. We stay on the same weights for two or three weeks at a time and edge upward 2.5 pounds only when her technique and rep speed allow.
This summer was pretty hit-and-miss in terms of workouts, with all the horseback riding, sailing, and sleep-away camp that took precedence. She’s been edging along, though, and now popping in twice a week during the school year.
I am no longer cool enough to be invited to the workouts. She closes herself in the garage, dancing around to tunes on her phone and Snapchatting with her friends. They have no idea what she’s doing; nobody knows anything about any weight lifting, apparently.
‘Did you tell anybody about the 200?’ I asked on a rare occasion when I could get in and check on her.
‘No.’ She squinted at me in ridicule, as if to say, . . Like . . . Hello? . . .
‘That would be completely ridiculous,’ she said.
‘Oh. Right.’

I tell people what I’m up to, I thought. By this point, they expect the completely ridiculous.

Dual Progression: High Reps and Isotonic-Isometrics
Week of: 9/25/17
MONDAY
1. Squat: 3 sets of 10 reps Tom: 265 JC: 115
2. Press: 3 sets of 10 reps Tom: 120 JC: 57.5
3. Deadlift: 1 set of 10 reps Tom: 330 JC: 155

4. 3 sets heavy pull ups; 4 with 67lb kb
5. Isotonic-Isometrics PRESS 3 sets of 1 six-second hold
Holes (#6 - 10) 135, (#9 - 13) 120, (#12 - 16) 155
JC - dips
6. barbell curls: 115+
7. abs: banded pull downs

TUESDAY - Conditioning
sled pull 2 miles; 50, 25

WEDNESDAY
1. Squat (80% of Monday’s weight) x5, 2 sets Tom: 212.5 JC: 92.5
2. Bench Press 3 sets of 10 reps Tom: 175 JC: 75
3. Isotonic-Isometrics SQUAT 3 sets of 1 six-second hold
Holes (#9 - 16) 240, (#15 - 22 [top]) 260, (#21 - #3 upper holes) 310
4. Power Cleans 3x3 Tom: 185 - 225 JC: 95+
5. 4 sets of heavy shrugs 475+
6. abs: hollow rockers

FRIDAY
1. Squats: 3 sets of 10 [90% of Monday’s weight] Tom: 237.5 JC: 100
2. Press: 3 sets of 10 [90% of Monday’s weight] Tom: 107.5 JC: 52.5
3. Isotonic-Isometrics DEADLIFT 3 sets of 1 six-second hold; [blue mats and 2”x4’’’s]
Holes (black beams - #7) 290, (#7 - #2 close holes) 320, (#1 - 6 close holes) 405
JC: Romanian deadlifts (off rack) 3 sets of 5 reps 137.5

4. 4 sets of hanging (gymnastic) rows, with vest
5. Isotonic-Isometrics BENCH PRESS 3 sets of 1 six-second hold
Holes (#4 - 9) 170, (#8 - 13) 190, (#12 - 17) 250
JC: close grip bench press, T-Bar
6. 3 sets 5-6 barbell curls
7. abs: weighted sit ups; ab-mat

SATURDAY - Conditioning
row 6000 meters

[Nunedog]

Since last week I talked about the isotonic-isometric side of this dual progression, today I’ll focus on the conventional reps. They’re sailing right along because they’re still so light at this early stage, but the presses have revealed what might be a weakness, and I’ve had a misadventure in my squats, a pain in my hip that made them a lot less fun than usual. The tale of tracking down solutions might be of use to somebody.

This is nothing I can’t address with all the reps ahead of me, but I’ve noticed one of those tell-tale aches in my muscles right near the tops of my presses, as if my triceps were saying, ‘Hey, this last little part is hard; we haven’t done this in a while.’
I also feel it at the same time in my trap muscles. The reason is easy to see: all of those ‘layback’-styled presses in the past several months have meant that I was not training the finishing strength that those body parts provide. My sets of 10 nowadays have me standing straight up and driving the weight in a strict Press 1.0. I’ll switch to a 2.0, with its hip spring and layback after I establish a new strict single-rep max, at the end of the long 10-8-6-4 progression.

A month or so ago, at the end of my heavy 5-3-1’s, I wrenched a right hip flexor during a set of squats. It was a heavy triple with 410, and I can remember standing at the top between reps and feeling something give way. I wrote about it, as a matter of fact, saying that I was knocking off the heavy stuff and hitting a few days of Starr rehab.
The high, high-rep Starr sets and the week off helped, but not long into the new progression, the problem flared up again. I toughed it through a few workouts, but then Friday a week ago and this past Monday featured whip cracks of pain wrapping around my thighbone, from deep in my groin up to the seam of my hip. They’d stop a rep mid-motion. I was also starting to feel it at other times in the day, and at night when I turned in bed.
I have two problems, I realized: I have to tackle the pain and track down what’s causing it.

If you’re in agony but have a moment to amuse yourself, try Googling ‘hip pain while squatting.’ They have all kinds of assessments for what ails you:
-Clearly it’s a case of your femur shifting position in its socket, like a car throwing a rod.
-You have suddenly grown bony abnormalities.
-Your glutes have developed amnesia. Your ass, as you have always feared, for all its functional and aesthetic potential, is now useless, parasitic tissue.
The solutions include:
-replacing back squats with front squats, which solves everything above
-no longer sitting with one’s legs crossed, since normal use of the human skeleton is discouraged
-working on ‘dead bug’ progressions (which I cannot bring myself to look up) hollow bodied holds, and hip thrusts

If that’s not helpful, you’ll have to pull STARTING STRENGTH off the shelf. Truth be told, I was a little perplexed. I wasn’t doing anything too wrong or different, as far as I could tell, and my left hip was perfectly fine.
Rip - or any other scientifically grounded reference - provides a diagram of the five adductor muscles, which are anchored in the lower center of the pelvis and head downward in a series of diagonal lines, attaching one after another along the back of the thighbone. The trick to loosening them up, I realized, was to attack from 90 degrees, like I was drawing (or pushing) a set of taut bowstrings.
I started with a basketball and my weight bench. Standing astride the bench, I put the ball on the bench between my legs and then dropped down onto it in lopsided fashion, with the ball on the underside of my right leg. My left foot was on the ground; my right was in the air sideways as if I were a urinating dog. That was a pretty good preliminary stretch, but I then switched to a 35 pound kettlebell.
For this, you turn the handle aside and descend on everything a little more amorously, if you can picture it, but that cannonball was just the right size to drive into that corner of my crotch, bend all those bowstrings, and make everybody relax. Also, in front of the TV later, stuffing a softball between my legs as I lay on my side on the carpet had the same effect. Ridiculous as it all might sound, it worked.

On Page 53 of STARTING STRENGTH, Rip has a paragraph that begins, ‘A different problem, often encountered in more advanced trainees, is the tendency to let the knees slide forward as the bottom approaches. This problem usually develops over time . . . . ‘ He goes on to explain that this slackens the hamstrings and lessens their leverage for driving the hips upward.
Shocked as I was by the insinuation, I tracked down a recent picture. There I was, the bar bending under a mighty load, but yeah, my knees were out front.
That’s it, then: out of position with that 410, the burden shifted (to some extent) from my hams to my adductors, and strands started shredding. A week or two later, I drop into that same place for reps that are presumably fast and light, and that adductor screams, ‘Again? How about a little help here?’

This has called for some TUBOW assisted rehabilitation. Rip’s Terribly Useful Block Of Wood is a 2-by-4 stood on end right in front of one foot or the other. The aim is to descend into full squats without your knee knocking it over. This means breaking at the hips more than I’m used to, in order to drive the hips way back and maximize the leverage in my hamstrings.
I waited for the stabs of pain the other day, but none came as I TUBOW’ed. The hamstrings were protecting the adductors.
I think I’ll stick with the TUBOW for a bit, to make the motor patterns sink in. This has also made me conscious, by the way, about my isotonic-isometric squats and driving my hips upward to hit the pins with everything, and not just lifting the bar with my chest.

Score this as a victory, although it’s trouble I probably shouldn’t have been in. When in doubt, follow the directions.

Dual Progression: High Reps and Isotonic-Isometrics
Week of: 10/2/17
MONDAY
1. Squat: 3 sets of 10 reps Tom: 275 JC: 120
2. Press: 3 sets of 10 reps Tom: 125 JC: 60
3. Deadlift: 1 set of 10 reps Tom: 340 JC: 160

4. 3 sets heavy pull ups; 4 with 67lb kb
5. Isotonic-Isometrics PRESS 3 sets of 1 six-second hold
Holes (#6 - 10) 140, (#9 - 13) 125, (#12 - 16) 160
JC - dips
6. barbell curls: 115+
7. abs: banded pull downs

TUESDAY - Conditioning
sled pull 2 miles; 50, 25

WEDNESDAY
1. Squat (80% of Monday’s weight) x5, 2 sets Tom: 220 JC: 95
2. Bench Press 3 sets of 10 reps Tom: 180 JC: 77.5
3. Isotonic-Isometrics SQUAT 3 sets of 1 six-second hold
Holes (#9 - 16) 250, (#15 - 22 [top]) 270, (#21 - #3 upper holes) 320
4. Power Cleans 3x3 Tom: 185 - 225 JC: 95+
5. 4 sets of heavy shrugs 495+
6. abs: hollow rockers

FRIDAY
1. Squats: 3 sets of 10 [90% of Monday’s weight] Tom: 247.5 JC: 102.5
2. Press: 3 sets of 10 [90% of Monday’s weight] Tom: 112.5 JC: 55
3. Isotonic-Isometrics DEADLIFT 3 sets of 1 six-second hold; [blue mats and 2”x4’’’s]
Holes (black beams - #7) 300, (#7 - #2 close holes) 330, (#1 - 6 close holes) 415
JC: Romanian deadlifts (off rack) 3 sets of 5 reps 142.5

4. 4 sets of hanging (gymnastic) rows, with vest
5. Isotonic-Isometrics BENCH PRESS 3 sets of 1 six-second hold
Holes (#4 - 9) 180, (#8 - 13) 200, (#12 - 17) 265
JC: close grip bench press, T-Bar
6. 3 sets 5-6 barbell curls
7. abs: weighted sit ups; ab-mat

SATURDAY - Conditioning
swim 1 mile