Putting back together the broken pieces

[Dag]

Squatting with a knee wrap for compression - I don't know if that's good or bad but it's old school "wrap it and train anyway." I like it. It may not be right but I like it.

I sincerely hope you can get your hip problem sorted. I'm trying to figure my hip issues out and I know the frustration you are experiencing all too well. Best of luck and I'll keep reading to see how it goes

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[marcf]

Squatting with a knee wrap for compression - I don't know if that's good or bad but it's old school "wrap it and train anyway." I like it. It may not be right but I like it.

I sincerely hope you can get your hip problem sorted. I'm trying to figure my hip issues out and I know the frustration you are experiencing all too well. Best of luck and I'll keep reading to see how it goes

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Much appreciated, Dag. The knee sleeves I use now have a decent amount of compression. They were actually quite hard to put on at first because of their tightness, and I really like squatting in them. You should check these out.

[marcf]

Same issue with my hips. It hasn't gotten any worse, but it hasn't gotten any better. At this point, I figured I could sit around all day and wait for nothing to happen, or I could start rehabbing it, even though I don't know what the actual injury is.

January 10

Squats: 45x10, 45x10, 65x8, 65x8, 65x8
Leg press: 1 plate each side x 10, 2 plates x 8, 3 plates x 8 x 2, 3 plates and quarters x8
Bench: 265x3x3 (very last rep paused)
Deadlift 360x5

Those squats were painful when I hit the hole. If I don't force my knees out hard, it hurt a little, but if I force my knees out harder, it hurts a lot. The tiniest error in movement exacerbates the pain (e.g. if on my ascent I am not perfectly in midfoot, my thigh/hip hurt badly). I took the squats very slow and tried to make sure my form was as good as it could be even while in pain.

I can leg press and it doesn't hurt, so I'm doing that just to have some kind of heavier leg work done.

Bench went fairly well. At the end of each triple, I felt like I had another rep or two in me. Instead of resting my usual five minutes between sets, I decided to rest 7-8 minutes.

Deadlifts felt awful. I haven't been sleeping well and I've been extremely stressed out, and it's compounded by the added stress of my injury. I was actually supposed to do 380x5 today, but I was so distracted that I misloaded the bar.

[marcf]

I'm happy to report that my hip, while still in a lot of pain, isn't in excruciating pain anymore. I can get in and out of my car and bed with only mild pain. When I squat, it still hurts, but I'm not grimacing at the bottom anymore like I was two days ago.

I'm also trying a new TM bench press scheme that mgilchrest mentioned in the Programming board where you do volume on Day 1, light bench after presses on Day 2, and ID bench on Day 3. I figure that next week I can skip my ID workout and go straight into my meet.

January 12

Squat: 45x10x2, 65x10x2, 85x10x3 (I know the Starr method requires more reps, but my form starts to get wobbly after about 10 reps)
Press: 145x5x2, 145x4 (just couldn't get that last rep)
Bench: 185x8x3
Dumbbell bicep curls: 35x8x4

My hip was a little achey after squats to do power cleans today. *sad trombone*

[marcf]

I slept poorly last night, and as a result, weights felt heavy today. I went to bed at 11PM and woke up around 1AM, went back to bed and then woke up again at 5AM and I couldn't sleep. Finally fell asleep again around 6AM and woke up at 9:30AM. I attribute most of my aches and general fatigue today from that shitty night of sleep.

January 14

Squat: 45x5x3, 65x10, 85x8, 100x10x3
Leg Press: 1 plate x10, 2 plates x 10 x 4
Bench: 270x3 (my fourth rep was very likely assisted by my spotter so I am not counting it)
Deadlifts: 135x5, 225x5, 315x3
Rack pull (from just below knee): 365x6

My hip strain is starting to feel a little better. Again, I have to find the ABSOLUTE PERFECT GROOVE when hitting the hole and driving up to not experience much pain. At the rate things are feeling, I should be back to squatting my last set of working 5s in about two weeks if all goes well (that's 275 pounds for 5s). I don't expect to squat more than 150 pounds or so at the meet, but if this week feels great, I'll try to squat 225. I just don't want to take any chances and prolong my recovery or re-injure myself.

Bench press felt heavy today, but again, I attribute that to my very poor night of sleep. It's too early to tell whether my new, higher volume week made a difference. I need another 2-3 weeks of benching like this to find out, except I'm not sure I'm going to do that since I want to get my press up to 225 for the Starting Strength meet in Oakland.

Rack pulls are new to me. It felt hard, but I didn't feel as beat up as I would have if I'd done conventional deadlifts at that weight. And at this point, I don't want to feel beat up since I'm one week out from my meet.

Here is a video of my bench. I didn't realize I was turning my feet out that much! I should correct that.

[marcf]

I'm one 6 days out from my meet. Good news: I was able to squat 135 today without feeling like someone was ripping my rectus femoris out of my hip. I did feel some fatigue and maybe overdid some things here in the gym today.

January 16

Squat: 135x5x3
Bench: 260x1x2; 245x3x3
DL: 405x1, 385x1

I intended to do three bench singles, but my shoulder hurt too much. Squats felt ok--there is still some pain if I am not in the perfect groove. DL felt hard as hell, likely because of my rack pulls on Saturday. Also, I didn't wear my belt to deadlift, which was unintentional. For my last deadlift single, I intended to do a 375 but I misloaded the bar and put a 35 instead of a 25 on one side. I felt it right away, but when I set it down and looked at each side from the top, I didn't see a difference so I thought I misgrooved or was going crazy. When I was unloading the bar, I noticed my mistake.

[marcf]

Had some pain in my low back today, maybe around a 6/10. Hip pain was like a 5/10 which allowed me to ramp up weight pretty quickly, whether it was a good idea or not. It has been 18 days since I squatted 350 pounds.

January 18

Squat: 95x5, 135x5, 185x5, 205x3, 225x3, 245x3
2ct Pause Bench: 260x1x3; TnG bench 225x3x3
Deadlift: 135x5, 225x5

I tried deadlifting with my 4" belt instead of my 3" belt and it felt fine. I will use my 4" belt at the meet this Sunday.

My left hip had some aching an hour after my squat session, but not bad at all. I'm going to attempt an opener for a single on Friday for squat (maybe 275 pounds) to see how it feels. I'm definitely going to gauge whether I should work up so heavy based on my warmups, but today was promising. I don't want to overreach for this meet and get injured again.

I'd like to work up to my last warmups for bench and deadlift on Friday, but I won't be near my gym and so I'll have to find one in the San Diego area.

[manveer]

Promising that you are able to squat heavier weights. I think working up with singles is a good approach to make sure you don't push too hard.

[marcf]

Promising that you are able to squat heavier weights. I think working up with singles is a good approach to make sure you don't push too hard.

Thanks, man. I'm gonna do that for my very last workout before the meet, then when I get back in the gym after the meet, I'm gonna take a 25% decrease from my last full squat workout and LP my way back up in 10 pound jumps with a light day in the middle.

[marcf]

I had my meet yesterday, January 22, and it went well. I went 9 for 9 and didn't get a single red light. I'm slightly disappointed that I went so conservatively with some lifts based on how they felt. I knew with squats it was going to be a total crap shoot--I hadn't squatted anything heavy in a month and was in too much pain to squat for a few weeks.

I was warming up and watching the wrong platform during squats, so I went to check on the flights and I saw my name on the board with a minute left to get on the platform. I sprinted to the warmup room, grabbed my belt, and sprinted back to the platform with about 30 seconds to spare and took my opener completely out of breath. I felt it fly up and my hip didn't hurt, so I made quite a big jump to my second lift. It felt harder and my hip started to ache, but I said fuck it and made another big jump.

I should have taken an extra 5kg on bench press, but I didn't know how big I should jump on bench.

Finally, my low back had been hurting all week so I hadn't deadlifted in about 7-8 days, and it ached a little on warmups. My opener flew up and I nearly rocked backwards off my feet. My second and third lifts were easy as well, so I'm also a little disappointed that I didn't take 5-10kg more.

In all, it was a good experience. I got a bronze medal.

Squats: 275/308/342
Bench: 255/260/275
Deadlift: 418/435/451