275 at 90 or to hell with you

[famendoza]

...
Thought I was gonna black out on my main set of front squats. I unracked it, then had a pain in my shoulder so I racked it to get a better grip, then went light-headed, and kinda went out in space for the set. It happened so hell with it.
...

From my noob's perspective, I remember this happening to me about a year ago with the power clean (at the time a heavy 155lbs). I wanted to shoulder rack it, and then racked, walk it back to the squat rack. I was about 4-5 steps away. On step 1 I felt a bit of pressure, and on step 3 I was sleeping as the bar fell out of my hands and on the pins. I had stumbled on my ass and took a 1 second nap. Funny story I'd share. Got a bit wiser on the ol' blackout deal.

[PMDL]

Yeah, it's pretty lame innit?

I don't usually get the black-out symptoms, either. I was just glad I didn't faint during the set, which I thought was going to happen.

[PMDL]

Day 1 - 1/25/10

Deadlift - 1RM: 247 kg

165 kg x 5 reps @ 8 RPE - 67% of 1RM
187.5 kg x 3 reps @ 8 RPE - 76% of 1RM
210 kg x 4 reps @ 9 RPE - 85% of 1RM

Chinups - 1RM: 135 kg

100 kg x 5 reps x 2 sets @ 8 RPE - 74% of 1RM
100 kg x 3 reps x 3 sets @ 8 RPE - 74% of 1RM

My right hand is a mess right now. The ring finger is still stiff, puffy, and sore in the joints. I don't know what the hell I did to it, but it needs to hurry up and heal. Hook gripping is impossible above 140, and even mixed-grip isn't doing so hot on the heavier sets. The pinky finger got cut the other day, so it's got a big rip on it and is also sore and puffy. I taped it up for the workout, but I'm running with two fingers out of the game on that hand, so 210x4 @9 should have been a 6-rep set.

I weighed 88.2 so my IF diet is working well enough. Not interested in dramatic losses, but staying between 85 and 90 is probably for the best right now.

[PMDL]

Day 2 - 1/27/10

Box Squat - 1RM: 150 kg

100 kg x 2 reps @ 7 RPE - 67% of 1RM
110 kg x 2 reps @ 7 RPE - 73% of 1RM
120 kg x 2 reps @ 7 RPE - 80% of 1RM
130 kg x 2 reps @ 8 RPE - 87% of 1RM
135 kg x 1 reps @ 8 RPE - 90% of 1RM
100 kg x 3 reps x 2 sets @ 7 RPE - 67% of 1RM

Bench Press - 1RM: 128 kg

82.5 kg x 5 reps @ 7 RPE - 64% of 1RM
95 kg x 3 reps @ 7 RPE - 74% of 1RM
105 kg x 6 reps @ 9 RPE - 82% of 1RM

Close-grip Bench (w/ Fat bar) - 1RM: 113 kg

90 kg x 3 reps x 5 sets @ 8 RPE - 80% of 1RM

So I got stupid tonight on box squats and tried to build up to a daily max, then do some back-off sets. I used a low box, a couple inches lower than normal height and pretty visibly below parallel. The build up went fine. Then on the second back-off set at 100, the right quad went "rip". Not bad, it was more a warning-tear than a full blow-out, fortunately, though there is some obvious bruising. It's only mildly annoying to put it through a ROM, so I'm just going to hit it aggressively with some high-rep BW squats the next few days to get some blood in it and help it mend up. No more low-box squatting for awhile, anyway.

Benching is going nicely, on the other hand. The mobility work I'm doing for the upper body is helping this along just fine.

[blowdpanis]

Jesus, Matt. I know we were talking about Broz' stuff, but I didn't realize your quad was still that goofy. I suppose on the plus side you are now a good candidate for the Starr rehab if you wanted to try that out

[PMDL]

Oh I'm one step ahead of you!

I've been doing high-rep sets of BW squats and lunges, which oddly seem to make the pain go away. I dunno if I just ripped some scar tissue in there or what, because putting it through a loaded ROM is not painful at all. Sitting here at my desk and flexing the VMO is painful, but not full-ROM squats or one-leg squats. Go figure.

Nothing of major interest to log tonight, just did some cleans up to 102.5 and had a miss at 105 mainly due to psyching myself out with the weight. The pull was there, my catch wasn't. Oh well.

Finished up with light squats, one set of 15 with the bar and then sets of 10 with 60, 70, and 80. These worked my lungs more than anything, but they did feel nice and good on the quad.

One set of 12 pullups and that was it.

[PMDL]

Day 1 - 2/1/10

Squat - 1RM: 141 kg

60 kg x 5 reps @ 7 RPE - 43% of 1RM
70 kg x 5 reps @ 7 RPE - 50% of 1RM
80 kg x 5 reps @ 7 RPE - 57% of 1RM
90 kg x 5 reps @ 7 RPE - 64% of 1RM
100 kg x 5 reps @ 7 RPE - 71% of 1RM

Bench Press - 1RM: 130 kg

75 kg x 5 reps @ 7 RPE - 58% of 1RM
85 kg x 5 reps @ 7 RPE - 65% of 1RM
97.5 kg x 8 reps @ 9 RPE - 75% of 1RM

Close-grip Bench - 1RM: 122 kg

90 kg x 5 reps @ 8 RPE - 74% of 1RM
90 kg x 4 reps @ 8 RPE - 74% of 1RM
90 kg x 3 reps x 3 sets @ 8 RPE - 74% of 1RM

Chinups - 1RM: 131 kg

118 kg x 1 reps x 4 sets @ 8 RPE - 90% of 1RM

This last half-blowout of my quad convinced me that I need to really do something about it instead of just trying to work around it. So one more time, I'm resetting to lighter weights and trying to slowly build it back up. I read some Bill Starr articles for inspiration, and my plan is to focus on building up the workload each session instead of cutting back the ramp-up sets to hit the top weight. I'm planning on slow 2.5kg increases per week, which is going to mean a lot of easy workouts, but it also means that the quad will get a chance to get broken in and hopefully actually heal up.

I modified my training cycle for this month accordingly, but it's not a huge difference from what I'd already decided on.

[PMDL]

Day 2 - 2/3/10

Front Squat - 1RM: 106 kg

90 kg x 1 reps x 10 sets @ 7 RPE - 85% of 1RM

Overhead Press - 1RM: 67 kg

60 kg x 1 reps x 4 sets @ 8 RPE - 90% of 1RM

Deadlift - 1RM: 256 kg

210 kg x 1 reps x 4 sets @ 8 RPE - 82% of 1RM

Lots and lots of singles tonight. I love singles. I was way too conservative on the front squats. I ended up doing a rep every 60 seconds, and they never got above a 7. No big deal, this is supposed to be a slow and steady progression.

The OHP and DL were more spot on, but I was still using 60s rests on the OHP and 2m rests on the DL. No grinders, though. Everything was smooth. I'll gradually work these up to 10 singles, then add weight.

[PMDL]

Day 3 - 2/5/10

Power Clean - 1RM: 111 kg

100 kg x 1 reps x 4 sets @ 8 RPE - 90% of 1RM

Squat - 1RM: 138 kg

60 kg x 5 reps x 1 sets @ 7 RPE - 43% of 1RM
70 kg x 5 reps x 1 sets @ 7 RPE - 51% of 1RM
80 kg x 5 reps x 1 sets @ 7 RPE - 58% of 1RM
90 kg x 5 reps x 1 sets @ 7 RPE - 65% of 1RM

Incline Bench - 1RM: 106 kg

90 kg x 1 reps x 4 sets @ 7 RPE - 85% of 1RM

Finished up with one set of 15 pullups, one set of 30 back raises, and one set of weighted crunches. Weight was down to 87.7 kg (~193 lbs), which is getting down there. As long as I don't dip under 190 I really shouldn't have any problems with strength. However this also means I can eat junk tomorrow.

[kunnar]

I see that in one training day your squat 1RM is marked as 141 kg, in another training day 138 kg. How you estimate your 1RM?