Stuffed Superdud: Bumpy road to respectable lifting

[stuffedsuperdud]

5/13/2014
Push
Press:
160x5,4+1,5,3,4 + 3
Set 2 Rep 5 required some hip English to get it up.
Sets 4 and 5 I was cramping badly from today's heatwave (yea yea I am a California wuss). Did Set 6 to tried to make up the missed reps and only partially succeeded.
Just to rub it in the power went out around Set 3 and I was lifting entirely by feel in a pitch black room. Fantastic.

Here's to 160x5x5 come next VD...

Squat

Sn/CJ

Pulls

[Oldman]

Getting caught up on the logs, after a couple of very tough weeks on the job. Nice set of PRs, man! It looks like your "just get strong" approach was the ticket!

[stuffedsuperdud]

Thanks Oldman! Strength was something that sort of fell by the wayside because my old coach didn't want me to use it to compensate for what was then really rough technique (I used to have to struggle to save every single snatch and jerk, whatever the weight, and beat the crap out of my rotator cuffs and hips as a result), but I think at this point, my technique has stabilized into something sufficiently decent that I can focus on increasing strength. Weightlifting is very technical, yes, much more so than some folks on this forum give it credit for, but if the weight feels heavy coming off the ground such that you are slipping out of position by the time the bar passes the knees, and this was my problem for snatches > 75kg and cleans > 100kg, no amount of technique in the 2nd pull is going to save that lift (unless your name is Hysen Pulaku, whose cleans all start off looking like 1RM deadlifts). I still have a lot of work to do, of course, both strength-wise and technique-wise, but it's definitely good to know that the last few few months haven't been for nothing. It might be a big ask, but if I can get to 100/125 or so in the next few months I'd be pretty thrilled. 110/130 by the end of the year might be a bit greedy, but that's the reach goal, I guess. This would require a not-insignificant amount of technique refinement and probably a 200kg squat or so, which is about 20kg more than I can do now, so definitely a biggish hill to climb. I've been following weightlifting since 2010 though and am definitely sick of Nationals and American Opens coming and going year after year without being able to participate, so now that I'm finally healthy and with an okay technique base, it might be my time to catch up a bit and quit being such a bad lifter. Let's see how this ends up going.

Glad to see you've survived the last few weeks with the work and the shoulder and the kids and the 100 other things you have going on, by the way!. Good job getting (almost) the whole family into the gym; hope your daughter's knee is recovering nicely.

[stuffedsuperdud]

5/14/2014
Push

Squat
Squat:
365x5,1
315x5
325x5
335x5,3
That 1st set of 365 was very hard, and my knee was feeling a bit shaky, causing me to pussy out on set 2. Did a backoff at 315 and tried to ride a wave back up but it was too much. Oh well, still higher tonnage than usual. I don't think I will reset since it's probably not worth the time and effort to milk 5-10lbs more out of LP. Guess it's time for weekly progression from here on out. Will probably do a ramp-up 5x5 day to start and stabilize from there.

Y'all can go to hell, I'm goin' to Texas.

Sn/CJ

Pulls

[Oldman]

Thanks, ssd. My daughter's knee is coming along well--she's doing leg extensions at PT and is getting the rest of her rehab done at home. I have no doubt that the WL work is highly technical: we lift at a gym that is primarily WL-oriented, so we see the technique practice all the time. In fact, my youngest son (13, the soccer player) really likes working on snatches (C&Js, not so much). It is interesting to see how the technical issues prevent him from making a PR; he really has to go back down in weight, get the form right, and build back up. This summer we are going to work on him getting into the gym possibly 3x/week, using snatches and SSLP stuff (which he's done a bit of before), maybe not including the DL (or maybe including them). He wants to get stronger for his first season of high school soccer and then spring traveling soccer.

Good luck with the TM set up. I used it for about 9 months and liked it, before it and the health stuff started to kick me in the ass a bit. Every now and then, I start thinking about going back to it, but I think that I will do my current program and then look into block periodization of some kind.

[stuffedsuperdud]

Today's nonsense:
I went to the gym way too optimistic about how I felt after yesterday's significantly increased tonnage. Everything was sore and my knee sucked. Just to rub it in, I was badly dehydrated from the ongoing heat wave and felt like crap, so after warming up and realizing that it wasn't gonna happen:

DB biceps curls LOLOLOLOL: 35lbx10x3
Wondering if this might help the elbow tendonitis that has been bothering me. Not gonna lie: this was kind of fun. I remember when 35lb curls were hard for me. Now, after not curling in years, 35x10x3 was a joke. I did catch a bit of a pump, which was fun.

Unweighted
GHR back extensions: 3x10
Calf raises: 3x10 with a focus on the eccentric step for my achy calves.

Then I left feeling completely unfulfilled. Despite the okay training in the past few days, I've actually been in a bad mood all week, ever since last Friday when I was supposed to go get endless BBQ with my not-wife and she changed it up at the last minute and insisted we get sushi instead. At the risk of sounding like DirtyRed, come on, what's better? Assloads of red meat falling off the bone favored by morbidly obese Americans, or nibbles of fish and rice from a far off archipelago nation whose population lives to be 100+ and then dies from natural causes, leaving a slim 5'5" 120lb body behind?

"You maahhd because you're hungry? What are you, a diabetic?"
-Chris from 70's Big

[stuffedsuperdud]

5/17/2014
Push

Squat
Squat:
315x5
325x5
335x5x3
Squat volume WHAAAAT? No more screwing around resetting LPs. It's time to get that 200kg squat once and for all. Kicked off TM today with a conservative 5x5. I left off with 360x5x3 and 365x5x1, so I figured they should be 330x5x5 or so, but just to be safe I ramped up, and since 325x5 went up easy, I jacked it up to 335. I was very surprised at how hard Sets 4 and 5 are; Total tonnage came out to be over 8000lbs today when previously, even on the tail end of LP, it was only 5500 ish. Should feel great tomorrow. To 440x1 and beyond.

Sn/CJ

Pulls

[Oldman]

Nice work, man. I look forward to your progress on these.

[stuffedsuperdud]

Well prepare to be disappointed, sir. I went to the gym today hoping to do the quick lifts up to 80% or so just to stay fresh and found that I was too sore and stiff to hit any of the positions, even after rolling with the hard PVC pipe. It's not just the legs either: somehow, my back and shoulders were scorched too. Heh...

Had to muscle 40kg into place instead of sending it up smoothly. I felt a bit better after that and did a bunch of surprisingly difficult reps with 50kg while awkwardly hitting on the super-MILF in the room with me. Both efforts were pathetic and I gave up on both to go watch Game of Thrones.....

....and I couldn't even get THAT right. I thought today's episode would be the Oberyn Martell vs. Gregor Clegane Rumble in the Jungle, but it was instead mostly filler to lead up to their deathmatch in two weeks. Oops.

[stuffedsuperdud]

5/20/2014

Push

Squat
Squat recovery: 315x5x3
Today was a squat recovery day but since I was feeling okay from VD, I thought I'd just do the "real" VD, with 335 for sets across. Nope. During warmups the knee was sore and I'm super wary of ego-lifting, so I just did 315x5x3, called it recovery day, and left.

Sn/CJ

Pulls

Conditioning
3 mile fasted walk / jog

I'm finally programming for conditioning instead of just dicking around with a light barbell after some sessions. With the help of Steel and his assistant Tracy I've put together a 9-week program, mostly running-based. Hopefully I'll be able to lean my way down to the 94kg class on this plan, and be a more useful human to boot. I guess my lifts will suffer a bit at first, but seeing as to how Steel's clients are all strong and in-shape, I expect I'll adapt soon enough.

For this week I just want to get my hips and knees accustomed to running. Next week the real progression begins.