Stuffed Superdud: Bumpy road to respectable lifting

[stuffedsuperdud]

8/11/2014
I overslept this morning and missed my 6AM adventure. Went in around 9PM, i.e. Peak Hours Round 2. Holy hell what a mess. Fortunately the platform is kept separate from the main area, quarantining the silly bullshit folks to themselves, but I did have to rotate in with two other snatchers. It's fine.

Push

Squat

Sn/CJ
Snatch:
40kgx3
50x3
60x3
65x2
70x2
75x2
80x2
85x0,1
91x0,1...kind of sort of a PR...but not really......
On 91, I locked it out overhead but decided to test myself at the bottom to see how stable it truly was. After second or two, it ended up drifting behind me and I lost it. In competition I would probably have stood up, maybe, but I guess we'll never know for sure. If nothing else, it's a good sign of things to come, I guess.

And then the gym closed! Bleh. I was on a roll! Oh well, next time.

Note: This was the first time in a very long time that I lifted with people of comparable abilities, and it was the most fun I've had in a long time, so much so that the sort-of-PR didn't even feel heavy. We were having a blast switching on and off the platform, and it's really too bad the gym closed down when it did, or I would have banged out 100kg for you guys. I might have to rethink my usual "I train alone and I'll PR alone" idea...

Pulls


On a more antagonistic note, say hello to fitness guru / all-around troll Ryan Lingenfelser:


Ryan wants you to
1. Not press
2. Not snatch
3. Not clean and jerk
because he got hurt doing it and is now making a living telling people to not lift weights.

Ad hominem time: this guy probably gets hurt brushing his teeth.

I hesitate to give this guy any more pagehits as he's obviously just trawling for them by disagreeing with reality, but I guess if nothing else, extreme BS is amusing. His "explanations" are here:
http://www.rdlfitness.com/avoid-the-overhead-press/
http://www.rdlfitness.com/avoid-olympic-lifts/

brb gonna go kill myself; I don't want to live in a world where he's allowed to have an opinion.

[stuffedsuperdud]

8/13/2014
Push

Squat

Sn/CJ

Pulls
Eccentric clean pulls:
100kgx5
130x5
140x5
170x2

Deadlift:
190x5 3kg PR

I was hoping to to CJ my way up to a max before the deads, but two people, a jacked little brown guy and his equally jacked ladyfriend, were Sheiko'ing on the platform with no end in sight, and their weights were already too heavy for me to start with, so I went straight to the pulls. Let's see how I feel tomorrow....

[roundedback]

8/11/2014
I overslept this morning and missed my 6AM adventure. Went in around 9PM, i.e. Peak Hours Round 2. Holy hell what a mess. Fortunately the platform is kept separate from the main area, quarantining the silly bullshit folks to themselves, but I did have to rotate in with two other snatchers. It's fine.

Push

Squat

Sn/CJ
Snatch:
40kgx3
50x3
60x3
65x2
70x2
75x2
80x2
85x0,1
91x0,1...kind of sort of a PR...but not really......
On 91, I locked it out overhead but decided to test myself at the bottom to see how stable it truly was. After second or two, it ended up drifting behind me and I lost it. In competition I would probably have stood up, maybe, but I guess we'll never know for sure. If nothing else, it's a good sign of things to come, I guess.

And then the gym closed! Bleh. I was on a roll! Oh well, next time.

Note: This was the first time in a very long time that I lifted with people of comparable abilities, and it was the most fun I've had in a long time, so much so that the sort-of-PR didn't even feel heavy. We were having a blast switching on and off the platform, and it's really too bad the gym closed down when it did, or I would have banged out 100kg for you guys. I might have to rethink my usual "I train alone and I'll PR alone" idea...

Pulls


On a more antagonistic note, say hello to fitness guru / all-around troll Ryan Lingenfelser:


Ryan wants you to
1. Not press
2. Not snatch
3. Not clean and jerk
because he got hurt doing it and is now making a living telling people to not lift weights.

Ad hominem time: this guy probably gets hurt brushing his teeth.

I hesitate to give this guy any more pagehits as he's obviously just trawling for them by disagreeing with reality, but I guess if nothing else, extreme BS is amusing. His "explanations" are here:
http://www.rdlfitness.com/avoid-the-overhead-press/
http://www.rdlfitness.com/avoid-olympic-lifts/

brb gonna go kill myself; I don't want to live in a world where he's allowed to have an opinion.

Lmao. http://www.rdlfitness.com/avoid-powe...eral-training/

Look what he says about deadlifting. My god. Some of the shit he says.

To summarize this article: Avoid everything.

[stuffedsuperdud]

8/14/2014
Blah....woke up super duper sore from last night's deadlifts. Can I CJ today? Let's see...

Push

Squat

Sn/CJ
Clean and jerk 1+2
60kgx2
70x2
80x2
90x1

CJ:
100x1
110 missed the jerk
115 missed the jerk
125 clean PR attempt, Clarked

So yea........failure ending.

Ugh...guess I'm doing more sn/cj from now on. The strength is there. Just got to get the technique dialed in. 110/140 by the end of the year? Probably too greedy so let's call that a reach. 100/130? Definitely on the compass.

Pulls

[stuffedsuperdud]

I am comically sore from the events of the last two days, from my neck down to my knees, but Cancergirl felt okay this happened:

Cancergirl
Deadlift:
55lbx5
66x5
77x3
88x1
95x5 5lb PR
"I wonder what 100 feels like...."
100x2 Weight PR, but I'm not going to call it a 2RM because she had at least two more reps in her. No sense burning her out though. In any case, we're in triple digits! 100x5 coming soon to a gym near you.

Squat:
45lbx5
50x5
55x3
60x1
65x5x2 5lb 5RM PR
This looked pretty easy, but she was pretty adamant about not doing her last set since she has to walk around a lot tomorrow. I let it slide since she did do DLs first.

[Oldman]

I think that you're set up for some big Oly lifts by year's end. Cancergirl is pulling big, too.

[stuffedsuperdud]

Thanks for the kind words, Ed. Cancergirl in particular appreciates your taking note of her progress. Actually, after she did the 100x2, the first thing she said was, "Go tell Cancerboy!" Since I see her almost every day, I don't really notice any changes, but she went to a family event today, and several people noticed her recent physique improvements.* Deadlifting 100lbs is way better than lying in a La-Z-Boy hooked up to an IV and watching bad reality TV, eh?

For me though, ehh.....The wheels came off my bus today a bit for reasons I didn't quite understand. I tried snatching, but after 70kgx3 went up easily, I just couldn't get my body to drop down under 80kg. It was a weird hesitation that hadn't happened since the very first time I tried a snatch. I then tried to make amends by squatting, but the last warmup at 315 felt very heavy, and I couldn't manage more than 2 doubles with the work weight (355). Called it a day to save room for tomorrow. I think it had something to do with me not having had a meal in 24 hours, and I was very over-caffeinated (shaking whenever I tried to set up a lift) but surely performance shouldn't have taken THAT big a hit. Will find out tomorrow.

*Most of the younger folks though she looked great, but not all the observations were complimentary. Her family's a bunch of Old World aristocrats, like the villains in a Jane Austen novel, and lifting weights is most certainly not very becoming for a young woman. She's having fun and feeling great, so it's kind of disappointing, even if unsurprising, that some older folks would discourage something that's been so revitalizing for her.

[stuffedsuperdud]

8/17/2014
Went to the gym eager to make up for yesterday's clusterfudging.

Push

Squat
Volume day:
355x5x5
There now isn't that better. Lots of grinders in there, but hey, it got done. So now I know my strength can fluctuate wildly on a day to day basis. Great....

Sn/CJ

Pulls

Not sure where to classify this, but I did pullups BWx5x5.

This is very embarrassing. Pullups and I have had a special relationship my whole life, that is to say, I couldn't do a single rep for the first 19 years, and always dreaded that annual Presidential Fitness Test. In elementary school,I was probably literally the only kid that couldn't do 1, including most of the girls; just to rub it in there was always that one girl who could do more than almost anyone else. (IIRC, my 3rd grade friend Carrie did like 8 that year, and went on to play D1 soccer. She's a surgeon these days, and let's just say puberty was very kind to her, even if it did take away most of her pullups....too bad I stopped talking to her on account of cooties when we were 10. But now that we're over that, I should call her....call her my sugarmama, that is....)

Ahem! Anyway so it wasn't until my second year of college, after a semester of resistance training, that I got 2. This stayed at 2 until I took up rock climbing, and one day checked and found that I could magically do 6. What?!?? Some organized programming later and I got up to 16, at a bodyweight of about 180.

So you can imagine how embarrassing it was today to only do 5, at BW 225, i.e. the same # I did back then with a 45lb plate on top of the 180. So my pulling strength is exactly the same, I guess; I'm just heavier.... but hey, 5 is 5 and not 16, so I guess I'd better start getting stronger to make up for the weight gain. 20 reps here I come.

[Oldman]

Re: Cancergirl and her family--It is a drag how social pressures weigh on women regarding strength training and being strong. I can tell that my daughter has to deal with similar stuff, just not from family. She wavers between wanting to lift and get stronger, and wanting to be thin. And it comes from every direction: friends, tv, internet, from all over. Lately, since she has just about finished PT for her repaired ACL and the therapist has okayed LBBS, RDLs (single leg with DBs and regular with a bar), and other stuff, she's showing interest in coming to the gym with me and my wife. She even said she wanted to learn to deadlift, so we'll see.

Nice volume, there, ssd. Sets of 5 are a bear: with my new program I'm going to be doing them again, but RPE-style. Not sure if I am looking forward to them...

[stuffedsuperdud]

8/21/2014
You guys ready for this joke session? Okay.
Push

Squat

Sn/CJ
Snatch:
40kgx3
50x3x2
60x3
70x2
80x0,1
85x0x3 Just wouldn't go.

C+J 1+2
40kgx2
50x2
60x2
70x2
80x2

CJ:
90x2
100x0,1
The first 100, I was nearly pinned by the poor clean and had to come out form a dead stop at rock bottom. Stood up with it. Cancergirl: "Just put it back. It's not for you." Dumped it. 2nd rep was super easy. Speed under to bar is probably 50% mental, 50% fast-twitch.

Altogether, a hot mess. I think I might have actually injured my upper back a few weeks ago somehow. Perhaps that's somehow keeping me from effectively transmitting force from the legs to the bar? Will look into it.

Pulls

Cancergirl (Highlight of the day)
Deadlift:
55lbx5
77x3
88x1
I brought the bar up to 45kg/99lbs. "You want to go 99lbs for 5?"
"I already did 100lb for 2 last time, fool. We're not going backwards. Do you have your baby plates?" So 101 it was.
101lbx5 5RM PR
I noticed some knee-caving on reps 3-5, which suggests weak abductors? I am hoping that as the squat catches up this will be less of a problem.

Squat:
45lbx5
55x1
65x5x3 Whee 65 is in the books. Onwards and upwards.
She was really tired after set 2 and wanted to stop, but then out of nowhere said, "This last set is for Cancerboy! (Is it okay if I call him Cancerboy by the way?)" and banged out the last 5.