Stuffed Superdud: Bumpy road to respectable lifting

[stuffedsuperdud]

Thanks Ed! I know 85 is basically nothing though. I'm excited about repaying you with something more worthy of your kind words. The coach's favorite student is a badass 94/105 guy who can do 120/150 ish with a squat/deadlift comparable to mine. He's not any faster than I am, either, and his technique isn't too far ahead of mine (he's hampered by his long list of NCAA football injuries, unfortunately), so I am optimistic about catching up to him soon.

Actually, the crucial difference right now is our huge difference in upper body strength: he can bench into the high 300s, powerclean and press 225x3, and strict press about 275 out of the rack. This perhaps another crucial mistake we're making at USAW: upper body strength matters. No you're not going to press in competition, but you're also not going to have the isometric strength stabilize a 180kg jerk or a 140kg snatch if you cannot even press 100kgx1. These past two months, the biggest surprise for me has actually been how many times I've been told to "lock shoulders!" and "Traps traps traps! Big shrug!" I always figured, as long as I hit a lift perfectly, I'll never have to "save" it, but the old man's answer to that was, "That's crazy! They're almost never going to perfect! You cannot just drop if it feels loose! You have to lock shoulders and keep fighting!" So it looks like all this pressing wasn't for nothing; I just wish it wasn't so darn hard to press 275!

BTW:
Cancergirl says thanks too. In a way this is kind of a relief; she knew things were shaky and wasn't happy or fairly compensated there anyway, so this is kind of like tearing off a bandaid. I'm guessing she'll be fine in a few months tops.

Training:
Ugh.......got restless from watching wildcard football games and wanted to get some squats in. Now that I'm definitely better conditioned than I was 2 months ago, I'm eager to remember the Alamo and do my 5x5s. The lifting gym is closed so I went to the big college gym near where I live....only to find that my membership failed to electronically renew. Whoooops. So stood outside looking longingly at the horde of resolutioners inside had their way with the squat racks. Will try again tomorrow....



My poor gainz.......

[stuffedsuperdud]

Thanks for the memories, Stuart Scott.



I can go on and on about how the "fight" or "war" with cancer is just hollow militaristic jingo designed to raise funding by appealing to America's love affair with naked violence, and completely misrepresents what it really means to live with the C-word, but I'll refrain, because Stuart, ever the eloquent gentleman, summarizes it best:

"When you die, it does not mean that you lose to cancer. You beat cancer by how you live, why you live, and in the manner in which you live."

Amen.

1/5/2015
Back into the fire. Spent nearly all of today addressing the elbow lockout issues.

Snatch grip Sotts press:
40kgx3x2

Snatch:
40kgx3
50x3
60x3x2
65x3x2

I wasn't allowed to go any heavier; the emphasis was to not do anything with my right elbow that might be called a pressout.

Superpower clean* and push press:
50kgx3x2
60x3x2
70x3x4
80x3,2

Again, emphasis on elbow lockout

Snatch push press + OHS 1+3
40kg (lol I missed the 1st OHS on account of being too cold, movement-wise, and the coach stared blankly at me, and then left to get a cigarette)

The Pole came back and saw that the Cuban coach's daughter (a pretty, and pretty elite, 63kg girl just back from the AO and home on break) was doing the same exercise at 75kg.
"Come on!! You're going to let her beat you?! Hey, what weight class are you? 58? or 63?"
"63."
"She's 63! You are 105 kilos!! Come on! Catch her!"

So I followed with the same 1+3 at:
50
60
70
As I loaded up 75, both Cubans watched with ear-to-ear grins while the Pole glared at me, arms crossed.
75 (Wobbly, not crisp and confident like hers, but I did it. THANK ALL THE GODS THERE EVER WERE.)

I got golfclaps from my audience.

Let me reiterate: OHS is a shoulder, not leg, exercise. And my upper body is weak.

Squat:
60kgx5
100x5
140x3
150x3 "Hey easy! Give me 160!"
160x3
150x6
After 5 reps on 150, I loosened up and was about to re-rack when he went, "Hey do me one more. Too easy!" Had to re-focus and as I was standing up, my forearms actually cramped up. That's new.

Abs + low back nonsense.

Oy my shoulders are going to be annoyed tomorrow. See you guys then.

*A powerclean with no dip at all. No nonsense, baby.

[Simon Rest]

I'm loving your programming. If never heard of snatch balance before reading it here, and tried some today. One day I might do it with weight too!

[stuffedsuperdud]

I am tired. I got to the gym about 10 minutes before the coach did, which gave me time to cry a little and compose my thoughts:

Jerks:
40kgx3x many
50x3x2
60x3x2
70x3
My elbow lockout issue continued. "Go back down. You need to really feel what a correct lockout is like."

I was backed up to:
60kgx3x many
50kgx3x infinity
I did those 50kg triples for what felt like forever. Blah.

Halfway through I complained that maybe my right elbow is defective and cited various bouts of tendonitis. The reply? "Pffffft enough! You're fine! Just lift!"

Cleans + adjust

By this I mean I never really properly learned how to adjust the hands between the clean and the jerk, which contributed to the weird symmetry problems with my rack, so the exercise was to clean, stand still, and then focus on really POPPING the bar up to adjust the hands. We're essentially breaking a single movement into two.

Did this for:
40x4
50x4
60x4x2
70x3x2
80x3x3
It's fine.

Soooooooper slow motion snatch deadlift + equally slow eccentric:
80x3x2
90x3x3
My back will be mad tomorrow.

Kettlebell presses + ab nonsense.

Not much commentary today on account of fatigue, so instead here's a pic the coach found of when he was still in school-age ranks, or whatever they call the youth programs on the other side of the Iron Curtain ([To]Bo Knows, but we haven't seen her in a while):

Old school:


Dude ended up with lifetime PRs of

Clean and press (yes, the 3-lift era!): 105kg
Snatch: 100kg
Clean and jerk: 130kg

all in the old 60kg class. Yes, the #s are low compared to Naim's absurd 152.5/190, which would medal in the 94/105s at our Nationals, but this guy just wasn't quite built for the sport: He's like 5'9", a foot taller than Naim, and says he was never able to grow into even the old 67.5kg category despite a steady diet of state-funded calories. I'm guessing the food wasn't always the best, and in any case, he ended up defecting to the West anyway right when the late growth spurt happened as he aged out of junior ranks, so we'll never know what could have been. It works out, I guess: I think because he spent so long analyzing the lifts and trying to get good that it made him a much better coach than most former athletes, and hey, I'm still trying to catch him in all three lifts. Dammit.

[ithryn]

What a cool bit of history. I like the dude frowning at him in the corner.

[stuffedsuperdud]

Bleeerrrgh. I must be coming down with something. Spent all day in a low energy haze with minimal fooding before stumbling off to the gym to try to wake myself up. Coach was off doing his weekly gig at some CF gym all day, and the rest of the team had already trained on their own and left, so just me, the MMA gang, and the gym owner dicking around. The rotator cuff tendonitis was flaring, so I wasn't feeling too intense and complete failed at pulling an HTFU.

Ended up doing:
Squat:
45x billions to wake my legs up
135x8x2
225x5
315x5
335x5x2
355x5
All easy. I set up 365, did it for 1 easy rep, and decided to forget about it and save something for when the coach gets back tomorrow. Bleh.

[stuffedsuperdud]

Full speed ahead!
The Girl (whose name I still don't know) PR'ed her snatch and our resident masters record holder showed up back from a 6/6 performance at a meet, so energy was running high.

I did:
Sotts snatch press:
40kgx a bunch

Snatch:
40kgx3
50x3
60x3
70x1
80x1
"Okay we are not joking around now. 86!"
86x0.9
I had it locked out overhead and was standing up with it when my shoulders came loose and I lost it forward. The coach stared THROUGH me for a few seconds and then went, "AAAUUUGGHH! COME ON!!" and left the room. The Cuban coach and his contingent found the whole back-and-forth hilarious and were all gasping for breath on the floor.
A few minutes later: "Okay lock those shoulders!"

86x0 This time I yanked a bit too hard and lost it behind.

"Okay stop. That's it. Two times overhead but you lose it both times. What are we going to do?"

I asked if I could take one more crack at it and he gave me the go-ahead.

86x1 whew...
The elbows were slightly wobbly, and I received some grief for it, but hey, still counts.

Snatch balance:
50kgx a bunch
60x a bunch of misses because I was tired and slow.
Note: This exercise is mostly to drill for a good lockout overhead. Not sure why CF made it into a competitive exercise back in 2009....... :P

Front squat:
20kgx many
60x5
100x5
110x3
120x2
130x1,2
110x3

On the 1st 130, I tipped forward a bit coming out of the second rep and the bar hit the safeties, taking away my bounce, and I was unable to stand up with it. Got it the 2nd try.

Snatch press:
40kgx5
50x4
55x4
60x4
65x4
67x3 Missed the last rep

Abs + low back fun.

I was over at Cancergirl's apt later when her aunt showed up; I hadn't seen her in several months. This happened:
Aunt: "I wanted to ask: are you a bodybuilder?"
Cancergirl: "No he's a weightlifter. Like what people do back home."
Aunt: "Oh weightlifter? This?" Does a clean and jerk motion.
Me: "Yes that."
Aunt: "How much can you lift? Like 200lbs?"
Me: "Eh about that. Maybe a bit more."
Aunt: "That's what I thought! You're more muscular than the last time I saw you."
Cancergirl: "Heh.....I think he's just getting fatter."
Aunt: "No no. His stomach is smaller and his chest and shoulders are bigger. Hey do you use those protein shakes?"
Cancergirl: "He does."
Aunt: "They put steroids in those things. Stop using it!"

Middle-aged woman thinks I am on the sauce based on my "physique?!" Awesome!


Edit: The rest of the team is going to a biggish local USAW meet in March and it looks like I'll be going too. Fun fact: I was planning on doing this meet back in 2013, hurt my knee a few days before it happened, and spent the whole day there watching my buddies lift (and not knowing just how long my recovery would end up taking...blah), so it'll definitely be a slightly emotional affair if I could show up in 8 weeks and demolish my old #s in competition. If I keep making these big strides these next two months, and go 6/6 the day of, I might end up with something like 100/130.....Excited, but let's not get too far ahead of ourselves. Consider the fire under my ass very thoroughly lit.

[stuffedsuperdud]

.

[idlehands]

I need to stop reading your log. Makes me want to take a crack at weight-lifting. Problem is gym I would have to go to to get help is 30 minutes away and I don't have money for either the gym or the time to go and get back.

Good luck at the meet!

[Oldman]

Good luck at the meet, ssd! CG's aunt sounds great.