Stuffed Superdud: Bumpy road to respectable lifting

[stuffedsuperdud]

Just a short update because I am beat. Went to the gym feeling good (the holiday clearing out some of the traffic certainly helps) and for the first time a very long time, my knee felt really good.

Snatch:
40kgx3x2
50x3x2
60x3x2
68x3x6

The technique is finally starting to burn in and stabilize. I did miss a few reps, including one where the owner was loudly telling a story about a gruesome torn pec. Coach was like, "Aww man come on. BE A MAN!" When that happened and I made all subsequent reps. He then said, "Hey sometimes when you focus, you lift like yourself. Then sometimes you lose focus and you're a whole other person! Or actually, maybe it's more like, when you focus, you're me. And when you don't focus, you're you! HA!"

Muscle snatch + OHS 2+2
40kgx1x2
50x1x2
55x1x2
50x1

Front squat:
20kgx10
60x5
100x4
125x2
130x3
110x3x2

My slow lifts are definitely down a smidge from a few months ago, as expected. Hopefully we can go back on a strength cycle soon, after this meet is over.

Snatch press:
40kgx4
50x4
Here I realized I was exhausted and my traps were fried. I'll pick it up tomorrow.

I was, "Hey coach how was the weekend?"
He goes, "Pretty good. I had to coach Saturday morning, but then I went and got the flowers and the candy and the card and so on and so on...."
"So fun day?"
Here he gave me a really sleazy wink and smile and went, "Oooooh yeeeeaaaaa.....preeeeeetttty fun....." Yikes.

I guess the fun must have rolled over into today, because he started pestering me during squats to go faster because he wanted to get home. High five, sir.

[Mr_Rogers]

Read your comments in that weightlifting program thread and I wholeheartedly agree. Mostly based off my own experiences. I know when I tried to really push strength numbers my technique went to crap and I was always sore (mostly from squats and conventional DLs) to really move with any speed/consistency. I've said it before and I'll say it again, dedicated blocks (ala Russian methods) work. As you age, managing recovery is really important and something I did not manage well.

I saw Kingsman Sunday (matinee) and loved it. I didn't know what to expect or that it was based off a comic, I just happened to see a promo for it on a gaming site and thought it looked cool. Probably one of the more enjoyable movies I've seen in awhile. Really good action and enjoyable humour.

[stuffedsuperdud]

Blergh. I missed two days of training due to work. Might have been for the best though, as my traps were for some reason comically sore after Monday? I forgot to log where I did some high-hang snatches with the coach yelling "Shrug!" at me; this might have been what did me in.

Today:
Coach caught a cold from his wife and spent the whole time huddled in the corner of the gym bundled under his hoodie pouting and complaining about the draft in the room, so not as many comments, unfortunately.

Rack jerks:
40kgx3x2
60x3x2
70x3x5

Snatch push press + OHS 1+3
20kg x many
40x1x2
50x1x2
60x1x2
70x1x2
80kg: lost my balance at the bottom of the 2nd OHS and dumped the bar forward
80 again: elbow lockout failed at the top between OHS reps 2 and 3

Edit: This might be an incidental PR: I don't think I've ever attempted to OHS anything heavier than 75kg before. So there you go then.

Back to 60kg: two sets of 1+5
"Hell yes you going to do 5 overhead squats. I don't give a fuck if 5 is a lot to you! You must get strong!"

Some good news for a change: My knee's miraculous healing continued and for the first time in forever, I was able to OHS without any weird asymmetry or pain. I've finally been actively addressing the issue and others (left shoulder, right hip) instead of ignoring them, so: lots of stretching/mobbing as well as megadoses of fish oil and, and this is going to sound stupid, that Olympus Helios product from Chaos and Pain. Yes, Jamie Lewis is a weirdo who makes gay porn, gleefully posts pictures of himself banging his fiance, and panders to obnoxious teenage boys, but hey, if the product works, it ain't stupid, right? Initial data suggests it indeed works. The "CherryLime Chimera" flavor tastes okay too, though it certainly smells funky and reminded me of Indian food.

Abs + back crap

Prowler: 40m trips x 4, 210lb load, 20m low handles 20m high handles, one minute breaks

Fatal error: I went to a Brazilian BBQ place for a late lunch. I was stuck in a meeting all morning and my co-workers screwed something up that got us all in trouble, so I was in a bad mood and answered with about 5lbs of medium rare deliciousness + chicken, rice, that cinnamon banana thing, salad, etc. Exactly NONE of it was digested by the time I started prowling. After the 4th trip, I decided to omit the 5th/6th.

Gym owner: "If you have to puke, do it outside or in the bathroom. You ruin my floor and I'm going to kill you and bury you out back with an Indian headdress and a tomahawk and let future archaeologists try to figure out the forensics of what really happened." Awesome.

For idlehands: I cut it off here to go to board game night. Unfortunately only Settlers and Ticket to Ride hit the table, when I usually prefer something heavier. On the bright side, this was because there were many new people (normals who think Monopoly is a real game) and we wanted to convert them. Bonus: Cancergirl brought her co-worker, who chugged a bottle of wine while we taught her the rules to Settlers and then spent the rest of the night drunkenly hitting on me. I'll take it, I guess.

Oh, speaking of Cancergirl:

Meet Scott Hisaka. He's a national level Olympic lifter who showed up on the scene as an 85 and who has since moved up to 105.



Cancergirl: "Mmmmmm I want some of that."
SuperNotJacked: "Eh? Some of what."
Cancergirl: "The bread. And the nog. And the man-meat. I am hungry for all of it."

See also:


We all have some catching up to do.

[Dildo Bolt]

Heh... why is it that any praise for Jamie Lewis has to be prefaced by a disapproving remark on the gay porn shit?

Makes no difference to me

But I do think it's a little amusing within the context of the very same log entry where you post the homoerotic tribute to Mr. Hisaka

[MBasic]

superdud:
What do think about Hisaka early-arm-pull-so-called-hip-clean-thing he does?
They call it a "hip clean", but I don't get it . . or buy it.
Seems like 'it' has carried over to his snatch too (way too early arm pull), where as the w/ snatch grip, the bar is fair high . . . and into (on) your hip by default.
Seems like a pretty big flaw is his techinque.

[Dildo Bolt]

I think it puts the bar higher on his thighs so he's (1) in a better position to explode and (2) saves him some length on the bar path between explosion and squat under.

[MBasic]

I think it puts the bar higher on his thighs so he's (1) in a better position to explode and (2) saves him some length on the bar path between explosion and squat under.

I saw the CalStrength video on the "hip clean". I get what they were trying to get at.
It just seems like the motion of the whole lift slows down right after the bar passes the knee when they do this.

Also, they could move their hands slightly wider to get the bar higher at the end of the 2nd pull.
Especially in his snatch, his arms seem pretty close together, esp when he recieves it overhead.

saves him some length on the bar path between explosion and squat under.

Also, he probably does that narrow grip in the snatch to allow himself to pull it with his arms better, but then the 'drop under' is farther.
Seem like there is good distance between his head and the bar (1:57 in video) . . . . whatever, I'm NO expert for sure, just my 2 cents.

[Dildo Bolt]

The bar is supposed to slow down at this point because the knees flex underneath the bar.

Just because you can move the grip out for the same effect doesn't mean you shouldn't bend the arms unless there's something wrong with bending the arms... Which is what you're trying to argue in the first place. You're assuming that your conclusion is true. Circular reasoning.

Snatch grip width is a trade off. Narrow is stable and maybe it offsets the disadvantage of pulling the bar higher.

Interested to hear from OP cause I'm no expert here either.

[Mr_Rogers]

Kirill Pavlov (-77kg, KAZ) pretty much pauses at his hip when cleans (http://youtu.be/wdum-on8tOU?t=3m47s). If you look at Oleg Chen (-69kg, RUS), his snatch grip isn't all that much wider than his clean grip. He has shoulder issues so he's forced to snatch with a narrow grip and he's done quite well for himself. I think a fair amount of lifters develop their own idiosyncrasies and while their technique may not be "ideal" there comes a point where you just get the weight up and get it overhead.

[DV]

Kirill is awesome. You can really appreciate his humping of the bar in this vid: https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=782680838453409

Also: Really good news on the knee, SSD. I hope this makes things click for you so you can keep up with The Girl.