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Thread: Stuffed Superdud: Bumpy road to respectable lifting

  1. #491
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    Quote Originally Posted by stuffedsuperdud View Post
    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.
    I'm Jelly man, I only play games once a month if I'm lucky. I still have small worlds that I haven't even busted open from christmas two years ago! Not enough nerd friends.

    Helios: seems like it's go some cissus in it. You might try straight up cissus. I know lots of rock climbers who swear by it for joint stuff. Likely a hell of a bit cheaper than helios. I used to take cissus 3 times a day as someone mentioned it's also good to stack with food as a fat burner. It's good stuff.

  2. #492
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    My shoulder and knee are clearing up a bit more! But just to be safe, I decided against training to prevent any possible reaggravation and let the improvements stabilize. Is that a medical phenomenon? Maybe.

    Diebolt: Heh, sorry, didn't mean to mock Jamie's internet alterego; if anything he's living a bit of a charmed life these days worth emulating. The only thing that bothers me is that before he started his company, he was pretty eloquent and well-spoken and wrote great articles that combined lifting and history, two of my favorite (and his, it seems) things. Now he just dumbs himself down to cater to his target demographic of stupid meatheads. That's fine and all, but outside of that demo, portraying yourself as a sex-crazed pile of muscle might not be the optimal way to make people take your product seriously, especially if you're going to also go the scientific route as he has. I guess the TLDR is, he's a man pretty conflicted about who he is and tries to be too many things at once, but despite playing a moron for his supplement fanbase, he's probably super smart and his products are good.

    Idlehands: You read my mind: whenever I find a mixed supplement that works, I do like to go through the ingredients and figure out what's actually doing most of the heavy lifting, and then just go buy that in bulk. But Jamie seems like a good guy who's always posting free info, and it's unusual for a supplement company to be as straightforward as he has been about their products, so as long as I can snag discounts on his stuff, I don't mind spending a few dollars extra to get glorified cissus from him.

    Re: game nights, I had the same problem with game night for years due to a combination of poor time management and lack of interest from my friends. I caught a break a few months ago when Cancergirl met some guys at her new workplace who are pretty into it and were looking to round up 10-15 regulars for a once-a-week get-together. Still hasn't quiiiite hit our stride yet though as every week brings a bunch of new people and not all the regulars show, so we default to Catan and Ticket to Ride and such, and can't get into anything remotely heavy. I've got Tikal and Imperial just sitting here collecting dust, and I doubt my guilty pleasure (Twilight Imperium 3rd Edition) will be seeing the light of day any time soon...

    Hip clean debators: I wouldn't think too much about the pros and cons of this. Maybe "hip cleaning" is his way to unconsciously pull with a slightly straighter bar path? Iono, but I do know that unusual mechanics are probably not some secret deliberate technique that will save USAW. Every lifter has his own weird little glitches due to unusual limb ratios, old injuries, bad habits, etc. There are guys that jerk with straight back legs, or pull with uneven feet, or jump a whole meter backwards on a snatch, etc etc. These are all habits to be discouraged in new lifters, but for someone who has been doing it for years, no one really puts too much thought into those except, "Well, if it works for him, so be it....but let's try no to do it."

    Re: the narrow snatch grip specifically, that's usually a compromise done by people with nagging shoulder issues to prevent re-aggravating anything, and confers no advantage that I know of to lifting.
    Last edited by stuffedsuperdud; 02-20-2015 at 07:02 PM.

  3. #493
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    Glad your tweaks are clearing up. Your training looks great and your strength is obviously increasing. Is CG back under the bar?

  4. #494
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    Quote Originally Posted by Oldman View Post
    Glad your tweaks are clearing up. Your training looks great and your strength is obviously increasing. Is CG back under the bar?
    Hey OM! Yes training's been fun. The strength is improving in specific areas. I fear it might be degrading in others though, e.g. I don't think I can squat even 405 at the moment. Coach doesn't mind though: he seems to have his exercises organized into tiers. Just my guess though: I'll have to get him to spell out all his formal Soviet methodology for me one day, or, better get him to build a website. I started trying to get a wordpress thing off the ground for him but backburnered it because he said that at the moment he's not interested in writing content for it. Hoping he'll change his mind though: I have a feeling anything he whips up would be a bizarre combination of informative, eccentric, and rude with a dash of "In Soviet Russia, barbell lift you!" thrown in.

    Kind of like Istvan Javorek's site: Istvan Javorek Conditioning
    ^Lots of fun ideas in this site for all of us who need to lean it up, btw + he's hilarious.

    Here's Istvan offering to train the POTUS "for free!" He'll even throw in a t-shirt. "Just let me know the shipping address!"

    I guess what the Soviet Union and its satellites lacked in their ability to build good cars and submarines they more than made up for in the men.

    Ahem back to exercise tiers. As far as I can tell, they're kind of like this:

    1. Snatch / CJ
    2. Partial lifts: hang clean/snatch, block clean/snatch, block jerks, powers
    3. "Strength in specific positions" lifts: muscle clean/snatch, OHS, press, push press, snatch press, Sotts press
    4. Slightly less specific strength builders: Front squat, pulls (20kg-30kg heavier than snatch/clean, no more)
    5. Non-specific strength builders: Back squat, deadlift
    6. "Playing around:" sled, jumps, rows, BB movements. "Training needs to be fun! Enjoy yourselves!"

    Again I am not 100% certain and this is just me doing a bit of detectiving based on what he and his Cuban counterpart have us do. This does not mean that rank 1 is more important than rank 5. It just means that emphasis shifts from the lower tiers to the higher ones over a training cycle. So maybe 2 months of HARD TM style training, with lots of 5x5 leading up to some sort of PR every week in the slow lifts, and then more technique work in the comp lifts, backed by pulls and front squats, and finally, just the comp lifts and maybe front squats. Seems reasonable, right? But I do miss intensity day. Hopefully I'll get back to that soon, maybe after competing. Related: I botched the signup on the meet and my entry fee didn't go through! I fail at life. It's fine, fortunately. Turns out, coach and the meet director aren't exactly friends, and the director is known for red-lighting any lifter associated with him out of spite, so coach was actually kind of glad. Now looking for one perhaps a few weeks after that? So many CF gyms down here that it seems like there's a USAW event every few weekends. Will keep you guys posted.

    Cancergirl has unfortunately been missing out on all the fun. She's friends with lots of other princessy types, and it seems like every day one of them is inviting her to go on....whatever royals do. Let's just say I used to think reality TV was scripted, but now I know people in real life who behave that badly to each other. This texting exchange happens a lot:
    "Hey where are you?"
    "I'm at the gym. Where are you?"
    "Ugh I followed my friends to South Coast and now they're arguing. Can you come get me?"
    "I still have to do hang snatches and push the Prowler. You should have come. Everyone's wondering where you went."
    "Ugh I know....anyway come get me. I hate my friends."
    Fail.


    Today was the first day in a looooong time where I went to the gym mostly pain-free. Thanks Jamie! The Girl (I finally learned her name, btw) and our Pan-Am masters champion were both in today so it made for a energetic environment, albeit with more bullshitting between lifts than was appropriate.

    I thought we were going to C&J since I missed training last Friday but he went, "Nope! Monday always a snatch day. Snatch requires extra flexibility. After weekend of rest, you guys are not so tight. Save clean and jerk for Fridays!"

    Snatch:
    20kg x billions
    40x9 9RM PR????
    LOLOL it was supposed to be 3x3 but he barely let me rest in between.
    "Only 40 kilo! COME. ON. Stop wasting time and start lifting weights! Ugh you're a fucking pussy."
    Thanks to the miraculous improvement in my shoulder pain and flexibility, I've now overcompensated on the rack and weights were threatening to slip backwards. Took all 9 reps to tune that shit up.
    52x3x2
    60x3x3
    70x3x2
    Two new girls came over to the area now to train with the owner, doing 10lb kettlebell squats. It was clearly their first day ever in a weight room, so I forgave the etiquette failure where they both started lifting about two feet in front of me as I set up and waited for them them to just finish...and by finish I mean get pinned by a 10lb weight on rep 3. "This is kicking my ass! But I'm always working so hard in the gym!" Unfortunately, I then started making shit-chat with them, as it's not every day that girls are impressed with my noob snatches, and cooled down way too much. The owner came back with, "All right guys stop talking to SuperSexDeprived. And stay away from his platform; we can't ever quite tell where that barbell will land." Good looking out, bro.

    65 MISSED TWICE crapcrapcrap
    Coach yelled at me a little about my lack of extension. "FINISH YOUR PULL!!"
    65x3

    Hang snatch high pull + hang snatch 1+2
    60x1x5
    65x1x2
    60x1x3

    I missed the 2nd snatch a bunch of times because I am a giant pussy and the time under tension from the hanging really gets into my head. Coach says my 2nd pull is noticeably improved for the first rep but then reverts back to crap for the second.

    "You must give me beeeeeg shrug! Hey! Don't you want big traps? Women love big traps! And all men want big traps!"
    Traps = ultimate paleo

    Snatch high pulls:
    60kgx3
    70x3
    80x3
    90x3x2
    "Go to 100!" When I frowned, he came back with, "What are you? Scuuurrreeedd??? You're scared of a baby 100kg weight? How can you snatch 200 when you are scuuuurrrrreedd of snatching high pulling 100?? Hey! Hey everyone! Come look! He's scared! This is what it looks like to be scared of weights!" Mandatory chicken imitation here.
    100x3x2

    Front squat:
    60kgx5
    80x4
    100x3x2
    120x2x2
    Keeping it easy to avoid aggravating the knee.

    I was supposed to do snatch press + the character building nonsense but I got called away for an emergency. It's fine, will do it tomorrow.
    Last edited by stuffedsuperdud; 02-24-2015 at 04:36 AM.

  5. #495
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    Quote Originally Posted by stuffedsuperdud View Post
    "Go to 100!" When I frowned, he came back with, "What are you? Scuuurrreeedd??? You're scared of a baby 100kg weight? How can you snatch 200 when you are scuuuurrrrreedd of snatching high pulling 100?? Hey! Hey everyone! Come look! He's scared! This is what it looks like to be scared of weights!" Mandatory chicken imitation here.
    Like this?

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1TphEh0Qgv0


    Very interesting observations about his programming (I know they're just observations). Hopefully he elaborates more, I find that stuff really interesting even if I can't do the olympic lifts worth shit.

    He's right about the traps though haha When I trained with a lifter and we did snatch pulls and clean pulls we always had to do at least 5 shrugs after the last rep.

  6. #496
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    Quote Originally Posted by stuffedsuperdud View Post
    "I hate my friends."
    Reality TV indeed.

    Quote Originally Posted by stuffedsuperdud View Post
    Two new girls came over to the area now to train with the owner, doing 10lb kettlebell squats. It was clearly their first day ever in a weight room, so I forgave the etiquette failure where they both started lifting about two feet in front of me as I set up and waited for them them to just finish...and by finish I mean get pinned by a 10lb weight on rep 3. "This is kicking my ass! But I'm always working so hard in the gym!" Unfortunately, I then started making shit-chat with them, as it's not every day that girls are impressed with my noob snatches, and cooled down way too much. The owner came back with, "All right guys stop talking to SuperSexDeprived. And stay away from his platform; we can't ever quite tell where that barbell will land." Good looking out, bro.
    Outright Rule 49 violation of the BroCode. Not cool.

  7. #497
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    Quote Originally Posted by CJ Gotcher View Post
    Reality TV indeed.



    Outright Rule 49 violation of the BroCode. Not cool.
    Oh man. Should I read the bro code ? I fell asleep listening to it on an airplane once.

  8. #498
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    The mind is willing, but the flesh is spongy and bruised.....

    Rack jerks:
    20kg x billions
    40kgx3x2
    50x3x2
    60x3x2
    70x3x2
    80x3x3
    60x3x2

    These are finally starting to click. The shoulder and wrist flexibility is settling in, giving me a better rack, and I am correcting the strange symmetry issues that have plagued me all this time.

    Cleans:
    40kgx3
    60x3
    70x3
    80x3
    90x3
    100x3x2
    90x3
    Now that my knee is finally cooperating, I am getting a much sexier pull off the floor, which translates to an easier clean. Now dealing with a bit of tendonitis though...ugh. Time to drown it in fish oil and cissus until it cries uncle.

    Squats:
    70kgx5
    110x4
    140x3
    "Can I do 150?"
    "You're not going to be happy unless I let you, huh? Okay go! Make it look easy."
    150x3
    "Pffft too easy! 160!"
    160x3 still got it?!?!
    I'm not sure how 160x3 tired compares to 185x3 fresh, but maaaaybe I haven't lost as much strength as I feared????

    Back to 140x5

    LOLWUT
    45lb kettlebell presses x 10x3 to
    Abs nonsense: Fun exercise where I did decline situps while holding a 10lb plate over my face at arms' length. Coach put the lacrosse ball into the hole in the plate with orders to not let the ball roll out. 3 sets of 10

    I took the opportunity to ask the coach why he sometimes programs 10s, as well as why he likes to do the backoff set of 5s after heavy triples.
    "Get big! Small muscles are not strong muscles! I make people do 10RM squats all the time. You're just special because of your knee."
    Oy vey another layer of programming for me to decode/understand. Maybe someone with more knowledge of hypertrophy => strength => power programming can help me.

    Prowler:
    200lb load x 3 40m trips
    My legs were smoked, and by the 3rd lap, I was more falling into the sled than I was pushing it, + the knee was starting to get irritated. Cut it of prematurely.

    Speaking of Bro-code violations, is there a chick equivalent? Because this happened today:
    Work Wife: "Hey you know that new girl that works with me?"
    SSD: "Which one?"
    WW: "Laurie. The hot one. With those thighs you said you liked. She was asking about you."
    SSD: "Ugh she wants me to help her with something?"
    WW: "Noooope. She was like, 'Hey does SuperSexyDude have a girlfriend?' and I was like, 'Pfffft him? Never.'"
    SSD: "Uh...okay...?"
    WW: "Here's the crazy part: she said, 'Why not? He can get anyone he wants. I'd tap that....'"
    SSD: *chokes on coffee* "Anyone I want?! And she said 'tap?'"
    WW: "Something like that. Like I said, crazy, right?"
    SSD: "Wow...- HEY wait a minute why do you think it's crazy that someone would say that?!"
    WW: "Heh never mind that. But yea, she said that. It's fine though. I explained to her that you're an asshole with a really odd sense of humor, plus you seem to spend most of your free time lifting weights anyway. Clean and jerk, right? Or was it jerk and clean?! ZING!"
    SSD: "....Undeniably true statements, all of it. Do you realize you just made a terribly unoriginal weightlifting joke?"
    WW: "Yep. So yea she knows you're a giant piece of shit but she still seems to want your body. Some people are just insane, I guess."
    SSD: "Why are we friends again?"
    WW: "We're both assholes who hate the world."
    SSD: "Ahh. Right-o."
    Last edited by stuffedsuperdud; 02-26-2015 at 12:11 AM.

  9. #499
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    Quote Originally Posted by stuffedsuperdud View Post
    she still seems to want your body.
    This is the only important sentence in that exchange. Seems to me your friend was (unwittingly, perhaps) helping you out.

    I think the anti-inflammatory effects of megadosing fish oil have been disputed quite a lot, and isn't much recommended anymore. Vitamin I protocol always helps and chondroitin/glucosamine helps some people - from my understanding and experience.

    Hope it clears up. Joint inflammation suuuuucks.

  10. #500
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    starting strength coach development program
    Thanks DV. The ibuprofen protocol never quite worked for me though, plus this is complicated by the knee's history of injury. In any case, it's back to its baseline level of mild pain now, so I'm good, relatively speaking, I guess. I also saw that the fish oil isn't particularly effective, but hey, that stuff's cheap and and low-toxicity, so I figure, might as well throw some at myself. AFAIK, the chondroitin/glucosamine is, like the fish oil, also not particularly effective except as a placebo: the proposed mechanism seems to be that the molecules will travel to the site of cartilage defect and heal any lesions. This is of course unlikely given the poor circulation to cartilage, meniscii, and tendons and ligaments of the knee. A PRP/ABI injection seems like a much better way to deliver the molecules to the site of injury, but I'm not 100% up to speed on that literature except for a quick review when one of my friends had it done. Will take a closer look if the pain ever gets to the point where it chronically hurts my lifting, which fortunately has not been the case so far.

    So the knee's fine, but my traps, erectors, abductors, and quads are smoked, so no training today. Okay you got me. I could have worked through the soreness if I had really wanted to. I missed training due to....drumroll...game night!

    I tried Dominion for the first time, and was horribly disappointed. The game itself is fine, a neat little deck manipulation abstract, but the big heavy box covered with pictures of knights and castles made me think it'd be much more than that. We were all kind of bummed by the bait and switch, and then a miracle occurred.

    Two of the people in the game were girls I had never met before, here at Cancergirl's invitation "so that I'm not the only girl again!"; well she sure knew how to pick'em because they were the 1st and 2nd hottest computers scientists I have ever met, and certainly not the kind of girl generally found hanging around a sausagefest "board game night" full of geeky boys and one smelly (without even training!) lifter, but there you go. Anyhoo, one of them put her cards down with a sigh and said, "Ehhhhh this is getting boring. Can we play a different game?"

    The 4th person in the game, who himself likes it and who had suggested it in the first place, was disappointed but eager to please the new folks, so he pointed them to the pile of boxes he had brought. The two girls ran over to look, but then one of them, the one who had put her cards down, turned around and frowned. "I don't know any of these games. Next time, can I bring my Dungeons and Dragons stuff?"

    Come again?

    The other girl perked up at that. "Yea that'd be fun! Do you guys know what that is? It's not that good with two people since it's just her reading a chart and me talking to myself, but if a few of you are down, then we'll have a team. Any of you guys played before?"

    I raised my hand slowly and managed to spit out, "Uh-uh I-I-I used to play a little about 10 years ago. You're talking about the new ones, right? With the d20? Not the stuff from the 70's?"

    "Yes the new stuff. So are you in?"

    *stupefied gaze*

    "Yes? No?"

    "Hmmm? Oh! Yes!.......Yes! Oh wait I said that already. Heh must be low on caffeine or something."

    "Okay great! We can start next week."

    WHAAAATT??? HIGH SCHOOL FANTASIES DO COME TRUE! Gentlemen (and everyone, really): If you don't love nerdy women, just kill yourself.

    Dear God (Abrahamic sky-wizard or otherwise): I know we haven't had the greatest relationship since I stopped going to church when I was 10 and started this whole agnosticism thing, but I'd like to take this opportunity to thank you for letting me know that you exist and that you think I am awesome.

    If this log abruptly ends next week, you'll all know that I'm probably at Cancergirl's house, surrounded by beautiful women and gloriously trying to d20 that imaginary 280kg squat up. "He's on to his 3rd attempt and has yet to register a good lift! Can he pull it out of the fire with this last saving throw?!"

    We also managed to play my favorite game of all time: Tikal! Jealous, Idlehands?

    This is Tikal

    ^Best game ever

    It's a surprisingly thematic Eurogame where you race the other players to excavate the Guatamalan jungle for treasure, pulp magazine style. How awesome is this game? Let's just say if I had to choose between being stranded on a desert island with either this or a squat rack, barbell, and plates, it'd be a veeeery tough choice.

    But again, hopefully my only game will be naked DnD from here on out. Will keep you goobers posted.
    Last edited by stuffedsuperdud; 02-27-2015 at 06:28 AM.

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