Stuffed Superdud: Bumpy road to respectable lifting

[idlehands]

Heh. Bront Kum over there can snatch 100 and CJ like 130 at maybe 70kg BW; he also squatted like 210 at a USAPL meet. I'm also pretty sure he's much smarter than me, or at least is more insightful regarding our human failings. I am a cheap whiny imitation at best.



CG got me a free trial so I might get into it, actually! When I did hot yoga before, several years ago, I wasn't training much and the whole thing felt like a giant waste of time and water, but now that I'm stiff and sore all the time, it might be useful. Klokov says we're all supposed to sit in a steam room 1-2x a week, right?

What kind of yoga is it ?

[stuffedsuperdud]

What kind of yoga is it ?

Some sort of hot, I guess. I'll find out soon enough, I guess. CG was like, "This is a non-exercise invented by a 100lb Indian con-artist in the 1970's to give everyone heat stroke. I'm pretty sure being muscular will just make you die faster." Woooo.




(with special thanks to Mr. Rogers) Hookgrip sent me my set of Klokov wraps today. All I have to say is:


PRAISE KLOKOV. A messiah for the rest of us!

For today, I didn't have much time to train, but I couldn't resist giving these bad boys a whirl, so I squatted up to 365x5 nbd. HALLELUJAH. all the reps were veeeery comfortable immediately. Most reps had zero pain, and at worst, I had a small twinge during one tiny part of the ROM. My "bad" leg was fully engaged and I don't remember the last time I felt this strong. Hell, If I had had these last summer, I might have beaten idlehands to that 200kg squat. Alas, no time machines. Looking forward to picking up some magical gains in then next few weeks.

Coach was amused, too; he had been badgering me about getting wraps for weeks now. I asked him if he used them himself and he was like, "We didn't use shit!"

I went, "Guess they don't make them as tough anymore," and instead of gloating, he just said, "You mean not so primitive anymore! We were drinking at the gym, too! It's better now. Protection is important!"

"We still talking about lifting?"

"Eh? Oh. Heh. Yes of course lifting! Why are you thinking about those things when you are training? It's weightleeeefting, not the chasing girls! FOCUS!"

So I showed him the wraps and told him they were the Russian kind, and he went, "Oh yea? Russian? So now you will finish your pulls? Hey is there a hammer and....what do you call it? Axe?"

"Sickle?"

"Yes that. Your wraps are not red, and no hammer and sickle?! I don't believe you now. Is not real Russian."



BTW Why did I have to leave early? One of the weirder guys in the game group called me and asked me to help him do a practice run of........you ready, Idlehands?!?!.........Small World! I actually wasn't that excited about what appeared to be a simple area control game, but this guy actually walked over to my building, found me at my desk, and started pestering me, at one point going as low as to bow at my feet while yelling, "Pleeeeeeaaase??!?!?!" This guy is 30 years old, by the way, not 4. Gamers are a weird bunch sometimes. Out of embarrassment for the both of us, I caved and agreed to do it with him after I got back from the gym.

Well, when I showed up, I found him sitting at a corner table with a grumpy-looking Cancergirl and a guy whom I recognized as his office neighbor. CG gave him a stink-eye and shook her head at me; I wasn't the only coerced "volunteer." Turns out, he had obnoxiously asked several others out of redundancy in case we should bail, and now we had four, enough for a full game. He immediately handed me the rule book and said, "Okay you read this and tell us what to do."

"Uh...you haven't read it?"

"I have absolutely no idea how to play this game. You teach us."

"Ooookay, well, sure, it's only a few pages, I guess. But why didn't you read this ahead of time?"

"Oh, well, it's in English and that's my second language. I don't want to misunderstand something and make an error in play."

"Fair enough, I guess."

I started reading and trying to do the setup. I usually like to play those old Avalon Hill style conflict sims with the thick rulebooks (any of you older guys own Panzerblitz or something?) so it's no problem for me, but CG and the other dude are getting restless and start loudly complaining about boredom while interrupting me every few seconds by waving a component in my face and asking me what it did.

This goes on for about thirty minutes, and then, when I finally had the hang of it, CG took out her phone and found an instructional video on YouTube which explained everthing in about five. -___- So many advanced degrees in engineering/CS in that room and no one remembered to check the internet? WE ALL FAIL.

The best part: after this was finally working out, I noticed that this asshole had a German translation of the rules printed and placed right in front of him! Turns out he was just too lazy to read and wanted me to do it for him.

Anyway we played the game and it was a fun little area-control system and despite her whining about this was dumb and that we should just play Settlers, Cancergirl grew super intense about crushing us all. ran away with the win, and insisted that we try it again later with all the expansions thrown in. Go figure.

Fun, but not really my idea of a great time.

I'd rather be here:


This is EuroFront, a giant simulation of the entire war in Europe, 1939-1945. You can play individual events (France 1940, Barbarossa 1941, Overlord 1944, etc.), and indeed, the game was originally a much smaller game just about the Eastern Front, 1941-1945, but really, you haven't lived until you've tried to do the whole damn thing from beginning to end. If you do it right, it takes two full days, with a few hours of sleep here and there and LOTS of coffee, to get 'er done, and you really need four players, two Allies and two Axis, to keep everything straight. I've never actually made it that far: we've always gotten to where it was obvious by 1942 how things would pan out, usually because someone botched a key even, e.g. Germany successfully invaded England, or were completely repulsed trying to get to Moscow, etc., and stopped. Ahhh someday we'll get it right. In any case, it's a great way for four people discover new insights on the sorts of horrible decisions leaders had to face during those crazy years.

For an example of how this plays, and for something so big the mechanics move along very elegantly, some guy logged his game, with photos of key engagements, here:
AAR: Conquering the World, part 1 - France must fall
Like with my experience, he botched it early, screwing up the invasion of Russia, but you can still get a great idea of the game.

BTW, note that in the picture, everyone sitting around the table is a middle-aged white man, including the designer, Craig Besinque (green shirt). I'm pretty sure I'm the only person under 50 who enjoys these things.

[Oldman]

Heh. It could be worse, right? I had a boss who once said, "Wait, so it's a room full of girls in skimpy clothes and you're somehow not interested?" It motivated me to go to one of those nasty hot yoga places, because hey, gotta go full-retard, right? Turns out, when people say "great workout" what they really mean is "I have heatstroke!" I didn't mind the smell so much as it's not any different from any black iron gym, but it was kind of surreal to have it coming from cute girls, and it occurred to me that even the best of us are just stupid apes, I suppose. Huh. Guess I had a zen moment or something back there without even knowing?

CG will be back, I think. Since starting to train here about 4 months ago, I've leaned down from about 235lbs to about 220lbs and dropped some pants sizes, all the while setting PRs (in some lifts...heh...can't have it ALL now can we?) and more or less eating whatever I want. My squat is a bit saggy at the moment, but I suspect it'll come back quick as soon as I get back on a TM-ish program, and I doubt it'll take 15lbs of bodyweight to get back to the 400+ club. CG has been taking notice and this is the sort of thing she responds to, so hopefully, when my ripped-to-shreds 185lb body comes in, she'll be back onboard.

My wife used to say that the only reason I liked yoga so much as because of Yoga Lady. She was about our age, and was a really good teacher; she brought the Yoga Sutras to each session and read from them at the beginning and the end of class. It got me interested enough to get my own copy and read them. Now, if you asked my wife about it, she would say that the whole Yoga Sutra thing was a ruse, or a cover, to dignify my particular interest...

Glad to hear that CG will be back. She can do both, really. Your example under the bar will be a source of inspiration and encouragement! I wish that working out had the same effect on my metabolism as it does on yours. I have the BMR of an obese toad, which makes it hard to lean out.

What kind of yoga is it ?

I think it's called Bikram Yoga. Never tried it myself. Regular yoga was hot enough for an old guy like me.

[Mr_Rogers]

Really glad the wraps showed up. I've had chronic right knee issues (perma swelling around the lateral meniscus area) so I wear the wraps if I'm doing any sort of squat or olympic lift. Heck I'll even through them on for push presses. I'm really hoping they work out for you SSD. Any chance your coach wants to relocate to Thunder Bay? He sounds like an awesome guy, both for lifting and his humour. I assume you went with the black wraps?

I've been debating on going to yoga as it's included in my membership. The only thing is the class schedule kind of sucks, but DV said creeping increases GainzZz (because science) so I guess I have to.

[idlehands]

My wife used to say that the only reason I liked yoga so much as because of Yoga Lady. She was about our age, and was a really good teacher; she brought the Yoga Sutras to each session and read from them at the beginning and the end of class. It got me interested enough to get my own copy and read them. Now, if you asked my wife about it, she would say that the whole Yoga Sutra thing was a ruse, or a cover, to dignify my particular interest...

Glad to hear that CG will be back. She can do both, really. Your example under the bar will be a source of inspiration and encouragement! I wish that working out had the same effect on my metabolism as it does on yours. I have the BMR of an obese toad, which makes it hard to lean out.



I think it's called Bikram Yoga. Never tried it myself. Regular yoga was hot enough for an old guy like me.

Bikram was created by a greedy weirdo indian guy not girl. I like how strict it is. I've taken in in several places and it's all pretty similar. Hooray for franchising. The heat makes it a little easier. As long as ego doesn't get in the way and make you not chill out when you get woozy. When i was traveling a lot for work bikram helped a bunch to stretch out after a day of work and days of flying. Also women.

[stuffedsuperdud]

Now, if you asked my wife about it, she would say that the whole Yoga Sutra thing was a ruse, or a cover, to dignify my particular interest...

Bahaha. Notice a few posts back when the coach said, “I’m just using my eyes! Nothing else! But still though, don’t tell my wife. Shh…” Cancergirl says something like, “Hey we all get hungry sometimes. The way I figure, you can always look at the menu. But you probably shouldn’t start ordering food when you can get dinner at home for cheaper and tastier.”

Glad to hear that CG will be back. She can do both, really. Your example under the bar will be a source of inspiration and encouragement! I wish that working out had the same effect on my metabolism as it does on yours. I have the BMR of an obese toad, which makes it hard to lean out.

Haha yea, one thing that was discouraging to her was the way I sort of had a GOMAD-lite look last year. Now that she can sort of see it lean down, maybe she’ll be encouraged. I guess it’s only fair that I practice what I preach, right?

Re: the metabolism specifically, for most my life I was chubby and just assumed that I had a slow metabolism. Then I went to college and saw that I was eating maybe three times as many calories anyone else. Oh, and more recently, the other day, my roommate, who has been trying to lose weight on a reduced-carb diet, confronted me with, “So, I saw from the garbage that you cleaned out an entire quart of ice cream last night, yet you’re still dropping weight? You bitch. You sonuva bitch.” So I’m probably slightly advantaged in how much slop I can get away with in my diet. Though I doubt this consolation prize makes up for my fragility and crappy explosiveness.

That said, I think it’s less diet/BMR and more just the volume and pacing of training. Last year, when I was training on my own and doing basically a powerlifting template, I was resting a lot between sets and doing only 1-3 exercises per session. Now it’s more like 3-5 exercises, for maybe 2x as many reps each, and a snatch or snatch variant is for me much more taxing than, say, 5x5 press. Also, I am down to 1:30-2:00 rest between sets, and my anaerobic capacity has improvedly markedly. I know it’s tempting to take a lot of rest when chasing big singles and doubles, but maybe for lower weights, keep those rest periods down.

And of course, the dreaded Prowler comes into play much more now than before. That thing is a religious experience sometimes.

I've had chronic right knee issues (perma swelling around the lateral meniscus area) so I wear the wraps if I'm doing any sort of squat or olympic lift. Heck I'll even through them on for push presses. I'm really hoping they work out for you SSD.

Thanks! Yea they’re been tremendously helpful. I realize they’re not perfect: I have to put them on with just the right amount of pressure for them to stabilize my patella, but when they do, boy is it a difference. I did overhead squats today, the bane of my existence. Since getting hurt, I’ve compensated for the bad leg during the eccentric phase by shifting slightly to the good side. I can get away with this on squats, but on an unstable setup like OHS, the lift severely punishes you for any misbalance. Today though, after getting the wrap pressure just right, I was able to bang out some extremely comfortable reps. Loving it so far.

Oh, speaking of training, I did:
OHS:
40kgx3x3
50x3x3
60x3x3
70x3

Emphasis on getting the knees out and staying even during the eccentric (thanks, Klokov!!). Also, my upper body strength is garbage and I have trouble maintaining a strong lockout for 3 reps. Working on it...

Any chance your coach wants to relocate to Thunder Bay? He sounds like an awesome guy, both for lifting and his humour. I assume you went with the black wraps?

HA! Sorry, man, I think he’s happy where he is. If anything, he might want to relocate to the motherland someday to be closer to his family, but his wife is still several decades from retirement and has a career going here so he’s stuck with us.

Speaking of him, bear with me for a moment of seriousness. I was only dicking around a little today at the gym and mostly making chitchat with him while he lifted (up to a few sets of 55kg power clean + push press 2 + 2 at 60kg BW…hey Rip, maybe PCs aren’t as counterindicated for geezers as we might have thought???). We have just registered as an official USAW club, and I wanted to see if they would have an official flag hanging on the wall soon. He told me that we might, but he’d have to get the funds together. Huh?

“Can you believe? $85 just for the smallest one!”

“Wait, we have to pay for it? The federation logo will appear in the background of every photo we post on Facebook and Instagram, and we’re the ones paying them?”

“Fuck, right?”

“Ehhhh well USAW isn’t exactly known for sound financial decisions, I guess.”

“Whatever. We cannot control. Let me save up the money.”

“Wait, what? You have to buy it? Not the gym?”

“Yea! Where do you think we got everything?”

Come again?

I had been under the impression that he had told the gym owner what equipment a proper lifting facility needed, and that the owner had then gone and shelled out for the stuff, but I found out today, with much surprise and gratitude, that all the nice equipment at the gym belongs actually not to the gym but to either him or the other coach.

I didn’t pry, but as far as I can tell, neither of them are particularly wealthy, and both work day jobs, yet both found a way to drop a ton of cash on a bunch of nice bars and plates, and he and a friend of his built the platforms and jerk boxes themselves, all to train us for basically free.

“What the hell, man? That’s crazy. Why are you doing this?”

“Why? What, you think I am here for the money? There’s no money! I do it for weightlifting! I love coaching, I love training, so I need the proper equipment for both! Hey watch. If I can get to 20 trainees I can save up and get a second set and then we can really have some energy in here!”

Wow, right? So it turns out, behind all the swagger and the abrasive jokes, we have a bona-fide for-the-love-of-the-game story?

The fucked up part is, he’s great at coaching but terrible at marketing (slightly ironic given his vocal distaste for all things socialism), and has currently something like 10 trainees, the same as the “barbell club” subset of any CF gym. Only he has been training for fifty years and coaching for forty, and has official pedagogical training courtesy of the CCCP and is generally about 1000x more qualified than the CF coaches I’ve had. Hell, I’d wager that he’s right up there with Ziggy, i.e. we can hand him our OTC lifters and at the very least, it wouldn’t be any worse than it is now. But in this industry, it’s not that simple, I guess.

I told him that to get anything off the ground in the fitness world, he’d have to be really active on social media and perhaps fund his weightlifting operation with $$ from coaching athletes in more lucrative sports. He’s in a wealthy area full of very competitive HS football, so I told him maybe he can train some rich kids for that D-1 scholarship? No idea.

Can’t be worse than what he’s doing now: he’s posting in the classified section in newspapers. I told him I didn’t know that 1. there were still classified sections, 2. that I didn’t know he was that old. I also asked him if he knew what a computer was; he scoffed at me and showed me his Facebook account, with something like 48 friends, on his comically oversized new phone.

I've been debating on going to yoga as it's included in my membership. The only thing is the class schedule kind of sucks, but DV said creeping increases GainzZz (because science) so I guess I have to.

It’s not so unreasonable, I guess, but I think it’s more a fun thought that anything else. The proposed mechanism always go back to sperm competition, AFAIK. The misconception is that the alpha male makes all the babies, but that in actuality wouldn’t be possible, as it’d be impossible for him to defend all his offspring from the other males, who recognize that the babies consume group resources but do not carry on their own genes. Rather, the alpha is venerated simply because by being bigger and stronger, and thus harder to kill and more useful in general. He’s basically the group’s thug.

The sperm contest happens more behind the scenes: everyone mates with everyone else, and the guy with the healthiest sperm and/or highest sperm count has the greatest chance of winning the swimming race. No one is certain who the fathers are though, and all the offspring must live. So the test increase during creepage might be related to your body trying to increase the quality and quantity of sperm?
In any case, regardless of Sperm War 2015, I have seen studies that suggest that when left alone with a woman, test goes up. When left alone with a woman AND a rival male, test REALLY goes up. So…I guess I’m hoping that when I go, there will be a big jacked dude in the room with me?

The heat makes it a little easier. As long as ego doesn't get in the way and make you not chill out when you get woozy. When i was traveling a lot for work bikram helped a bunch to stretch out after a day of work and days of flying. Also women.

I intend to let my ego do all the talking, right up until the paramedics arrive.

[stuffedsuperdud]

Extra post to talk deads:
I asked the coach if he ever programmed deadlifts, and if he did them himself.

"Of course! But for you, only 110% of your best clean. And go fast!" Here he demonstrated a clean pull.

"No no, not clean pull. Deadlift. As heavy as possible."

"Oh that! Yes, I hate it!! I was doing 150, 160, 170kg when I clean and jerked 130 [that's nearly 3x BW]."

"Do you ever have lifters do it?"

"Sometimes. But it slows you down."

This was a big red flag for me and one of Rip's harping points so I had him clarify.

"Well, you can't go fast at a max deadlift. At 110% your clean, you can still pull it almost as fast as a full clean."

Aahhhh so he meant that a deadlift cannot be moved fast, not that it'll magically make the clean slower.

"Oh okay so it's not going to actually ruin my lifting then?"

"No. But it will make you very tired and then you cannot train. For now, you are strong enough! Just wait. We will do deadlifts later." Awesome.

"But snatch grip deadlift, we can do more. That exercise I love to do."

"What?"

"Snatch deadlift is the best exercise for strong pull."

John Hanley laughed.

[Simon Rest]

?


I intend to let my ego do all the talking, right up until the paramedics arrive.

This. I get so stupidly competitive at yoga, for no good reason. I think that everyone in the group stares at me, being the gym's resident "fat guy lifting heavy things" and i figure i need to prove extreme flexibility.


Also, I read all your coach's quotes in the voice of Lugash. "Is cat now"

[Mr_Rogers]

Really glad the knee wraps are helping. I agree about the tension, it took me a few workouts to get my wrapping technique/tension consistent. I kind of have the same issues with OHS as well...and you know how that works out haha

Does your WL club have any social media presence? The way I read it was just your coach has a FB page. The classified thing is hilarious. I can't believe he and the other coach supplied the equipment...and that he only has 10 lifters. I'd love to be lifting with that sort of equipment/coaching.

When I stopped WL around this time last year and did more PL stuff I gained a fair amount of undesirable weight. That was with Jordan doing my programming/diet. Swoly is right I guess. I trained with my a friend last week who coached me in WL and he had me lifting pretty much on the minute, no time to dick around. That was reserved for post-workout. I never realized how deconditioned I've become.

At the risk of upsetting the diehards, I kind of agree with your coach re: deadlifts. Just based on my experience. I know when I was trying to do olympic lifting and drive up my strength #'s my olympic lifting suffered tremendously. I just don't recover well from heavy/high volume strength lifts, especially deadlifts. I don't think they make you slow at all, if anything they strengthened my pulls but I was always beat up from the strength lifts by the time I got to snatch/clean. An in person coach would be able to identify that much more easily and program accordingly which it sounds like your coach is more than capable of doing and will do. I think that's missing from your general CF olympic lifting coaches (I'm aware there are exceptions). I know I'm not smart enough to do it on my own.

[bugbomb]

This. I get so stupidly competitive at yoga, for no good reason. I think that everyone in the group stares at me, being the gym's resident "fat guy lifting heavy things" and i figure i need to prove extreme flexibility.


Also, I read all your coach's quotes in the voice of Lugash. "Is cat now"