Stuffed Superdud: Bumpy road to respectable lifting

[stuffedsuperdud]

I am here and there visiting family and friends, and it appears that none of them live within a billion miles of a squat rack and a bar. No seriously, all I've been able to find are wimpy facilities that the owners and (wealthy attractive white yuppie) patrons call studios. Note: I am talking the instant-CF-douchebags-just-add-box type. They don't seem to know about CF whew.

SO

I've been taking the opportunity to do some much needed conditioning. My main goal right now is to increase work capacity to make my training sessions less of a drag, and to lean out some for my health and so that I can be good at things other than lifting.

Conditioning has typically been something like going to a nearby track and doing (300m run + 300m walk) x 8 or a combo run/walk/jog in any trails I can find. This is training-y in that I am keeping time and whatnot, but it's mostly just exercise/fuckaround as I am enjoying being outdoors in a new place with good weather. I will be doing this for another week and then it's back to work and organized training.

As long as I am here:
Training goals for June 2014:
Healthy knee
405x5 squat
450 DL, don't care how many reps
200 military press
95kg/120kg sn/cj
Low 20:00s 3 mile time (Mac Ward here is my inspiration)

Here's to a leaner stronger fitter 2014 for everyone.

[stuffedsuperdud]

Breaking news: I found a power rack at the local YMCA! I was actually there just to drop someone else off and ended up getting an improvised session in. I was wearing sweats but no had shoes no knee sleeves no wrist wraps no chalk no problem. Since I am kind of detrained from this week's sloth, super stressed from the holidays, and pretty dehydrated from being so caffeinated all day, I had an easy play-around session

Press: 135x5x5

Squat (in street shoes): 275x5x3
I originally wanted 2 extra sets of 5 but had to cut it off due to tremendous cramping, probably from the dehydration and poor diet all day. Still, had fun. Can't wait to get back into a real gym next week though.

[stuffedsuperdud]

1/7/2014
First weight room session of the year.

Push

Squat
Squat: (275,285,295,305,315)x5
Not every rep was beautiful. I had a spotter check my form and he noticed that I was shifting my weight towards the good leg a bit, hence the lagging left leg. Will focus on maintaining symmetry.

Sn/CJ

Pulls

[stuffedsuperdud]

1/10/2014
Push
Press volume reacclimation:
135x5, 140x5x2, 145x5x2

Squat
Squat: 295x5x2, 305x5
FAIL. My groin was cramping like crazy and I cut it off before anything exploded.

Sn/CJ

Pulls

[stuffedsuperdud]

1/11/2014
Push
Squat


Sn/CJ
First time snatching in 1 month, i.e. I forgot how to snatch.
40kgx3
50kgx3
55kgx3
60kgx3
65kgx3
70kgx6 (5 misses...)
Cut it off when I hit this wall of fatigue. Technique was surprisingly crisp...but still not that great. Knee okay except when standing from bottom position.

Pulls

[stuffedsuperdud]

1/12/2014
Push

Squat
Front squat: 255x3x3
Switching to triples as per Bill Starr recommendation.

Sn/CJ
Clean + C&J:
50kg
60
70
80
90
100
C&J: 108kg lifetime PR by 1kg
I'm trying to be optimistic about coming back from last year's bullshit but quite frankly, the bitter taste doesn't seem to be going anywhere.

Pulls

[stuffedsuperdud]

1/14/2014
Push

Squat
Squat: 275x5, 295x5x2, 315 fail, 225x10, first 3 reps paused.
Dunno what happend with the 315. The knee was a bit buggy so it was probably a mental failure more than anything else. The whole Kevin Ogar freak accident out of nowhere thing sort of got in my head too.

Did the 225 for punishment, with surprisingly good form.

Sn/CJ

Pulls

[stuffedsuperdud]

1/19/2014
So rusty. My schedule got fucked up for a few days and it seems I forgot how to lift weights. Also, I've been doing some recomp; down a few lbs already after 2 weeks and it looks like performance is suffering just a hair. Could be worse.

Push

Squat
Pause squat: 225x5x3
After talking to Tom, I checked my form and realized two things. First, I was not as symmetric as I would have liked (favoring good leg). Second, the problem occurs mostly coming out of the hole. This is consistent with my inability to stand up from a snatch: that bottom position is a killer. So I took a big reset and realized I can do 225 in slow-mo with 3 sec pause symmetrically. Will try to LP this up

Sn/CJ
I snatched a bunch up to 65kg but technique was all over the place and I stopped before anything bad happened.

Pull

[stuffedsuperdud]

1/19/2014
Training was a wash this week because of work, so...here we are on a Friday night.

Push
Press volume...still reacclimating: 135x5, 140x5, 145x5x3

Squat
Pause squat: 235x5x3
10lb increase from last time. Symmetry and pain coming out of the hole okay.

Sn/CJ

Pull

[stuffedsuperdud]

1/20/2014
Blah

Push

Squat

Sn/CJ
Is this even worth logging? My hips and shoulders were a mess and I couldn't hit the bottom position cleanly. Also, with the fatigue from yesterday, I couldn't explode either, so it was more like tugging/heaving the bar like a CF L1 certs. Missed 62kg a bunch of times as a result. Guess I have ovarian cancer.

Pull
Eccentric snatch pull: (90,95,100)x5

With the increased knee and quad function, I am better able to keep the hips low and get a push-off from the platform instead of straight up pulling. Hooray, I guess.