Geezer's Long March Toward the Elite Sneaking Up On the Finish Line

[bob g]

...Overhead Press: 180 x 5 x 3. (heavy) This went very well and the sets got easier as I proceeded...

Outstanding, Mark. Body weight is in the sights.

[Mark E. Hurling]

Gentlemen, I can't thank all of you enough for your encouragement here. I try to do the same and I don't do it because I expect something back, but because I hope it inspires. You know what? It really does inspire. A good thing to remember for all of us with respect to others. Youse guys are great!

OK, now that I'm basking in the glow of satisfaction from this it's time for the trials and tribulations we older guys face from time to time. My lower back has been giving me trouble the last day or so and I pep talked myself into the dojo this morning. Probably not my smartest move, but I haven't been on the mat all week and I was having withdrawal symptoms. I asked Master Bellman if I could forgo falling drills and he said no problem. As we proceeded through warmups he pulled me off the mat and had one of the women black belts start working over my back. We learn massage techniques as ikkyus, the last brown belt rank before black belt, but she is known as being particularly good at them. I can attest that she has incredibly sharp pointy elbows that she nailed me with around the lower back and upper pelvis. I have a pretty high threshold of pain, but she had me groaning and sweating with a red face. All my clothes were on too, so don't get any wrong ideas here!

When he split the class he had me teaching the teens. One kid was the same one I worked with last week about 13-14 and a 1st degree blue belt and a slightly smaller, younger blue belt. This was a very valuable lesson for me in teaching and class management on a couple of fronts. The younger kid is a little lazy and shy and is almost certainly being raised by a single mom and her father. He was having a hard time in the session and was getting more shaky and a little weepy as things went on. I realized belatedly that the older kid's "help" and "advice" was getting in his head. So I told the older one that he needed to let me teach the class and listen. To be clear, this was not about my ego, it was about being sure the younger kid was getting something useful from the session.

The really big "Ah, ha!" happened when an adult purple belt came in late and got incorporated into the kid's group. The younger kid started to turn around soon after. He even perked up to the point that he smiled and laughed a couple of times as the session went on. I have heard about the changes in group dynamics that another person can make since the 60's when I was in college. I've seen the shit heads drag things down a lot in academic and classes of all other kinds, including the martial arts. This is the first time I have seen the reverse take place. As soon as the younger kid had another person to work with he started to improve too, and very impressively.

[Mark E. Hurling]

Into the gym today, creaky back and all.

5 minute warmup on the bike.

Bench Press: 235 x 3 x 1. This did not go well at all. I did all my usual warmup sets starting with an empty bar and worked up to the top weight. It wasn't so much heavy as my right upper and outer pec felt like it tore just a little right below the anterior delt. Nothing like this has ever happened with my upper body before and it was an entirely new experience for me. Not a good one either. I've hurt my shoulder before but that has always been in the acromion joint on my collar bone. This feels like soft tissue injury. I had kept to my narrow grip, so nothing new there. I barely got the 3rd rep of the 1st set up mostly because it unnerved me. I decided to try a second set, to see if it was a temporary spasm like I get lots of places. Nope, that injury was real and I barely squeaked out one rep on the 2nd set. That was enough. Time to let it get better. This may have occurred because it was cold this morning here, at 47F. Normally these cooler temperatures result in a better workout for me. Not today. Of course of never been 60 before and trying to push my limits either. Screw it, I'll rest it and regroup.

Squat: My back required a lot of pep talk to even try this today, but after the bench debacle I refused to wuss out completely and just go home. The warmup sets felt surprisingly good until I got 185 on the bar. It was pretty clear at that point that the back was not equal to the task or my ego.

Lots of stretching and foam rolling to get better. Towel dislocates and windmills make the right pec twinge a little, but nothing agonizing. Strangely, my right shoulder blade felt a little tweaky when doing my upper body stretches also. I had a regular tune up on this coming Thursday with my chiro that I'll try to move up to tomorrow. She'll fix the back in short order like she always does. I'm not to concerned about that. I don't know how good she might be on my pec though.

[Oldster]

Bummer Mark, I am sorry to hear this. The cold weather might be part of the problem, though it was 44 degrees when I lifted on Friday! Could you have possibly let your elbows slip outward so that they were more at a 90 degree angle instead of at 45 degrees from your torso? Sometimes that can injure a shoulder or arm. I'm glad you are taking time to let it heal, if it were me and it was 20 years ago I would have just powered through and had an even more serious injury to show for it.

I'll be interested in how things feel in a couple days and what your Chiro think. As you tell me, an Ibuprofen and ice for the first 72 hours, then alternate heat and cold. I hope things heal up quickly.

[Mark E. Hurling]

The elbow positioning could well be the issue here. I have never paid close attention to this and it seems to me as I think back to yesterday morning my elbows were probably closer to 90 than 45 degrees. Happily, I got an appointment with the doc for this afternoon. I'll see if her usual magic works on this too. Maybe she'll have to kill a chicken for best effect. This isn't that uncomfortable really, unless I consciously flex the right pec I don't notice it at all. I may try a medium day on overhead presses tomorrow in lieu of benches to get something like active recovery for this. Unless of course this has some effect on the overheads too.

[Oldster]

The elbow positioning could well be the issue here. I have never paid close attention to this and it seems to me as I think back to yesterday morning my elbows were probably closer to 90 than 45 degrees.

My fault. I should have HAMMERED home elbow position. That is somethat that is so critical that I am ashamed I didn't pound you with it week after week. Elbows are, simply put, the most important part of a bench press, whether a regular or close grip, along with the direction of the bar, which should be STRAIGHT UP. Not toward the feet nor toward the face. Straight up with the elbows in.

With the bar on your chest, the elbows should be pointed toward your feet at a 45 degree angle and your hands no wider than your elbows. If not, and the elbows are allowed to flair outward toward 90 degrees, then all the pressure is put on the pec/delt tie in area. By keeping the elbows at 45 degrees then the triceps are forced to do most of the work and will let your bench press weights explode upward quite quickly in fact. An elbow flair will hold your bench back to whatever your shoulders can handle instead of what your combined pressing muscles are capable of.

It really doesn't take very long to reteach your body to keep the elbows in and as soon as you become accustomed it then becomes difficult to perform improperly. The problem is, YOUNG TRAINEES are the worst to retrain. Poundages necessarily dip, sometimes dramatically, only later to shoot past former poundages very dramatically.

Old guys like us who have the patience and aren't bound by ego are where PR's are made.

Again, I AM sorry for not hounding you about every single rep you performed including warmups and in turn allowing the injury to happen. I hope your Doc has good things to say and it will be a short term set back to be followed by you becoming absolutely sick to death of a certain mantra I will hammer you with again and again and again..................!

[Mark E. Hurling]

Oh, so THAT's what people meant by flair when I'd see that in discussion threads. I didn't really pay attention back then, because I was doing dips and didn't plan (then) on benching ever again. Not your fault, just me and my blissful ignorance once again. Well, I got over ego once on this lift by narrowing my grip, hell I can do it again with the elbow flair. It's ironic too, because the 45 degree movement pattern comes up repeatedly in the form of jujitsu I do. Step to a 45, block to a 45, strike upward and inward at a 45, pull them across at a 45. Believe me, I've heard that a lot of times over the last 7 years of being bounced on the mat there. It won't hurt (so to speak) to hear it some more. Thanks. It may be that my powerlifting dreams may remain unrealized, but like Bogey said to Ilsa "We'll always have Paris." I'll always have overhead presses.

[Oldster]

You may always have overhead presses, but I had and STILL have visions in my head of you getting about 315 for a few reps in the medium or close grip.....!

[Mark E. Hurling]

Well I wouldn't normally make an entry with no lifting workout or session of getting dribbled down the mat to report, but I can't stand the idea of Oldster feeling guilty for my own stupidity. My session with the chiro was very eye opening and instructive yesterday afternoon. It turns our my problem was not really in the lower back but the upper back around the right scapula. It was bad enough to have caused impacts to the usual suspects (another Casablanca reference) in the L4 area but they were not the root cause this time. That tweak in my right scapula was caused by the vertebrae and right side ribs up there being seriously disarranged and out of whack. When I told her about the pec problem and she probed around a little she said she didn't think it was a tear or I'd have hit the ceiling with her look-see. The same ribs as in back were out there too, along with the sternum. Getting that adjusted was really odd, not painful but odd. Also my clavicle was not where God intended for it to be.

As she was looking this stuff over I began to remember some recent events on the mat that might have caused this. I've read about this being common during rolfing sessions and I always thought it was new-agey BS, but this has happened during adjustments before so I guess there's something to it. During a Saturday session the week before last, when we were working on arm bar takedowns I mentioned that the final move left the attacker pinned and immobilized chest down on the mat. That particular technique at the end is called an arm whip and after you get proned out on the mat your wrist, radius, ulna, and humerus get twisted counterclockwise winding them up like a rubber band. Then the whole arm is rotated clockwise around the ball and socket shoulder joint and brought back and over the scapula winding everything up still further. Then the arm and wrist are pressed downward and inward toward the shoulder joint. When the teen I was working with then did this to me, my lat cramped up into a nasty spasm. Nearly the only time I've ever gotten a cramp in my lat. As I was describing this it struck me that the corresponding front part of me, the pec was being stretched back to or past it's normal limits and then cemented to the deck.

So, all in all, while I may have been less than attentive to elbow flair, the more proximate cause was almost certainly an undetected injury to my right upper quadrant. No doubt the benching and the cold and my aging decrepitude played some role in the pec tweak but this was more probably a "perfect storm" scenario. I started feeling better right away all over my back and pec but I decided to follow her advice and let the skeletal frame reset itself before getting it abused some more. So no lifting or jujitsu today. I'll ease back into the benching I think tomorrow with the normal medium session, unless the pec still feels a little touchy. In which case I'll sub the overhead press for it. I'm not ready to throw in the towel for a 315 bench yet, Oldster.

[Oldster]

Cool Mark! That makes me feel a 'little' bit better. Still, elbow flair probably contributed.

*decrepitude* I LOVE that word! I may take it as my very own.

Sounds like we need to discuss where to restart, especially after an injury, whether caused by the bench pressing or not. I would suggest you back up somewhat next week and not doing any benching for the rest of this week. Remember, you can quickly work back up to where you were, but if you REALLY bugger something up, you just may be done. Rest, back off a little then restart.

Also restart your work with a conscious thought about every single rep and elbow placement. If it gets hard, never let your elbows rotate outward to get the rep, instead let them rotate INWARD......if you need to do it at all. With very little practice you can become acclimated quickly to never letting the elbows fall out of their groove.