Anthony King's Log

[Anthony King]

Power Clean Practice Warmed up to 115 and did about 30 reps. Fixed some things, some things still need work. I thing I'm going to stay at this weight until I iron out the movement.

Ultra-Light Bench 182x8x3, then 162x8 immediately after last set.

[Anthony King]

Recovery Squats 240x5x2

Volume Press 130x6x4

Recovery Power Clean 115x3x3
wanted to try to get in some work on these but was pressed for time so I did this 3x3 quickly.

Ring Pull-Ups 7m block = 19 reps, or 21. Lost count and wasn't marking them down.

[Anthony King]

ID

Squat 330x5

Press 146x4 (PR), 134x4x3

Deadlift 370x4,1

Everything went well except for the deadlift. I'm tiring myself out taking a long time to get my back flat, and I have some thoracic flexion in my setup that makes locking out difficult on latter reps, which is winding me for that last rep. Two weeks in a row at 370x4 now. I'll have to think about how to get moving, though I suspect I'd get all my five next ID.

[Anthony King]

Power Clean Practice lots of bar practice then 115x3x3

I looked at video and I see I've been doing something dumb on my pulls from the floor for nearly a year. I think my relative success with a deadlift on LP helped me not to scrutinize it too much. When I set up and come to the "chest up" part, I've been letting my shoulders rotate forward in a attempt to get my chest up and not have such a horizontal back. This is causing thoracic flexion, which makes the deadlight lockout harder, and on the clean it makes the bar hang too low, which encourages my to bend my arms early to get the arm up into my hips before the bar accelerates up.

Made some progress on power cleans but there is so much to fix after a year of doing them wrong (when I did them at all). I started to fix the habit of my feet splaying out too wide when I land after the "jump". I maybe fixed this on half my work sets. I'm keeping the bar much closer to my body and staying in contact with the bar--this is making my rack much more confident.

Once I can keep my feet from going out too wide on all reps, I have one last problem I need to fix before I add weight. After the hip extension/"jump", I leave my hips forward/extended and get under the bar by bending my knees and leaning forward. My shoulders and hips end up in the same vertical plane on the catch--I'm pretty much standing up straight but just bending my knees. Should be catching in a quarter squat. Gotta get my ass back and down after the "jump." I might end up doing some full cleans to get in the habit of getting under the bar. 115 is very easy but I want to get the technique up to a certain standard before adding weight.

[John Hanley]

Fuck cleans, dude.

[Anthony King]

Fuck cleans, dude.

At this point it's just about being stubborn.

[Anthony King]

Volume Squats 300x5x5

Volume Bench 193x8x4

Squats were killing me after the fourth set, I took one extra minute rest before fifth set, focused on keeping my torso extremely tight, and the reps went up pretty easily, though I was very winded by the last rep.

Bench was pretty easy, might nee to consider changing my progression from 2 lbs a week to 2.5 or 3. Might not, though, cuz 2lbs a week is 104 pounds in a year. And I'll take that.

[Anthony King]

Sunday:
Power Clean Practice 115x3x5 "work sets"
Didn't really fix anything with my technique.

Today:
Recovery Squat 245x5x2
Volume Bench 207x6x4
Straightforward. Had a weird shoulder tweak going into this that worried me. Felt like a nerve thing--my right shoulder would go weak every once in a while. Probably not explaining it well. Not sure how it happened. I'm beginning to suspect I slept on it funny. In any case I haven't had the problem since I benched.
Power Clean Practice 115x3x3, 115x5
So I fixed my feet when racking the bar--they were not too wide. Still leaning back slightly when racking. Elbows still bent before full extension. Not sure if I'm ready to add weight yet or want to fix the bent elbows first. Not going to worry about it today. Won't have a change to clean until Saturday or Sunday, so I have a couple of days to think about it.

[Anthony King]

Squat 335x5 (pr)

Bench 233x4 (pr) @9, 221.5x4 @8.5, 221.5x6 @9.5

Deadlift 370x6 @10

One extra rep on the deadlift . . . because fuck 370. Third week in a row deadlifting 370. After two fails at 370--this after doing 382x5 in my LP--I had to look at my form. I'm embarrassed to say that I didn't have my thoracic spine in extension at all. I was letting the "chest up" cue get me waaaay out of position, letting my shoulders rotate forward and thoracic spine flex. I cleaned that up and was able to use my lats and upper back more. Made breaking the bar off the floor much easier, and the lockout easier. Sixth rep was ugly but the first five were pretty good.

Squat was brutal. Fourth rep got forward of the groove and I expended a lot of energy fighting it back. Had to do a lot of gasping for air before the fifth rep, but I ground it out.

Bench is rollin' right now and I never feel like I have to fight for the last rep. Bar speed might slow a bit on the last rep, but no real grinders.

[Anthony King]

Rest Day Light Press: 122x6x3, then immediately to tricep cable pushdowns 140 x till I couldn't do another one.

C2 Rower HIIT: :25/1:35 x 7 best 500m time was still 1:36. I can't break 1:36 for some reason. If I ever get one of these rowers I'll have to look into getting better technique.