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Thread: A Middle Aged Adolescent (who cannot possibly be the only one)

  1. #121
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    • starting strength seminar april 2024
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    I’ve been ministering to a restless soul, a colleague who’s grown frustrated with his strength training. Progress has stalled, and his mind is elsewhere. He’d rather focus his energy on running, he’s confessed, a lifelong weakness but a skill he’s always wanted to conquer. He’ll still lift a little; he likes it and has come quite far in a linear progression and some intermediate work. It’s just that the weights have turned into drudgery, and he wants a new challenge.
    Go ahead and run, I’ve encouraged, but luckily I’ve convinced him to approach his training in a rational, performance-based manner, not unlike that of sensible strength programming.

    This will explain a lot: he was doing the Texas Method, and things got rough. I told him - I warned him - I even pointed to the line in PPST3 where Rip says, ‘The Texas Method is a brutal program.’
    ‘This is Ranger School,’ I said a few months ago. ‘You have to eat for it, sleep for it; you have to live for the Texas Method for it to work.’
    He said he understood, but soon he and his wife were stripping the floors in his house. He then had a few professional travel commitments, and now it’s baseball and softball season. He plays on a men’s league baseball team on weekends and a softball team on Tuesday nights. Lately, his throwing shoulder has been too sore for full upper body workouts.
    He’s an athlete in season, we realized. He’ll lift twice a week to keep his strength within 10 percent of where it is now*, but otherwise, he’ll apply himself to his chosen sports.
    [* - approximately 150 press, 220 bench, 365 squat, 405 deadlift]

    As if on cue, we were paid a visit by my young buddy, the football player, who now has his license and can roll into the driveway any time he’s passing by. He had some True Tales to share from conditioning practice. Just that morning, they had hit a bunch of snatch complexes in the weight room before heading out to push sleds. The snatch complexes went something like, 3 ‘hip’ snatches, 3 hang snatches, 3 full snatches, and then 4 overhead squats. They repeated this ‘a bunch of times,’ eight or nine, if I’m not mistaken.
    On the field, they commenced 20 or so 100-yard sled pushes. Each sled would start with 310 pounds, and every 20 yards a few plates would be taken off. For the final 20 yards, the sled would be empty, since the poor sledder in each case would be practically twitching with exhaustion.
    We were aghast. The kid was pretty pleased with himself, that he had survived all this.
    The other day, they did 8 sets of 10 presses before going outside and running their heads off.
    ’80 presses?’ I said. ‘I don’t think I do 80 presses in a month.’

    ‘What in the world is his coach thinking?’ my friend asked later.
    ‘I wrote about this a couple of weeks ago. The kids will build up a CrossFit-like multi-domain durability and work capacity. I suppose they’re getting mentally tough. Still, aside of a novice effect in a few beginners, I think that coach would have a hard time pointing to any real improvement in strength or speed, considering all the work they do.’

    This made for a perfect backdrop to our second conversation on running. My friend was throwing out some ideas about what he might do, possibly a five-mile run once or twice a week.
    I had to get a few points across, the most important of which was that we should look at all this from the standpoint of what we know from strength training. The agenda was roughly as follows:
    -Training is the process of carefully managing phases of stress and recovery. Any real improvement, or adaptation, comes subtly, over time, as the body grows accustomed to this steady balance. A car accelerates when the carburetor is sipping the right blend of fuel and air, and the pistons are firing smoothly. It’s not merely all the banging inside the cylinders that moves a car along; hard work is part of it, but the real issue is whether this effort can be coordinated and harnessed to create motion.
    -Consistency is key. An athlete must train the same exercises in the same manner, with the same dose of increased stimulus day to day. Changing exercises from workout to workout wrecks this entire idea.
    -Getting physically wrecked from brutal workouts violates the principle of a carefully managed stress phase (above). Wrecked just means you’re wrecked, with a lot of healing to be done just to get back to normal.
    Pushing one’s self to extremes does not spur the body to rebuild itself just as extremely. The belief that it would is an odd myth that’s endured forever; it kind of seems true, but if it were, our young high school friend would be the size of Mike Webster.

    So, let’s think about your running, I said to my friend. You’ve already admitted you’re not a natural. If that’s the case, a five mile run would be like one of those kid’s beat-down sessions.
    I have another idea: let’s train running as a skill, a strength in and of itself, just like the squat. ‘How long would it take you to run a mile?’
    ‘Between nine and ten minutes.’
    ‘Here’s your project for the next two or three months: let’s see if we can get that down to a 7-minute mile.’
    You want to train strength, skill, and speed, I went on to say. If you headed out on five-mile slogs, you’d immediately shift into survival mode and accomplish none of these. We already know something’s inefficient in your mechanics. That’s a strength or a technique to be addressed.

    The story goes that Sir Roger Bannister never really ran a whole mile as he trained to break the four minute limit. Instead, he ran ten 400-meter intervals - (four 400’s being a mile). Once he could complete all 10 in under a minute each, he decided, he’d be ready for the record attempt.
    If my colleague runs a 9-minute mile this coming Saturday, that would work out to be four 2:15 laps at the local high school track. Next Saturday, the idea would be to begin with ten intervals at 2:10 (or better) separated by four minutes’ rest. These intervals would be runs - not sprints, not jogs - but runs with good, consistent mechanics. The week after that would be 2:05’s, and so on.
    A little sled work could strengthen the drive throughout his strides, and some knee lifts, with ankle weights on, would strengthen the range of his hip flexor motion.

    Broadly speaking, when the rest period between intervals is long enough to allow for a (nearly) complete recovery, that allows for maximum output each time around, which trains maximal speed or strength. This is analogous to our resting five minutes or more between squat sets.
    When the rest intervals are short, that makes the body muster strong - but not maximal - effort on an incomplete recovery, and this provides more of a conditioning effect.
    After starting with those 2:10 laps, (or whatever they are) this guy’s performance will most likely level off at, say, 1:50’s. Four of those is under a 7:30 mile - and who knows, maybe the progression will get further along. At any rate, when he seems to have reached his top speed, the idea will be to keep that kind of interval while decreasing the rest times between runs. After all, to make that 7 or 7:30 mile, the 1:45 or 1:52 laps will have to come one right after the other.

    Bannister was already a well conditioned runner when he began his speed training intervals, so I think he stuck with one minute rests through the entire process. My friend has two indices on which to improve. First, we’ll develop his speed, and then his conditioning.
    Unlike my young buddy’s high school coach, I might just be able to point to some measurable performance improvements.

    Heavy-Light-Medium
    Week of: 7/2/18 3 sets of 8 reps week
    MONDAY
    1. Squat (3x8) Tom 322.5 JC : 140
    2. Bench Press (3x8) Tom 222.5 JC: 107.5
    3. Deadlift (1x8) 390 second session JC 205

    4. 3 sets heavy pull ups
    5. Seated Partial PRESSES (#5-down, close holes) 182.5 (#1 top range ) 172.5
    (#4 top range) 175 JC - dips
    6. barbell curls: 3 sets
    7. abs: banded pull downs

    TUESDAY - Conditioning
    sled pull 2 miles; 45, 25

    WEDNESDAY
    1. JC: Squat (80% of Monday’s weight) x Monday Reps, 2 sets JC: 112.5
    Tom: 3 sets PARTIAL SQUATS; DEAD STOP holes 9-13-17 - 230, 280, 320
    2. Press: (3x8) Tom: 150 JC: 80
    3. Power Cleans 3x3 Tom: 230, to 245, 230 JC: 75 - 95
    4. 4 sets of heavy shrugs 520
    5. abs: hollow rockers

    FRIDAY
    1. Squats: [90% of Monday’s weight] (3x8) Tom: 290 JC: 125
    2. Bench Press: [90% of Monday’s weight] (3x8) Tom: 200 JC: 97.5
    3. Romanian Deadlifts - off rack - 3 sets of 5 Tom 372.5, 375x2 JC 145, 147.5, 145

    4. 4 rounds gymnastic rows with vest
    5. 3 sets of partial bench presses holes (- 4 -8 -12) . . . . 272.5, 292.5, 347.5
    JC: close grip bench press, T-Bar
    6. 3 sets 5-6 curls
    7. abs: T-bar sit ups

    SATURDAY - Conditioning
    row 6000 meters

  2. #122
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    It’s been Party Week, with the Fourth smack dab in the middle - but also a fair bit of celebrating beginning this past Monday, when it was announced that the FBI had picked up a homegrown Al-Qaida sympathizer bent on mayhem here in Cleveland. I’ve ranted on the subject of terror a few times, harping on the importance of information sharing and decisive action, so I’ve been happy to add my own toasts to the many, many all around town to the health and well being of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
    The arrest took place just as basketball star LeBron James skipped town for Los Angeles. Clevelanders, already weary of his turning into a six-foot-eight, 250 pound Scarlett O’Hara, were captivated by these new hometown heroes, and James has found his departure surprisingly unlamented.

    It’s also been a very hot week, so much so that I’d head out of the garage and around the house to spray myself with the hose every so often during workouts. The heat is thick and humid, which makes the sweat run down my arms and wreck my grip, and it’s gotten me thinking about proprioception and whether or not one is in position to unleash maximum force.

    Facing a set of 8 deadlifts, I was careful to have a T-shirt and a hunk of chalk right at my feet. My rule is that I keep my hands on the bar throughout, but by rep 5 all traces of chalk were completely gone. That meant a quick wipe down with the T-shirt and a new coating of chalk in order to finish.
    Otherwise, right as I start losing my grip, I’d lose my strength off the floor. That’s a function of proprioception, one’s conscious and unconscious awareness of their bodily position and level of exertion. Simply put, once your brain senses a significantly weak link in the kinetic chain, it disengages the entire system.

    I was thinking about this before the heat wave and all the sweaty deadlifts, mainly in relation to the squat and the position of one’s upper back. If I said to you right now, ’Sit up straight,’ you’d make a motion that would lift your collarbones or push your pecs forward. Really, you’re drawing the middle of your spine forward and stacking your all vertebrae the way they should be.
    Holding this position during lifts is vital. When people tee up a squat, dead, or clean, they do a pretty good job establishing the lumbar curve, but sometimes they’re not so strict or it’s harder to maintain position up at the thoracic end of things.
    My theory is that not having - or losing - that ribs high, shoulder blades set, and lats flexed position, even a little, is what results in those pitching forward, arse rising squats we’ve all felt, the ones that are suddenly miserable in the context of an otherwise decent set. Proprioceptively, a tiny bit of flexion in the spine is sensed as a weakening of the conduit between the hips and the bar, and the body shuts down enough to make the reps noticeably difficult.

    Even people who advocate a more classic belly-down STARTING STRENGTH bottom position than I can manage would agree that when a squatter starts the trip back up, he or she should not ‘break.’ Their hips should not start rising faster than their shoulders. The entire system of levers should remain solid, and the muscles doing the squatting should drive the hips and spine consistently from rep to rep.
    Couldn’t it simply be a forward loss of balance that makes for those slow, difficult squats?
    Yes, ultimately, these squats represent a loss of balance, but the causality might be more subtle than expected. There are two ways to consider this. Either the athlete blew their balance by miscalculation or from fatigue.
    I suppose it’s possible for people to be careless or wrong in their technique - and we’ve all see those videos - but miscalculation is rare among lifters with experience. After a few thousand reps in one’s career, their balance with weight on their back is pretty finely tuned, and the vast majority of squats in their life are perfectly fine.
    It has to be fatigue, then. Even the best of us with finely tuned balance, solid technique, and the best of intentions have sets where reps 1, 2, and 3 are fine, but 4 and 5 get ugly. That would mean something is giving way.
    I don’t think it’s the lower back. When you pitch forward on one of those grinders, the lower back performs heroically. It’s the only body part that keeps the entire enterprise from crashing down into a heap. If it can handle those horrible leverages, why would it falter in the first place?

    That leaves us with a breakdown in the upper back, where your collarbones fall and the center of your back bulges outward. This might be happening only on a tiny scale - which is why I think the issue is neurological and proprioceptive - but the extent to which it robs your strength is significant.
    If the bend in the upper body were significant enough that it truly changed the leverage of the lift - and the effect were only physical - then I would think more strains or injuries would be the result. I’d even go so far as to say that we don’t see that many injuries because proprioception is ramping down the squatting power. We run out of reps before we can do ourselves serious damage.

    My aim, therefore, is to be sure that in all the gasping between reps in a set, I’m lifting my ribs and setting my chest as firmly as possible. Here’s the cue I’ll remember, from the same old college-era coach who told me, ‘Don’t think; you’re ill equipped.’
    For each rep, I’ll remember the way he growled, ‘Stick out your alleged chest.’

    As you might imagine, there are parallels to be made with the deadlift, clean, and snatch. I’ll leave you with this thought: What happens on a deadlift gone wrong? When the lift is terrible, is that when the upper back rounds - or is it when the upper back is round, the deadlift becomes terrible?

    Heavy-Light-Medium
    Week of: 7/9/18 3 sets of 5 reps week
    MONDAY
    1. Squat (3x5) Tom 362.5 JC : 160
    2. Press (3x5) Tom 170 JC: 75
    3. Deadlift (1x5) 435 second session JC 225

    4. 3 sets heavy pull ups
    5. Seated Partial PRESSES (#5-down, close holes) 185
    (#1 top range ) 175 (#4 top range) 177.5 JC - dips
    6. barbell curls: 3 sets
    7. abs: banded pull downs

    TUESDAY - Conditioning
    sled pull 2 miles; 45, 25

    WEDNESDAY
    1. JC: Squat (80% of Monday’s weight) x Monday Reps, 2 sets 127.5
    Tom: 3 sets PARTIAL SQUATS; DEAD STOP holes 9-13-17 - 235, 285, 325
    2. Bench Press: (3x5) Tom: 247.5 JC: 115
    3. Power Cleans 3x3 Tom: 235 JC: 75 - 95
    4. 4 sets of heavy shrugs 525
    5. abs: hollow rockers

    FRIDAY
    1. Squats: [90% of Monday’s weight] (3x5) Tom: 325 JC: 145
    2. Press: [90% of Monday’s weight] (3x5) Tom: 152.5 JC: 67.5
    3. Romanian Deadlifts 3x5 Tom 375 JC 145, 147.5x2

    4. 4 rounds gymnastic rows with vest
    5. 3 sets of partial bench presses holes (- 4 -8 -12) . . . . 275 - , 305 - , 350
    JC: close grip bench press, T-Bar
    6. 3 sets 5-6 curls
    7. abs: T-bar sit ups

    SATURDAY - Conditioning
    swim 1 mile

  3. #123
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    “It took dozens of divers, hundreds of volunteers and 18 days to do it: The rescue operation at Tham Luang Cave has succeeded in freeing all 12 of the young soccer players and their coach, in a drama that captured the world’s attention.
    The final stage of the extraction mission began at 10:08 a.m. local time on Tuesday, with 19 divers dispatched to the remote cavern where the last four members of the Wild Boar soccer team and their coach have been sheltering since June 23.

    NEW YORK TIMES, July 10, 2018

    When you’re faced with a tough opponent who plays dirty and takes cheap shots, buckle on an extra chinstrap and hit him in the snot locker every play until he quits.”
    ‘Quotes from Iron Mike Webster,’ by Colin Webster; August 6, 2011
    Quotes from Iron Mike Webster | Colin Webster

    Yes, the two ideas are related.

    Very few things on the internet can reel me in, but it’s been an intriguing past few days. I was part of the global audience cheering on the rescue effort in Thailand, astonished as anyone that the boys had been found alive. When the story of the flooded cave broke and then faded from the news, I could only try to dismiss the thought. God, what a way to go.
    Suddenly, two expert divers who had penetrated impossibly far into the mountain surprised the world with video images of the boys, very much alive, squinting into their spotlights. The international community mobilized. Military units, heavy equipment, medical teams, engineers, and most importantly, experts in cave rescue diving converged upon the hillside. This is about to get good, the world sensed. The Varsity’s playing ball. It’s first and 10.

    Probably not trying to accomplish anything too profound, the STARTING STRENGTH website recycled an old article from its archives, the way they do on weekends. This past Saturday, a few days into the the drama in Thailand, Colin Webster’s collection of quotes from his father, the great Pittsburgh Steeler center Mike Webster, appeared. If I had seen this before, it didn’t resonate the way it did this time. Webster - the elder - the greatest center ever to play the game was also the most powerful, but the collection of quotes revealed him to be both surprisingly accessible and thoughtful about strength training, so much so that he’s no longer an unquantifiable god. He is - was - pretty much one of us.

    This didn’t hit me until I clicked over to some of the video from the cave in Thailand. A column of soldiers, wearing lighted helmets, was working their way through chest deep, then neck deep water as they each grasped a rope running overhead. They were only going so far, which was fine with them, but beyond where they emerged on dry ground once more, that rope kept going, into the darkness between the overhanging rocks and black water, and down the throat of the monster.
    Much of the world shared the thoughts of these soldiers as they glimpsed further into the cave: What kind of person could swim all the way down to Hell in search of lost souls?
    Wait a minute, I thought. I might have the answer: if we can understand Mike Webster as methodical and dedicated, as opposed to simply Strong, then then we can appreciate the same qualities and level of experience in these divers. They’re not simply Brave.

    Hitting someone in the snot locker until they quit or making sure the guy across from you knows your name is a work ethic we can understand. Sure, there are tricks of the trade, like the eye fake Webster mentions, but there’s only one way to be ready to battle over territory on a football field. Lift a lot of heavy weight. Do sets of five. Stick to the basics, and remember the other guy is out there training as well, so if you want to win, or you don’t want him taking your place in the line up, you’d better out-work him.
    I’d like to imagine that if Mike Webster strolled into my garage some morning, he’d approve. If he worked in, he might have twice as many plates on the bar, but he’d be there to face the same struggles.
    If I recall correctly, Webster was not a young phenom in college or even at the outset of his pro career. His greatness was hard earned, and clearly he paid attention to the process of strength development. In several instances, he counsels patience. Asking a great deal of one’s body means it will respond gradually, cyclically, and when it’s good and ready. Accept that, he says, and learn from those times when you need a rest - or when you need to stick with it. Sometimes one’s bones and tendons need to catch up to what a lifter’s doing, and eventually the body will release its hold on them. Strength will jump.
    As a member of ‘the sort who wouldn’t quit, stubborn if not gifted,’ I was gratified by how Webster believes there’s not really an athletic prime in life. Some of the great powerlifters are often older than the champions in other sports. Records can be broken in middle age.
    Hell, yeah: I think he’s spot on, especially since he’s right about bones and tendons, above (I’m feeling it in my heaviest partial bench presses, well north of 300, where my shoulders are saying, ‘Stay right where you are, pal.’) Webster also describes the process of injury: athletes are ‘motivated and trying to pump themselves up, and they end up arching a little more, or bending a little more at the waist, and bam, they are just a little beyond the point where their body . . . stopped them from putting out more strength. They’ve forced the issue . . .’ He’s right on the money there as well; that’s what I did to myself as I neared 600 pounds in my isotonic-isometric rack work for deadlifts.
    Webster picked up some wisdom in the weight room, and he’d see nobility in how we’re all plugging away.

    If reading Webster has been validation, then watching the heroics of rescue divers from around the world has been inspiration. This is a brand of greatness we don’t know anything about, so there’s a thrill in learning how they pulled off the impossible.
    A paragraph in THE ATLANTIC reads: ‘It’s a perilous journey even for experienced divers, as underscored by the death of a Thai Navy SEAL in the cave last week. Cave diving is a different beast from diving in the open waters. The water can be so muddy that divers have to feel their way out. The passage can be so narrow that you have to take off your oxygen tank. And you cannot simply swim up to safety.’
    ‘This is an environment that doesn’t suffer fools,’ according to John Volanthen, who with his partner Rick Stanton discovered the boys alive. Elite divers are the ones who have no doubt built upon their successes through the course of years, developing incredible powers of concentration. Volanthen and Stanton are already known for a world record setting penetration dive, among other things. Fame in cave diving circles speaks to expertise and presence of mind the way fame in the strength game speaks to determination. ‘We are not heroes. What we do is very calculating, very calm. It’s quite the opposite,’ Volanthen said in an interview.
    They and other expert divers flew across the world at the request of the Thai government. Volanthen and Stanton put in a call to Australian doctor Richard Harris for his help. In this fraternity, these guys all know each other, which is why the entire operation came together so well.
    That’s what was so inspiring. Over 100 Thai Navy SEAL’s rushed to the cave up near the mountainous border with Burma as these experts flew in. Others came from Denmark, Canada, Israel, and China. US Air Force Pararescue men worked beside long haired, bearded surfer dudes. The result was a massive undertaking. Lights were strung throughout the open chambers, scuba tanks had to staged, and medical supplies and food had to be shuttled to the boys. Rock climbers installed hooks in the cave ceilings and fashioned ziplines for the stretchers and supplies. Engineers pumped water from the cave, and shamans and monks took to the surrounding hills to entreat the monsoons to hold off just a few days.
    Each boy’s odyssey to freedom was a long series of stages alternating between dives through cold and deeply flooded tunnels and climbs through narrow, steep, or rocky passages. The boys had been zonked out with medication, since they were probably too week to move themselves along and the divers did not want them to panic in the blackness. This meant they were towed along through the water and then carried on stretchers in the passages, passed from one team to another. Videos show that a few of them could manage an occasional groggy thumbs-up, but for their psyches’ sake, it’s probably best that they missed the ordeal.

    That leaves us to admire those who swam to the Underworld time and time again. They’ve done the reps; we just didn’t know what they were capable of. Wisdom, survival, and success are all braided into the static line they follow back to the surface.

    Colin Webster tells the story that his father quit the Kansas City Chiefs’ organization when he couldn’t do any real strength coaching. That was no loss; the Christmas parties were pretty weak, anyway. I would think that a guy who had won four Super Bowls would know a thing or two about celebrating. My hope is that in Thailand, as the helicopters took off with the last of the soccer players and their coach, more were on their way back to the cave entrance, loaded with pallets of cold beer. That had to be a Hell of a party.
    Last edited by Nunedog; 07-13-2018 at 09:27 AM.

  4. #124
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    Heavy-Light-Medium
    Week of: 7/16/18 3 sets of 2 reps week
    MONDAY
    1. Squat (3x2) Tom 400 JC : 177.5
    2. Bench Press (3x2) Tom 280 JC: 120
    3. Deadlift (1x2) 490 second session JC 237.5

    4. 3 sets heavy pull ups
    5. Seated Partial PRESSES (#5-down, close holes) 185
    (#1 top range ) 175 (#4 top range) 175 JC - dips
    6. barbell curls: 3 sets
    7. abs: banded pull downs

    TUESDAY - Conditioning
    sled pull 2 miles; 45, 25

    WEDNESDAY
    1. Squat (80% of Monday’s weight) x Monday Reps, 2 sets JC: 142.5
    Tom: 3 sets PARTIAL SQUATS; DEAD STOP holes 9-13-17 - 240, 290, 330
    2. Press: (3x2) Tom: 190 JC: 85
    3. Power Cleans 3x3 Tom: 230, to 240, 230 JC: 75 - 95
    4. 4 sets of heavy shrugs 535
    5. abs: hollow rocker

    FRIDAY
    1. Squats: [90% of Monday’s weight] (3x2) Tom: 360 JC: 160
    2. Bench Press: [90% of Monday’s weight] (3x2) Tom: 247.5 JC: 107.5
    3. Romanian Deadlifts - off rack - 3 sets of 5 Tom 375, 377.5, 375 JC 147.5

    4. 4 rounds gymnastic rows with vest
    5. 3 sets of partial bench presses holes (- 4 -8 -12) . . . . 255, 285, 325
    JC: close grip bench press, T-Bar
    6. 3 sets 5-6 curls
    7. abs: T-bar sit ups

    SATURDAY - Conditioning
    swim 1 mile

  5. #125
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    The 8-5-2 rotation is going well, this latest round of 2’s being a bit of payoff for hard work in recent weeks. In the squat, 2’s with 400 felt like I had more in the tank. In the deadlift, 2 with 490 puts me back up where I belong, and 2’s with 280 in the bench are a personal record. I’ve deuced 280 before, but not three times in one workout. The 190-pound presses came in 3’s.
    I’ve had some success in my assistance exercises as well, which has kept a phrase from that Mike Webster article running through my head. Your body will ‘release its hold’ on your muscles, he says, provided you’re smart about how you operate at your limits.

    Last week, I was praising the homespun wisdom in a collection of quotes from Pittsburgh Steeler legend Mike Webster, saying he’s exactly right about a number of things. He has two parts to his explanation of how strength increases when an athlete is is at his threshold:
    1. “You’re up to the point where you’re well beyond what you were designed to take on a regular basis . . . . [Y]our body is smarter than we know, and it’s going to limit you until it gets the joints, fascia and connective tissue to where you don’t destroy yourself.”
    2. “If a lifter stays right where they are, or close to it, the bones and joints still get the message to adapt, and over time - sometimes months, particularly if you’ve progressed quickly and the bones have to catch up - you need to just stick with it, and eventually you’ll see a huge jump in strength. It’s not so much that the muscles got stronger overnight, as [it is] the body has released its hold on them, and now they’re free to progress.”

    We can all understand the part about adaptation in #2, but what I’ve failed to appreciate is how often I’ve really been up against my limits, in terms of quote #1. I now see how the process has played out in my partial lifts.
    I’ve talked about this before: the idea behind assistance exercises is to provide yourself with additional benefits, especially the kind you don’t get from the conventional exercises. The beauty of partial lifts, done from a dead stop at three different heights in the regular range of motion, is that they spur greater muscle motor unit recruitment than the usual down-and-up reps. By taking the stretch reflex out of a lift and starting at the bottom of a bench press, for example, you force your nervous system to throttle up the motor units it needs to get the job done - which is more than ‘normal’ reps need.
    It’s a real racket: you’re getting more bang for your buck - more of your muscle trained than usual - with weights you’re already used to using.

    It works so well that you’ll cruise up into some pretty heavy weights, beyond what you usually handle. That’s what happened in both my bench and press partials. I reached the threshold Webster is talking about.
    I was hitting 185 for strict seated presses from collarbone level, which was a huge milestone, but I was taking too long between reps. 175 and 180, from eyebrow and crown heights respectively, were hit and miss as well. Not cool, I realized. This was a week or two before I ran into that article.
    I stayed ‘close to it,’ like in #2, resetting 10 pounds lighter, because while I still had to handle a decent load, I had to teach my body to succeed.
    This past week I hammered all three higher weights. I’d pop a rep off the pins, lock it out, and bring it back down for a ten second pause (to negate the stretch effect) and then launch it again. Turning around strict, full 185’s 10 seconds apart was epic, 1970’s Steeler-like.

    In my partial squats, another neurological process is taking place, but I bring it up mainly to point out what it’s NOT, which is to say purely a question of tissue state or mobility. I’ve only done partial squats for three or four weeks, and my weights are nowhere near as potent as those in my upper body lifts.
    I put the pins for my bottom position pretty low, to the point where I was really squished below the bar. I was not ass-to-grass or losing position, but I was nice and deep. Keeping my backbone in one piece and everything else where it belonged made for some stretching and groaning.
    My first set on the first day, with 225, was murder. I could barely get under the bar. I fell out from under it in pain once or twice. ‘Ah-ha,’ the CrossFit or Mobility WOD gang would say. ‘You need to roll and stretch and loosen things up.’
    That actually crossed my mind momentarily, but as I was grunting and hating life, my real thought was, ’I need to get five reps and get the Hell out of Dodge.’
    The next week wasn’t so bad. The third time around, I didn’t feel a thing.
    My guess is that when motion is constricted in a certain position, it’s because the nervous system is not used to operating there. However, once it realized I was going to fire some motor units and drive up some reasonably safe squats from that point, it was willing to relax the ‘joints, fascia, and connective tissue.’ (See Webster, #1.)
    This is flexibility as a function of strength through a range of motion. That sounds pretty fancy, though it’s probably something strongmen have known forever. Everybody else is paying big bucks for experts to explain it.

    Heavy-Light-Medium
    Week of: 7/23/18 3 sets of 8 reps week
    MONDAY
    1. Squat (3x8) Tom 325 JC : 142.5
    2. Press (3x8) Tom 152.5 JC: 80
    3. Deadlift (1x8) 395 second session JC 207.5

    4. 3 sets heavy pull ups
    5. Seated Partial PRESSES (#5-down, close holes) 187.5
    (#1 top range ) 177.5 (#4 top range) 180 JC - dips
    6. barbell curls: 3 sets
    7. abs: banded pull downs

    TUESDAY - Conditioning
    sled pull 2 miles; 45, 25

    WEDNESDAY
    1. Squat (80% of Monday’s weight) x Monday Reps, 2 sets JC: 115
    Tom: 3 sets PARTIAL SQUATS; DEAD STOP holes 9-13-17 - 245, 295, 335
    2. Bench Press: (3x8) Tom: 225 JC: 105
    3. Power Cleans 3x3 Tom: 230, to 250, 230 JC: 75 - 95
    4. 4 sets of heavy shrugs 520
    5. abs: hollow rockers

    FRIDAY
    1. Squats: [90% of Monday’s weight] (3x8) Tom: 292.5 JC: 127.5
    2. Press: [90% of Monday’s weight] (3x8) Tom: 137.5 JC: 72.5
    3. Romanian Deadlifts 3x5 Tom 375, 377.5x2 JC 147.5, 150, 147.5

    4. 4 rounds gymnastic rows with vest
    5. 3 sets of partial bench presses holes (- 4 -8 -12) . . . . 255-285, 280-305, 340
    JC: close grip bench press, T-Bar
    6. 3 sets 5-6 curls
    7. abs: Kettlebell sit ups

    SATURDAY - Conditioning
    swim 1 mile

  6. #126
    Join Date
    Dec 2015
    Location
    Washington, DC
    Posts
    302

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    These are slow, hot days in a neighborhood that’s grown sleepy this summer. My kid’s off at camp, people are traveling, and the days in and out of the garage are the only way to mark time.
    I’ve not seen my young high school football playing neighbor in some weeks, since the last time I mentioned him, though I’ve heard from his parents why. As he and all his classmates got their licenses, his parents refurbished their basement. They put in a pool table, which was very smart, because now his house is the cool place for everyone to hang out, and Mom and Dad can keep an eye on what they’re up to.
    One night a few weeks ago, everyone was there, and they made a call for take-out pizza. Our young friend bounded up the basement stairs to jump in the car and pick it up. Suddenly in the driveway he found himself face to face with just the young lady he hoped would be showing up.
    He quickly shifted the keys in his hand, switching from the old family SUV to his Dad’s BMW convertible. ‘Do you want to come get the pizza with me?’
    ‘Sure.’
    One of his buddies appeared, thinking he was shotgun on the pizza run.
    Our friend and the young lady were already in the Beamer. ‘We got it, dude. We’re good. We’ll catch you in a little while,’ he said as they pulled away. Dad saw the whole scene play out from a bedroom window.

    As the weight lifting guy down the street, I am several priorities below the young, sweet thing, the Beamer, the Boyz, the pool table, and the teammate left gaping in the driveway - which is exactly as it should be.

    I happened upon the Rugby World Cup Sevens as I was flipping channels the other day and saw Fiji absolutely murder Argentina. It was fascinating to watch, as the Fijians were noticeably bigger, faster, and stronger than the Argentinians - and it was all the more interesting than football because I could see how everyone was built; their bodies were not obscured by pads and helmets. The Fijians won just about every encounter, breaking tackles when they had the ball, flattening the Argentinians on the rare occasions they got it, and when the ball was in play during big tosses from the sideline, the Fijians were always center screen making the catch as the Argentinian were swatted aside.
    The highlight video would make fantastic recruiting for strength training.

    It’s gotten me to thinking - especially since I’m running out of axes to grind each week - that I should wander down to one of the Browns’ open practices in the next week or two to see if there’s anything I can observe about how top caliber athletes move.
    [Yes, there are jokes to be made: a Browns practice is the last place you’re going to find that sort of thing . . . ]
    For that matter, I could also drop by the bleachers at a high school practice to ponder the upshot of these intense summer training sessions I’ve been hearing about.

    The only worthwhile news from my garage is that I power cleaned 260 the other day, which was the first time in a while. The power clean, as I’ve said, is a wayward girl who comes around only when you ignore her. Suddenly she appeared in my driveway; things felt pretty light and careless, so it was about time to take Dad’s Beamer for a spin.

    Heavy-Light-Medium
    Week of: 7/30/18 3 sets of 5 reps week
    MONDAY
    1. Squat (3x5) Tom 365 JC : 162.5
    2. Bench Press (3x5) Tom 250 JC: 115
    3. Deadlift (1x5) 440 second session JC 227.5

    4. 3 sets heavy pull ups
    5. Seated Partial PRESSES (#5-down, close holes) 187.5 (#1 top range ) 175
    (#4 top range) 177.5 JC - dips
    6. barbell curls: 3 sets
    7. abs: banded pull downs

    TUESDAY - Conditioning
    sled pull 2 miles; 45, 25

    WEDNESDAY
    1. Squat (80% of Monday’s weight) x Monday Reps, 2 sets JC: 125
    Tom: 3 sets PARTIAL SQUATS; DEAD STOP holes 9-13-17 - 250, 300, 340
    2. Press: (3x5) Tom: 172.5 JC: 82.5
    3. Power Cleans 3x3 Tom: 230, to 262.5, 235 JC: 75 - 95
    4. 4 sets of heavy shrugs 520
    5. abs: hollow rockers

    6. 3 sets of partial bench presses holes (- 4 -8 -12) . . . . 255 +, 285 +, 335 +

    FRIDAY
    1. Squats: [90% of Monday’s weight] (3x5) Tom: 330 JC: 145
    2. Bench Press: [90% of Monday’s weight] (3x5) Tom: 225 JC: 105
    3. Romanian Deadlifts - off rack - 3 sets of 5 Tom 380 JC 145
    4. 4 rounds gymnastic rows with vest
    5. 3 sets 5-6 curls
    6. abs: T-bar sit ups

    SATURDAY - Conditioning
    swim 1 mile

  7. #127
    Join Date
    Dec 2015
    Location
    Washington, DC
    Posts
    302

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    A sad story in Cleveland grew a little sadder today, with the release of the medical examiner’s report on the death of police officer Vu Nguyen. Nguyen, 50, collapsed during a run at a physical assessment for an elite K-9 unit. The images from the funeral, particularly of his wife and young daughters, have been heartbreaking. The turnout from the community and law enforcement around the country was massive.

    From Cleveland.com: “Nguyen died of a condition called rhabdomyolysis, which causes muscles to release toxins into the bloodstream during extreme physical exertion.
    The medical examiner also said heart disease and recent dietary supplement use contributed to his death. . . [but] did not say what dietary supplement Nguyen used. . . . The conditions caused organ failure . . .”
    News reports also mentioned that it was a 93-degree day as the training was held at a regional airport, which quite possibly made it even hotter on the tarmac. Other reports specified that the heart disease identified in the autopsy was atherosclerosis.

    Nguyen’s death is on one hand a Perfect Storm of contributing factors. On the other, I fear, it’s a story of an athlete ill prepared for a challenge. The lesson must be heeded by other police officers - or firemen, or any candidates for highly demanding physical jobs, and I would hope that the Cleveland Police Department is conducting a review of the incident.
    Two lines of thought arise:
    1. I’m not a medical professional, and I don’t imagine that the information that’s been released thus far would suffice for any kind of penetrating assessment, anyway. I am merely voicing suspicion in the hope that this lesson can benefit his brother and sister officers. If I’m wrong, that’s fine, but the pathology of what happened would have to be pretty clearly spelled out to convince me.

    2. The question that frames the discussion is a little blunt - but: was this his fault?

    For example, if the medical examiner stated that the cause of death was the cardiovascular disease, we’d all understand how it can sneak up on someone. He’d have had no idea. We wouldn’t hold it against him.

    It’s the rhabdo that makes this tragic. Rhabdomyolysis was first identified during World War Two, during the Blitz, when the Germans bombed London. Victims crushed in the collapsing buildings suffered muscular damage so severe that the breakdown products in the bloodstream caused kidney failure.
    People struck by lightning or bitten by certain snakes get rhabdo. Some drugs can contribute to the process, as can extreme physical exertion, dehydration, and heat stroke. We’ve all heard the stories behind CrossFit lawsuits or college football players hospitalized after being run through the wringer. Usually when there’s blame to be placed, it’s on savage routines that overwhelm athletes.

    The point is that rhabdomyolysis is caused by a catastrophic level of injury to the muscles. A mile and a half run, which is what Nguyen was on when he collapsed, doesn’t usually fit that description.
    We know it was very hot, 93-plus degrees, and we can assume the candidates had been through other events already, probably max-rep push-up, pull-up, and sit-up tests - but still, I’m not sure this fits into the category of building collapses, lightning strikes, or savage bouts of circuit training.
    Muscles used to a process of stress, recovery, and adaptation can usually swing this sort of test.
    Experienced, trained runners also bring two advantages to the situation. They’d know to stay pretty chill with their speed on a hot day, and improved thermo-regulation is one of the primary benefits of endurance training.

    Not only was Nguyen not prepared for a reasonably basic fitness assessment, he was further rendered less able to withstand it by the supplement he took. The combination of these two factors is what made a fairly ordinary workout catastrophic to his body - and from an investigative standpoint, this is what should attract the attention of the Cleveland Police. They have to get to a detailed understanding of the pathology involved. They have to be able to explain to their officers the roles played by Nguyen’s level of fitness - whatever it was - and the metabolic reaction created by the supplement in question. This is a more present danger than the department might realize, especially if their people only know so much about fitness.

    This is barring the possibility that some metabolic process strangely unique to Vu Nguyen is the cause of his death.

    So, was it Nguyen’s own fault?
    He physically wasn’t ready for the workout, but I’m inclined to cut him a little slack. Cops work long shifts, and probably have to write reports and testify in court outside their normal duty hours. If doing a great deal of training was not feasible in his life, then he probably didn’t know too much about it. That he was slamming a supplement would support that idea; he had been taken in by the promise of rapid results.
    Those of us who write blogs or debate on the STARTING STRENGTH Forum might disagree on the details, but we all know that when it comes to training, consistency is everything, and nothing comes quickly or easily. The next time you’re in the gym and you hear that someone aspires toward a SWAT team, SEAL team, powerlifting meet, or anything pretty special, pull them aside, like somebody should have done to Nguyen: ‘You know, that’s going to take a while, getting to that level.’

    Heavy-Light-Medium
    Week of: 8/6/18 3 sets of 2 reps week
    MONDAY
    1. Squat (3x2) Tom 402.5 JC : 177.5
    2. Press (3x2) Tom 192.5 JC: 87.5
    3. Deadlift (1x2) 485 second session JC 240

    4. 3 sets heavy pull ups
    5. Seated Partial PRESSES (#5-down, close holes) 175x3, 187,5, 192.5
    (#1 top range ) 177.5 (#4 top range) 175 - + JC - dips
    6. barbell curls: 3 sets
    7. abs: banded pull downs

    TUESDAY - Conditioning
    sled pull 2 miles; 45, 25

    WEDNESDAY
    1. JC: Squat (80% of Monday’s weight) x Monday Reps, 2 sets JC: 142.5
    Tom: 3 sets PARTIAL SQUATS; DEAD STOP holes 9-13-17 - 255, 305, 345
    2. Bench Press: (3x2) Tom: 282.5 JC: 117.5
    3. Power Cleans 3x3 Tom: 230, to 265, 240 JC: 75 - 95
    4. 4 sets of heavy shrugs 525
    5. abs: hollow rockers

    FRIDAY
    1. Squats: [90% of Monday’s weight] (3x2) Tom: 362.5 JC: 160
    2. Press: [90% of Monday’s weight] (3x2) Tom: 172.5 JC: 80
    3. Romanian Deadlifts 3x5 Tom 380 JC 145, 147.5, 145

    4. 4 rounds gymnastic rows with vest
    5. 3 sets of partial bench presses holes (- 4 -8 -12) . . . . 257.5+, 287.5+, 337.5+
    JC: close grip bench press, T-Bar
    6. 3 sets 5-6 curls
    7. abs: Kettlebell sit ups

    SATURDAY - Conditioning
    swim 1 mile

  8. #128
    Join Date
    Apr 2012
    Posts
    114

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    Greetings from Columbus. I always look forward to your posts. Interesting stuff.

  9. #129
    Join Date
    Dec 2015
    Location
    Washington, DC
    Posts
    302

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    DavidCC - What’s up! Thanks for the shout and thanks for your interest. I hope your numbers are clicking along and all is well in Columbus.

    I managed to sneak out of Cleveland and back since I last posted, headed North, a Great Lake or two away up in Michigan, so I haven’t had time to check out one of the Browns’ open practices like I wanted. The other day, I had a free afternoon, so I rolled by the high school where my young buddy is going through double sessions for football, but I missed them. I’ve made bold statements on the art and science of coaching, but actually knowing what I’m talking about is still on the agenda.

    In the meantime, even if they don’t boil down into practical training advice just yet, a few thoughts have been swirling around, mainly on two topics, which remind me of a third. The emerging theme is, Be very careful about ignoring old advice, or, Newer ideas are not necessarily better ideas. I haven’t reached any conclusions, but here’s what I’m considering:
    -As a World War Two history buff, I recently happened upon a training video for shooting the M1911 pistol. Since I have a 1911 I take to the range every so often, I found myself very intrigued by the way in which they taught recruits to hold the pistol when it came time for a two-handed grip. The second, supporting hand was under the dominant hand, palm up, instead of with it, or around it, vertically on the stock.
    This is called the Cup and Saucer grip, and a quick skim of shooting websites reveals some very strong opinions against it, though they don’t really explain what the problem is. Modern techniques are so much better, of course, but I’m not seeing a lot of proof.
    That’s not to say some thorough comparison of accuracy and speed isn’t out there, but that video was made in 1944, when the Army had two years’ experience in killing people, so I’m not so sure I’m ready to dismiss a combat proven method.

    -That baseball playing colleague and I have been talking a lot about throwing and batting mechanics lately, specifically the kinds of problems leading to so many pitchers needing reconstructive ‘Tommy John’ surgery on their elbows, as well as the abuse his wrists and forearms are taking as he tries to work the bat.
    It’s all supposed to be whole-bodied motion, I’ve been saying. This is the lesson of Judo or a well executed power clean: force is generated by the movement of one’s center of gravity, not via the limbs moving relative to the body.
    He’s being patient with me because I don’t play, so I’ve said he shouldn’t take my word on it. We’ll study video of Ted Williams’ swing.

    -Finally, this has reminded me of boxer Jack Dempsey’s book CHAMPIONSHIP FIGHTING, which I’ve mentioned before, in which he states his belief that boxing (by 1950) was dominated by too many trainers who had never put on the gloves themselves, and who were teaching a form of arms-only paddy cake that omitted hugely important components of the game.

    With a target at 30 feet and a box of 50 rounds, I can put about two-thirds of my shots into a six inch bullseye. However, I make all of the classic mistakes: I pull a little bit (as a right-hander) so when I miss, my shots are down and left. The recoil on an M1911 can seem very dramatic, so I’ve sometimes made those horrible anticipatory motions, bringing whole gun down as if to temper its exploding upward, which is a completely false perception. It’s a wasted shot, way low.
    The solution is to let the gun do the shooting, which means to minimize interference. The trigger draw has to be straight back (and not hooking), and lightly done with contact at the pad of your finger behind the nail. If the shot comes more or less as a surprise, then you’ve been less likely to draw it off course by contracting the wrong muscles. The best grip, I would imagine, is the one that most consistently allows all of this to happen.
    Now that I’m back from the range, I see a possible advantage the Cup and Saucer might have over the the modern, conventional, both hands on the stock, thumbs together grip. At first I shot way worse with the Cup and Saucer, and thought, ‘Well, so much for that experiment.’ I was pulling shots far to the left. I started walking things back to where they belonged with a modern grip, but then I realized what was happening.
    My right arm was crossing my body at the angle created by the distance from my shoulder to my centerline, which was making me shoot left. I wasn’t pulling the gun with the trigger so much as I was headed in the wrong direction to begin with. This is a problem, perhaps common, I’ve developed from having the gun directly in front of me. The gun’s headed left, and for all this time, I’ve been using the conventional grip to twist it back to the right.
    The Cup and Saucer allows for a more relaxed full extension of the shooting arm. The bones of the forearm must be in line with the axis of the gun, I remember the video saying, so keeping my arm in a line straight out from my shoulder meant that I had to tilt my head over to find the sights. After that, I was in business. Honestly, I didn’t keyhole enough brilliant shots to declare this method vastly superior, but it has potential - but certainly no basis to be ruled out because it’s old fashioned.

    A whole bodied baseball swing is one in which all the force is generated by the movement of one’s center of gravity. To a degree, players step into a hit, which is forward in the box, toward the pitcher, but mainly they’re launching a very powerful rotation of the hips, which brings the torso around the axis of the spine. The arms and hands follow.
    In the videos of Ted Williams, his hips are facing fully forward a split second before he contacts the ball. He leaves his arms pretty loose; this lagging behind the motion of his hips creates a stretch reflex in his upper body, a neurological stimulus that summons a heightened level of force from the muscles.
    My friend explained that Williams used a heavier bat than players do nowadays, so he had to use a full bodied motion to get it around. There’s more wisdom to this than we might realize; circumstances demanded efficient ways to harness force and transfer it to the bat and ball. In casting around a few coaching sites, I’m finding extraneous motions of one type or another to be the problems everyone needs correcting. People are moving their feet too much in some cases, but more commonly they’re putting their hands or shoulders in the wrong places. That’s what makes forearms or wrists painful; the hands and arms are trying to alter the bat speed that comes from the body.

    By now you know where I’m headed: we have to judge methods old and new by their results. We have to study the rationales for each manner of shooting or swinging a bat - or strength training, and evaluate whether they’re based on sound logic.
    Really, the results will tell the tale, and this is where the Jack Dempsey story is so much fun. As an elderly man stepping out of a taxi in New York City, he was accosted by two young men who wanted his wallet. In no time, they were both laid out flat. He didn’t just take a few angry, decrepit pokes at them; he sledgehammered these guys, and he must have finished one and bounded quickly to the other, delivering his entire weight behind a hook or uppercut to the jaw.
    ‘It’s a shame,’ he said afterwards. ‘Those were the kinds of kids boxing could have helped at one point.’

    Dempsey says in his book that punchers are not born; they’re made. He goes on to relate how his travels, starting in 1914 as a barroom brawler, through various venues in the West, and ultimately becoming World Champion in 1919, were ‘an investigation of technique.’ Not only did he fight quite the cast of characters, he trained with equally colorful instructors in town after town. Techniques that worked he retained. Those that didn’t were discarded. With all that fighting and even more sparring to prepare, Dempsey forged a lethal style that felled far larger opponents.
    CHAMPIONSHIP FIGHTING was written years after all that, after the war, in which he taught hand-to-hand for the Coast Guard. By 1950, he felt, ‘beginners were not grounded in the four principle methods of putting the bodyweight in fast motion.’ ‘Impure,’ or weak, punching was the result of beginners being taught to punch without stepping; they didn’t know the difference between shovel hooks and uppercuts - and nobody could explain a bob and weave properly by then, in his estimation.
    That 1919 brand of ferocity was clearly a revelation to those muggers in New York City 60 years later, but the lessons were not lost on a youngster a little further upstate. ‘You’re going to use your whole body, and you’re going to move around the whole ring,’ trainer Cus D’Amato told a young Mike Tyson. He must have assured the kid, ‘Trust me: people aren’t going to know what to do against this.’

    Questions remain. I have to put in some more time with the Cup and Saucer. My friend is headed to the cage in a day or so, and he says he’ll drop the bat handle to waist level and launch his hips like Ted Williams. If Jack Dempsey is driving his entire body weight into each punch, should baseball players be playing with heavier bats? Are batters, lifters, and shooters born or made? We’ll figure it out. That’s where the fun is.

  10. #130
    Join Date
    Dec 2015
    Location
    Washington, DC
    Posts
    302

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    starting strength coach development program
    Heavy-Light-Medium
    Week of: 8/13/18 3 sets of 8 reps week
    MONDAY
    1. Squat (3x8) Tom 327.5 JC : 145
    2. Bench Press (3x8) Tom 227.5 JC: 97.5
    3. Deadlift (1x8) 400 second session JC 210

    4. 3 sets heavy pull ups
    5. Seated Partial PRESSES (#5-down, close holes) 177.5 - + (#1 top range ) 180+
    (#4 top range) 182.5+ JC - dips
    6. barbell curls: 3 sets
    7. abs: banded pull downs

    TUESDAY - Conditioning
    sled pull 2 miles; 45, 25

    WEDNESDAY
    1. JC: Squat (80% of Monday’s weight) x Monday Reps, 2 sets JC: 115
    Tom: 3 sets PARTIAL SQUATS; DEAD STOP holes 9-13-17 - 260, 310, 350
    2. Press: (3x8) Tom: 155 JC: 82.5
    3. Power Cleans 3x3 Tom: 230, to 267.5, 230 JC: 75 - 95
    4. 4 sets of heavy shrugs 535
    5. abs: hollow rockers

    FRIDAY
    1. Squats: [90% of Monday’s weight] (3x8) Tom: 295 JC: 130
    2. Bench Press: [90% of Monday’s weight] (3x8) Tom: 205 JC: 90
    3. Romanian Deadlifts - off rack - 3 sets of 5 Tom 380, 382.5, 380 JC 145, 147.5x2

    4. 4 rounds gymnastic rows with vest
    5. 3 sets of partial bench presses holes (- 4 -8 -12) . . . . 260+, 290+, 340+
    JC: close grip bench press, T-Bar
    6. 3 sets 5-6 curls
    7. abs: T-bar sit ups

    SATURDAY - Conditioning
    swim 1 mile

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