Lifting to Live

[Bill Anders]

This is a very helpful post. Santana's article makes a great deal of sense. I wasn't recovering and my deadlift suffered causing a number of problems. Your perspective is helpful.

It was quite an eye opener for me, Cheesepuff. I'm glad that you found it helpful.

If you have the time to read, and are so inclined, my journey through this understanding is back on pages 4-5 of this log. I was making a few mistakes at that time, but the realization from Santana's articles + forum discussions were very enlightening.

edit to add: one of the interesting pieces of information from the articles and discussions is that the realization that as long as the deadlift is going up, the squat will follow, even if you reset the squat. It makes sense, considering that they stress and train the same muscles.

[Bill Anders]

12/28/21 - Tuesday

OP @ 1'
45x5x3
75x3
105x1
120x1
130x1
147.5x1x5

RP @ 8'
135x4
185x2
225x1
275x1
305x1
330x1
360x5

Music — Top Picks from SiriusXM's Beatles Channel's 8 Songs a Week, Songs with "Rain" in the Lyrics, 12/17/21 - Beatles, Hey Bulldog; Beatles, I Am the Walrus; Beatles, Across the Universe; Beatles, Rain.

Notes — Outside 15°F / Inside 37°F.
- OP - Heavy singles, seeing how long I can run these out. All good. Started slowing on #3, really slow on #4 as I, for some reason, decided to go with a slightly wider grip, then reset the grip with #5 and it went fine.
- RP - First time doing Rack Pulls ever, which I will use during this maintenance season, heeding the advice in Nick's Rack Pulls 101 article. He wasn't wrong about it being difficult to impart movement on the bar with this lift. During my warmups, I was pulling double overhand with the intent to get at least the 305 that way, but that 305 wouldn't budge. No worries, switched to hook grip; not a chance, even with a multi-second count, which is odd, since this weight comes off the floor comfortably with the hook grip. Mixed grip did the trick, but slowly like he described. The 330x1 took a moment to get moving with the mixed, too. Strapped for the work set. All five came up nicely, once they got moving, which did take a bit each time. These were 95% of my recent PR Deadlift and right now I feel comfortable enough with these that I'll likely go +10lbs to 370 (97%) next week.

[Browndog]

Belated congrats on your Mock Meet!

Nice work on all three lifts. I really like that Bench PR!

[Bill Anders]

Belated congrats on your Mock Meet!

Nice work on all three lifts. I really like that Bench PR!

Thanks, Browndog! That's my favorite of the three, also. Not my favorite lift of the three overall, as that belongs to the Deadlift, but my favorite performance on that day. I had slowly been creeping up to a bodyweight+ bench for a while, knowing that I'd eventually get there, but to match it on my second attempt and beat it on my third was quite nice.

[Bill Anders]

12/30/21 - Thursday

SQ @ 5'
45x10x3
95x5
135x3
185x1
225x1
285x1
315x5
285x5

BP @ 5'
45x5
95x3
135x1
170x1
200x1
220x5 4+1
200x5x2

Music — Top Picks from Stevie Wonder's Songs in the Key of Life, 1976* - Sir Duke; Black Man; As. This wasn't a long workout, so that's as far as I got in the album.

Notes — Temp Outside 16°F / Inside 36°F. The Arctic airmass continues to sit...
- SQ - Nothing of note. I had time today, so I added a backoff set, but not two. I need these hips to be recovered for Saturday morning.
- BP - This was going to be a stretch, as I did a top set of 215x5 on Monday, but no backoffs. So I really don't have the recent volume and frequency to justify this right now, but I just wanted to see; #5 got just a few inches off the chest and stuck. Another inch or two and I could have ground it out, but just didn't have the leverage at that spot. So I re-racked, reloaded, and closed out that 220lb with a solid single. Backoffs were fine.

* this album has been a unicorn on my vinyl wish list for quite a while now. I would have been satisfied with a new repress, but no one is doing that right now. Then a local record store got a copy of the original 1976 Tamla Records double album release, complete with the original collectable 24pp booklet and bonus 7" extended play record, all in very good condition. A great score for me, but usually that means that the original owner has passed and their family dumped the collection. Thankfully it was to a store who could handle it, instead of a thrift shop. A classic, excellent from start to finish, and an inspiration for so many tunes across genres since.

[Mr. Bingley]

"Rain" is one of my favorite Beatles songs. Merry New Year!

[Bill Anders]

"Rain" is one of my favorite Beatles songs. Merry New Year!

That is a great tune. Hopefully the New Year is treating you well already!

[Bill Anders]

1/5/22 - Wednesday

OP
45x5x3
75x3
105x1
120x1
135x5x2
120x5
135x5 +4 +5 +1

BP
45x5x2
95x3
135x1
170x1
190x1
210x5x2
190x5
200x5x3

Music — Yep. But I didn't keep track.

Notes — The start of the new year has been great around here. A lot of new snow timed perfectly as everyone went back to school and work. So I already have that great all-body tiredness from floating on deep powder while riding at warp speed through the trees. A lot more snow is coming in the next few days, so I needed to figure out how I was going to manage getting my lifts in. I could have just not lifted this week, but there's always a danger in that, as nothing this week rolls into next week, with a lot more riding scheduled, then more riding after that. Soon it's April and I'm starting from scratch under the bar. No thanks.
- OP - As noted, my plan going in was 135x5x2 with a back-off set of 120x5. If you roll back over the past few weeks of my log, you'll see that while I was working on intensity singles, I didn't have any volume to speak of, nor frequency. As a result, rep #5 on that second set ground to a halt at my forehead. During the rest period to get that last 135 rep, I realized that I really needed to get back to volume in light of my lack of frequency; that means running weights out as Nick prescribes for late novice pressing. The third set of 5 went fine, although that fifth rep was a long, slow grind to lockout. Doing that set was more beneficial than just adding a single 135 to round out the 2x5, then dropping to 120x5. Naturally, the last single went up just fine to give me 15 reps total.
- BP - With that realization of how I needed to program my presses for a while this winter, I dropped my intensity off from my planned 210x5x2 (95% of last week's 220x5) with a drop-off set of 190x5 and went to 90% with 200x5x3, doing whatever it took to get 15 reps total. The 200x5x3 went fine.

[Fred J]

All looks good Bill... just watch out for those trees!

[Bill Anders]

I don't look at them, Fred. I only focus on the gaps between. Otherwise, it's ugly. When I heard about Sonny Bono's death on the radio, I knew which glade he was in.

Our favorite small ski resort up in British Columbia has signs posted at the top of each of the lifts - "Trees Don't Move!".

But they are sooooooo much fun!