Lifting to Live

[Bill Anders]

You might consider a pre-meet test ahead of when you see for sure that you will be missing too many lift days. Just reduce the load a few days before the test. You have gotten your rep sets up and this might be the time to cash them in before you get diverted. Just a thought.

Agreed. I'm already eyeballing a week in about a month to give it a go. Then, if this El Niño kicks in as forecast, the snow will be delayed and I'll have another chance to run up training a bit before the holidays. But even if I don't, overall my multi- rep/workset numbers on all of the lifts are at or just about to be at those 1RM numbers from last December, so that alone shows the progress.

[Bill Anders]

This makes sense to me as it is always a balancing act. Sometimes less is more. Good luck with it.

An interesting side effect of this programming change is that there seems to be a lot more DOMS. Perhaps it's the extra days off that make me notice, instead of just jumping into the next day's session.

[Cole Gorton]

where do you board?

[Bill Anders]

where do you board?

Not in your neck of the woods, Cole. Too many people and too expensive there.

Mainly in the local area (WA/ID/MT), occasionally with trips afar depending on conditions.

[Bill Anders]

9/26/23 - Tuesday

HDL I @ 8'
135x4
225x2
275x1
315x1 h
345x1 m
380x5 s
340x5 s
340x3 s

Pause SQ V @ 5'
45x10x2
135x5
185x3
225x1
285x1
335x4x3
315x4x3

Music — The Cult, Love Removal Machine; Psychedelic Furs, Alice's House; Love and Rockets, Yin and Yang (The Flowerpot Man); Throbbing Gristle, AB-7A; The Smiths, Bigmouth Strikes Again (Live); Clan Of Xymox, In A City.

Notes — 'Tis the season, as the sinuses are being brutalized in this household. Nothing like feeling run down all day long.
- HDL - Intensity Set w/ 90% backoff set. The main set went, although rep #5 was grindy and I twisted like hell towards the right for some reason, yet managed to keep the bar in contact with both legs throughout. Very strange. I know that I should be switching to Triples for this one soon, and I suspect that was my clue. Funny enough, I scrolled forward in my programming spreadsheet to look at the next planned session and it's already set for Triples, as are my full ROM DLs scheduled between now and then; either I had an inkling that this was where this lift was headed, or, for some reason, I decided to go with 5's on this session. Unfortunately, I don't keep notes that detailed. With all of that in mind, I approached the backoff set looking at a Triple. Not that it mattered, as it barely came off the floor. A moment's mental collection and a full reset didn't matter, as it was now welded to the floor. Honestly, it's not a surprise. Over the past month or so, I have been concurrently pushing the Volume limits on both my Intensity Day SQs and Heavy Pulls, which impact each other. I was just expecting that the extra couple of days of recovery between Heavy Pulls (going from 7 days between to 9 days between) would keep me going, but apparently not. I am clearly at that point where I can't push both concurrently any more and need to just run these out before a reset.
- Pause SQ - Volume sets across w/ 3-count pause. Knowing that I'm still going to push my SQs hard this coming Sunday and that these programmed "Light" SQs at 340lbs are 87% of those programmed SQs, I dropped to 80% today, especially since these are Pauses, which increase my time under tension for each rep. Am I fiddling with too much at the same time? Perhaps. But I have also been here before, where the SQs and DLs start competing for those limited Lower Back/Hip resources and they grind to a halt (especially the DL). I can see the train wreck approaching. Granted, those were >50lbs ago, but the concepts are the same. The first set of 315 felt heavy AF, which is when I thought of the main note above, but I wasn't going to let that dictate the rest of the session. Second set was much better, although still heavy. Third set wasn't quite as good, but it went. All good.

[Bill Anders]

9/28/23 - Thursday

Pin OP I
185x1
202.5x1

OP I @ 2'
45x5x3
95x5
135x3
182.5x1x5 0, 0, 0, 0, x

BP V @ 5'
45x5x2
95x5
135x3
185x1
225x1
242.5x4x4

Music — Talking Heads, Take Me To The River*; Suzi Quatro, Can The Can (TOTP 1973); Cake, Short Skirt/Long Jacket (Live); A Flock Of Seagulls, 2:30/Over The Border; The Cure, Primary.

Notes —
- Pin OP - Intensity Single. It was ugly. Real ugly. But it locked out. I need more frequency on this specific lift, as the single warmup rep and single workset rep each workout week (actually, every 9 calendar days) is insufficient to get the movement pattern down in the brain and body. All week I had already been thinking of adding a "Saturday" Pressing day to keep the neurons firing. This confirms it.
- OP - Intensity Singles across. And then the first full ROM Press confirmed that thought about frequency, as it was way forward of the groove and stalled just above the head. The second attempt was closer to the groove, but still stalled at the same spot. The third was in the groove, as it got to the stall point much quicker, but still stalled. Going into the fourth attempt, I wondered if it was time to see if a double layback would help get it through that sticking point, but I never had the chance, as it stalled at the forehead. At that point, I called the attempts. No worries. Technique, technique, technique, achieved by frequency, frequency, frequency.
- BP - Volume sets across. Groovy and all good, but that shouldn't be a surprise for a Light/Volume day.

* we caught an IMAX screening of the newly remastered/released Stop Making Sense (1984) concert film yesterday. It's not enough that it is, hands down, the best concert film ever made, but to see it on the giant IMAX screen will full surround sound made it even better. Being an early afternoon matinee, there was just a small crowd of (ahem) seasoned viewers, but there sure was a lot of clapping, hooting, and hollering once everyone got warmed up, both on stage and in the theater. A must see!

[Fred J]

If I had a buck for each time that myself or someone else said "This ain't no party". That guy always makes me laugh dancing around especially with that wide shouldered jacket.

[Bill Anders]

Haha.

There's the point, about 3/4 of the way through the movie, when Tina & Chris get to play their side-band Tom Tom Club's hit Genius Of Love, which meant that David was off-stage. Knowing the inter-personal dynamics of the band at that time, my bride leaned over and commented "I'm surprised that they got to play this." I responded "because David is backstage putting on that ridiculous outfit." Which he was, and came back out on stage right after, doing the dance.

When the re-release was announced, I told my bride that we would be going to see it. Her response was "why? You have the VHS, the DVD, and the soundtrack already." I made the comment of "yeah, but we don't have IMAX in the living room." She walked out yesterday exclaiming how good it was to see it like that.

[Bill Anders]

9/30/23 - Saturday

Pin OP L @ 3'
45x5x3
95x5
135x3
165x3x3

OP L @ 3'
145x5x3

Music — R.E.M., (Don't Go Back To) Rockville; Duran Duran, Rio; Beastie Boys, No Sleep Till Brooklyn.

Notes — A light day for both lifts, serving to increase my frequency on both and work on technique for both. I spread out my 4-Day Split over a 3-Day lifting week, which should be helping with recovery for the heavy Squats and Pulls, but that move also increased the time between these lifts, which is detrimental. I'll find the balance somehow.
- Pin OP - Light Triples across. This one is the tricky one, as I can move this weight overhead easily enough that I can fake my way through the timing and positioning needed to get the 200lb+ heavy work weights to move. So that means more deliberate focus on these. At this early hour and with that focus, these 81% reps were still quite tough, with a couple of reps out of the groove and not going. These definitely need more practice.
- OP - Light sets of fahve across that went well enough, even as the shoulders were burning from the Pin Presses. And since I've been more focused on Intensity the past few months, I had to scroll back to see that 7/8/23 was the last time that I actually did x5s across for this lift (152.5x5x4 for that Heavy session).

[Bill Anders]

10/1/23 - Sunday

SQ I @ 7'
45x10x3
135x5
225x3
285x1
335x1
385x2x3

Pause DL L
135x4
225x2
275x1
315x5

Music — Never Obey Again vs The Cranberries, Zombie; Kill Devil Hill vs Black Sabbath, Solitude; 3TEETH vs Tears For Fears, Everybody Wants To Rule The World; Opus vs Berlin, The Metro; Ghost vs Iron Maiden, Phantom Of The Opera.

Notes — More twiddlin' with the programming. With my Presses, I wasn't doing them enough (Frequency), but with my Squats I was doing too much (Volume) on my Intensity days. Those were having a negative impact on my Intensity Pulls. It was a fun and meaningful experiment, but I need to dial the Intensity SQ days back a bit. Looking back at last week's Intensity SQ day, you'd see that I was doing a single Pause SQ just 5lbs less than my main SQ weight, followed by 2x2 Box SQs at 15lbs less than my main SQ weight. Those variations are meant for lighter Intensities. So before I even got into my main work sets, I had already done 5 reps averaging 97% of my main SQ weight that, had I finished my main SQ sets, would have been 14 reps total. That's too much for this day. Again, a good experience to learn from, even though nothing has been a total surprise for a few weeks.
- SQ - Intensity Doubles across. Since I completed 5 reps total (3x + 2x) of last week's 380lbs after I had already done 5 reps at 97% of that, I went ahead and added 5lbs for these doubles. The first set was a lie and made me think about running out singles, which I did not want to do. The second set went better, even though the last few seconds of that second rep were bumping up against a total grind. The third set was the same, certainly not the absolute grind that I was prepared to deal with on the second rep. All good.
- Pause DL - Light set w/ 2-count pause below the knee. First two reps were hook grip, last three were mixed. Although Light, that 2-count pause under tension is an hammy kicker which makes each rep increasingly difficult. All good.