Bodyweight Press, One-Arm Chin, Rebuilding The Squat

[Gary Gibson]

2012-04-16
Decided to quit while I'm ahead and wrap up the bench cycle before I get injured. Started the year at 225-235, then got up to 245 at the beginning of this cycle and am walking away with 265.

Now it's time to focus on turning that upper body push strength into a bodyweight+ press while continuing to build my biceps and pull up strength toward a one-arm chin up. All the while I'll be slowly adding pounds from a low starting point on the squat.

Sunday:
Power Snatch
Power Jerk from Rack
Olympic Squat

Tuesday/Thursday/Saturday alternate:
Press (heavy)
Standing Barbell Curl
w/
Press (light)
Pull Up
Pullover

Taking a few days off any pressing, then will find my max overhead and use 80% from there in a Russian Routine format starting in May. Will change if necessary. Hoping that 80% means 135 at this point. If I can't get at least 155 out the gate with a 265 bench, I will be disappointed.

Will continue with winning formula on curls. Cambered bar with 100 x 4 x 4 next time followed by 110 x 3 x 3. At the official start of this new cycle (May) I will begin with straight bar 95 x 6 x 6 and over three waves work up to triple with 135. The goal is 90% of bodyweight for a strict curl, but getting that this cycle is probably a wee bit too ambitious.

Working the straight arm pullover while keeping the pull up groove. In 8 weeks, I'll be looking to switch focus into channeling this curling/pulling over/pulling up strength and practice into a one-arm chin up.

The squat will be on slow burn and I hope to end up tripling my old max in four months, starting at 215 x 5 x 2 + paused 165 x 5 x 2 the first Sunday in May (will adjust upward 20 lbs when I need to add wraps). In the meantime, I'll be bumping up the power version of the quick lifts by practicing them for some doubles and singles before the squat.

[Gary Gibson]

2012-04-17
Power Snatch
135 x 1 x 3
145 x miss, x 1, x 1

Standing Bar Curl
95 x 4 x 4

Front Squat + Power Jerk
135 x 1 + 1
165 x 1 + 1
175 x 1 + miss

Power Jerk + Front Squat
175 x 1 + 1

Sort of a back off day. Kept going with the curls, but used the Olympic bar instead of the cambered bar. It's harder on the straight bar. Didn't like the way my right shoulder tended to rise when things got hard. Worked hard on correcting that on sets 3 and 4.

Had some fun with the power snatches, power jerks and front squats. Front squats felt really, really good. It was nice to squat so upright and have knees feel so good while I did it. Snatch form sucked, never made thigh contact for the second pull. Granted I was doing these in jeans and dress shoes, but still. Jerk form much better. 175 was a tiny bit of a pressout. I'm assuming these quick lift numbers are as pathetic as they are right now because my Olympic squat is so low.

Interestingly: my power snatch and power jerk (no split with minimal knee bend) are at the proper ratio to each other: 145 is a little more than 80% of 175. The jerk should be about the same as the clean and the snatch around 80% of the clean. The power snatch might be around 80% of the power clean and power jerk. I like to think I might have jerked 180 or 185 if I were a little fresher. All this is to say that my quick lift numbers make sense compared to each other and compared to my current levels of squat strength.

The ratios I hope for:
Back Squat (Olympic) 100%
Front Squat 85%
Clean, Jerk 75%
Snatch 60%
Power Clean, Power Jerk 60%
Power Snatch 50% (48%)

(I round the power snatch up to 50% of the Olympic squat.) These aren't hard and fast goals, but just something to keep in mind as my squat strength goes back up. I won't be doing the full lifts on purpose anytime soon, but I would like to see my power snatch stay at 50% of my back squat and my power jerk stay at 60%. That means bodyweight power snatch as I climb back over 350 in the Olympic squat. My power jerk should be tickling 225 as I push toward 375 in the squat.

[Gary Gibson]

2012-04-19
Press out of Rack
45 x 10
135 x 2 (bounce out of the bottom of second)
145 x 1
150 x 0

Power Jerk out of Rack (in lbs)
150 x 1
165 x 1
175 x 1
180 x 1
185 x 1
190 x 1
195 x 1 PR
200 x miss

Power Clean (in lbs)
185 x 1

Pull Up x 6 x 3

Still in back off week mode. Had high hopes for the press out of the rack, but they were dashed. Hoping for 160 or 165 based on bench improvements, but I got shut down after 145. On the fly decided to go for broke with the quick overhead lift and see where my power jerk stood despite the Injury Report (below). Matched or beat my old very best which I set a few months ago before I had to back off all lower body training! I think I got 190 then and today I got 195. (Edit: Here it is. 190 was my best ever Dec 2011.) I think I would have gotten 200+ if I hadn't been so tired. After I missed the 200, and put it down, I scraped off the little plates and decided to see if I could clean 185. Got it with comical form (still a clean, not a continental, however) and it wasn't a max! This is great considering how hard I worked at getting over 80 kilos (176 lbs) in the full clean a few months ago in the Oly WL room in Baltimore. A 210 power jerk right now at 170+ would be 120% of bodyweight. No great shakes, but something I'd be happy to have in the next few weeks.

Injury Report: Got a little effusion in the left knee after that last session. Both knees complained a bit the next day, but that was in the quad attachment region. The left knee joint itself seems to have been a little insulted and filled back up with fluid just a tad. No pain today and no feeling of fullness in the deep knee bend. But the joint is definitely bulging slightly in full flexion. Kept one or both Rehband compression sleeves on it today and put on some Voltaren. Seems to be doing the trick.

I'm obviously upset about this because I want to put an end to chronic effusion in my knee. But the effusion response is a sign of underlying trauma. I had hoped my knees were both healed up enough so that this reaction would stop. I am hoping that this response is merely because I went back to put my knees under load too soon since the last time (Continually doing that over the course of moths is what got me in trouble in the first place). I thought I was just messing around when I did those power snatches, jerks and front squats two days after my light but hard back squats. My left knee didn't agree.

(It's possible the effusion came from when I twisted the knee a bit when I slipped on a slick board in my yard.)

[Gary Gibson]

2012-04-22
Snatch
135 x 1 x 10

Back Squat
135 x 5
185 x 3
205 x 2
225 x 2
245 x 2 x 3
225 x 2 x 6

(Front Squat 225 x 1)

-Missed very first snatch. Lifting at LAFitness with inappropriate bars and angled plates. I meant to do power snatches first, but all snatches ended up being full squat snatches today. Just as well. I should practice the full lifts from the get go this time. Wore Konos throughout session. Knees felt absolutely fine.
-Going to be doing most of my squats moving quickly. I finally get it. Slow, grinding squatting will not help my quick lifts very much and may hurt them. I've read that a million times and I think I'm finally starting to get it. Being forced to use light weights after a layoff has helped me with that. 245 compromised speed a bit so I dropped back to 225 and got volume with that. Added Rehbands after 205. Right quad really felt it during the ascent on the heavier squats. Just wanted to see if I could front squat 225. I can. Minimal hip kick.

[Gary Gibson]

2012-04-23
Jerk out of Rack
135 x 1
175 x 1 x 2

Snatch
135 x 1 x 4, then miss

Clean & Jerk
135 x 1 & 1
155 x 1 & 1
175 x 1 & 1
185 x 1 & 0
190 x 1
195 x 0
175 x 1 x 2

Front Squat
190 x 2 x 6

Strict Cambered Bar Curl
100 x 3 x 5

-Was excited about trying new jerk set up. I've been using my front squat grip and thought I'd do better with a proper jerk grip. Not really. Maybe I just need to get used to it.
-Not feeling crisp with either jerks or snathces so made a run at cleans (which I'd planned to backburner). Surprised to get 190 which is just about my best ever (I think my best ever was an unrepeatable 87-89 kilos).
-Not really sure I should be doing this every day just yet. As much fun as it is to do the classic lifts every day, I want to do the right frequency to improve and keep my left knee from exploding.
-Bodyweight 170-175
-Oy. Just drained my knees. 45 cc from the left!! 5 from the right (which didn't really need it). If just a couple weeks back squatting for real gets this kind of reaction, maybe I need to reconsider. Granted I've already started ramping up the frequency, but the effusion restarted when I front squatted three days after back squatting instead of waiting till the fourth or fifth day like I had been doing.

2012-04-26
Power Jerk
135 x 3
175 x 1 x 2
190 x 1
200 x pressout
185 x 1, x miss (power cleaned back to rack)
175 x 2, x 1 + miss (power cleaned back to rack)

-Blitzed myself with ifubprofen, Anatabloc, and Voltaren. Nearly constant compression on knees. Knees reset to how they were before I mucked them up earlier this week. Trick now is to prevent that from happening again. Jerks for a few weeks, then add snatches for a few more. Then full cleans/front squats and eventually back squats. The idea is to reintroduce loaded knee articulation gradually, starting with the light stuff (snatches) and ending up with the heaviest (back squats).
-I need to spend time getting my classic lifts to more appropriate percentages of my back squat anyway. Assuming a detrained best BS of ~300 lbs now, that means a 225 full squat clean and split or full squat jerk and a 185 full squat snatch.
-Went for a power jerk PB today and ended up pressing it out. But I was really bouncy on the very last successful rep with 175.
-Also very happy I can so casually power clean these sorts of weights. For my entire life 185 has been a nearly impossible challenge.

[Gary Gibson]

2012-04-28
Bench Press
135 x 5 x 2
175 x 5
195 x 3
210 x 3 x 6

Cambered Bar Curl
110 x 3, 2(3), 2 to failure

Drop Jerk +Clean Grip Overhead Squat from Power Clean
45 x 3
135 x 1, 1, 1, miss, miss, 1, 1

-I really need heels higher than the 0.5" rise on these dress shoes. I put in my order with Risto about two weeks ago and sent an email to which they haven't responded. I really want those Ristos, but their customer service is so random. People who manage to get the shoes tend to love them, but every third or fourth review seens to complain that they either took months to get the shoes or never got them at all. I had to run forward more and more toward the end in order to keep from losing the jerk on the way up. That wouldn't have happened if I'd had a heel. Need at least a 0.75" rise that deep in the squat with arms straight overhead.
-Did a couple of pistols in between drop jerks. Incredibly easy. Quads feeling incredibly strong and knees feeling stable and free of pain. Hope that these drop jerks/overhead squats don't get any inflammation going. Afraid of deep knee bends with any load right now, but I really wanted to get comfortable with going into a full squat for the jerk on the days I don't do actual heavy jerk training.
-Benches were easy till the last couple of sets. Still optimistic about getting to 6x6 w/ 210. But I have to reset the curls to a weight I can get for more volume.

[Gary Gibson]

A few funny things happened.

I caught the weightlifting bug again real bad. I decided I wanted to give it a go one more time before I hit my 40's. I've managed to get my knee trouble under control enough to give it a try. I'm following David Woodhouse's philosophy (The Syyyyyyystem) of training less and allowing for full recovery between sessions. This means at least 72 hours rest between bouts.

DW's ideas are very much in line with my experience. Novice to intermediate lifters will do their best on two days per week, allowing for actual supercompensation to take place between sessions (Novices also should do daily broomstick -- not bar! -- work to practice the snatch, as well as do both lifts every session to get more practice on both lifts). He also insists that the front squat is the key lift to drive up the classic lifts, something that is directly in line with my experience. My back squat has never been correlated with what I could clean, jerk or snatch. These lifts have always been very tightly correlated to my front squat ability. The front squat works the relevant muscles in the best way for weightlifting...and not just because it teaches clean recovery! DW, much like Dan John, advocates putting the FS FIRST in the session because improvements in the classic lifts depend on improvements in the front squat. A lifter will progress more quickly if he puts the front squats first. The classic lift practiced afterward will suffer a bit (about 5%), but it's worth it. For meets, a taper without front squatting will allow instant improvements on the classic lifts.

Also the less frequent squatting (working up to a max triple every third or fourth day) is the kind of frequency my knees need. I not only fail to progress on high frequency; I also tend to get chronic inflammation and effusion.

I've already set a couple of personal bests in the jerk and the clean. My best ever clean last year was 89 kilos/195 lbs. I could barely jerk at all and definitely nowhere near 195 lbs! My best clean and jerk was around 165. These last couple of weeks I've jerked 195 with a pressout on the attempt with 200. I've cleaned 205 lbs and had more in me, but I was tired from front squats and the previous new best of 200. I've clean and jerked 185, too. Nothing spectacular, but this is the first time I've improved on the classic lifts in a long time. I've long been frustrated by (and a little afraid of) the clean, so it's nice to hit my highest clean ever and at a much lower bodyweight than I used to be (205 @ 170). It's also nice to have my clean finally be around 90% of my front squat (which I estimate to be 225-230 without wraps).

I have dropped all pressing for a while because my left shoulder was starting to complain about it. I will still be curling and pulling up about once per week each because I doubt either of those activities will interfere with my weightlifting training.

I will be chronicling my weightlifting adventures on Glenn's site here. Lots of masters weightlifters of all levels there. Lots of discussion that helps me. I will continue to update my upper body training here and add any exciting news about my weightlifting numbers.