Moiz's struggle to power

[Qureshi]

Cheers for that Sami...

Neways - Update time.
Today was awful for two reason:
1. I couldn't get my lazy arse up to go to the gym yesterday therefore 3 days without training.
2. More importantly, I lost the beard I figured it was time to go when it started looking like this:

I lost a lot of strength because of losing the beard...

Squat
20 x 10
60 x 6
90 x 5
110 x 4
120 x 3
115 x 3 x 5 - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ixD6ImfzwYs

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=daC8Ep9MTNQ

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ih_9XvJhWoQ

100 x 2 deep - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RSciVNvqCSM
100 x 5 parallel - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2VjJ9SGlidM
130 x eccentric x 2 - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TGsEiTZO2UM

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n5C6Tt_6ckw

Press
20 x 10
30 x 5
40 x 5
45 x 3 x 5
45 x 3 x 10secs isometric

Power Clean
40 x 3
50 x 3
60 x 2 x 3
65 x 5 x 3

Dips
BW + 5kg x 3 x 5

Ok I think I need to explain the craziness of my squats today. I knew all along that my squat form was piss-poor, I guess I just needed Sami's post to confirm my fears. I tried to sort it out today Namely depth and knees coming forward at the bottom.
120 was pretty damn hard and I only did a few of those to try to maintain my strength. 115 I did for sets really for the same reason.
I loaded the bar with 100 then did very slow squats to lower than parallel. If I'm honest they felt MUCH better than going above parallel.
I then loaded the bar with 130 and, as slowly as possible and with as wide a stance as I could handle without knees caving in, I lowered down till I felt a stretch in the adductors. Hopefully over time, I will stretch these fuckers and be able to do a good squat.

The press is actually going fairly well but I really need to concentrate on squeezing my glutes to stop stressing my lower back and REALLY need to stop the bending of my wrists on reps. Other than that, they're not too shabby. I did 3 sets of isometric press where I pushed the loaded bar against pins and tried to hold it there for 10. I managed it for 3 sets. I thought I'd try it after reading Bill Starrs article - The Ultimate Strength Exercise. Its a bit early to see if its working so i'll keep doing it for a while to see.

Power Clean felt pretty strong. Last time I did 67.5 but it was kinda awful because I was just reverse curling the bar. I focussed this time and dropped the weight to 60 and my form improved considerably - well... according to my limited knowledge anyway. Then I did my sets at 65 and they were also pretty good. I'll put a vid up next time for a form check.

I also did some Dips. They felt alright and all to good depth. I really think they're helping the bench go up, not so much the press tho. That still sucks.

I finished the workout with 100g peanuts and 2 curries with fish and mince at home. Yummeh but I'll have to eat more...

On a side note, I was mildly amused when someone wanted to work in with me and wanted to do squats at 130kg. Sure enough he was quarter squatting and his form was worse than mine...

BW 82kg

[Sami]

Did you see your profile page?

[Sami]

You should be doing chins now too.

[Qureshi]

Today was actually quite good I guess

Squat
20 x 10
60 x 6
80 x 5
100 x 1
105 x 3 x 5 - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RsEZ97PRSgE
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n9KdEtwrwWc
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RlcUHsd4x3E

Bench Press
20 x 8
40 x 5
50 x 5
55 x 2
65 x 4
65 x 3
62.5 x 5
50 x 2 x 5 - close grip

Deadlift
60 x 5
80 x 5
100 x 5
120 x 3
130 x 2
140 x 1 x 5
155 hold - 20secs
165 hold - 10secs

Ok So my squats were pretty good today. I'm really focussing on keeping knees out, not letting them go forward at the bottom, and going DEEP. I feel I accomplished most of those. I reckon I've still got a lot left in the tank for heavier squats later on. The only thing is, going deeper is SO much more exhausting. I get really tired by about the 3rd rep of each set. I guess when I get consistent depth, I'll try using that bounce at the bottom of each squat.

Bench Press was really crap tbh. I think I warmed up pretty badly and am finding it hard to stay tight all the way through a rep. I'm slightly pissed off that this lift isn't going anywhere so I'm gonna be doing some explosive close grip press ups from now on.

Deadlift was actually great. All the lifts felt good and my back only rounded VERY slightly on the work set. I tried different shoes to deadlift this time and although they are about an inch thick all the way through, they enable me to get really good drive off the floor.
After the sets I did some rack pull holds to develop grip. I was quite happy at how these were easy to lift off the pins - but I guess they are a low weight for rack pulls. In any case grip wont be an issue for a while I think.

I also did 3 sets of 5 kroc rows at 42.5kg. These are starting to get hard now.
Did some bw chins too. Wasn't expecting much considering I'd fried my forearms by now but I managed 6 and then 5 clean reps.

BW - 82.5kg

I recently found out this really good idea for a GOMAD replacement. Just some cheap yoghurt blended in with a can of any fruit. Tastes great. My only minor problem with it is that it has 120g of carbs - pretty much all sugar. But meh, as far as a PWO shake goes, for around £1.20 for 50g protein its not too bad.
Yummeh.

[Sami]

Looking much better. Knees are still sliding forward almost every rep. But I've never seen you squat to that depth consistently, EVER. Nice. Get the knees sorted, and try to keep the bar in a vertical path the entire lift, you're still drifting forward some.

And keep up the chins, they should help your stay tight on the bench.

[Qureshi]

Okay so today I did something way out of the ordinary for me - I woke up at 7:45am to get to the gym and workout before work at Tesco at 1 (for those of you who don't know, Tesco is the supermarket giant equiv of Walmarts here in the UK I guess). It wasn't too bad a workout actually.

Squat
20 x 8
60 x 5
80 x 5
100 x 2
110 x 4 - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NLU2ndVXTFE
110 x 2 x 5 - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VCf9QPizVPQ
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hbdW5TP80iA

Overhead Press
20 x 6
30 x 5
40 x 2 x 3
47.5 x 5 x 3
Isometric hold at low level - 47.5kg x 3 x 10sec

Power Clean
40 x 3
50 x 3
60 x 2 x 3
65 x 6 x 3 - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2aNh5GkJ0x4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NRsiJy-DS50
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RoN88eHkcFM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L5ab2Mz44Pg
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j2MCvLI5gaM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rE_uE-xe7Ns

Dips
BW + 7.5kg

Ok so the squat was pretty hard this time - I think I'm gonna go for one more 5kg jump on this one and pray that it goes well. Form isn't perfect but its not too shoddy. Depth is fixed but knees need to stop moving at the bottom and also I need to avoid knees caving in. My right knee on the medial side started complaining after my 122.5kg squat some time ago but it seems to be getting better. I'd better keep my knees shoved out. I will be furious if I get an injury to say the least.
Oh and the fail on set 1 was because of leaning forward too much, not cos of failure

Overhead Press was actually quite successful this time round. Wrists were less bent and I managed all reps well. I think this was because of doing less reps per set. I tend to tire out after about the 3rd rep usually, so this 5 x 3 is good for me. The isometrics may also be helping as well. I did some to tax the anterior delts today (so the pins were lower). It was good fun!

Power Cleans were quite honestly all over the place today. I am not proud of these at all. I couldn't feel my traps being used almost at all today. I also couldn't get the explosive push at the start of each clean. I figured out that one problem was that I was using smaller 15kg plates so had to bend down more. This I think affected everything. The last 2 sets were better as a result when I changed to 20s.Hopefully I wont be too time-constrained on the power cleans next time I work out. Oh and I stupidly did an extra set without noticing
Oh and those God-DAMNED PTs are taking the PISS now. This is probably the third time the bit at one end of the bar has almost come off after a set of power cleans. It came off once and I almost got smacked in the jaw by the bar with 40kg on the other side. Not cool. All they need to do is SCREW the damn thing on. Clearly too taxing for those idiots. Ill be speaking to the manager the next time it happens .

Dips were not really much of a problem. The last few of the last set were pretty slow but I was exhausted by then. I do however remember dips being easier when I used to do them half a year ago...

Throughout the workout I was sipping some milk and loads of water. As I found out later, MILK WAS A BAD CHOICE. When I got to Tesco to start work, the milk wreaked havoc in my stomach and I was in pain constantly with the fear of crapping my pants and sweating loads. Good times I guess the milk may have gone off by the end of the workout.

BW 82.5kg

Ok I'm beat and I've got fking tesco tomorrow at 10am so I'm out.

[Sami]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L5ab2Mz44Pg

This was my favourite.

And for notation, if you're doing 3 sets of 5 of 110kg, you write it like this: 110kg x 5 x 3. If you're doing 5 sets of 3, you write 110kg x 3 x 5. You multiply the weight by reps, then set. If you just say, 110kg 3x5, then that is assumed to be 3 sets of 5, because you didn't multiply it by 110kg.

This is serious business.

[Sami]

And Tesco is nowhere near the scale of Wal-Mart. Even your big super-Tesco near you, is like a big Krogers or Target or something. They've got nothing on Wal-Mart, nothing.

[Qureshi]

Yesterdays session was actually quite good but I was too exhausted to post it. It was a 4hr long marathon of a session all because of a stupidly long queue for the bench...

Squat
20 x 10
60 x 5
80 x 5
100 x 2
110 x 2
115 - 3 x 5 - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fMdB6ATI_Mk
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YZjYOsJ5cYU
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rBb0XuydFqA

Ab pulldowns
91kg - 15,10,8

Chin ups
BW + 7.5kg - 3 x 5

Kroc rows
45kg - 3 x 5

Deadlift
60 x 5
80 x 5
100 x 3
120 x 3
130 x 2
140 x 1
145 - 1 x 5 - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jEbMtMfTQf0
175 - fail
170 - rack pull and hold - 30secs

Bench Press
20 x 10
40 x 5
50 x 5
55 x 2
60 x 2
65 - 4,3

Squats weren't so bad actually - they are barely parallel though so I'm gonna be doing 115 again - maybe.

Then there was the hour long wait for the bench during which I did some of my accessory stuff.
Kroc rows - in all honesty are getting bloody hard now - nothing like as easy as this woman makes it -
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HjgYHylUJhc
Hot DAYM! my dream woman

Deadlift was actually great - I got great power from the floor - which is usually an issue. I think I owe it to increased grip strength and deeper squats. The only thing is I think my back may be rounding too much for my liking.
Also - during the last rep, I had my first taste of grinding through the lockout - It wasn't a pleasant experience.

Bench Press sucked as usual - Im thinking a reset to 52.5 would do it and I'm gonna pause each rep and then explode up. I'm def gonna check out SS again and give this chapter a good read.

Ramadan is this Thursday so limited food, water and sleep will be an issue. So tomorrows session will be my last fuelled session for a month.

[Qureshi]

And Tesco is nowhere near the scale of Wal-Mart. Even your big super-Tesco near you, is like a big Krogers or Target or something. They've got nothing on Wal-Mart, nothing.

Yes Ok Sami, they may be a smallish company now, but don't come crying to me when Tesco has taken over the world