blazingsunn3's SS training log, a.k.a. Do the Damn Thing

[bhara]

I don't care about the ratios either. But it might be an indicator for need for a form check.

EDIT: Who's Andy? Baker? Didn't see him post.

[blazingsunn3]

Why would your back round on a pull with less weight, when it doesn't on the squat (nearly same back angle)?

My back angle for squats and for deads is not the same at all. My back is nearly flat with proper dead set up because I have very long arms and a short torso. I am wider than I am tall. I already posted a power clean form check and they said my set up is good. It's the same set up as deads. But when the bar is in the proper low bar position on my back for squats, my back angle is such that it keeps the bar path at mid-foot.

Additionally, holding the bar in the proper position for LBBS (squeezing the upper back muscles tight) nearly kills me. I'm sure this is part of my problem with keeping my lats engaged and keeping my upper back flat during deads. This is the probably main reason that squatting heavy before the deads is killing my deads. My lower back stays flat and tight. It's my shoulders that fall and my upper back that rounds. My low back doesn't bother me until the days after deads. And the squats aren't helping that, either.

Maybe because you are too vertical in the squat (puts less load on the lumbar and leaves posterior chain out of it, which doesn't improve your deadlift magically as it should, just swole quads).

I don't think I'm too vertical in the squat. Think about it. Why do you think my lower back is getting so wrecked by the LBBS? Because I AM training the posterior chain. As much as I would love swole quads, my goal is to be strong in everything, not just quads.

Don't post DL's then, but post squats?

I'll post a vid of my squats. Other than a forward lean on the last rep, I think my bar path is pretty good. I honestly don't see anything majorly wrong with my squats.

[bhara]

Hopefully I am wrong.

[blazingsunn3]

2/1/16

Squat: 160... 4,5,5
Dips:Bodyweight+5lbsx5x3
Chins:6,7,6
Power cleans:95x3x5

Notes:
Squats were hard. My knees caved in during reps 4 and 5 in almost all sets. I missed the last rep in set 1. Had some women's health pelvic floor weakness issues that caused me to lose my concentration. I got my head back in the game and finished sets two and three with 5 reps. Got it done but I wasn't happy with my knees caving in. I'll concentrate harder on pushing them out next time.

Dips were great. Grinders. Chins aren't going anywhere. Should they? I'll look it up.

Power cleans were good as well. Posted a form check vid, and other than a slightly early jump, they said they were pretty good. I'll practice pulling a little higher before the jump.

I'm worried that I will stall soon on the squats. My knees and my ability (or lackthereof) to hold the bar in the low bar position with my upper back is leading me in that direction. It's only been two weeks. I shouldn't be stalling yet. I'll see how 165 feels on Wednesday. If form is ugly, I'll go to 2.5lb jumps. Geeze. Feel like I'm coming to a grinding hault.

[blazingsunn3]

I watched my squat vid again. I don't have knee slide. If I used a TUBOW, my knees wouldn't push it over. But how do you know if your knees are too far forward? I concentrate on a vertical bar path on the descent, so I guess my knees just go where they need to to keep the bar over my mid foot. I watched a bunch of squat check vids and Rip's vid on coaching the squat, and some people's shins stay fairly vertical, and some people's shins angle forward towards their toes. If there is no knee slide, this doesn't get addressed in the form checks. When I squat, I try to get the back angle that is in the book, and my shins go forward towards my toes quite a bit in order to achieve this angle. My knees always stay behind my toes, though.

[peez]

my damn shoulders ache. To a lesser degree than Monday, but still ache... same story as before. I don't know where to go from here with my bench. I don't want to try to push through this because the last time I did that, I ended up with moderately debilitating impingement that left me unable to bench for 2 weeks and unable to press or snatch for 10 days. "Ain't nobody got time for that."

Just wanted to comment on this slightly older post ... for the past few months I've had shoulder pain a day or two after benching which started after a significant increase in bench volume and accessory work. Felt like marbles in the joint during benching, and pain later. Based on SSC advice I started 5/3/1 program and did all the warmup sets as specified (something I cut until now to get things done and not get tired too early). A "5" day looks like this : 10@ empty bar. 5@40%. 5@50%. 5@60%. 5@65%. Then the three workset are 5@75%. 5@85%. 5@%90%. Then 3-5 down sets of 5-8 reps@65% - and all percentages are based on 90% of your actual training max.

All this warming up made a huge difference in reducing, almost eliminating discomfort. No pain. Maybe worth trying out.

[bhara]

If you dont have knee slide, then thats something less to worry about, congrats.

I'll leave you alone as I cant help you then.
It might be that you need more pulling volume. So you can try a backoff set or 2, and drop workset to a triple (or keep five and add drop set triples). Or less pulling volume. Remember, stress recovery adaptation.
Good luck.
Sorry if I came off as unfriendly.

[brkriete]

I think many people who have been doing CrossFit or similar training have a much shorter novice LP than those of us who started completely untrained. You're starting this LP with a bodyweight squat and a damn-near 1.5 BW deadlift. It took me a couple months to get to that point (as a fat detrained guy) and it was probably pretty soon after that I switched to an advanced novice progression. One change that I made once I started to run out my novice LP was to move to advanced novice (light squat day between two heavy squat days) and to deadlift first on that day so I was absolutely as fresh as possible.

Given all that I wouldn't worry even a little bit about your squat going past your deadlift at this point in your training. Mine have always been close-ish which I think is partly a function of anatomy (I have stubby little arms and smallish hands for a guy), partly a function of programming (I train squats more often than DLs). I also wouldn't worry much about "muscular endurance" as part of a novice LP. Just get as strong as possible, whether that is with 3s or 5s. That'll make the lighter weights easy to do more reps of when it comes to that.

[Meshuggah]

Hopefully I can obtain enough self discipline to stop stalking you.

Fixed that for you.
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Keep up the good work work blazingsunn3

[blazingsunn3]

I think many people who have been doing CrossFit or similar training have a much shorter novice LP than those of us who started completely untrained. You're starting this LP with a bodyweight squat and a damn-near 1.5 BW deadlift. It took me a couple months to get to that point (as a fat detrained guy) and it was probably pretty soon after that I switched to an advanced novice progression. One change that I made once I started to run out my novice LP was to move to advanced novice (light squat day between two heavy squat days) and to deadlift first on that day so I was absolutely as fresh as possible.

Given all that I wouldn't worry even a little bit about your squat going past your deadlift at this point in your training. Mine have always been close-ish which I think is partly a function of anatomy (I have stubby little arms and smallish hands for a guy), partly a function of programming (I train squats more often than DLs). I also wouldn't worry much about "muscular endurance" as part of a novice LP. Just get as strong as possible, whether that is with 3s or 5s. That'll make the lighter weights easy to do more reps of when it comes to that.

Thank you so much for saying this! I have been stressing over it. I debated for about a week on whether to do LP or just go to an intermediate program. I decided after a ton of research that I probably shouldn't deny myself of any gains associated with LP. But I think you're right. I may reach the end of my LP gains in a few weeks... likely less than that. I'll try advanced novice as long as I can. But I think it's necessary to go there for squats/deadlifts at this point. My lower back has always been such a weak point for me. It only ever felt strong when I trained it weekly with high volume and relatively low weight for a crossfit Festivus wod. So you deadlift first then follow with light lbbs? How many reps of the squats do you do? And roughly what percentage of your heavy work set weight do you use? I need to reread that chapter in the book.

Peez, thanks for the advice!