Less weak than last week

[rkjohns1]

Ha! Your light squat is what I was struggling with this morning during my work sets!

Good luck on this deadlift run-up. What is the effective heel height of your weightlifting shoes? Are the shoes you have on order marketed as deadlift shoes or are they just flat?

[David Hooper]

Ha! Your light squat is what I was struggling with this morning during my work sets!

Good luck on this deadlift run-up. What is the effective heel height of your weightlifting shoes? Are the shoes you have on order marketed as deadlift shoes or are they just flat?

I started adding light squat days somewhere around 255-275 lbs. I'd do my deadlifts on light squat days and it really helped to have the reduction in fatigue. I just keep them around 70% of my heavy days and it seems to work well. It's heavy enough I have to focus and do them right, but not so heavy that I am still winded by the time I'm warming up the next lift.

My weightlifting shoes have a 3/4" heel, but I don't know if that's the true thickness or just the heel-to-toe drop. The deadlifting shoes are by Sabo. They're 5 mm in the sole, true thickness. I got the "Pro" ones because I hate cramped toe boxes but I would have been perfectly happy with the normal ones otherwise. I'm sure I'll comment on them once I try them out.

[David Hooper]

22 October 2021
Weight - 213
Squat - 385x5, 355x5x2/7
Press - 130x3x5/5
Power Clean - 125x3x5/4

The squats felt pretty solid, other than being really heavy. I feel comfortable with form and depth but I'll likely repeat again on Monday and move up on Friday. 5 lb/week seems to be a solid pace for me right now. Also, now that my squat is equal to my deadlift, I'm really feeling the heavy squats in my lower back, so I don't think I want the squats too far ahead.

Press went well again. I do like that I can hold my breath all the way through a set of 3, from unracking to racking. Recording rest times is helpful as I really don't know what an efficient time is. 5 minutes seemed to be alright so I'll probably stick with that. The next couple weeks should let me know if this new programming is helping out.

Today was my first legitimate work day on power cleans since coaching two weeks ago. I kept the weight just a touch conservative to give me more time to learn the right habits and unlearn the bad ones. I think I'll use 2.5 lb jumps for a while to keep the increase manageable and continue re-programming my brain.

Chins and bench tomorrow.

[David Hooper]

23 October 2021
Bench - 187.5x3x5/5
Chin - 9,8,7/5
Elliptical - 30 minutes at heart rate 120-130 BPM

The first legitimately successful PR increase in bench press weight since ::checks log:: ...August 18. Wow. I knew I'd been treading water but I didn't realize it had been over two months. In happier news, lowering the hooks one setting worked just fine. Overall, the sets all went well. It was starting to get slower in the fifth set, but not grindy, so I am cautiously optimistic that I may be on track for a bit.

Chins felt slow today. I actually ended up resting closer to 6-7 minutes before the last set due to some chatting with other gym-goers. That's probably why the final set got one more than last week when the other sets stayed the same.

I normally don't include any non-strength work in this log, but figured why not. A while back, Matt Reynolds and Stef Bradford wrote an article on the Prowler and conditioning. In it, they mention sustaining the heart rate between 120-130 BPM for 20-40 minutes as a way to accelerate the healing and recovery process. I've found that easy to do with an elliptical that has the handgrip heart rate monitors. It does seem to help. I am somewhat beat up at the moment; sore left elbow, shoulder, and hip, and sore right hamstring.

[David Hooper]

25 October 2021
Weight - 212
Squat - 315x5x5/5
Strict Press - 120x5x5/5
Snatch - 87.5x3x5/4
Banded Chins - (BW-30) 15,15,11/5

Original plan was to repeat 385 on squats, but I have the start of elbow tendonitis so decided to diagnose what I was doing wrong. I believe I'm letting the bar slide back into my hands after finishing heavy sets, while walking it back to the hooks. I could notice that at 315, and the tendency got worse as I did more sets. For some goofy reason, I ended up making it a volume day.

The strict press went very well. Holding my breath throughout a set allows me to maintain tightness and form, which makes the set much easier.

The blue book notes that power snatches are better done as doubles. I'm not quite to where that's going to be necessary but I'll switch as soon as it's needed. For now, I'm still light enough that I'm hardly squatting at all to catch it. I'm much more comfortable with these than cleans, thanks to getting coaching at the start rather than building bad habits first.

I capped the first set of chins at 15 to see how the next sets would go. I'm honestly getting really close to 15x3 on banded chins so I'm hoping I can start switching to weighted chins soon. I'm really tempted to add weight to the banded chins. It sounds counterproductive but would increase the strength work at the top while still getting benefit of the band at the bottom.

[rkjohns1]

Glad to hear you're enjoying the power snatches. I really like the Olympic lifts. They were my favorite part of Crossfit, not that I excelled at them, but they are fun.

I mentioned yesterday that I was thinking about changing up my pulling routine. After debating it more, I think I'm just going to stick with the Program 1D as outlined in BBRx. Yesterday's deadlift was the first in 10 days due to the scheduling of Program 1C (if deadlift falls on a Friday, the next deadlift is the Monday 10 days later...) This is probably why it felt foreign. Program 1D programs the deadlift once a week, and power clean once every two weeks. This should suffice.

[David Hooper]

27 October 2021
Weight - 211
Light squat - 275x5x2|3
Bench - 170x5x5|5
Deadlift - 405x5|5 (!)

I'm switching my rest notation from slash ("/") to pipe ("|"). I realized that "275x5x2/3" looks like I only made two out of three planned sets rather than making two sets with a 3 minute rest.

I shortened the rest on the light squat because I felt ready and didn't want to waste time. It's just two sets, so no big deal. I also took my own advice; after the final rep was completed, I squatted down one last time, paused, and lowered it to the rails. It's been a while since I've done that and I do like to remember how it feels.

Bench went fine. I honestly felt like I had a 6th set in me.

I clearly cannot be trusted with numbers. I had planned on 395 for deadlifts. My final warmup was a single at 365. After that, I put two 10s on each side and somehow thought that added 30 lb. I didn't even realize it until I was changing back to normal clothes and figuring out what next week would look like. I think that's when the blood finally reached the logic and reasoning centers in my brain. But hey, 405 for 5!

My new deadlift shoes were in, so I used them today. That half inch makes a huge difference in the feel of the whole thing, though it doesn't change the fact that it's still a very heavy lift. It will take me a while to get used to the feel of the new shoes. Because the soles are so thin, they feel soft when walking around, even though there's absolutely no 'squish' to them. Even during the work set, I felt myself trying to lift my heels up a bit (to approximate the old position) and had to really focus on midfoot balance. It's so much easier for me to set my back and not drop my hips with deadlift shoes, though. I think I'm going to be glad I bought them in the long run.

[rkjohns1]

Nice surprise with the deadlift, congratulations! Glad to hear the first try with the new shoes was positive.

[Bill Anders]

Great news on that deadlift, Hooper! Perhaps it helped, too, thinking that you were pulling lighter without the added stress of knowing that it's a new plate. Now you can load that next pair of 45s and know that you've already been there.

[David Hooper]

Thanks, both!

It definitely helped to not realize it was 405. I really was psyching myself out on that plate. Now I can begin the long, slow climb to plate #5. :-D