Training Sesh 4/8/14: More B, more sumo work, more misbehave, more metal

So, yeah. Sumo deathlifts. Starting to really get a love/hate thing going with these things.

Ever feel like you're beating your head against a wall, but it doesn't necessarily hurt so much as you wonder why you're doing it? But then, say, you start beating the back of your head against the wall and it makes more sense, like if you just keep beating the front of your head against the wall, then beating the back of your head against the wall will be awesome?

No?

That's what sumo deadlift is to me right now.

Mechanically, it seems that I would be more for sumo- short legs, long torso, short arms. Spread em, get more vertical, yank it, right?

That would be awesome if my hips weren't those of a 60 year old man.

Or just a fat, razy Amurrican.

Thank you once again, Google image search

But you know what? That's exactly why I need to do them. Recalling from the cycle leading up to my meet with the team, we VERY frequently pulled in "opposite stance", ie, my competition pull was conventional so I did most of my pulls, especially in the first to stages of the cycle, in sumo stance, and my conventional went up at least 30lbs, if not more, in the 12 weeks of meet training.

Not too shabby.

So we stay the course. Progress is continual, so we continue progressing. Simple as that.

Here's what occurred:

• Foam roll, stretch, warm up- 15min
• Deathlift sumoness (all reps reset)- 5x135lbs,  5x185lbs, 5x225lbs, 5x275lbs, 5x315lbs, 3x1x365lbs
• Late pulldown, wide handle, paused- 3x10x110lbs
• Reverse hyper- 3x10x90lbs

I honestly wasn't sure I was going to get those last few- trying to recall if I had ever previously pulled 365 sumo- but they came up.  

See?

They were all pretty much like this one. Overall the pulls felt decent, if not slow, but game taping it revealed a few things, as it always does. 

• I was actually a little surprised at the speed off the floor. Came off the floor faster than I thought, but you can see where I hit the brick wall of almost complete leg extension early and my back takes over until the hips and knees lock out.
• To that point, while I did not lock my legs out prematurely, per se, they were on the way there early. Looks like it was (a) slack out with legs (b) pull with legs/back (c) transfer to back (d) lock legs/hips/back. 
• Set up looked decent, but probably needed to set hips back/chest up a little more on set up/slack pull. This is evident when the bar comes completely free from the ground and I transition to the "back pull", the bar floats out front for a split second before I adjust and get more vertical.

Looks like what needs to happen, from set up, is

1. Set up as shown, but with hips set a little more back and chest higher
2. Slack out of bar more by pulling chest up / pull shoulders back back / sit back. This should help to
3. Drive through heels and extend hips with a more vertical back
4. Back staying decently flat, lock out is good

Got a good bit of mental reinforcement with this as I pulled it once, took a breather, set back up to pull again, and couldn't budge it- I knew from the get go on that pull that I was out of position and did not attempt the pull. Stepped back, reassessed, set back up and pulled again.

Work to do, work to do.

While the above didn't happen last night after the training sesh, that's what happened after the training sesh. SOMEONE has started getting uppity if daddy is out at the gym too late. Long story short, she got in troooooooooooooouuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuble.

She got one of these from me for an awkward amount of time.

But I think we got it sorted out. To help combat this, I may be changing up the lifting schedule a little bit- probably coming home first, hanging out and doing dinner, then going to the jamesnasium a little later.

We shall see.

And this is coming soon.  Some of the gym bros and I are going to check out the ol' Wayne Static on tour. Should be fun times.

Assuming SOMEONE can behave.

Porter.

Go forth and destroy.