Decent squat day. The methodical approach to squat 5s appears to be working so far, and diet has not seemed to affect it too much. With the decrease in weight for a better parallel, I have determined to stick to the numbers as tight as possible with a 10lb increase each session.
So far so good.
Speaking of diet, as mentioned, I am off the Carb Backloading and looks like as long as I keep it at or around 3,000 kCals/day with higher amounts of protein (neighborhood of 300g/day), the weight will come off and the lifts will keep going up.
SWEEEEEEEEEEEET SPOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOT...
Listen to this while you read, eh
Throw in some HIIT and either the weight will come off faster or the calories can be upped in support of recovery. More developments as they come.
Anyhoo, back to the sesh. Here's what occurred:
- Squat - 2x5xbar, 2x5x145lbs, 5x195lbs, 5x235lbs, 5x285lbs, 5x345lbs
- Sumo deathlifts - 5x135lbs, 5x225lbs, 5x275lbs, 5x315lbs
- Lat pull down, wide handle, paused - 3x10x100lbs
- Cable crunches, paused - 3x10x120lbs
The lesson from this sesh is ALWAYS GET VIDEO. While I, admittedly, don't want to (nor do I have time to) get video of every damn movement and then edit them down to one nice little 5-10min vid for each training session, I really wanted to have video of the last set here to check parallel. Spotters said they were good, but we all know how that can go. I was also pausing everything but the last heavy set of skeewattles at the bottom, so I am sure those were helping to get the hip loosened up and activate consciously at the bottom.
C'est la vie.
On to deathlifts, the second instance in the sesh where I would love to have just had a camera rolling. It kind of all started with this- my pretty man love gym bro home slice Jim missing his lock out:
Part of this is just proprioception- he completed the lift with his hips and knees both slacked, but since he was upright, he felt like he was locked out. The issue he really got into was essentially that he "completes" the lift largely with his back- knees lock out early and the back takes over. With the back upright and legs locked out early, there's not much of anywhere for the hips to go- you would literally have to reset the back to get the hips back in a position to fire and lock in, which would (1) be a red light in a meet, and (2) open yourself up for injury.
Made a few small corrections and here he gets the lock out, if only just:
You can see where he has to pull back to try to fire his hips in and get the legs locked. He gets it without really hitching or lowering the bar, he just has to crank back pretty hard to get his hips under him. Obviously not ideal and there are still tweaks to be made to the lift, but at least I wouldn't red light the lift.
So that led to some discussion about getting into better position, getting the slack out of the bar, etc. Team lifter (with his elite total, may I add), military dude, and all around good guy Brian shared some of his work in this area with us, which got me getting to the bar and keeping the back tight a little better, methinks.
Again, wish I had a camera rolling during this whole discussion, as it really was a good bit of info, the idea being to try to alleviate the setting/arch of the upper back while maintaining or improving tension in the hips. The long and short of it is that you would set your feet to the bar as normal, start the external rotation in the hip, then take your standard grip- one hand at a time- and with your first hand you increase your foot/leg "spread" on that side, pull the slack out with the one set hand with your upper back, then do the same with your other hand/leg while maintaining the tension and set on your other side.
I only got to give it a few goes with this method as I didn't hit that many sets overall in the sesh- not nearly as many technique singles as some previous- but I noted a definite improvement in bar tension and back set. I need to play with the technique some more to get the cues locked in and properly tailored for me
because I, too, am a unique and beautiful snowflake
but I like it so far. Will try to get some video rundown for better demonstration next time around.
That's about it for that sesh. On Sunday I got out the ol' (but new) medicine ball and took it outside for some work while I was getting the grill going for some Mamas Day burgers and chickens.
Need to up the conditioning and had bought the ball last year with an aim to do so, but as is so easy to do, I never got it together to put this thing to good use. The excuse I use with myself is that I didn't have a good surface to slam it on (raw concrete can really tear one of these up), but all that apparently needed to happen was to grab a towel. Took it outside, folded up one of our older towels that looks to be about ready for the linen closet in the sky, and gave it a few rounds of 30 or so slams, so call it 50-60 slams in total. Checked all seams, etc, and so far so good. I was a bit worried about it as I have busted a Dynamex/Elite ball with less, so looks like this one should be good for a minute.
Yay for HIIT!
In closing, I feel it would be remiss if I didn't go ahead and say it, though it be the day following, but happy Mothers Day to all the moms out there! As for mine, well, I wouldn't be here without her, obviously, and I know she worked hard and did a great job raising me and Meine Brüder.
Hippie mom! pic courtesy of Kurteous
As to my wife, the mother of our daughter, in short I love her more than I could ever say and she busts her bum to make sure we are taken care of and helps to make our home more than a house and our family what it is and what it will be. I love them both dearly.
Very serious Mothers Day lunch pic
Go forth and destroy.
And by destroy I mean love someone tenderly.
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