Unleashing The Beast Within

[miaou]

Power Cleans
70/80/90/90 x 2
80 x 5

Squats (low-bar)
130/150/170 x 1
140 x 2 x 4

Good Mornings
80 x 10 x 3

Seated Single-leg Leg Curls
25 x 15 x 3

Standing Single-leg Calf Raises
BW x 15 x 3

Seated DB Press
17.5 x 10 x 4

Face Pulls
70/65/65 x 10

Seated Cable Rows
40 x 13/13/15/15

Ab-wheel Rollouts
20 x 15 x 3

DB Curls
15 x 10 x 3


One of those days where I was sluggish and tired, which makes sense considering the training sessions of the last several days so I'm not bummed about it. Still, since tomorrow is going to be a mandatory day off (dude to the gym being closed), stayed with it and did whatever work I could.

Couldn't get my hips to pop on the power cleans once I put 90 on the bar. I did 5 reps with 80 afterwards mostly out of frustration. After that 80x5, whatever energy I had left disappeared. Squats were very sluggish, inadvertently yawned a couple of times right before getting under the bar, had a harder time than usual walking the weight out, 170 was harder than 180 was on Thursday. Took it easy with everything else. Included some light upper body assistance, since it's going to be three days between Saturday's upper body work and the next upper body session on Wednesday. Bicep tendons are slightly inflamed from yesterday's heavybag work.


BW this morning = 93.0 kg.

 

[CRZA]

You plan on doing kickboxing weekly?
Good work, lots of volume

 

[miaou]

Thanks. It's not that much volume. It's probably just the inclusion of the light/half-assed upper-body work that makes it look a lot of stuff.

If I can fit kick-boxing in, and if I can find some way for it not to aggravate my shoulder, I'd like to do that. We will see.

 

[miaou]

Box Jumps (28" box)
BW x 3 x 5

Power Snatches
50/60 x 2
65 x 1+F/F+F/F+F
55/60/62.5 x 2

SOHP
56 x 4 x 4

Paused Bench (w/ supermini band)
60 x 3 x 6

Chin-ups
BW x 11/11/10/10

DB Lateral Raises
12.5 x 10 x 3

Incline DB Flies
12.5 x 12 x 3

Band Pullaparts
MB x 15 x 3

+ a few short sprints a couple of hours before the rest of the workout


In the box jumps, I was landing at an almost fully standing position, so I suppose this means my standing vertical right now is almost 28". It also means my vertical sucks giant @@'s, but I hope there is room for improvement.

In the power snatch, I had never tried snatching more than 60kg before, so I'm not that disappointed about so many fails. The first 65 rep didn't feel that hard, but it seemed I couldn't get the same explosiveness on any of the next 5 reps that I failed. Dropping back down to 55 it felt like nothing, and even 62.5 didn't feel particularly hard. It just seems that somewhere a bit over 60 kg is the point where my speed/explosiveness breaks down. This happens to coincide with the speed breakdown point of my DE box squats, where everything up to 60 has solid speed and when I go from 60 to 67.5 there is a significant speed decrease. I'm curious to see whether, if I can get my squat speed to improve, my snatches will also benefit to a similar degree.

SOHP was easy and felt like I didn't do enough work. I'm curious to see how the 72.5 singles will feel in a few days.

This is the first time I tried using a supermini band for bench pressing (band wrapped on the bar collars and under the bench) and it almost felt likee a different lift. I didn't feel that comfortable with how that felt, I think I'll stick to just using the miniband for now.

 

[TeddyRoosevelt]

Darling,

I wish you a healthy and successful year of training as well. I am excited to see what a reasonably un-injured Meow can accomplish.

 

[MIDMOBOX]

In America it snows. We have things called snowball fights. They are excellent cardio

 

[miaou]

^ in the absence of snow in my parts, I could think of other ways I could work my cardio along with that lady.

Darling,

I wish you a healthy and successful year of training as well. I am excited to see what a reasonably un-injured Meow can accomplish.

Thanks, babe!

 

[miaou]

...at the S&C place:

Sprints
5/7.5/10 x 2

Seated Box Jumps (37" box)
BW x 3 x 3

Power Cleans
70/80/90/92.5 x 2

Squats (low-bar)
150/170/180 x 1
155 x 3/3/5
100 x 10

Good Mornings
100/105/100 x 10


...at the commercial gym:

Seated Single-leg Leg Curls
35 x 10 x 3

Standing Single-leg Calf Raises
BW x 13 x 3

Ab-wheel Rollouts
40 x 10 x 3

BB Shrugs (hook grip)
160 x 8/10/10/10


First 90 power clean rep was ok, second was meh. Both reps at 92.5 were pretty horrible.

180 squat felt fine, had more in the tank. My current lower-body programming, after December 1st's meet and especially after the lower back injury, is all over the place (I'm basically just winging it). I'm enjoying this type of do-whatever-you-feel-like freedom, but I can also see how not having a coherent plan to follow is counter-productive. I should probably get at least a general notion of how I'm planning to work up to 190 in the next few weeks.

Lower-back is officially fine; heavy full-ROM good mornings don't hurt.

My right achilles tendon is sore, which is pretty unexpected. There was some low-level soreness over the past few days that I ignored, but today it was pretty noticeable (could feel it when descending from the box, in squats when going in the hole and during calf raises) and I can even feel it when going down stairs. I've never had any issues with the achilles tendons nor can I think of what may have caused this (maybe being on my toes a whole lot while kick-boxing the other day?), but I guess I'll have to keep an eye on it and scale stuff like jumps and sprints down if I have to.

 

[CRZA]

Good training man. Think you got 190 in you soon?

 

[miaou]

^ Thanks, brosef.

I'm at a point where it seems I have 180+ any decent day of the week (based on how 180 felt I'm fairly certain I could grind 185 today, and that was after sprints/jumps/cleans and 3 hours of coaching people). I'd like to think that with a couple of weeks of decent programming and a mini-peaking I should be able to get 190. We will see.

 

[miaou]

...at the S&C place:

Power Snatches
50/55/60 x 2
62.5 x 1+F x 2

SOHP
65 x 2 x 7

Face Pulls
38/36/36/33 x 10 x 4

Paused Bench
80 x 3 x 5

TRX Inverted Rows
BW x 12 x 3

Cable Int./Ext. Shoulder Rotations
smth x 12 x 3


Did 2 sets of power snatches at 62.5. First reps were fine, second reps were not. The reps up to 60 were all decent.

65 felt heavy for SOHP. There was no problem doing the prescribed reps, but the were pretty slow/heavy.

I think this is the first time I do 80 on bench since last winter (when I'd worked up to 100-105 before discontinuing due to shoulder pain). Shoulders felt fine.


BW this morning = 92.8 kg.

 

[miaou]

Box Jumps (37" box)
BW x 3 x 3

Power Cleans
80 x 2/1+F/2

DE Box Squats (w/ supermini bands)
75 x 3 x 6


...a few hours later:

Kick Boxing
A bunch of shadowfighting drills. Total time ~30 mins. All performed in the southpaw stance to take some stress off the right achilles tendon.


Not a good day. Did not have enough sleep for a third day in a row (staying up very late studying for school because I was a lazy ass during xmas week). Box jumps where noticeably worse than usual, 80kg power cleans were shit (I believe that, until today, I had never lost a power clean rep on anything up to 92.5). I need to learn to manage days like this in a better way; in retrospect, for the power cleans, I should've simply stayed with 70kg and put in some decent reps there, even if that is 20+ kg lower than my best double.

 

[miaou]

Deadlifts
100 x 5
90 x 3 x 6


Was supposed to be a full rest day, but since I did go to the gym for a PT session I did some light DL work that I would normally do yesterday but had no time for it.


BW this morning = 92.7 kg.

 

[miaou]

...at the S&C place

Power Snatches
50/55 x 3
60 x 2
65 x 1/1/F+1/1/1/1
55 x 3

SOHP
67.5 x 1
67.5 x 1
72.5 x F
72.5 x 1
72.5 x 1
70 x 1
72.5 x 1
72.5 x 1

Chin-ups
BW x 11 x 4

Paused Bench
60/70/70/77.5 x 3

DB Lateral Raises
10/12.5/12.5 x 10

Incline DB Flies
12.5 x 12 x 3

Band Pullaparts
MB x 10 x 3


5 hours sleep yesterday. Been running on a sleep deficit a bunch of days in a row now. I expect this is going to be a hard week with school, work, training, and extra studying.

Some of the power snatch reps were unexpectedly good.

Fucked up with the SOHP. Was supposed to do 72.5 for 4 singles, which seems extremely easy to fuck up. I accidentally misloaded the bar with 67.5 and it actually took me 2 reps to realize (like the typical dumbass that I am, after the first single I thought to myself "not bad, not bad, I'm getting stronger", but after the second single I realized something must be wrong). Loaded the bar with 72.5 and the first rep felt too heavy to do without exhausting myself so I let that one go without a fight. Did the next two. All the while, I was sharing the 1.25 plates with another dude (only one pair of 1.25s in the gym) and for the next rep I forgot to add them and did that with 70 on the bar (again, like the typical dumbass that I am I thought to myself "not bad, not bad, my speed is getting better as I do more reps"). Realized how retarded I am and did 2 more reps with 72.5. I ended up doing 8 total reps when it was supposed to be 4. Last 72.5 single was a grind. Bleh.

Bench remains pain-free and the left elbow (that had been giving me pain for a bunch of weeks) hasn't hurt for a number of days now.

 

[miaou]

...at the S&C place:

Power Cleans
80/85/90/90/85/87.5/87.5/90/95/95


...45 minutes later, at the commercial gym:

Squats (low-bar)
140/160 x 1
175 x 2
160 x 2 x 3
130 x 2 x 3

Good Mornings
110 x 6 x 3

Seated Single-leg Leg Curls
35 x 10 x 3

Standing Single-leg Calf Raises
BW x 15 x 3

Ab-wheel Rollouts
47.5 x 6
47.5 x 6
47.5 x 6 + 30 x 6 + 20 x 6 + BW x 6

BB Shrugs
170 x 8 x 3 (hook grip)
140 x 12 (DOH grip)


Started the training session felling pretty tired (6.5 hours sleep, 5 hours of non-stop coaching right before training).

Power cleans were meh. I couldn't get the explosiveness I wanted. I decided to try and use my shitty cellphone to record these in order to see what my form looks like. Apart from lacking explosiveness it seems to me I am slow to get under the bar and to whip the elbows.

Squats were ok. Form was decent but not 100% dialed in (I attribute that to being tired, physically and mentally). The second rep at 175 could be a bit faster, but overall speed was not that bad.


Here are form checks for the last 4 power clean attempts (87.5, 90, 95, 95) and depth check for squats (175x2):

 

[eastNYgoon138]

Cleans looked good, elbows can definitely move faster. I don't know how I feel about those shorts though...

What are your thoughts about the "bamboo bar"? Is it an effective re had/pre hab tool or is it a bogus concept? I tried it with a normal barbell today. Definitely felt real wobbly. I wanna know if it's worth dropping $300 on the real thang.

 

[JauntyAngle]

I don't know how I feel about those shorts though....

Confused, maybe?

 

[MIDMOBOX]

Shirt has sleeves


Gym fashion fail without even considering the rest of the ensemble

 

[CRZA]

Nice squatting. Your elbow turning speed needs some work on cleans, though.

 

[miaou]

Cleans looked good, elbows can definitely move faster. I don't know how I feel about those shorts though...

What are your thoughts about the "bamboo bar"? Is it an effective re had/pre hab tool or is it a bogus concept? I tried it with a normal barbell today. Definitely felt real wobbly. I wanna know if it's worth dropping $300 on the real thang.

Thanks. Those are normal shorts, I just roll the legs up whenever I do power cleans, because I used to tear my shorts all the time when the bar touches on my thighs.

Honestly, I don't have an opinion. I haven't tried it, and there certainly aren't any studies on its efficacy. I can't rule out the possibility that it might help, but can't say that it will, either. I also can't say if using the actual "bamboo bar" would be in any way "superior" to just doing your own setup with a normal barbell. To me, $300 certainly sounds too much to pay for such an iffy concept, but I guess it also comes down to how much trust you put in the word of people who promote it. I'm pretty sure I've seen KabukiWarrior (Chris Duffin) use the barbell + kettlebells suspended from minibands thing in his workout videos, maybe you could drop by his log and ask him about it.

Are you considering trying it to see if it helps your shoulders be able to handle benching, or is it something else?

Confused, maybe?

Without a doubt.

Shirt has sleeves

Gym fashion fail without even considering the rest of the ensemble

I'm a walking fashion failure when I work out!

Nice squatting. Your elbow turning speed needs some work on cleans, though.

Thanks, crza.

Yeah, it definitely does.