Yesterday afternoon, the mission was to set a good baseline 1RM for AtG squats. I warmed up quickly to 225, did a couple of reps, and thought that it felt a bit light to serve as a baseline 1RM. So I added ten pounds. But 235 didn't feel much harder, so I added another ten. 245 still felt pretty doable. My knees did buckle a bit however. I had been focusing on that cue of pressing against the outer heel, but it seems like the "knees out" or "spread the floor" cue works a little better for me.
Anyway, I did something a little crazy and jumped up 30 pounds, to 275, taking off the little iron plates and adding my two 25-pound grip plates. Once again, I needed some obnoxious white boy music to set the mood for a new PR, so I put on my Green Day Pandora station once more. Some band I had never heard of starting blasting in with teenage angst. . . . Um, OK, not exactly what I wanted, but it'll serve the purpose.
When I unracked, the bar felt pretty frickin' heavy, and dug into my back. I haven't been using my squat pad for the last several months, in order to get a better feel for bar position, but now that that's more or less resolved, maybe I should go back to using it? After just a few weeks of ass-to-grass squatting I trusted myself enough to take the plunge, but of course I had my carriage bolts in place too, to act as safety clips if I couldn't make it back up. Well, I did almost stall at the sticking point, and my form got a little off, but I made it back up, really pulling down hard on the bar. Whew! So that's my new 1RM standard for the AtG squat now--275--with 225 and 185 figuring to be my back-off or work sets. At 225 I did two sets of doubles, then at 185 I did one set of 4 and one set of 3. I felt like I had a couple more sets of 3 in me, but remembering how sore I got from Monday's DL fest, I stopped there to see how my body would react the next day.
Well, I'm not too sore, mostly in the quads, which leads me to believe that technique is still a limiting factor. Although yesterday's 275 felt like the absolute limit, I might have another 10-30 pounds in me at my current strength levels once I hone my technique a bit more. Learning how to utilize the stretch reflex and gaining more confidence in the AtG style are probably the two biggest factors. But I'm starting to wonder if AtG squatting is really harder than breaking parallel. It almost feels easier to start completely at "the bottom of the hole." Thoughts?
From there I moved on to my bench. My left shoulder had been aggravated a bit by Monday's DL and Pull workout, in kind of a new way, with the pain sort of running down towards my triceps and shoulder blade. Usually its more in the front and on the side. I'm wondering if I tore a tendon a bit five years ago while attempting that ungraded upright row with my cement and paint bucket barbell in Mozambique, and then it healed leaving a little scar tissue that's interfering with things. Otherwise, it's hard to explain how it keeps moving around. It's like the muscles in and around the shoulder joint are trying to work around the weakness. In any case, doing more stretching and mobility throughout the day is really helping to manage the problem.
So, taking a cautious approach, I just did 3x5 sets across at 185. Having shot my wad concentrating on squat technique, I forgot to pay attention to my lat tenseness while benching. One thing though, I found with my independent bench that perhaps I had been placing it too far forward. I moved it back into the rack a bit more so that I unracked the weight over the lower part of my sternum. This angle felt more comfortable for my shoulder.
I didn't have time for the overhead press, but I had already been thinking about decoupling the two presses anyway. So I'll either do the OH press today with my rows and chinups, or put them off until next week.
If I really start pushing the squats, I might have to rethink my weekly routine yet again. Maybe something like this:
Mon
DL, BB rows, Chinups
Wed
Squat, Bench, Dips
Fri
DB & Cable rows, Russian Twist, OH press, Chinups.
This would get back to the idea of blowing off the power cleans while I focus on just developing brute strength. Power cleans and some of the plyometric stuff could be added in latter, once I start to plateau on the big lifts.
It would make the most sense to move the squats to Friday I guess, to space out the DLs and Squats more, but then it's kind of hard to figure out what to couple with the bench on Wednesday. Maybe more rows? That gets to be a heavy upper body day, and I don't know if my shoulder could take it. It didn't like it a week or two ago when I tried it.
Ha don't blame me you were the one that made me start thinking about it. I think we should shift the focus to percent of body weight mainly because at my current weight 90kgs (200lbs) I think 200kgs (440lbs) is doable but If I drop down to 85kgs (185lbs) I am not sure if this will be true?
So maybe:
2.0 - 2.25 x BW deadlift (400-450lbs)
1.75 x BW Squat (350lbs) this one will be tough
1.5 x BW Bench (300lbs)
1 x BW Press (200lbs) not sure this one is possible?
Man thinking about a 3 plate bench would be awesome, I have been there once but again I suspect at less 200lbs I couldn't do it. I feel pretty good too with running, biking swimming at 200 so it seems to be a good weight.
200lbs is probably what my lean bodyweight should be too. Could even be 190-195. That's what it was back in my karate days, when I was super fit, but I'm probably stronger now, so 200 might be about right. I'm getting a little frustrated that the weight hasn't really started coming off now that I'm starting to run more consistently. Might be time to consider dietary possibilities more serious, but I've been enjoying doing my st on nearly full stomachs, which means eating a lot during the day.
In any case, I'll probably stick to the Olympic plate standards for my main lifts. It has the most visual appeal for me. I have two 5-pound plates and four 10-pound Oly plates, to increase or decrease in 10-pound increments between the grip plate dictated increments, but they're normal, small iron ones. The rubber grip plates are kinda out-sized and demand attention. Even my wife, who couldn't care less about weights, finds it impressive when there's three of those big damn plates on either side of the bar. So the standards are
455, 405, 365, 315, 275, 225, 185, 135, 95
Those odd numbers are starting to feel familiar now, almost two months since I bought the plates.
So yeah 1100lbs. total with that I might do a PL meet just to see what they are like. And I don't know maybe by the end of next year for a time frame?
Dammit Abide, now you're just like Barefoot Dama, getting me thinking about competing. But you're right, it would be cool to see what a PL meet is like. End of next year seems like it might be a doable time frame. I'm gaining more confidence that my squat will never be too far behind my deadlift, so if I can get up to 405 deadlift, then a 355-65 squat should be possible. And if I can get up to a 455 DL, then who knows, may be squat could begin to approach 400. Right now the difference is 80 pounds, but I'm just beginning to take the squat seriously, so that gap might close more to 50-60 pounds.
There is a definite difference when I do a PL style bench vs a body building style bench. What I have noticed is a PL style bench is great for 1-3 reps but I get fatigued fast so if I am going to do more that 3 reps I wil almost always do more of a BB style bench with no arch and minor lat engagement.
There are a million cues but usually what I do is lay down, bring my feet in towards my head, past my knees and usually up on my toes to make sure my but stays on the bench, but I have a good arch in my back and then pull my shoulder blades together as tight as I can. I unrack breathe in and hold it and bench, i tend to eshale before I get the bar back up and locked out.
There is stuff like bring the weight down, break the bar etc.. but none of that has really worked for me. The Rip grip point is ok too.
Yah, I forgot to think about bench press cues yesterday. Thanks for giving me a few other things to think about. I was always taught that it's cheating to lift your back, so it would be hard to overcome that preconception. But it's definitely worth thinking about. The bench press has always been the centerpiece of my strength training, the one lift I took seriously, so I've kind of taken it for granted, but now that I've spent so much time thinking through the proper technique for other lifts, I need to come back to the bench and give it serious consideration too.
About your rep schemes, how about this idea from this article
http://www.t-nation.com/free_online_article/most_recent/9_great_ideas_to_improve_your_workouts. You know how much I like Dan John and I think this is one of his best articles.
3. Embrace "Ish"
Steve Ledbetter has an idea that really works well with competitive athletes who aren't competing in the Iron Game. He simply says "ish."
The best example of "ish" is John Powell's approach to the 5 x 5. Each year, he'd set a goal of doing a weight for 5 sets of 5. If he chose 365 as his target weight, he'd plop down on the bench once a week and test himself.
Workout One
365 for 4
365 for 3
365 for 1
365 for 1
365 for 1
He'd then add up the total reps of the workout (10 in this case). As the weeks and months progressed, he'd slowly work up into the teens, and then the low twenties. With a serious enough weight, it could take months to build up to the full 25 reps of a 5 x 5 workout. The upside of this workout may not be obvious, but it allows you to use heavy weights and slowly, steadily, build up the volume. Progress in life and the weightroom is as "ishy" as I can imagine.
One thing to remember upper body work for me tends to require more volume for progress than lower body, so maybe Max to back off sets is the best idea?
There are several good ideas in there, some of which I already practice. Over all, I'm pretty much an "instinctive" lifter. Especially now with a simplified lifting program, it's pretty easy to adjust to daily fluctuations in motivation and energy and left shoulder gimpiness. Still, it all basically comes down to hitting the 1RM most workouts and then, for a heavier workout, descending in small increments before hitting the worksets, or, for lighter workouts, dropping 40-50 pounds right away and heading straight into the worksets. The number of worksets is usually 2-3, and the reps in each are usually 3-5. I dunno, I don't mean to be closed-minded, but this approach just seems to work for me. I should probably mix in a few more workouts with a higher volume of reps though. I'm pretty sure that would provide a boost. Like, maybe next Monday, do some 3x3 worksets at 315 and then 3x5 worksets at 275, and forgo the 1RM altogether.
Here's a quote in the comments section:
"Honestly, an "ish" workout done purely instinctively would be tough to record in the log, but might be perfect long term..."
That pretty much sums it up for me. Who cares about a frickin' log? All that counts is the 1RM you can do right now.