Hi everyone, and thanks for looking.
After years of weight training without any real direction, I figure that the best thing for me to do would be to start competing. I did well at the two competitions I entered, and I feel I can get stronger while remaining agile and flexible.
I’ll be competing in the 100kg class in April, and possibly September. Over the course of this log I aim to be more comfortable and lifting heavier more frequently, and to improve my contest strategy. In addition to training, I’ll post any other information regarding diet, supplementation, recovery, and flexibility I might find useful.
I’m experimenting with more direct shoulder work to help my with my benching since I tend to struggle most at the bottom of the lift. I’m hoping that by adding time to focus on my shoulders will allow me to both keep benching instensely while being able to give adequate stimulation to the supporting muscle groups.
Back Squats
3x180kg
3x190kg
2x200kg
1x210kg
1x220kg-Fail
Back Squats w/ Chains
5x120kg
3x5x140kg
Good Mornings
5x90kg
3x5x100kg
Dragon Flags
4x4
This was the first time since December that I’ve squatted. I’ve spent that last two months working on my pulls and strengthening my ankles and calves.
The idea was that if I did this, my squatting and deadlifting would be easier. 210 did feel much easier, and I think 220 failed simply due to the workload.
Tomorrow’s some more leg work. Not sure how that’ll go, but I’m doing and epsom soak and will adjust as neccessary.
Back Squats
3x180kg
3x190kg
2x200kg
1x210kg
1x220kg-Fail
Back Squats w/ Chains
5x120kg
3x5x140kg
Good Mornings
5x90kg
3x5x100kg
Dragon Flags
4x4
This was the first time since December that I’ve squatted. I’ve spent that last two months working on my pulls and strengthening my ankles and calves. The idea was that if I did this, my squatting and deadlifting would be easier. 210 did feel much easier, and I think 220 failed simply due to the workload.
Tomorrow’s some more leg work. Not sure how that’ll go, but I’m doing and epsom soak and will adjust as neccessary.
I wanted to go heavier on my pressing movements, but I’m finding, especially after heavy squatting, a noticeable pain in my bicep tendons. I’ve done a contrast shower followed by more stretching, and will see if that helps.
Since finding a weightlifting centre near me, I’ve been moving more of the heavier workouts there. I’d like to move all the training there, but the times they’re open are dictated by the college they’re in, so I have to still use a commercial gym. I forgot that this week is a school holiday, so I showed up to train to find it closed.
I actually contemplated passing up my training session just to avoiding going to the commercial gym, but I felt in the great scheme of things, not liking a place to train isn’t justification to not put in the work. Having the two gyms makes me appreciate the value of having a place where people want to train, improve and compete. It’s inspirational.
Today was a struggle. I couldn’t get settled and sleep last night, and after my first set of benching, the pain in my bicep/shoulder area came back and made it difficult to get any stability. Had I used the barbell, I guess the worst would’ve been that the barbell would crash onto my chest, but I keep having images of the dumbbell slipping out of my hands and crashing into my skull. I’m going to do some extra soft tissue work and stretching over the weekend. I’m hoping it clears up by the next max bench day.
I’m experimenting with more direct shoulder work to help my with my benching since I tend to struggle most at the bottom of the lift. I’m hoping that by adding time to focus on my shoulders will allow me to both keep benching instensely while being able to give adequate stimulation to the supporting muscle groups.[/quote]
Try some low pin presse’s, they should do the trick.
[quote]BlackLabel wrote:
I’m experimenting with more direct shoulder work to help my with my benching since I tend to struggle most at the bottom of the lift. I’m hoping that by adding time to focus on my shoulders will allow me to both keep benching instensely while being able to give adequate stimulation to the supporting muscle groups.
Try some low pin presse’s, they should do the trick.[/quote]
Yup-that’s actually on the schedule this week. I’m hoping these twinges have subsided by then!
One thing that hit home for me today was my dislike for incline work. Flat benching, to some extent is okay. Shoulder pressing is okay. The area in between?
It’s like running into molasses. The movement starts fast, then grinds to a halt towards the end. It probably means I need to do more of it, so I’ll swap out (where possible) the flat benching for incline on volume on speed days.
I’ve been working late the last couple of nights to hand in school work, which seems to have taken it’s toll here. By the time I’d gotten to my third set of deads, I couldn’t lift the bar. It wasn’t bad positioning, or that it was heavy; I just didn’t want to move it. I didn’t want to do any more deadlifting. I figured it’d be better to work on some other movements, rest up this weekend, and maybe I can write this off as a bad day, and not have it slide into next week.
Dumbell Tricep Extensions (focus on keeping elbows in)
6x40kg
2x6x50kg
Shoulder Mobility
The pain in my bicep tendon has gone, which is good-I don’t feel any of my pressing movements are spinning that far out of control. Today’s training was pretty quick and positive-hopefully that’ll translate into something come competition time in a couple of weeks.