Training is really depressing right now. I seem to have regressed since returning home from uni - I guess lifting with like-minded people really makes a big difference! Not much that I can do about it right now, I’ll just have to suck it up and keep at it.
My right quad is still numb from the dropped power clean two weeks ago, so I’m going to get it checked out later to see if there’s anything I can do about it. AND to cap it all off, I’m so desperately poor at the moment that it’s looking increasingly likely that I won’t be able to afford the fees to sign up for the All England in August. But moaning over.
This weekend I went to the BPC British Championships in Bournemouth. I was helping out a friend from uni who was lifting on the Saturday (he went 275/132.5/220 - all PRs - for a 627.5kg total at 80.5kg BW and 19 years old!) and spotted and loaded for the seniors yesterday. That was awesome.
Plenty of British, European and World records set throughout the day, and Andy Bolton just missed a 552.5kg (1215.5lb) WR attempt squat at the second attempt. Would have been cool to say I was spotting him for a WR, but nonetheless it was amazing to be so close to those guys when they were putting up heavy weights.
It was nice to set a PR for the box squats, although it doesn’t mean much - this was only the second time I’ve used them in months so I was bound to have improved.
I did speed deadlifts because pulling anything heavy over my quad is STILL a no-go. This was with 50% of my estimated 1RM and they felt pretty good. I miss power cleans though!
85kg was about 55-60% of what I estimate my box squat max to be and I was faster than I thought I’d be on these, so that was cool.
Then I moved onto deadlifts, which felt fantastic until I pulled 160. As soon as it hit that spot on my quad where I dropped that power clean I got a nasty shooting pain, but I got another couple of reps regardless. I really need to get this sorted, it’s starting to piss me off. I went to see a doctor about it, who told me that I shouldn’t do ANY lower body exercises at all until it’s completely healed. I’m not a firm believer in the healing benefits of muscular atrophy though, so I’m ignoring this ‘advice’. I will get a massage though, if there’s any scar tissue there that should help.
My training has been a bit directionless recently. Since I hurt my leg I haven’t been able to pull heavy, and financial constraints mean that I can’t justify entering a powerlifting competition right now. This has got me down a bit, and I haven’t made any progress in the last 3 weeks. I’ve been reading a lot of Eric Cressey’s stuff, and also reading up on Wendler’s 5/3/1 programme. I think I need to choose a programme that’s been proven to work, rather than thinking I know better than the pros! I like the no-frills concept of 5/3/1 but have always found low rep/high intensity work has given me the greatest gains on the core lifts. Lots of people have gotten ‘cock strong’ doing it though, so it may be worth a bash… Thoughts, anyone?
Then I moved onto deadlifts, which felt fantastic until I pulled 160. As soon as it hit that spot on my quad where I dropped that power clean I got a nasty shooting pain, but I got another couple of reps regardless. I really need to get this sorted, it’s starting to piss me off. I went to see a doctor about it, who told me that I shouldn’t do ANY lower body exercises at all until it’s completely healed.
I’m not a firm believer in the healing benefits of muscular atrophy though, so I’m ignoring this ‘advice’. I will get a massage though, if there’s any scar tissue there that should help.
I would recommend taking cissus, soaking in epsom salt baths, and ice. It worked for me when I had an injury.
My training has been a bit directionless recently. Since I hurt my leg I haven’t been able to pull heavy, and financial constraints mean that I can’t justify entering a powerlifting competition right now. This has got me down a bit, and I haven’t made any progress in the last 3 weeks. I’ve been reading a lot of Eric Cressey’s stuff, and also reading up on Wendler’s 5/3/1 programme.
I think I need to choose a programme that’s been proven to work, rather than thinking I know better than the pros! I like the no-frills concept of 5/3/1 but have always found low rep/high intensity work has given me the greatest gains on the core lifts. Lots of people have gotten ‘cock strong’ doing it though, so it may be worth a bash… Thoughts, anyone?[/quote]
5-3-1 has worked great for me, and from the logs I have been following here and other sites, its worked well for others too.
I lifted heavy low reps, mainly 5x5 for years and made great gains and decided to try Wendler’s system just for something different.
Looks like your training hard, keep it up, good luck.
Thanks whup, I’m seeing an osteopath for a sports massage tomorrow, but I’ll ice the hell out of it too and give salt baths and cissus a go too! Thanks for the advice.
I’m definitely going to start 5/3/1 as well. If my leg feels any better after the massage tomorrow I’ll get right on it this week.
The osteopath gave me the all-clear to carry on training, which was encouraging. I have to foam roll and ice the quad diligently but hopefully it’ll heal up pretty quickly now.
In other news, I started Wendler’s 5/3/1 programme today. I’m hoping to see the sort of gains that others are making on this programme. For the first mesocycle, I’ll use the basic exercises - here are the maxes I’ll be using:
Presses: 72.5kg, so I’m using 65kg as my training max.
Deadlifts: 165kg (3RM); since my 3RM is usually about 90% of my 1RM, I’m using 165kg as my training max.
Bench Presses: 125kg, so I’m using 112.5kg as my training max.
Squats: 155kg, so I’m using 140kg as my training max.
As for assistance, I’ll be using 3 exercises per session in addition to the core exercises, for 3-4 sets each. I’ll see how that goes for this first cycle and maybe adjust it for subsequent cycles.
I felt pretty weak today actually. Training earlier on in the day sucks! The dumbbell bench presses were all over the place. I’ve always hated them, but hey, you should always do the exercises you hate right?
9 reps with 140? That’s cardio! It felt great though, and using the formula it equated to an estimated 1RM of about 182kg, so that was a solid effort. For front squats, I planned on doing 4 sets of 8 with about 80-85kg, but I was absolutely knackered after the deadlifts so took it fairly easy.
Oh, I was given a ‘talking to’ by one of the trainers for putting down the last couple of deadlifts too loudly. Apparently it disturbed a guy who was on the phone. Seriously.
I was hoping for another set of 9 for my last set of bench presses, but I found it tough to maintain an arch. Still, 8 solid reps is satisfactory and gives me a goal to shoot for in the future. 100kgx10 would be pretty cool.
I had never done the close grip incline bench presses before. In fact, I very rarely do any kind of incline pressing at all, and this felt weird at first. I found a decent groove on the last set though, and I’m expecting a much improved performance next week.
44x15 on the dumbbell rows was a rep PR and a pretty comfortable one at that! That’s the biggest dumbbell in the gym, so I’ll be chasing more rep PRs in the future, since I enjoy doing these…
I matched last week’s reps with a heavier weight for presses, so I was pretty satisfied with myself for that! Everything else went smoothly as well and I was in and out of the gym in an hour… All in all, a very good session.
Breezed through the workout today, and I probably had 1 or 2 more reps in the tank for deadlifts. I’m starting to really enjoy 5/3/1 already!
And an update on the injured quad… I’ve been foam rolling and and applying ice frequently and it’s definitely helping. The swelling is finally starting to subside and it didn’t cause me any problems when deadlifting earlier. Happy days.
I’m a little disappointed with my performance on the bench presses, although, despite a VERY slow final rep, 6 wasn’t a disaster. The close grip incline benching went better than last week though; I felt like I had a much better groove this time around.
It was nice to obliterate last week’s rep PR on the rows as well. I was using a fair bit of body English to get the last few reps on my right arm though - I’ll match the reps but tidy them up next week.
Still making good progress. The 80 and 85% sets felt damn heavy for squats, but 125kg was as light as air with a belt on. I got through all the assistance pretty quickly, and particularly enjoyed the GHRs.
Delighted with the presses, a little frustrated with the dumbbell bench presses. I suck at these, and it showed with my inconsistency between sets today. Ah well, the only way to get better is to stick at them.
I matched last week’s reps with a heavier weight for presses, so I was pretty satisfied with myself for that! Everything else went smoothly as well and I was in and out of the gym in an hour… All in all, a very good session.
I was pretty frustrated to only get 4 reps on the final set of deadlifts, especially seeing as all of the warm-ups had gone well. I’ll chalk it up to having a bad day with those.