My road to 1500

It’s actually a good thing we checked because I was heading into my meet thinking I could hit 150kg pretty easily, I’ll have to sit down and rework all my numbers now!!

Going to a different gym the week before my meet as I’m on holiday next week, and I’ll work up to my openers on Monday / Tuesday with their calibrated plates!

Slightly over / under I could live with but 2kg is a hell of a lot to lose, its like 10-12kg off my bench when Im playing around 90%

Exactly. A couple of grams either way is fine. I think even the PL rules allow for that up to a limit. Two kilos is huge. Pricks.

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Did you weigh multiple of the rubber and bumper ones or just one of each?
It’s usually the case for non calibrated plates even of the same brand and type they will vary +- a few lbs each, but not always the same amount or direction.

I have 12 45lbs plates at home all look identical but all weigh slightly different, think the lightest is about 43.5 and heaviest 47.4 or something. It sucks but means if you are using multiple plates they overall effect is smaller as some are heavier and some light than stated weight… potentially good news for you if you weight more of them you might see some are actually a bit more than 20kgs.

And then if your gym will could write in smaller on the plate it’s actual weight

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Thats good to know, we only weighed 1 of each, could definately feel the difference though just unracking the weight on the bench with the bumpers, it felt so much heavier!

Might be an idea to check more of them

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9-5-17
Lower

Leg swings, glute bridges, foam roll lower body

Squats (21kg squat bar) 21kg 2x8, 61kg x3, 101kg x3, 141kg x3, 181kg x3, 201kg x3, 211kg x1, 223.5kg x1

Deadlift singles 120kg, 140kg, 160kg, 180kg, 200kg, 220kg, 240kg

Hit my main lifts and decided to call it a day! I’ve been feeling sick all day, and training felt horrible!

I cut my squat a little high, and deadlifts just didn’t feel good at all! I need to take a step back and figure out what I need to do to get tight on the DL bar, I’m a lot stronger on a stiff power bar. I feel like if I could fix that, my numbers on the DL bar would jump up quite a bit!

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All I notice is that your shoulders are in front of the bar. Personally I find the stiff bar punishes that, so you end up getting into much better position and really sitting back. Do you think because the DL bar is more forgiving you don’t get that feedback and come forward? When pulling stiff vs DL bar, do you find yourself very deliberately sitting back vs just pulling?

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Yes, definately yes! Its not something I’d picked up on until you mentioned it, but thinking about it I have to consciously sit back on the DL bar, on the stiff bar I just pull and my body settles in the right position.

I pulled 260 on the stiff bar last week and it felt pretty easy, moved faster than 240 did today on the DL bar!

I’m just not sure what to try / change, any suggestions would be very much appreciated!

That’s surprising, I expected the opposite because that’s what happens to me. I’d say try just pulling as you normally would on a stiff bar with the DL bar. See how what works. Alternatively, have definite periods where you train stiff bar and then switch to DL bar. That way you get accustomed to each. It took me about four weeks to get comfortable with stiff bar DL after three months on the DL bar. I now do all stiff bar except four to six weeks out of a meet.

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I’ve been using the dl bar for about 6 months now, its just the last few weeks iv done a bit on the stiff bar to vary things a bit!

Iv tried just pulling and the same happens tbh mate, just doesnt feel right.

So I’ve watched my video back several times, and slowed it down, what I pick up on is that I don’t fully take the slack out of the bar, or wedge my hips towards the bar to load my hammis / glutes. When I pull I then lose more tightness as I try to jerk the bar off the floor, which pulls me forward slightly and turns every rep into a grinder!

@MarkKO does that look / sound about right bro?

What sticks out to me is that you come forward and your hips shoot up as soon as the bar moves. Typically that’s a loss of position and tension in the hammies I think. You can see your back take the weight as soon as that happens.

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Feeling terrible at the minute! Not sleeping well, getting headaches and feeling sick every time I eat something, giving training a miss today / tomorrow then I’m on holiday from Saturday for a week, so won’t be posting for a while.

It happens, by the time you come back you’ll be itching to lift and throw up good numbers again.

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Yea definately mate! The week off will do me the world of good.

Going to re-evaluate my training too, I’ve done like 6 months with this guy now, and I can’t really afford to keep paying him even though it is fairly cheap, I’ve got other things I need to take care of, so I’ve got a week to do a bit of research and see how I wanna do things.

I’m really liking The Boss Barbell method, but theres not a lot of info about it, I really like how the training split is laid out though, my only issue is I like to pull twice a week so maybe i’ll adjust it a bit to my needs.

I’m doing a combo of conjugate method and squat almost every day now. Pull 75% one a week 6 singles and heavy Deadlift variation every other week.bench I’m still just trying to keep the shoulder healthy, so far so good ha ha I like the speed pulls and heavy variation in one week more volume plus a hard pull with less than maximum weight (625 deficit though very hard isn’t as taxing as a max regular pull)

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Thanks for the insight bud, how do you find only pulling once per week? I’m not sure whether it would be enough for me

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Well it’s really pulling once a week one week and twice the next, Friday is my speed day and Monday is my max day. I added more squat days but going to keep the pulling the same. I really just made the change but I’m putting the two things I liked from each program together. Separate they were awesome I think together will be even better once my legs adjust to the volume.

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Sounds good man! How do you set out your squats? Or do you just go by how your feeling that day as to whethwr its heavy / light / speed?

So far I’m toying around with:

Back Squat + Sumo day
Heavy Bench day
Rest
Conventional Deadlift + a bit of extra sumo work
Speed / Volume Bench day
Front Squat day
Rest

Got no numbers for sets / reps set in stone yet, just looking to get a general plan laid out before I look at that.

That setup looks good, I usually just go off feel for the most part. 455 felt heavy last time I need to get back to where 545 felt not too bad

Edit: I completely forgot I do pull twice a week. Add in on my max squat day that I’m getting rid of for more squatting I would do some work in the pull variation I planned to Max on the following week.

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