Novaeer's Training Log

[quote]novaeer wrote:
Pinto wrote:

It’s funny how viral these things are. As I understand it, Chirs Clark developed that program from a suspended chain plan that Phil Harrington used to use a few years ago. Phil got it from a friend of mine, Jon Groves. Hell if I know where Jon got it from- probably from some other lifter.

It’s a cool program. The main beef I had with it though was I hate how the bar touches the chains uneven. The tetter-totter of the bar on the chains tended to throw me off a bit.

I had actually heard about it even before he penned the article. One of my old training partners is friends with Travis Mash, Ox Mason and Chris Clark, and he got it from them at one point or another. My other former training partner used to lift with Jon several years ago and is still really good friends with Tommy Fannon.

I also noticed the teeter totter issue. I will definitely have to keep it in mind.[/quote]

Phil Harrington trained with some of the guys I lift with a few times too while he used that program, seemed to workout for him. I think the teetering might be helpful though in building that stabilization strength and force you to control the weight into the hole. I’ll definitely watch to see how it goes, and I agree that 6" above is way high, I think even 4" might be too high, I’m a big believer in squatting to depth if you want to make depth. Good luck with it nova!

7/21/08

Raw bench/assistance

Bench w/ 1 board

bar x 10
135 x 8
185 x 5
225 x 5
275 x 5
-added board
315 x 2 x 3

Underhand lat pulldowns
3x15

Stability bench (bar + 5 pairs of chain)
12x2

KB tricep extension
16kg x3x10

Barbell curls
2x10

Reverse curls
2x10

Notes: I had planned on doing 2x5 or 3x3 on the 1 board but training partner was not around meaning no lift off. I just cut it off at 2x3. Stability benches are a good change of pace, you really have to stay tight and make use your lats to keep the bar from going all over the place.

Actually did some curls w/ a straight bar for the first time in a long time. Geez my biceps are weak as shit.

7/23/08

Deadlift assistance

Manta Ray high box squats (1" above ||)

bar x 10
105 x 5
145 x 5
195 x 5
235 x 3
285 x 3
325 x 3 (belt)
355 x 3
385 x 3
405 x 3 (+2 rep PR)

KB swings
20kg x 3 x 8

Zercher pulls from the floor
145x3
195x3x3

Blue band good mornings
2x20

Suitcase deadlifts
135x2x8

Notes: This was a pretty tough session. On the top set with 405, the first two reps weren’t too bad but on the third rep I got a bit forward and it was frickin’ hard. I bumped up the weight on the Zerchers from the floor. Ouch, my arms.

Killer ab movement as well. I haven’t done suitcases for a while and doing 8 reps with them had my ripped obliques and hips on fire. Good session.

Did see a funnel cloud passing over the vicinity of our house right as training partner and I finished lifting. I don’t think it touched down, but it really looked ominous with the low spinning clouds.

7/24/08

ME Bench

Floor press

bar x 10
(added 3 chains per side)
95 x 5
135 x 5
185 x 3
225 x 3
275 x 1
295 x 1
315 x 1
325 x 1 (20-lb PR)
335 x 0

4-board floor press (pinky on ring)
315x5
345x4 (baseline)
-board got all crooked, f’ed me up

Shirted bench
315x3x3 (to a 4-board)

-Shoulders were quite achy tonight so I had to slow the bar speed on the descent of floor presses. I hit 325 pretty easy so figured 335 would go up. Well, didn’t quite work out that way.

Hit that damn sticking point at about the imaginary 3.5 board; the bar never came back down, but it didn’t move any higher either. Tried the 4-board on the floor and it is way harder than doing it on the bench. I was going to do 5 w/ 345, but the board got all cockeyed so I just racked it.

Broke out the new bench shirt. It’s a single ply Titan Katana, w/ a reinforced collar and scoopier on the neck. Damn this thing is one tough sumbitch. I could barely get a pinky on the ring grip and even getting the bar to touch the 4 board was hard.

Just went light @ 315 for a few sets of triples just to get a feel for the shirt. I think I’m going to cut the back and add some velcro because the closed-back design made it hard to pull my shoulder blades together. It’s early, but this shirt feels like it will blow away my double ply Metal Pro.

[quote]novaeer wrote:
7/24/08

ME Bench

Floor press

bar x 10
(added 3 chains per side)
95 x 5
135 x 5
185 x 3
225 x 3
275 x 1
295 x 1
315 x 1
325 x 1 (20-lb PR)
335 x 0

4-board floor press (pinky on ring)
315x5
345x4 (baseline)
-board got all crooked, f’ed me up

Shirted bench
315x3x3 (to a 4-board)

-Shoulders were quite achy tonight so I had to slow the bar speed on the descent of floor presses. I hit 325 pretty easy so figured 335 would go up. Well, didn’t quite work out that way.

Hit that damn sticking point at about the imaginary 3.5 board; the bar never came back down, but it didn’t move any higher either. Tried the 4-board on the floor and it is way harder than doing it on the bench. I was going to do 5 w/ 345, but the board got all cockeyed so I just racked it.

Broke out the new bench shirt. It’s a single ply Titan Katana, w/ a reinforced collar and scoopier on the neck. Damn this thing is one tough sumbitch. I could barely get a pinky on the ring grip and even getting the bar to touch the 4 board was hard.

Just went light @ 315 for a few sets of triples just to get a feel for the shirt. I think I’m going to cut the back and add some velcro because the closed-back design made it hard to pull my shoulder blades together. It’s early, but this shirt feels like it will blow away my double ply Metal Pro.[/quote]

Definitely want to see how that Katana works for you, haven’t decided yet but I might give single ply a try for awhile…had a single ply f6 once and did ok with it…315’s such a light weight too to try and get down, a good fitting shirt will never get that weight down. Keep working on it and breaking it in and it will come. Wonder what the grooves like, keep me posted!

[quote]scubasteve2105 wrote:

Definitely want to see how that Katana works for you, haven’t decided yet but I might give single ply a try for awhile…had a single ply f6 once and did ok with it…315’s such a light weight too to try and get down, a good fitting shirt will never get that weight down. Keep working on it and breaking it in and it will come. Wonder what the grooves like, keep me posted!
[/quote]

The Metal Pro was such a simple shirt to use that I could touch 315 without a problem. I think the shirt fits well, but it is amazing to me how tiny the chest plate on the Katana is.

I put the sleeves on inside out and pulled it over, so the sleeves were cuffed, which probably created the difficulty in getting my grip out. Next time, I’ll probably just put it on the normal way and see how that works. Meet’s not until last weekend in September so a couple of feel-out sessions won’t hurt.

7/26/08

Squat day

Chain squat cycle (week #2)

bar x 8
145 x 5
195 x 5
235 x 3 (briefs)
325 x 2
375 x 2
415 x 2 (suit, straps down)
465 x 2
505 x 3 (chain ~1" above depth)

Green band ab pulldowns
6x20

-Adductors were still a wee bit on the tender side from Wednesday, so I wasn’t as explosive on the squats. The lifts were all still pretty easy though. I’ve decided to tweak the program a bit by dropping the high squats and just take all the top sets down to the lowest setting of the day. Some days this will be to +1" and others it will be breaking parallel. I’m thinking about pairing the suit up with the pro briefs, because it feels like the Viking/Ace combo is too much stopping power. Plenty of time to experiment. With all the extra p-chain work on Wednesdays, I’m going to limit the accessory work on squat days to abs and occasionally some low back work so I can just focus on learning the equipment.

7/28/08

RE Upper

Bench press (pinky on rings)

bar x 10
135 x 10
185 x 10
225 x 3 x 10

Stability bench (close, med & wide grips)
bar + 6 sets of chain x 12 x 2

Lat pulldowns
4x15
-alternate between over and underhand

Superset (purple band in each hand):
Piston presses 3x20
Face pulls 3x10

-Solo tonight so I decided to do some rep work w/ 225. I’m going to use every 3rd week as a rep day to gauge bar speed (kinda sorta like DE, but not really) and get a little mass work. I took vids and honestly the way it looked and felt I could’ve done 10 sets of 10; however, my shoulders would’ve killed me in my sleep tonight so 3x10 was quite enough. Good quick session, in and out after about 45 minutes. Hell, I even sweated a little bit. Would’ve been done faster, but the chains can be a pain in the ass to set up properly.

7/29/08

Deadlift/assistance

Warm-up: Mobility work and foam roller

Sumo 4" box pulls (w/ 2 sets of chains)

135 x 5
-added chains
225 x 3
275 x 3
315 x 3
365 x 3 (Single-ply Viking, straps down)
405 x 1
435 x 1
455 x 1
475 x 1 (stumbled after lockout)
495 x 1 (baseline)

Romanian deadlifts (w/ dbl looped & dbl minis)
225x8
275x3x8

Superset:

Side bends w/ 20kg KB 3x20
Green band ab pulldowns 3x15

-Notes: Pretty good first step in the process of converting to sumo. The weights flew up and the tightness in my adductors that had been bothering me for the past couple of weeks vanished as I was able to really finish the lifts with my hips and glutes. The chains were cockeyed on the set with 475 and it threw me at lockout. I’m counting it as a good lift since it wasn’t very tough at all.

Last set at 495 was fairly hard, but I locked it out and held it for good measure. The RDLs w/ the double looped and doubled minis are great and by the end of each set my back, glutes and hams were on fire, but don’t tell anybody I used wrist straps. Good session. I will probably be sore as hell tomorrow.

[quote]novaeer wrote:
7/29/08

Deadlift/assistance

Warm-up: Mobility work and foam roller

Sumo 4" box pulls (w/ 2 sets of chains)

135 x 5
-added chains
225 x 3
275 x 3
315 x 3
365 x 3 (Single-ply Viking, straps down)
405 x 1
435 x 1
455 x 1
475 x 1 (stumbled after lockout)
495 x 1 (baseline)

Romanian deadlifts (w/ dbl looped & dbl minis)
225x8
275x3x8

Superset:

Side bends w/ 20kg KB 3x20
Green band ab pulldowns 3x15

-Notes: Pretty good first step in the process of converting to sumo. The weights flew up and the tightness in my adductors that had been bothering me for the past couple of weeks vanished as I was able to really finish the lifts with my hips and glutes. The chains were cockeyed on the set with 475 and it threw me at lockout. I’m counting it as a good lift since it wasn’t very tough at all.

Last set at 495 was fairly hard, but I locked it out and held it for good measure. The RDLs w/ the double looped and doubled minis are great and by the end of each set my back, glutes and hams were on fire, but don’t tell anybody I used wrist straps. Good session. I will probably be sore as hell tomorrow.[/quote]

If you really want a kick in the pants try RDL’s in a sumo stance, really kills the hammy’s and glutes. Added these in the last few weeks of my training cycle and definitely think they’ll be a part of my regular rotation. 495 not a bad place to start either, where does 4in block put the bar on you???

[quote]scubasteve2105 wrote:

If you really want a kick in the pants try RDL’s in a sumo stance, really kills the hammy’s and glutes. Added these in the last few weeks of my training cycle and definitely think they’ll be a part of my regular rotation. 495 not a bad place to start either, where does 4in block put the bar on you???

[/quote]

It was actually 500 if I wanted to be a stickler and count the weight of the collars; I’ll save that as bonus weight. On the RDLs, I thought about doing them that way and will give that method a go. As far as the height, wearing Asics wrestling shoes it puts me right around mid-shin. I’m about 5’9", but my legs are pretty short.

I’ve noticed that my sumo strength is only a little lower than my conventional (525 in a meet), but I never really gave the former a chance because technique issues would creep in or my hips would ache like crazy and I’d get frustrated. This time, I’ve made the commitment to stick with it and get better.

7/31/08

ME Bench

Warm-up: Shoulder complex

Foam press

bar x 10
135 x 8
185 x 5
225 x 5
275 x 3
315 x 3 (added manpon)
345 x 2
375 x 0 (oops, foot slipped)
375 x 1 (10-lb PR)

-would’ve done 2, but freakin’ foot slipped and screwed me up; on 2nd try the first rep was a lot harder than it should’ve been. So just stopped it at 1.

5-board close grip press (thumbs-length from smooth)
315x2x10 (rep PR of some kind, almost cardio)

-wow, that’s hard work for the triceps even though weight was light for that board height

Shirt work w/ 3 board (more like shirt testing)
315x2x2 (Katana)
365x3 (Metal Bash - hated it)

-just playing around w/ a couple of shirts. I know what I can do with the Metal Pro so it is always there for back up. Not too sure about either one of these.

The Bash I’ve tried before and it still sucks; the Katana is just so freakin’ stout that getting my hands out to the rings is IMPOSSIBLE. I’m going to need more time to break this thing in so I might work with the Pro for one more meet.

8/2/08

Squattin’

Free squats

bar x quite a few
145 x 8
195 x 5
235 x 3
-added briefs
275 x 3
325 x 5
365 x 3
395 x 3 (belt)
425 x 3 (belt)
365 x 5 (no belt)
-all weights were easy

Close-stance low box squats, TOTALLY RAAAAWWWW
235x4x6

Seated crunch holding 16kg KB
1x15

-Done. I junked the chain squat routine and just went back to basics, using the Spud’s 5,3,3,3,5 3-week cycle. This cycle worked really well for me in the past so why not give it another shot. First week is pretty much a feeler, so the weights selected are done by feel and jumps are between 30-50 pounds. That last set of five is always a bitch because you do them without a belt after belting up for the prior two sets of triples. The Metal Pro briefs I used I’ve had for 18 months so they’ve seen some mileage. Still have decent pop, but they don’t give very much after all the reps they’ve seen. Close-stance low box squats were easy, but low back was pretty jacked from previous squats so these obviously made it better. I only did one set of crunches 'cause my abs were already feeling it from the squat variations.

Afterward, took my brother, his GF and son into DC to see the sights. All that walking might have been a good idea on another day, but my feet, hips and back are uber-jacked right now. It was fun, but damn do I feel broken down.

8/4/08

ME Bench

Reverse band bench press (purple bands ~ 65 off chest)

bar x 10
135 x 8
185 x 5
225 x 3
275 x 3 (added bands)
315 x 3
345 x 3
365 x 3
385 x 2 (baseline)

Close grip 4-board bench press (w/ reverse bands)
385 x 5
405 x 5 (baseline)

Triceps death
185x5 (full range)
185x5 (1-board)
185x5 (2-board)
185x5 (3-board)
185x5 (4-board)
185x5 (5-board)

Lat pulldowns
4x12

Piston presses (monster minis)
2x30

  • I took smaller jumps today to get some extra volume in and also stuck with a pinky on ring grip as I’ve neglected it a bit. Using the purple bands basically feels like a regular full ROM bench to me - the bands don’t do much. I would’ve gotten the 385 for a triple, but the second rep was sloppy so I just racked it. Thought about making another jump, but decided against it.

The close grips were hard as hell and the bands weren’t helping much at all. I got a bad hamstring cramp on the 4th rep with 405 so basically had no leg drive - quite the slow rep it was. I got all the reps on triceps death pretty easily, but it was still a bitch. Arms felt like jello afterward. Good session.

[quote]novaeer wrote:
8/4/08

ME Bench

Reverse band bench press (purple bands ~ 65 off chest)

bar x 10
135 x 8
185 x 5
225 x 3
275 x 3 (added bands)
315 x 3
345 x 3
365 x 3
385 x 2 (baseline)

Close grip 4-board bench press (w/ reverse bands)
385 x 5
405 x 5 (baseline)

Triceps death
185x5 (full range)
185x5 (1-board)
185x5 (2-board)
185x5 (3-board)
185x5 (4-board)
185x5 (5-board)

Lat pulldowns
4x12

Piston presses (monster minis)
2x30

  • I took smaller jumps today to get some extra volume in and also stuck with a pinky on ring grip as I’ve neglected it a bit. Using the purple bands basically feels like a regular full ROM bench to me - the bands don’t do much. I would’ve gotten the 385 for a triple, but the second rep was sloppy so I just racked it. Thought about making another jump, but decided against it.

The close grips were hard as hell and the bands weren’t helping much at all. I got a bad hamstring cramp on the 4th rep with 405 so basically had no leg drive - quite the slow rep it was. I got all the reps on triceps death pretty easily, but it was still a bitch. Arms felt like jello afterward. Good session.[/quote]

Triceps death sucks!!! We’ve also done 1 rep to a 1 board, 2 to a 2 board, 3 to a three board, and so on up to a 5 board, that sucks pretty bad too.

[quote]scubasteve2105 wrote:

Triceps death sucks!!! We’ve also done 1 rep to a 1 board, 2 to a 2 board, 3 to a three board, and so on up to a 5 board, that sucks pretty bad too.
[/quote]

You can also do them where you work all the way up to the 5-board then go back down. I tried that one time with a weak ass 155 and I wasn’t able to make it all the way through as my arms just quit working about 2/3 of the way back down.

[quote]novaeer wrote:
scubasteve2105 wrote:

Triceps death sucks!!! We’ve also done 1 rep to a 1 board, 2 to a 2 board, 3 to a three board, and so on up to a 5 board, that sucks pretty bad too.

You can also do them where you work all the way up to the 5-board then go back down. I tried that one time with a weak ass 155 and I wasn’t able to make it all the way through as my arms just quit working about 2/3 of the way back down.[/quote]

The way we have done them is with a close grip for a triple off each board starting at 2 board going up to 5 and then followed by a full range single. That single at the end is hard as hell.

I’ve toyed with doing them shirted for heavier weight- instead of 315 for triples, I could have something more like 475 or 495 for a double off each board. It seems like locking out that kind of weight for 8 reps would make you stupid strong.

[quote]Pinto wrote:

The way we have done them is with a close grip for a triple off each board starting at 2 board going up to 5 and then followed by a full range single. That single at the end is hard as hell.

I’ve toyed with doing them shirted for heavier weight- instead of 315 for triples, I could have something more like 475 or 495 for a double off each board. It seems like locking out that kind of weight for 8 reps would make you stupid strong.[/quote]

The shirted method sounds like it would be absolute murder. If the shirt is too tight I’d imagine you’d pass out, or get stupid strong as you say. The most reps I’ve ever done in a shirt full range was 5, but the shirt was over a size too big. Even then, I could barely hold the bar after I locked out the fifth rep.

8/6/08

DE Squat/DL

Warm-up: Mobility work and foam roller

Box squat (1" below ||)

bar x 5 (3 chains/side)
105 x 5
145 x 3
195 x 3 (briefs)
235 x 2
285 x 2 x 2 (4 chains/side)
325 x 2 x 2
325 x 2 x 2 (5 chains/side)

Sumo speed pulls
warmed up to 315 x 6 x 1 (2 chains/side)

Band leg curls
3x15

Seated good mornings
135x5x10

Ab pulldowns w/ blue band
4x12

-Did some dynamic work for the first time in a month. Speed was still very good and my form felt right on. Granted the weight was pretty damn light, but all things considered I’ll take it. Stayed fairly light on the sumo speed pulls and tossed a couple of chains on for some extra lockout. Light enough to focus on form and just heavy enough to feel a little bit of weight in my hands. The ab pulldowns with the blue band were HARD - heck I even got a cramp in my abs during the last set.

[quote]novaeer wrote:

The shirted method sounds like it would be absolute murder. If the shirt is too tight I’d imagine you’d pass out, or get stupid strong as you say. The most reps I’ve ever done in a shirt full range was 5, but the shirt was over a size too big. Even then, I could barely hold the bar after I locked out the fifth rep. [/quote]

My bench group was doing this training cycle last year where we waved the board height and reduced reps over the course of several weeks. I think it went like this- off three boards one week, two boards the next, and then a week off of boards doing singles with reverse bands, and then start back over with three boards woth heavier weight and less reps than the week before.

Anyhow, the first couple board workouts were 5 reps- 2 or 3 work sets depending how conservatively you picked your weights. Those were hell! The temptation was to hold your breath to keep tight, but when the weight was heavier and reps were slow, you HAD to take a breath along the way.