Adarq.org

Training
FS 4x101 (PR), 3x98.5, 4Fx96 (went real deep on the 4th rep and annoyingly caught the pins, had forgot to adjust them prior or i'm squatting deeper now, otherwise I had that rep easy), 4x94, 4x93.5, 5x92.5 (PR)
1x30m sprint (timed it close to 4.5s w/ camera and I also used t0dday's inspired idea of setting a manual interval)

BS 3x90, 2x100, 4x100, 6x95, 5x93.5, 1x97.5, 3x92.5, 3x92.5, 3x87.5
RDL 3x135 (PR), 10x110 (PR)
DL 2x3x105
HIIT tabata sprints, 14 on, 13off, 7 intervals total
ABZ - 3x8 weighted cable crunch (+5kg)
SSAT 10 mins, about 1km lol (my quads cramped had to stop)

FS notes:
Great squat session. Good form, nice and deep, controlled and solid reps, nice amount of volume. Really happy despite making a few fixable blunders like getting caught by the pins. It was very hot today and different from what i'm used to but I didn't mind it. Nice not having to heat up my knees. I don't think i'll be bothering with getting the knee sleeves until get it gets cold again.

I also found I was going rock bottom deep with weight above 80% so I'm putting on hold any thoughts of getting new shoes. I don't need them, I have sufficient flexibility to make do with a small heel. Later if I need to use a different shoe to squat > 1.75bw then i'll rethink it but for now i'm good.

One thing i'll mention is I made yet another technique breakthrough. I took a really close grip of the bar (like 15mm away from the smooth), this allowed my elbows to be pretty much perpendicular to my torso and nice and high, which allowed me to really get real tight, and this helped stay upright and together. The only concern is if I ever fail a rep and have the bar drop suddenly if i could smash my elbows on my knees? that would be bad. But i dont know if that's even a possibility and i like to think the pins would catch the bar before it got to that? I should do an experiment with the empty bar to see what happens.

Total reps above 80% attempted: 25 reps

Conditioning notes:
HIIT session delayed til evening - i went to the park and tried it but it was too hot and i'm not crazy enough to attempt tabata sprints in those conditions

I did run one max effort sprint. I set the interval timer to countdown to 2s before starting, and i took off at the beep, then it beeped again at 4s. At that point i was pretty close to the finish line. So i'm confident that I can get quite close to 4s if i am a)fresh (i definitely wasn't today), b)i finish cutting and push my strength up. Exciting stuff! All i know is, with a 30m sprint eventually under 4s I shouldn't have any trouble playing competitive basketball at a decent athletic level if I ever decide to play again

HIIT was a killer. I didn't like this session. Last time I felt fully recovered for every sprint but this time 2-3 intervals in and i was panting like a dog and 'sprinting' slowly

I'd just like to point out I ran on the TM today topless and last time I tried that I had to stop and pull on a shirt because of my moobs slapping around. But today there was minimal slapping. See guys, cardio/hiit does magic things for me. Even though i've only lost about a kilo of bodyweight, i've lost a lot of fat because of conditioning. I can't explain it but it's magic and happens every time I start conditioning.

BS notes:
No more HBBS nuff said. See next post for detail.

BW=81.35kg/179.35lb

~3.6lb over three weeks is not a bad result at all, all things considered. I'm comfortably under 180lb now at least. And very close to slipping into 80kg.

My best front squat in August was 112.5kg, my best FS in sept was 115kg. So I added 2.5kg, whooptydoo. I might have got 116 if I hadn't tried for 117.5 but that's neither here nor there. Anyway i've had enough of shitty progress and i'm going to add volume starting today when I begin my new workout, so things might be on the up. We'll see.

Where is my bodyfat at right now? Still have no accurate idea. It's in that fuzzy region of ~15-20% and could be anywhere there. Extrapolating if I will be 10% at 75kg say then based on that estimate i'll have an lbm of 67.5kg then i'm roughly 18% right now which is reasonable. On the other hand, i have good reason to believe I am at or very close to 15% right now. My waist is under 34" and into the 33s and my bodyfat may well have even slipped underneath 15% already. But until I reach say 12-13%, it's not yet /obvious/ exactly how lean (or fat) I really am right now.

I've been cutting for ages and it's coming up to the time I need to take a scheduled diet break which is set for 15th October and will be 2 weeks long til the end of October..

That gives me 15 days to finish up this cutting phase at my target of being reliably under 80kg (176lb). If things go perfectly and better than expectation i'll get as low as 79.5kg or 175lb but i'll settle for just being under 80kg at this point. I wont be 10% bodyfat at that weight, but i'm confident it will definitely below 15%. This might be too ambitious since losing about 5lb in 2 weeks is unlikely even over 4 weeks leave alone 2 but we'll see what happens. If I get an early whoosh I may just be able to ride it out to a 5lb net loss. If I don't then at least i'll get under 80kg. Only time will tell. 

VERY COOL THANKS FOR THAT

Btw have you seen much calf growth since you started calf specialised training?

Also, what happens if you lose your balance, won't you get really hurt?

edit/update: oh and i forgot to ask, those aren't lifting shoes are they. is that intentional (of course it is knowing you!)

I slept awkwardly from wearing my massively oversized jordan hoody on account of it being very cold the night before and woke up left glute pain I used to have all the time when I had chronic sciatica. Thankfully it's gone today though. Very relieved, it was scary there for a while, i didn't want to relive that nightmare again.

Taking today off on the scheduled conditioning sessions. I'm resting up for the next program starting tomorrow where conditioning days coincide with leg training days. So it's no big deal, i'm just going to delay it a day. Hope it works better this time around.

Quote from: entropy on September 28, 2012, 12:15:55 pm

I looked and I can't find anything! There are of course hardware timing gates (i think this is the technical term) but they cost a fair bit. And i dont need anything fancy just smething I can roll out on my own as a personal project. There are a whole bunch of fitness related apps out ther but nothing for timing sprints unfortunately.

ya man i'd rather be able to do it accurately on my phone too.

nice man sounds like a fun project.

i can't even get that android simulator to run on any of my systems.. really crappy specs.. takes like 20 minutes for it just to load up.

continuing it here so we're not spamming his journal or yours lol

yeah i was sprinting earlier and just before my last 30m sprint as i was resting it came to me in a flash, and i shouted out 'damn thats a good idea'. there were some ppl nearby who must have heard me and thought what's wrong with this guy lol. but yeah, i really think it could be something accurate enough to do the job and what I like about it the best, it will be reliable/reproducible. with hand timing, sometimes you just fumble triggering on and off and it's hard to be consistent. i also hate how hand timing gets in the way of starting and finishing. i heard they found a way to speed up the simulator but i never tried it personally. i'll let you know how it goes when i try it out

Just what I needed to hear. Starting monday i'll accumulate volume (30-40 at over 80% is a lot more than i'm used to, almost double,  but i welcome the challenge and hope it does good things for me!) and make sure I do a good quanity of acceptable quality reps each workout. Appreciate it as always Lance, legend!  

Training
TMWU 300m, 02:26
FS 2x107.5 (didn't have a 3rd), 2x110 (PR), 0Fx117.5, 0Fx116
BP 6Fx80.5, 6x77.5, 6x75

TMWU 300m, 02:46
HBBS 2x100, 2x1x107.5, 4x100, 3x97.5, 6x92.5, 3x90
5x30m sprints

ABZ - cable crunch 3x5 (+3.75kg from last time, great burn, my abs still feel warm minutes later lol)
       - plank test - got an easy PR of 1 min before it got challenging. So that means i've improved core strength since i haven't done planks in months. Good to know that the ab work i've been doing is paying off!

FS notes:
I had heard but not known until now but these heavy RM attempts really do fuck you up for subsequent lifts. In hindsight instead of that 2nd heavy single i should have attempted a lighter 3RM PR instead. Or even if I had attempted 116 instead of 117.5 in the first place I would have got it. That's another thing, best be realistic and admit a ceiling of 5kg gains per month. So I should try 1kg, 1.5kg, 1kg, 1.5kg jumps over 4 weeks instead of trying for weekly 2.5kg ones as I have been til now and failing them.

Next friday I will attempt the following PRs hopefully with no failures:
106x3, 111x2, 116x1

If I make the above PRs, then the following weeks I will add 1kg or 1.5kg alternating.

Failed 116kg. I lean fwd out of the hole and it makes it difficult to lock the lift out. My question is this - if I had a higher heeled shoe, would I have got that lift? Mine have a heel slightly lower than 1/2". Suppose I had a heel around 1" - would that put me in a position to make that lift rather than to fail it?

HBBS notes:
I stumbled upon a nice little trick I hadn't seen mentioned anywhere else - I thought to explicitly instruct my hips to go forward on the descent. This combined with finding that feeling of sitting between the legs makes the entire thing feel very much how a front squat feels at the bottom. Which is good. Additionally I found by taking a slightly wider stance than usual, I could really stretch out my legs, so much so, rather than being limited by hamstring strength as usual, I felt the tension entirely on my quads.

The bad news is, looking at the video, it doesn't look similar to a front squat. The other caveat which worries me is that it seems to put myself in a rather precarious position if the lift is abortive and must be completed via a squatmorning, because the bar is rather forward. Maybe i'm just not meant to backsquat. Video below.

dessert: