Woke up feeling even better today, seems to be healing more every day!
I'm visibly leaner too, except, damn the scale actually went up not down. I wanted to be under 83kg by tomorrow morning, instead I was over 84kg this morning .. slightly frustrating lol.
lol tru bro. what if ur family is starving, is it ok to steal a loaf of bread to feed them? and what if they dont like bread, they want cigarettes, thats ok right? im trying to remember this absurd analogy i had running thru my mind earlier today
You guys might be right, seems to be improving as the day goes on. I did try to rest as much as possible which mighta helped. See what happens over the next coupla days. Ive started icing as well, not usually a big fan of icing becos i dont wanna intefere with normal healing but thought to try it. I will look around the pharmacy for that sleeve too lance, thank u.
Hmm, woke up with the groin strain sensation still there. Not looking good, have been googling and it seems it takes around 4-6wks to heal a grade I Watched all three sets of backsquats and I can't see anything that would have caused the injury. They are actually really nice sets, probably the best form of mine i've seen on video.
I think the 3 hours on my feet before the workout might have been a reason, maybe I had some fatigue there that make me vulnerable? Dunno.
My other theory is cos my front squats took longer this time (due to the extra set) and I went straight front squats to my backsquat worksets - that I had gotten cold, and I should have warmed up again.
But i've done the sequence of 1. backsquat warmup, 2. front squat warmup, 3.front squat workout then 4. backsquat workout; many times and never had any problem. I usually go thru the fronts pretty quickly tho, this time I had to do an extra set and I took a bit longer rest too. And I guess I have been using a lot of volume too, squatting 3x6 every workout for the last 2 weeks, maybe that caught up with me somehow.
Anyway will see how it feels on monday otherwise i'll prob rest the week
Training SQ 2x115 FS 2,3,3x102 (PR) SQ 3x6x95 BP 2x6x77.5,1x5x77.5 (CG), 3x5x62.5 (Wide grip) RDL 3x120 (PR), 8x95 (PR) ~20 dead hang chins
Exhausted. I finally got around to fixing my floor problem. My floor tiles are uneven and sloped, and this makes it hard to squat properly. So today I spent like 3 hours trying to fix that. I got some concrete slabs and laid them out. I dunno how I spent so much time on this but I wasn't sure how to solve it - so just walked around looking at stuff I could use. Decided against wood cos it would get damaged. Anyway tomorrow I gotta level the slabs but I just squatted on them today even tho they wobble atm.
The new floor is so much better already but it changes the pin heights and things. I fucked up my first set of front squats cos the pins were too high (i had try to adjust them prior but it still needed to be one hole lower). Caught my 3rd rep on the pins and failed it. Sucked. So I did one more set to make up for it, and form was kind of iffy today anyway. I think the 2-3 hours I spent on my feet mighta contributed to that.
Then came backsquats - oh I forgot to mention, Lance is spot on about my form breakdown, the heavy set of 115 had the exact failure mode Lance predicted - I got GM - letting my lower back power the lift since my legs wouldn't. Hmm. Next week probably go with 112.5kg and try to get THAT with good form and just add reps for the heavy set over the coming weeks. I think 120x3 with GOOD form would be nice as a short term goal.
Backsquats, on the 2nd set, I strained something in my groin. I worked thru it, it's not painful or anything, just has that pulled/strained sensation. Got all 3 sets, my form is good for the first 4 reps, and the 5th was ok but 6th borderline. I guess as fatigue sets in, it starts to resemble the form breakdown I saw in the heaviest set.
Then bench, this changed too with the higher floor. I found it more comfortable esp with my legs higher up now (the floor underneath my feet is not raised). I like it, I could stay tighter that way. But i still couldn't get all 3 sets, the last one only managed a 5. Next time reset 1kg back and take smaller jumps. Maybe 1kg? We'll see.
RDLs, i misread my log and went for 3x117.5, which is what I had done last time. So repeated it with 120x3, this was ok, just my grip strength sucked today and even warmups felt heavy in my hands. The bar kind of rotated in my hand on the 9th rep of the set with 95kg and I put it down.
Oh and I stupidly tried to clean 60kg off the failed front squat but the bar was a bit too high to clean properly, and I managed to fail halfway and then bang it into the pins. Might have bent it badly. I spun it on the pins and it was def wobbling. It's a shitty cheapy bar and quite old now and I have been thinking of replacing it but i'm not going to spend a lot of money on a bar - i'm not a professional athlete or anything so spending $500 on a barbell isn't happening lol. May just get another cheap one and then treat it really gently, for my goals I don't see it getting too much of a beating. I'll use it for squats and presses only.
And yeah the workout was too long, I didn't risk sprinting with my groin strain. next week do RDLs on monday, friday workouts are too long
I take synephrine (2x10mg) and caffeine(1x200mg) caps before my friday workouts, once or twice a month. I use them very sparingly, and only if i'm attempting a PR and don't feel very strong, cos I don't wanna fatigue my CNS more than necessary by taking stimulants often. It makes them less effective that way too.
In the past when I was cutting (from ~110kg down to ~85kg), I used the same stack daily to control hunger and appetite while on a very low carb diet diet to feel alert for workouts. I never take stimulants before games because my normal nerves have me wired, and if I take stimulants on top of that, I get overstimulated and it's impossible to shoot or pass well because everything feels fast forwarded x 10 lol. On my current cut i've managed to do without stims but eventually when i'm leaner I suspect i'll have to take them to control hunger.
This is the deal here, when you get your squat form on point, like youre doing now, the staying upright wont be the limiting factor, leg strength will. Squatting correctly is the most optimal way to improve the squat. Its trained isometrically, in the exact manner you need it to work, in the lift.
Training the low back even MORE, with added exercises like deadlifts, may contribute to you actually WANTING to lean over more, to get that momentum from the low back out of the hole. You can have a nice lower back driven squat that wont contribute shit to your sports performance. Instead of improving your form now, you get better at having a goodmorning squat.
It fits. When I was doing a lot of really ugly heavy GM squats, I was also pulling often and a lot. I would find a way to transfer the squat workload from my weakness (legs) to my strength (lower back and glutes). I had far worse form then than I do now. What I didn't realise until you pointed it out, is that it was caused by the imbalance of PC strength over legs!!
Quote
Many times, excessive forward lean in the squat comes from the quads and glutes being too weak initiate the concentric out of the hole, the lean happens as a result to get into a good morning position and help the lift. Strengthening the legs more helps this, strengthening the low back at the expense of the legs contributes to it.
That was my exact experience. And since I stopped pulling heavy, my squat form has improved. Coincidence?
Quote
I am not saying that the deadlift is an awful exercise, only that in your case I dont think adding it to your program will help you in the way youre thinking it will. Its already trained well in your well rounded set up. Its kind of akin to someone saying, " I flare my elbows as wide as possible on bench press and it kills my pecs, I always fail at the chest. Im going to do some pec flys to strengthen my chest, instead of tucking my elbows in some and doing the lift differently."
Convinced.
Quote
Quote
It's dark times like this I wish I could call upon the advice of adarqui but alas Brian Kernigan and Dennis Richie take another victim, even beyond the grave.
lol. He would tell you to work on getting that bone density down with zercher bench presses.
I was going at this from a sports performance enhancement angle when I replied, if you want to deadlift to get good at it, or to get very strong in the low back then thats a different angle.
That angle is correct. It remains the main goal, to become as athletic as possible. That's what i've been working towards this year and it's paying off so far. I've even successfully achieved some inverse hypertrophy as well by dilligently avoiding unnecessary exercises such as DLs, weighted chins and Pendlay rows. The questions about the deadlift (or sumo variation) are from the perspective of assisting the squat. I know I risk attaining some unwanted hypetrophy this way, but if it helps my squat I'm perhaps willing to risk it. Would having a strong back help staying up right out of the bottom of the hole? Not tipping forward as much if I have a strong chest and upper back? These are the trade offs im considering. It's dark times like this I wish I could call upon the advice of adarqui but alas Brian Kernigan and Dennis Richie take another victim, even beyond the grave.
Quote
You need strong glutes/quads to jump high, and your front squat, squat, do that much better than a deadlift. You also need strong hamstrings to able to move well and be athletic in general, and the rdl trains this area better than the traditional deadlift imo. Ive never seen significant performance gain from conventional or sumo deadlifts in jumping or sprinting, other than when the deadlift was used as a cns potentiation tool prior to performance. Even then there are better methods if athletic movement is the goal.
Understood.
Quote
If you improve your front squat 50 lbs, its almost impossible not to see a gain in vertical jump. Same thing with the back squat IF youre actually squatting with the LEGS, (plenty of knee, hip, ankle flexion) and not just a low back extension with a little hip involvement. Improving full squat will improve the deadlift, improving the deadlift wont necessitate the same improvement. Something to think about when selecting exercises for your goals.
Sorry I didn't see your post til now steve. In the past when I was cavalier with form and worked up to a DL of 170kgx5 by pulling explosive stifflegged-kind-of with a round back, and I don't know what muscles that worked or where that strength was developed, but i'm cautious about deadlifting with bad form now since i've just overcome long term (~3 years) sciatica and I'm keen on staying healthy and injury free. The thing is when I pulled that way, and i'm likely to pull the same way if I just keep trying to build up my deadlift quickly in the usual fashion (5kg jumps per week for 1x5) then i'm almost certainly going to re-injure my back.
But I would like to learn to deadlift with good form. Maybe I can never use the exercise to actually get strong but for now I just wanna be able to do it properly. I can set the bar down nicely now though which I never did before - RDLs taught me that thankfully. The hard part now is setting up for the pull. I've tried everything, very close to the bar, a bit further, a lot further. Wider stance, narrower stance. Pushing into the floor etc. I've run the gamut and I'm sure there is some key thing i'm missing or maybe i'm just not build to be able to pull conventional, I don't know. But i'll take your advice and pick a conservative weight and then build up reps and consistent form before chasing bigger numbers. Even if my conventional DL is just a backoff set to my sumo, i'll do them as best I can with a weight I can use with good form.
Lance yup I don't think i'm anyway near using a weight for DL which will affect my recovery. I'd have to be pulling over 3 plates for that I think, and i'm not going to try that anytime soon. I could easily go to a gym and pull 3 plates any time I please, but it would be bad form of course. But i'd like to be able to pull 3 plates for reps with perfect form and i'm willing to work at it.
Btw is it a good plan then to pull heavy with sumo with good form, and then do a backoff set with a lighter weight done conventional? That way I still work my upper back and lower back, maybe not as well as conventional but better than not doing any conventional pulls.
We have very similar squat issues, forward lean due to long limbs etc. I use the knee break too , it has helped me a lot, although i have a long way to go yet. But the main reason i am posting is the front squat. That 100x3 is very tight! Drastically improving form while hitting 3RM PRs is no joke!
It will be interesting to see how I go with form issues once the backsquat weights get heavy again. I'm hoping the new knee break movement will serve me well but it remains to see what happens. The thing i'm really excited about though is finally building some leg strength from my recent front squatting. The LBBS for me was mostly a hip/glute/lower back exercise and for the first time it seems i'm building leg strength. I feel it during the exercise and later in my sore legs. That's all new. I measured my thighs recently and I saw a 0.5" improvement since the last time. And that's while trying not to gain weight of course because i've been "cutting". Adding another 20kg to my FS will do wonders for my leg strength
I will never understand, in my lifetime, how it's possible for people to keep their elbows forward like that in that position.
lol .. before I started doing them, i was a bit afraid of failing front squats. With back ones you can just ride the bar down and it's easy. Failing a front squat seems scarier, I dont wanna break my bar dropping it on the pins, but thankfully i haven't failed yet.
My bodyweight goal for the month - want to reach 180 lb
I'm getting a bit frustrated with weight loss. I've been on the wagon for 2 days now and it's not showing up on the scale. Hoping to break under 83kg by Monday - another 5 days to go and about 0.9kg to lose. Have decided that I will break 180 pounds by the end of the month by being super strict for the remainder of the month. I want to see my abs mid sept and quoting walt in breaking bad, having "a chocolate cake with chocolate icing".
I like your version of the story a lot more, broken down nicely.
Guesses on what Crossfit 2.0 will be like? I think IF is the big new thing, everyone is doing LEAGNAINS, so that would displace the Zone diet. Perhaps a resurgence of the Warrior Diet (TM) - it has that whole Primal Warrior angle to it, a harsher Paleo for the discerning neo-crossfitter. Crossfit programming itself is just random bullshit, which will be displaced by even more random bullshit. White people love swimming, and the neo-crossfiter will likely seek newer more amphibious challenges. It would certainly keep the riff raff out and keep the existing homogeneous demographic pure. I can see laps in the pool consisting of kipping front crawl stroke, perhaps supersetting with snatching weights in a pool. I dont know, I can see it. Does Pendlay make waterproof bumpers? NO? Well he ought to, the neo crossfitter needs them now. Hardc0ar. Lots of tattoos. Oh wait Gayskull already did that. hmm. I'm out of my depth here.
Perhaps. My understanding is that what makes crossfit crossfit is the PEOPLE. And the dumb exercise shit. But definitely the PEOPLE doing the dumb exercise shit. That's not going to change as long as HQ keeps charging the usual crossfit premium. It will stay attractive to the same sort of people, I don't see them changing THAT business model considering it is quite lucrative. But go on, tell me the point that I have missed - I didn't find that wall o text very readable admittedly
I don't think crossfit has anything to worry about, it's still attractive only to the white yuppie with more money than sense. Except for Charles Barkley that is, but he's not even human.
Show Posts
im trying to remember this absurd analogy i had running thru my mind earlier today
Watched all three sets of backsquats and I can't see anything that would have caused the injury. They are actually really nice sets, probably the best form of mine i've seen on video.
