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post vid of dl form. it'd be odd for ankle mobility to be the limiting factor there.

Will do next time I DL.

It seems i've given myself a nasty dose of plantar fasciitis by favouring my uninjured foot shooting hoops that day. I can't even walk normally now, have to limp around the house.  What I need to learn from this is to back off properly when injuries arise. Going to take some time off to rest and heal up and come back when ready.

Quote

u still fat? 180+ lb? still got that crow? still depressed, crying and singing michael jackson songs?

A crow???  WTF. He doesn't really have a crow does he?

I have a friend who keeps magpies. Nothing wrong with a man who loves birds. Fuck that shit, i'm all for e-hate, but it has to be meaningful. Adarq puts teh ADA in lovelace, who could fault him for writng some code?

Training
full court basketball match (~1hr)
Sq - 3x6 95kg
Sprints - 10x30m (Best time 4:95 on the last sprint - had to go balls deep to break 5 today, the best i could do before that was 5:08-5:13 - kept hitting 13 regularly in the last 5 attempts. The first 5 were were mid 5s - bit rusty)

Skipped upper body work, strained intercostal over the weekend (think from unracking bench or squats, or both, on friday). Don't want to make it worse. Hopefully it will be healed faster this way. I've had this injury before and it's a bitch. Last time i just had to lay off all training and it took a few weeks before it healed. Otherwise it never went away when i tried to train thru it, only made it worse and took ages to heal that way.

frustrated with my game.. i'm not finding my place in the team.. i feel as though i'm underutilised on offence.. i should be getting the ball much more since i have good offensive skills, i can dribble well for my size, and i can beat most ppl guarding me easily. but i keep getting overlooked. the only way around this, and i feel selfish about it is if i pull down a board on defence and run it all the way.. which is the only way i'm getting to the hoop it seems sometimes. but i'd rather get a good assist than score anyway, i'm a pass first kind of guy. ah well. i'm actually really happy with my team, we got blown away today as usual, but it was good to see everyone contributing, the ball was passed around much more, and we played decent defence, all things considering..

Forgot to mention, I had another steal at half court where i didn't think to go for a dunk on teh fast break. Dunno why i didn't even try. I regretted instantly  cos i slowed  down enough to let someone steal the ball in the end.. wtf was i thinking.. lol.. next time finish fast break with dunk, no matter what!

Training
30m x 5 sprints   while fresh, best time - 5:84

Used ankle tape and new running shoes, was mostly painless. I really like these shorter sprints, can go all out and be powering thru the finish rather than slowing down cos of fatigue. Felt great. Will continue to do them from now on. I ran a few other warmup sprints but didn't keep a track of them.

Time to put on my WL shoes and do some sqwats.

3x5 102.5 kg Backsquats These were stupidly hard, I had to psyche myself up lol, for 100kg? I wont be sprinting before lifting again. i can sprint after squatting without a problem, but lifting after sprinting is way harder.

Getting tired of benching all the time. I don't want to start doing some other exercise half heartedly but dunno.

Going to play pickup ball now,  i'll come back and bench/chin before bed.

1 hour pickup ball - amazing difference playing with a solid ankle. Felt a lot more confident.

I might still bench tonight, but i don't really want to. lol. will see. I need loads more upper body strength. I find myself unable to shoot properly cos my upper body feels weak. Maybe i should add some volume on bench press and drop the intensity some. That might build more strength endurance and a good compromise in intensity cos i'm not setting PRs any time soon anyway.

Forgot to mention, i took an attempt at dunking. But i'm not 100% sure I actually did dunk lol. I know i grabbed the rim both hands at the end, and the ball went in too, but i'm not sure if it was a dunk or just some bullshit. Will count it as a miss anyway. Another thing, I tested SVJ thsi time at a proper court and I hit the rim with my palm middle. So my SVJ is prob slightly higher than 25.5"? maybe as much 27". That is bullshit too. If a fat, unfit, injured unathletic fuck like me is getting 27" without really training for VJ then something is wrong somewhere..

I love 30m sprints.. can't wait to do them next time.. what's a good time to aim for, less than 4s?

BP 1x5 78.5kg, 1x5 71 kg - Last rep was ugly on the first set. 2nd set was 10% less than the first. Felt guilty eating a big dinner and skipping bench so went back and did it lol. I just hope I can make some progress on my lifts on the next workout.

Of course I can't say for sure, cause I don't know you and I don't train with you, but it seems like you're not going that heavy on your squats.  6 reps being 20kg lighter than 3 reps is a lot, unless you're purposely trying to go lighter.  Lifting heavy is important when dieting.

I get that. Yes the 6s aren't heavy, but from experience they're important in the big picture. I find I need them to keep my form honest. If I lift heavy triples only then my form goes bad because the weight is heavy, and I'm struggling to just get thru the reps and sets, it sets up a situation where i'm doing ugly squats  ALL the time. The 6s are an antidote to that, they remind my body what a pretty squat looks like, Good form is important for self evident reasons and also I think for someone with my proportions (not build to be great at lifting) I need that time under tension to get sufficient stimulus. I actually don't know the full explanation of by heart but I read it on a t-nation article (lol) and it made sense. The idea is lanky guys like me need more work with higher reps with lighter weight to get the best out of lifting. I don't know if it's true or not but when I reach my goal of 1.5BW for worksets, I want to be doing it with good form, not shitty form, because that's worthless from the perspective of attaining the next goal of 1.75BW and longterm 2BW. So if it means working with weights 10-20kg less in 2 workouts of 3, that's okay for me.

The other thing is, i've tried the go heavy every time thing in the past while cutting. I dont know if it works cos I always end up taking reps off and by the end i'm doing heavy awful looking doubles and triples with a weight I was using for 5s previously before the diet. And form gradually gets worse and worse. As in scary and painful to watch. The other thing is, someone with a long road of dieting ahead, there is no way I can lift heavy every workout for the next 8-16wks - even if twice a wk, i'd burn out very quickly. The recommendation to just lift heavy bro when cutting doesn't make too much sense to me. People can't lift heavy all the time when they're bulking - so why would you try that on a cut? It makes no sense and yes I've tried it earnestly in the past and it didn't work and i think rep work is too important to give up just because you're cutting.

If your really frequency sensitive with squats, at least make Friday a light day (~60% 1RM).  If you believe you really can recover with your current routine, and it's the basketball that's messing you up, reduce that.  

Yeah I need to cut down on ball slightly.. (easier said than done, it's like opening a bag of crisps/chips and planning only on having a a handful..lol). But i'll have to be strict about it.

You gotta reduce one or the other, or you'll keep on being chronically fatigued and not progress your squats.  You said your squat stagnated for 3 weeks.  At your strength levels, this should not happen, ESPECIALLY considering your doing pretty high frequency.  So obviously something is wrong, and most likely overtraining/ lack of recovery so up to you.  Take something out, if you want to keep progressing.  Gotta sacrifice some things for the bigger goal.  I know the feeling, I hate giving up basketball time, but if "CHASING ATHLETICISM" is your primary goal at this point, gotta make the necessary changes.

Athleticism means having a decent base of fitness/conditioning right? So if i'm half as well conditioned as the average athlete, i can improve that by just showing up each time.  Pretty sure each time i train, i improve, just because i'm so out of shape. I mean taking my 100m sprint from 17s down to 14s wont take a huge amount of high quality work. I just need to run a few times a week and i'll automatically improve, at least for a while. The other thing is, i'm doing extra work atm cos i have to lug around a surplus 10% of bodyfat which I wont have when lean. So there is that too. I'm more fatigued and unfit now, but i wont be later even just maintaining my current fitness and training.  

Regarding squats - im guessing I weigh around 83kg right now. My goal is 1.5BW squats for 3x3. I'm at 110kg atm, and I need to nudge that up to 120, while cutting down to 80kg to reach my goal. This month I can probably manage to get up to 115. Maybe. dunno. If I get myself unstuck first lol. But say If i make progress this week and get 112.5 then 115 should be doable by month end. Then as long as I can nudge it up slowly from 115 to 120, i should be okay. I'm not trying to set the world on fire with my squat, not while cutting and playing ball etc. 1.5BW worksets is my goal, and i'm not too far from it, i think i'm 1.36BW atm. and I did 120kg for 10 sets of 3 earlier this year so it's not a PR for me either. So 120 is a fairly realistic/modest goal imho.  

Sprinting/ Max effort jumping/ and other plyo's should be done with the same mentality as how us athletes treat heavy lifting days.  Quality over quantity, and train at your peak.

I understand. When i'm down to 10% bf and i'm squatting 130 for triples etc, and my 100m time is < 14 I'll have to change my approach since just showing up wont be enough. I look forward to that lol. That's when I get to approach the limits of my natural ability - will be hard work and training in a different way than i'm used to.

Sprint BEFORE you lift, so you will train your body for sprinting at it's best.  The reason it doesn't work the other way around is, lifting will hinder sprint performance for the day, but sprints (OBVIOUSLY GO FOR QUALITY AND NOT MUCH VOLUME) will not hinder your lifting, in fact it is a good warm up for max lifting.  How much plyometric volume one can handle before risking lifting performance varies by individual but play it safe and go for low volume first and keep adding until you know your limits.  More volume on sprints/plyo's/jumps is not worth it to risk lifting performance.

Ok. i'll try this out tomorrow. Will let you know hhow it goes. Also can you tell me what sort of distance is ideal for me? I've seen some guys here logging 15 yard sprints, mine are around 40m (i think, could be 60m i haven't measured just using the lines drawn on the field). Does it matter?

You have a basketball match AFTER heavy lifting?  You can still play like that?

Today I did for the first time. But it's not really heavy -3x6 weight is about 20kg lighter than my 3x3 workout. The last few weeks I had been playing first, then lifting, but that means I finish workout out pretty late. What I could do is try to do 2-a-days again, had some success with them early 2012. That way I could do some of my lifting in the AM, then play ball, and lift post workout. Might be better? I can definitely try that out.

Anyways, my advice is, take out your squats and dead lifts on Friday.  Just do upper body and basketball/sprint/jump, but don't go too crazy with the volume on these.  You should be fresher on each squat session and therefore, more likely to progress your strength. 

fridays workouts aren't hard, neither, if I played less ball, i might be better recovered? It's a balancing act heh. The other thing is, my squat is really sensitive to frequency and it detrains very quickly. Taking 3 days between squats might be bad. I'll think about it.

Sunday you do sprints BEFORE squats right?  If not, do so.

Usually get the lifting out of the way, then head to the park. Is this bad? I figure I can go all out on the sprints that way, and not have to save myself to lift later, cos I  don't know how to limit myself.

Thanks for the ideas, i'm gonna take them on board and improve my programming.

How often are you squatting?

3x a week. I try to sneak in a really light workout on one my rest days to make it 4x - but not all the time.

If your squat is stagnating, it can be that you are over-trained/not fully recovered.  Make sure your squatting days, the day before you get enough sleep/eat well/ and rest or just light stuff for your lower body.  Nothing CNS intensive the day before, unless you are well adapted.  For me personally, I COMPLETELY rest before my lower body day, cuz without a fresh CNS, I can't squat for shit.
 

I'm definitely fatigued most of the time. I realise it's because I do a lot of training - lifting, running, jumping, playing basketball and this while trying to diet - it's going to cost me recovery ability. I get that - I'm not denying that, just trying to understand how I can make it work the best considering i'm not going to change training since it's unavoidable. But your post made me realise I am not really prioritising squat. Usually i bench first before squatting. On match day, I usually play ball first then lift.

I was thinking today since i'm refreshed having had 2 rest days where I didn't do any training, that I could maybe squat heavy again today - but warming up, I felt rusty and didn't think i'd be able to hit the same weights as my last workout. So i went with the scheduled 3x6 weights which felt okay.

The only thing thing I can think of is, maybe not go so hard on fridays, so I can come back on sunday to make my 3x3 lifts? But the cost of that is I can't work on my conditioning as hard but something has to give..

I made teh change to squat first today though, fresh. Last week I trained after the match, and after bench pressing. Today squatted first, then bench, and then play ball.

Training
BP 1x87.5kg
BS 3,3,1 x110kg
DL 5x110kg

Fatigue: 7/10, Ankle: 8/10

BP wasn't happening today. Even unracking 80kg felt like death. My programming is obviously not working. I was trying to do 3x6, 3x5 and then 3x3 - but when it comes to 3x3 day i'm not recovered enough. So perhaps something has to give for next week.

DL catches up with SQ. Am feeling much better about my DL than I am about my BS. For the 3rd week in a row, i've been stuck on my squats, which is becoming frustrating. So long as my DL keeps going up, which I am guessing it will since DL doesn't care for BW as much as SQ does, i'll keep heart. If I can drive my DL workset up to 2*BW then my BS might just be cajoled upwards to 1.5BW for worksets.

I've been laying off running and jumping this weekend to allow my ankle to heal. I'm just going to take the next couple of days lightly and let the built up fatigue dissipate. For the last 20 days I don't think i've had a day of rest? Should be nice and fresh for Weds game if i take it easy the next coupla days.