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Progress Journals & Experimental Routines / Re: The PR's/PB's, videos, pictures, and daily achievements thread
« on: August 20, 2011, 03:19:54 pm »
Your jump is really impressive man! Congrats to the recent PRs!
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182
Article & Video Discussion / Re: What makes an "elite" athlete"
« on: August 19, 2011, 07:55:06 am »AN ELITE ATHLETE IS SOMEONE WHO COMPETES IN ATHLETIC COMPETITION AT AN ELITE LEVEL. THE END.
^^ thats the bottom line. People can consider themselves "elite" because of things they did in training/ etc., but to be elite you have to beat the majority of other athletes on the planet, in your sport, in your event, in competition.
+1 and +1
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Progress Journals & Experimental Routines / Re: ADARQ's journal
« on: August 16, 2011, 11:02:20 pm »
Happy birthday man!
184
Strength, Power, Reactivity, & Speed Discussion / Re: T-DUBS biggest secret. Elastic winding & coiling.
« on: August 16, 2011, 09:49:41 am »
Once again $ick3nin.v3nd3tta proves his knowledge and unique understanding of sports performance.
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Strength, Power, Reactivity, & Speed Discussion / Re: Get Strength Front Squat Harness
« on: August 15, 2011, 06:56:23 am »From what I have read (not saying it's right) heavy weights year round dampens elasticity.
How do the guys with the best hops get round that & maintain there great elasticity?.
What is elasticity supposed to be?
186
Pics, Videos, & Links / Re: Before/After pic of me (25lb drop in 6 weeks)
« on: August 12, 2011, 05:52:11 pm »From 415lbs to about 375lbs now. I'm sure my relative went up by like 0.05 but I wanted more than that.
However, I'm looking to bounce back really hard and pack on muscle and strength when I get back. My squat should be back up to 415 at around 195 or 200 pounds instead of 210 pounds.
I would be interested in your VJ performance with decreased bw and same relative strength. I would expect your SVJ to be the same, not sure about RVJ though. Might be that because of its reactive nature (vs. nearly purely power output) your RVJ will actually profit from the decreased bw alone, maybe not though. Would be interesting to know, you should test that for us to learn
.Good luck with it!
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Pics, Videos, & Links / Re: Before/After pic of me (25lb drop in 6 weeks)
« on: August 12, 2011, 04:41:25 pm »
Sick man, pretty impressive drop. How much did your squat (absolute and relative) decrease in that time? Hope you get that 40 man, would be great!
188
Strength, Power, Reactivity, & Speed Discussion / Re: Get Strength Front Squat Harness
« on: August 12, 2011, 09:38:29 am »I know a lot of coaches...
Before you wrote the above I was under the impression that your wrists are the main problem. You say that this is not the case and I can understand that he harness helps with the shoulders. Albeit I have to wonder if you have corrected your execution by now despite the harness or if this device encouraged you to just continue with bad habits that might negate some of the unique qualities of a front squat.
About the shoulder issue... I am not saying anyone should go light for weeks to get accustomed to the bar. I say you should not be a sissy and go heavy anyways and have dealt with it in a couple session and save yourself 200 bucks in the process. If your technique is correct it won't do you much harm aside from the slight discomfort for the time of the sets. If your execution is not up to par you should correct that first, harness or not. Sometimes I wonder how certain athletes are even able to compete since they seem to whine about the slightest ailments. I guess sometimes coaches even reinforce that behavior.
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Strength, Power, Reactivity, & Speed Discussion / Re: Get Strength Front Squat Harness
« on: August 12, 2011, 08:05:03 am »Your harness does not save time in the learning curve btw., it just lets you get away with shitty control of the exercise. If that is the goal, fair enough.
Huh? Why does it mean he has shitty control of the exercise if the rack position is uncomfortable?
The shitty control part comes into play when your wrists hurt with heavy weights but not with light ones. I suspect either dropping the elbows or too much forward lean on the concentric to be the reason - something not rarely observed in heavy front squats. The thing is that this is not "good" technique. It is part of the exercise to keep the torso really, really upright. Failure to do so and treating that condition with a front squat harness is taking away work that the muscles of your body should do in controlling the movement better. Instead Jack keeps omitting that work which used to be inherent in the exercise with help of the harness.
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Strength, Power, Reactivity, & Speed Discussion / Re: Get Strength Front Squat Harness
« on: August 12, 2011, 07:30:48 am »I have to disagree with you here Steven, from talking to a number of coaches it seems that extra coaching or not, for a lot of people it can take some time to get used to the way the bar feels for front squats which is one of the main reasons why many recreational athletes and trainers, even the quite serious ones, prefer to back squat.
I think the reason most prefer to back squat is because it is, in general terms, the "better" strength exercise. The front squat has its uses, but increasing the back squat comes easier and it benefits the average athlete just as much if not more. When the question is between the two nearly everyone prefers the back squat for this reason. I have never heard or read of discomfort being the problem - especially discomfort of the wrists since it does not speak to the correct execution of the exercise.
I took the approach that as neither I, or anyone I train, is a competitive weightlifter, the quickest and easiest way to overcome the comfort issue was with a very simple, effective and relatively cheap solution that clearly saves a lot of time in the learning curve. For me my goal is to find the quickest way to strengthen the legs. This achieves that nicely.
Are only competitive weightlifters required to perform an exercise correctly? Your harness does not save time in the learning curve btw., it just lets you get away with shitty control of the exercise. If that is the goal, fair enough.
It seems to be a bit dogmatic to ignore the training tools available that really can make things easier, especially as in my case, their is no actual need to perform the lift without the harness.
Especially in your case doing the front squat without the harness might prove to be a useful learning tool in improving your skills of assessing technical errors in an exercise and finding ways to correct them. The harness does not help with understanding of execution unfortunately.
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Strength, Power, Reactivity, & Speed Discussion / Re: Hypertrophy Training Tips
« on: August 11, 2011, 02:43:58 pm »I will change it if need be but kelly baggett said it was ok. Is kelly baggett wrong in saying this to me i am finding out all the points of pros and cons before choosing my final workout.
kelly baggett has a solid reputation and knows a few things. do you have a response to what kelly said like why he is wrong.
I value Kelly's opinion about training just as much as anyone but that does not change my opinion about your routine. I think, and I guess this is what Kelly meant, that it will work for a while and if you eat enough you will get bigger. But at the same time, and I can't imagine that Kelly would disagree with that either, this is far from the optimum and results will not come as consistently or as quickly as they could with a more solid routine.
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Strength, Power, Reactivity, & Speed Discussion / Re: Get Strength Front Squat Harness
« on: August 11, 2011, 10:19:19 am »Hi Steven
I understand where you are coming from and for a long time I thought I wasn't doing it right so I went and had coaching from some of the coaches at the Victorian Weightlifting Centre (our state weightlifting training facility). According to those guys I seemed to be doing everything pretty much ok and it has always felt fine using lighter loads but as the loads got heavier it never felt entirely comfortable across the wrists and shoulder blades. I have been doing the lift on and off for a few years know and the awkwardness of it just kept putting me off using it as regularly as I would have liked. So I bought the Front Squat harness. And I love it!
Hey Jack,
seems that you made an effort to get the problem addressed. I am not sure about the feedback you got from that weightlifting facility though. If wrists hurt doing front squats with 120 kg, there have to be ways to correct that. When lighter loads felt fine and heavier loads did not, this means that you are putting load on the wrists where there should be none and it is not just a wrist flexibility thing. I am pretty sure that this could have been solved easily enough if those guys made an actual effort to help you with your problem. Sucks that they did not.
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Strength, Power, Reactivity, & Speed Discussion / Re: Get Strength Front Squat Harness
« on: August 11, 2011, 09:06:06 am »I know there is a certain school of thought about using training tools like the front squat harness, and the Manta Ray which I also own, that says just get used to it, but unless you are a competing Olympic lifter or Powerlifter I personally am more than happy to find ways to make these exercises more comfortable. For the front squat the Getstrength Harness is a good solution. If $200 NZD isn't a stretch for your training budget then I would happily recommend it.
JW
Hey Jack,
I am not against solutions like this when it lets you train the way you need to. But I have to wonder how you front squat that the weight you are using does hurt so badly that you cannot perform a max set of 5 with that exercise. It seems to me like your bar position is off and your torso and/or elbows are not doing what they are supposed to do when your wrists hurt as well (they are not supposed to be loaded in the FS).
So what I don't understand is why someone would buy that harness instead of trying to do the exercise correctly first. If it does not work, fine, do what needs to be done if you have the money. But good technique will help with more things than just comfort. It will make training safer and more effective and overall more satisfying than doing things with bad / inconsistent technique - harness or not.
Sorry for thinking that you are doing the exercise wrong, I might be off base. But what you said suggested that you have not really tried to correct your form. And about the "getting used to" thing: It usually does not take a lot of work if you know what to do. I remember switching from high-bar to low-bar squats and the latter felt very uncomfortable for my back and elbows. I got used to it in a few training sessions though and have not looked back since. Had I known how to correct my grip and positioning I am sure this would have gone even quicker. It feels good to handle a problem this way too instead of giving up on it.
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Strength, Power, Reactivity, & Speed Discussion / Re: Hypertrophy Training Tips
« on: August 10, 2011, 03:38:51 pm »
I think you are determined to do this anyways and you don't WANT to change it regardless of whether someone knows better. So do it. It should be fun to you and obviously you have more fun with doing a ton of stuff in one work-out than with getting serious results as fast as possible. Not a problem for me.
195
Introduce Yourself / Re: Whats Up
« on: August 10, 2011, 10:02:48 am »
I don't know what a sack track is, but it is not a barbell. Your 1 rm deadlift is not 140 kg.