Adarq.org

Here's my game plan for the coming week. Start cutting monday .. i've let myself go trying to build some muscle but it's time to get back on track on maintaining a stable and strong 77kg bw .. which means first cutting to around 75kg then letting carbs fill me up to 76-77kg. Maintain that and just get as strong af at that bodyweight. I want a double bw squat and nothing is served by getting too heavy when i haven't even attained a 1.9x ratio!

But cutting aside, i'm getting .. not bored .. but lack of excited from all the posterior chain work ive been doing. I wanna wrap up this PC experiment with RDLs and hip thrusts and get back to building up a decent squat (>150kg repeatable weekly, to start with). This will get my leg strength close to PR levels and then i can revisit other stuff (suggestions abound on making me a hip dominant athlete .. however i'm prob gonna do that as part of a later phase.. no point messing with it while my quads are so chronically weak atm from lack of squatting). I think maintaining a 200kg RDL topset and a 220kg hipthrust topset will be good once i've got there, it goes on cruise mode and i focus on squats (=quads & erectors).

And i will try to play a bball game once a week .. if i can manage it ... otherwise on weds i'll run game-time intensity drills or osmething.. to avoid stagnation and going backwards in sports specific fitness. This will give me room to add in the drills Todday suggested for movement efficiency. Not going to do sprinting now though .. wrecks squat workouts which i wont abide!

A possible injury i picked up from last time. When I unracked 190kg for calf raises last time, i was able to take it out of the rack just fine. But my new bar is fairly whippy (28mm vs 30mm of the old one) .. and ... of course racking the bar the plates were lower and i struggled to return the bar, stretched/strained my right shoulder getting it back on the rack. That sucks. The pins below are too low .. and evidently the normal ones are now too high, so next time if i ever have more than 150kg on the bar, just make sure the pins are set lower to account for bar whip.

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I just bought a 5 kg med ball and a 24 kg kettlebell with less than 100 euros, years ago. I just paid 100 euros for two items I'll basically have forever, so a great investment.

I will consider it, if it shows utility beyond a few weeks use! I'm just unsure about investing in a single KB when like dumbells you may need more one pair and it's unclear which weight to go with. Thanks for the recommendation though, i'll try them today and see how it goes.

I used my TENS unit around my left hip yeterday.. and the niggles ive felt all week have disappeared overnight. That's cool. I love this thing, acole you're the man for suggesting it! I use it on my lower back regularly and im good there too 

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Like you said there's 2 different theories on it. 1) Quads aren't strong enough, allowing the relatively stronger PC to compensate via a goodmorning movement or 2)hamstrings are not strong enough, cant hold back angle, give up and allow hips to shoot up with the squat being completed by the quads. Which of these is true? Maybe neither.

The squat is a full body movement. If some part of the movement is affected by a weak point in your physique or strength distribution then you should get stronger there, wherever there is doesn't matter, only that you're squatting correctly at a given weight and progressing up from there while maintaining correct form. It could be anything, upper back, abs, erectors, who knows. Maybe a bit from column A and a bit from column B, ..., and a bit from Z. You nailed the causality:  "however since i can sit rock bottom in a narrow grip overhead squat and only lose my upright torso on the way up suggests it's not my problem." - this rules out mobility and suggests a strength weakness. When the weight is lighter all of the muscles in your body are more than capable of lifting the weight correctly. As you add more weight, the leverages of the lift change and the demands on the various muscles also change (not necessarily proportionally!) which places more of a burden on some muscles to compensate for a weakness in others, hence departing from textbook form.

My favourite theory is that form has a strength component to it, if you are strong enough to maintain good position throughout the movement of a backsquat in lighter weights but can't do it as it gets heavier, it means at a certain point the weight overwhelms that weakpoint. Identifying where that occurs and grooving the movement just below that weight will allow you to overcome that weakness and improve your form beyond that weight.

If I was going to fix someone's GM squat .. i'd have them work up to a heavyish single, then drop down and do volume at just below their form breakdown weight, working to increase the weight steadily over time but being patient before adding weight. Maybe master it for volume (say 6x6) before incrementing and repeating the process. What i wouldn't do is do a "normal" squat workout and then do technique work with lighter weight -- at that point fatigue has already set in and you're going to have bad form even with lighter weight.

BS 6x70 (warmup PR; paused 135) 6x110(warmup PR; p135), 2x130 (LPR; warmup), 6x112.5(first set LPR), 6x117.5 (LPR)
BCR 12x150, 8x190
JS 8x110 (warmup PR), 8x150 (warmup PR), 8x180 (=PR; maintenance)
PP 6x62.5(PR; warmup PR too!), 6x65(PR), 7x62.5(PR)
BP 6x70 (warmp PR), 1x90
DJ 2x6x20"
MedBThr 6x5kg, 6x10kg, 6x5kg (new exercise!!; see notes)

BW: 80kg / 176.5lb

Notes:
The first workout done with my new barbell and 2x25kg plates. What a difference it made from old, bent, rusty, cheap barbell. I could actually save lifts that i would normally have failed. it feels way better out of the bottom .. world of difference. Probably got my first decent erectors workout in a long time. No fails either in a day i wasn't feeling very fresh or strong, to get a string of PRs is a great sign. This is the setup i'll use to build and achieve my 180kg squat goal within 12 months.

Apparently a decent barbell also helps with overhead lifts .. i got a push press PR straight up. Time to get strong.

I started medicine ball throws at the behest of T0ddday! Have set myself some initial goals based on the soccer field configuration and my first throws done there today:


For the record i'm about 30cm off on the 10kg goal and ~20m off on the 6kg goal.

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I'll try to post more video in the coming weeks .. for you guys to check your hunches. Will be interesting to see if it matches up with the preconceptions!

Tonight i went to the rec center just to shoot around for bout 30min before the rec league games start. And i was warming up doing some dunks .. guess i must have looked ok cause this guy approached me and asked if i would play for them.. so naturally i said hell yes .. and we won. Todday mentioned Rodman above a few posts ago, it may have been in my subconscious cause i tried to play the best defence and rebounding game off my life. Went scoreless .. in true rodman fashion. Took a video during warming up

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EmPvA81WPak" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EmPvA81WPak</a>

lighting sucks but i didnt run any filter on it to make it easier to view. Also dont quote it cause im gna delete it to protect the privacy of the other ppl in the vid .. dont kno them but it's not cool to put it online without their permission .. i know

How do we decide I have a glute weakness and not hamstring or quad? I would say my glutes are just fine (in terms of muscular development) however .. they're not quite as ripped as the best player in the competition who at my height and about 200-220 had absolutely no bodyfat on him and could run circles around bigger slower guys or smaller quicker ones - he'd just a beast and it's the main and chief reason i've decided on a complete 12 month overhaul of my training.

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0iEuwMEfBWk" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0iEuwMEfBWk</a>

Here i am closer to 160 than 165. I was just under 163 i'd say. That was less than 2 weeks ago!

Just to make it clear im not glossing over my severe lack of movement efficiency, here are teh glaring shortcomings in my athleticism as I see them (on the court):

- Moving from point A to B involves a very slow process of initiating the movement (high/long/slow reaction time), slow motion of the feet in making the movement(few longer, slower strides instead of several small quicker ones??), weird posture (round back or upright but not the low, athletic flat back stance in textbooks) and the whole thing looks very much in slow mo, like ive got cemented feet, am mired in quicksand and so on

- When it comes to jumping etc, i can move efficiently only in the penultimate stages of the movement but before then everything is slow motion

- positioning for rebounding, defence, lobs/dunks/cuts etc is non existent.. i dont move "early" enough .. im caught watching the ball or the action, reacting (which is invariably already too late to react!) to action instead of anticipating and creating action, moving earlier, either before or during the action

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Is there anything i need to add to this list? please let me know!

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And if that's the entire list .. then how do i fix or improve these problems. Before todday came ppl here were doing 10m sprints and stuff .. but we've gone the other direction since and done longer springs. tbh, i probably enjoyed doing those 20m sprints and miss them.. i wonder if they were better than half heartedly doing longer sprints which id ont really believe to be helping me. im pretty good on a fast break, i feel i can chase down anyone for a block.. and i can count the number of shots ive changed in fbs, even collecting transition rebounds .. however that's not wher ei need to improve.. it's the shorter distances, going from A to B where they're about 1-5m apart not the entire length of the court. Why shouldnt i be doing <5m sprints? if that's where i need the most improvement.. lol.