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Messages - entropy

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706
Progress Journals & Experimental Routines / Re: chasing athleticism
« on: July 25, 2013, 04:17:22 pm »
Quote from: LBSS on July 25, 2013, 03:35:14 pm
both your knees cave, so why do you think the problem is in one ankle? also, knees caving as a result of ankle instability makes no sense as far as i can tell. it's much more likely to be a result of immobility and/or weakness in your hips and upper legs.

Just the R one from what i've seen on video. L one is pretty stable in comparison. Lateral ankle stability is the issue. Either i've got restricted mobility in my L ankle. Or my R ankle is hella unstable. My experience with ankles is n=2 so I dunno. I'm gonna try see a specialist and get their opinion. But honestly my R ankle feels like jelly i can move my foot around so easily and it gives little resistance in 180 degrees. This affects squats because it makes for a 'low torque environment' in kelly speak (been reading his book). During squats my right foot has a tendency to rotate externally, my heel slides in and my toes slide out. How does this lead to knee caving? well think about it, the ankle and the knee aren't aligned in tension making the leg  unstable and in trying to find stability knee has to come in. It's so obvious now it's a wonder it never occurred to me before. All that mobility mumbo jumbo about hips was just noise.

707
Progress Journals & Experimental Routines / Re: chasing athleticism (figured out what's wrong with me)
« on: July 25, 2013, 02:25:42 pm »
New Hypothesis: My knee-caving problem is caused by my unstable R ankle. I can't maintain a stable foot position throughout the set because my right ankle is too weak.

Yep now convinced my problem is my ankle. I dont have a stable ankle. I must have fucked it up from basketball along the way and never noticed it til now. My R ankle sucks compared to my beasting L ankle. It's supple and firm and stable, the opposite of the R one. Btw last year when I had a severe ankle injury which took me over 6 months to heal? Yup that was my L one. So the R problem must be going back years maybe a decade back. I did have a sprain I think in 2002 or 2003 which was pretty bad but for the life of me cant remmber which leg it was. Anyway that's not important. This is heart breaking, it means no ATG front squatting. Just shitty leaning over fucked up squats which hurt my hips and god knows what else. And what am i supposed to do now for training. If I keep squatting i'll just keep hurting myself again. Doctors are shit dont expect seeing one will be worth the money, i can see it already, "there is nothing wrong with you, you're perfectly healthy why do you need perfect ankles you're not a professional athlete and this doesn't impede anyones daily life" which is all true of course, not being able to squat is not exactly a quality of life problem lol.

so yeah, this sucks but it certainly explains why i'm such a bad squatter.

sorry for the sob story ;( lol .. i have put in a lot of effort and work into squatting just didnt know it would come to this. I'm lucky i haven't torn my ACL/MCL while squatting like this, it's only a matter of time though. It's too dangerous doing barbell squats with an unstable foot.

708
Progress Journals & Experimental Routines / Re: chasing athleticism
« on: July 25, 2013, 12:47:42 pm »
Quote from: LBSS on July 25, 2013, 11:54:02 am
do you mean literally inflamed, like, visibly swollen? or just painful? if the former,  :uhcomeon:

Not visibly just tender/painful mate.

Starrett video suggested that low internal hip rotation was the reason for my R knee cave in. I've ruled that out, my internal hip rotation is fine both sides.

709
Progress Journals & Experimental Routines / Re: chasing athleticism
« on: July 25, 2013, 08:30:50 am »
So an update. My hips (R) are quite inflammed today as a result of yesterday's squatting. This sucks. But i've made some changes that hopefully will improve my form and prevent hip re-injury

1. Ditched my makeshift platform. It had started to buckle and creak too much and I think it's better to go without it than continue using it.
2. Moved my power cage to a different location
3. Using carpet over the brick paved floor
4. diagnosed my mobility problem as "Poor Internal Hip Rotation" from a Starett video

Re lack of IR - I can make my hips magically feel good by moving my knee out and in while tensing my calves. When I took a video of my squat in the new power rack position, my hips are symmetrical and even on both sides (only used the empty bar but I suspect it will be the same with weight too?)

So we'll see what happens tomorrow. Fingers crossed..

710
Progress Journals & Experimental Routines / Re: chasing athleticism
« on: July 24, 2013, 02:10:50 pm »
Not a bad idea. Can do them against bands too. A machine wud be perfect cause it could resist you both ways.  Bands only apply resistance in one direction. Could my right hamstring be to blame? Will 1 leg rdl diagnose it?

711
Progress Journals & Experimental Routines / Re: chasing athleticism
« on: July 24, 2013, 10:47:11 am »
Quote from: T0ddday on July 24, 2013, 10:37:44 am
Quote from: entropy on July 24, 2013, 10:18:10 am

My thinking is the meter doesn't start counting til I reach my old PR of around ~6x120kg. From there I'd like to add another 20kg. Yes ambitious. But I haven't focused on BS so I think I have some gains to be made yet. Like even now I BS after doing my frontsquats so i'm not doing my BS fresh or anything. Also, I can ATG FS about 130kg, so that means my BS is under-achieving and ripe for pushing up easily. I've been adding 2kg a workout, 3x a week for the last month or so, haven't stalled yet so that's why i've set my eyes on 6x140kg.

Fair enough.  My fault for not following your journal close enough.  You want to get your backsquat PR 10kgs above your front squat PR with four weeks of focus.  That would sound MUCH more reasonable if your knees didn't go in like that. 

lol yup. Well I want to get my 6 rep BS to be 10kg above my current 1 rep FS max, which is much harder granted. But I expect in the process my FS will go up some while my BS worksets goes up 20kg from 120kg to 140kg because i'll build some muscle and general strength. But you're right it's ambitious sounding esp with my plight of form problems.

 
Quote
Pushing a max up when you have such a mechanical problem is a bit dangerous IMO.    It's funny the taller athlete I trained; his inward knee pull was such a problem I had him switch to exclusive front squats for awhile (were the problem is not really there) which allowed him to get his front squat PR really high relative to his back squat PR...  He has since switched back and we have managed his form a bit but it is a struggle.

I agree with you than it's dangerous if my form doesn't improve. It's been 1 week of doign remedial work. Lets hope it starts to correct my form soon.

Quote
Speaking to your other point; it could be that your weak glutes dont stabilize you in the back squat and your knees track inward which puts undue stress on your quads.  Basically, you tall guys have weird muscle patterns!   The best thing to do might be to really figure out what causes the knee tracking inward.  I would bet it's that glute medius but it could be hip flexor.  Basically sit in a chair and track your knees together and feel the muscles on your hip/glute that are used to keep it out.  Some hip flexor work, glute thrusts, etc will go along way toward your athleticism goals.

Thanks so much. That gives me ideas for how to proceed from here. I've edited my workout entry and added a front video video. Does that help illuminate anything? I'll follow your advice to hit my my glutes and hips specifically and see if that improves my form!!

712
Progress Journals & Experimental Routines / Re: chasing athleticism
« on: July 24, 2013, 10:18:10 am »
Quote from: T0ddday on July 24, 2013, 10:11:50 am
Knees coming together is a common problem especially in tall athletes.  I've trained guys taller than you whose knees come in so close that they almost touch when he lifts really heavy weights.   I would make an effort to fix that problem.   I've worked on it a lot with a taller athlete; X-band walks seem to help or even bands around knees with light squats.

I discoved x-band walks last week. The problem with this - it's teh wrong leg which gets a burn/fatigue. My weak leg which comes in doesn't get ANYTHING out of the x-band walks. That's frustrating me so much. I do the exercise symmetrically - up and down so it should affect both sides equally. And yet by the end my strong left leg is burning and my right weak leg is fine!!! I'm now trying to isolate my right leg with bands but with a different exercise.

Quote
Anything to get your hips/glute medius stronger; skater jumps also good.  If you do a set of skater jumps put your outside hand at the top of your outside hip and feel the top glute muscle that should be activated.... Get that strong. Your knees coming together is partially because of anthropometry BUT it's still something you need to fix with specific strength.   

Thanks, i'll try that out.

edit. forgot to reply to this
Quote
Your goal is pretty ambitious ( you expect to add ~60lbs to your 6 rep max in 4 weeks???? )

My thinking is the meter doesn't start counting til I reach my old PR of around ~6x120kg. From there I'd like to add another 20kg. Yes ambitious. But I haven't focused on BS so I think I have some gains to be made yet. Like even now I BS after doing my frontsquats so i'm not doing my BS fresh or anything. Also, I can ATG FS about 130kg, so that means my BS is under-achieving and ripe for pushing up easily. I've been adding 2kg a workout, 3x a week for the last month or so, haven't stalled yet so that's why i've set my eyes on 6x140kg.

713
Progress Journals & Experimental Routines / Re: chasing athleticism
« on: July 24, 2013, 10:11:46 am »
Quote from: T0ddday on July 22, 2013, 10:35:18 am
Quote from: entropy on July 21, 2013, 03:15:54 am

The interesting this about this week's training is I did very little FS volume (23 reps not including warmups) and a low amount of BS volume (56 reps) too. But yet my quads are sore. They never got sore like this when I did mainly a shitload of FS volume. I mean I used to do that many FS in just 1 workout. It gives support to my theory that my HBBS is way more quad dominant than my FS. I still find it confusing what this means for my musculature - how am I getting the FS up if not with my quads? Glutes? But my glutes are terrifically weak as shown by the glute activation exercises i've been doing lately. Real life mystery. For whatever it's worth though, my backsquat isn't even heavy right now, the weights i'm using are weights i can use for FS for the same reps. So I probably have a lot of potential left in me yet. By next week this time i'll only just have got near my PR weights on the HBBS. And from there I would like to add another 20kg to my HBBS.

Soreness shouldn't really be trusted as that good an indicator of muscle involvement.  Soreness can vary based on diet, lifestyle, stress, technique, eccentric speed, etc.  Additionally, if you stress the muscle belly near the insertion it's more likely to get sore; different firing patterns may make a muscle more or less sore but muscle activation doesn't always correlate. 


Quote
You have front squatted awhile and you did it in the absence of back squat.  Don't forget that.  People are always amazed at the muscle activation of a new exercise.  Had you back squatted exclusively for a year and then started front squatting you would be posting "OMG front squats make my quads sooooo sore, they must be much more quad dominant".   After about 3 years of training you won't hardly get sore at all except for strange dull tendon feelings; then you will be able to better judge.

I accept your points but I would like to provide some more info. Til April I was squatting 50-50% FS and BS volume for about 6 months.My BS PR was 6x117.5 around May. Since then I stopped using BS while healing my hips. Now my hips are fine I'm BS again. But this time my FS volume has gone down to like 33% what it used to be! Meanwhile BS volume is the same. I'm eating a shitload of food now (back then I was cutting hard!). So these facts bear explaining. How is that my quads are toast after backsquat. Not just doms but like during the sets and immediately after I have a burn in my legs. I'm actually experiencing what colloquially would be felt after a 'leg day'. But my total squat volume is much less now. My BS volume is low to medium thru the week. It's eerie! I used to do waayy more squat volume (with both FS and BS) and while cutting hard and still I didn't have this kind of leg soreness.


714
Progress Journals & Experimental Routines / chasing athleticism -- W4D2
« on: July 24, 2013, 09:27:41 am »
Training
FS 1x110, 1x115, 4x112, 5Fx110,
BS 2x6x114

FS notes:
I took out the bar to attempt 3x120kg PR but my chest was crying at the rack and just wasn't having it. It's a clear sign I can't try to force a 3RM FS PR every workout of the week anymore, especially if on wednesdays my upper back, lats and and front are going to be fried from monday's chinups and bench and of course front squatting.  Racked it without attempting any reps because there was no chance I could get a PR. Thought to go for 5x112 but the 4th rep felt like a RM. I've forgot how to front squat or something, my form is terrible right now. Thinking I might reduce FS frequency from 3x to maybe 1x or 2x while focusing on BS but attempt a new FS 3RM weekly.

BS notes:
Tightened up shoes for BS. Thought this would limit ROM and depth and take stress of my hips because i'm paranoid of reinjury. I thought my form was terrible. Just cant seem to keep my knees apart in tension, I have to allow them come in before driving the bar up. Is it an anthropometry thing? Maybe i'm just never gonna be able to fix that problem. But that's just what's visible on video. The problem that's really working me with my BS is I don't think my core (especially at the back) is tight during these reps. It almost feels impossible to tighten up when I take the bar out on my back. My back muscles are probably loose or inert thru the whole set. On the last 2 or 3 reps I get this lightening bolt sensation up my arm from my back, probably as a consequence of my back looseness.

The working training plan and philosophy  is to push my BS to 6x140kg from todays 6x114kg in the next 4 weeks and build some general mass and BS strength as a consequence. Then later i'll convert that general muscle and strength into useful athletic strength by refocusing on the FS (and perhaps some other pussy gymnastics shit with a barbell). The impediment as always is my shitty form which will be the #1 problem in achieving my goal.

715
Progress Journals & Experimental Routines / chasing athleticism -- W4D1
« on: July 22, 2013, 07:30:57 am »
Training
FS 3Fx120, 4x112.5, 3x110, 4x107.5, 3x105
BS 2x6x112, 10x102.5 (PR)
FS 5x100, 4x97.5
BP 7x80, 7x79.5, 7x75
CU 2,5,4,3,4 (banded)

FS notes:
Eventful session. I learnt a huge lesson about this lifting stuff. I had been reading all the information I could get my hands on lately in an attempt to really nail down my technique and become a good lifter. I read everetts's book and he went thru the usual reasons for using olympic lifting shoes. They provide a stable base of support, etc etc. All stuff that makes sense on paper. But in reality I had already discovered the OL shoe can be more of an impediment than a facilitator of good technique. How you ask? Because I had discovered from trial and error that by tightening the shoe up as recommended, and using the metatarsal strap to tightly embrace the foot is one of the touted benefits of the OL shoe actually prevents me from squatting properly, esp at the bottom position.It pulls me out of position, forcing my hips to stay behind and I don't get any bounce out of the hole. Instead I come out leaning fwd at a fault. So you read this stuff and say ok they must be right, i'll try it their way because they're experts. And then you have a string of bad workouts where form rather than being much better is demonstrably worse. PRs are not coming and you're wondering wtf is going on.

On my last set of front squats, I loosed the fuck out of my shoe. Took the bar out. And found my old nice groove on the FS. Form was suddenly and noticeably improved. Hips stayed under the bar.

Before & After bottom positions.

Now I have to question the wisdom of using WL shoes. What exactly are these things providing me? The hard to compress heel? Well I could get that from an inexpensive pair of leather dress shoes! They're just expensive ugly pieces of pointless gym equipment. If I were to do it again, i wouldn't bother with buying them at all. I mean if i'm going to wear them loose then the strap doesn't even need to be there. And all shoes have laces that can be kept loose, again, nothing to be gained.

I did have a curious thought. What if the WL shoe takes away mobility by hugging the foot tightly. But it gives back some mobility thru the heel? The net effect is you get the tightness without sacrificing mobility that would entail? Perhaps that's true. I can't test that hypothesis though cause mine have a small heel.

BS notes:
Wore shoes loose, see FS notes. I don't know whether this is good or bad. On one hand I need much less ankle mobility on HBBS cause they're not as deep. But I was getting more hip involvement with them loose, so perhaps I do get more out of the exercise with looser shoes. More carry over to FS perhaps.

Gorgeous form on that last set of PR HBBS. I'm approaching professional olympic lifter form on these :) Feels good man.

716
Progress Journals & Experimental Routines / Re: chasing athleticism
« on: July 21, 2013, 03:15:54 am »
Would you guys say it's impossible to actively push against a lifting belt? And is it impossible to do the opposite?
The interesting this about this week's training is I did very little FS volume (23 reps not including warmups) and a low amount of BS volume (56 reps) too. But yet my quads are sore. They never got sore like this when I did mainly a shitload of FS volume. I mean I used to do that many FS in just 1 workout. It gives support to my theory that my HBBS is way more quad dominant than my FS. I still find it confusing what this means for my musculature - how am I getting the FS up if not with my quads? Glutes? But my glutes are terrifically weak as shown by the glute activation exercises i've been doing lately. Real life mystery. For whatever it's worth though, my backsquat isn't even heavy right now, the weights i'm using are weights i can use for FS for the same reps. So I probably have a lot of potential left in me yet. By next week this time i'll only just have got near my PR weights on the HBBS. And from there I would like to add another 20kg to my HBBS.

717
Progress Journals & Experimental Routines / Re: chasing athleticism
« on: July 19, 2013, 10:32:17 am »
lolzy pop,  Don't shoot the messenger. it's not me man, i dont have a horse in this race. The meaning of 'brace' depends who you ask. The word brace means the same as 'good', everyone thinks it's what they prefer. Ownership of the word etc. The guys pulling their belly button inside think they are bracing. And the guys who are pushing their diaphragm out while squeezing their abs out think they are bracing too. I wish I could quote Everett's book right now because he has an interesting take of this subject as well.

718
Progress Journals & Experimental Routines / chasing athleticism -- W3D3
« on: July 19, 2013, 09:49:04 am »
Training
FS 1x110, 1x115, 3Fx120, 2Fx125B, 3x112, 4Fx108.5
HBBS 2x6x110, 10x100 (PR)
BP 6Fx85.5, 8Fx80
X-Band Walk(orange) - 2x15m
Glute Band Bridge (orange) 3x15

FS notes:
Still paying for those careless chinups from monday. I have to believe if my upper body (back mainly) were less fatigued I would have a shiny new 3RM PR to show for it. Next monday it is. I came quite close to locking out that 3rd rep on the 120kg set as I can remember. But my elbows dropped and I couldnt leg drive up from that point so I put it down. Thought to see what a belt would do, i put on another 5kg aiming to double 125kg but once again my rack let me down and I had to bail on the set. It seems to me my FS right now is limited by the upper back. Not even the so called 'core' because a belt doesn't help me much if at all which suggests it's either legs or upper body.

So monday, i'll repeat 120x3. The fucker is a LOT heavier than what should be a 1/2kg PR. Frustrating!

BS notes:
This lift was much better this workout. The rehab work is already showing form improvement, so much so the weights felt light and though the sets themselves were nevertheless hard, I have to think i'm now on the right track. The high bar acksquat for what it is worth, is already adding slabs of meat to my thighs, there is no denying it. It's the lift which gives me a noticeable quad burn during and after the set, not the FS. I think it will drive my FS up 1:1 just because it's such a leg dominant lift. That's supposing of course that my upper back keeps pace with my leg development, which I will have to ensure by training the upper back directly.

My form felt very strong. I'm taking a narrow stance and my toes are turned out only slightly now (thanks Kelly crossfit guy). I just think i'm awfully close to getting my BS just right.

BP notes:
My (new) spotter kinda ruined my PR attempt. She miscounted the reps, and went for the bar after i finished the 5th rep, so i stopped her and said i have one more, which took away my focus. And then on the 6th rep, i hit my sticking point but she had already moved to grab the bar before I could bear with my full force on locking it out, i gave up because I wasn't going to count the rep even if I got it since she was touching the bar. I miss self spotting myself. Sigh. It's okay, next time i'll for 6x86kg and I'll get it too because I felt very strong today bench wise.

Mobility notes:
Forget the band glute bridge. That's an okay exercise, dont get me wrong. But i've found an ever better one now. It's called the X band walk. It really shows up my weakness and I am confident that by getting good at the exercise I'll have much better backsquat form when all is said and done. Very optimstic about my backsquat right now. Things are going very well.

After doing the mobility work I felt sick. They are hard work. Good..

719
Progress Journals & Experimental Routines / Re: chasing athleticism
« on: July 19, 2013, 09:48:38 am »
THE THING IS THOUGH BRO, YOU CAN BRACE INWARD AND YOU CAN BRACE OUTWARD. WTF DOES BRACE MEAN?

720
Progress Journals & Experimental Routines / Re: chasing athleticism
« on: July 19, 2013, 09:31:59 am »
Can you define what you mean brace, Alex? As in walk me thru your defn. Actually if you could walk me thru your process starting from approaching the bar all the way to when you rack it when the set is over i'd very grateful.

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