Author Topic: chasing athleticism (Read 1464622 times)

entropy · « **Reply #870 on:** May 09, 2013, 01:40:45 am »

Doms on doms in glutes, hams, abs, lower back, shoulders, forearms, triceps and lats. Have probably neglected abs since I stopped doing chinups..? Maybe I should do more ab assistance work in general, it probably won't hurt to have big strong abs. They look nice as well. I remember when I was fatter but I did a few weeks of weighted ab crunches and my abs blew up, even though i was fat, they were popping thru the fat. Combination of being lean and having big abs will be sick.

Ok 10 days til the basketball tournament. The plan is to get an estimated 130kg max on the front squat (im at estimated 127kg atm), while weighing around ~77kg. Haven't stuck to a diet for a long time, time to remind my body how to do it again lol.

LoopieMclooperson · « **Reply #871 on:** May 09, 2013, 03:48:02 pm »

People seem to have different theorys on direct ab work. But I have found it to be extremely beneficial in my journey. It seemed to be one of the limiting factors in my squat performance (among other issues). I have had the best luck picking a movement and going after it for 4-8 week then switching it up.

Good work man. keep at it.

entropy · « **Reply #872 on:** May 10, 2013, 06:38:52 am »

Quote from: LoopieMclooperson on May 09, 2013, 03:48:02 pm

People seem to have different theorys on direct ab work. But I have found it to be extremely beneficial in my journey. It seemed to be one of the limiting factors in my squat performance (among other issues). I have had the best luck picking a movement and going after it for 4-8 week then switching it up.

Good work man. keep at it.

Thinking about it now, since I don't use a lifting belt, it's probably even more important to have strong abs to keep myself stable at the bottom of a long and/or heavy set of squats. I'll take the advice, keep ab assistance in - at least 1x a week. Thanks man. I'll just do weighted chinups for now until that's not hard on my abs, and then i'll add the ab wheel and weighted crunches and i'm also thinking of weighted pushups and planks as assistance to my bench press. Will alternate them after a while like you suggest. Thanks for stopping by.

entropy · « **Reply #873 on:** May 10, 2013, 07:10:13 am »

Training
FS 3x111, 3x105
PFS 5x60, 5x70, 5x75, 5x80 (PR)
PBS 5x60, 2x6x90 (PR)
OHP 5x60, 3Fx64, 3x63.5
BBALL (handles, conditioning, shooting)

FS notes:
First day doing pauses front squats. Started conservatively with just 1 plate and added weight. That last set of 80 was quite challenging. So i think next time I do PFS i'll just do 2x5x85kg and nudge them up fro there by 2.5-5kg.

Please provide criticism for paused SQ. Am I doing them ok?

BS notes:
Only did paused variant today. Different. Thought to go heavier on BS than FS, so started with 90kg. Challenging but do-able. Feeling very good about paused backsquat - i think it might fix my long term form problem of moving strangely out of the hole in backsquats only. It will help strengthen the muscles that maintain knee position at the bottom position. If it cures that, i'm gonna become a backsquatting beast cause that's a def weak point of mine.

OHP notes:
5x60kg milestone achieved lol. Next one up is 65x3 and then 65x5 at which point i'll be damn close to a BW press. Wot!

I took Lance advice to start doing paused squats for variety. I wasn't getting any PRs today (close to 0% chance) so it seemed like a perfect time to try. Instead of thinking I was having a shit workout and feeling bad about it, I found paused squats to be a wonderful, different, interesting and challenging exercise. So new PRs on the board, and a new exercise to look forward to progressing

True test for paused squats is the next workout. If Ican hit my scheduled PRs (ie paused squats either dont detract from normal training - or rather they enhance it) allowing the due PRs then i'm a believer in paused training. Lets see what happens!

entropy · « **Reply #874 on:** May 10, 2013, 01:02:10 pm »

I'm giddy with delight after doing paused squats, cant stop thinking about them. They might even keep me up at night haha, i should be asleep right now

They've filled me with thoughts of miraculous results which have thus far eluded me. I think definitely the paused backsquat I did today will help fix my spiral movement out of the bottom of the back squat. It slows the lift into the bottom, ensures my knee position is held rigidly and all the supporting muscles are tightly held to keep that crisp paused position where you sort of stick into space (if you've watched a paused squat video you'll know what i'm describing).

And paused front squats, just a bit of variety, might help me get my legs stronger since i'm no longer using such a strong bounce out of the hole - legs will have to work harder. Without having to put a lot of weight on the bar - it will help build acceleration and speed. And reinforce good positions at the bottom of the hole, because sometimes knees cave in despite our best intentions.

I've been reading like crazy about them online all night, here is some excerpts

Quote

1. I look fucking badass.
When I squat down, and people think I’m pinned then I stay there for a few seconds and then suddenly just stand up again, imagine how hardcore that is? They’d probably think “Oh, he’s fucked” and then you stand up again. It’d be like a phoenix rising from the ashes! Roar! Yes?

2. It’s a different variable that can be trained
In training, we always say there are few things more important than constantly progressing and overloading. Sometimes we overload in the weight, often the repetitions and sometimes the sets. Why should we stop there? Overloading can be done on other variables such as tempo..

3. Pausing increases the amount of muscles recruited
Now unfortunately (Or fortunately if you think about it), I don’t know the so called technical terms on this. The idea however, is the same as a gymnast. When they pause, they increase muscular recruitment. As fast twitch muscles (okay that was an technical word!) continue to fatigue, the slow twitch muscles are recruited in order to continue holding one’s body at that odd position. This, consequently allows the mind to fire up more muscles every single time we do a movement, because it gets better at “switching on” those muscles.

4. It cuts out the stretch reflex, thus forcing us to use more muscles.
This is somewhat alike point 3, but there’s a slight difference. When the stretch reflex is used, momentum allows us to drive out the hole faster. However, when you are forced to just cut the stretch reflex, your body has to summon all the muscles that it can, to lift a weight that’s considered light with the stretch reflex.

pretty entertaining list but there might be something to it.

So is 70% of 1RM a good weight to use for pause squats? Cause that's where i'm going to be pretty soonish. I mean i'll be progressing it so it doesn't really matter where my ratio is atm but just curious.

Thinking about it, a paused squat might be better training for jumping in basketball, because you don't always have the chance to do dip down into a jump, you sometimes just have to take off - and that's kind of similar to the paused squat. maybe.

Raptor · « **Reply #875 on:** May 10, 2013, 02:15:53 pm »

If you do paused squats you do them to save your joints, if anything, not because they are specific in any shape or form to jumping.

entropy · « **Reply #876 on:** May 10, 2013, 03:03:40 pm »

That's not why I'm doing them (for joints). That's a reason to do them but not THE reason because there are many different reasons that are important depending on the person and their needs. Having said that my point stands. Think of boxing out for the rebound after the 2nd free throw. Specificity of pause squats is obvious. In general rebounding without an initial dip. A block attempt also.

T0ddday · « **Reply #877 on:** May 11, 2013, 04:35:38 am »

Quote from: entropy on May 10, 2013, 03:03:40 pm

That's not why I'm doing them (for joints). That's a reason to do them but not THE reason because there are many different reasons that are important depending on the person and their needs. Having said that my point stands. Think of boxing out for the rebound after the 2nd free throw. Specificity of pause squats is obvious. In general rebounding without an initial dip. A block attempt also.

Uhh... I'm actually Raptor on this one! With this line of thinking you are jumping on the path to bosu-ball balance squats... Pause squatting is not similar to boxing out during free throws or blocking someone at all. You never want to let your stretch reflex go in sports; even in a block start there is a ton of active pressure on the blocks before the start; this is exactly the opposite effect of what you are trying to train in the pause squat. Squatting is will always be a GENERAL strength exercise, don't get in the habit of choosing your lifts because they somehow remind you of a basketball move...

Despite all this.... The pause squat is a fantastic exercise. As far as 70%... Likely the most you can do initially but it will certainly climb up past 90%... You should be prepared for carryover disappointment. I was stuck on a 405 lb back squat for a long time (eg I could get it on a good day and not on a bad day)... I pause squatted exclusively worked my way from 315 to 405 in the pause squat.... Was very excited to finally let myself do a non-paused squat and throw up 500... Instead I got pinned with about 425... An efficient pause squatting is almost as good as a reactive pause squatter. The main improvement was to my form; pause squatted allowed me to never worry about my depth, etc.

I'm not sure what to make of your front pause squatting. I favor the combination of back-pause squatting and non-paused front squatting. I really wouldn't want to sit in the hole a bunch with tons of weight on my shoulders. That would get old real quick. Also, in your front squat your depth is excellent but you don't have a relaxed bottom position. The HSI group (Jon Smith and Maurice Greene) sometimes does them in the westLA weight room, I don't know how much stock you can put into John Smiths advice (he is a bit weird) but he really tries to get the athletes to get into an almost relaxed zen position at the bottom of the squat; hams on calves; don't LOSE your breath or tightness but be relaxed and go to a special place... He has the athletes get to that position and then uses a starter to shock them into exploding the weight up... Really awesome the extent that they turn it on... Then again that group has girls breaking 10.8... So, yeah they must be doing something right.

LBSS · « **Reply #878 on:** May 11, 2013, 05:25:33 pm »

take all advice with a grain of salt.

Raptor · « **Reply #879 on:** May 11, 2013, 05:34:37 pm »

Salt is bad.

Kingfish · « **Reply #880 on:** May 11, 2013, 08:41:04 pm »

Quote from: entropy on May 10, 2013, 03:03:40 pm

That's not why I'm doing them (for joints). That's a reason to do them but not THE reason because there are many different reasons that are important depending on the person and their needs. Having said that my point stands. Think of boxing out for the rebound after the 2nd free throw. Specificity of pause squats is obvious. In general rebounding without an initial dip. A block attempt also.

if you rely on muscling athletic movements, you will ran out of gas really fast. SSC is very energy efficient.

get more leg mass to improve strength/power (and injury prevention), but also spend time improving your SSC with SVJ,RVJ or the DJ. too much plyos will eventually break you but the right amount really gets moving explosive, fast and almost effortless.

entropy · « **Reply #881 on:** May 12, 2013, 05:23:16 am »

Quote from: T0ddday on May 11, 2013, 04:35:38 am

Quote from: entropy on May 10, 2013, 03:03:40 pm
That's not why I'm doing them (for joints). That's a reason to do them but not THE reason because there are many different reasons that are important depending on the person and their needs. Having said that my point stands. Think of boxing out for the rebound after the 2nd free throw. Specificity of pause squats is obvious. In general rebounding without an initial dip. A block attempt also.

Uhh... I'm actually Raptor on this one! With this line of thinking you are jumping on the path to bosu-ball balance squats... Pause squatting is not similar to boxing out during free throws or blocking someone at all. You never want to let your stretch reflex go in sports; even in a block start there is a ton of active pressure on the blocks before the start; this is exactly the opposite effect of what you are trying to train in the pause squat. Squatting is will always be a GENERAL strength exercise, don't get in the habit of choosing your lifts because they somehow remind you of a basketball move...

Despite all this.... The pause squat is a fantastic exercise. As far as 70%... Likely the most you can do initially but it will certainly climb up past 90%... You should be prepared for carryover disappointment. I was stuck on a 405 lb back squat for a long time (eg I could get it on a good day and not on a bad day)... I pause squatted exclusively worked my way from 315 to 405 in the pause squat.... Was very excited to finally let myself do a non-paused squat and throw up 500... Instead I got pinned with about 425... An efficient pause squatting is almost as good as a reactive pause squatter. The main improvement was to my form; pause squatted allowed me to never worry about my depth, etc.

I'm not sure what to make of your front pause squatting. I favor the combination of back-pause squatting and non-paused front squatting. I really wouldn't want to sit in the hole a bunch with tons of weight on my shoulders. That would get old real quick. Also, in your front squat your depth is excellent but you don't have a relaxed bottom position. The HSI group (Jon Smith and Maurice Greene) sometimes does them in the westLA weight room, I don't know how much stock you can put into John Smiths advice (he is a bit weird) but he really tries to get the athletes to get into an almost relaxed zen position at the bottom of the squat; hams on calves; don't LOSE your breath or tightness but be relaxed and go to a special place... He has the athletes get to that position and then uses a starter to shock them into exploding the weight up... Really awesome the extent that they turn it on... Then again that group has girls breaking 10.8... So, yeah they must be doing something right.

I love it. I was actually gonna ask you about Maurice because I read something online where someone was saying the paused squat carries over to 'start strength' which is important out of the blocks for sprinters. Thought you might have your own take on that.

Yea i see what you guys mean about functional training and the perils of mimicking sports moves in the gym. But i dunno. It seems like IT should carry over to sports when the movements are kinda similar. Take the push press - Lance argues well that it's a good lift for builing strength & power for basketball players. I can see that without having any experience training basketball players or trying it out myself. It seems like it ought to work. If a 80kg basketball player can throw up 100+kg for reps in the gym, he's probably gonna find it helps when chasing a rebound or a block or something. Right? Same with the paused squat, maybe the similarity is superficial and it doesn't cross over but maybe it does. I guess the danger is building a whole training regime around these things - that's probably a trap many sports trainers and what not probably fall into - that's a valid point. But then I'm clear that lifting in the gym is about building general strength and it just happens to help with certain facets of athleticism. And in that relationship if we can select exercises which help more than less then that's a good thing.

For example I was sold on teh benefits of the RDL - I gave that a decent shot of around 9 months of consistent training. Worked up to a decent poundage and I had good form (i think). But it gave me no benefits whether in the gym or outside. So i've tossed that lift. And it's possible that in a different context it would have helped but at that time it didn't. I can see paused squats helping me a lot right now because I need to clean up form - and for the main reason which is why i'm doing them - because lance suggested it lol - to help keep myself progressing in the gym because i was getting frustrated with not making easy progress with just front squats.

Btw that description of paused squat description of the HSI group sounds awesome. I would love to be in that stage someday with my front squats.

Running out of time gotta lift so i'll finish my post later.

Also Kingfisher's post was the best thing i've read on this site for a long time. It was deep and enlightening - kinda still in awe at it!!

Raptor · « **Reply #882 on:** May 12, 2013, 06:08:41 am »

Everything is plyometric in sports... you never stop, take a 5 second pause, and then "explode". You don't do that on a rebound, you don't do that on a block, you don't do that on anything.

Even in something like skanderberg you must be isometrically contracted and ready for the start, so it's not complete relaxation into complete tension.

entropy · « **Reply #883 on:** May 12, 2013, 09:36:56 am »

Training
FS 4Fx117.5, 2x120, 4Fx111
BP 6x83, 5x83
BBALL 1hr (some dunks, pickup game)

FS notes:
Decided to go for 117.5 milestone instead of scheduled 117kg. Hindsight will show that to be a mistake because I failed the 4th and got no PRs instead.

BP notes:
Getting awfully close to the goal of 6x86! Somehow I keep progressing, haven't hit the wall yet. This puts my estimated 1RM at 96kg. This is probably as close i've gotten to benching 100kg ever. But this time i'm leaner and athletic.

Sad not to get any PRs. I have no explanations. I ate a whole fucking buttery garlic bread in the middle of the night when I woke up hungry. Maybe the conditioning intervals I ran last workout killed my recovery or some shit but dunno, I should have gotten a PR. Ah well. At least my bench is going up

LanceSTS · « **Reply #884 on:** May 14, 2013, 01:38:19 pm »

Quote from: entropy on May 10, 2013, 07:10:13 am

Training
FS 3x111, 3x105
PFS 5x60, 5x70, 5x75, 5x80 (PR)
PBS 5x60, 2x6x90 (PR)
OHP 5x60, 3Fx64, 3x63.5
BBALL (handles, conditioning, shooting)

FS notes:
First day doing pauses front squats. Started conservatively with just 1 plate and added weight. That last set of 80 was quite challenging. So i think next time I do PFS i'll just do 2x5x85kg and nudge them up fro there by 2.5-5kg.

Please provide criticism for paused SQ. Am I doing them ok?

BS notes:
Only did paused variant today. Different. Thought to go heavier on BS than FS, so started with 90kg. Challenging but do-able. Feeling very good about paused backsquat - i think it might fix my long term form problem of moving strangely out of the hole in backsquats only. It will help strengthen the muscles that maintain knee position at the bottom position. If it cures that, i'm gonna become a backsquatting beast cause that's a def weak point of mine.

OHP notes:
5x60kg milestone achieved lol. Next one up is 65x3 and then 65x5 at which point i'll be damn close to a BW press. Wot!

I took Lance advice to start doing paused squats for variety. I wasn't getting any PRs today (close to 0% chance) so it seemed like a perfect time to try. Instead of thinking I was having a shit workout and feeling bad about it, I found paused squats to be a wonderful, different, interesting and challenging exercise. So new PRs on the board, and a new exercise to look forward to progressing

True test for paused squats is the next workout. If Ican hit my scheduled PRs (ie paused squats either dont detract from normal training - or rather they enhance it) allowing the due PRs then i'm a believer in paused training. Lets see what happens!

paused fronts looked good man. If youre adding paused back squats as well, it will take longer to pr your front squat, but that might not turn out bad in the long run.

The good thing about the paused front squat its the ground floor of everything squat and performance wise when you use it right. When it goes up, so will all other squats, and usually olympic lifts, even push press/press as well. Its harder but it pays off.

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tDVNM9Yto7E" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tDVNM9Yto7E</a>

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Author Topic: chasing athleticism (Read 1464622 times)

entropy

Re: chasing athleticism

LoopieMclooperson

Re: chasing athleticism

entropy

Re: chasing athleticism

entropy

chasing athleticism -- W6D2

entropy

Re: chasing athleticism -- post (men) pause squats

Raptor

Re: chasing athleticism

entropy

Re: chasing athleticism

T0ddday

Re: chasing athleticism

LBSS

Re: chasing athleticism

Raptor

Re: chasing athleticism

Kingfish

Re: chasing athleticism

entropy

Re: chasing athleticism

Raptor

Re: chasing athleticism

entropy

chasing athleticism -- W6D3

LanceSTS

Re: chasing athleticism -- W6D2