Ken's Journal Discussion

[Oscar_Actuary]

fantastic

Would you say that avoiding intense pressing for the time you did/have has helped your progression with Deadlifts?

I've wondered that, not really sure. One thing I am sure of is that lacking any pressing I've been able to give lower body stuff more concentration and focus, and that has to count for something. Then I think I should be able to give it that focus anyway. Overthinking I suppose. :)

Docs other site speaks of taknig your lifts and foucsing on one while maintaining a couple other, "maintenance". At my stage, with everything still going up at least every 3rd session, I did not want to just maintain anything, except stff like rear delt rows, and even those, I'll add a little here and there

Nonetheless, even if one could advance on more, perhaps we are more limited to "give our all" than we want to admit. Nah, sounds like a much more advanced technique, when nothing is moving.

[Khronos8]

Ken

One note on the "good girl/bad girl" machine. Ditch the machine and use the low pulley cable with an ankle attachement to do the hip adduction and abduction. Anything that limits your path of movement as much as that machine does is not something you want to do for "stability" muscles.

[KenDowns]

Ken

One note on the "good girl/bad girl" machine. Ditch the machine and use the low pulley cable with an ankle attachement to do the hip adduction and abduction. Anything that limits your path of movement as much as that machine does is not something you want to do for "stability" muscles.

You know I was wondering about that, why not just use pulley or resistance bands? If we're talking about doing it at home, I can just as easily use bands, is that just as good as pulleys?

[Oscar_Actuary]

You know I was wondering about that, why not just use pulley or resistance bands? If we're talking about doing it at home, I can just as easily use bands, is that just as good as pulleys?

The resistance with cables is much more even
imo, depends on what you are trying to accomplish, which is better for various activities

[KenDowns]

You know I was wondering about that, why not just use pulley or resistance bands? If we're talking about doing it at home, I can just as easily use bands, is that just as good as pulleys?

The resistance with cables is much more even
imo, depends on what you are trying to accomplish, which is better for various activities

Yeah, that's the usual trade-off between pulleys and bands.

At any rate my trainer says pulleys or bands are just as good as the squeezer/spreader machine.

[KenDowns]

Lots of stuff to report from going to a trainer.

First, if you can believe this, a gym opens down the street (like 1/2 mile) that is a pure powerlifting gym, bowls of chalk near the dead platform and power cages, and all of the trainers are veteran powerlifters. So it's been a fun 4 sessions so far.

Lats
Apparently I don't have any. Recommended action was supersetting neutral-grip chins with bb/db lat pullovers. That's going to be brutal.

Regarding chins, trainer recommends 2-3 sets keeping a couple in the tank, and then going to failure on last set.

Bench
This is truly an exercise you cannot do by watching and mimicking. I feel like we've torn it down and started from scratch. I finally know what people mean by "pulling" the bar downward while spreading it. This goes back to not having any lats, or knowing how to activate them.

With shoulder injury not healed, bench will be with 20# bar purely for form practice, if I even do that much.

Still leaving standing press out completely.

Lower Body Accessories
Learned specific exercises for abductors and adductors (as discussed above), but otherwise all moves were those recommended by guys here. Big difference was trainer really was able to make it all click for me on hitting high volume and lighter weights for these. Also suggested dead-specific accessories on squat day and vice-versa

Deload
Seems trainer and I have the same feeling about deload: every other cycle for 5/3/1 for as long as that works, then we change it.

Competition and Programming
So these guys have completely sold me on competing in November for a meet they are trying to organize. Trainer says stick to 5/3/1 until 8 weeks before competition, when he will give me an 8 week program to prepare for the meet.

[Dub]

I'm a bit jealous to you at this moment Kenny. That sounds pretty nice. Remeber to share some great tips you noticed are clearly working.

[KenDowns]

I'm a bit jealous to you at this moment Kenny. That sounds pretty nice. Remeber to share some great tips you noticed are clearly working.

Dub: the best stuff I've gotten so far is simply to do DL accessories on squat day and vice versa. This has done wonders for my progress on both. Another thing that contributes greatly is the atmosphere of a real powerlifting gym, the so-called "X-factor" is a real thing. Funny thing is that most of what he tells me I've heard here, but the 1-on-1 gets more specific and makes it more real, if that makes any sense.

Also, I've learned I can do a lot more than I thought, which you find out when you're ready to quit a set and he says, "oh, you're doing 15 of those."

In other news, the gym is looking to put together a competition in November, which is not solidified yet, but my trainer asked me today about my weight. I told him I was 170, and I know the weight class break is at 165, and he said, "Yeah you got a few pounds you can lose." So that sounded like a new assignment.

[KenDowns]

General shape of cycle 8 program just finished is listed below, this will likely continue for cycle 9

NOTE: dead/press and squat/bench days are reversed to synchronize schedule with my trainer

Day 1: Deadlift
Deadlift 5/3/1

Two circuits for squat accessories and abs, involving these:
Hip Abduction, pulley
Hip Adduction, pulley
Split Squats (Cycle 8) or DB Squats
Lying Hip Flexion
Ball Rollouts


Day 2: Press
Press, not 5/3/1 because of shoulder, doing dumbbells with 5# increase per week, sets of 10
Strap Pushups to learn stability

Barbell row, volume
Kroc row, volume

Lat Pullovers
Lat Pulldowns

Day 3: Squat
Squat 5/3/1

Straight Leg Deadlift, volume
Leg Curls, volume

Lying Hip Flexion, pulley, volume
Ball Rollouts

Day 4: Bench
No 5/3/1 cuz of shoulder, doing 5x5, started at empty bar, adding 20#/week

Lying Triceps Extensions
Curls
Triceps Pulldowns

Front Raise
Face Pulls
Lateral Raise
Lying External Rotations
Subscap pushups (really only if I feel like it, this is a long workout)

Shoulder Rehab
I've been doing these on at least one recovery day, often two, to make 3 times/week including bench day

Face Pulls
Reverse Flyes (5# bands)
Lying External Rotations

[KenDowns]

Holy *** my shoulder feels normal today! Like completely normal!

I've accepted there are good days and bad days, even good/bad hours, but the trend has been a jagged upward line, and today hits a new high point.

[KenDowns]

Think I'm getting a feel for the circuit concept finally. You want a weight that will seem not heavy enough after the first set, so you can hop to the next exercise with no real rest, and by the third set you should be really struggling to keep form and complete the same reps as set #1.

[KenDowns]

New Program From Trainer


Upper Body: 5/3/1
For uppper I'll stay with 5/3/1, using accessories provided by my trainer, which will be in the logs this coming week.

Lower Body: Kind of like Westside
The main ideas with the new program are these:

1) trainer wants my max weight lifts on lower body to be with him on Saturday, for observation and coaching.

2) 2nd lower body day (at home by myself) will be the volume stuff with no main lift: trap bars, single leg, stiff-leg deadlift and so on

3) We'll actually stay away from DL and squat for a few weeks, doing variants

4) Each week on Saturday we'll build up to max singles and go for a PR on two variants such as box squat and deficit deadlift.

5) LEG DRIVE! It's all about leg drive. We're working on his observation that "you have the lower back of a 420# deadlifter and the legs of a 320# deadlifter."

6) The combination of a west-side like max effort day on Saturday and a volume day on Thursday is supposed to cover pure strength with heavy singles and mass/hypertrophy with the volume day.

7) Apparently my legs don't need 5/3/1 yet and can benefit from a weekly linear progression, that is what we are doing here really

[Oscar_Actuary]

I would be encouraged by the fact your trainer is observant/caring enough to parse your training to fit your particular stage of potential progression

[KenDowns]

If you do a really heavy leg day, and do triceps afterwards, you can't really tell if your shoulder hurts.

[KenDowns]

My current program would best be called "Tribute to Dan John".

1) Found with my trainer that progress stopped after 5 weeks, going to try a five week cycle.

2) Basically sticking with one assistance per heavy lift, using Dan John's philosophy, "Low reps with high weight is good, high reps with low weight is good, high reps with high weight is best."

3) Except for main lift and its accessory, all other exercises for the day will be either sprinting or full body moves. This includes sled pulls, overhead squats, farmers walks and anything else that involves, "picking up heavy things off the floor, putting them over your head, and carrying them around."