Another Strong Week

I hit a Squat PR of 290lb and a Deadlift PR of 425lb. I approached the Military Press with a new technique (initiating hip drive), but didn't have success with it. On Bench Press, I chose too heavy a weight for my work sets. Both lifts will go up soon. After my leg day, my right triceps was sore from contracting hard during Sumo Straight-Leg Deadlifts, which led to the poor performance on Bench and MP. I can proudly say I'm the strongest I've ever been, and I'm lucky enough to be able to say that every week.

I had shunned lifting singles, doubles, and triples in the past, thinking they were too draining and not an important part of lifting, but my perspective has changed. I feel it's important to lift heavy weights. As I heard with Squats recently, 'if you want big legs, you need to Squat heavy'. I'm taking that approach with all my lifts now.

My lower-to-mid back was pretty sore this week from the Sumo Deadlifts. I'll probably scale back the weight. I don't feel my form is ready for as heavy as I went. My Triceps had an out-of-this-world pump throughout the week. It's funny. I've had lots of problems getting my triceps to respond. Sets of 100 push-ups didn't make them grow, and neither did all the Skullcrushers or Push-Downs. I had tried a dozen different Triceps exercises. What was the answer? To weed out all of the exercises that didn't feel strong and powerful. I heard an argument for avoiding hinge-type rotating for Triceps exercises like Skullcrushers, and I agree with it. Your joints aren't very safe under a hinge opposed to a vertical press. So the exercise I settled on was Dips.

With Dips, I had done them on and off on the parallel bars. Oddly, I've found dips to be as hard if not harder than pull-ups. Granted, neither dips or pull-ups are hard for me, but they're the same difficulty, making my reps and poundage similar. I find them to be a bit draining, and they caused me to cut out some of my other exercises. I started doing Bench Dips, but soon found that they were entirely too unwieldy. I worked my way up to balancing 190lb on my thighs (4x45lb plates and a 10lb plate). They're too dangerous to perform regularly or with heavy weight. So I went back to parallel bar Dips with a refreshed respect for Dips, and I'm enjoying them again. They are my only Triceps exercise besides Decline Bench Press. Although, performing the Bent Press every training day has surely improved my Triceps.

Strength Training With Full Recovery

When I've approached my workout in the recent past, I was drained from the high volume and 6 day training week. I was not lifting my heaviest weights, and I had to struggle very hard to even lift as heavy as I did. Since then, I've settle down into strength training with only 2 days on a week back to back - lower body and upper body. I do about 3-10 sets of 5 per exercise, utilizing heavy weights.

I noticed immediately when I switched over to heavier weight that my body was taking a different type of damage and re-strengthening. I have been using body awareness as well recently. My training had tapered off, intentionally, more and more until where it now. I was surprised that while training 6 days a week, I could Deadlift on 4 of those days, and still be able to workout without much soreness. I was not lifting very heavy weight for myself though. Everything was approximately 50% my max (which is still 200lb in many cases).

When you attempt your routine without full recovery, you dig deep, and pour your heart into the lift. The weight moves, but a lot of the times it doesn't move. It's a horrible feeling to fail a lift. It can cause depression. It can cripple confidence. It can ruin many great things despite other accomplishments. Failing too often is fatal.

With full recovery, and having several days to recover gives the body a fair shot on your training day. That said, the first training day gets the most effort. My current routine has 1 upper body and 1 lower body training day a week. There are alternate workouts for both upper and lower body. I have an upper body for shoulders and arms,  and a day for lats. Both days hit chest and abs. For lower body I have a day for hamstrings and lower back, and another day for quads and calves.

My Squats are climbing steadily, breaking PRs as is my Bench Press and Military Press.

Book Released - GoblinCore - Fitness For 2013

Click to read or download.

Human Flag - 1 Month of Training

Upcoming Book

I'm very proud to announce that I'll be releasing a book titled Goblincore: Fitness for 2013. I will be releasing it free of charge, but I plan to charge for future books. Although I'm calling it a book, it is in fact short, coming in at 5000 words. I wrote the content late Saturday night. I had been planning this since I started my venture into fitness. All that's left is the photography. I finished the template for the .pdf today.

My Current Routine

I've created a new page on the site. I'll probably change the template of the site soon. The new page is My Current Routine that I'll keep updated. I was going to wait longer before I went from a 3-day split to a 2-day split.

I just read an article stating 2-day splits aren't a good idea because you do legs one day, and cram everything else into the other day. I'm sacrificing a lot of sets for my upper body (somewhat) in order to have another leg day a week. I need to develop my legs more. My back is very developed. I feel my triceps and chest could use work as well as my legs (mostly quads).

I'm thinking of adding more upper body lifts to the leg day - maybe biceps and shoulders. I think developed legs make you feel lighter in general. It makes you agile and gives you endurance. I'm proud of where I took my arms and back, and I do have definition in my legs, but I need more mass.

Techniques and Program Change

I’ve learned a new technique for the squat. Hell, I haven’t posted in so long, I have a new technique for everything. I changed my routine from a powerlifting style to a bodybuilding style. That is to say I went from 2 sets of 8 on everything as heavy as I could to 4 sets of 8 on most of my exercises with less weight, but I am building my way up.

Immediately, I benefited from the extra time at the gym. With my old routine, I was Deadlifting so heavy (8 reps of 380lb, 2 sets) that it took me 4 days to recover before I could do any type of lifting. I was Deadlifting once a week and Squatting once a week. I was only going to the gym twice a week. Prior I had been going three days. Now though, on the new routine, I train six days a week. Having one day to rest versus four days to rest is a huge difference. I hated my off days, so this was a perfect fit.

I modified Arnold’s Beginners Routine that I snagged from his book, ‘The Encyclopedia of Bodybuilding’. I replaced some exercises and changed reps and sets for some. His routine was the skeleton though. The results were very drastic. I lost 11lb and put on muscle. I’ve been on the new routine since August. So it’s been 1.5 months.  My hands look significantly worse from all the volume. I have 4 rows of callouses on each hand and they’re all black.

I highly recommend this routine. You can see my lifts at Fitocracy under the name ‘vampborn’. So back to the new squat technique, I’ve found you must approach a heavy squat different than a light squat. I bounced around for a long time squatting 180-185lb, which was my weight. I could do 8 reps, but if I went any heavier my body collapsed under the weight, which makes sense logically since it was heavier than me.

I read something recently and it stood in my mind imprinted. “If you squat heavy, your legs will have no choice but to grow.” I guess the first thing I changed that helped me lift heavier is utilizing power breathing, and inhaling before each rep, holding breath until I’m shooting back up. I do stomach vacuums before sets. I also noticed my preferred stance in squats is wider than most people squatting heavy. I like to feel my adductors a bit, but I tried going narrower and it worked.

Making my leg stance narrower made the lift feel more like a Leg Press. I suppose I was able to push the earth away more intuitively and more easily. You have to treat heavy weight differently than light weight. You need to sync your pace with the poundage of the weight. For instance, I can squat 135lb like a rag doll as fast and explosively as I want for 30+ reps. But when I Squat 250lb, the weight doesn’t move quickly. It accelerates slower and I have to wait for it.

The technique I want to talk about most is the one I picked up recently. A funny thing I’ve heard people comment on during critiques of someone’s form on a Squat is that they Good Morning the weight up. What they mean is that their hips go up faster than their torso and so they’re forced to lean their torso back in order to stand up. This kills your lower back. What I found is a better technique for Good Mornings that carry over to Squats.

Previously, when I did Good Mornings, I went down and pushed the weight into my hammies, then stood back up straight, which does hurt your lower back because your lower back is a hinge that brings up your torso. I never understood how powerlifters could Good Morning 135lb+ when I struggled so much with 95lb and felt pain and not good muscle sensation. So I’ve been doing very light weight Good Mornings staying in the 45-75lb poundage.

The technique is that when you’re in the down position and are about to stand back up, you should grip the bar, pull it into yourself, contract your abs powerfully and stand up. Effectively your abs should be doing an eccentric contraction. So you’re horizontal bent over, and as you rise, your abs are crunched, then extend. It’s not like a reverse crunch; It’s like a normal crunch in reverse. This works your abs unbelievably, and protects your lower back.

As you squat, you can use this Good Morning technique to pull the bar into yourself and eccentrically crunch as you stand. I suppose this works only for low-bar squats because in high-bar your torso is vertical.