The weeks flying by, and I've caught a cold, probably just from working outside so often right now. Feeling very run down, but I just called into work sick, took some time to rest today, tried to get some errands done that i put off, and roll back into it fresher.
Tuesday - bench
tried to train, warmed up as best I could, stretched out my hips, did some bicep work and stretching, but even after a full warm up, and doing a few light sets, things were just not coming around. Called the night, watched the guys a bit, headed home and just about passed out from what felt like a lack of sugar or something, just an intesne brain fog and just felt like shit.
Wednesday - deadlift
440 4x1, 460 4x1, 475 4x1
rack pulls at knee
315 4x1, 405 4x1, 495 4x1 switched to sumo, 545 4x1 - stopped there as I need to check with Mark about these, all my guys are missing reps.
shrugs 315 2x20
- went in deciding to just take a warm up weight and do some reps and see how I felt after doing a really good hip warm up. I wound up just doing all the reps as they were all pretty light, I just didn't have the same pop that I usually felt, but a much better positioning after seeing how i looked the week before when my hips were tight.
I'm really starting to get a feel for what muscles need to be tight, and what ones to loosen that won't hurt performance. I've completely let my quads and hamstrings get as tight as they want, this gives some knee pain just about all the time. I'm not concerned with an injury in these areas, so I just let them ache, not a huge deal. I keep my hips as loose as possible, and will stretch them as often as I can, just about whenever. I do a dynamic warm up on lower days, and more static on bench days. I stretch my ankles and calves quite a bit, whenever I do this I get much deeper much easier, what it might take away in stretch reflex, it just helps in me building my form. I've started doing a lot of shoulder stretching, the laying on the side and putting hand on the floor one. My shoulders have pulled back a fair bit more from this, and a lot more squat volume has helped as well. I do some light chest stretches on lower days if my biceps are aching, just to help let my back get into position easier.
I'm always trying to do less and less, and let perfect form build my flexibility as Willie Albert advised me on, but at times, I can't get to form without doing all this. I'm either not a good enough coach, or general lifestyle has made it so a lot of my new kids have to do this a ton to be able to get into position. Young people these days are tight in all the wrong spots and loose in the others... but it's seemed to be helping all the guys a ton, as well as more appropriate volumes and intensities. By this I just means a ton more lifts around 80% but at a high enough volume that everyone is still getting plenty tired and sore. The guys get 16 really hard practice reps on squats twice a week... the weights are just heavy enough to be challenging, but just enough volume so we don't die. I'm really looking forward to getting my hands on supertraining, and more books on Vershansky, and other older russian texts. It's going to be fun to see how people have taken their findings from these to influence their powerlifting.
Willie also told me that he used to sit infront of his tv when he first started to learn sumo, this is really the first time I've ever done it, I pulled in that stance before, so I don't mind doing extra stretching until I get to that flexibility, then letting myself tighten up there. I'm not far now. I looked back over my videos, and the way my form has changed has been pretty cool. I think I need to train my conventional a bit more lately tho as it feels very unnatural these days. I look forward to getting around to that. Still, I'm seeing how to use my quads in the sumo, to sort of snap my knees as the bar gets to them, as I've lost a lot of pulls at the knees, and this seems to really shoot the bar past my sticking point, I'm really looking forward to seeing how this change will help me when I take 590 on my second attempt, at my next meet.
I never stretch or roll my upper back anymore, I just let it get tight. Once I saw my posture dramatically improve after squatting everyday, and my upper back being sore to the touch at this time as well, I started to understand. My shoulders still have a bit futher to go, but I think it will come along as I get stronger.
My glute meds were spasming for a while pretty good, I think this was a combo of form change, and starting to be used a lot differently, and hips just needing to adapt a bit to the increased rom. This was pretty painful for a bit, but they've chilled out now. I'm looking forward to pushing the volumes and instensities up for my meet after this one. It's going to take me a bit to understand the volume I'm going to need to get there, but I look forward to learning that.
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