2003 archives (page 8)

My lower back was feeling better today, but still somewhat sore deep down. With wisdom hardened by limited experience and a master plan in my brain pocket, I was not one to fall for the lure of the “easy ME exercise that will not tax my back to the max”. Hence I pulled out my belt again and did reverse hypers in place of my ME exercise. Followed up with some ball crunches (this is no time to prove the “no back pain following sit-ups” theory correct) to stretch the spine and finished with some direct hamstring work to avoid strain on the lower back while giving the hams something to think about. After the reverse hypers my lower back was pretty fried. In a couple of days I will know if it this is to be regarded as a positive statement or as a plunge into darker pains.

Speaking of rehab: my shoulder is still not a 100%, but massage and the avoidance of harmful movements have led it to become a non-issue. I still take it somewhat careful though until I stop feeling it altogether.

Now for my healing sleep.

Added another board under the bar, today going for a three-board max bench. After ending up with the same weight as my bench max dangling on the two-boards last week, this was the time I would break the 100 kg/221 lbs barrier. Piled on the plates in standard fashion. All sets felt really light and 90 kg/199 lbs went up smoothly. I had no doubt 100 kg would too. Imagine my surprise when it too decided to stick to the boards instead of soaring up like a seagull. Same max regardless of whether regular bench, two-board or three-board… Either I’m not used to stopping the motion at various points in the middle or then my sticking point is at three-board height. Either way, it feels stupid to bench as much off the chest as from 6 inches/15 cm above the chest. Granted, I could make the standard excuses about sleep deficits and being pretty non-explosive today, but that won’t help much. Read my lips, this will be rectified!

Between sets I was approached by a fellow who asked me why I bench off boards. Not in the are-you-stupid-or-something way, but with genuine interest. After I gave him a short explanation he asked if the boards were specifically made for the purpose. “Yes”, I told him, “there’s actually a set from one to four boards in the corner”. Nice to have someone take my board gymnastics seriously. Ironically, there is a big stack of free copies of the latest issue of the Finnish bodybuilding/powerlifting magazine Bodaus available at the gym which carries an article on board pressing by Sakari Selkäinaho. I bet half the gym thinks that’s where I got the idea. The other half is just silently wondering.

After the less than glamorous board presses, I went for close-grip benches. The first set was pretty non-explosive and a little out of groove as it felt strange to suddenly go all the way down. The second and third sets were much better. Even better than my triple with the same weight some three weeks ago. Yay! … or something of the same magnitude.

Freshly elected governor of California Arnold Schwarzenegger and Dave Tate got to close the curtains: Arnold presses and Lying Tate presses took my delts and triceps home.

A quick lower back update: the massage and reverse-hypers had cleared up most of the soreness by yesterday morning. There seems to be some hope that the remaining slight soreness will have dissipated come next max effort squat/deadlift workout on Monday. Dumbells up for that!

Continued the squat cycle by raising the weight and lowering the sets. Next week will be 5x2 @ 85 kg/188 lbs and then the cycle will be finished with 3x2 @ 90/199 lbs or 95 kg/210 lbs.

Did some lightish pull-throughs, for the first time with bent legs to make them less harsh for my recovering lower back. Hit my glutes hard. My abs are still quite tender after the weighted ball crunches on Monday. Taking “make tender what is not” as my motto I whirled back and forth in the twisting ab machine, again going fairly light.

Continued my reverse hyper rehab program. Made a sandwich out of two 10 kg/22 lbs plates with a 5 kg/11 lbs plate in between. This time I got the belt set up perfectly for total ankle comfort. I was about to again finish with 50 reps without extra weight, but then suddenly realized that this might indeed hyperextend my back (which should never happen on either this or the back raises). Without any weight to stop the upward motion it is very easy to swing the legs too high; indeed, this is precisely how it looks on the tape from my ME Squat/Dead session in June. You simply don’t get the same acceleration when you tie 25 kg/55 lbs around your ankles.

Come to think of it, it is ironic that Louie favors the name back raises for the exercise commonly known as hyperextensions since the latter implies that the back should be hyperextended, but at the same time he patented his machine as the reverse hyper machine (not reverse back raise machine, which actually yielded a hit on google groups). Perhaps this has historic reasons (such as machine name established as the reverse hyper before he started disliking the name hyperextension). Interestingly, the Squatting Secrets video, where I saw Louie’s statement on the hyperextension, was released the same year as the reverse hyper machine was patented (1993). Am I missing something here or just being a terminology fanatic?

Appropriate for a bench day, I started reflecting on my arch today and whether it might have something to do with my lower back problem. Could it be that my high bench arch is contributing to the stiffness by being too severe? I do arch as high as I can comfortably go while keeping the upper back and butt on the bench, which does hyperextend the back quite severely. Add some leg drive and a barbell and presto, lower back pain follows?

After watching my newest Westside video purchase, Bench Press Secrets, I could not help but like Louie’s comment not to worry about the arch too much (I am an arch hater remember?). He goes on to say that too severe an arch will basically just lead to lower back problems and that what is important is getting the weight down on the upper back. Indeed it is a defining feature of Westside lifters that they don’t use an extreme arch, as noted by Keith Hobman in a misc.fitness.weights newsgroup post:

Note that the Westside lifters don’t use an exaggerated arch with the feet
underneath them. Instead they drive their traps into the bench and push
back into the padding with their feet. This also takes the pressure off
the scapulae and shortens their stroke.

Lower back torturer or not, it seems to follow that I should consider lowering my arch all the same. I did just that today on my speed bench. I won’t know how it really feels until I load heavier weights on the barbell, but my preliminary reaction was that I felt more stable on the bench. And less like someone showing off his stomach. I will try sticking to my somewhat lower arch for a while to see how it goes.

As for the workout: it was okay. The speed bench felt good, despite the fact that I lowered the bar a little too fast once resulting in a fairly nasty bounce. After seeing the JM Press performed on the Westside Bench video I did those again (basically, the bar is lowered in normal fashion but to a spot between the nipples and the chin and stopped a few inches off the chest - see this video clip courtesy of Joe Scopec).

Did my pulldowns with a close-grip (v-bar) for a change. I am usually stronger on these than wide-grips, but today it wasn’t that simple and my optimistic weight selection required a couple of downgrades. Tried rope pulls to the head for the rear delts in the Seated cable row pulley. The low starting position made the finishing position look like the dumbell power cleans I did last week. L-flyes and alternate dumbell curls followed.

The equation for tomorrow seems to be Sore Lower Back + ME Squat/Deadlift day = reverse-hypers with belt. Sigh.

A pizza and movie evening was scheduled at work tonight. Knowing that I would be hitting the iron later on, I downed a liberal amount of pizza at 4pm. Standing under the bar 5 hours later I was perfectly satisfied.

Despite having predicted another reverse-hyper session yesterday and despite a somewhat stiff lower back, I simply had to see some action. I thought I would be sensible and go for a five rep max on the low box squat. As the sets progressed I felt pretty strong and not too much troubled by the lower back. Decided to go up in weight a little. Since my previous max from September 1st, 90 kg/199 lbs, was no trouble I added more weight. And then some more. And then some more. The final 105 kg/232 lbs was tough, but I made it. Equaling my previous 13″ box max, it is a pretty good indicator that I have a good new 13″ max in me. A new max on that height is scheduled after two or three weeks when I shall have finished my current speed box cycle, provided my back doesn’t complain too loudly over this workout of course…

To settle unfinished business with the power rack, kneeling squats were next. Went for a 10 rep max by pyramiding the weight up. This was only the second time I have ever done these. 110 kg/243 lbs was what I had in me today.

Thank you Mr. Tuna Pizza for a nice workout! Post-workout first aid fuel consisted of an ABB Mass Recovery shake. Yummy!

Wanted to do close-grip rack lockouts, but to my dismay the rack was taken by a squatter. Perhaps he indeed needed it more than me, as he was going heavy and knocking on failure’s door. A good time to go for floor presses in the powersmith.

My best powersmith floor press dates back to early June just before going to China for a month: a double at 90 kg/199 lbs and a single with the ass off the floor at 92.5 kg/204 lbs. Last time I did them I could only muster a 90 kg/199 lbs single with butt lift-off. Today I did a solid 95 kg/210 lbs in good style for a new PR.

Once a carpet always a carpet. Did my triceps extensions lying on the floor. The dumbells are lowered in normal fashion until they rest on the floor allowing the arms to relax, then the weights are exploded to lockout as explosively as possible. Unlike the “normal” tricep extension off a bench, this trains the triceps to contract explosively as the muscle tension is released in between reps (comparable to relaxing on the box squat). Got this one off the Bench Press Secrets video. Between sets, the same guy who asked me about board presses wondered whether it is better to do extensions on the floor than on the bench. Nope, just different.

For the first time direct front delt work was part of my workout in the guise of dumbell front raises (a name I now like better than front delt flyes - for consistency’s sake I will have to go back through my blog and change all side delt flyes into side raises as well). In my previous lifting years I have never done any direct front delt work, simple because my shoulders are proportionally large in comparison with neighboring muscle groups. Following the motto “everything is weak” I am going to pump some power into those little buggers.

And oh yes, my back is doing quite ok, thanks for asking. Indeed, it felt much better after my heavy squat workout than before. Perhaps the high bench arch really is the culprit (I hope).

Whoa! That was a lot of links in today’s post. Better make up for all the internal links by providing some external substance: go check out the Metal Militia crowd’s site. It has some nice video footage of huge benches and articles explaining their approach to benching. Now, I’m not a shirt bencher, but I find their basic template of a raw bench day and a shirt bench day interesting. Plus, there’s a good article on bench technique by Sebastian Burns (incidentally praising the virtues of a high arch).

Did the same workout as last Friday, except adding either reps or weight on all exercises. Pretty much a cut ‘n’ paste operation.

Had tired ‘n’ sloppy legs after the low box 105 kg/232 lbs max on Monday, causing my first two sets to look close to max sets. Got into the explosive groove on the third and got the bar moving faster. Next week will be the last installment of this cycle, after which I think I will go back to doing a few weeks of box squatting at the lower end of the 65-85% of box max continuum. Hopefully my box max (13″/33 cm) will then be at least 110 kg/243 lbs.

My triceps are fried from Wednesday’s ME Bench workout, probably thanks to the hefty six sets of floor tricep extensions. They still got a few hours to think it over before Sunday’s DE Bench. Think! Think!

Tired today with sore triceps to boot. The speed bench went quite well and felt fast, but the triceps dropped their payload on the stability ball benches resulting in non-explosive repping. Last week I did rope pulls (aka face pulls) seated, today standing in front of a lat pulldown. Had to brace myself with one foot on the seat to get enough staying power, lest I pull my face to the floor instead of the rope to the face… Apparently I need more fat around my waist so I can go heavy on these. Better start a 7000 kcal/day eating binge. “Hey, why are you suddenly so fat?”, people will ask me. “Why, because I need to pull heavy weights on the standing rope pull”. I think I will start with eating a grapefruit.

Got myself a locker at gym after getting tired of constantly forgetting my shampoo at home. Not only is my hair guaranteed to be shiny stepping out of the gym, but I also have a nice supply of protein powder, maltodextrin and a shaker to cover post-workout nutrition. Add in the grippers and the training shoes, and one cannot but roll one’s eyes in amazement over why I would slug all this equipment around four times a week via work. Well, I won’t anymore. Defiant to the core… as long as I can remember to bring clean underwear every day.

Still had a stiff lower back, but since last Monday’s low box max workout went so well I decided to add deadlifts to the show. It has been a long while since I set my previous 140 kg/309 lbs max in mid-September. With the lower back starting to hassle me shortly thereafter, I have not been able to put in a lot of effort towards building up my deads since. Although I would have hoped to pull more I got to be satisfied with a new 145 kg/320 lbs max. No problem with the grip, but I lacked explosivity and rounded my back. I need to look into pulling the shoulders back and such to ensure that my back doesn’t go round and implodes or something.

Added 20 kg/44 lbs on the kneeling squat from last week for the same 10 reps. Needless to say, the hips are much fresher after deads than after low box squats…

Today we are changing our futon mattress back to an old softer one to see if that could have any bearing on my condition as manipulating training variables such as rest and reverse-hypers have not produced much effect.

This week the squatter finished his sets before I got to the rack; no need to take refuge in the powersmith today. After pyramiding up on rack lockouts (aka pin presses) my previous 120 kg/265 lbs max sailed up quite smoothly. To tell you the truth, I was only in the gym today for a 130 kg/287 lbs max and saw little point in doing 125 kg/276 lbs which I knew was a sure bet at this point. I laid down under the 130 kg bar and started pushing like crazy. At first nothing happened, then I felt the bar bending slightly and then suddenly lift-off. Slowly, slowly, ever so slowly, I inched it up to a complete lockout. Closer than close can be, but I had it. Happy.

Next week I think I will go for a 4 pin max, which should give a good indication of whether I have a new bench max in me. I think I do within 2-3 weeks, but the question is can I break the 100 kg/221 lbs barrier or will I have to go via 95 kg/210 lbs before I get there. With things going well, I am getting spoiled by 10 kg/22 lbs increases. I like getting spoiled for the right reasons. Give me more!

The rest of the workout was roughly the same as last week with heavier weights or more reps.