2004 archives (page 9)

One of the things I decided when embarking on Westside training was to do at least a full year of basic training before even considering chains, bands, weight releasers and other such intensity boosters that have become something of a hallmark of the Westside school of powerlifting. It is not only because these gadgets are too advanced when just making the switch to powerlifting, but also because I wanted to save them for when my gains started slowing down. Simply put, don’t use the sledgehammer until you really need to. Having heard many people rave about what chains and bands did for their bench, I think it is now time to see if they can help me get out of the rut.

Chain theory and contrast with bands

Thin loading chains are used to hang thick chains from the bar sleeves and adjusted so that most of the heavy chain is on the floor at the bottom of the movement. What chains do is to progressively increase the resistance towards the lockout as more and more chain leaves the ground. In Westside terms, this is a way of accommodating resistance, of making the strength curve better match the resistance. Movements on which the chains are used usually get easier towards the top due to better leverage towards lockout and acceleration off the bottom. The chains offset this lightening, thus ensuring that the lift remains heavy to the [bitter] end.

Chains are especially valued for speed work as they force the body to accelerate against increasing resistance. Not only does this make the lift challenging, but, according to Westside theoreticians, the added resistance also forces you to drive the bar higher before starting the largely unconscious deceleration phase that stops you from either throwing the bar or injuring your elbows. Without chains (or bands) the bar simply moves too fast at the top forcing you to step on the break sooner so you have time to stop the bar. This dilemma can’t be solved by adding more weight to the bar, since the lift would then be too heavy at the bottom making the degree of acceleration insufficient for speed gains. With chains you have only the bar weight at the bottom and 10-20% extra at lockout. By allowing you to drive the bar higher at high speed, chains help produce a favorable neurological response that will teach the body to drive through sticking points with max weights.

Chains are also used for max effort work on such movements as floor presses and good mornings. As bar speed is low compared to speed work, the neurological response is largely lacking. But as chains make the movement harder, the muscles need to strain more thus leading to larger overload. Time under tension with heavy weight, an essential component of strength gain, is increased as it takes longer to complete the 1-3 reps than without chains. Chains can also be used in max effort work to combat specific sticking points by adjusting the loading chain so that the extra weight kicks in just below the problem.

The effect of bands (and bungees) is similar, but, unlike chains, the resistance does not increase linearly but exponentially as the resistance grows stronger and stronger the more the band stretches. Bands also create much more eccentric tension, i.e. it not only adds weight but also pulls against you. Drop the bar with chains and it fill “merely” fall on you, drop it with bands at it will be propelled down at you as if from a slung. Bands also tend to add more resistance than chains, i.e. in the neighborhood of 20-30% of bar weight at lockout on speed work. If chains are a semi-advanced method, bands are highly advanced and should not really be used extensively before reaching a plateau. At Westside, chains were introduced only in the late 1990s long after the club had reached fame, with Jump Stretch bands making their appearance a good three years later. These strong guys and girls certainly got their base strength from plain old straight weight before going for chains and bands. Barbender242 put it well over in the T-nation forums:

Chains and bands are just two more weapons in your battle to gain strength. I think too many new lifters want to do everything and use everything at once. When beginning, go ahead and cycle some chains in, it will help with lockout weaknesses. But the best advice on bands came from Chuck V., he said that you should not use bands until you have completely stopped gaining from straight weight and chains (for most people, this is longer than you think). That way by the time you get to the point where you need to use bands, you already have a solid training base and the bands will get you jump started to even bigger numbers. The problem is when you have people who have just started training and are nowhere near any type of plateau, trying to get under band tension without a solid base.

No bands for me for at least another year. Might be difficult as I ordered a pair of minis for use with GHR assists and rehab work.

Chain loading

Below is the recommended chain weight chart for speed work, an amalgam of this and that, to use with speed box squats and speed benching on top of what straight weight you would normally use for speed work. Recall that bar speed is ultimately the indicator, i.e. if you can’t complete three reps within three seconds you have too much weight on the bar and/or too much chain.

Note that my Westside Barbell DE Bench Guidelines script can make all the calculations for you. Generally about half of the 5 foot/1.5 meter chain will be on the floor at the top of the lift, which is a good rule of thumb if you need to find out how much weight a certain chain will add to the lockout.

For max effort work more chain would generally be used, having up to 50% of the weight come from chains is not uncommon. There are two basic ways of working with chains for max effort work: 1) work up to 50-80% of max and then add chains to failure, 2) add a set number of chains first and then add weight to failure.

Setting up chains

The same set of chains can be used for all lifts by simply adjusting the length of the loading chain to satisfy the rule that most, if not all, of the heavy chain should be on the floor at the bottom of the lift. The exception is floor presses, where the chain is draped directly over the sleeves as the bar is too near the floor for loading chains to make any sense. Here is the setup directions straight from the big horse’s mouth as given for box squats:

To set up the chains you’ll need a five foot 1/4 inch chain to act as the support chain. This chain is suspended from the bar sleeves. A metal ring will be suspended in the 1/4 inch support chain. Then the training chains (five feet long, either 5/8″ or 1/2″ thickness) will pass through the metal rings so one half of the chain falls on each side of the ring. You’ll set the support chain so three links on each side of the training chain are on the floor at the top of the lift. When you sit down on the box most of the training chain will be on the floor. You have to keep a certain amount of the chain on the bar to avoid the chains swaying back and forth throughout the movement.

A man and his chain

My plan is to first add the chains to the speed bench. When I have a power rack at Toffe’s Gym, I will also alternate with doing them on ME exercises like floor presses and benches. While surveying material for the rack, I stumbled upon a guy selling 1/2″/13 mm chain. Although I should be using a 5/8″/16 mm chain, I figured they would be good for easing into chain benching. I ended up paying 28 euros for two pieces slightly longer than 5 feet/1.5 meters. It took another 6 euro for two 5 feet/1.5 meter pieces of thin loading chain and two attaching links before the package was complete. I have a feeling 5/8″/16 mm chain will be more expensive if I can find it. Elite Fitness Systems sells these for $99.95, but the shipping would kill me.

Being as anal as always, I did not want to rely on the math to find out how much weight the chains add to the lockout. After adjusting the chains to a suitable length, I had Sanna determine how high the bar is off the floor at the bottom (71 cm) and the top (112 cm, I have a 41 cm stroke with my current minimal arch). Next, I piled enough junk on my soon to be retired Weider bench so that I could get a scale up at the 112 cm mark. Then weighed the bar (19 kg/42 lbs) and added the chains. The final 26 kg/57 lbs reading told me that the chains added 6½ kg/14 lbs to the top. I gather that a 1/2″ chain with smaller loops would reach the full 9 kg/20 lbs generally expected of a 1/2″/13 mm chain. Tomorrow it remains to try them out.

Recommended readings

Chain Reaction: Accommodating Leverages by Louie Simmons. The classic article, which has some interesting things to say about the neurological effect of chains. “Training with chains in this manner accomplishes three things. 1) We have maintained our original weight in order to use the correct percentage for explosive training. 2) We have overloaded the top portion of the lift, which normally does not receive sufficient work because of increased body leverage at this position. 3) A neurological response to build explosive strength is developed. This training will train you to drive to the top because you cannot slack off at the top phase as you used to.”

Accommodating Resistance: How to use bands and chains to increase your max lifts by Dave Tate. A pocket bible on the topic. “I don’t care how you lift the weight, at some point you have to begin to decelerate. If not you’d have to actually throw the barbell. Now at what point do you begin to decelerate? Is it at three or four inches before the lockout, or three to four inches off your chest in the bench? I don’t know for sure, but I can guess it’s different for everyone and is based on several individual things such as joint angles, fatigue, and previous training experience. Bands and chains can train you to break through these sticking points.”

Chains and Bands by Louie Simmons. Talks about loading in detail. “If you want to excel at powerlifting or any sport, then you must develop speed strength, increase acceleration, and gain absolute strength. Bands and chains can be instrumental in developing these aspects of strength. I highly recommend that you try them as soon as possible.”

Researching Resistance by Louie Simmons. “This is exactly why you must use bands or chains to accommodate resistance [when doing speed work]. Without them the bar moves too fast at the top.”

Workin’ on the chain gain?and more by Ken O’Neill. Excellent article with pictures that also discusses purchasing chain and has a nice chart of how much various thickness of chain weigh by the foot. “Chains provide a low cost way of doing what Arthur Jones set out to accomplish with his original Nautilus machines.”

Bands, Chains and Bungees by Bob Strauss (photos). “Chains operate differently than bands or bungees. They add the exact same amount of weight per unit of distance moved, whereas bands increase, and bungees increase further. The fact that chains start adding an even amount of resistance make them good for helping a point lower down than bands or bungees.”

The Science Behind Bands and Chains by Rob Haan. “Is the use of bands and chains some magical tool that will create supermen? No, the process of getting stronger is slow and takes years of hard work, bands make the work harder not easier. The bands and chains are just a way of stimulating the muscle in a different way and changing the strength curve and the force velocity curve.”

I have now joined the chain benching tribe albeit with a little too tiny a chain. The extra 7 kg/15 lbs added by the 1/2″/13 mm chain was hardly noticeable when going all out on the speed bench, but I could really feel it when doing a few slow warm-up reps. I could also feel it in my ears; ear plugs would not be a totally ridiculous idea. Here’s the video (0.5MB).

I took this opportunity to switch back to normal 3-rep Westside speed benching from the Blakley speed benching I’ve done lately. I conclude that on good days the preliminary slow-medium-fast rep scheme feels good, but when feeling sluggish the slower reps have a tendency to make the bar feel needlessly heavy. I could not really see any difference in bar path consistency between the two methods either, as measured by chalking the middle of the bar.

Did some heavy french presses with the EZ bar, an exercise I have nearly forgotten since being bit by the JM bug. Pull-ups is an exercise my ego hoped I had forgotten. V-bar pull-ups used to be easy back when I was a light 75 kg/166 lbs dude, but with 20 kg/44 lbs more on my frame it does not really help that I am now much stronger on pulldowns… Did as many half-assed reps as I could muster. Perhaps this is where I really could make some good use of bands, i.e. for band-assisted pull-up work…

Some bicep and forearm work. The End.

Some days you feel dandy and are prepared for soaring to new heights, until you actually start flapping. Did not need more than the barbell itself to realize that the usual spot on the front of both shoulder had again turned into tight knotty bands (blame the chains?). Being all pre-occupied with my back, I have lately come to neglect the shoulder massage, so here we are again. The tightness can usually be dissolved within a day or two by massaging hard for one minute several times a day, i.e. normal trigger point massage. I still find a tennis ball excellent for the job, but have also started to use a so-called thumbsaver I bought from the Thera Cane central for $6.95. Made of wood with a pointy rubber head, it is perfect for staying on the spot and going deep. Doing this with a thumb works, but after that you have a strained thumb on your hands… The thumbsaver is also small enough to be easy to carry around in your pocket, and, unlike the tennis ball, you don’t need to have a wall handy.

Felt the shoulders could handle some work without going spastic; sets of five on close-grip benches were suddenly basking in a very attractive light. Worked up to 5 @ 80 kg/177 lbs, then it was time to bail out. Not wanting to beat the shoulders any further, I just did a single set of JMs before moving into the usual back and forearm work. Just for fun, I tried lying rows with the chains hanging double from the sleeves of the bar. Unlike benching, this movement gets harder the further up you get, so a good explosive start proved imperative if I wanted to get the bar to touch the board. Quite nice actually.

For the first time, I tried some plate curling for the forearms. The idea is simple: grip a weight plate in a pinch grip, then do a normal curl with it. Although it looks like a biceps exercise, the real deal is trying to keep the wrist from bending backwards during the curl. I found a 10 kg/22 lbs plate a little too much, but pinching a 5 kg/11 lbs and a 2.5 kg/6 lbs plate together was just enough. I highly recommend this one. There are several variations on the theme, from curling the plate with a finger through the hole via curling with a board to wrist curling plates.

And oh yes, skipped Sunday’s rehab workout as my hamstrings and pals were all tied up from Wednesday’s lunge workout.

It was pouring down the whole day. The rain was simply too heavy for me to want to not care and call it functional. Stayed inside in front of the fireplace and enjoyed watching Portugal beat Holland 2-1 in the UEFA Euro 2004 soccer cup. The rest of the time I was working my brains out on a Tibetan/Chinese digital library project that suddenly came up with a very tight deadline. I fear that Deadline will beat Sleep at least 4-1 for the next few days.

To make up for the drowned ME SQ/DL workout, I decided to superset that workout with today’s DE bench work. Today’s weather was an interesting blend of fiery showers intercepted by brave rays of sun. As I had an evening train to Helsinki to catch, I had no choice but to get underneath the bar at 4pm. The first three sets were done under a cloudy sky, the next few ones in rain and then suddenly, sunshine again. Then repeat. For what it’s worth, here’s the weather forecast for Vaasa, Finland on which Toffe’s Gym is so dependent.

With a sizeable sleep deficit and a rain drenched squatting platform, I did my lunges with caution. After 9 sets of lunges, supersetted with 9 sets of speed benching with chains, I was feeling tender enough. Some pull-up negatives and board balancing and that was that.

Back in Helsinki as in back to glute ham raises. As of yet, I haven’t come up with a way to do these at Toffe’s gym, but perhaps I can use the pins for leg support once I get that rack built. The mini bands I ordered from Elite Fitness Systems precisely one month ago haven’t arrived yet, which is strange considering that they were to ship within 24 hours by airmail. Otherwise this would have been a prime opportunity to try band-assisted GHRs. The ball bearings on the lying squat machine were too fried to allow for more than one heavy set, but otherwise this was a decent workout.

After two weeks of chain rattling on the speed bench, the unchained bar was almost a supersonic blur today. The usual nine sets later, I wanted to do something I haven’t done in ages. It boiled down to dumbell floor presses, illegal wides or rack lockouts.

Picked lockouts off the fifth pin knowing that their slight recovery demand would allow me to go heavy without putting Monday’s max effort bench work in jeopardy. Besides, I was quite curious to see what kind of tonnage (haha) I would be able to budge after not having done any heavy lockout work in over half a year (did 120 kg/265 lbs in December, with a 130 kg/287 lbs PR from November when done as the first exercise). I soon found myself with a traction problem as it was hard to dig the feet into the floor wearing only socks, having left my training shoes back at Toffe’s Gym. Still, the 120 kg/265 lbs take off was defiantly smooth, so jumped straight to the record weight of 132.5 kg/293 lbs. Got the bar to bend promisingly, but no more.

The initial disappointment wore off once I realized that I had indeed not done much to try to get a stronger lockout. And why should I? I don’t have a lockout problem and don’t use a bench shirt, so my bench stands little to gain from building the lockout as I cannot get anything that heavy off my chest in the first place. That being said, lockouts are fun and a good way to overload the ever so essential triceps. Those with lockout sticking points must be happy people. The rest of us go back to more essential exercises, while trying to figure out what to do about the longer and longer training times. The obvious, perhaps?

Got an early morning (well… 10am) text message from Måns who enthusiastically raved about this site, and with good reason. Sandow and the Golden Age of Iron Men: The Online Physical Culture Museum is a gold mine of old texts and images dating from the late 19th and early-mid 20th century. Although Sandow is the masthead, the site is also sprinkled with gems ranging from legendary Canadian strongman Louis Cyr (left) to Charles Atlas and his infamous muscle mail courses. The texts are soaked with the physical culture ideal of the time, where men and women were enlightened to the joy and aesthetic well-being that ensue once proper vigorous daily exercise and healthy habits are embraced. As Sandow himself puts it,

Its an astonishing fact that 90 per cent of men and women die without taking up half the good gifts of life that lie within hand’s reach. A well-developed body implies a well-developed brain, and for a full enjoyment of life both are absolutely necessary. There is, of course, no royal road to strength; but the high road is so plain, and the journey so pleasant, that, once pointed out, it can hardly be missed.
Eugen Sandow, 1902: The Gospel of Strength According to Sandow; Introduction.

This is a museum in the true sense of the word, that provides a fascinating insight into what cutting edge training meant at the turn of the 20th century when early strongmen looked back towards Greek ideals while working their chest expanders. Now it is time for me to head for the gym in order to combat Blaikie’s dire warning as he talks of the half-built boy whose kite flying and other pastimes ensure that he grows up having

[…] had nothing of yet of any account in the way of that systematic, vigorous, daily exercise which looks directly to his weak points, and aims not only to eradicate them, but to build up his general health and strength as well.
William Blaikie, 1879: How to Get Strong and How to Stay So; pp. 30.

In a way, some things never change. A BIG thanks to Roger Fillary and Gil Waldron for allowing us to realize this with their fantastic site!

Next week I am scheduled to meet with the back therapist again, so it was high time I got my current rehab routine on video (2.7M); the first entry-level program clip is here. Was happily unaware of the fact that the gym is closing 7pm Sunday, which helped me dig down and train fairly “fast” as I arrived at 6.30.

The rehab routine calls for balance board standing and squatting as the first exercise. Since there is no board at the gym and I am not quite ready to stand on a stability ball, these are not on tape. Should have replaced them with kneeling on the ball of course, but alas my memory…

Some quick key notes on the exercises: on both the muscle activation and the upper pulley twist the objective is to try to keep the waist stable and non-moving, for which purpose there need not be a dung load of weight. In contrast, on lower cable twist the idea is to get a large twisting motion in the waist to occur, which, according to my therapist, will train the rotators et al. in a much more functional way than any of those waist twist machines found in gyms (I call it the ab twist machine). Note that the arms should move in close to the body on these; save the full swing for the golf course. A big rotation is also the aim of the walk outs, i.e. turn with the arm. Finally, on the ball hypers the sole of the feet need to be against a wall, otherwise you’ll tip over.

Tomorrow, ME Bench. The rack lockouts I did on Friday did indeed not cause much soreness, but did not think far enough to realize that the massivish overload for the shoulders would cause them to tighten up further. Frantic thumbsaver action going down.

All the desperate thumbsaving in the world could not have gotten me in top shape for this workout. As I dug my fingers into my pecs in contemplation, I also noticed that I had some deep soreness remaining there… from the speed benches (no!!!!) I presume. Fighting reason, I did much the same thing as when I was up against the same predicament two weeks ago; hit the bench and started close-gripping. Got a grindingly inefficient double with 90 kg/199 lbs, then did a half hearted attempt at 95 kg/210 lbs. The left shoulder made it very clear that I was not to push this one up. Might need to skip DE Bench this week to let this clear out. Brain re-activated.

If my bench workout was non-exciting, the grip work that followed was the polar opposite. After some wrist curls, I played around with different grip setups. The gym does not have any loading pins, but a pushdown handle worked well for holding plates. Took a chrome plated 10 kg/22 lbs dumbell and attached it to the pushdown handle, holding a 5 kg/11 lbs plate, with a wire (left, top), and then wrapped my fingers around the top end of the dumbell for holds. Worked great! After doing reps and negatives on my CoC grippers, I tried pinching weight plates with the gripper (left, bottom), both thin metal 0.5 kg/1 lbs plates and thicker 2.5 kg/6 lbs plates. You really have to keep the gripper tight to keep the weight from falling, but I suspect strap holds are even more challenging.

Me like forearm pump. Over at Power&Bulk you can find others with the same perversion.