2005 archives (page 6)

All good things must come to an end, but why did I have to trade in the peaceful family existence at the summer cottage and Toffe’s gym for work this soon…? Why oh why?

Anyway. My dough will continue to come mainly from being a full-time teacher in a Swedish-speaking elementary school here in Helsinki (sixth grade). If last year is anything to go by, this will be a laborious yet rewarding year. With family and sleep high on the agenda, I will keep my usual freelancing activities (translating and teaching courses on Asia) to a minimum. On the training front, it is time to head indoors. For the time being, the natural place to go is the school gym. Only got one workout in this week though with a good headstart on 57.5 kg/127 lbs behind-the-neck presses. Also noted that my right wrist appears to be pretty sore after last week’s reverse grip benches. Got to lay off those for a while.

Monday, 15 August 2005: SQ/DL

Over the two plus years I’ve been doing this powerlifting thing, I have never really gotten beyond the box squat. Last year, some four months after the infamous good morning injury, I had big plans for working with squat king Brent Mikesell on my form and embarked on free standing squats. Two workouts later, my lower back wasn’t worth the T-shirt it was draped in as I began a long struggle with recurrent low back problems. They are still with me it seems, but since I felt pretty ok I started to slowly work my way up. Things felt good, and I ended up maxing out at 100 kg/221 lbs and failing at 110 kg/243 lbs. Baby weights for sure, but this was a minor victory of sorts for me.

Comments on my squat form are warmly welcome (weekly video summary, 6.5M). One thing I notice from the video is that my lower back rounds at the very bottom of the squat. I’ve also started to wonder whether I am sitting back a little too much for a raw squatter. My knees hardly move forward at all, which is what an equipped squat should look like, but perhaps the price I am paying for not having any artificial support in the hole is that the upper body is forced forward a bit more than it should (admittedly, my core strength is also lagging). I remember reading somewhere that raw lifters can generally get away with a bit of forward knee movement. I need to experiment, it could well be that I could squat more weight if I came down straighter.

Another minor victory was getting hold on a copy of the EliteFTS Squat/Deadlift Exercise Index DVD from Voimaharjoittelu.net for a bargain 20 euros. A minor chip, hardly something that would bother me, was missing from the box which accounts for the whopping 39 euro saving compared to the retail price. That’s a great deal if any! After watching the DVD rave over the how effective a back piece the 45 degree hyper is and how you can easily get in and out by yourself with added weight, I looked at the school hyper with new eyes. Of course it doesn’t have the wide base and band pegs like the EliteFTS model, but it did turn out to be fairly easy to get in with a [light] barbell. The best thing ever, also gleaned from the DVD, were side bends with a dumbell on the same piece. Obliques burning in hell!

Wednesday, 17 August 2005: SQ/DL

Yay! Following in the wake of a recent 105 kg/232 lbs decline bench PR, I managed the same on the floor press today. Moved on to 107.5 kg/238 lbs, but there was just a big BANG as I dropped it on the pins. Like on the declines, I made life simple and put 2.5 kg/5.5 lbs plates innermost to allow a smooth 10 kg/22 lbs pyramid all the way up to 105 kg/232 lbs. I don’t see much point in taxing the body with 100 kg/221 lbs if the goal is to do 105 kg/232 lbs. Better to just do 95 kg/210 lbs, then attempt 105 kg/232 lbs.

Satisfied. There is naturally footage on the aforementioned weekly video summary (6.5M).

The power rack project left behind a few sacks of concrete. Not wanting to waste that, figured I might just skip a few beats and ditch the wooden weight pit for a concrete one. After all, the few workouts I’ve done in it so far has convinced me this is one heck of an attraction.

I started work on this three weeks ago on the eve of leaving the summer cottage for the regular job in Helsinki. I did the frame one day until midnight, and then worked like a maniac the next day to get it all concreted before hopping on the southbound train with Rufus and Sanna. As we returned to celebrate the traditional Ostrobothnian end of the summer season on the last weekend of August, I got to uncover the now dry pit. Here’s the more than a thousand words thingy.

Step one: reluctantly tear down the “old” wooden top structure one has invested several hours in making, then put in an outer frame for the concrete and painstakingly make sure it is level in all directions.

The inner frame in place. Notice the sheet metal that keeps the concrete from flowing down into the pit. The wood was ripped from old boards that once made up the weight shed at Toffe’s gym. The measurements correspond closely to that of the wooden pit, i.e. depth 60cm/23.4″, length 84 cm/32.8″, width 65 cm/25.4″.

Partially filled frame. As usual, a few stones decorate the bottom in order to save some concrete.

After sweating bucket loads whipping up several bags of concrete by hand, the frame was finally filled and the concrete carefully levelled out. Joy to the world!

Ideally, concrete should be allowed to settle for a couple of days covered up to prevent moisture loss. The painted stones are fossiles from the flintstone’s era at Toffe’s when I used stones in buckets for resistance… This is how I left the pit before rushing off to the train via a quick dip in the sea (concrete in the ears does not make for a good public impression).

The uncovered pit upon the return a couple of weeks later. Guess who couldn’t wait to try it out… here the Ironmind loading pin is loaded to 60 kg/133 lbs for some light handle squats. Here’s the video (1.7M).

Holes in forests can be a deathtrap to both animals and humans alike as a poor mouse who fell into it can attest… not to mention how fun it is to step into a pit like this in the middle of the winter. For peace of mind, I nailed together a solid lid made of treated wood I bought for the purpose. I made sure to leave some gap between the boards to allow air to circulate (”hey, wanna try some handle deadlifts in my stinky pit?”). Mission complete.

A veritable sea of light by the sea as lanterns, torches and bonfires light up the last dark weekend of August in the archipelago… the End of Summer festival is one great tradition indeed. Where there is great light, there must also be great darkness…evil traditions are arising out of its shadows. It doesn’t take Yoda to understand that I was out there looking to improve my 105 kg/232 lbs decline PR. I didn’t get it, instead I got what I got last year this very weekend… heavy duty back pain and a strong case of lumbago.

Not perhaps quite as bad as last year, but I had to forego all plans to clean up the debris in the gym following this year’s extensive renovation. As soon as I got back to Helsinki, I did the usual round. Actually, I didn’t even need to set foot in the occupational health clinic as a phone call was enough to get me the usual muscle relaxants and strong pain killers. At the back clinic, the doctor at first tried to ease up the cramp with the same means as a month ago, but he quickly abandoned the neural mobilization as even the starting position was severely painful. Instead, he jammed two pins into my low back to electrically force the cramping muscles to repeatedly contract in an effort to tire them. It is an experience in itself to feel the small muscles around the spine contract, I doubt they can be caused to fire in isolation without artificial means. After some fifteen or twenty minutes of contract-relax-contract-relax-contract-relax, I knew I would be sore in some funky places… The doctor told me I could expect the cramp to ease up over the next couple of days. He concluded that there was nothing structurally or neurologically wrong with my low back, something I should be thankful for. Knowing my scientific bent, he went on to sketch a picture of a vertebral disc from above explaining how the jelly-like center, the nucleus, is contained within a fibrous ring known as the annulus. Under normal circumstances, the disc returns to its original shape after absorbing pressure. But with age, the annulus is weakened and cracks can occur causing the acidic nucleus to spill out of its container thus coming into contact with the nerve roots. This in turn is what causes the lower back to cramp leading to the leaning tower of Pisa effect as the cramp causes the hip to shift to one side with a considerable drooping shoulder on the opposite side. This page over at a French back clinic explains this well with pictures, including the one below (the text is in English though).

Almost into my second year of recurrent back trouble following the you-know-what, I received a clear diagnosis I can understand. This is so important I need to bold, hold on… What causes my back trouble is not a lingering back injury, but disc leakage due to abnormal levels of compression. Unfortunately, it appears that my “abnormal levels of compression” is abnormally low, say a 100 kg/221 lbs squat or 107.5 kg/238 lbs decline bench attempt. That said, it is not like this problem pops up out of the blue something. I have been able to sustain high levels of compression since the injury (for example, the Coan deadlift cycle in the spring), but for some reason a little is sometimes suddenly just too much. A stiff back, like I had before this workout, is a much more serious warning sign than I have ever understood. What this means to my powerlifting future, beyond the “stay away from the decline for now”, remains to be seen. Gargllleeeee.

Took a month off following the latest back incident. I had to recharge and, quite frankly, I knew it would start to clear up even without serious rehab. I have had plans to start training at Finland’s powerlifting Mecca, Metal Gym, for some time now. For one thing, we have started discussing purchasing our own house in the countryside and I want to have had the experience of training in a real powerlifting gym under my belt in case I will be confined to a second home gym out there somewhere. Of more urgent importance is of course the need to deal with my back problems. The opportunity to use a *real* reverse hyper every workout is starting to sound much more important than the fact that I neither live nor work in close proximity to the gym. A GHR, heavy dumbells, chains, specialty bars, monolifts and the like are of course icing on the cake.

In order for me to catch as much of Rufus’s waking hours as possible, Måns and I have agreed to train mainly between 22pm and midnight for now. Said and done. Today we headed over to Metal Gym to grab the 10 euros magnetic key card that will enable us to train in the night shift (the counter is manned until 7pm weekdays, but the gym is open until midnight for card holders). Either Cartman, the strong Metal counter guy, has a good face memory or then he has been reading my blog, because he immediately handed me the copy of The Kennelly method that I had lent to one of their lifters on my only previous visit to the gym in January (has a description of the gym). My card is now loaded with twenty visits for 88 euros. Powerlifting owls, you’ve got company.

First workout since the latest back relapse a month ago and first workout at Metal since my first visit there nine months ago. Being a fresh full orange member of said gym, this is now what I call home gym. The description is also apt in the sense that being in there at 22pm gives you a distinct sense of… well, lack of human beings pounding away at floor presses, squats with blue bands, weighted side bends and whatnot. For the first workout, there were a whopping three people in there besides me, but the second time around I was the proverbial lone barbell in powerlifter’s paradise (Måns couldn’t make it yet). Speaking of that second workout… I lost my training notes for it. Kids, don’t write down workouts on the back of old receipts for toothpaste and baby food.

Monday, 26 September 2005: Rehab

Here’s the logic according to Kris: if compression causes lumbago, then avoid compression (heavy squats, deadlifts…) if the back feels at all stiff. Instead strengthen the living hell out of the core/midsection region in the hopes that it will help keep stuff better in place (notably keeping me more upright in the squat). Further, do this with fanatic zeal or at least try to do reverse hypers and GHRs even on bench days. Focus on really opening those discs on the reverse hyper by allowing for a nice swing turned bottom stretch. Off we go. Had to do some common sense guessing on the cable crunches as most Metal cable machines only lists plate number, not weight.

“A national sports competition for animals is currently underway in Chongqing, China. An orangutan called Juhui competed in the weightlifting event.” (source: Uutislehti 100, 3 October 2o05)

Monday, 3 October 2005

Still taking it easy with the back, but did get carried away a bit with the Westside camber bar (or squat camber bar) on the Zercher squat, a combo I saw on the EliteFTS Squat Index DVD I got a while ago. I had no idea what the crooked beast weighed at this point, but a 15 kg/33 lbs plate a side proved plenty in my condition. I used a board between the bar and the crook of my elbows, but the swaying action caused by the heavy camber made for some nasty bar bites on both biceps. Later measured the bar with a scale I brought in for the purpose as the bugger was too tall to fit on top of the electronic scale standing in a corner at Metal. It clocked in at 29 kg/64 lbs, close enough to call it a standard 30 kg/66 lbs bar. How cool would it be to have one of these, preferably the rackable model, at Toffe’s Gym… now THAT was a rhetorical question if any.

Monday, 10 October 2005: Bench

Loaded up the camber bar for the first time. I figured I would be able to do about the same as on a regular bench given that my sticking point is about midway. Not so. I’m not quite back at the strength level I had before the layoff, but was a bit disappointed with failing at 95 kg/210 lbs. The movement felt slow and came to a dead stop at the sticking point. I think the extra 2″ stretch at the bottom makes for a slower than normal drive off the chest for subjects not previously exposed to the perils of the camber. It was fun though, and didn’t strain the shoulders as much as I thought it would. Instead, the arching, moderate as it may be, caused my back to get really sore and I took the rest of the week off to limp around in peace.

Tuesday, 18 October 2005: Squat and Bench combo

An end of season trip up to Toffe’s Gym with Måns has been hanging in the air for some time now. November was the original candidate, as I would be on a father’s leave extension for the whole month. When it turned out that dad was going up for a final visit this weekend, suitably coinciding with a two-day fall leave at school, we decided to tag along to assist him with the usual chores. As we were definitively going to be pumping iron snow or no snow, I did both squat and bench days on Tuesday and took the rest of the week off. Without further ado, here’s that workout. One more ado and I bring you…