2006 archives (page 2)

Finland too far away? Fear not, for the virtual three-minute video tour of Metal Gym is here. Everything included, except for the lever adjustable competition bench that I somehow side-stepped and a closer look at some of the specialty bars, bands and boxes. Also didn’t mark out all the supplementary benches that stand here and there.

TAKE THE TOUR (6.5M)

Wednesday, 1 March 2006: Bench weak point day

The press-centric raw bench program I sewed together after my layoff sought to address the weak incline bench, weak shoulder strength and weak bicep strength. I have been doing some decent progress on that, but this might not be enough, especially not for the biceps. After things stall, I will consider turning my accessory bench day into a pure weakpoint session and skip all the crud. Shoulder pressing, back work, cuff work and more than a few sets of biceps work might make the cut better.
Me and myself, January 4th

It is time. Henceforth, there is max effort bench day and weakness bench day. Let’s see what that does for me. The cable crossover shrugs, a shrug done by shrugging in the upper pulley of a cable crossover machine, together with the heavy rear delt work is designed to give me more strength to pull, and keep, the shoulders well retracted on the bench. The rest should be self-explanatory.

Friday, 3 March 2006: ME SQ

Everything clicked tonight. First of all, I didn’t miss the first bus as I usually do. My mind was where it was supposed to be; how could it not be as I listened to the Dark Tranquillity masterpiece Haven on my iPod with Koss Spark Plugs while sipping on an energy drink? Next to the bus stop where I change buses, the lightly falling snow was beautifully illuminated by light beams sent into the sky (and neighbouring building) by a spot light (larger pic). Once at the empty gym, I went through three PRs on the 13″ box squat ending up at 130 kg/287 lbs, a 12.5 kg/28 lbs improvement. No lateral shift this time. Three plates a side are soon mine on the squat.

VIDEO (3.1M), for the first time featuring reverse hypers on the real deal.

Sunday, 5 March 2006: Family GPP

Rufus loves his sled and we love pulling him. Having borrowed a car, we spent the morning at the Seurasaari Open Air Museum. While Sanna grilled us some sausage, Rufus and I enjoyed watching a game of kubb down by the ice, an old Viking game that is fairly popular here in Scandinavia. I had hoped to wrap up the nice day with a nocturnal visit to Metal, but the light sled pulling reluctantly convinced me that the biceps had again taken a beating after the squatting. Staying home instead, my biceps got a well-deserved cross-fiber massage by Sanna before being coated in the muscle rub I got from Thailand. Sauna next.

I commissioned dad to snap a few pics of Toffe’s as he drove over the ice to the summer cottage last week. As you can see, the snow level is abnormally low for being halfway up Finland in early March. It’s been a strange winter. Despite some periods with below -20°C/-4°F weather, snow fall has been sparse in recent weeks (not so in Glasgow). Now that the warm rays of the March sun tends to take the day time temperature up quite a bit, one could definitively break out the barbell were one to have the opportunity for a visit. Alas… sigh.

I’ve been involved in a Tibetan digital library project for some time now in the capacity as the sysadmin responsible for the actual technical implementation. After more months of work than I care to recall, we are finally nearing a public release. Eager to get it done, both the guys in China and I have been working frantically on it for the last ten days or so. The good news is that we have made good progress, the bad news is that it was a decisive turn in the wrong direction for my back.

Monday last week, I worked non-stop from 9pm to 6.30am in front of the computer. With my brain deeply occupied with Perl code, I royally forgot to decompress every now and then. Minutes later, I was dashing hard to catch the customary bus. I made it, but at the expense of my lower back. First came the pain, two days later the lateral hip shift. I took muscle relaxants and pain killers left over from the previous pain saga, but still had trouble getting out of the bed in the morning. Decided to forget training until it had cleared. In the end, it cleared up faster than I had dared to imagine. It remains to be seen if I have managed to get past it at record speed or not as I break out the Sting Ray this weekend.

By popular demand… here’s the only video snippet (1.5M) I have of my heavy bag work, from a certain deload week in early January. It’s not pretty, it’s not serious, but it gives you the general idea. At this point, I still needed more than a few refreshers on latching on to the rhythm of the bag and a lot of the kicks show a glaring lack of follow through as a result. Who would have thought this man actually carries a black belt? Let’s just say that it’s been ten years and await the sequel.

I feel thankful for paying per visit and not monthly at Metal… First I spent a week recovering from the latest bout of back trouble. For once, I actually managed to fix myself up in a record time by doing nothing but avoiding flexion and decompressing frequently. Eleven days after the relapse, I was in the gym doing front squats and feeling dandy. Then I suddenly lost my voice and caught a fever. A far nastier critter than the usual flu fare, I was down and out from work for the whole of week 13. If I don’t have any energy to compute, I know it’s bad. When Rufus also caught it we had our hands full. Then it was Sanna’s turn, who is at the time of writing still recovering from hers. I could have sweared Metal Gym was no longer in the same dimension.

Here’s a quick glance at the two workouts I got in before falling ill.

Tuesday, 14 March 2006: ME Bench

Being the first workout after the back pain, I played it safe and kept my feet up on all the benching. After posting a routine failure at 102.5 kg/227 lbs on the close-grip bench, I worked my way up on the dumbell bench with a light band around my back (VIDEO 1.8M). Not perhaps what you’d expect from a guy vehemently opposed to starting on the bands too early, but, or so the story goes, I did it in an effort to solve the two-fold problem I have with the dumbell bench: the lack of a dumbell pair between 36 kg and 41kg/91 lbs has proven to be too big a weight jump to continue the 5x5 progression and lowering the 41 kg/91 lbs bells to the floor seriously strained my weak biceps. With the band, I can achieve the same level of work with much less dumbell poundage while drastically cutting down on the weight I need to lower to the floor. The 26 kg/57 lbs dumbells were plenty for a set of six. And yes, I am going to bring my biceps up with more direct biceps work, for I really want to manhandle the heavier bells soon. If it takes bands to do it, then so be it.

Friday, 17 March 2006: Squat

Due to the aforementioned back episode, my newly acquired Sting Ray was confined to the stinky darkness of my gym bag for two weeks before it finally got out in the limelight. The Sting Ray does for the front squat what its cousin the Manta Ray does for the back squat, namely delivers a much increased surface area for the bar in the guise of blue high-tech polyurethane polymer that snaps readily unto the bar. The end result is sheer comfort that allows one to concentrate on the task at hand without worrying about the bar. For more ramblings on this, see my post on the Manta Ray.

The Manta Ray provides an easy way to do an extremely high-bar squat that taxes the quads to the max, but no serious powerlifter would consider using it exlusively since it is illegal in competition and a low bar placement gives better leverage anyway. Leave that for the bodybuilders. In contrast, I see little point in doing front squats without the Sting Ray since it does not noticeably alter the mechanics of the lift. As anyone who has done front squats extensively can attest, the front squat is an uncomfortable lift where you get to choose between sacrificing your shoulders or wrists to keep the bar in front of your body. With the Sting Ray the discomfort is virtually eliminated, provided you get the two pieces properly spaced on the bar. I also found that you don’t even need to hold on to the bar at all, but it felt more natural for an old front squatter to keep the arms over it. Just in case.

For obvious reasons, I took it easy with a few fivers at 70 kg/155 lbs, but it was more than enough to convince me that the Sting Ray will be worth much more over the years to come than the mere $39.95 plus $11.60 shipping that I paid for it suggests. Inspired by Alberto, I continued the quad assault with walking dumbell lunges from the end of the lifting platform to the Metal shop. Turned out to be sixteen lunge steps. The next day my glutes and quads were fried.

Wednesday, 5 April 2006: Light bench/squat combo

Still got a slimy cough, but who can stay out of the gym forever? I eased back into it by doing a light combined squat and bench workout involving plenty of supersets. As you can see, I am indeed serious about upping my biceps strength. In fact, I think I will start my bench assistance day with plenty of biceps work and also put in a few sets on max effort day. I should probably start to do biceps pull-ups…

Saturday, 8 April 2006: ME Bench

On a whim, I decided to see how it would feel if I moved my grip out on the bench. I usually bench with pinkies on or just inside the rings, but now worked up with ring fingers on the rings. To my surprise, there was no shoulder discomfort. As is to be expected when using unfamiliar grips, the normal bench poundage was too much right now. I also moved the feet in as much as I could while still keeping my heels on the ground in an attempt to keep my arch better. If things continue to feel this good, I will likely keep the wider grip as I sure could use a bit shorter range of motion… Am also slowly bringing the total volume up a bit on the assistance work with shorter rest periods. I could use a bit more muscle and GPP. Then again, who couldn’t?

We added a new weapon to our arsenal at the gym. [..] The 92.5″ Buffalo Bar with its magnificent curve boldly rests on the angled uprights of our Excalibur power rack. What a truly handsome piece of steel it is; super-long with it’s super-thick deeply knurled bar, smoothly rotating Olympic sleeves and cool silver-steel finish. We don’t use this ultimate squat bar for training purposes, as it is far too beautiful for clanging around, dropping and racking. We, girls and guys, take turns standing next to the thing like it was a frontiersman’s musket or a gladiator’s lance, vain warriors posed for a point n’shoot photograph.
Dave Draper: Buffalo Stampede.

Tongue in cheek aside, I followed in the footsteps of the Blonde Bomber and arranged to purchase my very own Buffalo Bar for Toffe’s. It all started when I got the latest issue of MILO and read Dr. Ken’s ravings about how this legendary bar is “made for one thing and one thing only and that’s the squat”. As it happened, some time later I browsed in at Voimaharjoittelu.net to look at their used equipment sections. The first thing I saw was a Buffalo Bar for 195 euros. For a second, I was torn between the Buffalo Bar and the Texas Powerbar (”the best all-purpose bar on the market“), but with Leistner’s words, a vision of my squat numbers continuing their climb and a 50% discount on my mind (the retail price is 395 euros), I went for the Buffalo. I contacted Sakke, the owner of the shop, and inquired about the condition of the bar. Turned out he had two (Europeans, one more is up for the grabs!), both in good condition. One had been in use at a public gym, the other one is from a private gym. He also readily agreed to hold the shipping until late April when dad will be at our summer cottage to pick it up. Saves me from slugging it all the way from Helsinki. Good service!

I will definitively need to replace the generic bar at Toffe’s with a proper bar at some point, but for now I am happy to have a legendary squat bar in my forest. Unlike what the thick layer of ice still covering the sea here in southern Finland suggests, the outdoor training session is just around the corner. Can’t wait.

Monday, 10 April 2006: “ME” Squat

Thumbs down for this workout. Apparently I was not fully recovered from the light introductory workout I did last week following the illness. It took two attempts to get 80 kg/177 lbs on the front squats… a tad embarrassing. The hammies were too tired for GHRs and 40 kg/88 lbs on the reverse hyper was one lethargic experience. Praise the God of Iron that these kind of days are not the norm and move on. Måns’s take on this day is bound to be much different. He posted a 150 kg/332 lbs legal depth raw squat on his first ever max attempt on the squat. That’s no belt. I confess to suggesting he max out… the force is strong with this bodybuilder!

Friday, 14 April 2006: Bench weakpoint day

A good workout. Got the “Light your biceps on fire” campaign to a good start and also resurrected the dumbell benching with bands. After three sets of five with the violet bands, I tried a set with 33.5 kg/74 lbs without bands. I was tired by then, but a set of six wasn’t too hard. It being Easter and all, the fuel for today’s workout was naturally lutefisk and mämmi.

Sunday, 16 April 2006: DE Squat

There’s a lot of resurrecting in the air; Jesus, the aformentioned band work, and now, speed squats. I want to get back to the chains soon, but for the next few weeks I am easing back into it au naturelle. Went light at 80 kg/177 lbs owing to a stiff sacroiliac joint, perhaps due to having slept some decent hours and then carrying Rufus around at the Helsinki Zoo looking at bisons, tigers and owls (his favorite). Måns and I arrived fairly late at the gym, which probably saved me from overdoing it tonight. Still, moved up to a record 60 kg/133 lbs on the reverse hyper. Sure, I’ve repped with 60 kg/133 lbs in the past, but that wasn’t with a full stop between reps to put it mildly. At that time, I couldn’t have gotten 60 kg/133 lbs to the top without momentum. Something’s getting stronger. Since it is Easter and both of us had Monday off, we wrapped up the workout with a nocturnal visit to the centrally located kebab place Eerikin pippuri (loosely translates as Eric’s pepper), widely heralded as THE place to eat kebab in Helsinki. This time around, I will not torment your appetite with any more compromising pictures of kebab. Just eat it. Why am I suddenly thinking of bison kebab?

Subject: Question about the original Buffalo Bar
Date: Mon, 17 Apr 2006 16:59:53 +0000

Hi,

I just purchased a used Buffalo Bar. As a proud owner with an interest in
lifting trivia, I would like to briefly inquire about the history of the
bar. I found a forum post on the internet where it was stated that the
specs used to be 1 1/8″ diameter and 86″ length as opposed to the
current 1-3/8″ diameter and 92″ length. Is this true, and if so,
when did you start to manufacture it with the larger specs? I would also
be interested in when the first bar hit the shelves.

Sincerely,
-Kristoffer Lindqvist, Helsinki, Finland

Dear Kristoffer,

Congratulations on your new (to you!) Buffalo Bar.

IronMind began selling cambered squat bars in 1990, after they had
been ignored for decades, and although it’s more history than trivia,
we did this as they are tied to the training program featured in the
book SUPER SQUATS. We had two models then, and the predecessor to
our current model, in fact, was 1-1/8″ in diameter. I do not have
the product introduction dates at my finger tips, but that bar moved
first to 1-1/4″ in diameter, before settling in at its current
diameter of 1-3/8″.

I hope this information helps you and that you enjoy your Buffalo Bar
for many years of productive training.

Best wishes,

Randall J. Strossen, Ph.D.
President
IronMind Enterprises, Inc.

A BIG thanks to Randall J. Strossen for his generous answer to a question that many lesser companies would regard as a waste of their time and for giving me the permission to cite the correspondence on this blog. The links that appear in the posts have been added to point the reader to the relevant information.