Archives for general (page 14)

Finally added a page showing my progress in the maximum effort lifts for the squat/deadlift and bench. The whole thing is broken down by month making for easy comparison. This sure beats manually searching for my results in the blog or in my training notes whenever I can’t remember what my previous max was. Also handy for seeing what I haven’t maxed out on in a while. Looking it at I am painfully aware of the fact that I need to do more maxes with different grips on the bench exercises and not just sticking to one grip.

Looked at my web logs and found a hit by the waypath spider. Being totally unfamiliar with this particular spider, I headed over to www.waypath.com and discovered that it

[…] makes use of Think Tank 23’s unique information retrieval platform, Nav4, which automatically analyzes content, such as weblogs, and links documents that share common topics. Using Nav4, Waypath provides both keyword search and contextual navigation of individual weblog posts.

Not having found any other Westside blogs (pure logs are another matter, among the notable ones are of course the ones over at elitefts.com and that of Ano Turtiainen), I promptly fed ‘westside barbell’ into the weblog keywords search. In addition to five hits from my own blog, there was also a reference to Chris McClinch’s Training Log began on 1 October 2003.

This blog will track my training. Exercises, reps, sets, and weights will be listed, as will occasional thoughts on my training philosophy. Right now, it’s based on Westside Barbell protocols, albeit tweaked somewhat to optimize physique as well as strength.

Sounds pretty familiar, eh? He is stronger than me but the difference is not so great that I can’t relate (great rhyme there in case you didn’t notice) and he claims to be drug-free. You got yourself another reader, Chris.

If anyone knows of any other similar blogs, please comment. Now let’s see what the waypath search gives for powerlifting.

I have been thinking for a while about creating a script for generating the five-week DE box squat cycle I used recently. So I did. Wrote the script in such a way that it permits direct linking to the results; here’s my next cycle based on my recent 115 kg/254 lbs max. I plan to write more useful Westside related scripts as I need them.

Speaking of which, I skipped DE Squat day on Friday to get some sleep after I finally finished that time-consuming translation. Will be nice to speed bench on Sunday without a sleep deficit for once…

Finally took the couple of minutes required to remove the requirement to supply an e-mail address when posting comments. This in recognition of the fact that it is not much fun to have one’s e-mail dangling about the web begging to be added to spamlists by ever ravaging spambots. Having my own e-mail at the bottom of every page as a picture to prevent spambots from getting at it, it seems unreasonably cruel to then damn my dear commenters to the eternal fire of Spamhell. While at it, I even removed the opportunity for supplying an address as I don’t see any particular reason for collecting this info. Homepage urls are naturally welcome.

I can well live with monologuing, but if anyone wants to say something it should now come at a much lower cost. Peace.

The Westside videos I ordered on 21 September from Elite Fitness Systems arrived today. My ever-helpful girlfriend Sanna volunteered to go get the package from the customs as I would have trouble getting there during opening hours due to my work schedule. The customs slapped an additional 22% tax plus handling fees on top of the 124 euro (145 US dollars) I paid for the Bench Press Workout, Squatting Secrets and Deadlift Secrets videos with shipping. The total came down to 156 euro (182 US dollars). As for shipping speed, the order was stamped as shipped on 26 September.

I hope to get my hands on a VCR on Wednesday or so, after which I will likely post reviews of all tapes. Apart from a review of the Westside Seminar Videos at T-mag I haven’t really seen any good in-depth reviews of Westside tapes available online. I don’t promise mine will be good, but at least they will be in-depth.

I will be back in action on Wednesday, when my long week of rest ends. I believe I will have some interesting experiences to relay in the weeks ahead as the videos are likely to make a big difference in my understanding of how to train Westside-style.

Speaking of videos, there are some good clips of Westside training online. Good places to start are:

Joe Skopec’s Powerlifting Heads Up! Videos: Video clips of many Westside assistance exercises such as box squats, good mornings, JM presses and rack lockouts.

Ano Turtiainen’s training clips: Ano occasionally posts clips of some lifts in his training log at gometal.com (look for the hyperlinks in the workout notes).

If you want to see a fairly interesting trailer of famed German powerlifter Harald Selsam’s new workout (”Dirty Harry’s Workout”, in German) it is available in two sizes here.

The shoulder did indeed feel a lot better this morning following massage and ice treatment yesterday. As the day progressed it felt like some of the stiffness was coming back. In the evening my girlfriend gave me a more direct massage of the sore spots, which hopefully will loosen things up a little (at least it did during the massage itself, when more and more pressure could be applied with less and less pain… to a point). For a nice visual of where the problem is, see spot 1 on this page.

I am going to insert my periodic rest week here (see training routine). Not only because of the shoulder, but also because my body is starting to feel a little rundown (as evidenced by the previous ME Squat/Dead workout) and I have a somewhat hectic week ahead when I would have possibly had to skip one or two workouts anyway. In practice, I have trained the whole of September without breaks other than skipping a couple of DE Bench days to give some room for the shoulder. Also, I expect the Westside videos to arrive any day now, and I will probably not feel like taking any time off once I get a hold of those! I might go to the gym for a light pumping workout on Friday. The next heavy workout will be DE Bench on October 8th.

Before closing shop today, here’s something to prove how fiendish rotator cuff injuries can be. Happy not to be in that league.

Contrary to popular belief, partial or complete tearing of the rotator cuff is often asymptomatic. [..] tears of the rotator cuff often are compatible with normal painless use of the shoulder.
Hans, Guy DC: Chiropractic management of shoulder pain and dysfunction of myofascial origin using ischemic compression techniques

Last but not least, my copy of Mastery of Hand Strength arrived today.

Learn how to do keyboard back breakers (an ideal ME replacement for those nasty good mornings). Master the little known mouse hammers (great with mini bands if done on DE bench day). Get the scoop at Nerd gym, your best resource for learning how to increase your hp level in total secret!

My friend who works at the gym I train at had the powersmith weighed today. The electronic scale failed to provide a reading for just the bar, so he had to first weigh himself and then deduce the weight by mounting the scale with the bar on his shoulders. Turns out it weighs approximately 30.6 kg/68 lbs. As I earlier guestimated the weight to 35 kg/77 lbs I will go back through my blog and edit the powersmith weights to match reality.

Now that the weight is no longer just a hunch, I though it appropriate to try to solve the last question mark regarding this piece of equipment… what the bananas is this thing really called? It reminds me of a smith crossed with a power rack, hence I call it a ‘powersmith’. Unlike a normal smith it allows the bar to move laterally as well as, obviously, vertically (the bar can be racked on either side of the rack on knobs, which are the round things on the uprights in the sketch). Like a power rack, safety pins can be inserted to prevent the bar from dropping below a certain height. On my gym’s equipment page it is listed simply as a “Special Smith” (”Erikois-Smith” in Finnish). Obviously, that’s pointing the finger in the right direction, but, but, but, does it have a name commonly used? Or is this some kind of rare thingy that only exists in this particular gym (unlikely)? Anyone have any clues?

Beginning with this post I am turning commenting on. If you have something on your mind feel free to comment. As a relative beginner in the powerlifting game I welcome all words of wisdom and most everything else as long as it is relevant to the topic at hand.

Following in last week’s footsteps, I skipped DE Bench today to give my shoulder some extra rest. As it happens, this was also the day of my birthday celebration and it would have been a pinch to make it to the gym after throwing together a whole bunch of taco fillings, guacamole and cake made of pancakes with layers of fruit in between (actually, my wonderful girlfriend took care of the last item staying up the night before frying some 20 pancakes). Everything made from scratch and sugar-free/sweetener-free as I don’t touch that stuff. But really, my shoulder can use some more rest and this was a convenient day for it.

Besides getting a whole lot of useful stuff, including a new favorite home-made duct tape wallet from my girlfriend, my birthday presents also included a gift certificate to Amazon and some funds towards a few Westside videos. Didn’t take me long to browse in to Elite Fitness and order the Deadlift, Squatting Secrets and Bench Press Workout videos (the Bench Secrets video was on back-order). The Amazon gift certificate allowed me to remove Mastery of Hand Strength from my wishlist. Expect reviews of all this items as soon as I receive them. Happy happy! … and a BIG thanks to family & friends for making it fun to devour tacos.

Yup, got a runny nose and a rising fever. ME Squat/Dead tomorrow is out of the question; with some luck I will be benching on Wednesday.