Archives for workouts (page 26)

I hope this is the last time I mention my shoulder injury. It is feeling better by the day, although still making its presence felt when I get out of bed in the mornings. For the first time since the injury, I did a couple of lightish sets for the back and some very light side delt flyes with cables.

Wanted to go for a max on the incline bench, but as I didn’t have a spotter handy I opted for the powersmith instead of setting it up in the rack. Although it allows free lateral movement, the machine is still not as sensitive as a free barbell. Worked up to what I think is 80 kg (given an estimate of 35 kg for the bar). No sticking point, but the very slow rep speed made it clear that there was no point in trying for more. Next week I might go for it with a free weight to see what happens.

Somewhat lazy workout. No fire. Almost fell asleep sitting on the bus to the gym after work. I should probably bring my MiniDisc player on workout days so I can psyche up on Metallica, Limp Bizkit and other good stuff before heading for the gym. Or why not even Finnish Nightwish? Incredibly uplifting stuff, although too light as actual workout music (my ears).

Good mornings, stiff-legged deads and pull-throughs in the same workout would have been total overkill pre-Westside, but in a perverse sort of way my erectors and rest of the posterior chain is now thriving on it. Blogging this one day after the fact… sore indeed, but no problem bending over to tie the shoe laces. If my box squat and deadlift maxes keep going up there is little one can do but agree with the prescription.

Still, I am eagerly waiting to get my hands on the Westside tapes I ordered to see first-hand how to best discipline the posterior chain. Not to mention seeing the good morning Westside style live. Did them in the rack today with the pins in the sixth holes, which gave me a good depth guide as the bar nudged the pins when the body was about parallel with the floor. Although only five kilos heavier than my previous triple max, I think I went a little bit deeper today than previously. Rechecking the exercise description at Elite Fitness, where it says to stop “slightly above parallel”, makes me think that perhaps I should stop a little earlier. Going down that deep is plain scary.

I have steadily added weight to my stiff-legs, today going up to 120 kg/265 lbs from earlier 110 kg/243 lbs and 100 kg/221 lbs. It was a hard three sets of five. I’m thinking of staying at this weight for a while adding reps instead of weight to build a good foundation before going heavier (perhaps working up to 3x8 or 3x10 before hitting 130+ kg/287+ lbs)… if I can hold myself back from the temptation of adding plates.

Pretty standard stuff today. Decided to do some light good mornings instead of the normal speed deadlifts for some variation. Also continued upping the weight on the one-handed deadlift, today grabbing the 50 kg/111 lbs dumbell. On the second set I had some trouble holding on to the last reps with my left hand. I’m not quite sure if this was due to a nasty case of a broken callus or if I’m actually banging against my grip limit.

Suddenly taking a leap in a whole other direction: was browsing the Elite Fitness Systems web store and found a shirt with the print “Max effort method - if you have to ask you wouldn’t understand”. Featuring a strong dude doing three board presses, it is meant to scare away questions from the non-Westside aware crowd about why on earth one would stick a bunch of boards on the chest instead of just doing benches the “normal way” (like everyone else and their strong grandma do). Now, I have yet to make my board press debut, but I have already had time to ponder what reactions that will bring in my gym (or should I say, what glances, as Finns don’t do a lot of asking about what non-friends are up to instead preferring to use a well-placed mirror to observe and wonder). The atmosphere being pretty hardcore I don’t think this would actually be a serious issue, but apparently being the only one following the Westside protocol I sure will be sticking out dragging ‘em boards into the gym.

The web store also has similar shirts for band squats and sled dragging. One thing is for sure, Westside is not for people with stage fright. Heck, you don’t even need boards, bands or sleds to stick out. Even today, just doing box squats, good mornings and one-handed deadlifts, people took notice (although not necessarily in a bad way).

Left my box of chalk at home today, but with my shoulder doing some of the screaming I didn’t really need it. As rack lockouts don’t seem to affect the shoulder, I went for those with the pin one step lower than last workout. The rack I’m using is the extremely heavy duty kind with massive pins, and lowering the pin just one notch equals a big increase in lifting range. In this case, the 5th pin is just short of lockout and the 4th about half way down.

Pretty much stopped after that, as training the back and shoulders would have put too much strain on my shoulder. I probably have a minor case of shoulder bursitis. According to my old copy of A Complete Guide to Sports Injuries that should heal in 7-14 days. Seven days to go.

Skipped DE Bench on Sunday to give my shoulder some extra rest. It’s feeling better, but is not yet up for heavy action.

Added 5 kg/11 lbs to my max deadlift today. As 140 kg/309 lbs came off the ground relatively easy (emphasis on relatively) I trust my best ever max, 150 kg/332 lbs, is not far around the corner. This time, it’s going to be a true strapless and beltless max.

As I write this, the archives page tells me that I have completed roughly 10 total training weeks on Westside.

A new personal record off the 13″ box means higher weights on the speed box. As noted before, I am using 65-85% of box max as the indicator of weights to use for the speed box, which means that my current bracket is 68-89 kg/150-197 lbs. Being a relatively non-explosive beginner, I went for the lower range today. As I feel things are going pretty well, I will shortly start cycling the weight on my speed box squats. More on that later.

Somewhat reluctantly I did some incline sit-ups today. For years, I have prided myself on knowing how to focus the strain on the abdominals by taking the hip flexors (psoas) out of the movement as much as possible. The rational behind the no-psoas school basically boils down to variations of two main points: 1) training the psoas is a waste of time (after all, as abs are the six-pack one would better focus all the stress straight on the abs) and 2) many psoas movements can be dangerous for the lower back. This is the basis for the “golden rule of ab training”: don’t do any exercises which cause you to raise your shoulders more than roughly 30 degrees (lest you activate your psoas or wear out your lower back). The flip side of the golden rule is the golden ab movement: the crunch (or more recently, the Janda sit-up).

For a classic exposition of this position see The Good News About Sit-Ups: Don’t Do Them! from the Legendary abs manual by Health For Life.

Typical of life on Earth, there are other colors besides black and white. There are those that have challenged the whole idea of the psoas tugging into the lower back, among those the venerable Dr Mel C. Siff (RIP):

The very act of raising the head and shoulders during the early stages of sitting up activates the abdominal musculature so strongly and increases the psoas angle to such an extent that the ability of psoas to increase the lumbar concavity is minimal. [..] Does the body not automatically act to minimize the risks of any high levels of stress as soon as the head and shoulders are raised during the early stages of any supine sit-ups or ‘crunches’?

Although I could point to other sources of psoas/ab controversy, I will leave that issue behind and raise another closer to home: what if one actually wants to train the psoas? Like…um… to make it stronger? Citing Tate’s article on Westside ab training:

As you can see we like those movements that work the hip flexors and abdominal at the same time because this is how they work under the barbell. Now some of you may not be able to do some of these movements without back discomfort. In this case you need to make your back stronger! Stick with those movements that don’t hurt you back and concentrate on strengthening your lower back. If you have a strong back none of these movements will hurt you. There is no such thing as an unsafe exercise, just unsafe application. You must know your limitations and fix them; otherwise you will be limiting yourself on the platform.

Tate goes on to recommend Zercher squats, Hyper sit-ups (Roman chair sit-ups), Strapped-in abs (a Westside variation of standing cable crunches), and Spread eagle sit-ups… some of these are the crunching fellow’s worst nightmare!

Who am I to argue with the Simmons crowd consisting of some of the strongest powerlifters on earth? They are famed for knowing what to do to get stronger. In theory, there is nothing that says that psoas movements couldn’t be dangerous and essential for maximum strength at the same time. I for one do have some personal issues with upright rows, generally regarded as harmful for the rotator cuff, being listed in the Elite Fitness exercise index. Still, if Westside hails psoas ab movements I will just have to repress my anti-psoasism and see what happens. The fact is, I can cable crunch decent amounts of weight, only to get killed by incline sit-ups. That’s no fun.

My left shoulder wasn’t happy with the dumbell L-flyes I did last DE Bench on top of a preacher bench. Although I did feel at the time that the exercise wasn’t good for me, it took a few heavy sets of military presses today before it really sunk in. It is likely to be an irritated rotator cuff, nothing that has stretched or popped. Have to take it easy with the shoulder lest it turn worse and kills me.

My shoulder didn’t complain at all doing lockouts in the rack. Did the presses off the pins, that is beginning from a dead stop. The challenge is to get lift-off, after which locking it out isn’t all that hard. It is a fairly stupid feeling to lay down with 125 kg/276 lbs, press like a madman and… nothing. After some seconds have passed the effort seems futile and there is nothing to do but get off the bench and conclude that 120 kg/265 lbs was the max of the day. Where was the spectacular descent? The fair failure?

A nice exercise all the same, that is important for getting me used to holding heavier iron.

When I did my first max off the 13″ (33 cm) box in late May I squatted 95 kg/210 pounds. As I did 90 kg/199 lbs off the 10″ box last week the time seemed ripe for a three digit (kilograms) squat this time. 100 kg/221 lbs went up easy enough, 105 kg/232 lbs with some effort. As I doubted I would have enough in me for a higher result I stopped there. As usual, I squatted totally raw (no belt or wraps) and sat down on the box and relaxed my legs before blasting the iron up. Still pretty much a beginner’s result, but I’m happy with it. The results are going were they should - up.

Also did rack pulls (aka pin pulls) for the first time. Or actually, did them in the rack for the first time. Back in late June, I pulled a double at 130 kg/287 lbs off two benches at just above knee level. Went for a triple max today starting with the bar at kneecap height and got up to a hard triple at 140 kg/309 lbs. Yes, yes, good, good considering that I had a month’s layoff in between.

Beginning today, I am also pretty much ditching the reverse hypers and replacing them with pull-throughs (and perhaps weighted hypers). As I don’t have access to a proper reverse hyper machine, it seems pretty unproductive to continue raising the reps above 30 without weights off a normal hyper bench.

My trusty 13″ box from Toffe’s Gym now has a new home. As my current gym does not have a proper box, and placing a step-up board on top of stacked plates is no fun, the staff graciously let me add my box to the inventory (it probably looks hardcore enough…). It’s going to be interesting to see how many other box squatters will come out of hiding; I’ve seen one guy do them off a bench in Westside fashion (shins past vertical, sitting on the box), but can’t recall having seen anyone else hitting the box.

As for the workout, I think I’m going to be content with just mentioning that I did close-grip floor presses for the first time (free weight, not the powersmith I have used of late for floor presses). That’s it. No really.

Fairly typical stuff, except that I made an effort to expand my torso training horizons by doing one-handed deadlifts (aka suitcase lifts, or one-sided squats). The idea is to do a conventional dumbell deadlift with only one dumbell at the side while maintaining a completely straight posture, which works the opposite side of the torso statically. If holding the dumbell with the right hand, it remains on the right side of the body at all times. Another variation is to lift the weight from between the legs, but that is quite another beast. Apparently that is how “probably the world’s greatest deadlifter prior to World War II” Hermann Goerner one-hand deadlifted 727 1/2 lbs./330 kgs in 1920.