Archives for workouts (page 3)

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?

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?

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.

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.

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.

Wednesday, 22 February 2006: Light SQ and Bench

The biceps overuse problem got a nice natural solution: fever induced rest. Instead of being under the bar, I spent the whole last week under the weather. Still not quite sure if the normal gear was back in, I made a pilgrimage to a certain basement to find out.

Those of you who have been following Old-School Iron, the blog of my good friend and occasional training partner Måns, are no doubt well aware of the small gym located in a basement in his housing company. Known as kuntotila in Finnish, “exercise space” in a more international vernacular, the gym measures something on the order of 3x5 meters (15 square meters). Come to think of it, that’s a lot like our current living room, only weights are out of the question there. Anyway… with Måns now on the premises, the gym has been woken from its quiet coma with a bang. His buying of extra plates to supplement the measly 48 kg/107 lbs vinyl barbell set apparently got a former gym owning neighbor going too - a chinning bar, some more plates and other goodies appeared there soon after. Rumor has it that more equipment has been spotted in the parking lot since my visit. If Måns gets his way and the needed funds, this place will yet turn into a hardcore little beast, possibly even with a rack of some sort.

Here’s a panorama of the gym stitched together from several shots; the crooked bottom of the Proteus multistation machine is an artefact from the stitching. Click on the image for a larger version.

The workout, again done at the customary 11pm to way past midnight, turned out to be a little less light than I had anticipated. I worked up to 80 kg/177 lbs on the front squat, the most I wanted to do without a belt, and ended up doing a triple max on illegal wides with an extremely wide grip (grabbed the actual weight sleeves using a extra pair of locks to prevent the plates from moving into my hands). If loading up enough weight on the bar was no problem (can be taken to about 110 kg/243 lbs at the moment), then the multistation pulldown was a whole other monkey business with its teenage 100 lbs/45 kg stack. After I added a double miniband, brought with me for some band leg curls, to the pulley the stack was turned. I didn’t even need to use the whole stack… Tried a couple of different variations on setting up the band, see them on the video (5M) together with the rest of this workout.

Training in this gym brought back a lot of memories from the time I had my own home gym in my room. It had a huge Redwood Hanging Bar built according to the nice Hanging Bar Plans (1991) booklet from Health for Life, a Weider Cobra bench (briefly in use at Toffe’s Gym), some 80 kg/177 lbs of iron plates (now at Toffe’s Gym as dumbell plates), dumbell bars, a couple of different bars, a classic Armblaster, a home-made calf board and whatnot. The bar would barely fit between my bed and my closet, so not precisely a large gym that one either… I am still kicking myself daily for never taking any photos in there. I just wasn’t in the habit of taking pictures of myself or my habitat before I started this blogging business…

Passing lightly over that, here’s the workout. Thanks Måns for driving me to the gym and back home afterwards! Will come again, perhaps for deload week.

Saturday, 25 February 2006: DE Squat

Fuddled up the buss connections royally by forgetting (?) it was the weekend. Arriving at Metal some 40 minutes later than usual, I got held up trying to figure out the best chain setup for my dynamic effort squatting. You see, I have decided to alternate chains between DE bench and DE squat in three week waves.

This was the first time I tried chains on the squat, and boy, do they ever give you that max effort feeling even with light weights. Time being a scant commodity by the time I finally got myself into the rack and unto the parallel box, I only did 5x2 @ 85 kg/188 lbs with two pairs of chain per side. The longer kind of chain weighed 5 kg/11 lbs, the shorter 8 kg/18 lbs a piece. The script for Dave Tate’s three-week dynamic effort cycles wanted me to have 27 kg of chain at lockout, but based on the amount of chain left on the floor I estimate I get about 23 kg/51 lbs at lockout. After the speed work I worked up to a heavy double, something that is recommended that is done at least once in the cycle, stopping at 2 @ 105 kg/232 lbs on the bar plus the chains for a 128 kg/283 lbs lockout. It was getting hard, but could probably have loaded an additional 10 kg/22 lbs on the bar. This makes me believe I will annihilate the current parallel box squat PR very soon. Had to make a run for it to make it outside by closing time. Changing in an empty parking lot at midnight in the middle of winter after a very successful workout is my idea of fun.

Got a minor lateral shift after the workout, but it had cleared up by the time I was back home.

VIDEO (3.5M)

Thursday, 9 February 2006: DE Squat

Not one of the most dynamic dynamic days. The left biceps pain flared up after a few sets of speed box squats at 75% of my current 120 kg/265 lbs raw max. Had to do without the quad busting Manta Ray squats instead wrapping it up with reverse hypers, GHRs and even some easy flexion work in the guise of standing pulley crunches. Perverted as it may be, I spent the time between the sets systematically going through every single weight plate I could find at Metal. If you ever wondered how much weight it takes to open up a small hardcore powerlifting dungeon or what a respectable weight plate distribution is, wonder no more.

In American, this is a total of 4768 lbs of iron at a cost of about 7,675 dollars. The price is based on current rates at Voimaharjoittelu.net and does not include shipping. No doubt there would be some volume discount, but this gives a rough idea. These MB Euroclassic plates “has the same standards as most international brands training quality but for much lower price”. The weight tolerance on these are 1% as opposed to an extreme 0.1% for calibrated Eleiko competition plates. More than good enough.

Flying sideways now, here’s the workout.

Saturday, 11 February 2006: Bench accessory

Had a big piece of homemade pizza pre-workout. Not ideal, but sometimes pizza is the only thing that will satisfy a bottomless hunger. I almost burned it, but still yummy for the tummy. Sorry for being so graphic about it. Who said powerlifting blogs were always comfortable reading?

Standing smack in the middle of an industrial area in Helsinki, Metal Gym lives in one square box indeed. The gym occupies one side of the third floor. As I arrived at 22pm, only half of the lights were lit; a sure sign that everyone else is home sleeping. In retrospect, I would have been better off doing the same. I began the workout with the usual inclines, but the biceps pain flared up again and prevented me from reaching the reps I did last time. Ah well, got to take care of that before something really bad happens.

Hopping on the midnight transit bus back to downtown Helsinki after a bad workout, I almost felt like joining the party crowd for a few Entire Butts. I said almost.

The workout might not have been a good one, but the halo around the moon more than made up for it. I ended up staying outside for some time snapping pictures of it. I like this one, taken from underneath a pine standing in front of our house. According to a news flash on the web site of the Finnish Meteorological Institute, there have been a lot of halo sightings over the last few days. The Finnish Halo Observing Network has some further info and pictures of this wonderful phenomenon caused by the scattering of light by minute ice crystals in the atmosphere. Things like these must be nature’s way of reminding us of what is important in life. Snuggled in with the family in a warm bed.

Monday, 30 January 2006: Bench accessory

Got a flying start with 75 kg/166 lbs on the incline, but didn’t quite get to the champagne. Can’t complain about the way the incline is progressing… less than two months ago, I struggled to get 5x5 @ 70 kg/155 lbs.

Wednesday, 1 February 2006: ME Squat

Hit 120 kg/265 lbs on the regular squat, a modest 20 kg/44 lbs PR. The depth wasn’t quite as convincing as on the recent 125 kg/276 lbs cambered bar squat, but based on the video (3.5M) and the photo to the left it seems to be right around the mark. Any verdicts?

Increased strength and better back health are surely factors behind the recent jump in squat results, but I believe the use of a belt and a new approach to squatting technique should receive the real accolades. Before getting a belt to push the abs into, I didn’t pay much attention to tightening the midsection and, as a result, squatted without tensing much anything. A year ago, I started using a belt for dynamic effort squatting, but haven’t belted up for max effort work before Michael Hope suggested I do. The result is a whole new level of stability on both belted and non-belted squats. I have also abandoned the foolish project of trying to emulate equipped squatting while training raw. Sitting back with vertical shins throughout the lift just doesn’t make much sense when the only support you’re getting is that provided by the Mickey Mouse underwear. Allowing the knees to come forward a bit keeps me straighter under the bar and feels much more natural. This might have more than a little to do with the fact that I always squatted ass to the grass with a close stance before converting to powerlifting. My body knows how to squat if I allow it to. One of the most evident side-effects of these changes is that I no longer dip forward as heavily as I used to.

I am hoping that these changes will provide me with a good base for bumping up the weights over then next few months, back willing.

Saturday, 4 February 2006: ME Bench

A flop. My biceps, primarily the left one, got really strained on the dumbell benches. I felt some strain already during last week’s workout, but this time it was bad. My best guess is that the strain stems from the lowering of the dumbells to the floor, essentially an eccentric concentration curl with 41 kg/90 lbs, after each set. After a very poor and painful performance on the dumbell benches, I went ahead with the plan and loaded up 10 kg/22 lbs more on the speed bench with chains than last time. This, 60 kg/133 lbs, is closer to the generic 60% of max that is recommended for a raw intermediate bencher. Felt the biceps, increasingly also the right one, at the bottom of each rep. Felt like I wasn’t able to fully open the throttle, but the set times were decent, even if a tad too slow, as gleaned from the video. Put sets seven through nine on this week’s video summary (3.5M). As for the biceps pain? Rest, sauna, massage and an anti-inflammatory cream. Not the first time I get these kind of overuse symptoms.

Friday, 27 January 2006: DE Squat

Only had time for one workout this week. Horrendous!

Wednesday, 18 January 2006: ME Squat

During the standard heavy bag work, I hyperextended the left knee with a badly timed front kick that missed the swinging bar by a millimeter or so. As the pain set in, my first reaction was that I just popped my knee. Nice. After a ten minute rest or so, I could stand on it and decided to try the planned squat workout. My knee locked itself a couple of times as I was just standing on it, so I figure I overstretched the ligaments a bit.

What followed was one crazy squat workout. Måns has been talking about doing some training closer to home making this the last chance to find out my squat max with the Westside camber bar. This 30 kg/66 lbs curvaceous bar is not the rackable kind and going all out in the monolift without a spotter is a bit too hardcore for me. Going all out in the monolift with a single spotter, using a bar that is notorious for transfering much of the load to the lower back, is hardcore enough for a back case that is known to be prone to losing his squat forward. Måns is an accomplished spotter who has never failed me, but I had a feeling I rather just make it up with whatever I put on the bar.

I had no idea where I was heading bad knee and all, but a tight rep at 120 kg/265 lbs was already way beyond what I thought I could do with this challenging bar. I figured I was still good for another 5 kg/11 lbs and loaded the bar to 125 kg/276 lbs. Compared to the recent manta ray max, the bar forced me forward quite a bit but I got up. Don’t think I would have been able to do more on this day, but couldn’t have been more satisfied… There wouldn’t have been time to find out either as the time was now 11:56pm, four minutes before closing time. Weights off bar, lights off and then run out into the moon-lit snow in full training gear. A fun end to a fun session.

This was an interesting day for Måns as well, as he tested his bench max for the first time. 115 kg/254 lbs with feet on the bench and a minimal arch was not shabby to say the least.

Anyway, here’s the video (2.4M) of today’s squatting action.

Sunday, 22 January 2006: ME Bench

Last time, I got 5 sets of 5 reps with the 36 kg/80 lbs dumbells on the dumbell bench. This means it was time to move up one notch again. Unfortunately, the next dumbells are a whopping 41 kg/90 lbs as there is only one 38.5 kg/85 lbs dumbell in the rack. To ease the transition, I have decided to forego the max effort bench movement in favor of beginning the workout with the dumbell benching. Even so, I only did two sets today as I landed at 3 and 2 reps respectively. An additional rep was annoyingly close on both sets, but just didn’t get it.

Next up was speed benching. After having completed a couple of waves with straight weight (only plates on the bar), it is time to roll in the chains. It’s been a while. There’s plenty of chain at Metal Gym, but I was content with loading the bar with the two chains recommended for people, like yours truly, who can only bench 201-300 pounds. A single chain weighs 5 kg/11 lbs according to the digital scale at Metal, the whole package of two chains, carabiner and feeder chain weighed 12.4 kg/27 lbs. This means a tad over 20 kg/44 lbs chain weight at lockout in addition to the 50 kg/111 lbs on the bar.

As you all know, three reps should be accomplished within three seconds when speed benching Westside style. This is where a camera comes in real handy to assess the appropriateness of the load. I then use my video editing software to precisely determine the time from where the bar starts to descend on the first rep to when it stops after the third rep. I taped sets 4 through 9 and got the following times:

Right on the money. I put sets 4 to 6 on today’s video clip (2.4M) together with the best dumbell bench set. Not that I was very happy with the dumbells.