Archives for workouts (page 8)

Folks, welcome to the new server. After a long break, Under the Bar is back stronger than ever (you can’t argue with a server that blows my laptop out of the water). I have been training as usual, whatever that means right now, and will be bringing this blog back up to speed over the next few days. [technospeak]What is annoying is that the dns for the new server has yet to resolve at my end - turns out the time to live is set to three days at my old host. One day to go. Based on server logs, much of the world is already here though.[/technospeak]

Friday, 8 April 2005: Coan/Phillipi deadlift, week 2

As the twin duo Flu and Fever kept me home from work on Monday and Tuesday, the Wednesday deadlift session landed on Friday instead. I was in a severe hurry and had to cut out one circuit on the accessories, but made up for that by increasing the weight a bit across the board. The plan is to gradually move the accessory poundage up to a serious level.

Sunday, 10 April 2005: Incline bench

As I already wrote in a comment, I’m just happy to get to the gym twice a week now Rufus and all. Not expecting too much salvation for my sleep deprived soul, I have settled for a simple enough bench template: rotate flat benches, declines and inclines back to back while alternating between 1RM workouts and 3-5RM workouts. Flat 1RM, decline 3-5RM, incline 1RM, flat 3-5RM and so on… To work on my sticking point, the primary exercise is followed by floor presses and various basic accessories (like dips… long time no see). Did declines last week, so today it was inclines.

I’m not precisely known for reclining on an incline. I easily pushed up my fungus clad PR back from late 2003, 80 kg/177 lbs, but then no more. Måns to the rescue. Dips, speed floor presses and rope pulls. End of an era. You see, this was the last workout at the neighbourhood gym as they will be closing shop in late April. To honor its memory, here’s a video (3.2MB) of today’s action. Nothing special, but better than any cerial commercial on the planet.

Wednesday, 30 March 2005: Coan/Phillipi deadlift, week 1

Seven weeks after the big bang, I am quite content with being able to train twice a week. Time is now a scarce commodity and, besides, I’m not precisely Duracell Bunny (or Energizer Bunny for you American folks) incarnated anyway. Nevertheless, it is time to resume some direction in training even if it is full steam ahead in the heretical direction. You see, I am going to deadlift big time.

Sixteen months after the big hiccup I have no problems with maxing out on the box squat, but I do have some post-injury fears to conquer on the deadlift. Back injuries are notorious for leaving many patients scared of reinjury to the point that they keep protecting their back even when healed. Good idea or not, I’m going to fight fire with fire and bury myself in the deadlift for the next eleven weeks. I hope to come out the other end with re-established confidence and a bit more iron on the bar so that I can slowly start to work my way past previous PRs. I’ve settled on the Coan/Phillipi deadlift program that has a nice mix of various intensity levels, speed pulls and a good array of time proven assistance exercises. With an estimated whoppin’ 1RM of 130 kg/287 lbs at the moment, I’m setting my target at 140 kg/309 lbs. Did a script for the routine, here’s how it looks for me (kilograms, pounds).

I had to squeeze the inaugural workout of the new routine in between teaching and a parents’s meeting. Nearly didn’t make it (hey, I can shower in 30 seconds!). I was thankful the routine calls for doing the accessories in circuit fashion… Started with very conservative weight choices to ease into the greatly increased volume, but will be raising them progressively over the next couple of workouts.

Sunday, 2 April 2005: Bench

Unlike the deadlift, I have no program here yet. I am still waiting for Sebastian Burns’s final assessment of my bench and am starting to think that my mail has been zapped by the evil Yahoo spamfilter. I could continue with the recent single day bench approach which I liked, but on the other hand I have been thinking about selecting a few full range movements (perhaps wide-grip bench, decline bench, close-grip bench and dumbell bench) and rotate those back-to-back with every other week being a max effort and the rest a 3-5RM or perhaps 5x5. I’d combine this with a floor press cycle and suitable accessory work. That said, Burns will want me to do boards no doubt. Did some paused close-grip benches followed by dumbell benches today. Wrapped up with some cuff and bodybuilding work (just for fun of course). Also snapped a picture of a poster ad for Tempo Fitness rye bread on my way out of the neighborhood gym. Rye bread is a huge thing here in Finland so there’s room even for the fitness kind…

Thursday, 24 March 2005: Squat/Deadlift

It’s no secret that I am a sushiopath in both life and powerlifting. On this first day of my Easter holiday, I “just happened” to steer Rufus’s pram past the newly opened Ichiban Sushi located right next to the University of Helsinki. After also stocking up on an expansion kit for Carcassonne from the neighboring board-game store, I headed home with my take away box to soy up for a quick workout. I did low box squats last week, so this time it was deadlifts again. I focused on pulling the weight off the floor as quickly as possible and stopped short of a true max.

Sunday, 26 March 2005

The neighborhood gym was closed today due to Easter (guess that’s as good a reason as any). Måns and I therefore contemplated other centrally located gym options and finally levitated to Töölö Gym. Boasting 2000 square meters of gym space, the largest gym in Helsinki has a lot of goodies. Among them were decline benches and modified row pulleys, but could not, unsurprisingly, spot any GHRs or reverse hypers. As I’ve only done declines off a makeshift setup they were the order of the day. I was feeling royally sleep deprived and was not too surprised when 100 kg/221 lbs got stuck on the chest. Nice gym though.

Something about squats off a low stepboard… a shaky double with the dumbells where the second rep lasted a good 12 seconds… then… futile, the brittle memory has faded! Surely I shall mourn this day over and over as I pour over the yearly archives in years to come, but it cannot be helped… the usual penetrating analysis of what the common man in his ignorance mistakes for a common workout is simply not to be this time. No consolidation I know, but here’s a panorama of the neighborhood gym I’ve frequented of late and even some video (2MB) that have crossed the great oceans of time to reach you. Cheerio.

Gym panorama from the gym at Vattuniemen Sport Center, Helsinki, Finland (click image for full view)

The days seem to be gradually moving towards some kind of rhythm, namely a lengthy walk on the ice around noon, general unrest in the evening and quiet nights broken up into two hour segments. Tons of household work. Even if I could manage to fit regular training into all of this, the power to move mountains is just not there right now as evidenced by the only workout this week. Sebastian Burns (who has an unfortunate doppelganger) asked me to do a couple more diagnostic workouts based on a chart he made up consisting mostly of triples. Unsurprisingly, chilly winds of interrupted sleep blew me off Mt. Fuji long before the bar hang. The numbers Burns gave me were within reach based on what I did last time around, but having been blessed with a young apprentice I just cannot hang with this kind of intensity level and expect to perform well.

Rarely a walk goes by without appreciation for the luxury of living at the southern tip of Lauttasaari, an island just west of downtown Helsinki surrounded by the scenic outer archipelago of the Gulf of Finland. Recently, we’ve also realized that Lauttasaari, or Drumsö as we Swedish speaking inhabitants call it, is also home to a host of great restaurants to wither away a couple of weekday evening hours in (the latest addition is a Turkish restaurant just around the corner that goes well with the adjacent sushi place). With life now comprehensively babyfied, the full monty if you please, it was an unexpected pleasure to discover a decent gym buried within the local neighborhood sports center. No rack and seemingly populated by single plate quarter squatters, but excellent for a quick light workout between naps. Nothing strenuous, but boy did it feel great to wield a barbell again!

Four days of rest and then back for another 27 sets of Metal Militia diagnostic benching business. Quite frankly, it will be interesting to see what kind of suggestions Sebastian Burns gives and whether he thinks I should be doing a full-blown MM schedule considering my level, my focus on raw benching and my drug-free status. He knows all of this, and I’m willing to give his advice some serious air time and hire him to monitor my benching for a while. Live and learn, you only live once… you know the drill.

But back to the workout. Got an easy 100 kg/221 lbs close grip single (looked a lot better than last week’s wide-grip equivalent). Shirt benches were next, but I was told I can skip this since I don’t have a shirt. That being said, I suspect I will need to start to do some shirt benching as I’ve seen Sebastian suggest in the past that raw benchers can indeed be helped by doing some shirt benching as accessory work and he already suggested I get myself a poly or double denim shirt (gulp!).

The six board press was next. This essentially hits the very top of the lockout, and one would be hard pressed to explain why this is not severe ego cheating in a regular gym… As the highest board I have is a four board, we taped the two board to it to prevent a nasty accident were it to slip down on my face butt first. Having done 2 @ 125 kg/276 lbs off the four boards last week, I figured I would be good for about 3 @ 140 kg/309 lbs off the six boards. Whizzed right past that and easily did a triple at 150 kg/332 lbs. Not being used to holding anything that heavy in this position, I felt some strain in my left wrist. Weighed the odds of me sustaining a wrist injury, but then stupidly decided to go ahead ending with a max triple at a whopping 170 kg/376 lbs. Nothing happened to my wrists after I paid some attention to how I was holding the bar, but even in retrospect I can see why loading 70 kg/155 lbs over the regular max on unsuspecting wrists is not the wisest thing to do. Thank you plate curls!

Wrapped up with 2 @ 140 kg/309 lbs off the five board and 2 @ 120 kg/265 lbs off the four board. Having skipped Friday’s accessory day due to intense leg soreness following a PR attempt off the box and figuring this to be the last workout before the baby pops out, I attempted a short SQ/DL session on top of all the benching. Quickly had to conclude that despite two Red Bulls I was too beat. Bag up and home.

VIDEO (5.2MB)

With most baby preparations now out of the way, but no baby yet, I finally have time to resume my leisurly update schedule. Stay tuned, more to follow… sooner or later [laughter in the dungeon].

Monday, 7 Feb 2005: Squat/Deadlift

The glorious plan to break my miniscule 13″ box squat PR was foiled by nearly taking a nose dive with a 105 kg/232 lbs that left me feeling a tad worried about what would become of me would this happen with a heavier weight. As you might recall, I was forced out of the rack when I widened my stance. I did 112.5 kg/249 lbs, but feeling how the new PR weight of 117.5 kg/260 lbs wanted to put head over heels I chickened out after a brief lift-off leaving Måns to deadlift it off my back. With two spotters or a decent rack things might have been different, but hey, daddy is still in one piece. That’s indeed something.

After a brief Romanian deadlift interlude, I tried Keith Veit’s floor GHR setup involving hooking the feet under a loaded barbell secured by plates at either side to keep it from rolling (or in my case, plates on one side, rack on the other). The gymnasium was occupied by basket ball practice so the excellent GHR Soviet-style was out. Didn’t get further than one rep before I had to make a speedy retreat due to a severe calf cramp. It was then I realized that I had finally found a way of doing spread eagle sit-ups - essentially a straight legged sit-up with legs spread wide that works the hip flexors together with the abs. I’ve tried hooking my feet under everything I could think of, including the parallel bars and the dumbell rack, but everything is at the wrong height or not stable enough (nothing is bolted to the floor). Wrapped two minibands around a bench behind me and had at it. Finished with an exercise I saw over at Metal Gym, namely standing cable crunches with a doubled mini for extra resistance (at Metal they also had a stability ball behind their back and used thicker bands). Besides creating an ideal leverage curve, the bands also make it easy to go as heavy as one wants as the pull is no longer completely from the top - with straight weight I can’t stay put with more than about 45 kg/99 lbs. A great one it is.

Wednesday, 9 Feb 2005: Bench

While surfing the Metal Militia headquarters the other day, I stumbled upon Sebastian Burns’s offer to review a benching video for $30. Now, powerlifting is notoriously not where the money is (unless you ask the Nigeria Professional Powerlifting Association), but tell me another sport where you can have a world class lifter review a video tape for this price (Mikesell only asked me for $15 to do the same for the squat - need to see if he is still up for that post-baby). Great help is out there, don’t be afraid to use it!

Anyway, I fired an e-mail off to Sebastian asking him whether he would consider taking a look at a downloadable video of my raw bench. I figured I would squeeze in a couple of lifts in a short video, but I was positively surprised when he wanted me to “get everything u do for bench” including assistance work on tape. I pulled out all the videos I’ve posted on Under the Bar and put together a package that included all bench work I’ve done over the past two months plus accessory work wherever I could find it. It turned into over 12 minutes of video. Also attached my PR matrix and a short description of my bench progress ripped off the look back at my powerlifting year 2004. A well-organized blog does come in handy at times… Within a few hours I got a reply:

Thanks for taking the time to put that video together it was great to see some of those exercises I have not seen them in years. Your extra work looks good(Back Shoulders)
But your bench work needs much help. You have a very strong work ethic I can tell from the video. If you want to bench more you will need to drop some exercises and concentrate on the ones that will improve your bench the most. You really need to arch a little higher and learn to retract your shoulder blades. If you do not have my bench video I will send you one for free. It will be much easier for you to see what I am talking about than for me to try to convey what I want you to do. I am sending a chart to keep track of the exercises you should be doing. Try both days and send it back with what you did. I will look at it and tell you how I think you should revise your workouts. So send me your address and feel free to call me [..] tommorow so we can discuss your video.
[removed some extra caps from original]

How’s that for a positive reply! At the point of writing I have indeed received a package from Mr. Burns that included a DVD of his Advanced Bench Press Training Video that normally retails for $40. Needless to say, I am deeply honored by this gesture. After a lengthy reply to a second e-mail with questions regarding how I should do the two workouts he sent me to diagnose my weak points, I am starting to wonder how far $30 will stretch with this guy. Not that I am complaining.

Classified this bench workout as Metal Militia business and set to work going up to a 1-3 RM max on the bench, 4 board, 3 board, 2 board and hangbar (aka hangband) bench. A whopping 28 sets of benching later I was pretty beat and somewhat surprised at being able to put up numbers close to my PRs even after maxing out on several exercises. Intuitively, I would go from low-end work to high-end work, but now I think doing it the Metal Militia way (high-end to low-end) works better. Only having minibands, I did the hangbar bench by doubling them from the supports (see picture). As you can see on this week’s video (7.8MB), this setup required about 35-40 kg/77-88 lbs to touch with very little assistance at the top (empty bar hanging below the end of my stroke). Still, only got a double at 120 kg/265 lbs.

This week rolled in with predictably sore hamboys and thus the riot that ensued when the masses demanded a squat workout was violently suppressed. Come Wednesday, I was feeling a bit crappy, but decided to go against the flow with the scheduled bench workout. Turned out my bench was a bit snappier than last week, and I was moderately happy with a new one-board PR of 105 kg/232 lbs. Then went for illegal wides where I felt pathetically weak, probably a sign that I should do a bit more of these… the bar also kept slanting to the right. Feeling more fluish the next day, I did the sensible thing and stayed home from work to nip it in the bud. I should be good to go for a new squat PR off the box on Monday. Until then, here’s the video (3.2MB) that also features Måns doing black belt ninja flies aka suspended dumbell flies.

Monday, 24 Jan 2005: Squat/Deadlift

Ano Turtiainen, multiple World Champion and manufacturer of the legendary Metal line of equipment, is a household name in powerlifting. His gym, located on the outskirts of Helsinki, is something of a focal hub in Finnish powerlifting as the impressive gym records attest. As one of their lifters wanted to borrow my copy of The Kennelly method, I found myself on a first visit to Metal Gym suitably arranged for SQ/DL day… time to finally make a repping acquaintance with real GHRs and reverse hypers.

Metal Gym turned out to be a tad smaller than I had expected, but with all the goodies a powerlifter could expect. The back of the rectangular gym holds a squatting area equipped with specialty bars, monolift, squat stands, boxes… The chains and bands are conveniently placed as to also be reachable from the adjacent benching and power rack area. A long dumbell rack runs along much of the gym reaching a 71 kg/157 lbs crescendo near the men’s dressing room. Machines, many of them of the Metal brand, and pulleys fill up the rest of the gym with a small stretching area in one corner. There’s also a store selling Metal equipment. It was a surreal feeling to stand in the middle of this metal jungle inhabited by people doing everything from good mornings to accessory work with bands; for once, I wasn’t the only guy doing funny stuff.

After a quick change, I camped around the GHR and reverse hyper. Knowing how hard a GHR was supposed to be, it was with an empty mind that I mounted the machine and placed my feet against the ultra wide toe plate. The motion felt a lot different than the makeshift varieties, whether in lat pulleys or off stability balls, that I have done previously. For one thing, it was hitting my erectors hard since the beginning of a motion is basically an ordinary hyperextension. Secondly, it felt very dynamic and less jarring owing to the knees not being locked into place as on the makeshift varieties. Definitively easier as well, got a surprisingly good 10 reps on the first set in what I hope was good form. Hammies on fire!

In between my GHR sets, I paid attention to how other lifters where using the reverse hyper. After five sets of GHRs, I put my feet into the slings and lay the upper body down on the pad. I had no idea whether the 30 kg/66 lbs the previous lifter had left on the machine would be heavy or light, but figured I would be good to go as I had worked up to more than that on a makeshift setup (video) that by common logic ought to be heavier than the real deal. Following the example of the previous lifters, I swung my legs back and forth rhythmically for 15 easy reps before trying to gracefully get out of this pendulum of sorts. I pyramided up to 60 kg/133 lbs, the most the machine would take using 10 kg/22 lbs plates, which was really heavy on the first rep but easier once I got some momentum. It might look like the whole thing is nothing but momentum, but in fact it takes quite a lot of force to reverse the weight pulling the feet way under the bench (now I understand what it feels like when the discs are opened) and then to actually explode it back up to the top. The last one was an all out set that left my posterior chain feeling pumped to the max. This machine is really as good as they say.

Wrapped up with some ab work. I also got a lot of ideas for accessory work from seeing other lifters pound their midsection with cables and bands. At 5pm, it was rush hour and a lot of heavy squatting and benching was also taking place. After spotting a novice lifter doing 80 kg/177 lbs floor presses, Ano did speed floor presses and board presses in his shirt working up to 7 @ 270 kg/597 lbs (Ano’s log for the day). There was also some clip taking going on as one lifter maxed out on the bench with what I presume was a personal PR.

I’ll be back.

Wednesday, 26 Jan 2005: Bench

A flop. Based on how run-down I’ve been feeling lately I think I’m very possibly overtrained. Benching 100 kg/221 lbs was already stiff enough and I didn’t stand a chance with 105 kg/232 lbs. The close-grip one board presses went down the same pipe with 100 kg/221 lbs crashing down just short of lockout after a long slow-motion struggle. The thing is that I have been reluctant to take an easy week since our first child is due in two weeks (aka any time). I figure diaper changing is one of the best ways to rejuvenate a fried central nervous system.

Friday, 28 Jan 2005: Accessory

I don’t know why, but it took me a trip to a real GHR bench to remember Louie talking about how the GHR is basically a comfortable version of the original Russian setup that involved a buck horse. Did some surfing around and found this by Wake Forest University Strength Coach Ethan Reeve:

The glute-Ham piece is not a machine. It was designed by a fellow named Michael Yessis. I’m not sure what the name of the manufacturer was but we must have gotten 4 of the first [was] ones manufactured back in 1984. They were great. Dr. Yessis basically got the idea from the Soviets during the 1970’s with many of their athletes. What they did was put a gymnastic buck horse close to those parallel wooden bars bolted to the wall in many of the gyms. The athlete would then place his belly/hips over the buck horse while placing his feet between the parallel wooden bars and feet against the wall. Some would actually take a [weighted] barbell behind their necks and let themselves down to make a 90 degree bend at the hips and do back raises. Some would raise themselves up beyond parallel by pushing their feet against the wall where they would have to bend the knees and pull themselves up with their hamstrings. A great exercise! [..] Supposedly many of the Soviet athletes would do 50-60 each day before sport training.

Earth calling! Since the school gym is located just below the fully equipped gymnasium trying this setup was easy enough. The only problem was that the buck horse had a tendency to slide away (putting a mat under it didn’t help much) thus making a personal GHR assistant necessary (thanks!). Otherwise it felt nearly exactly the same as doing them on the real deal at Metal Gym. And why wouldn’t it? The ultra wide toe plate (wall), pad (buck horse) and ankle support (parallel bars) are all there. Turns out I should probably have put my feet one notch higher to make the movement a bit harder as I got a good 15 reps on the first set. Then got excited about trying them with a bit of added resistance and worked up to a set with two minibands. If I get too sore for SQ/DL on Monday it was worth it. Anyway, here’s the coveted video of GHRs Soviet style (3.4MB). Feedback welcome.

Speaking of GHR setups, also check out Alberto’s nice makeshift one if you haven’t already (complete with video). If you don’t have an ab board with double rollers, you can always try out Keith Veit’s Floor Glute-Ham Raise involving a barbell for leg support.