(page 12)

We decided to stay in Helsinki for a few days before returning to the summer cottage for the last three weeks of my summer vacation. Took this opportunity to do a couple of sessions with Måns focusing on a bit of cable work and other stuff that I can’t do at Toffe’s Gym.

Friday, 15 July 2005

There is something that haunts us at the Töölö Gym. Like last time, we managed to arrive 30 minutes before closing time. This time there was a green poster on the door that exclaimed “the gym will close at 7pm on Fridays, ONLY on Fridays”. After a few obligatory sighs, we decided to just head back to World Class for a second visit since we like the laid back atmosphere. The music still sucked (how do you spell schlager?) , but got in a good workout. Worked up to a 4RM on the behind-the-neck press. Also found that a 25 kg/55 lbs is about all I can handle on the plate raises.

Sunday, 17 July 2005

Third time’s the charm at Töölö Gym. I had forgotten my lifting shoes at the summer cottage, so figured I might just as well give the Hack deadlifts another go. 130 kg/287 lbs went up without too much effort, so gave 140 kg/309 lbs a shot. Came up, but didn’t make it to the summit. 135 kg/298 lbs was closer, but it was still too much after the 140 attempt. Overall a much more solid performance than two weeks ago, but no new shiny PR this time. Next found myself a lower pulley and worked up to a near max 15 reps with the 120 kg/265 lbs stack. Finished off with some of those standing cable crunches against a stability ball that seemed so popular over at Metal Gym (sans the bands though). The ball was a bit too foamy for my taste, it even said Foam something on it. QUICK! Here’s the video!!! CATCH!

Let me tell you that building a power rack in a forrest demands a surprising amount of work. When we left the summer cottage on July 14th for Rufus’s routine check-up in Helsinki, the rack was standing solidly in concrete and covered in a final layer of dark grey paint. I had hoped to get in at least one workout before departure, but as the concrete was to be covered for three full days to prevent premature moisture loss (especially needed in this heat!), I refrained. There was still a wooden floor to be made for the rack and the padding for my bench was also not quite ready. I will refrain from spilling the beans before everything is complete, but here’s a sneak preview of yours truly’s dad and yours truly in the midst of concrete frenzy.

Finished the weight pit by building the top structure for it. In the process, I also decided I wanted it a tad deeper to allow for an extreme range of motion if needed. Unfortunately, Murphy’s law dictates that when digging in forrests large rocks will always materialize where they do most harm. After barely managing to deadlift the largest one out of there, I promptly added it to the growing collection of lifting stones I plan to have at Toffe’s Gym. The top structure is basically a lid made of treated wood (floor boards from my retired squat rack) resting on a lot of carefully placed stones to make it perfectly level in all directions. I did my share of jumping on it to verify that it is indeed rock solid, but might concrete it in a year or three if this turns into a permanent attraction. Whenever I build something for my gym, my motto is that it should be able to accomodate whatever unexpected strong company I might get.

The measurements for the finished pit are as follows: depth 60cm/23.4″, length 84 cm/32.8″, width 65 cm/25.4″. Besides the now staple handle squat, the measurements should accomodate a very wide range of exercises including bent over rows, curls, forearm rollers, stiff legged handle deadlifts… even shrugs. In fact, if you need an outdoor gym on the cheap, a pit combined with some plates, a loading pin and a couple of handles (V-bar, straight) will allow you to do most any exercise where you have the weight below you at the start. Still, your mother is liable to call it a grave.

Wednesday, 6 July 2005

After all that digging, I kept this short. Turned out to be the last workout for a week as I picked up my rack from the welder on Thursday. Before I knew it, I was preoccupied with hauling 1000kg/2210lbs of concrete by boat to Toffe’s Gym…

Monday, 27 June 2005: Bench

Quick and light as this workout might have been, it caused major soreness. Soreness = BIG no-no according to the Westside core litterature I’m wading through. Will elaborate on this later when I start organizing my reading notes. As a side note, this was the first time I ever did plate raises (front raises with a plate held by both hands). Delts, delts…

Thursday, 30 June 2005: Squat/dead

Still a rackless sucker, I had to come up with something else to do off the floor. Perhaps it was because it is one of Ano’s favorites, because Louie Simmons says it is great for deadlift starting strength, or because I told Scott way back that “I’d try them Wednesday“. Be that as it may, figured Hack Deadlifts (aka Hack Squats, aka Hack Squat Deadlifts, aka Behind the Back Deadlifts) would be both fun and instructive to try for the first time. Because the weight is further behind than on the conventional deadlift, I figured this might just be a helpful exercise for learning to lean less forward. This turned out to be partially true, but as the last couple of sets prove (VIDEO 3.1M), it is indeed possible to lean a bit on these as well… first time, first PR at 130 kg/287 lbs. Another keeper for sure.

Saturday, 2 July: Bench

Upped the weight on the behind-the-neck presses. 5x5 @ 50 kg/111 lbs started being tight, but I got it.

Squat racks razed to the ground. Huge rocks unearthed. Long-term readers will recall the mayhem that I orchestrated at my outdoor gym at the end of last year’s summer training season in order to accomodate for a power rack and heavy duty bench that were to be welded out of iron junk. In the end, the promised welder never showed up and the iron was left alone to hibernate under a big pile of snow. Not wanting to spend another rackless summer at Toffe’s Gym, one of the first things I did upon returning this year was to get me another welder who promised to deliver the goods within the first week of July. Meanwhile, I am relegated to training at what can best be described as a construction site equipped mainly with iron, my donkey calf machine and an old Weider bench standing on a level wooden platform. The spruces swaying in the fresh breeze from the sea made sure I still felt like I had just returned to my own little powerlifting mecca.

Tuesday, 21 June 2005: SQ/DL

After the recent deadlift assault, squatting was on the agenda. More specifically, something that would be beneficial for curing the excessive forward lean and leg drive issue that is the sorry hallmark of both my squat and deadlift. I won’t pretend that I will start to do these exercises with a near straight back overnight simply overriding current weaknesses (long back and thighs don’t help much either), but if I could get to the point where I can drive straight up from whatever forward lean I have at the bottom it would be a great start. Once I start to ascend, I must not yield an inch forward, come rain or shine.

Standing out there in the woods at past midnight (blessed be the bright Finnish summer nights) without any kind of rack, my mind wandered in mysterious ways and suggested I try Zercher squats off the floor. This is the way they were originally performed before, according to Louie Simmons on the older Deadlift Secrets video, the much increased mass of the modern powerlifter prevented going that deep. There is really no reason to drop down just to the thigh or just past the knees if one is physically able to go all the way. For one thing, the lift becomes dramatically more challenging thus sparing the poor elbow crooks from heavier weights while really forcing the lifter into an extreme forward lean and deep squat that are sure to overload a muscle or two as the body must work even harder to stay upright. Being the zealot I am, I will henceforth regard everything else than off the floor a partial Zercher squat.

To the tune of the humming mosquitoes, I slapped one wheel on the bar and found that I was just barely able to go down into a squat deep enough to get the bar into the crook of my arms. What I also found was that 60 kg/133 lbs was already too heavy for me to manage in good form. I dropped down to 50 kg/111 lbs, which worked great although the smaller plates did not permit me to touch the floor between every rep. This is without doubt the most demanding two-legged barbell squat exercise I’ve tried so far. If anyone out there tries the full-range Zercher, I would be more than a little interested in what poundages you can muster up without turning it into a Zercher deadlift. Anyway, if you have three minutes to spare, the nocturnal Zercher action can naturally be found on this week’s video summary (5.2M).

Friday, 24 June 2005

On the upper body front, I’ve decided to declare war on the shoulders. In my bodybuilding days I came to regard the shoulders as my strongest body part as I could move the same weight on the seated dumbell press as on the incline (32 kg/71 lbs dumbells appeared very heavy back then). Photos from that time also show a guy with huge shoulders and a fairly flat chest.

I do realize the importance of extra shoulder work for raw lifters, but somehow I’ve carried the illusion of shoulders not being a personal problem over the fence into the powerlifting world. Well, I can now bench a lot more than I could back then and it would be naive to pretend that the shoulders are evolving at the same speed as my other muscle groups without doing much extra work for the front delts (always been big on preventive cuff work). As John McDonald pointed out to someone somewhere recently, all the old-time big benchers did tons of shoulder work according to Biasiotto’s and Arndt’s book The Bench Press. I should know that, heck, I’ve even reviewed the book, but blinders are per definition blinders. We raw lifters have a lot to learn from the era before heavy duty bench shirts made powerlifting revolve increasingly around having an overwhelming lockout to augment the drive that the shirt gives out of the bottom. To make things even more plain, it has been clear for a long time now that my sticking point in the bench press is precisely at the point where the delts give over to the triceps. Suddenly the idea that I have seriously neglected shoulder work and that they might be the main hindrance to me pushing up bigger weights on the bench does not appear so far fetched anymore. After all, I have been complemented on my strong lockout more than once and the fact that I can lockout 70 kg/155 lbs more for a triple than I can bench off my chest should tell a listening ear something. ‘Nuff said.

Saturday, 25 June 2005

My mind continued to bubble towards the end of the week. On an impulse I grabbed a shovel and started digging my way past roots and stones into the ground. Come Saturday, my new pit was basically done except for a permanent top structure. Good enough for the second novelty of the week - handle squats. I first saw these on the Westside Squatting Secrets tape where Louie explained how Westside lifters would complement all the box squatting with belt or handle squats to keep the quadriceps up to par. I grabbed my Ironmind loading pin that I bought last year, threw on a few plates, attached my V-bar handle on it and had a go. Reviewing the ensuing video footage, I was more than pleased with my drive off the bottom as the tendency to lead with the legs was only barely noticable. I love this movement already.

140 kg/309 again, but these attempts looked worse than last week. The preparation for this session sucked too, as a freelance project forced me to work non-stop Sunday to Wednesday. I ate sparingly, slept an average of three hours a night (skipped the night totally between Tuesday and Wednesday to meet the deadline) and had way too many energy drinks to keep me going. Mentally, the effects of this rumba made me fail even before I stepped into the gym.

After now having finished the 10 week Coan-Phillipi deadlift program, I have nothing but good to say about it. Even if I didn’t quite make my target, it did serve it’s original purpose of making me get back into the deadlift which I had some serious issues with following my back injury. Given how hard the first 130 kg/287 lbs attempts were, I also think I overestimated my current max when beginning the program. All in all, this gives a good foundation to build on and I am now only 10 kg/22 lbs from my PR as a powerlifter.

With the blog now finally up to speed again, I regret to announce that I will now let it rest for another month as I have decided not to bring my laptop with me to our summer cottage. For once in my life, I will try to have a computer-free vacation, but rest assured that there will be an update of my summer training and continued renovation attempts at Toffe’s Gym. Have a great summer folks!!! Update in four to five weeks.

Friday, 10 June 2005: Coan-Phillipi deadlift, week 9

Something funky happened to my right shoulder on Monday as I was playing around with Rufus. There was no real stress on the shoulder as it happened, but it left me with a lot of pain trying to move the arm backwards (forward rotation was easier). It did not feel like a serious problem and indeed, come Friday it felt stable enough for the coveted 140 kg/309 lbs attempt. I got it up to my knees four times to the point where my formless deadlift has me standing with straight legs waiting for the Romanian deadlift finish, but no further. Close. I had really hoped to break 140 kg today leaving me for a true max attempt on the Coan “meet day”, but will now be gunning for it again next week. Needless to say, skipped any attempts at benching this week as I don’t want to risk a shoulder injury.

Wednesday, 1 June 2005: Coan-Phillipi deadlift, week 9

Up to 135 kg/298 lbs. Actually, the program would have had me do 137.5 kg/304 lbs, but I eased out the slope a bit from the prescribed 2 @ 125 kg/276 lbs, 2 @ 130 kg/287 lbs, 137.5/304 lbs, 140 kg/309 lbs to 2 @ 125, 2 @ 130, 135, 140 since I found a 7.5 kg/17 lbs increase between weeks 7 and 8 a bit too much. Not a major change, but makes things appear a bit more friendly coming back from a serious back injury.

Måns was on hand with his new digital camera and I had mine, so for the first time I present thee with two simultaneous angles of my dead (1.8M). Perhaps things looked a tiny bit better than last week (God knows I tried hard), but still nowhere near good. Up it came though, 140 kg/309 lbs next!

Wednesday, 25 May 2005: Coan-Phillipi deadlift, week 8

Empowered by Alberto’s recent suggestions on my horrendous deadlift form, I tried sinking lower to bring in more leg drive while firing the hip drive as soon as the bar passed the knees. Suddenly the deadlift felt much safer with the realisation that the upper-body-parallel-to-the-floor style is not what the deadlift should be. I made a lot of progress this day… or so I thought until I reviewed the video (1.8M). I had good form at low weights, but it was back to the usual dark arts with the heavier weights. In fact, the heavier the bar got, the more I wanted to stiff-leg it even when my brain vainly fired off stern orders not to. Synaptic failure. I can blame having a nasty groove programmed in deep, but this may just have more than a little to do with my pathetically weak legs. Will need to do something about that and see if can’t get my body to follow my brain better then. Meanwhile, I wither in this zen like state produced by a deadlift which has no form.

Below is the first rep of my 130 kg/287 lbs pull. Hopefully those who like to link to my image and video content from various discussion forums, will for once note that this sequence is not an example of proper deadlift form but rather the polar opposite of it. Surprisingly often I find people citing some video of mine as a good example of a particular exercise even when I expressely state in the blog entry itself that I have a technique problem (my Zercher squat videos are particularly famous in this regard). That said, I don’t mind linking and mostly it is done well, but please do try to get the context right.