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Squat training is really starting to feel meaningful again as the back seems to respond well to the recent baby steps towards ME SQ/DL workouts. After two weeks of light deadlifts, I unracked for deep front squats with a medium stance. The last set of five at 60 kg/133 lbs was not quite a max set, but a lot stiffer than I’d hope. After no serious squat work for a year I will just have to swallow the fact that my quads are weak (always have been, but…) and build up the weights from the beginning. Then did good mornings off the pins set at navel height. It was pretty scary to unrack 70 kg/155 lbs, but in the end the set was still far below max weights and the unloading at the bottom made it feel a lot safer. Some heavy twists and ab work later the non-existent blood sugar made its absence dizzily felt. Post-workout shake.

Found a couple blogs of interest in the blogroll over at Barz-a-Bending. First up is Skinny Bastard Training Log, the blog of an Olympic lifter (began 1 August 2004). Definitively always a good idea to keep an eye open to what other strength athletes are doing - I for one still want to learn the Olympic lifts at some point.

To the date a year ago I discovered Chris McClinch’s training blog. Now he’s back with a new blog called The Thinking Lifter (started 15 November 2004).

The Elite FTS Exercise Index Squat-Deadlift DVD was released a few minutes ago. It “goes over every single aspect of the squat, deadlift and all accessory and supplemental lifts”. Need I say more?

Apparently my body still had trouble spelling recuperated. It was more like decoupéfated, and can only be grateful that I didn’t lose more than one rep on the bench (lost a rep each on the first two sets, with a single rep comeback on the third) and three reps on the decline. Hopefully I’ll recauperaite enough to see some gains come Friday. Then lifter be happy.

Winter whirled in today with over 20 cm/8″ of snow covering everything from trees to cars. The lantern keepers at Helsinki Railway Station, arguably the most muscular Finns ever built by purely isometric work, stood firm (sculpted by Emil Wikström, 1914).

This is already the second time I get to congratulate a reader for breaking a world record! Last Sunday Marie Rochat broke the WABDL world record in the deadlift with a 353.6 lbs/160 kg deadlift in the Teen women 16-19 148 lbs/67 kg class. She thus deservingly won the World Championship in her class with a result that pound for pound was the best of all the Teen deadlifts. And most incredible of all, it was done unequipped! What can I say, except that her blog Barz-a-Bending still reads like good fiction, only it’s not. Amazing.

Took full advantage of the school’s carpentry facilities and made myself a 2″/5 cm wooden pinch grip block to reinforce my grip tool arsenal consisting of the Captains of Crush (CoC) Trainer and I grippers and a Rolling Thunder (RT) with loading pin. I haven’t done much work with the RT of late as it has been safely stashed away in my locker at the commercial gym. Since I now call the school gym home, I finally went ahead and dragged my chalk, RT, mini bands etc. over. Will start working the RT twice a week in an attempt to get my max up to 60 kg/133 lbs from its current 50 kg/111 lbs.

I was still aching from Monday’s heavy pressing and reluctantly concluded that the wisest thing to do was to forego the normal Friday action. Instead dedicated the workout to grip and forearm work. The pinch block was fun, and it was again painfully revealed just how stronger my left hand pinch grip is when I hit 20 kg/44 lbs… Wrapped up with some incline shrugs and jungle pulldowns followed by a set of rocket power abs where I managed a new PR of 3 reps despite having pretty sore abs from Wednesday. Måns also did some heavy Pjotr rows that I captured on today’s clip (3.6M).

The Åland Islands, a Swedish speaking island province of Finland, is fairly well-known in the country for the strong lifters coming out of their powerlifting club Ålands Kraftsportklubb (ÅKK). This reputation is well-deserved as the club has won medals in competitions ranging from National Championships to World Championships and was awarded the “Finnish powerlifting club of the year” award in 2003. Two days ago, the club posted a bench press challenge that, translated loosely from Swedish, reads as follows:

The bench press can be seen as a decent universal indicator of upper body strength. As we all know, there is more than one way to better one’s chances at benching big weights including arching, lifting the buttocks off the bench during the lift or by forcing oneself into a tight bench shirt. A more fair indicator of actual strength could be the bench press with feet in the air. This page was born to collect your numbers in this lift. It would be very interesting to see how all you proficient benchers out there perform on this lift!

[…] The rules are simple: The feet must remain in the air for the complete duration of the lift, the bar must go down and up. We don’t care about pausing on the chest and so on as this will only result in speculation on whether the lift was acceptable or not; it is raw power that matters here!

As an example, the club has posted an 11MB video clip of club member Ove Lehto benching 235 kg/520 lbs at a bodyweight of about 125 kg/276 lbs. He has quite a hefty bounce at the bottom reminiscent of the way shot-putters train with extra padding (clip of shot-putter Manuel Martinez bouncing 300 kg/663 lbs off his chest), but you can’t argue with this 1.88 times bodyweight lift that currently makes Lehto the leader of the small pack that has submitted results. By way of comparison, Lehto benched 262.5 kg/580 lbs raw in the same workout and has posted a 300 kg/663 lbs shirt bench in competition.

Speaking of the devil, benching with feet in the air has become an official sport here in Finland. Developed a few years ago in the army, hence known as “military bench” (sotilaspenkki in Finnish), the objective is to bench bodyweight (2/3 bodyweight for women) for max reps with feet in the air and a bare upper body (t-shirt for women). A counter is placed at lockout to keep track of the reps (picture). The Men’s Finnish National Records in the three weight classes are currently 53 @ 60 kg/133 lbs (below 80 kg/177 lbs class), 44 @ 80 kg/177 lbs (80-100 kg/177-220 lbs class) and 32 @ 102.5 kg/227 lbs (above 100 kg/220 lbs class). In the two women’s weight classes the records are 45 @ 37.5 kg/83 lbs (below 65 kg/144 lbs class) and 27 @ 50 kg/111 lbs (above 65 kg/144 lbs class). Military bench competitions have also spread abroad (link in Finnish) through Finnish peace keeping forces, but so far it appears to be a peculiarly Finnish pastime… although not quite as peculiar as wife carrying, boot throwing (not long ago Nokia was most famous for its rubber boots) and air guitar… but I digress.

Jamie’s blog, apparently started four days ago, is another Westside report from the trenches. He already posted his first video clip, so I like it already.

Well… the weights were still pathetic, but heavier than last week. Pounded the midsection hard with weighted everything, including hyperextensions off the swiss ball and heavy barbell side bends. Bravely continued to up the weight on the deadlift. Perhaps, perhaps… wet dreams of ME SQ/DL and so on.

Today’s music was Finnish death metal band Norther’s Mirror of Darkness and today’s lesson learned that if you bounce a barbell off pads it is liable to come right back up and hit you in the forehead.

VIDEO (6.1M)