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I’m spending each evening out on the balcony nowadays. Not for the view, in fact the façade of the house that blocks our view of the sea is being redone, but for the cool evening breeze that makes the hot weather a little more tolerable. Southern Finland clocked in at 29.4°C/84.9°F today, making this the hottest day of the year so far. I now believe all this balcony sitting is the root cause of the stiff back I’ve been having for the past few days. With seats that tilt backward, our classically cheap balcony chairs aren’t precisely ergonomical, especially if you sit five hours straight in them. Seems like I was too quick to blame the swimming and too slow to bring my office chair out here.

To offset all this sitting, I felt like doing some serious work as I hit the gym. After a rapid 5x15 of hyperextensions, the mother of all pumps had descended on my low back and life was suddenly a lot more brighter. Then came up with the idea of doing the muscle activation by doing small trunk twists with a stick while kneeling on a stability ball; easy, yet rewardingly effective. Besides the usual (don’t have a stability board at the gym yet so none of that), I also resurrected the standing cable crunch in the lat pulley. This introspective entry has a picture of this exercise plus a video clip, with the difference that I did them leaning against the lat pulley frame with a rope handle today (I’d like to believe that looked a little prettier). Among the need to’s is definitively a bigger focus on the midsection again now that I, back permitting, am getting ready to slowly reintroduce squats and deadlifts into my routine.

To accompany all the heavy spine and back injury talk, here is a very nice animated tutorial from the New Jersey Spine Institute that covers anatomy, various spine conditions, as well as surgical and non-surgical procedures. I saw this mentioned in the Back Pain Support Group forums, which appears to be a good place to take any back concerns.

History buffs and old timers will like the American Powerlifting Evolution site to accompany Sandow and the Golden Age of Iron Men. Laced with pictures, it takes you through the way it used to be 1900-1985, before American powerlifting drowned in the “alphabet soup” of federation acronyms and the equipment race began for real. As a result,

Powerlifting now finds itself in the throes of an absurd paradigm: lifts can no longer be compared between federations without qualifying an embarrassing number of variables. Record setting is curiously suspect at some venues and there are even those who argue that the sport is no longer in existence as originally defined.

I tend to agree with the general party line as presented by this site, but am also the first to agree that the issue is far from black and white. The opposite of unity does not necessarily have to be chaos, but can just as well be freedom of choice. Equipment can add a sizable amount to any lift and can thus easily be labeled an artificial strength boost, but the very same equipment can also help spare the joints. Pick your preference regarding federations and equipment, but with drugs I have no sympathy although I recognize their prevalence in modern powerlifting. For a well-balanced introduction to these issues, see Controversies In Powerlifting by Eddie White.

Progress seems to be just speeding up on this Blakley program. Again gained three strategic reps on the Bradford press over the previous accessory workout. I use absolutely zero leg thrust, so rest assured that that’s not where the extra reps are coming from. Since I got 4x6 @ 45 kg/99 lbs last week on the JM press, this was my first go at 47.5 kg/105 lbs. Guess what? Got 4x6 again, so next week the weight goes up to 50 kg/111 lbs. Makes me wonder what has happened since 21 June, when that was the very weight I maxed out with…

I’m keeping assistance work fairly stable on this program, so it should come as no fly in the pie that I did much the same thing as last week. Did replace the barbell curls with the lying cable version as I had a somewhat stiff back, possible caused by extensive swimming with Sanna at the Helsinki Swimming Stadium yesterday. The one thing that is not constant is grip training, where I torture my paws with whatever I feel like. I proudly admit to having become a bona fide grip maniac and, as such, am also eagerly awaiting the arrival of a Rolling Thunder complete with loading pin from Ironmind. I could also make good use of a No.2 Captains of Crush Gripper for negatives, but since I have various reasons for keeping a tight budget I’m not getting one just yet.

In the pile of mail that greeted us as we returned back to Helsinki on Sunday were the long-awaited mini bands. To my delight, the package also contained the EliteFTS Dynamic Squat manual, containing 29 squatting cycles ranging from the novice Rookie cycle to Paul Childress’s highly advanced squat progression cycle, and the EliteFTS Training with Bands leaflet that over thirteen pages touches on the theory behind bands, how to attach bands and a little something on basic band training. Training with Bands is rather general, but has some valuable info on how to clamp a 2x4 to the base of the rack to ensure that there is enough tension off the bottom. Dynamic Squat manual is a gold mine; never before have I seen so many cycles in one place. Will be consulting this one as soon as I get back to box squatting.

As I ordered these bands to provide some assist to the makeshift glute ham raise (GHR) this was the day to become bandwise. I tested different setups by looping the band in different ways and finally came to the conclusion that simply doubling a single band provided a suitable degree of assist for my weak hamstrings. Although the video clip (1.4MB) might give the illusion that the band is doing all the work, nothing could be further from the truth… Unlike doing these in the lat pulley, this setup is not dependent on a spotter. I learned this when I got stuck at the bottom on the third set when, after a moment’s hesitation, I simply let go of the band. Snap! Free!

Overall, this was one of the laziest workouts in ages. Between sets, I talked to a guy who recently started on Westside to improve some already impressive numbers, but who also got a bad start by popping something in his back when deadlifting off a low box. It was also some 26°C/79°F outside, so perhaps I can be excused for the lazy tempo and the big pool of sweat I left behind.

With no soreness in the way, I finally had a first go at the main bench day of the Blakley bench program that I embarked on two weeks ago. After the pattern warm-up - a fancy way of saying that you always warm-up with the same weight pattern to prepare both mind and body - I did the required singles. Although 90 kg is doable in perfect form, I should probably drop back a little to keep me under 90% of max to avoid overtraining of the central nervous system. Then came the actual work sets, i.e. aiming for 4x6 with the same weight. I setup too close on the first set, with the result that I kept banging into the uprights. Otherwise the sets went well, but it is clear that I still have some work to do with 77.5 kg/171 lbs before I get a clean hand. Note that the bar is paused on the chest on every rep.

Our summer cottage neighbor, the one with the construction company, came over as agreed. He will have one of his guys weld the rack soonish. The hourly rate is 24 euro excluding tax and the job is estimated to take about four hours. I left the welder exact plans of the rack, its hooks and the bench. Once the rack has been welded, I will return to paint it and, hopefully, put the rack into place. There is a big boulder trying to prevent me from putting the rack where I want it, so will either need to do some rock demolishing, move the rack or call Steve Jeck. I actually have a demolition license, an inheritance from my compulsory service in the Finnish army as a field engineer sergeant, but don’t think I will dynamite it although it would be a blast.

As the squat rack has been replaced by a construction site, I had to use my soon to be demolished Weider bench as my Bradford press den. Despite this less than ideal setup that had me straddling the bench, I added a good 3 reps over to the previous Blakley accessory day. The JMs went even better; added six reps over three sets and got the magic 4x6 - next week I get to up the weight! Hopefully my muscles knew what to expect this time around so that soreness does not foil Monday’s JM Bench day like it did last week.

I should be really grateful for being able to do this outdoor workout at all; pretty much the rest of Finland has been drowned in heavy rain, almost literally. According to the Finnish Meteorological Institute, the amount of rain that has fallen over the last few days amounts to roughly twice the long-term average for the whole month of July! Needless to say, things are really a floatin’. More rain has been predicted for the weekend… but not here. This means a raspberry picking excursion into the woods tomorrow in the morning and some more power rack preparation in the afternoon. It is a good thing that Toffe’s Gym is located in the archipelago outside of Vaasa, commonly known as the “sunniest town in Finland”. That being said, rain has been a common bedfellow this summer even here.

It is finally here… Chuck Vogelpohl’s XXX video sells for $53.95 VHS/$59.50 DVD at Elite Fitness Systems, and has been available at the Westside Barbell site since July 16 where it is also slightly cheaper. Besides being the reigning WPO middleweight champion - with a world record 450 kg/992 lbs squat, a 165 kg/364 lbs bench and a 370 kg/816 lbs deadlift - he also has one lean physique for being a powerlifter. Not going to order it quite yet, but this one is definitively in my pipeline.

With some mighty glute and ham soreness still lingering from the Sunday workout, I did a slightly abbreviated rehab routine today. Added ab holds, this time with only one leg on the floor, to reinject some static work into the routine. These were hard, but not as hard as the arm and leg extensions kneeling on the stability ball. With these, the ball is prone to make a run for it when you least expect it.