NaterMania

Yeah or just that mu bit from the last video stand alone. MU's are a long way off for me, so its helpful, and i'm sure i'm not the only one.

Tuestay: WOD, Dynamic Pull.

This was tough! I listened to my body and didn't try to push too hard, but I was still plenty fried. Great workout!

4x5 clapping pull ups. I did L clapping pull ups for my last set just to try, and these aren't bad. My power isn't very good, but that's exactly what I expect... I haven't done anything like this in a looooong time.

FL Pulls: I am embarrassed to say that I didn't get 10 reps on any set, AND the sets were all flat tuck. I was doing these full lay a while back, with some weight on my ankles. I am humbled lol! 9,7,5,4.

Towel pull ups: Again, mega weak. 5+2, 5+1, 5, 4.

I'm just glad I can trust my body enough to do this workout!

I need to eat more now that I'm back into the swing of things... bye bye moneys!

I did the shuttle runs in the local church parking lot, using every other parking space as a marker. They happen to have a convenient pull up bar too! It was quite fortunate.

I used 3 minute rest periods after each giant set, with 20s between each exercise within giant sets.

Outside of the WOD:

Once again, I did the FSP after the workout. THAT was tough! I'm always surprised by how well that works out though, I can't wait until I get it right on Thursday and do these in the warm up! It should be a max leg day, I think.

Woden's Day:

My first heavy isometrics for squat, DL, and thick bar bench. I'll do sub-maximal isometrics for my scapular muscles. I will also do a shoulder series for rehab, and weighted fascial stretching all around. Probably in that order.

The only 'FSP' today will be planche lean. It's such a good recovery exercise!

I may do some body line work as well.

Bench, top position: 307x20s

Bench, bottom position: 2 sets 11s, 207lbs.

Squat, top position: 355x20s. way too easy, but that's the good way to start.

Squat, bottom position: 135x20, 175x30s. I will always be somewhat cautious and slightly submaximal with my bottom position.

175 lbs bicep curl negative, 3 seconds. I could have gone quite a bit slower, but I'm scared to hurt my biceps. Smooth motion from top to bottom. This was pretty easy. It was also the fastest way to move the bar from the loading pins to the floor!

Deadlift bottom: 175x20s. quite easy.

Chin up (top):BW + 40 lbs, 14s.

Chin up (near bottom, SB retracted): BW + 40lbs, 20s.

My current set up is just too cramped to worry about top position deadlift just yet. By the next maximal iso session I should be better off.

Scapular work:

20s incline retraction

20s BB shrug, 175 lbs.

30s XR Support

20s weighted serratus push up, 40 lbs. Kind of redundant after the bench, really.

20s dead hang retraction.

Shoulder series:

I left my seminar notes, still largely untyped, at my girlfriend's place. So, I'll do my old rotator cuff stuff, but just one set.

seated DB external rotation 5x32lbs per arm

side lying DB external rotation 8x20lbs per arm

side lying supraspinatus reps and hold: 10 lbsx15 reps +10s hold, per arm.

leaning XR reverse cross 4 reps. my space inside is a bit restrictive for these, but still ok.

Weighted stretches:

SLS quad stretch 5 min/leg, it took 3 sets.

left leg

right leg

Lunge 5/min per leg. Took 4 sets left leg, 3 right.

left leg

right leg

Push up: 5 minutes, 1 set.

Wall squat (not really a stretch, just neural learning) 5 minutes, 3 sets due to resets.

Chin up: 90s, 90s, 70s, 30s, 30s.

Elevated weighted pike, 115 lbs. one 3.5 minute set, dropped weight, held the stretch with active compression for the rest of the time.

Mr Brady said:

Yeah or just that mu bit from the last video stand alone. MU's are a long way off for me, so its helpful, and i'm sure i'm not the only one.

On one of the WOD's, there is a video that gives some ideas of progression. If you have access to bands, they help assisting you. I feel this makes up for the lack of kipping I can do because of space/height issues with my setup. My straps are in the doorway off a pullup bar. You can also explode into the pullup hold as long as you can than "jump/cheat" through the transition on your way up then when you come down don't cheat but fall through the transition but try to maintain control. These are things I have been working on to improve my MU's.

Slizz, would GTG with explosive pullups also help out? This is an idea that just popped in my head. But every hour or so go to a pullup bar and work on 1-2 clapping pullups. I figure the transition is difficult because we aren't pulling ourselfs high enough. By we, I am referring to people who struggle with the MU. Anyway just want your opinion on that.

Saber2 said:

Mr Brady said:

Yeah or just that mu bit from the last video stand alone. MU's are a long way off for me, so its helpful, and i'm sure i'm not the only one.

Slizz, would GTG with explosive pullups also help out? This is an idea that just popped in my head. But every hour or so go to a pullup bar and work on 1-2 clapping pullups. I figure the transition is difficult because we aren't pulling ourselfs high enough. By we, I am referring to people who struggle with the MU. Anyway just want your opinion on that.

Almost certainly not. The reason is that plyometric and explosive movements are high force, which means high intensity. You are only supposed to GTG with low intensity.

What WOULD help is to start doing false grip pull ups or body rows. You can't grease the groove effectively with something that you can only do 7 or 8 reps of. Until you get above 10-12 reps with a certain variation of an exercise, GTG with it shouldn't even be in your mind. On pull days, make sure you do false grip pull ups. Any time there is a muscle up, do a false grip pull up and then a negative MU from support, making sure to slip into the false grip early and try to get the elbows down to and then below wrist level before you lose control on the negative. That's going to be your best solution for MU. Stick to the WOD format and make those substitutions, and make sure you have chalk. You will automatically end up succeeding if you do this.

22July2010 WOD

3 rounds:

40lb weighted vest deck squats. I quickly discovered that A) I think Coach is secretly laughing at us bigger folk(just a friendly joke!)! I couldn't even roll onto my butt when the weight was split between front and back of the vest!!!!! ! I looked like a complete idiot! That leads to B), which is that my center of gravity is really, really far behind my feet with a weight vest! I put all 40 lbs on the front and it was cool, I could do it! VERY easy though. Next time I'll start having 20-30 lbs in my hands as well.

6x per leg single leg arch ups. I thought these would be harder. the 6th rep was challenging, but to be honest I didn't know if I could do them until I tried.

40m Uphill sprints! I TOTALLY FORGOT MY SLED!!!! Crap! I have a big tire at my girlfriend's house and 12 feet of heavy duty chain to attach it to a soft velcro weightlifting belt which I use to anchor the tire to my hips for pulling sled sprints. I'll make a Prowler somewhere down the line for pushing sprints. My body is still not used to sprinting! No surprise there, though.

23July2010 WOD

5 chest roll to Hes, pressed out of 3. I've gotten weak lol!

1 set of 5 wall HS press, straddle.

2 sets of 5 wall HS press, tuck.

Those wall presses are surprisingly hard, even in the tuck. I don't have enough compression or flexibility to do a perfect straddle, so those were somewhat ugly and tended to pull me off the wall at the bottom.

Ladder:

2 sets of 6 step wall run, 3 box HeSPU, 6 step wall run, 2 HeSPU negative, 6 step wall run, 2 HeSPU, 6 step wall run, 4 minute rest, reverse.

Man. That ladder totally wrecked me! I was drenched by the end of it.

Sorry for my late reply here.

slizzardman said:

Keep in mind that calling "extreme isometrics" isometrics is actually a misnomer. They are essentially weighted stretches. Isometrics hold a position, which requires active resistance against gravity. These extreme isos are NOT supposed to have any resistance. You should actually be trying to pull yourself DOWN.

slizzardman said:

If you do this stopping & starting to get to 5mins I am wondering if it is as beneficial, e.g. if I did chinups for 5mins with several breaks, then after 1 month of this would I be stronger than if I had progressed always doing a 5min hold with rings.

I honestly have no idea what you are asking here lol! I WILL say that the ability to stay in position for at least 3 minutes straight is important.

slizzardman said:

Keep in mind that Kaatsu training caused a size increase but not a corresponding strength increase, at least according to the study referenced in the WGF thread.

Well guys, I haven't been updating here lately, but that's changing. I'll be posting my recent WODs here as well as the WOD forum, and I will be putting more detailed information about my lifting progress here, since I am integrating a small amount of weight lifting into my program. To be short and to the point, it feels great. One 3 rep set of standing military press, full ROM squat, chin ups, and thick bar bicep curls simply feels incredible. I get supercharged for the workout and really seem to perform better.

My current weights:

Standing military: 140 lbs

squat: 230

bicep curl: 97 lbs

chin up: BW + 52 lbs. I thought it was 44, but I was wrong.

I'll be upping the weight a few lbs every 2-3 weeks, doing something of a "step cycle." My strength is already fairly good, but I want to take it very slow. These are obviously nowhere near my maxes, and I intend to keep it that way. I expect that in a year I'll be doing 3 reps with around 180 on standing military, 270-280 on full ROM squat, 130-140 on bicep curl, and 90-100 lbs added to BW on chinups. These weights should never be all that close to my true 3RM max, and should always be just as easy and energizing as they are now. I'm all about increasing the efficiency of my nervous system, and that's what this style of lifting is all about. It's similar to the steady state cycle, but with much less volume.

Eventually I will also add in bench press and power cleans, but that will be a while. I need to take care of my shoulder before I mess with anything like that, so that'll probably be next year. When you have nagging injuries like I do, it always pays off to take care of them COMPLETELY and be overly cautious with your recovery.

I would also like to add that I can now roll frying pans. Almost. I've got one about 1/3 of the way rolled, and I'll do at least another third next week. Pretty good for not practicing or training for such a thing, I think! I'll be starting to add in some more specific training for things like that soon, and will probably start performing as an amateur strong man next year just for fun!

slizzardman said:

I would also like to add that I can now roll frying pans. Almost. I've got one about 1/3 of the way rolled, and I'll do at least another third next week.

Your girlfriend must be like "now what the hell am I supposed to cook the egg in?" lol.

slizzardman said:

I think! I'll be starting to add in some more specific training for things like that soon, and will probably start performing as an amateur strong man next year just for fun!

I am sure you will have a blast doing that. I knew a few guys who did and they swear it becomes addicting.

You know what the best part is? The WODs are the perfect base program for everything! I think a strongman act with some advanced ring strength as well would really be a fun one to watch! I mean, who has ever heard of a 225 lb guy doing a maltese?!

My warm ups are going great. I am very happy about how easy all the statics and the 3 rep sets are getting. For my lifting I'll probably increase weight a few lbs every 3-8 weeks, depending on how each lift feels. I intend to give everything a lot of time to become easy. I'm taking this more conservative approach because A) I will be adding in Zishe Breitbart's training program, which is all about how to bend thick iron bars and wrap them like scrolls, write names with them, make clovers and whatnot. All by hand, with 1/2 inch thick square iron bars. Hard core, to say the least. That will also lead up to me ripping horseshoes in half. And more importantly, B) while mostly asymptomatic, I know my shoulders are far from being 100%. As I tell all of our members here, when you don't feel the pain you're only halfway healed, at best. I do not want to aggravate my injuries, I want them to go away forever!

If you ever perform a maltese at 220-230 you will be my idol. period.

I can do a straddle with my arms through the straps. I'll be there, don't worry! I expect that in 5 years or so, I'm not in a rush lol!

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Slizzardman...nice video editing with the little startrek beaming effect. Nice work with that WOD! I could not even do the wall runs again I had to go for a scaled down version to hit the 60s mark. My traps were so sore from doing them on Saturday. Also nice swinging dips. I really do like those parallel bars you have.

Thanks! Just wait until you see the Mark II's!!! I'll have an inverted T frame made of wood and the metal poles will go through the wood, and be held in place by a pin. It's going to be AWESOME!!! And more stable. And easy to disassemble to save space. These take up a bit of floor space...

Slizzardman, I was wondering if you had any advice on deadlifts or squats? I thoght I would ask you since you have experience in this area and offer great insights. I searched google but didn't find anything satisfctory.

For PE we are required to lift for participation, and I am completely new to lifting. We have about 45 minutes. During the first fifteen I take advantage of the therabands for my shoulder. I played around with the weighted squats a little yesterday for the first time ever. I warmed up with the following, all full ROM, 95# for 3 reps and 105# for 3 reps. For the workset I did 135 full ROM for 3x3. I am still a little sore, mostly in my glutes and hams. The people in the gym looked at me like I was crazy while I was doing them. I guess they never saw a full ROM squat. I always saw the same people squat with a bench under them which they stop at or sit on before going back up. I guess these numbers are decent for my size because two football players asked me why I didn't play football.

I didn't attempt to mess with the deadlift since I don't have a clue of what is the proper or safest way to do it. What are your thoughts on weighted lunges?

Thanks x 1,000,000,000.

You're doing great! That is an excellent place to start, I wasn't quite at 3x135 when I started. I was at 1x135 lol!

You will see a lot of people doing volume training, where they do multiple sets. That's perfect if you're trying to put on size as quickly as possible, but that can be draining and can get in the way of actual athletic development. However, if that's your goal right now that is totally ok, and you'll need to tell me so that we can actually work towards that.

Since this is your first time squatting you're going to get strong FAST over the next 2 months or so. Enjoy it, but don't expect it to last. I think you'll be squatting 160-175 for 3 reps in 2 months, just from your nervous system learning the movement.

I really can't make a single recommendation since I don't know your goals, so I will throw two out there, one for each goal:

Get bigger AND stronger: Follow the WODs, and hit squats twice a week. You may have to scale back the Leg strength WODs some because of this, but it shouldn't impact the rest of the WODs at all. It doesn't matter which session comes first, and I would do a Tuesday and a Friday, just so you have maximum recovery. Monday and Thursday is good too. One session should be exactly what you just did, 3x3. The second session should be sets of 10 reps. 2-3 sets is plenty. With the 3 rep session, pick weights so that your 3rd set is as many reps as possible. If you get over 5-6 reps, go up in weight next week for that session. With the 10 rep session, make sure your first two sets are fairly easy, meaning you have at least 2 good reps left in you. Your last set, go up in weight to where you can initially complete at least 8 reps. This third set is as many reps as possible. Stay with those exact weights until you have at least 13 reps on your last set, and then go up some.

This is something of a stair cycle, which is like a short SSC, with one session for endurance and one session for strength, primarily neurological but also with some tissue adaptation. The endurance session makes your body burn lots of sugar, which is a dirty reaction. It makes lots of waste. Why is this good? Your body has to make new blood vessels to handle the waste! That means your circulation is better, you have more blood in your body which will increase your oxygen efficiency, and your legs will heal faster. You will also have a size increase in your legs because they will need to store more sugar, but that's not going to turn you into someone with bodybuilder legs or anything. You'll still fit your pants, I think lol! You can go up in weight more often than SSC because these are high leverage positions and not quite as hard on the tendons, and also because it is very, very difficult to only add a few lbs of resistance with bodyweight positions and very easy to do with a barbell.

Get stronger: This is something that a lot of the old strongmen did and it works wonders. This is as close to pure relative strength as it gets! 1 set of 3 reps, 4-5 days a week. That's it. Stay with the same weight until it gets super easy and stays that way for a few weeks. This is similar to a steady state cycle. You don't want to be doing your true 3RM, find your true 3RM meaning the weight that you can ONLY squat 3 reps with good form. Now take around 30 lbs away from that and do 3 reps every day. You probably won't even need to warm up much, if at all. I do this after my FSP warm up and a few sprints, and I feel incredible! What this does is stimulate your nervous system extremely frequently. If you think you're getting funny looks NOW, just wait until people see you squatting every day. They won't understand what you are doing. Your teacher may not even understand. That doesn't matter, just enjoy their mystification! You should go up 5 lbs every 2-4 weeks or so, but the same rule applies: the weight should be very, very easy and you should always feel energized. It is always better to wait an extra week than to move up a week earlier. After 4 months, going up 5 lbs every 2 weeks, that's 40 lbs added to your WORK SETS! Those will not even be CLOSE to your max, and yet you will be getting very, very strong. Now, your first 2 months you may be able to go up more than that, I don't know. You need to be able to do at LEAST 6-8 reps with the weight you are using.

That is also a stair cycle. Your other options are linear or wave cycles. You still only do 1 set of 3 reps, and you start at the same 30 lbs or so below your true 3RM, but you will add 2-5 lbs each workout until you either just barely get 3 reps or you fail to perform 3 reps. When you hit that workout, you'll notice that it is beyond your old 3RM. Take your NEW 3RM, which is the last workout you have performed with 3 reps. If it IS your old 3RM, don't lose your mind! It almost certainly won't be, but if for some reason that happens, you will probably respond better to the stair cycle. You can run through another linear or wave cycle if you want, or you can just switch to the stair cycle.

The only difference between a linear cycle and a wave cycle is that with linear you do preplanned increases each workout that are the same every time. With wave cycles you make bigger jumps in the beginning and smaller jumps as you get closer to your old 3 rep max. Waves are a little harder on your nervous system and are slightly more complicated to plan, but work slightly better for many people. Linear cycles are much easier and work very well for most people. Both cycles build up to a single very hard workout, which is draining for the CNS, and then back way off to allow recovery and to let the nervous system get used to a slightly higher level of activity. This is the core concept of both Pavel's Power To The People(PTTP) and Jim Wendler's 531 program, both of which produce excellent results. PTTP is more for people without a lot of time who still want to be strong, and 531 is powerlifting specific.

The stair cycle never overloads the CNS in the first place, which means you're going to feel supercharged practically 100% of the time if you do it. For that reason it is a great, great cycle for health and productivity. The slow addition to the load allows complete adaptation when done correctly. It is very similar to the Steady State Cycle Coach recommends for the FSP.

slizzardman said:

Get stronger: This is something that a lot of the old strongmen did and it works wonders. This is as close to pure relative strength as it gets! 1 set of 3 reps, 4-5 days a week. That's it. Stay with the same weight until it gets super easy and stays that way for a few weeks. This is similar to a steady state cycle. You don't want to be doing your true 3RM, find your true 3RM meaning the weight that you can ONLY squat 3 reps with good form. Now take around 30 lbs away from that and do 3 reps every day. You probably won't even need to warm up much, if at all. I do this after my FSP warm up and a few sprints, and I feel incredible! What this does is stimulate your nervous system extremely frequently. If you think you're getting funny looks NOW, just wait until people see you squatting every day. They won't understand what you are doing. Your teacher may not even understand. That doesn't matter, just enjoy their mystification! You should go up 5 lbs every 2-4 weeks or so, but the same rule applies: the weight should be very, very easy and you should always feel energized. It is always better to wait an extra week than to move up a week earlier. After 4 months, going up 5 lbs every 2 weeks, that's 40 lbs added to your WORK SETS! Those will not even be CLOSE to your max, and yet you will be getting very, very strong. Now, your first 2 months you may be able to go up more than that, I don't know. You need to be able to do at LEAST 6-8 reps with the weight you are using.

Thanks, this really hit the nail on the head. My goal is to have the highest relative strenth possible. This program fits my needs perfectly since I can do it everyday.

Should I also do this with the deadlift, or would you limit this type of training to one movement per muscle group?

I am starting to get a better understanding of programming because I am currently readin Mark Rppetoe's Practical Programming for Strength Training. It is a very good book.

Thanks again.

slizzardman said:

Thanks! Just wait until you see the Mark II's!!! I'll have an inverted T frame made of wood and the metal poles will go through the wood, and be held in place by a pin. It's going to be AWESOME!!! And more stable. And easy to disassemble to save space. These take up a bit of floor space...

I am looking forward to seeing this. If so I might have to make one myself. My fiance is gonna love the day I have all that stuff in the house. Rings, parallel bars, and stall bars (yeah I am gonna build me a set some day just have to find the room for it) I have the tools and I love woodworking so they are going up, its just a matter of when.

If you're impatient and want to get on HLL right away, you can just put a single bar 3" out from the wall! You can just steel strap the bar to 2x4s with lag screws and lag screw the 2x4s to wall studs and you'll be set. With the right tools it won't even take you 10 minutes.

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Great job on all the video logs Slizz. Props!