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Always Be Smashing

1/4 07:30

Trifecta
Shoulder sequence

1/4 18:15

Mobility warmup
SQT 3x5 265#
BP 3x5 190#
Pullups 4x5 10#
Hangboard

Good squats and bench presses - comfortably difficult. Pullups and hanging were taxing - scaps and forearms felt lit up. Hopefully no lingering fatigue for snatches tomorrow, will have to be careful. At least the deltoid pain is almost gone.
 
1/5 07:30

45min treadmill run/walk 3.1m
- 1W 9E (9T 1W)x2 10E 5W
Tac frog, pumps + QL straddle

Tough run this morning. Even my morning resting HR was high (side note: I got a Withings scale for xmas that measures a lot of stuff, kinda cool even if it's not laser accurate). Clear sign that I'm dipping deep into the recovery well following yesterday's lifting session.

But, that didn't stop me from taking the afternoon off from work and going skiing with my boy. We had fun, but couldn't stay long - it was very windy and cold, and he's got 0.003% body fat (dont know where he gets that from), so he gets too cold pretty quickly. The whole family was supposed to go, but my daughter ended up having a school commitment, and my wife had an appointment for- drumroll, please - a COVID vaccine! She's in health care, not front line, but still got high in the priority list. It's really starting to happen... let's hope it works.

1/5 16:45

Mobility warmup
KB snatch 24x5 32 36m36s
LTK 4x6
Joint plyo series

Obviously those snatches weren't EMOM. Going try to be more faithful to A+A style on these days, make sure I'm getting full recovery between repeats based on HR. Even so, this was about the limit of my grip right now.
 
Poor sleep last night, another of my sore shoulder episodes. Would sure be nice to build some tolerance against that. Slept in, got my run in later.

1/6 17:30

50min treadmill run/walk 3.7m
- 1W 40E 1W (0.33ST 1W)x6

Had to take a break to make dinner, and deal with a little plumbing mishap, then:

Foam rolling, bretzels + forward fold
 
Oof, what a day. In the morning, in addition to trying to remember how to get kids out the door for school, I was still dealing with last night's plumbing issues. Missed morning training.

Then, in the afternoon, my wife managed to puncture the tire of my car. I drive out to change it, and make a very interesting discovery: they don't put spare tires in new cars anymore! ? I open up the trunk, and find an automated patch kit instead of a tire... which, unfortunately, doesn't help when the side wall is punctured! So, I had to have it towed. Then, to top it all off, the tow truck takes it to the wrong place!

After all that, clearly the best thing for me to do was go hide out in the gym for a couple hours.

1/7 16:45

Mobility warmup
SQT 3x5 265#
BP 3x5 190#
DL 1x5 370#
Pullups 3x5 10#
Grip work
Trifecta

Tough, but good. I was surprised how limber-ish I felt doing the trifecta work at the end. I think Faleev recommended stretching after heavy lifting, perhaps he's on to something.
 
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1/11 07:00

Trifecta
OP 3x5 125#
Shoulder sequence v2: 3 rounds of
- Overhead extensions
- YTWL
- Behind-the-back reaches

The inspiration to flip around my shoulder work came from this T-Nation article:

www.t-nation.com

8 Weeks to Monster Shoulders

Two training experts come together to design a great shoulder-building program. Check it out.
www.t-nation.com www.t-nation.com

There's a couple of things in here that really struck me:
- "Put the big rocks in first" - in other words, be strong first. Now, I know that my overhead press is a weak point... but even so, I was planning to avoid it for a while to focus on snatching. But, avoiding the weak points doesn't sit well with me. So I'm going to try to put the press work in the morning. It didn't interfere with the bench press later in the day, bigger question will be if it interferes with snatching.
- The YTWL sequence - I tried this with just holding 5# in each hand, and even that completely smokes my shoulders. There's an obvious weakness there to work on for a while.

11/11 17:15

Mobility warmup
SQT 3x3 295#
BP 3x3 215#
Pullups 4x3 40#
Grip work
Hangboard

Now, with that much weight, those weren't TSC-quality pullups. But, I'm figuring it's probably good to take one week every so often to work on pretty heavy pulls, even if I don't hit the full ROM that I'd like - try to build the max strength, rather than letting the pull be throttled by the weak point at the top.

EDIT: Sets of 3 on SQT and BP, not 5
 
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Bit of a broken morning for various reasons. Fortunately it was also a work-from-home (aka the gym) day.

1/14 07:30

Trifecta

1/14 12:00

OP 3x5 125#
Shoulder sequence

1/14 16:15

Mobility warmup
SQT 3x3 295#
BP 3x3 215#
DL 1x3 420#
Pullups 3x3 40#
Grip work

DL wasn't as solid as I'd like- there was some back rounding on the 3rd rep. Solid day otherwise.
 
1/15 08:00

FSPM + front splits

Woke up feeling a little lazy and creaky, so skipped the run and just did some mobility.

1/15 15:30

Mobility warmup
KB2HS 20x10 48 32m30s
TGU 10x1 32,40x4

Not a huge fan of 2- handed swings, maybe because it's hard to mash these two meat hooks into the handle. But have to admit, this was a different training effect than my usual swing work, which is a good thing. Plus, it's cool to say I got in 200 swings with the beast :cool:
 
No training over the weekend, though I did get in a little downhill skiing with the family. My glutes were pretty sore from Friday's 2-handed swing adventure. You know, for as much as we all want to believe there will be some magical combination of 2 exercises that will give great carryover to everything we'd ever want to do... I think a lot of people misunderstand what carryover really means. Being strong might allow you to be ready to do anything once, but it won't necessarily make you "good" at anything... and it doesn't mean it might not hurt afterwards. ?

1/18 06:45

Trifecta
OP 3x5 125#
Shoulder sequence

1/18 16:45

Mobility warmup
SQT 3x5 250#
BP 3x5 180#
Pullups 4x5
Grip work
 
WhatWouldHulkDo said:
1/15 08:00

FSPM + front splits

Woke up feeling a little lazy and creaky, so skipped the run and just did some mobility.

1/15 15:30

Mobility warmup
KB2HS 20x10 48 32m30s
TGU 10x1 32,40x4

Not a huge fan of 2- handed swings, maybe because it's hard to mash these two meat hooks into the handle. But have to admit, this was a different training effect than my usual swing work, which is a good thing. Plus, it's cool to say I got in 200 swings with the beast :cool:
Click to expand...
Does it feel like heavy swings really work your calves too? It feels like they're really working to stabilize that heavy moving load.
 
Whosonfirst said:
Does it feel like heavy swings really work your calves too? It feels like they're really working to stabilize that heavy moving load.
Click to expand...
Interesting. I can't say I've ever noticed my calves having to work hard during swings or snatches. The one exception is occasions where catching the drop pulls me up on to my toes - but I generally consider that a technical failure. I feel like, if I'm doing things right, my heels stay firmly planted all the way through, so at least the calves aren't flexing/extending.

But with that said, the one place where I've sometimes gotten some groaning, even spasming, from the calves is the TGU. But I always do TGUs after having done some swings, of course. Accumulated fatigue, perhaps? ?
 
WhatWouldHulkDo said:
Interesting. I can't say I've ever noticed my calves having to work hard during swings or snatches. The one exception is occasions where catching the drop pulls me up on to my toes - but I generally consider that a technical failure. I feel like, if I'm doing things right, my heels stay firmly planted all the way through, so at least the calves aren't flexing/extending.

But with that said, the one place where I've sometimes gotten some groaning, even spasming, from the calves is the TGU. But I always do TGUs after having done some swings, of course. Accumulated fatigue, perhaps? ?
Click to expand...
You know, it may be that I give it an excessive hike and usually the bell winds up at my head level, but not anything like a 40 or 48. I took the hardstyle thing to heart back around 17 -18 years ago. Of course, when I've done double 24's, I really have to dig my toes into the floor.
 
1/20 07:00

45min treadmill run/walk 3.4m
- 1W 35E 1W (0.33ST 1W)x6
Foam rolling, bretzels + forward fold

Just a couple weeks of adding strides back in to my runs has made a big difference in how it feels. "Easy" training is definitely best for consistency, but there's also some value in maintaining just a little bit of go-hard ability.
 
1/21 09:00

Trifecta
OP 3x5 125#
Shoulder sequence

1/21 16:45

Mobility warmup
SQT 3x5 250#
BP 3x5 180#
DL 1x5 350#
Pullups 3x5
Grip work

Good day, although both sessions took longer than I'd like. On the squat, I feel like my ability to hit rock bottom on these lighter weeks has really come along nicely, which is a good sign that the support musculature is making some progress. On the down side, I'm getting an audible pop in my left shoulder during the eccentric part of the overhead press. Doesn't hurt, but it's unnerving. Will have to get my therapist (aka wife) to have a look at it.

Had a couple of interesting thoughts today:

I realized/remembered today that, back in my big squat days, I used a belt quite frequently. But I haven't used a belt for anything in many a year now. When my college days were over, and I (foolishly) decided that I didn't really need to be that strong anymore, I stopped using a belt, falling into the mindset that I wanted to train for the "real" world (like belts don't exists in the real world). But, thinking about it now... it really depends on what you're trying to get out of the lift. If you're training for a competition that allows belts, of course you train with a belt. If you're training for a competition that doesn't allow them, of course you don't use them... at least most of the time. But, if you're training the squat to develop leg power to allow you to throw further, or jump higher... and really, that's why I do it... why would you allow some other weak point to limit how much power you develop in your legs? Only makes sense to use a belt if that's your goal. Not that I'm planning to put the belt back on any time soon - where I'm at now, the limiting factor on my squat isn't my core stability, it's some sort of weakness in the inner thigh muscles. But, if the day comes that I'm moving some more significant weights again, I won't feel bad at all about putting the belt back on.

My recent foray into the barbell overhead press has really given me a new appreciation for the PTTP program. The deadlift and the overhead press are really the two most raw, brutal expressions of strength you can do with a barbell. They really feel different to me than the squat or the bench press. I suspect that the key aspect is that the squat and the bench press start with the eccentric phase, and get the benefit of the stretch reflex. The deadlift and the strict overhead press start "in the hole", so to speak, from a dead stop - you can't use anything but raw strength to get the bar moving. They are both very satisfying in that respect - a bit like the Bruce Lee 1-inch punch. Here again, it's not that I'm planning to jump over to PTTP any time soon - I've said before, I'm not minimalist, I've got too many lofty/unrealistic goals for that. I just appreciate that, if you were only going to do 2 lifts, those would be a very good pair to pick. I wonder if you could get a similar effect with squats and bench press by doing them from the pins. I would bet that brother @Antti and brother @Philippe Geoffrion could educate us all on this...
 
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