Sunday Deadifts

Day started well with a decent nights sleep for my daughter which meant I slept reasonably soundly through to 5:30 along with another 1.5 hours of snoozing. Given I am up for work at 5:00 am each morning the sleep-in felt amazing.

Small breakfast of protein drink eggs and toast then meandered until time for the gym at 10:30. Today was deadift day week 2. I added 5kg to the 3x5 work sets (felt good and fast off the floor). Then worked up to  2x5 top sets. Then onto sumo assistance deads. I am finding these really good to help better activate the adductor and get my pelvic muscles stimulated differently. Getting wide can't but help my hips in the squat and I am working hard on mobility each session.

I'm really focusing on what Paul Carter calls base building in this phase and my mantra is owning the weight before I increment each week. That means starting light and really firing out of the hole. If I don't feel the top sets weights were fast and strong I'll repeat the week till they do. This is particularly my focus on the squats as I want to be rock solid raw before a wrap up on the platform next year for States and Nationals.

Pretty empty at the gym and as usual the platform was empty. But as always I am entertained in-between sets but lots and lots of normal gym shenanigans. Two regular guys were in there benching between 70-90kgs and not one set was done without cutting it 6 inches high off the chest and the spotters hands taking 20-30% of the weight.

Next up were a couple of skinny young guys that make me look buffed so you know how thin they must really be! Now while I managed deads, rows, prowler and my legs raises in the hour these dudes were still doing tricep kick backs, skull crushers and cable pushdowns for an hour!

I wish some of these fuckers could just spend a month at PTC for some eye-opening training!

Home straight after training for some post work-out fuel oh and  never call it Peri nutrition fucking hate that term since T-Nation started bastardising it for every supplement advertorial they write.

Anyway hope your weekend was chilled like mine.

Stay Strong
Thomo

ps congrats to Mickey from Dallas who hit a PR total last weekend

Friday and Deadlifts this weekend.

I can't believe it is Friday already.

As predicted my first true squat session in 4 weeks brought more than a little tightness this morning. Started light and worked to easy 3 sets of 5 for the day. I followed this with 3 sets of front squats, pushed the prowler and finished off with stretching and anterior core work.

Programmed to hit deadlifts on Sunday and really looking forward to it. I am feeling really focused at the moment despite the fact I am not training at my preferred PTC. Perhaps the adversity of making do with less than ideal facilities is firing me up.

On that note again some interesting main stream gym sites last night. Two well meaning guys in the squat rack. Both unrack 60kg with the bar set way to high in the rack, requiring a calf raise to get it out. Then a few wobbly steps out followed by,I shit you not about a 3 inch range of motion. Even more interesting was the lead guy then put on another set of wheels so 100kg was loaded. Again an even more precarious walk out followed by an even more shaky quarter squat, good morning type movement. Really scary shit. 

The rest of the session I again just watched almost every guy in the facility working chest and biceps. It is literally a shock to the system to see so many people training aimlessly and definitely not for strength.

On a positive I will be posting an interview I did with Greg Nuckols of Mash Elite Performance. A great guy, strong lifter and someone with a nice lifting career ahead of him. I will probably post the first part of our interview this weekend followed by part 2 early next week.

Check out his blog http://gregnuckols.com/about/

Till later

Stay Strong 

Thomo

 

Squat Night

Thursday afternoon and its squat night tonight after 4 weeks without training. Yup Friday morning is going to be a bitch!

Tonight will be about grooving the movement again and given my nasty mobility issues it is always funny as shit to see just how bad the reps on my first 3 sets look. Ugly just damn ugly.

I will probably mix it up and work up to 3 work sets of 5 followed by 2 sets of front squats and then goblets for mobility and stretch.

Finish of with military press and I am set.

Check in later.

Stay Strong

Thomo

Powerlifters only have themselves to Blame

Driving to work today at 5:30am and between gulps of my morning whey and through bleary eyes I see a sign point to a new Cross-fit gym less than a minute from my house.

Now bugger me another Cross-Fit gym out of no-where  and interestingly right in the middle of an outer suburb that at first glance you wouldn't think had the demographic for that facility.

Now read through my previous posts and I flay Cross-fit pretty badly, mainly because I can't stand some of the 'me now' individuals who are jumping on the band wagon because they believe Cross-fit is sexy and cool. I much prefer those who have been slaving away in strength and health for years regardless of what the latest fad is.

Nevertheless I give true Cross-fitters their due. As all-round athletes (much like decathletes at the Olympics) I think they have a great level of conditioning. Though it's personally not for me I'm happy to lift heavy shit, push a prowler and swim in the summer for my fix.

Regardless I think they are very successful is in their business model and the more people getting healthy the better it is. Now a couple of structural things are present in the environment that contribute greatly to its success namely:

• more conditioning focus which plays to the societal preoccupation with aerobic based activity
• propensity for the average amongst us to seek the next fad (Zumba, Tai Bo etc)
• The fragmented nature of other strength sports, there are literally millions of disenfranchised individuals wanting to be better but not being satisfied by a regular gym environment and Cross-fit are just hoovering them up like a fat kid on a cup-cake

That being said Cross-fit do a few things very, very well:

• ramp up the community feel which plays particularly well to women who may not have always felt comfortable in traditional gym environments
• the focus on group based work means no one appears to be left behind and peer group pressure and support provide a good reinforcing loop to keep people engaged
• The physiques that cross-fit produce are attractive for the mainstream. Lean, lots of ABS and not too much bulk. 
• Oh and more and more guys get into it because of......

Yep the 'Bros' out there love hot girls lifting weights, so again there is another pretty strong reinforcing loop that keeps the paying customers coming back.

Now the real master stroke has been the link to Weightlifting particularly in the USA. Now here we have weightlifting another relatively fringe endeavour (I know its an Olympic sport but name me the top 3 in each weight class at the last Olympics??? there its a fringe sport). However given the need to perform the standard lifts in Crossfitt we have plenty of previously uncool weighlifters able to cash in on their abilities coaching to Cross-fit.

 Hell I am pretty sure Jon North would still be training at Cal Strength not running his own gym if he wasn't now able to criss cross the country doing coaching seminar where I suspect 90% of those paying customers are Cross fit franchises.

Now what does all this mean for powerlifting. It means we are dicks for never getting our shit together i.e.. Federations that argue about rule differences when a little negotiation might start the process of aggregation...dicks! Popular writers who moan about the perilous state of lifting then go and start yet another fed..dick!

People are always saying the most popular federations globally need to sit there shit down and work out how to rationalise. I mean we aren't talking about Northern Ireland 20 years ago or the Gaza strip. This is just a bunch of silly fuckers arguing about wraps or no wraps, mono or stands, gear or no gear.  Like any true change management initiative the impetus must come from the top, from the Federation executives.

So just remember while we all sit around tossing shit at that other federation another Cross-fit has opened taking more potential customers that should have been on our platforms. Think about it!

Stay Strong 

Thomo

Powerlifting and dealing with Stress

I have learnt some interesting lessons recently about the bodies capacity to deal with stress.

For the last 5-6 years I have worked in high pressure roles and while you learn to adapt it's important to understand your limits .

This year I took up a fantastic new role but with the pleasure came significantly more responsibility and a much larger time commitment. As is my nature I put my head down and got into the new role with plenty of gusto. However what I didn't count on was how the day to day new stresses of the role would impact me systemically.

Typically I use training as a great de-stress from day to day life: effectively a retreat that you can just focus on no matter how good or bad the day was. However this role has been different and it was quite insidious how the stress started to accumulate.

To be fair this has been a busy year training for me as well with my first States and backing up in 7 weeks to my first Nationals. So on all levels my body was under a fair bit of stress. Add to that that I didn't appreciate the impact of preparing for my first two big contests relatively close together and how beat up I would be afterwards.

As a consequence I hit the wall about 5 weeks ago feeling some really significant lethargy and a desire to just sleep constantly. The problem was when I hit the sack the mind was still racing so sleep wasn't delivering me the recovery time I needed.

So what do you do, man up and push through.....ahh..nooo that just puts you in a bigger world of pain. Simply sit back acknowledge what you are feeling and agree it's time for a break.

For me that involved a full panel of blood work to get some feedback on what was going on in the body, a break from training to give the body a little time to heal and changing the stress levels in the rest of my life.

Thankfully the blood work came back ok though cholestorol was up but that I believe is due to some shit diet habits in the heavy part of Nationals prep along with overall inflammation from the stress.

The point of this little story is that stress can sneak up on you. As powerlifters we can be very regimented and push through with training using it to deal with our stress. It is easy to get lost in the mental fog of a regimented routine.

Now maybe for some that works but remember sometimes a break is needed to reset get the head right. It worked for me.

Take some time out when you need it, your body and more importantly your mind will thank you.

Stay Strong
Thomo

Power lifting at Conventional Gyms

After today's second session in the temporary gym I feel like Alice in Wonderland: I've really gone through the looking glass into some strange shit.

Observations from training today:

1. Apparently the power rack is for curling or standing inside to press
2. I appear to be doing way too little biceps work
3. I need sleeve tattoos to blend in...and that's just with the girls
4. I need to use Bro in a sentence more often

Now to be fair having been spoilt at PTC I can't be too harsh...$23 a fortnight and 4 mins from home will suffice for the moment. 

It does reinforce in my mind how us guys left on our own make the dumbest training choices. Honestly I haven't seen so many upright rows and delt work in a long time..probably since I had the misfortune to train in Fitness First in Brisbane a few years back!

Anyhoo it is what it is and I will just hunker down now go a little under the radar and get somelifts happening.

Training went well 5/3/1 work sets of bench follow by assistance incline press. Had sets of dumbell rows and chins between the pressing sets.

Finished off with Goblet squats and may try flat footed squatting again for a while. It's funny but in the shoes I think sitting back irritates my adductor so will focus on goblets for a while and see if I can get some decent flat footed mobility. Thinking about it I didn't really have issues with the adductor until I switched to the shoes, though it might just be correlation not causality.

Time to chill now, middle of the week tomorrow lets see what shit storm awaits!

Stay Strong Thomo

Same Training Different Venue

Given our previous labour government had done its level best to take their hands off the wheel and royally fuck with the economy and business confidence I have found an inordinate amount of time taken up with work.

Consequently I have been blogging less and though I am convinced there is only probably myself and one other person that actually reads this it was heartening to get more than a couple lift your game queries from readers wondering where the fuck I had got to.

Firstly I have had to make a few changes and leave the beloved PTC for a while. Given work commitments and the need to juggle my schedule for work and getting time to see my daughter each night I cant keep up my previous regime.

So for the moment I have jumped in the deep end at a commercial gym approximately 4.5 mins from my front door! Now while it doesn't have a quarter of the equipment or camaraderie of the crew at PTC it is close to home and half the price which works for me while I am banging the early starts at late finishes at work.

Where I am now has a power rack, platform and bumpers and not much else that I need. However as a bonus it has a prowler with a nice long 30 metre carpet strip. So for the next 2-3 months  I am going to go anonymous again put the ear phones in and focus on making the most of the sessions I can do.

I suppose the bonus is I will have plenty of crazy fodder for this blog given the first day of trying the new gym two numpties were curling in the power rack...sigh :(

I will stick with Wendler 5/3/1 for simplicity and once the PTC lads confirm GPC states for next year I can start planning my programming for the rest of the year.

I'll post later on some of the diet changes that have made a change in my outlook but for now it's good to be back.

Stay Strong

Thomo