PeteTheGreek

We'll be there on Sun at 8:00 am. We shirt up pretty regularly.

Gear Whore Training Log: http://www.ironmagazineforums.com/on...ining-log.html

DLDave

Cool, this Sunday it is then.

After reading through your log and now knowing what neighborhood you live in, I'm sure your neighbors love you for dragging your sled around Big Bear Farms. I live south off Sawmill a few miles right behind Chapman Elementary, so I either sled pull on their playground or soccer field, depending on how much noise I want to make.

DLDave

1/11 Squat

Squat, straps down: 405x5x2, 455x2x2, 495x2x2

GHR 8x3

Reverse Hyper: worked up to 185x6

Intended to not go too heavy today in order to focus on form in the suit, and I also squatted once semi-heavy this week.

Hips were very tight today during warm ups, never did get them completely loose. Put the suit on at 405, kept the straps down except for one set, think it was at 455, but straps were tight and I didn't feel like dicking with it since I was alone. Things felt much better in the suit today, I focused on keeping my knees back once the suit caught. I did discover a trick though. The suit seems to be much easier as the weight increased. I don't know if this is really because the weight physically makes the suit easier, or if it's because I focused much more at higher weights to keep from getting crushed. Unfortunately it took me so long to get loose that I finally stopped after a 2nd 495 set or I would've been in the gym all day. The odd thing is, this is still a weight I can hit raw with ease. So anyone that says that you can throw a suit on and add a few hundred pounds to your raw lift automatically, I beg to differ. Oh, and I suck at reverse hypers if I don't do them week in and week out.

DLDave

1/12 Extra day

Got some extra time in today to hit abs since I didn't have time yesterday and also a bit of low impact cardio for GPP/leg recovery.

Treadmill: 10 min, 2.8 mph
Stationary bike: 20 min, 70 rpm
Pulldown Abs: worked up to 100x10x2
Hanging leg raise: 3 sets of 10

DLDave

1/13 ME Bench

Flat bench: 315x3, 365x1x2

Floor pin press: worked up to 555x3 for 1 set

Chest assisted row: worked up to 4 plates for 2 sets of 5

First day training with PetetheGreek, Seanp156 and crew. Good crew with some strong benchers, I'll be back for more as the help will be invaluable.

Was hoping to get into the shirt today, but didn't happen. Left bicep was really acting up today, started really feeling it at the 315 set and getting worse at the 365 sets, so I called it quits after the 2nd 365. It appears that this is a bicep tendon issue, hopefully just a strain and not a more serious tear. The frustrating thing is that I have no problem pressing the weight back up, just a very sharp pain during eccentic phase when the bar is about halfway to chest, which causes me to lower very slowly so that it doesn't completely give out. Looks like I'll be taking it easy on upper body work until next weekend and spending plenty of time with the ice bag. I also need to go back through my log and see what I started doing differently when this first came up.

Seanp156

That sucks, I was wondering why you lowered the bar so slowly when I saw. I think Pete had the same thing going on with his bicep for a while, hopefully it goes away soon.

My Journal

PeteTheGreek

This one is baffling. I could still bench when I tore mine, but I couldn't do any curling or rowing movements. The thing about bicep tendon tears is that it usually results from repetitive movements over time, then it blows off if you try something like a heavy deadlift. The good news is that the recovery is pretty quick, even if it needs to be reattached.

Try to find some exercises that don't aggravate it. Try shoulder pressing, inclines, declines, board presses, etc. See if reverse band benching helps. THis takes the load off the eccentric. Ice it 3-4 times a day and do a lot of light band curls, a couple hundred a day. Ultrasound treatments also helped my recovery.

Gear Whore Training Log: http://www.ironmagazineforums.com/on...ining-log.html

DLDave

Thanks Pete, I hadn't thought of doing band curls to help but I'm sure that will help. Ice has helped a whole lot today.

Searching Google has led to quite a few links relating bicep tendon injuries to the bench press, sounds like it's not so uncommon since the bicep tendon is compressed during the eccentric. In fact, some bench-related shoulder injuries are actually injuries to the upper bicep tendon as the bicep tendon attaches in the front of the shoulder as well as the front of the elbow, where I'm experiencing my issue. I can't help but wonder if my form is breaking down under heavy load as the 2 times I've had the issue were 2 of the 3 times I've gone about 450 recently. I'm pretty sure today's issue was just an extension of the aggravation from this past Wednesday.

PeteTheGreek

Yeah but you don't have any shoulder pain? Reading back thru your logs it looks like you're benching and squatting too heavy, too often. You just benched heavy 3 days ago. I would stop doing the heavy singles on DE bench day and just stick with the triples, something light in the 225 range. We usually don't go over 185.

Straight bar squatting will aggravate the shoulders, elbows and bicep tendon as well. We squat with a straight bar maybe once a month. The rest of the time we're using the hatfield bar or the cambered bar from hell. If you're squatting with a straight bar on Saturday, you don't want to try to bench heavy the following day.

To get through this injury, I would take a light weight, say 185 or 225 on DE day and do sets of 10-15. On ME day, pick an exercise that doesn't aggravate it and go heavy. On Labor Day I injured my collar bone/trap and couldn't do any flat benching for about two months, but I was able to do inclines and military, so I hammered those until the injury healed. Youll be surprised how much of a carry over there is from military pressing to flat benching. If you can still military press, I would hit those hard. Seated, standing,etc. I even did seated military pin presses in the rack to maintain my lockout. I set the pins at about 3 inches below lock-out. It sure looked stupid but it worked. Just find something that doesn't hurt. Welcome to old age.

Gear Whore Training Log: http://www.ironmagazineforums.com/on...ining-log.html

DLDave

Nope, no pain in the shoulder at all. You're right, I don't know why the hell I've been working up a heavy single on DE bench day for the past month. Obviously it's catching up to me. The extra squats have really only been recently while trying to get some time in the suit. That didn't help since that did aggravate the bicep on Friday, but it hasn't been a regular habit as I had hardly squatted at all since mid-December. I guess there's another reason to not go to that toxic place, no choice but straight bar for squats. Thanks for the tips, we'll see how things work out with some rest and ice before DE Bench day comes up.

PeteTheGreek

They allow you to squat at Lifetime? We should all go there with our gangster gear, horse liniments and chalk and see how fast we can get kicked out

Gear Whore Training Log: http://www.ironmagazineforums.com/on...ining-log.html

DLDave

I got a special waiver to squat in their bicep curl racks. Adding bands brings some very interesting looks.

Stewart20

Question for ya Dave.....how do you rotate your exercises on each of the days? what is the determining factor of when you do what? What I mean is, I know about rotating the ME exercises, but how do you rotate the accessory movements? Is it just what you feel like doing on a particular day? I ask, because I like to keep some sort of progression in my lifts, and if I am doing different exercises every workout, it makes it difficult to gauge progress, know what I mean?

http://futuretrainer.blogspot.com/ --My new blog!!

DLDave

That's a good question Stewart, one that I've been giving some thought to lately. I used to do pretty much the same accessory work for the same day each time around, changing up occassionally but no set schedule. My log may reflect a change to that as I changed up for a period not long ago, where I was changing the accessory stuff pretty much each day. What I think I may end up doing now is sticking with the same thing for three weeks, and then rotate. Some reading I did recently suggested this method but also stated to not try to beat the log book each week on the accessory work, but to just increase the weight when it felt like it was time. Remember, the accessory work is used to increase the core lifts in powerlifting. Nobody is competing in heavy lat raises or skull crushers. Of course, these are just my current thoughts, I'd like to hear from others if they're reading along.

Stewart20

i hear you on the "not beating the logbook on accessory work" thing, unfortunately, I think there will always be that drive to do better on them regardless. I like your 3 week suggestion, I just wouldn't like it if I was using say, a close grip floor press as an accessory and the lift went up each of the 3 weeks, I wouldn't want to leave it. What I used to do was pretty much use the same accessory exercises with the plan of ditching them if they started to stall out or if I felt overuse issues from them. Of course, I wouldn't go to failure on them, and using this method, I never got to the point where I had to change them (I have done these types of workouts for blocks at a time, not continuous, so it might have been 5 or 6 weeks of steady improvements)

I've been thinking about going back to this type of training, and I like your template as you have been doing it. I was just trying to follow how you set up your exercises and I couldn't, lol, so that's why I was asking.

So now, do you rotate your ME exercises weekly? And do you only do either the squat/DL/GM ME exercise once a week, or do you squat and DL heavy in the same week (I know some people do that)

http://futuretrainer.blogspot.com/ --My new blog!!

DLDave

You probably couldn't follow my set up because it has been so random lately.

On the ME lower body stuff, I have one heavy day per week and rotate heavy box squat, heavy rack deadlifts, and heavy good mornings. I don't do the heavy good mornings with each rotation. On DE lower day, I'll usually do speed box squats and speed deadlifts in a single day but not always. I also might do lighter good mornings rather than squats . For ME Bench day, it's usually some sort of board press, or if I'm someplace with no boards I'll work up to heavy singles. I very occassionally will go with heavy inclines rather than flat bench, but this is rare. This is usually followed by some sort of lockout work and then heavy upper back, or I may go with light shoulder work and tricep work instead of the lockouts as those are a bit rough on my wrists. DE bench day is usually speed bench, followed by either heavy incline or heavy shoulder presses, and then upper back and tris. Something I was told by a Westsider is try to do twice as many total reps of upper back as bench reps on bench day, and this adds up on DE day as I'm at 24 bench reps, so this usually falls short.

When I'm doing things correctly, I have only 1 heavy ME upper and 1 heavy ME lower per week. When I'm being dumb like recently and go heavy more often, I end up injured, like now, and this will stall progress eventually anyways even without an injury as your CNS will be shot. Younger guys may be able to get away with it, or you could give it a shot with a very liberal use of deload weeks.

All that said, training in gear is going to change this up for me as I'm going to have to get in the gear more often initially to learn it. This means my ME days will probably be less varied as I'll need to do heavy shirt bench and heavy suited squat pretty much once a week. This probably also will result in putting a heavy deadlift day in the same week as heavy squat occasionally. I'll look to PeteTheGreek to help with this part, he's been at this much longer than I.

Stewart20

ok, well then you learn from Pete and I'll learn from you cause I am pretty sure you have been doing this longer than I have. I am 33, so I feel your pain on the getting old thing, of course, it always sucks that I got into lifting so late in my 20s wasting away those prime late teen early 20 years for lifting, but in my defense, I don't think it was as popular back then as it is now

If I choose to do this, I am definitely going to be using that brief outline you just posted, simple and to the point, although, since I am not using any gear, I will probably change a few things around, as I don't think I need things like lockouts as much as you guys do, I could probably replace them with some DB presses and inclines.

But in any event, thanks for your help and good luck with that injury healing quick

http://futuretrainer.blogspot.com/ --My new blog!!

DLDave

You're right, lockouts would have limited value with no plans for a shirt. You could also replace these with closegrip bench after your heavy bench, which would give you a more complete range of motion while working tris.

Stewart20

I used to have a rather intricate plan for what exercises I did according to what the ME exercise was, but I think, for simplicities sake, I would go more basic for another run at it. I would probably pick one exercise to use as an accessory for the ME day and the DE day and run it till I stall. I really want to include inclines in there, but let me ask you a question. Which do you think has the better carry over to RAW flat benching, inclines or OH presses?

http://futuretrainer.blogspot.com/ --My new blog!!

DLDave

Personally, I think they're equally important, thus I rotate these. However, if I were forced to choose one, I would say incline bench is more directly applicable to raw flat benching. OH press is definitely important as well as it will directly hit the delts rather than the incline which recruits chest into the movement.

DLDave

1/16 DE Bench

Speed Bench: 185x3x8 (grip varied close, medium, standard)

Incline DB press: 110x8x2

Overhead rope tricep extensions: worked up to 80x8x2 (haven't done this in at least a year, so took awhile to find the right working weight)

Took is fairly easy today after 2 full days off to help the bicep thing. I dragged the sled around yesterday to help offset skipping DE Lower day, forgot to log that. Bicep felt a bit tight but no pain, which is good. Hopefully I'm just being too cautious as things felt mostly normal, I'll turn it loose this weekend if it doesn't head south before then. Did something different for triceps to hopefully keep some load off of the elbow area, skipped rows for the same reason.

DLDave

1/18 ME Lower

Hatfield bar squat (w/ suit): worked up to 495x2 for 2 sets (1 set straps down, 1 set straps up)

Glute Ham Raise: 3 sets of 8 bodyweight

Pullthru: 80x8x3

Hammer Curl: 30x12x3

Today's theme was either "I remember that I hate the Hatfield bar", or "Let's see how many things I can forget to do". Squat form really sucked, forgot just about everything at one point or another, from holding air, to pushing knees out, to keeping back tight. I think the Hatfield bar had a lot to do with it, just didn't feel stable with it, so I stopped before I really made a mess. Wanted to push the weight higher as the suit seems to be getting broken in, but didn't want to aggravate the bicep with a straight bar. Threw in some low weight, high rep hammer curls to help the bicep tendon. No pain, iced immediately after and no soreness. Hopefully this thing is almost behind me as it's been pain free for 5 days.

PeteTheGreek

The hatfield bar is a pain in the ass. It's very hard to sit back with it. It forces you to squat straight down instead of sitting back. I wouldn't try to learn using a suit with this bar because you need to learn how to sit back with the suit. We usually go raw or wear loose briefs with this bar.

Also, take a few weeks off from heavy benching and ease the bicep thing back into it. No sense blowing a tendon off if you're not training for a meet.

Gear Whore Training Log: http://www.ironmagazineforums.com/on...ining-log.html

PeteTheGreek

The only thing you need to remember is "I'm taking a shit". squatting is just like sitting down on the toilet

Gear Whore Training Log: http://www.ironmagazineforums.com/on...ining-log.html

DLDave

1/20 ME Bench

Flat bench (raw, full ROM): 315x3

Flat bench (3 boards): 365x1x2

Tricep cable pushdown w/ rope: 80x12x3

Chest supported row (wide grip): 3 plates x8x3

Didn't go extremely heavy as I didn't want to push the bicep thing. No pain, felt a bit tight but not bad. Forgot my elbow sleeves, which I want to try to see if it helps. Pete said my left elbow was flaring on the 365 sets, which makes me wonder if that might be the cause or contributing to the issue, if it's not just me compensating for it. Did some extra stretching before and after, and will be icing off and on for the next few hours as that seems to have really helped.

My log: http://www.ironmagazineforums.com/on...ining-log.html

DLDave

^^ I forgot the 405x1 3-board set as well, don't recall if this was in addition to or instead of that 2nd 365.

My log: http://www.ironmagazineforums.com/on...ining-log.html

DLDave

1/22 Back

Rack Deadlift, pins 3" below knees: 585x1, 635x1, 675x1 (new PR)

Wide-grip pulldown: 170x8x3

Pulldown Abs: 100x10x1

45 degree back extension: 45 lb plate x8 x3

Going to change up my split a bit for a few weeks and see how it works out. Barely got the 675 rack pull locked-out, but it went up fairly smooth and not terribly slow, although my neck felt like it was going to explode at lock-out. Bicep felt a bit tight during warm-up sets, right around the 315 set, but no pain at all and didn't notice it at all during the heavy work sets.

My log: http://www.ironmagazineforums.com/on...ining-log.html

Stewart20

now that is some nice pulling dave. I can't imagine getting that much weight, I will be happy with 500, lol.

http://futuretrainer.blogspot.com/ --My new blog!!

DLDave