Seth's Training Log

Sure thing. I'll give em to you for $15. They are just about brand new, I used them once after I bought them. I'm sure Ill run into you on Friday or whenever you are in there next and I always have them in my bag so whenever works.

Seth wrote:

Sure thing. I'll give em to you for $15. They are just about brand new, I used them once after I bought them. I'm sure Ill run into you on Friday or whenever you are in there next and I always have them in my bag so whenever works.

Sweet! Thanks man. I just plan on showing up to the team's "Lifting Session" around 4 or so. See you then.

When you get a chance, let me know what your shirt size is.

3/23

bench press
225x2x6

narrow grip bench
195x5x2

dips
bwx3x10

facepulls
3x15

Notes: Bench press felt good everything was moving fast. I ordered a new 10 mm belt today, so hopefully it will not tear me up so much.

3/24

squat
315x2x6
315x1

GHR
3x10

hanging leg raise
3x12

Notes: Squat felt good, especially my last two sets. I need to make sure my foot placement is not to wide and that I don't let the bar sit to low. I noticed myself getting a little wide so my last couple sets I adjusted and I had a lot more pop out of the hole, not to mention it made it a lot easier to break parallel.

3/25

bench press
250x4x4

bb curls
3x20

Notes: There is a dramatic drop in bar speed and explosiveness after my first rep. First rep of every set flew up. The last rep of the last set was a grinder.

3/26

deadlift
445x4x4

hip thrust/glute bridge thing
225x5x4

Notes: First set of deads felt heavy. After that things smoothed out.

Those are some nice deadlift sets, brah.

Thanks, brah.

3/28

squat
350x4x3
350x1

bench press
135x5x3

hypers/ab thing
3x12/10

Notes: My midsection is just getting too tore up from my belt again. George let me use his belt for my fourth set, which I unracked, hit one rep, and reracked because my midsection was bothering me to much. I definitely could have powered through and hit the other 3 reps, but it would have been extremely painful and I don't think it would be worth it in the end. Squats sunday will be beltless, I will probably try to only squat with the belt once a week until the meet. I'm hoping my new belt comes in soon. The bench sets were just to work on bar path a little since I did not bench yesterday. This thing with the top of my pelvis and midsection is really getting annoying. I'm more and more wanting to run a beltless cycle after this meet.

Wait, there was a George sighting?

KKeough wrote:

Wait, there was a George sighting?

This happened.

So I got about 5 minutes to put my thoughts on here before I head to work, so if the youtube video loads I will post it, if not it will be on a little later today. I just went to the CRWC for about 15 minutes to video my squat a little with just the bar to observe. From what I've been seeing, I think a problem with my squat may be the bar sliding further down my back as my sets go on. This would make a ton of sense as to why my first rep or two will feel good, and then it just goes awful after that. In the video I go from where the bar should be, rack it, where the bar starts sliding to, rack it, back to where the bar should be. When the bar is in the lower position, I think it causes me to round my lower back a lot and makes me a lot less upright, making me off balance as well as screwing up my bar path. Since most of the pain I'm feeling is coming later in the sets, I think this falling over is what is causing my belt to dig and grind the top of my pelvis and ribs in ways it shouldn't causing all the pain. Please take a look at the video if you have time and give me any tips that come to mind. I think I'm going to start working with just bar squats a few days a week that I don't squat to really working on squeezing my upper back and staying tight and just to get all the motor units firing in the ways that they should, since this problem causes my squat to be all over. Another encouraging thought is that last time I ran this cycle, my squat was all over until about the 2x2 week and it all came together after that. Any help is greatly appreciated, thanks guys.

One thing I notice in this log is that you just aren't doing a lot of upper back isolating work. The iso row machine is a start, and facepulls will also probably help, but I really believe that with the issue you're identifying you've got to do a lot more assistance work. Namely, bodyweight pull-ups, chin-ups, and variant therein, lat pulldowns, barbell rows. This will also transfer to your bench.

I'm certainly an advocate of "train the movement to better the movement" philosophy, but I'm seeing a marked lack of any constant upper back assistance work here; in my opinion doing some will only help both your squat tightness and your bench stability. I add in back strength work on both my bench days AND my deadlift day as well as sometimes do some work for it on my rest/extra workout days. I know it's not really part of the revered posterior chain, but it's important. I am not made for benching and I'm convinced that one of the only ways I'm going to keep my shoulders healthy for the lift is to build a really solid support/oppositional pulling system through my back.

So I would really start some bodybuilding, alright? Not even kidding. People in the gym won't even know you're a powerlifter.

Yeah I haven't done much for upper back assistance especially lately. I will make a point to train my upper back from now on. Identifying that staying tight up there needs to be a cue for me definitely shows that I need it.

I used to have a similar problem with the bar scooting down my back during sets. The biggest thing I figured out was that I was putting the bar too low, about 3/4" too low actually, and not on the spine of the scapula. So when I would add more weight, the bar would scoot down my back as I would go through the set. In one of Mark Rippetoe's youtube videos, he talks about the same thing. The second thing I noticed was that by bringing my hands in a little bit, I would stay tighter and flex my rear delts to create a better shelf for the bar. Just my experience so maybe it helps.

I definitely agree. Those are actually the 2 things I focused on with the bar squats today. Bar placement and moved my hands in. It kept me centered over my feet a lot better and I felt a lot more stable/strong.

To me it looks like you are losing the tighness in your thoracic

What's your mobility like? A lot of people that lack mobility will allow their upper back to fold in order to hit depth

In my opinion this is not a muscular weakness because you are folding over with 45 lbs, something you could easily GM with a flat back. IMO you won't be able to identify a muscular weakness until you can perform the lift correctly

KKeough wrote:

Wait, there was a George sighting?

Maybe another today (srs)

Mobility has always been an issue for me. I started doing agile 8 on Monday, which seems to help some. Any suggestions or excercises to help with mobility in that region?

The mobility issue Kevin brings up might be something to think about. I stand by my recommendation of including isolating upper back work in Seth's, or just about anyone's, programming. Even if it is NOT weakness we're working with here, if Seth's body isn't used to intentionally firing muscles in the thoracic area or higher, recruitment during squatting is, in my opinion, less likely to happen.

I have a theory regarding this issue, and it is nothing more than a theory, based on my own experience. I can tell you that one of the only areas of my body I actually managed to strengthen in the years I was performing incredibly stupid lifting programming prior to coming into powerlifting was my upper back and trap area. The limited knowledge I had in the earlier time period of my lifting experience was apparently sufficient to stimulate both hypertrophy and generate neuromuscular adaptation. I also did a good job of developing the sh*t out of my front delts by lifting with totally incorrect form for at least 50% of my upper body lifting, but that's another topic entirely.

I am convinced that whatever strength I started in this sport with, particularly in the deadlift, can be attributed to the crazy amount of energy I spent working on my back in the weight room for a year or so beforehand. Because the years before THAT were spent emaciated/anorexic-ish. I built my back from zero, and its development has far outpaced the lagging development of my glutes and quads, which I never knew how to fucking train properly.

What's my point, anyway? Targeting my back and developing it was probably one of the greatest sources of what strength I had initially coming into this sport. I would have been weaker without it. Seth's back may be strong, but it could be stronger, and frankly, the amount of work he does that falls into the pushing category is extremely disproportionate to how much he does in the pulling (not deadlifting) category. I don't know about the programming followed by all successful powerlifters, but I have studied and discussed the programming of many. I really can't think of anyone who doesn't take upper back work seriously as both a prehab tool and a supportive strength base for the various lifts.

I will further point out that regularly working the back and isolating it in movement will get one's body used to engaging that area and recruiting it more efficiently. I'm starting to do a lot more glute work because my glutes are basically asleep--this is obvious, in my opinion, in both my lifts and my physique. I've really pushed this focus for the past two-three months and guess what--both my squat technique and my deadlift technique are looking better and my deadlift numbers are fucking shooting up like crazy. There's "strengthening" and there's also "activating"--maybe Seth's body isn't really inclined to activate that shelf he needs to maintain the bar position during squat. Doing exercises for the specific area with mental attentiveness to activation as the exercises are performed can, in my opinion, help fix this problem. Seth, as an aside, I could send you Bret Contreras' ebook. His discussion of glute engagement is in keeping with much of what I'm saying here.

@Seth if I had to guess your upper back is rounding to compensate from tightness in your lower body. If it's truly upper back related you can try taping two tennis balls together and laying on them. Agile 8 is great though

@Janis I'm with you on this. Upper back work is relatively non-taxing and can provide some benefit to the powerlifts. Seth should do more upper back work. I meant in the more narrow sense of polishing up his squat for April, especially since muscular weaknesses can't be fixed in that time frame

A rounded back could also be from overdeveloped/tightness in your chest and front shoulder. Stretching in particular the pec minor + front shoulder will definitely let you know pretty quickly. Essentially the tightness is pulling you forward/in. It is definitely possible that it could be both tightness in the front and, as Kevin mentioned, weakness in the back.

My thoughts:

It is most likely a mobility issue, but it could very easily be a strength issue. When someone compensates for a muscular weakness repeatedly, there is always the possibility that their motor patterns on the lift will change, and they'll start performing the lift incorrectly even at sub-max weights. In other words, when you get really accustomed to altering your technique in a certain way at a particular intensity range, those technical changes can filter down to even your warm-ups with the bar.

But as I've talked about to a few of you, there's no way to look at video and diagnose the root cause of a strength issue; you could be folding over because your upper- and mid-back are weak, or you could be folding over because your upper- and mid-back are strong and are rounding in order to compensate for other weaknesses.

The best things you can do are to first work your butt off with your mobility work, which means lots of SMR and some time for a good warm-up. Then, address the weaknesses in your training. Janis pointed out some things you aren't doing; sometimes I'll tie a band to a door knob in our house and do some face pulls, if I didn't get the chance to do them. In other words, something is always better than nothing, and if you don't have enough time in the gym to get it done, be creative.

But you have to start to eliminate some of these possibilities before anyone can give you a good diagnosis. Right now, people are tossing around lots of ideas because a.) your mobility isn't perfect and isn't being worked on enough and b.) your supplemental work isn't consistent enough. Those variables make pinning down the right solution very difficult.

3/29

agile 8

bench press
225x2x7

narrow grip
205x5x2

pullups
35 reps

banded face pulls
5x10

lying tennis ball thing

Notes: Bench felt average. Did an extra set. Would like to see more speed.

Also, I just want to give a huge thank you to everyone for their input and help. I know everyone has their own training to worry about, so I really do appreciate everyones help. I'm going to up my mobility work as well as mid-upper back training.

3/31

agile 8

squat (beltless)
280x2x2
290x2x4

GHR
3x10

pendlays
135x5x2
185x4x3

hanging leg raise
3x12

Notes: Squat felt good. Kevin realized I was closing my eyes, so I made sure to open them while squatting. As odd as it sounds the last couple sets were very smooth after changing this. Also did agile 8 along with tennis ball mobility work for my back this morning.