David Petersen's Log

Will Diebolt wrote:

David Petersen wrote:

Will Diebolt wrote:

Cool thanks for the write up re. wraps. Sucks about the shit. Life is crappy/chaotic/overwhelming sometimes.

Wondering what your intention is in doing leg curls, back extensions, and good mornings all together as assistance exercises and if the back extensions and GMs hit your hams pretty heavy or some other part?

I actually thought about that during the session. That being the amount of work I put on my hamstrings. I keep the legs curls and back extensions very light. The good mornings I wouldn't mind working up to some heavy stuff, but I always keep the "bodybuilding" type work very light.

Nothing wrong with bodybuilding IMO just wondering if you think your hams are a big weakness. I like to think of training as functional or structural. There is a definite and unique morphology/physical appearance for high level athletes in their respective sports. There's a saying in track and field, "if it looks right, it flies right". Whatever the sport it makes sense to try and achieve that 'look'.

I can definitely say that hamstring curls will blow up your hamstrings. I did GHRs when I couldn't really do much else and my hamstrings/adductors hypertrophied a lot. I actually got stretch marks on the inside of my legs. No idea if it will help your lifts. I've heard that leg curls don't carry over too much but I think it would depend on the circumstances entirely.

Honestly I can't give you a very good reason for why I do leg curls. I do it because it was recommended in the book I got my program from and the author has had a lot of success in the sport. I prefer GHRs, and have on occasion made a ghetto style GHR, but it doesn't feel near the same as when I travel to a different gym and use a real GHR. Right now I'm still getting stronger, so that's game enough for me to not question what I am doing. I don't think my hamstrings are lagging or anything like that.

Squeeze a little bit of everything is kind of what I try to do. The two major reasons explained in the book were 1) helps keep you health and 2) helps develop new muscle/balance....

Leg curls are a Westside Barbell thing. Basically, everyone at WB did a lot of leg curls, mostly as a GPP movement, and mostly for a ton of reps. Brandon Lilly wrote the Cube and kept the leg curls. A lot of people do them just 'cuz WB/Cube does them.

It's one of those exercises in which people regularly defer to stronger people to justify its existence, like the "Kroc row."

I think it should also be noted that a bodyweight leg curl is one of the most low-risk movements you can perform. It would be extraordinarily difficult to get hurt during them, and they'll have little to no negative effect on your training, unless you are horribly out of shape. So, even if they're useless, all you really lose is a little time.

KKeough wrote:

Leg curls are a Westside Barbell thing. Basically, everyone at WB did a lot of leg curls, mostly as a GPP movement

This is something that has confused me for a little while and I think either I don't have a good understanding myself or maybe Louie Simmons has misunderstood the Soviet training material that he cites as very influential to his training philosophy. His "conjugate method" consists of combining work on max strength, strength-speed, RFD, hypertrophy, and GPP in the same week or even in the same session and changing these exercises every 3 weeks. This is actually a "complex-variation method" using the Soviet terminology. A "conjugate-sequence" is a type of training plan where exercises are trained in a rational sequence flowing in the same direction which is dictated by the principle of dynamic correspondence/identical elements so that all exercises become more similar to the competitive task as competition approaches. The exercises are "conjugated" from one to the next and not trained all at once. This is distant transfer of training. Louis Simmon's method is a little more like a current transfer of training model because the complex of exercises performed during the training week are simultaneous stimuli to the organism. It's a little awkward I think because these classifications apply mainly to Olympic speed-strength events and not powerlifting where there is no such thing as a strength "base" and the interrelationships between exercises are different. Admittedly, I think he does have the main ME exercise become more similar to the competitive exercises in subsequent 3 week periods but this is a minor feature considered in the totality of training volume. I am definitely not an expert (yet) but it's really the sad state of things in S&C that this information is not disseminated any better and no one calls Louie out on this. It's very hard to actually get ahold of this stuff. It seems like the industry is focused around online fitness gurus and the exercise "science" in mostly bullshit. I think it's a pitfall of our market economy to be honest (but I'm not trying to glorify their system in other regards). The Soviets took this shit a whole lot more seriously because it was ideologically very important to do well at the Olympics and their central planning put (real) scientists, coaches, and athletes together in the same facilities. Very little is translated into English. I think it is mostly in German and Russian. Exercise science in America is a joke as far as I can tell. Done with my rant. Hope it's not unwelcome in your log. I realize I derailed things a bit.

KKeough wrote:

I think it should also be noted that a bodyweight leg curl is one of the most low-risk movements you can perform. It would be extraordinarily difficult to get hurt during them, and they'll have little to no negative effect on your training, unless you are horribly out of shape. So, even if they're useless, all you really lose is a little time

Not sure if you're talking about using a machine with the weight stack set to BW or if you're talking about curling with your BW as resistance on a GHR. I definitely felt like if I was ever going to tear a hamstring that it would happen on the GHR but I would dive bomb on the descent to work on elasticity at the turn around. Donno if a machine would be different or not. Maybe it would be because it only works the knee flexion function of the hamstring where as the GHR requires both functions: simultaneous knee flexion and (isometric) hip extension. Maybe pulling from both ends is more likely to result in an injury. I mostly did GHRs when I couldn't squat or deadlift but when I started again with light weights I was careful not to do GHRs afterwards because I felt in my muscles that an injury was more likely. I know that a lot of people recommend GHRs as assistance after these exercises. I guess they feel alright but I'm not the only one who has this view/experience. Although, I'm probably the least qualified individual in either camp to offer my opinion. Still, that's how it felt to me.

Will wrote:

KKeough wrote:

Leg curls are a Westside Barbell thing. Basically, everyone at WB did a lot of leg curls, mostly as a GPP movement

This is something that has confused me for a little while and I think either I don't have a good understanding myself or maybe Louie Simmons has misunderstood the Soviet training material that he cites as very influential to his training philosophy. His "conjugate method" consists of combining work on max strength, strength-speed, RFD, hypertrophy, and GPP in the same week or even in the same session and changing these exercises every 3 weeks. This is actually a "complex-variation method" using the Soviet terminology. A "conjugate-sequence" is a type of training plan where exercises are trained in a rational sequence flowing in the same direction which is dictated by the principle of dynamic correspondence/identical elements so that all exercises become more similar to the competitive task as competition approaches. The exercises are "conjugated" from one to the next and not trained all at once. This is distant transfer of training. Louis Simmon's method is a little more like a current transfer of training model because the complex of exercises performed during the training week are simultaneous stimuli to the organism. It's a little awkward I think because these classifications apply mainly to Olympic speed-strength events and not powerlifting where there is no such thing as a strength "base" and the interrelationships between exercises are different. Admittedly, I think he does have the main ME exercise become more similar to the competitive exercises in subsequent 3 week periods but this is a minor feature considered in the totality of training volume. I am definitely not an expert (yet) but it's really the sad state of things in S&C that this information is not disseminated any better and no one calls Louie out on this. It's very hard to actually get ahold of this stuff. It seems like the industry is focused around online fitness gurus and the exercise "science" in mostly bullshit. I think it's a pitfall of our market economy to be honest (but I'm not trying to glorify their system in other regards). The Soviets took this shit a whole lot more seriously because it was ideologically very important to do well at the Olympics and their central planning put (real) scientists, coaches, and athletes together in the same facilities. Very little is translated into English. I think it is mostly in German and Russian. Exercise science in America is a joke as far as I can tell. Done with my rant. Hope it's not unwelcome in your log. I realize I derailed things a bit.

KKeough wrote:

I think it should also be noted that a bodyweight leg curl is one of the most low-risk movements you can perform. It would be extraordinarily difficult to get hurt during them, and they'll have little to no negative effect on your training, unless you are horribly out of shape. So, even if they're useless, all you really lose is a little time

Not sure if you're talking about using a machine with the weight stack set to BW or if you're talking about curling with your BW as resistance on a GHR. I definitely felt like if I was ever going to tear a hamstring that it would happen on the GHR but I would dive bomb on the descent to work on elasticity at the turn around. Donno if a machine would be different or not. Maybe it would be because it only works the knee flexion function of the hamstring where as the GHR requires both functions: simultaneous knee flexion and (isometric) hip extension. Maybe pulling from both ends is more likely to result in an injury. I mostly did GHRs when I couldn't squat or deadlift but when I started again with light weights I was careful not to do GHRs afterwards because I felt in my muscles that an injury was more likely. I know that a lot of people recommend GHRs as assistance after these exercises. I guess they feel alright but I'm not the only one who has this view/experience. Although, I'm probably the least qualified individual in either camp to offer my opinion. Still, that's how it felt to me.

I guess I'm not sure what "exercise science" entails in totality...I don't really mind that this ends up in my log, but I don't really see how it is relevant. I'm more than okay shitting on the next youtube fitness guru, but it seems like you are mixing the line between that, and Murican strength. And uh, if you measure Murica strength training by how we do in the sport of powerlifting, well, uh, there isn't really a comparison at the moment.

No, what kyle is referring to is laying down on your stomach (on the floor) and doing leg curls.

A few scattered thoughts:

1.) The "conjugate method" is a synonym for a concurrent method of periodization, not a conjugate-sequence (emphasis) method. I know the terminology is confusing, but they're not the same thing; a conjugate-sequence method retains aspects of sequential periodization, like (as you mention) the transition to more sport-specific movements as competition nears.

2.) The "conjugate method" (the Westside version) isn't a translation of Soviet training philosophy, but an amalgam of Soviet/Bulgarian methodologies; this sort of exonerates him from having to provide a direct translation, because he's cherry-picking from different methodologies.

3.) I agree that exercise science in America is not as advanced as in certain Eastern European countries, but in the end, it doesn't matter, because it hasn't produced disproportionate results favoring other countries. America has, I think, the large majority of the currently competing world-record holders. If you look at EVERY world record for raw powerlifting (male and female, tested and untested, wrapped and unwrapped, full-meet and one-lift-only), the distribution is as so:

America: 167
Russia: 14
Poland: 8
Latvia: 7
New Zealand: 2
Ukraine: 1
France: 1
Netherlands: 2
Kazakhstan: 1
Australia: 2
China: 5
Brazil: 2
India: 2
Guatemala: 1
Hungry: 1
Iceland: 1
Romania: 1
Azerbajian: 3
Sweden: 3

And yes, athletes in other countries are being recruited for other sports, but so are ours.

There is no relevance. Kyle mentioned Louis Simmons and it sparked a thought that I ran with.

I didn't mean to insult American powerlifting if that was the inference. I think America has a lot of talent in a lot of sports and there are very good coaches (such as Louis Simmons) using effective methods. My complaint is the rift between the science and the practice of strength training in general. I may have been a little provocative when I said someone needs to "call out Louis Simmons". I really didn't intent to sound so severe, I'm sorry I said it that way, and I'm not interested in bashing successful coaches, only finding out the truth which is the loftiest goal IMO. Maybe I should have said "reconcile the confusion".

It's a little weird to me that he calls his system the "conjugate method". I have to think that he first had some familiarity with the original "conjugate" method otherwise it would be a very large coincidence that he uses the term. It's not a word that's used very often in ordinary speech and the last time many people use the word may well be high school Spanish class. Since I don't believe in this coincidence I have to believe that he learned something about and misunderstood the original "conjugate" method because believing that he purposefully chose a confusing term is also unbelievable for me. If the word is used in other contexts then that makes me the fool. I am happy to learn from my mistakes. I'm simply trying to understand things. I'm not making a judgement about the man or the effectiveness of his work which I think speaks for itself.

Kyle, you're right that it doesn't matter. Louis Simmons can call his program whatever the hell he wants and it won't change the numbers his guys put up. However, I think in a broad sense that exercise science should be understood, and the precedent should be respected because it's all that we have to go on. If anything my talk of bad science is mitigation for a mistake that Louis may have made. He is a victim like the rest of us.

Among other problems, the attitude is often along the lines of, "this person is strong so they must be doing it right." Correlation is not the same as causation and this not a scientific way of going about things. That is not an insult to the strong people doing things their way but the frank and enlightening truth. I am not talking about Louis Simmons but what I see in general.

That's a nice list you have, but if you look at Soviet performance in Olympic sports and particularly certain track and field events the numbers have a much different trend. Things get a little complicated later on but if you realize that there have been no whites athlete in the 100m final since the 1980 Olympics, and until a couple years ago no white men have run under 10 seconds (currently only one man has this distinction) the accomplishments of the (almost entirely white) Soviet athletes are quite remarkable. In the women's events many records are held to this day and the case is overwhelmingly in favor of the Ruskis. In total they won more medals than any other nation in seven of the nine Olympics that they competed in and placed second in the other two. This is in part due to their superior methods which overtime have drifted to the US.

I have no idea how popular powerlifting is in Russia (but from what I understand they don't call it "powerlifting" which is somewhat of a misnomer) I would briefly note that they kick our asses at Olympic weightlifting but I suspect you are alluding to this also. Yes some athletes in more lucrative sports could make good powerlifters but many good powerlifters are first introduced to lifting through sports. Maybe they would never have touched a barbell otherwise. I think it goes both ways. Even in Russia where Dmitry Klokov is a celebrity I don't think the sport is as popular as say soccer (not that many soccer players make excellent power-lifters)

Not sure if there's a great point to all of this but I enjoy thinking about it and I hope you guys do also.

Tl;Dr:

Will wrote:

I didn't mean to insult American powerlifting if that was the inference.

Oh, I know. I was just trying to show that there isn't a direct correlation--nothing even close to it, in fact--between science and practice. I know a lot of really, really good lifters whose training, to me, sounds absolutely clueless.

Will wrote:

My complaint is the rift between the science and the practice of strength training in general.

You'll get no disagreement from me here. The fact that someone can train like an idiot and break world records does not demonstrate that their training is optimal; it demonstrates that the bar is set low enough so that they can succeed in spite of their training.

Will wrote:

It's a little weird to me that he calls his system the "conjugate method".

Ditto.

Will wrote:

I have to think that he first had some familiarity with the original "conjugate" method otherwise it would be a very large coincidence that he uses the term.

He absolutely is familiar with it, though I cannot tell you exactly why he chose this term over any other. I imagine it just happened at a time and a place in which he was training with a few people at the old Westside Barbell, and there was really no need for accurate terminology, because very few knew anything of Soviet literature on the subject, and there was no market whatsoever for training methodologies. Were he to "invent" his method today, there would probably be more incentive for him to be precise.

Will wrote:

Among other problems, the attitude is often along the lines of, "this person is strong so they must be doing it right." Correlation is not the same as causation and this not a scientific way of going about things.

Agreed, and knowledge in strength training is typically bought and sold under the premise that so-and-so did it. And while this is not bad evidence per se, correlation does not, indeed, equal causation. But the truth is that hard training, performed less than optimally, will almost always trump half-hearted optimal training. I know of very few world-class powerlifters running the stock programs available nowadays; almost all the top lifters I talk to are doing their own programming or even just training by feel.

Will wrote:

That's a nice list you have, but if you look at Soviet performance in Olympic sports and particularly certain track and field events the numbers have a much different trend. Things get a little complicated later on but if you realize that there have been no whites athlete in the 100m final since the 1980 Olympics, and until a couple years ago no white men have run under 10 seconds (currently only one man has this distinction) the accomplishments of the (almost entirely white) Soviet athletes are quite remarkable. In the women's events many records are held to this day and the case is overwhelmingly in favor of the Ruskis. In total they won more medals than any other nation in seven of the nine Olympics that they competed in and placed second in the other two. This is in part due to their superior methods which overtime have drifted to the US.

This is very true, but it's obviously quite a bit more complicated than this: "talent", in sports, follows the money, and the winners and losers of the Games are never determined solely by training methods and athlete development; funding, both for the programs and for the athletes themselves, plays a tremendous role. I'd imagine that the balance of "power" in the Games would shift if you could hand any reasonably large population a hypothetical blank check for the next two decades.

Will wrote:

I have no idea how popular powerlifting is in Russia

More popular than in the U.S., actually. There is at least more money in powerlifting in Russia, and a few top powerlifters can actually consider themselves "professionals" over there.

Will wrote:

I would briefly note that they kick our asses at Olympic weightlifting but I suspect you are alluding to this also. Yes some athletes in more lucrative sports could make good powerlifters but many good powerlifters are first introduced to lifting through sports. Maybe they would never have touched a barbell otherwise. I think it goes both ways. Even in Russia where Dmitry Klokov is a celebrity I don't think the sport is as popular as say soccer (not that many soccer players make excellent power-lifters)

Sure; but again, athletes follow the money. This isn't a conscious choice on their part per se, but the best athletes almost always end up in the sports with the largest economies. America's best athletes are not powerlifting; powerlifting is comprised of the cast-offs from professional sports. Were powerlifting as popular a sport internationally as, say, soccer, two things would happen: a.) the world-class athletes would be much more evenly distributed, and b.) the records would be much, much higher (not necessarily because the training methodologies would be better, but simply because the quality of athlete would improve, and more time and attention would, on average, be put into what could become a very lucrative athletic pursuit.

Chris Anderson wrote:

Tl;Dr:

Reading is fundamental, Chris.

KKeough wrote:

More popular than in the U.S., actually. There is at least more money in powerlifting in Russia, and a few top powerlifters can actually consider themselves "professionals" over there.

Any idea why they don't do better then? That was a list of historic records. Do they do any better in the present compared with us? I don't follow the sport nearly as much as you guys. I know of Malanichev.

Will wrote:

Any idea why they don't do better then? That was a list of historic records. Do they do any better in the present compared with us? I don't follow the sport nearly as much as you guys. I know of Malanichev.

They do perfectly well, and a number of Russians--Andrey Malanichev, Konstantin Konstantinovs, Oleksandr Kutcher (before he retired), Andrey Belyaev, Konstantin Pozdeev, and Sergey Fedosienko--are among the absolute best in the world. But no, the U.S. probably has the best collection of talent of any nation in the world. Three American men broke the all-time world records in 2013 (at 132, 181, and 198), and another (242) broke it this summer, only to have it recently rebroken with a very questionable squat contributing. And most of the best pound-for-pound women are in the U.S., with Kim Tran (633 at 97), Jenn Rotsinger (920 at 114), Caitlyn Trout (930 at 123), Jennifer Thompson (1045 at 132), Taylar Stallings (1179 at 148; 1262 at 165, both done in '12-'13), Kristy Scott (1225 at 198), and April Mathis (1650 at SHW) all setting all-time total world records within the last couple of years (for the record, I don't think any woman, anywhere, has totaled within 200 lbs. of Mathis).

Ultimately, both nations are strong. The sport of powerlifting is changing, and it's transitioning from equipped to unequipped powerlifting. America has embraced unequipped powerlifting, and Russia is just starting to follow suit. America and Russia competed in different styles of equipped powerlifting for the last decade (America in multi-ply, Russia in single-ply), so comparing the two has been difficult up until recently. People point to the fact that Russia finished ahead of the U.S. at the IPF world championships every year as evidence for Russia's superiority, but virtually none of the best Americans compete in the IPF, whereas the majority of the top Russians do, so it's like the Russian national basketball team beating Iowa's college team.

Will wrote:

Reading is fundamental, Chris.

So is having concrete goals in regards to weight training and actually applying concepts instead of merely quoting the textbooks they came from.

Chris Anderson wrote:

Will wrote:

Reading is fundamental, Chris.

So is having concrete goals in regards to weight training and actually applying concepts instead of merely quoting the textbooks they came from.

The implication here must be that I don't have concrete goals. Since you are keeping up with my training maybe you know that I had to abandon the squatting I was doing (for fear of injury) that would culminate in a 2xBW squat (or very close) in a few weeks. I am upset about this and I'm glad that you are too. Anyway that's nothing great in PL but not too shabby for a cripple like me. If you look at D1 collegiate high jumpers you'll be hard pressed to find a lot that can squat 2xBW and this is not because they don't squat. I'm not a high jumper per se but that's extremely similar to the type of dunking I prefer to do, and my physique is a little bit like this, as the deer differs from the buffalo.

I can see that you're interested in my training so why don't we set something up some time? I'll show you what I like to do upstairs with a basketball. I don't know if you play but I have taken pains to analyze technique and I would love to share -- free of charge of course. I have to warn you that I usually strip down to my shorts and sneakers when i get fully warmed up so I hope this isn't a problem. If you'd like you can give me a tutorial also. I'm thinking that you have more thoughts to share.[/quote]

Sorry to see this log get hijacked by more unnecessary bullshit. I don't know why it's so difficult to just avoid someone if you don't like them.

10/8/2013
Bench 205
Warm Ups
145x3
165x3
185x3+. Did 4. Short paused. With the fourth one being a long pause...I've done 175 and 180 for four, but they were both piss poor sets with TnG or even bouncing for the 180. So this is a pretty big PR/confidence booster for me.

Pendlay Rows 135x3x10
Face Pulls 65x3x12

Pulldowns

Superset arms

Notes....So as of late my bench has really not been there..This has really been the case since after the mock meet when I made a couple changes to my bench. A) I switched from a false to normal grip and B) took my grip out wider....A few weeks ago I decided to change just the grip width, that seemed to help a little. Today I decided to go back to a false grip, and it was a pretty good day. I have a large enough sample size to know that the the non false grip w/ wide grip was not working. In addition today I really tucked my legs, and got a big of arch as I could.

So the difference is a 185xdouble that was touch and go and ugly as hell
to a 185x4 with short pauses, and each rep looked pretty good.

Everything felt faster warming up and my working sets I was able to have a definitive bar path....What is worse than my somewhat weak benching has been that my bar path on almost every rep is different. Technical breakdown was just all over the place with the wide grip. Today this wasn't the case, my first, second, and fourth rep all looked identical, and my third rep I brought just a hair too low on my chest. The fourth rep was probably it, maybe had a 50/50 rep in the tank. This is good, because I didn't have a technical breakdown on the fourth rep.
I don't want to put the cart in front of the horse, and say this is exclusively because of the changes to my grip. The tweak to the arch probably helped some, but the disparity in performance is pretty large.

10/9/2013
Squat: 340
barxa-ton
135x2x5
165x3
belt
195x3
240x3
275x3
Wraps
305x3+ did 3


Good mornings
135x3x5
Leg Curls
80x3x12

Leg Raises
3x12
Leg Ext
50x3x12


Notes: Today felt a little heavier than I would have liked. I was hoping for 4 on this AMAP. I felt about 50/50 on a 4th rep...Keeping my core/back tight is something I need to continue to work on...If I miss a lift it is going to be because I fall forward, not cause of my legs..

Really want to use good mornings as training for keeping my abs tight.

You make fast progress man, lucky. Excited to see what you hit at the meet. I think you're stronger then you give yourself credit for.

10/11/2013
Bench: 205
Bench at 70%
145x5x4

Floor bench with 135
Normal grip 5x5
Wide grip 2x5 1xamap did 10

Lap pulldowns
110x3x12

Arms


Notes: Benching felt fine today...

Floor pressing has always been a weird thing for me. With my normal (narrower) grip it really does not feel good to floor press. The rotation on my shoulder is not fun, maybe I'm just doing this wrong...When I pop my grip out wide I both feel stronger, and have no shoulder issue, and it feels like a more natural movement. Now, the opposite is the true on the bench..Weird..

10/12/13
Deadlift 370
275x5
315x3
350x1+ did 5.

So I was at the CRWC. Meh...I shouldn't say that. I did what I wanted to do. Kyle jumped in during my warm ups with the bar. He told me it is okay, no wait, it is a must to really flex the glutes at the top, make the bar pop your thighs at the top. Made adjustment. Warms ups felt a lot better than they normally do at 319...

So without anything to cover my shins with under my deadlift socks my shins basically exploded...I put my white sock over my deadlift sock and that backfired. I really need to get shin guards...At 319 I wrap up my shins so I don't bleed through my socks...I need guards so that when I don't have access to that, I can deadlift and not be a total loser...I made sure to clean the bar real good after I was done...

350...So the goal regardless of where I am was to do this session I wanted to do 350 for at least 5. If I was able to do this then 350 would be a minimum opener for me. It was a pretty tough 5, but I got it. So I'm okay with this session...Kyle mentioned something about pulling the bar off my shins more on my weaker side causing a little windmill/corkscrew action....Also talked about attempts....I forgot I hit 365 for a pretty easy single last week....My opener will be based on what my second attempt is. With a 365 I'd like to take a second at around 385 (386 at 170 KGs)...This probably means I would open with 353 or 358. As I feel like both of those would get me ready for a 386 pull.

10/13/13
Bench 205
155x5
175x3
195x1+ did 2 with pauses.

Press
95x5x5
Face Pulls
60x3x15

Arms

Notes: So benching is back on the up and up. Both of these reps were easier than the 195 I hit in my mock meet. This would probably high on the opener scale, but I'm not ruling it out. I'll hit 190 for a triple and 200 for a single next cycle. This will really let me lock in on what my attempts will be. A 205 or 210 doesn't seem out of the question for a second attempt. 

Benching two/three times a 7-day period (depending on where my days fall) doesn't seem to undermine my strength at all. I felt strong despite benching just two days ago.

Increasing my bench frequency (along with pausing the majority of my reps) was the best thing I ever did for my bench. I really like having one "set in stone" day, and then one or two days that are kind of by feel. This keeps me on track with my goals, while also adjusting to how I feel.

10/14/2013
Squat 340
255x5
knee wraps
290x3
325x1+ did 2. Probably had a third but I hit the cage/Jhook so did not risk it.

Front Squats
135x5x5
Hamstring Curls
80x3x12

Back Raises
3x12
Leg Raises
3x12

Notes: I wrapped for 290 just for more practice, and I think it isn't a terrible idea.I felt like I would have been fine without the wraps to get 3, but really wanted to double 325, so wraps on earlier=better for that...

325 was good. Being aggressive on the unrack really pays off. I have had days where I don't take the unrack and walk out serious. Don't push out against the belt, don't hold in air for the walk out and it has shown..Today I was tight and aggressive with each lift off...I walked out 325 a lot easier than I have walked lower weights..This is something I need to push, every unrack/walk out.

Recent progress..So I have hit 325 and 335 for singles. This 325 for a double is a PR. All of these post date missing 335 at the CRWC with Kyle and then my attempt at 350. Missing 350 was a technical issue/balance issue though....

Attempts...So I wrote this with the intent of attempting 353 for a second...I thought about it for a while, and am thinking that is too aggressive. I have 315 and 335 AMRAPs left before the meet. 315 I am hoping for 4-5 reps, which locks a ~320 opener in. 342 Just sounds better to me as a second, and maybe 347 if everything feels good. I feel like a 353 second boxes me in. A lot of this will depend on how 335 goes...I am also hoping to get into the CRWC and get someone to wrap me, cause I'm terrible at it, and I need the practice in a thicker wrap.

Thoughts about 9/9 versus 6/9. So 2/3 missing my third on every lift...This is just a question of how aggressive I want to be on my third. And how much space I leave myself with a second...This is why I readjusted the 353 to a more reasonable 342...Obviously a couple months after the meet I will have capability to smoke whatever I hit in the meet...So really what is this meet? It's a heavy day...That's really all it is...None of the numbers I hit at this meet will mean anything a few months down the road (other than they will determine my training weights). So really I should just go 9/9 no matter what...I agree, but I also want to challenge myself. I want my third attempts to be weights that could get the best of me. 2 reasons. 1) Even if I will be doubling, tripling, these weights shortly after the meet, it still means something to hit big PRs. 2) If I do miss any attempts....well fuck the barbell....fuck that weight, cause I'll be coming.

10/15/13
Bench Rep Day
70% of 195
135x4x6
145x6
150x6

Notes: Everything felt good, speed was good. Felt like I could have made a couple more 5 pound jumps or one 10 pound jump without struggling too much.

Mentally not in a good place to train. Shittttttt happens, and I got in and did the meat of my session. I wanted to do some sqz work, but it wasn't going to happen.

10/17/13
Deadlift 380
245x5
285x5
325x5+ Did 11. Another PR in the books.

Pendlay Rows
135x5 155x3x5
Hamstring Curls
80x3x12

Back Raises
3x12
Leg Raises
2x12 1x17

Notes:
Incorporating what Kyle showed me about throwing the hips into the bar even with just the bar, and all my warm ups. The bar kept bouncing off my thighs all the way into my work sets. Found some power here for sure, also my speed is getting better on my earlier reps. I'm also taking small pauses (~5 seconds) between my reps on my AMRAP so that it mimics closer to a first rep, for every rep. 

To get a handle on how different my training is compared to 5/3/1 as prescribed, I looked at my pace. In the last 2 months, I have completed 4 cycles of 5/3/1...This is about double the rate at which JW prescribes. This is due to two things. 1) I don't take deload weeks. JW says to do them between every cycle (and in his book 3/5/1 I think he says you can knock it down to every other cycle). If I feel beat down I'll take a couple days off, but that's about it. I will however do a deload before the meet. 2) My days off in general are far less frequent. In his outline JW says you can do something like train M/T rest W train Th/Fri, and rest on the weekend. I just go train everyday I feel like I can.

Bench 210 at CRWC.
135x5
155x5
180x5 did 4. 5th one got stuck halfway up.

Kyle talk on wrist and grip. Maybe take it wider. Really always crank on the wraps

My elbows are closer to my feet than wrists. So I lose power because the bar has come up on my head
Slightly wider grip.

I figured why not move the grip out a little bit. So I would call this a still fairly narrow grip, not nearly as wide as what I incremented with...Just decided to do workup using the same progression.
135x5
155x5
180x3

Face Pulls
3x12
Rope Pulldowns
3x12

Notes:
I had some issues getting worked into the benches at the CRWC. The unrakcs (on my own) were horrific, but when Kyle did lift offs for me things were MUCH better. Just lifting off yourself at the CRWC is not something I'm accustomed to. Kyle talked to be about how my elbow gets way out in front of my wrist and it looks like some sort of tricep ext/bench hybrid when I bench. This is what Brian noticed back in July and was the cause for my originally experimentation with a wider grip. So. I think the plan will be to do a much smaller jump in grip. I think I hurt myself by going out wider too fast last time. Unsure if I'll make this change for the meet. I might try this (slightly) wider grip during my second bench day. We'll see.

Notes on new bench: Roll wrists over, let the elbows flare out a little bit.

10/21/13
Squat: 350
225x5
265x5
Wraps
300x5+ did 5. 5th rep felt better than 3rd or 4th. Left a grinder in the tank

Good mornings
135x5x5
Leg Ext
3x12
Leg Raises
2x12
1x20

Notes
300-Pulled the bar hard on my back, really focused on being as upright as I could on the 5th rep, and it actually surprised me how easy it went up.
265x5 was a pretty challenging unwrapped set, and 300x5 felt about the same (maybe a little bit harder) so as far as higher rep work (5 reps) it is nice to know I am getting something out of the wraps. The 300x5 also puts my predicted 1RM at 350, which is spot on. My second will be less than 350, more in the 340 range, but this gives me a nice idea of what I might be able to attempt for a 3rd. My 335 AMAP will give me a pretty good sense of where I am at in wraps. If I double 335 it will lock me in for a 342 second attempt, which is as high as I will go. It would be a modest PR, and leave me plenty of room to play with for a 3rd.
More meta/goal stuff...
This may seem rather elementary/basic...But this is how I thought about my training in relation to meets/tests. Every meet I obviously want a PR, and this will probably be the case for quite some time. So how it works out is every training max following a meet is slightly higher than the training max that started the last cycle (right after a meet), but less than the training max I was working with right before the meet. This puts me in a position where I spend a few cycles working with weights I've already done, and hopefully these are easier to work with (more rep PRs)....It also acts as a fairly easy way to still track progress and make sure what I am doing is working...Then, at some point, my training max hopefully works above whatever my old training max was (right before the meet), I start working with more challenging weights, and this leads into a meet...This almost acts as a sort of mock-peaking program...
Obviously the frequency of meets will effect this pretty greatly. The less space between meets, the more compact everything gets. I'm not really sure how often I'll do a meet, I'm thinking 2-3 times a year. I like this idea, i think both 4 month or 6 months increments allow this type of training. The other way to do this would be to just plan on doing meets when I think I will start hitting training maxes that are getting close to my true max. Thus allowing me the perfect reset time....Accidentally this is kind of how it is working out for this meet (at least for my bench and squat).
TL;DR
Happy equilibrium=Post meet training max (90% of meet result) falls between the training max right after my previous meet and the training max right before the current meet.