The Come Up

Will wrote:

Squatting in briefs is fun!

Will wrote:

I'm morally opposed to knee wraps

Will wrote:

weed hangover

I didn't know this was possible.

Nathan Poage wrote:

Apples and oranges man. For whatever reason hips are more robust and the briefs don't work exactly the same. Pardon my nomenclature but I think that torniquetes are bad for your knees and I'm even more inclined to think this after Kyle told me about his gastroc. It's just all that extra pressure. I'm more worried about the intra-articular pressure because the cartilage doesn't regenerate very well but it's the same thing with the gastroc or anything else where there's just too much tension per unit of tissue area.

Pulling fast with good form is going to translate to a much better pull than pulling slow with technical breakdown.


But if you don't give a shit about that either, that's okay too.

as someone who has no interest in using knee wraps, I will say that the idea of serious or even minor impact of wrapping on knee cartilage makes no sense to me. You aren't wearing them for more than five minutes tops. It just doesn't make sense. If we were talking serious compression for hours, maybe. Otherwise nope. Not an issue and I'd be willing to bet on it.

TIL that pressure = tension


Please, tell us about your vast tourniquet knowledge

David Petersen wrote:

Pulling fast with good form is going to translate to a much better pull than pulling slow with technical breakdown.

I don't understand what your motives are man. You must still be talking about when I missed squatting 365 and the last weight I had on the bar was 315 for reps? I already agreed with you that smaller jumps would be better if the goal is never to miss the lift. Do you want to have a discussion on whether or not it's okay to miss lifts or what? Not sure what to make of your post.

babyeater wrote:

as someone who has no interest in using knee wraps, I will say that the idea of serious or even minor impact of wrapping on knee cartilage makes no sense to me. You aren't wearing them for more than five minutes tops. It just doesn't make sense. If we were talking serious compression for hours, maybe. Otherwise nope. Not an issue and I'd be willing to bet on it.

Yeah I don't think simply getting wrapped, or just sitting around with the wraps on is what does the damage. I think the pressure inside the knee when you're lifting. I think the cartilage is getting worn away and delaminated but who can say for sure? I think it's ultimately a subjective determination that has to be made, but I think that if you know they put you at a risk for tearing your gastroc, then why does it seem like such a stretch? If the wraps are tight they will hurt so it's just common sense to me.

Chris Anderson wrote:

TIL that pressure = tension

Who taught you that? I think pressure is actually tension for every unit of area or force over area.

Chris Anderson wrote:

Please, tell us about your vast tourniquet knowledge

I don't know if this is true but I remember hearing that when they have to use tourniquets sometime the limb has to be amputated afterwards. So keep that in mind next time your toes go numb from the wraps  

My motives are to give you some feedback so you can train smarter. From the looks of the vids/log you have taken near max attempts on 4-5 different training sessions for the deadlift since December.  Everything over 400 you have posted has been slow. You just aren't going to make progress for very long doing that over and over. You also have mentioned wanting to fix your deadlift, pulling near maxes isn't going to achieve that goal. It is going to teach your body to be okay breaking down in order to grind out reps. You may see returns in the short term but they won't last. There is also a fundamental difference between working up to something heavy, and grinding out ugly heavy reps. Your 415 rep was a 4.75 second rep. My last third attempt at my meet was 3.3 seconds. So if that is what you are trying to do with this heavy deadlift days I would also advise against going that heavy.

I went from pulling 350 to 403 in 4 months without deadlifting over 365 in training.

And even if it doesn't "hurt" to do this, it is still an opportunity cost. Pulling 300-350 for faster and cleaner reps is going to do worlds more for your deadlift then grinding 415 for almost 5 seconds.

So again...Pulling faster and cleaner reps is going to do much more for your pull than pulling slow and ugly reps.

You'll see me return to that type of training in a month or so. I appreciate that you care.

Nathan Poage wrote:

Repped because adorbs with a hint of truth

Will wrote:

Yeah I don't think simply getting wrapped, or just sitting around with the wraps on is what does the damage. I think the pressure inside the knee when you're lifting. I think the cartilage is getting worn away and delaminated but who can say for sure? I think it's ultimately a subjective determination that has to be made, but I think that if you know they put you at a risk for tearing your gastroc, then why does it seem like such a stretch? If the wraps are tight they will hurt so it's just common sense to me.

Chris Anderson wrote:

TIL that pressure = tension

Who taught you that? I think pressure is actually tension for every unit of area or force over area.

Chris Anderson wrote:

Please, tell us about your vast tourniquet knowledge

I don't know if this is true but I remember hearing that when they have to use tourniquets sometime the limb has to be amputated afterwards. So keep that in mind next time your toes go numb from the wraps  

I've met (or heard of) exactly one person who has torn their gastroc in any significant fashion, and to say it was directly from knee wraps is a huge logical jump that makes very little sense. Wraps hurt primarily because they're chafing the fuck out of the skin. I have never felt any knee joint pain (short or long term) from knee wraps, and I've never heard of that happening either. Lifting heavy things will put a strain on your body no matter what.


In this situation, you're trying to equate the pressure of the wraps constricting around the knee area to extra tension on the gastroc muscle. If you can explain how knee constriction puts extra tension on the gastroc muscle, I will be intrigued, to say the least.


A true tourniquet will completely stop blood flow and feeling to the extremity well within 30 seconds of being applied. In most situations, stopping bleeding prevents amputation, but seeing as amputation is a better alternative to death by blood loss, the risk of amputation from lack of blood flow is still a good trade-off. A knee wrap is not going to cause amputation, so I'm going to assume you put that tidbit in there as a non-sequitur.

I've never lost feeling in my toes due to knee wraps.

Chris, Kyle told me that the wraps were the cause but maybe I got the wrong impression.

You're definitely increasing the pressure on the tissues. There is no question about it. You said they are constricting. What happens when you tie a belt around a balloon? The gastroc crosses the knee so what else is there to explain?

1/12

PSn 135x??
VJ with running approach, VJ walking approach, rudiment hops in all directions

Tried power snatches from the floor. First time doing this exercise and I was mainly feeling it out.

1/13

Bulgarian split squat to 80lbs DBs, missed 90s on left & to 110 DBs on right

This is pretty big. My injured leg is definitely stronger! I was having a lot of trouble balancing on my left leg though which is why I failed. Also I feel this way less in my gluteus Maximus than I used to years ago. On my right leg with 110s I felt a little pinch at the top of the hamstring where it ties in with the gluteus max so it seems like I'm still not extending with the right muscle. . . However failing that rep on my other leg felt like I was limited by my hamstrings... Felt really weird. Anyway this is an all time PR so even though it didn't feel great I can't be too unhappy.

And I could have done 120s+ but they didn't go that high. The 110s flew up.

Will wrote:

Chris, Kyle told me that the wraps were the cause but maybe I got the wrong impression.

You're definitely increasing the pressure on the tissues. There is no question about it. You said they are constricting. What happens when you tie a belt around a balloon? The gastroc crosses the knee so what else is there to explain?

Kyle can correct me if I am wrong but I believe the major contributing factor to his injury with the wraps was that he didn't have his calf flexed when he wrapped. Could be wrong.

I'm about in the middle on this. Will has to be somewhat right, a ton of pressure, tension, whatever, on any part of the body for an extended period of time can't be fantastic for any part of the body. I mean tell me it is fine all you want but Sam Byrd was pretty much crying when he had his knees wrapped at Capo.

The other side of the coin is what Chris said. Getting under the barbell in the first place comes with risk. Until people start blowing out their knees regularly because of wraps I'm willing to risk a couple months out of the year training with wraps to see a pretty considerable gain in my squat.

I've never paid much attention to my calves while wrapping. I will have to experiment with that the next time I wrap.


The point of this all is that knee wraps will not directly cause knee joint damage. The overall strain from lifting heavy things is, by far, the dominant factor in injuries in powerlifting.

Forgot to log some sprints across the short side of the turf at the tennis facility after the bulgarian split squats yesterday.

1/14
PC 215x?? (Or maybe 235??)
DL 425 (PR)

215 bothered my wrist so I stopped there. Prolly a good idea anyway because I know I would have shot my wad on the cleans and forgot all about the DLs. Took off the oly shoes and went barefoot for the DL. Didn't count up the weight until after 425 so I didn't know exactly what I was lifting. I prefer it like that. I think the problems I've had with the hip vs knee extension may be that I'm scared to lift the weight and I don't fully commit at the start to extending my hips. Unfortunately I don't have any video. It wasn't as slow as some of the last ones.

EDIT I think I may have cleaned 235 because warmed up doing 95, 145, 195, then I think I did 215, and 235 but I might be making that up... I had two pairs if iron change plates I feel like they must have been 10s

1/15
some 1LTOs
VJ with walking approach (PR)

1/16
PSn with 135
VJ with walking approach

. . .

PSn with 155
VJ with walking approach

Set PRs three days in a row: 1/13, 1/14, 1/15. Technically I set a PR power snatch today too. I'm pretty sure what I did yesterday is the highest I've jumped in that style of jumping. On my best effort I can walk up to the rim and put my whole hand over the rim with a bent elbow. Today I didn't jump too high the first time -- felt a little sick because I hadn't had anything to eat. Second time I jumped higher. The snatches are feeling better. I still don't have the movement down. A few of the reps felt really solid. I dropped 155 several times overhead and one or two of them scared me. Read about that crossfit coach who dropped a snatch on his spine. . . So, I need to be careful. I think the snatches do a good job potentiating the VJs though!

Someone is feeding me winstrol tabs at night -- what with these PRs and I felt characteristically dry this morning and my other knee hurt a little to bend. Palpated the lateral joint line and I felt some shit ive never noticed next to the petellar tendon and I could recreate the pain by pushing into the tendon, particularly through a range of motion. Drank a bunch of water idk if that helped but it pretty much went away by the end if the day. . . Donno what this is all about. . . God am I paranoid too

In for winny

Will wrote:

1/15
some 1LTOs
VJ with walking approach (PR)

1/16
PSn with 135
VJ with walking approach

. . .

PSn with 155
VJ with walking approach

Set PRs three days in a row: 1/13, 1/14, 1/15. Technically I set a PR power snatch today too. I'm pretty sure what I did yesterday is the highest I've jumped in that style of jumping. On my best effort I can walk up to the rim and put my whole hand over the rim with a bent elbow. Today I didn't jump too high the first time -- felt a little sick because I hadn't had anything to eat. Second time I jumped higher. The snatches are feeling better. I still don't have the movement down. A few of the reps felt really solid. I dropped 155 several times overhead and one or two of them scared me. Read about that crossfit coach who dropped a snatch on his spine. . . So, I need to be careful. I think the snatches do a good job potentiating the VJs though!

In my experience, it's always best to learn the Olympic lifts top down: power position, mid-thigh, above knee, below knee, floor. When I actually used to care about it, muscle snatches from mid-thigh worked the best at reinforcing form.

Yeah I think ill try that next time.

Fighting a virus or something... Felt horrible last night. Feeling a little better now. Just achey and loss of appetite no nausea.

Will wrote:

Someone is feeding me winstrol tabs at night -- what with these PRs and I felt characteristically dry this morning and my other knee hurt a little to bend. Palpated the lateral joint line and I felt some shit ive never noticed next to the petellar tendon and I could recreate the pain by pushing into the tendon, particularly through a range of motion. Drank a bunch of water idk if that helped but it pretty much went away by the end if the day. . . Donno what this is all about. . . God am I paranoid too

O man I'm with you on the dry feeling in the morning. The last few weeks has been terrible. So dry out. A humidifier helped. Or just containers of water on your heat registers. Helped me some, if that is the issue.

Looks like I have the flu but it could be worse. This is day 4 though so I'm getting impatient.

Seriously looking into renting a storage unit and building a gym in there. Some people are into cars I guess I like exercise equipment. Gonna sign up for a welding class in a couple weeks. I don't see why I can't make just about anything out of steel tubing. Pretty big project but I've been thinking about this for a long time.

That would likely be illegal, but I suppose it can't hurt to find out.

Can't imagine why that would be illegal. People actually run businesses out of storage units believe it or not so I don't know why I couldn't have some equipment in there.