The 1400 or Bust Log

Squats and fish oil?

Logan Joseph wrote:

Isn't there another MRI machine somewhere in Iowa City? Mercy Hospital? The Sports Med Clinic itself? Did you try calling sports med directly and explaining the situation with the meet? I bet if you were insistent about it and represented yourself as an Iowa athlete with a state competition coming up you would get in to be seen pretty quickly. Maybe they don't have an MRI there, but either way you'd probably benefit from seeing a proper sports med doctor asap.

The appointment I have is at sports medicine, actually; apparently, that was the first available appointment at a facility with a MRI.

But I'm going to call again and try to get on a cancellation list or something. Maybe something will open up.

It's feeling better this morning. I can actually walk now--kind of, at least. But yeah, it's way better than it was even 24 hours ago.

I should be good to go at the meet. No matter what happens, I'm still probably only going to take two squat attempts and not risk being unable to finish. But yeah, I feel a lot better about my status, as long as I continue to make good progress. I should even be good to go in and bench today.

That's good to hear. Hopefully it continues to improve.

Paused Bench Press
Barx20
95x8
135x5
185x1
225x1
255x1
280x1
305x1
185x15
185x15
185x15

Tricep Pushdowns w/ band, four sets



The difference in my leg is night and day from yesterday; I was feeling good enough to try benching today, and I honestly didn't anticipate that happening. I can get around pretty well now, and it seems like it improves by the hour. So, hopefully that continues.

Despite not having benched in six days, I felt pretty strong. I did a bunch of singles, working up to my opener and my second attempt, then did some longer paused sets with 185 just to get some extra volume in. Considering I missed Wednesday's bench session, I'll probably bench again on Tuesday, but I'll keep the intensity light and focus on just getting in some quality reps.

Overall, a good day. 305 moved pretty well, and I think 304 for a second attempt should be a given, unless I really screw something up.

Nathan Poage wrote:

brb; shaving the beard, keeping the mustache.

lol, makes sense then. Thanks for the explanation, raven.

Okay, here's a long-winded update on how the week has been going for me:

After my Thursday hospital visits, my leg started feeling a lot better. By Sunday, I was able to come in and do some light squatting. It was only 315x8x3, but it was better than nothing, and I was happy to get the work in.

My leg's continued to heal sense then. At this point, there is very little pain, and the point of trauma is no longer that sensitive to the touch. All in all, it's feeling quite good right now.

Now, there is still a very hard, quarter-sized lump on the back of my knee (at the top of the calf, actually, or where the two connect). Obviously, I don't like this. It feels fine squatting 315, but I have no idea how it's going to feel after I crank on some knee wraps and squat 500+. I'm *hoping* I can minimize the inflammation and make it through this meet, but if it locks up on me like last time, I'm done. It won't be a matter of choice--I just wasn't able to achieve full extension with my knee before, and so I don't know how I'd get a deadlift passed if that happens again.

My plan is to take only two attempts on the squat, and to warm up completely without wraps. Hopefully, I can keep it together, but I just don't know how this one will go. As I said in a recent vlog, my chances of finishing this meet out are probably 50/50. Regardless of what happens, I've got an MRI booked for the 22nd.

As far as my weight goes, that's going fairly well, though I'm not as light as usual. This morning, I was 153.2; last meet, I think I weighed about 150.8 at the same time in this process. So, this means I'll probably be cutting a few pounds this time. That's not a big deal, and the good news is that I'm still pretty close to my weight--it's just not going to be as pleasant an experience as it was last year. I'm hoping to wake up below 152 tomorrow morning, and I'll go and cut the last 2-3 lbs. before I teach at 11:30. Again, there's no reason to be alarmed; I had to make this drop from 160 when I started in this weight class, so by comparison, this won't be bad.

As far as the meet goes, I have planned and replanned this thing a million times over, and I pretty much have every conceivable scenario laid out:

For my squat, I'll be warming up sans wraps, then I'll be taking a 457-lb. opener. After that, I'll go 513 for my second attempt for a +12-lb. meet PR.

If I make 513, I'm 99% sure that I will scratch my third attempt. If I somehow feel GREAT and am REALLY confident in my leg, I might take a third.

If I miss 513, I very likely won't retake it. So, odds are I'll only be squatting twice.

On the bench, I'll open at 276 and go 304 for my second; 304 will be a +6-lb. meet PR. Those are basically set in stone. For my third attempt, I'll very likely attempt 309, especially if I've made 513. I *should* be in a position to hit this.

For deadlift, I'm opening at 518, and I'll almost certainly be pulling 573 for a second attempt. If I've hit everything up until this point (so, 513-309), I might be inclined to call for 579 for a second attempt; this would be very risky for me, but it would certainly make that pull easier than if I were to try it after 573. If I hit that, I'd likely scratch my third and call it a day. But if I go 573 for a second, I'm pretty certain 579 will be my third attempt.

So, that's how the meet will likely play out for me; at least, that's my plan. We'll see if I'm able to carry it out.

Overall, I feel good. I felt pretty sorry for myself yesterday, but I'm doing better now. I'm just going to do the best I can with this and see what comes of it. Mentally, I'm ready to go, and I'm not nervous or anything. Even if I have to drop out, it should be a fun weekend, and so I'm going to enjoy it.

Blah. I woke up at 150.8, so I'm going to go and cut the last two pounds right now.

The trick to working through an injury is to focus on the pain as much as you can. You should be thinking about nothing but the pain. Allow your mind to wander.

Srs, stay safe OP

So, some quick results from the meet:

I finished five-for-seven with a 446 lb. squat, 303 lb. bench, and 573 lb. deadlift for a 1322 lb. total. Obviously, this wasn't the meet I was hoping for; I was 78 lbs. away from my goal, and my total was down 33 lbs. from last meet.

On squat, my card was read at 202.5kg, not 207.5kg, so I ended up squatting 446 for an opener, not my intended 457--finding out my total was 1322 and not even 1333 was an especially nice kick in the balls. For some context, I did 445x6 in training not too long ago, and this weight is 85.7% of my training max for this past cycle. After watching the video, I looked a little slow with it, and I was favoring my right side; in short, it just didn't look right. My wraps felt fine on that attempt until the very end, but I was still optimistic I could get through the second squat. I called for 513, wrapped up for it, walked it out, and basically got buried by it. The weight felt like a million pounds in the hole and it crushed me. I stuck with my plan to take only two squats, and I basically set my sights on trying to set small PRs on the next two lifts in order to salvage the meet.

On bench, I opened at 276 and handled it well, but I couldn't adjust to the bench setup; I've become so accustomed to my bench setup at my gym that it's hard for me to make on-the-fly adjustments to different benches. Certain things I was doing in training--like pinching the bench with my thighs--wasn't really working well, and my feet were slipping. I took 303 for a second attempt and again handled it well, probably even better than I handled 305 the previous week in training. Since 1400 was gone, I went for an overall PR of 314 on the third and missed it an inch or two off my chest.

On my deadlift, I just couldn't generate a lot of speed off the floor. I pulled 518 for an easy opener, then took 573 and squeaked it out; I didn't leave much on the platform with my pull. I scratched my third because I knew I was done, and it wasn't worth taking another heavy attempt given how I was feeling. I tried to blame the bar later, but I'm pretty sure we used a deadlift bar and I just suck.

So, the positives are that I actually finished the meet and hit two small meet PRs. The negatives are that I ended up with a six-rep max for my best squat and missed my goal by 78 pounds. It's my first meet in which I've failed to hit a meet PR total, too.

Honestly, I'm pretty heartbroken over what happened the last month of training. I put a lot into this cycle, and to squat 446 after that is a tough pill to swallow. I mean, there was a time not too long ago when I squatted 390 for a set of five without knee wraps; then, things fell apart.

I just feel like I broke down physically in prep for this meet, and it affected my training and caused me to peak early and detrain while I tried to recover. I did the best I could and it didn't work out in my favor.

With all of that said, I have it in me to certainly push past 1355 come July, and that's what I intend to do. Over these next six months, I'm going to build back towards another run at 1400--in July, I'm going to have a good, successful meet, and I'm going to build on that success in October. I'm going to try and get healthy again, and I'm going to focus on my weaknesses. I don't know exactly what my training will look like just yet, but I'll make those decisions soon. I'm going to take a lot of the things I learned and did well from this training cycle and apply them moving forward, but I'm going to focus on getting healthy and being able to sustain my training better this time around. The shorter training cycle might end up being a blessing. For whatever reason, all three April meets (2011, 2012, and 2013) have been extremely shitty ones for me; last year, I went 5-for-9 with only a squat opener. So, maybe I just don't know how to get ready for a meet with a six-month layoff, and I always screw it up somehow.

I have been thinking about this and it might just be life's way of testing you to see how far are you willing to go and how bad do you want to get that 1400 total. Obviously, something as rare and as monumental as this will throw some difficult challenges at you. Many of us believe that you have it in you and we will see you do it soon enough. Until then keep lifting heavy, work hard, stay focused, and be safe OP

Well, I still beat Joe Morrow (by four pounds). And Tony Conyers is apparently not going 148 anymore (he was 165 again this weekend), so I'm probably going to back into the #1 spot in a few days. And being #1 will be cool, even if I suck currently.

Maybe you should listen to the Furnace for once and stop maxing in the gym.

Chris Anderson wrote:

Maybe you should listen to the Furnace for once and stop maxing in the gym.

No max-tests this entire training cycle.

There's no reason to do it anymore. I don't make fast enough progress to PR that quickly anymore, and I just end up wasting time.

So yes, I think I have finally learned my lesson.

Okay, so, I got my MRI results. My doctor told me that I have a "partially torn gastrocnemius" (for me, it's the top of the calf on the inside where it connects to the back of the knee) muscle. She told me I have two options: surgery, or physical therapy. She said that the surgery is usually not necessary, as these heal on their own most of the time. I told her I'd like to try therapy with sports medicine, so that's the current plan. I don't think this will limit me in training beyond not being able to use knee wraps for a while; I should still be able to squat and deadlift sometime soon. It's not a full tear, which is obviously good news.

Never max in training orrrr max every day?

KKeough wrote:

No max-tests this entire training cycle.

There's no reason to do it anymore. I don't make fast enough progress to PR that quickly anymore, and I just end up wasting time.

So yes, I think I have finally learned my lesson.

OP wil surely deliver



Also, as a note: working to an every day max =/= maxing everyday

Chris Anderson wrote:

OP wil surely deliver

I have said this all before--I think this time I mean it though. No more 1RM attempts, except at meets.

Inb4 weekly 20rm attempts

The first day of my two-week "introductory" mesocycle:

Deadlift
135x3
135x3
225x3
315x3
405x2
440x4
440x4
440x4
460x3
460x3
460x3

2.5" Block Pulls
285x10
285x10
285x10

Seated GHRs
155x12
155x12
155x12

the j wong

pls respond

inb4 Kyle is already on the Misc.

Ugh. Here I am, trying to hide from the world because I'm mad cuz bad...

Yeah, I heard about this from my other forum. I don't know why somebody's bringing me up on there along with Vashon Perryman and Dan Austin. For the record, "one of the world's strongest 148-lb. powerlifters" is not a self-designation.

Anyway, I guess it's nice that people know I exist. I'm still resisting the temptation to join BB.com. I already feel like enough of a whore.

And how is Jordon Wong so good at benching now?