Beyond 1400: Kyle's Road to RUM VIII

Box Squats
315x3
345x3
365x3
385x3
405x2 (failed third)

Paused Bench Press w/ pinkies on rings
240x8x5

Notes: I had this session on Friday, at the end of my first work week. Overall, training on this period has been fine, and I've settled into my new town pretty well. For the box squats, I dropped the bands in preparation for returning to regular 'ol back squatting, and I opted for the same progression style, except without a RPE cap. I thought these would be a bit easier--I failed the third rep on my last set--but in all honesty the numbers would still be good even if it were a back squat session, and I should be box squatting a good deal less than that.

Otherwise, benching was 'meh'. It was a long and pretty taxing session, so I won't read too much into it. The numbers for my bench progression are still good, and I've let myself relax and reintroduce more calories into my diet this week to try to jump-start my bench training.

Paused Bench Press, competition grip
260x10
260x5x4

Incline Press
175x5x2

Notes: Good paused bench session--260x10 is a PR. These don't feel super strong compared to where I was six weeks ago, but I'm still in good shape. It's starting to come around now, at least.

I also experimented with some heels-up benching; that's something I hope to practice over the coming weeks. Hopefully I can increase my mobility and get better and better at it as time goes on. I am starting to realize that it'll likely be the most efficient approach for me moving forward.

Reverse-Band Deadlifts
115 lbs. at bottom, ~0 at top
410x1
460x1
500x1
550x1
590x1
640x1x2
655x1

Thoracic Extensions w/ chains, three sets

Squat Belt Hip Walks, two sets

Face Pulls w/ mini-band, two sets

Notes: Possibly my best deadlift session in a long-ass time. I was really surprised by just how strong my lockout felt on all of these. I feel like dogshit around my knees, but the lockouts feel quite solid nowadays. The top pull was about 540 off the floor, 655 at the top, and I definitely felt like I was capable of more afterwards. Very weird training day to be honest--maybe our training is actually working.

Relevant:

Long ass-time.

I apparently haven't logged for the last ten days, so I need to do a lot of catch-up. I'll just summarize the week and a half, as well as the training for my three lifts:

First, general cribs:

- Bodyweight's down to 156, so I'm going to try and stop losing weight now.

- After last week's UPA meet, the itch to compete again is real, and it is bad. I'm trying desperately not to scratch.

- Work and other stuff has left me busy, but in a way, it's been good for training--I've been settling into a more moderate five-day-a-week schedule and have allowed my body to heal up. It's nice not training while constantly in pain.

- I relaxed my diet for two days at the UPA meet, and frankly, it was a good call, because I've been dropping weight and turning into a 132.

- Finally, the UPA meet was awesome: tons of awesome lifting all around. A few world records were broken, and from my stable of lifters, I had two competing. Grant totaled 1205 at 181 with a PR squat (451) and deadlift (501), but struggled badly on the bench press. The meet had some positives, but we also need to make a lot of positive changes. Jake totaled 1598 at 181 with PRs on every lift (562-387-650). Both competed unwrapped, and for Jake, his total takes him up to #5 in the country and qualifies him for RUM VIII. Those two will both continue to progress nicely under my "expert" (lol) tutelage. Congrats, guys!

For the lifts themselves:

Squat: I finished my box-squat two-week mesocycle by squatting a 420-lb. single. The attempt itself was fine, and I have felt less achy and beat up with each session. A few days ago, I worked up to 375x5 and physically felt the best I have in a couple of months. I didn't feel very strong out of the hole, so I'll re-orient my training to do more bottom-position work, but the good news is that I'm feeling healthy after the brutal squatting/deadlifting schedule has run its course.

Bench press: This is finally clicking again. I had a nice PR--260x10 paused--plus I've handled the work better with each week. I'm closing out the third week of a four-week intro. phase, and for the first time since it happened, I'm feeling about as strong as when I benched 340. The intro. phase has helped me rebound nicely.

Deadlift: Well, this is going fantastic. I finished my first macrocycle (six months' long!) with a 655-lb. reverse band deadlift and a 680-lb. miss. The successful single was about 540 at the bottom and 655 at the top. I'm feeling "back" at this point, and I'm hoping we can break new ground and forge ahead with this new macrocycle. It's been over a year since I pulled six, and frankly, I am going to need to be pulling ~650 before I can get to where I ultimately want to be. That won't happen anytime soon, but I feel confident that I can go into a meet right now and put a good amount on last RUM's deadlift number.

I've begun the new macro now, and 315x8x5 was the order of business for 1.5" deficit pulls. These felt like speed work; it was probably the first time that's been the case in the last five months!

We missed you on here, Op.

Thanks Andy--I'm just acclimating to being busy again for the first time in a few years. I'll be back here on the regular soon enough.

Need to compete? Help me squeeze into a shirt at the state fair. Geared lifting is a team effort, ya know.

We will be eagerly awaiting your (regular) return. Until then, it's good to hear your new busy lifestyle is treating you, as well as your training, well.

You know what real strength is? Going to a meet weekend and resisting the urge to compete.


Real Strength:



Not Real Strength:

hnnnnng dem hoodies

I cheated on my diet all weekend though, true story.

Chris Anderson wrote:

Need to compete? Help me squeeze into a shirt at the state fair. Geared lifting is a team effort, ya know.

If we end up with the day off, I'll be there. What day is the powerlifting?

I dunno lol

I'll be buying a single ply shirt and deadlift suit after AT though. If I get through my cycle and feel as though I don't have a realistic shot at RUM, I'll start looking at a meet to do in gear. You can baby powder me up

Quote :

Chris Anderson wrote:
Need to compete? Help me squeeze into a shirt at the state fair. Geared lifting is a team effort, ya know.

If we end up with the day off, I'll be there. What day is the powerlifting?

Saturday August 16th. Starts at 9 a.m. I believe.

DDaddyKane wrote:

Quote :

Chris Anderson wrote:
Need to compete? Help me squeeze into a shirt at the state fair. Geared lifting is a team effort, ya know.

If we end up with the day off, I'll be there. What day is the powerlifting?

Saturday August 16th. Starts at 9 a.m. I believe.

There's a 50/50 chance, then.   

Paused Bench Press
270x6x5

Paused Beltless Squats
340x5
285x5x3

Notes: As expected, this was an intense training session; 270x6x5 was pretty tough, but not impossible, and I think I can handle next week's 275x6x5. The paused beltless squats tested out surprisingly well, and I will get a lot better at these after I have more practice. I'm looking forward to training these consistently over a couple of months and seeing how they help.

I've been doing paused squats recently, but mainly in an effort to keep my back from getting re-injured right now. One thing I am finding though is that they do help me get into a better position for coming out of the hole.

Andy Awad wrote:

I've been doing paused squats recently, but mainly in an effort to keep my back from getting re-injured right now.  One thing I am finding though is that they do help me get into a better position for coming out of the hole.

Same here--my technique's a bit better with them. Back when I last trained them, paused beltless squats were the closest I ever came to looking like I knew what I was doing.

Romanian Deadlifts
275x8x5

Standing Crunches w/ band, three sets

Thoracic Extensions w/ chains, two sets

Pull-ups, three sets

Some heels-up bench technique/mobility work.

Notes: RDLs were very easy today. I just worked on trying to get the technique down and move these as fast as possible. I'm starting to feel more explosive again after being slow as molasses for the last few months. I'm thinking (and hoping) that we can progress at a reasonably fast pace with these. I tried to make them look easy so that we push the weight progression. Unfortunately, I couldn't figure out how to showboat a RDL. Next time, I guess. If anyone knows how to do this thing and can advise, I am all ears.

Because I've been pretty busy lately, I might just be stuck doing log recaps once per week, at least for the time being. Anyway, I'll try to be pretty comprehensive here in everything I talk about:

Squat: This week has been...interesting. I'm just coming off a multi-week box-squat cycle, which I ran basically by necessity, because I was physically unable to do much else. Since then, I've tried back squatting and doing some paused beltless squats, but I can't get any traction going in my training simply because I keep managing to hurt myself. My sacrum feels great now, but my knee is gimpy from one stinking set of tempo squats. Squatting unwrapped hurts pretty good, but squatting in wraps is painless.

So, I trained unwrapped for the beginning of the week and got up to 395x3, which was much harder than it should have been. I definitely feel weak coming out of the hole, but my numbers aren't too bad considering how lousy my recent training has been. Today, I decided to switch to training in wraps, and I hit a three-rep PR of 470x3. The reps themselves weren't too hard, but again, I'm making them much harder than they have to be by not dropping into the hole. I'm also not hitting the depth that I'd like to hit, so I need to work harder on that in the future.

I don't have any clue how I'm going to program my squat moving forward, but I feel pretty confident that I could at least squat within 10-15 lbs. of what I hit at RUM. I felt much better squatting wrapped in the Oly shoes today, and I can tell that with some practice, my ceiling will increase. I've kind of got 550 in my head as a sort-of-optimistic goal for the 2015 RUM, but I really need to get it together and start stringing together good consecutive training sessions before that can happen. Considering how bad of a squatter I am, that would be a nice achievement.

Finally, I didn't squat 440 on my birthday, as I had hoped. It just wasn't in the cards, and I wasn't going to risk getting hurt for a PR at this point. Based on recent training, it was going to be a real struggle anyway. I think with some better luck, I can get there soon, but I'm not about to chance it now.

Bench Press: This went OK, too. Earlier in the week, I benched 255x8x4 with my pinkies on the rings; I wanted five sets, but the fourth was too tough. I knew this was going to be a very difficult session, so I wasn't disappointed in cutting it short--on the contrary, I feel like my bench press has come around pretty nicely this month.

Today, I benched 275x8 for a cheap paused bench PR, then called it a day. It's time for me to take off a week from benching and start planning a new mesocycle--soon I'll be back to benching twice-weekly and doing some more supra-max training. This is probably the first time I've felt as strong as when I benched 340, so that's very encouraging.

Deadlift: Earlier in the week, I pulled 335x10x2 and 335x15 from a 1.5" deficit. All that work was very easy, and the hardest part was just dealing with the cardio. I'm really going to try and push my work capacity a bit during these formative months, because I think I have a lot of growing to do as a deadlifter over the next six months.

Interestingly, I almost feel stronger pulling off the deficit--I get tighter at bottom and feel like I get more leg drive. I can also tell that the Oly-shoe squatting has helped increase my leg drive on my deadlifts; once the bar gets past my knees, I can feel myself "squatting" it up a bit more, as opposed to just "hinging" my lockout.

Overall, quite a good training week. Here's training on my birthday:

I really have to work on figuring out how to log more than once a week. I will try to do better in the future. Here's the weekly recap:

Squat: this actually went very well. Paused beltless squats went up to 325x7 for a top set this week, and I hit three drop sets afterwards. I can tell my conditioning is terrible, as I can't sustain performance even at a 10% load drop. I logged 60 NBL this week and that's probably the most for me in quite a while.

For wrapped squatting, I hit 350x6, 390x6, and 430x7 for a modest PR. 430x7 isn't anything too special, but at least I'm on pace with where I was at for RUM, which is pretty shocking considering how unlucky I've been in my training these last six months. I like how my technique looks on these top sets, but getting back in the wraps has shown me that I have issues that need fixing; mainly, it's my depth. I'm confident I'll make improvements though.

I'm going to take Kevin's advice and do as much wrapped work as my legs can handle for these six weeks--I think he's right, in that I should see good neural gains from a bout of sport-specific training. I'll probably use "light wrapped" squatting as my second day once I get further into my training cycle. I also think he's right about my training not being too aggressive for a short macrocycle--a 530-lb. attempt in six weeks might not end up making any sense. I'm just going to go week-by-week and end this macro with a high-intensity single, but I'm also going to try and be more willing to adjust in relation to performance, not number-chase for the sake of it.

Bench Press: I finished a deload and started my first week of a supra-max phase. I hit 275x12 and 250x12x2 with a slingshot, and my conditioning was surprisingly poor on these as well. The top set goal was 12, so I was OK with that, but it wasn't spectacular. I'm still very happy with how I closed out last cycle, and I'll find my groove again in a session or two.

Deadlift: RDLs and deficits are being ramped up very aggressively now. I did 305x8x5 on RDLS and 365x8x5 on deficits without any difficulty. At this point, this still feels like speed work. It sounds like we're extending this meso another week so that I can really accumulate volume, which I'm all in favor of, because so far it really hasn't been taxing at all. That should change soon, so I'm excited for the challenge.

Paused Bench Press
280x5
225x8x4

Bamboo Bar Bench
Three sets

Dumbbell Press at Incline
70x12x2

Bent-Over Rows
135x15x3

Notes: I'll try to give the cribs:

Since moving to Des Moines, I've been dealing with being somebody who does powerlifting as a hobby, not as their life. As a result, it's been a hard adjustment. Most days, I haven't had any interest in training; as a result, my training has been inconsistent. All things considered, my strength really isn't in bad shape right now, but it has taken me a long time to be invested in training again.

I did some soul-searching over the last week and am back on board in a big way. I've made some new plans for the future and am feeling much better about what I have ahead of me now. Otherwise, bench training went fine--I really focused on strict technique and everything felt heavy as hell. For where I'm at in this training cycle, that's probably what's necessary.

HE LIVES!

Keosawa wrote:

Bamboo Bar Bench
Three sets

WAT. So jelly they have one there. I'm incorporating just banding some weights on the bar like Poage does to try to get a similar effect.

Keosawa wrote:

I did some soul-searching over the last week and am back on board in a big way. I've made some new plans for the future and am feeling much better about what I have ahead of me now. Otherwise, bench training went fine--I really focused on strict technique and everything felt heavy as hell. For where I'm at in this training cycle, that's probably what's necessary.

This was a huge change for you and Janis, so I can totally see how it would take some time to adjust. Glad you're getting ready to tackle it, and have a bright outlook. You have some SOLID benchers over at 22nd to help your training, and your squat has been looking good (hope the knee is improving). Keep us all posted on your continued progress with any new progress pics or vid clips. Show us what you got mane.