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Straight legged Deads standing on 4 inch platform, 135x5,225x3, work sets 275x5,315x5,365x5 surpirsingly tough using the 5.3.1 wth these so we'll so how my deads feel at the end of the cycle.
Cable WIDE V bar rows, 260x10,280x10,300x10
Machine single arm rev fly, 90x12x4
Rope cable pullovers (shoulder extension) 90x15x4
All done for His Glory despite my weakness God still loves me. CT
Okay, this past weekend I was talking to Rick Brewer's "better half", Kris, at the HOP table at our meet. We were discussing the HOP Blogs. I told Kris that I don't post my old fart retirement workouts, because: 1)compared to my past sessions, they're pretty wimpy, and 2)no one cares about what an old man like me is doing now. My goal of the blogs was to take a different perspective of the strength world.
SO...........I get inspired by watching my kids this weekend lift at our HS PL meet. I decide on Monday (chest day) to do flat bb bench. I haven't done any type of flat benching in about five weeks, and with the way my old wrecked shoulders feel, I didn't think I'd be doing it period.
Off to the hardest of hardcore gyms, Metroflex of Arlington. Warmups were a little achy, but not bad. At first I planned on doing light sets of 10. I got past 225 for 8 reps and thought, "Hmmm, I wonder?". I told myself to just hit sets of 5 and see where it goes. Well, 275 didn't feel bad. Up to 315 I go.
Anyone who knows my past knows that I had to switch to reverse grip bench due to a pec injury. I decided that since I didn't have spotters and I wasn't going too heavy, I went with a pronated grip. This is the first time in awhile for that! 315x5x2 sets was really easy. I decided on a third set: 1...2...3...4...5...wow, it's light....6...7...8 and rack. Amazingly, my shoulders were a little tender at the top part of the lift, but not on fire. I wisely racked my weights (yes, even at Metroflex I rack them) and walked away in one piece.
One guy commented about a comeback. Not likely, but it crossed my mind for about a nanosecond. I never thought I'd be happy about doing 315 for reps, considering my past. But with the way my body feels, how PL has changed, and my fitness goals are different, there will be NO comeback. The temptation is strong, but to quote Frost "and miles to go before I sleep". Retirement is tough!
I say each to their own but my way is the right way!! LOL!!
We at RIP wrap knees my way and it seems to work. Many folks are content with just wrapping down and up. I am not and neither is RIP.
As a powerlifter I can tell you that I use gear to get bigger numbers. THAT'S IT! I don't use gear cuz it looks pretty and feels good. Cuz it don't!! Neither do I wear gear cuz it's so dang fashionable. I just don't see myself in Ace briefs and a Canvas suit being brought to the front of the line at the hottest club in Scottsdale, Arizona.
Knee wraps are gear. As such you want the most out of them that you can get. I don't care if it hurts, if it's ugly or anything else. All I care is that the way I wrap you get bigger numbers than you can any other way.
Since we are always going for PR's the wraps should reflect that goal. With that in mind here is my wrapping technique. I want you to know that I had to climb Mount Olympia and wrestle with the gods to get their secret knee wrapping technique BUT I'm willing to share it here for free. Stay Strong, J.R. Bolger
I get asked to wrap knees fairly often because I've garnered a reputation for being sadistic, which as everyone knows is what lifters look for in a good knee wrapper. It's perfectly okay to wrap your knees yourself, frankly I usually wrap my own unless I'm going heavy and need a little extra pain/support. Having a friend (or at least someone who doesn't smell) wrap your knees when you need them tight can save you a little energy for that big lift, and is well worth it. Because so many of the kids we coach feign incompetence when it comes to knee wraps, i've posted a quick clip of a good (but not the only) method of wrapping someone else's knees. As you can see in the video, the lifter (Molly) braces her foot against the thigh of the wrapper (Jesus), and flexes her quad which keeps her knee cap in place – getting a tight wrap over a floating knee cap sucks in the worst way. We start at the top of the knee, about one wrap width above the top of the knee cap, and the lifter holds the end of the wrap while the wrapper begins wrapping in middle increments around the knee to about one wrap width below, then comes back up. Middle increments means each revolution goes over the bottom 50% of the wrap above, and vice versa on the way up. At the top, we tie off with a simple bow, which will stay in place if done correctly due to the tension in the wrap – a good pull usually suffices. At the end of the lift, just tug on one end of the wrap and the wrap unravels itself. This method saves a lot of wasted time and energy fumbling with the end of the wrap both before and after the lift. Sometimes I fumble on purpose because I am, after all, somewhat sadistic, but if you like your training partners, this is a good way to go.
Over on my training blog, a poster asked me to explain the sets and reps in my favorite protocol, the Smolov. Here's my response...
You could pick up the late Dr. Siff's "Supertraining" and slog through that. Or you could get "Beyond Bodybuilding" and read Pavel Tsatsouline's extremely lucid dissection of periodization as it was originally meant in the world of Eastern white people. I reviewed BB years ago on Dragon Door's testimonial page and I stand by what I said then; the chapter on periodization alone is worth the price of the book. In short Smolov is an extremely condensed powerlifting cycle with "shock" amounts of volume and frequency. The total rep volume is mostly the same (36, 35, 35 and 30) and the arrangement of sets and reps shifts to reflect the increasing intensity (70%, 75%, 80% and 85%). Higher reps and lower sets with 70 and 75% (sets of 9 and 7 respectively) are outside of the usual strength/size zone of 4-6 reps, but those days are skewed toward muscle growth. The fact that Smolov is done by people who normally keep the reps under 5 makes the 9 and 7-rep days that much more effective because they're very different from business as usual. Lower reps and higher sets are skewed toward strength.
Smolov repeats the pattern with a fairly huge jump in week two and then a smaller jump in week three followed by a backoff. And guess what! Three weeks of escalating intensity and a backoff are standard operating procedure in a productive cycle. Jack Reape asserts this repeatedly in his discussion of the aforementioned "Supertraining." You can stretch this out to four or six weeks, especially if you distribute the load so you have built in easy days (hint: the Russian Squat Routine where every other training day waves down to the baseline 80%x2x6 through both the volume accumulation phase and the increasing intensity phase). But by and large, escalate in 3 and back off for 1 is a pretty reliable formula when using concentrated loading. In "Beyond Bodybuilding" Pavel explains why concentrated loading works so well, but also that doing lighter days (medium-light-heavy or RSR protocol) makes you stronger faster than distributed loading without lighter days. Hope this helps shed some light.
