may 23, 2013 lifts || new squat 3 RM 250 lbs

I never feel like my squat is progressing.  But it is.  I am full of shit.  Today my warm ups felt so ridiculously silly easy, and I had enough confidence to jump from 215 lb to 235 lb without freaking out.  235 lb x 3 was only moderately difficult, so I knew I had 250 lb for 3 in the bag.  

And just to prove to you that I am getting better at shit, I am going to show you a few videos.

(1) February 2012, failing 208 lbs
(2) July 2012, new 245 lb 1 RM
(3) Today, new 250 lb 3 RM

Yeah, so it took me a year to add a few reps onto my former 1 RM, whereas from Feb to July in the same year I added a solid 50 pounds to my squat.  I miss those days, but If my progression continues like it is now, next summer I’ll be doing 270 lb x 3, and maybe I’ll get a new 1 RM of 285 lb or 290 lbs.  And maybe the year after that I can do 285 lb x 3.  This might seem slow, but I’ll get there.  You bet your ass I’ll get there.  And you know what?  Maybe in the mean time I’ll find a progression that really works superbly and I’ll get an unexpected jump.  Or maybe I’ll stop getting injured and consistency will rule out.  Who knows.  I look forward to finding out.

After these heavier squats today I did paused triples at 175 lbs for five sets.  Those are hard, but they might be one of the best squat-type assistances for my deadlift.  Generating power in the bottom seems to be an issue for me, so forcing myself to work on it in squats I can imagine will carry over to my deadlift, sumo or conventional.

And my leg is still a little numb but it seems I can still squat hahahaha.

Cable rows followed, and I added more weight in my +5 lbs progression to 110 lbs, which was pretty hard but do-able.  I’m cable rowing and pendlay rowing the “same” amount, which is cute.  

Anyways, I need to work.  I leave for Portland on Saturday and I have a day between that and my conference trip to Greece.  Freakin’ out, man. I’m going to have the fucking time of my life, but all this travelling makes me antsy.  I’ll breathe a sigh of relief once I get in bed for the first night in Rhodes.  At that time the travelling will be over and I can begin a few days of island paradise vacation before meeting a whole shit load of awesome astronomers.

“you’re fine”

I went to a doctor today, basically to get a PT referral, and he told me (about as eloquently) that unless I’m pissing myself or limping I shouldn’t worry about it.  And wouldn’t give me a referral.  Cool story, bro.  Since I suspect in some back-asswords way it’s related to my back, I might be able to just get a follow-up appointment with my PT for whom I already have a referral and wouldn’t need to waste more time, or try to see a physiotherapist while I’m in Portland because the probability of finding one there next week is better than trying to find one here.  We’ll see.

may 19, 2013 lifts || this shit again, seriously?

Watch this video, where, during a conventional deadlift set up at a paltry 80 kg, my left hip pops (not painful, just a little noisy) and my anterior left thigh, starting a few inches below my hip and ending an inch or so above my knee, goes partially numb — partially, as I approximate about 20% loss of sensation overall.  I didn’t begin the pull.  I was getting in position.  I could have been doing the fucking laundry.  I don’t have trouble walking, normally or up or down stairs, and I don’t think I’ve lost much strength.  My back also doesn’t hurt, but it was talking to me a wee bit during these pulls (as it usually does).

I don’t know if I should see anyone (i.e. doctor) because (1) I have no pain, and (2) the loss of sensation is very minor.  They might just be like “aight don’t lift for 10489 years.”  It’s no worse than I feel when my right foot sometimes goes numb if I sit in a weird position for a few minutes.  It sounds like the lateral cutaneous nerve is the culprit, and I either pinched it/bothered it somehow in my hip or the problem is more nefarious beginning in my lumbar.  I don’t feel numbness around my lower back, but I’m not sure if I would.  Either wouldn’t surprise me, but I’m leaning towards the former simply because the symptoms began with the hip pop.

God damnit.  I try to be all careful and shit and I fuck myself up anyway.  These pulls also felt fucking easy and I’d be able to monster a lot more weight if this shit didn’t happen.  I hope this is nothing and I can just keep mobile to let the nerve or whatever the fuck heal.

Anyways, I also benched on cycle 1 week 8 of running gzcl’s program in safe mode, and I’m deloading this week.  I worked up to an easy 35 kg 3x7.  No big, yawn.  I’ll probably skip close gripping to give my shoulder a little breather.

may 16, 2013 lifts || in which I PR the shit outta my close grip bench

When I began benching with a close grip on my 2nd bench day of the week about 6 weeks ago to get my triceps up to snuff, I didn’t expect to make quick progress.  I’m not quite where I am with regular grip, and perhaps all of this personal best business is a result of muscle memory, but fuck it.  I wanted to try a single for close grip at 47.5 kg before completing my tier 1 work at a lower weight and just went nuts with it, doing two when the first felt great.  I managed to do three sets of two, utilizing a helpful spotter for the second set because paranoia.  I was confident enough to not even bother on the third.  For what it’s worth, 47.5 kg was my second bench attempt at Ozark at the end of March.  FUCK YEAH.

This is approximately my 7th week on the same bench cycle, c1w7d2 (I’m still in shoulder testing mode, get off my balls) so I think I’m approaching the ability to do monthly increases.  I’ve known I probably can for a few weeks but the hell if I’m going to regress the amazing progress I’ve made with my shoulder tendinitis for my ego.  Fuck my ego.

Today I also learned the magic of filming angles — that, and my new phone can fucking film up to 1920x1080.  A phone.  A fucking phone.  It can also edit videos.  Fo free.  Pepper your angus for an unusually high number of lifting videos from me as I come down from my new toy amazement.

Anyway, here’s set 1/3 at 47.5 kg.

Afterwards I squatted lightly, working up to 145 lb 3x8, since my knee has been talking to me a bit more since trying different toe angles on Tuesday. I kept these reps strict as a motherfucker and had zero pain for any of the sets.  I might just need to walk more; my knees are likely getting stiff sitting as my desk all fucking day.

I leave for Portland, OR in about a week, and I have a day of cushion between that trip and a conference in Rhodes, Greece.  I’ma be lifting all over the world in June.

may 14, 2013 lifts || squat toe angle

So I lifted on May 11th and 12th this weekend but it was a bad weekend.  I had a great bench day on Sunday (47.5 kg x 5 regular grip no probs, huzzah) but other than that, no.  I still can’t get anything over 115 kg off the floor.  Not even by a 2.5 kg margin.  Since fucking October or some shit.  Who can’t add 5 pounds to their deadlift in 6 months?  NO ONE.  FML.  To add onto this list of #firstworldproblems, I didn’t get the graduate consortium fellowship I wanted/needed, my night guard/day piece for my fucked up jaw straight-up doesn’t fit and makes my teeth pretty miserable, and I haven’t gotten more than 5 hours of straight sleep in a good week.  I wake up after like 4 hours.  I just wake up.

Today was considerably better, especially since (1) I took a whole fuckload of melatonin last night, (2) squat day, and (3) my gym sister bugs ‘n iron suggested I check out changing my foot pointing after she read through some of the leopard mobility book (my memory is rock solid) and consulted with her very strong hubster.  Instead of maintaining a significant toe angle, of almost 30 degrees if my eye serves me correctly, I moved them more parallel today, maybe to around 10 degrees.  I need to read more about it before I can explain the whys, but I plan to continue to test this in the future so I’m sure this is the first of many posts about my considerable toe angle.  Below are two videos with different toe angles at approximately the same width and weight (wide, 215 lbs today, 204 lbs older).  I wouldn’t say I see a huge difference but that I seem more stable with my feet more forward.  What do you think?

Today, 215 lb x 3, more narrow toe angle:

May 9th, 204 lb x 3, usual 30 toes out toe angle (skip to 2m6s):