November Dry Run: 90% 6.29.13

Not bad for deciding to do it on Wednesday and on little rest.  These are all numbers I feel that I can hit any day of the week except for maybe the front squat.  Blacking out is still a concern.  The last three lifts are going to be tough to do one after the other.  When you think about it it's 150 more pounds that I need to lift but I feel I'm in a good position to hit all of them.

Mid Septemberish I'll transition to a max strength cycle which should really bring these numbers up.  Until then I'm going to keep building the base.  Keeping things fast and lots of volume.

Have a great weekend everyone.

Captain's Log: Friday Night Hi-Lites 6.28.13

Friday

Thursday

Last two day weren't too bad.

On Thursday I snatched for the first time in a while.  I was happy that I could hang snatch 176.  The 205 press ties my PR.  Push presses felt weird since I haven't done them in a coon's age.  Then I released my inner shrug thug.

Friday I took I kept my volume low but my intensity stayed high.  I can usually recover well from low volume regardless of weight used.  It's the volume that can catch up with me.  I really need to figure out this whole bar-crushing-my-jugular-causing-me-to-almost-pass-out-thing.  I think I just need to do more Pec-Flexor 3000 so that I can put the bar on my upper pecs instead of my neck.  A la coach McGuirk.



Big Rig and Jesse.  Classic.

Captain's Log: Hump Day = Dead Lifts 6.26.13

Don't know why this is rotated.  Ansel Adams I am not.

HUMP DAY!  Nothing better on a hump day than some exercise that helps build up the lovely lady lumps.  I seriously sometimes don't know what I'm going to do with all this ass, all this ass inside my jeans.  

I'm really liking a certain car insurance company's commercials.  The one with the camel is hilarious.  Even though this blog has a very limited reach I have a thing about not doing a companies advertising for them so I'm not going to post the commercial.  You'll just have to look it up for yourself.

Dead Lifts went pretty well.  As you can see Stranglehold was on for my last three sets.  This made them exponentially easier.  Stranglehold is, in my opinion, the standard that all workout songs should be judged against.  That song can pump anyone up, unless they are dead or like crappy music.  It should also be in every action movie from now until forever.  You could set an old lady quilting session to Stranglehold and I'd watch it and probably come away thinking quilting is pretty kick ass.  In all it's glory:

In other news, it's time to shave my callouses.  I shaved my playoff beard, which was spectacular, and now it's time for these suckers to go.  And that's just sweat on the pinky callous.  Although tearing callouses hurts down to your soul.  Hence why they need to GTFO.

Captain's Log: Double Dipping 6.25.13

Monday

Tuesday

Both days were 80% sessions.  I hit the numbers I wanted to hit.  Still in base building mode so there isn't a whole lot to write about.  I'm feeling good doing this.  I'm not really maxing out ever.  This keeps me fresh for a higher frequency (sessions/week) and I never really have to deload.  I hate deload weeks with the fury of a thousand suns so this is a good thing.

This Saturday I think I'm going to take a dry run on Birthday Challenge #1.  I'm going to hit 90% for all the lifts.  It'll break down like this:

Press: 180 x 1
Bench: 270 x 1
Front Squat: 360 x 1
Back Squat: 450 x 1
Dead Lift: 540 x 1

I literally just decided this as I'm writing it.  But now that it's on the internet for the world to see I can't back down.  I can only man up and bring the heat.

Captain's Log: Anterior Deep Knee Bends 6.21.13

Another decent session.  I entertained trying 365 for a single but thought the better of it.  The 400 lber I'm going to try to hit in November is probably going to be the one I'm the least confident in.  I think the biggest challenge is going to be to not pass out with 400 pounds across my jugular.  We shall see though.

Going Up North for the weekend.  Going to be off the grid.  But I'll still have indoor plumbing.  So there's that.

Captain's Log: Pressing 6.20.13

Presses felt better than they have in a while.  I think a lot of my getting stronger in the press has to do with my middle (core) getting stronger.  The stronger the core you have the better platform you have to press from.  As the saying goes; You can't fire a cannon from a rowboat.

Captain's Log: The Deadliest of the Lifts 6.19.18

Fun Fact: Dead lifts get their name from Roman times when soldier were instructed to lift dead bodies off of the battle field in the same manner as we lift barbell off of a platform today.

The cleaning portion of today's lift was very lackluster.  Felt no pop in my legs. Got the reps done though.

Dead lifts are going to be a wild card come November.  Whether or not I get the 600 pounder is going to depend largely on how well the other lifts go.  If I have to grind a few of the lifts before it 600 is going to be a tall order.  The 500 x 29 I'm confident on.  Just going to have to take my time.

Captain's Log: Benchings 6.18.13

Pretty decent day.  Did a double.  The morning stuff took me about 20 minutes and is just a few areas I'd like to see some localized hypertrophy and I don't care what you think of my vanity.

The last couple ramp up sets on bench were grinders.  As you can see I am already at my goal for November.  The next couple of months I'm not going to venture any higher than 305.  I will be doing more volume at 245 and above and really working on my speed off my chest.

As far as the rest of the lift goes (snatch grip high pulls included), I'm hard pressed to find a better feeling than a massive upper back pump.  Of course there is the embrace of a woman fair and true and the ears of the dog that loves you- both of which I'm a lucky man to have- but having a huge back is pretty damn close.

Captain's Log: Squat 6.17.13

I have the hand writing of a small child.  I've known this since I was young.  Seriously, I used to get D's in penmanship in grade school.

New experiment.  Instead of trying to remember what I did I'm going to write it on the whiteboard and just take a picture of it.  Sounds good to me.

Squat is feeling OK lately.  Being that I lift alone and squat outside of my rack I only take weights that I'm damn sure I'll be able to hit.  That's fine with me though as hitting heavy singles at 90%+ is not a fun way to live.  I like keeping my top single the same for a while so that I can judge it on how well it is moving.  I also think the bottoms up partials (squat that starts resting on the pins) are going to help a lot.  It'll give me confidence with heavier weights and because it's just partials doesn't tear me up too bad.

I've also added some weightlifting back in.  Surprisingly after about two months away from them they feel fast and my technique hasn't gone to shit.  I was pleasantly surprised when I was able to power (hips didn't drop below my knees on the catch) clean the 262.  A win is a win.

As far as my November goal of a 500 back squat I feel I'm well on my way.  With spotters and the intensity of the moment I have no doubt I'll be able to hit it and possible more when the time comes.

Jumping Back In the Blog Game

It happened again.  Miss a post here and there and all of a sudden I haven't written anything in two months.  No excuses this time.  I just got lazy.  But no more.  Let's catch up with what's been going on with nice itemized list of bullet points.

• The Crushatorium Family has been growing steadily and has been rocking serious ass.  Here's a few stories of some client's recent success.
• One of my clients turned 30 on Sunday.  On Saturday she came by for a workout and gave me an envelope with a card and a restaurant gift certificate.  I asked her what it was for and she responded, "Every year for my birthday I give a gift to someone who in the past year has inspired me or positively influenced my life and this year you were the winner."  That made me feel really damn good.  Hearing that is reason numero uno why I love my job.
• Another client came to me six weeks ago needing help fitting into her bridesmaid's dress.  We went 5 days per week for about 45 minutes each time.  We did a full warm up, some kettlebell complexes, usually 1-2 heavyish lifts and then some conditioning.  I told her that her nutrition was going to be the big factor in her success and she took it on full bore.  But smooth sailing it was not.  At week 4 she got nervous and took her dress to a seamstress.  And I'll be damned but when she tried it on that thing zipped right up.  BOOM.  Now if someone were to only listen to our sessions they would say. "Wow, she really complained a lot and tried to talk herself out of things.  And you guys talk about dogs a lot."  And I would say, "Yeah, but in the end she always busted ass, did what I asked her to do and was better for it.  And you got a problem with dogs, hombre?"  So anyways, I was at the wedding that she needed to fit the dress for and her and I both got compliments for her success.  But I tell everyone the same thing.  My job is easy.  I stand there and tell you what to do.  It was always up to her whether she did it or not.  Any praise belongs to her.  But it's still nice to hear!

• My training has been going well.  I'm not injured, I'm slowly and steadily getting stronger, and I've been staying pretty much the same body comp without really limiting myself.  My goals are still the same for the Birthday Week Liftageddon in early November.  Session 1: 200 lb over head press, 300 lb bench press, 400 lb front squat, 500 pound back squat, 600 lb dead lift.  Session 2: Martin Rooney's Mantathalon.  Session 3: Dead lift 500 lbs 29 times.  I'll detail where I'm at with these in future posts.

• This is something that made me feel smart.  On Saturday my training session paired 225 bench presses with 405 dead lifts.  The sets went 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8.  If you add up all the sets it comes out to 36 reps.  While I was resting between sets I somehow figured out the formula to quickly get the total number or reps for equations like that.  I do those types of workouts a lot with my clients so it's nice to know.  We'll go with a random number like 11.  Take 11 and multiply it by its half (11x5.5=60.5).  Then you add that half on to the end ((11x5.5)+5.5=66).  You end up with 66.  It works for all the numbers I tried so it must be true and in all honesty I wouldn't have written this post if I hadn't figured it out.  I just wanted to show the world that one can be an athlete and a mathlete.  Now if you want to know what something like 8+9+10+11+12+13+14+15 is, well you're shit out of luck unless you figure what 15 is and then subtract what 8 is.  Duh.

That's it for now.  Future posts coming with some much better material than this.  Thanks for reading.