Tuesday, March 13, 2012

Thoughts about life, crap, training, and stuff

Jesus Christ, this time change has kicked my ass!  I feel like I've been on a 4 day bender.  Tired as fuck and sluggish as hell.  Why don't they just leave it the fuck alone?  I hate the winter change when it gets dark after lunch.  That shit is dumb.  This shit where you can get the party started at 9 P.M. and the sun is still out rocks.

I remember the summer I spent in Oregon, shit it doesn't get dark there in the summer until like 2 in the morning. I'm exaggerating, but it I remember it seeming even later than usual when dusk would hit.

Peyton Manning is a slut.

My leg is infinitely better.  I have been stretching my piriformis every half hour.  I figured a few things out.

My right quad is not firing just right.  Seems to be my vastus medialis.  I know this because I can flex my left one hard, and my right one, well, not so hard.  This was reinforced on the 1 leg leg-extension when I could barely get 15 reps with a weight I was repping easily with my left leg.  But the piriformis is the real culprit here.  So I've been after that puppy with a purpose.

However, I doubt I will squat more than 500 before this meet.  I'm going to go light this coming weekend, then I am going to stick with 500 or so and do 455xAMAP for three weeks in a row.  My goal is to hit 15+.  If I can get to 455x15-20 I feel like 650 will be doable.  It's not the best of plans but anything much over 500 right now gives me tremendous pain.  So I'm going to do what I can in terms of rest and squatting to give myself a good shot at the 650.  I want it really bad, and I'm pretty sure 455x15-20 will put me there.  When I was good for well over 600 I think my best then was 455x12.  455x20 is SURELY 650 for me.  So I'll shoot for 15, which I think is realistic, but if the 20 comes, so be it.  If 455 for reps hurts it, I will figure something else out.  I will be doing some walk outs each week with 650-675 to make sure I have that feeling of heavy weight on my back.

Working hard on the book.  Over 100 pages now.

I received a shirt from professional penis pumper Jim Wendler this week.  Jim needs no god damn plugs or advertisement from me, so this is just a big thanks to J-Dub for being a friend and all the supportive he's given me for several years now.  I also realized after I looked at this pic, how much my back and traps have grown since I had the pic at the top of the blog taken.  In case you haven't been paying attention, the last three+ months were all geared towards trap and back training.  I think it worked.  I'm doing a whole chapter on bodypart specialization in the book.  I have really figured this shit out, I think.  If you have a bodypart that sucks mosquito nuts, I can fix it.


Movies - 

So I've seen quite a few recently.

Drive - Boy o boy.  Someone recommended this to me.  Starts off strong, and man I thought it just did a tailspin once it got going.  Spoilers - So the guy is basically a psychopath it turns out.  Not to mention, the whole quiet, not talking very much thing eventually got annoying.  You never knew if he was going to answer or not.  Leaving the money in a parking lot at the end, I mean, it makes no sense.  He could have at least dropped it off with the girl.  Or taken it.  Anything.  Also, nothing with the race car.  I mean that story went nowhere.  They had so many avenues to take this film into, and didn't really choose any.  There were just a ton of frayed story lines that never went anywhere.

Anyway, I ended up being neutral on it overall.  I didn't hate it nor love, I didn't like it or dislike it.  It was one of those where I was entertained but I thought it really missed the mark at the same time.  Pretty hard to do, so I must say I was impressed.  It felt kinda artsy to me in some ways as well.

Moneyball - I really liked this flick.  You don't need to know much about baseball in order to enjoy it either.  Hell, you don't even need to like baseball in order to enjoy it.  Pitt did a great job in his role, and you have to admire the real Billy Beane for turning down what he did in order to try and build a winner.  That's an honorable thing.

My 5 year old says funnier shit than anyone I know.  The other day she walked into the hallway and stood there for a second, and randomly said "I hate being as tall as dad's butt."  She then walked into the living room and told my 13 year old "hey, that's awesome!" at whatever it was she was doing.  These random phrases come out quite often, and they are always comedy gold.

I'm watching all the episodes of Deadliest Warrior with my kids.  They love this show as much as I do.  See, just because you have girls doesn't mean they have to be all wimpy and shit.  My oldest will start fight training after this meet.

So I've added more real food back into my diet on training days.  I love sweet potatoes but I hate cooking them, and leaving in the fridge all week.  I dunno, they just get kinda nasty.  So what did I do?  Baby food.  It's just sweet potatoes.  $0.70 a jar and I put in a pack of splenda and it's great.  Here is how my diet looks on training days.

7:30 a.m.
Breakfast -
6 egg whites
3 pieces of turkey snausage
1/2 cup of Greek Yogurt (full fat)

9:30 a.m.
2 scoops of protein

11:30 or so
2 turkey burger patties
1-2 jars of baby food sweet potatoes

2:30
2 scoops of protein

5:00
1 scoop of Syntha-6 in coffee (pre workout)

workout - BCAA

postworkout -
FOOD
I do not like shakes post workout.  Food makes me feel better.

10:00 P.M. or so
2 tbs crunchy natural PB
2 scoops of protein powder



On non-training days I just take out the turkey burgers and sweet potatoes and go with a shake.  So basically, my shake diet, with or without MRP I don't care.  I can eat very little and stay at 240 pounds now.  Cardio tends to affect my weight the most.  The more I do, the leaner I get.  I drop it off a little, and I gain weight.  So I'm lucky enough that I don't have to change my diet much year round, just do less cardio to gain and more to get leaner.  That has it's pluses and minuses.  These diets will also be in the book.

I'm not naming the book RELOADED anymore.  I found out Layne Norton used that name, so I'd rather not be gay.

This may piss some people off, but I don't care.  Strong isn't deadlifting 800 with a 380 bench.  Ok?  It's also not benching 500 with a 500 deadlift, or the inability to do 5 chin ups.  If you are a perfectly leveraged mutant for a lift, good for you.  But there are equalizers in the field of strength.  I see so many guys pulling 750-800 now that look like they have never picked up a fucking weight that it's crazy.  Super long monkey arms that limit your natural ROM in the pull doesn't make you strong.  Your sub 400 bench proves that.  Jamie and I talked a little about this in our discussion.  You need to be strong at almost anything.  Not just the powerlifts or specialize in some random shit.  It just annoys me when I see some t-rex barrel chested guy benching 500+ or some monkey armed dufus pulling 800+ when both suck at everything else.  That's not strong.  Jim and I wrote up "what constitutes strong" for a reason.  There are equalizers.  Can you bench, incline, squat, overhead, deadlift, etc all tremendous amounts of weight?  Or are you just leveraged really well for one?  If you are, that's not your fault and you're just taking advantage of your gift.  I just get annoyed at people talking about how strong some guy is that is totally built for 1 lift, and ignore the fact that he sucks total balls in everything else.  I generally don't give a shit about this stuff, but I guess I got my man-period right now.   I never usually give a shit about this stuff.  I think my leg hurting is making me a grumpy bitch.

It was 85 today.  We had a total of 1 1/8 inches of snow ALL WINTER.  The least ever I believe.  The least since I've lived here anyway.  I wore cargo shorts most of all winter.  The only bad thing is, summer is going to be spanked baboon ass brutal.  Not looking forward to that unless I'm in the Caribbean somewhere.

My fight coach and I will be doing a seminar for women's weight training and diet strategies next month.  It will be at the Krav Maga warehouse/studio.  I will have more information on this soon in case anyone in the area would be interested in attending.

29 comments:

  1. Don't hate on us monkey armed freaks Paul, haha. I have to say, if I had to be skewed toward any one lift I'm glad it's the one that lets me use the most weight. It's just more fun.

    I don't have any illusions of being strong though despite having a decent pull (not even decent by PL standards though). My total is still too low. My deadlift is just always gonna be about +50lbs higher than it should be and my bench -50lbs. That's why there's not really any one dominant (raw) PL body type. No one that I've ever seen is genetically built to excel at pushing, pulling and squatting all at the same time.

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    1. I hate on everyone Adam. I'm not built for anything so I get to hate all short armed and long armed lifters.

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  2. I didn't wear jacket ONCE this winter. I live in NC, but still. Some of the flowers and plants in our gardens never even lost their blooms. I also, dread July - September.

    Quick question: I am having surgery in April for hip FAI, so not DLs or squats right now. All I am doing for lower body weighted back extensions, leg curls, leg exts, and calf raises. Occasionally, I throw in RDLs. I notice when I get heavy on the leg ext, my upper tibia hurts a bit for a few days following. Any recommendations on the rep/weight scheme for this?
    Thanks

    Andy

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    1. No reason to go heavy on those. 5 sets of 20, keep the rest periods short between sets. Watch your quads blow up in a couple of weeks. It's pretty much. But painful too.

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  3. Speaking of sucking at things. Going to bench with a gigantic group of 350+ benchers this afternoon and I benech less than 300. FML.

    Super damn nervous, but most of these guys are legit raw powerlifters so maybe i can learn a thing or twelve.

    But anyway you said you can fix a bodypart if it sucks. After my meet in may I am making it my goal to get the biggest damn set of shoulders (and triceps but they are way ahead of my shoulders). How would you go about agressively attacking the shoulders for say 6-8 weeks before I have to start doing meet cycle work again?

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    1. http://www.lift-run-bang.com/2012/02/another-overhead-press-and-shoulder.html

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  4. I actually keep a spreadsheet to help me keep everything in balance the way you describe. I track the big 3, MP, Rows, Dips, Chins, and Push-ups (and curls because they're in WCS, but I never really "work" on those). I solve for 1RM, and then compare those numbers using both the ratios you and Jim laid out in WCS, and the kind you and Jamie discussed in CNB1. So if everything was in balance based on that, the ratio column would be all zeroes. This way I can just look at that column and whatever is farthest above zero I know to emphasize for a few weeks, and whatever is close to or below zero, I know to back off from or even eliminate entirely for awhile. It's helped me keep from emphasizing only the power-lifts, or always chasing, for example, a big pull while allowing my squat to lag.

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    1. @Nilster - Any chance I could get a copy of that? That sounds really cool!

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    2. If anyone else is interested in such, I could put it up here if you didn't mind.

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    3. Sent it to the e-mail address I got the Strong/Big-15 from.

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  5. Hey Paul, so after trying to make my OHP move and failing horribly no matter what i did, i made a discovery last night... there is a huuuge imbalance in my shoulders! My right arm can OHP the 100 pound DB for 5 easy reps... my left arm can OHP the 75 pound DB for 1 GRINDING rep !! Talk about a difference there! Seems that my strong side has been overpowering my weak for some time now, hard to notice when using a BB tho. How do you think i should tackle this problem?

    Oh and in the photo up in the article, compared to the blog headline one, it seems that your waist got trimmed down a lot in addition to the trap/back getting bigger! Great job.

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    Replies
    1. Setup the Viking Press and go to town.

      After that, do the 1 arm db press you just did, using the weak arm first. Then match the reps with the stronger arm. So if you can do the 50 pound db for 10, only do 10 with the weak arm.

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    2. I see, do you think i should add some front/side raises and/or rotator work too? Or just viking press + 1 arm db press are gonna take care of the problem?

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    3. You can def add some front and side stuff in. Just keep it light, 4-5 sets of 20.

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  6. I bet nobody even thinks about cutting you in line from the looks of that shot.

    Drew

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    Replies
    1. Probably more from the stench of me than how I look.....

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  7. Just finished the Big-15 and made really solid gains. I am thinking about running it back because i felt like i was still making good progress. Should I keep all the assistance stuff the same or can i sub in different exercises for the same bodyparts i.e cable rows for t-bar's and such? Thanks.

    John

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    Replies
    1. Have fun with those things. So if you want to do some cable rows instead of t-bars, have at it. You should always look forward to what you are about to be doing. Do shit you want to do as far as that goes.

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  8. Hi Paul,

    Which piriformis stretch(es) were you using please? Also, did you do anything else which helped?

    Thanks
    Dan

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    Replies
    1. Just the regular ol foot across the knee and pull on it type.

      Hurdlers stretch. That seems to be helping as well.

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  9. 85 degrees??!!! Are you in California or Florida? I know most of the country is having nice weather but I thought you were a Carolina guy or from the midwest. Why? No clue. Oh well....

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  10. If you look closely.... and pay attention... you can actually see a person under those traps. Really!

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    Replies
    1. Still not big enough.......which I will be addressing in my next piece.....

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  11. Paul,
    I don't compete in anything, but I'm around 275, 6'2...trying to get down to somewhere between 220-240. I haven't done much of anything in terms of consistent conditioning in a long time, but I'm thinking of working up over the next month to doing at least 1 hour of steady state cardio per day, along with 3-4 days of more intense conditioning on lifting days, and an additional hour of SSC on off days from weights. Do you think that's a decent game plan?

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    1. Just start with 4 days of steady state in the morning for 30 minutes the first 2 weeks. Take it up to 45 after that for two more weeks.

      After that, add in 1 day of intervals for 2 weeks. Add in a second day of intervals after two weeks. 15 minutes tops.

      Stay there and keep the diet clean for 12 weeks or so.

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    2. Thanks Paul, I appreciate your input.

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