Saturday, August 4, 2012

Training - Squats and Tugs

Bodyweight - 239

Pause Squats -
high bar - 375x3x3x3
low bar - 375x3x3

Modified Sumo Deads -
225x3
315x3
405x8
500x1
405x1x1x1

Lunges - 2x20

Notes - I honestly could not tell you the last time I pulled sumo, because I think sumo is gay as shit.  With that said, I've had a ton of people tell me that sumo can do a nice job of boosting the conventional, and I've never done it, because again, I think sumo is gay.

MY hips are rising too fast.  I know this.



31 comments:

  1. From what I have seen, a lot of sumo guys just start with their butt a little higher and don't dip down quite as far. My training partner has done this more and his pull has went up. Mark Bell and Jesse Burdick have been talking about it a lot lately.

    I hate and suck at sumo too, and honestly do the best when I let my hips stay high rather than try to dip down too far

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    1. I will be playing with it for a few weeks. I'd like to pull 550x8 like this.

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  2. You're a monster, 550x8 is definitely attainable once you get acclimated to it. Would love to see the bodyweight work/conditioning article you mentioned in the comments a few posts back. As an Army guy trying to maximize my strength and mass while attaining the military's fitness "standards" I would love to see your insight on reconciling the two.

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    1. I'm in the military as well and this has been my biggest challenge....how to balance heavy lower body work and still be able to run 5 or so miles at a 7-8 min/mile pace. My legs are always sluggish as hell after squatting, etc. The site IS called Lift-RUN-Bang, so I kinda wondered about that piece of the puzzle. I've been waiting to get the book before asking Paul a bunch of questions about conditioning.

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    2. Will take care of this in an article soon.

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    3. Thanks Paul, looking forward to it.

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  3. Good music selection. AILD, Trivium, FFDP are a few of my favorites and I've heard them a lot in your vids ;p

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  4. Come to the darkside. Sumo is more awesome than a monkey in a bacon tuxedo. I hope eventually you can refer to them as 'slightly less gay than previously thought'.

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    1. I do lots of movements I hate and call them "gay". They are gay mainly because I suck at them.

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  5. Hi Paul, Random question. I want to do some kind of martial art for conditioning / fun. I remember reading that you do some sort of fighting. What would you recommend to have the most carryover to self defense in a real situation?

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  6. Paul question about the SPPC starting my third cycle soon (started late) for the back offs can/should I use the new Strong15 numbers or keep with the old?

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  7. your hips start high because your stance is narrow and you're not sitting back into the pull right at the start.
    the bar will not leave the floor until the scaps are over the bar so how high your hips rise is dictated by your set-up. The bar doesn't even leave the floor until the hips are in the right position if you look again in slow motion. So either sit further back into the set-up or change your stance. I don't see anything wrong with pulling like that though unless you're specifically trying to build the hips up as much as possible

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    1. A conclusion I came to on my own as well. It's not that my hips are rising too fast, but that my hips need to be higher from the start in the first place. I will be changing that starting this week.

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    2. Yeah I noticed that your back was rounded as well
      I don't know the ins and outs of your training but I would say that if you're doing sumo pulls to build your conventional pull then I'd try to shit as much of the weight onto the hips as possible so I'd sit right back into it, keep the lower back straight and so on. If you're sumo pulling to have a big sumo pull though then it's probably fine as you will want to use the form that allows you to lift the most weight

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    3. My lower back doesn't round actually. The upperback gives some and that's ok.

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  8. Replies
    1. The difference there is, I did push presses for a while, and they were every bit as dumb and gay as I suspected they are and would never go back.

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    2. Could you perhaps write a short piece on the dumb gayness of push presses? I'm a bit curious about your reasoning behind why they're inferior to most other shoulder exercises. I understand that they won't build much bottom strength and only works the shoulders and triceps hard in the top portion of the lift. Allthough, if you lower the bar slowly between reps you should stimulate hypertrophy pretty good? It's more weight for the same reps than with the strict press, right? Or maybe the effect is surprisingly ineffective, and in that case, why is that?

      I know you have written a bit here and there, but I'd like to read a more analytical piece. Well, unless you hate the dumbass gayness of them so much it hurts, if so I won't bother you about it...

      Anyways, looking forward to see if the sumos help your conventional dead. Good luck, dude. And thanks for your blog!

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    3. I think push presses are gay for the same reason I think faux hawks are gay, or affliction shirts are gay. Just my opinion. But also because to me, the strict press is such a great demonstration of REAL strength, but the push press kind of bastardizes that. So you take something that is really, the epitome of pressing strength, and you butcher it all up by adding in the hips and momentum. Pretty fucking gay to me. Not to mention, that Olympic lifters used to strict press all sorts of weight that guys can't do now, because they spend too much god damn time push pressing. EVerytime I hear about some guy overhead pressing something awesome, he's push pressing it, and I'm less impressed.

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    4. They push press to help train the strength components of the jerk. If the press was still an olympic lift you beat your ass those old clean and press records would be just that. HISTORY.

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    5. I'm not sure of that. Z just did a world record press and it was less than 500. And he push pressed it.

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    6. Playing devil's advocate here. So bare with me. Behdad Salimi currently holds all world record snatch and clean and jerk ALL TIME. he has the past clean and press record holder beat by quite a bit of weight on both lifts. I am 900000% sure if that physical MONSTER (salimi) had to compete in the clean and press he would beat those older numbers. and thats just comparing super heavies. Not to mention all the crazy lighter weight class atheletes in o lifting.

      I also will go out on a limb and say that strongman atheltes are pure recreational. None of them are being farmed through athletic programs like olympics atheletes are. So comparing him to guys like Alxeev or Reeding isnt really fair. They were cropped from the best of the best.

      thats a whole lot of 2 cents. Haha.

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    7. Yeah that was more like $7.

      It's possible, but getting back to the root of all that.....push presses are still fucking gay.

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  9. hey paul i have 3 ?s 2 regarding from the ebook

    1.) would it be ok for the short-cycle for the squat and deadlift to take the last week as a trial and error @ 80% for reps like in the regular 9 week cycle?

    2.) i know you love the pause squats but for the short cycle can we try amap or rep outs like you mentioned in the old strong -15 cycle or just leave it at pause squats for the short?

    3. im always reading your what consitutes strong post, from above and have searched and found your suggestions for all the other exercises besides the powerlifts to build them. but i cannot find one in the bicep barbell curl, is there a great or favorite way you build that lift up?

    thank you paul! i still read this ebook every day,

    everyone get your hands on it if you havent

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    1. 1. I wouldn't. It's all about the speed at those intensities at that point. Not a rep out set.

      2. pause

      3. I've just been doing the poundstone curls. IF I were REALLY going to go after a 185 curl I'd probably have to sit down and think about how I would approach that. Not sure yet.

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    2. thanks paul, by the way the article you posted from today part 6 , great article. very motivating and true. i kind of want to get that shirt with the arnold motto too, and im putting that lion photo on my background sick man

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