Shoulders and Klokov PR

Bodyweight - 247

Let me preface this with the fact that I'm pretty pissed off in this video because some internet weaksauce dickwad said that the plates in my Klokov videos didn't seem to match the poundage I was claiming.  So in honor of said weaksauce dickwad, I did a double with 225 and then had my training partner come video the inside of the plates.

I've never had a reason to have my lifts doubted but there's always going to be some assholes who want to take the piss.  Be careful, you just might get it taken back.

Klokov Presses -
bar x 20
95x8,8
145x5,5
165x3,3
185x3
205x2
225x2 - PR

Upright Rows - 2x100 with bar

Thoughts about life, crap, training and stuff - Fake Friday Edition

I still haven't made it in to see the movies I promised Jamie I'd go watch, and I fully expect him to make fun of me for it.  I have 100% intent on making it in to see them, however I still spent all last weekend on drugs because of my dry socket.

Which leads me to my next segment....

Wisdom tooth extraction wasn't that big of a deal.  However I did end up with dry socket, and had to go in and get it treated.  Treated meaning they had to pack it with strips that were coated with clove oil and some other shit.  I wasn't even sure I had dry socket because of my high pain tolerance.  Again, this is not a "I'm such a tough mother fucker thing" like SOME dipshits say/do.  If some shit hurts, I say it hurts!  It's just that I often tear/break/have pain that usually downs most people and I barely notice.  

So I go into the dentist because I called in and told them my ear was bothering me a little bit, and I had a very slight pain in my jaw.  I go in and the receptionist tells me "if it were dry socket you'd be dying.  I had it and it was worse than childbirth."  

"Cool, I don't have it.  Awesome."

Dentist comes in, takes a look at it "yeah you definitely have dry socket.  That's pretty inflamed.  You're not in pain?"

"Hmmmmm....it's annoying."  

He laughed and told me that was the first time someone had used the term "annoying" to describe dry socket.  

He then proceeded to tell me that "I gotta pack it and that's going to be very tender.  It's going to be pretty rough."

"Sure.  Let's do it."

He packs it.  I feel nothing.  

"You done?" I ask him.  

"Yeah." he says, looking at me incredulously.  

I was fine......for 10 minutes.  THEN I had some god damn pain worth mentioning.  I sat in my car in the parking lot and got quite dizzy.  As I noted, I do not "play" tough guy.   If some shit hurts, I'll say it hurts.  That shit hurt.  I drove home in quite the daze but by the time I got home, it was getting better.  I ended up having to go back in the next day to get it packed again......and the day after that as well.  I finally told the dentist to give me some strips and tools and I'd save him the time and have the wife do this shit herself.  He agreed and handed me some shit over and Tiff packed it for two days.  Good to go now.  

First week of meet training - 

So the first week of squats, bench, and deads are in the books for meet training.  I feel pretty fantastic really.  I am not going to start calling shots because lots of things can happen in 8 weeks but I feel really solid about this first week.  I will be in Vegas for a week, and if anyone can tell me of a solid gym to train at while there I'd be very appreciative.  I will need to bench and pull the week I am there.  If anyone wants to hang, train, grab a drink or whatever, hit me up.  I'm always more than happy to hang out and bullshit.  

I'm doing something a little different with deads than I have in the past.  

Prez Debate - 

Jesus jumped up on a cross Christ.......does Obama know what 2 minutes means?  I felt like Romney did a great job, but I would have given a testicle to have watched Ron Paul break his foot 18 feet deep off in Obama's asshole.  Either way, to me it seemed like Romney knew his shit and really walked away with it.  I'm sure some won't see it that way, however you gotta remember, I'm not for either of these guys.  And to me, Romney clearly outclassed Obama.  

Even MORE on ultra high reps - 

Ok so I'm not saying I started this whole ultra high rep craze right now....but I'm saying I started it.

In all seriousness, it's getting absurd.

I've now seen routines made up entirely of 100 rep sets and shit.  This is bananas.

Both Jim and I outlined good movements you can use to do 100 rep stuff with.  Yet since then, I've gotten tons of questions about trying this movement and that movement with it.  We narrowed down that list to those particular movements for a reason.  100 rep bench presses?  100 rep squat?  Whole routines with nothing but 100 rep sets???  Never go full retard.

Look, I've already talked about the purpose of doing the ultra high rep work.  It works!  It works well too.  It doesn't mean because it's good, you can bastardize it, and make it better.  Some things are as good as they are going to get AS IS.  To me, this is one of those things.

Big movements = strength and mass movements - squats, bench, deads, chins, rows, dips, overheads
100 rep work = prehab, joint health, some added hypertrophy - curls, front raises, upright rows, pull aparts, tricep extensions, sit ups, leg curls, leg ext, etc.

One of the worst things people do about training ideas, is fucking then up by trying to spread it across every aspect of their training.  This is not what you want to do here.  Have some of it spread in parts of your training, but NOT the foundation of what you are doing.  I mean, I feel like I shouldn't even have to write this but here I am, after reading dumb articles with routines consisting of nothing but ultra high rep training across the board.

ARRRGGGGG!!!!!!!!!

Lifer Series Wrapping up - 

There is one more installment left in the Lifer series.  Becoming the fucking lion.  I am really going to try and pour myself into this one.  This series has mattered to me and I want to end with what becoming the lion really means to me.

So, off topic.  I was at work yesterday and my site manager called me over, and said that I had two complaints come in about me.  "What's that?" I say.  "Wellll....he says" with a long pause...."for chewing gum too loud."

I stared at him for a long time and finally asked, "Is this a fucking joke?"

"No I'm serious.  Here let me hear you chew gum."

/I chew gum/

"Seems fine."

"Wow, people really are children sometimes aren't they?"

"They certainly can be." he says.

Don't believe that just because you work around adults, they are going to act like adults.  I can tell you this from experience.  An adult workplace is not a lot different than being in kindergarten.  I'm not embellishing either.

More on back off sets and increasing your lifts - 

So I had several deadlift questions after putting up the deadlift vids from last night.  This brings to me a point I've been trying to make to you guys for some time.  The meat and potatoes of your programs should be the back off sets.  I did some reps last night because I'm going to play with reps on my top set during this cycle.  But the most important pieces are the back offs.  I did my back offs on deficit deads, then some stiff legs.

Your assistance work has TWO purposes.  To keep you healthy (prehab), and to help the main lift.  If it doesn't do either of those two things it's fucking worthless.  Back off sets do the latter, because well, it's still the main lift.  So this makes life easy.  Just pick some movements that you know will keep you healthy if you've had some injury problems.  If you haven't had any injury problems then you are weak.  Just wait and get stronger and you'll know what you need to do.

In the mean time, if you are stale, just plug in more and more and more back off sets until the main lift starts getting easier on the top single.  Also, if you are not competing, don't be afraid to stay at a certain weight and back off scheme for a few weeks until it feels easier.  I can't ever get guys to see this!  This is what the big-15 is based around.  Constantly trying to hammer home more and more reps on the back off set until you're repping out like crazy with what used to be a tough weight.  Where do you think this will get you?  Yeah, really big and strong!  It's that simple.

1 more day until Friday.........

Training - Deadlifts

Bodyweight - 248

Pause Squats -
135x5,5
225x3,3
315x3,3
365x3,3,3

Deadlifts -
225x5
315x4
405x3
500x2
550x5

Deficit Deads - 500x4,4
Elevated Stiff Legs - 455x6
Db Rows - 140x15,15

Notes - Hard ass mother chicken session.  But the 550x5 felt fast and easy.  Feel good about where I'm starting and how things are feeling early.

My chronological journey

I've been asked to outline this quite a bit.  I really have no idea why, other than just general interest.  I've kinda gone over it before but here is a more detailed outline of my lifting from a chronological standpoint.  It's possible after 23 years of lifting now I could be off on some numbers, but I will do my best.  I'm not going to try and cover everything, just the things that stand out.  I also no longer count lifts that wouldn't meet my present day standards.  For example, I "benched" over 400 in my early 20's.....with my ass 3 feet off the bench and the spotter doing an upright row.  A lift I would never do or count now.

Summer 89 - 14 years old - 110 pounds? 
Started training with my martial arts instructor.  Couldn't bench the bar or do a single squat with the empty hack machine.  I do remember leg pressing a plate or two on each side for a few reps, feeling like Mr. Big Shit about it.  I was WEAK.  And when I say weak, I mean there were small women in the gym that were warming up with my maxes.

Summer 90 - 15 years old - 130 pounds
I believe I spent that summer at Ft. Riley with my sister and her husband.  I hit a 135 bench for the first time. I don't remember anything else.  I don't think we trained legs.  HAH!

Winter 90-91 - 15/16 years old - 150 - 165 pounds
I remember hitting 185 on bench, being able to do 20+ chins, and t-bar rows with a few plates.  I squatted.  Once.  155 pounds for 8 reps.  I know this because that set was burned into my brain about how pathetic a squatter that I was, and I never wanted to attempt a squat again.

92 - 17 years old - 175 pounds
My family moved to Louisiana around this time and I was able to join a gym.  Once I did, I actually started training legs regularly.  Leg pressing of course.  Fuck that squat rack.  I curled in it too.

I'm just kidding.  I did start squatting, but I was turrible at it.  Nevertheless, I was told I needed to squat, so I did.  I think 315 was my general weight to be used for some shitty sets that probably were not even to parallel.

I do remember doing some rack deadlifts with 500 pounds I think.  However it was all of that above the knee garbage that's more worthless than Calista Flockhart bulking advice.  I also remember hitting 275 and 315 in the bench during this time.  After I hit 315 I remember hitting 275 for sets of 8 pretty regularly.

93 - 18 years old - 210 pounds
I spend the summer that I was 17 eating like a mule and training 6 days a week.  By winter of 93 I was around 210-215.  I can remember doing 315x8 on bench, and overhead pressing 225 for reps easily.  I also remember doing seated db press with the 100's for reps without much problem.  I vaguely remember taking a run at a 315 incline but just missing it.

I do remember squatting 405 at this time, however I'm sure it was high.  I remember sinking 315 for a set of 15 (?) or so during that same workout.  I remember this workout very clearly because it was at 5-something in the morning with my buddy David Guzzardo.  Dave squatted 425+ or so that morning for reps at around 170-some odd pounds.  He was a solid squatter.

I was also a big Dorian Yates fan, so I did remember doing curl grip barbell rows (which are still a great movement) for reps with 275.

Early 20's - 
I remember dieting to get lean a few times and realizing as I dieted down, that I was WAAAAYYY smaller than I thought I was (sound familiar guys?).  You also must remember that all of my early years were spent doing bodybuilding, and not really training for strength.  I did lots of leg pressing, lat pulldowns, and the such.  Even the years I played football I still did mostly bodybuilding style training.  That's what I knew.

I remember leg pressing 10 plates per side for some pretty high reps, but then sometimes still struggling with 315 on the squat (technique) which goes to show you that leg pressing some partial reps doesn't really have anything to do with real strength.  I think the leg press is a valuable tool, if used properly, but 99% of guys use it as an ego lift.

I remember I was squatting 405 for reps at my first duty station in the Air Force.  I hit a double with 500 in 1999.  I also pulled high 500's during that time, but with straps on a very +10% kinda day.  As you can see, my deadlift has always been a pathetic whore.

In my 20's, if you wanted me to be honest with you, I feel as though I toiled about making little progress during this time.  Not entirely my fault.  I got married, joined the military, had kids, moved 97 times, so forth and so on.  It wasn't exactly the ideal environment for making progress, but I still never missed workouts and always had some kind of plan.  It often was short circuited because of other factors, however.

05 - 07 - DC Years 
It was during my DoggCrapp years that things started to really come together for me.  Not in terms of just lifting, but in terms of philosophy and using all of the years of my previous training to forge the foundation of what I believed worked.  Plus, my life had finally settled down quite a bit and I was able to really get consistent with my training and all of the ideas I beliefs I had about productive training.

All of the things I had read or heard before, all of the lessons I had learned, started to click.  Leaving a rep in the tank, my back off sets, understanding the ebb and flow of good days, bad days, and "everydays".  I hit a still remaining PR of 585x3 in the squat during this time, pulled over 600 for the first time.

It was during/after DC that I really started leaving behind anyone else's principles or methodologies and started going with what I knew and what worked for me.  My DC training split eventually evolved into what most guys see in the "solid rotational split".  I pared down the amount of movements I did, stayed in the percentages that "felt" solid (80-85%), and made a lot of progress.  I remember spending about 6 months during 05 where I squatted twice a week for high volume each time.  I'm talking 15+ WORKING sets of squats, because I was so tired of my squat sucking ass and/or it not being consistently good.

It's hard for me to define a lot of years after I had kids, because all of those years seem to run together.  Where when I was young, it was a lot simpler.  This more of less gives you an idea however, of what my lifting life has looked like.  I had many years where I made no progress, or even went backwards.  This was frustrating at times, but I am thankful for those years because when things are really in the shitter, and you pull yourself out of it there are a multitude of lessons to be learned, so long as you don't remain bitter about it.

There's a lot of shit I'm not covering here but it would take a book to cover 23+ years of my lifting life.

As a friend of mine wrote about me on a board, "Paul's lifting has been a long and consistent journey.  Slow and steady over time."

I think that about sums it up.

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Week 1 Meet Training - Bench

Bodyweight - 246

Close Grip Bench -
bar x 50,20
135x12,8
185x5
225x4
275x3
315x2
335x1
365x1
385x1
365x6

Incline - 225x15
Wide Grip Incline - 225x10

Flat Flyes - 30's x 30
Db SKulls - 30's x 20,20
Band Extensions - 1x25

Notes - Solid first bench session.

4 Gems

1. Get stronger raw and in a leverage disadvantage. 

For powerlifters who compete equipped this is a big key.  Too many guys these days don't even look like they lift because they spend too much fucking time in gear, and then do a bunch of light/shitty assistance movements that wouldn't put muscle of a god damn gnat.  

No one ever got weaker in gear because their raw strength went up. You can get weaker raw, by staying in gear too often, however.  

You also need to do shit when you are not competing, or getting ready for a meet, that puts you in a leverage disadvantage.  Ed Coan said in the offseason he did tons of high bar squats, deficit deadlifts, and close grip benches.  This is because all of these things are HARDER.  I have written many times about this.  If you squat low bar, and you suck at high bar or front squats.....do high bar and front squats.  Your low bar will respond quite nicely to the high bar work.  If you are weak off the floor, pull from a deficit and from mid-shin.  Both put you in a leverage disadvantage.  

I have no idea why any does touch and go bench.  Especially those who compete.  A big part of getting stronger is enforcing your will on the weight.  You OWN that weight.  OWN!!!!   O   W   N!  If you have to bounce shit off of your chest, or bounce your deadlift reps off the floor, I don't give a fuck how much you're using, you don't own that weight.  Ownage of a weight means you can pause it, and control it.  Using momentum to your advantage does not make you stronger.

Train yourself to be explosive and strong by always showing you have control of the weight.  Control on the negative portion of the rep, explosive as hell on the positive portion.  Do not ask me how slow you should lower it.  I will come to your apartment complex or house and burn it down.  You know when you're controlling a weight and when you're not.  

Some good ideas here are - 

• If you squat low bar, squat high bar all off season.  
• Sumo deadlift if you are a conventional guy.
• Deficit deadlifts are good as well.  Just do not use a huge deficit.  Standing on a 100 pound plate is fine.  If the movement changes too much, you will be forced to alter your technique and the carryover will not be as great.
• If you suck at a basic movement, do it a lot.  Front squats and military press seem to be the two main ones here for most guys.  Spend your "offseason" training doing those A LOT.  
• Pause your benches.  You don't have to pause every rep, but the first rep or last rep should be paused.  I like to do this with benches and squats quite a bit.  Pause the last rep, then explode.  This will build strength very well.  
• Train bottom position strength.  Pause your benches, do deficit deads, do pause squats.  The stronger you get in the bottom, the stronger you will be through the entire range of movement.  No one misses a raw bench at lockout.  No one.  If you say you know someone that does, it means you don't know what "lockout" means.  Period.  

2. Keep your percentages moderate most of the time. 

Use your own judgement on how much or little volume you need. Everyone is different in that regard.  Lately I've told people, even when you run the strong-15 program, if you respond better to more volume on the back off sets, do it.  Just don't bastardize the program by changing everything.  Doing more back off sets on the main lift, is about the best "assistance" work you can ever do.  The back off sets in my programs are set at the right intensity level for BUILDING STRENGTH.  

The time tested proven strength ranges are in the 75-85%, with a few scattered weeks in the low 90's. There's never any need to go over 93% in training in my opinion. All the strength you can ever build can be done without going into the 90's, and you don't tax your recovery as badly.  In the final week of the strong-15 you hit a single at 93%.  You spent the previous 8 weeks building strength to CRUSH that weight.  This will let you know that you are good for the planned goal.  The Russians are strong as fuck because they spend the majority of their training time in those 75-85% ranges.  They also adhere to my next point........

3. Save the big ones for the meet. 

No one gives a fuck what you did in training as far as PR's go. I don't care what you did in your moms basement on youtube or at your friends house.  It's completely irrelevant. At the end of the day you want those big ones in the books.  When youtube starts holding powerlifting championships maybe that shit will mean something, but on meet day it's not quite the same.  I wish I had a dollar for every time I heard a guy say "man I smoked that in the gym, I don't know why I had so much trouble with it at the meet."  

Oh I dunno, because your dumb ass was maxing out all the time?  

I can't for the life of me figure out why I see guys maxing out in the fucking gym.  If I never competed again, I'd never EVER test my 1RM.  Ever.  What's the point?  If you're a basement lifter (and I am), training for maximal strength doesn't require the demonstration of strength.  You can do a solid triple and have a idea of where you are at.  Taking 1 rep maxes serves no real purpose honestly, if you aren't doing them in a meet.  Train for performance, not for bragging rights.  The only reason you'd be maxing is to tell your frat buddies what you hit at the gym that day.  That's gayer than the vegetarian telling us all the reasons they don't eat meat.  

Besides, everyone hates that guy.  

"I benched 325 today, brah."  

I don't care.

Training for maximal strength doesn't and never has required max testing.  Are you training for show, or go?    

4. Always work on refining technique. 

This is another reason why lower percentages work so well. It's easier to "feel" what technique needs to be changed or when something needs to be fixed, when you can control the weight, rather than have it crushing your soul.  You know that lift, when you're squatting...and you unrack it and say to yourself "holy shit."  Yeah, you're not thinking about technique in that squat because it's so damn heavy.  But if your technique is not spot on for that attempt, then you're probably going to miss it.  Anyone who has hit a max, and grooves it perfectly knows what I am talking about.  How awesome it feels.  To have all your shit lined up.  It's not unlike being in the zone during a ferocious xbox 360 Forza tournament, where you are hitting all the corners just perfectly, and your heart is beating at the perfect beat per second count.  

Just for bragging rights I'd like to say that I competed in one of those tournaments, and ended up top 32 in the world out of 10's of thousands who entered.  Also, I'm beastly at Modern Warfare.  Jason Pegg and Jamie Lewis can verify this to you if you think I'm bullshitting.  I don't brag much, so I figured it was time I did so about something.  That was completely out of left field, but I just wanted to get it in there,

Those 4 are pretty much standard with anyone you talk to, regardless of philosophy.  This is not some massive new secret training memento.  Just some reminders we all need from time to time.