Training - Deload

Bodyweight - 258

Close Grips -
225 x 10
315 x 5

Deadlift -
315 x 5 singles

Notes - That's it.  I feel run down, which is good.  I should have a nice rebound come meet time.  At least that's what I am hoping.

Weekly Q & A

Well the hard stuff is over, so let the bullshit begin.

Leave a name and question, or be forced to choose between cake or death!

Thoughts about life, crap, training, and stuff

I have wiped the slate clean.  Rid of people who were negative, life sucking drains in my life.  Everyday it feels better.  I feel better.

I have no idea why people won't let go of family or friends who shorten their life span.  I learned to do this with people a long time ago, but haven't put it into effect enough lately.  But I'm good again.  I know that everyones breaking point is different, but it should be measured in months, not years.  Certainly not decades.  I know people who keep friends around that do nothing but take, take, take.  That's not a friendship.  A friendship, whether that be your spouse or your buddy, should be that compliments your life and theirs.  I'm not saying you don't endure bad times together.  You do.  That's exactly what friends are for.  To help prop you up when you are at your weakest.

However there comes a time when to cut ties, when all your friend does is drain you and create a constant negative in your life.  Put in the effort to help them get over whatever it is they need to get over, but at some point everyone has to help themselves.  If they aren't willing or can't do that, and it's a drain on your own life, they have to go.  And you have to be willing to let them go.  It doesn't make you an asshole.  It means you realize you have gone more than halfway, and they aren't willing to meet you the rest of the way.  I said MORE than halfway.  A good friend does go the extra mile, however that friendship should be reciprocated.  And in time of weakness the other person still have to take some steps to meet you.

When I realized I had gone about 3/4 of the way, and the last 1/4 wasn't going to happen by those other people, I knew I had to cut them out.  At that point, it wasn't hard anymore.  Because I could look at myself in the mirror and know that I gave as much as I should have given, and had no regrets.  I let one of the two know that if they ever wanted to really be my friend again, just call me and learn how to meet me halfway.

I am at peace.

Training wise I am also at peace.

I have managed to hit a 605 squat, 430 close grip bench, and 650 deadlift in the last 3 weeks.  Only one is a PR, however I exhaled last night after the 605 squat, knowing all the work was over and that outside of some nicks I am healthy.  My shoulders and elbows are a bit irritated, and my pec minors are as well.  However I think some rest will help fix those quite a bit and so will some anti inflammatories.  My right IT band is also slightly irritated but not enough that I was bothered in squatting.  I am still thinking about my attempts because I talked to Wendler last night and he's drilling me about going really conservative on my openers and second attempts.  I had some different thoughts in mind, but I respect what Jim has to say so we'll see.  I'm not a egotistical lifter and never have been, so I know I'll be smart about this.

I am friends with this female that was in Playboy (I'm not kidding and I'm not dropping her name).  I grew up with her in the small town I lived in.  Anyway, she asks shit like "who wants to mow my yard?" and like dudes show up with lawn mowers, ready to mow.  She asks who wants to take her out to Victoria Secret for shopping?  And dudes will show up and take her shopping.

Let me let you in on something right now fellas.  If you do that, you will not EVER get to hit it.  Fact.

Her and I had a laugh about it actually.  I said "you know that you don't respect any of those guys that bow down like that.  You're never going to bang any of those guys, even though they think they are getting in your good graces by doing that shit."

She laughed and said "you're right."  I know I'm right.  I had two sisters growing up and have been surrounded by women my whole life.  Guys don't get this shit, and I don't know why.  The guy that tells her "Uhhh, I'm not mowing your yard.  I'll loan you my mower, but you gotta do your own work." is the guy that has a better chance.  Because she'll respect him.  Guys are generally pretty pathetic when it comes to working with women.  Giving in to everything they ask and stomp around for is a sure way to make sure they never respect you.  And if a woman doesn't respect you, well you're just kind of her bitch.

My 4 year old has discovered He-Man.  So I've been watching it in the afternoons with her.  I love it because I laugh so much and she thinks it's so awesome.  I think the show was created by a bunch of gay dudes because every guy is totally jacked, and Prince Adam (wouldn't it have been awesome if they had named him Prince Albert?) wears a pink shirt and purple tights.  Man At Arms has a total pornstache, and every dude has tight crotched pants.  The one thing I laugh at, is that Prince Adam doesn't even change when he turns into He-Man.  He just has on less clothes.  But no one recognizes that it's Prince Adam.  And of course Adam is never around when He-Man is.  These cartoons are filled with idiots.  Better than that is just the random silliness of it all.  And even better, is that I get to spend that time with my 4 year old laughing and talking about it all.  The bestest!

If you didn't see that Pat Berry - Kongo fight, go watch it.  Un-flippin-real.

I still have not caught up on any movies.  If you've been reading here long enough you'll know that I go in cycles of watching a ton of shit for a while, then nothing for a while.  I have to let the queue build up with shit I want to see.  Right now nothing really excites me.

Not a ton to write on this week.  I just feel elated to be ready for the meet.  After the meet I am going to get my run on, do my shake diet for about 6 weeks, and lean back up to 240.  Can't wait.

Hope everyone is having a great week!

Training - Squats

Bodyweight - 260 pounds

warm up - good girl and bad girl machines, hip and ass machine, calf press - 3 sets of each for 20

Squats - oly stance, no belt no wraps

135 x 10

225 x 5

315 x 4

405 x 3

475 x 2

530 x 1

565 x 1

605 x 1

Pause Squats - 405 x 3 sets of 5

Good Girl Machine - 3 sets of 10 heavy

Calf Press - stack x 15

Notes - The 605 was a mother fucking smoke show.  This was my final heavy session of the meet prep and it couldn't have gone any better.  605 moved like 315.  I think that 650 no belt no wraps is going to be very doable for this meet.  

But more importantly, I managed to get through the last many months injury free and I believe that made some nice adjustments along the way that helped with that.

• resting when I needed to
• working the shit out of the good girl machine.  I honestly believe that is a big reason why I have not strained an adductor again and why my squat has moved so well this cycle
• not pushing singles for very long.  pushing medium weight for reps for many months I believe, helped to set me up for a nice run of heavier weights.  Mentally I felt good and my bodyweight rose very nice with the higher reps
• shorter prep cycle.  I really only hit the heaviest weights for about 3 or maybe 4 weeks.  I also took 4-5 days off in that same period.  So something that became apparent to me was that if your take care of your foundation level of strength you don't need to push for a long period to get to max territory.  This is how it felt to me anyway.

I reached my first goal in a series of goals.  And that was to stay healthy in prep for this meet.  I have done that and feel mighty good about it.  I will do some heavy overheads Thursday and light bench with light pulls.  Arm work Saturday then next week if I do anything it will be super light.  

I'm ready.

REAL dogmatism

I wanted to address the issue of dogmatism for a minute.

I've read some people say/write that I only believe that there is only one way to get strong.  I'm not sure where I wrote that.  Oh, maybe that's because I haven't.  Not only that, I've never believed that or endorsed that mode of thinking.  Isn't it funny how someones perception of a situation comes about when no evidence to support it actually exists?

All I've EVER written was, I have found some things that work for me, and that is an ever evolving process.  I have tried about every method under the sun in over 2 decades of doing this.  I have simply settled on philosophies that I feel work for me.  My injuries the past couple of years are also going to help further evolve how I approach training after this meet.

I am not dogmatic in any way, shape, or form when it comes to training.  If anyone ever took any time to read through questions about whether I think something will work, I always tell someone to try it and find out.  That's because the things that work for me really well, may not work for you as well, or they may work even better. Application is a big part of why and how things work, outside of your belief in that method.  It's no secret that I don't care for the WSB style of training for me.  However I know plenty of strong guys who make it work for them.  I don't care for high volume training.  But I know lots of strong guys that make that work for them.

I talk to guys fairly often that believe their way of training is superior.  PERIOD.  Not that it's superior for them, but superior compared to every training methodology out there.  And that if it didn't work for you, well you didn't do it right.  It can't be the fault of the program or method.  No fucking way.

There are many facets of why some training programs work and some don't, for individuals.

• Belief factor - This is the main ingredient.  If you think you have discovered the holy grail of lifting programs and that this one is going to turn you into a bastard concoction of Kaz/Coan/Arnold then you will make progress.  This often breeds dogmatism from that users point of view because of the progress they make.  I mean they made progress right?  Has to be the greatest program ever, right?
• Recovery ability - This is an individual thing and one persons ability to recover is obviously going to be very different than everyone else's.  This is one reason why some guys can train 5 days a week and progress and other guys only 3.  Some older guys even find that 2 work just as well.  Volume and frequency along with intensity (%) and perceived intensity play a part as well.  There are a lot of factors that go into this.  Each guy has to find where his threshold is.  In other words, doing enough work to stimulate gains in strength/size and also have enough time between for those gains to cement themselves.
• Lifestyle - This is about diet, drugs, sleep, and all sorts of shit like that.  

One of the things that has obviously plagued me for the past couple of years has been injuries.  However I've gone for long stretches in the past without ever getting injured, all the while pushing as hard as I can.  One of the things I found during those times is that I did more movement likeness variation.  In other words, I didn't just push squats every workout.  One week I would push fronts, then the next week regular squats.  With pressing it was similar.  Two or three movements that I rotated through at the same time, to keep overuse and injuries from happening.  This is going to get incorporated into my training cycle after this meet.  

But even aside from that, any guy that pushes his training hard is going to eventually get injured.  This is a fact of training life.  High volume, low volume, WSB or 5/3/1 or anything.  Eventually you're going to push the envelope and at some point the envelope tears.  Sometimes you know why, other times you don't.  Either way, there isn't a foolproof way around this.  In the quest to get as big and as strong as possible at some point you're going to have to tread the dangerous waters.  Sometimes you escape unscathed, other times you're not as fortunate.  If a certain way of training got you that far, then changing around everything you did to get there because of an injury seems fairly stupid.  You dance with the girl that brought you.  If you don't get laid, it doesn't mean your process for making the date happen sucks.  It just means you fucked up on prom night to close the deal.  Refine something minor and get back to it.  Which is what I plan on doing.

Am I dogmatic about certain beliefs?  Of course.  Who isn't?  What are they?

1.  Consistency is the master ruler.  If you aren't consistent in your training, diet, recovery, etc no matter what, progress is going to be limited in comparison to what it could be.

2.  Injury is the #1 enemy of consistency.  

3.  Overload still rules.  It's always going to be about more weight on the bar or more reps with that weight.  In the end, that is how 99% of progress can be defined.

That's about it.  Wow, what a list!  All of those can be applied to every training ideology/methodology.  

Training - Deadlift

Bodyweight - 259

Deads -
135 x 8
225 x 5
315 x 4
405 x 3
500 x 2

565 x 1
605 x 1
635 x 1
650 x 1 PR

Elevated Stiff Legs - 455 x 10

Shrugs - 585 x 10

Notes - Not a good one even with the PR.  650 was a grinder but I expected it to be.  I drank last night AND took my sleeping meds.  So I was pretty sluggish all morning, never felt like I got going.  I think this is the last heavy pull before the meet.

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