Tuesday, June 16, 2009

New Program, First Post

Greetings dudes, I come in peace. Nathan invited me to log my workouts here, and hopefully y'all can advise me to getting stronger, faster, and more awesome.


6/8/09

Start of new training phase, at a new gym: Total Performance Sports (TPS) in everett.

OLY- light, for warmups

55xBurgnener warmup, deep overhead squats
Power snatches: 55x8?, 65x4x2, 95?xfail+1+fail
Power Cleans: 95?x6x4 +front squatx2
Power Clean and Jerk: 65x4x4

Murph said I need to get my head through faster on the jerks.

BENCH
45x8, 65x6, 75x4?, 85x5x4

i guesstimated a 1RM/goal of 125, so my work sets were just 70% of that, they felt solid but not difficult. My numbers and long-term program needs to be tightened up i think.

SQUAT
45x8, 95x6, 135x3?, 145x5x3+4+fail

These were non-trivial, I lost my balance on the last rep. I'm so not in squating shape, this is usually trivial for me, 160+ at these sets is more likely to fail. But this was over 70% of my goal/1RM (200), so, gotta get back in somehow.

SLOW PUSHUPS ON RINGS:
wide stance: x5?
narrow stance, one foot: x5?

Was going to do more bench, but was running out of time and wiped, so we dicked around with the rings and did suspended, slow pushups. Cool.


6/09:

got to zcenter way too late due to work, had 15 hard minutes on elliptical, stretched.

6/10:

TPS again.

OLY:

Burgener Warmup with deep overhead squat.

snatches: 65x6x3?
clean+jerks: 5?x2 (fast)

DEADLIFT:
Trying to work up to a 5RM, but this was not the day for that, full of fail.
135x6?, 155x5, 185x4, 205x3?, 225x1?, 235x3+FAIL (~85% of 275)

The sleeve on the end of the bar was COMING OFF and I was all lopsided for a bit. Fixed it, kept going.
The center of the bar was smooth where I was normally gripping for sumo, so this absolutely wrecked my hands and was fucking painful. Great start there.

BENCH:

Warmed up with DB presses: 25sx8, 30sx6, 35sx6?

45x10, 65x6?, 75x6?, 85x5x5

These were good. I didn't try to destroy myself. This was ~70% of 125. I should have done 70% on deadlift 5RM, but pushed myself too hard this first week back.

DEADLIFT:

135x6?, 185x5x5 (<70% of 275)

These were brutal on my hands. Tried to correct my non-arched back and failed on those more often than not. It was not a good time to try and change form while also on my first week back and using a shitty bar with no grip, but Nathan noted it's possible that I'm lacking in hipstrength needed at the bottom/start of the lift with a proper back arch. I'm thinking that when I actively try to arch, I end up pushing my butt below parallel and my leverage is gone, which perhaps does indicate inadequate hip strength, but I think I also just need to learn how to arch my back without ending up starting the lift way too low.

6/12/09:

TPS

OLY:

Burgener Warmup x1
snatches: 65x6x3?
clean+jerks: 65x 5?x2 (fast)

SQUAT:
45x8, 95x6, 135x5?

BENCH:
45x8, 65x6, 85x5x5

SQUAT:
95x5, 135x5x5

Glut-ham raise:
6?x3

Ow. Having never done these, and after all the squating, my hamstrings were shot.


6/15/09:

OLY:

Burgener Warmup x1
snatches: 65x6x3
clean+jerks: 85x 4x3

Snatches were much harder today, feeling stiff. Heavier c+j, still done for speed.

BENCH:
45x8, 65x5, 75x5, 85x3, 95x3, 105x3, 115x3
Current 3RM.

Huzzah. Would have attempted 120 but I felt my bad shoulder twinge so I didn't push it.

SQUAT:
45x6, 95x5, 135x5x5

BENCH:
45x6, 65x5, 85x5x5

DB presses:
35sx8x4

My shoulder was suffering on the last two reps of each set.

Deadlift (conventional stance):
95x6, 135x6x4

Trivial. Concentrated on awesomely arched back.


Other:
The female co-owner of TPS basically told me to cover myself so that other ladies that lift there won't feel bad about themselves. I spent the rest of my workout trying to pull my shirt down. If I were a dude, this wouldn't even be an issue.


Apologies on the text dump.

10 comments:

Nathan Beckmann said...

YEEAAHHHHH!!!

Welcome to the blog. We are friendly. Mostly.

If anyone doesn't like her posting here, I will fight you.

Jake Ceccarelli said...

Winner for longest post ever. So much to comment on I think it'll take a post in itself.

I originally starting learning how to work out to learn how to train for sports, so your blog will be a special treat for me.

Deirdre said...

jake: summer is almost entirely powerlifting training, preseason training for fall rugby starts in august, so you'll be waiting a little while for that stuff.

Jake Ceccarelli said...

Sports training should be year-round, only the volume and intensity should be changed to match the objective of the training phase. But I'm highly critical of sports training so don't take it personally.
I like analyzing powerlifting training too.

kenji keeps going... said...

niccce D. good to have you posting.


and Nathan, that is extremely cute. ("If anyone doesn't like her posting here, I will fight you.")

Juggernaut, the said...

@D: nice work. those are epic workouts. How long do they take you? Is TPS where Nathans lifts?

@Nate: let's fight but call it a lover's quarrel <3

Jake Ceccarelli said...

Would you mind laying out the training plan you have in mind for the forseeable future? Also, what are your goals? Are you training for both powerlifting and rugby, or powerlifting to get better at rugby?

Ok, here are all of my comments about all of your workouts:

6-8
"get your head through faster on jerks" probably really means you're not jerking the barbell straight up, you're pushing it forward. Send the bar straight up.

What do you mean you're not in squatting shape? Why would you stop squatting?

6-10
I think it's not so much you're lacking "hip" strength and therefore your back rounds, and gaining more "hip" strength will allow to to arch your back. They are one and the same. If you are in the right position, the porper muscles MUST be used in the RIGHT way. if you are in the wrong position, the proper muscles CANNOT be used in the right way. The corrallary is: when you are in the right position you are training the right muscles, when you are in the wrong position you are training the wrong muscles. Or, you are training the right muscles in the wrong way. The right questions to ask are: how do I get myself into the proper position, and how can I train myself to do it every time? Then, your training should revolve around that. This is true for all sports.

6-15
I left this for now because all of your clean workouts said "fast," including this one. This brings up a huge red flag because this implies, to me, that you're doing cleans that are intentionally super light to improve "speed." Good logic, bad science. First of all, aren't all Olympic lifts done "for speed?" Second, a little know but important fact: the "speed" in the Olympic lifts comes from you movning under the bar, not form the bar moving fast, and when you're moving under, you're weightless. Not much training effect there. Youtube some Olympic lifters and watch closely. You'll see the bar actually moving relatively slow. It's the athlete that moves quickly. This is because they actively pull themselves under the bar. Not a skill very applicable to sports other than weightlifting. Finally, you are doing these to improve power production, I assume? The closer to your 1RM you are when doing ANY Olympic lift, the higher the power output (unlike powerlifts where, ironically, maximum power production occurs between 60-80% of max). So, training at higher percents yields greater power production, despite the bar moving much more slowly. Of course, technique work in the 70-80% range is necessary, but going below 60% or so is kind of a waste of time.

Other:
I wish more gyms had the problem of "that one girl who makes the other girls look bad." I would enjoy my workouts more.

Nathan Beckmann said...

@Jake: I'll let Dee speak for herself mostly, but I do have some comments...

She is basically following the program I made for Gabi a while back, but it will obviously be tweaked here and there.

- "Squatting shape": Hip was bothering her due to rugby season and consequently squats had issues towards the end of the season. And she just took 2 weeks off lifting completely for recovery after the season.

- She starts in the correct position during deadlifts, but hips shoot up and the back rounds when it gets heavier. It doesn't round much, but she basically turns it into a stiff-leg deadlift and there is a slight round. I feel that hip strength is important to keep the proper position so the hips don't shoot up. The plan is to practice this during warm-ups and separately.

- Oly: You are probably right about all of this, but I'd rather she didn't go heavy on them all the time. It's supposed to be a warm-up and also work on speed for rugby. She always does the power-* variety of the oly lifts, if that makes a difference to anything you said.

Deirdre said...

Jake: The oly is included as strength/power endurance, rather than just maxing on those lifts, hence they are usually at a lighter weight and sets of 6-8. By fast, I mean fast reps with limited rest, to mimic the activity involved in 'make the tackle, get up, hit the ruck, repeat', several times over. Sometimes I will do heavy oly on light/cardio days when I'm doing little else.

So no, I don't do light weight 'to make the bar go fast', I do lighter weight so I can do several reps as quick as possible.

Jake Ceccarelli said...

More interesting complexes are more fun and probably more productive, especially if you have your normal practice gear available. Stuff like 5 cleans, sprint 20m, 5 cleans, 10 burpees, sprint 30m, and so on. Besides, as a scrum half you don't tackle that much do you?

Your training can be further improved by looking at film of your games and finding the average time you sprint, walk, jog lightly, hit, etc., then tailor your conditioning around those time intervals.