9/19 & 20

Monday:

Drove down from NorCal and did the following with 115lbs at the Activities Fair:

No-handed Front Squats & Back squats
Snatches
Overhead presses

Tuesday:

Worked out at my apt. I brought down a spare DB handle that I had at home. Normally unused, since it fits the small-holed weight plates, but my apt complex has ~200lbs of small-holed plates. This means that I have access to a DB that potentially holds up to 155lbs of weight, and a barbell (non-revolving) that holds up to 210lbs of weight.

1-arm DB Press/1-arm DB Row:
25x6/6
40x6/6
55x6/6, 3/6
70x1/6x3

1-Arm Db Row:
105x6x2

BW Dips/BB Curls (75lbs)
10/6x3

I did some BW dips on the railing of the staircase in the fire escape at my apt. The 90 degree angle of the railing is actually amazingly comfortable for dips - much more so than parallel bars. I suppose I can eventually weight them using a backpack or something.

Later: (because I was bored)

Standing Press:
75x8, 8
125x2x6

Barbell Row:
125x6x2
175x6x3

BW Dips:
10, 8, 4, 4, 4

10/18 Post-Midterms Squat

Squat:
135x5
185x5
225x3
275x3
325x1
335x1, 1, 1 PR

Power Snatch:
95x3
115x3, 3
120x3, 3, 3

Front Squat:
135x3
165x3
185x3
205x3, 3

Abs and Stretching afterwards.

My squat is steadily going up and up. 335 felt at about a 9 on the RTS scale, and I feel like I have 10-20 more lbs in me for a true max single. Doing the snatches afterwards was hard, but I really need to improve my speed if I want to get even stronger.

10/14 Squat

Minimum Effort Lifting - Maximum Effort Studying

Squat:
135x8
185x5
235x5
255x5
275x5

Power Snatch:
95x5, 5
115x3, 3, 3, 3, 3

Chins:
Pronated - 14 (ab cramp, so stopped there)

8/5 531 Front Squat

Week 1 Cycle 1

Front Squat:
155x5
175x5
195x7 PR?

Power Snatch:
95x3
115x3x3

RDL:
225x8
275x6
315x6

Hammer Curls: 45's x 3 sets

I did quite well on front squats today, but my biceps tendons keep annoying the hell out of me. They hurt when I grip anything more than 225, and when I do any sort of rowing/chinning motion. Last time I had elbow problems, I just dropped all of the exercises that irritated it for a while, so I will be doing the same here. Will be doing light shrugs for the next few weeks just to keep my traps in decent shape, but other than that, no back work.

Yesterday and Today

Yesterday:
Power snatch 65/6 75/4 86/2 x 3 (80%)
Sn. pull 97/4 x 2 108/2 x 4 (100%)
Drop Snatch 75/2 x 3 86/2 x 3 (80%)
Front Squat 95/4 127/3 x 4 (75%)
BTN Press + OHS 115 x 3+3 115Lb Did all I could from dead stop on the shoulders
Stretching: Seated groin, standing hamstring, leg propped, seated hamstring, shoulder dislocate, Snatch starting position

Today:
Pump and Sculpt class!
Basically aerobics with weights. Actually, not that bad for me since I never do any kind of cardio. I figured looking at cute girls...pump and scult themselves would be good enough motivation. The instructor was a little disappointing though.
Stretched afterward.

10-8 high volume day

Power snatch 70/3 x 2 80/2 x 3 (75%)
Snatch 75/3 (70%) 85/2 x 2 (80%) 97/2 x 3 (missed all of these but one......the new
percents are hard and I was kinda tired)
Snatch pull 97/3 x 3 107/3 x 3 (100%) 117/2 x 3 (110%)
Back Squat 105/3 (55%) 125/3 (65%) 152/4 x 5 (80%) This was hard.
Behind the neck press + OHS (pounds) 125/3+2, 130 fail, 125 fail, 115 3+2 x 2
If I can get the weight off my neck I can do it for reps. I couldn't get 130 or the second 125 up.

Flexiblity:
hamstrings, groin, shoulders for 30 minutes.
For shoulders I just got a 45 pound plate and held it over my head.

Ok workout, I easily got 85kg for 2 x 2 on the snatch, but the jump to 97 killed me. This week has been surprisingly hard though, considering I'm 3 weeks out from the meet. On the flip side, I do feel quite strong.

I'm also using the Russian books I bought to study up on program creation and to create a template that will allow me to create my own programs instead of having to exactly copy the one I have. That way I can address my specific weaknesses while still getting stronger in everything else as I should normally be. After I get it figured out I'm going to try to find data on powerlifting numbers that is similar to the type of data I have for weightlifting. It should actually be quite simple to translate the system to powerlifting once I have it down.

Beginning of last competition phase

Power snatch 75/3 x 6 (70%)
Sn. Pull 100/2 x 4 (90%)
Front Squat 105/4 x 5 (60%)
1/2 jerk 130/10 x 3 (100%)
Behind the neck press+Overhead squat 56.8 x 3+2 (125 pounds)

Flexiblity
20 minutes of stretching
hamstrings, seated, standing, leg up on pull-up station
Groin, seated, leg up on pull-up station
Glute, lying down

I'm pretty flexible now but I'd like to see how far I can go.

Everything felt good. Nice light day to get back into things from my test week.

The half-jerk is an exercise I brought in because I feel I need help with my jerks. All you do is take a weight off the rack and bounce up and down with it on your shoulders. Hopefully it'll increase reactivity with heavy weight. It is mentioned in the program but never used, so I'm guessing on the sets and reps. 3 x 10 felt good though. I've seen video of Chinese lifters doing them and I've done them before, a long time ago.

I'll be adding in jerks from behind the head on my jerk days to supplement my jerks and use heavier weight. I'll use the half jerks at the end of every workout since I don't think they'll take very much to recover from.

9-18

P. Sn 72/2 x 4
C&J 90/2+1 102/1 x 2 105/1 107/1
Jerk 102/2 115/1 x 2, 117/1 x 2, 120/1 miss
Cl. pull 130/2 x 4
B. Sq 125/4 142.5/4 x 3

9-16

Power snatch 72/2 x 4
Snatch 72/3 82/2 x 2 85/2 x 2 87/2
Sn. Pu. 92/3 102/2 x 3 105/2 x 2
P. Cl. 90/3 x 5
B. Sq. 115/3 x 4

Light day. I've been sleepy lately for no real reason but I suppose I'll keep sleeping as normal.

Back on track

So after combining two workouts into one (basically just adding snatches instead of light clean and jerks) I am abck on track and will be going into the next test day as the Russians intended it: every other day workouts. I plan on being fucking huge.

power snatch 72/3 x 3
Snatch 82/2 x 3
Jerk 115/1 x 5
clean pull, bel. kn. 90/4 100/3 120/2 x 2
back squat 152/4 x 4

FLEXIBILITY/REHAB/OLY

Today I went way heavier than necessary for the oly lifts. I should cut back and just work on technique--I think it's better with less weight for this, anyway.
Today Rene tried on the shirt so I had tons of time to do random crap.
- Power snatch/overhead squat Up to 110x2/4x5
The crazy thing about this is that 110 is very easy, but I can tell that 135 would be failure. I have no technique at all on these -- I tried to drop to catch once and nearly died.
- Clean and jerk 155x2x4
Cleaning this was easy, but I can't jerk shit. All of these were horrible press out and I kept losing my balance. This was also way too heavy for a pure deload/rehab day.
- Full cleans 45x2x3
I'm actually able to do these fairly well so long as I have a raised heel. I can drop to parallel at least to catch it.
- Balance
- Single-leg squats on bosu ball 10x2
- Kickbacks on disk 20x2
- Side twists on half foam-roller 10x2
- Stretching
- Soleus on machine
- Gastroc on hack squat
- Hamstring holding bar
- Adductors on machine
- Seated groin
Best stretch ever for my adductor issues.
- Seated glute
- Hip flexor
- Upper back on cable row

OK so today Rene tried on the shirt. He's pretty jacked but about my size, so the shirts fit almost perfectly. I love seeing people the first time in the shirt because they never have a clue what they are getting themselves into. We first tried the METAL, and he was nowhere close to touching going up to 275. (He doesn't know how to use a shirt.) At this point, he was like "This hurts like crazy!" and it was pretty hilarious. Then we put on the PHENOM! Lol. I didn't tell him it would hurt like 20x more. He also couldn't touch with 275 on this one, we tried twice. But his expressions were pretty hilarious. We got it to touch with 295, but he was in so much pain he couldn't press it up. Then he resumed his normal workout and hit 285 raw. So he has some work to do before he can really use a shirt, LOL.

8-28

Power snatch 67/4 77/2 x 3
Snatch 82/2 x 2 92/1, 95/1 x 4 (missed one), 97/1
Snatch pull 102/2 x 4
Jerk 95/2 107/2 x 2 110/2
Back Squat 125/5 162/3 x 5 (failed on the very last rep)


Good workout. Snatch felt light and jerking that weight for doubles was pretty good. Perfect weight on back squats since I failed on the last rep.

Yesterday

Power Snatch 72/3, 82/1 x 3
P. cl. + Pu. J 90/2 100/1 x 3
Clean and Jerk 105/1 x 3
Jerks 105/2 115/1 x 2 117/1 x 3
Back Squat 105/5 125/5 142.5/3 x 4

Best power snatches ever, 82 has never felt so light before. I'm finally starting to recover from that volume so I think my numbers will start climbing. I'm going to be more liberal with the weight now (the weight never goes over 90%, so I'm going to do let the weight climb on subsequent sets instead of keeping it at exactly 90 like I did on jerks).