7/29 - SKILLS EVAL

▼ 1. 7/29/09 - Wed - SHEIKO#20 - SKILLS EVALUATION

Weight: 214. Time: 2:30.

I can't imagine a worse set of circumstances to do a heavy day. So that being said, I'm extremely happy with these results.

I was having weird irregular heart beat last night that distracted the hell out of me and made me only get 4 hours of sleep. Then I called to make a doctor's appointment and they told me to go to urgent care. So I spent the whole day basically getting tested with various apparatus, before being told I was 100% OK and it was probably just heartburn.

But I'm moving this week and I also have a paper deadline so stress was pretty much at the max. Not a good day to go heavy.

• Squat 45x5x2, 135x5x3, lungesx15x3, 225x3 (50), 275x3 (60), 315x2 (70),

365x2 (80), 405x1 (90), 425x1 (95)

Belt only. Felt pretty good. 405 was very easy. 425 was slower but still manageable. My right knee wasn't happy after 425, but it wasn't terrible.

Murph (TPS owner) told me he was 'seeing lots of things' I need to fix on my squat. He said 'fix a few things and you'll squat 100 more pounds.' I'm going to look into this after this meet. It sort of ties into my current plans anyway. Murph: 'You have access to every piece of training equipment in the world now. And you aren't using it. Sheiko doesn't make sense, it's too much volume.'

• Bench 155x3 (50), 185x3 (60), 215x2x2 (70), 245x2 (80), 275x1 (90), 290x1

(95)

Used belt and wrist wraps. Got press command from Carlos on the last set. Not as fast as Dee's, but didn't slow down on the way up either. Felt good.

• Deadlift 135x5x3, 275x3 (50), 335x2 (60), 385x2x2 (70), 445x2 (80), 495x1

(90), 525x1 (95)

495 was super easy and fast. 525 was also easy, but I lost my arch a little bit. I felt very good about both, though.

Guess Brent still sucks at squatting, at least.

7-11, 7-13, 7-16

7-11

Snatch 77/2 88/2 100/1 x 3
Sn. pull 110/2 x 3
Jerk 95/3 105/2 x 2
P. Cl. 95/3 x 2
Back squat 125/3 142/2 x 3
Bench 135/6 155/4 185/4 x 2


7-13

Snatch 77/2 x 3 88/1 x 5
C&J 95/1+2 x 2 105/1 x 2
Front squat 132/2 x 3

7-16

Not great, but not completely shitty test day:

Snatch 105, 110-miss, 112-miss, 112-miss, 100, 105, 112-miss
Really annoying to regress on the snatch. I felt like I wasn't quite catching the bar properly. I need to work on my pull at the very top, which I think I'm cutting a little when I do snatch pulls. It leaves the bar slightly forward, which actually manifested itself in some of my warm ups. Also, I need to make sure my catch at the bottom is more upright and solid in general. This will be fixed in the upcoming phase.

Clean and Jerk 125, 130, 132-miss, 135-miss
Not that bad, at least I got 132. In this case I think definintely the lack of food and my odd hydration status (I've been drinking a shitload of water) may have come into play. I got 132 overhead though, my left leg just spasmed and gave out once the bar was fixed. I'll only be making some slight modifications to my clean and jerk training for the next test competition.

On the last note, I'm not cutting weight for any future competitions other than this upcoming powerlifting meet. It's definitely affected me already. I'm simply not strong enough for the cut to matter in competition anyway, so I'm not going to bother. I can't keep not setting PRs for stupid reasons. If I want to actually get anywhere I need to just be smart and consistent. When I'm strong like Dave I'll cut weight. For now I'll just GFH.

LAST TWO DAYS (+ TEST DAY)

▼ 1. 4/30/09 - Thu - SHEIKO #17 - TEST DAY

Weight: ?? -- too high. Time: 2:45.

  Smoke show. Since I'm doing DL only in the meet, I did DL, BE, SQ instead of the normal PL order. Worried that lower back might mess things up, but it wasn't a factor.

• Deadlift 135x5x4, 225x3, 275x3 (50), 330x2 (60), 385x2 (70), add suit, 420x2 

(70), 480x2 (80), 540x1 (90), 570x1 (95)

Suit really tight for some reason? All reps easy and felt good. This is ~the weight I hit last August, and it felt really fast. All good signs for the meet.

• Bench 150x3 (50), 180x3 (60), 210x2x2 (70), 240x2 (80), 270x1 (90), 285x1 

(95)

Rene was calling ridiculously long pauses on the 90 and 95 but they went up fast. "Like a knife through butter."

• Squat 135x5, 225x3 (50), 275x3 (60), 320x2x2 (70), 370x2 (80), 415x1 (90), 

440x1 (95)

Was worried that doing DL and BE first would mess me up, but apparently not. I was wearing a large shirt (my Titan one) and it made the set up on my final rep very awkward. I came down with too much weight on my right leg and felt really terrible, but Danny and Rene said I shot up super fast and it looked easy anyway.

▼ 2. 4/29/09 - Wed - CARDIO/FLEXIBILITY

• Cardio - bike ?? bpm x 30 mins

• Flexibility - lower back, soleus, gastroc, hamstrings, seated groin, hip flexors

TEST DAY

Quick summary, more detail later.

Squat - 460 (+35 PR)

Bench - 300 (+20 PR)

Deadlift - 550 (+20 PR)

-----------------------------

Total - 1310 (+75 PR)

Went for fourth attempts on squat and bench. Didn't leave much in the tank today. Deadlift was pretty hard.

UPDATE: Details...

▼ 1. 3/9/09 - Sun - SHEIKO #36/TEST DAY

Weight: 210.  +35/+20/+20 = +75 PR day.

• Squat 225x3 (50), 260x3 (60), 305x2x2 (70), 350x2 (80), 390x1 (90), 415x1 

(95), 445x1 (102), 460x1 (106)

Sweet. I knew that squats would set the tone for the day, so I was honed in mentally. My friends watching (Danny and Frank) said I was well below parallel on 460. Danny was berating me for it.

• Bench 145x3 (50), 170x3 (60), 200x2x2 (70), 230x2 (80), 255x1 (90), 270x1 

(95), 290x1 (102), 300x1 (105)

Awesome. Pauses probably weren't as long as USAPL, but I had a friend calling them so they were legit.

• Deadlift 271x3 (50), 326x2 (60), 381x2x2 (70), 431x2 (80), 486x1 (90), 516x1 

(95), 551x1 (102)

550 was a good, tough rep, and I really didn't think I had anything left in me.

• Deadlift (suited) 400x1, 490x1, 581xmissx2

First time putting the suit back on since it was tailored and since gaining some weight. It was VERY tight. Very difficult to put on and get down to the bar. I couldn't keep any kind of arch. 580 came off the floor pretty easily, but I kept losing my balance forward at halfway/lockout. I'm not very worried about this in terms of getting 600 in May; I've gotten stronger raw and I've done no suited training at all lately. Also, my head really wasn't in the lifts at this point.

test day

Snatch: 105, 108, 110

Clean and Jerk: 122, 128-miss x 3

Great day for snatch, I hit a 3kg record (5kg if you count competition max). I attribute this to two things: focusing on flexibility and keeping my back arched hard through the lift and the catch. I attribute the loss in the clean and jerk to being sick and losing strength (I almost passed out on every clean) as well as my jerk technqiue still being a little bit off (I still send the bar a little forward). I'm going to continue with the Russian program though, pretty much as it is. I'm going to do all the cleans and pulls as written (I've also been decreasing clean puls to add in more jerks) and just add in some jerk supports with weights around 100% and do some additional 70-75% jerks for technqiue.

MINI-MEET

Actual meet cancelled, did a fake one at Wooden. Weight: 206. All raw. All attempts pretty easy. I think I'd be good for 435/285/540 = `160. This is 10# of class I raw status at 220, and I'm weighting light for that class...so I'll take it.

▼ Squat

• 1st 375x1

• 2nd 395x1

• 3rd 425x1

Might have stepped early, but I got it up fine. 10# PR.

▼ Bench

• 1st 250x1

• 2nd 260x1

• 3rd 280x1

5# PR, easier than 275 8 weeks ago.

▼ Deadlift

• 1st 470x1

• 2nd 495x1

• 3rd 530x1 (10# PR)

SHEIKO WEEK #6; #14 - SKILLS EVALUATION

Time: 2:15. Weight: 210.

  Simulated competition as much as possible. All lifts done in singlet with RAW gear. No mirrors. All lifts felt easy and fast.

• Squat 205x3 (50%), 250x3 (60%), 290x2x2 (70%), 335x2 (80%), 375x1 (90%), 395x1 (95%)

Knee sleeves, belt, and squat shoes. I got pretty worked up for the 90% squat because it was the first heavy lift of the day. It was the fastest squat I've done in a long while--I was coming up before I realized I'd started the lift. 95% was easy as well, I thought I could triple it.

• Bench 135x3 (50%), 165x3 (60%), 195x2x2 (70%), 220x2 (80%), 250x1 (90%), 260x1 (95%)

Wrist wraps and Chuck's. Considering that my bench didn't move for a long time, I'm very happy with this. 95% was smooth, definitely could have doubled, maybe tripled. Rene gave full commands for everything starting with 80%. Gave me an extra-long pause on 95% (I didn't ask for this, but that's what training partners are for, right?)

• Deadlift (sumo) 260x3 (50%), 315x2 (60%), 365x2x2 (70%), 415x2 (80%), 470x1 (90%), 495x1 (95%)

Belt and wrestling shoes. Used chalk and baby powder. Deadlifts always feel heavy to me above 80%, but Rene says that all of these looked "decisive". I let the 90% get out in front of me, which made it a little awkward, but I wasn't close to missing any of these.

▼ Prehab

• Ice knees

• Stretch flexors & hamstrings

Test day

Snatch 100, 105, 107 miss, 107, 110 miss
Fuck ya

Clean and Jerk 122, 127, 130 miss, 130 miss
Kinda gay, but 127 is still a record. Need to push cleans AND jerks harder.

Total was 234 for those of you who don't want to add. Which means I need 8kg to get to class 1. Definitely do-able, especially if I hit 110 on sntach in Oct. Would like to actually push my clean and jerk up though, it doesn't like to improve.

TEST DAY

I've decided to reset my training to peak on the date of the Nov. USAPL meet. If I get the grant, then my training will be right for it. If not, I will just max on the same day and try to hit my attempts anyway. This is also my first time maxing raw in a VERY long time. Rene was there to help with spots/lift-offs. Also note that I followed no type of peaking program for today except one more day of rest, so these numbers are not really maximal in the competition sense.

Squat: 385x1, 405x1, 415x1

As you probably know, I've had a lot of trouble with my squat in the past year or so. Last fall I hit 405 raw, and then I had form issues, then my adductor/knee problems, and my squat was all over the place. About two months ago I re-tooled my squat form, and suffered the inevitable decrease in performance. It looks like my squat is back in good shape.

Rene said that 415 looked easier than 405. I had no major form problems on any attempts, and I left 10-20# on the bar. I'm a big believer in not failing during training, especially with my squat which has had confidence issues in the past.

This is a 10# PR over my best raw squat, 8# better than my (equipped) squat in the March meet. I also hit 425 a few months back with straps down, so I feel very good about my squat relative to previous performance. My next target is 200kg.

Bench: 265x1, 275x1

The 275 was the heaviest lift of the day, as I kind of expected. It wasn't my slowest rep ever, though (297 in March was). Only reasons to believe I might be good for 285 are: (1) I didn't peak, and (2) my left shoulder is totally fucked from a tetanus shot that I had yesterday, but this didn't seem to affect my lifting much. I think 275 is a good working max. It is also a 20# PR over the last time I maxed raw, but that was 2 years ago (I think)... It also means I'm only getting 20# out of my bench shirt. That needs to be fixed.

Sumo deadlift: 455x1, 495x1, 520x1

I only include the 455 because it was the slowest rep of these. I pulled a Dean and didn't take it seriously, so it came off the floor pretty slow. I was good for 530, maybe more.

Also, for all of the deadlifts I had to use straps because I tore my callus off on Wed and its still raw. I also don't have any chalk. I actually think this hurt my lifts, because it totally killed my set up. I've never had any grip issues on maximal deadlifts, so I think these numbers are legit.

This means I get ~50-60# out of my suit. That's a pretty good number.

Conventional deadlift: 495x1

The heaviest deadlift. I tried conventional to see if I should switch over, but Rene said my back didn't look good on this rep. (It looked good for the others, though -- fuck yeah.) Since form is an issue and I'm stronger sumo, I'm not going to switch.

------

So what does this mean? I went 415/275/520 = 1210 which is class I raw status. So suck on that, Jake. Your turn to catch up. I'm sure I could hit these weights in competition barring some dumb technical disqualification. So my new goal is to match my March total RAW -- 1256. My plan is 430/280/546. It's a realistic but tough goal, and if I don't get it in November, I'll get it at the next one.

I think that pretty much sums it up.

Test day

Snatched 98, missed 102 4 times
Missed 122 on clean and jerk

Really felt the volume on clean and jerks, snatches were ok but just out of position. The much lower volume competition phase starts this week so the lifts should start going up soon.