Ryan's Journal

Take care of that quad. Gentle stretching is very key to recovery, and of course elevation will help reduce the swelling. Easy for us desk jockeys, just rest foot on a chair, but you say your work is physical so maybe not so for you.
You are more impressive looking than I am, which considering you are my weight and 7.5 cm or 3 inches shorter is no big surprise.

Some thoughts that may help or not, if you are looking seriously at powerlifting.

Squats
The judges will award the lift as long as you get to parallel or below. Therefore most lifters only go to parallel, to increase load, and use knee wraps to make this point easier to mark. I don't use wraps now but will be starting to again next year as I will be doing more pure power for a while, have been mixing it a lot this year, largely because when using public gyms you have to be flexible, now I am at home, equipment is always available.
Bench
This may be region dependant, but when I entered, the bar had to stop dead at the chest and not go further down after that point. This meant the movement was down, hold, push. Current sessions I am not doing this as it’s a mix of power and endurance, and I will fatigue too fast to keep this safe, I have passed out trying in the past. Normally I always stop at the chest out of habit from competition prep, bit daft as only one I entered was when I was around your age, a little while ago.
Deadlift
You have tried different grips, and lost a bit of progress due to inconsistency. If you are willing to risk a little more you may wish to consider different foot positions. My PB was a split style, which is nerve racking but incredibly effective. Your feet go out to be just inside the plates, hand grip is alternate, and straight down from your shoulders. This combination makes the shortest lift whilst still allowing you to use the strongest muscle groups. It is a way to be sure you put the bar down very gently at first for fear of crushing toes then you get used to it and put it down with competition standard care. I switched back when deciding I just wanted functional power and that this was not useful outside of contest.

All of this is based on you wanting to compete, if you aren't ignore me.

Olympic lifting is 90%+ confidence with a bit of co-ordination. You have to totally commit to the movement and be sure your body will work well enough to catch this thing you have just thrown into the air, then of course you have to be right.
Good stuff.
 
I was doing physical work for a couple weeks out on a farm. Now I'm back home doing the exact opposite thereof. I've been icing the injury. When I suspect a muscle tear, I don't stretch the muscle at all (if I can avoid it) for a good 2-3 days, for the same reason that when you get a cut on your skin, the one thing you don't do is pull it apart. Gotta give it some time to lay down scar tissue, then get into the heat treatment, massage and stretching. I will be stretching it a lot as of tomorrow, and over the next few weeks, since it turns out rehab does good things.

I've worn knee wraps once, and immediately decided never to do it again if I have a choice in the matter. If I compete, it'll most likely be in Powerlifting Australia, which regards knee wraps as equipped lifting, so that puts the lifter in the same boat as everyone in multi-ply suits, and I'm really not that interested in finding out what a suit and wraps can make me lift. I do intend on buying some knee sleeves soon, though, for a bit of safety. I've found that trying to limit my ROM so that I only go to parallel makes it harder for me to tell whether or not I'm actually hitting depth, and it's harder to create a good stretch-strength reflex when I do that, so for now I'm happy with letting a little more depth occur (although my full ROM is only slightly below parallel anyway). Besides that, I like doing squats that look like real squats, which is mostly me being a pretentious douche. I see a lot of competition squats that are completely legal, but I think about how I would describe the movement had I never been introduced to strength training, and one word that would never cross my mind to describe that movement is 'squatting,' which doesn't sit well with me.

I was actually thinking about that point on the bench press before returning to training, and have been making a point of doing paused reps rather than going for touch and go. Every fed I know of requires that you pause until you're given the signal to press.

With deadlift, a lot of lifters use the sumo stance for leverage advantages, and, from what I'm told about equipped lifting, the sumo stance allows them to get more out of their suits. Personally, I like conventional deadlift, and would compete with it anyway.

At the end of the day, I don't expect to be winning any medals in powerlifting, ever. That's not to say I plan on not winning any, I just expect that there'll always be bigger fish competing against me, so I'm okay with using lifting techniques that may not be 100% advantageous, because it's more about beating myself than beating the guy next to me (until the guy next to me puts up 2.5kg heavier than me...then it's on!!!).

Cliff's: I don't plan on changing the way I squat or deadlift, but I am trying to make a habit out of pausing my bench presses so that I can lift legally in competition.
 
Rest and the most gentle stretches are what I tend to advise. Too much of a stretch is damaging exactly as you said, a little bit helps ensure the repair doesn't knit too tight or worse in bad alignment, the latter is pretty unlikely, but paranoia can be good. Personally I am not sensible when it comes to the rest part, have paid for that a few times.

Good stuff.
Squat depth is a totally personal thing. I know many who think it's bum on heels, others parallel or below and some who feel it's any movement at all.
Everything I said was based on advice I was given and gave for UK and European competition. I used the straps to help me identify when I had hit depth by always covering the same area and squatting to the point where I felt skin touch skin.
The most comfortable depth is again totally personal. For me it's actually just above parallel, and with the straps giving me an extra bit of support just below, a bit of luck there. Doing what feels best is generally advisable.
There was no unassisted category in the competition I was in, so wraps were fine, not used a suit though. Tried a bench press top once, one word description, ow!
Deadlift movement is again matter of choice. My best standard is 25kg short of PB done while in split, but it is more useful in the real world.

I compete with myself all of the time and hate my inadequacy every session. Not healthy or smart, but has driven me further than I would have got without this level of stupidity and self-loathing. And of course I have always competed with training partners, what else are they there for?
Others in the competition are hard to compete with as you can think you have beaten someone only to find out they are a few kilos lighter and have beaten you via formula.

If you can help out at a competition you will get a lot of tips, especially regarding when to eat etc. that you will not pick up in a gym. It's 9 lifts over several hours, so ensuring you are warm when needed but not worn out is part of the skill. It helped me a lot.
 
^ I've done poorly with them over the weekend just passed, myself. Church camp, where you either eat what's provided, or you don't eat. I decided it was better to eat enough of what was put in front of me to get the macros and micros I need (and consequently get more calories than I currently want to be eating) than to do too many push aways and miss the nutrients needed. I did do quite a few push aways, but the balance wasn't as favourable as when I get to choose what gets cooked.
 
We all love those one inch bench presses, almost as much as the chest moves but bar is stuck to it variety.
That is why we all love power lifting standard, that little pause at the bottom is so good for allowing the bar to weld itself to you. I will be back to them after Christmas, so looking forward to it.
 
I love the socks, they should become a permanent feature.
If you wore them all of the time you would definitely want to prove yourself more of a man too so could help the motivation.
We all have our days, and they can be hard to break through. It’s why I always direct my sessions in a slightly different direction each change over. I tried only doing power for a while and for a year or two was fine with it, but ended up feeling that I wanted more than skill in gym activities so added some with endurance, short recovery, co-ordination and of course blatant stupidity. Of all things it's likely the last that helps most, sometimes it's useful to set a target of doing something no sane gym-goer will do just because you want to, and the pursuit of this makes the rest a bit more fun.
I haven't had any sessions I wanted to end, apart from boring remedial stuff in years. There have been many where it is hard to start but I always go for a big one to start with and that engages me instantly. I don't think I could do your current style, I will do a high rep warm up if needed but I like to play with something heavy fair soon in.
Keep at it and there will hopefully be a nice pot of iron at the end of your rainbow.
 
You make a compelling argument about the socks.

I didn't always warm up the way I do now, but trial and error has taught me that, with squats at least, this is the bare minimum I need to do to prepare myself for the heavy weights. I look forward to returning to conventional deadlifts once I'm done with Smolov Jr. First warm up set on them is 60-70kg, second warm up set 80-100kg....you do get to the more exciting sets sooner.

When I have cardio in my gym time (which isn't the case right now, unless you count my isolation circuits as cardio), sometimes I like to do the whole slow and steady thing; other times I like to go mildly crazy with it. My old gym had a lot of medicine balls in it, and I discovered that slamming them into the ground rapidly for Tabata-style intervals was rather rewarding. I would have slammed them into the walls in much the same style, but the walls were clearly not designed for that. Now I'm reminiscing back to when I was studying to become a personal trainer, the level of insanity that my workouts adhered to....I think if I were to attempt some of that stuff now I'd be keeling over pretty quickly.
 
My warm up is either running or cycling home if training right away or some rowing if not and on Sunday mornings. I often don't do warm up sets, but may do movement rehearsal with bar or without. I know this is advised but tend to find I am fine if body is warmed through and know it's easy to workout to warm up rather than the other way around. I did it now I am careful to leave as much as I can for the insanity.
Closest I came to what you are doing now was a year or so ago, sets were 10, 6, 2-4, 1-2. 10 as warm up set, the rest for power. Worked well in fairness only able to do 3 or 4 exercises of it, but that was evidently enough.
Interesting to see how you're finding this style. Is it giving you what you wanted? I know you are trying to gain power and cut at the same time which is one heck of a combination.
 
From rugby to marine style

hey guys!! i am full time rugby player and in season i find most of my time is spent maintaining strength, power and speed!! Alot of of olympic lifts normally at the start of the session partly as a warm up and then we would move onto more strength based exercises. For example

dumbell chest press 50kg for 5 sets of 5
Weighted pull ups 20 kg for 5 sets of 5

etc

However i also have a huge interest in the Marines and love there whole attitude! This has led to me wanting to incorporate some marine style training into my current training regime!!

Any thoughts ideas? You reckon they will combine well or not??
 
CrazyOldMan said:
My warm up is either running or cycling home if training right away or some rowing if not and on Sunday mornings. I often don't do warm up sets, but may do movement rehearsal with bar or without. I know this is advised but tend to find I am fine if body is warmed through and know it's easy to workout to warm up rather than the other way around. I did it now I am careful to leave as much as I can for the insanity.
Closest I came to what you are doing now was a year or so ago, sets were 10, 6, 2-4, 1-2. 10 as warm up set, the rest for power. Worked well in fairness only able to do 3 or 4 exercises of it, but that was evidently enough.
Interesting to see how you're finding this style. Is it giving you what you wanted? I know you are trying to gain power and cut at the same time which is one heck of a combination.
Click to expand...
It's working well with squats and deadlifts. I'm not sure how much of it is structural and how much is mental (probably 99.9% the latter), but nothing seems to do much for my bench. Since I started cutting, I've gone down from 74.9kg to 67.2kg and have hit PR's in the midst of that. Yesterday I think I saw the faint outline of my upper abs. So what I did prior to Smolov Jr seems to have worked. Strength would have been much better now had I not gone to work on the farm for a couple weeks (as I lost a lot of strength while I was away), but on the flip side my bank account would have been weaker.
 
dantemama1 said:
hey guys!! i am full time rugby player and in season i find most of my time is spent maintaining strength, power and speed!! Alot of of olympic lifts normally at the start of the session partly as a warm up and then we would move onto more strength based exercises. For example

dumbell chest press 50kg for 5 sets of 5
Weighted pull ups 20 kg for 5 sets of 5

etc

However i also have a huge interest in the Marines and love there whole attitude! This has led to me wanting to incorporate some marine style training into my current training regime!!

Any thoughts ideas? You reckon they will combine well or not??
Click to expand...
And the prize for thread-bomber of the year goes to....

Try it and see. Most of the stuff that people worry about being incompatible only matters when you're at an elite level. If you have to ask, you're not elite, and so you can probably make yourself stronger and have more endurance at the same time. Leading up to my recent PR's, I was squatting 3 days a week and doing cardio on my off-days -- the exact sort of thing that all the internet experts said would leave me overtrained/under-recovered and stop me from achieving anything. Instead of achieving nothing I hit PR's. And I am as far from genetically gifted or chemically enhanced as they come.
 
Take care of those arms. Do you know what has actually gone wrong there?
The sod off home technique looks like the best exercise you could have done there. Full marks for intelligence, I was far more stupid at your age.
Love the picture.
 
I don't know what specifically has gone wrong (other than being inadequately recovered). There's a very dull ache in both my arms which I don't feel while resting, but reared up while benching on Wednesday and was present for both the bench and squat today. Seems to come while under duress and go when physical stress in the area is gone. There's no specific muscle that seems to hurt, I can't identify a specific point where the issue is through palpating.... I dunno. Guess I'll be resting my arms and see what happens. I plan on squatting again tomorrow, but leave out the upper body training, and if my arms cause a problem while squatting, then I guess I may have to stop that, too.
 
Daft task time.
Try some mock lifts/ movements below while holding tension in all areas of your arms, chest, shoulder and back. No actual weight just your tension. All slow.

Bench press movement, upright and laid back
Same but opening arms at the bottom of the movement
Fly movement all the way back upright, laid back and bent over
Shoulder press, in front of head and behind, turn hands during some
Head forward and back, full drop forward only
Head side to side, full drop
Head rolling forward, shoulder to shoulder, obviously not behind you.
Arm circles

If finding any of these give clues, try them one arm at a time to isolate further.

If you find the problem areas, usual very gentle stretches and your favoured foam rolling could be good.
 
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