Me

2013-05-13 training log

/ hsoi

Pause squats will be interesting.

Wendler 5/3/1 program, cycle 19, week 4

  • Work Set – Squat (working max: 305#)
    • 2x5x45 (warmup)
    • 2x5x120
    • 2x5x155
    • 2x5x185
    • 1x5x185 (paused)
  • Work Set – Bench Press (working max: 240#)
    • 2x5x45 (warmup)
    • 2x5x95
    • 2x5x120
    • 2x5x145
  • Assistance – DB Rows
    • 2 x 25 x 45
  • Assistance – Pulldown Abs (standing)
    • 3 x 15 x 60
  • 100 rep work – JM Presses, Face Pulls

It’s deload week, so nothing much to say. Just get in, do a little work, get blood flowing, don’t put anything too hard, and go home.

I did want to try out pause squats tho, since I’ll be adding them in next cycle. My question has been: how much to do? What’s the right weight? What’s right number of sets/reps? People have been down this road, so why not learn from their wisdom and experience, right?

Found this post (well, comment) from Paul Carter:

(“Tiny David” asked):

Quick Question. How would you incorporate pause squatting into a 5-3-1 template?

I’ll run “boring but big” for a few more cycles so I was thinking-
Squat 5-3-1
Squat 5×10
Pause squats (light, but not sure reps and sets?)

Or Do some pause squats on my deadlift day?

Thoughts?

(Paul’s reply):

I wouldn’t do pause squats for 10. Ever. 5 at the most. They really zap you and you have to hold your breathe in the bottom.

If you’re already doing the BBB template, I wouldn’t add more squatting to that. I’d run 531 and do pause squats after with what you used on your first set.

So on the 5 week use 65%x 5

On the 3 week use 70% x 5

On the 531 week use 75% x 3

that’s how I would do it.

So there we go. I saw a lot of Cube Method folks would do a similar thing, but maybe 3 sets of 10. One thing Paul’s reply doesn’t make clear is the number of sets, but from a subsequent comment he made, I get the feeling that 5 sets is where to go. But I could be wrong. My approach will be to strive for at least 3 sets, ideally go for 5, but if I have to work up to 5 then I do because I’d rather do 3 strong sets than 5 half-assed ones, y’know?

Thus today after my last normal set, I left the 185 on the bar and did 1 pause set of 5. My pause? Seems that’s another variable people will manipulate, but if the main point of pause squats is to lose momentum and the stretch reflex out of the hole, then I figured well… go down until I settle in, lose momentum, stay for a “still” moment, then come back up. So that was what? 2-3 seconds? That’s fine. I’m not going to count, just ensure I have come full stop, wait a sec, then back up. And I can tell with the 185 that this is going to be fun. 🙂

2013-05-10 training log

/ hsoi

PR fail… because a tie isn’t quite a win. 😦

Wendler 5/3/1 program, cycle 19, week 3

  • Work Set – Press (working max: 160#)
    • 2x5x45 (warmup)
    • 1x5x65
    • 1x5x80
    • 1x3x95
    • 1x5x120 (work)
    • 1x3x140
    • 1x3x155 (PR-tie)
  • Assistance – Press
    • 5 x 10 x 80
  • Assistance – Lat pulldowns (pronated grip)
    • 1 x 100/25 x 50/60
  • 100 rep work – Front plate raise, Rope Triceps Pressdowns, Hammer Curls

Changing my setup for deadlift is helping. But Press still alludes me because I continue to have the “get light-headed” issue. *sigh* That’s what played in here. I unracked, forced to take a breath, got out of sync with my breathing, paused too much at the bottoms, and well, things didn’t play out right. I tried to go for 4, tried to even push-press it out, but no go. So I tied my existing PR for Press, which is better than regressing, but still disappointing.

I ripped the assistance pressing hard, and then opted to go for 100 reps on everything else. Started too light on the lat pulldowns and 100 didn’t feel all that much… did 25 more with 60#. Still didn’t feel like much… but about 30 seconds after I stopped oh, I felt it. 🙂 Not against pullups, but no way I’ll get 100 reps doing pullups. Just felt like trying 100 pulldowns today.

Anyways… the upshot of this cycle? Again, every 5/3/1 session was a PR attempt, which is a situation I haven’t experienced in a long time. I did set (or here tie) PR’s, but the only one I felt good about was the deadlift (which I’ve always been pretty good at). I thought about what I should do next cycle…. is this a hint to reset? I’m not sure yet. I think it’s worthwhile for me to forge ahead. In part yes, it’s some ego and goal “blindness” because I’m really gunning for some particular milestones before the end of 2013 and I may well not hit them if I reset. But I also wonder… could it just have been a bad day? No question the bench press fail was a “bad day” and not fully indicative of things. Plus if I do reset, I have determined I won’t just do something simple like drop 20# or “fall back 3 cycles” or something like that. I will take whatever my last 5/3/1 success was, consider that my “true max” (because if it’s less than 5 reps, it probably is indicative enough… or at worst it makes me go lighter than I need to, and that’s not a bad thing), and fully recalucate based upon that. Point is, we figure out the max, then it’s up by 5 or 10# each cycle, which may not strictly follow the math. So then like today I only got 3 @ 155… but note that all the original numbers were calculated on a 5RM. No, I’d calc it based on the true numbers… which yes, will drop me lower, and while that’s probably good for me in general, it doesn’t help my goals.

So my plan for now? Keep weights the same on Press, Squat, and Bench Press, go for rep PR’s. If they are satisfactory, forge ahead. If they are not, then I’ll consider a reset.

2013-05-08 training log

/ hsoi

That’s more like it.

Wendler 5/3/1 program, cycle 19, week 3

  • Work Set – Deadlift (working max: 385#)
    • 1x5x155 (warmup)
    • 1x5x195
    • 1x3x235
    • 1x5x290 (work)
    • 1x3x330
    • 1x4x370 (PR)
  • Assistance – Hyperextensions
    • 4 x 12/12/12/10 x WT
  • Assistance – Side Bends
    • 2 x 25 x 40
  • Foam Rolling… a lot of it

This is more like it. Solid PR of 370 for 4. The pull felt very good. I worked on a different setup. Instead of worrying about keeping my head clear of “not lifting” during the whole time, I just let my mind go where it did, tho I never let it get too deep into something that might take me down some rabbit hole. But then when it was time to lift, I set up, and just took a moment to really focus. That thing I see a lot of deadlifters do, with the arms straight out in front, then into the lift? Yeah, I tried it… I don’t know why they do it and really it doesn’t matter to me because the act of doing it helped me put my head where it needed to be. So instead of all this constant energy on a clear head, it was just intense energy on “the clear moment, right now” for the lift.

Made a big difference.

But the 4 took enough out of me, so I opted to do hypers instead, then the side bends. But I tell you, after all the hypers then 2 sets of side bends? my lower back was crying. That was all it was going to be. But that’s fine. 50 reps (per side) I can live with today.

And then yes… tons of foam rolling. 🙂

2013-05-06 training log

/ hsoi

I may have PR’d, but it was less than satisfying.

Wendler 5/3/1 program, cycle 19, week 3

  • Work Set – Bench Press (working max: 240#)
    • 2x5x45 (warmup)
    • 1x5x95
    • 1x5x120
    • 1x3x145
    • 1x5x180 (work)
    • 1x3x210
    • 1x1x230 (PR)
  • Assistance – Bench Press
    • 5 x 10/10/10/10/10-5-4 x 135
  • Assistance – DB Rows
    • 4 x 25 x 40
  • 100 rep work – JM Presses, Face Pulls
  • Foam Rolling

Sure, technically it’s a PR, but I’m not happy with it. I missed what I wanted. I wanted at least 3.

Why didn’t it happen? 2 things, both with my head: 1 mental, 1 physical.

Mental – I’ve got some heavy shit weighing on my mind. It’s dominated my thoughts the past some days and has me very unhappy and stressed. Try as I might to clear my head of it, it’s just so dominating that I couldn’t be fully in the moment of the lift.

Physical – I have this problem from time to time where I get under the bar, I inhale and tense up to lift off, and my head swims. That happened. I felt it coming so I didn’t lift off, waited a few, breathed a bit more, then tried again, but even then my head was too far gone. As soon as the bar descended, I could tell things were not good. It was … uh… not so much a physical struggle in terms of say arm and chest muscles to get it up there, and not a mental struggle in terms of mind… but a “physical head” struggle because my head was physically swimming. After I got the 1 rep, my body felt like it could do more, easily. But my head said no way, that if I tried another rep it’d be dangerous. So I racked it and relegated myself to staying at this weight for the next cycle and going for a rep PR. Oh well.

I’m not happy with it, but it’s how it goes. It does show the power of the head and mind in lifting.

Rangemaster May 2013 Newsletter

/ hsoi / 2 Comments

I’m famous now. 🙂

The Rangemaster May 2013 newsletter has been published, and they reprinted my AAR for the Rangemaster Instructor course from a couple months ago (with permission, natch). Thank you, Tom.

But what I want to know is… who wrote that song? 🙂

Circular Piracy

/ hsoi / 2 Comments

Game developer, Greenheart Games, created a game about creating games called Game Dev Tycoon. It’s a familiar game genre, a sort of “Sims” about being a software game developer. I haven’t played it, but it seems cool.

But what I thought was really cool? What they did to make a point about piracy:

In a curious social experiment, the developer deliberately uploaded a full, cracked version of its game to the most popular torrent trackers. The cracked version is nearly identical to the real thing except for one detail. As players spend a few hours playing and growing their own game dev company, they will start to see the following message, styled like any other in-game message:

“Boss, it seems that while many players play our new game, they steal it by downloading a cracked version rather than buying it legally. If players don’t buy the games they like, we will sooner or later go bankrupt.”

Slowly, the player’s in-game funds will dwindle, and every new game that they create has a high chance to be pirated until they eventually go bankrupt. There is no way to fight it, in an ironic twist, players of the cracked version of the game are doomed to constant failure due to rampant piracy.

I thought that was pretty clever. It’s an old argument and issue for sure, but I like that because they granted the realities of the game they were making and that they were making a game, they had an avenue to make a point and they chose to make that point. So why make that point?  From their own website:

Game Dev Tycoon was created by two brothers. They invested all their savings to start a company and develop the game. They truly enjoy tycoon and simulation games and after seeing many of the new social and pay-to-play games where buying coins is more important than good gameplay, they wanted to bring some true simulation games back. Their motto is less social, less ville, more game and they believed that there is a market for real simulation games but as independent game developers it’s difficult to survive and the reason why so many companies create pay-to-play or coin-driven games are because they make more money with them.

If you like the look of Game Dev Tycoon and you want to see more games like these then you should really think about buying a legal copy of the game. The price of the game is reasonable (7.99USD), you get legal copies for Mac, Windows and Linux, free service updates and you can even install the game on a couple of your personal computers.

If you don’t care about all of this and just want to get a cracked and illegal version then we can’t do anything about that, but if years down the track you wonder why there are no games like these anymore and all you get to play is pay-to-play and social games designed to suck money out of your pockets then the reason will stare back at you in the mirror.

I’ve been writing software for 20-some years. I complete understand. I mean, I dealt with piracy before Napster and torrents. I do sympathize with any artist and person that wishes to make their living on “digital data”, be it software, music, movies, books, whatever — something that’s easy to copy and distribute. I sympathize because that’s how I earn my living and feed my family! I don’t sympathize with the way “Big Media” has gone about trying to enforce things because I learned long ago that pirates will always pirate and good people eventually will pay up, so long as they understand and are given reasonable terms. Since I have limited resources (time, money, energy), I can either work to make my product better or fight the people that I’ll never win over anyways; so why not please those willing to be my customers? Draconian DRM that hampers and just pisses off your legit customers isn’t the right way to go (witness: SimCity 2013’s rollout).

What it really takes to improve this situation is for the public to be educated.

The Klug brothers are right: if you want good things, you have to support those willing to make good things. If you like games like this, support them so they can keep making these things that you like. It’s pretty simple. It doesn’t matter if it’s your favorite music artist, movie studio, game developer, book author… whomever and whatever. These people have worked hard to produce something, something that you now enjoy and has made your life better. Is it fair for you to take and not give anything in return? Would you appreciate someone doing this with the fruits of your labor? Is the way we should get people to pay by forcing them with ugly DRM and shitty experiences (think about this next time you try to play a Blu-Ray and are forced to sit through FBI Warnings)? is that high quality? is that how you want things to be in life? Or would you rather be willing participant in the process and support those that make your life better?

Which way do you want it?

 

2013-05-03 training log

/ hsoi

295 – PR. But 300 will have to wait.

Wendler 5/3/1 program, cycle 19, week 3

  • Work Set – Squat (working max: 305#)
    • 2x5x45 (warmup)
    • 1x5x125
    • 1x5x155
    • 1x3x185
    • 1x5x230 (work)
    • 1x3x265
    • 1x2x295 (PR)
  • Assistance – Squat
    • 3 x 10 x 135
  • Assistance – Pulldown Abs
    • 4 x 25 x 60
  • Foam Rolling

All time personal record: 295# squat. Huzzah. Only got 2 reps out of it tho. Went down for #3, then I got stapled and coming up didn’t happen. Dumped the bar. No big deal.

And really to me, that’s more what mattered — that it was no big deal.

Again, I don’t love squat (OK maybe just a little now), and while I don’t hate it any more, there’s still stuff to overcome. I cannot deny that the 295# intimidated me, tho it also excited me because it’s almost 300# and that’s a cool milestone (and it meand 3 wheels isn’t too far away either). I still had some fear about what would happen if I couldn’t do it… what if I couldn’t do it… and that sort of FUD. But the first time I got stapled and dumped the bar, it broke through that barrier. So today wasn’t a big deal. I would do it or I wouldn’t, and if I didn’t, whatever… you move on.

I mean…

Brandon Lilly just benched 500# again

I was seriously more nervous before this bench than any other lift I can remember in my life. I was so worried about “what if”? Then I kinda stepped back and realized I could be hurt doing anything… So then I got really excited about being “back”. I laid down, and as soon as the bar was in my hand any worry, or doubt left me. I just wanted to smash it, and I feel like I moved the weight pretty well. It wasn’t 100% but I now know I can do it, and I’m only going up from here.

Eric Lilliebridge just totalled 2182.5# at the UPA Nationals:

and look at his 3rd squat (@ 3:21) and bench press (@ 6:20) attempts. He went for it, but missed. Did the fear of missing stop him? or was his motivated to be awesome and just accepts that missing happens but you keep going?

In a comment on that video, someone asked Eric why his competition deadlift went up only 26# over 4 years. Eric’s response:

A PR is PR, by 10 pounds or 1 pound. Doesn’t matter to me as long as I’m making progress. No one got strong over night. This shit takes years.

And then there’s CT Fletcher, about giving your all:

And that’s what I told myself today. Just give it your all. CT tried 700# bench press, missed, but he knew he gave it his all.

So today… that’s what I did. I did my best to put all the bullshit of work and life out of my head, and just lift. Put on some Slayer, and squat.

And so I only got 2 reps. I still hit a PR, and the only thing it means is I will NOT increase my weight next cycle but will stay here and push for rep PR’s. I also think I will stop the 20 rep squat assistance work and instead try pause squats because while I dig what 20 rep squats are doing, I want to see if pause squats will more directly address my needs.

Yes. Listened to Slayer the whole time.

R.I.P. Jeff Hanneman

2013-05-01 training log

/ hsoi

Solid

Wendler 5/3/1 program, cycle 19, week 2

  • Work Set – Press (working max: 160#)
    • 2x5x45 (warmup)
    • 1x5x65
    • 1x5x80
    • 1x3x95
    • 1x3x115 (work)
    • 1x3x130
    • 1x5x145
  • Assistance – Press
    • 5 x 10 x 80
  • Assistance – Pull-ups (band assisted)
    • 5 x 10/10/5/5/5 x BW
  • 100 reps of front plate lifts, rope-handle triceps pushdowns, hammer curls
  • Foam Rolling

Not much to say, really. A solid workout. I strove to leave something in the tank on my last work set, but I did push my assistance work. Everything just felt solid and good.

What gets me?

The next 4 sessions are the 5/3/1 sessions. Every single one will be going for a PR. Bench, Squat, Deadlift will all be for full PR’s, lifting a weight I’ve never lifted before in my life (for any reps). Press will be matching weight, so it’ll be a rep PR.

It’s a bit intimidating, but also very exciting. I think I’m most excited about Friday’s squat session: 295#… almost 300. Next cycle.

2013-04-29 training log

/ hsoi

Leaving more in the tank

Wendler 5/3/1 program, cycle 19, week 2

  • Work Set – Deadlift (working max: 385#)
    • 1x5x155 (warmup)
    • 1x5x195
    • 1x3x235
    • 1x3x275 (work)
    • 1x3x310
    • 1x4x350
  • Assistance – Deadlifts
    • 5 x 10/10/8/8/8 x 185
  • Assistance – Side Bends
    • 3 x 25 x 40

Physically I felt good. Nevertheless, when I finished that 4th rep and set up for #5 my body said “stop”. I’ve been pushing further, where that “leaving 1 in the tank” might actually be a real struggle of a rep, instead of a good 1-2 reps. That’s not the right way to do things. So today I truly left some in the tank and opted to make sure I got some good assistance work in. So I dropped the assistance weight to 185 and made sure I got more reps. My lower back hates me. 🙂 But that’s good. Given more reading, analysis of my form and technique, I’m pretty sure abs and lower back are weak. So I gotta do more assistance deadlifting with strict form, lighter weight, higher reps, build that up. And yeah, abs twice a “week” in some fashion. Stick with it, see what happens.

Evolution

/ hsoi / 1 Comment

Paula Bolyard writes:

As I listened to the police scanner during the Boston manhunt, I wasn’t thinking about “police all over the place” in the “personal security guard” sense that Feinstein seemed to be implying.

Instead, I imagined a mother huddled in the nursery with her baby. Her husband is out of town and she is also listening to the police scanner, praying the terrorist doesn’t burst through her back door.

I imagined an 85-year-old World War II veteran living alone. He fought the Nazis on foot across Europe and his government just instructed him to “shelter-in-place.” He turns out the lights in his home and hunches over his radio waiting for updates though the long night.

I wondered if they could protect themselves if the worst happened.

In the middle of that night listening to the Boston police scanner, I evolved.

I realized right then that if I were holed up in my house while a cold-blooded terrorist roamed my neighborhood, I wouldn’t want to be a sitting duck with only a deadbolt lock between me and an armed intruder. There are not enough police and they cannot come to my rescue quickly enough. They carry guns to protect themselves, not me. I knew at that instant if Dzhokhar Tsarnaev showed up at my door while I was “sheltered-in-place” and aimed a gun at my head and only one of us would live, I could pull the trigger.

You can read her complete story here.

Her story resonates with me because I too evolved. I was never against guns and wanting to ban them on the whole, but I didn’t see why anyone needed “a machine gun to hunt Bambi”. Then, Wife was sexually assaulted while taking Oldest (then an infant) out for a walk/push in his stroller. That was my evolutionary moment. It still took me a number of years to come around to owning a gun and carrying a gun, but that moment opened my eyes to many realities about life and the world. That moment set in motion my quest for knowledge, education, and enlightenment about personal safety, crime prevention, etc.. To then own and carry a gun became a logical conclusion, because when you strip away your ignorance, your bias, you emotions and all you have left is fact and harsh realities about the world? Things become pretty clear on their own.