fitness

15 Quick Training Tips from Dave Tate

/ hsoi

While most of these tips apply to lifting, we probably all need to pay better attention to #15.

  1. Try to drive your heels into the floor when you bench press.
  2. Training and building a lift are two totally different things. Know the difference.
  3. Don’t press the bar out of the rack when your bench press, pull it out instead.
  4. Break with the hips first when you squat.
  5. When training lats, focus on pulling more with the pinky finger side of your hands.
  6. If you have a weaker side/arm when you bench press – DON’T look at it.
  7. When you box squat count in your head, one thousand one…then stand up explosively.
  8. The advanced lifter needs less volume and the beginner more. Much is due to coordination and efficiency.
  9. A fat bar can take a lot of strain off the elbows and shoulders with pressing and extension movements.
  10. Grip work is very hard to recover from, so keep it to one or two times per week. Once every four days is a better option.
  11. If you’re dead-set on overhead pressing, but your shoulders hurt when you do them, try it with a reverse grip.
  12. Close-stance safety bar low box squats will solve the majority, but not all, of falling-forward problems in the squat.
  13. When you squat drive you head back into your traps.
  14. When you bench press keep your wrists in line with your elbows.
  15. Keep your excuses to yourself – nobody cares.

emphasis added.

(originally printed here)

Squat Setup

/ hsoi

I meant to include this in my “cycle 13 – squat 3” entry, but was pressed for time.

Over the Labor Day weekend I read this article on visualization and it contained this video about setting up for the squat:

I don’t know why I always end up finding, watching, reading things about changing technique just before my heaviest lifts of the cycle… but here I go again. 🙂

I am happy I found this video tho. It helped me a great deal. I found myself paying more attention to my squat during that session, and I do think it paid off.

One of the biggest things that helped? Grab the bar and squeeze it to death with your hands. It was hard to remember to maintain that death grip on the bar the entire set, but I reckon that’s being new to it and that will come. But it did help. Plus you can watch Suzy (Suzie? Sioux-z? Suzanne Hartwig-Gary either way) grab the bar then basically slam her body and shoulders up into the bar. Funny thing… I didn’t set out to do that, but when you grab the bar like that, you can’t help but just slam up in there and set the bar where it needs to be across your shoulders. Interesting.

I focused on 3 steps, which I basically do, but it’s a little tougher at times in my gym due to the type of rack used (not a power rack or simple uprights), to ensure I get back far enough. But do-able.

Then squat. Keep head driven back into the bar. Keep that death grip. Big gulp of air and press like hell into the belt.

And from the visualization article, I read to treat every rep as a single. I kept that in mind and did that very thing. Let the bar settle. Just take the time. In the article the author speaks about treating it like reloading a rifle. Well, in my pistol dry fire practice it’s like the press-out after the reload — treat it like a single, don’t just smear one action into the next.

Somehow this all helped.

And it kinda blows my mind that, if the diet/fat-loss doesn’t get too much in the way, I will be squatting 300# in 2 more cycles… before the end of the year. That seems crazy to me. Exciting.

I want to keep this video in mind tho, and probably rewatch it a bunch of times. It’s one of the more useful videos I’ve watched.

2012-09-06 workout – Wendler 5/3/1 program, cycle 13, Bench Press 3

/ hsoi

PR’s are good, and the next cycle’s PR will be better. 🙂

“Week 3”

  • 5/3/1 – Bench Press (working max: 230#)
    • 2x5x45 (warmup)
    • 1x5x95
    • 1x5x115
    • 1x3x140
    • 1x5x175 (work)
    • 1x3x200
    • 1x6x220 (PR)
  • Asst. #1 – Bench Press
    • 5 x 10 x 135
  • Asst. #2 – 1-Arm Dumbbell Rows
    • 5 x 10 x 70
  • Foam Rolling

PR’s are nice. 🙂

Technically I’ve done 220# bench before, back during cycle 8. Did it for 3 reps, the BBB 3-month challenge. So today is really just a rep PR. But I also like that last cycle’s PR was 6 reps of 215. So keeping the reps the same and going up in weight? I’ll take it.

Assistance work was solid, but I didn’t realize until later that I dropped my row weight down. This is fine. I’m wanting to firm my technique back up here… that every rep is done as if I’m pulling with my elbow. That is, instead of focusing on the hand and pulling from there, focus on the elbow as if there’s a string going from my elbow to the ceiling and pulling up on that string is what pulls things. Engages the shoulders and back more, less arm. I think that was a Dave Tate tip. So a little less weight, a little more focus, all good.

Diet is progressing nicely. I still wonder about my reduced intake vs. my performance but I really do think since I’m keeping my carbs up that’s enabling me to still progress with my lifts. Huzzah.

Best Belts

/ hsoi / 6 Comments

When I needed a belt for my weight training, I’m glad I had Google and resources like Marc Rippetoe. That’s how I found out about BestBelts.net.

I didn’t want the “tapered” cheap belts you find in the sporting goods stores, nor velcro or anything like that. I wanted something serious that would actually work because well… what makes a belt work isn’t the wide part in the back, it’s the wide part in the front. So really, a powerlifting belt is what you need.

But other than that… what to get?

I’m tall enough that I can use a 4″ belt. Thickness? 10mm is good enough for my needs. The thing is, I didn’t quite know exactly what to get… so I called BestBelts on the phone and asked them. Spoke with Dean, and boy if he wasn’t the nicest guy. So helpful. He told me exactly what was needed and right for me, and told me exactly how to measure myself for the belt — and he’d custom cut it just for me. That was cool… no extra charge either. Plus, it might be custom made, but it’s got a lifetime warranty. Lots of places don’t cover custom work the same as “off the shelf” work, but not Best Belts. It’s all hand-made, high quality.

I got a single-prong (double-prong offers little more than unbuckling frustration), the Athlete model. Back when I bought my belt there was an option for “regular” or “soft”, but it seems now they’re all just “soft”… which is basically a broken-in type of feel but I’ll tell you.. it’s far from soft, just a bit more pliable from the get go. After using it over a year, it’s still quite stiff in the ways that matter but easy to get on and off. I’m really happy with the quality. Oh… and cool that I could get it in blue too. 🙂

You know what else is cool? No logos. It’s a good looking belt, but no branding on it whatsoever. Dean could totally plaster his name on things if he wanted to, but he doesn’t. And I really like that. I don’t begrudge advertising at all, but sometimes it’s nice to go brandless in our overly-branded world. Dean’s work speaks for itself, and word-of-mouth is a far more powerful advertiser.

Why do I write this now, a year later? Well, I always meant to write up some kudos for Dean and BestBelts because I am quite happy with the product… it was just something that unfortunately fell through the cracks. But, given my new quest for fat-loss well… I think I’m going to need a new belt soon. When I cinch the belt up now, I only have 1 empty belt hole… I didn’t cinch it up that tight some time ago but now I really clamp it down, using the rack at the gym for extra leverage to really crank it down tight for everything but deadlifts (leave 2 holes for deadlift). I’ve already noticed my regular dress belt is getting tightened up a little more… yes, I’ve shed a bit of fat already, so it’s only a matter of time before I’m at the last hole on the belt. When that happens, I will order a new belt. Yeah, I might be able to get away with that for a while, but it creates a really long end on the belt that sometimes gets in the way when squatting. Besides, isn’t buying a smaller belt one of the nice ego rubs and side-effects of shedding belly flab? 🙂

And when I do buy a new belt, I’ll be buying from BestBelts again. I’m a satisfied customer. Why go somewhere else?

2012-09-04 workout – Wendler 5/3/1 program, cycle 13, Squat 3

/ hsoi / 1 Comment

What is good in life? Setting a PR in your least favorite movement isn’t one of them, but I’ll take it this morning. 🙂

“Week 3”

  • 5/3/1 – Squat (working max: 290#)
    • 2x5x45 (warmup)
    • 1x5x115
    • 1x5x145
    • 1x3x175
    • 1x5x220 (work)
    • 1x3x250
    • 1x3x280 (PR)
  • Asst. #1 – Squat
    • 5 x 10 x 135

I still don’t like squat. If I listed the 4 main movements in my order of preference, squat is still at #4. But I don’t hate it as much as I used to. If you hate something, keep doing it until you don’t hate it because that’s the only way you’ll get better at it. And so, I keep squatting.

Setting a PR is great. As I got ready for that last set, I told myself how it wasn’t all that long ago I struggled to deal with 230, and now that’s warm-up weight. In fact, I’m doing a lot more than that for warm-up. So yeah, rep 3 was ugly, and I figured there was then little reason to do a 4th rep. But all good. I’m happy.

I will say… an interesting bit on the weight loss avenue. I had lost a few, but over the weekend gained a wee bit back. I’m not sure why. I did eat a bunch more fruit over the weekend. My guess? Either it was all the love of eating lots of Korean food and I may have gone slightly over my numbers, or that I knew being fueled up for my squat 5/3/1 day was vital and I just didn’t want to be down for it. My glycogen was likely just being depleted instead of true fat loss. But who knows. I’ve been saying that until I drop a solid 10# at least, it’s not really weight loss. Still, I shall keep up the work. And hey, the PR is most acceptable given my track record and the reduced food intake. So I’m happy.

Good way to start the week.

A year of 5/3/1

/ hsoi

I can’t believe I’ve been using Jim Wendler‘s 5/3/1 program for a little over a year now. In fact, I’m kinda surprised that I’ve been keeping a regular and dedicated schedule at the gym for about a year and a half. I guess getting older does that to you. 😉

So let’s see here.

I’m presently finishing up cycle 13 of 5/3/1. My cycles have been varied over the past year. Some use of Boring But Big, Triumvirate, tweaking things to my own needs, aborted attempt at the BBB 3-month Challenge, going to 2x week. Lots of changes, but the core of course remains the same. I’m presently doing the BBB template but spread into the 2-days-per-week setup (1 cycle spread over 6 weeks, no deload). I must admit, of all the flavors and styles, I like BBB the best. It’s just so simple and straightforward. I like the work, I like the volume, I like the no-bullshit approach. I cannot deny it works because I see the progress in terms of my strength gains and modest mass gains.

I will say, my mass gains aren’t what I wanted. But I can guess at a few reasons there. First, most of my work is on 5 reps or less, which is considered more for strength and less for mass. Second, I’m not age 16-25 and just don’t have that sort of physiology any more. Third, my diet has been the toughest thing to get straight and finally I might be getting there. The past couple weeks with this dietary change — that I’m actually sticking with — is making me wonder a few things and if I’ve just not been feeding myself best all along. Oh sure, I did the 1 – 1.5g of protein per pound of bodyweight, but if everything else wasn’t in line, how much was I not fully contributing to growth? But we shall see. Regardless tho, strength is what I care about more than mass gains. But hey, we all want to look good… especially as we get older and more things want to sag and wrinkle. 😉

Let’s see… numbers. Looking at my spreadsheet….

Cycle 1
Press — 110# (wm), 8×105
Deadlift — 265# (wm), 5×255
Bench Press — 180# (wm), 10×175
Squat — 220# (wm), 5×210

The first number is the “working max” that you calculate out in the program’s formula. The second is the last set of the “5/3/1” work set from that cycle (reps x weight), so my “max” for that cycle.

I haven’t finished cycle 13 yet, but cycle 12 put me closer to an actual “1 year of 5/3/1”, so let’s look at those numbers

Cycle 12
Press — 155# (wm), 5×150
Deadlift — 345# (wm), 7×330
Bench Press — 225# (wm), 6×215
Squat — 280# (wm), 3×270

So what do I think?

First, I will accept that there is progress. It’s not beginner “leaps and bounds” progress, but it’s progress. For simple math, let’s look at the working maxes. Press went up 45#, deadlift 80#, bench 35#, squat 60#. That’s respectable. Is it quite what I wanted? No… but I think I’m being unrealistic too; I mean, no more “Starting Strength” level gains are going to happen at this point. But also think about this: if you get about 12 cycles per year and go up 5# per cycle on press and bench and 10# per cycle on deadlift and squat, then really, I did alright for 1 year. I have to remember I had some time off, some resets, some lack of focus, and some other things. I mean, squat didn’t go up a lot, but that had the most resetting and work. I think in the end I’m far better off because my technique has improved. Plus, I have to consider my goals.

Second, goal meeting. What WAS my goal of the past year? I may have recorded it somewhere, but I can’t recall setting any true hard goal. I think my main fuzzy goal has been to just maintain or improve my health. The fact I am a gym regular is good. I do feel better overall than I have in the past some years. In fact, get this: just a few days ago I donated blood (I strive for regular donations). There’s a minor bit of health feedback I get from it: blood pressure, heart rate, temperature, hematocrit, and cholesterol. My hematocrit is up slightly, blood pressure still very good, temperature normal, pulse up slightly (trend over time), but the best part is my cholesterol is the lowest it’s ever been since I started tracking it. None of these things have ever been into an unhealthy range by any stretch, but still to go down in cholesterol is awesome — means I’m even further from the danger zones. I do think dropping some of this fat will only help further.  So hey… goal met.

I don’t think I really had a strength goal, other than “get stronger”. I do think I have a general goal that I’d like to join the 1000# club. I’m not too far away from that. I probably could test 1RM’s and join the club, but I don’t care about that. My way of joining the club is just doing my normal workout and when my actual lifted weights on “week 3” allow me to total 1000# on squat, bench, and deadlift, then I’ll have joined. No funny math, no trying to get into the club for the ego boost so I struggle and do stupid tricks just to eek out a total. That’s bullshit. I will bide my time. I will get there. And I figure, after this the next long-term goal might be “plates”. That is, 2 plates for press (225#), 3 plates for bench (315#), 4 plates for squat (405#), 5 plates for deadlift (495#). That’ll take a few more years.

So with all that… what are my goals for the next year?

I think the #1 goal at this point is some body recompositioning. I want to drop the flab. Thing is, I can’t quantify what that level will be. I can’t say X lbs. and I’m there. But the way I can put it is I want my stomach to be flat. No muffin-top, no gut. If I stand up straight with my shirt tucked into my pants, you just see flat, no belly bulge. That if I want to try appendix IWB carry for a gun, I can without my gut pushing the grip out and thus the muzzle into my groin. That’s the goal. Note that I don’t care to have “6 pack abs”. I don’t need to have some vascular roadmap of my veins. I just want to get rid of the excess flab.

If I can join the 1000# club in the next year? That would be awesome. On paper it’s certainly do-able. However, the #1 goal is the fat shedding and that could mean strength work plateaus or even regresses. If I fail to join the 1000# club but succeed in my #1 goal? I’m OK with that.

So onward I go. I do think for the foreseeable future I won’t change the workout itself very much. Just stick with Wendler. I admit I haven’t gone back out to run the tire, because my ankle is just killing me too much. *sigh*  But I have a secret hope that if I drop 20#, that might help the ankle and I can get outside. The weather is teasing cooling off as well, so it’ll be nicer to work outside. But otherwise, just keep on the path.

Thanx, Jim.

2012-08-30 workout – Wendler 5/3/1 program, cycle 13, press 2

/ hsoi

Get into the gym, get out of the gym.

“Week 2”

  • 3 reps – Press (working max: 160#)
    • 2x5x45 (warmup)
    • 1x5x65
    • 1x5x80
    • 1x3x95
    • 1x3x115 (work)
    • 1x3x130
    • 1x5x145
  • Asst. #1 – Press
    • 5 x 10 x 80
  • Asst. #1 – Wide, pronated grip lat pulldowns
    • 5 x 10 x 130
  • Foam Rolling

Something about today just felt good. Just on a roll. Supersetted the assistance work. And gee… it was get into the gym, and get out of the gym. I liked it.

Originally I was going to do 85# on the assistance, but backed off… always start light. That was reasonable, but I do think I can up it later on. In fact, I started thinking about maybe pryamiding down on my assistance work… go as heavy as I can for 10 reps, drop weight, 10 reps, etc… But I will save that for some other time.

Quick diet update

/ hsoi

It’s been a week now. Yeah… I decided to just dive in. Why bother waiting?

I’m trying to find something I can stick with, because that’s the hardest part. Really, I can stick with almost anything with sufficient motivation. But what seems to make a difference this time around is data. First, having numbers up front, thanx to something like Scooby’s calorie calculator. Second, keeping track of things somewhere, like here on this blog.

Having the numbers up front is what’s making things interesting. If I know I can have x grams of carbs and y grams of protein and that’s that… boy, it sure changes your perception of portions. And yes, you need to measure it all out. I’ve had a kitchen scale for a while now and boy that’s handy. But also simple measuring cups and spoons. Really tho, using grams for everything is about the best and easiest way. Plus calorieking.com has such a great interface for being able to calculate on the fly. Good stuff there. And yes, I do this. I try to figure out every meal.

It’s kinda tough. You can’t just measure out meat and say “there’s protein” because what if I’m having brown rice? That’s got enough protein in it to matter. I’ve been using Daipoong brown rice (hey, it’s the Korean in me), and 1 cup of cooked is about 50g of carbs but also 5g of protein… and when I have to measure things out, that 5g matters. In fact to show how much it matters, I went back to Scooby’s calculator. I re-entered my calculations from before, then I adjusted it from “moderate exercise” to “light exercise”. It dropped down 300 calories per day, and each meal dropped 5g protein, 5g carbs, 2g fat. Not much, but you can see how 5g can add up over the course of a day!

But the real interesting thing is watching portion sizes. I thought “oh, this is how much rice to have”, but no… 1 cup of cooked rice on your plate looks pretty huge. Then I pack an afternoon snack of some dried fruit, and a portion size to give me 55g of carbs there ends up looking like a handful… something that would have been “one bite” for me in the past. Geez. Enlightening. 🙂

What’s been kinda cool tho is noticing my energy levels feel pretty solid. I don’t feel drained for my workouts or for just getting around in a day, which is great. I do fear in the past I just wasn’t steady enough at bringing in energy vs. my output, so I’d underconsume thinking it was right levels, then my body would scream from being depleted and I’d gorge and get no where. So this is all very good. I did wonder about it in yesterday’s deadlift workout… is the reduction in diet affecting me? Is that why I didn’t get 8 reps and only got 6? Perhaps. I also gave blood a couple days prior, which could still have a mild effect. Hard to really say what’s involved here… it’s only been a week of eating this way.

And in that week, I haven’t seen much affect on the scale. I’m not sure why. Could it be a muscle vs. fat issue? That is, the scale won’t tell me if I’ve both gained a wee bit of muscle and lost a wee bit of fat. Or maybe I just found a static intake. I did wonder that because when I see what I am ingesting for carbs, maybe I am taking in enough but now just spread over 5 meals instead of 3? I don’t know. I probably should have measured my complete food intake prior to this for a baseline.

So given all of that, I am adjusting my intake slightly. Instead of aiming for 55g of carb/protein per meal, I’m aiming for 50g. I do want to keep it at least 1g of protein per pound of bodyweight. Again, I expect my strength work will either stall or decline some, but I’d like to minimize it. Workouts will continue forward on this 2x/week BBB-style plan, still increasing weights and moving ahead as normal. I figure when I stall due to diet, I’ll stall and I’ll know it, meantime why not just forge head?

Onwards.

2012-08-27 workout – Wendler 5/3/1 program, cycle 13, Deadlift 2

/ hsoi / 1 Comment

Ooof.

“Week 2”

  • 3 reps – Deadlift (working max: 355#)
    • 1x5x145 (warmup)
    • 1x5x185
    • 1x3x215
    • 1x3x250 (work)
    • 1x3x290
    • 1x6x325
  • Asst. #1 – Deadlift
    • 3 x 10/8/10 x 185/185/135
  • Asst. #2 – Pulldown Abs (kneeling)
    • 5 x 12 x 110
  • Foam Rolling

Oof…. that’s a lot of deadlifting.

The work sets went fine, but when I hit into assistance oo… that was a lot. I got through 1 set, hit the second set and knew it wasn’t going to happen. My lower back was rounding bad… just too much. So I dropped down the weight and then left it at the 3rd set. I want to get 5×10 so I think maybe I’ll try 5x10x145 and see how that goes. I cannot allow form to be sacrificed to make this work… .because it’s a LOT of work.

I’ve been working on my diet too, but I’ll write about that another time.

Whey – (almost) final word

/ hsoi / 4 Comments

I haven’t been making regular postings about my TrueNutrition.com whey experience.

I’ll just say this.

I cannot do the artificial flavored whey. The Luscious Peach, the Wild Berry, whatever… all the artificially flavored stuff is just way too sweet. Candy sweet, kid cereal sweet. It’s just hard for me to take. Part of me really loves it, and wants to keep loving it, but it’s just not doing it for me.

I just ordered 10# of unsweet chocolate whey isolate cold filtered. Yes, unsweet, and then I’ll add a teaspoon or two of raw sugar to it. It’s not enough to make it candy-sweet, but enough to take the edge off it. That should work for me.

I like it better too. I’m getting pure isolate (i.e. more agreeable with the digestive tract), and the price is quite competitive with other brands like say Optimum Nutrition’s 100%, which has a lot of whey concentrate and other things. I have noticed to keep costs down True Nutrition is pretty no-frills, but that’s fine… I’m not buying packaging or marketing.

So here’s where things end in my exploration… at least, for now. 🙂