kd's log of........ something

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We have two smiths, and nothing to squat off. We have 3 moveable benches, and a full bench with bench rack set up. Alongside two oly bars and a full set of Jordan oly weights + more hex weights. We've also got some fixed weight small bar bells, but they're not full oly size.

It's actually pretty well equipped, apart from the lack of place to squat, and the fact I think the DBs top out at about 45kg ( which to be fair isn't an issue for me).

Might try a few with just the bar though tomorrow :) will have to try not to wipe people out as well xD got a decent video on form of it by any chance? Seems like shoulder mobility can be aided here xD

Can still DL and crap thankfully, if there weren't oly bars I really would be complaining/looking at a new gym xD

kd
 
Woo! Today's session:

24/1/13: SL 5x5 (+ a bit)
Squat - 63.5x5x5
OHP 30 - 5/5/5/4/5
DL 60 - 5x5
Overhead Squat - 15 - 5x5
Dips - 8/8/8
Reverse Crunch - 10kg above head - 3x12

Okkkkkkkkkkkkkkkk
So.
Squat - Went well but I want more explosiveness, I also tried to go deeper today than I normally would. It hurt.
OHP - What is it about that final rep on the fourth set?! It's doing my head in at the moment. Really want to nail it.
Deadlift - Form felt so much better, the odd thing for me is going back down once up. Once I'm up in the air, however much I'd love to drop the weight, I think the gym would complain, so I stick my hips out first to initiate the lowering, then once the bar is past my knees I start bending knees (which I think is right?). This does seem to allow my knees to be relatively straight, the problem is when I stick my hips back, I seem to be getting some anterior tilt I think?
Overhead squat - Thought I'd try these. Oly bar was a bit too much in demand for me to keep hold of it, so I tried these with a 15kg fixed weight barbell. Wasn't really wide enough to pull these off properly. I tried one with an oly bar first to be fair, and when I was at the deepest point in the squat, the bar just came down xD With the 15's it was SO weird! The whole movement was a bit tentative and not massively fluid xD I now see what FF meant when it's hilarious watching new people try it. I imagine it's the same joy I get watching people try and do Butterfly in a swimming pool xD
Dips - Dips were basically the only additional exercise I could do. Shoulders were completely gone by this point, so even dips I had to cut back on, but there wasn't a chance of pull ups/chins getting done with these shoulders.
Reverse Crunch - So, I tried it much slower, and hopefully much more to Ice's approval. Video is below, or will be once it's finished uploading. I needed the 10kg kettelbell as a counter weight to pull this off, and it was agonisingly painful. In fact, I'm pretty sure you can see nearer the end of the video where I don't let my hips hit the floor (again I'm pretty sure Ice said this was right somewhere), my face crunching up in agony xD


kd
 
Nice!

Last couple were really good in that your hips were slightly up at the bottom, although you were too knackered to curl all the way up and have a nice slow negative.

Points awarded.
 
Yeah, that thought did kick in later on to keep the hips up and not let them crash. So tension completely through. I think that was the second set. But yeah, I finally understand them much much more and why you need the counter weight above your head.

It was painful xD But now understand why after being able to do 12 with no counterweight you can probably move on to Dragon flags...

kd
 
I'm not sure that dragon flags let you have the same control.

The progression that I used and coach moves on to rollouts and then weighted rollouts.
 
So reverse crunch then rollouts?

Want to do some dragon flags at some point for the 'Mirin from others xD

My progression tab on SL says

Prone Bridges - 3x30 sec on 1 leg When you can do that, move to prone bridges while moving weight from one side to the other.
Reverse Crunch - without dumbbells as counter-weight, with hands behind head and good technique. When you can do that, move to dragon flags.

kd
 
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Nothing wrong with the idea at all. However, DOING dragon flags is quite different. As ice points out, maintaining control and tension through the whole movement is a real toughie.

If you can do them,great. But it's often something that takes practising with candlesticks first and then proper raises.

But weighted rollouts are awesome. Standing rollouts are even better. :)
 
I can kind of understand the progression from reverse crunch to dragon flags by the slow lowering body under tension kind of concept.

But rollouts seem remarkably hard at the moment, although I guess that's the point!

kd
 
26/1/13

Ok, so slightly longer session today because everything was empty. Did some extra stuff to try and get videos as well.

SL 5x5
Mobility + stretching

Squat - 66.5x5x5
BB Row - 37.5x5x5
Bench - 42.5x5x5
BB Row - 37.5x5x3 (Filming purposes)
Chin Ups - 5/5/4.5
Dips - 10/10/14.5
Reverse Crunch - 9kg above head - 12/8/8
DL - 50x5x2 (Filming Purposes)

Mobility + Stretching

Ok, so this week:
Bench - Has gone up reasonably well. Quite happy with where I'm at now, and happy to continue progressing at 2.5 a time from here. Form is something I should probably look at more on here.
Squats - Going along nicely, really need to remember to engage my core though when lifting, makes stuff much easier all round. I weighed in at 67.3kg this morning, so am almost training with BW.
DL - Form is still a bit hoo haa. See the video attached for current issues. Any comments would be appreciated. Admittedly this was right at the end of a normal workout, so form wasn't quite as tight as it should be. But I did drop the weight slightly from normal working sets to try and make up for that.
BB Row - Progressing quite well. Got a video for this as well. But I think I need to be more horizontal with my bag here, so I'm right at 90 degrees almost?
Additional stuff - Dips/Chins/Pull Ups have been a bit hit and miss this week. Triceps have been getting a workout from holding me down on the Reverse Crunches (see below) alone, so we shall see.
Ab stuff - Focussed on Reverse Crunches this week. I've finally learnt how to do them properly, and as such am finally understanding why they were so easy before. They hurt a lot more now, but oddly one of the current limitations is holding the weight above my head to counterbalance seems to be putting a surprisingly large amount of force through my triceps. Oh well. Double gainz :D

I've put on about 3lb over the last two weeks or so. Going to keep track of this, but seems like my diet is holding out in helping me pack on muscle as well. Hopefully most of that is muscle rather than fat, bit too soon to tell from the mirror at the moment.

Videos below:
Deadlift:

BB Row:

kd
 
First of all, you can't count to 5 dude :p

The first vid looks like you have your shoulders really forwards and in a weak position. If you can't setup like you are while keeping your shoulders back then maybe try setting up a little differently, lower yourself to grab the bar by bending your knees into the beginning position, as opposed to what you're currently doing - bending right over with a curved back and then straightening as you bend your knees.

On BOR you're bringing the bar too far back towards your hips, it should be going straight up and down and more towards your chest, hitting your solar plexus each rep. This should help bring your back in more and stop it being what looks like all biceps. For me you should be hitting the ground on every rep too and lifting it from a dead weight i.e pendlay rows. If you're not doing pendlay rows you're not really doing SL.
 
Yeah, I'm aware of the issues with counting xD

The second video was actually the first set. Shoulders back isn't something I'd really considered before. I'll happily try it more though. I've got the flexibility I think to do it with shoulders back. I'll try it next time, cheers.

As for BOR, I'm aware I should really be doing Pendlay Rows instead. Have considered trying them at some point instead.
For BOR technique I was going off of this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=boxbOSGwD4U
from the form thread which suggests more pulling to waist rather than chest :S

kd
 
What I mean is just do pendlay rows. For actual BOR I suppose the bar position is ok, it just looks a little weird to me. Watched again and noticed your shoulders look forward too with the BOR, might be why it looks strange to me and the movement of the bar seems more pronounced than it should.
 
Your back looks uncomfortable during those BOR. Could be straighter as per toxics video.

Your deads are too light. Pretty sure you need to get your bum lower too.
 
I did lighter deads on purpose because I wasn't supposed to do them today and didn't want the form to be completely atrocious. A bit like tomorrow when I'll probably again do it for form, so weight won't be the main focus. It's going up 15kg every two weeks though, so I'm sure it'll be at a decent weight soon enough :p

Starting to think I've been having knee issues due to the Smith machine and how it compromises form. As such I reckon I'll be trying a combination of Overhead Squat, BSS and Goblet squat and try and work out which would be best as a replacement.

kd
 
Right.

So, as some have you may have seen, I'm changing up a few things.

Current consideration is every day is DL day. But my Glutes hurt a lot today still from Sunday, so I'll see how I feel on my other training day before I DL.

Anyway, today's session:
Stretching & Mobility

BSS - 10kg - 5x5
OHP - 30kg - 5x5
DL - 60kg - 5x5
Pull Downs - 50kg - 5x5
Dips - 15/12/8
Reverse Crunch - 10kg - 12x3
-- Drop set with 12x3 Box Jumps - Don't know height. Not a lot though.

Stretching & Mobility

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

Ok, so comments on session:
As some of you may have noticed, RC is still at 10kg, I did try 9 last session, but whilst I'm getting form nailed and it gets harder, I want to do 10kg until I've got it nailed. It's still a bit of a challenge, so yeah, that's why.
So, BSS - These were interesting. Stabilisation on my left leg was much worse than on my right. My right found these a bit easy, my left really struggled. So I'm going to stick at 10 for a couple of sessions, see how it goes until that imbalance is sorted. Once it is, I'll start upping the weight together.
DL were a bit of a pain - it was busy, which was annoying, and I was feeling a bit tight in the glutes. Also, due to busyness couldn't get a film.
OHP - FINALLY! I hit my 30 5x5! :D So chuffed about this. I should up it to 32.5 next session, but I'm not sure whether to do so, or try to hit 30 once more before upping it, due to the failures I've had. I'll see how I feel.
Dips - 15 on the first. So yeah, should now be swapping over to weighted dips I guess. I'll have to order a belt at some point. I'll be working on greater ROM until then.

Since I can't give you any videos of me and form, have this one :)


kd
 
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