Bench Press training

Remedial front squatting and bench pressing were on the schedule for today along with pre-workout Advil, 600 mgs.    The Advil was an experiment to see how much better, if any, my shoulder would feel during bench presses.  As on back squat day, my hips and knees felt awesome and front squats showed incremental progress.  I felt like was able to keep my upper back tighter and my arms up better and I was successful in increasing my workload.

I fully expected to complete my fifth set of 3 with 245 lbs but I ran into a minor form issue.  Apparently I had set the bar back on my shoulders a little farther than before and there was more pressure on the front of my neck than in previous sets.  Upon rising out of the hole on repetition 2, I felt that "right before the lights go out" feeling--tunnel vision, tingles, and a general feeling of weightlessness.  Luckily I didn't have too much pressure on blood flow because I was able to complete the rep and rack the bar before getting any closer to unconsciousness.  Still, it was close enough and I had gotten in some good work so I decided to move to bench presses.

Front Squats:  135x10, 185x5, 225x3, 225x3, 245x3x4 sets, 245x2

Although it was the middle of the day on a Saturday and the weather didn't justify any huge rush on outdoor activities, the Oakville YMCA's weight room was virtually empty.  Strength training blogger John Phung wrote a great pair of articles about home training versus commercial gym training.  Suffice it to say, virtually none of the 'missable' commercial gym items are present at my current home gym.

there are actually 5 unattended, lonely workstations

Despite being almost alone in the weight room with 6 power racks, when someone did wander in, they still managed to take plates from my workstation.  What the heck is wrong with people?  I guess I should be flattered at 5'9" and 230 lbs that I'm virtually invisible.  At least one person did ask if I was going to be using the plate she wanted.  I actually was but was so gobsmacked at the rare display of common courtesy that I told her she could take it anyways.

Bench presses went pretty well.  The left shoulder still barked but I pushed it a bit and managed a decent top single with 290 lbs.  I probably could've taken a good shot at 295 but without a spotter, I didn't want to push my luck.  Since I had already grabbed the 2.5 lb plates for my 290 attempt, I loaded 260 lbs for my 5 work sets of 2 reps.  I fiddled around with grip width a bit to see if an adjustment might ease up on the left shoulder and I think I found something.  I'll use it in my last pre-competition bench press workout next Saturday.

Bench Press:  45x10, 95x10, 135x5, 185x5, 225x3, 255x3, 275x1, 285x1, 290x1, 260x2x5 sets

Finished up with 3 sets of dumbbell rows and was able to add repetitions.  Overall, I increased my workload in all three exercises so it was an excellent day.

Deadlift repetition day

I don't want to call today's workout a de-load day because I had no intention of not putting in a good amount of work but it was a reduction in intensity.  Giving my system a slight break from 90+% singles should ramp me up right into February 11, the date of my next competition.

Since next week is heavy deadlift singles only and will be my last deadlift workout before February 11, today was going to be low intensity work but high volume (for me).  Work weight was 405 lbs for 5 sets of 5.  On my fifth set I set a goal of as many reps as possible--the dreaded AMRAP set.  I figured 10 reps would be a good number.  Turns out it was the right number as the 10th rep of my last set was pretty tough and my glutes were on fire.  Overall a very good, restorative deadlift workout.

Deadlift:  315x5, 405x5x4 sets, 405x10

Overhead presses were next and the core fatigue from the deadlift repetitions insured that I stuck with my "light day" template.

Overhead Presses:  45x10, 95x10, 135x10, 165x5, 165x5, 135x6, 135x6

I finished up with dumbbell rows.  I had planned on doing 5 sets but I was gassed after set 4 so I shut it down.

Dumbbell Rows:  100x10, 100x8x3 sets

Overall the workout was just what I needed.  I felt like I got in a lot of work but without any of the stress from heavy singles.  I'm looking forward to next week's pre-meet training/fine-tuning and then the competition.  I'm still on track to be able to cut weight and lift in the 100kg weight class and at the moment, everything feels good.

Squats, overhead presses and ibuprofen

I can't quite say I was dependent on ibuprofen (Advil) but for about 18 months straight, I was taking anywhere from 400 to 800 milligrams of ibuprofen a day, every day.  It started about 6 months before I lifted in the 2010 Canadian Powerlifting Union National Championships.  One day while squatting, I tore a muscle or something in my hip or upper glute area and from that day on, it required daily ibuprofen so I could function and lift without pain.  Luckily, it never affected my stomach but ibuprofen can tear some people up.  Anyways, after about 18 months of it, the pain finally went away and I weaned myself off of it.  After that, I'd take it on training days as it always seemed to make training easier.

I continued that until my last competition in September.  I decided I'd train without any assistance from pain killers/anti-inflammatories.  I figured I should stop trying to ignore my random aches and pains.  Today, I decided I'd take advil before my training session since I'm down to the final three weeks and second to last heavy squat workout before my next meet.

What a difference.  Warm ups felt as though my joints were bathed in oil and I felt like I had power.  I hit my three prescribed singles and then followed up with doubles with 405.  I hadn't repped 405 in weeks but it felt very easy.  I also felt like I was finally getting some carry over from my front squats.  My stability in the hole seemed to be improved and I felt like I was keeping my torso higher on the ascent.  I don't know if it was due to the effects of the ibuprofen or the front squats but it was good.  I really shouldn't have bad-mouthed my last squat assistance workout since it does seem to have made a difference.

Squats:  135x10, 225x10, 315x5, 365x3, 405x1, 425x1, 440x1, 405x2x5 sets

440 or 446 (200 or 202.5 kgs) seem to be a good second attempt for the competition based on how I felt tonight.  The 440x1 wasn't a 10/10 on the exertion scale, had I needed to, I had at least another 10 lbs in me.

I hadn't planned on pushing overhead presses exceptionally hard but after hitting a comfortable double with 205, I figured I'd try 225.  It didn't go.  Still, the 205x2 was the most reps with 205 I've ever done.

Overhead Presses:  45x10, 95x10, 135x5, 165x3, 185x2, 205x2, 225x0, 205x1, 185x2

The workout was short on volume but the intensity and bar speeds were excellent.  I'm still planning on cutting to the 220 lb weight class but if I get down to the last week and I'm too far out, I'll just lift as is.

I was wrong about yesterday

Despite feeling like yesterday's workout didn't do anything, it did.  I'm sore everywhere today.  I've just got to trust that if I'm doing the work that my body will adapt and get stronger. You'd think I'd know this already, seeing as how I've been weight training for over 17 years spread out over the past 31 and competing in powerlifting for about 7 of those 31 years.   Better late than never.

This weekend I had looked forward to watching the live internet streams of two key powerlifting competitions:  Raw Unity 5 and the Ontario Provincials.  Raw Unity manages to attract an excellent roster of the top raw lifters in North America while the Ontario Provincials (Ontario Powerlifting Association) is my main competitive federation.  Two of my Toronto Rex Powerlifting Club teammates, Mark and Trish Boyle are lifting at Provincials with designs on competing at the Canadian Powerlifting Union Classic Nationals this March.

Unfortunately for me, both competitions had technical issues.  The live feed for Raw Unity worked, sort of.  Apparently there were bandwidth issues so if you could tolerate it, the feed would work in fits and starts.  If you were lucky, you managed to see an actual lift in between frozen screen buffering periods.  I could handle about 5 minutes of that at a time.  It reminded me of the dial-up internet days when seeing videos on the internet was more a fantasy than a reality.  The situation was worse for the Ontario Powerlifting Association Provincial Championships.  Apparently they couldn't get the feed to work at all from the hotel so I've been completely in the dark on how my teammates have been doing.

It's a bit of gift horse mouth inspecting since seeing live internet feeds of powerlifting competitions wasn't a luxury even available a few short years ago.  One gets spoiled so easily and after being able to watch so many other great competitions as they occur, I really missed the ability to do so this weekend.

Mark Boyle taunts iron karma by curling in the Squat rack 

 

Training front squats and bench press

Some workouts leave you feeling like you got stronger, others confirm you got stronger because you broke a personal record.  Today's workout was one of those workouts that was neither.  The only good thing was it wasn't one of those workouts where you got weaker because you injured yourself.

Front squats continue to be a shartshow.  I'm still doing them no-hands style because I'm trying to work on my form but my upper back just doesn't want to stay in position.  I'm trying hard to fight the tendency to round over coming through the sticking point but it's still happening.  On one hand, it's something I need to fix because it will carry over to my back squat--it's clear that I've been covering up this form error by turning difficult back squat reps into squat mornings.  On the other hand, it's humbling to use such light weights and see such slow improvement.

Front Squats:  135x10, 185x5, 225x3, 245x3x3 sets, 225x3x3 sets.  All but the last set were no-hands style. On the previous set, my arms dropped slightly and the bar popped off and I had to catch and rack it from the crooks of my elbows, zercher carry style.  I did the last set california carry style although looking back, there was no real point to that since the weight is so low, my legs aren't working very hard.

I had planned on going up to a single with 295 but my shoulders were having none of that.  At this point, I don't think I'll have much chance of bench pressing 295-305 at the competition on February 11 unless loading up on Advil works some kind of miracle.  I've been training without the assistance of Advil since my last competition in September because I didn't want to blow through any pain imposed stop signs.   While it's probably been a safer strategy with respect to injury prevention, I really miss Advil.  The stuff really works for me.

Bench Press:  45x10, 95x10, 135x5, 185x5, 225x3, 255x2, 275x1, 285x1, 255x2x3 sets

Finished up with dumbbell rows for the grip.  Making progress with my grip endurance every workout so that's my consolation prize for today's workout.

Dumbbell Rows:  100x12, 100x11, 100x9