Creation of an Explosive Mofo - My Training Journal :)

[coolcolj]

Sunday 24th August - Micro Cycle 9 - Week 7 - Day 1

Did some foam rolling at home and the went back to my fav outdoor court complex. Busy as hell today, tons of people on the court!
Nice and warm.
I ate some raw almonds and one egg just before I went, didn't have problems digesting this. Usually don't eat so close to playing, but session was great energy wise.

Bodyweight = 88.2kg 194lbs in shorts and t-shirt

Outdoor BBall court Complex - one with 8 foot netball rims on the back of each hoop - Nike Free 7.0 Trainer


56 mins total

1) did some dribbling, shooting, moves and low/medium intensity jumps and some dunks on the 8 foot netball rims for 30 mins

2) did max effort jumps of all types for another 25 mins, resting about a 30secs - 1.5min between jumps

Started playing on that hoop with the 9'10.5" rim, then my court got "jacked" by other people when I was practising my jumps, so I started jumping against the back of other hoops, netball rings and then other rims closer to 10 feet.
Annoying.

Shooting was way better today without all the upper body fatigue from my part time job on Saturdays.

Jumping was pretty darn explosive today, I was "soaring" and I didn't have to jump hard to pop up there. Amazing considering how much heavier I am. I upped my bests on all types of 2 legged jumps on this court an inch across the board. Made a few people on the courts think this bulky guy can jump a bit I reckon
Rocked the rim so hard dunking on the 8 foot netball rim on the back of the pole, the whole structure was rocking severely - I got comments when I did that

Put in 195lbs bodyweight and my 365lb full squat in my Vertical Jump formula at Kelly Baggett's site Vertical Jump Calculator and that's exactly what I jumped today!

On standing vertical jump I only did one attempt, which felt so easy and not much knee dip, and I got almost half my forearm to the 9 foot backboard, so half my hand on a 9.5 feet backboard, which puts my fingers an inch off a 10 foot rim = 31 inches.
Much higher than I have jumped here at this bodyweight before - would be lucky to get my wrist an inch above the 9 foot backboard back then.
Off a short slow run on the 9'10.5" I could get all my fingers over the rim - only 3 inches above my VJ, 34 inches, but with a faster run up I should be around 35 inches.

Seeing how well I jumped while being much heavier, I'm no longer going to worry about my bodyweight as long as it's not massive fat gain. When my full squat goes up I jump higher, and I really don't feel any heavier today.
Until I hit a 40 inch VJ anyway, or wait till I get a 475+lb full squat then I'll lean down to a 30 inch waist

Having 5 days of rest from my weights sure helps. I usually only rest 4 days. Legs felt strong and "stiff" on landings, even my feet/ankles/calves felt rock solid, running and landing on the balls of my feet. But they are still kinda trashed up now - but should be sorted after a few more weeks of calf raise ISO work.

when I get to a 34-35 inch vertical Jump, and 38-39 off a run, I'll take some new jumping videos.
Around when I get to a 395-405lb full squat at my current bodyweight, which should be about 2 months from now with my current rate of gain. That's when I'll be able to grab the rim from a standing jump.

 

[coolcolj]

feel a little sapped and beat up
Achey feeling - mostly in my feet, calves, spinal erectors and upper back. Usually my hammies, glutes and VMO get more sore later in the day.

My foot msucles were sore as hell a few hours after BBall yesterday, so I rolled em on a cricket ball and that helped, but my right foot arch still feels strained.

25 min walk for active recovery and some foam rolling/hard ball release work

 

[coolcolj]

Wednesday 27th August - Micro Cycle 9 - Week 7 - Day 2 - Workout A Volume

Ok workout, not as good as usual, but not bad.
Getting stronger me thinks.

Body weight at gym - 197lbs in winter clothing
Workout time - 1.5 hours
Workout rating - 7/10

General warm up -

3 min moderate speed walk on treadmill

Then did this foam rolling routine - just the lower body bit, I did most of the stuff at home and some other bits
YouTube - Cressey Performance Foam Roller Series

1 set each of my usual dynamic mobility exercises
behind the neck band pull aparts - green mini-band help 3/4 length 2x8
lateral deep lunge x8
situp complex on swiss ball
single leg RDL mobility + psoas activation walk
2 short runs of low effort prime times (stiff legged runs)

A few sets of hops in place - 2 legged and then single legged
3x10 seconds rope skipping - 2 legged then 5 reps single leg, each leg, then alternating legs - 30secs rest

45lb oly bar complex - slow clean pull, GM onto toes, high hang powerclean, military press - 5 reps each


Low bar Full Back Squats - shoulder width stance - no Belt - Nike Free 5.0 Trainer + Oly shoes

warmups - 45 seconds rest between double sets on the same weight. Then 2-3min rest between each weight increase

in Nike Free 5.0 trainer - BWx8, 95lbs 2x2, 135lbs 2x2, 185lbs x2, switched to oly shoes 205x2, 225x2, 255x1, 285x1, 325 x 2 sec support

controlled - 2.5 mins rest
1) 325lbs x 2 (90% of estimated 1RM - 365lbs)
2) 305lbs x 2 (83%)
3) 305lbs x 2
4) 305lbs x 2
5) 305lbs x 2
6) 305lbs x 2

Like the last time I did this workout 2 weeks ago, but up 10lbs across the board. Felt ok, strength is up I think, didn't have to strain too hard on any set. Probably could have done at least 5 reps with 325lbs. Went up pretty fast for a 90% of 1RM lift. 8 days since I last squatted as well.
Handling these types of loads much better than I have ever done before, and at a lighter bodyweight! Won't be long now till I hit 405lbs if things keep going up 5lbs a week.

Video of all worksets
YouTube - 27th August 2008 - Low Bar Full Squat 325lbs x 2, 305lbs 5x2

Upper body/shoulder prehab stuff

6kg dumbell x12 (2-3 sec rest between each rep)
single arm seated Cuban rotation into press
elbow on knee external rotation - pause at parallel
single arm lying on back/floor subscap rotation


dip shrug - 5sec hold + 3 reps, BW x 15 reps with a pause at bottom, and hold at top on each rep

Single leg standing calf raise machine

warmup - BWx5, 2 plates x 3

1.5 mins rest between each side
1 rep + 30 sec ISO hold at top x 3 plates
increased ISO by 10 secs, not so shakey now

Lat machine situp
warmup - each rep progressively lower - 3 secs rest between each BWx10
BW+15lbs x 3, BW+35lbs x 8 paused middle and bottom - up 10lbs

 

[coolcolj]

Feeling a little sapped and stale, but not drained. Which is ok, this is what you want to make gains.

Achey all over - glutes, calves, upper hamstrings and quads are all pretty sore. Upper back and armspretty sore as well

25 min walk for active recovery planned for today

 

[coolcolj]

classic!
YouTube - How not to snatch

hahahhahahaa

 

[coolcolj]

Hamstrings are still pretty damn sore, and glutes a bit too as well. When I pull my thigh towards my chest, my hamstring screams!

Low bar full squats - the ultimate hammie exercise IMO
Spinal erectors have really thickened up to - could explain part of my half inch gain in waist size

 

[coolcolj]

part 2 of the szie and strength article I posted above

The Relationship Between Size and Strength, Part 2

Lesson #5

The strongest lifter in any given weight class is not necessarily the lifter with the most muscle mass because lifting maximal weights involves more factors than just muscle mass.

The ability to demonstrate maximal strength is a function of many factors, including muscle mass and something we refer to as “leverages.” The truth is that no one understands why an elite group of people such as Franco Colombu are so incredibly strong in comparison to the average person or what the source of their great strength is. To explain this dramatic difference in strength, we say that these people were born with “good leverages.” Read that again because it’s true. Some old timers out there may recall stories about the Russians wanting to study Paul Anderson and take tissue samples from him to figure out what made the guy so strong.

The victory podium at a major powerlifting contest always has a variety of body types. Some are slender and some are massive. This disparity confuses people. Some people look at the disparity in body types and say things like, “This proves that muscle size has no relationship to strength.” The reality is more subtle.

Some people are capable of lifting amazing poundage because of their incredible “leverages.” Other lifters lack this advantage but have bodies that are able to develop amazing amounts of muscle mass. This mass coupled with their natural leverages allows them to lift comparable poundage.

The person who wins in a strength contest may or may not have huge muscle mass. For example, Mike MacDonald is a person who did not develop huge muscle mass when he bench pressed gigantic weights. There are other guys like him and they are unusual people. Some of these guys win contests and don’t look very big.

Back in the day, Dave Shaw (to name just one example) developed enormous muscle mass in conjunction with his development of maximal strength. His body type was radically different than Mike McDonald’s, but both men were amazingly strong. This type of lifter wins contests, too.

Developing and increasing strength—for the majority of males past puberty—requires an increase in muscle mass (i.e. the development of “bigger” muscles). A small group of men are capable of developing strength with small increases in their muscle mass because their bodies are more “efficient” at lifting heavy weights. This group may not develop as much mass through their weight training. However, both groups need to increase their muscle mass to increase their maximal strength.

The bottom line is that to increase maximal strength the vast majority of men must increase their muscle mass. More muscle mass means a greater potential for the development of maximal strength. Whether or not a person develops unusually “big” muscles is a function of their own unique genetics.

Lesson #6

Not everyone makes muscle mass gains with powerlifting training. Some people must train with higher reps to stimulate muscle mass gains.

This is a hard truth, but EliteFTS has the guts to admit this and offer advice on how to get around this problem by using a hypertrophy routine as a form of “foundation” training. This is the idea behind Joe DeFranco’s, “Westside for Skinny Bastards” routine. The idea is that you can increase your muscle mass and prepare your body for powerlifting by lifting sub-maximal weights in a quasi-bodybuilding routine with higher reps. Then you switch over to powerlifting and develop the strength potential of that muscle mass.

If you love powerlifting but are not gaining muscle mass through your powerlifting routine and your strength is stagnant, you may have to do some bodybuilding for a time to gain enough mass to make meaningful strength gains. It sounds bizarre, but it’s true, as noted above. Basically, your mass places a ceiling on your power, and you don’t have enough mass. Gain more mass, and you generally raise the ceiling.

Why do some people fail to gain mass on a powerlifting routine? The classic answer is that the reps are too low. Higher reps are needed to gain muscle mass. Yet some people develop a lot of mass on powerlifting routines. No one really knows why. Accept reality and adjust according to your body type.

Lesson #7

In order to gain more muscle mass through bodybuilding, you may need to increase your strength by powerlifting.

Now, this is where the apparent contradictions set in. How can we reconcile lesson six with lesson seven? If powerlifting does not increase mass in some people, how can we use it to gain mass? Lessons six and seven contradict one another, right? Weight training in general is full of false, apparent contradictions, and no one ever bothers to explain them. Lessons six and seven don’t contradict one another.

Back in the golden age of bodybuilding, bodybuilders trained heavy in the winter months, put on weight, and supposedly gained more muscle mass. In the warmer months when the contests approached, the guys trained lighter with bodybuilding routines, reduced their body fat levels, and entered contests heavier than they were the year before. That was the theory. This method of training and eating fell out of favor. Bulking up in the winter time made you fat, but it didn’t add mass. Does that mean that this method was a flop?

Take a look at how I trained and consider my failure to gain the muscle mass that I wanted through powerlifting. I originally gained muscle mass using moderate weights in an intense bodybuilding routine, and I later increased my strength when I switched to powerlifting. My muscle mass did not increase, but my strength levels did. If you were giving me advice today about gaining muscle mass, what would you tell me to do?

I would do two things differently. I would eat leaner, more nutritious foods, and I would take the increased strength that I gained from my powerlifting and apply it to a bodybuilding routine, making sure that my bodybuilding poundage was heavier than what I used before I started powerlifting. I might very well have started gaining muscle mass again.

For example, by powerlifting, I was able to increase my bench press quite a bit over what I was able to do when I did bodybuilding. What if I had gone back to bodybuilding and started doing sets of eight with 300 lbs? What if I had dropped the weights in every exercise and increased the reps? Would I have gained more mass? I never tried this.

When you look at my experience in this light, the old bulking up method from the golden age makes sense. Take some time off from bodybuilding to power lift. Then take the strength increases from powerlifting in the off-season and apply them to your bodybuilding routine. By cycling in and out of a powerlifting routine, old time bodybuilders applied their strength increases to their bodybuilding exercises and kept their size/muscle mass gains going up. The idea that “bulking up” increased muscle size was wrong. However, the underlying concept of gaining strength in the off-season to help one’s bodybuilding training actually made sense.

In hindsight, the mistake I made was to give up. But I really had no other choice because I started to hurt myself. I desperately needed to gain more mass, but I didn’t know it. I should have taken those strength increases and switched back to a heavier bodybuilding routine for a time. That would have given my body a break from the “heavy” weights (the weights were “heavy” in relation to the skimpy mass that I was carrying) and allowed me to gain more muscle mass. If I then went back to powerlifting, I might not have pulled those muscles, and I could have made more strength gains.

Some guys say the following on this very website—“I started pulling muscles when I reached certain weights. So that was the limit of my genetic potential.” Maybe. It may be more accurate to say that you reached the strength limits of your existing level of muscle mass. Maybe you needed to increase your muscle mass, and you would’ve been able to lift heavier weights and avoid the muscle pulls.

Adjust your routine according to your particular circumstances. If you’re a bodybuilder and your gains are stagnant, consider doing some powerlifting. You may not gain more mass, but that’s okay. Give yourself time to gain enough strength to increase your bodybuilding poundage in a meaningful way, and you may increase your muscle mass when you return to bodybuilding.

So in conclusion, how do we make sense of these principles and apply them in the real world? First, assess how your body responds to powerlifting. Powerlifting workouts are often abbreviated. If you are gaining muscle mass as your strength increases, that’s good. However, if you’re not, you may need to switch to a bodybuilding program of some kind to increase your muscle mass. The same thing applies if you’re significantly underweight for your height. You may find that powerlifting does not do enough to stimulate needed muscle mass gains.

Try DeFranco’s, “Westside for Skinny Bastards” routine and monitor your muscle mass gains. Look for meaningful gains in lean muscle mass, taking into account your height and weight. Then switch back to a powerlifting program, and your strength should go up.

Be aware that you may not gain any muscle mass when you power lift even though your body is gaining strength. Ideally, your body will respond to the powerlifting training, and you will experience a muscle mass increase as your strength goes up. However, it may not. If you don’t gain mass and you hit a strength plateau that continues for an extended period, you may need to take those strength gains and apply them to a hypertrophy program to start gaining mass again

 

[coolcolj]

Sunday 31st August 2008

6 hours deep sleep, and 4 hours lighter sleep last night - not bad
feel a little groggy. Body a bit bit up from my part time job yesterday


Waist is 34 inches and bodyweight at 87.9kg 193.4lbs

Waist holding steady, bodyweight down a little without all the wedding reception food/drinks
I look about the same bodyfat wise

upper thigh = 26.5 inches
calves = 16 1/8 inches
arms = 15 inches
wrist = 6.75 inches

Hips about the same, 40-41 inches.
Skinny arms, cause I don't train em, legs seem to be a little bigger, and calves are a little bigger.
My upper traps have blown up quite a lot though! And shoulders a bit as well.

 

[coolcolj]

Sunday 31st August - Micro Cycle 9 - Week 8 - Day 1

I felt kinda tired, and I didn't really feel like going to the courts today...the vibe just felt off.. but I forced myself to anyway.

Did some foam rolling at home before heading to the court

Bodyweight = 88.2kg 194lbs in shorts and t-shirt

Outdoor BBall court Complex - one with 8 foot netball rims on the back of each hoop - Nike Free 7.0 Trainer


50 mins total

1) did some dribbling, shooting, moves and low/medium intensity jumps and some dunks on the 8 foot netball rims for 30 mins

2) did max effort jumps of all types for another 20 mins, resting about a 30secs - 1.5min between jumps

I should have listened to my body, felt lethargic, had no hops today. Run ups were slow and timing off.
Vertical jump down 4-5 inches, one step jump down 1 inch, running jump down 2 inches.

Feet and calves felt much stronger today

Still not recovering well. Now that I'm playing BBall on Sunday, I get one less rest day, and my workout on Wednesday doesn't feel as good as it does on Tuesday. Your damned if you do and your damned if you don't
I think I will try cutting back the squat sets on my volume day from 6x2 to 5x2, and maybe not even go up to 88-90% of 1RM for the first set,a nd see how that goes.

In hindsight I should have taken the day off, and made week 8 into a deload week

 

[coolcolj]

achey and a little beat up all over, spinal erectors and upper back the most sore.
Foot muscles, ankles and calves nowhere near as sore as last week, so they are getting stronger. But I wasn't jumping as high and approaching as fast yesterday

short walk for active recovery today.