Becoming an Athlete

About 3-4 weeks ago I really tweaked my right trap.  I deadlifted what I'm calling my 40's PR: 485 x 1. A few days later, my trap started hurting was down into my lat and even down to my elbow.  It was incredibly painful but I worked around it. Now that I'm lifting like normal again, my pulling strength feels hampered by neural inhibition more than muscular pain.  To overcome this as quickly as possible, I'm moving to a high frequency program. For this month, I'm following a push / pull split, and will train 6 days per week. Every muscle group will be trained three times per week. Monday: push-1 Tuesday: pull-1 Wednesday: push-2 Thursday: pull-2 Friday: push-3 Saturday: pull-3 Volume within each session will be fairly low, but volume across a single week will be higher than a normal bodybuilding split.  Each of the three sessions have a bit of variety to ensure week to week progress. I'll write up a summary at the end of week 1 to see how it's goin...

I feels amazing to see myself getting bigger muscles, losing fat, and feeling my mobility improve and my stamina increase all at the same time. My lower back was starting to hit a wall from all the clean and snatch complexes, so now I'm starting my workouts with bodyweight circuits. I'm blowing through these and plan to do a few weeks of them while increasing reps per circuit, then sprinkling in a couple complexes each week. Yesterday I was able to deadlift 435 for 5 reps.  2 weeks ago I BARELY hit 3 reps with that weight. Today is the first time in my life I was able to curl 100 pounds as a work set. I worked up to 100 x 10 on ez-bar curl.  I'm so pleased with the steady inches of progress. God willing, there is no end in sight.  I just need to keep my ego in check and focus on consistent diet and sleep. Happy Friday!!!!

Certain authors have a way of presenting an idea that is simple, logical, and compelling to the point of getting me to examine my previous methods as well as my motives.  Paul Carter is one such author and trainer. The major concept I've embraced from him is chasing rep PRs before Weight PRs. I'm almost 42 and realize I'll never compete in a powerlifting competition, so chasing 1 rep maxes has very little relevance to my goals. Its high risk and low reward. Rather than trying to add more weight every week, I'll stick with a specific weight and just grind out more reps every week. The two methods I am using at the moment: Volume Accumulation programming: I'm not sure if there is a better name for it, but that's what I call it.  I can run this for 12 weeks with amazing results before I have to switch. I pick a weight I can manage for 10x5. Each week, I add 1 rep per set for a total of 10 extra reps.  By the end of 6 weeks, I've gone from 50 total to 100...

I am a tinkerer by nature.  I've built a career of consistently improving things, optimizing results for minimal effort. I have many shortcomings and weaknesses, but one of my strengths is to filter out all the distractions from a situation and zero in on the critical few that matter. I've realized the following limitations in myself: I'm too old to keep chasing weekly increases in poundages, so 5-3-1 isn't optimal for me I need LOTS of volume to elicit the metabolic stress necessary for my goals, so 5-3-1 isn't optimal for me When I follow typical periodization blocks, I lose the other qualities far too fast I've solved this by: Following a Push / Pull split that ensure I'm hitting everything twice a week. Always starting with a variety of barbell complexes, focused on Snatch or Clean.  The variety means I have to master movement before I can increase load. The nature of complexes adds significant metabolic stress with minimal time, and leav...

I've been using barbell complexes regularly and systematically for the last month to make steady and consistent progress in my performance with Clean & Jerk, and Snatch. I've read a lot of articles that simply give you a menu of complexes and combos to choose from to make a killer finisher. It doesn't take a genius to figure string together random combinations of barbell movements performed for 5-8 reps each.  Any combination will leave you sucking wind and sweating buckets.  This random approach to exercise selection, rep ranges, and load progression won't make you any better and will likely lead to plateaus or possibly injury. So what's the difference between a combo and a complex? Coach Dan John summarizes a Complex best: A complex is a series of lifts back to back where you finish the reps of one lift before moving on to the next lift. The barbell only leaves your hand or touches the floor after all of the lifts are completed. Although you can do them...

Man, this current phase is just incredible.  We had to build up our work capacity to reach this level, but is yielding fantastic and balanced results.  Functional mass, increases in strength, work capacity, and endurance across several energy systems. The basic framework is: Train Mon, Wed, Fri Whole Body Circuit: Same circuit every session - legs, upper push, upper pull Power Development: using a variety of combination lifts and complexes build on Clean variants or Snatch variants. Alternate every session between Snatch-focus and Clean-focus Hypertrophy: Focus on one or two body parts and smash with volume and high time under tension Whole Body Circuit: weeks 1 - 4 Mon, Wed, Fri: 3 circuits of a. Squat: wk1,2 - 20 reps; wk3,4 - 15 reps b. T-bar row: wk1,2 - 15 reps; wk3,4 - 12 reps c. Pushup:  wk1,2 - 15 reps; wk3,4 - 20 reps Power Development: weeks 1 - 4 Monday: medium load complexes; e.g. 3 x 3-3-3-3 (4-movement complex) Wednesday: light l...

Crossfit is an amazing marketing engine. I love and hate it.  When I saw a barbell advertised as a "WOD bar", I had enough.  I can't justify spending $175 per month to work hard when most gyms either: have poor programming that won't lead to consistent improvement outsource their programming to places you could go directly (Invictus, MisFit, Mayhem, etc.) Have highly enthusiastic coaches with no understanding of long-term planning at all. So here I am training with my buddy making consistent, injury free progress, looking better at 41 than I did at 31. What we're doing now could arguably called CrossBuilding.  Like that?  Yet another CrossFit mashup to differentiate for no real reason. I REALLY like the Cross Lifting stuff coming out of Russia. Dimitri Klokov and Mikhail Koklyaev are just mind boggling.  They know more than I'll ever know about strength training, programming, and fitness.  Its astounding. So what I'm doing is nothing as sop...