alongthelinesof

Don’t lie.  This is a safe place.  No one from the box has to know.  I know that you have performed a set of 21′s at some point.  So did I.  And you know why? Because back in high school, you did whatever the person that was most jacked did.  Then you got jacked.  Then people copied you and so on and so forth.

Lou AND Chuck.

I mean, it makes sense right? 7 to work the whole muscle, 7 to work the top half, and 7 to work the bottom.  SO smart.

Whatever.  I had fun doing them.  The only reason I stopped is because I learned about snatches and clean and jerks. And even now, I still catch a sick pump every so often.

Hey, maybe weightlifting would be more popular if weightlifters weren’t discouraged from getting jacked.  Thoughts?

I’m working on getting the T-shirt shop up and running.  Just ordered the 1st one and if it makes me look swole after putting it on then I’ll link the shop to the site.

Also.

No one pulls like Vanev. No one.

Zlatan Vanev is one of my top 5 favorite weightlifters of all time.  Seeing him repeatedly clean 210 only to miss the jerk in the Ironmind training hall video was one of the most inspiring and tenacious feats of strength I’ve ever seen.  He has one of the most ferocious pulls out of any weightlifter in any weight class.  Hands down.  Vanev is the man.

WORKOUTS:

MONDAY (AM)

power snatch and power clean and jerk: 110/130.

Heavy rack walk outs:  Load up a bunch of weight on a rack and rack it for shoulder mobility.

3 sets of prowler sprint and max pull-ups.  I want to drop down to 235lbs. by the end of the week.

Benbata lat pull-downs and DB rows.

GHR’s

MONDAY (PM)

Snatch: first time full snatching above 70kg. in about a week.  Took it up to 120 and then called it.

Light power cleans.

Light presses.

TUESDAY (PM)

Power snatch and power cleans: 110/130.

WEDNESDAY (AM)

Power snatch and power cleans: 110/130.

Heavy rack walk outs:  Load up a bunch of weight on a rack and rack it for shoulder mobility.

Bench press: light

GHRs with small band: 3×10

WEDNESDAY (PM)

Clean and jerk:  played around at 120-130 for a few reps, then cleaned 150 a couple times but missed the jerk.  Minimal pain.

Clean pulls:  worked up to 180.

Back squats:  a few sets of 10 really light with and odd shaped bar.

Thursday (PM)

Power snatches and cleans: light.

Friday (AM)

Warm up workout for the evening.

Friday (PM)

Snatch: hit a nice 120.  Missed 130.  And took a few more from the hang.

Clean and jerk:  Took it up to 150 and missed.  Dropped back down to 120 and worked back up.  Hit a really nice 150 and finally missed 160.

Check this out.

JR lifter phenom, CC keeps the PR’s rollin’ with a 66kg snatch and a 82 C&J.

(Correction. 67kg. snatch.  Apparently I can’t count.)

Have a good weekend, everybody.  If something funny happened in the gym this week, post it in the comments section.  It could be anything.

Like this.

Womp womp. Here comes the Charlie Brown music.

I’d like to point a few things out.

1) I like to workout.

2) I am muscular.

These are 2 things most likely obvious to most people who look at me, due in part to the fact that I am usually wearing gym clothes (with boat shoes) and also because I am visibly muscular.  But just because I am those things does NOT make me an asshole.

Sometimes I’m just a little bit upset at what the bodybuilding era of the 80′s and 90′s did to the perception that the general public has about people who are muscular.  I can’t say for sure, but I’m sure there was a time when being muscular meant something more, or was at least looked at more positively.  In my eyes, when I see someone who trains, I also see someone who values hard work and sacrifice.  I see someone who is capable; someone who knows how to intelligently use their body.  But sadly, I can’t help but think that the majority still sees the musclebound bodybuilding jocks of the 90′s.  Bad qualities such as narcissism and poor self-esteem are also associated with this.  I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been out (not even out at a bar, but even at school) and have to hear negative comments shouted out by brave individuals in the company of all their friends.

“Where you going, beefcake.”

“Go back to Jersey Shore.”

this one is my favorite because it’s so simple:

“STEROIDS!”

If you read this blog, than you most likely like to workout too.  What does being muscular mean to you?  Are we all just a bunch of narcissistic tool bags?  Or do we simply just enjoy expressing a different part of our physical nature?  Or maybe I just think that running is fucking BORING!  All I can say is: haters gonna hate, but barbells make you stronger.

Also.

Check out the TV screen in the newsroom.

The news anchor must be a reader.

-HEAVY DUTY!

My boss/training partner/bro, Camilo and I shared a moment last week.

First, you have to watch this video.

This was back when I was 23 and full of piss and vinegar (I don’t think I get that worked up anymore . . . about anything).  I was training the majority of the time by myself.  And if you’ve ever trained by yourself for a prolonged period of time, you know how challenging it can be.  I was working in a gym at the time and I would work out after hours in the dark with sad or angry music to keep me company.  Anyways, I spent most of that spring/summer pissed off.  But for the first time, I felt like I was making real progress with my weightlifting training.

Saturdays were my opportunity to try and get people together and have a fun group day.  I happened to call Camilo for an an especially good training session (I made 4 PRs!) and he caught the whole thing on tape and made a sweet ass video.

Anyways, this happened last week.  We laughed.

In other news, I shook hands with failure twice today.  I’m not sure what my problem is.  May have to go back to the drawing board.

I arrived home and found these at my doorstep.

Ask and ye shall receive.

Dr. Strossen is the man.

WORKOUTS:

THURSDAY (PM)

Squat:  Managed to get a few sets of 5 at 160 and then a few singles at 180.  I think they’re coming back.

Power snatch: 100kg.

Power clean and jerk: 140kg.

FRIDAY (AM)

Special guest Rob B of Cal Strength stopped by today for a light AM session.  It was really helpful having him around.  I snatched up to 120 and clean and jerked up to 140 with minimal pain.

FRIDAY (PM)

This was supposed to be my heavy day but ended up being a bust.  I’m super frustrated right now.  Oh well.  I guess the only thing to do is to keep moving forward.

Have a good weekend, everybody.  If you got any PR’s recently, let me hear ‘em.  I could use some motivation.

We used to listen to this before football games.

“Squat it, press it, pull it, you’ll be alright.  Because if you don’t have a plan, you don’t have a goal, what the hell you care about sets and reps for?”

GOALS:

1) Snatch 150/ Clean and jerk 180.  In a meet.  On the same day.

2)  Front Squat 220/Back Squat 250.

3) Additional artistic goals that I will write more about later as they unfold.

PLAN:

I am officially back in action this week.  Training has and will continue to be slightly more organized than it has been in the past.  I will continue to train an average of 9 sessions a week, twice a day on M,W,F and once on T,TH,S.  Morning workouts on M,W,F will  be my time to practice any accessory lifts (such as pulls and presses) and will be generally used to prepare me for my evening workouts.  Evenings on M and W (at least for the time being) will be used to practice ONE of the lifts.  This is different than what I’ve done in the past.  I’ve always practiced both lifts in the evenings on M,W,F.  But I’m planning on using these nights to hit a certain number of attempts at a certain weight to practice the full versions of the lifts.  Like I said before, mornings will be used to practice any variations (such as hang, pause, power, or from the blocks) that I think I need to work on.  Fridays will remain generally the same as those have always been used as my day to max on both the lifts during the 2nd session.  T and TH will be my squat days as well as when I practice the power variations of both lifts (light).  My knees are killing me at the moment, so I will have to modify the squats for the time being or just not do them all together.  Saturdays will be an additional squat day and I’ll play it by ear if I want to do anything else.

Here’s what I’ve been doing the last couple days.

WORKOUTS:

MONDAY (MORNING)

Snatch pulls off the blocks: sets of 5 all the way up to 140kg, 3×5 at 140.

Power cleans: light.

Light positional work for the cleans: (Like pulling a weight off the ground and pausing at the knee and then at the hip.)

Press: 110 for a single.

MONDAY (EVENING)

10 snatches at 110kg.

GHR: 5×8

TUESDAY (EVENING)

Power variations: (light)

Attempted to squat.

WEDNESDAY (MORNING)

Clean pulls: (from floor, from knee, from floor, from knee) 3×4 at 160.

Power snatch: (light).

Rack mobility.

Pull-ups and miscellaneous.

WEDNESDAY (EVENING)

10 clean and jerks at 130.  This sucked.

Miscellaneous kettlebell stuff.

Now for some entertainment.

I’m not too powerlifting savvy outside of what the Team ST guys are doing, but Justin posted something about Jim Wendler the other day.  I became interested in his yokes and looked up some of his videos.  His thoughts on programming, planning, and goal setting mirror my own.

And I love his thoughts on the internet.  Couldn’t agree more.

He kinda reminds me of a powerlifting version of Max, who actually does some powerlifting these days.

I lifted in the T. Brooks Memorial Open yesterday.  It was my 1st meet back since nationals and I’m going to sort of use it as a “jump off” for my next 3 months of training.  The last few weeks have been pretty light but I’ve been working to improve on my technique a bit specifically making my pull from the floor more consistent.  My reasoning for this is that if a lift starts off correctly, chances are that it will end correctly.

I have a habit of getting pulled out of position from the ground which leaves my hips completely out of the equation for the majority of the lift.  It’s hard to feel when I’m warming up, but once I get into the 120-130kg range, I can definitely tell if I’m pulling correctly.  That being said, I haven’t actually gotten out of the 120-130 range since Nationals.  My cleans have also been proportionally weaker.  I think my best so far since nationals is 150.

So walking into a meet without any big numbers under my belt in quite some time, I decided to declare really light openers and if I was actually feeling good while warming up, I would open up heavier.

Snatch:  This was an especially long men’s session,so I got started warming up 45 minutes in, knowing that I would be the last lifter.

50×3, 50×3, 70×2, 90×1, 100 miss, 100×1, 110×1, 120×1 (it was this point that I started to feel pretty good) 125×1, 130×1, 130×1, 132×1 (I was now getting some confidence so I decided to declare a nice 135 as my opener.) 134×1.

That was a lot more warm-ups than I usually take, but I felt like testing the waters.

Anyways, I went 135, 140, 145x.

Not bad.

Clean and Jerks:

50 (to stretch my shoulders), 70, 70, 100, 120, 140, 150, 160 (the first 160 in months).  Then the pace of the meet slowed unexpectedly so I went 140, 150, open.

I opened at 162. Pulled it. Caught it.  But my knee gave me a quick flash of pain so I dropped it.  Now throbbing, I debated whether or not I should take the next one.  I Clarked it and decided to call it there.  Better to be able to train tomorrow than incapacitate myself for the rest of the week.

All in all, I have mixed emotions.  I bombed out, but lifter heavier than I have in months.  And it felt good.  Like I said, this is just the start of the next 3 months of training.  And this will be a very important 3 months because it will determine whether or not I meet my goal of a 150/180 by American Opens and my additional squat goals of 220/250.  I’ll write more on this and my general game plan later this week.