Category: Lifting Mindset

Pushups have been such a major part of my training that I likely don’t talk of them enough.

Starting late 2014 and continuing til some point in 2016 or the start of 2017 I almost exclusively did “cheat” short range of motion pumping reps as my pushups, so the majority of the set was not to lockout.

(This was done December 14 or January 15.)

However, I got the hair up my ass to do 1000+ reps without dropping.

To count it was 1-9, 1, 1-9, 2 til 1-9, 1 the 100 mark and repeat. It made it easier for me to track where I was.

I still remember the pause at 836.

I wasn’t allowed to get up. I recall shaking my hands out one at a time, but don’t recall if I shook out legs/feet. I just know I was doing pushups and being in downward dog position for far longer than most would’ve stayed there for.

I recall just being soaked with sweat. The grey cotton shorts I was wearing being shades darker than when I’d started, hands and feet spots slick, and a sizable puddle from where the drip came off my face, smaller ones where I touched chest/had sweat drip off my torso.

Please note this was done on carpet. It was a staggering amount of sweat, and that’s coming from someone who sweats profusely, my friends having told me that I sweat just thinking about exercising.

I was at the time good for 100 good reps in a minute.

The 1000+ (I believe I stopped at 1376, yes that’s the number I recall) had a good number of strict reps thrown in as I had to get to the top to rest, and with each miniset I’d get less and less “pump” style reps as fatigue set in.

It’s been too long for me to remember how long it took. Low balling it would put it at 12 minutes minimum being all cheat reps.

I’d guess it was 18-22 minutes. At the time I still watched TV, and I recall it taking up most of the half hour between programs. (1030pm-11pm gap if you were wondering.)

At the very least it was a good experience and makes for a good story, though it was so much more than that.

What though you ask? I’ll leave that for you to discover, though I might say my chest is indestructible and cannot tire. However that is not the “secret” you’re looking for.

-J

I used to be super anal about making the gym as “perfectly calibrated” as possible.

I’d always match plates, and always use clips.

Over the years I stopped caring more and more, and at the gym I’m at currently there is a severe dearth of clips (a pair or two or less), and the plates are of so many manufacturers, styles, lb vs kg (an occasional 20kg among the bumpers), worness (it looked like multiple pitbulls had chewed on these ancient Eleiko 20kg bumpers I snatched with), height, and thickness that matching your plates would stop you from lifting entirely.

Hell, a few bars are 20kg even. I’m mathing these as if they’re still 45 because who wants to write 182 or 183 when any other American gym would have it be 185 in markings, but not necessarily reality as I’ll get to momentarily.

The clip thing is kinda annoying, but without them you just have to oly very much under control. (Did the weight just shift? You look and see the 10 and 5 were about to dive dive dive off the left side of a 255 jerk.) However there’s also the possibility that you may get some temporarily off a chick that brought her own. Of course spending a few bucks could also give you some to keep in your own gym bag now that you know the gym is well stocked but lacking clips (and chalk). This “problem” ain’t nothing but a peanut.

I’m having trouble finding the Ronnie Coleman picture I was looking for so just picture a picture of Ronnie Coleman with the caption “Ain’t nuttin but a peanut! Light weight!” Did it? Good, continue.

…..

Nuthin but a peanut!

Oh yeah, mismatched plates :

I laugh at how different both sides look, think back 5 years or so to trying to only use grey Ivanko 45s, laugh again, strap up, and proceed to pull.

God, if the weight isn’t even, if it’s not perfectly calibrated, and off balance some…you’re closer to using an odd object and not something ergonomically designed to be lifted.

The mismatch’ll build ruggedness and more true strength.

It’s a plus and not a minus.

And now the additional part written days later :

(Of course one prior paragraph was snuck in at this later date.)

I hit a 405 squat single today (9/19/18). I did a rep with the bar and 225 before taking it. At 225 the left side felt 15ish heavier than the right side. At “405” it felt 30ish lbs heavier than it should’ve with the same skew leftward. While most of this was written a few days back, today I lived the words, put my money where my mouth is, and found I can squat 405 or more off balance.

Most would call that rep crazy, I felt I had it under control. Unrack. Step, step, step. Breath out, breath out. Descend. I’ll know half way down to bail and stand or ride it down. Ride it down. Up. Sticking point. Get ugly. Complete. Rerack.Think about what the blonde (5’7″, fit, 30) training glutes and staring at me is thinking about.

This gym feels like I’ll hit a 495+ squat without it being priority. Squat building via bodybuilding and the Bruce Randall testing method.

Do you know what that last sentence meant?

In a Louie Simmons voice :

“You’re gonna good morning and hypertrophy the quads. We only do the lift occasionally! We’re not John Broz.”

-J

I’ve always been more of a “leg lad™” than a bench bro, maybe that’s why leg day, full body training, and/or Bulgarian squatting never bothered me.

I liked training legs, I count the deadlift as working them, and find leg work to be the most bang for your buck among exercises per chunk of training time.

I noticed a correlation between bigger deadlift and more sprint speed. With stronger legs and hips I became more athletic.

Okay, frequent squatting :

Most view such things as insane, something you can’t possibly recover from. I’ll admit I’m likely far more willing than most to run myself into the ground, and get a (likely bizzare) satisfaction about pushing myself under adverse circumstances. Hell, it feels good (at least to me) when everyone else’s response to my training is how they “couldn’t do that”.

(Pinnacle anecdote off the top of my head was while working labor doing a 3 month squat every day phase, pulling an all nighter and jump squatting 405 at about 5am the day after a long ass shift, as the 2nd of 3 sessions in the 24 hours immediately following the long shift.)

Be advised :

It doesn’t take long to work up to lifetime PRs or near them on a daily basis.

3 weeks.

If you’re not getting to ~90%+ 1rm as your “daily max” within 3 weeks you’re likely either already at a massive powerlifter style wide stance squat, you’re purposely easing in slow, that or your issue is a matter of effort…lacking effort.

2 things :

1. Why can’t you be part of the elite?
2. Oly lifters squat massive amounts daily.

Squatting more like a weightlifter is far more conductive to frequency than wide at least as I’ve found so far. You may tread differently.

Get a little crazy, after all that’s what the gym is for. Substitute Caveman Activity!

Written out of disgust at some recent article by a CSCS certified trainer making a big deal out of his month of daily squatting.

It’s fucking squats not trench warfare. You’re participating in a hobby, it ain’t hard.

Like that old time strength writer said after while being in his 70s and having just 20 rep squatted an NFL player into the dirt…”Squats? Squats are easy.”

Perception.

-J

They see me flip the tire and make a big deal of it.

It’s a group of 3, I’d guess mother, 17 year old son, and I’m not sure who the other woman was as she was too old to be daughter/sister, and too young to be the mom (which would now leave the question who’s the older woman). This other one while exercising with them was leading them, maybe a hands on trainer?

Anyway the trainer one was first to make a big deal of it. Asking me what it weighs and similar.

“I don’t know, but my high school had a bigger one for the football team”.

I try to explain that flipping this one back and forth is nothing. Truly it’s not, in the strength world, nor to any healthy male.

I told them that when I practiced it I got be flipping them very explosively using the aforementioned school’s tire for as much as 15-20 in a row.

Then : bigger tire x 15-20 in a row.
Now : tire not as large x a few sets of 2-4 singles

I was looking at the group and thinking the 17 year old male could do this. It’d be hard, but well within the realm of possibility for him.

If you can lift the tire high enough to prop a knee under it, then you can grind that motherfucker over. Hell the tread wasn’t even worn thin on them, advantageous tires that they are.

My 5’9″ 165lb non lifting buddy got the high school’s bigger tire over after a few days (spread over a month) of using the smaller one, my having told him to wedge the knee, and his being willing to fight for it.

It was like watching the continental version of a tire flip. I’d guess he struggled for 15-45 seconds on his 2nd or 3rd attempt, that rep grinding it up high enough to barely prop it on the knee and then fighting from there.

The 17 year old could get the tire today if he only tried, and was willing to fight.

The story seems to be that it’s a bodybuilding gym. No one sans an occasional passing by strongman flips the thing. While I’m not a competitive strongman my sense of play brings me to try my hand at rocks, implements, logs, and similar whenever the opportunity presents itself.

(Like the time I stood a ~200lb waterlogged log on end, brought it out of the water, reshouldered it having tipped it on end now on land, and almost locked out the terribly unwieldy “staggered neutral open palm grip 2 hand push jerk from right shoulder”.)

I have the advantage of a few years ago going to the field and progressing from struggling to prop it on the knee to flipping it via grind to flipping explosively to flipping explosively for reps with a larger tire.

I’m out of practice, but I still know how to fight against something unwieldy and not ergonomically designed for human lifting.

(My strength is always more impressive outside of chrome ergonomic gym settings.)

I can go back in the memories to seeing my buddy fight and succeed with that larger tire and to my rep out set with a larger tire.

That tire today ain’t shit…to those with a different perception.

I’m likely going to be the oddball at this gym too as I’ll likely end up flipping the tire down and back, maybe (and it sounds crazy yet doable to me at this point) loading the tire from parking lot onto the loading dock…by hand. Maybe I’ll stack the tires atop each other first. Maybe I’ll do all of it combined. Flip the bigger tire down and back , then load both tires on the loading dock whilst stacking them one atop the other.

Perception. It makes a huge difference.

-J

Yesterday I cleaned up to 275, then about an hour of talking later hit 255 x 5 unable to work back up to 275 in that doble session.

(It’s noteworthy that the cleaning at the gym was done 3-5 hours after a heavy uneven ground flip flop wearing heavy deadlift session which may have contained a 405 rep PR as a backoff set.)

Today it was 5×2 @ 255 then 225×10+1J

(Oddly both days I intended to bench, yet did nothing but cleans.)

I felt off slightly from that 10rm.

I think to myself “okay, I’ll head into the locker room and hauck a lugie/loogie (spelling), that usually makes me feel better”.

So I go to the bathroom and do just that. Spit in the sink, rinse it down, and wait 30 seconds. “Ok, I’m good.”

I start to walk away, and IT HITS.

A hard pivot back to… “where!” …the trashcan.

Bllrrgghh!

“That was surprisingly little. Why is it off white?”

“Oh God!”

Blarrggghhhh!

“Huh, still white. What did I eat today?”

(Homemade quesadilla. Thorough examination reveals that I was seeing tortilla bits in a lovely cheese, thoroughly masticated tortilla, and Pepsi sauce, the combination of ingredients making an off white.)

Tie up the bag, walk to the desk with the trashcan.

“Do me a favor and reline this”

I take the bag and walk round to the dumpster. Unlike so many, I clean up my own messes.

Damn, I haven’t puked from exercise since a massive sprint and middle distance repeat day during junior year wrestling season. It’s been ~7 ½ years.

(That day it was raisins and peanuts from trail mix nicely flavoring the snow. I’d ran outside to spew. )

I think I know why people like Ken Leistner are stronger than everyone.

He kept well placed puke buckets around his gym.

Pushing to that point is a different level of intensity.

Most of us rarely if ever go that far.

Honestly for a few hours after I felt feverish.

(Pushing to temporarily feeling feverish from training : another post in itself that I’ve been meaning to right.)

Hey, it felt shitty. I won’t lie, but I did take a longstanding 7-8rm to a 10rm and threw in the jerk on the last for good measure.

(Video place holder for 7-8rm)

Hell, I even got in a solid session in about 10, maybe 15 minutes of gym floor time.

The Entire Session:

1×225
5×2@255 (jerk last rep at weight)
10×225 (jerk last rep at weight)

Puke 2x, take out the trash, and then hang out sipping a bottle of water while possibly overhearing the voice of some knuckle head trash talking.

As odd as this may sound I needed that. I had to relearn a lesson in intensity.

Density train heavy olys, then rep em out a bit lighter to finish.

I hadn’t pushed that far in ~7½ years.

Olys for high reps have value, and can be a style of heavy loaded cardio.

Puking may just be an indicator that you took it to the limit on a big compound movement.

(I’m not advocating for or against, draw your own conclusions.)

Peace,

-J

From Brian Alsruhe’s YouTube channel I got the idea to “rack pull” the gym’s yoke.

(Set the yoke crossbar as low as possible.)

Ahh, from Brian’s channel a screenshot :

Here’s the video link.

I’ve done this twice now :

1. 6/22/18 :
Up to 345lb with a decent hold at lockout.

I was very pleased with this as it was nearing my regular every day overhand deadlift max of 365-385.

2. 8/15/18
Up to 425lb very clean, this could’ve been a decent hold, and 445 barely. This time I was simply pulling without long holds.

I was dumbfounded by this, and am somewhat surprised that I didn’t go mental these both having been past my overhand deadlift max of 405.

Based on this performance I got a wonderful awful idea…to try to get the axle to deadlift floor height.

Simulated SUPER fat bar deadlift :

After testing one box, on the second try I got a box that had the bar set at about an inch above normal floor height.

Close enough.

I worked back up to 385 very cleanly and hit an ugly 405 where the thumb on my right hand slipped near lockout, but I did finish the lift.

I was trying to pull this all double overhand.

Being a stupid thick bar the weight is further in front of you than a regular bar. This is why thumbless is advantageous. The thumb out of the way brings the bar in slightly closer.

Now compared to a barbell of the same thickness :

The yoke sways as the weight is out in front of you and behind you. A barbell doesn’t do this.

On the yoke the weights are not that far from your center, on a barbell the weight is a few feet to your sides.

Based on many military press reps I say these factors roughly counteract each other.

(I’ve pressed the 185lb yoke so many times over the last year+ having grown to view it as a no set up required base weight. Yes, I strict press 185+ on a super thick bar regularly…and cold. Likely an article here for another time.)

That means I pulled 405 double overhand practically from the floor on a 3″ (I believe, it the same model of yoke as in the Alsruhe video) bar.

Now here’s the conundrum.

Yes I’m stronger proportionally with a more open than closed hand caused by open hand door row and hot tub handle deadlift isometric simulations, the following axle obsession, and then the work as a mover.

But today’s performance was ridiculous.

Yeah, I was fresh after 4 arguably 5 days off.

Again too ridiculous to be just that.

I was leaving poundage in the tank and even repping 10s on a bunch of backoff sets.

(Funny note : I mathed terribly wrong, in my mind I was struggling with 10×235 dumbfounding myself only to strip 50lbs and notice it has been 10×335 a decent super fat bar perfornance. This was on the “rack pulls”.)

That aside story points out I did the “deadlifts” after a good deal of “rack pulls”.

I conclude it’s that on a thick bar I have no psychological “gym rules/gym knowledge” mental block.

No one pulls their yoke, especially not in a deadlift simulation, well unless they’re Brian Alsruhe, me, or a similar kindred lunatic soul.

Still, there is no guideline here.

(Though I don’t doubt that some late 1800s strongman has pulled something huge on a similarly thick bar. Hell, I’ve likely come across it before, but I am NOT searching for such obscure info at this time.)

It was just me with a clear mind and no preconceived notion of limits testing my hands…and LEAVING SOME WEIGHT ON THE TABLE.

No preconceived notion of limit. THEREIN lies the key.

-J

Yoke Pull Log :

1st two sessions in post.

8/17/18 “deadlifts” up to soft lockout 465, 465 mixed, doh holds 365 x 40 seconds, 405 x 32 seconds.

 

 

Frequency…our soft living and soft mentality BEGS us to lower it.

Everyone around you says take time off…

The only training that makes sense to me is Bulgarian…I stray from that and I spin my wheels.

Coughing…hack, hack, hack…ok it’s now safe to unrack.

It takes a while to fall asleep at night, the coughing is worst in the late evening.

Is it a cold? Is it overtraining?

No, it’s your body trying to trick you into laying off…

You don’t need to.

The mental goes far before the physical.

The physical is LIMITLESS when you’ve got the mental on point.

Keep going. The physical will catch up…that is if you have the mental strength necessary.

Squat every day. Bulgarian training. Love it.

-J

To myself : If you almost catch a clean YOU CAN catch it, and jerk it.
It’s a mostly unconscious fear of getting pinned causing the close misses. When you go up to a “heavy” clean know you CAN get under it, and you WILL. Then you’ll easily stand up with it, and jerk it.

Ah, okay, now with that out of the way…to the post…

I read this anecdote of a 17 year old kid cleaning and jerking his front squat max.

The details were it being a double bodyweight rep of ~350lbs at a lanky ~175lbs.

That’s an eye opener ain’t it?

Cleaning and jerking his front squat max.

Crazy right?

Now I’ll one up it…

There have been international caliber weightlifters who out clean and jerk their front squat.

Uncommon, but true.

There’s no need to fear getting under the bar…the missing link!..the third pull!..pulling under the bar.

If you can pull it high enough to get under it, you can stand up with it.

No fear.

It makes all the difference.

-J

7/6/18 Third time cleaning 275. A buddy saying I should give it one more shot after failing twice, realization of the above as I put my hands on the bar, success, and jerking it for 3.

7/10/18 Got it on a regular bar after 2 fails with only one jerk this time.

Before you get your hands on the bar, or under it, you don’t think anything rational.

You laugh at the weaklings suggesting that you’ll get hurt.

You ignore the powerlifting crew saying you train too often.

You focus on one thought, just one thing.

“I’m built for this” forcefully stated.

Wedge under the bar, “I’m built for this”.

No thoughts of leverages, stiffness, being tired, or hungry, just that one thought, “I’m built for this”.

Say it to yourself. “I’m built for this.”

Mean it, “I’m built for this”.

Do it, “I’m built for this”.

It’s focused madness, “I’m built for this”.

-J

 

Tick tock tick tock…

I’m staring at the wall clock, it’s been less than a minute.

I hate rest periods, you see I came to the gym to do work, not to stand around waiting the proper length of time for my next set.

I almost always stay on my feet between sets…the issue is filling in that 45-120 seconds.

“I took powerlifter length rest periods the other day, I can see the value in training with a crew; then there’s someone to shoot the shit with during those 4-5 minutes” – me

Solitary, training with a partner, or in a packed gym…it doesn’t matter, likewise it doesn’t matter if I talk to others, keep changing the song, stare at the clock, move, bounce around, sit, drink, or pace…

I hate rest periods.

EMOM singles are the simplest thing for me.

“How much longer”, as I’m about to attempt pulling out buzzed short hairs…tick “YYYYEEEAAAAHHHH, GO TIME!”

Density training is literally focused on short rest periods (in a way, you can also just focus on more reps).

My use of no warmups? Likely in part due to the boredom of rest periods.

I can easily fit 3-5 warmups, a few work sets, and a heavier single all in about 10 minutes…using a pace that feels mostly natural.

Rest periods? They suck 99% of the time. Only use them if you want to talk or purposely want to see the extra strength granted by the extra recovery, otherwise I agree with old school bodybuilders…

Shorter rest periods are better.

-J