Category: Lifting

I’m not sure entirely what caused this, I’d assume a combination of factors.

I had been fasting for ~20 hours, consuming nothing but maybe 64oz water.

The session was moderate volume and relatively heavy.

Deadlift up to a daily max (435 success I barely budged 485 possibly not even broke off floor)

Bench through 315 no problem.
335 I unintentionally pin pressed. The bench had long j hooks, I accidentally pressed the left side of the bar directly into it. The sensation was weird as hell.

Here I am with the bar 99% locked out, it being light in hands and not near failure but for some reason an isometric is happening on the left side while the right side was already fully locked out.

I’m counting this as successful rep, my spotter used his fingers to push my bars path forward an inch(down me) away from the unintentional pin and I finished the rep.

It was the weirdest shaped bench I’ve ever used. Unrack myself and there’s a good chance of hitting unintentional pin press via j hook. Yet I want to unrack myself.

I go for 345 as I had 335 on any other bench… and proceed to hit the bar on the middle set of hooks during the negative (it’s a bench with 3 unrack heights like you’d find in a commercial gym), I restabilize the bar, and fail at a far higher than normal sticking point, nearer lockout instead of off chest.

Ok back to 335 and get hand off as this time I’m so far down bench that an unrack just ain’t happening, there will be no hitting of j hooks either. Done lol, failure at normal point.

“Oh look a slingshot.” Pull it on, get spotter to continue pulling. ” You probably need a bigger size.”, “Yeah!” (picture the lil jon voice which I didn’t do).

With the slingshot on (not low enough I might add as it’s easily a size too small if not 2 sizes) I now hit 315 for 5 failing 6.

Arms are numb. Back to back.

2 awesome machine pulldowns and a machine shrug.

Some supersets some not.

Machine shrug: after 5 reps with 5p a side no straps, I strap up for 2×25. Both sets gave an amazing trap pump and have me feeling like I’m going down.

“My shoulder girdle looks phenomenal” the unconscious dream I could’ve had.

I start playing with this lower back lever machine thing (great good morning variant, like a hands free no quad all posterior rdl but a tad heavier on the lower back).

Fuck I forgot the 10×10 supersets! Pulldown + bench, bodybuilding bullshit I forgot to do, and this gym was perfect for it.

Play with the plate loadable circus dumbbell

After collecting the gyms entire collection of 5s and 2 ½s, finding most 5s aren’t fitting (with all fitting 5s DB could’ve been solid ~160lb), I attempt to shoulder 90? lbs and as I am trying to figure this technique with one hand (I wasn’t sure if 2 hands to shoulder is cheating)…

I stop, rest the bell against my thigh, and move it to the side of my thigh only for the doubled clips to give out under the massive load of 22½ lbs in small plates on that side.

I hear “that could’ve been bad” my reply “yeah, but I saw it coming”
I’d already hit the bell on my glasses during an earlier rep and my spidey senses were heightened and had tingled.

The building is humid, I’m dehydrated, and decide to PT.

I end up doing about 3 sets of each as I didn’t like the range of motion on the first pushup set which had me making a funny face to contain the high possibility of nosebleed scrunching that nostril thinking “not today!”

So 3 sets of each exercise.

My right quad starts a cramping, I finish and check off PT for the day.

“Wheres the water fountain” I look around finding none.

“Damn it” then “Fuck it, I’ll refill with the bathroom sink.”

I’m that dehydrated.

“Ahh water.”

Grocery store after. Walking the frozen aisle looking like I’d worked a landscaper 10 and smelling like after a 3hr wrestling practice.

Pizza and egg nog.

Drink egg nog as pizza cooks. Eat ⅜ pizza, and drink ⅔ of that egg nog container.

“Shit, I’m on fire”

Go to different room, “fuck the fan doesn’t work”
Go outside and sit there in the cool air…until I’m about to shit myself.

Running parallel to starting at eating I typed this.

Thus endeth the story.

Today (yesterday as of posting) was a nice mental reset.

I’ve been thinking what is ideal, and what exactly do I want to do. I’ve found some answers.

-J

Some Answers:

I’ve talked about my daily PT and my recent foray into flexing many a time. What I’ve never stated is that most of it takes place in my bathroom which if you look at the dimensions and change the tub to a bunk bed is damn near identical to prison cell spacially.

People think they need a gym, a perfect program, and a perfect diet.

Really all you need is the right never say die mentality (and the proper calories). You can get plenty fit with no equipment in the dimensions of a prison cell.

Pushups and flexing for your upper body.

Hindu squats, calf raises, and flexing for your lower.

Calisthenics, isometrics, and dynamic tension are your friends here.

One could even develop power via kneeling jumps, tuck jumps, and broad jumps.

Burpees. Prisoners love burpees more than crossfitters, Drill Instructors, and wrestling coaches.

Take some ques from martial arts. Holds like horse stance aren’t a bad idea. Some Kata can fit in that space, Naihanchi for example, and shadow boxing is always a good idea. Hell knuckle conditioning can be done on the walls and via knuckle pushups.

No matter the circumstance you can make significant gains.

Mind Over All.

Get it!

-J

An Isometric/Flexing Trick For Strength Gains:

The fastest way to improve using isometrics is overcoming isometrics using 2 pairs of pins in a rack, and multiple positions.

What though if you want more frequency? What if you want this frequency, and contrary to your wishes do not have a power rack at home?

In comes flexing.

I’ve now tested this theory for a month or 6 weeks. I’m confident that it works.

I personally do this at night in front of the bathroom mirror.

I’ve been using this idea for the clean and jerk, more so for the jerk, but the bit of variance I do hits both.

Just like you would with pin isometrics get into as specific positions as possible and flex the hell out of many muscles as possible.

The Protocol:

Most sets I do body fully rigid and erect simulating the completed jerk.

Since doing this my overhead stability has gone from good to even better. I taught myself to use my lats as a shelf overhead, and the weights I’m jerking feel so light now that I don’t even feel my abs firing. Quads, lats, shoulders, and triceps yes, but abs no. Supporting weight overhead has become that easy, that the most important stabilizer doesn’t even need to fire.

Some sets I do with my feet shot out to the sides more (how the jerk looks for me using my high starfished squat jerk form) this position of legs bent 45° slightly starfished out simulates both my catch of a clean (with my “bad” form) in leg position, and again part of my jerk. I’m still flexing the hell out of my entire body.

Some sets are standing rigid flexing with arms at the bottom or mid positions, but I generally just do the above two.

The beauty of this?

You can train any lift hard anywhere with no equipment. It carries over impressively, and gets you quite efficient at firing the proper muscles.

Give it a shot.

-J

Similar But Slightly Different Vid:

Required Reading :

• Psycho Factor
• Mentally Jacked

The above Kelly Baggett articles make an interesting point:

Often the explosive people physically will be explosive personality wise as well, short fuses, etc.

It was guessing that there’s correlation and that one could see cross over should they modify one side or the other.

I know there’s far more to it than this, such as genetics and the contrary point of half asleep disinterested weightlifters cleaning monster weights, but I know this;

At times when I want nothing more than to palm smash jaws, snap necks, pull triggers, and bend bitches over, that my power clean ability is better than normal.

Grab, rip, drop, repeat. At the end of sets ramming it overhead for easy jerks.

Over the years no weight room efforts have been affected by and affected aggression in me like heavy power cleans.

The first time I cleaned 225 (after years stuck at 205) I saw red, screamed motherfucker at likely full volume (I can get loud), forgot to jerk it, and after the bar was on the floor I stood head touching the wall face first, fists clenched, fuming.

I was told by a friend after the fact that I had likely made the nearby MILFy blonde piss herself, and that one of the trainer girls in the next room ran over to check thinking that a severe injury had occurred.

I imagine a successful backflip would cause the same kind of reaction, being that it’s something that I’ve yet to do and is similarly badass. I’ve come quite close to landing one at 17, but have never done it. (At 6′ 235 after a track meet on a dare standing on the high jump mat I made the rotation but landed on my knees)

I’m liking explosive and power training lately. Get the clean from comfortable 255 and max 275 to 315 comfortable and an even higher max, then start getting backflips and vertical/dunking.

Outside of sprints I was not very explosive growing up, that’s changing and it feels great.

I’m finally beginning to horsepower my way through “bad” clean and jumping mechanics.

However it’s not hard for me to convert power into power endurance and that’s what I want big time for fighting.

The training shift is happening.

-J

 

When should you take time off from the gym?

Simple really:

When your body and mind absolutely demand it and you’ve been training hard with no breaks for a while.

To fit this criteria I’m talking months on with no days off, a mental feeling of “nah, fuck it”, and your body alternating between two modes…

Feed me and give me sleep.

You still do a minimal amount of PT daily. This is only referring to weights.

The Soviets trained 12 weeks on, one week off, I’m not saying I trained that hard, but a few days off sounds great right now. Then it’s back to frequent benching and to approach squatting every day from a slightly different angle.

-J

This is one of those things that puts me at odds with gym culture at large:

You should damn near always have the ability to max out and still get near your 1rm.

You should at all times be good for 90%+ of your 1rm.

This should be an ability you have to hit cold, no warmups, even straight off the street, even while needing to take a shit. (I’m not kidding on that, performance should be available at ALL times.)

You should be able to hit a full body volume workout and still hit near your maxes.

Ditto to during a two a day, which often finds me stronger in the later session.

After a shift of labor? Yep, then too.

Whatever circumstance you should be able to tie or come near tieing your maxes.

It’s the principle of being able to perform at all times.

Common knowledge is “lift on a routine schedule, try to go at the same time of day”. I disagree. Get up in the middle of the night and PT. When your buddy calls you up going “deadlift day?” Tell him to swing by, you’re down, even though you’d been up for over 24 hours.

You know in human history someone was able to perform well under far less ideal circumstances, our age is far too pampered getting it’s exercise in air conditioned building and whining about lacks of sleep,food, “overtraining”, and “injuries”.

Plant your feet against human softness, an easy place to start is by regaining your ability to perform physically at any and all times.

Get it,

-J

Lifting for me is more than a hobby. I love doing it, I view it as fun, and generally want to do more of it.

The best way to get good at something is to do it every day.

After saying fuck programming at 17 I’ve felt that way with lifting.

Low frequency is generally less useful and I always found dedicating a specific day to one bodypart particularly arms and shoulders to be stupid.

My mentality and personality naturally drifted towards full body and high frequency.

You can see it in my doing of PT daily.

You can see it in all the streaks I’ve held hitting the same lift daily for months in a row Bulgarian style.

Shit, I’m better at getting to the gym consistently than in taking days off.
If I don’t make it to the gym, I’ve definitely done PT at home, and more often than not also lifted in the back yard.

I have not wanted to be around people at all lately making finding a gym hour difficult, yet low and behold come late night what looked like an off day has me driving to the gym to do something.

When (rare but occasionally) that I don’t lift full body I feel like I’m cheating and generally end up doing something’s quick to make it full body. Last night I did some broad jumps just because the session had been bench and upper assistance only.

Realize however that I thought I was taking yesterday off.

Really I just don’t take off days well.

I’ll get antsy and go get some more volume in some capacity anyway. Be it gym based, yard lifting, or PT.

It’s why I have good work capacity.

Now the question is am I lifting tonight or what?

-J