Category: Updates

This information is now a few days old, but my Sig Klein Challenge failure vid has broken into 100+ views.

To a degree this baffles me. I labeled it accurately. Are this many people purposely watching an incomplete Sig Klein challenge?

It would seem that I must test this, and if I miss train for it like I said in the vid description roughly 6 months ago…and haven’t.

Shoulder strength is up. 150lbs isn’t so heavy. May as well get that challenge successfully on camera.

Lol @ people’s YouTube habits.

-J

I once read a performance metric saying an 8 foot broad jump is decent, not shitty, starting to get good, or whatever. I think it was something Jim Wendler wrote. I figured it’d be cool to do at 245+lbs.

Now my gym has a Rogue crash pad, red, 6′ wide by 8′ long.

And a link to the product page should you doubt that it is 6’x8′.

Every so often I’d jump the width basically just playing around. Eventually that got easy, so easy in fact I’d do it for high reps, jump, turn around, jump, ad nauseum with my hands in the small of my back taking away the arm momentum.

At this point I was good for over 6′ but under 8′. I’d guess I was hitting 6’6″ or 6’9″ consistently on good jumps.

I kept playing with it. Sometimes fresh, sometime fatigued, sometimes warming up at the short distance, sometimes not.

Occasionally I’d hit warmups with an olympic lift, and start mixing in the broad jumps once I was warmed up and adding weight to the bar.

For around 6 or 8 weeks I’d been landing very close to clearing the 8′ pad. First on good jumps I’d get the toes over, then it was consistent at this mark of roughly 7’9″. This is already a gain of a foot in only a month or two of goofing around with this.

About a month ago I hit a string of squat PRs, then a week of two later hurt my knee, not injured it. (Note that this was not gym related.)

I decided to not make it worse, as doing stuff on it was making it worse, so I modified the PT leg stuff, and cut all lower body gym work. (I’d kept doing PT and olympic lifts on it + some bleacher runs and wrestling for a week or so and it was getting worse, it started swelling on top of the cuts and bruises behind the knee that had been there. I realized I had to stop to keep it from crossing out of hurt and into injury territory.)

I gave it 10 or 14 days and let it heal.

A few days ago I went back to normal PT.

2 days ago I did some light stiff leg and straight leg power cleans (slpc) + press.

Yesterday I did a full olympic session (all 3 pre-1972 lifts) of:

• SLPC (both types) + Military Press
• Snatch
• PC+Jerk
• Front Squat

Nearing the end of the presses I started doing broad jumps in between sets. 2 reps at 6′ then BOOM! I got it at 8′, a mild arm pumping celebration, and went back to weightlifting.

I ended up doing it twice or thrice more during the weightlifting breaks. No misses.

After the front squats I decided to try for filming it.

No celebration as I’d celebrated after the first time hitting the milestone, and this was the 4th or 5th time. Not liking the angle above, I moved the mat around, and did one more. I ended up deleting that video as the angle was no better and the clip lacked the humanity of a badly positioned holding up of 8 fingers to signify the number of feet I’d just jumped.

Now how did I make the gains on broad jumps?

• practice-in all matter of circumstances
• no real change in weightlifting ability
• a possible loss of 5lbs bodyweight (I’m unsure as I have forgot about the scale only checking today to see how heavy I was while jumping clear over the mat.)
• a month with little leg work, a week or so with only PT, and a few days with modified PT that was basically none (Modified PT was holding warrior pose for some longish counts and seated calf raises instead of standing, so basically none).

I guess I’ve admitted I messed up the hindu squats and calf raises daily thing, although I modified it around the hurt which was getting close to injured, recovered and reaped the rewards of recovery both intended and unintended. Mentally I am not counting that as a miss, it was a necessary modification.

Train hard and play,

-J

Update: 12/14 8’9″-9′ Roughly shoe length past clear over mat. Also the stiff leg power cleans likely come into play, it dawned on me later.

Well I was tired and sore when I awoke today. I didn’t want to do much of anything, but as I got up, I got more and more into it, I realized TODAY is the last day of lunges, and that I had to do the 1/4 walking lunge challenge.

It was moderately raining, I hopped in my car and drove to the high school’s track. I was getting this shit (the lunges), and the pullup test done. With this gut check workout today to cap off and officially end this month’s physical challenges.

First up was pullups. While a few days ago I was psyched to hit ten with a neutral grip at the gym, today’s testing was done outdoors in low to mid 40 degrees, and some rain. I tested overhand with a thumbless grip. I got 10 reps, and I did 2 more sets of 5 to hit the 20 for the day requirement. Not bad for 250-255lbs, I’ll keep moving this up still though.

Then the fun part. I walk over to the track, sit on a bench and set up a long playlist. Various rap to start and ending with Manowar. I figure gangster rap then Viking metal would be the best music to get this done to.

I walk to the starting line. Start the stopwatch app on my Ipod. Go.

50 yards is nothing. At 75 it starts getting harder, I shake out a leg mid step. At the end of the 100m I pause, plant the foot, and breath. Look around and wonder what the fuck am I doing. Look at the time, so far not bad, on pace to finish in roughly 15 minutes, which I felt would be a decent time. That thought could have been the jinx.

I start again, and now its a pause every couple of reps. Goddamn it! I’m only at 150m. Plant the foot, shake the opposite leg, get to 200m with this plant and shake method.

Check the time. FUCK! now barely on pace to finish sub 18 minutes (20 minutes was my take my time, bare minimum or should I say maximum allotted time.

Lunge, lunge, pause shake, start breathing a little heavier, hock a lugie into the grass. My saliva in my mouth is getting wicked phlegmy .  I’m now spitting every 2 or so plant and shake pauses.

300m corner. Dread, a longer pause.

At probably 320m a LONG pause, at this point I’m thinking about everything, when I notice a Jeep stop, a girl get out, and start walking directly towards me. Huh, do I know her? What the fuck is she walking towards the fence for? My brain isn’t comprehending anything correctly at this point sans where is the 400m mark. This was probably my longest pause, I’m standing there looking odd, my left foot planted, thinking do I walk over talk to her and fuck up my location of planted foot, is she about to say something? We both stare at the other for a while, eventually I think oh yeah lunges and continue.

340m in,  so close. No more pauses I think to myself.

I pause at 350m or 360m, and switch from rap to Manowar.

Grind that last 40-50m out. 20m out I’m thinking that I’m gonna scare the shit out of that father and 10 year old on the track by doing a LOUD Ric Flair Whoo.

Past the line, continue for a few more per leg, stop, breathe. Oh yeah the timer, fumble in my pocket. Hit pause, and think I accidentally reset it.

I must’ve been sub-20, I couldn’t have ground out the 1/4 mile/ 400m lunge challenge, and failed the time to not be embarrassing mark.

I look……

Semi-stumble to my car, drink some heavenly water.

Euphoric, ecstatic. I did it. April’s challenge complete, and the 2nd gut check of the week in the bag!

-J

P.S. The chick most likely was playing Pokemon Go.  I realized this only after I had finished, and no I didn’t do the absurdly loud whoo immediately after crossing the finish line. I only did a moderate one a bit later. Sometimes the challenge makes you forget the celebration. Good times.

Oh yeah, I have no clue how many lunges it took to complete. Some may track such things, but not I. I highly suggest trying this challenge sometime. Start with 100 yards and then get crazy.

 

 

 

Yesterday was the 12th day that I curled in a row, about 3 of the days were regular barbell curls, 1 day was preacher curls, 3 were moderate to heavy sets of 5-8 hammer curls, and 5 of them were feeder workouts doing a set of 100+ hammer curls with 10lb dbs.

I decided to do this after hitting a strict curl with 135 about 14 days ago. I wanted to see if I could force the 1rm to become a 5rm.

Yesterday was supposed to be test day, but I wasn’t sure if I’d be going to the gym so I did a feeder set in the AM. That night I ended up going and testing after all.

I did an easy set of 3 with 95 to feel the movement, then got to it. I ended up hitting a hard 2 and failed the 3rd rep.

12 days of extra work for my weakest bodypart, and I turned the 1rm into a 2rm. Yes I fell short of making it  a 5rm, but that was purposefully aiming high. All in all I’d say in spent less then an hour doing biceps in that time. A few sets or a feeder take little clock time.

For the rest of the month I’m going to curl every day in some capacity.

For the most part I will be sticking with hammer curls for sets of 5-10 at the gym or feeder workouts with the 10lb dbs at home. I don’t generally like short curl bars, and using a regular barbell can be hell for the wrist. Hammer curls cause no problems, so hammer curls it is for the most part.

Roughly 3 more weeks of this. I’d like to not only get the 135×5, but surpass it and hit 155×5. This short term progress opened in my eyes to the possibility of much more impressive feats like a curl of 185+ or 135×20+ reps.

Honesty forcing bicep improvement will make me have to get better at chins too. In the past my biceps were carried by my ability to do a moderate # of chins regardless of bodyweight. Improving one would improve the other, and doing both would compound the effects.

Now I’m thinking get chin endurance to 20+, and be able to 1rep with at least 1/2 my bodyweight added. The curl improvement really opened up possibilities in my mind.

I’m going to get crazy strong on these. Diesel biceps, and diesel back strength here I come!