Persistence and Tenacity

Frankly you’re not doing anything other than being a dick when you take 10+ plates a side and do multiple reasonable rep range sets with it.

(At least use effort aside from loading the plates if your going that heavy.)

I laugh whenever I see something prescribe low reps and a high percentage of 1rm on the leg press.

How are they loading the damn thing? Is there a fucking space shuttle welded on top of the sled? Maybe something bigger?

Leg press machines have stupid high loading potential.

The zillion plate drop set can be useful, even fun once in a while, but really there are better ways.

As a kid I saw video of this 15 or 16 year old high school swimmer max out a leg press (oddly outdoors near the Olympic pool, Arizona for ya), and I’m talking ZERO space on the thing for anymore plates, and added his little brother to the thing only to wedge himself in and heave for somewhere around 5 or 6 reps.

At 10 years old seeing this was crazy, but now after being in a weight room it’s not that impressive.

I remember a kid back at the old commercial gym (he was short and heavy) who’d do like the aforementioned swimmer and take just about every damn 45 in the building only to do fucking singles, with knee wraps, long rest periods, and while wearing a god damn belt.

(During the kid’s 5 singles leg press hour everyone else loaded up with 35s and change. You’d get to see some strange ass plate loading combinations. Math and a dearth of plates will do that.)

Completely unnecessary…

Just like the small weak dudes trying similar pushing hands on knees looking like an eminent seizure of doom will strike their barely wedged in there asses.

(It’s a machine, not a powerlift, so bodybuild with it damnit!)

I saw a guy suggest as a rough standard being able to leg press your squat 1rm for 50 reps.

This is stupid easy.

However this is closer to the manner I suggest you generally leg press with.

Take around your squat max (look at that you’re now only needing ballpark 5 plates a side) and slow your rep speed down. Let yourself feel the muscles work and squeeze…and now shoot for 5 or so high quality high rep sets.

I generally hit around 4×35 like this and on the last set (the 5th) will loosen form and start repping normally for a lot of reps after hitting the 25th-30th rep. The last set could go to 100 reps, though around 75 is most common.

TLDR: More than 10 plates a side on the leg press is an ego and dick move. There are better and more courteous ways.

-J

Yesterday I pulled 495 for the first time in more than a year.

Needless to say my lower back was stiff.

I rarely get sore, and when I do, I make it go away as fast as possible.

Getting blood flow to the area helps with this. So it’s time to train more.

For the deadlift I’ve seen sled pulling and the reverse hyper suggested.

Me?

I figured one arm snatches as they’re light, explosive, and hit all the same musculature over an even longer range of motion/distance.

A power movement to take away the soreness caused by a strength movement.

No real plan as far as sets,reps, or volume, I simply got in a bunch of reps with each hand.

Up to 115 in my left and 125 in my right.

Mostly singles, but a few sets of 3-5 to challenge myself (115×5 right hand being the most notable).

I even snatched into a few overhead carries with turns. Boom! Look at that I’ve now hit shoulders turning it into a full body session.

I goofed around catching low and in split stances. Hell, I even went for a new PR (145lb right hand), which I missed. There’s potential to get some big numbers here getting under the bar in a low split stance.

There’s technique work to do here, but it already allows me to eek out a bit more weight to arm’s length at any given time.

Here’s a mental trick:

Think of one arm snatches as throwing the weight overhead/to arms length.

Not only is this fun, but the thought can add power to your rep as you find yourself visualizing a scenario more on par with tossing hay into a loft or throwing weight over a bar while wearing a kilt.

Tricking yourself into thinking that bar needs to get airborne.

To end I caught a quad and hamstring pump via repping almost the stack on leg extensions and doing a few sets of 50 on lying banded leg curls.

Good session, got to practice what is likely my favorite lift, and now have no lower back soreness.

Give the one arm snatch (preferably with a barbell and bumper plates) a shot when your lower back is sore.

-J

Today’s Exercises, A Training Anecdote:

Lately I’ve been liking short sessions.

In the midmorning I did some fat grip deadlift singles and some face pulls. Basically a light ass session. The two prior days of volume axle deadlifts had my grip shot.

Note that I still have PT to do later.

Afternoon : I’m at home doing my PT, and hold a 90 second wall sit. This pisses me off as I know I can
hit 2 minutes, I’d aimed too low. Within 5 minutes I was doing another wall sit. I went past the two minute mark and my quads felt dead.

In the last year I’ve shown three people how to power clean. It seems like each time I do (particularly the most recent), I clean up (get it) my form some after having picked up flaws in their form that I do as well.

I picked up some BIG errors I make and have been implementing the corrections (see the last post) with light to moderate weights.

Combine that with dead quads and boredom.

Suddenly a light bulb lights up over my head visible to any who’d only have been looking and my mind is consumed with the thought “violent hip thrust”. It soon adds “once you’ve hit the power position” to it and…

I decide that it’s “double session time, oly form work”.

Apparently wall sits give me insight into improving my clean form and get me amped up to clean.

It went well. I learned to violently hip thrust (hip extension) from the power position and improved on how to more properly set up initially and then get there (into power position) properly.

The entire time listening to My Kinda Party on repeat and near exploding my headphones off my head.

Hell, I even improved (probably due to watching some Ivan Denisov kettlebell video) dropping a jerk back into rack when I jerk the barbell for my mandatory 3+ reps at my clean top set.

Physically a very solid day despite being one that 99% would take off.

-J

The Set Up:

•toes out slightly

•(possibly) wider grip, thumb length from smooth. Play around with this for a while.

•bar over ball of foot/midfoot

•knees down & over bar

•shoulders over bar/arms straight

•head up/look forward (this seems to help line of pull/positioning, accordion up)

The Lift:

•slow/moderate speed deadlift

•knees straighten some into…

•power position (mid thigh, higher than just above knee, just above knee is in fact too low

power position feels like I’m in the same position as wedging under bar for hand and thigh lift)

•hips forward horizontally hard (ram the weight) while you…

•shrug

The Finish:

•catch

No Equipment Neck Strengthening

The two best neck strengthening things I have found are:

1. The headstand
2. 4 way neck isometrics

Notice how neither require equipment.

The Headstand

The headstand is quite self explanatory. I throw a pillow on the floor, or put my head on grass and with three points of contact (head, both hands, I do this a bit differently than the normal forearms on floor yoga manner) and hold for time.

When you’ve become good at these the ability you’ve gained to sustain impact will surprise you.

4 Direction/4 Way Neck Isometrics

For the 4 way neck isometrics I don’t actually use my hands as self resistance during the reps.

I do them like so : Standing up, generally shirtless and in front of a mirror, I flex hard downward first, then to the sides and backwards. I do slightly more reps backwards than to the other three directions for the postural benefits, and during each rep there is a noticeable shaking seen and felt. If I feel it is necessary and safe I will circle my neck to loosen it, but this I dont always do.

Strength Not Size

Now I find that these two things are the best things for my neck strength, the thing is though, that they seem to do nothing for the size of my neck.

I can feel that my neck is stronger, in fact in agreement with some old time strongman, I do in fact feel the vigor and vitality stemming from this increase in strength. In a nutshell I feel more rugged.

The look it’s building is a lean and mean neck not a Tyson neck.

For Neck Size

The only thing that has ever really built up my neck size was wrestling season in high school, the ~10 hours a week of having a person of 190lbs-300lbs pulling down on, and falling on my neck the only stimulus so far to build that fucker up in size. It was hilarious how disproportionately large my neck would get in season compared to the rest of me.

I think with partner isometrics this could be simulated, but it would need a willing and able partner (partner neck isometrics without good communication could equal death) a lot of man hours, and the better way would just be to go wrestle for some hours. (Yes, I’ve done the partner neck isometrics up and down, great contraction, but good luck getting a partner to assist you for 1 hour 4x a week).

That being said, once you’re reasonably strong in the neck, get a competent partner and try the up and down partner isometrics. To do them you’ll need to be on all fours, and the partner holding a rag or towel and pulling on it as this works better than him applying pressure via his hands to your skull/forehead.

However, you don’t need the equipment or a partner for neck strength.

-J

Siegmund Klein wrote of Professor Attila doing a manual of arms with a 90lb 6 foot length of steel in front of European Royalty.

(Search “15 count manual of arms” if you don’t know what this is.)

He also wrote of  Clevio Massimo during WW1 doing the manual of arms using not a rifle, nor a bar, but a 135lb Private. If only this was on camera.

Using the 90lb length of steel sounds strong, but doable I’m quite confident I can do this with at least a regular 45lb olympic barbell, but how the hell was it done using a person? The guy being used as the rifle had to have stayed very rigid.

For perspective: realize a rifle weights 7-10lbs. The at the time US Army issue M1903 Springfield being 8.7lbs.

On a similar note: another old time strongman was said to have built his forearms and hand strength by twirling a heavy piece of iron as if it was a baton.

Cool stuff.

-J

References (Both from Ditillo/Dezso Ban) : 90lb steel bar manual of arms, 135 lb soldier manual of arms. I don’t have the reference for the iron “baton” twirling at present.