Persistence and Tenacity

I’d been saying I need to add in partial front squats and at 2am still up, I decide “fuck it I’ll be productive”, my normal write or lift if I can’t sleep policy going into effect.

On the commute I saw a women jogging, everytime I go lift a 0 dark 30 I see at least one jogger on the streets a couple minutes out from the gym. I roll into the gym somewhere between 230am and 245am.

Squat every day, today will be…more front squats, but let’s make it interesting.

Bottom position from pins.

Work up to 275, let’s film it.

Cool, upload, then run to the bathroom and shit my brains out. The fuck was that about?

Ok next…

Front squat partials from the top.

Singles using the heavy duty squat bar.

(Note: 1p = 1 plate a side, 2p= 2 plates a side, so on and so forth.)

1p,2p, 3p, “what’s the bar weigh?”

Go and check…

The bar weighs 65lbs, ok so I add 20lbs to the calculation of each rep.

4p, damn that was easy!

5p, shit! It was so easy I thought I’d done 4p again by mistake, the difference in effort being barely moderate. Think along the lines of 30% of expected change in perceived effort.

Not really thinking I jump to 6p, as I load the 2nd side I think “should I’ve loaded only 25s?” Nah, no matter as 5p was easy and I’m not moving it very far.

Nipple to lock out is what 6 maybe 8 inches? This is a quarter squat at most, it’s LOCKOUT work.

Get under it, drive…

“Holy shit the world is going red!” I start to feel myself shake, my neck is trembling. “Will I pass out?” It feels like my eyes will pop out, my head feels like it’s going to go BLAM! and explode in bad 80s special effects. Will the gym security camera see my head go Scanners because of the bar? Locked it out. Control it back to pins, get out “WHOO!”

Move with purpose, yet look and act like a dog with a nose full of pepper, “Will I pass out, am I going down”, sit,dog mode,sit,dog mode, I think I’m ok now.

~315-335  1rm full range = 605 maybe 1/4 squat from pins.

I got crazy instant soreness from it. My right calf locked up, both hamstrings became incredibly tight, and there was uncomfort in my right knee like I’d walked 10 hours in work boots.

This work will either kill you or diesel you up. I don’t get injured, so it’s  obviously the latter.

Those CnP videos became a hell of a lot more impressive, as did powerlifting in general. The pressure on giant squats must be enormous.

Early AM weird weightlifting BOOYAH! And the test boost is phenomenal, soreness gone only hours later WHOO!

-J

 

This is purely anecdotal, but when necessary leg strength can be maintained by nothing but calf raises.

Just stand there regularly and do high rep standing calf raises. There’s no need to stand on a block of some sort to allow the stretch.

I once took a year and a half off where the only leg work I did consistently was high rep calf raises.

When I got back to the gym my leg strength had maintained just fine.

What exactly had I done during the layoff? 100 calf raises a day.

Now I didn’t start off doing it in one set, it’s smarter to start with multiple sets of 20 or 25, but the benefit lies in the higher reps 50 a set minimum, but 75+ per set really giving the feeling I’m about to describe.

When you get to 75+ reps per set you’ll feel a pump running up your posterior chain.

You’d think this is an isolation exercise, but in the higher reps it isn’t.

The pump will run up your calves into your hamstrings and then into your glutes.

Somehow your body is firing muscles in a pattern similar to a weightlifting triple extension.

Why this is I’m unsure of, but I know it’s the sensation I feel, and the experience I’ve had.

Maybe it’s because of the insertions in your legs, or maybe it’s due to the body’s inclination to fire muscles in a natural pattern during calisthenics. Whatever the reason it works.

-J

The 1000lb club was originally a weightlifting accomplishment. Sure it’s from the through 1972 3 lift era (press,jerk, and snatch), and sure world records are stronger now than they were back then, but it’s still impressive and strong to be able to do.

Note its also been done in only two lifts (jerk, and snatch) by at least the following:

• Yury Zakharevich 455kg/1001lb at 110kg in 1988.
• Leonid Taranenko 475kg/1045lb @ +110kg in 1988.
• Andrey Chemerkin 462.5kg/1017.5lb @+108kg in 1997.
• Lasha Talakhadze 474kg/1040.6lb @+105kg in 2016.

Also note in Powerlifting:

• Ray Williams has squatted 1052lb raw without wraps, in 2017.
• Benedikt Magnusson has deadlifted it raw hitting 1015lb back in 2011.

So that club has been hit by at least those two men on one lift alone.

(I had this among other lifting videos on my iPod for amp up back in the day.)

Back to weightlifting; What could i total using my lifetime Olympic PRs?

• 205 press
• 275 jerk
• 205 or 215 snatch. I’ll call it 205.

This would only represent a 685lb total. About 2/3 of the way there.

1000 pounds on a powerlifting total is nothing. It’s just a low end goal for starting high schoolers to hit. (And damn using high school PRs I only barely passed it with a 1035lb total using my senior year PRs. )

Besides isn’t 1200lbs, a roughly 300/400/500 total the better one to push for? (Though I’d argue 1215, 3 plate, 4plate, 5 plate is the better metric, and are numbers that I have hit cold for what it’s worth.)

It’s no where near elite by powerlifting standards, but 1200 isn’t a weak male either. He’ll be stronger (sadly) than most everyone on the street he meets.

I want to point out:

1. There is more to strength than your total, just because your total is shitty compared to elite powerlifting doesn’t make you weak.
2. If you do however care about your total use higher metrics.

That is all. Go train now.

-J

The worst thing you can do when sore is nothing.

An object in rest stays at rest, and an object in motion stays in motion.
Newton’s first law applies to human performance as well.

My quads are crazy sore right now, the most soreness I’ve had in them in years. Combine the super slow bodyweight squats, a high rep squat session, and a jump squat session. It makes sense.

Oh I want to stay in bed all day, eat some meat and drink some milk, and read the day away.

Guess what though, squat every day still has at least 3 weeks left.
I still have to PT as well, and that involves Hindu squats.

It’s often called counterintuitive, but doing more of what made you sore will help alleviate the soreness.

(You can also do pump work for the same musculature.)

Today may very well be like the time I did 75 sets of 5 with 135 to loosen up and gain the ability to squat meaningfully.
That day it was hip tightness/soreness, today it’s quad.

I don’t care how stiff/sore/tired/whatever you are, get up and go do something. You’ll build work capacity and function better for it.

-J

Having read this article I immediately decided to try it’s principles on a rep of my daily pushups and Hindu squats.

I simply do the quasi-isometric rep aka super slow rep as the last rep of the set.

At this point I lower for roughly a 15 count, and raise for around a 25 count.

I find that I’m far better at slowing down the positive, and on the positive I can REALLY feel the muscles working.

On the pushups once my elbows are back at the 45/135° angle (top portion, quarter rep) my triceps are working like nothing else.

Yeah I like JM presses which seem the best for my triceps as far as overload and at the top, but this style of calisthenic rep hits them more thoroughly. I can only describe it as hitting the “deep” fibers, in the past I’ve seen this described as working the muscle from the inside out.

Having covered the pushups time for the Hindu squats:

This has given me the greatest quad pump in years if not in my life.

I swear I see quad growth, and I’ve only been doing this for the last week at most.

The Hindu squat works with this even better than the pushup.

You can raise it so slowly that it’s almost as if you’re not moving. Your legs about half way back up will shake like you’re in a wall sit, but there’s upward motion.

Give it a try, it’s another trick you can use to make an otherwise easy movement more challenging just like visualizing big weights during a light calisthenic.

-J

Since 17 years old I’ve ranged in bodyweight between 215 and 255, but most often between 225 and 245.

Piggybacking off of the sumo bulk, an idea:

Once you force feed yourself to a large size (a goal weight) why not hold that weight indefinitely, expecting to, and working on recomping?

Unlike sumo bulk I’m talking completely natural here, and long term. Long term meaning a few years at least. (Note that a lot of my life circumstances for training are far from ideal, this could very well be possible in a faster period with better alignment in life.)

If you stay the same size for that long a time, and during the process continue to get stronger and make performance gains don’t you think your body will recomposition at least a bit?

I honestly feel that I will have abs at 225+ never having done a cut, but simply by recomping as I’ve been holding 225+ almost without exception since 17 years old getting better, bigger, and stronger the entire time.

The first time I was in that weight range (17) I remember sitting in class embarrassed about how fat my arms were. Now I look burly and scary, and am on the threshold of getting to yet another level.

I’m close to abs. I am big, generally classified as stocky at 6′, and when the abs pop out I’ll be what you’d call strongman lean.

Ponder this. I say this it’s possible. Why bulk and then cut…if you don’t need to?

-J

 

 

This is something of a survival adaptation, the amount of dehydration and fatigue, the weird schedule, and all that comes with working labor right now makes for interesting squat every day. Originally due to bicep tendonitis I started doing front squats, lately my back has been fatigued in a way that back squats don’t seem like a good idea, so more front squats.

Now 20 rep squats are shitty as all hell, but great for you. Mental toughness, building size, and building a type of strength endurance.

I’d also been thinking about the Ken Leistner stuff I’ve read over the years. Dr. Ken is all about high rep death sets of squats, primarily 20 rep sets, but also sets of 15 and 30 for variation.

Front Squats limit you on upper back more than leg strength, legs and back both already fatigued from work, but this is safety. Even when your heart isn’t in it you can force yourself to do 1 set. A set that mentally you know will suck, but isn’t that heavy. You have fatigue in the legs and back, and the upper back in general limiting you.

I’ve front squatted 225×10 and back squatted315x20 recently, as well as 195×50, and 225×37 far in the past.

The last 2 days were front squat 115×20 and 135×15, and on the 135 day i also did a few heavier singles.

Ken Leistner, his son, and his adopted son all did crazy shit in these rep ranges, at this stage in the game fronts are simply more useful to me than back squats.

I remember being psyched at 17 to hit bodyweight for 20 on a squat, and was just as psyched to hit 315 x 2o recently.

Now 315 is nearing my front squat 1rm, I can most likely hit 335, and feel close to 365.

I want to hit bodyweight for 20 here, which would end up somewhere between 225 and 250 (I let my weight fluctuate as it happens), and then get to 315×20 on fronts.

Imagine how strong you’d have to be to hit that set?

Think about not only the leg strength but the upper back and core strength involved.

There will be abs showing when I hit that set. It’s a massive amount of strain on the abs. That is how you’d rock abs at a higher bodyfat percentage, just have VERY strong thick abs, shout out to Alphadestiny, but I feel front squats (not weighted pulley crunches) work best for this purpose.

Do something crazy and get some crazy gains.

-J

Update :~Feb 2018, 185 x 23ish was great, just rest paused till definitely past 20 reps, and then panted like a motherfucker. High rep front squats may be the hardest lift to breathe with.

It was one of those things I never trained for, yet always wanted to do one day.

I’d seen two people do them in person before, a 6’5″ ~165lb black kid in LA at a public park, and a 5′ 7″ 165lb powerlifter. Both were able to hit sets of 5 smoothly.

But really to me the inspiration for them was internet based, first a log on Tnation (Alpha’s log) at 16, and then a little later Kali Muscle, both doing them for reps as big guys. (The video inspiration coming years before the witnessed reps.)

Now i was reading beastskills.com’s muscle up tutorial within the last 48 hours, and walked into the gym yesterday only to have my buddy mention them to me.

I talked about the tutorial saying to pull up to behind the bar, to not just try to do an explosive pullup, how the “bar path”/ line of pull matters, and we both decided to try it.

He went, then I went, we both missed close on the 1st attempts.

The conversation between first and second attempts had us both saying “I’ll get it, you’ll get it, and I’m not bothering with video”(paraphrased).

He got it on his second attempt, as did I seconds later.

Another guy walked over to me and asked me how it feels up there as I held the top for a while and was still there, my reply…. “Euphoric, like I fucked the world”. I felt REALLY good. This was something I didn’t expect to do any time soon.

My buddy kept trying to get a second rep, sometimes with camera, sometimes without. He didn’t, and 5 or so minutes later I decided to go for it one more time after asking 4 of the 5 other people on the gym floor if they saw it, as frankly at just shy of 240 I didn’t expect anyone other than eye witnesses to believe me, I wanted video proof. (Although I could ask for and possibly get security camera footage of the rep.)

Video proof:

This was my third attempt yesterday, my 2nd muscle up ever. Hitting those reps gave me euphoria, an adrenaline dump, and checked off another one on my YouTube idea list.

I am now in the muscle up club, and the heavyweight (over 200lb) muscle up club.

Boom! I think the new found strength for the transition (my main issue on muscle ups) is related to the labor I’ve been working, I can now explode through the transition phase. Pullup almost into the dip. Speaking of labor related strength another one of yesterday’s videos:

Persistence and Tenacity!

J Out!

P.S. Within minutes I had odd soreness in my chest, and amped up arms (bicep and tricep), but this all went away by the time I left the gym.

10 hours later (~11pm) there was decent DOMS in the lats, forearms, and biceps. To be expected from wholly new stimuli.