22nd June: Intensity

Squat: 400x4
Press: 145x3
Push Press: 175x1x3
RDL: 185x5x5
Shrugz: 275x3x3
Curlz: 65x6x3




Had a special guest in my squat set, as you can see.

He's a very cool guy, but likes to chat a lot which can be distracting. First time he's gotten involved in the lift though, and has been asked to let me fail. Fairly sure I wouldn't have made the lift anyway.

RDLs were light to start with, but really hit my hamstrings. Will progress on these quickly for a bit i think.

Was feeling a bit fat so Im eating a pwo weightloss bagel with banana and PB. Chicken soup and cake coming up!

Can I ask why the shrugs? No hate whatsoever, just an innocent question.

(I'd like to pump up my traps for vanity but I don't see it helping with powerlifting much)

Consider this a long discussion about how the traps are used in deadlift lockouts.





But vanity is the main reason. I'm focusing a bit more on my back, this kinda fits in there. I doubt my traps are limiting deadlifting though. Big yoke, brah

Aidan,

If you want to get your bench up, you might want to consider a Texas method 4 day split so you can bench twice a week. If you pm me I can email you the Texas method advanced book so you can see the different templates he has to improve your bench

Not sure i can squeeze an extra trip to the gym a week, but i will look into it, thanks!

Monster squat brother. That's just ridiculous.

But I don't feel that bad cuz I can curl those 65 pounds at least 12 times, at least.

You'll get to a 400 lb squat before he becomes your equal in curls, for sure

nice lift aidan impressive as hell. if you have enough gas in the tank after doing your powerlifting i can't see how doing some shrugs or curls could be detrimental? im more asking than stating btw

I have no idea what I can curl but now I really want to find out. I know I tried 115 a while ago because it was on the bar and I wanted to try. I moved it about 3" and that was it.

If that's 65lb DBs that is a pretty monster curl and I wouldn't be surprised if you could throw an extra 25 on your pullup and not notice.

hahaha, nice!

Thanks man!

I can't either. My gym buddy and I were working out at a pretty sedate pace yesterday (and usually), so we chucked some stuff on at the end. I have found that since starting doing a few bicep curls, my elbows/triceps are less susceptible to pain/recovery issues (credit lift-run-bang), so I throw them in when i can. Plus a bit of vanity work! Sun's out, gun's out...

Haha i wish it was a DB, but it was on a straight barbell. My buddy and I were trying to have a 1RM competition (he is far weaker than me on all lifts but possibly slightly ahead on curlz), but it just turned into a hip swing competition. I think we both managed to do a barely passable curl at 95lbs, anything above that was a true bro-curl. Was entertaining though!!

Interesting. Where on LRB did you read that? I'd believe that curls would help with healthy/balanced muscular development since the big lifts seem to work the triceps harder by an order of magnitude. (plus, I hear ya on the vanity comment)

I am not sure exactly, I think he mentioned it specifically several times in blogs about his training. But I don't think there was an overall post about this topic. I'll see if i can dig up the refs.

I suspect it is as you suggest, perhaps recovering a muscular imbalance from tricep to bicep that was causing slight problems. It worked for me so far.

It was in his "developing the raw bench part 2" article

Its mentioned in other spots too, usually in the "small workouts" log, eg:

Nice, thanks!

No problemo

Hey, I am gonna ask this here in your log because I do not know anyone else who might care enough about New Zealand soccer to answer this question.

Basically, I was thinking it seems Australia moving over to Asia that is the best thing that can happen to New Zealand, cause it seems now all New Zealand has to do is win the Oceana group and win a playoff with a lower tier Asian team to make it to world cup.

Given how weak Oceana is it seems any given World Cup with this format this way New Zealand's chance of making it to the world cup is around 50%, which is a hell of a lot better than before.

For Australia's sake, I can see why they would want to move, cause I think they know they are strong enough to consistently be in the top 4 in Asia, so no need to put themselves in a spot where they have to win a do or die playoff.

That being said, with Australia gone it seems that Oceana as a group might not be strong enough to justify the winner getting a trip by only winning one playoff, so it would seem "fair" for FIFA to change the format.

Have you looked into this at all? Do you know for the upcoming WC qualifying, is the format the same as before?

I think in the long run it is a net negative. It's really only a matter of time until Oceania loses its 1/2 spot in the World Cup, we lose the regular competition with much better teams. We also lose a bit of funding, and there is some danger we will lose our executive board spot.

But man, short term it was ****ing cool being at the world cup, and we made a reasonable showing for ourselves:

Unbeaten and ahead of Italy, the only team that sent any amateurs. My humble brag was I played on the same club team as a couple of the players, and my father coached a younger team with another player from the same club.

For Brazil 2014, we have to beat out the world power houses of New Caledonia, Solomon Islands and Tahiti for a chance at a playoff with 4th from North/Central America confederation. So essentially the same, though I think the 4th in CONCACAF will be a better team than the Asian team we would face.

Unfortunately soccer in NZ is in a very similar position as it is here in USA#1: hugely popular at age group level but with other sports taking the truly gifted athletes later on with a more solid route to professionalism. Plus Soccer NZ is run by a very small group of men from the same clubs for the benefit of very few, something I can't see changing in the future.

What are the sports taking the best athletes?

Rugby, and to a lesser extent rugby league. Both have very established professional leagues in Australia and NZ.

Keep in mind most major cities in the US have a bigger population that New Zealand, not a real big pool of great athletes to choose from.

Yeah, CT is only slightly less populous than NZ

Ok, so they did modify it to make it a little harder, although still very manageable all things considered. You will probably have to play a team like Panama or Costa Rica and would definitely be an underdog.

Yeah, a bit tougher. jamaica is another possibility, and the likely teams are ranked 35-60ish. We're currently at #100, and Bahrain who we beat last time were #95.

Holy crap, that's much smaller than I thought. And Rugby makes sense. I was just kinda curious if Soccer isn't #1, then what is? I just assume every other country has Soccer #1 then other stuff...

June 25th: Volume

Squat: 350x5x3
Bench: 177.5x5x5
RDL: 185x8x3
Dips: BWx8x2

Have had one quick read through the TM Advanced book. Plan is to go back to a more classical TM setup, with a few amendments as suggested in the ebook. I plan to write more about this at some stage, but for now the main points i took on board are to reduce volume day to three sets of five, keep it at ~85-90% of the anticipated intensity day (ie not worry about progressing it weekly) and to make all intensity day work triples. I still need to re-read sections of both books and will solidify a plan going forward.