2/20

I was very tired all day from not getting enough sleep. I figured this workout would suck. I figured wrong.

safety bar squats
180x5
230x5
270x5
320x3
360x2

added knee wraps
410x1
440x2x2
These felt good and depth was good. Other aspects of form were not perfect, but not bad.

trap bar DLs
455x3
545x2
635x1
695x1
725x1 PR
Its been a very long time since I set a PR for this. This 725 went up faster than my previous 721 did. On a good day, I probably have at least 5-10 more lbs in me; but idk if I'll be attempting anything that heavy for a while or not.

GHR
12
added red band - 10
red + orange bands - 10
red + 2 orange bands - 10

****ing awesome pr dude.

You look leaner too. Still hyooge!

Nice work

Glad the pec is healing up for you too.

Thanks! Hope you're feeling better too!

2/22

heavy bench
45x15
95x10
145x10x2
195x5

2 boards
225x4

shirt & 2 boards
275x3
315x3

shirt & 1 board
365x1

shirt only
405x1
425xf, f
Both fails got about 2/3 of the way up.

Speed bench with chains
175x3x8

pulldowns & face pulls

That PR went up easy. You got more in ya. Lol at throwing that belt off after. I've been throwing things around lately too. Haha.

Yeah. Put some weight on the bar, .

inb4 1 Ton TBDL

thanks

lol, at this pace (5 lb increase in 10 months), that might happen in 212 years

I have decided to give geared lifting a try. Never thought I'd be saying that, even after getting the shirt to rehab the pec injury.

Discussions with two very experienced, knowledgeable powerlifters made me think about the positive aspects of it with regards to safety and lifter's age. Neither hard sold me. One is not a guy on our team, and he currently lifts raw. This guy said he's about 40 years old and is thinking about going back to using gear for safety reasons. My pec injury/rehab really got me thinking this will be a good decision - the pec feels good when I lift with a shirt. Flame away, lol.

Are you going to do single ply or multi ply?

Things can change when you learn new things. Again:

I learned that geared lifting is safer than raw lifting. I used to think the opposite.

Multi. I'm going to do UPA meets, and they just have raw and geared divisions, so single would put me at a disadvantage. I asked Priest about how long it takes to learn how to lift with multi vs single ply, and he says a smart, thinking lifter can learn multi pretty fast. fwiw, my DL suit is actually single ply, but because it has velcro straps, they count it as multi. Priest says single ply is all you need for DL and you wont get anything additional out of multi. I ordered a Metal Ace Pro squat suit and a Metal King Pro DL suit. I'm going to order a single ply Titan Super Katana bench shirt and a 2 ply Super Katana as well. The single ply is so I can more easily touch an opener to my chest.

2/24

DL
245x5x3
335x5
425x3

I put on Priest's DL suit, which is the exact same size and type that I ordered. his is 3 or 4 years old, so its a lot more broken in than my new one will be.
475x2 getting down to the bar is very hard
515x2
565x1 fast
605x2x2 not hard, might as well try a heavy one
655x1 hard, but would have gotten three white lights according to the USPA judge who was watching.

took off suit
405x3x5

I have been asking around as to how much a DLer gets out of a suit. A few people said about 7%. Priest said it all depends on the individual, and he gets almost nothing out of it. idk what I'm getting out of it, but I think I have a lot of room for improvement with it. Priest said I might have 700 in me with the suit if I clean up my form.

Whatever helps you sleep at night. We all knew this was coming months ago.

I predict a 1800 total at your first geared meet.

I honestly didnt see it. Probably the biggest thing that changed my mind was the current raw lifter, who I do not lift with, who said he is thinking about going back to gear because its safer. That planted a seed with me, but I still didnt think I would until Priest (my coach) said I might want to think about gear at some point for injury prevention reasons. He didnt know the other guy had said that to me. I thought about it and I have about 3.5 months to learn how to lift in it before my next meet (USPA MN championship), which is enough time to learn, so I figured, why wait?

1800 would be awesome because I suck bad at squatting right now. I hope you're right about that. 600/500/700 would be 1800, but I think 600 squat is a fantasy at this point. Maybe I can get a lot better. Hopefully.

2/25

speed bench
45x15
95x10
135x10x2
185x5

3 board press
225x5

put shirt on
275x5
315x3
335x3
355x3x6

pushups
10
+ small band - 10
+ big band - 10, 15, 15

cable rows & face pulls

Unsubscribed due to the geared lifting

Resubscribed cuz showing lotta sexylegs in that last video. Looking leaner.

2/27

I went to the gym to squat with a straight bar for the first time since before I hurt my pec, and I forgot my ****ing squat shoes at home. I havent back squatted without squat shoes in over 5 years. ugh.

squat
60x10
150x5
240x5
290x4
330x3
380x2

put on knee wraps (wrapped by people who know what theyre doing)
420x2
450x2x2
At first I felt like I was falling over backwards, but once I got used to squatting in flat soled shoes, I did ok. This actually went a lot better than I was expecting. The heaviest sets didnt feel hard. Having knowledgeable people wrap my knees probably helped a little.

****worth noting: I racked the bar higher on my back than I have in a long time and it felt more secure. I should keep doing that. I think it will help me cave my chest less.

trap bar DLs (with the crappy gym bar with basically no knurling)
460x3
550x2
Put on DL suit (my new suit came today - I figured I'd start breaking it in.)
640x1
690x1
730x1
780xf - it came off the floor maybe an inch or two. Someone told me the weight got forward. I might have got it if I had got my hips back.

GHRs
15
added band - 12x2
690

3/1

heavy bench
45x15
85x12
135x10x2
195x5
225x3

three boards
275x3

added Fury shirt
315x3
365x2

Tried on another guy's shirt - a Titan Super Katana, single ply, but it must be at least 6 sizes smaller than my shirt. **** that ****. It was hard to get into. I tried to touch 405 to three boards and couldnt get it close.

put Fury back on
405x1

put on another guy's shirt - a Titan Katana, 2 ply, size 54 (my Fury is 52). It feels tighter than my Fury. The guy who it belongs to weighs something over 330. He says he cant wear it when he gets over 330. When he's at 330 or less, it takes about 700 lbs to touch the bar to his chest.
455x2x2
Touching three boards with this sucked bad. Pressing the weight after it touched was easy. I'm going to have to do much heavier weight when I get used to two ply.

floor press
275x3x5
This was harder than I expected. I was doing maybe 295 or 305 I think before my pec injury. I've lost some strength off my chest, which isnt all that surprising since I havent been pressing anything much over 200 raw to my chest in a while. fwiw, floor presses almost touch my chest.

pulldowns & face pulls

3/6

I've had a cold the past few days so I missed a couple workouts. Got my new squat suit the other day. I like using it.

squat
45x10
135x5
put on suit and kept shoulder straps off
225x5
275x3
330x2
380x2
added knee wraps
420x1
put shoulder straps on loose
470x1
510x1
put shoulder straps on tight
540x1



This all felt good. One thing I did differently that I had been doing up until last week was rack the bar higher up towards my neck. This allowed me to keep my chest from caving & stay more upright. I feel good right now - that's a rarity for me after squatting heavy. I had been concerned about squatting heavier weights with a suit and wrecking my upper back/neck. I'm way less concerned about that now, and am looking forward to squatting 600+ at some point in the next couple/few months.

Since I missed DLs earlier in the week, I figured I'd do my reset to 85% of goal x 2 x 2 (goal is now 675).

225x5
315x5
405x3
put on suit
495x1
545x1
585x2x2 (went a little heavier than 85%)
This was somewhat easy, but I ran out of gas towards the end due to still recovering from being sick.

Yea that's the highest bar position I have ever seen in your videos. Your usual position was quite a bit lower than the average squatter right? Was it due to your lower back? Isn't the lower the bar position, the better it is for low back?

I had used a lower bar position because I thought it gave me better hip drive. The problem was when the weight got heavy, I caved my chest. Most of the best lifters I lift with use a higher bar position too.

The high bar position is actually much easier on the low back than low bar because your torso is more upright. This is similar to FS being easier than BS on the low back for the same reason. I was able to do it with little risk to my low back because I got my core so strong.

I am sure I need to use a high bar position from now on if I'm going to be squatting heavy-ass weights.