a 15kg jump is pretty extreme imo

Yeah I have a very long torso. Pretty sure my hamstrings are flexible...do you have some sort of Ultimate Test[tm]? I'm definitely flexible in general, more extreme in some joints than others. Like I can still put both of my feet behind my head if I'm warmed up.

His previous 1RM was 165 - how do you think he should've set it up, given that he shot for +10 kg?


In other news my elbow is still a bit painful. ****. Might have to go back to high bar for a while.

I think he should've made 170 his final attempt - a 3% increase is much more feasible than a 6% increase. In terms of how to work up to that - thinking about it more, the jump isn't that big of a deal, it's just choosing the correct weight to attempt. My guess is he'd smoke 170 if he re-tested in a week or whatever.

I think my last smolov squat cycle my 5rm went from 325 to 345, and my 1rm didn't change.

Hm, guess 175 was way too greedy for a first try. Pretty sure he would have made 170 if he started with that, since his failure at 175 wasn't abysmally bad.

He's gonna diet now and lose ~20-25 lbs anyway, so no new records for a while...probably.

Yeah, figured you might have a long torso. That is actually a pretty common body type for Scandi's/Northern Europeans. (Something about having more mass in your torso relative to your legs increasing volume relative to surface area and being better for heat conservation in cold weather)

Anyways, putting your feet behind your head sounds like a good ultimate test for flexibility to me. My hamstrings are starting to hurt just thinking about it.

Hm, interesting. You're not just trolling?

The hamstrings aren't stretched too much with the feet behind the head trick, the abductors are stretched the most. Although I suppose you couldn't do it if your hamstrings were very inflexible either.

Not trolling. It is basic evolutionary biology. Here is a link to a site that explains it very well.

http://anthro.palomar.edu/adapt/adapt_2.htm

In short:

Cold weather = more mass + relatively shorter appendages = better heat conservation

Warm weather = less mass + relatively longer appendages = better heat loss

-Generally works for most species of mammals, including humans, that are adapted to their environment.

Although there is obviously a lot of individual variance, generally African Americans have longer limb length relative to torso and Northern Europeans the opposite.

Yeah it made sense, I was just too lazy to Google and confirm I wasn't being trolled. Thanks for explaining it.

You have to troubleshoot everything bit by bit. Was his sleep and diet in order? Was he getting 8-10 hrs of sleep and eating a lot? What about his numbers? Did he use percentages of his true 1RM or an estimated 1RM?

Also, the 15kg jump is HUGE. He should have paced himself at 5kg increments. I made <5kg (10 lbs) jumps, and then made one 5 lbs jump at the end with proper rest time in between attempts. If 165kg was his PR, it def should have been a 170 attempt, THEN a 175. He probably failed 170 after attempting 175 because of a burnout.

Actually we went through it together - it was the run-up to Smolov which likely weakened him. He did the intro week, then got sick for a week, then did the intro week again - at which point he probably was weaker than before the first intro week. He used 90% of his actual 1RM.

And yeah, very prob burnout on 170. Failing a set is hard, I've experienced the same thing myself several times on 5 rep sets (failing at e.g. 120 then failing again, seemingly inexplicably, at 115).

2011-02-09

Worst day in the gym this year.

Press
4x60.5 kg
6x55 kg
6x52.5 kg

60 was pretty easy on Saturday, so thought I'd for 60.5. That wasn't such a swell idea since I was running very low on sleep with solid levels of built-up fatigue.


Sumo DL
5x something
5x something else
5x115 kg (-4 reps compared to two weeks ago)

Hit 5 reps and there was just nothing left. Never happened to me before. My legs have been feeling pretty crap lately, so planned on deloading come next Wedneday. Forget that, taking Saturday off and then deloading (+ some life stuff).


Push-Ups
2x13x35 kg


Pallof Press
2x10xEtc


At least I'm getting all ripped up and stuff. EVVVVERRRRYYYYYOOOOOOOOOOOOOONNNEEEEEEEEEE

Wow. There's a whole lot of places where your brother could have gotten wrong. It could be some, one, all of those factors, or unknown variables in addition to those.

How did you fare on the program?

15kg jump is not huge.

What do you mean? When you're testing for a new 1RM after a program and you skip from attempting less than your previous max to jumping ahead and doing a new max? It's quite a gap.

Say my old max and PR is 200 and I lift 195, then load up to 225 for the next one. If my max was 200, I'd want to try 205, maybe 210 before even thinking about 225. It's a huge leap to skip that far ahead. I'm not sure where the disagreement is.