Thanks, he died a long time ago - 1989. I heard they typically suggest beginning them at age 50 unless you're high risk, in which case they recommend starting at age 40. I'm obviously high risk because of my dad.

3/1

bench up to 675 off 2 boards
chain pushups
pulling stuff


3/3
squats
up to 515 in briefs with knees wrapped.
The bakers cyst in my right knee is acting up and it usually takes lots of sets in wraps to get it to go away. It didnt work great because I cant exert myself well because of the tibia/fibula joint issue I have going on now. It is getting better, but something is still bad in there.


3/4 pushups with chains, pulling stuff


3/6

I went in with low expectations. I could not do a standing hamstring curl with 20 lbs with my right leg because the outer part of the right hamstring pulls on the bad joint. Surprisingly, I was able to DL pretty well.

DL
225x5x2
315x3
405x2

suit
495x1
585x1
645x1 (90%)

The only thing close to an issue I had was the 585 got out in front of me a little. I felt slight pain in the bad joint, but it wasnt bad. 645 was not exactly fast (lol weak), but I stayed in good position and had no pain.

rack pulls slightly below knees
I tried 300 lbs conventional for one rep and that made the bad joint hurt. Apparently foot angle is everything with regards to keeping the outer part of the hamstring from ****ing up my bad joint. I did sumo rack pulls.
495x3
545x3
585x3
635x3
675x1 - this moved fast, but my knees/legs felt unstable, so I stopped. I need to play it safe and heal up.


I was texting my doc friend yesterday about the leg. I decided to have him do some prolotherapy injections in the bad joint tomorrow morning. He thinks prolo recovery should be fast enough so that I will be ok by nationals.

Good luck with the Baker's cyst. Hope your doctor friend is correct.

Thanks!!

So far so good. I dont have much time to post more right now, but I skipped one workout and its a little better now.

That's terrific. Hope it goes away.

With commercial gyms closed (I assume you're still in MN..we're shut down now in KY too), I guess even with your home set-up you'll have an opportunity to let it heal up.

Lifting at home?

Thanks. The cyst is better. The tendonosis inside my right leg tendons is still not good.

lol

Yes. Life has been crazy the past several weeks, not all because of the virus hysteria.

Work has been crazy busy. My job has been determined to be essential by the tyrant in charge. Wife works for city government and she has also been determined to be essential - lucky us.

Activities associated with real estate are essential. Wife & I decided to buy a new house. Its much bigger than the townhouse we're in and its a slightly shorter commute for her with less bad traffic than here. The basement has about 80% more space than this place, so we can spread out the home gym significantly and possibly add some stuff. It also has an oversized 3 car garage, so we will be able to store a lot of stuff that is currently in the basement in the new garage. We move in mid May.

I have an umbilical hernia. At first, none of my doc friends cold tell me the best treatment aside from surgery, and I thought my intestines were poking out, so I kept myself to a 10 lb weight restriction for about a week and made a virtual appointment with a surgeon. I like this surgeon. She speaks common sense. My regenerative injection doc said if there was no hole in the abdominal wall, he could reinforce it with injections, but if there's a hole, he cant help. There's a hole.

My surgeon says the stuff poking out is probably just some fatty tissue, not my intestines. Sweet! She said I should go about my normal routines, except for maybe something less than max effort lifts and less valsalva than usual. I pressed her about what kind of weight limit I should put on myself. She says there's really no weight limit. I just need to pay attention to my body and if I feel pain in the area, stop. woohoo! She said I should put something inside my belt like a rolled up sock to push the stuff that's poking out back in during lifts. I've been using a rolled up kleenex for most heavy stuff.

If the pain is severe and it seems like I have done more damage, go to the ER.

Surgery is likely the long term solution. She cannot be 100% certain of this without examining me in person, and her clinic is closed. I made an appointment to see her in early June.

Assuming it is what she thinks it is, the best solution for most people, would be an open surgery and stitch it back together, but considering my powerlifting hobby, she says it would be better for me to do laparoscopic surgery using a big piece of mesh, bigger than what she would use for other people. Healing time for normal people is two weeks. For me, it is two weeks before starting back with very light weight and very slowly working back up to heavy stuff. She would not put a time frame on full recovery. I asked about the possibility of lifting at nationals in October. She is very uncertain. bleh.

I started lifting again somewhat normally the day after talking to her.

I've been meaning to log everything, but keep putting it off because I have too much other stuff going on. **** it. I will start with the highlights of last few workouts that are fresh in my mind.

Tues 4/7
squat in briefs up to 515x1. My right leg still sucks, especially walking out 515, but its better than its been in a while.

Wed 4/8
speed bench
up to 225x3

chains
225 + 2 chains x 3
225 + 4 chains x 3
225 + 6 chains x 3
225 + 8 chains x 3

some light pulling


Fri 4/10
DL
225x5
315x3
405x2

suit
495x1
585x1
635x1
Everything moved pretty decent with good form, except I helicoptered the 635 a little, so I decided to move on after that.

4.5" block pulls in briefs using power bar
585x2
635x2
675x1

I feel very good after all this. There is something about pulling heavy DLs with good form that seems to align my body in a good way.

!

Wow. Good luck with the hernia. At least you can train in the meantime.

Happy late bday!

+1 Happy belated bday!

Thanks! yes.

Thanks!

Thanks!

Sun 4/12

Shirted bench in blue triple ply SDP up to 635 off 2 boards
pulling stuff


Tu 4/14
squats up to 335x3 in briefs. Right leg felt a little twinge walking out, so I decided to do TBDLs instead of more squats.

TBDL in new 2 ply Inzer Fusion DL suit - this is a size smaller than my other DL suit and the other one is one ply with velcro.
440x3
530x3
620x3
710x1

Everything moved very fast. The last pull, I shifted sideways a bit, which could have been a core issue or it could have been shifting weight away from my bad leg. I could have gone a bit heavier and done more, but I decided to move on.

GHRs
something like 2 sets of 20 reps

I felt very good after this.


Wed 4/15

speed bench
We did a weird contraption of light bands and chains. I worked up to 225 + 8 chains and two little orange bands x 3. That was sort of challenging.

pulling & other light stuff


Fri 4/17

DL
225x5
315x3
405x2

new suit
495x1 - had the straps too tight. This felt bad. I was probably way forward because of how tight the suit was.
585x1 - loosened the straps a bit, but it still didnt feel great, so I switched suits.
635x1 - I must have been a little forward and maybe pushed the right side of the bar forward and pulled the left side in a little too much. It was more of a grind that it should have been, so I moved on.

Block pulls with shitty stiff bar off 4.5" blocks. Teammate suggested I try the new suit back on and try to break it in more.
585x3. Didnt like the way the suit felt.
635x3. I did this with straps down and didnt like the suit much.
675x1 in briefs only. This was a long grind, but I got it. I shut it down after this.

Mon 4/20

I keep finding new ways to hurt myself. I woke up finding myself feeling pain down the sternum and across the right side of my chest when I reached with my right arm. I happened to have an appointment with my chiro that day. He said that pain was coning from my SC joint and also maybe a rib was out. I slept on it weird or something apparently. He did a bunch of work on that and my right leg. Everything felt somewhat better, but not fixed. He said I could do all my lifts though.

Bench up to 185 x 1
Chest felt bad on the first rep with 185 so I stopped pushing and did some light pulling.

Tu 4/21
I expected not to be squatting because my chest still didnt feel good. My friend who's a chiro (not my regular chiro) did some additional work on my shoulder & chest & leg. He popped the SC joint and the rib harder than my chiro did the previous day, and I think that was what I needed for the time being. It felt better reaching with my right arm. This issue now feels like its healing.

squat
155x1 - leg felt bad. I thought I needed to warm up better, so I did some goblet squats & GHRs.

155x5 - this felt ok
245x3 was fine

briefs
335x3 - feeling better after putting briefs on
425x2 - right leg was feeling a little unstable, so next set knee wraps

wraps
515x1 - the squat felt better than any I have done in a long time, and walking it out was ok, but walking it back into the rack after squatting scared me with regards to my right leg mostly, so I moved on & just did some band hamstring curls and other light stuff. I really miss the monolift.


Wed 4/22 I slipped on the bottom stair with my right foot and landed funny on my right leg. This was different than the slip the caused the somewhat major problem a couple months ago as I only fell one stair not two, and this time when I landed, my right leg was straight, not bent, so the knee joint took the jolt instead of the tibia/fibula joint. It still did bother the tibia/fibula joint some - pushing off using my right calf isnt good now and going down stairs I have to kind of hop off my right foot when I lead with the left to go down a stair. I hope this is just a minor, temporary setback and I'm not back to where I was two months ago. It was healing slowly before this happened.

Sorry to hear the bad run. Hope you recover quickly.

As someone who lived this for a loooooooooong time, I can tell you how to alleviate it.

You just don't want to hear it

Thanks!

Stop going down stairs? lol, I know what you are getting at. I am not ready to quit. I have though about doing push-pull meets only, but I think I can still squat safely once I get back into a monolift.

I have stopped trying to squat by walking out of a rack. I cannot get my feet set in a good position without aggravating the leg. After seeing my chiro and my PT last week, I am able to squat pain free when my feet are set well.

In place of squats, I have been doing TBDLs. I pulled 760 & 770 the past couple of weeks and while both were challenging, neither felt like they were max effort. I've been DLing up to 635 most weeks lately as well. My leg feels pretty good after both kinds of DLs. I benched 675 off a 2 board the other day on a Rogue bench out of the power rack. It went up pretty good.

I hope you're recovering well. Good luck Cha.

Thanks Rich!

I keep meaning to update my log, but I got so far behind that it seems overwhelming to do it.

I'm still alive, lifting heavy **** and planning to do about 3 meets this year. One is coming up soon.

Lots of ups and downs. I was feeling as good as I have for a while before last Friday when my new briefs chewed on my right leg during DLs. Now I have a ~5" row of nasty blisters on the inside of my leg. I'm going to have to lower my squat opener a bit because of this, so openers at the next meet should be ~683/622/606. A perfect day would be 777/655/688 with WRs in bench, DL & total. Right now the records are b 617, DL 683 & total 2050.

I've been hitting 625 & 645 off my chest benching most of the time in training. I'm probably ~50% on squats at ~656. I DL'ed 680 a couple weeks ago and missed 690 this past Friday. I changed back to conventional DLs because I am better at them.

Glad all is well, aside from the blisters. Sorry to hear it will affect your next meet. Hopefully it's just the opener, which you'll smoke anyway. Looks like you have a good day of good lifts planned!

Thanks!!

8/7

I took my bench opener (625) and smoked the **** out of it Friday after seeing my PT and getting my collar on my shirt positioned in the right place. I am feeling great about my bench right now.

DL opener Friday also (605). I decided to use my squat briefs and left my suit slippers on to minimize leg blister issues. It didnt bother my leg at all. It was harder than hell to get set up right though because those briefs are tighter in the belly and ass. I was a little forward with it, but it still went up pretty fast.

That's awesome Cha! Glad the leg blisters didn't bother you and that your lifts went well.

8/15

Mrs Cha and I competed in the 2020 APF powerlifting Nationals. It went way beyond our expectations.

Mrs Cha lifted on Friday (along with one of our teammates) and I lifted on Saturday. She had a good day, going 2/3 on each lift, setting 3 meet PRs (374/275/303). The 275 bench is an American and world record for her age/weight class, woot!! Most of Mrs Cha's competition lifted on Saturday, so we did not find out where she placed until after Saturday's lifting was complete.

The Saturday meet went very fast. I didn't get to do all my normal warmup stuff for squats because the site was inadequate and they didnt allow us more time for squat warmups. I started out opening light with my squat due to blister issues on my inner right thigh caused by new briefs. I got 683 no problem. I missed my second attempt of 733 when I got back too far during the descent, which caused me to take way too long to get to depth, then I ran out of gas. On my 3rd attempt of 733 again, I got down fine, then got a little forward on the way up. I was disappointed, but at least I didn't bomb out.



Bench press did not start the way I wanted. I got warmed up too soon, then sat in my shirt for way too long before my 1st attempt of 622. I got the weight to touch fine, but I shot it a little too high. I regained control, but not before there was slight downward motion, which caused the head judge to call for racking the weight, ending that attempt about an inch from lockout. After a short rest, I took 622 again and nailed it. Then I switched shirts and missed 644. The shirt was not set right, so it locked up on the way down. I was only two for six on lifts at this point, but happy to be in the meet and happy to set my 1st world record (622 is a new American and world record in my age/weight class). But just like in my squat, I know I could have done a lot more.



I was pretty tired and beat up by the time we deadlifted, and that went pretty fast too. I smoked my opener of 600, then got 633 for my second attempt. It didn't feel easy, but it moved pretty fast. I decided to try 661 for my 3rd attempt, which I usually would lift, but I barely got it off the floor because of being so tired and also my back was very sore.



So I went 4 / 9 with a 683 squat, 622 bench press and 633 deadlift. My total of 1,940 is a small PR, but again, I was hoping for a lot more.

Then came the awards. I got a medal for winning my age/weight class, which was expected.

I came into the meet hoping that I would total something over 2,055 and win best masters lifter. I didnt come close to that total, but I wound up winning a way bigger prize.

What came next was totally unexpected and pretty much the most awesome thing ever: They called Mrs Cha's name as best female multiply lifter overall!!! And the award was a trophy that Ernie Frantz's (the godfather of powerlifting) wife had actually won! Ernie and his wife decided to generously donate all their trophies to this meet as prizes for the best lifters. This is sort of like winning Marlon Brando's Oscar. Mrs Cha was so excited as the meet official was telling her the significance of her trophy that she cried tears of joy. I am so proud of her!



Right after Mrs Cha was finished receiving her award, they announced me as best male multiply lifter!!! And they gave me a trophy that Ernie Frantz had won!

We also each received an autographed photo sheet of Ernie Frantz. I could not believe it. I was hoping to place in the top few masters (over 40 years old) lifters. I never even considered that I could win the whole meet. Apparently the speed of the meet affected all of us, not just me.

I don't know if a married couple has ever accomplished this in the same competition, and at Nationals (both winning best lifter and both setting American and world records in a lift).

Congratulations to both of you!

Nice work.