yup, sounds easy but it gets hard fast.

I can imagine, I will give it a try sometime.

Smiley,

Is the Amherst gym open tomorrow and is it possible for me to walk in there without an ID? (Guessing not, but I haven't had a problem doing so at Smith/Hampshire/MHC)

burdz,

where do you go to school (im at umass)

Not supposed to let non-amherst students/faculty/employees in unless with a guest. I'll probably be going at 230ish tomorrow if youw ant me to let you in. Going to bed now so PM me.

rest day today. back is sore plus my hand is [censored]. Hopefully can figure out some way to tape it up for tomorrow.

Food:
breakfast: protein shake + bagel with butter from dd
meal 2: grilled chicken burrito
meal 3: chicken, broccolli and peppers with pasta
meal 4: protein shake and oatmeal

ORLY no WAI nice avy

Worked on Full squat snatch and C&J form. Hand is still [censored] so I tried to tape it up with a little success.

Food:
A whole ton of crap topped of with 4 beers before bed. Cheat day wooo!

Maxing out on Snatch and C&J today.

Worked up to a new PR of 135 in snatch by way of lots of triples and doubles. Technique still sucks.

Matched PR of 205 in C&J but pressed out the jerk. Couldn't improve though and I was really dissapointed. My friend took a bunch of video of me yesterday and I still have a lot of work today on keeping the bar close to my body in the 2nd pull and getting under the bar quicker.

Food:
Breakfast: 5 eggs, 4 peices of bacon, toast, coffee
pre/post wo: banana, protein shake, bbq chicken burrito
snack: 2 peices of rye
snack 2: bowl of raisin bran & protein shake
dinner: chicken and pepper tomatoe sauce with pasta

Warm up:
2 min. bike
power snatches + OHS
stretching

Back Squat:
8 x 135
10 x 180
10 x 195
8 x 210
8 x 225

Front Squat:
5 x 135
3 x 185
3 x 200
2 x 215
2 x 225
2 x 235 x 2

DBell Bench Press:
8 x 50
5 x 70
5 x 75 x 4

DBell Decline:
5 x 75
2 x 75

L-Pull Ups
8, 7, 7, 6

Worked in some broad/box jumps (jumping to 20inch box from 5ish feet away) with the bench press and pullups
plyos on stairs: jump 4 steps + 4 steps + 4 steps fast as possible. did a few sets

Finally started to take a notebook to the gym to keep track of stuff better.

Food:
Breakfast: raisin bran, protein shake
breakfast 2: 5 eggs, 4 strips of bacon
pwo: protein shake, 6" spicy italian sub from subway - all vegetables no sauce, fountain coke, small bag of chips
dinner: 2 chicken breasts, peppers, rice

Warm up:
500m row 1:44 @ 21
10 dips
5 pullups
15 back extensions and incline situps
power snatches + OHS
stretching

Overhead Squat (1rm 175)
8 x 95
8 x 115
5 x 135
5 x 135
5 x 145
3 x 150
4 x 150

Crossfit Workout "Diane"
21-15-9 reps each of 225lb deadlift and hand stand pushups
Time: 13:30

Deadlifts were way easier than I thought. First two rounds in 2 sets each, and final round in one set. HSPU's were awful, but I think my shoulders were already really fatigued from the overhead squats. Going to have to work on some grease the groove type stuff with my hspu's - i'd like to be able to do 10 solid reps with forehead touching.

My new post workout protein shake arrived today, looking forward to see how the 5g of creatine in it affects me over the next month.

Food:
Breakfast: 5 eggs, 4strips bacon, toast, oj
breakfast 2/pre wo: bowl of raisin bran cup of coffee
pwo: optimum nutrition after max protein shake
dinner: libyan beef/tomatoe soup my friend made
dinner 2: homemade beef stew

Rest day today. Legs are really sore which is great. I think I had become used to volume in the 6-8 set 2-6 rep range so the last squat day plust deadlifts yesterday really killed me. Probably do a similar squat day on friday.

Food:
Just snacked a bunch all day, not particularly good and probably not enough food but wasn't feeling 100%. Drinking a forty tonight :/.

Crappy day in the gym today. Hungover this morning and ended up spending most of the day driving my friend to look at trucks - got back home at 7ish and went to the gym.

500m row 1;44 @ 21
stretching
power snatchs + ohs

Snatch:
3x95x3
started failing at higher weights and quit

C&J:
3x135
3x155
1x165x2
1x175
1x175 fail jerk
1x175x2
1x175 fail jerk

Awful awful lifts: combination of drinking/getting high night before, eating crap during the day, messed up schedule by working out so late and plus some nagging weakness in shoulders from Diane on Tuesday. I havent failed jerks at 175 in a month, but meh. . . always going to be [censored] days in the gym.

One of my biggest problems with the o-lifts especially is not having the mental focus everyday. All these failed lifts (especially in the snatch) have started to psych me out. It takes a certain level of fearlessness to jump underneath a bar with x pounds on it overhead. When I'm confident that I can lock out and stand up then my form is much much better, but when I start to worry about dropping it my form goes to [censored] and I end up of course failing the lift. Not sure what to do but to keep at it, maybe do a lot more volume at lower weights.

Food:
5eggs, 2 chicken sausage, toast, OJ
pepperonni pizza
aftermax protein shake
T-bone steak, salad

Warm up:
2 min stationary bike
10 dips, pullups
15 back extensions, incline situps
stretching
OHS and power snatches

Back Squat (1rm = 280ish):
8x135
10x195(70%)
10x210(75%)
8x225(80%)
6x240(85%)

Weighted Pullups:
8 unweighted
3x40
3x45
3x50
3x55 x 4

Front Squat (255 1rm)
5x135
2x200 x 5

1hour of 2x2 basketball (pretty embarassing)

Back squat workout was very tough. Estimating my max at 280 gives the 210, 225, and 240 sets as max reps for that weight. Felt like I might have one or two more reps in each set though. I'm trying to be more systematic with my periodization (as you can see by my last squat workout). On monday or tuesday will do same rep regime but scaled back weights, while front squat will probably go higher than this past tuesday. Next thursday will start cutting back the volume on backsquat.

Front squats today were light but kept rest bw sets <1.5mins to keep it interesting.

Also my left knee is feeling a little weird. Some tightness along the back of it and on the outside edge, hopefully is nothing.

Food:
eggs, bacon etc.
beef stew
banana + coffee pre workout
After Max shake pwo
enchilades, rice, beans, two IPA's
protein shake

smiley, since you're doing all those oly lifts I'm assuming you do the front squats olympic style.

if so, any tips for improving flexibility in the wrist flexors? i have a lot of trouble getting the bar 'racked' properly and it seems to be due to my lack of flexibility in my forearms/wrists.

those weighted pullups are pretty sick too.

actually: any advice at all on the olympic lifts would be greatly appreciated. i enjoy them (to the extent i can) but my form is atrocious. i clean like a high school football player (halfway between grinding with the bar and an upright row). and my snatch looks like 3 distinct movements. i can oh squat a full rom so i should theoretically be able to do those perfectly.

got a bit tangential there, but if you can help at all please do.

Wu,
One thing that helped me was putting the bar in a rack and loading on a bunch of weight. Then get underneath it in the rack position and just stretch your wrists back by standing up. Remember you only want fingertips touching the bar with your wrists up high and your elbows forward. A mistake I see often is guys trying to hold onto the bar tight with their palms especially after coming out of a clean - you need to make sure your hands are just there to stabilize it as it rests across your clavicle.

I don't know how much help I can be with o-lifts, my form is also pretty bad. Can you take video of yourself and put it on youtube?

www.weightliftingexchange.com has tons of footage of olympic weightlifting which is really helpful.

Umass as well broseph

Rest day yesterday and bad food.

Today:

2min bike
Power Snatches + OHS
stretching
8 pullups
6 HSPU

Snatch (135pr):
3x95 power
3x95
3x115 power
2x115
1x125 (1 + 1 fail) power
2x125 power
1x125 x 2
1x130
1x135
1x140 (pr)
1x145 fail x 2

Clean & Jerk (PR 205):
Pwer clean + Hang Clean + 2xJerk @ 135
1x135
1x185
1x200
1x210 press out jerk (pr)
1x215 fail
1x215 good clean fail jerk (clean pr)

Felt great today. I made a big adjustment in my technique in the o-lifts by starting with my hips much higher and going for a bigger hip extension during the second pull instead of pulling so straight up from the floor. I uploaded 3 videos to youtube. One of my PR snatch, another of a 200lb C&J and a 210 C&J (although the jerk was no good). I tried to video the 215 clean but i had my camera on the wrong setting.

Right now my snatch technique still has a long way to go, I am pulling the bar plenty high enough but am not getting underneath quick enough and deep enough. Same is true for my clean although not so bad (215 clean with a 255 front squat is 84% which is barely acceptable). Either way the jerk still sucks, I am dipping way too slowly, drifting forward and I'm not getting my front leg far enough forward in the split.

Food:
eggs, bacon, OJ
banana, whey protein shake
After Max shake
2 chicken breat quarters, brown rice, salad

youtube is being ******ed and not processing the clips. i will link to them when they're available.

140lb snatch
200lb C&J
210lb C&J

Feel free to berate my crap form. Also sorry they're all like a minute long - I require much psyching up.

Smiley,

It looks like you're lowering the bar a ton when you do your clean. Like you pop it up and then let it sink down when you do the clean part. Why is this? I looked at some other videos and it seems to be std in a clean to let it drop a bit as you settle into a front squat position, but yours looks a little much.

Also, where do you draw the line between a clean and a power clean? I'm working on my form, and due to the amazing crappiness of our gym I'm limited since we have no rubber weights. But cleans can still get allowed without them threatening to bar me.

ImStraight - He's doing a squat clean, which means he goes down into a squatting position when receiving the bar. This is how these particular Olympic lifts are done, and it also obviously allows you to clean more weight.

rest day today, down with a cold.

Raisin bran, protein shake, banana
slice of pizza, small bag of almonds
apple, protein shake
chicken breast, brocolli

smiley,

the youtube clips are awesome.

Thanks Kool Aid!

2min bike
10 dips
15 kipping pull ups, back extensions, incline situps
stretching
power snatches + OHS

Back Squat
8x135
10x185
10x195
8x210
6x225

Barbell Standing Shoulder Press
8x45
5x95
5x110 x 4
4x110

Front Squat
5x135
2x225
2x225

Pullups
8 unweighted
3x50
3x55
3x60 x 6

4x5 broad jumps (guessing distance around 6-7 feet)

Quit the front squats early because my hamstrings are still shot from sunday. Felt like I was not maintaining an arch in the bottom of the squat (which is a problem I already have). Didn't want to risk a lower back injury. I think the technique adjustment I made in the snatch/clean really showed my weakness there.

food
had 2slices of toast with PB&J last night with a protein shake
muffin, protein shake
After Max shake pwo

2min bike
10 dips, pullups
15 back extensions, incline situps
6 HSPUs
stretching
power snatches + OHS

Snatch:
3x95 power
3x95
1x130
1x130 fail
1x130 x 4

Dumb Bell Bench Press:
10x50
6x75
4x80 x 4

Deadlift:
5x135
5x225
5x275
5x300 x 3
2x300
5x225

Was forced to take a big break between bench and dl because the football team came into the gym and took things over for about 20 mins. Snatch consistency has gone way up, felt good to get 4 decent lifts in a row.

Food
yesterday had huge amount of pulled pork and beans for dinner, protein shake before bed
eggs, bacon, toast, oj
small bag of almonds, ice cream sandwhich, apple
pwo After Max Shake, tri-o-plex bar