Front Squats Need WORK!

Yesterday's workout 11/17/11

A1: Muscle Snatch 70% x 5; 75% x 3 x 2; 78% x 3

B1: Clean & Jerk 70% x 3 x 3; 75% x 2 x 3

C1: Halting Clean Deadlift 108% x 4 x 5

D1: Front Squat 85% x 4 x 5

 

Muscle snatch was strong. I muscle snatched 145 for a triple. I don't even think it's near my true max for that. If only my third pull was as legit...

 

Didn't have any trouble with the C/J's. Light weight but quite a bit of volume. I was pretty fatigued after this set.

 

Clean deadlifts at 245. Barbell had good speed and felt light coming off the floor. I could probably clean it if I was sure to finish my pull.

 

Finally the front squats. They sucked. My legs and glutes were already really sore going into today's workout and the previous exercises definitely didn't help. Started off with 220# and got 4 but it was slow. Went for a 2nd set and failed on the 4th rep because I got stuck in the bottom. Dropped it down to 205# for the 3rd, 4th and 5th set. Missed my last rep on the 5th set because I got stuck in the middle and couldn't get up. Fatigue? Weakness probably considering it was 15# lower than what I should have been squatting. Not really sure what is going on with the front squat.

 

Bledsoe asked me if I was getting stronger. I told him I guess I am but now I really don't think I am. I'm struggling with squats and I haven't really lifted anything over 87% in my olympic lifts so I have no way to tell. I guess I will just have to trust the programming and wait and see. But I definitely forsee another Starting Strength type cycle with lots of back and front squatting in my near future....

Note to self: Never take 4+ days off again...

Well I came back from New Orleans on Sunday. It was a blast to say the least. Probably the most fun I've had in about 5 months. It consisted of some of my fraternity brothers from college and  it was borderline Animal House from all of us. Before I left on Friday I got some training in on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. The workouts were written pretty light. I don't think I lifted anything above 75%. I think that may have been intentional to give my body a slight rest. But I didnt train at all Fri, Sat, Sun, Monday and combined with the heavy partying my workout on Tuesday was a complete bust. I missed alot of snatches and just felt weak.



Tuesday 11/16/11
A1: Mid-Thigh Snatch (blocks) 70% x 3 x 4 (missed most of these and didn't do them from the blocks)

B1: Jerk 78% x 3 x 3; 81% x 3 x 2 (felt solid)

C1: Hex Bar Jump 100% of clean x 3 x 5 (solid, strong pulls)

D1: Back Squat 86% x 4 x 5 (didn't have too much trouble, struggled with the 3rd or 4th rep on the 3rd, 4th sets but still felt pretty good)

Chris Moore was observing my back squatting and told me that I have good speed out of the bottom but I get stuck in the middle because I have weak glutes. He suggested RDLs or Good mornings. They haven't really been prescribed but I think I'm going to start doing some RDLs on sundays workout.

 

 

Wednesday was alot better:

A1: Clean off blocks (above knee) 70% x 3 x 4 (solid)

B1: Clean High Pull 84% x 3 x 5 (solid)

C1: Snatch Balance 75% x 3 x 2; 80% x 3 x 3 (missed 5 reps at 80%, 150# is pretty boss for me considering how bad I am at snatch balance)

D1: Push Press 85% x 4 x 4 (no trouble)

My snatch balances improved from before. Two weeks ago and last week I was really struggling with them. I couldn't even hit 70%. Maybe I was just tired but this week faired alot better. I nailed the 75% (140) and got 4 out of 9 reps at 150. I've never been really good at Snatch balances but I am quite happy my progress at them (before I could only do about 115#).

Today is front squat day and I'm sore as hell as a result of heavy lifting after taking a break. Gonna have to really man up this afternoon.

It's that time of year again

I know it's been a while since I've posted. I've been pretty busy at school working on a new project at work and training pretty hard at the gym so I'm just exhausted. Also I've come down with some kind of bug and I've been sick for about a week. I still trained all last week though I can tell my performance is weaker due to my body not being at 100%. I didn't train yesterday but I plan on doing a hybrid of today's usual and Saturday's workout just to get something in. I also go out of town this weekend for Brett's bachelor party in New Orleans so I definitely need to get alot of training in before the party begins.

Saw something pretty interesting the other day. It was called Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead. It was a documentary about a guy going on a vegetable juice fast for 60 days. The guy had some kind of rare auto-immune skin disease and was obese.  He did a road trip around the US and drank only vegetable/fruit juice made from his juicer. He lost a ton of weight and managed to completly wean himself off of his medication (prednisone). It was actually pretty incredible and it kind of makes me want to get a juicer. Guess I'll have to ask the parents (er Santa) for one for Christmas because the juicers cost quite a bit of money.

Going along with that...Mike McGoldrick from my gym started doing a Neera cleanse/fast that I am thinking about trying when i start cutting weight for a meet. I think it consists of lemon juice, water, some kind of palm syrup? and cayenne pepper. Apparently James Fitzgerald of OPT recommended it and seeing McG's results I am pretty convinced it work. McG went from 200# to 186.5# doing just the 5 day fast. I didn't see a before picture but his after picture was more than enough to convice me.

Here is his blog. Crazy