Explosive OHP:
45 x 10, 135 x 5, 225 x 3, 245 x 2, 275 x 3, 255 x 3
20 degree incline Dumbell press:
55 x 10, 75 x 10, 90 x 10 x 2
Shoulder Raises:
20 x 10 x 2 (front and side)
Chest Supported Row:
65 x 10 x 3
Seated Cable Row:
200 x 10, 180 x 10 x 2
Rotator Cuff:
5 x 5 x 3
Hammer Curl:
30 x 10, 40 x 10
Tricep Extensions with Rope:
130 x 10 x 2
Wood Choppers:
130 x 10 x 2 (each side)
Forearm Pulldowns:
90 x 10 x 2
Spider Curls:
25 x 10, 40 x 10
Dumbell Shrugs:
100 x 10 x 3
Good workout today. Got back into OHP which I need to do badly. Felt pretty good. I think I am getting my strength back. Took some Gaspari Super Pump and a Cytolean before the workout so I felt pretty jacked throughout. I am really excited to have had such an intense workout. My focus in the gym is a lot better. I did a lot of super sets and I was really only lifting for about an hour and a half. I feel a lot more mentally strong, and I actually was happy to be hitting the weights. I think a big part of it is seeing some huge fuckers at the Big Iron meet and I know I have to lift harder, eat better, and train smarter to get that big and strong.
Monday, November 12, 2007
November 11, 2007
Barbell Back Squat:
45 x 10, 135 x 5, 225 x 3, 315 x 2, 365 x 2, 405 x 1, 405 x 1, 440 x 1, 480 x 1
Rack Pause Good Mornings:
135 x 5 x 2, 185 x 5 x 2, 225 x 5
Static Ab Hold:
3 sets x bodyweight x max time (unknown)
Kneeling Pulldown Abs:
220 x 10 x 3
Went up to the APF Hussey Classic in Omaha all day before the workout. I ate a shit-load of food all day and felt really motivated and strong. I wanted to get in a good squat workout. Pulled out all the gear and suited up for the first time in 10 months. Felt pretty good out of the hole, but I don't get a lot of power out of my old Inzer Champion suit. Hopefully I will get a really good suit and start working all my ME squat up at Big Iron Gym. I was really impressed by all the lifters I saw and it got me really pumped for training.
45 x 10, 135 x 5, 225 x 3, 315 x 2, 365 x 2, 405 x 1, 405 x 1, 440 x 1, 480 x 1
Rack Pause Good Mornings:
135 x 5 x 2, 185 x 5 x 2, 225 x 5
Static Ab Hold:
3 sets x bodyweight x max time (unknown)
Kneeling Pulldown Abs:
220 x 10 x 3
Went up to the APF Hussey Classic in Omaha all day before the workout. I ate a shit-load of food all day and felt really motivated and strong. I wanted to get in a good squat workout. Pulled out all the gear and suited up for the first time in 10 months. Felt pretty good out of the hole, but I don't get a lot of power out of my old Inzer Champion suit. Hopefully I will get a really good suit and start working all my ME squat up at Big Iron Gym. I was really impressed by all the lifters I saw and it got me really pumped for training.
Tuesday, November 6, 2007
The Road to Recovery
So I have not posted in a very long time. I have been training during the past few months, but somehow I lost track of everything I have been doing. Basically I backed off a lot on squat and deadlift and let my back heal. Things definitely are not 100% but I am feeling like surgery can definitely be avoided if I stay smart. I have done a lot of tire flips and slater stone pickups to keep my back and legs strong, and I am seriously considering getting back into powerlifting to regain my base strength and help with strongman in the spring. At any rate my passion for lifting is as strong as ever. Recently I was asked to write a descriptive essay for an English class. I chose to describe my experience during a set of squats and all the things it made me think of as a lifter. I got an A on the essay so it must have some value.
Beyond Human Strength
As I look at my reflection in the mirror I see the crazed look in my eyes, the sweat glistens on my forehead, veins pop out of my neck, chaos breaks loose, but somehow I am collected. The fix is in my hands and with every motion I satisfy my addiction. It is a compulsive drive within that pushes me. “Just one more,” I say. Again and again I push it; “One more” always “One more.” I am addicted; not to crack, heroin, alcohol, sex, caffeine, or vicodin, but something more primitive, something more primal that makes me jitter for a fix. I am addicted to iron, or more precisely, I am addicted to the pursuit of strength.
I step up towards the squat rack. It is white with gray metal rails and black plastic-covered pegs that hold the bar. The floor beneath me is made of gray rubber mats with some white and blue speckling throughout. The floor is also partially covered in white dust from lifting chalk and a little bit of what appears to be dried sweat. At this moment though, none of this matters. The set is at hand. This set is what I have been waiting for all day. These few repetitions of squat are where I prove my mettle.
Reaching out, I grab the bar. It is cold and rough, but the blood is flowing hot through my body. I grasp the bar tightly securing my thumbs over my index fingers. My knees bend as I step forward sinking myself below the bar perched so loftily in the rack. The bar and the massive load on it enrage me sitting so there so coolly. It’s as if the bar shouts out, “Gravity is on my side! You can not win!” I feel the anger filling me, pushing me into a physical and mental zone most people can not reach. The music in the background is loud and angry which is exactly how I will be throughout this set. I position my body under the bar; drawing my shoulder blades tight together, I dig into the bar with my upper back. The bar rests in the groove between my trapezius muscles and my rear deltoids. Pushing hard with my legs, I stand up completely. Begrudgingly, the bar yields. The cumbersome weight now rests solely on my back. I take a few steps back.
With the massive weight bearing down on me, a capillary in my left nostril bursts, blood is slowly streaming out, dripping down from my nose, across my mouth, and into my goatee. I refuse to stop; my addiction will be satisfied here and now. From somewhere slightly above my kidneys, a powerful hormone unleashes itself, buttressing the force of my muscles and my willpower. “Aaahh!” I shout. The adrenaline courses through me, moving faster with every heartbeat. Blood flows into my muscles, my heart rate and breathing quicken, my pupils narrow, and the surge takes hold of me.
It’s the surge that’s the best part. It rushes over me enveloping my body like a cyclone of equal parts blind rage and placid tranquility. Everything in the world dies out. The music in the background is silenced, the shouts of my training partners fade out, and even my own yells don’t register. There is nothing in my field of vision, just white all around. Thought shuts off and instinct kicks in. This is nothing new. I’ve done it a thousand times, but every time its life or death. Lock it out or get buried under it. Here is where hot blood meets cold steel. This is where adrenaline and gravity battle it out, where the iron will and the iron barbell collide to see who is more forceful.
All thoughts of executing the lift fade out. Somehow I know to maintain the arch in my lumbar region. I know to keep my head up, my eyes focused straight ahead. Instinctively, I breathe hard, driving the air into the depths of my lungs far down into the diaphragm, holding it there to increase my intra-abdominal pressure. My abdominal muscles stay tight; likewise, my spinal erectors stiffen. Unconsciously, I tell my self, “Sit back, spread the floor.” Downward I descend until my hip joint sits below my kneecap; my hamstrings are parallel to the floor. Now I drive hard with my legs pushing as if I wanted to bust through the floor with my feet. Up and up, I strain hard under the weight pushing with everything I have until finally I stand erect once more.
“One rep down, seven more to go,” I tell myself. Twice more I descend, and twice more I stand up. The pain takes over my whole body. It tries to make me stop, but I don’t let it. “The pain is lying,” I tell myself. In a strange way it feels good to hurt so badly. There is a sadistic joy in the way it hurts. The pain becomes almost a souvenir by which I commemorate the brief journey to the outer limits of my potential. My mind tries to shut it out, my thought drift away. Still I know I am safe, my body knows what to do. I find that I am not thinking so much about the lift, as what it means.
All my life I have been fascinated by strength. I always looked at the guys lifting the big weights and knew that is what I wanted to do with my life. From my youngest days I sought to be the biggest and strongest I could be. I love to lift, but it is more than an interest or hobby, it is part of who I am. It is something I can not live without. At times it seems like I kill myself just to satisfy my addiction to weightlifting.
From somewhere I hear a shout, “Three more, Joe. Three more!” A thought creeps into my head, “I think it must take a very different sort of person to want to put several hundred pounds on their back and sit down with it just to see if they can stand back up,” but I do not let this thought dissuade me. It occurs to me that this is my world, my life, my addiction, my passion. I live on the border of control and insanity. Life is short, but with every repetition I live an eternity in a split second. Everything I love and hate; all of my beliefs and all my doubts come together, and in that short time all thought is relevant and yet highly transitory. I have spent years working toward this moment. Twelve hours a week spent in the weight room learning the technique, and countless hours scouring books, journals, magazines, and internet websites looking for information on how to construct my routine, how to do more, how to get better. This is the payoff; here is where I prove the value of my hard work and dedication.
“Stay tight, one more rep!” I hear from what seems like miles away. My legs feel like someone is holding an arc welder to them. Inside I feel a tremendous sting in my lungs. I feel like a drunk in a planetarium because I see stars and everything seems to be spinning. This is where I realize it is more than the here and now. There is more to this passion than the gray rubber mats that cover the weight room floor. It is more than the palms of my hands covered in chalk, blood, and calluses; more than the smell of a freshly cracked ammonia capsule turning from white to red as the chemical reaction takes place, the odor of it stinging my nostrils, clearing my mind, filling me with rage for the big lift. This is not just part of my life, it is my life. The moment at hand, this is all the protein shakes I choked down for that extra rep; all the late nights I passed up on so I could train harder the next day. This is my rebuttal to all the people who said I couldn’t do it.
This is the life I chose; a life in pursuit of super-human strength. It makes me different. Some people look at my dedication with admiration, while others can never understand my passion for lifting. Some even taunt me with questions like “Why would anyone want to be that strong anyway?” Instead of breaking them in half I go home and rip a phone book in half to beef up my grip. It’s an odd paradigm to live in. Every time I drive past a big rock I look at it and ask myself if I could pick it up. When I see an all-you-can-eat buffet I look at it as a challenge, not an offering. Pain becomes a friend and pleasure becomes the enemy. I lift heavy things, only in the pursuit of lifting things heavier still.
“Finish!” I hear the shout. Exhausted but determined, I strain. From somewhere deep within I feel the push, my legs straighten all the way. I step forward and instinctively lower the bar. Instantly, the strain is gone, the bar is in the rack, the lift is over, and the music is back on. The shouts of encouragement I could barely hear only a second before have changed into clearly audible congratulations from my training partners. “Great set,” they say, “Isn’t that a new personal best?” The world is no longer white. Everything emerges once more into focus, but slightly obscured by the stars in my eyes. Suddenly, I am surrounded once more by the sights and sounds of the weight room. The rack and that God-awful bar, all seven feet long, forty five pounds, 1 and 3/8” thick, slightly textured come into focus. The six forty-five pound weight plates on each side of the bar appear - the cargo from my journey to that outer realm of ability.
The set is over; I look back into the mirror. The sweat is still there. The veins still slightly protrude, but they will subside eventually. I’ve had my fix. I have satisfied my addiction for the time being, but passing this goal means the bar gets set higher next time. I look into the mirror and then I look at the bar. It strikes me how oddly similar they are in function. With the mirror I look at myself. Under the bar I look within myself.
Beyond Human Strength
As I look at my reflection in the mirror I see the crazed look in my eyes, the sweat glistens on my forehead, veins pop out of my neck, chaos breaks loose, but somehow I am collected. The fix is in my hands and with every motion I satisfy my addiction. It is a compulsive drive within that pushes me. “Just one more,” I say. Again and again I push it; “One more” always “One more.” I am addicted; not to crack, heroin, alcohol, sex, caffeine, or vicodin, but something more primitive, something more primal that makes me jitter for a fix. I am addicted to iron, or more precisely, I am addicted to the pursuit of strength.
I step up towards the squat rack. It is white with gray metal rails and black plastic-covered pegs that hold the bar. The floor beneath me is made of gray rubber mats with some white and blue speckling throughout. The floor is also partially covered in white dust from lifting chalk and a little bit of what appears to be dried sweat. At this moment though, none of this matters. The set is at hand. This set is what I have been waiting for all day. These few repetitions of squat are where I prove my mettle.
Reaching out, I grab the bar. It is cold and rough, but the blood is flowing hot through my body. I grasp the bar tightly securing my thumbs over my index fingers. My knees bend as I step forward sinking myself below the bar perched so loftily in the rack. The bar and the massive load on it enrage me sitting so there so coolly. It’s as if the bar shouts out, “Gravity is on my side! You can not win!” I feel the anger filling me, pushing me into a physical and mental zone most people can not reach. The music in the background is loud and angry which is exactly how I will be throughout this set. I position my body under the bar; drawing my shoulder blades tight together, I dig into the bar with my upper back. The bar rests in the groove between my trapezius muscles and my rear deltoids. Pushing hard with my legs, I stand up completely. Begrudgingly, the bar yields. The cumbersome weight now rests solely on my back. I take a few steps back.
With the massive weight bearing down on me, a capillary in my left nostril bursts, blood is slowly streaming out, dripping down from my nose, across my mouth, and into my goatee. I refuse to stop; my addiction will be satisfied here and now. From somewhere slightly above my kidneys, a powerful hormone unleashes itself, buttressing the force of my muscles and my willpower. “Aaahh!” I shout. The adrenaline courses through me, moving faster with every heartbeat. Blood flows into my muscles, my heart rate and breathing quicken, my pupils narrow, and the surge takes hold of me.
It’s the surge that’s the best part. It rushes over me enveloping my body like a cyclone of equal parts blind rage and placid tranquility. Everything in the world dies out. The music in the background is silenced, the shouts of my training partners fade out, and even my own yells don’t register. There is nothing in my field of vision, just white all around. Thought shuts off and instinct kicks in. This is nothing new. I’ve done it a thousand times, but every time its life or death. Lock it out or get buried under it. Here is where hot blood meets cold steel. This is where adrenaline and gravity battle it out, where the iron will and the iron barbell collide to see who is more forceful.
All thoughts of executing the lift fade out. Somehow I know to maintain the arch in my lumbar region. I know to keep my head up, my eyes focused straight ahead. Instinctively, I breathe hard, driving the air into the depths of my lungs far down into the diaphragm, holding it there to increase my intra-abdominal pressure. My abdominal muscles stay tight; likewise, my spinal erectors stiffen. Unconsciously, I tell my self, “Sit back, spread the floor.” Downward I descend until my hip joint sits below my kneecap; my hamstrings are parallel to the floor. Now I drive hard with my legs pushing as if I wanted to bust through the floor with my feet. Up and up, I strain hard under the weight pushing with everything I have until finally I stand erect once more.
“One rep down, seven more to go,” I tell myself. Twice more I descend, and twice more I stand up. The pain takes over my whole body. It tries to make me stop, but I don’t let it. “The pain is lying,” I tell myself. In a strange way it feels good to hurt so badly. There is a sadistic joy in the way it hurts. The pain becomes almost a souvenir by which I commemorate the brief journey to the outer limits of my potential. My mind tries to shut it out, my thought drift away. Still I know I am safe, my body knows what to do. I find that I am not thinking so much about the lift, as what it means.
All my life I have been fascinated by strength. I always looked at the guys lifting the big weights and knew that is what I wanted to do with my life. From my youngest days I sought to be the biggest and strongest I could be. I love to lift, but it is more than an interest or hobby, it is part of who I am. It is something I can not live without. At times it seems like I kill myself just to satisfy my addiction to weightlifting.
From somewhere I hear a shout, “Three more, Joe. Three more!” A thought creeps into my head, “I think it must take a very different sort of person to want to put several hundred pounds on their back and sit down with it just to see if they can stand back up,” but I do not let this thought dissuade me. It occurs to me that this is my world, my life, my addiction, my passion. I live on the border of control and insanity. Life is short, but with every repetition I live an eternity in a split second. Everything I love and hate; all of my beliefs and all my doubts come together, and in that short time all thought is relevant and yet highly transitory. I have spent years working toward this moment. Twelve hours a week spent in the weight room learning the technique, and countless hours scouring books, journals, magazines, and internet websites looking for information on how to construct my routine, how to do more, how to get better. This is the payoff; here is where I prove the value of my hard work and dedication.
“Stay tight, one more rep!” I hear from what seems like miles away. My legs feel like someone is holding an arc welder to them. Inside I feel a tremendous sting in my lungs. I feel like a drunk in a planetarium because I see stars and everything seems to be spinning. This is where I realize it is more than the here and now. There is more to this passion than the gray rubber mats that cover the weight room floor. It is more than the palms of my hands covered in chalk, blood, and calluses; more than the smell of a freshly cracked ammonia capsule turning from white to red as the chemical reaction takes place, the odor of it stinging my nostrils, clearing my mind, filling me with rage for the big lift. This is not just part of my life, it is my life. The moment at hand, this is all the protein shakes I choked down for that extra rep; all the late nights I passed up on so I could train harder the next day. This is my rebuttal to all the people who said I couldn’t do it.
This is the life I chose; a life in pursuit of super-human strength. It makes me different. Some people look at my dedication with admiration, while others can never understand my passion for lifting. Some even taunt me with questions like “Why would anyone want to be that strong anyway?” Instead of breaking them in half I go home and rip a phone book in half to beef up my grip. It’s an odd paradigm to live in. Every time I drive past a big rock I look at it and ask myself if I could pick it up. When I see an all-you-can-eat buffet I look at it as a challenge, not an offering. Pain becomes a friend and pleasure becomes the enemy. I lift heavy things, only in the pursuit of lifting things heavier still.
“Finish!” I hear the shout. Exhausted but determined, I strain. From somewhere deep within I feel the push, my legs straighten all the way. I step forward and instinctively lower the bar. Instantly, the strain is gone, the bar is in the rack, the lift is over, and the music is back on. The shouts of encouragement I could barely hear only a second before have changed into clearly audible congratulations from my training partners. “Great set,” they say, “Isn’t that a new personal best?” The world is no longer white. Everything emerges once more into focus, but slightly obscured by the stars in my eyes. Suddenly, I am surrounded once more by the sights and sounds of the weight room. The rack and that God-awful bar, all seven feet long, forty five pounds, 1 and 3/8” thick, slightly textured come into focus. The six forty-five pound weight plates on each side of the bar appear - the cargo from my journey to that outer realm of ability.
The set is over; I look back into the mirror. The sweat is still there. The veins still slightly protrude, but they will subside eventually. I’ve had my fix. I have satisfied my addiction for the time being, but passing this goal means the bar gets set higher next time. I look into the mirror and then I look at the bar. It strikes me how oddly similar they are in function. With the mirror I look at myself. Under the bar I look within myself.
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