For the last several months my training program revolves around squats. Mostly Shaf's ladders, or sets of four on easy days. On other days training is not structured at all at this stage. Sometimes I will do dips, sometimes chiuns, presses and so on. My main problem is lack of time. Australian health care works on the basis of 10 hour days, and when traveling is included, I spend up to 12 hours or more away from home every working day. At the end there is very little time to take away from my family, as well as not much enthusiasm for training. Hence such an abbreviated program.
What's interesting though,. this lack of time and training volume doesn't seem to be a big problem. I am progressing with my squatting quite well and should reach my goal of 105 kg by the middle of December (hopefully). I am also in fairly decent shape and feel reasonably fit.
When a conversation deviates to fitness, it seems most people believe that in order to stay fit you have to train often and long hours. More is probably better until some point. On the other hand, less is better than nothing, and you don't need twenty exercises to cover all the muscle groups. Sure, doing only squat will lead to some imbalances. On the other hand, not much is required to compensate for the lack of variety, and minimalist program I am doing seems to work quite well.
In hospital tea rooms some of my colleagues react with interest to the adverts of fitness contraptions (they usually promise more training effect than the previous one, usually advertised fifteen minutes ago on the same channel). When I ask then how many pushups they can do, they usually come up with objections that pushups "don't work the traps, the calves..." and so on. The end result of this attitude is that these guys end up doing nothing at all.
Never mind others. I have always been convinced - and my latest training experience confirms it - that squat is the king of exercise. (Deadlift is probably too, but I just prefer the squat). For now, squatting couple of times per week and supplementing it with random stuff has been working well for me.
The state of affairs
I am still not justifying the name of this blog. I am mostly focused on squat, so dabbling in other lifts, such as standing press, dips, chinups etc., is not particularly consistent or goal oriented. I am thinking though of making better effort at them. I also want to add deadlifting to my training. That is when I completely sort out my back.
Which is, I must confess, is not one hundred percent. During the last session I again managed to tweak my SI. Nothing too serious, but uncomfortable. Learning to listen to my body still eludes me. Even though I am very careful and attentive, the damage becomes obvious only after the fact. The same this time: On the second rung of the last ladder I felt sharpish pain in the back, and it was clear that this is it. Never mind, I still finished the last tripple, so not to violate the completeness of the workout. It's not bad now, but not good enough to get under the bar again.
Back pain or not, I am still fopcused on my goal of squatting 1.5 times my bodyweight by the middle of December. The only thing is, I added a few kilos, so the goalpost moved from 105 to 107 kg! Well, I will follow the line similar to "intention to treat" in research and will be happy with the initialy set number.
It feels good to gain strength. I feel solid and mechanically more stable. I easily move patients on the operating table when needed. The knowledge of being able to lift positively affects the mind too.
I gained some size in my thighs, as well as unsightly belly. Nothing too large, but larger than I have ever had. I am not worried about it now, all of it will be dealt with later, when I reach my goal.
Tomorrow morning I am seeing a chiropractor, and goddammit, it is Terra from the Irongarm! The world is very small.
Which is, I must confess, is not one hundred percent. During the last session I again managed to tweak my SI. Nothing too serious, but uncomfortable. Learning to listen to my body still eludes me. Even though I am very careful and attentive, the damage becomes obvious only after the fact. The same this time: On the second rung of the last ladder I felt sharpish pain in the back, and it was clear that this is it. Never mind, I still finished the last tripple, so not to violate the completeness of the workout. It's not bad now, but not good enough to get under the bar again.
Back pain or not, I am still fopcused on my goal of squatting 1.5 times my bodyweight by the middle of December. The only thing is, I added a few kilos, so the goalpost moved from 105 to 107 kg! Well, I will follow the line similar to "intention to treat" in research and will be happy with the initialy set number.
It feels good to gain strength. I feel solid and mechanically more stable. I easily move patients on the operating table when needed. The knowledge of being able to lift positively affects the mind too.
I gained some size in my thighs, as well as unsightly belly. Nothing too large, but larger than I have ever had. I am not worried about it now, all of it will be dealt with later, when I reach my goal.
Tomorrow morning I am seeing a chiropractor, and goddammit, it is Terra from the Irongarm! The world is very small.
Back to training
It took two weeks for the SI to calm down, and now I am back to squatting. I decided to reduce my training volume to save my joints. In the last session I was able to improve: I did three 1/2/3 ladders with 75.5 kg.
Very interesting observation: after two week break squatting was easy. In fact, very easy. I was very cautious about my back, but the actual lift was easy. This brings me back to the question of the frequency of training.
Drastically reducing the volume and the load and even stopping training for up to two weeks befor an event, is a common tapering practice among coaches. You get fresh to the competition and have better chances of making new PR. Would this approach work for training? Will making long breaks between loading a muscle group or going at the same lift ensure full recovery? Will it reduce the chance of trauma? There is a lot of data suggesting that reducing the frequency of loading a particular muscle group may be beneficial.
This topic has been beaten to death at Irongarm, and I have been ridiculed there for these ideas numerous times. Not that I care. The fact is that every industry is ruled by dogma. I can throw numerous examples of this in medicine: saturated fat is bad, hypothyroidism is diagnosed by TSH levels, cricoid pressure prevents aspiration and so on. I suspect the situation in sport is similar. So when Prof Sergeev conducted his experiments (for uninitiated check this blog) and got very good results, his trainees were literally hijacked from him and put into the traditional program of training, even though it was immediately detrimental to the results.
There is more data coming out from sports research suggesting that more is not necessarily better, by a long shot. For example, swimmers do not benefit from increasing the number of training sessions (check http://www.pponline.co.uk/ if you're interested). Glenn Pendlay once recommended reducing training volume and increasing intensity for older trainees: http://www.davedraper.com/fusionbb/showtopic.php?next_end/1/fid/64/tid/24146/
Fuck the opinions and dogmas. I am not training for the next world championship and don't mind experimenting a little. I am going to reduce the session volume significantly and see if it is beneficial. Not more than three ladders with the working weight. Frequency wise - I will try to reduce it too, though this is more difficult: I like the feeling of heavy weights on my back. One solution - to do other lifts on other days, like weighted dips, chins, rows etc. Some bodyweight exercises and yoga wouldn't hurt either. More variety, less wear and tear. Recently I read about Doggcrapp principles and I like it too: short workouts, high intensity, rotating thriough many exercises.
Anyway, follow my training log if you're interested.
Very interesting observation: after two week break squatting was easy. In fact, very easy. I was very cautious about my back, but the actual lift was easy. This brings me back to the question of the frequency of training.
Drastically reducing the volume and the load and even stopping training for up to two weeks befor an event, is a common tapering practice among coaches. You get fresh to the competition and have better chances of making new PR. Would this approach work for training? Will making long breaks between loading a muscle group or going at the same lift ensure full recovery? Will it reduce the chance of trauma? There is a lot of data suggesting that reducing the frequency of loading a particular muscle group may be beneficial.
This topic has been beaten to death at Irongarm, and I have been ridiculed there for these ideas numerous times. Not that I care. The fact is that every industry is ruled by dogma. I can throw numerous examples of this in medicine: saturated fat is bad, hypothyroidism is diagnosed by TSH levels, cricoid pressure prevents aspiration and so on. I suspect the situation in sport is similar. So when Prof Sergeev conducted his experiments (for uninitiated check this blog) and got very good results, his trainees were literally hijacked from him and put into the traditional program of training, even though it was immediately detrimental to the results.
There is more data coming out from sports research suggesting that more is not necessarily better, by a long shot. For example, swimmers do not benefit from increasing the number of training sessions (check http://www.pponline.co.uk/ if you're interested). Glenn Pendlay once recommended reducing training volume and increasing intensity for older trainees: http://www.davedraper.com/fusionbb/showtopic.php?next_end/1/fid/64/tid/24146/
Fuck the opinions and dogmas. I am not training for the next world championship and don't mind experimenting a little. I am going to reduce the session volume significantly and see if it is beneficial. Not more than three ladders with the working weight. Frequency wise - I will try to reduce it too, though this is more difficult: I like the feeling of heavy weights on my back. One solution - to do other lifts on other days, like weighted dips, chins, rows etc. Some bodyweight exercises and yoga wouldn't hurt either. More variety, less wear and tear. Recently I read about Doggcrapp principles and I like it too: short workouts, high intensity, rotating thriough many exercises.
Anyway, follow my training log if you're interested.
Squat takes a knock
Shit, another injury. I had this pain on the right to my lumbar spine for a while now. Wasn't too bad, and I kept training. In the last two-three weks it intensified, to the point that I could hardly walk. The pain also descended and is now pretty much localized around the right sacro-iliac joint. It is worse on standing and walking, better when sitting down.
For the last several days I've been doing exercises from http://thelowback.com/fix.htm. They are very useful, and combined with the abstinence from squatting they seem to help. I am feeling better, though still far from one hundred percent.
For now I am going to concentrate on exercises that don't involve loading of the spine. It sucks, because I really like the feeling of moving heavy weights (well, heavy for me). I am not going to rush my recovery and hope to be able to get back in the cage. I guess for now I can try progress with chinups, dips, ring exercises etc. Shit, I can't even do any cardio: running/walking and kettlebell snatches all hurt! Hell with it, in the meantime I'll try get rid of the fat I picked up in the last couple of months.
For the last several days I've been doing exercises from http://thelowback.com/fix.htm. They are very useful, and combined with the abstinence from squatting they seem to help. I am feeling better, though still far from one hundred percent.
For now I am going to concentrate on exercises that don't involve loading of the spine. It sucks, because I really like the feeling of moving heavy weights (well, heavy for me). I am not going to rush my recovery and hope to be able to get back in the cage. I guess for now I can try progress with chinups, dips, ring exercises etc. Shit, I can't even do any cardio: running/walking and kettlebell snatches all hurt! Hell with it, in the meantime I'll try get rid of the fat I picked up in the last couple of months.
Training update
My squat is progressing, and couple of days ago I reached 70 kg. It's not much, but it is a nice psychological step, my bodyweight. I've been very disciplined in training so far. In retrospect I understand that the main cause of injury is progressing too fast and not backing off. It's good to talk about intuitive training, but not everyone is good at it. In fact, it's probably the minority of very experienced loifters who have good feeling of their bodies. For me,when things go well and I make new PR, the desire is to do better and better. Which I do and... get injured.
I am following ladders described by Shaf. One rep, short rest, two - rest, three - end of set. It manages the fatigue well and does not let the muscles of the lower back to get too tired. The goal is to make every rep crisp.
There are two ways to cycle the load: reduce it or skip the workout. So, training heavy, medium, light three times a week or heavy once a week is similar in a way, except for the weekly volume. I try squat once a week and do other exercises on other days, mostly military barbell press or weighted chinups. The main focus is on squat.
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I am following ladders described by Shaf. One rep, short rest, two - rest, three - end of set. It manages the fatigue well and does not let the muscles of the lower back to get too tired. The goal is to make every rep crisp.
There are two ways to cycle the load: reduce it or skip the workout. So, training heavy, medium, light three times a week or heavy once a week is similar in a way, except for the weekly volume. I try squat once a week and do other exercises on other days, mostly military barbell press or weighted chinups. The main focus is on squat.
I like keeping track of things, so here is the chart of my progress. Left axis - the load, right - volume.
Until nex post.
A break from the blog
I am deviating from GS, so once again the name of my blog is not reflecting what I do. For the next couple of months I am going to log my training at Irongarm:
My IGx training log
My IGx training log
8 June 2011
Recovering from very unpleasant flu, this workout is a light one.
BB squat:
20 kg x 5
30 kg x 5
40 kg x 3
55 kg: 1/2/3 x 3
16 kg KB press ladders:
1/2/3 x 1
Straigh legs situps x 17
Squat ladders feel very nice actually.
BB squat:
20 kg x 5
30 kg x 5
40 kg x 3
55 kg: 1/2/3 x 3
16 kg KB press ladders:
1/2/3 x 1
Straigh legs situps x 17
Squat ladders feel very nice actually.
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