Safe As Milk

(Been a jam-packed couple of weeks, with lots of travel and fun stuff that I’ve been doing instead of posting. And it’s not over, so posts will be a little scattershot through the end of the summer.)

Had a great bench test the other week. I’m slowly getting climbing to my goal of 315. I was able to get 300 for a good rep, but failed 315 twice. Jumping that much was a bit of hubris, I admit, and I am very happy with my 5-pound lifetime PR. It’s also the most I’ve benched in over 2 years, so I’m very-very happy. I didn’t have the foresight to record it, so you’ll just have to take my word for it.

I did record these deadlifts, though. I’m okay with them. The last one is sloppy, but that’s just fine. I need to keep at it. I’m less than 4 weeks out from a contest and my training has been tough to fit in with all of the life.

405, 425, and a red-light 450. Good to be deadlifting again.

A post shared by Michael Flynn (@falfa) on Jul 29, 2018 at 8:25am PDT

Heavy overhead double. I banged up my shoulder a couple of years ago doing some strongman stuff and it’s been a long trip back to healthy. Counter-intuitively, it has been lots of lifting overhead that has “healed” my shoulder trouble. Last year’s Olympic lifting experiment laid in a solid foundation of shoulder strength that has been a huge benefit to my return to powerlifting.
I should say “to my short-lived return to powerlifting“, because I’m going to go to a strongman contest in September. It’s just a local, level 1 contest so the weights aren’t crazy. I’ve also got a lot of family travel coming up between now and then so there are a bunch of training conflicts. Still, I find it easier to train when I have a contest or meet on the calendar. It’s just more fun.

Couple things I recorded here. First are my feet for squat setup. It’s important to keep the number of steps to a minimum when you’ve got big weight on your back, and the only way I will learn to keep it minimal is to repeat the efficient setup even when the weight isn’t that big (like in this video).

The next bit of the recording is an actual squat set. I’m happy again with the efficient foot setup. I’m not as happy with the depth. My, er, significant power belly makes it a little hard to determine full depth from this camera angle. I see some box squats in my future. I also forgot my knee sleeves, like a mook. It’s important to bring all of your equipment when you’re training.

The last segment is some more of that sweet gravity therapy from last week. Once I was upside down and relaxed it took about 5 seconds for my spine to click back into place. It’s a great feeling.

My family and life schedules have kept me from my normal lifting routine but I have added a Sunday morning session to the mix with some success. There are some OG members who have off-hours access and I’ve been coat-tailing with them in a 7:30-9am window. It’s good for me to get up and moving.

I’ve been using Sunday morning to get accessory work done along with a little cardio. “Little Cardio” has meant these moderate weight sled pulls in the video above. It’s not a ton of weight, but the tackiness of the track makes it a little challenging, eventually. As long as I keep the breaks between sets short (and my heart rate up) it’s good exercise.

I do miss Sunday Rides but I just can’t get myself in the mode to fix my bikes and get riding.

I also use the Sunday window for mobility work. I’ve been using the Big Ray Strap and Godzilla Band the last couple of weekends. It provides a little gravity traction and it feels suuuuuper-good. This isn’t me, but this is how I use it:

The Mets are still on the wrong side of .500 but that doesn’t mean there isn’t some joy to be found in baseball.

Want to see a #BigSexy pickoff move?

Of course you do. pic.twitter.com/rjJIj9XYPB

— Texas Rangers (@Rangers) June 19, 2018

EDIT TO ADD:
The internet was quick to remind everyone of this gem from a couple of years ago:

Breaking apart the compound movement can help you focus on an area of weakness. Floor presses with boards help you train all but the bottom of the bench press.

The floor press also limits the range of motion of your arms at the bottom of the lift. I’ve also a 2-layer (two 1×6 pine boards) board stack under my shirt. By making the lift more shallow, you can work on building strength on different parts of the bar path.

285 lbs. is ten more pounds than my current 1-rep max. I’m looking forward to the next test week so I can see how far my bench has come since my move back to powerlifting. It’s the only lift that matters, after all.

More band work this week. Bad camera placement but you can get the gist of what’s happening. Same as with the bench the other week, the assisting bands let you have the full weight out of the rack and at the top of the movement but give you a little help out of the hole at the bottom.

This was the first time in a couple of weeks I was able to squat without pain. It turns out that my form had been off and I was adding load to my knees that shouldn’t have been there. It’s the damnedest thing, the movements don’t hurt when you do them the right way!

Since it didn’t hurt I went a little heavier than I planned. I paid for it this morning. All of my squat muscles are super-sore.

My current one-rep max on the bench is 275lbs. Here I am training with 265 on the bar and 30-35 pounds of assistance from the suspended bands. It is a little tricky to get the bands perfectly balanced, but a 2-pound difference between the sides isn’t a dealbreaker.

This exercise with the reverse bands and a paused first rep (“reverse” because I’m using the bands to assist the lift rather than add resistance to the lift) train a couple of things:
1. speed – with the bands helping you lift from the bottom you can experience moving heavy-ish weight quickly
2. explosive movement from the bottom – it’s different from speed, the pause forces you to “explode” into the up-motion instead of using momentum from a bounce off of your chest
3. heavy weight in your hands at the start – a common mental block I run into when I’m benching is just how heavy a 100% or 105% lift feels at the start. The bands allow you to feel the full weight at the top but then assist the movement through the range of motion. It’s a trick you’re pulling on your brain (which I continue to fall for) and a confidence builder.

As always, 10,000 thank-yous to everyone at The Weight Room for all of the coaching, programming, and support.