Spotting and singles

Great post on The Tight Tan Slacks of Dezso Ban from an original article from Bill Starr on spotting and singles.

Spring update

Have been feeling much more energetic over the last month or so. Training has been more consistent and I am enjoying the powerlifting focus.

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Powerlifting beckons...

I'm going to start gearing my training toward strength gains.

This is because I'm going to enter a Virtual Meet competition at some point this year. Not sure when yet, depends on how the training goes.

First ever session of multiple singles tonight (deadlift)...

Just realised that this kind of negates much of my first post of 2009... never mind... let's see if I can stick to it.

Box squats on the horizon...

Due to a combination of gym closure and the tiredness of returning to work after Christmas, I have still not begun training for 2009. Not good...

The good news, however, is that I have decided to try box squats. Today I purchased 3.6m (nearly 12 feet) of 2x4 wood and a bag of nails. I intend to construct my own box.

Watch this space...

2009

After suffering with a virus for most of November and December, I have been resting for the last couple of weeks, and am planning my return to the weights for Saturday 3 January with a series of break-in workouts.

I am going to continue with my classic full-body workout, every four days, but with the addition of a set of pull-ups.

I am also going to persevere with the double progression method, whereby weight is only increased once a set rep range is satisfactorily completed. For instance, if an exercise calls for 50kg to be used across a range of 5 to 10 reps, the first workout will be 50 x 5, increasing by a rep each time until 50 x 10 is achieved. The next workout will then be 52.5 x 5.

Two training goals for 2009:

1. Consistently maintain an element of cardiovascular exercise in my routine to improve conditioning and fitness, control fat buildup and assist general recovery. Run every four days.
2. Continue to prioritise the overhead press as the main upper body exercise in my routine.

Night time, garden, workout

Could not face going to the gym tonight, so went into my wet, grassy garden and did continuous deadlifts, power cleans, shrugs, rows and a few other exercises until I could not move.

Training rejig

Have rearranged my training a bit. After trying to repeat the same cycle as detailed below, but not really making good gains (mainly down to poor diet and stress), I decided to change things up.

Three main changes. For a start I am going to give 20 rep squats a rest. Secondly, I am going to prioritse gains in the regular deadlift for this cycle. Thirdly, I am going to prioritise the overhead press over the bench press.

Stuart McRobert writes that your overhead press should be around 66 per cent of your bench (for the same cadence and rep range). With that in mind, my overhead press is currently around 59 per cent of my bench. I'm hoping that this will impact my bench positively.

Further changes: I am going to use the EZ bar for bentover rows, instead of a straight bar, and not use a fixed rep target each time but a range. Some refer to this as double progression. I am introducing this to add a further level of conservatism to my training, hopefully aiding regular incremental gains.

I did the first workout yesterday and it went well. I was particularly pleased with how much better the EZ bar seemed for bentover rows. I got a much better grip on the bar and a fuller range of motion at the top of the movement.

In other news, I have begun using chalk and am already pleased with its advantages.