PR Friday – 3 Oct 2014

PR Friday — Post your training updates, PR’s, and questions to the comments for the 70′s Big crew

Weekly Q&A gives you a chance to ask anyone from the 70′s Big Crew a question in the comments below, on Facebook, or Twitter. Follow 70’s Big on Instagram

Recap: I posted a 3x/week Olympic weightlifting and strength training template to answer a question from Twitter. Otherwise, it’s kind of a slow week; things will rev back up late next week.

This video is pretty entertaining:

What’s the best training environment you’ve ever been in?

33 thoughts on “PR Friday – 3 Oct 2014

  1. Thanks for the site and resources; I’ve learnt a lot so far (Also thanks for the fiction recommends too).

    I’m a 20 year old trainee in need of a strength LP with conditioning. I’ve just started the 70s Big S%C program.

    1) Is there anything you would do differently about the S&C program now, considering it was written a while back?

    2) And more specifically, I read in some comments a few weeks back that you like high bar squatters to do RDLS for hamstring development; do you think I should trade power cleans for the RDLS, add them in on top of power cleans, or not add them in the program at all?

    And bonus question: What do you think of Ido Portal’s stuff?

    • I would also love to see a follow-up post on that program as well. I’m on my ninth week and would highly recommend it to most trainees who haven’t exhausted a linear progression.

      Personally, I’ve just been adding in RDL’s directly after Power Cleans on Tuesdays. At first I tried adding them to Monday (in order to get them as far removed from interfering with deadlifting as possible), but found that Monday’s workouts ended up being way too long.

      Would love to hear Justin’s input though.

  2. BURIFUL! when Justin lifts the gym stops.

    No PR – changing to 3 day modified Johnny Candito lp strength/hypertrophy.

    Question – What kind of under do you guys wear? I have big thighs and boxer-briefs keep rolling up my leg when walking.

    • Day to day I wear boxers. Can’t wear Fruit of the Loom anymore because my thighs are too big. Found some that are big enough.
      With short shorts I either wear cotton briefs (not the white ones) or Calvin Klein’s, neither of which extend down my leg. Yes, the high cut is weird at first. Yes it gets to be normal. Yes the ladies absolutely love them. Serious.

      • I own some of those 6″ and maybe you’ll find they are more suitable for you than I’ve experienced. They used to be just fine. But now that my quads, hams and ass have grown enough to blow out 3 pairs of bluejeans, a pair of shorts, completely surpassed even trying to squeeze into Fruit of the Loom, and produce a rather attractive skin tight effect in the surviving wardrobe… The 6″, or anything other than zero (whitey tighties but not the white ones), now rides up my upside down pyramid thighs.

  3. Squattings: 315 x 5 & 325 x 1, 1
    Absolutely berry’d/crushed the singles, so that’s promising. A couple of the reps at 315 were iffy, but I must needs get a belt and reassess my life.

    Best training environment was an S&C place in Tucson that was somewhat similar to the place in the video, except smaller and more beat up.

    Has anyone actually had success strengthening their grip (to the point where it was no longer limiting their DL) with direct/accessory work?

    • Yep. Well no. I have no grip issues with these blessed meat hooks. But my training buddy (5’5″ @ 175) has carnie hands and used to not be able to DL 400 without straps. Now he can pull over 500 by just using an alternate grip.
      How you say? Well, here’s how: Fat Grips. He bought a pair of the blue ones and used them on damn near every auxiliary exercise (curls, rows, pulls/chins, dips, tri extensions). At first you’ll have to use less weight. He would also sit in a chair 1-2x a week and hold plates on edge until he dropped them. I think he started by sandwiching two 10’s, then moved to 25’s. Then moved to using Fat Grips on progressively heavier db’s. He would perform 3 sets of these 1-2x per week with a weight heavy enough to achieve about a 30 second hold.
      On DL’s he would use double overhand for all warm ups until he couldn’t anymore. On his last working rep of the training session he would hold the bar at his waist for as long as he could. In about 2-3 months he was man handling over 500 bare handed.

      • I ran into the same issue with grip limiting my DL. I did farmer’s walks once a week for about 6 weeks and recently have been doing kettle bells. I didn’t think it was doing any good until a couple of weeks ago when I noticed my grip on my left hand wasn’t beginning to fail anymore.

  4. QUESTION:

    Doing basic Texas Method template with working weights of:
    Squat 435x3x2
    Bench 260×5
    DL 515×2

    On my light day I consistently do press 3×5. Bench is my intensity focus. Press 3×5 is getting hard hard and has repeatedly stalled and I’m struggling at 155x5x3. How do I progress it? Begin using triples? Basically just run it out, then cycle it after that, just as if it were an intensity-day lift?

  5. No PR’s this week. I’m more interested in knowing what people favorite WL shoes are? I like the look of the Rogue DO-wins, but I’m considering the Nike Romaleos 2 since they’re on sale.

    Anyone can give me any pointers? I never know what to make of reviews on the net, and would consider some advice from a community I trust.

    • The Adidas adipower are the best, hands down. awesome support as well as comfort. take care of them and they will last a lifetime. The Nikes have a little bit higher heel than the other brands which tends to throw people a little off balance. The reeboks are useless.

  6. Still making good progress with Madcow. Only PR is BB Row 185#x3
    Press is at 110#x3 and easy. Never done press before,so I guess this could be a PR.

  7. Do any of you guys mess with Chicken Shakes at all? Or just shakes of any kind? I have been looking into them. I know Chris Riley uses them. Any information or recipes would be great so it doesn’t taste completely vile.

    • Yeah man…all the time! Actually, I can think of a few ways to get my protein that would require way less work and be much more satisfying, but to each his own.

  8. Nothing too crazy, but I added #5 to my squat today:

    LBS: 375 (3×5) Previously, I only did this for 5.

    Glad to see everyone is making progress; definitely inspires me to keep heading out to the garage for things other than snacks.

  9. Had several PRs this week, despite traveling to Colorado from Nashville via airplane for 4 days.

    6′ 200 pounds BW
    Overhead Press: 135×5 (belt less)
    Bench: 220×10
    High Bar Squat: 265×8
    Front Squat: 190×8

  10. I came across this site last week right at the perfect time. From 2004-2007 I competed in strongman and powerlifting, and devoted a full year to Olympic lifting, but thanks to an Iraq deployment and later a demanding work schedule, for almost 5 years I stopped virtually all kind of strength training other than the occasional kettlebell workout.

    I managed to find a gym I can now hit up whenever I need to and as of this week am back at it. I’m now 5’8″ and 188 pounds, I was strong for my size but now I want to be 70s Big and am using the WL Transition Program from here. So far my new maxes (calculated from either singles or 5RM, all in pounds): Snatch 95, C&J 150, Squat 255, Press 100, Row 160, FSQ 155, Bench 155, RDL 225.

    Thanks for coming along at the exact time I needed this.

  11. I’m two weeks out from a competition so this was my last TM taper week of a full volume intensity.

    Squat Volume – 365 5×5
    Bench Volume 285 5×5

    Squat Intensity 435 5×1
    Bench Intensity 315 4×1, 325×1

    Deadlift – sadly, I have some semi-serious disc pain, I did 425 for 1, but couldn’t pull 475 thru pain.

    325×1 is my only true PR for the whole workout.

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