Here’s a question from the other day by domjo54:
I feel like this is a dumb question, but going back to Justin’s other post about good vs bad barbells, why are wrist injuries common on the olympic lifts when using shit BBs?
domjo54 is referencing the post I did about York Barbell products, and I commented how I power cleaned with a shitty bar at a fitness facility and “almost broke my wrists”. Bars are like beer: you can have some bars that are elegant and satisfying while using others is analogous to drinking fermented deer piss. Cheaper bars are made from a shittier cut of steel, and that’s why you’ll usually find thicker bars in a fitness facility. If the crappy piece of steel is going to have similar tensile and yield strengths to a good piece of steel, it will have to be thicker to account for its inherent weakness. Thus, bars in fitness facilities are thicker bars at 30mm and sometimes up to 32mm. It’s like Burt Reynolds wearing a giant cowboy hat: ridiculous.
Bars are also put together differently. Better bars have some spin so that the rotation of the plates doesn’t torque the shaft on your back or in your hands (even powerlifting bars spin for this purpose). When an experienced lifter talks about training with good or bad bars, they are usually referring to the steel’s properties and the spin. The bar I was using to power clean with was a bit thick (probably 30mm) and it barely spun. When my wrists would turn over during as I power cleaned, there was resistance to the natural wrist flexion and then extension. The resistance irritated the ligaments on the back of the wrist. The pain didn’t limit me, but it was just irritating because I can’t use my good bar that is sitting in the garage.
There can be other wrist injuries associated with Olympic lifting, but they are often the lifter or coach’s fault (racking a clean or snatch, jerk position, rack position in the jerk, etc.) and aren’t caused by how shitty the bar is. I had pain just from doing some easy power cleans, so I decided not to even attempt snatching since the snatch has a much faster turnover at the wrists with a greater distance traveled. There is more potential for stress on the wrists during a snatch even though less weight is used. Wrist irritation or injuries during the turnover phase of a snatch or a clean can occur from a bar that doesn’t spin well, and this is why Olympic lifters are particular about the quality of their bar.
—–
Edit:Kendrick Farris (85kg) will be competing tomorrow. Good luck, Kendrick.
The 2010 Olympic weightlifting World Championships are pumping out videos. I am very impressed with this video of Liao Hui (69kg) who attempted a world record in the snatch (missed it), and had a world record in the clean and jerk and the total.
Snatch 154, 160, 166x WR attempt
CJ 184, 198 WR, –
Total 358kg WR
PR Friday
Every Friday we post our personal records in lifting, eating, busting through clothes, or my speedo pictures. This is done so we can show support for one another, but I like it because it keeps me updated on the regular posters of the site. If you haven’t had any PR’s of late, then you can just give an update of your training. I like that.
I’ll start the PR chat.
I couldn’t train for about a month because of the August traveling. This past week I have been training for 2.5 weeks consistently and I squatted 450×2, benched 300×2, and pressed 210×2. I also did some power cleans at 300 after the squats, and the were ezpz.
None of these things are PR’s, but having half a month of sporadic training and then pretty much a month of no training whatsoever, it’s good to start lifting significant weight again.
I mentioned Liao hui’s lifts the other day – bloody impressive! You forgot to note the backflip after the wr, though…
Isn’t some of the issue with bar spin to do with the quality of bearings?
Sure. Shitty bar = shitty spin.
–Justin
Getting ready to sign up for my first meet in late November. I’m hoping to get 405 in the squat by then. I’m currently doing 345 for 5 reps on intensity day. Think I can get that 405 by then? I know I can.
Girlfriend pr she came over to help spot me in the bench. I figure the more exposure to the weight room the better. It made me happy, I didn’t even ask her either : ).
All in all, training hard for that meet. Good times.
Still no significant squat or DL pr’s, benched 240 for 3 sets of 5.
Hey Justin, thought I’d bring this to your attention.
http://www.ironmind.com/ironmind/opencms/Articles/2010/Sep/Mikhail_Koklyaev_Returning_to_Weightlifting.html
2012 olympics are going to have some fireworks for the super heavies. Returning guys like Steiner and Chigishev, new talent like Mendes, and now Koklyaev has stated he is returning 100% to oly weightlifting after just finishing 3rd at worlds strongest man.
Koklyaev is a G irregardless of sport.
–Justin
Nothing to get excited about here. Been a very disappointing period recently. Can’t remember the last time I got to lift, unfortunately I had let my aerobic fitness go too much and have been trying to play catch up for my army bfa (the Australian version of the US pft). Until I’ve passed that again, things are pretty depressing :(
On the plus side, however, my toro power belt is only days away and I’ve also ordered “never let go” by Dan John. And if all the planets are in alignment, I might also be able to finally afford that power rack…
Well done to all the pr’s this week, keep up the good work everybody!
I tried to google it, but what’s the BFA consist of?
–Justin
Last Intensity Day
Squat: 375(10 lb PR)
Bench: 205( 10 lb PR)
Deadlift 455(10 lb PR!!!)
Belt Pr: finally got myself into the fourth notch on my ElitFTS belt, after only three or so weeks.
Jerk PR: 195(20 lb PR, with plenty more strength, just shitty, shitty technique, haven’t jerked since April)
Crossfit PR: Took a deload week and screwed around with a few conditioning workouts. PR’d Grace by 24 seconds, despite not doing a single bit of “conditioning” exercise in several months.
Injury PR: Using Starr Protocol on strained Abs, back to virtually no ab pain, ready for heavy squats again.
@Ectropy- Man, with that kind of crowd, 2012 should be a total blast!
Deload week for me so no barbell PR’s. I did some box jumps though. 5 sets of 5 with a 25 inch box with 120 pounds added to my body weight of 230. I wore a 50 pound vest and held a 35 pound kettlebell in each hand.
Age PR: turned 20 today. I feel old.
Deadlift PR: 230kg/507lbs on Wednesday.
Food PR: Made a 3.5lb brisket and got several comments on how good it smelled.
I’ve been following 5/3/1 for the past few months, but I’ve decided to push myself harder these past couple weeks with singles, doubles, and triples for volume.
Overhead press 10 X3 185
Bench 10X3 265
Squat 1 X 20 at 225 just to see if I could do it. It wasn’t too bad, and considering I could barely squat this for 5 at this time last year, I’m pretty happy.
Doing the work, getting stronger every day. I’ve been having some sharp pains in my rotator cuff lately, so I might take some time off benching.
PRs:
Deadlift: 300 lbs x 5
–this is a huge milestone and it was my 2010 goal. You know what that means?! New goal: Deadlift 325 by the end of the year. Assuming I don’t miss many workouts, I should be able to hit it in November.
Other: I ordered Creatine and it came in the mail this week. After reading the section in Practical Programming about how it’s probably the only supplament that really works, but the only way to know is to try, I’ve decided to try. Tomorrow is my final “loading” day of taking 4x the daily dose. I’ll report here if I notice any difference. At $22 with shipping for two pounds (180 days worth), I figure it’s definitely work a try.
I’ve come down with a very annoying and draining cold the past four days and it’s prevented me from training, as I’ve decided it’s better to get extra sleep and get over the illness quicker.
I’m feeling a bit better today, so I hope to get to the gym on Saturday. I generally don’t like skipping training if I get a little sick, but this is the kind of illness where you just feel really tired and sort of delusional, so I figured it’s best to just go to bed very early every night and wait it out. Assuming I can lift on Saturday, afterwards I’m planning to make a 70s Big Meal cooking video. I’ll post a youtube link on here if I do.
2 huge pr’s for me
snatched 185
c+j 255
another small PR, high bar squat 345 for a double without belt.
Are you gonna do a meet? I’ve started high bar squatting ATG on my light days to facilitate catching the Oly lifts. Brent is doing something similar.
–Justin
2009’s training culminated in January at the Crossfit sectionals at Crossfit King of Prussia. Top 20 qualify, at 185#, I placed 25th, eff me. My problem was my lack of strength. Thats right about the time I found this site and decreased my weekly met-cons from 8-9 to 2-3 and increased my weekly powerlifting days from 0 to 2.
Current weight: 215#
Deadlift PR: 450# 1×5
Squat PR: 320# 3×5
(pause) Bench PR: 250 1×3
I am competing in the USAPL Maryland States on November 20th, I can’t freaking wait! Anyone else going to be there???
I’m currently on deload week before my big PL meet October 3rd.
In practice, with very little to no psych-up, my last two workouts included:
SQ 330#x2
DL 360#x1x5sets
These are weights that were my comp maxes a year ago (and I nearly always lift more in meets by 5-10%), so I’m looking forward to the meet…if all goes as planned, I’m looking at an 85# total PR for 6 months of training.
Knee is feeling somewhat better, was able to squat 225x3x3 last night with minimal/bearable pain.
Shrugged 2x bodyweight (PR, 360lbs) for a clean set of 8 last night, and have been trolling the wife for the past 2 weeks or so about the swoll-ness of my traps (coming at you, Brent).
Missed 80kg 6 times on saturday trying for a snatch PR. almost had it, maybe this week.
been messing around with paleo this week, and although I’m eating a lot more meat, I have lost a few lbs which makes me disappointed. Now that my knee is feeling better I’m thinking this week is gonna be a lot better, kind of funny how depressed not being able to train properly makes you.
If you’re going to a more Paleo approach and you’re training pretty hard, you’re still gonna have to get in a lot of calories. Straight up paleo isn’t gonna be optimal for a serious lifter. That’s not to say you can’t eat healthier paleo-style and add in some stuff…
–Justin
I don’t have any lifting PRs but I do have a “got rid of my globo-gym membership” PR. I bought a used squat rack/bench setup this week for home. Right now I only have the 1″ Standard barbell, but I plan to save up to get my oly set in the new year. I can still use the rack and bench with the oly set. Plan to complete my set up this weekend by making a pull-up bar and dip station, and some safety bars for squatting.
Challenged my friend (who lives on the other side of the country) to a race to 300lbx5x3 squat and 400lb deadlift. I may not win the squat challenge but my current max DL is at 370 so I think I will take that one.
Wife just got back from out of town so I’m going to see if she will start lifting with me. Bring on the turd hurricane….probably going to put “Igor” to shame!
Hitting the sweet spot in the linear progression where almost everything is a pr, and the weights are still going up.
Back Squat 200x5x3
Press 110x5x3
Deadlift 250×5
Food PR: Had my first KFC Double Down. Bliss.
Only one PR this week, on weighted chins (25x2x5), as I shifted around my training to include a lot more conditioning work. My strength gains have slowed a bit (for upper body, at least; lower body still seems to have some gains coming), but that’s OK. My plan is to get into BJJ (recreational) in the new year. I’ve done Krav Maga up til now, so this will be an interesting switch.
Why are you waiting to do BJJ next year if you’re altering your training now?
–Justin
Hang clean 315# x 1
first time I have ever clean 300+ #.
BW 215
Had a great week.
DeadLift 300x5x3 woot! Been working towards that goal last 2 months. If felt good and I’m thinking 310-315 is doable.
Bench Press 185x5x3. First full 5×3 done. Been stuck for a month. I think 190 is doable.
What have you done to get “un-stuck”?
–Justin
Finally stopped dicking around with my workouts
Squat: 315 3 x 2
Power Clean: 210 5 x 1
Side note, a new burger place opened in Northern CA. 5 Guys Burgers and Fries…Pretty good, a “regular burger” is a double. They’re doing it right
Awesome video.
Just tipped the scaled at 210 this morning.
Also, just signed up for my first olympic lifting meet.
Not much training this week. Hit 65kg for a single in the standing press, which is a bit disappointing. Every other lift is up a good amount but my press is going nowhere. I think I need more upper body volume to make it move.
PR in finishing my dissertation. I still have some editing to do but every chapter is written. I’ll submit sometime next week then I can get back to the iron.
I bet getting that dissertation is will be a huge relief. Nice job.
–Justin
Female, 29:
Squat: 200 X 2
BB row: 80 X 8 X 3
This weekend is my final scottish games for the season.
Jobs are good. How has the Scottish games season gone?
–Justin
And I hit a job PR: a permanent job offer
No PR’s for me, but glad to see a bunch of you other regulars (and there seem to be a ton of regulars!) killing it. Especially the ladies, and Brisket with the 507 pull.
Injury PR: my left rhomboid is still completely trashed. Trying to get insurance so I can get in and get it taken care of. At this point, it bruises up anytime I do *anything* heavy. Anyone had a similar injury fixed without surgery?
Food PR: Cooking up a little something to submit pics/recipe next week. This one’s for you non-cooking kiddos, and will be a little more simple than the chili.
Anger PR: When I realized insurance rates are heavily affected by BMI, I about threw my laptop through my big screen. $50/mo more because I’m awesome? Balls.
@Gregor
check craigslist religiously. I got an oly set with around 300lbs for $100.
Deadlift PR: 425×1
Rack Pull PR: 605×1
This weekend, I not leaving the gym until I front squat 335.
Nice fucking rack pull. Where was the bar at the starting point?
–Justin
Female: 31
Life is good. I got my lifting shoes in the mail this week and my husband welded me a sweet rack for our garage gym so I’m starting Starting Strength on Monday. I’m hoping to have some new PR’s in the near future. Current 1 RM’s are as follows:
Squat: 173
Press: 85
DL: 265
Bench: 103
Thanks to everyone who contributes to this site for the encouragement and entertainment. Love it!
Nice lifting so far. I bet your press will move on up with your bench.
–Justin
@PM–You’re right, 5 Guys is almost as good as In n Out. I used to eat there a lot when I lived on the east coast so I was glad to see one near LA a few months back.
On the video check 3:08 and 7:45–there’s no way Liao isn’t hooking right before he pulls right?
BW PR: Up to 192 in the AM. GOMAD is amazing. I think the real trick is going to be maintaining once I get over 200 lbs, we’ll see.
Squat – 255x5x3, only 20 more pounds until my short-term goal of squating my old 1RM, 275, for 3 sets of 5! They’re getting tough now, but I can get there.
Food PR – got a 12er of Dos Equis Amber in the car and 4 lbs of meat in the fridge at home. Football and Jacob’s Chili await me on Sunday! Can’t wait
Good football this weekend.
You’ll be able to maintain your weight. If you shift into improving your diet down the road, getting 100 grams of whey protein a day will help.
–Justin
2 Pr’s
6 whiskey’s consumed
squat 3×3 @ 330lbs
6 whiskey’s consumed, that’s a 2010 record. My old self might of drank that in one hour. WOO WOO
long time lurker, first time poster…
m 6’1 103kg BW 38yrs.
dl pr at 1x370lbs
squat pr at 300lbs
no great shakes on either of those, but I am contend. Plus 67 lbs on the squat and plus 86lbs in the deadlift in about 10 months. I need to sleep and squat more.
thanks for the site, love it… although I get bewildered looks when I wear your tshirt…
Peter from Austria
Thanks for checking in and nice gains.
–Justin
Male, 27 5’10”:
BW: 228
Squat: 430×1
Bench: 285X2
Just watched the video – awesome. I also noticed that the close-ups showed a non-hook grip. He only pulled his knee sleeves up on the third snatch attempt, and then added a shirt and belt for his C&J. His cleans looked remarkably easy. His first jerk, he recovered with his forward foot first – on his second (WR) jerk, he recovered with his rear foot first. Dude is strong.
@kpow1979: That’s fricken awesome!
Since I’m not on the finishing stretch for the Twin cities open WL meet anymore, I’ve started attending my college’s gymnastics club twice a week.
My friend (who does pommel) and I (who does rings) outweigh the average male there by at least 50lbs. I’ll make sure to send in a video if I get a 200lb BW iron cross!
PRs
Shrugs 545×5!
(first time doing them, I was sore for 6 days afterwards)
Deadlift 385×3
Press 180×2 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QmAaK_NurNk)
Dips +115×3
Pullup +90×6
My squat for a set of 5 is moving up and only 15lbs away from my best 5. Bench always gets neglected as I train for WL meets so my 5RM has 20-25lb’s until it’s back to old PRs (265).
Education PR: completed Masters Degree.
This was followed in short order by a drunkeness PR, then a hangover PR.
Haha. What was the degree in? Congrats.
–Justin
No PRs: Squat has been reset due to a form issue and training has been scattered b/c of work.
JMOvechkin – a bunch of people from my gym and I will all be attending USAPL Maryland States. I’m also pretty excited since it will be my first powerlifting meet!
Sounds like a solid party. It’d be cool if some of us (my friends and I) could make it to a lifting meet where a bunch of you (the readers) are at too.
–Justin
Some good stuff this past week:
Me @ ~210lbs
Deadlift – 578lbs (post-injury PR)
Squat – 370×8 (all-time PR, belt only)
Wife @ 135lbs (all belt only)
Deadlift – 369lbs (+6)
Squat – 205×7 (same reps as a month ago with 5 more lbs)
Female 35, 200 lbs
Deadlift PR 345
Stepping out of the comfort zone PR…I’m doing my first meet Oct 16.
Paleo PR
I have consistently eaten paleo for the past month. Calories are not really that difficult if you are willing to eat mass amounts of eggs, meat, fat from olive/coconut oil, and shredded coconut. Carbs are easy too; you can get them from any peeled potato, or waximaize(not paleo but still free of gut irritants).
My daily calories have been around 4-4.5k. I was injured in mid july and couldn’t train for about 6 weeks. I have been using CFFB to get back to my old numbers while increasing my conditioning level and so far my increases are going very well. I should be back to my old numbers in about 2 weeks with the benefit of not being a fat tub of goo.
Oddly the lay off had no affect on my PC or Bench; those numbers are higher than my previous PRs. My deadlift was affected the most while my squat is within 10kg and my press is within 6kg.
Cheers, it was International Security and Terrorism. It’s mostly politics, in practice.
PR’s
squat 320 5×5
I changed to TM and deloaded in my lifts so working back up. I’ll soon have to change my focus from TM and SS because of college baseball to our team workouts, and just maintain as much strength as possible. will get back on TM after the team workouts are done, and then back to SS when i have access to a squat rack 3 times a week again cuz I’m not finished with linear progression just dont have optimal training conditions for SS right now(School weight room is sub-par atm). Once i get on SS and exhaust that, I am gonna have a go at 20 rep squat program. That’s the way my training has been and will be going.
180 bw
410 Squat single
420 DL Triple
Think my Bench is fucked.
Long time lurk, first time post.
Had a big week of PR’s:
171 lbs BW (~78 kg)
Snatch 275 lbs (125 kg)
CJ 341 lbs (155 kg)
Back Squat 396×5 (180 kg)
Deadlift 440×5 (200 kg)
I do Kyle Pierce’s periodization program. It has worked very well for me. Looking forward to the American Open in December.
280x5x3 squats
285x5x3 deads
Can someone tell me how to get rid of this horrible pain in my arm from squatting?!
Set some lifting while hungover PRs this week, managed to not puke in the gym, thankfully.
Push Press 155/3
DL 355
Justin. i dont feel im quite ready for a meet yet. I would love to c+j 275-300 and snatch 225 before i even think of competing.
How do you like the high-bar squat compared to the low bar? big difference in ROM. hows the weight carryover compared to your low-bar?
Five Guys is by far the best option for burgers by my place here in Houston. I had 5 patty Burger last weekend actually.
Made Gants CFS on Wednesday, it was good but I didnt season it enough, dang gotta do it again!
BW PR up to 192 the other morning
DL 1×5 @ 190kg felt ok but I need a belt…
Dips 1×5 @ +115lbs shoulders are really sore
Shrug 11, 15, +10?? @ 200kg
Press failed on tuesday at 75kg which sucks
Bench failed last week at 260 also sucks
Starting to plan for my next move as far as plans go and am considering Texas Method or 5/3/1, so if you have some advice i’d like to hear it.
Pretty slow week altogether, looking forward to next week.
@ Justin-
I am pretty happy with the season. Its my second year so I had lots of PRs this season. I am currently ranked in the top 36% of North American female throwers for 2010.
BAM! BW 200! 17,5lb in 2 weeks!
Since last friday, 3×5
Squat 264,5 -> 286,5
Bench 187,5 -> 193
Deadlift 286,5 -> 308,5
It’s awesome to look back in my training notes, and read that my 3th set of 220, 2 weeks ago, was “pretty damn hard” and today i used it as a warmup set before lifting 3×5 of 286 (which i also noted HARD!) Super greatful that I found the SS program, after messing around “working out” for some years, with a “muscle and fitness” type of body goal, i was getting tired of no progress, even though i was “working out” Every single day. I had a low self-esteem, thinking that my body was not build for training. Now I still look the same way that I always has, but since i am 17,5 lb heavy, its a awesome feeling!
Thanks!