Q&A – 34

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Sæl!

Jesus, what a busy week on the site, eh? For all of you new readers, welcome. You probably came here because you thought there were gonna be hot babes or you wanted to argue with me. That’s fine. This website will entertain you (albeit poorly), but it’ll also aim to educate. Regardless of your training goals, there are gems you can glean for your mechanics, mobility, programming, nutrition, health, sleep, strength training, conditioning, powerlifting, Olympic weightlifting, and more. It won’t all come at once, because that’d be an information grenade that would make your head explode (and not necessarily the head on your shoulders).

Doug Young is one of Chris’ dads

PR Friday

Every Friday we post about our training personal records (PRs) in the comments. If PRs weren’t achieved, then readers can at least update everyone on their training. Posting regularly means that other people remember you and enjoy hearing about you; it helps them stay motivated as well. Join the fun.

Weekly Challenge

This is where I pose a challenge for readers to complete. Last week I actually forgot to write something and included a .gif that basically said, “Don’t suck.” Woops.

Next Week’s Challenge:  Perform these foot drills every day in the next week. It should help those of you with lower extremity issues, but let’s see if it does anything else. You can do it prior to lifting and running.

Week In Review

Oh boy. The week started quietly with a post about the New England Women of Strength. Then things got interesting on the subject of treating very simple neural issues. Then things got kinda rowdy. Mark Sisson linked to the site; he runs Mark’s Daily Apple, an enjoyable website about health, nutrition, and primal living (Mark: Do you ever read fiction? My gods, man!). However, in conjunction with that I wrote a post about not needing sexy programming or equipment in training, but at the same time making a point about superficial websites that focus on selling “sexy” things, like pictures, slogans, memes, or catchy phrases instead of content with substance. The following day I pissed off a bunch of runners because I’m not impressed with completing a marathon. I’ll be honest, I only read the first half of the 80 or so comments. I get bored of the same, “Well, why don’t YOU do a marathon, tough guy,” comments over and over, which only prove my original point. I don’t enjoy people who get offended easily.

Q&A

This is the one day of the week where I pick a few questions from the Facebook Fan Page, Twitter, comments, or other messages and answer them. It keeps me on my toes, and I don’t know the answer I have a lot of friends who are smarter than me that I can ask.

Justin,

[spoiler]

More of a lurker, but I’ve been following 70sbig since the beginning.  After reading your marathon post today, I felt compelled to tell you how utterly awesome that was.  Please write a history book describing significant battles and “athletic events worth emulating” in the same way as you have done today.
I recently bought the TM Part 1 e-book and have been debating whether or not to buy Part 2.  Heading over to the 70sbig store after I send this to you to pick it up.  The quality of information you put out is some of the best in the fitness community and it dawns on me that I need to do my part to support you in this so you can continue to do it for a long time.
Enough ass-kissing, just wanted to say thanks.

[/spoiler]

While I’m at it, I’ll throw out a question.  I’m a pretty tall dude at 6’5 with a very short torso relative to my long femurs.  Current bodyweight around 215.  Current 5RM low bar squat around 315.  All time best is 360×5 at 240 lbs bodyweight.  However I can deadlift mid 400’s for a set of 5 (all time best 500×5 at 240 lbs).  Squatting is just a very difficult movement, and anything above 225 feels slow as shit; while deadlifting feels completely natural.  Is there a certain type (low, high, front, etc.) of squat a guy in my situation should focus on?  Goals are general athleticism for basketball, jackedness, but would also like to hit a 400 lb squat in a powerlifting meet.
I recently dropped some excess bodyfat, so I’m back on an LP for a few weeks and then will transition to TM.  I’ve read your posts about low bar vs. high bar squatting and you’ve addressed this in your Q&A before, but was just wondering if there were any special considerations/recommendations for a tall guy with long legs?  Just continue driving up my low bar squat 2x/week?
Thanks man,
Tim

Dear Tim,

As you know, I’ve talked at length on high bar and low bar squatting. To simplify:

Powerlifting: low bar
Weightlifting: high bar
GPP/S&C: Kinda doesn’t matter, but whichever suits goals best

Guys with your body type — long femurs and a short torso — have difficulty with the vertical style squats (high bar and front) because of the angles and lever arms. That means that you’ll have to lean over a bit more because your torso is shorter. If you have good mobility and “not as extreme” segment lengths, this may not be as much of an issue.

The reason your deadlift is so much better is because you probably have longer arms (judging by the long femurs), and this helps tremendously with the deadlift. Since your back is short, it may not round as much relative to a guy with a longer torso, and it results in a lever system that is more efficient than normal (or at least more efficient when compared to your back squat).

Without seeing your technique (which could limit you), you just need to keep plugging away at the low bar squat. Part of your issue will be filling out the musculature on the front and back of your legs, and proper squatting, deadlifting, RDLs, or other posterior chain work will do that for your hamstrings. It may be necessary to work on your anterior chain a bit in the form of front squats, but if you’re still sloppy in the movement don’t worry about this for a while. The vertical alignment will train a different motor pathway and it’s some times hard for people to go back and forth between vertical squatting and low bar squatting. This would be something I could determine if I was coaching you, or even had some video.

Continue squatting twice a week with the low bar. Your segment lengths will work best with that style for now, and you stated a powerlifting goal so it reinforces my support for the low bar. The front or high bar squat may augment your low bar (by improving the strength and musculature of your quads), but it may be a bit soon to use that. Be consistent, make sure your technique is solid, and train hard.

Paul posted this link and said, “Look where weightlifting was placed. Discuss.

Dear Paul and whoever wants to discuss,

The guy writing the article is just some editorial doofus with arguably no athletic experience. And the piece included several poor attempts at humor. Let’s ignore all that.

To really rank these, we’d have to define what we mean by “hardest”. Hardest to do that activity on any level? Hardest to excel at the highest level? Hardest to win a gold medal?

Instead, let’s just talk about what Olympic sports could be considered some of the hardest and ignore how they relate to each other. I don’t know where I’d put weightlifting, but I know that it wouldn’t be the “hardest”. The lifts are very technical, yes, but all athletic skills considered, it’s just repeating the same movements over and over. It’s been documented that there are plenty of successful lifters that are not great athletes in other sports. In fact, I think Glenn Pendlay said that in one of our podcasts; the American weightlifter is typically someone who couldn’t cut it in another sport, like football, and they found something they could flourish in (let’s ignore the fact that is specific to our country’s situation for now). Generally speaking, being able to repeat the same movements over and over doesn’t necessarily make you very athletic, though they are athletic movements (especially by a novice’s standards).

Personally, I’m more impressed with sports that are dynamic. Things like weightlifting, swimming, and sprinting are all very impressive, but true athleticism is shown through reaction to an opponent. This would include wrestling, judo, taekwondo, hockey, boxing, volleyball, basketball, soccer, fencing, and rugby. Personally, I’m more impressed with sports that require significant physical skills, perhaps a broad spectrum of them, to be successful in the sport. This would eliminate things like tennis, table tenis, handball, and fencing from “the hardest” category. Soccer and basketball seem to require a specific kind of skill set, and you can develop the physical attributes to participate purely through playing them, so they fall off of my list. Rugby and hockey aren’t relatively technical, they they are both physical. They are high on my list, but maybe not the highest. Taekwondo appears to be more skill dependent than boxing (though boxing is technical, there are only two weapons compared to, well, more than two in taekwondo). This leaves wrestling, judo, and taekwondo. To be able to react to your opponent is so significant in the realm of athleticism, and it’s something we ignore in our “online S&C communities”.

In the realm of precision and consistency, where the skill lies in executing a repetitive motion with unwavering accuracy, archery stands as a testament to both focus and discipline. While it may not demand the same physical exertion as some other sports, the mental fortitude required to consistently hit the mark cannot be understated. Much like a steady hand drawing back an arrow from its arrow quiver, each shot requires a blend of technique, concentration, and control. So while it may not fit the mold of traditional “physical exertion,” archery holds its own unique challenge within the realm of sporting endeavors.

You’ll notice archery or shooting sports, while incredibly technical, did not really get mentioned. It’s not because they aren’t hard, but because they are more in that “doing a skill repeatedly without too many changing variables” group, yet they also have the, “not really exerting oneself physically, relatively speaking” tag. All kinds of things are hard, like triathlons, rowing/kayaking, curling, and golf, yet they are more hard in one kind of way than several ways.

All this being said, I think that decathlons are the hardest thing to be successful in. There is such an array of skills across a broad spectrum of physical attributes. If decathletes were more jacked, they’d probably be my favorite athletes. Oh, and gymnastics is pretty hard and has a large skill set and demand of physical capacity. However, both gymnastics and decathlons don’t have that reaction component, and I deem that as incredibly important

If I had to pick one sport that is the hardest, I would pick wrestling. There’s not too many sports that are so heavily dependent on physical capacity, technical skill, as well as the ability to react to an opponent.

What do you guys think?

Kind of limited on questions this week, but I’m sure there’ll be plenty of discussion with people still pissed off from the running post. 

141 thoughts on “Q&A – 34”

  2. long time no post- snatch off knee blocks 95kg hang snatch 90kg
    Any thoughts on this Justin- snatches feel strong and powerful and crisp and at a 160-170 max back squat at an 85 kg bw I can consistently go to 90kg and now in the midst of a heavy training cycle I feel good for 100kg or over, but with clean and jerk, I feel weak and shit is just not feeling as good. does that seem abnormal to you?

      • well I am doing this russian program from the queensland weightlifting site linked here http://www.qwa.org/programs/tadv13.asp. I am primarily only doing the snatches, clean and jerks and squats. I mean this is kind of an issue that I have had since I ahve started weightlifting where I am a good snatcher (for my time olympic lifting which is only 1 year and strength levels) but I suck at clean and jerk. I think I may be ripping the bar off the ground and letting my butt raise too high, but I am not entirely sure how to fix it. I have a coach and am working with some good people but I wanted to get your two cents on this. Btw this is jose from the dc seminar and I am being coached by sarah, erin and mike at nova strength and conditioning.

  7. This week, only did the volume day. I traveled to my brother and no decent gym around. I’ll probably loose next’s week training too. A chance to re-think my squat programming.

    How can somebody decide if his anthropometry is different from the standard? What is, for example, the “normal” length of a torso? Where can a database, for our purpose(biomechanics), be found?

    • There is no “normal” length of a torso. It’s proportional to the rest of your body. So if your torso is longer, relative to your legs, then you have a long torso. That’s as far as I understand and I’m sure others could elaborate more.

  8. Decided on Wednesday that I wanted to Overhead Squat heavy which I hadn’t done in about 9 months.

    Hit 275 which was a 5 lb PR both for Overhead Squat and for a Rack Jerk.

  9. 27 yrs old
    5′-7″
    165 lbs

    First time leaving a comment, and definitely weak as shit compared to the rest of these posts, but that’s why I’m here.

    Just started Welbourne’s CFFB program after floundering around and being a full-time vag for too long, and hit 205 for 3×5 back squat yesterday, a 20-lb increase over the last time I went 3×5. Working on high bar position, since I’ve got the same body proportion issues as the other Tim.

    Earlier in the week, deadlift 1×5 @ 285. Previous 1RM 315.

    Immediate goal – gain 10-lbs by Sept 21.

    Lotsa work to do…

  11. Bodyweight squat PR. 405x5x3 @ 224lbs.
    Deadlift PR: 465×5

    Great week of training overall. Looking forward to tackling 475×5 next Friday. Doing a mix and mash of GSLP and Adv. Novice with the occasional Dan John mixed in.

  13. Matched PR squat of 350×5, tried 355 on wednesday and the bar slipped off my back after the 4th rep so I racked it. Same thing happened on the 2nd set, so I just stopped since I didn’t have chalk.. Probably going to retry that again today if my warmups feel good.

    Holding steady around 200 at 5′ 9″, which is a bodyweight PR since I was stuck in the 180s all winter/spring.

    Going for 315×5 deadlift today now that I’m finally comfortable with my form and my injuries have cleared up.

    Also decided to start Mwod from the beginning, with 2-3 per day (depending on how much each area needs it and how much time I have). This has already made a huge improvement on my form.

  14. PR: low-barred 285×10 last night by some accident of God. Feelin’ it today. Just started my third cycle of 5/3/1 and I’m real happy with using the program for leaning out.

  16. No PRs, just been majoring in the minors for 3 weeks and I feel great. I’ve got more pop in my bat, and I’m moving gracefully during my rec league/beer league softball games. Eight months of 5/3/1 got me stronger, but I was feeling, and moving, like a pile.
    What would happen if all I did was clean and jerk, push ups/pull ups and sprint?

  18. This week Squat 445×2 and Deadlift 460×3 nothing on either press as I build up some volume under my personal best. In two weeks I hope to see some changes in those two.

  19. My first time commenting on here. Anyway, I’m 5’11” at 190ish lbs. Kind of between a rock and a hard place right now. Really looking to gain strength on the core lifts, so I am trying to decide whether i want to deload and do the Stronglifts 5×5/Reg Park routine. I would prolly drop down to 60% of my working max and add 5-10 lbs each successful workout. I feel like this would be the best way to get back into strength training and I would be able to make the best gains this way considering I am only working 3 days/week now and I won’t return back to school for another 6 weeks. Thoughts? Help?

    • I’m exactly your weight minus 1″ in height. I would look at Starting Strength and start there. I did that for 8 months then switched to Texas Method and have been on that the last 3ish months. It’s worked well for me. My first 6 months on SS were a straight rocket up as far as strength/weight.

      • thanks for the advice. i think starting strength is what i intended to start at the beginning of this summer. I will be starting it tonight.

        • it’s worked great for me i ended starting strength at:

          Squat 295lb 3×5
          Bench 195lb 3×5
          Press 115lb 3×5
          Deadlift 335lb 1×5

          My weights before this were absolutely pathetic and SS worked great at getting me reasonable #’s and building my foundation.

    • My first time of LP was Stronglifts. My second time, after a 9 month hiatus, was SS. Now, I think that SS is better for a “novice”. It has exactly what you ned to get stronger and bigger.

      • I did SS for about 6 to 7 months to get back into lifting and basically started off with 135 or the bar on everything. It was stupid light the first few weeks but towards the end of the progression it was pretty tough. I transitioned to TM after I got x5 my previous squat 1 rep max. So +1 for SS

        • Thanks guys. Right now the working maxes that I’m using for the program are Squat- 265.5, Bench- 211.5, Deads- 328.5, Press- 130, and Power Clean- 166.5. I know those numbers look random, but basically what I did was take my most recent 1RMs and I did 90% of those to use for my SS maxes, so I don’t start out too heavy.

  20. Wife pr this week. Was about to start deadlifting when she came to the gym. Asked her if she wanted to try deadlifts, got a skeptical look, but she tried it. Worked up to 95 lbs for 5. May continue lifting for a month or so, hope to have her hooked by then. (I know you say RDLs are better to start with, but I was deadlifting at the time so that’s what I went with) Nothing to report for myself.

    • Whether or not RDL’s are ‘better’ is dependent on the individual. Lifting > getting specific about which lifts to use.

      RDL’s are sometiems easier if the woman has never done any lifting whatsoever.

  21. 380lbx1x5 deadlift PR.
    340lbx1x4 squat PR.
    210lb5x3 bb row PR.

    Is Brent still alive? He’s not posted in so long. Is miss the Friday Failboats.

  22. Prepping for a meet next weekend, so this last week was the peaking week. Luckily, I peaked. Big time.

    Snatch: 150# (bodyweight, finally) http://youtu.be/hvZX1H-Seu8
    Front squat: 210# x2, 215# x1
    C&J: 185# http://youtu.be/4UdwPHwDzrk
    Jerk (from blocks): 185# x2, 195# x1 http://youtu.be/E08cinGbH00195#

    Ready to qualify for AO.

    Also coaching PR: finally my mom is squatting well below parallel every time. Now she can move on from push/pull and do full powerlifting.

  23. Weak SOB Report, 3 months through my first LP (33, 6’3, ~210). Three PRs this week, but nothing to be proud of:
    DL PR – 1×5 @ 300lb
    Bench PR- 3×5 @ 200lb
    Press PR – 3×5 @ 130lb

    About to reset on all 3, but on and up from there.

  24. HB Squat 345×3
    Deadlifts 425×3
    Press 160×5

    My glute imbalance on squats is starting to catch up to me. Warming up for volume day had me in pain before I even got to the work sets o I called it. Probably gonna change the focus of my training to fixing my imbalance before it becomes an injury. Still gonna maintain strength with once a week on squatting till it’s fixed and then I’ll probably return to TM. Anyone else had problems on having a stronger leg on squats and favoring it??

    • I had a stronger hip for sure, but I think my legs were the same (I could see from videos that at the bottom I was leaning to one side when I came out of the hole).

      It stayed until I sucked it up and did a big deload and focused on keeping myself centered each time.

        • This is exactly where I am right now. Do it! :DI ignored it far too long, ended up with serious inflammation in my right hip flexors/rectus femoris.
          I did/am doing a radical deload and seriously, it feels so good!
          If I were you, I would fix it right now

            • Well, when I did it I had an ankle injury as well, so it gave me an excuse to deload other than the hip imbalance.

              I just deloaded to 135, and followed an SS style routine and added 10lbs per workout until I hit 225, and then went up by 5 per workout from there, focusing on keeping my hips symmetrical each rep. Now that I’m back to my old work sets, the imbalance is gone.

              • I did/am doing pretty much the same as Willey
                I just concentrate on keeping my hips symmetrical (thinking more about building up muscle tension in general helped) and had a friend spot all my squats in the first three weeks.
                It seems to work,

  25. Big PR: 300 lb Clean! I wasn’t even sure I could Front Squat that, to be honest…

    But my goal is to Snatch 315… Oh well, I’ll just have to work at it.

    Other than that, not much.

  26. LONG TIME LURKER… Currently on TM

    Squat pr today 170Kg x 5 pb
    Bench 60kg 3×5 ( started from scratch on Lp due to a shoulder injury)
    Deadlift 180kg x 4 missed 5th rep due to weak ass grip – anyone else had this problem? It seems to be holding my DL back

    • I found that working on my overhand and hook grip during my warmups made a huge difference. After a few weeks I was able to overhand for a single (my last warm up) what I used to use a mix grip on to max. I also don’t use chalk until my work set. I wouldn’t say my grip strength is crazy now, but it suffices for what I need to do.

  27. I wrestled 167 class in HS. Had a blast! Wouldn’t trade those years for anything!

    Anywho, today I pulled a deadlift at 405# x3 and squatted 405# x2. The reason I’m happy with these paltry numbers is that 6 weeks ago I slipped my left SI joint and went through hell to get back to this point. Not too bad for a 41 y/o CF’er in my opinion.

  28. no PR this week, but i bought kettlebell (24kg ) and i will make 100 swings everyday now and some turkish get ups:) and i for summers sake changed some lifts in my program (front squats/high bar squats – kettlebell work ) – wanted to try something different for two months.

    Check out this one Justin http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qrleDTTkTtg&feature=g-user-u Jujimufu, he is the person who made me interested in strength, sports, and martial arts :) (also strong dude!)

  29. What do I think? It’s FOOTBALL, not soccer. Damned americans. Now I’m gonna ask all the europeans to troll the site and I’ll send you a hate e-mail. Or ask you to play a game and see if you will call it soccer afterwards…

  30. high school wrestler reporting in.

    squatted 325 for two singles on Monday, which is pretty shitty considering it was supposed to be one set of 5. still the most weight i’ve ever had on my back.
    power cleaned 60 kilos for a set of 5.
    benched 185 for 4, should have been 5.
    pressed 137.5 for 4 a few hours ago, should have been 5 as well.

  31. On Monday I pr’ed by walking around the whole day with a collapsed lung thinking that it was just a bad cough. Unfortunately it was a collapsed lung so I will not be setting any other pr’s for some time. I have no idea how I woke up Monday morning with a collapsed lung. Doctors say it’s a spontaneous pneumothorax, which happens to tall skinny dudes, which is weird because I’m 5’10” and 175. So it goes. Looking forward to recovering and jumping back into lp.

  32. You’ve said that you would recommend RDL for military men. What other lifts, exercises, etc would you recommend for maintenance under conditions that we are subjected to? I run 3 times a week, for a total of around 12 miles a week and a few more hours of conditioning.

  33. squatted 112.5lbx12x3 — f*ck you all my groin injury is finally healing and I’m happy about it.

    Taekwondo is hard, very hard (I’ve been a black belt since I was 12 and used to compete olympic style full contact, etc) very technically demanding. But the thing is–it’s like there’s a billion crappy fighters and a handful that are really good that always end up fighting each other. Then those people are on the country teams that go to pan am championships and the like, then worlds, etc — so it’s still a very small group of really good people with a lot of outliers that are referred to as “scrubs”. Might be like that in other sports though? After watching Mayweather for example I can’t sit through most other idiots trying to “box” each other for more than a couple rounds (they look like drunk fools)…. anyways that was my unasked for .02 cents!

    whatup justin!

  34. Pressing PR’s are still going well:
    Owned the viking press last week,
    This week, 180x6x4 strict press however there were quite a few grinders. Got some tips and narrowed my grip so I’ll keep this.
    Pulled 415 for 5 singles last week…kind of slow on a few but I’ll chalk that up (no pun) to squatting and stones beforehand.

    Also, got to train atlas stones with 2 pro strongmen. Was awesome.

    I started to get pissed at that article, then realized the entire thing was a joke and didnt care.

  35. omg omg omg omg justin guess what!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

    melody and i are doing a strongwoman tomorrow!

    i can’t fucking wait! we will definitely send in some pics and whatnot.

  38. following the site for a while, first post though.

    Squated 500lb x 5 belt and light wraps for a 5RM PR (3rd rep strain my hammy a tad)

    benched 290lb x 5

    deadlifted 500lb x5 (this weren’t that great the hammy was tight but i said i was going to have a good day lifting so i pulled anyway)

  39. I have the same issue as the long-femured deadlifter above. But at 130 pounds, I’m just a shrunken down version. I pulled 330 this morning after weighing in at the aforementioned 130. While visiting a favorite cafe in the afternoon, the owner closed early and offered me the extra pastries they didn’t sell. Long story short: I’m currently tied with a food PR for the day. I weighed myself an hour ago at 141, tying an old record of 11 pounds gained. But as I type this, I’m polishing off a pint of half-baked ice cream, so it would appear as though my record has fallen. Better than yesterday, right?

    • ahhh I have the same problem sometimes on that clean weight! I can get under it great, but struggle driving it up out of the hole. Working on one 1 1/4 squats have helped that a lot (and truly bottoming out on front squats). You’ll get it!

      • Thanks! I racked it a second time right after that, but it was a shitty rack, and I knew I wasn’t going to get up with it anyway. But, 80 was easy, and I somehow bounced out with 83 from a dead stop. That made me feel better because if I don’t initially catch the bounce above 80, I am usually screwed. Now, I just need to sort out my issues with my jerk. I wish I could be a weightlifter who didn’t have to jerk…

  41. On vacation. Deadlifted 465 with an incredible sunburn. That’s about 40lbs shy of my actual PR but factoring in the pain it takes the cake.

  42. No PRs this week per-se. De-load week on 531.
    Ordered a lifting better belt from EliteFTS, and will finish hanging pull up bar in back yard tomorrow.

    I know it’s passé to harsh on ______Fit, but has anyone seen the workouts so far from the Games? WTF? Some of that stuff is just way over the top convoluted.

  43. Still recovering from some elbow and wrist pain so my bench and press aren’t where they need to be, but I was able to deadlift 445 today. Felt real good.

  44. PR’ed my frustration level at having to reset TWICE in 5 weeks. (long story)

    I found your “hardest” sport answer very interesting. The reaction element means so much to you, might as well put all combat sports in the same bucket. Clearly sword play and MMA (not Olympic sports, but wtf) would have to rank near the top too.

    I agree decathaletes are amazing the range of time domains in their events is very impressive. Their jackness seems kind of irrelevant though–you also have extremely skinny boxers,etc.

    Finally, I have to mention CF. I am having a hard time seeing it as a sport and doing Burpees and pushups and calling that sport seems ridiculous. That said, the “broad time, domains and modal, bla,bla bla” does cover a wide array of skills, work capacity and atheletism so it is an interesting tangent in this discussion. Still, I totally agree with John Welbourne about “what is a sport.”

    • I always thought the crossfit games would be more interesting with actual games. Since Crossfit is supposed to prepare you for anything, random sports would be a better measure of success then random crossfit workouts. It would also allow for people who are not crossfitters to enter and see how they compare (for instance, an elite sprinter would smoke crossfitters in a footrace but who would win with some pool laps, wrestling match and powerlifting portion thrown in?). So something more like a decathalon, but random and from a broader sample of games/sports.

  45. I PR’d in failure this week by missing all of my max attempts. Is this the Friday Failboat?

    I benched 145×3, pressed 85x5x3, failed to deadlift 250, and failed to squat an adult male.

  46. Karelin ftw y’all.

    Personally I’m a fan of the winter biathlon. Something about skiing long distances with a gun on your back, then shooting at something while your heart rate is jacked, then skiing some more and shooting again sounds really challenging to me. Also, it’s not an Olympic sport, but chess boxing is pretty nuts.

    No lifting PRs, I’ve reset everything and am pushing it all back up on an LP. Pulled an easy 355×5 today, then at work my eye was hurting a lot and I realized burst some capillaries. It’s annoying but feels kind of awesome. However, I am at a weight loss PR – 211 today. That’s 17 lbs down from where I was in January/February, and 10 to 12 from when I started trying to lean out 5 weeks ago.

  47. first time post.
    PR’d with 150kg squat for a single, beat my old PR by 25kg. after warming up i worked up in singles from 120, 130, 140 and then 150.

  49. 3rd week following the strength and conditioning program which was posted on here ages ago. Squatted 117.5 x 5 x 3, pressed 65 x 5 x 3, deadlifted 170 x 5 (only recently switched to resetting between each rep rather than using the stretch reflex, so much harder), benched 85 x 5 x 3. I got 20 dead hang pull ups Tuesday and 22 dead hang chins Friday, for the gym record in my weight class and an all time PR. 82kg bodyweight. I’ve got nearly 2 and a half months left of my summer before university starts again, I aim to be the biggest, strongest and best conditioned I’ve ever been by then.

  50. PR: Deadlifted 295×6, which sets me up for a 340 (x2bw) pull soon.

    My numbers suck, but I think I’m going to finally bite the bullet and do a meet. USAPL’s Virginia State is October 27, and my gym (CrossFit Annandale) will be finishing up a lifting cycle at the end of October, so perfect timing. Plus the meet’s at VMI, which is cooler than your average high school gym location.

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