Q&A – 48

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PR Friday allows all lifters, great or small, to discuss their triumphs and failures with like-minded folks. Get involved in the comments.

Last Week’s Challenge asked you to eat as many animals as you can in a meal or day.

Next Week’s Challenge: Do rows at the end of each training day. See what happens. Read this post by Dr. Hartman for a refresher on why.

Week In Review: Monday’s female post focused on getting your lady friends into the gym any way you can because it provides a gateway to health or interest in lifting. Tuesday introduced the second mission of The Revolution; take flannel back from the hipsters. Yesterday I showed you how I have run into plenty of Brent look-a-likes, but be sure to check out Brent’s new shirts.

Q&A:

Joel, from this Q&A asks:

Quick question: I have been experiencing achy elbows lately, especially my right one. I’m not doing anything different that I am aware of, but mobbing and stretching them seems to do nothing. I’m guessing it is probably the beginnings of tendinitis and it may stem from grip width during low-bar squatting, but it never ever bothers me until I’m outside of the gym doing random stuff. The most painful thing is gripping a full glass with my (right) arm fully extended and the pain gets worse if I were to dump the glass out to the right. What would you recommend I do to diagnose/fix this issue and prevent it from happening in the future? I know a recent vid of my squat would probably help immensely, but I never film myself since I train foreveralone.jpg in a globo…so I will work on getting one asap.

I’ve also been hitting a wall with the Texas Method, which I’ve been running strictly for 4 months now after buying your book in June – No real PRs in, like, 3 weeks. I’ve been feeling good, mobbing, and eating like a horse (at least getting 1g protein/1lb BW) but just not feeling any stronger. Is it time to get advanced with my TM template (I’m hesitant to do this since I haven’t been on it that long), or just change up some of the set/rep schemes for now? Some numbers:

5’5” – 175lb – 33y.o.

VD SQ – 295x5x5
OHP – 120x5x5
BP – 185x5x5

ID SQ – 365×5
OHP – 140×5
BP – 205×5
DL – 395×3

I can’t say it enough, but thank you so much for all of your help thus far, Justin – You’re advice has proved invaluable and I can’t wait to see how much better and more useful in general you can make these aging and broken human beings – – Keep it up! (sorry for the novel, btw)

-Joel (aka. blister)

 

Dear Joel, 

Good to hear that your wife is doing better (he explained this in the e-mail, but I omitted it for space). Once you guys get back from the vacation, get on a regular exercise regime — start with at least 2x/wk with other days for walking (have dogs?).

Regarding your elbow, I’d first assume that your squat grip is what is irritating it. This is actually quite common. You can see some discussion on this from Q&A – 27 and Q&A – 28 (just ctrl+F “grip”). Improve shoulder mobility and grip position on the squat and do some soft tissue massage up and down stream from the area of injury. The former will fix the underlying problem while the latter can help treat the issue itself.

Regarding your lack of progress on TM, your volume squat work is only about 80% of your intensity squat work, so you can actually stand to increase the volume a bit more. I’d say stick with the 5×5 and increase the weight a bit and see what happens on that particular lift. As for the other lifts, there isn’t a whole lot of info here to go on, but your bench volume is 90% of your intensity bench work, and that is a bit high. Either reduce it down to a 3×5 on the Volume Day or reduce the weight overall. Your presses are also a bit weak, and in this type of situation I usually like to recommend weighted pull-ups once or twice a week and later adding rows into the mix as well. Filling out the upper body strength and musculature helps drive the presses, but also be sure to check out this press video (the elbow positioning is important while benching too, these videos may help: one and two):

Lastly, you need to eat more protein than just 1g per pound of body weight. Check out this “PROTEIN” post, but I would add 50g on top of what you currently get. I suspect that you’ll start making progress after a week straight of the additional 50g (the new intake needs to be chronic, not a “sometimes” thing).

More in a bit.

 

96 thoughts on “Q&A – 48”

  1. Hey everybody. PRs all around today. Benched 155×2; squatted 215 for three singles; deadlifted 270×2. Also did my very first rack pulls and locked out 315. That was fun.

    The benching and squatting were both pretty ugly, though. I’ve been having a really hard time keeping my chest up while squatting under heavy loads. Any suggestions, besides cueing “chest up”?

  2. Only PR today was squat 395×5 ezpz (I’m coming for you 405), went to bench 235×5 and the jabroni i found to spot me failed miserably. Direct quote from me, “I’ll only need a hand-off and just make sure it doesnt pin me” So what does he do? He helps the bar up when #4 starts to slow down right around lockout, then does the same thing on #5. Then he says, “that was all you bro!” FML. Also, did DL 345×5 which felt really strong, coulda done more but I’m working back from an injury, didnt wanna risk it.

  3. Hey

    Josh, Leo, 6’3′ 230.
    squat 315×5
    dead 410×3
    ohp 185×2
    bench not sure I havent maxed it or repped it in about 6 months but my press is up 35 pounds this year so bench prob went up. maybe 225-230×1. I want 5 plates, 4 plates, 3 plates, 2 plates as goals for the next couple of years
    I have recently finished a cycle of 5/3/1 rest pause template. its based on the DC Training methods. Its fucking awesome. I have recently returned to 5/3/1 after doing 4 months of nothing but oly training. I just wanted to learn the lifts, but eventually I missed the simplicity of squat, bench, dead, press. I have been dialing my diet over the past few months and I have stumbled onto a good thing. Carbs. I respond to carbs and reps. Like insanely. Good carbs anyway. I also have my supplemtation regime on point. I have been experimenting with D-Aspartic Acid/beta alanine. It works for me. Look into it. I am dedicating the next 4 months to the 5/3/1 RP training for maximum Yammage! More to come.
    Doctor PR- Doc says that Im in better health at 230 than at 200! YAY!!!

  4. This is the results from my Olympic Weightlifting meet last week. I went 5/6 on the lifts and was able to hit a PR on the Clean & Jerk

    Snatch: 70kg, 75kg, 80kg(x) 80 would have been a new PR for me, but missed it,

    C&J: 80kg, 92kg, 101kg (New PR)

  8. Bench: 195×3
    Squat: 235×8
    Dead: 350×3

    I ran two tough mudders back to back last weekend and felt really drained all week. Even though I felt like a goat running up and down hills for 12 miles both days (my wife walked the course on Day 2 and I’d run hill repeats while waiting for her to catch up), my conditioning was not what it should have been. I need about a full week of 250g/day protein intake I think.

  10. PRs for this week:
    Press 155 5X5X6
    Squat 260 5X5X7
    DL 270 X 7
    Weighted Chins 12.5 X 9

    Still working on my linear progress (GSLP) but happy with progress thus far. Only had to reset the deadlift (and I think it was more a grip issue than anything else).

    For meat challenge I went to a place called MiniMango and had a grilled 5 meat platter for lunch; it comes with grilled beef, pork, chicken, shrimp skewer, and a couple of meat/seafood spring rolls with a serving of coconut rice and chopped cabbage/carrots/cucumbers with a bit of rice wine vinegar. Folowed it up with some roasted turkey later that evening. It was a good day.

    And, little something my wife sent me for a chuckle this morning. You might enjoy too. http://pinterest.com/pin/96897829454155639/

  11. Snatch PR: 140#. I haven’t snatch in months, so that was fun.

    LBBS: 3×5 @ 215#. Linear progression continues.

    4 meat chili: beef, turkey, chicken pork

  12. I have a question about pressing, lower back pain, and mobility.

    No matter what mobility drills I do, I always seem to struggle mightily with being able to lock out the bar above my head without extending my lower back due to tightness in my shoulders and/or upper back. I do shoulder dislocations, thoracic extensions over a foam roller, thoracic rotations, lat stretch, pec stretch, and some shoulder band stuff. Any suggestions?

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