PR Friday is a forum to allow you to share your triumphs and failures with your strength training brethren. How has your training been this week? What questions do you have for your peers? Talk and mingle.
Do you have a training question? Ask anyone from the 70′s Big Crew a question in the comments below, on Facebook, or Twitter. Follow 70’s Big on Instagram.
Speaking of PRs, watch Oberst set an American record with 465# overhead!
https://instagram.com/p/0RSfqahP22/
Nothing much to report on lifting, but my main focus lately has been to lose fat/weight after six months spent commuting 15 hours a week and getting completely off track. At 215 as of this morning, down from 235 a few weeks ago, with my eye on 200lbs. Feeling good and looking forward to a summer of short shorts and tank tops.
20 pounds in a few weeks is excellent work. What are you doing?
I call it a hypocaloric cyclic ketogenic diet with intermittent fasting and thermal load manipulation. That usually stops the questions lol.
– Calories at or below 800 daily, from green vegetables, berries, whey protein, eggs. I’ve been having a “real meal” (800-1,000 calories from meat and veggies) about twice a week.
– Cold exposure (room temperature baths) twice a day. 10 minutes in the morning after training, 30-45 minutes in the evening.
– Carbs (from berries, really) at midday meal, very low carb through the evening and MCT oil before bed.
– BCAA upon waking, otherwise fast until whey/veggies/berries at noon.
Training has been low to moderate intensity cardio and lifting (mostly dumbbells). I have been deconditioned for the last few months, so I am trying to grease the joints and recondition connective tissue a bit while I’m focusing on losing weight, before resuming serious training as I gradually increase my calories to maintenance at my new weight.
I bet that is peeling the weight off. It is also making me kinda hungry.
Haven’t posted in awhile, good to be back. Squat is finally moving up due to actually doing Texas method and focusing even harder on my form.
Recent prs:
345 for 2 sets of 3
385×1 after ^ squats. Fresh I think 405 is there.
Deadlift pulled 515.
Bench and press are very slowly moving up any sort of mastery with them eludes me still.
Anyone care about muscle ups? I’ve been trying to improve mine. Would weighted ring pull-ups be good? What are some ways to improve muscle ups that you guys have had success with?
I’m not an expert on muscle ups and haven’t done many lately, but for me getting reps was what helped. I’d suggest weighted chin-ups or pull-ups for anyone, but that would increase your vertical pulling strength for the muscle ups. It’s harder for bigger guys to do them dead hang because of the extra weight in their legs. It’s possible, but personally I don’t care about doing them dead hang since it doesn’t really provide a significant performance gain.
If I do them, I utilize a kip. But that’s just me, and I’m not a die hard CrossFitter or anything.
Thanks. I’m not a Crossfitter either (anymore) so I don’t need to do 100 of them but basically my buddies can do more than me so I want to pass them.
I hit 375 for 5 on DL this morning. Tried 405 and broke the floor but it wasn’t happening. I think the next two weeks will see me pick up 405. As I think back on all the time I wasted doing bench press and curls, it occurs to me that this may be a lifetime PR. Still using straps. Grip still an issue.
My right shoulder is starting to bother me a bit after bench. I get set up for bench as best I know how, but when I unrack the bar, my whole set up is undone. I don’t have reliable access to a spotter. Does anybody have any thoughts on pressing twice a week or on using dumb bells and push ups on Wednesday?
And finally, anybody got any good blender bomb recipes? I’ve been using 16oz almond/coconut milk, 1 heaping scoop strawberry vanilla whey, 1 big hand full of spinach and kale, a couple of frozen blueberries and a tblsp of peanut butter. It’s pretty damn good but I’m always looks for ways to sneak in extra calories.
Full fat yogurt and whole eggs are my two favorite ways to add some heft to a shake/smoovie.
Do you have any vid of your bench? When you do bench, make sure your shoulders are pinched together.
If you chose to press twice a week, one could be heavy and the other medium. The lighter session could be timed (like 2 or 3 reps on the minute) and focus on speed or technique. Just throwing options out at you.
Keep in mind shoulder stuff might have other causes, like mechanics in other lifts, posture throughout the day (driving, office sitting, etc.) and a lack of mobility.
Thanks for the reply. I like the thought of a heavy/medium split on press. I will experiment and report back. Due to my t-rex-ish arm length, when I unrack the bar, my shoulders spread apart at which point I try to get them back in position but of course I’ve got the bar in my hands which is less than ideal. I also hunch over a computer all dday, I’ve had two bike wipeouts where I landed on my right shoulder and it is apparently slightly sub-luxated according to a PT I talked to a cocktail party (which is where I get all my medical advice). So fate doesn’t want me to bench apparently. I’m really enjoying the LP program BTW.
For those of you that have made the jump from crossfit to just weightlifting, is there anything specifically that helped eliminate the hitch in the second pull that most crossfitters seem to have?
Here’s a brief discussion on it from the Catalyst forum –
http://www.catalystathletics.com/forum/showthread.php?t=6842
I like what Greg Everett said here: “In the lifts themselves, it may also be helpful to slow the first pull way down – like literally 3 seconds from floor to mid-thigh – so you can focus on maintaining constant pressure/tension and then accelerating without hesitation.”
With beginners, I personally don’t do a lot of partial lifts. I want them to go through the entire movement pattern and understand the fundamentals. When I teach it early on, I have people pull “smooth and slow” off the floor until their “trigger point” or “jump position” depending on what style I’m teaching.
As always, a good coach is the best thing to iron out form issues.
Lifting has been pretty crappy recently, mainly because I’ve just been making it up as I go rather than doing a program. So I’ve decided to give 5/3/1 a go. I’m doing the 3 days a week template.
The most important thing I’ve done in the last two weeks is I replaced the terrible vertical blinds in my bedroom with some light blocking curtains. Bedroom is much darker now, and the difference in quality of sleep is noticeable. Especially when sleeping in on the weekends.
Nice. Do you still go to bed and get up at about the same time on the weekends? I find this very helpful.
5/3/1 is a great program to get people consistent without beating them down too hard.
There’s about a 45 minute window for bed time that I have unless there’s some sort of special event. Weekdays I always get up at the same time, but on weekends I sleep as long as my body’s willing. Usually that’s about an extra hour. The next step in sleep improvement is convinced my girlfriend that the bed is for sleep, not talking.
That was kind of my motivation for choosing 5/3/1. I’ve been playing a lot of hockey and doing a lot of cycling, and trying add heavy 5 x 5 squats into that just didn’t work. With 5/3/1 I know I can get the base amount of work done each session even if I’m not at 100%.
I’ve had the flu since Sunday, so no training whatsoever. Been off work since Tuesday. Fortunately all the rest and work on my knee made it back to 100%, so starting Tuesday I’ll just deload a bit and get the 70s Big LP up and kicking again.
Nice. Here is an article I wrote about this: http://70sbig.com/blog/2011/02/dont-train-sick/
You’re pretty much doing the right thing so far. Ease back into training when you start.
Great advice, thank you!
PR’ed for reps on my bench this week. 125kgs x5 for my intensity day. My 1RM in competition last year was 135kgs but I had a couple of stalls at 125kgs along the way. I am pushing for 150kgs by the end of the year.
I had planned to do 190kgs x5 for Squats but life was screwing with me this week and I didn’t get any food in all day so I was a little low on fuel.
Hi guys, currently about a month into the 70s big LP and enjoying it with the exception of my inability to do dips without lots of shoulder and sternum pain. Ha been working on mobility but no big changes yet. Thinking of swapping them out for close grip benching?
Also I can only train on saturday, sunday and wednesday. My current plan is to do Bench, rows and deadlift on saturdays. Close grip bench, RDL, front squats and chins on sundays then press, squats and pull ups on wednesday.
Does anyone have any opinions on this plan given my limitations?
Close grip bench will work, but so will bench dips (they are more of a triceps isolation exercise). Keep your elbows pinned to the ribs.
I have a hard time seeing programs written in paragraph form. You may want to switch press and bench so that you bench on Wednesday and Press on Saturday. That way when you do close grip on Sunday, you will be less fatigued on your upper body.
Thanks Justin.
So in easier to see formatting I’ll switch to:
Saturday: Press
Deadlift
Rows
Sunday: CG Bench or bench dips
Front squat
RDL
Chin ups
Wenesday: Squat
Bench
Pull ups
That definitely seems a better solution, I assume you have no concerns about doing RDL the day after dealdifitng as I should be focussing on mechanics not weight lifted. As an aside I’ve spent years trying to get deadlifting backpain free. It turns out RDLs were the solution. I’d never tried them prior to this. Really motivated to get some weight on the bar after a lot of issues in the past. Big thanks for this, Justin!
Bench pressed 275×2, I couldn’t get the third one obove 4″ off my chest and had to bale.
Squated 365×5 today. I videoed it and a couple were a little high and my ass came up a little before my legs started to extend. They weren’t in the realm of a bastardized good morning but nonetheless I didnt like them.
I’m guessing I was a little gassed when I tried DLing 365×5, couldn’t even break the floor on the first one.
A buddy and I are going to be hosting a charity meet on June 27th for the Catch A Lift Fund here in San Angelo, TX. It’s not gonna be a federation style meet, just raw, maybe 2 or 3 different weight classes. We’re waiting to get all paper work needed before deciding on entry fee (probably around 20-30 bones) and the likes. If anyone is gonna be in the area around that time and a snap to meet won’t hinder preparations for a different meet come on through!
Thanks 70sbig crew!
Send us the info and we’ll shoot it out on social media. What kind of stuff does the “Catch a Lift Fund” do?
I definitely will. I should be getting all information/paperwork by mid-April.
Catch A Lift provides gym memberships for wounded post-9/11 veterans and if the veteran requires assistance from a VA Caregiver they provide the membership for them as well. They also provide in home gym equipment if the veteran is unable to attend an outside gym. Catch A Lift was started as a memorial to Cpl. Chris Coffland who was KIA during Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan by an IED.
Here’s their website
http://www.catchaliftfund.com
Life’s been pretty hard on my training lately. I just got out of Army SERE school and 3 weeks of no lifting/exercise at all, poor/no nutrition, and lots of stress had quite the detrimental effect. I’d say I’m down at least 10% on each of my maxes and down at least 40% on my conditioning and endurance.
It certainly feels good to be eating again though :) I lost 12 lbs. Not fun. But now I’ve got a few weeks off before I begin actual flight school so hopefully I can get back to where I was before SERE.
Ease slowly back into training. You need to take at least one week off and literally get more than 9 hours of sleep a night. Guys that don’t do this will end up keeping their testosterone levels low (among plenty of other things) and will usually injure themselves.
That’s a significant stress. Don’t rush it and don’t expect to be full speed for 4 to 6 weeks or you’ll just make it worse.
Hi Justin, I’m on the Texas Method and making the transition from powerlifting to weightlifting, I was wondering if there was any problem with substituting OHP’s for push press? Also I’ve been getting pain in what feels like the front of my shoulder when I bench press. I have absolutely no shoulder pain doing any overhead pressing, only when I bench.It’s lasted about 3 months, I’ve taken breaks from benching of about 2/3 weeks and its fine for the first couple of sessions then it begins to hurt again. Any Ideas?
Thanks!
Bought the 70s Big LP and I love the program! Great work Justin and thanks for all the work you have done.
I am hitting some good numbers now. No PRs on squat or deadliest but 170×1 on press which is huge for me since I am working my way up to 200 lb press. I also hit a 185×2 clean and push press.
I have a question about everyones opinion on lay back in the press. Here is a video of a typical set of pressing:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tK4pRez-Rts
This was a intensity Day Press for 5 reps.
My low back tends to hurt sometimes and almost feels “bruised” sometimes. It definitely interferes with recovery and other lifts.
Is my form close enough for government work or is it looking dangerous?
Thoughts?