Hamburgerfan writes:

Brent, could you recommend some good techno?

These are songs I’ve recently added to my YouTube favorites:

Though I don’t know what you’d consider to be “techno.” The above is apparently “house,” which is just repetitive shit. I listen to a trance internet radio station at when I’m in the lab at work. I also like just straight up instrumentals i.e. this guy. And I like deep house a lot. I dunno why they call it deep house, maybe because it makes me feel emotions so deep that it makes me want to fucking kill myself?

I only had time to bench today, I hit 245lbs x 5, 4, then 235lbs x 5, 4. I woke up kinda late for this so I wouldn’t say I was 100%. Kind of a mediocre day. However, I think the close-grip bench has been helping me quite a bit, grinding through to lock-out is still hard but it’s not insurmountable like it used to be. I was also hitting these with about 5min rest between sets, which is a good improvement for me. Guess I’ll re-take 245lbs for 4×5 next week. Guess I should fucking kill myself.

Irregardlessly, I’m off tomorrow, so I’m gonna do a lot of shit for training.

Pet peeve, cable punches on the cable cross over machine. Especially when a long-haired, mouth breathing, comic book collecting, LARPing Gordon fuck does them. Jesus Christ that grates the fuck out of my nerves. “I have not and never will be in a fight but I want to make damn sure I can punch someone with 60lbs cable resistance when it happens.” The dude I’m talking about in particular right now was trying real hard on these, so hard that he had to use his other hand to pull the punching fist along because he was overloading the movement that heavily.

It’s not only the act of the cable punching that bugs me, but what their probable thoughts on barbell movements are – “All right, so those guys can ‘power clean’ 300lbs or whatever, but how hard can they PUNCH?” Oooh KAY.

The corollary to this is punching while holding dumbbells.

I fucking hate everyone at my gym.

On Thursday (last week) I benched 260lbs for a triple. I was going to pause all three reps but two was really hard so I just touch-and-goed the third. This is a lifetime PR. Then I squat 390lbs for a double high-bar. There was a wannabe powerlifter in knee wraps doing a fantastic job of not hitting depth with 405lbs in the rack next to me. I can’t wait for the day that I can bang out a set of 5+ at 405lbs high-bar to end range. Finished up with some close-grip bench and some barbell rows and curls.

On Saturday I power snatched 195lbs x 1, then squat snatched it for another two reps, this was disappointing. C+jed up to 255lbs, push pressed 210lbs x 4, then pulled 405lbs x 5 double overhand hook grip. I think I’ve officially legitimized my double overhand hook grip. Did some barbell rowing.

Today I snatched up to 215lbs, c+jed up to 260lbs, and front squat 315lbs for two triples. Did some more barbell rowing and some curls.

So this weekend was pretty intuitive as far as training. So intuitive, in fact, that I did two sets of barbell rows on Saturday instead of three, so I did three more sets of barbell rows the next day?????? Oooh KAY. Caught a pretty legit pump though, I didn’t regret doing this.

Sam writes:

Brent, i have problems with my high bar squat man, i seem to good morning the weight on the way back up any ideas how i can counter this?

You may have to drop the weight to where you can do the squats without your chest falling? That’s prob what I’d do. Not sure what the exact issue is but more than likely if you’re used to low-barring, you’re not used to keeping your chest as high with the high bar squat, so you’ll have to do some re-learning. This might be obvious but you will be high-bar squatting a fair bit less than your low-bar squat. Discrepancy should catch up pretty fast though, once you’re used to the depth and the different emphasis on the legs.

Uh so this week has already sucked pretty bad for training. I was going to train today, at least bench, but upon going out to my car I discovered the battery was dead. I changed it, so go fuck yourselves. However the trip to Walmart and changing it put me pretty behind so I wasn’t able to train. I’ll be training tomorrow instead. Couldn’t tell you how much this bothered me.

FYI I love how people on the bb.com misc boards talk. See me trolling a post on the 70s big fan page for reference (as background, someone linked yet another article on the fuck face lady who doesn’t snatch bodyweight that wants to wear a long-sleeved shirt to meets. Saudi Arabia called, they said why don’t you go fuck yourself). Also, apparently she’s gonna lift at meets. My roommate’s girlfriend Asia was at the apartment when I read the story, I told Justin, “This is the worst day of my life.”

The “reality” meme, “lettuce beans real tea,” “if we are going to be reality here,” those always make me lol. I like reading posts typed entirely in misc/4chan speak.

While I was mobbing today (lacrosse ball between my t-spine and scapula), my dad called and we had a typical dysfunctional conversation common among a Korean immigrant and his first generation Korean-American son.

Dad: do you work today
Brent: no
Dad: what about tomorrow
Brent: i don’t work tomorrow
Dad: what?
Brent: i don’t work tomorrow
Dad: you work?
Brent: no, i don’t work tomorrow
Dad: ok. what are you doing
Brent: just hanging out at the apartment
Dad: ok. do you work on your sister’s birthday?
Brent: no i’ll be off
Dad: what about Monday?
Brent: i work 8 to 5
Dad: ok Brent. talk to you later

Five minutes later he calls me again and says

Dad: Brent, are you sure you’re ok?
Brent: yeah i’m good
Dad: when i called earlier your voice didn’t sound right. so you’re sure everything’s ok?
Brent: uh yeah everything’s fine.
Dad: ok brent, if you say everything’s fine

I thought I was doing a pretty good job of just mobbing and not sounding like I was under duress when he called but I guess his parental detection works through that? I should prob just kill myself.

While we’re on the subject, a while back I was supposed to meet my dad to pick him up here in Plano from my aunt’s place and then drive back to Wichita Falls with him. He was dropping off my aunt’s car here. Anyways about fifteen minutes before I leave to meet him he calls me and says

Dad: Brent, did you turn off the oven?
Brent: uhhh why would the oven be on?
Dad: ok Brent see you soon

This is literally with no prompting. There was no discussion of me cooking or being in the kitchen at all. It was just a sudden concern for him that my oven was turned off. OoohKAY. All of this is 100% true-to-life and there is nothing I can do to change it.

Hit up a lot of mob two nights ago, figure four external rotation + hip flexion with posterior band distraction, shoulder IR stretch, couch stretch, some extensive scap/external rotator work for the shoulders. My right shoulder is now pain-free, I’m assuming it’s from a combination of bent over rows, bringing my bench grip in, and improving my internal rotation/soft tissue work I’ve been doing; the reduction in pain seemed to coincide most with just bringing my bench grip in, though.

Snatched up to 200lbs, was attempting a power snatch, but this was probably a little too ambitious for how I was feeling. I didn’t feel capable of tripling a 195lbs power snatch, but thought I could manage a single at 200lbs.

I did power clean 240lbs for a double with a jerk. Didn’t go too terribly hard on the oly lifts since I needed to squat for volume that day.

High-bar back squat 370lbs for 5, 5, and 4, though this was with about 5mins rest between sets and I think with even 7 or 8mins before the third set I would have put this away without a lot of trouble. I would have also done another set if I had the time. Also, remember that I squat 390lbs for a single the day before this workout, with full intentions of squatting for volume today. I want to start squatting more frequently, although not every workout, maybe 3-4x a week with 1-2 of those days being working up to an auto-regulated, moderate effort topset between 1-3 reps. Felt pretty good squatting this workout, if tired from the short rest periods. If it seems like I’ll be able to stay on the path to squatting 400lbs+ for multiple sets of 5, I may just say fuck it and squat high-bar at USAPL Raw Nationals (and still attempt to overall PR in the squat). As of right now my plan is to start low-barring 1-2x a week about a month out and go weapons free at the meet with like 220k.

Basically, fuck programming.

255lbs x 10 RDLs, limited to one set since I’d done these on Sat and also because of time. These are becoming my favorite assistance exercise, it has carry over into the Oly lifts, deadlifting, and squatting. I’ve been killing my squats since I’ve started doing them. I feel I can do these pretty aggressively for now, i.e. 1x a week on top of my other pulling, but I’m not sure how I’ll program them once they’re actually heavy.

Did one set of bb rows, had to get to work, when I got home I pounded out some chin ups and curls.

This is a screen cap of my blog’s dashboard. Draw your own conclusions.

I went to a Starbucks today before I trained, and when I drove up to the drive-through menu, the girl on the other end had a pretty sultry voice. I immediately imagined her as a hot caucasian phone sex operator wearing a button-up shirt, glasses, and with her hair in a bun. As her phone sex session would continue, she would let her hair down, unbutton her blouse gradually, and remove her glasses. When I drove up, the girl was actually Asian, probably Korean, and she didn’t look pleased to see me. I don’t know, I haven’t cut my hair in a while. Or, it’s possible she was a soul mate, and she hated Asian-Americans as much as I did. Things got real awkward real fast. She ran my card, left the window, and someone else brought me my drink. I drove away listening to this song.

I didn’t do too much mobbing before tonight’s workout, just the best shoulder mob ever and some rolling on external rotators and medial border of my scaps.

I benched 240lbs 3×5 touch-and-go for a lifetime volume PR, then got another set of 4. Felt pretty good benching tonight. The new bench grip is working out for me pretty well. I’ll attempt this again next week and shoot to complete 240lbs 4×5, then attempt 245lbs for multiple sets of 5. If it doesn’t go, I’ll microload and attempt 242.5lbs. This is all fucking moot though, words are fucking cheap, I’m a man of action. I’ll do it live.

Something that probably helped a lot with making this happen was that I carb loaded the FUCK up with some Chinese take out from First Chinese Barbecue. Combination fried rice + barbecued pork.

Brent: i’m about to get some Chinese take out
Brent: do you have anything to say about that
Jake: i hope they give you lots of napkins
Brent: ? explain
Jake: because Chinese food is messy, and you’d need lots of napkins
Jake: and it would be cheap and inconvenient if they did not give you enough

Auto-regulated some high-bar squats up to 390lbs for an easy single. Gonna volume squat tomorrow (among other things). Ask me if I give a fucking shit about resting a muscle group 48-72 hours.

The Obsolete Man asks:

Brent are the two mobs you listed for better squatting both on the mwod site? Also could someone please tell me if these shoes are good for squatting & deadlifting http://www.pullum-sports.co.uk/clothing-and-shoes/shoes/do-win-2010-weightlifting-shoes/prod_618.html thanks.

It’s actually one mob that I mentioned in the post you’re talking about: I guess it’s called the tabletop stretch. However, there is another version that I like as well: at 1:05. This includes the wall stretch, where you wrap a band around your hips and around both knees, then shimmy into a squat position with your feet propped up on the wall – the band approximates your hip to the back of the socket. And while we’re on the subject I feel this has helped with squatting and pulling as well: the couch stretch, though I haven’t used it with a band yet.

As for the DoWins, they’re a fairly common shoe for OL and squatting. The heel is .75″, so some people don’t like pulling in them because I guess it makes that much of a fucking difference. But most people who aren’t Gordon fucks like them for squatting. If you are a Gordon fuck, you will know, because you will complain about feeling like you are going to fall over the first time you squat in them. This is one of the reasons Msingh is such a fucking douche. If your overall mobility isn’t fucking garbage, you shouldn’t notice a significant difference squatting in the DoWins other than the fact that your feet are firmly planted and you feel more stable. I like pulling in my Adidas, which also have a .75″ heel. The argument for pulling in a heel is that the increased tilting of the shins allows for more knee extension to be used in the pull, meaning more overall muscle mass can contribute to lifting the bar.

To answer the search term “why is Msingh a douche,”

1.) He’s like spar. You can’t talk to spar without her frothing at the mouth about discrimination, civil rights, and equality. You can’t talk to Msingh without him ranting uncontrollably about how fucking fat he is. Women with irrational body image issues have a problem with that too.

2.) Benches with an uneven grip and doesn’t realize it or attribute significance to it herp fucking derp.

3.) Sucks as an athlete, but gives his opinion like anyone gives a fucking shit.

4.) Spends more time bitching and arguing fucking minutiae than he does trying to get better. He is a classic keyboard gymrat. 90% of the shit that he talks about doesn’t fucking apply to him, because he isn’t benching fucking bodyweight. Cry me a fucking river bro. He’s like the fucking lady that wants to lift at USAW-sanctioned meets wearing a long-sleeved shirt because she’s incapable of adapting to the fucking 21st century, i.e. they both couldn’t be more irrelevant. They also apparently snatch the same weight.

This list could go on.

Story of the day for you guys.

After training today I went to the grocery store. I saw a cute girl at the register, her name was Margo. I was thirsty and went through her line with a water bottle and didn’t really say much. After I got the rest of my food, including two 1lbs+ ribeyes and sweet potatoes, I went through her line again. Still didn’t say much.

Guess I’ll fucking kill myself.

Chris writes:

Brent, I have a 3 part question about your mobility work:
1) How many times a week do you MOB
2) Do you MOB as a warm-up pre-workout or in your free time away from the gym?
3) What MOB work has given you the best results?

First a disclaimer – I’m not good at mobbing, nor do I even understand it very well. Probably the reason I’ve benefited so much from it is because I was (and still am) so fucked up. While I like talking about it, just understand I don’t really know what the fuck I’m doing. I mentioned a kitchen sink approach before. That’s basically what I do.

1.) I try to mob every day. At least one mob a day = being productive for 5-10mins, which is as pretty valuable 5-10mins considering the benefits I get from it.

2.) I don’t do the lower body mobs immediately before training because I feel too loose going into training, especially couch stretching. I’ve done the shoulder IR stuff immediately before and actually felt pretty good, and soft tissue scap/first rib/external rotator work feels good before a workout too. From what I understand, you’re actually supposed to warm up before you do mob work. I tend to mob at night either after my workout or when I get off work.

3.) Uh pretty much everything, and again that’s probably as a result of me being so fucked. But definitely lacrosse ball to scap/first rib/external rotators, that one gave me a fucking dramatic difference the next day in overhead position. Shoulder IR stretching is a given, since that was such a huge obstacle for me with snatching. Long-term, hitting external rotation + hip flexion has definitely made me a better squatter and puller, improvement wasn’t dramatic but after accumulating a lot of work there, bottom position squatting, driving out of the hole, and pulling all feel much stronger.

Some fucking guy asks:

Ive been pulling rounded back deadlifts ever since i started training(a year ago). Pulled 405 like that and it feels really comfortable. Would you say its a pussy move to drop the weight down to a weight i can do properly and work back up from there? Specifically, for bigger traps… because currently, i look like someone that stepped into a weight room, then stepped out. And i think i might actually be able to grow if i work the current musculature.. It might put me back to 245 for worksets. So… Is it worth it?

Uhhh I can’t tell if you’re being serious about going from fucking 405lbs to 245lbs just from maintaining lumbar extension, even if 405lbs is a 1rm and 245lbs is your workset poundage.

I don’t know if it’d be a pussy move, but if it were me, I’d take the hit to poundage and pull my deads with lumbar extension. Second, you should prob hit some mobs for hips and hamstrings, since improved mobility there helps things like maintaining lumbar extension under load.

If you want bigger traps, and deads don’t make that happen for you, the issue may not be how you pull your deads, though, the issue may be that you need to do shrugs, power cleans, etc.

Really, though, whatever you decide to do, just work hard, be consistent, and strive to improve. If you know you have a weakness, start working to strengthen it. That’s all you need to do to get closer to what you want.

Unless what you want is a girl. If you apply that approach to a girl, you’re a beta virgin obsessive stalker. Case in point, one time I was trying to get closer to this really cute Filipino girl I liked (to this day I still say “fuck my life” whenever she “likes” something I type on Facebook, however I also got a t-shirt a while back to remind me not to be a beta virgin Mormon about it that says “UNREQUITED LOVE IS FOR CHUMPS”) and did the late-night texting spiel and she clearly wasn’t into me but I kept trying to flirt with her so she stopped talking to me for a week before telling me, “Sorry, not meaning to be shady, just didn’t want to send the wrong signals” roger that Juliet Actual, Honey Badger OUT.

I power snatched up to 195lbs today, then squat snatched it two more times in the same set. Wasn’t feeling too strong today, but I think that’s from having lost some weight from my diarrheal episode earlier this week.

Cleaned 255lbs and didn’t jerk it, wasn’t feeling terribly confident.

Push pressed 205lbs x 4. Reps were all pretty easy and smooth up to 3, hit a wall at 4, then attempted another rep and managed to grind it to lock-out.

High-bar squat 385lbs x 2, then pulled 405lbs x 3 touch-and-go. Finished off with RDLs, 225lbs and 255lb x 10. This last part of the workout was kind of rushed, so it’s possible I may have done better here with a little more rest between sets.

Not a very stellar workout, but I’ve got a lot of beef and sweet potatoes for the next week so hopefully with some good eating I should start running hot again.

That’s what I had to deal with this week.

I did the wall stretch this week, the one where you wrap a band around your waist and over both knees to drive the head of the femur to the back of the hip socket and find tight corners, did some other miscellaneous mobs, hit my high gastroc with a lacrosse ball for some tack-and-stretch which helped noticeably for squatting. Also did hip flexion + external rotation + band distraction to the back of the socket, I should prob do this joint approximation stuff once a week at least because I know that the best shoulder mob ever works fucking miracles for me.

I had an OK volume bench day on Monday, hit 235lbs for 3 x 5 reps touch-and-go, then a fourth set for 4. Squat 385lbs x 3 high bar and beltless for intuitive training – I didn’t have time for true volume and I decided it’d be cool to hit an easy triple Monday and come back Tuesday to go balls-to-the-wall with volume.

Had Taco Bell Monday night, which is typically never a good idea and was especially not a good idea that night … had some pretty terrible, shit-out-my-mucosal-lining diarrhea for the next 48 hours. Could have taken it or left it. Didn’t feel ready to train until Thursday.

On Thursday (today) I hit 255lbs x 3 bench, all reps paused. That might have been a PR. I’ve brought my grip in about a finger width, and I feel a lot stronger with it, both off the chest and at my sticking point.

I high-bar squatted 365lbs for two sets of 5, a triple, and hit 400lbs for a single. One of Kelly Starrett’s things is pushing for a more toes-forward stance for squats, which I was resistant to at first, but I’ve been experimenting and bringing my toes a little more forward and have decided that I like it better than toes out. From what I’ve watched on mwod.com he’s not asking for toes 100% forward, but more of a range between “7-10 degrees” which is pretty attainable for me. I like it. It feels a lot better at the bottom of a squat, and keeping the knees out is a bit easier.

Close-grip benched 225lbs x 5, then 215lbs x 5, and did some bent over bb rows. Might bang out some fucking curls in my room before I have a ribeye steak and sweet potato.

Not really a fan of this week. Could have been a lot better, and I didn’t get a chance to do my RDLs on Tues … couldn’t do them tonight because I’ll be deading heavy on Sat. I’ll prob end up doing a topset touch-and-go DL and follow up with a bunch of RDLs for accessory.

The guy pretending to be Msingh writes:

She’s not interested in guys with 1 inch equipment erect.

Not surprised that you’re too much of a pussy Mormon virgin to use grown-up words like “dick,” “cock,” “peen,” etc. What else are you afraid of? Benching bodyweight?

I got in a good session for the oly lifts today. Snatched up to 215lbs, push pressed 205lbs x 5, c+jed up to 245lbs, cleaned 255lbs. Some of the lifts felt heavy here since I DLed 48 hours ago but I felt pretty solid otherwise. High-bar back squat 355lbs x 3 and 375lbs x 3 beltless, these felt pretty good, moderate-effort and smooth.

Finished up with some barbell rows, about to do some chins and curls in my room.

…

Well just finished doing curls and chins in my room.

This is all I did on my Saturday, that and waited for Justin Shawn AC Chris Mike Alex fucking ANYONE to get on gchat or facebook chat which never fucking happened. Probably because they have lives and instead of doing mobility wod at 2am like I just did they were prob walking into crowded bars where they were greeted by applause and then told stories about how cool they were.

Yesterday Jay Statdfield noted that we were both on facebook on a Friday night, and I said “what the fuck else would I be doing.” Going to Denim and Diamonds? Driving 30mins to downtown Dallas so I can not find parking in a crowded bar and socialize with urbanite Texans who are drunk? I’d rather be doing mobility wod. I’d rather be turning down this 25 year old mom who is STILL texting me every night because I don’t think she seems like a kind person. I’d rather listen to this song for the 36th time today.

I’m supposed to head out to a sushi bar/club in Addison tomorrow with some friends from work. Hopefully the Vietnamese girl is there so I can continue hitting on her and getting shot the fuck down so I can tell you guys about it.

One time I went to a coworker’s birthday dinner where I was the only guy there with like uh seven girls, 4 of whom were like 7/10 or greater. After dinner I was invited to go to a strip club with them and I declined. The birthday girl, who is 22 and has fat round tits, also joked that she wanted to give me a lap dance, and insisted rather persistently that I go to the strip club with her. I declined at least five times and told her happy birthday. Then I went home and did mobility wod. This is a 100 fucking % true story. When I told Justin he either said,

“I don’t think you’re gay, and I want to believe you are not gay, but you are not making this easy for me.”

or

“I don’t agree with or understand your decision but I will stand behind it.” I can’t remember what he said because there have been multiple occasions in which I’ve done something like this so I’m getting his responses mixed up.

When I told Shawn, he said, “Well, I was expecting a story, and I definitely got it. It was not the story I thought it was going to be, but it was definitely a story.”

Andrew Koontz who posts on 70sbig told me, “your blog makes you sound like a despondent and miserable individual.” <– If he had said that on my fb wall I would have "liked" it. Truth be told I don't really give a shit. I just want to inject a gram of test a day and muscle snatch 130k @ 85k.

SPEAKING OF WHICH, I wonder if I've got the internal rotation to muscle snatch now ….. just tested the movement and I don't think I'm ready for it yet. Guess I'll fucking kill myself.

“I refuse to wear a singlet, take off my hajib, and will only wear a snug (not skin-tight) long-sleeve shirt.”

It sounds like you are fucking refusing to compete, imo. Also, you snatch fucking 47.5k. It’s hard for me to fucking give a shit about your predicament. Glad you got an article in Who Gives A Fuck Magazine, though.

Pzilla, who I’m assuming is Patrick Stroup, writes:

Tell me more about this shithole place [Wichita Falls]?

There are four things that people in Wichita Falls do on a Friday night. They go to Stage West, which is a club that a bunch of airmen and underage girls go to. That’s real fucking exciting. Or, they go to Old Town, which is a bar owned by an oil tycoon who buys all the girls who work there a pair of fake tits. Fucking classy. Making mom and dad proud there I’m sure. There is a new bar called Denim and Diamonds. Self-explanatory, and by that I’m referring to when people who go there later fucking kill themselves, it’s just self-explanatory why they decided they had nothing to live for. Fourthly, they gather in parking lots of closed businesses in large droves and be a bunch of fucking red-neck shit-kicking dead beats.

There are a handful of local places that have moderately OK to pretty good to excellent food. That’s all I got. Fuck suburban Texas.

I think I trained Wednesday. Benched 260lbs x 1, thought I’d be good for at least a double. Benched 245lbs x 2, which was real hard. Front squat 335lbs x 3, then 315lbs for two sets of 4. Sleep and pre-workout nutrition sucked this day, I was running on about 5 hours total (divided into two separate stints) and not enough carbs. I did manage to close-grip bench 225lbs x 6, which was all right, then fucking crashed and got 5 reps at 215lbs. Pretty sure it was primarily not having eaten enough fuel pre-workout.

I felt a lot better on Thursday, got up early enough and went to Potbelly’s for a sandwich with extra meat pre-workout.

Managed to power snatch 195lbs for a double, then a squat snatch. Cleaned-and-jerked up to 265lbs, squat cleaned 275lbs, then pulled 400lbs x 5 double overhand hook grip, all reps halted at the knee. Then pulled 375lbs x 5 double overhand hook grip, halted at the knee. My fingers hurt after pulling 400lbs x 5, and by fingers I mean thumbs. What was that? I said my fingers hurt. Oh, well now your back’s going to hurt, because you just pulled landscaping duty.

I’ve got tomorrow off, gonna do a lot of sleeping and training.

Was hitting on a Vietnamese girl at work, who couldn’t have been less impressed with me. We’ve worked together before and there were a lot of implications from everyone else in the clinic that we should date, which she completely brushed off as ridiculous. This time she said,

“I heard you like someone else now,” to which my immediate response was,

“You know you’re the only one for me, Dana” AND SHE HAD NO FUCKING REACTION TO THIS. Couldn’t be less interested in me. Jesus fucking Christ.

Patrick writes:

Explain to me how to do these round-back extensions? Could you do a video of them?

Glenn Pendlay has posted a video for them: works real well if you have a GHR. I use a regular globo gym 45 degree back extension bench, adjust the leg support so it’s at abdominal-level, and use a squat bar vag pad as cushioning for my stomach so that flexion of the movement = spinal flexion.

Msingh writes:

You fucking shitcunt.
Everyone on the SS Board is blowing up my PM box because of you. If i met you in person, id be sure to beat the shit out of your weak ass.

This clearly isn’t the real Msingh, but if any of you did PM Msingh as a result of my post, please share your PMs in the comments, would be curious to see what kind of trolling was done. I just can’t take anything he writes on the SS board seriously. “Eating 10k calories and a gallon of milk a day just makes people fat and there is no point to squatting 300lbs if it is at 250lbs bodyweight and 25% fat fucked bodyfat.” This is all he ever fucking posts. If he did mobilitywod, drank a protein shake, or banged out some curls instead of spending half the time he does on the SS boards he’d be a much better lifter than he is now. Actually, the issue isn’t that he posts on the SS boards, the issue is that he just doesn’t fucking try hard, and spends more energy focusing on excuses for why he failed as opposed to physically doing shit.

Chris writes:

Hey Brent, I picked up a lacrosse ball today after always reading in your logs about how effective your mob work is. What other stuff can I work on with the lacrosse ball?

Basically if it hurts to have the ball on something, you should roll on it. Pec minor, anterior shoulder, suprapatellar pouch, glutes, anything that fucking sucks, go for it. Search the site for things that you suck at, i.e. overhead position, squat bottom position, hamstring flexibility, and look for soft tissue mobs you can do.

Guys, really, just commit some time to going through the site. “The best mob program is the one you aren’t doing.” If you feel completely lost about this shit and don’t even know what to start searching for, just do fucking everything. Chances are if you are aware that your shit is fucked up, you will benefit from a kitchen sink approach, because if your problems are very apparent, there’s more going on than just the thing that’s obvious. The more you read the site and listen to the vids (which tend to be less than 5min most of the time) the more you’ll start to see about the general picture of what you’re trying to do and how to do it, and you can start getting more specific from there. But it’s a fucking great resource, and if you haven’t paid attention to mobility and want to start, just start reading the site.

I went to 70s Big HQ this weekend, i.e. Mike’s garage, high-bar squat 365lbs for 6, 5, 5, and 345lbs x 5. Going to start doing some legit TM-style volume days for squats and presses. These were pretty hard, I’d been driving most of the day and it was about 930pm by the time I started training. This wasn’t a terrible session, I was just hoping to work hard considering I came into this one a little tired.

Today I benched 235lbs for 3×5 and another double, touch-and-go. Did some RDLS at 225lbs for 9-10 reps, bent over rows at 175lbs for 3×7 (hitting failure here with some cheating towards the end), and barbell curled 95lbs x 8. All of this was done in 100 degree heat, with shirt off. Was hot, but with a fan providing a breeze and the sweat it was actually pretty pleasant. The benching could have gone a little better I think, but the last time I benched 235lbs for sets across, I was 180lbs.

The RDLs done strictly were pretty legit, I may do these in addition to/in favor of my light, grip-oriented deadlift day. I did AMRAP double overhand today, which was about six, before having to reset my grip. I’ve noticed that my shoulders feel a lot better now that I’m doing bent over rows. Big fucking surprise. However, I had tried doing bent over barbell rows regularly before, and saw no benefit to the general well-being of my shoulders – the only thing that’s changed is I’ve done a lot of mob for external rotators/upper back/scapular movement and all of a sudden rows make my rhomboids sore and my right shoulder feels a lot better even after I bench. LIFE. CHANGING. SHIT. FOLKS.

Pan-seared and pan-finished two 16oz ribeyes and oven baked about 3 lbs of ribs to start this week off.

For mob Sunday night I hit up wide supinated grip on pull up bar, banded the elbows together, and loaded the movement for improved external rotation overhead. Also did soft tissue work to anterior deltoids, scap/rib/external rotator soft tissue, then the couch and table top stretches. Forgot to do IR stretching for the right shoulder, which I’ll make up for tonight.

Power snatched 195lbs, then snatched it again without going into a full squat (but still didn’t pull the bar high enough to make it a power snatch). Snatched up to 215lbs for an easy single.

Cleaned and push pressed 205lbs for a triple – thought I could have gotten 5 here, but this felt real heavy at 3. I should honestly just kill myself for not being able to push press 300lbs for a double. Clean and jerked up to 245lbs, cleaned 265lbs. While we’re on the subject, I should probably kill myself for not cleaning 300lbs for a double.

Front squat 335lbs x 4 + 1 after racking it and a minute, then 315lbs x 4, and 315lbs x 2, sets done with less than 3mins rest.

On Tuesday night I tacked-and-stretched external rotators along both thighs, did the best shoulder mob ever, rolled on external rotators of the shoulder and t-spine.

Benched 250lbs x 3 fairly easily. Hitting 5 @ 245lbs has been a no-go so I will vary things a bit with triples and doubles.

Double overhand hook grip deads, 375lbs x 10, “10” but total time to do all 10 took like 3 minutes. Pulled 395lbs x 4 after. Was not hard to hold onto the bar, but the pulling was pretty difficult.

Close-grip benched 225lbs x 5 for a pretty decent set. I’m probably going to transition from attempting max reps at 225lbs on regular bench to doing this with close-grip (not necessarily immediately, will prob build some volume at 215lbs and progress to 220lbs etc.) and doing a legit volume day instead for bench, i.e. 4×5 or something comparable. Save the max reps for accessory volume on intensity day.

Would have done some more close-grip benching and back extensions but had to get to work. Probably going to do the back extensions tomorrow.

Some passable training this week. Could take it or leave it really. The deads were OK.

I worked with a girl from Boston tonight and I made her quote lines from The Departed all shift.