Brent Getting His Yoke 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.