Phase 2 Training Update

I've been slacking with updates the past couple of weeks.  No reason in particular other than  I kind of lost the desire to post numbers and exercises that don't mean a ton on paper.  I'm committed to complete postural and movement correction.  I've gone all in.  So, that's what I've been doing.

Squats
I feel great!  I'll post the basic template below, but I must say it feels amazing to actually front squat completely upright.  The other night I was talking to Gabe after I was done front squatting and I mentioned to him that "I haven't squatted upright like that with no stress on my hips since... well... ever."   That might not seem like a big deal, but for as long as I can remember my hip joint was the limiting factor in my squat.  Its not that it always hurt, its just that I was literally using the joint (bone on bone) as my stopping point at the bottom of the squat.  The way I did this also stress my knees.  Looking back, it was ridiculous.

On Friday I front squatted 185x3 frankstein style with my arms straight out.  They were deep, I was upright, and I just felt like I was squatting.  My core was the limiting factor.  I cannot wait to start fucking crushing front squats with decent weight.  My goal is of course to get back to heavy backsquats, but honestly, I'm at a point in my life right now where I would be completely fine just front squatting for a long ass time.  I have so much room to grow on this movement.

Conditioning
At the start of break I came up with the idea to conditioning almost everyday.  I've done about 5 sessions in 11 days, which is far off my mark, but I had a long 3-4 days of a final paper.  I'm going to try to do some sled work everyday that I can.  I'm going to make a post about how I approach conditioning now, but generally these are moderate sessions of 20-30 minutes. 

Program Thoughts
 I'm still working hard,  I still have a long way to go, but my body has adapted pretty well to bracing the glutes, abs, and quads at the appropriate times.   I've learned a few things a long the way that have changed the way I will think about training in the future.

When it comes to bracing/plank progress, a hard contraction is more valuable than a long contraction.  Take the regular plank or corrective pushup for instance.  What I found is that I cannot do much more than 10-12 corrective pushups  and I can't perform the plank much more than 15-20 seconds.  At first I was trying to increase up my reps and plank time, but then I realized this was the wrong way to measure progress for these exercises.  I can't go more than 15-20 seconds in the plank because each session I'm contracting harder.  A maximal contraction is a maximal contraction.  As I get better at activating and utilizing my chronically shutdown core during each session, I become more proficient at maximally contracting the musculature that was previously unavailable.  Muscle fiber recruitment, yo.  So, although my plank time hasn't increased in 6 weeks, I'm now able to recruit larger portions of my core as compared to 6 weeks ago.  In short, my plank is much more plank-like.  And thats really the point here.

This is strength training.  The next time I see someone doing a 5 minute plank, I'll be thinking "good core endurance."  I won't be thinking "good core strength."  The abdominals and glutes have slow and fast twitch muscle fiber just like everything else.  I know which ones I want to be training.  (As an aside, I can see value in high rep abdominal work, just like I see value in high rep work for other supportive musculature).

In the future, I see myself placing more emphasis on heavy abdominal work.  Take my shitty front squat described above.  Right now, my weak core is my limiting factor.   Given my training history, I'd wager I can get up to a 3 plate front squat within a few months using basic linear progression.  But once I hit that mark, things might become a little more complicated.  If my goal is to get  a bigger front squat, I essentially have two options: 1) front squat more frequently  get better at the lift 2) increase cross-sectional area of the primary movers of the lift.

I'd choose number one if getting my front squat number up was my primary concern. I'd lean towards number two, if,  like is usually case, the front squat is merely one of the main 5-6 movements in my general strength routine.  Gotta get shit bigger.  At this point, things can get a little circular because they best way to directly stimulate the musculature of the front squat is to... front squat.  And we know that in the gym, for adapation to occur, we need to lift with increasingly heavy weight for increasingly more reps.  But anyone with some programming experience knows this creates trade-offs. Maybe I do value the front squat, but not enough to hinder recovery in the deadlift and backsquat.  In this case, lift specificity does't meet the programming needs, so you go more general:  core work.

Heavy core work will support both the front squat and the other lifts and work to limit "CNS fatigue" or "systemic fatigue" or whatever you want to call it.  Whether that shit exists as an actual event in the central nervous system  or not is besides the point.  We do know that "fatigue" in general, whether it be psychological (fuuuuccck I can't believe I have to do this shit heavy again) or some other mechanism, is a somewhat measurable phenomenon.  See Mike T's work with fatigue percents.  That shit is real and he has the lifters (data) to back it up.

So, heavy stimulating core work might be a choice that generally works to drive the front squat up, helps the other big core heavy movements, and works to limit total fatigue within the program.  The next question is what kind of core work do I need?  Well, lets go back to my shitty front squat triple.  I sincerely doubt that a 5 minute plank will work to strengthen my ability to maintain an upright posture in a set that takes less than 10 seconds.  I'll need get better at the heavy plank-esque movements: a real plank, resisted deadbugs, ab-wheels, dragonflys, etc.  Thats not to say shit like heavy decline sit-ups are totally useless.  Though they don't necessarily mimic the type of core loading specific to strength movements, they can still isolate the abdominals (and the hip flexors, har-har).  8-12 reps of weighted decline situps can isolate the abs and create hypertrophy.  Bigger muscles are good for strength training

I'll note that everything I write is with the natural trainee in mind.  As is often the case, there are plenty of hugely strong guys that just do the big movements with reckless abandon.  They are also juiced to the tits and don't have the same recovery considerations as a natural trainee.  Thus, they could front squat their balls off and not worry about it impacting the deadlift or back squat in the same manner.  And so they will write shit about "only needing this or that" and "just shutup and train." And idiots such as myself end up listening to these guys because they move a  ton of weight and they are huge.  Even if I recognize we aren't the same, their must be something I can take away from what this insanely strong dude has to say.  And usually there is.  But after this shit I've been going through I think that by and large, listening to what these faggots have to say to their general audience can be really counterproductive.

Closing Thoughts
My huge problem with the internet nowadays is that it offers a wealth of information, but completely destroys the need for critical thought.  No one thinks critically.  I didn't think critically.  And critical thinking doesn't mean finding an even better guru than the last.  This is the fucking internet.  Anyone can post anything.  I'm no guru myself, but by and large the training information posted on the world wide web is complete and utter diarrhea - and that includes the big popular sites.

I write all that shit out for me to revisit at another time.  I'm not going to start compartmentalizing core training or  any of that right now.  As I said in the opening of this post, I'm completely committed to postural and movement correction.  Right now for me that means bird-dogs, pallof presses, and good old planks (real planks).

Current Routine
1a. rdl
1b. split stance cable push (standing)
2a. split squat (counterweight)
2b. split stance cable pull (standing)
3a. kneeling pallof press iso hold
3b. lying i, t, y's
3c. external rotations

1a. front squat
1b. pushup
2a. step up (counterweight)
2b. 1arm face pull
3a. l-lateral raise with external rotation
3b. ball rollouts
3c. bird dogs

Phase 2 Day 2

Chris' introduction

1a. Goblet Squat
30x5; 30x5; 30x5

1b. Pushups
BWx10; BWx10; BWx10

2a. Split Squat
BWx5; BWx5; BWx5

2b. Band Facepulls
10; 10; 10

3a. Plank
15 seconds; 15 seconds; 15 seconds

3b. Row to External Rotation
3x8; 3x8; 3x6

3c. Scap Wall Slides
3; 3; 3

4a.  Front Squat
95x5; 135x3; 135x1

Notes
I introduced my old training partner to my routine since he has severe upper body mobility issues.  I think he saw the value, but was of course worried about "muscle atrophy." What am I supposed to say?  If you want to fix things, you need to fix things.  If you have the drive to do hypertophy stuff on top of all this, then go for it, so long as its not putting you into counterproductive body positions.

I didn't do the second workout of Phase 2 as its laid out, but thats ok.  Front squats felt terrible.  Hard on my fingers/wrists and it felt terrible getting below terrible.  No pain at all, it just didn't feel natural.  I also had some pretty noticeable forward lean.

Phase 2 Day 1

1a. Romanian Deadlift
135x15; 135x12; 135x10

1b. Split Stance Cable Push (Standing)
75x10; 75x8; 75x8

2a. Split Squat
BWx8; BWx8; BWx8

2b. Split Stance Cable Pull (Standing)
60x8; 60x8; 60x8

3a. Kneeling Pallof Press Iso Hold
60x15 seconds; 60x15 seonds

3b. Lying ITY's
BWx6/6/6; BWx6/6/6

3c. External Rotations
7.5x6; 7.5x6

Notes
RDL's felt very decent.  Not perfect, but I felt I was legit hinging on each rep.  I really think the double KB stuff helped ingrain the movement more so than anything else.

Phase 1 Day 12

12/07/12

This was last Friday... I did a full normal workout but I don't remember exactly what.  The only thing I do remember is I hit a 96lb x 5 goblet squat.   I made the decision that after 4 weeks, phase 1 was over and I was moving on to front squats, etc.

Phase 1 Day 11

1a. KB RDL
61x15; 122x15; 122x15

1b. Half-Kneeling Cable Push
100x8; 80x8; 80x8

2a. 90/90 Split Squat
53x3; 61x5; 122x2

2b. Half-Kneeling Cable Pull
80x8; 60x8; 60x8

3a.  Side Plank
20 seconds; 15 seconds

3b. ITY's
5x5/5/5; 5x5/5/5

3c. External Rotation
5x8; 5x8

Notes
Discovered a number of new little things today.  Holding 2 kettlebells at my side for the RDL's is superior than holding it in front.  I lose my upper back positioning when holding shit in front of me right now.  Two kettlebells at the side really allowed me to repeat a solid hinge.  I'm going with this setup for a while.  I also like it because it will allow me to eventually load with heavy dumbbells. I'm not going get crazy with loading these corrective type exercises, but I do think I need increasingly heavy shit to progress on my realignment.

ITY's and External Rotation... So I always "squeezed at the top" on stuff like this how you are supposed to do.  But today I focused on actually performing the entire movement with my scapula from start to finish.  Much much more effective.  I really felt my "wings" moving how I want them to.  This was especially important with the external rotations, because I think most people probably just turn it into a little rotator cuff type movement.

Last thing...On shit like external rotations, I need to focus on actually improving the limiting point of the ROM.  I'm realizing that is kind of the entire point.  (I think for me anyways).  Maintain alignment, but then use the load to push yourself a little farther into new territory.