Albany Strength Meet Recap

Hi everyone!!! So I had my FIRST EVER powerlifting meet this past weekend and it was such a great experience! I can't wait to do it again! But anyways, lets get right to it...so in my previous post I talked about being nervous about not making weight. Friday I pretty much fasted all day (and died) and Saturday morning I weighed in at 104! I was feeling really crappy though, even after I got gaterade and food in me. I felt that cutting weight definitely hurt me at this meet. I plan on moving up to the 114 weight class, which is where my weight normally is anyways so it should feel much more natural for me. Also, there was another person in the 105 weight class with me who happened to be the NY State champion, soooo....yeah that was a little intimidating. Obviously I was nowhere near her with my lifts. I also was the first person to lift and in the first flight so that was scary since I've never done a competition before. But once my first squat was done the nerves started going away. But anyways, lets get into it. I'll go lift by lift:

Squats:
I opened with a 105lb squat. Felt alright, kinda threw it a little too much in the bottom and almost got stuck (oops) but that weight is super light for me so I guess I got a little too excited haha.



My second attempt was 125. Also a light weight for me. I still felt a little shaky from not eating, but this one felt stronger and easier.


My third attempt was 135. This one got called for depth which was a surprise to me. I thought I got it. Looking back at the video after, I definitely think I hit depth but it is pretty close. I didn't have the dip at the bottom that I did with my first 2 squats. Steve thinks that because this squat looked different than the first two, it threw the judges off a little. What do you guys think? I think I got robbed here!

So I ended on a 125lb squat. Not what I was hoping for (I've hit 140 in the gym) but still pretty good for my first meet.

Bench:
Unfortunately I don't have any bench videos because Steve was doing my hand-offs. But I opened with 65 which was really easy. Second attempt was 75, which was also really easy. Third attempt was 80 which I should have smoked, but I touched it too far down on my chest and wasn't able to get it back up. One thing that threw me during benching was that they didn't get bench rack heights for anyone. It was either high or low. And low was still not low enough for me and they wouldn't let me lower it for some reason. My arms had to be completely straight to reach the bar and I had to make sure my butt stayed down. It was hard and obnoxious and Steve said he's never seen a meet where they didn't take bench rack heights before. I guess they were just trying to save time? Who knows. So I ended with a 75 bench. I was happy with that. I've only done 80 once in the gym and never with a pause, just touch and go, so 75 was a good place to be.

Deadlift:
So we had some issues with the deadlift. The only full video I have is of my second attempt, but I'm going to post the 2 second start of my first attempt just to illustrate what I'm about to explain. So usually at these meets, they are using bumper plates which are all the same size (the size of a normal 45lb plate). This meet wasn't using bumper plates. My deadlift opener was 115lbs. With normal plates, this weight uses the small plates. Plus at this meet, the clips weighed 5lbs each. So my first attempt deadlift was really low to the ground because they were using normal plates. This meant that I was lifting with a deficit, which makes it harder to pull the weight. When I do this at the gym, I usually put a platform under each end of the bar so the deficit is eliminated. Here's the (really quick) video just so you can see how low it is:

After I did this lift, Steve asked the head judge if there was anything we could do to fix the deficit. His response? "Well maybe she should lift more weight". OH. OK. I mean if I could, I would! Can you guys believe he said that?! How freakin rude. Steve was really, really mad about this. For my second attempt I did 130lbs. Luckily they used 35lb plates which are almost as big as the 45s, but not as quite. So I was still lifting from a deficit. Annoying, but I got it. Here's the full video of my second attempt:


Super easy. My third attempt was 145, something I should have been able to do easily, but I missed it. So I ended the day with 130 for deadlift. I was a little annoyed with myself because I know I can do it and all the confusion with the plates and lifting from a deficit and the head judge being mean just kinda threw me off. I know I'm making excuses but whatever.

So my first meet ended with a 330 total. Obviously that's still pretty good for a first timer. Not what I went in hoping to do, but I'm still happy with it. Like I said earlier, I plan on moving up a weight class so I can lift strogner and heavier and hopefully next meet I'll go in feeling good. I probably won't have to cut weight again, so that's definitely a plus! Thanks for all your support everyone! I can't wait till I get to do this again!!

Steve 10/24/12

Hey all,

   Sorry its been forever since my last blog post! I've been working so much doing PT and Group Ex that by the time I get home I don't really want to think about fitness anymore haha.

                 But anywho, my training has been going great. I'm currently running the Grosso Method that I outlined in my last blog post. This week is my PR week for all of my lifts. Monday was squat which didnt go the greatest. I hit 350 and made it look good last week but I missed 360 at the top this week. Its been difficult for my squat to progress since I cant squat for reps because of my hip. This coming wave I'm going to try working my squat in the 4-6 rep range and see how my hip holds up.

                  Bench was today. Traditionally bench has been a lift where I make very very slow progress but ever since I started lifting high volume my numbers have been shooting up. Today's workout went as follows:

Foam Roll
Dynamic Warm Up
Glute Activation

Bench: 45x5, 135x3, 165x2, 195x1, 220x1, 185x4, 185x4, 185x4

Here's my 220 from today:




    

This looks kind of slow in the video but I felt like I smoked it. And after being stuck at 205 since December this felt awesome. I'll have 2 plates on the bar very soon.

 After I benched I did:

3 x Dips: Bodyweight x 13 /  Inverted Rows w/ 25lb plate on my chest x 8
3 x Incline DB Bench  8 x 40's    /    Neutral Grip Chins x 8


Tomorrow is deadlift day and come hell or high water I'm pulling 440. My next meet is December 1st in King of Prussia PA and I'm going to be bringing the heat in the 148's. You heard it here first 
 

Pre-Meet Post

AHHHHHHHHHHH WE ARE SO BAD AT UPDATING THIS!!

Sooo sorry. Well, anyways, I have been working really hard training for the Albany Strength meet I'm doing this weekend! I've had a few setbacks but I think I'm finally ready. The hardest part is definitely cutting down to 105. This morning my scale at home said 107.3, and the scale at work said 104. So I'm not quite sure where I'm at, probably 107 though. I debated just going up to 114, but I've been working so hard dieting that it seems stupid to just throw that away. I still have a few days and I think that I can get down to 105. It's only 2 pounds at this point. Worst case scenario, I weigh in over 105 and compete at 114. Cutting weight is the absolute worst though. I cut out all carbs and dairy (my 2 favorite food groups) so I have been struggling. I've been doing well though. I want to take a moment to just apologize to Steve....over the course of the (almost!) year we have been dating, he's had to cut weight a couple times himself. At school I was totally inconsiderate and would eat in front of him and bring him to school events or out to the bar without giving it a second thought. Now that I know how hard it is to cut weight, I feel so bad for not being supportive of him while he was doing it. And let me tell you, having people eat whatever they want in front of you is painful. My family is Italian....enough said. So Steve, I'm sorry I paraded you around food when you were basically starving yourself. Now I know what its like and I HATE it. That being said.....anyone standing in between me and a gigantic cheeseburger (and fries) after the meet Saturday better be prepared to receive a roundhouse to the face (kidding.....maybe).

NOW onto my lifts! I mentioned setbacks earlier...many of you know I've had a knee problem ever since high school. As a senior I partially tore the lateral meniscus in my right knee and never had any surgery or anything to repair it. I just did PT and tried to have it heal on its own. PT didn't work, it just always hurt. After awhile I came to terms with the fact that my knee never would be back to normal and I learned to work around the pain at dance. So, as you might imagine, squats were rough when I first started lifting. For a few months now I've been doing Boyle's glute activation work before every workout. And guess what? No knee pain! My knees have been great for awhile now. Until 2 weeks ago, when I tweaked my right knee deadlifting. Now, this was weird because my knees are usually iffy on squats, not deadlifts. What happened was my knee kinda fell in when I was pulling. And it was on my warmup (95lbs) so that was a little scary. I stopped lifting after that. I didn't squat that week until Saturday. I rehabbed my knee all week then hit a squat PR (140lbs). I felt pretty good about that and thought my knee was fine again. However, its been kinda hurting ever since. I was still able to squat and deadlift last week, but I didn't go up to heavy weights and it hurt a lot afterwards. So this week, we decided I wasn't going to deadlift at all until the meet. I'm going light anyways this week. I squatted yesterday and felt alright, but I only went up to 85lbs. So I'm rehabbing all week again and I guess we'll see what happens Saturday. But I am pretty nervous about it. I just hope my knee holds up alright.

Other than that, I'm feeling pretty good about the meet! My bench feels WICKED tight. I started doing the same prep that Steve does, so I'm in a better, tighter position. That's actually the lift I feel most confident about, which is weird because bench has never been my best lift. But I am really excited to do this meet Saturday! My current PRs are:
Squat: 140
Bench: 80
Deadlift: 145

So I'm hoping to hit at least those and maybe go over! I've never done an 80lb bench with a hold, just a touch and go. So that's the goal for this weekend. I will update the blog after the meet! Thanks for all your support guys, I'm super pumped!! Also can't WAIT for carbs :)


Oh, one more thing. Any lifters out there reading this, what's your stance on knee sleeves for squats? I was thinking about using them but I tried them on in the store and it actually hurt my knee more. Thoughts? Advice?  Thanks!!

Stay Strong!

High Frequency Training for the Light Lifter

Steve Grosso, B.S., NSCA-CPT, CSCS 

             I train for and compete in powerlifting in the 132lb and 148lb classes with my most notable lift being a 3.2x bodyweight deadlift (407lbs weighing about 127lbs). You read that right, and, believe it or not, there are classes under 275+, and people compete in them  and train just as as the big dogs. The weights aren’t as heavy and the lights aren’t that bright, but it’s my bread and butter. Like you, I’ve tried just about every program out there: 5/3/1, Juggernaut, Westside, RTS, Sheiko, the Ed Coan Bench and Deadlift programs,Smolov Jr, and Mike Boyle’s Functional Training. I’ve liked each of these programs, but none of them seemed like the perfect program for me. After nearly eight years of consistent training and a whole lot of thinking, I finally realized why—they’re all created for the typical lifter. Considering I compete at a weight that is acceptable for most high school females, I’d say I’m not your typical lifter.

            While being lighter means I won’t be bending any bars, it does have its advantages. The most important one is the fact that smaller lifters have a lower absolute amount of muscle mass. This allows them to have a much higher recovery ability than our larger, beefier counterparts.

            For example, a 150lb lifter with 10% body fat will have 135lbs of lean mass, whereas a 200lb lifter with 10% body fat will carry 180lbs of lean mass (lean mass includes skeleton/organs/etc but it is still representative of the individuals overall muscle amount). The 200lb lifter’s 180lbs of lean mass will take significantly longer to recover than the 150lb lifter’s 135lbs of lean mass.

            Knowing this, I’ve created a high volume/high intensity training for myself that I feel could be advantageous for other small lifters.

The Program:

The program outlined below consists of 6 days per week of training. 2 Hip Dominant days, 2 Knee Dominant days, and 2 Press days. For the purpose of my own training, I consider squatting a hip dominant exercise because I am a low bar squatter, but squatting could easily be put into the knee dominant day. The program is in 4 week blocks with a deload every 4th week. For my main workouts on my big 3 lifts I work up to heavy singles weekly with Week 1 being 97.5% of my previous training max, Week 2 being 100% of my previous training max, and Week 3 shooting for a 5-10lb PR.

The daily workouts look as such:

Monday (hip dominant) - Main squat, bilateral hip dominant assistance such as GM’s, GHR’s, rack pulls, etc, lower body conditioning

Tuesday (knee dominant) - Unilateral knee dominant assistance (mainly Bulgarian Split Squats) and core work.

Wednesday (press): Main bench, unilateral push and pull variations such as single arm military presses and rows, upper body conditioning.

Thursday (hip dominant): Main deadlift, unilateral hip dominant assistance such as single leg hip lifts and single leg RDLs, lower body conditioning

Friday (knee dominant): Bilateral knee dominant assistance such as front squats, core

Saturday (press): Bilateral pushing and pulling variations such as incline bench, inverted rows, etc, upper body conditioning.

Sunday: rest

The beauty of this is that it gives you a huge amount of options to plug in movements that you enjoy/want to work on so long as they fall into the categories of movements listed. For my main lifts, I generally cycle though a month of 8-10 rep sets, followed by a month of 4-6 rep sets, followed by 1-3 rep sets.

Some things to note: I keep all of these workouts reasonably short. I pick 3 or 4 movements and hammer them and then leave the gym. These workouts should take 60 to 75 minutes max including conditioning. I also do not train if I don’t feel like I’m going to have a good lift, especially if its on a day where I’m doing a heavy single. Because of the high volume and high intensity of this program it is important to listen to your body and take the day off if you feel like you aren’t going to have your best lift. It’s better to live to train another day in those situations rather than get injured or burn out.

Also note that this program is probably only appropriate for lifters who are 165lbs and below or those who have an extraordinary work capacity.

Week 2 of 5s Wave

Hi everyone, sorry for the long delay in postings! So last week I started my 5s wave and it has been going pretttttty well. Last Tuesday I went to Boyle's to work out and deadlifted 110 for 6 sets of 5. I've never done that before so that was awesome. After that I did some conditioning work which included sled pushes. Here's a video of that:



Overall not that impressive but still cool and different from what I normally do. My other lifts last week included:
Bench:
4x5x60

Squat:
4x5x110
2x5x95

Military:
5x5x35
1x5x30

Now I'm on week 2 of my 5s wave, and heading into weights that I've never done for reps before. Today was deadlift day, and it was huge! I deadlifted 125 for 3 sets of 5. BIG PR! My last max test, I barely got 125 off the floor. It felt really good too! Here's a video of the lift:




This felt so great! So this week continues with squat and bench on Friday. I'll probably military press over the weekend, but my shoulder has been acting up lately so I'll playing it by ear....so thats all for now! Stay strong!!

p.s. if anyone can tell me what the guy is doing in the background of my deadlift video.....air humps? hmmmm....

I'm back.

Sorry for the huge lapse in blog posts guys. All the time I've spent at MBSC interning / weekend time I've spent personal training left me wanting to do non fitness related things while I'm at home. My training didnt slow down at all, just my will to write about it.

Now that I have all the free time in the world to write about my fitness adventures you're all in for a treat. I'm currently prepping for New Hampsire's Strongest Man. This means a few things for my training. My powerlifting training isnt changing much but I get to throw in lots of strongman-esque movements as conditioning. Also, I'm trying to eat my way up to 175lbs by Sept 22nd (I weighed in at 146 at USAPL NJ States). I'm currently up to about 160 and I feel strong as a damn ox even though I'm developing a sweet powerlifter gut.

Below are my workouts from the past 2 days:

8/27/12

Squat: 5x45, 5x135, 3x185, 1x225, 1x275, 1x315, 1x345, 1x360 (miss)

Cambered Bar Military / TRX Row

5x85x5 / BW x 10

Cambered Bar GM / RDL

3x95x8 / 185+60lbs chains

8/28/12

Bench: 5x45, 3x135, 1x165, 1x185, 1x200

Low Pin Press: 4x145x2

Cambered Bar RFE: 4x135x8 each leg

KB Swing: 3x10x80

Chin Ups: 3xBWx6

Sled pushes/Drags (~20 yards): 360, 450, 540, 740

I've been doing a TON of unstable work via the cambered bar/chains/etc. Below is a video of my RFE's:

 



The cambered bar may be my new favorite training tool. It adds a huge layer of instability to any lift and, more importantly, helps you get a lot more out of less weight.

Also, here's a video of me pushing 14 plates and my girlfriend on a sled:

 

#prowlerflu. There's gonna be more where all of this came from. Until next time.

Juggernaut Rep Test Week-8s wave

Hi everyone-sorry its been awhile since I've posted! So this past week I did my rep test week for the 8s wave of the Juggernaut program. Things have been going well with training and dieting. I'm at 110-111 lbs and need to get down to 105 for the meet in October. Should be pretty easy to do. Here are my numbers from rep test week:

Military Press: 35 for 12
Squat: 110 for 10
Bench: 60 for 2, then 55 for 2
Deadlift: 115 for 6

Overall it was a pretty good week. I was pumped about my squat, seeing as my current PR is 125. Deadlift i was a little disappointed-I definitely could have done at least 10 but the bar was slipping out of my hands so I put it down after 6. Bench was also not my best but 60 for 2 is still pretty good since my PR is 65. Here is a video of my deadlift:




I've also been doing conditioning workouts with Steve once a week. These have been brutal so far, but I always feel great after them. They usually consist of things like ropes, bike sprints, shoulder stabilization exercises, core work, and more. Here is a video from the last workout we did. These are split squats with a bar and kettlebells. The kettlebells hang from the bar on bands, which provides instability. These are rough! My legs were dead the next day.



So this week coming up is my deload week and then I start the 5s wave. So stay tuned! Only 2 months until my first meet! Its crunch time :)