Oh ya. I heard that low weights with very high repetition & frequency is a form of therapy?

It's definitely not muscular ache. The pain comes from deeper inside, nearer to the spine. And yeah, I'm not planning to get back with deadlifts until I'm certain it's healed because I don't want to mess around with my back.

Oh, I've been doing leg raises and hyperextensions for quite some time now, and occasionally good mornings as well. My back seems to be ok with front squats instead of back squats too. I'll try out box squats as well, thanks.

Box squat 3x a week.
No seriously. Load 5% every week till you stall, then increase sets and reps at the weight ur stalling at. Then increase load again when feeling stronger.

I wouldn't say theraphy, but I feel it builds a better mind-muscle connection as well as gives the muscle a nice flush of blood that should help recovery.

I'd definitely keep off deads atm

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Added on April 5, 2010, 9:55 pmAnd for those of you guys who want a real quad killer, try snatch grip deadlifts. When I say snatch grip deads, I mean your torso has to raise at the same time as your hips, and not your hips rise first. Major quad killer. Great to improve deadlifts starting too because of it's added range of motion.

This post has been edited by pizzaboy: Apr 5 2010, 09:55 PM

Yo folks, some commotion happening at the bb thread. Try not to preach PL/Strength stuff on the BB thread. Don't wanna start a flame war and shiet. Share your vast of knowledge in the PL/Strength Thread

This post has been edited by shanecross: Apr 7 2010, 06:31 PM

Will do peoples!

wat happen?

I'd like to contribute a lil something about the value of power based movements. Plyometrics, power cleans and power snatches. OF course, powerful movements are not exclusive to only these 2 different exercises and 1 category of movements. Flipping a tire can also be considered a power based movement as long as the tire isn't too heavy because at one point, you'd have to throw the tire from the thigh to the floor.

Too many times a lot of us are so hell bent on getting stronger, wanting to break past the sticking point, we forget the one thing that can actually help us and is less torturous. Speed. With increased speed, we get more power, so why aren't we paying some attention at getting faster? What makes weightlifters so bloody powerful is that weightlifters must carry an extremely heavy load, to much higher heights. With 200KG, the load is much higher than 100KG, thus causing the power exerted to be higher.

To most people, the Olympic lifts will be close to impossible to learn as the main essential in Olympic lifts is the triple extension. However, half the time, people will be banging the bar and not being able to extend the quadriceps powerfully enough. So what's the other alternative? Jumping, running, rebounding movements.

If one were stuck at the squats at parallel, I suggest doing jumps from a low box (sitting on it) to a high box. What this does is that it teaches you to powerfully get OUT of the hole. I move my low box to about 1 meter away from the high box and jump on it. My high box is about 90CM high. So what's cool about this, is ...I can gauge my improvement two ways. Either by moving the box further away from each other, or increasing the height of my high box. Also the landing height tells a lot as well. If I'm tired, I'll land lower and lower (as in my butt will eventually touch my calves) but I try to keep my landing height at parallel.

Anybody care to share other plyo ideas?

All I know about plyo is to explode, explode, EXPLODE!
Explode out of the hole in squat, explode the bar up in the deadlift, explode out of the press, explode to the bar when pull up, explode up when doing pistols, explode out of the toilet bowl after pangsai, etc....

How about chains and bands? They force you to accelerate, if not... you'd get stuck with the increasing load.

And doing swing or DB snatches.

Oh, and a friend happened to pass me this link while we were chatting:
http://danjohn.net/2009/12/one-arm-lifts/

Nothing to do with plyo stuffs but..

I find that routines like sheiko improve your technique overall. Due to the high amount of singles, doubles, triples. Anyone care to share their thoughts?

Chains are excellent but how many of us know how to use it? The problem I have with bands is also because it removes the stability factor so I feel that people who want to use bands, should use it only once a week OR after the main workout. And the end, just add some band work to increase the acceleration speed off the hole.

Btw, plyos aren't about exploding out of a press. It's about using the muscles you already have, loading them and exploding them out.

As for single arm work, I love to use them, but one small problem I have with them is the stability factor if you were to do it with a barbell. I don't know how much time, you'll have to waste relearning how to do it with a barbell, so I'll use a dumbbell for athletes who want to save time. If you have the time, I believe barbells can be used as well, it's just that it'll take a wee bit longer to learn.

When I was on Sheiko, I felt it forced me to pay more focus and attention to my lifting because as you fatigue, I'm sure you'll notice you get a lil "sleepy". But with a heavy bar and so many sets, I really had to keep myself "awake" and focused.

PB i just tried doing these box jumps today about 3 sets until failure. Then I realised how weak I was to 'get out of the hole'. Recently I reached the 1x BW mark for my squats and sometimes I feel 'sleepy' like you mentioned, and some times I stall and I actually fell down from squatting for the first time ever due to failure upon squatting 1x my BW. I feel maybe the motion for jumping on the box and the pushing of the weights upwards during squads could just be the same.

@ cheezzzz

What routine you on mate?

@Kirks

Sometimes, even at 75% of rep max, going for 4 sets of triples can be a pain in the butt after 6-7 sets. The thing about how i squat is, i try to control both ascending and descending, if I just bomb down it gets a little flimsy. On certain, days, the workouts aren't as taxing as the previous ones.hmmmm...So all in all, Sheiko makes your lift better mechanically.


I'm yet to try the REAL sheiko, the one that has a 4 day split due to time constrain.

started on stronglifts 5x5 in feb. so far only about a month of continuous training. today's box jumps I did at the park were not part of my regular routine, I felt I needed a workout cuz gonna be away from gym for the next few days haha

I read a bit on sheiko, looks good. may want to try it once i can squat 1.5x BW n DL 2x BW and done with stronglifts.

cool let us know how you progress. Would like to see how would a transition from stronglift to sheiko work for you

If im not wrong, Pierre Roy makes his athletes do some box jumps or side box jumps before lifting, so that it primes the nervous system to be able to recruit more high twitch fibers.

I must agree with Pizzaboy, that not many focus enough on power development, especially within athletes. I myself am guilty of that, seeing that my gym has no boxes for me to jump on. There's only one aerobic step which is nowhere near high enough for me to jump on.

Cheezzzz, I don't think doing plyos till failure is a good idea. You want to generate maximum power, so fatigue should be avoided.

Hey guys,

Current on stronglifts 5x5. Will most likely reach 1xBW on the squat by the end of next week. I just realized that I had to start with 40kg on the deadlift and increase by 5kg each time I deadlift. I started with an empty bar and progressively added half of that each time, similar to the other workouts. D: Omg what a horrible mistake. No wonder the deadlifts felt easy.

What should I do now to let the deadlifts catch up with my squats in terms of adding the weight?

3 sets till failure? How can you actually do a plyo movement to failure? It requires that you powerfully explode up so there's no way you can actually do it to failure. Unlike a squatting movement, where you can "fail" where you are squashed by the bar, a plyo movement is "unfailable" (UNless of course you jump on the box and then slam your shins and then roll on the floor for 10 minutes yelling in agony and then seeing a huge chunk of flesh peeled off and a bit of bone, yes I got that before and no it wasn't nice, and no it's not healed completely and probably never will)

http://articles.elitefts.com/training-arti...ed-development/

This is a nice article to read about power and speed.

You guys need to be a lil more creative about plyos. Sprinting is "plyo"'ish. Jumping from a box to the floor then exploding forward like a broad jump is a plyo movement. Just have the essence of pre-loading and reversal (exploding) in it.

So today I did 13 sets of squats consisting of triples and doubles. Weight ranging from 95kg - 162kg. I had 5 sets of bench, not heavy in between the 8th set of squat.

When I got back to the rack, started of from 95kg again up to 152kg for 3x2. Loosing abit of control on my descend, I still tried to compose myself with some left over tempo. lol

great question. my deadlift is lagging behind as well. but I'm lifting as much as I can now. TBH u should try to use 20kg weight plates, so ur total weight will be 20+20+20 = 60kg. Cuz thats the ideal height for the bar to be from the ground.. but also dont add drastically. Lets say last deadlift workout u did 40kg. next day of deadlift workout start warming up with good mornings, stretch your hams, glutes,quads.. Continue the warm up with heavier sets, until u eventually feel its getting a bit hard and let that be the work set of the day. IMO its just my 2 cents and what I would do, but I hold no responsibility whether it is the right way or not.

example
1 x as much stretching as you need.
1 x 5 40kg
1 x 5 50kg
1 x 5 60kg - starting to feel really hard to lift
1 x 4 65kg - failure
(If by any point you feel it is getting really hard to lift,grip failing or whatsoever - thats your workset)

Attempt that weight again the next time u deadlift, should be able to do 1x5, then can continue adding 5kg progressively or 2.5kg progressively

PB: haahha not directly failure, like do until I feel that my explosiveness in jumps are weakening.

This post has been edited by cheezzzz: Apr 9 2010, 07:15 PM

Hmm, sounds good. Thanks!