Herder's 2014 Log: All About the XPC Semi's

BOOM! Pay close attention. Read it twice even. This makes so much sense to me and makes me want to make some tweaks to my training.

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herderdude said:
BOOM! Pay close attention. Read it twice even. This makes so much sense to me and makes me want to make some tweaks to my training.

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After feeling upper back activation during my best sets of my life, I disagree on upper back strength for bench.

A little too sensationalistic for my tastes.
 
Swanson52 said:
After feeling upper back activation during my best sets of my life, I disagree on upper back strength for bench.

A little too sensationalistic for my tastes.
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The point was argued on facebook that while the back/rear delts are important for stability, it's not getting the bar off of your chest.

It clicked for me because I've been getting more and more stable, but I still suck off of my chest. Looking back, my pecs have not gotten much bigger in the past year, if they've gotten bigger at all.

When I missed 370 at the meet, I touched where I needed to, I pressed it in the groove, but it barely came off of my chest.

If you're just now getting your upper back involved, then yeah, it's going to help a bunch. If you can't groove the bar where it needs to be, then your upper back still needs work. I totally agree with that.

What I took from the article FOR ME is that now that I can stabilize the weights, and my delts and triceps have grown immensely, I still need to work my pecs.

I will say right now that I don't plan on working on my lats/upper back any less, because that shyt helped me a ton. I just think I need to have better pecs.
 
Swanson52 said:
After feeling upper back activation during my best sets of my life, I disagree on upper back strength for bench.

A little too sensationalistic for my tastes.
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I agree.


Some of the best raw benchers I've ever met always talk about the importance of carrying the weight in your lats. (Brian Vickers has even gone so far as to tell me that the shoulders should NEVER be involved in the bench, which I also disagree with lol)
 
I think rear delt work is absolutely necessary. I'm still trying to fix my rolled shoulders.

It may not transfer over to a raw bench, but I'm definitely not just gonna do all that push and do no rear delt work after slamming my pecs and front delts
 
smoker145 said:
I think rear delt work is absolutely necessary. I'm still trying to fix my rolled shoulders.

It may not transfer over to a raw bench, but I'm definitely not just gonna do all that push and do no rear delt work after slamming my pecs and front delts
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Yeah, the author clarified on facebook. Balance and stability are key, and you DO have to work your rear delts, especially since you're suffering from douchebag shoulder. Just don't cry when you don't get a 50lb bench PR once your rear delts get up to par.
 
Lol I hear ya. I don't plan on benching shirted for many years, if at all.

I just think rear delt work is key for me at least.

What I learned today..

" you can't add unlike terms"
 
I agree with most everything. I do think, however, the success of some of my lifts comes from my back work. I don't know why you would use kettlebells for a muscle/strength builder-however, kettlebell swings can turn you into a school boy bitch real fast. I never felt **** from the Tricep band work, the times I've done it, it's because I was lazy

Agreed bigtime on the warmups. I've leanred to warmup fast and found what works for me (Today I did sets of 8 though warming up though, just because I felt I needed it today)

Pecs..True. I need pecs

and boobs, but that's another thing
 
****ing furious right now. Haven't had a car since May. Told someone yesterday that I was going to need the car to go to the gym. Told my crew I'd see them at six. Car rolls up my driveway at 6:15.

Good thing today is heavy deadlift day, because it's time to blow off some ****ing anger.
 
i'm of the school that every freakin muscle from the lats, traps, delts, straight down to the fingers are stabilizers...
 
herderdude said:
****ing furious right now. Haven't had a car since May. Told someone yesterday that I was going to need the car to go to the gym. Told my crew I'd see them at six. Car rolls up my driveway at 6:15. Good thing today is heavy deadlift day, because it's time to blow off some ****ing anger.
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I hear ya man. Happens all the time
 
So, had a pretty good deadlift day. Was struggling to lock out EVERYTHING, the bar was sticking to my thighs on conventional and I was too forward on sumo. Had some productive stuff, though.

Floor (1 sumo, 1 conventional)
225
315
365
405
455 (big for me sumo)
500 dropped at knees on sumo (didn't want to spend 10 seconds locking out only to fail), wonky lockout conventional

Block
405x3x5 conventional beltless

Really flattened my back and hinged at the hips on those. If only I could do that with gusto from the floor...

Block 500x1 immediately drop bar to floor to try it with less leg drive and more hip hinge. Bar drifted too much, dropped it from my knees. Not used to pulling that way.

Had the old head of the crew watch my back flat-ness with 405 off blocks versus floor, hinge versus leg drive. Difference was too slight.

Then worked on why my lockout was messed up. 455 had too much speed off of the floor and we couldn't make any judgement. 475 stuck on my thighs but I finished it, though it was wonky. We made an adjustment, instead of tipping my head back and shrugging the weight, I tucked my chin and rolled my shoulders. Very very good stuff.

BB Rows (loose form)
315x3x5

GHR (jacked up on 10" box)
BWx8
20#medballx5/BWx4 x2

Hayes Rows/Pullups
3x10/3x8

Double Pause Pulls (3s)
225x5

20min LISS elliptical.

Very productive session. Got a lot ironed out. Bar EXPLODED off the floor today (for me anyway) it seems doing 1" deficit rep work and learning how to properly GHR has made a HUGE difference. Now to iron out the lockout struggles and I'll be cookin. Very happy.

Also coached up the resident lady powerlifter. Turns out the trick was to have her pull sumo off of a box. She's all set to pull 4 in April.

Vids to follow.
 
Here's the 500 sumo fail. Three things here: 1.) Didn't mobilize AT ALL before this session. So I POSSIBLY could have done better had I been more limber and able to get into a better position. That's entirely speculation. 2.) I was so tight, the bar actually left the floor before my hips were in the position I wanted them in. 3.) My grip didn't fail, I dropped it because I wasn't going to make the lift. Now that all of the excuses are out of the way...

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And here's 455 without a belt. I forget what I was trying to see with this vid, but I took it and it looked good, so I threw it up.

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herderdude said:
And here's 455 without a belt. I forget what I was trying to see with this vid, but I took it and it looked good, so I threw it up. Invalid Link Removed
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Well it shot up. Man 500 looked doable, the bar came up quickly but if you say you were gonna fail I believe.
 
Duramaxhd said:
It did look super fast looked as thou u could have almost used the momentum u had a coast to lock out
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You're right, I'm questioning whether I should have tried to finish it. My issue is that my positioning was the same as my 455, and that was a tough-ish lockout. Maybe I'll try it for shïts and gigs in a couple weeks. If I'm going to try for a new conventional PR in 9 weeks, though, it's about time to switch over to conventional. I usually do my sumo for 3-4 weeks in the offseason before I get into meet prep.
 
I think you had it, but I know how you feel. I'm guessing it jumped off the floor because of the widerish stance, which resulted in the difficult lockout and you saw it coming like you said (exactly my issues)

You had it.

But it's okay.

That's what the platform is for.
 
Sean1332 said:
I think you had it, but I know how you feel. I'm guessing it jumped off the floor because of the widerish stance, which resulted in the difficult lockout and you saw it coming like you said (exactly my issues)

You had it.

But it's okay.

That's what the platform is for.
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You're right in line with my thoughts. I'm sore as hell all over, and that's with two reps that I outright dropped rather than grind. You know how grinding through reps just fücks you for the next week or two. Not this guy.
 
herderdude said:
You're right in line with my thoughts. I'm sore as hell all over, and that's with two reps that I outright dropped rather than grind. You know how grinding through reps just fücks you for the next week or two. Not this guy.
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I actually don't have that issue, I feel fine the week after really grinding through a squat/deadlift rep.
 
jimbuick said:
Lol, isn't herder only ~3 years older than me?
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Lol, yup. I'm 24 now. But I don't grind when I don't have to. I already pissed on Prilepin's grave with the volume I used yesterday, I wasn't pushing my luck.

Usually with deadlifts my fails never leave the floor, so that's an automatic no-grind. But I'd rather reinforce my technique and use speed. My best squatting ever, I squatted 535 in 2m wraps with nothing more than 465 on my back the entire training cycle.
 
So tomorrow morning we're getting a big bench crew together for a Max Effort bench session. I'm going to take the old man of the crew's single ply Rage X for a spin. He said he was planning on using it in a cut to 242, but the cut never materialized. So it's a half-rep old. Looking forward to it.
 
ME Benchin

No shirt today, so I went with elbow sleeves and reactive slingshot for overload instead.

Work up work up
Sleeves
355x2
385x1
Add slingshot
405x2
Add 2 board
455x1
Remove slingshot, sleeves, and 2 board

Static Lockout hold
405x10 seconds

Benching then immediately into a 2 board
315x4/2

Done. That was a LOT of weight. Really got tight today, so that was a good learning movement. 9 weeks out from Monster, time to really dig into the Cube and work from there. Elbow sleeves will stay to protect the area, even if they'll give me more pop than I want. Vids to come.
 
****ing killing it bro!


I have the same kind of question about the sleeves...I wanna protect, but not depend.
 
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rob112 said:
****ing killing it bro!

I have the same kind of question about the sleeves...I wanna protect, but not depend.
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Right. The way I see it, if I move a little more weight, it's going to overload the movement anyway. Maybe not as much in the bottom, but it really works my back harder and my midrange and lockout work hard, too.
 
Holy hell dude, you've become a pressing machine. I'm jealous, you're moving serious weight.
 
Dem belly bench PRs, nice job.
 
So the guy who was holding my phone for the 385 bench didn't hit record the first time, he hit the picture button. This came of it:



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The big-ass handoff guy is Ray, who's 5lbs off of being ranked in the Top 30 in Master's Single Ply 275 with a 507 bench in September. There was another guy in the crew today who I hadn't met before, he hit raw double to a 2-board with 495. That was ridiculous.
 
herderdude said:
So the guy who was holding my phone for the 385 bench didn't hit record the first time, he hit the picture button. This came of it:

<img src="http://anabolicminds.com/forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=95751"/>

The big-ass handoff guy is Ray, who's 5lbs off of being ranked in the Top 30 in Master's Single Ply 275 with a 507 bench in September. There was another guy in the crew today who I hadn't met before, he hit raw double to a 2-board with 495. That was ridiculous.
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You're huge!!!! :D
 
Swanson52 said:
Can I suggest a tanning bed? :D
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Lol. There's one in the gym, too. But no. Just no.

Speed Squat (slow descent, half second pause)

335x8x3

Sumo Speed Pulls
315x6x1

GHR
BWx4x8

Ab Wheel/KB Swing
BWx3x10/70x3x20

Brutal day. Working that many reps of the squat emphasizing the part I suck at really took it out of me. My hamstrings were on the brink of cramping/ripping the whole time. They're really getting a makeover this training cycle. Yeah I said makeover, deal with it.
 
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