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

Rep squat day AKA Kill Me Day

Mobilized hips for about 45min, which left me with little time, so I had to get overly nasty on myself.

Comp Squat (light wrap)
385x8 PR
405x8 PR

Front Squat (light wrap)
365x2

Oly Squat
135x25

Done. All the squatting was accomplished in maybe a half hour. I'll do some assistance in the shed tonight, but first, it's a fancy hibachi place for little bro's birthday.
 
Very ho-hum meet. Benches were quick press commands (almost TnG), guys beating the press commands, and still getting white lights. Learned about fourteen new ways to hitch deadlifts. My two favorites: getting the bar to your knees, squatting, and ramping, and getting the bar to just below your knees and hitting a dozen consecutive micro hitches to finish the lift. Do some fücking glute work for chrissakes! Dropped deadlifts passed, all kinds of bro lifting celebrated. Made me sick, and at the same time, glad I didn't compete.

As far as crowd attendance and enthusiam, it was fantastic. 400 spectators, ~150 lifters. Vibrant crowd that didn't wane through the looooong day. But man, I couldn't take the judging.

And there was money on the line, so guys would pause their first attempt, see their competition was going TnG, and decide that if they want a shot at the money, they better step it up. Last lift of the meet was a guy who tore his bicep hitching 807. I place that SQUARELY on the allowance of hitching. Also was an insanely long day. 9am to 8:30pm. Crazy.

Saw some great stuff too, don't get me wrong. Saw a 198 pull 700 clean, a clean 765 deadlift and a clean 775 as well. Casey Williams, after deadlifting conventional in all of his competitions, took 750 sumo to just shy of lockout. If he continues with the sumo pulling, you could see him hitting 2100 raw at 220 in the very near future. Also got to hang with Super D a little bit again. Such a great dude. Listening to stories from him and Casey before the meet was probably the highlight of the meet for me.
 
Speed Bench

245x8x3

Moved well, I felt good, so that was good. Forgot leg drive on one set, that was about the only goof.

Supersetted with KB Swings
60x8x10

Lilly Bench (3s)
245x7
265x7
285x5

That's probably a record for that long of a pause. Like I said, I felt good today.

Lat Pulldown (medium neutral grip, which I probably will never do again)
Heavy x3x8

Pec Deck
3x12

Delt Raises
3x12

Hoff Presses x2

Ran one light band under the bench and out to the collars. That's heavy tension. Put 10s on each side. Eight skullcrushers, eight CGBP, eight JMs. The last eight were supposed to be more skullcrushers, but they devolved into JMs from the tension.

Facepulls
3x10

KB Swings
Ten left arm, ten right arm, ten with two hands.

And done. Another good session. Spent some time coaching up a powerlifting neophyte. She hit 5x5 with 80% of her old max, then doubled her old max. Each set she had one new thing to work on, and she knocked it out of the park. Lamonster and I have talked her into competing on May 24th. Always good to get some new blood into the arena, especially when they're that attractive.
 
That meet sounds awful, doubt I could have stayed to watch. The USPA State meet I just did had 262 competitors and good judging.
 
That meet sounds awful, doubt I could have stayed to watch. The USPA State meet I just did had 262 competitors and good judging.

Yeah, it was very hard to watch. 262 lifters? Two days and multiple platforms? I mean, sure there were a lot of new lifters and non-powerlifters at my meet, but why not teach them a couple things? One guy wore loose sweatpants, set up with his butt 5" off the bench, and kept it there the whole time.
 
Yeah, it was very hard to watch. 262 lifters? Two days and multiple platforms? I mean, sure there were a lot of new lifters and non-powerlifters at my meet, but why not teach them a couple things? One guy wore loose sweatpants, set up with his butt 5" off the bench, and kept it there the whole time.
Rofl
 
Yeah, it was very hard to watch. 262 lifters? Two days and multiple platforms? I mean, sure there were a lot of new lifters and non-powerlifters at my meet, but why not teach them a couple things? One guy wore loose sweatpants, set up with his butt 5" off the bench, and kept it there the whole time.

Yep, two platforms and two days.

That's not helping the sport out...just hurting it more.
 
Yep, two platforms and two days.

That's not helping the sport out...just hurting it more.

That's what I'm saying. I told my guys "If I see you do any of the hitching that I see on the platform, I will run out there and step on the bar." And then the last deadlift the guy tore his bicep while hitching and I got to say "I told you so."
 
Rep Deadlifts. Death wish.

1" Deficit Pulls
375x8 PR
385x8 (4 reps, reset, one rep, reset and remove deficit, three reps) awful

Block Pulls
425x5x3

Snatch Grip Block Pulls (higher block)
315x2x10

BB Row (dead stop from 1" deficit)
225x3x8

GHR
Chains x8
Chains x5, drop then 3 (two sets)

Back Ext
5x12

Rev Hyper
5x12

Time to get rid of the weakness back there by any means necessary. That trifecta does a good job of hitting the area in a slightly different way with each variation.

Lat Pulldown
4x8

Facepulls
4x10

Calves (seated and standing)
100 total reps

KB Swings
32kg x25, 25, 20, 20, 12, 5 total of 107

Glutes and hams are blown away. Trembling. I hate rep deadlift day. Last cycle I did 365x8, so I figured I'd add a little bit of weight. Everything moved decent. Had to wrap my hammy during warmups. Stretched a miniband along the length of my hammy then took a 3m knee wrap and wrapped the upper thigh. If I could get that under my singlet undetected, I'd totally do it.

Ordering Powerbelly Felonies tomorrow. Can't wait.
 
I'm glad you guys are here lol, I thought tonight was just okay.
 
Why did you wrap your upper thigh? To create distraction on the hamstring?

Sorry if I missed it but what did you do to your hammy?
 
Why did you wrap your upper thigh? To create distraction on the hamstring?

Sorry if I missed it but what did you do to your hammy?

Just was bugging me at the beginning of the session, so for warmups I took some of the strain off of it and flossed it through the ROM it was going to be taking on. I stretched my hammies with hip distraction before I took any warmups, as well.

What I've done to my hammy is bend over a hardwood flooring nailer for the past week and a half. Putting 1900 square feet of that stuff down, I think I've shot about 15,000 nails in that time That sucker is hell on the body. It took me a day of epic back crampage to realize that I needed to sit back and hinge at the hips while shooting if I wanted to survive.
 
Just was bugging me at the beginning of the session, so for warmups I took some of the strain off of it and flossed it through the ROM it was going to be taking on. I stretched my hammies with hip distraction before I took any warmups, as well.

What I've done to my hammy is bend over a hardwood flooring nailer for the past week and a half. Putting 1900 square feet of that stuff down, I think I've shot about 15,000 nails in that time That sucker is hell on the body. It took me a day of epic back crampage to realize that I needed to sit back and hinge at the hips while shooting if I wanted to survive.

That sounds good man. I always do the donnie Thompson hip distraction before any lower body work and it feels amazing.

As for laying the flooring, that sounds terrible.
 
"just okay" hahah. putting in a lot of work there, man. can't wait to have access to a GHR and such. probably gonna go to a more powerlifting type gym starting this summer, just having sleds and GHR make it worthit.
 
Today was supposed to be a body day, but I figured since Monday was a speed day, I was going to do a heavy ass ME day.

Shirted up Bench
365x3 off 2-board
405x3 off 2-board
425x1 PR
445x1 PR

CGBP (thumb from smooth Lilly Pause)
245x3x6

OHP
155x4x12

DB Bench
80x3x12

And the gym closed. I hate it when I forget the gym closes early on Fridays. I'll have to do some pullaparts later tonight. Lost my scaps on 445 and the shirt left me. I'm horrible at keeping my scaps in an open-backed shirt. I'm running away from the tension instead of digging back into it. Video incoming.
 
Here's the 445 bench, with a lot of preamble.

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Also, here are my rep deadlifts from earlier in the week. I uploaded them as private and couldn't figure out why I couldn't find them for the life of me.

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Sweet bench. Love the decision to go for it, lol
 
Rob, it was indeed heavy as fück.

425 had me laying on the bench awhile seeing stars. That rep I stalled at a 2 board and then I got it moving pretty good to lockout. Didn't flare at the right time. My technique in a shirt is almost nonexistent. If I worked it for awhile, I could get another 30 or so pounds out of it without getting any stronger. And it's loose enough that I could take the sleeves and chest plate in a great deal and probably get even more out of it.
 
Dude, FÜCK calf training. Three days after the fact and the DOMS is still climbing.
 
Dude, FÜCK calf training. Three days after the fact and the DOMS is still climbing.

This is gonna sounds horrible.....but I never do anything for calves and since it was nice out this week I ran 800s for some conditioning (lol stupid idea) and my calves were sore for daysss.
 
This is gonna sounds horrible.....but I never do anything for calves and since it was nice out this week I ran 800s for some conditioning (lol stupid idea) and my calves were sore for daysss.

I only did single leg bodyweight raises and seated raises with 50lbs with a full ROM and slow tempo to mitigate some heel pain I've been having, and it was awful.
 
I like to superset dorsiflexion with calf raises. Afterwards hanging in my inversion table really helps stretch them out
 
I feel like I got hit by a truck below the waist after thursday squats and friday event training...
 
**** the SSB day

365x5x2

Pause Squats (1s)
275x3x5

GMs
185x3x5

Catback Pulldowns
3x8

Catback Rows
80x3x8

Pulldown to chin
3x8

Farmers (new handles!)
120x 40yds x4

Extremely pissed at my back integrity. Just couldn't get myself tight under the bar, couldn't drive my back into the bar, couldn't do anything right. So I assaulted my upper back. Time to add GMs back into the mix, today's GM effort was embarrassing.
 
Do pause squats help you? I do them warming up to stretch the hips (up to 365), but have never used them in training.
 
Do pause squats help you? I do them warming up to stretch the hips (up to 365), but have never used them in training.

I always do them second. My squatting is very dependent on wraps and a fast descent, so breaking up that cycle makes it very hard on me. Today the focus was on keeping a tight upper back after I got mauled by the SSB. My hips shot back out of the hole. I did everything I could to avoid being turtled, but really turtling and finishing the squat would have been easier on me.

Today tells me I should probably do SSB for the next few weeks and bring the straight bar back for the last 4 or 5 weeks to work on what I suck at.
 
I have the same thoughts on pauses and using the SSB. My biggest flaw with competition squats is upper back tightness, also. Awesome work regardless Herder. You are quick to see a problem and attack it.
 
Awesome work, dude.

The SSB is a bitch but it'll make that upper back nice and meaty.

Have you ever tried upper back GM with the SSB??
 
Awesome work, dude.

The SSB is a bitch but it'll make that upper back nice and meaty.

Have you ever tried upper back GM with the SSB??

Maybe once or twice I did them seated on a box and working the upper back. I like to work that movement with chest supported rows and pulldowns, mostly.
 
Maybe once or twice I did them seated on a box and working the upper back. I like to work that movement with chest supported rows and pulldowns, mostly.

Try it standing. I like it better. I get good blood flow in my upper erectors/ traps
 
Alright, alright. Rep bench Monday

275x8 with pauses and a short hold at lockout. Too easy

305x6F, 5
lost my scaps halfway through rep 7. Slight possibility I could have finished it, but the positioning was so horrible I'm glad it was taken.

Foam Pad bench (rolled up yoga mat)
275x3
315x3
Sunk down to a half board. Pretty nice way of teaching to let the bar rocket to your chest, let it sink while tight, and then full-body drive.

CG Lilly Press (4s pause)
225x2x8

Good stuff. Kept my scaps much better.

Hoff Press (light band)
Barx1
65x1

Lat Pulldown/Standing DB Press
5x10/55x5x10

Low Cable Row
RP 8,6,4

Rear Delt Destroyer

DB Incline Hammer Curls/KB Swings
3x12/5x12

60lb kettlebell is feeling light these days. Whole back end of me was sore from yesterday. Today's session was excellent. Pretty happy with my groove on bench, just need to dial everything in for a big 1RM. Got a pump, got sweating, but I do feel my conditioning is improving a ton.
 
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