So the other day I said I was feeling horrid in my shins still so I've neglected my legs for a while. That means the past week I've been benching, overhead pressing and working the guns to death. It's been fun cos there's only one thing I love more than exercising is lying down, so combining the two seems perfect. Anyhoo, lately I've been pausing my reps and feeling the benefits way more so that's my new thing at the mo. I've hit a 110kg paused double which is only a single rep from my 'bounced' PB, and I've definitely got more in the tank. We'll see soon enough anyway.
Other than that, the only real lower body exercises I'm getting lately are deadlifts and while they're only getting hit once a week, I'm loving lifting heavy every time. Anyway, since 242.5 and 245kg fell in two weeks, the third week should have been another 2.5kg increment but I felt ambitious and it paid off.
250kg slightly hitched over the shorts but ah well
As you can see, my lockout sucks. But I really did try and not hitch the bugger and I reckon 247.5kg would have been a lot cleaner but meh. I've been instructed by friends who know what they're doing that working on deadlifts from blocks (14-18" inch) will definitely help out, and I plan on squeezing these in whenever I can. Sadly, my gym doesn't exactly have blocks and the lowest pin on the squat rack is 20", so I think I've just gotta batter my upper back with rows, lat pulldowns and other accessory lifts to fix the problem. The odd time that I can get to the cauldron or warehouse will be my block day though.
So today we went to The Warehouse Gym and did some events. Long story short, it was a terrible session for me, but I still enjoyed myself. There's no video, but basically I no-repped the car deadlift and conan's wheel, and didn't exactly blow away the axle either (with a massive 110kg single rep lol). But anyhoo, I still got in some tire flips and squats with chains. I've never used chains before but still had a blast with em and will definitely try to fit them into my warehouse sessions later.
39kg cast iron wheels, 20kg bar, 30-40kg in chains, quite light but nice to learn with.
If you're unsure on what's the purpose of metal chains clanging around at my feet, I'll explain. As I'm standing up, I have the full weight of everything on the bar. As I squat down, the chains rest on the floor, lightening the load. It essentially loads the top half of the squat with more weight than the bottom. My squats don't really have a sticking point at the moment mind you, so it's not something I really need to work on, but I imagine that once I start squatting in kit, the top half will require extra training so I'm getting that head start now. I've also mentioned it's really cool!
Speaking of which, I've since returned the Inzer Harcore deadlift suit I ordered a while back (as it hadn't even been sent yet!) and made a bargain purchase of a second hand bench shirt and squat suit from a former England's Strongest Man and GBPF record holder! (Yes that's a claim to fame). These look great, but I'll wait a bit til I train in them cos I'm a complete kit noob and will probably die training alone! So yeah, here's my new kit!
Only one more thing to say really and that's I finally dragged my girlfriend down to the gym the other day to try out some compound lifts. We weren't expecting anything great but she definitely blew expectations out the window whens she got the hang of most lifts straight away. We started off with a 25kg bench press, 60kg deadlift and 16kg zercher squat. We used the latter as a regular squat proved a little difficult for someone with fucking zero mobility caused by years of WoW and CoD (she is pretty good at those though), but either way, most impressive stuff.
I don't think she'll be coming back anytime soon but it's nice to see that with a little push, people get their arse in gear and give it a shot. Who knows, maybe you can too?!
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