Wednesday, May 21, 2014

Back To ARP

Back To ARP

Today was my first ARPwave (Accelerated Recovery Performance) session in the better part of a year. The fluid in both knees is already receding again and I was able to get into a full squat despite the aggravated injury in the right knee. I even managed to get up to 8.3 on regular polarity and 7 on reverse polarity. My therapist, Chad, was happy that my foot strength and control is still way better than it was when we first started nearly two years ago.

It's amazing how important foot strength and muscle control are. I mean, maybe that should be obvious.  Everything was weak below my knees. This meant my knee joints were taking the brunt of forces that should have been borne by my muscles. Hence the two years of extreme effusion with any sort of use (even just walking).

I am working hard on regaining my ability to control my toes, spread them out, move the big toe independent of the rest, to keep my arches up as I squat all the way down, etc.

There's no way I can train after an ARPwave session, however. So I'm reducing barbell training to just once per week on my Sunday, my other day off from work (which can be very draining physically). On Wednesday I'll still go to the gym to train with Michelle, but it will be just supplementary back work: DB rows and chin-ups.

My training is very basic and my training for bench and squat is...bench and squat. But for my back I rely mostly on rows with chins thrown in every now and then. And I always do them after bench and squat. So the rows and chins probably won't be hurt by going after the ARPwave therapy and they may even benefit.

I have to work Sunday and Wednesday, but I have Memorial Day off and will be training then. Hope the knee is ready by then. It will be Sundays from there out. That's a dozen bench and squat sessions till the mid-August meet. Linear progression with lots of calories.


Sunday, May 18, 2014

I'm Gettin' Bettah..!

I'm Gettin'  Bettah..!

The effusion got really bad over the course of the day yesterday, but that seems to have been the worst of it. Much better this morning. With a thin knee sleeve under my blue Rehband the knee feels pretty damned solid. Good enough to deadlift. But too acute a bend angle and the pressure from the effusion gets to be too much. Still much better than yesterday.

Here's the thing...the effusion isn't something to fight! It's evolution's very smart built-in response to joint instability due to damage or overuse. I tweaked the tissue in the back, tissue first damaged years ago and which took about a year to heal. So now when I re-tweak it by doing stupid shit like extreme stretching, my body responds by generating fluid to stabilize, immobilize and heal. 

With luck, I'll be ready to squat again by next Sunday. Today I'll deadlift which I've needed to do anyway without being tired from squatting. I'm sick of having trouble with 315 again. Christ, I've pulled 506 sumo in competition and 495 conventional in the gym (at about 185 lbs bodyweight). It is surreal to be struggling with three wheels again. 

Speaking of bodyweight and lifts, I'm --perhaps with great delusion-- hoping to squat ~360 Olympic style without belt or wraps and deadlift ~450 without belt while 165 lbs or less. I also hope that this translates to 407 (185 kilos) and 506 (230 kilos) in competition. 

The Twin Cities USAPL Open is in 90 days. That's enough time for 12-15 squat/deadlift sessions. I doubt I'll get to 165 in that time (I'm 155-158 now) and I probably won't add 100 lbs to my squat and deadlift in 3 months either. I seem to gain 8-10 lbs on my squat and deadlift for every lb of bodyweight I gain. So I'd need to gain 3 lbs/month for the next three months. Meh. Maybe. 

I don't really have any bench goals. Ever. But it would be nice to bench 315 one day. Much more important to me are my squat, deadlift, vertical and sprint times. As far as upper body, I 'd much rather be able to do a one-arm chin up (again) than bench 315. 

Today will be a classic bench/deadlift day with back focus instead of squatting. I think these strict DB rows are really helping my upper body pulling muscles the most, especially now that I'm using that semi-supinated grip. It's like the bench press of the back! 

Today's Goals:
Bench Press 175 x 5
Deadlift 335 x 1
DB Row 90 x 8 (strict)
Chin Up + 10 x 5

Wednesday, May 7, 2014

Long Torso, Low Bar...Short Torso, High Bar

Gary's Note: Instead of letting my pressure blood pressure take a beating from idiots cheering for the existence and continued upping of the minimum wage, I thought I'd use this space to celebrate my return to training. My enthusiasm is for the ideas behind training to be a physically superior version of myself. Right now I'd rather talk body proportions and their effect on squatting than take apart liberal flat earth economics.

Long Torso, Low Bar...Short Torso, High Bar

I have long limbs and a tiny little torso. If I let the barbell ride low on my back, then in order to keep the bar in the balanced position over the middle of my foot I have to bend over into a good morning. So these days I keep the bar high on my traps so that my torso needn't go flatter than 45 degrees at any point in the squat. 

I was training up my "it's complicated" friend, Michelle, on the squat. Michelle is a short white woman with a thunder booty, extremely long torso and stubby femurs. She is a natural bencher and squatter. As I watched her squat it was so obvious: her long torso made a low bar squat a much better idea for her than it would be for me. My short back means I got to push the bar up higher; her long back means that she gets to push the bar down.

This low bar/high bar war has always annoyed the piss out of me. You would have thought that somebody would have noticed by now that the length of the torso relative to the femurs would dictate where on the back the bar could be placed to allow the lifter to maintain a good back angle. 

Short-backed (relative to femur length) lifers need a higher bar or they will be doing a good morning when they squat. Longer-backed (relative to femur length) lifters can get away with higher bar, but would would get a better balance of hamstring and quadriceps involvement with a lower bar. 

Michelle's lower bar will keep her back at the same angle as my higher bar keeps my back. Too high a bar on her and she has to fight harder to stay in balance. The higher bar position on her longer torso means the bar gets forward as she descends. 

Long torso/short femurs: you have the option, but should probably lower the bar down your back.

Short torso/long femurs: stick with high bar. Your "low bar squat" is a good morning. 

In fact, a good guideline is to do what it takes to get the squat to look like a squat. If it looks like a good morning, you're doing it wrong. Sooooo...put the bar on your back in a place that allows you to hold a good back angle even when it gets heavy. That place will depend on how long your torso is compared to your thighs.

Squatting in High, High Heels

And speaking of making the squat look good, please wear appropriate shoes with the appropriate heel height for your proportions. Don't limit your ability to squat nice because you refuse to squat in heels and want to squat barefoot.

Some people can squat barefoot and look just fine. I'm talking here of Asians from Asian country and people with relatively long lower legs. All heels really do is essentially lengthen the lower leg. So if you have relatively long lower legs and can squat deep without your heels leaving the floor...great! 

Otherwise get shoes with a heel that lets you do that. 

I have Risto shoes and I added a 3/4" heel block to them to make the overall heel even higher. My squats have never felt better. My knees DON'T extend way over my toes when I wear these heels. I feel nice, solid and secure in my squat with my high heels. 

A lower heel just means my heels will come up slightly when I go deep in the squat. How much depends on how low the heel is. 

I don't get why people recommend a heel but stop short of recommending enough heel. How much heel is going to vary with the lifter. It's definitely a one-size-fits-all deal. I'm not built to squat. I can't low bar and I need a lot of heel. If you're reading this, you probably are better proportioned to squat, can let the bar ride low and need little or no heel. I'm just asking you to give it some thought. 


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