Week 2020.11.02

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The 2020 Testify Fall Classic is in the books, and it was a great day (and even better since it was our first strengthlifting meet at our new location)! Lots of PRs were set, and many congratulations go out to everyone who stepped onto the platform to compete this past Saturday. Thank you to those of you who helped out at the meet – setup, teardown, judging, spotting, loading, scoring, announcing – without you, this meet wouldn’t be possible. Also, thank you to those who came out to support and cheer on the lifters – you all made it a fun day for the lifters on the platform.

This Week’s Conditioning

Option 1
“Prowler Base”
1. Load up a manageable weight.
2. Sprint 40m at 85% intensity.
3. Rest until breathing and heart rate slow down. (45 sec – 2 min)
4. Repeat 5-15 times.

Courtesy of “Death by Prowler” (on Starting Strength).

Compare to 2020.09.21.

Option 2
Bike/Row for 9 rounds:
1 min on
1 min off

Record distance for each round.

Compare to 2020.09.07.

Option 3
1st: 5 x 50 ft seated sled pull. Add weight each round. Rest as needed.
2nd: 5 x 100 ft duck walk. Add weight each round. Rest as needed.

Compare to 2020.08.10.

Option 4
For time:
500m row
5 x 80m sled push (200 ft if indoors)
500m row

Rest 1 minute after the first row and after each sled push.

Compare to 2020.08.03.

The Bench Press: Lead with Your Elbows

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The bench press is unique in that it is the only major barbell lift wherein we do not aim for a vertical bar path. Because the locked-out position of the bench press is directly over the shoulder joint and the touch point on the chest is a few inches lower than that (i.e., further “down the bench” or toward your feet), the bar path on the bench press is somewhat slanted or diagonal.

In light of this, we aim “up-and-back” during the ascent of the bench press - “up” because we’re working against gravity and “back” because the bar needs to finish over our shoulders and not over our touch point. This type of bar path can be somewhat difficult to attain as we often see people “mis-groove” their bench presses by pressing straight up off the chest or - even worse - pressing the bar further down the bench, which then requires a herculean effort to bring the bar back into the proper path (this error will trace out a looped path if viewed from the side).

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If you have this problem occasionally, and if we assume that your touch point is both correct and consistent (a discussion for another day), the problem may lie with your elbow position at the bottom of the bench press. Viewed from the side, the tip of your elbow should be slightly in front of the bar, and if this is the case, it will facilitate that efficient up-and-back bar path we’re aiming for.

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To achieve this elbow position, try cueing yourself, “Lead with the elbows.” Your mental picture is now one of the elbows leading the way - slightly in front of the bar - during the descent of the bench press, almost as if they were clearing a path for the bar to follow. Executed correctly, the tip of the elbow will be slightly - slightly - in front of the bar when the bar touches the chest, and you’ll be in a great position to drive the bar up-and-back toward its locked-out position over your shoulder joint.

Lead with the elbows, and the bar path will follow. Give it a shot.

Week 2020.10.26

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Reminder: The gym will be closed on Saturday, 10/31/20, since we are hosting the annual Testify Fall Classic strengthlifting meet.

This Week’s Conditioning

Option 1
“Prowler Sprint Test”
1. Load up a heavier weight.
2. Time a 15 yards sprint at 100% intensity.
3. Rest 30 seconds.
4. Repeat sprint until times slows down 10%.
5. Goal is to increase # of sprints under the time standard.

Courtesy of “Prowler Sprint Test” (on JTS) as well as “Death by Prowler” (on Starting Strength).

Compare to 2020.09.14.

Option 2
Bike/row:
3 rounds of:
8 x 20 sec on/40 sec off
Rest 3 min between rounds
Score = lowest distance

Compare to 2020.08.31.

Option 3
1. Work up to a heavy single on the axle clean-and-press (i.e., ground to overhead).
2. 5 x 100 ft Zercher carry (50 ft down-back). Add weight each round. Rest as needed.

Compare to 2020.08.03.

Option 4
Row 10 x 100m
Rest 1 min between sprints. Your score is your slowest time.

Compare to 2020.07.27.

Training is a Highway

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Thanks to Tom Cochrane, we all know that life is a highway. But did you know that training is also a highway? In last week’s article, we discussed the three phases of training - novice, intermediate, and advanced - as well as the rates of progress that we see in each phase. This new analogy - that of training as a highway - is closely related to that discussion.

Training - or getting stronger - is the act of driving down a highway that you are simultaneously constructing. You go into the gym on Monday, you warm up, and you do the hard work of completing your work sets. You then repeat this process on Wednesday, then Friday, and then you begin it anew the following week. This is you - driving down that highway. The more weight you add to the bar over time, the farther down that road you get. If you add weight faster - adding 10 or 15 lbs between workouts instead of 5 lbs - you are driving faster.

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Now, to ensure that you don’t run out of road (going off-road is not cool in this analogy), you are also continuously constructing new highway in front of you - this is the process of recovery. If you want to travel a long way down that road, you need to keep driving, and you also need to keep building highway. If you want to keep getting stronger, you need the stress of regular training, you need the recovery of food and sleep, and if you get both stress and recovery - if you both drive and build - you get the adaptation of strength.

There is, however, a catch. This highway is going up a slowly steepening mountain. When you’re brand new to training, you are far from the top of the mountain, and the road is going up so slowly that you almost don’t even notice it. When you’re on pretty level ground, you can construct new road pretty quickly, and you can drive pretty quickly, too. At this stage, the weight on the bar goes up fast. This is the novice phase of training where the weight on the bar goes up every time you enter the weight room. You’re cruising down that road, and life is glorious.

Then the road starts getting steeper. Construction on a steeper grade takes more time, and driving uphill is more taxing as well, so things slow down somewhat. The weight on the bar is still going up, but slower now. This is the intermediate phase of training - now, you are making progress and setting PRs on a weekly basis.

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If you continue building and driving, you reach truly steep regions of the mountain. Construction here is very slow indeed, and your car has to work extremely hard to keep creeping up the mountain. This is the advanced phase of training where you are trying to make progress and set PRs on a monthly, quarterly, or even yearly basis.

Looking at the process of getting stronger in this way allows us to see why we can add weight quickly to the bar at the beginning of our training careers, and it also allows us to understand that this type of progress will slow over time, and our programming will change to reflect this. So, keep driving up that mountain, and put some Tom Cochrane on while you’re at it.

Week 2020.10.19

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This Week’s Conditioning

Option 1
Sled
Outdoors:
10-20 x 25 yds EMOM at a weight of your choice

Every minute, push the sled 25 yards, i.e., if pushing the sled takes 20 seconds, then you have 40 seconds to rest. Perform 10-20 rounds.

Indoors:
10-20 x 100 ft EMOM at a weight of your choice

Every minute, push the sled 100 feet, i.e., if pushing the sled takes 20 seconds, then you have 40 seconds to rest. Perform 10-20 rounds.

Compare to 2020.09.07.

Option 2
Bike/row:
12 min TT
Score = distance

Compare to 2020.08.24.

Option 3
Outdoors:
8 rounds:
4 tire flips
50 yd sled push (25 yd down-back)
Rest 1 minute

Indoors:
8 rounds:
4 tire flips
100 ft sled push (50 ft down-back)
Rest 1 minute

Compare to 2020.07.27.

Option 4
Outdoors
4 rounds:
50 yd farmer carry
80 m sled drag
Rest 2 min

Indoors
4 rounds:
100 ft farmer carry
100 ft sled drag
Rest 2 min

Compare to 2020.07.20.

The 3 Phases of Training - A Bird's-eye View

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When you start out on your journey of strength, you are in what we call the novice phase. Simply put, this means you make progress on a workout-by-workout basis, and for convenience, let’s call this daily progress. The novice phase is the most fun because it represents the fastest strength improvement you will ever experience - you get to add weight to the bar every time you enter the weight room, which means you are setting PRs every single day.

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After a few months, your progress starts to slow due to the law of diminishing returns. In other words, the stronger you get, the more work you have to put in to get even stronger, and thus it takes longer to make progress. You are still adding weight to the bar, but you’re now adding 5 lbs to your squat every Monday (i.e., every week) instead of every single workout. You’ve moved from daily progress to weekly progress, and we refer to this phase as the intermediate phase.

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As you continue to train, progress continues and you keep getting stronger, but - no surprise here - the rate of improvement slows even more. Now, you are able to make progress on a monthly basis instead of on a weekly basis, and we now refer to this phase as the advanced phase.

It is worth noting that your lifts will rarely progress through these states at the same rate. For example, your pressing and bench pressing may be in the intermediate phase while your squat is still in the novice phase. This is normal and not a cause for concern.

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To sum up, novice = daily progress, intermediate = weekly progress, and advanced = monthly progress. In reality, of course, things are not quite so clearly delineated (after all, what about someone who sets PRs every other week?); nonetheless, the concepts of novice, intermediate, and advanced still provide an extremely useful framework for thinking about your training, your progress, and your programming.

Next up - training is a highway.