Return of the King

Sunday September 6th: Bike

Bike (outdoors, obviously)
31km - city circle loop
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This is the 3rd weekend I've done this cycle. Didn't bother logging the last 2. This 31km loop is lovely! Bringing back in some cardio for life gains. I obviously love powerlifting, but also need to keep cardio healthy, hence the slight increase in cycling and also doing a lot more walking to work these days. Somedays recently I've been up to 10km walking per day.

Noticed that I was getting lazy over the past 6 months due to:
1) killing myself with heavy Squatting and pretending I didn't need cardio
2) taking tram too often when should just walk

The above was causing my powerlifting belt to feel way too tight and I wasn't even bulking.. hence I decided to do the healthy think and loose some fat from the waist (vs. the easy option of letting the belt out a notch).

Plus... summer is coming in the southern hemisphere

Tuesday Sept 8th: Bench Day 5

Bench (all paused)
20kg - 1x5
60kg - 1x5
85kg - 6x6
**add slingshot & gansta wraps**
100kg - 1x3
110kg - 1x3
117.5kg - 1x3 .. fine. Video'd.

Barbell Row
50kg - 6x10
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Military Press
40kg - 3x8

Rev Fly (bent over)
5kg - 3x12
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Machine Rows (4 handles)
120lbs - 3x4x10 ... 120 reps

Lat Raise (standing)
5kg - 3x12
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Bench was good. Got my Mark Bell hip circle and gansta wraps in the post which are both cool new toys. Wrist wraps are particularly rock solid and felt in on the 117.5kg slingshot sets. All force transferred to bar and none lost at the wrist.

Everything else the usual bodybuilding.

Drank some chocolate milk afterwards.

Friday September 11th: Bench Day 6

Bench (all paused)
20kg - 1x5
60kg - 1x5
80kg - 1x3
90kg - 6x5 ... fine. Worksets took 26 mins with the superset pull ups included

Pull Up
bodyweight - 6x3
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Usual quick Friday night bench session to allow a free weekend of zero training.

BossArky wrote: »

Monday September 14th: Squat

Squat
137.5kg - 1x2 ... top set double. Fine.
125kg - 3x5 ... Fine.
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Squats felt great this morning.

Top double on 137.5kg felt better than 135kg last week. Spring is in the air and its a lot easier training early when it is 16 degressed at 5:40am walking to gym vs -1 degrees a couple of months ago.

Did last workset of 125kg high bar and liked it!

Thursday September 18th: Deadlift Day

Squat
40kg - 1x5
60kg - 1x5
80kg - 3x5
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Front Squat
70kg - 3x5
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Deadlift (sumo)
70kg - 1x5
110kg - 1x3
135kg - 1x1
155kg - 1x1
170kg - 1x2 ... PR for 2 reps
150kg - 3x5 ... Fine
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GHR
3x8
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Pretty happy with a PR on 170kg x2.

Worksets 150kg 3x5 afterwards were fine. Misloaded on the first set as forgot to take 10kg off one side.

Gripping bar differently now. Holding it right down at the limits of finger tips instead of my usual up in palm. This gives me an extra inch or two reduction in ROM and thus better leverage. Combine that with sumo and I'm totally cheating. Got my feet much wider than normal on sumo also. Wasn't planning to - it just seemed like my body wanted to do that when it went heavier. Worked fine.

Friday September 18th: Bench Day 8

Bench (all paused)
20kg - 1x5
60kg - 1x5
80kg - 1x3
90kg - 1x1
100kg - 6x3 ... worksets & supersets below done in 26 mins

Pull Up
bodyweight - 6x3
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Good & quick. The next two weeks are where the rubber hits the road. This particular training day 2 weeks time will see me hit 105kg 6x3 for a PR.

Tuesday Sept 22nd: Bench Day 9

Bench (all paused)
20kg - 1x5
60kg - 1x5
80kg - 1x3
90kg - 6x6 ... PR & easy. Done in 26 mins with superset rows
**add slingshot & gansta wraps**
105kg - 1x3
115kg - 1x3
122.5kg - 1x3 ... PR & felt right on the limit on last rep. Video looks fine though

Barbell Row
50kg - 6x10
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Military Press
40kg - 3x8

Rev Fly (bent over)
7.5kg - 4x10
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Machine Rows (4 handles)
100lbs? - 3x4x10

Lat Raise (standing)
7.5kg - 3x10
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Into new territory from this bench session forwards. Everything will be PRs. Bench is feeling good. Pretty happy with how the 90kg 6x6 paused felt. i.e. like nothing.

Slingshot 122.5kg x3 paused is a 2.5kg PR also.

... and doing all the 90kg 6x6 bench worksets in 26 mins combined with 6x10 rows was basically crossfit. Building up some serious bench work capacitiy.

Friday September 25th: Bench Day 10

Bench (all paused)
20kg - 1x5
60kg - 1x5
80kg - 1x3
95kg - 6x5 ... worksets & supersets below done in 28 mins


Pull Up
bodyweight - 6x3
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Bench felt pretty good.

Tuesday Sept 29th: Bench Day 11

Bench (all paused)
20kg - 1x5
60kg - 1x5
80kg - 1x3
90kg - 1x1
100kg - 6x4 ... PR & easy. Video'd last set. Done in 33 mins with superset rows

Barbell Row
50kg - 6x10
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No elbow sleeves (forgot them) or wrist wraps (not required for 100kg or less), but that don't matter when YOLO. Pretty easy considering that is the first time I've ever hit 4 reps on 100kg. Very happy.

Friday October 2nd: Bench Day 12

Bench (all paused)
20kg - 1x5
60kg - 1x5
80kg - 1x3
95kg - 1x1
105kg - 6x3 ... PR & felt good. Worksets done in 49 mins combined with superset pullups

Pull Up
bodyweight - 6x3
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Final heavy bench before comp. Video is 6th set of 105kg 6x3. 2.5kg PR on last cycle.

Will open with 105kg in comp, then go for 112.5kg PR attempt on 2nd & 115kg on third.

Bench is the one lift that I can consistently make progress on. Pretty happy with the ease with which I finished this cycle

Monday October 5th: Squat

Squat
40kg - 1x5
60kg - 1x5
80kg - 1x3
100kg - 1x3
122.5kg - 1x1
142.5kg - 2x2 ... alrighty.
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Front Squat
65kg - 3x5
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Deadlift (sumo & double overhand)
70kg - 1x5
100kg - 3x5
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Final Squats completed successfully.

Powerlifting Meet: Sunday October 11th:

Short Version:
- Went 4/9 for a 422.5kg total at 82.9kg
- Bench 112.5kg for a 2.5kg PR
- Squat and Deadlift rubbish - just getting openers & each lift being 15kg below my best

Long Version:
Was cutting close to the wire bodyweight wise coming into this comp. Was 84kg for a couple of days in the run up and then 83.2kg on the morning of the comp. My home scales are a bit dodgy so I was expecting that I was about 0.7kg overweight the morning of the comp. Went to the beach and walked around a bit to burn off some water.

Comp weigh in was at 12pm (noon) with my flight starting at 1:30pm. Drove the 30 mins to the venue with heater on fullblast in the car, spitting out the window and getting it all blown back in my face. Lovely. Got to the venue and weighed in with the scales flicking between 82.9 and 82.95kg. Phew.

Hot day. Sweat running off me before I had completed my warm ups. Did the usual foam rolling, couch stretch with shoulder dislocates, hip circle, push ups with pelvis on ground. and then on to the Squat bar starting from 40kg.

Squat warm ups went like this:
40kg - 1x5
60kg - 1x5 ... felt heavier than it should
85kg - 1x3
105kg - 1x2
125kg - 1x1

Knew from 60kg up that Squats weren't feeling too good. Persevered with the plan and didn't deviate from the planned opener of 145kg, given that I had done 2x2 on 142.5kg last Monday before comp.

Squat attempts went as follows:
Squat 1: 145kg - GOOD, but felt heavy. Revised second lift down from 155kg to 150kg
Squat 2: 150kg - FAIL ... cannot believe I failed 150kg
Squat 3: 150kg - FAIL again. Sweet Jesus. Felt way too heavy on the day.

Shocking opening. Struggling with first Squat and getting stapled on the 2nd and 3rd. Perhaps I was too dehydrated. Purposely didnt drink too much from 12:30pm (after weight in) to 1:30pm (lifting starting) to avoid situation where the liquid in stomach gets blown straight out my ass (as has happened in the past couple of comps due to over hydration prior to lifting).

Need to train a bit lighter bodyweight wise so I don't have do do such drastic watercuts & run the risk of dehydration.

On the plus side the comp was running very smoothly and the spotters/loaders were flying through the attempts/flights.

On to Bench. Warm ups went as follows:
20kg - 1x5
60kg - 1x5
80kg - 1x3
95kg - 1x1 .. easy enough. Caught the left upright but fine.

Bench was feeling pretty good so I stuck with the plan of opening on 105kg.

Bench comp attempts went as follows:
Bench 1: 105kg - GOOD & easy enough
Bench 2: 112.5kg - GOOD & 2.5kg PR. Ground it out over about 5 seconds.
Bench 3: 115kg - FAIL. Got it off my chest and it was moving but died about half way up. No video of this of any other lifts as was at comp alone.

Pretty happy to get the Bench PR. Bench again proves to my decent lift which I can constantly make progress on.

On to Deadlifts (sumo). Based upon subtotal so far I knew I was going to be in for a struggle if I wanted my usual 2.5kg PR Total. To get that I would need to Deadlift 187.5kg. So, I decided to base my Deadlift attempts off trying to hit 187.5kg (which is 7.5kg over my best ever Deadlift to date).

Instead of going for the pre-planned attempts of 162.5/172.5/182.5 I opted for 165/177.5/187.5... in the name of Powerlifting drama and to have something to fight for on the last attempt

Warm ups went as follows.
60kg - 1x5
110kg - 1x5 (as couldn't be arsed unloading bar to do 100kg)
140kg - 1x2 ... all double overhand to here

Deadlift competition attempts went as follows:
165kg - GOOD but felt too heavy for opener. Dropped it on my right knee on the way down taking off a few layers of skin & leaving a mildly bloody mark for rest of comp
177.5g - FAIL. Got an inch or so off the ground
187.5g - FAIL. Nailed to the floor. Decided to add 10kg to my failed second attempt in the hope that the adrenaline of a PR total attempt would supercharge my Deadlift. It wasn't to be.

So, a pretty forgettable comp with the exception of my Bench which keeps moving.

Need to get a lot stronger on the lowerbody. Upperbody has been responding well to the PowerBuilding approach (i.e. heaps of high rep assistance after the main bench exercises). Need to get some Bodybuilding assistance going for lowerbody too.

Funny - if you add together all of my comp best lifts (ever, not today) I'm just 7.5kg under the nationals qualification standard... but need to string all of those together in 1 comp. Today my total of 422.5kg was 20kg under my total from 4 months ago. Need 460kg for nationals qualification.

Interestingly my Squat has taken 7.5kg backward steps in each of the past 2 comps. Did 160kg in April, 152.5kg in July, and now 145kg. Could have made more progress today if I wasn't going making such abrupt jumps and opening so high.

Gonna take about 6 months off competing now, to get setup with home gym and build some lowerbody strength.

Still got a bronze medal as was 3rd out of the 3 in the 83kg category. That's a podium pic to send to the folks (lol).

General update:

I'm between two homes at the moment - moving all the smaller stuff in my car and awaiting the removalists this coming Friday to move all the final big things. In between the manual labour of moving I've managed to put down the rubber matting for home gym in garage, plus tarpaulin on the sides of storage cage to keep out inquisitive neighbors. This truely is a labour of love as I cannot wait to get in there and start lifting some weights once my ER rack arrives in approx 1 week. I've already got all the bumper plates (& associated loose change) in there. Will put in the Eleiko bar in the coming days.

Training wise - I've been getting in a couple of 10 min high rep bodybuilder style sessions a couple of times in the past few days on the likes of:
- leg curl
- leg ext
- machine press (from overhead, incline to flat)
- lat pull down
- seated pulley row

Probably won't bother doing proper Squat/Bench/Deadlift until my rack arrives. Good time to give the body a chance to recover after some decent training the past year or so.