Last Sunday I mucked around - for the first time - with sumo stance when I trained with the lovely Ms Jamie Crawford of Dominance MMA's S&C in Melbourne.
Back at home, we used it this week in my volume with good results in term of hip and hamstring pain (which I didn't get) but mixed in term of form which has a way to go... I had intensity day for deads today and decided to stick with it. I warmed up wanting to get up to a heavy set of three. The form felt shoddy and I kind of chickened out so I lowered the weight and switched back to conventional stance. Immediately my hips and hamstrings screamed at me which reminded me why we were exploring sumo to begin with. I started to climb again, no pain and it felt good. I ended with a PB of 1 x 3 @ 132.5kg. This lift has been driving me nuts. The last time I got a heavy three it was 130kg and that was about 6 weeks ago. A 2.5kg PB, I'll take that. Damn straight I will :) I know these reps aren't form perfect, don't worry yourself. I'm back deadlifting light on Tuesday, so am keen to get more practice and help from all of the people better at this lift than me.
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1. I spent another week beating my head against the wall
2. I am definitely not peaking early 3. I need a ridiculous amount of sleep 4. I need to keep mobility tools on my person 5. I don't like to look at a blank wall when I'm squatting 6. Something has got to give Bench 1 x 4 @ 75kgs, 1 x 3 @ 75kgs, 3 x 3 fast as hell at 67.5kgs Squat 2 x 4 @ 105kgs Deadlift 1 x 5 @ 125kgs I generally get a bit overexcited on intensity days and was kind of freaking out a bit this morning. So, I did some breathing excersizes at home before the gym. A good guided one about positive visualisation which left me with calm happy vibes.
Squat - I got 4 reps out at 105kg. I went forward on the last rep and ugly as it was, I did get it up. Nothing in the tank for more reps in that set though. So that I didn't just spend the weekend replaying ugly, ugly squats in slow motion, I took another set of three. The form redeemer. Wipe that shit right outta there. Three good solid reps at 105kg. The deads felt good all the way up to my working weight. Much better, less over-thunk start position meant no pain and felt strong off the ground. I moved the rep weight up 2.5kg from last week and took 7 at 122.5kg which is a PB. It felt totally awesome to grind through hard reps with solid form. Magic. I love it when you know you're working but you can kind of enjoy the grind and get surprised when the reps keep coming. Then I vacuumed the floor, laid on the floor and ate all of the sausages. A good day. Really happy. Squats 5 x 5 @ 80kgs Played around with a slower more controlled descent and also Al called out an earlier "up" command to keep me from going too deep. Kind of stopped just below my sticking point and drove up. That was fun. Bench 5 x 5 @ 60kgs I've decided to stop fucking around with foot position and commit to flat and kind of narrow. It feels heaps more stable and I get good leg drive, good glute recruitment. Paid attention to keep my grip the same every set. Paid attention to keep my shoulder blades back at extension and rock solid…was good. Played around with wide grip bench but, I hate it.
This week has been weird. I felt like a rock star for volume earlier in the week and like a crippled whiney scared loser approaching intensity.
Today, we were either going to attempt 5 squats at 107.5 and 3 deads at 132.5 (to move my PRs up), or maybe take things a bit differently. Given I was feeling a bit broken and dispirited from a shitty bench session yesterday, we decided to go at sub optimal weights for as many reps as I could manage. This was fun because I still had the opportunity to work hard. It was heavy enough and it gave me an opportunity to get some reps beyond the five I have been struggling to complete of late. I did 7 reps at 102.5 for my squat and 6 deadlifts at 120kg. Both of those weights were my 1RM six months ago so I really am pleased about that. I've been slacking off on my mobility and my cool downs so I'm going to try to dig in to the gristle that is my body and see if I can be less broken over the next couple of weeks. Thankyou 50cent for the squats. Thank you half Sepultura and half Fugazi for the deads (earphones fell out mid work - so it was half stereo, half iphone. rad) |
AuthorAnna Brown is an average though super keen Archives
January 2018
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