Unleashing The Beast Within

[miaou]

Monday, November 21st

Paused Bench Press
110x3 x5

A. Pull-ups
x10 x4

B. Incline DB Press
20x15 x3

A. Flies
[pool]x20 x3

B. Int./Ext. Shoulder Rotations
[pool]x20 x3

C. Lateral Raises
[pool]x20 x3

 

[miaou]

Tuesday, November 22nd

Cleans
110x3
115x3
120x3
110x3 x2

Squats
100x10
110x8
120x6

Bench Press
90x10 x4

Peg-board Climbs
x1 x3

A. Ring Rows
x15 x3

B. GHD Sit-ups
x12 x3


Back is slowly improving. Stiffness in the morning, pain towards the end of the day (probably from the accumulation of load throughout the day), pain in certain movements, but it is no longer spasming and it is no longer constantly painful.

 

[miaou]

Thursday, November 24th

Fast Hang High Pulls
100x8 x3

Bench Press
110x4+F/4/4

Front Squats
120x6 x3

A. DB Curls
20x10 x3

B. Prone-grip Pull-aparts
MBx15 x3


Morning Bodyweight = 87.5 kg.

 

[miaou]

Friday, November 25th

Paused Bench Press
100x5 x5

Tucked Front Lever Negatives
x6 x3

Chin-ups
x10 x3

One-arm DB Press
15/20/20 x8+8

Fitball Crunches
x15 x3

 

[miaou]

Sunday, November 27th

Press
30x8 x5

Squat
120x6
130x6
140x6

Paused Bench Press
90+SMB x3 x6

RDL
60x10 x3

A. Pull-ups
x12 x4

B. Roll-outs
x30 x3

C. Lateral DB Raises
5/7/7 x20


First overhead work in 2.5 months. Lets see how it pans out this time.

 

[miaou]

Monday, November 28th

Bench Press
110x3 x3
90x10 x4

A. Face Pulls
40x12 x3

B. DB Curls
10x20 x3

 

[miaou]

Tuesday, November 29th

Cleans
100x3 x5

Overhead Press
40x10 x4

A. Paused Squats
100x6 x3

B. Ring Rows
x15 x4

GHD Back Extensions
x12 x3


Woke up on Sunday morning with low-back pain (lower lumbar - right side). It's a bit better but still painful when training, so I kept things light.

 

[miaou]

Thursday, December 1st

Jump Rope
x100
x100 (alt. leg)
x50 x3 (double-unders)

Bulgarian Squats
60/80/80 x6+6

Bench Press
110x3 x5
100x5 x5

 

[miaou]

Sunday, December 4th

Jump Rope
x120
x120 (alt. leg)
x60 x2 (double-unders)

Overhead Press
40x10
50x10 x3

Squat
140x5 x3

A. Chin-ups
x12 x4

B. RDLs
60x10 x3


Left bicep tendon got aggravated after Thursday's practice.

Back (at the spot where it was spasming hard last month) still a bit tight and a tiny bit painful during RDLs.

 

[miaou]

Monday, December 5th

Bench Press
60x15 x5

A. DB Flies
10x15 x3

B. Face Pulls
40x15 x3

C. Preacher Curls
x12 x3

D. Fitball Crunches
x15 x3

 

[Dinamita95]

Hey Miaou. Sorry to bother.

I fucked up my ankle while playing football last night. So far, I've been icing, elevating and putting some compression on it. Is there anything else I can do?

Once the swelling and pain has subsided, what would you recommend doing? I've been thinking doing balancing activities and going up onto the balls of my feet.

 

[miaou]

@Dinamita95

Sorry to hear that. For usually sprains the acute period (where the initial inflammation develops) takes between 1 and 3 days. During this period, conventional wisdom suggest ice, compression and elevation (ICE) to minimise swelling, but nowadays some people suggest that, unless severe swelling is implicated (where ICE might be useful to avoid /reduce the severe swelling that could apply too much pressure in the area, possibly inhibiting circulation and causing tissue damage), some inflammation might be useful for tissue repair and ICE is generally unnecessary.

Beyond the initial acute period, this is what you should do:

There are literally countless studies documenting how an ankle sprain will predispose you for future ankle sprains (the risk will double or more) and how proprioceptive training can reduce the risk of future ankle sprains (even more so for people with a previous sprain).

Basically, what happens is that, after a sprain, certain muscles get inhibited and your overall neuromuscular coordination shuts off. More severe and/or recurring sprains can lead to more permanent damage (scar tissue on the ligaments and so on). Protecting your ankle by excessive taping and bracing might temporarily reduce the risk of injuries but will also prolong the inhibition. What you need to do is get all the muscles to fire properly and build their inter-muscular coordination.

For muscle activation, spend some time with simple resistance exercises (depending on your current condition, you might not need more than a week of two). Use resistance bands and work on inversion, eversion and dorsiflexion exercises (eversion is the most important to work on, make sure you isolate the ankle and the entire ROM comes from there).

For the neuromuscular coordination, you need to do simple proprioceptive training. You could use funny gadgets like balance boards, bosu balls and other weird shit, but you can easily get the same training effect with zero costs:

• Start with balancing on one foot on the floor.
• If/once you have that down (i.e. more than 20 seconds without losing your balance), repeat the same thing with your eyes closed.
• Once you have that down, repeat the same thing, but this time look at the ceiling (tilt your head up as much as possible) and close your eyes (keep your head tilted).
• Once you can do those, work the same progression, but this time balance on your bed mattress instead of on the floor.
• Last stage is dynamic stability work (like single-leg land and stick).

It's a quick learning curve, as long as you spend a few minutes every day the whole process won't take more than a month or two. Once you do that, then the best thing you can do is do some agility drills (jumps, changes of direction, and so on), and avoid using restrictive footwear (vibrams are great for neuromuscular coordination).

Progress as pain allows (in other words, use common sense and don't rush the rehab process making things worse).

Good luck, hope this helps.

 

[miaou]

Tuesday, December 6th

Rower
1km

Assault Bike
1km

Jump Rope
x100
x100 (alternating single-leg)
x50 (double-unders)

Plyo Jumps
x10 x3

Cleans
110x2 x3
115/120/125/130 x2

Paused Squats
140x3 x5

A. Bench Press
100x5 x5

B. Peg-board Climbs
x1 x5

RDLs
60/70/80/90 x8

Ring Pull-ups
x10 x3

A. GHD Sit-ups
x12 x3

B. Glute-ham Raises
x10 x3


Enjoyable 2-hour session. Second clean rep at 130 was forward, otherwise they felt fairly comfortable. Left shoulder still aggravated, taking it easy with the pressing work.

 

[Dinamita95]

Thanks alot Miaou!

 

[miaou]

Thursday, December 8th

Rower
1 km

Assault Bike
1 km

Jump Rope
x120
x120 (alt. single-leg)
x60 (double-unders)

Box Jumps (one-step approach)
x6 x3

Single-leg Box Jumps
x5+5 x2

Cleans
120x1
130x1
135x1
140xF
140x1
120x3 x3

Bench Press
110x3 x5

A. Squats
100x6
120x6
140x6
150x6
160x6

B. Bench Press
70x10 x5

C. Chin-ups
x10 x5


Being able to clean 140 after 2 months of very limited low-body work and almost no olympic lifting is genuinely surprising to me. Squatting a comfortable 160x6 was also a bit of a surprise.

After the 140 miss I got that adrenaline rush and I knew I had it in me (re-attemtped the lift taking barely 2 minutes break, which is a very small break for me between max attempts). Fuck me, that is such a good feeling.

 

[miaou]

Monday, December 12th

Sprints
100m @75% x6

Bench Press
103x5
108x5 x4

Squat
138x5
152x5
163x5
168x5

One-arm DB Row
x12 x3


Different town, different gym. Logged numbers are weird because the bar weighed 18 kg, so "170 kg" is really 168 kg (assuming the weight plates where decently close to their nominal weights).

Here's my program for the couple of days:
- away game with the team on Saturday afternoon
- got on bus at 8 pm, traveled for 6+ hours, arrived at our home hotel at 2:30 am, packed my stuff, slept for 15 minutes
- hoped on my car at 3:30 am, drove for 5+ hours, arrived at my new University at 8:45 am (Sunday morning), 9 am classes started, attended a total of 10 hours of classes, slept for 4.5 hours at night
- woke up early morning (Monday), attended another 9 hours of classes (did the sprints during a break), got to the gym at 9:30 pm.

 

[Dan O]

Mother fucker casually doing 140 after not training.

Bravo.

 

[livingdeadmoose]

Hey Meeow. I haven't been here in a while. Happy to see you still training.

 

[miaou]

Wednesday, December 14th

Row
1 km

Assault Bike
1.5 km

Jump Rope
x120
x120 alternating-single-leg

Clean + Power Clean (EMOM)
80x1+1 x3
90x1+1 x3
100x1+1 x3
105x1+1 x3
110x1+1
115x1+1
120x1+1
125x2+0

Inverted Ring Rows
x15 x4


Running on under 10 hours of total sleep since Saturday.

 

[miaou]

Mother fucker casually doing 140 after not training.

Bravo.

Thanks, Legs. Quite frankly, I surprised myself with that one.

Hey Meeow. I haven't been here in a while. Happy to see you still training.

I'm not as into it as I once was, but I'm keeping in touch. How have you been?