Monday, February 19, 2007

Training observations of late...

Weight, thoracolumbar fascia, and the tendency to break my own rules...
Weight - Once you get heavy enough in your training - you can do less training at those new weights (for a time).
The pressure within your body increases as you are able to handle heavier training weights and further impacts the CNS and recovery ability. I am now at a point where I can go in and squat over 400, bench around 300 and deadlift at or over 500 every time I go in the gym - this is great but brings with it it's own issues.
This is why Westside spends so much time on GPP and the ability to handle heavier loads in a rotation of exercises. You can continue training - you just need to build the ability to handle the heavier loads on a consistent basis. Every time a new mental or physical training barrier is breached it will take some time to be able to handle the loads in repeated workouts.

Thoracolumbar fascia - everything is connected through this tendonous/fascial junction of the body. I had some pretty good back spasms after last Monday's workout. Great squats (425 x 2, 445 x 2, 455 x 2), Chins (100# x 3,3,2), Bench (315 x 1,1 275 x 3), then Deadlifts (495 x 1,1,1) - it was a great workout but ever since I switched from pull-ups to chin-ups I have had tension in my lat - TLF junction and this is where I ended up getting the spasms. The chins ended up overloading that junction and "torquing" that area - spasms are the result.
So I will be switching off of chins for a time or at least reducing the volume. Check out an anatomy text and see just how important this TLF is to - well- everything in the body.

Breaking my own rules - I don't train others the way I train myself. My feel for where my body is and how far I can go on a given day is something I cannot have access to for others. But I would not advocate Heavy Squats, benches, Chins and deadlifts in one workout. This came about because I wanted to know what would happen during a 3 lift powerlifting meet. And I now know I can hit some good numbers in the three lifts on a given day.
But as I am fond of saying - just because you can doesn't mean you should. And I tried all 4 in one day not once just to prove I could but three times - and my back spasmed - go figure.

I train - I learn - rinse and repeat...

2 comments:

Mark Reifkind said...

Hence,

it's all easy til it's heavy. heavy changes everything.nice weights though.

Brett Jones said...

Tis true - tis true - live, learn and keep training.

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