Chalk it up
by Scott Bird
February 25, 2006
7 comments
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Finally got a chance to catch up on sleep (7.5 hours, which is great compared with the 4-5 I usually get) and it certainly made a difference this morning. Looking over Rob’s recent squat/rack pull workout inspired me to do the same - including the PRs.
The squats were once again of the bottom-up variety, with a few sets of regular free squats beforehand to warm up a bit. Worked up to a new 10RM for these before realising I was dangerously close to vomit terrritory.
For the rack pulls I decided to try out John’s suggestion and use chalk - hoping that my back would call Time before my grip did. This seemed to make a bit of a difference (at least the white handprints on everything looked cool), and I took it 20kg up from last time before calling it a day. As tempting as it was to max out, I’ll try to stick to 10RMs during this phase.
Squat
2×20@20/44
2×20@40/88
Bottom squat
2×10@60/132
2×10@80/176
10@90/198
Rack pull (above knee, 6 holes, conventional)
2×20@60/132
2×20@100/225
2×10@140/308
10@160/352
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Comments
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I got a mention - woo hoo!!
Ha ha anyway…You’ll enjoy the rack pulls - once you begin pulling weight way above your normal ground floor deadlift - your confidence will soar. Plus getting your muscles and joints accustomed to heavier than normal weight is good!
One tip i’ll give ya is its really up to know whether you also add in some deads from the floor cause while i’m experimenting using rack deads - i may end up in a month not being any stronger from the floor - hopefully that won’t happen but….it could!
Rob
Posted by: Robert Forbes | February 26, 2006 12:13 AM
That’s a sound strategy to tick to the conditioning for now and the pr’s will fall later.
Posted by: Jon | February 26, 2006 12:49 AM
Rob, it’ll be interesting to see how long it takes to re-adjust to the first stage of the pull after all the rack work. At a guess, a few weeks of things like zercher deads and ultra-wide sumos should get things back on track.
As I don’t compete, however, the time is largely irrelevant :)
Jon, still plenty of work around the house to come - most of it conditioning. Look forward to setting a few new PRs.
Posted by: Scott | February 26, 2006 9:03 AM
Those bottom up squats look impressive, particularly since you get no reflex out of them. Interesting warm up strategy with the super light weight. I tried that today, and it was decent.
Posted by: Bud Gibson | February 27, 2006 3:39 AM
Bud, ever tried the bottom squats? Nice warm-up for the deadlift work.
Posted by: Scott | February 27, 2006 7:05 AM
The bottom squats are not a bad idea for our next sequence. We did do Zottman curls today. Will probably do them again.
Posted by: Bud Gibson | February 28, 2006 3:41 AM
Cool. When’s the next sequence start?
Posted by: Scott | February 28, 2006 7:53 AM