rooks and minerals

Above is a song that makes BTN push presses not suck. Therefore, it is a good song.

Things I did today:

- unfucked my snatch a bit more. My pulling strength is absurdly disproportionate to how much I actually snatch, so it’s nice to see that number go up from abysmal to slightly more acceptable. Things unfucked: changing my grip (like everything I do, it’s TOO DAMN WIDE. Bringing it in helped), changing my foot position ( narrow, heels close to wide and splayed out like an asshole), trying to fix my donkey-kicking problem. I just want to clean and jerk and squat forever; is that really so wrong?

- squatted 95kgx5 and was told I’ve easily got a 115-120kg single in me; followed that up by 95kgx4, 95kgx3, and 80kgx8. Good feels. This is the last time I’ll have a belt for a while, so I’m really not sure what to do with myself now. ALAS.

- shared my platform with snide assholes who couldn’t count plates

- BTN push presses should only be done with a bar with no center knurling (ie the women’s bar) unless you really enjoy scraping all the skin off the back of your neck in one fell swoop

- cutting blows but what else do you do when you’re too poor to buy food GOODBYE GAINS

FUCKING FINALLY. Ass-to-grass, high-bar, belted. Felt fucking beautiful, although 102 was a teeny bit of a grind after two consecutive dropped attempts at 105.

Getting strong again feels good. Getting stronger than I was before I fucked myself up? Awesome.

Since Fitocracy has this handy-dandy posting function, I guess I’ll include the log here with my notes, but I’ll put it behind a cut to minimize irritation.

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deafasianqt asked: Hey, I'm blueshining from fito, I wanted to ask how important do you think it is to have a gym environment and coach for olympic lifting? The best one I could find was 150 a month. I'm a complete beginner that wants to learn, though.

I’d definitely recommend it, if you can swing it. The Olympic lifts are really technical and you need the proper equipment (bars, bumper plates, platforms, etc) if you want to progress. Coaching is invaluable, and Youtube will only get you so far, I think.

I feel you on the financial front, though. Talk to the coach running it or see if you can ask around in the community; if you’re lucky you might be able to bring down the cost a little? Good luck.

mandamelbra:

rooksandminerals:

Just… mute this or something. Second set 205x2, with some wicked soreness and a borrowed belt. Not sure if squat-morning or if it’s just the angle. I also don’t normally yell in the gym, but…

The strongest friend I have and an all-around amazing lady squatting 205 for 2 in a sweet red belt and what look like samurai shorts. Also she tells ‘Fuck!’ and I highly condone this sort of gym behaviour. 

Schucks. <3 Coming from you, that’s one hell of a compliment.

Day: made.

(Also, not samurai shorts, just cheap-ass basketball shorts that look weird because my quads got too big. When we took a video from behind it was even funnier.

I think the compression from the belt kind of forces you to yell things. Maybe once I eventually get one of my own I’ll do some research into the matter.

Needs more dragons and stuff for samurai short status. But SOON.)

My legs after hill sprints in the dark. This is probably why I shouldn’t be allowed to run any more.

I’m back! I survived orgo, along with everything else that got thrown at me in the interim. Some vague updates:

• Squatted 200lbs/91kgx3 on Friday. Tuesday was pretty disappointing in that I only managed to get doubles and singles at that weight despite it feeling fairly light. I’m hoping by the end of this month or the middle of the next my 1RM will be around two plates, or 220lbs/100kg.  That said, it’s cool not to stall out and lose speed on my heavy sets, which are almost always a brutal grind. After changing my high-bar squat stance (from feet wide, toes at ~30 degrees to feet close, toes at ~5-10 degrees, being careful not to hyperextend my hips) squats are feeling fucking awesome. I still have some trouble internally rotating because of whatever impingement I’ve got in my hip, but foam rolling and mobility work is helping with that. 70’s Big has a great article on the matter.
• Holy balls, mobility work does make a difference. I’m still fumbling out what works for me right now; if I warm up too much it feels like I destroy some of my ability to keep my heavy squats tight, but overall I’m recovering super quickly from lifting, which is new. I’ve been doing this to warm up, along with various banded stretches (ie, using a band tied around a machine or something to stretch out my hip — similar to this demonstrated by Chris Bell). That plus a PVC pipe = ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow fucking ow. But it helps.
• Canada Day, Pride, and the brofriend’s month-long stay in Canada is over, meaning I suddenly have an influx free time while I try to accrue money and work on passing my chem pre-reqs. Not looking forward to this shit.
• My body has forced me to go on an involuntary cut. Well, not entirely involuntary. But something weird’s going on with my appetite these days and I’m definitely not eating enough to fuel my lifting sessions. No bueno.

Today’s plan: light squats and mobility, maybe some Oly work, then hang out with my good pal Barbell Babe and then maybe run some sprints or hit the books.

Snatch pulls and clean pulls feel okay, but my cleans are clumsy. I think I’ve gotten stronger, though, because a 55kg clean feels like easysauce at least when it comes to the weight of it, but it’s just not good enough to muscle things around like a klutz. 

Other problem: I moved away from my old gym. This gym had great coaching and wonderful people. I’m now where I need to be for school, but coaching isn’t easy to come by.

Word on the street is that if I show up at gym A and do something impressive, the coach may take me under his wing and train me there for free. Otherwise, it’s $250/month at a time in my life where I’m barely making rent.  The coaching there is great, but the facilities aren’t - the guy’s running his gym out of a shoebox, but at least it’s a good shoebox.

Gym B is staffed by a kind of creepy dude who the rest of the community isn’t terribly fond of.  It’s also expensive, and far, and just all in all really not a viable option.

Gym C seems to consistently produce amazing lifters but is, again, incredibly far and probably expensive. I say ‘probably’ because they seem pretty insular and I have no idea how I would even get in with them.

My old gym is still an option, but making it down there in time for coaching isn’t really possible when I’ve got class and doing odd jobs to worry about. Eating and having a place to sleep are pretty high on the priority list right now, along with getting good grades. I’m also incredibly nervous about showing up and being bad, which is stupid, because of course I’m going to be bad. I guess that’s really the main thing here. Everything else could conceivably be rearranged in order to make getting to training work.

I miss that gym, though. I miss the people. The downtown folks here are great, and the facilities are pretty good — most of the time I’ve got access to a clear platform and enough equipment to shake a Shakeweight at. But none of that’s really worth shit if I’m just half-assedly trying to teach myself to do somethingI really don’t have any idea how to do… and it especially blows to be doing it on my own. 

Womp womp.

Either way, time to suck it up and try some snatches. I mean, I’ve probably lost a lot of progress, and progress was already pretty slow, but if you like something enough you don’t care how long it takes, right?

Looks like I’ll just have to make it my goal to become very, very impressive. Once I can feel my legs.

More for me than anything else; I gotta start incorporating some of these into my gym time along with all the dumb-looking unilateral glute work my physio’s been hounding me to do. I’m still trying to get out of the mindset of heavy fucking squats = warm-up, which isn’t really helping me at all, ever.

Oh, and fellow shitty-hip-mobility-people: I’m probably the last one to the party, but MWOD’s stuff is legit.

Also, this: