Derek's Mass Gain Manifesto and Milestone Log

[Eduardo Chile]

Hey Derek,

Do you have a power rack? I bench by myself and have learned how to pull the bar out and stay tight. I try to arch as much as possible and if I fail the bar will rest on the pins and can safely move out.

Letting my back heal. Feels like mi SI joint. Might be able to go back jits this week.

[Derek Simonds]

Originally Posted by Eduardo Chile

Hey Derek,

Do you have a power rack? I bench by myself and have learned how to pull the bar out and stay tight. I try to arch as much as possible and if I fail the bar will rest on the pins and can safely move out.

Letting my back heal. Feels like mi SI joint. Might be able to go back jits this week.

I do have a power rack but have never benched in it. I will start playing with it.

On the SI let me know if you want to get in to see my wife she is a LMT and will get you back up and going in no time. She is really good with injury rehab stuff. Probably her main source of referral is people she has got straightened out. BJJ was great Saturday.

[Derek Simonds]

Here is me as the Wild Wild West auctioneer. The light colored hat seems to go well with the grey hair.



Here is my lovely wife working the crowd for me.

[Allen Yeh]

I've been trying to do my MobWOD stuff separately from everything else, that's ~10+ minutes right there. Like you said I try to stick with ~1 hour in the gym.

[Derek Simonds]

Originally Posted by Allen Yeh

I've been trying to do my MobWOD stuff separately from everything else, that's ~10+ minutes right there. Like you said I try to stick with ~1 hour in the gym.

I think that is the only way to do it. Tracy is going to do it with me so I think we will probably do it right before we go to bed. I just don't have anymore then an hour in the morning unless I want to get up earlier which I am trying to avoid.

[Derek Simonds]

September 13 Monday PM

Trained for 30 minutes before class and drilled these two moves

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HmvpNiGG3MY

The latch guard and sweep. I found this to be about the easiest sweep I have ever worked from a half guard variant. In drilling with resistance I was able to secure the leg quickly and move to the back. This is a big two thumbs up from me.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o4mm6m1OFlE

This move is just plain shitty. It has to be a high percentage as I couldn't find a way to defend it if they get the arm wrapped around the head. It is kind of like a gogoplata from side with all your weight behind it and shittier.

BJJ Fundamentals: Worked single leg, single leg defense, sprawl, take the back, RNC and gi choke. I trained with one of our 2 stripe blue belts and helped him clean up his game on taking the back. It was a lot of fun and dude is strong.

Leon if you read this you probably already know this but I wanted to point it out. One of the common things I saw yesterday was that when going for the back from the turtle position most people were focusing on their top leg instead of their bottom leg. The bottom leg is the key. You have to get that leg through and secure the hip immediately to retain the position effectively.

[Allen Yeh]

Originally Posted by Derek Simonds

I think that is the only way to do it. Tracy is going to do it with me so I think we will probably do it right before we go to bed. I just don't have anymore then an hour in the morning unless I want to get up earlier which I am trying to avoid.

The only times I do the Mob WOD at the same time is if there is equipment I need at the gym, but since you have everything there. it's no problem. The last 2 nights all my MobWOD's were done in front of the TV.

[Derek Simonds]

15 Sept 2010 Wednesday

Interesting morning workout Started a little later but still close to 5:30 and just finished at 7:15. I didn't have any kid responsibilities this morning and I wanted to make sure to get my DL's in.

Dog Walk
Foam Rolling
Some Static Stretching
B W/U

PC + PJ 45 X 5, 95 X 3,3,2, 115 X 2,2, 135 X 2,2,2 155 X 1, 160 X 1, 165 X 1

Press 45 X 5,5, 75 X 5, 95 X 3, 110 X 5,5,5
CTB Planche C/U + Full Stretch at Bottom 3 X 7

SDL 95 X 5, 135 X 5, 185 X 5, 225 X 5, 275 X 5, 310 X 5

Everything was great this morning except the PC's. On the last two sets instead of dipping straight down I was kind of jumping wider to catch the weight. Didn't like that at all. The PJ was sweet though. I need to do more with heavier weights to get comfortable with my hand position (wrist) in the catch but it was no problem at all. The press was smooth. Challenging but smooth. The DL's came up like butter. RPE PC 9, PJ 7, Press 8, DL 7.

Off to work.

[Samuel Hughes]

I was just looking through your log and couldn't find when you started using RPE's. What was your intent and hows it going, just out of curiosity.

[Derek Simonds]

I don't remember when I started putting them in my log but it hasn't been long and I haven't been consistent. Every time I lift I mentally assign an RPE so I can keep track of what I am going to do next lifting session. Right now I am in a real basic rebuilding phase of linear progression and the purpose of the RPE's is for me to determine if I am going to go up 5 lb's or 1 LB the next session. So far it has all been 5 lb increases so kind of a mute point.

How I will use it though will be next Wednesday when I PC I will back up to 155 and work on my form and then start increasing from there once I feel I am good. I didn't log it but my bench work on Monday was a solid 9. I am going to get 200 X 5 X 3 and then like I said go to 5 lb's per every 2 workouts. 2lb's one workout then 3 more lb's the next workout and so on.

When I get to a point where everything is a 9 all the time I am going to reset and go back on 5/3/1 and see where I go from there. I am interested in what my buddy Chili is doing and might go that route based on what I see from him and how he likes his workout plan.

Hope that answers the question.