Derek's Garage Experiment

[Derek Simonds]

Originally Posted by Derek Weaver

Notes:
- This was a tough one. The Reverse Lunges felt really light though after the heavy singles and speed work.
- Good start. 9 more tough workouts, a few easy ones and it's go time. My schedule may be a little goofy as my Dad's got a big birthday coming up next week, and the festivities may force workouts to be out of whack and/or combined. No biggie though, medium stress week, and my Dad's birthday stuff is more important. I'll still set some good PRs I think, even if I had to test tomorrow.

Sounds like a lot of good stuff.

[Derek Weaver]

Yeah, it's a good workout thus far. I don't really tend to do a lot of singles work, and if I do, it's rarely followed by any sort of high(er) rep assistance stuff. At least for the lower body.

As for yesterday:
12/6/2010 Monday Max Strength Phase 4 Week 1 Upper 1
A) Close Grip Incline Bench 7 x 1 @ 205, meh
B1) Close Grip bench (subbed decline for reasons below) 4 x 8 @ 185
B2) Seated Row (Chest Support Row Unavailable) 4 x 8 @ 160
C1) Scap Wall Slide 3 x 12
C2) Hammer Curlzzzz 3 x 12 @ 30

Notes:
- The inclines are a little touchy on my shoulders to begin with. Going close grip makes it a little intimidating. Copped out a little
- Declines are also a little dodgy. If I do either with dumbbells it's fine, but incline and decline with barbells gets screwy.
- the weight on the assistance stuff wasn't heavy, it was just fatiguing.

[Arien Malec]

Originally Posted by Derek Weaver

A) Close Grip Incline Bench 7 x 1 @ 205, meh

Do you have an ME press test coming up? With that incline, you should be able to pull out a nice press...

[Derek Weaver]

Nah, no max overhead test. EC isn't real big on overhead pressing. This may be his own bias due to his past as an overhead athlete (tennis).

Baseball players, tennis, volleyball etc seem to get a lot less, if any, overhead work and even more work on the external rotators.

[Arien Malec]

Yep, he seems to believe that what messes up baseball players messes up everyone. For me, overhead pressing solved all my shoulder problems.

[Derek Weaver]

Well, it seems most people sitting at a desk can stand to do more horizontal work in lieu of vertical work. Having one shoulder already scoped ~7.5 years ago, and the other being a tad "loose" on occasion, I am finding I prefer the horizontal work a bit with less vertical work. It's a case by case thing though.

The idea that guys like EC, Gentilcore (fits since they're co-owners of CP), Robertson etc. have is that we spend so much time hunched at keyboards that a fair number of shoulders are already internally rotated and a bit out of alignment.

More scapular retraction to offset this, in addition to lower to moderate pushing work (in what seems to be most of their program recommendations) with something like a 3:2 pull to push ratio, or even 2:1 is the first step. So few people bother to stretch, or to look at their stretching in terms of a hierarchy of needs.

[Arien Malec]

Horizontal work = rowing, not benching, I presume. Benching not so good for internal rotation. Dunno, oly lifters, particularly the old school ones who pressed, have massive backs, and most don't incorporate tons of rowing.

[Derek Weaver]

Most also weren't stuck at desks all day.

And yes, more horizontal work does, for the most part, mean more rowing. I have been feeling surprisingly good with more benching and little overhead work per this program. But I've also been doing a ton of rowing, push ups and scap stabilization stuff.

[Derek Weaver]

12/8/2010 Wednesday Max Strength Phase 4 Week 1 Lower 2
A) Speed box squat 10 x 2 @ 185
B) Natural GHR 4 x 5
C) DB Lunge 3 x 6 @ 50
D1) Pistol to Box 3 x 10/leg
D2) Barbell Rollout 3 x 12 @ 135

30 minutes on treadmill with heart rate in the 135 range
Notes:
- Horrible sleep last night. Surprised I felt as good during the workout as I did.
- Just counting down the days. Definitely looking to auto reg some stuff post program and work on not lifting 4 days/week. I have enjoyed this, but aside from the first deload week where I did my own thing after sleeping something like 16 hours straight (this probably kept me from getting sick and bailing out) and combining I think just one workout with another due to travel I've been pretty on it.

[Allen Yeh]

Originally Posted by Derek Weaver

- Just counting down the days.

Heh, me too....just for something else.

Not sure what my workout situation is going to be for the next few weeks so this past week I ditched the 5/3/1 stuff and started the EC off season for regular guy program. 5/3/1 was just too discouraging lately, even after I cut my weights down by 10% I was still sucking! I know my weight is down a little since but it hasn't dropped THAT much. For example....my last DL day I got 10 for 280 but earlier this year I did 280 for 16. Sucks.

I'm going to try to view it like this:
I'll workout when I can....if not there is always BW stuff and mobility stuff.