I'm Working On It...

[Kevin Perry]

You have another meet this sunday?

[Brian DeGennaro]

My meet is Dec 14th. It's a local meet out on Long Island; pretty much get home from college, wake up, and go to the meet. Hoping to qualify for Junior Nationals with this one. It's the only meet near me between now and Nationals I think.

[Kevin Perry]

Originally Posted by Brian DeGennaro

My meet is Dec 14th. It's a local meet out on Long Island; pretty much get home from college, wake up, and go to the meet. Hoping to qualify for Junior Nationals with this one. It's the only meet near me between now and Nationals I think.

Ah, Good luck to you then!

[Brian DeGennaro]

Today was just some dowel and bar work. I'm finally getting to jump backwards with the dowel again, not as much with the bar. I don't know why that is just yet but I am working on fixing that. Tomorrow I go for maxes!

[Brian DeGennaro]

Well, going for maxes on Monday didn't go so well. I hit 80kg on the snatch twice but couldn't go any higher. The clean just couldn't get anywhere near my PR. I figure I'm not going to be lifting heavy weights until I'm around a coach from now on.

Did some squats after the lifting: 4x2

90
110
125
135

Tuesday I decided to do some deadlifts. Keeping the volume low in order to not fatigue myself.

[Clean] Deadlift (in lbs) x3
135
225
335
315 (off 4" platform)
315

After my final today I prolly am going to do DLs after my Oly, just to get the pull up. It's bad when a triple at 140kg for DL and squats feels the same.

[Brian DeGennaro]

No Oly today or for the rest of the week. I am working with my coach on Saturday, so I will have him fix me up between then and when I come back for school.

Instead, Clean deads once again.

Warmed up with 135lbsx3 and 225lbsx3 off of a 4" platform. Work sets were 340lbsx3 and 315lbsx3. Afterwards I did a set of farmers walks with 75lbs in each hand, and then used a lost collar off of a barbell to do some "hub" lifts with 25lbs.

[Brian DeGennaro]

Oh boy, I'm falling back into old habits of not posting.

Anyways, the past 2 weeks have been hectic and tiring. At the meet I totaled 180kg. Hit my openers of 80/100 and missed the other 4 lifts. The rest of the week has been dedicated towards heavy jerks and working the crap out of my form (meeting the bar specifically). I jerked 118kg from the rack for a couple of singles, and used 110kg for doubles and triples. I power snatched 70 and 75kg for several singles working with my coach. Man those were really maximal efforts on the power snatch.

Yesterday I worked out with my friend Adam. We started doing doubles on cleans but we were making too much noise at CF to actually drop the weights. We got up to 95kg for the doubles before we switched over to 71kg for doubles from the hang. Afterwards I did some power snatches, working up to 67kg. Topped with workout of with 2 sets of 3 on back squats with 135kg. The month off from serious squatting has done me good I think. Pretty sure I'll be doing 140 for my work sets once I get back into the squatting groove. Now I just need to let my upper body recover because it is pretty burnt out from the past 2 weeks.

[Brian DeGennaro]

New Year, gonna revive this old log I guess. Let's recap from Jan 1st.

Snatch
Bar
(115lbs/2)x3
155/2
185/1
(205/F)x3
205/1
(135/1)x2
185/1
210/1
225/1 (PR +5lbs)
185/1

C&J
bar
135/2
185/2
225/1
245/1
265/1
275/1 (no jerk)

BS
315/1
365/1
385/F

1/2/10

FS
Bar
135/3
225/3
(275/3)x2

Push Press
Bar
135/3
185/3
210/3
(225/3)x2

Snatch Pull
135/3
(200/3)x2

1/3/10

Snatch
Bar
(115/2)x4
(135/2)x2
155/2
185/1
205/1
(215/F)x3
215/1
(185/2)x2

C&J
Bar
(135/2)x3
205/2
225/2
245/1
265/1
275/1

BS
(315/2)x2

[jake oleander]

What's up, Brian?
I saw your goal is to get stronger, I'm also trying to increase my squat 50-70 lbs this year... If you don't mind, can you give me a little over-view of the methods you're going to use to get your squat numbers up?

[Brian DeGennaro]

Well, I've been giving Bulgarian type programming a go, a la Pendlay and Broz's crew, since it's working well for both of those lifting teams. I tested my max squat in October and topped out at 162.5kg for a grinder, and last week I did 165kg for a triple and 180 for a 1RM.

Basically I've been lifting as heavy as I can daily (twice a day sometimes), going up to a daily max and then backing off for a few sets of singles/doubles/triples. It's been working pretty well for me, weights are getting more consistent at heavy weights and are increasing. IT's HARD and you need a lot of milk and meat and potatoes and fish oil to keep improving.