The “Barbell” means so much to so many people, and it means absolutely nothing to others. Barbells come in many forms. There are Olympic barbells, Power barbells, and many specialty barbells, but they all have a common thread, you can’t cheat it, and it is always honest. Craig’s Barbell is a blog to communicate how the barbell has formed and changed me over the last 21 yrs. I will cover many topics that I hope will lead others in their own pursuit of the barbell. Enjoy!!
The last couple of weeks I have moved into a strength phase of my training cycle. Overall this has been a great transition. I am currently six weeks out from competing in my first weightlifting meet. I officially signed up for the Barbell Collective weightlifting meet. My shoulder is holding up so far, I have only had some tight muscle issue in my shoulder. I have not experienced the same joint pain as I did before a cortisone shot back in December. My lifts are still getting smoother, but I have not hit any PRs this cycle. I have now attempted 305# Clean and Jerk twice in the last few weeks, but I missed the jerk. My Jerks still are not great and I need to get more consistent with them. My first two weeks I have only been able to get in 4 training days each week. I am starting week 9 today, Feb 24, 2019, and I hope to hit 5 training days this week. Since I train at my house by myself, I wanted a way to train with a few of my lifting buddies every once in a while. I decided that I would start scheduling a training day once a month so everyone could put it on there calendar. This is called Bros, Barbells, and the Bible. It is a great time that we can get together, hang out, lift weights, and discuss a bible verse and life. This was the first Bros, Barbell, and the Bible, but will not be the last. So what has my training weeks looked like in this strength cycle.
Day 1
Clean and Jerk (65%3x2, 73%2x2,78%2x2,83%1x2,85%1x1, work up allowed 1 miss)
Power cleans 73% 3x3 then 3RM
Front Squats 3 sets ( 95%x1 , rest 2 min 85 %x3 )
Wide stance Goodmornings 3x5 30% of back squats
Weighted box steps Ups 3x5 Each leg
Two of the three weeks I have hit 305 # clean with ease but missed my jerk. I also worked up to a 265# power clean. I realized this cycle that I catch my power clean very high. I started to pull as if I am power cleaning the weight which has been a helpful internal que for my full cleans. These front squat waves are tough after all the cleans and power cleans. Overall my first day of the week was great.
Day 2
Snatch Balance + Over head squats, working up to 80% of snatch
Snatch (65%3x2, 73%2x2,78%2x2,83%1x2,85%1x1, work up allowed 1 miss)
No Hook No Feet Snatch 3x3 at 70% then 3RM
Cleans pulls 3x3 at 105%
Conditioning
5 rnds E2MOM 200m Row , and 3 DUs
Warming up with the Snatch balance+OHS has been great for my catch on these. I must say that I have not had a great snatch day yet over these past few week. Overall my snatches have been much smoother, but I think I have not snatched more than 220#. I am starting to think it is just that I am more sore and not fully recovered from the Clean day previously. My No Hook No feet Snatch work has helped me with my snatch pull though.
Day 3
Snatch from low blocks (60% 2x , 70% 2x2, 73% 1x1,75%1x2, 78%1x2, 80%1x1,83% 2x1, work up is no misses)
Clean and Jerk from low blocks (60% 2x , 70% 2x2, 73% 1x1,75%1x2, 78%1x2, 80%1x1,83% 2x1, work up is no misses)
High Bar Back squats with 100# of band 3 RM with 1st rep pause 3 sec.
Rear foot elevated split squats 3x10
conditioning
5 rnds 12 KB swings , 10 box jumps, 8 burpees
The low block work is also very good for me. All my coaches really like these for me because it forces me to keep better form. Starting the weight at mid shin make these a little harder. I have been able to work up to about 215# on the snatch and 265# on the Clean and Jerks. I have actually moved the high bar back squats to day 4 the previous two weeks. I love doing band work with squats. Last week I was able to work up to 365# bar weight with 140# band tensions. This is about 425# in the bottom of the squat and 505# at the top of the squats. After all this, add in rear foot elevated split squats and I am guaranteed to be sore the next day.
Day 4
Snatch pull + Snatch Max
Clean + Front Squat+Jerk Max
Muscle Snatch 3x5
Pull-ups 3 x submax
KB High pulls 3x10 (Lower Slower)
This day has snatch and clean complexes. The first week also had a hang clean in the complex and I believe on week 3 and 4 of this strength cycle it is just a Max out day. The complex listed above I believe I was able to work up to 215# on the snatch and 285# on the cleans. This was a fun day, but turned into a very tough day when I move the back squats to this day. I am hoping to start hitting some better numbers this week.
Over the last few weeks things have gotten very busy on the home front. We have had Berkley in dance on Tuesdays for some time. On Tuesdays my oldest daughter, Kisnie, also leads a bible study after school. Kinsie also started up softball about a week ago and Charlie started playing tee ball two weeks ago. This has limited my writing over the last couple of weeks. Last week, I didn't write a meal prep blog because I repeated a recipe I had already written about. When things get very busy, it is easy to start slacking off in other areas, but in reality this is time to get more organized to ensure that the nutrition and fitness doesn't take a hit. It is important to not only the kids of the family to have fun with activities, but the parents need to ensure that they can stay up with their health and activities. I am supper proud of my wife and will praise her for a second. About 2-3 weeks as things started to get very busy family, she also really started to pick up her fitness. She likes to run, and even as a I write this, she just finished running 10 miles. This is a big deal because she is normally the first to sacrifice her activities for the benefit of the entire family. She truly is a rock start in our family.
For my breakfast this week, I made another man scramble. This was one I just made up on the fly, but from experience these type of dishes are all about the same. I had some beef Chorizo, in the freezer, so I had the idea to cook this up and make a man scramble. I really just looked at what I had available this week and below is what I came up with.
Ingredients
12 oz Beef Chorizo
15 large eggs
1/2 bag of frozen hash browns
2 bell peppers
1/3 cup whole Milk
Cajon Seasoning
1/2 Cup Cheddar Cheese
Most days when I meal, I will sacrifice the optimal cooking technique needed to obtain the best flavors to make the prep easy and less time consuming. I am OK with a little less flavor because in most recipes I really can't tell the difference. I took the 1/2 bag of frozen hash brown and spread on the bottom of the baking pan. I spread the cooked chorizo on the top of the hash browns. Poured a mix of the eggs, milk, and Cajon season in the the pan and topped with Cheddar cheese. I then baked on 375 degrees for 1 hour.
The macros on my breakfast is not my most balance because of Choirzo the fat content is a little high. I like a breakfast with a large calorie counts. This helps me get through the morning with out getting hungry. I am still getting 41g of protien for my breakfast so I will take it. My lunch this week is little low on calories because low fat content so the extra fat for breakfast will balance out.
I found a new recipe on pintrest that is Instant Pot Roast with carrots. This turned more into a stew for me. Again, I decided to cut a few steps to make this as easy as possible and save some time. The recipe wanted me to cut the meat and saute in the three batches and then saute the onion and garlic before cooking in the pressure cooker. I know this would lead to better flavor, but I am more about the nutrition.
Ingredients
3 # London Broil Cubed
3 large Potatos
1# of carrots
1 1/2 Cups of Beef Bone broth
1/2 cup of red wine
1 Onion
2 TBsp tomato paste
1 Can dice tomatos
1 1/2 tsp black pepper
3 tsp of salts
1 1/2 tsp thyme
2 Tbsp Corn starch
1/2 cup water
4 clove garlic
Most of the work with this recipe was just peeling and chopping the veggies and meat. To make this recipe a supper easy recipe I just mixed everything in the Instant pot and cooked on high pressure for 15 min and let natural release for 20 min then quick release valve. After I used a little water and cornstarch the thicken the sauce. This is a picture of the finished product and I will say this smelled amazing, but kind of looks like some slop. This taste as good as it smelled so I am not worried about how it looks in the bowl.
Calories on this one are little lower than I would have thought. London Broil is very low fat content beef and none of the ingredients have much fat, so this ends up being a protien and carbohydrate meal. This is great for someone that is cutting calories by watching their fat content. I will have to supplement this week a little more. I will probability have full fat yogurt for dessert this week or a an extra protien shake.
I hope you are enjoying seeing how I am eating, and it is motivating to take the time to start thinking about you weekly meals.
Over the years, I have trained at many gyms: small private gyms, like Stack's Gym, big globo gyms like Golds Gym, Military gyms, and Crossfit gyms. I have even trained at Planet Fitness a few times, and yes I set off their lunk alarm. After moving home from New Mexico and getting settled in my new home, I started going to Crossfit Ex. This is was a great Crossfit gym where I really developed as an athlete. I really like Crossfit and I learned a ton from it, but I was never fully cult like with Crossfit, as some people get with it. I like the training methodology especially when combining it with all of my previous experience body building and power lifting. After being in my house for about a year, I decided to build myself a plyobox. It was going to be a 20x24x30 inch box. I really was just planning to build it to help with different stretching and mobility work I wanted to accomplish at home. I found the designs for the box on Garage Gym Athlete website. After the easy and effectiveness of building this box along with the gymnastic bar I built for my daughter the month prior. I started to think about other things I could possibly build.
I had moved into the house with a really crappy barbell and about 300# of weight I had picked up from Goodwill for $99. I was not really doing anything at the house with that weight. It sat in the corner in the basement because weights and a bar alone is difficult to use with out a rack of some type. After making this plyobox, I started looking around on the internet for how to build a power rack. There are many examples of people building power racks out of lumber. I really thought this would be a fun project, and I had a great garage for a rack. One primary issue with Crossfit, is that the gym was about 20 min from my house, and Crossfit gyms have set classes time. If I could not make it right after work then I would not have time to get any training that day. If I had a power rack, on days I missed the start of class or knew I would not be able to make it, I could get in some squats and presses done at the house. I had no real intention of fully building my garage into a gym, that is, until I went through with building a power rack. I also knew I had a baby on the way and wanted to be able to still train at home if needed because new born babies can take a little time out of your day. Except my wife is a rock star, and did so much to make sure I could still get some training in my day.
The design of my power rack is similar to one I found on YouTube from the Buff Dudes page. I modified it slightly. I have a really tall ceiling in my garage so I left it 8 feet tall and changed the way the pull-up bar was added. I was thinking I might want to do kipping pull-up or bar muscle ups, so I wanted my power rack to have that capability. It was March 2017 and my parents asked me what I wanted for my birthday coming up in April. They gave me a Home Depot gift card early for my birthday, I took my monthly blow money that my wife I get each month, and bought all the wood I needed to build my power rack. I spent a total of $210 on all the materals to build the power rack. This included the wood, all the screws, braces, and the 1 1/4 inch drill bit. This did not include the new hammer drill I had to buy because I burnt my drill up trying to drill like 15 holes for the safety bars in each of the of the four of the 4x4. I remember this being a really fun weekend project, and Charlie had a blast helping me paint it once I finished building it. It was also fun having my dad come over to help me get the wood and assemble things. I had Home Depot make all the major cuts of the wood which saved a lot of time. One comment I hear a lot is "your power rack is made of wood aren't you worried it is going to break" to which I respond, your house and deck are made of the same wood do you not feel safe with 5-10 people standing on the deck or in your house. A wooden power rack is plenty strong enough to hold way more weight than I am capable of lifting.
This project gave me the bug to find gym equipment to have in the garage to get in a good work out. I really only wanted the essentials. So what do I think are the essentials if you are thinking of building a basement or garage gym?
Power Rack with pull-up bar
Barbell
Weights (You need more than you can lift)
Bench.
Mats to protect the ground
At this time, I now had a power rack, some weight and what some might have called a barbell. I was really lacking on this list of essentials, but what you are about to find is that I took things way beyond the essentials with my garage gym. I really needed a better barbell. The one I had was actually bolted together in to two spots in the middle of the bar. It was a very cheap bar and dangerous to load much weight on. I only had about 300# of weight. A few months before building my rack, I squatted 300# for 20 reps, so I would say I needed to get more weight. I also needed a bench. I really enjoyed building things for the garage. I really liked the idea of Do it yourself (DIY) projects for the garage gym. Since I had a really high ceiling and I wanted to do Crossfit style workouts at the house, I added a mount for a climbing rope and gymnastics rings (not really an essential). I found a cheap set of rings and rope on amazon and added those to the gym. I also bought two stall mats from the tractor supply store. I also had an extra 2x8 board that I turned into a peg board. It was around this time I became obsessed with looking for gym equipment on Facebook Market Place, Craigslist, Letgo , and Offerup yard sale sites. I didn't want to spend much money to build out my garage with basic equipment. In May 2017, I probably found a deal of a lifetime. I was able to pick up 440# of bumper plates with a horizontal weight rack for $300. This same person sold me some more stall mats at $25 a piece. This left me even more obsessed with trying to find deals on gym equipment. I was still going to a Crossfit gym, but now that I had bumper plates I could do so much more at my house. The problem was trying to do Olympic lifts with such a horrible bar. By the end of May, I had found an industrial bench press and recovered it for about $40, and also found a 20# wallball for $20. It was at this point I started to train at my house at least 1-2 day a week. I was still looking for new ideas for DIY gym equipment and deals on year sale sites. I built my own adjustable kettle bell and 50# slam ball, although the slam ball didn't last through more than a few workouts. Another amazing deal I found was a set of Powerblock adjustable DB. These start at 5# and make 2.5# jump all the way up to 85#. I got these for $200. In about 4 months, with no real intentions of building a gym, I had a full gym. I really loved finding a good deal and building pieces of equipment to add little things to the gym. One cool thing was since I had built my power rack, it was very easy to add some steel pipe to connect resistant band. This is great for doing banded dead lifts and squats.
I found designs for adding a reverse hyper to a power rack and decided that I would build my own to my power rack as well. This is a great assistance piece. It is a little bit of a pain to setup with the power rack but it takes up very little space in the garage. Most reverse hyper machines are huge. I made a loose agreement with my wife that we would always be able to still park in the garage, so I am always looking to make or have things that can easily be stored.
I was able to find an almost new Airdyne bike for $60 and then shortly after found another one for $25. I sold the newer one for $150. I bought a Bike monitor for a road bike and attached it to the Airdyne. I calibrated the calorie count on the monitor to match the calorie count on the newer Airdyne. This monitor cost me $30. In September 2017, I decided to buy a brand new bearing Olympic bar for $200, this is one purchase that anyone investing in the garage gym should purchase new. It is very hard to find a good bar used although they do come up now and then. You want to make sure you get a bar that is rated to hold over 1000# or has a tensile strength of 150000 psi. Most of the cheap barbells are only rated for 500#, which may sound like a lot, but there are plenty of videos of bars breaking.
In October of 2017, I found a concept 2 erg used for rowing for only $125. This is another one of my purchases that was an amazing deal. Purchased new, a concept 2 erg is about $900, and used they normally sell for about $800. At this point in my build of my garage gym, I had a full Crossfit box, and I was training more at home than at the Crossfit gym. I built PVC parelletts. These are used for gymnastics moves. I bought a gym wall clock/timer new. Those are hard to find used. It was not needed because you can always just use your phone to time a work out, but it definitely is nice having on the wall. I picked up a used tire from Firestone and with some scrap wood and PVC I built a tire sled. The kids have fun sitting on the sled, and I pull them down the street. I had some scrap 4x4 pieces and I came up with a design to build farmers walk bars. I was starting to have all the essential pieces of equipment and lots of great accessory pieces to go along with it.
It was around this time I stopped going to the Crossfit gym altogether.
There are a few main reasons I stopped going to Crossfit gym
altogether. The first is probably obvious, I had built a full gym at my house. The other
is it saves so much time, I didn't have to drive to the gym and I didn't
have to wait on a class to start. The last reason is when I train at home I love having my kids come out and see me lifting, while they are playing. After I stopped training at the Crossfit gym, I wanted to have a good program to follow. I first joined the garage gym athlete online program. This was a very good program, but just not exactly what I was looking for. I have actually recommended this program to many people. I joined Mash Elite Performance online team. This was it, I have a personal online coach that writes my program and gives feed back on video analysis of my lifts. I joined the team in November of 2017 and have been training with my coach ever since.
After joining Mash Elite Performance, I really started to focus on Olympic lifts, while still doing Crossfit metcon, and I decided that I needed to build some jerk blocks. These are very useful for doing jerks from blocks to drop the weight on from over head. They are also great for doing many lifts from different heights, cleans and snatches. After one year I think had dropped about $1900 on my garage gym, but I had access to more equipment than I did at most Crossfit boxes.
Over this past year, I continued to add to the gym. I added fresh paint to the power rack, inspirational quotes to the wall, lifting platform, fully covered the floors with stall mats. One amazing thing I was able to add to the gym was the strongman sandbags. These are just like the Rogue sandbag, but my aunt made them for me. She was able to make me three for under $80. I have a 200,150,100# sandbag. These would have cost like $100 each from Rogue. At the end of 2018, I decided to rearrange the entire gym, along with adding paint, in order for it to have more a feel of a commercial gym.
Here is the reality, if you are interested in having a home gym, you don't have to spend a lot of money at one time. You can buy used because in general weights don't go bad and so many people buy gym equipment but are not committed to using it. A couple years later they decide to sell it for pennies on the dollar, their lack of motivation is your opportunity to start your home gym. If you are handy you can also build lots of equipment based on others design. This is how I built most of my equipment. Alternatively, you could buy new starter garage gym package from Rogue fitness. This get you just enough to get started and will coast you close to $2000. I will take my $1900 gym over a year way before getting the starter package from Rogue. I am two year into my garage gym I have spent a total of $3100 for an average of $130 a month. That is less than most Crossfit gym memberships. I can train when I want and how I want. I estimate that I have about $12000 worth of gym equipment if I were buy everything new and name brands. If you are new to lifting weights, then I don't recommend you start by building a home gym. You should join a gym and get your feet wet, possibly hire a trainer to teach you the basics before jumping to training alone. If you are consistent and have a busy life then I highly recommend you the find a place in your home to build a gym. It is an investment in you health, life and time. Check out my equipment list and a video below showing the evolution of Craig's Barbell Club. Feel free to contact me if you have questions about building a home gym.
Equipment List
Power rack $210
Steel plates and bar $99
Climbing Rope $50
Bumpers $300
Rings $35
Peg board $25
White boards $15
20#
Wall ball $20
Bench $30
New fabric $10
Chalk $10
Diy kettlebell $30
Two more mats $60
Callors $20
Mirror $5
Fat grips $20
Bar,weight tree,2-25# db $20
Sold bar ($20)
Sold dbs ($30)
Power block Dumbbells 5#-85# $200
Reverse hyper attachments $80.
Band attachments $30
Dip belt $15
Airdyne $60
sold for ($150)
Airdyne $25
Bike monitor $30
Oly bar $200
Concept 2 $125
Parrelletes $30
Farmers walk bars $55
Axle bar $40
30# wall balls $35
Battle rope $25
Clock $135
Jerk blocks $165
20,30,40,60,60# Kettlebells $160
Crossover symmetry $45
Stability ball $5
Landmine and t-grip $25
200# Weights $0
Fan $60
35# slam ball $36
Plywood platform/ decal/stain urathain $100
100,150,200# strongman sandbags $80
Macebell DIY $50
Tire Sled $0
21 Stall Mats $445
10# bumper plates
$25
Wall Decal $40
Tonight, I am sitting here watching the Super Bowl, which is not my normal evening. I have never been huge a football fan. I grew up loving baseball. To watch the game, I am having to battle my 4 yr old son, Charlie, every 10 minutes because he keeps asking to watch something instead. He gets to watch something almost every night, so he just doesn't understand. There is nothing wrong with having fun while watching the big game, but if you had a few too many beers and snack foods watching the game, I hope you were smart and did a little meal preparation for your week. A single day of binging on horrible food and drinks will not kill your gains as long as it is only every once in a while.
This week for breakfast I am making a very simple but great meal. I am going to make sausage, egg and cheese sandwiches. This is a great balanced meal. I probably don't really need to explain this recipe, but I will anyway.
Ingredients
2 eggs
2 sausage patties
1 slice of sharp cheddar cheese
2 slices of sprouted wheat bread
1 Tbsp butter.
Toast the bread and butter. Cook the Sausage patties and set aside. Cook eggs the way you like them. I like to fry them hard some days and others day I like them over easy. Build your sandwich and enjoy with Coffee and Green OJ. This is lacking veggies, so it should be pared with green juice.
Just in the sandwich there is about 650 Calories, 45 grams of protien, 25 carbs, and 40 grams of fat. This is a very good high protien breakfast to start the day off with. Add the Coffee and Green OJ and you should be at 850 calories.
For lunches I am making Chicken Mushroom Quinoa skillet. I am doubling this recipe to get enough calories and protien This recipe has 48 oz of mushrooms. Mushrooms have very little flavor but are very nutrient dense actually. There is a good amount protien, vitamin D, Folate (vitamin B) , and vitamin C to name a few of the things in mushrooms, but don't forget about the fiber. Quinoa is an amazing grain as well. It has a lot of protien for a grain. I really like the flavor too. It is also high in fiber, magnesium, B vitamins,
iron, potassium, calcium, phosphorus, vitamin E and various beneficial
antioxidants.
Ingredients
5 Tbsp avocado oil
2# chicken, cubed
4 cloves of garlic
24 oz White Mushrooms sliced
24 oz Baby Portabello Mushrooms Sliced
2 cups Quinoa
4 cups Chicken Bone Broth
salt
pepper
1/2 tsp Thyme
1/2 cup Parmesan cheese
Place two cups of quinoa in the mediums sauce pan with 4 cups of bone broth and bring to boil. Reduce to low for about 20 min.
Add oil to pan, add chicken and season with spices. Once chicken is cooked, start to add mushrooms and cook them down.
The serving basics is a little over 1 cup of cook quinoa, 1.5 cups of the chicken mushroom mix. Then top with Parmesan cheese.
The calorie count on this meal is about 900 with 87 grams of protien, 45 grams of carbs, and 36 grams of fat. I am not sure if you are noticing a common calorie count on almost all my meals. This is exactly how you want to plan your weeks. This means from week to week you are eating about the same amount of food with the same amount of calories, which leads to no weight gain. If you make smart snack choices and plan those as well you should stay in good shape.
I hope you are all enjoying the Super Bowl with good food and good fun.
Last week I started a new training hypertrophy block. I have completed the first two weeks of this block. These weeks have been great training weeks. This block is 5 days a week, and I am squatting every training day, with lots of front squatting. Let me jump into the program.
Day 1
Clean and Jerks from blocks at the knees: Percentage work up to 85%
Front squat waves: 3 sets ( 90%x1) 345# rest 2 min ( 75% x 5) 290#
Conditioning: Rowing
On this day, there is not a ton of exercises but the work load still takes a while. Warming up and building to 85% on clean and jerk can take some time. The past two weeks, these have all felt great and light. This is a good sign that I am getting stronger. The front squat waves honestly suck. I am not a great front squatter compared to back squats and that is why my coach is having my front squat three days in a row. Front Squats are much more sport specific for weight lifting.
Day 2
2 Snatch grip Push Press+ 1 OHS up to 80% of Snatch
Snatch from blocks at the knees: Percentage Work up to 85%
Front Squats 1 Rep Max with 5 sec pause at bottom: Worked up to 345#
Snatch grip Deadlifts : 5 RM with 2 sec pause at the shin for first 2 reps then -10% for 2x5
Hip Thrusts with band around knee: 3x8
Conditioning: Every two min on the min: for 5 sets: 10 Russian Kettlebell swing 80#, 10 Sandbag ground to shoulder #100
This is one of my hardest and longest training days of the week mainly because of the number of exercises I am doing. The conditioning workout changes week to week, but this is one example. I like the singles on the front squats with the pause. Once my technique gets good enough to clean heavier weights, I know I will be strong enough to stand up with it. I have not missed a clean ever due to not being able to stand the weight up. Snatch work on this day has been easy as well. This is also is a good sign I am getting stronger, or at least my technique is getting more consistent.
Day 3
Front Squat tempo (5sec eccentric, 5 sec pause, 4 sec concentric, 10 sec at the top.) I worked up to 175#
Strict Press 5RM then -15% for 2x5. I worked up to 175#
Super Set: Close grip bench 3x10(205#) and Batwing rows with 2 sec hold at the top 3x10 (40#)
This day is also very tough. The time under tension for the front squats is very hard. It is more about controlling the weight and owning the entire range of motion instead of maximizing the load. These are so humbling, when two days before you hit 290# for 5 reps, and on this day it is a struggle to do 175# for three reps. Another very humbling lift is the strict press because it always seems like someone turns off a switch. You may be repping out a weight and the switch is flipped and the weight just stops moving.
Day 4
Over head squats: work up to 80% for 3x5 reps. (215#)
Unilateral farmers walks: 3x40yrds
Plate around the world: 3x8 each direction
Band pull through: 3x15
Plate T-spine flexion/ extension 3x10 with 3 sec pause
This day is my easiest day. OHS squats are very hard and stability over head for this amount of time is a struggle. There is only one main lift and then accessory work. It was much needed after all the other days having a larger work load . You should know that even though a day seems easier in terms of technical lifts, these days are just as important as other days. It is all part of the process.
Day 5
Snatch 3 RM then -15% for 3 : worked up to 205#
Clean and Jerk 3 RM then -15% for 3: worked up to 265#
Back Squat Waves 3 sets 3 reps at 80%( 405#) rest 2 min 10 reps at 65%( 315#)
Conditioning: 25-35 min run/row/bike at conversation pace
This day is fun yet hard. It is in competition with day 2 as the hardest day. Three big lifts with waves at 3 rep and 10 reps are so tough. After squatting 10 reps at 315# it feels like I have been sprinting. I feel like I am definitely getting stronger or my technique is getting better at least. I am really looking forward to getting through next week and moving into the strength phase of this cycle. I am excited to see where I can start to take my lifts as I start to get ready for this competition on April 6.
