This was further aggravated by how hard it was to actually get workouts in during this period of time. I would often find myself lingering around in the weight room to get on a squat rack, while an overweight gentleman loaded 275 lbs worth of weights on the bar and stood around with it on his shoulders barely bobbing up and down, and then sneering when I asked to work in.
The worst part of all of this was one simple fact: I stopped believing in New Year's resolutions completely. It was hard not to get frustrated. I knew that no matter how tuned in I was, how hard I worked on programs for members, or how often I encouraged them, coddled them, or tried to motivate them, that the majority would never stick with it. I knew that most of the old guys coming in who started for Lexington Christians Junior Varsity football team in 1972 would believe they learned everything they knew about fitness by their sophomore year of high school (and then they blow out their knee, back, and stomach). I knew that most of the college girls coming in would run away from free weights because they thought it would make them 'manly' (it doesn't).
And worst of all: I knew that many of them would become frustrated, decide they could not do it, and then quit. It honestly, truly, broke my heart every year. This has led me to have a negative opinion of New Year's resolutions in general. But in particular, it has led me to be incredibly cynical about those which are in anyway related to fitness. So why did I make one?
Well this actually all started the other day because of a conversation I was having with McKenzie regarding people settling for being 'good enough' to get by. I think that in many respects this attitude pervades in our society, and to our detriment. We decide to accept our 'limitations' and often times we do not really test or question them. Much like the people who would decide that they were not capable of working out. That's what resolutions are all about! They are supposed to be about changing something in your life; not accepting the status quo. I came to the conclusion that for about the last 3 years, I have been living in a very hypocritical fashion. I can run a mile in under 6 minutes, am roughly 9% body fat, (yadda yadda blah blah semi impressive fitness related number), and the end result of all this is that I am in better shape than a whole lot of men my age. But is that enough? I have decided that no, it is not.
So my resolution is this: By this time next year, I will bench press 265 lbs, and my standing vertical will be back to 32" where it was when I was 23. And here is how......
Operation Big Ass Bench Press
Right now, I bench press 220 lbs, and weigh 185. The average man can bench press his own weight, so this puts me somewhat ahead of the curve. I have hovered between 225-205 as a max for about the last 18 months or so, fluctuating in inverse proportionality to certain workouts I do and what the focus of a particular month or two are. But I have sort of come to accept that this is my worst lift. Proportionally, I should be stronger in this lift. A good measure of equal chest/back strength is to see if you can bench press your weight in an equal number of repetitions to full pullups. The numbers should be close. But I can do about 15 pullups, and only bench 185 6 times. That is out of proportion.
So I'm going to blow it up. I'm going to use a two day system for this lift, Mondays and Friday, with a different focus on each day. The idea will be to actually train my muscles to work in a new way in conjunction with bearing the load. I will do this for the next 8 weeks and retest.
Day 1
The best way to lift is to lower the weight (eccentric phase) in a controlled and slow fashion, while pushing the weight hard on the way up (concentric phase). This is an oversimplification, but its basically accurate. My theory is that I will train my muscles to fire faster in the concentric phase, to blast through the weight instead of just lifting it. This will access and train Type II muscle fibers; the big, nasty ones that help you jump high and hit hard.
So on Day 1 I will do 9 sets of 3 repetitions with one half of my max. So right now thats about 110. I will attempt to do these sets with about 30-45 seconds of rest in between. I will attempt to finish each set in less than 3 seconds. This will ensure two things: First, the time limit will ensure that on each lift I am using an absolute maximum effort. Doing this will actually generate more energy than a lift with a heavier weight at a slower speed. I won't go through all the math (ask if you are fascinated, or sick, or both) but a lift with 220 lbs that takes 2 and a half seconds to push will generate only 150 watts. However, pushing 110 lbs in less than half a second generates 298 watts. Almost twice the energy. Hopefully, by actually generating more energy, I can train my muscles to actually do the same.
Day 2
Oftentimes, you will hear people talk about a 'sticking point' in a lift. A sticking point is the point at which the force your muscles exert on the weight actually equal the weight itself. This is dangerous because unlike the weight (which exerts a consistent force) your muscles cannot continue to exert this force without fatiguing. So on this day, I will attempt to train my muscles to break this barrier, and push more consistently.
So to do this, I will use three different lifts which all emphasize the sticking point of the bench press. The hope is to overload the muscles that are engaged in the lift, and to exaggerate the strain on that particular portion of the lift. The towel bench press, floor bench press, and pin bench press all cut the movement off at or around the sticking point of the lift. There are examples of these online.
What I will do on Friday is start by lifting the bar in a set of 3 with normal reps. I will continue to add 20 lbs until it becomes difficult to do 3 reps, at which point I will switch to 1 rep. Then, I will keep doing repetitions with more weight until I cannot get the weight up. I will aim to be able to do more weight each week.
Thats how I'm hoping to improve the bench. Now for the ups.
Operation Squirrelly
The way I did it before was plain, old-fashioned, high-volume, high-weight, sessions with deadlifts, squats, olympic lifts, kettlebells, and probably a small curly mustache and a unitard. I would hit the track for sprints every other day, and often do this the same day as the lower body lifts. But nowadays.....
Tendinitis limits what kind of volume I can actually take in terms of pounding on the knees. Today, going out to a track for an 1 1/2 session of 100s, 60s, 40s, and agilities is out of the question. I have had a herniated disc, which is one of those super fun recurring injuries. Because of that, doing sessions which focus primarily on hard-load bearing lifts like squats are out. I'm in law school, which sometimes requires my attention. Because of that, I can't just play 2 hours of ball everyday and let it jump back up naturally. Nope, if this is going to happen, I'm going to have to go squirrelly.
When I say squirrelly, I mean quick, agile, and light. My focus will be to increase my flexibility, core strength, and balance. These things all greatly affect your ability to explode upwards. I still have the base strength (I can still squat 290), but there is a serious ceiling on that for me. Instead, I need to improve the other facets of my ability to move, and hope that the gains I can make up in this arena will make up the vertical difference. Right now my standing is 29 (running around 31), so the goal is to gain 3 inches in a year. But that is a hell of a trick (I will explain some vertical leap myths in another post, there are HUNDREDS). Let me say up front that part of this is counterintuitive to the bench press goal. It is a hell of a trick if you can gain strength without putting on any weight. But I cannot possibly achieve this goal and gain anything more than 5 or 6 pounds. However, I have a plan......
Hugh Jass Day
Say it out loud. This will be every Monday for the next 8 weeks, and it will be a pure focus on hamstrings and glutes. As I always used to say, if you want to jump high, you need big ol powerful buttcheeks. Normally if you want to do this, I tell people deadlifts, front squats, and back squats are the way to go. But my back and knees can't handle that strain. So those have to be done in moderation, as opposed to excess.
So on this day, I will first do 10 minutes of stretching, followed by jumping rope. After this, I will do Deadlifts, single leg squats, and 1 legged deadlifts. The deadlifts will build on some of the base strength, but the single leg squats and 1 legged deadlifts will challenge my ability to balance. That balance is critical to movement and quickness.
Pop Days
Pop days will be on Wednesdays and Saturdays. What the 'pop' refers to is the ability to quickly fire the muscles in my legs to push away from the ground. This will begin the same way (stretching and jump rope), but then it will transition into plyometrics, squats, and more balance work. This will be the hardest day, in the sense that I will have to ensure I am properly warmed up, loose, and ready to do a lot of work.
Verdict
This is going to be pretty difficult, but barring injury, I am confident I have the wherewithall to pull it off. In any event, it feels good to once again have an actual athletic goal. Although, I can't help but share the sentiments of the preacher from the Mel Brooks' classic Blazing Saddles (fastforward to about :50)...
No comments:
Post a Comment