As life has a tendency to do, and more importantly, as my body has a tendency to do, I’ve again experienced some kind of an injury last week. Frankly, I’m both glad and frustrated that I can’t say I hurt my back while lifting…on the flip side, it is simply just frustrating to have to say that I injured my back in my sleep. I’m sure I slept on it funny or something, but whatever the actual cause, my back has been hurting since I woke up Friday morning.
It forced me to push my Friday workout back to Saturday, and then again to Sunday due to life circumstances. Further and further it’s gotten pushed back, and here I am, now on Tuesday, still with any achy back and a small, but fairly major epiphany.
First off, I am going to get in my workout today, I’m definitely at the point that I need to get some movement to get my back feeling better, so that will mean making some training adjustments, but I need to train.
Secondly, in my desire to pursue a newer training program, I forgot a most basic training principle: get stronger.
You might be wondering how I haven’t been focused on this principle, but it’s true. I love training concepts and programming principles, I love reading about them and trying them out, but from a holistic level, none of these principles mean anything when you’re simply just weak.
And I am weak as fuck (or AF, as the kids say these days).
What benefit am I really getting from “speed benching” with 95-115 lbs on the barbell? The same question applies to squatting or deadlifting with 185 lbs.
Simply put: none.
I’m not going to try to finish out the training block as I had originally planned (sticking with the program is important, obviously), but I am going to keep moving. My back is still a mess, and I’m experiencing a fairly significant anterior pelvic tilt. This is generally caused by weak abs and tight hip flexors, among other things, so those are the things that I’m going to be working on.
As I said in the title, Get Strong Second, but getting healthy first is more important. I don’t need heavy loading, and I don’t need a multitude of overly complex programming. I need regular movement, and consistent motor unit recruitment. Once I feel like my base level of physical conditioning is up to par, I will start back up with a basic linear progression (outlined below), but for the time being, I need to start focusing on super light movement mechanics, like body weight squatting, push-ups and deadlifting with an empty barbell, while striving to improve weak links. These weak links are going to be my hamstrings, glutes and core.
Basically right now, I’ll be hitting some kind of movement every day, with an intent of developing my GPP. This will mean some combination of 3-4 of the following: of squat pattern (bilateral or unilateral), some upper body push (generally push-ups), and some upper body (generally pull-ups or inverted rows), deadlift technique work (sumo and RDL), hamstrings and hip work (back raises and glute ham roller hamstrings curls) and abdominal/core work (generally ab wheel and fallouts, as well as some isolation work through flexion and rotation movements).
I’m going to try to avoid overly programming things, I just want to aggregate total volume across the workout and get my heart rate going while hitting the appropriate weak points throughout. Theoretically, the 3-4 exercises should take no more than 30 minutes, which will leave me 30 or so minutes for some aerobic conditioning work by way of weight vest walking and airdyne biking.
Once I’ve reached a condition that I feel is sufficient to start putting in some real work, I’ll take a full week to determine maxes for the main movements I intend to use for the time being (SSB squat, close-grip bench press, sumo deadlift), and then start hitting some straight linear progression workouts. For now, I’m thinking I’ll go with a basic Starting Strength-esque progression where I will perform all 3 movements every workout.
Note: This deviates fairly significantly from Starting Strength programming for a number of reasons:
- I’m using a specialty bar for the squat,
- I’m performing the sumo deadlift,
- I’m performing the close-grip bench press
- I’m not alternating my pressing movements each workout
- I’m not alternating my pulling movements each workout (generally alternating deadlifts with power cleans).
- I’m doing significantly more volume on deadlifts, which is normally prescribed as simply 1 set of 5 reps.
Based on my maxes from the last week of this Condensed Conjugate cycle, I’ll take 75% and perform a 3×5 for squat and bench press, and a 3×3 for sumo deadlifts. I like having some volume for my deadlifts, so this should feel pretty good overall, I think. One more thing that I will add is that I’ll perform an AMRAP on the last set of each lift, depending on how I’m feeling. If I get to the last set and I’m just tired and want to finish the workout, then I’ll just do the requisite reps, but if I’m feeling good on one or more lifts, I’ll throw in an AMRAP and see where I can go with it.
Anyway, this all still a few weeks away, but for now I need to remember the goal, which is to get strong holistically. Take this linear progression as far as I can take it before attempting to throw in any more advanced programming concepts.
Ramble on Fitness 