Not Just a Man's World

I am serious about wanting to qualify and compete at powerlifting, but at the moment there are a few key problems:

1. I spent most of 2008 and 2009 trying to improve my form and find the weaknesses that were being masked by poor form (like my abs) and working hard at eliminating weaknesses.  I’m not there yet, but I’m definitely moving in the right direction.  However, the flip side of that is that I’ve not done any proper powerlifting moves for a while and my good form weights are below qualifying weights.
2. My hip mobility is dreadful so I can’t squat deep enough and it hinders how much I can deadlift.
3. When I bench, I can’t stabilise the bar once there’s a mildly heavy weight on it and I tend to fail about halfway up.

 

This series 

Having had some reasonable successes at the end of 2009 we’re now into a new year.  Fixing the problems while also driving up the strength numbers are the priorities of the program and I’ve taken a different approach to the deadlift compared to last year.  I’m recording my progress in this series: powerlifting progress.  It is serving as a journal and makes me a bit more accountable to my goals.

Here is where I’ve got to this week with my progress.

Squat

Action plan

• Maintain – leg strength and ab strength
• Develop – hip mobility and lower back strength

Progress this week

Very little to report on the squat front this week.  I’ve continued the Romanian Deadlifts (and must confess that I also continue to be stunned that I got this far through life without knowing about them) and I’ve continued to put the weight up on my raised reverse leg split squats and dragon flags. 

I didn’t do a mobility test this week for my squat depth.  I’ll try to find an opportunity in the next week and report back.

Bench

Action plan

• Maintain – technique
• Develop – lat and shoulder strength

 Progress this week

Another excellent week on the bench press.  I am really enjoying these as I ought to.  With shoulders as broad as mine I should have the makings of a natural bencher.  It’s really a shame that I was so ridiculously weak in my arms when I started lifting weights and therefore developed such a phobia of bench pressing. 

I seem to have got over my push press hurdle as well which is pleasing and have put the weight up a bit.  I have to keep reminding myself that this is no longer the first exercise in my workout when I’m fresh.  Instead, I do it after a gruelling weighted glute bridge workout that leaves my glutes fried (and leaves me walking like John Wayne). 

The first few sets on my push press are usually poor because I just can’t convince my glutes to fire when tired but unless I remember what’s causing it this often impacts on my confidence for the rest of the workout.  If I can control my self-confidence then the quality of my reps improves as I go through the workout and my glutes start to recover in the rest periods. 

Perhaps I would benefit from doing my pull ups first, to give my glutes a rest?

On a really good note, I slapped out a PB on my pull ups.  10 sets of 3 reps.  I would say “squeezed” but I definitely felt like there was a bit more in the tank despite this having upped my reps by 5 on my previous PB.  The last sudden improvement in reps came when I learned how to connect with my lats and use those rather than my traps.  This time I mostly put it down to a slight change in posture based on a tip I picked up from Mike T Nelson.  Thanks Mike!

Deadlift

Action plan

• Maintain – leg strength and ab strength
• Develop – hip mobility and lower back strength

Progress this week

Yet another week for fascinating discoveries on the deadlift. 

Last week I explained how I had improved my form but as a result I had lost some weight off the bar.  I have now found an excellent article which demonstrates the differences between my old form and my new form.

So I stomped into the gym last Sunday determined to improve on my dismal efforts of the previous week and indeed, the weight moved better, my form was more intuitive this week and things were progressing well.  Then I got to my work weight.

In previous weeks I noticed that I was struggling to stand up in a straight line.  Instead I would sway across ever so slightly away from centre.  This week I was swaying so far over that the centre of the bar was level with left leg!  I terminated the deadlifting on the sixth set when my right knee actually touched my left.

On further testing it seemed that my right gluteus medius (the bit of your glute that is on the outer edge and holds everything outwards, counteracting the pulling effect of the muscles running down the inner thigh) wasn’t responding.  To anything. 

As far as I’m aware, it’s not possible to lose all strength so rapidly.  I put this knowledge together with the pins and needles I’d suffered from in the middle toe of my right foot for a week and concluded that there was a knot somewhere in my right leg.  A big knot would prevent the muscles firing down the posterior chain and my glute would shut down to prevent me injuring myself.  

A week of agonising rolling on a calf that was one big single knot and a hamstring and quads that weren’t much better as well as glute activation work has ensued.  There’s still some work to be done on the knots but fingers crossed I’ve eased the problem.

Related posts:

1. Powerlifting progress 2010: week thirty-five
2. Powerlifting progress 2010: week twenty-two
3. Powerlifting progress 2010: week one
4. Powerlifting progress 2010: week six