Not Just a Man's World

I am serious about wanting to qualify and compete at powerlifting, but when I started out on this series there were 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.

17.5 inches depth at the start of my powerlifting program

This series 

Having had some reasonable successes at the end of 2009, I’m now three weeks into 2010 with a slightly altered program.  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

Well, I said I would test my mobility depth this week and… I didn’t.  But:

•  my split squat weight is continuing to storm upwards;
• my max effort dragon flags are hurting like hell (but seem to be going up in weight – I’m going to struggle to get the slings round my feet securely with the weight attached soon and I may have to move onto straight leg raises); and
• Romanian Deadlifts are continuing to make me ache in all sorts of unusual places and are starting to get really deep, which shows promise for both my hip mobility and lower back strength.

I promise that I will get round to doing a mobility test next weekend!

Bench

Action plan

• Maintain – technique
• Develop – lat and shoulder strength

 Progress this week

A mixed week on bench.  The bench exercise itself went very well and my bar path is in the right place and, more pleasingly takes an almost identical vertical line on every rep.  This suggests that I am learning where the most natural and efficient bar path is.  I’m certainly getting better at racking and unracking the bar, which was the reason I moved onto doing actual bench work rather than assistance exercises for 2010.

I’ve been doing more rowing, bent over rows are my second core arm exercise on the days when arms take the lead, and I’ve also been doing lighter rows three times a week in my weighted cardio workouts while I’m cutting. 

I had a lot of meetings this week and our meeting rooms have tables and chairs that are the wrong height for me – I have to pull up my trap to reach the pad to take notes.  As a result my traps started to become more dominant as the week progressed and my form deteriorated on my rows.  Since I find that rows easily deteriorate form anyway (my T-bar rows became an exercise in back strength as I continued to put the weight up each week), I am going to drop the weight back down but increase the reps instead, building up the weight again on this new rep scheme.

Deadlift

Action plan

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

Progress this week

Wow!  Mega week on the deadlift!

I hinted earlier on that this year is a new deadlift approach.  I’ve been meaning to rotate my deadlift style on a 3-4 weekly basis for some time, but always forget.  This time I am determined to do it, rotating between standard deadlift and sumo and also between clusters and singles.  So last weekend saw me doing the first deadlift workout in a new set up – sumo deadlift clusters.

For those who don’t know what a cluster is, my understanding of it is that you use a slightly lighter weight, do sets of reps (so I’m doing 10 sets of 4 reps), but take 10 seconds between each rep.  This almost turns it into singles, but not quite.  It means I can pull something heavier than if I was doing 5 reps together, I can reset my hip position between reps and take time to relock my back and abs, but I get the benefits of doing multiple reps with something a bit lighter than max effort which should help my progress.

I practically died.  I felt like I was going to pass out by the fourth rep of every set and on the very last set Chris had to rescue me when I threw the bar back at the floor after the last rep and collapsed against a wall.  I’ve never before felt like I’ve truly worked hard on deadlifts, but this definitely did something for me.  If nothing else, my heart rate went through the roof!

It’ll be another 12 – 14 weeks before I rotate back to standard deadlifts with single reps and find out if this technique works for me.  Fingers crossed though.

Related posts:

1. Powerlifting progress 2010: week thirty-seven
2. Powerlifting progress 2010: week thirty-five
3. Powerlifting progress 2010: week eight
4. Powerlifting progress 2010: week six