Update: 23rd October 2013

Been a while since I updated, so here's an update on my current condition. My musculoigamentous injury (what a mouthful) is still pretty acute in that there is a constant pain regardless whether i'm sitting or standing or even lying. I still have to take the painkillers before i sleep, and rub some analgesic on the back (or rather, get my mum to help). Squatting and deadlifting are still out of the picture for what I imagine to be another 2 weekish or so. I have been benching, and am doing roughly 3 sessions a week, still following the wave loading pattern detailed in the previous post. Have finished the 3rd phase waves for the movements already, so am going to increase the top weights by 2.5kg for the next waves. Am still doing all bench work with feet up (Siamand Rahman you are my current inspiration :']). 

Rehab is coming along fine, as with the past times that i've had this injury, it's really a matter of waiting out the healing process, and then rehabbing with the movement to work the muscle strength back once it can tolerate the stress. For now it's just a lot of stretching the surrounding muscles to ease off the pressure on the affected area. On a plus side, I actually see cuts in my quads lol.

Congrats also to Abel, Bryan and Sam for hitting pretty significant numbers in their training, as well as max, whose bench is coming along really well. I'm feeling so amped up just watching them progress and smash PRs that I wanna just jump in and squat and dead too but then I remember i'm currently handicapped and i get pissed. Lots of catching up to do when i'm healed up, but I'll be back! 

Pressing 17th October 2013

Upper body mob

Band warm up

High Incline
worked up to 90 * 3 (2 waves, 5kg) - 85, 87.5, 90, 85, 87.5, 90, 85

Moderate incline
worked up to 100 * 3 (2 waves, 5kg) - 95, 97.5, 100, 95, 97.5, 100, 95

Close Grip bench
worked up to 110 * 3 (1 wave, 5kg) - 105, 107.5, 110, 105

DB Flyes incline
12 * 10 * 5

Rear delt flyes
8 * 15 * 5

Lower back area still bluish and bruised. Pain has not subsided significantly, and the i feel highly irritable. Rather annoyed by this.

Smolov update

Before I go into any detail with regards to recent happenings, here's a back dated log of sunday's training, and monday's easy press session, as well as the tentative plan looking ahead.

13th October 2013

Squats

143kg * 7 * 5

14th October 2013

(70 deg) Incline bench

worked up to 90 * 3, 1 wave

(40 deg) Incline Bench

worked up to 100 * 3, 1 wave

Close grip flat bench

worked up to 110 * 3, 1 wave

Pull ups

BW * 10 * 10

So what happened is this, on sunday's session, I strained my right lower back pretty badly. It happened on the last rep of the last set. I was focusing on the acceleration since the weight was light, and popped up as fast as I could. On the last rep, the bar actually left my traps and bounced back down and I immediately felt this really sharp pain in my lower right lumbar. This is the third time I've injured this area. This round doesn't seem AS bad as previously, although there is still a bluish bruising and some swelling. The muscle belly itself hurts when I extend or flex it, which essentially feels like I've been stabbed. As such, I can't continue smolov since I can't even rack the weight across my back at the moment without intense pain. Squatting and deadlifting are out for the moment, till I can rehab this shit back in shape.

As such, the tentative plan is this:

AGGRESSIVE rehab every day and basically be able to air squat without pain. This means aggressive stretching and rolling of the surrounding muscles, plus stretching of the lower back when the pain has subsided.

Once air squatting without pain works, I will start rehabbing with the squat movement, and gradually load it back up. Same with the deadlift.

As for traning, probably will do the wave loading for pressing that I used last time. Used it twice before and made pretty good strength gains on it. Plus I could run it 3 times a week without much of a problem. Here's the basic workout: Choose 3 exercises that run in progressively higher loading order, for example, I'm using the high incline, moderate incline and close grip bench. All sets are done as triples and the aim is to move the weight as fast as possible, focusing on acceleration. I work it up to a good and relatively fast 3RM weight, then I will wave it there. For example, in the high incline, I work up to 90kg as the top set. I then remove 5kg, and do 85kg for one set. I then increase the weight to 87.5kg for another set, then back to 90kg for one more, and lastly end off with 85kg. Thus one wave is (85, 87.5, 90, 85). I then go to the next exercise and start off with the weight from the previous top set, and then work up to the 3RM for that exercise, then do one wave with that weight. This is repeated for the third exercise. Every subsequent session I will add in another wave for each exercise, contingent upon how the weight feels. After I reach 3 waves for each exercise, I will just up the top weights for each exercise by 2.5kg. 

The pressing exercises I'm using currently involve no support from the lower back, and I'm benching with my feet up since it hurts to put my feet down. As my rehab progresses and the healing works, I will change the pressing exercises to the press, moderate incline bench, and flat close grip bench. Back work (more lat work at the moment) will be done every pressing session and probably on rehab days as well.

So there it is, the revised plan. Hopefully I don't lose too much strength on the squat and dead. Really sucks since my squat was just starting to take off. On a side note, I am contemplating starting the use of belt. Let's go!

Smolov Week 1 Day 1 11th October 2013

Squat
133kg * 9 * 4

Close Grip bench
97.5kg * 6 * 6

Flight got delayed so only ended up back in spore at 8ish. Grabbed a quick bite at macs and headed straight to the gym. Unlike most, I tend to lose weight on a holiday and this time was no exception. Felt a little off groove for both lifts after 2 weeks of halved food intake and no training haha 

Squats were tougher than they should have been, even though my rest time was relatively long (at 3 mins). Bench was ridiculously 'hard', didn't have much control of the bar and was slow to lock out on the last reps. I also ended up puking in between the 5th and 6th set of bench. Gross. 

Made it through in less than hour (~50 mins), but hopefully getting back into 'diet' and just training in general will fix that. The numbers for this round of smolov are really daunting though, but it never gets any easier does it? 

Anyway, decided to do smolov instead of the 3s wave of juggernaut, due to a myraid of factors, but mostly because of a lot of personal issues happening all at once. I guess this is where discipline kicks in. Time to go full russian!