Urgan Shows Up, Does the Thing

[Kishi]

Yeah, squatting is hard. The big thing I'm worrying about right now is going ATG - put a weight on my back and all I wanna do is just drop below the crease in my hips. That's what multiple forms of squatting are for figuring out, though, right?

[Urgan]

51 minutes ago, Kishi said:

Yeah, squatting is hard. The big thing I'm worrying about right now is going ATG - put a weight on my back and all I wanna do is just drop below the crease in my hips. That's what multiple forms of squatting are for figuring out, though, right?

 

There are as many squats as there are goals~ Below parallel works for me.

[Kishi]

11 minutes ago, Urgan said:

 

There are as many squats as there are goals~ Below parallel works for me.

 

I know~! That's what's so confusing about the return to barbells, because I went back with the ultimate goal of building enough strength - and having enough fun - to do a pistol squat. A classic pistol is ATG, and while I know that I can develop a lot of strength squatting, the full benefit of it only extends a few degrees past the point of flexion. I'm thinking, something that loads forward would help to balance me proper, but is it a balance issue or am I just too weak? #LiftingProblems #LiftingPhilosophy #IfABarbellFallsInAGymAndOnlyTheCardioBunniesAreThereDoesItMakeASound

[Urgan]

You want to get stronger AND do a pistol squat, yes? Here's how I'd do it, were I going for a pistol.

 

Step one: Get stronger. Balance becomes easier as strength increases. BW (loaded barbell, not the unloaded movement pattern, just to be clear) squats should be as trivial as an empty bar, and preferably 2xBW, because you will be single leg squatting your bodyweight after all. Low bar back squat is the best way to increase strength by involving the most muscle through the optimum ROM for building up all the muscles in the posterior chain.

 

Step two: While you're training, make sure you don't have any flexibility issues around ankles, knees, and hips hindering an ATG bodyweight squat. Fix those so you won't be fighting that nonsense. Figure out a schedule for practicing bodyweight squats that won't interfere with the barbell.

 

Step three: Carefully begin a pistol progression. I would work it around my regular training as a secondary thing, but that's my priority set. You might backseat barbells for pistols. To each their own.

 

Someone coming from a bodyweight workout background would probably not approach it this way, they would no doubt invert these steps or tell you to load up front squats. Strength is general, it is the first and most important thing you need. Then specialize. It will make acquisition of other skills all the more attainable. It's not the express route to a pistol by appearances, but you'll move up that progression much faster with a well-established 2XBW squat than not, yes?

[Sam Ashen]

6 minutes ago, Urgan said:

preferably 2xBW, because you will be single leg squatting your bodyweight after all

 

You do not need a 2xBW Squat to be able to do a Pistol Squat.  You really just need some stability and coordination.  If you are interested, I put up a Form Check for some Pistol Squats and got a comment.  The comment gives some good advice about how to develop a Pistol Squat.

 

Note:  I do not squat 2xBW.  I am currently at approximately 1.7x.

 

Kishi - You able to find that Form-Check?  Otherwise, I can just dig up the link.

[Urgan]

13 minutes ago, Sam Ashen said:

 

You do not need a 2xBW Squat to be able to do a Pistol Squat.  You really just need some stability and coordination.  If you are interested, I put up a Form Check for some Pistol Squats and got a comment.  The comment gives some good advice about how to develop a Pistol Squat.

 

Note:  I do not squat 2xBW.  I am currently at approximately 1.7x.

 

Kishi - You able to find that Form-Check?  Otherwise, I can just dig up the link.

 

It's not a requirement, but it'd sure help, hence "preferable". I don't relish the idea of devoting a long time to running the progression, which you could run in isolation, but that seems like the scenic route to me. 

[miss_marissa]

RE: Y problems

 

You would think that posting a sign saying "No freelance training permitted" and then mentioning once to you "Hey, no freelance training" and documenting that they said it would be enough. That way if anything happens they can just say "look we told them it's not allowed, now it's on them" would be enough. Why the fiasco?

[Urgan]

6-15-2016

Spa day got me like

 

Lifting

-

 

Aikido

An extended rest period due to headache-induced insomnia, just to take something off my plate. Given it was test night, I wasn’t even missing an opportunity to practice technique, so it was an ideal sacrifice for proper recovery.

 

Recovery

Protein: 14/20 - 131g

Biscuits: 1/2

 

Food

Chicken chicken chicken day. Leftover white chicken chili and Moroccan Stewed Chicken Thighs ftw. Rocking it. My weight has been hovering around 114-115lbs and I haven’t changed my macros since I was 112-113, so either I am making like a camel or maybe some muscle-building is happening? Saturday I will blow through my old 3RM (a weight I've never lifted, actually, since I only 1RM 169.5lbs that one time...time to make it more than a fluke, eh?), after all...a girl can dream.

 

Sleep

Sleep was especially bad this time around. My neck tension flared up on me and made lying down comfortably a pipe dream. As a result, I was wide awake at 1:42AM and got maybe a grand total of 6 hours sleep. Surprisingly, I managed to not nap throughout the day somehow.

 

Mobility

MASSAGE DAY CURES ALL. Also, soaked in epsom for a looooong time, felt amazing.

 

Adulting

Um...before massage, I stuffed things in the washer and dryer?? Afterward, made dinner and helped cycle dishes. Not an epic day for adulting, but that’s okay. Our house is still standing.

 

2 minutes ago, miss_marissa said:

RE: Y problems

 

You would think that posting a sign saying "No freelance training permitted" and then mentioning once to you "Hey, no freelance training" and documenting that they said it would be enough. That way if anything happens they can just say "look we told them it's not allowed, now it's on them" would be enough. Why the fiasco?

 

Because bending over and grabbing the ankles (and forcing me into a similar position) is closer to what they want, which is a $0 legal bill and no (other) unpleasant conversations. Trouble is a thing to be pushed off onto others. 

[Sam Ashen]

14 hours ago, Urgan said:

It's not a requirement, but it'd sure help, hence "preferable". I don't relish the idea of devoting a long time to running the progression, which you could run in isolation, but that seems like the scenic route to me. 

 

Here was the advice I was given regarding Pistol Squats:

 

 

Quote

 

The knee is wobbling quite a bit, try to keep it in line with your toe. It seems like no big deal at first until your knees start hurting.

You do a lot of barbell squats judging by your challenge thread, so my guess is the smaller muscles involved in balance are weak relative to the rest of your legs.

That is something that improves with practice, but doing the full movement with that much wobbling also exposes you to possible knee injury. If it's not getting better very quickly, or if your knees start to hurt, I would recommend regressing a little to box pistols or negatives.

 

 

 

[Urgan]

No argument against building up the squat in there...squats are famous for requiring you to deal with maintaining stability while under a load before you even begin the rep. Then you practice the movement pattern carefully; large numbers of reps with improper form is definitely a harbinger of joint stress/injury. 

[miss_marissa]

Somebody linked me the other day to Jim Bathurst from Beastskills.com and the new NF master of training. I guess he has a pretty good pistol squat progression on his site.

[Kishi]

So before I'm ungentlemanly and make this thread about my own training, just wanna say: good that you got a night to rest. I hope it helps and that you blow that 3RM clear out of the water. I'm sorry to hear that you didn't get much sleep, though.

 

Now obviously as you are more knowledgeable about barbells than I, I will defer to what you and @Sam Ashen and anyone else says; I know enough to understand how little my knowledge means.

 

18 hours ago, Urgan said:

Step one: Get stronger. Balance becomes easier as strength increases. BW (loaded barbell, not the unloaded movement pattern, just to be clear) squats should be as trivial as an empty bar, and preferably 2xBW, because you will be single leg squatting your bodyweight after all. Low bar back squat is the best way to increase strength by involving the most muscle through the optimum ROM for building up all the muscles in the posterior chain.

 

Oh yes. I would want to put some kind of load on me one way or the other. Because it's fun. It seems to me from out here though, that I could build strength with any kind of loaded pattern - so I could do either back or front or zercher and still derive benefit. And they all seem to feed into back squat as well - back squat always allows the most weight to be moved, but the loads of front-loaded squats have the most effect on the primary movers like the quads and such.

 

They also both seem to promote a full range of motion. This idea intrigues me because...

 

18 hours ago, Urgan said:

Step two: While you're training, make sure you don't have any flexibility issues around ankles, knees, and hips hindering an ATG bodyweight squat. Fix those so you won't be fighting that nonsense. Figure out a schedule for practicing bodyweight squats that won't interfere with the barbell.

 

I can run a Grok Squat just fine when I don't have load on me. As long as I have my arms out in front of me or something, I'm fine. It goes away when I try to go ATG on a pistol without any help, but like you say, that's probably a function of weakness in the system. I can run the Century Test if necessary to check myself on that, but even if I wasn't I have Goblet Prying Squats that I run every other day, so... I think I'm okay.

 

18 hours ago, Sam Ashen said:

You do not need a 2xBW Squat to be able to do a Pistol Squat.  You really just need some stability and coordination.  If you are interested, I put up a Form Check for some Pistol Squats and got a comment.  The comment gives some good advice about how to develop a Pistol Squat.

4 hours ago, Sam Ashen said:

The knee is wobbling quite a bit, try to keep it in line with your toe. It seems like no big deal at first until your knees start hurting.

You do a lot of barbell squats judging by your challenge thread, so my guess is the smaller muscles involved in balance are weak relative to the rest of your legs.

That is something that improves with practice, but doing the full movement with that much wobbling also exposes you to possible knee injury. If it's not getting better very quickly, or if your knees start to hurt, I would recommend regressing a little to box pistols or negatives.

 

You'd know better than I. ; I've always heard 2xBW as a selling point for the pistols, so I thought, hey, going for that heavy a lift would be like reverse-engineering a pistol. It's curious, though, that the smaller muscles do not seem to have been helped by squatting heavy. Would you say, as someone who's been there, that it was a function of ROM issues with back squats, or was it something that had to be addressed with direct practice? And if it was an ROM thing, could I save time in practice by loading the front?

 

1 hour ago, miss_marissa said:

Somebody linked me the other day to Jim Bathurst from Beastskills.com and the new NF master of training. I guess he has a pretty good pistol squat progression on his site.

 

Yup. He's the one who turned me on to using weights as a build up to the Pistol. I'm just trying to figure out the most efficient way to get there.

[Urgan]

10 minutes ago, Kishi said:

So before I'm ungentlemanly and make this thread about my own training, just wanna say: good that you got a night to rest. I hope it helps and that you blow that 3RM clear out of the water. I'm sorry to hear that you didn't get much sleep, though.

 

Always happy to offer my two cents, who knows who all stands to benefit from the conversation, right? And that is so very NF. 167.5 is quaking in its metaphorical boots, lol.

 

12 minutes ago, Kishi said:

Oh yes. I would want to put some kind of load on me one way or the other. Because it's fun. It seems to me from out here though, that I could build strength with any kind of loaded pattern - so I could do either back or front or zercher and still derive benefit. And they all seem to feed into back squat as well - back squat always allows the most weight to be moved, but the loads of front-loaded squats have the most effect on the primary movers like the quads and such.

 

They also both seem to promote a full range of motion. This idea intrigues me because...

 

For strength, nothing beats the back squat. That said, you have more than raw strength on the brain, so play around and see which works best for you. And IMO the more immediate problem with performing the pistol when you have a heavy squat is it's a different movement pattern and different type of stress, especially if you come from the school of the below parallel squat. Your center of gravity doesn't include a barbell, you are going much lower, and the one leg is absorbing a lot of stress unassisted by its partner.

 

[Kishi]

3 minutes ago, Urgan said:

Always happy to offer my two cents, who knows who all stands to benefit from the conversation, right? And that is so very NF. 167.5 is quaking in its metaphorical boots, lol.

 

Oh, man, we need to hashtag that. #ThatIsSoNF

 

4 minutes ago, Urgan said:

For strength, nothing beats the back squat. That said, you have more than raw strength on the brain, so play around and see which works best for you. And IMO the more immediate problem with performing the pistol when you have a heavy squat is it's a different movement pattern and different type of stress, especially if you come from the school of the below parallel squat. Your center of gravity doesn't include a barbell, you are going much lower, and the one leg is absorbing a lot of stress unassisted by its partner.

 

Yeah, I've heard that for raw strength, you want the back squat. But it's like you say - I'm not just after strength. I'm after strength in conjunction with other athletic qualities, and my reservations about the back squat come from objections I've heard with regard to back squat's carryover into other pursuits. If one variation suits the goals better than the other, I should do the one that suits, right?

[Sam Ashen]

3 minutes ago, Kishi said:

Yeah, I've heard that for raw strength, you want the back squat. But it's like you say - I'm not just after strength. I'm after strength in conjunction with other athletic qualities, and my reservations about the back squat come from objections I've heard with regard to back squat's carryover into other pursuits. If one variation suits the goals better than the other, I should do the one that suits, right?

 

The best lifter on the NF Boards is also a Monk, but I have not seen much of her recently.

 

Right now, I don't feel like explaining the differences between a 2xBW Squat and a Pistol Squat.  The biggest difference I can think of is I cannot yet do a 2xBW Squat.  Next.  I weigh about 200 pounds.  With 400 pounds on my back, that would be 300 pounds per leg.  A Pistol Squat would have 200 pounds on a single leg.  A 400 pound back squat requires a bunch of bracing that a Pistol Squat does not.  In a Pistol Squat, you are not trying to stabilize a 400 pound bar on your back.

 

38 minutes ago, Kishi said:

It's curious, though, that the smaller muscles do not seem to have been helped by squatting heavy.

 

In a Back Squat, the load is distributed over two legs.  In a Pistol Squat the entire system is stabilized over one leg.  Dimensions of stability are introduced that do not exist when using both feet to balance.  Similarly, Bench Pressing a 200 pound bar is not the same as Bench Pressing two 100 pound dumbbells.

 

Leverages are different.  Look at where your butt is at the bottom of a Back Squat and compare it to where it is at the bottom of a Pistol Squat.  In a Pistol Squat, you have one leg in front of you to balance the load.

 

Finally, trust MM to say in about a dozen words what takes me several hundred:

 

1 hour ago, miss_marissa said:

Somebody linked me the other day to Jim Bathurst from Beastskills.com and the new NF master of training. I guess he has a pretty good pistol squat progression on his site.

 

I have not yet checked this out.

[Urgan]

Strictly speaking, strength is a generalized pursuit. Given that your target skill is just a squat variation (as opposed to a sport or something that appears to be a really different movement than a squat), the decision of which exercise to use appears a little fuzzier if you don't separate strength training from your "sport" training. As for criticisms of carrover, the back squat is the superior tool for strength development. Being stronger has the ultimate carryover across all physical endeavors. It is not, however, a silver bullet for various bodyweight techniques, those must be trained for the relevant neuro-muscular adaptation to take place. It only just so happens to appear similar to the skill you want to master.

 

All that said, if you are low on training time and have to choose only one type, I won't think less of you, lol. You'll get there either way. 

[Urgan]

6-16-2016

A rainy evening after a job well done

 

Lifting

Squat - 45 1x5

            75 1x3

            95 1x2

            130 1x1

            151 4x3 - belted

BP -    45 1x5 - belted

          50 1x3 - belted

          60 1x1 - belted

          71 4x3 - belted

OHP - NA

DL -    160 1x3 - belted

          187.5 2x3 - belted

PC -   NA

 

YES.

 

I think I have figured out what I was doing with bumping the squat rack--quite simply, I failed to apply the bar to the correct position on my back, creating a teeny little moment arm that encouraged me to end up farther forward than I should. I caught myself doing that today and fixed it. Should be good from now on. Bench was easy. 187.5 is getting a little more challenging finally, this marks the beginning of Work for me. Going forward should be Interesting.

 

A guy who could have been a standin for Sully from Uncharted did it right and told me “Good workout” after I re-racked the weights from deadlifts. You go, guy.

 

Aikido

Forward L/R - ✓

Backward L/R - ✓

Breakfall L/R - ✓

S. Breakfall L/R -

Knee Walk F/B - ✓

I’m placing a moratorium on side breakfalls to both give me time to completely recover and perhaps to get more mat time at the dojo to see what I may be doing wrong. The other stuff proceeded well, knee walks are becoming stronger, less toppling over lol.

 

Recovery

Protein: 15/20 - 119g

Biscuits: 1/2

 

Food

Leftover stewed chicken thighs, fried steak and spinach for dinner, and to push me over the edge I had some boiled eggs. Guys, we can fry steak. That is a thing we can do and it tasted perfect.

 

Sleep

Unsurprisingly, last night I slept like a newborn. Which is to say, I woke up at 2AM needing to use the bathroom, lol.

 

Mobility

Rolled the hamstrings after those knee walks. My knees were a little "talkative" in the evening--I did a lot of walk 'n talk on the phone in the evening, which was probably the culprit.

 

Adulting

My gi is now clean. Also washed our quilt, because cats.

 

It was a dark and story evening--seriously, a brief wall of torrential rain and electrical storm passed over us and the power flickered. During this time I was talking to mom and steering her along this MFP journey. We're in the two week information gathering phase where we figure out how much they are actually eating. This gives mom that dangerous little bit of information that lets her spin her wheels in micronutrient land, so we had to talk about that and realize that these numbers won't even necessarily be the same a week from now. Cheese is not going to kill dad, let's focus on how we're not worried about chips and crackers and other super processed nonsense. Talked to dad about similar, amused he is so proud of being able to eat dairy to work on his protein goal (we're starting small here, right?) and proud of him for making some better food choices. He's talking about his food and paying some attention to what he eats, guys. Progress. We've had two lifting sessions and Saturday will be the third.

[Dagger]

2 hours ago, Urgan said:

A rainy evening after a job well done

It was raining yesterday where I lived too. I did what those cats are doing. I curled up on my couch, listened to the rain and read a good book. Those are the moments that makes life good.

 

And it sounds like you are doing good progress. I like reading your updates.

[Urgan]

1 minute ago, Dagger said:

It was raining yesterday where I lived too. I did what those cats are doing. I curled up on my couch, listened to the rain and read a good book. Those are the moments that makes life good.

 

The best thing to do when it's dark and rainy is exactly what you want, preferably at home while in PJs, lol.

 

2 minutes ago, Dagger said:

And it sounds like you are doing good progress. I like reading your updates.

 

Thanks~

[Kishi]

23 hours ago, Urgan said:

Strictly speaking, strength is a generalized pursuit. Given that your target skill is just a squat variation (as opposed to a sport or something that appears to be a really different movement than a squat), the decision of which exercise to use appears a little fuzzier if you don't separate strength training from your "sport" training. As for criticisms of carrover, the back squat is the superior tool for strength development. Being stronger has the ultimate carryover across all physical endeavors. It is not, however, a silver bullet for various bodyweight techniques, those must be trained for the relevant neuro-muscular adaptation to take place. It only just so happens to appear similar to the skill you want to master.

 

All that said, if you are low on training time and have to choose only one type, I won't think less of you, lol. You'll get there either way. 

 

Point taken and understood.

 

Also, YUS, you smashed your 3RM goals! And you're leading your parents by example, and they're taking the small steps that will ultimately carry them where the huge leaps would fail to.

 

You are officially on a Killstreak. Awesome.

[Urgan]

 

14 minutes ago, Kishi said:

Also, YUS, you smashed your 3RM goals! And you're leading your parents by example, and they're taking the small steps that will ultimately carry them where the huge leaps would fail to.

 

I am already beating back attempts to go too fast and it hasn't been a week yet, lol.

 

15 minutes ago, Kishi said:

You are officially on a Killstreak. Awesome.

 

w00t!

[Dagger]

12 hours ago, Urgan said:

I am already beating back attempts to go too fast and it hasn't been a week yet, lol.

I'm having to beat down my challenge because my eyes were bigger than my stomach (or willpower in this case :P). So I know exactly how this feels. I want to do all the things.

[Urgan]

 

6-17-2016

Such rainy, much gloom

 

Lifting

-

 

Aikido

-

 

Recovery

Protein: 15/20 - 97g

Biscuits: 1/2

 

Food

Food fail. I didn’t eat much of a lunch (three eggs around 12-1, half a fried steak around 4~?) because lazy. Dinner was proteinarific at least.

 

Sleep

Took me a little while to go to sleep, but no real problems and no naps today~

 

Mobility

Not much mobility because Shark Week. Lots of neck stretching, much popping.

 

Adulting

Grocery day while skirting a downpour--it’s been raining darn near every day this week, seems like. I also cleaned the gunk off our stovetop and cycled dishes. Otherwise was pretty worthless, lol.

 

6 hours ago, Dagger said:

I'm having to beat down my challenge because my eyes were bigger than my stomach (or willpower in this case :P). So I know exactly how this feels. I want to do all the things.

 

It's better to hold back on some quests until you're properly equipped, the first challenges are more about figuring yourself out than scaling mountains, lol. Hope your modified challenge is more to size~

[Dagger]

1 hour ago, Urgan said:

It's better to hold back on some quests until you're properly equipped, the first challenges are more about figuring yourself out than scaling mountains, lol. Hope your modified challenge is more to size~

It is getting there. I did take all of May to just follow a few goals because I joined an NF challenge. The problem is balancing the stuff I want to add into my days and keeping up with obligations I already have. When this challenge finish, I can strike one of my goals for a while and thereby lay more focus on another (or be bad and add another one...).

 

What is Shark Week?

[Urgan]

Just now, Dagger said:

What is Shark Week?

 

Let's just say it's a euphemism for a certain time of the month for the benefit of mixed company, lol. Sometimes, annoyingly, it becomes relevant to the fitness discussion. Here is just one reason why it is a fitting term: