Herbison's Training Log

[ithryn]

Hey it's Sean! I hadn't seen that zercher and catch video before. That was awesome.

[Kregna]

Oh wow, didn't realise you'd joined! Good to have you

[SeanHerbison]

Nice to see you here, Sean. I'm also trying to get used to the hook grip. What do you think made it click for you this time?

I did make a slight adjustment with the actual grip, but I think the main thing was just using it for all my warmups. Before, I'd DOH my warmups and then hook my worksets, and that just went straight from 0 to pain. Now I'm building up and getting used to it. We'll see if it still works once I'm doing another hundred pounds.

Way to stand up to Rip in the "Carni kill yourself"-thread. I was wondering if one of the SSCs would ever do that, so thank you.

Well, while I don't think Carni adds anything of value to the internet despite the surprising fact that he does, on occasion, actually lift, I don't think that's really ever called for.

Hey it's Sean! I hadn't seen that zercher and catch video before. That was awesome.

Thanks. Now if only I did more social media, I'm sure that would be my most popular, uh, thing. Other than DMs from KOTJ.

Oh wow, didn't realise you'd joined! Good to have you

Thanks. I see you're dabbling in Oly lifting now. That's cool. I'm just focusing on getting back up to and surpassing my powerlifting PRs at the moment, but I do plan on at least trying out an Oly meet once I'm back in the States.

[SeanHerbison]

More color correction attempts, though I didn't end up keeping any of them. Seems like turning down the gain makes it more vivid, but that has the obvious downside of making it darker. Or at least, it's a downside when you're trying to look at depth, for instance.



I need to find better background music. Most of the copyright-free stuff I can find is more like soundtrack music.

Monday, 20 November

Comp Squat: 400x5x3
T&G Bench: 260x5x3
SLDL to Straps: 185x8x2
Chinup: BWx7, 6, 6

Well, first mistake (other than misloading) of the new training block, if you can really call this a training block. Something in my lower back was irritating me yesterday, and it kept up this morning. The smart thing to do, particularly in light of having one day off rather than two (see last post) would have been to back off a bit on squats, maybe knock off 10% and do them beltless. Instead, I pushed through some ugly squats, then had to back off deadlifts instead.

Surprisingly, as I was worried the arch might bug it more, my back felt pretty good after bench. But I decided on SLDLs anyway just to move through the ROM without making the back do too much. It's a bit stiff now as I'm going to bed, but it'll be fine.

Interestingly, my back has been feeling fine recently, but as my car started giving me trouble (yet again, third car in Germany) and I started stressing out about it, I suddenly developed some pain. Now, it could be due entirely to the fact that I'm getting back to decently heavy weights compared to my bests, but I somehow doubt it. I'm realizing more and more how much of our pain is caused by our brain, even, and in fact usually, totally subconsciously. On the flip side, it's amazing how much your mental model of yourself can impact your well-being too. Kind of a self-perpetuating cycle, for better or worse.

Anyway, something to work on.

[simonrest]

there was a period I was stuck using the youtube background music - I used to try to choose the worst possible stuff - like elevator country, xmas music, experimental jazz, etc.

[OCG]

Press: I accidentally jumped 15 lbs to 165 last time, so I figured 10 lbs this time would be fine. I was not correct. I mean, I finished them all, but not with the form I'd like. While I am still working out the press (I'll never finish refining my thoughts on it at this rate), I more or less see a second layback as analogous to upper-back rounding in deadlifts. It's fine if you want to do it, but it shouldn't happen by accident, like it did here. I was actually trying to avoid it.

Nice to have you here. With the pressing, looks like you're pushing the bar way too far back. I like to try and maintain a straight bar path, which should put the bar much further forwards at the top.

[SeanHerbison]

there was a period I was stuck using the youtube background music - I used to try to choose the worst possible stuff - like elevator country, xmas music, experimental jazz, etc.

Nice. I'll see if I can put in Ra-Ra-Rasputin for my next one without triggering a copyright notice.

Nice to have you here. With the pressing, looks like you're pushing the bar way too far back. I like to try and maintain a straight bar path, which should put the bar much further forwards at the top.

Thanks, and you're 100% correct. It's a bad habit I fall back into pretty quickly unless I have someone telling me not to. This was particularly egregious even for me though. I don't usually have to rock back on my heels like that.

[OCG]

For me a straight bar path honestly ends up putting the bar somewhere over my forehead, which is quite a bit further forwards than The Book tells me it should be. But I just put it there anyway, because doing that fixed my press.

[SeanHerbison]

After pretending that Wednesday didn't happen, here's Friday. In today's lesson, we learn the relationship between gain and noise, and why you can't just make things brighter and have the same quality.



There have been power issues around here recently, and Pfalzwerke had to turn off my power for a couple hours. Hence the deadlifts in the dark. Also, unfortunately, Youtube won't let me put Ra-Ra-Rasputin as my background music. It's a sad day indeed.

Friday, 24 November

Comp Squat: 405x5x3
T&G Bench: 270x5x3
Comp Deadlift: 430x5x1
Chinup: BWx7, 7, 6

Overall: As has been pointed out by better coaches and athletes than myself, any stress will affect your training, not just stress from training itself. Since I got to Germany, I have not had a fun time with cars, and for the last two weeks I've been worried this third car was also going to break. The exciting conclusion to that story is that the wheel was loose, and somehow three separate mechanics missed that. More importantly, the stress was messing with me pretty heavily, but is now fixed, which makes me feel a lot better.

Squat: Not real happy with these, but between the aforementioned stress and the mental hiccup of getting back to four plates, I guess I can tolerate them. I did break out my recently arrived little friend, though, to help me stop getting in my own head so much. Man, I'd forgotten how strong those things are. Also, I'm probably good on medical tape for a while.

Bench: Squats really, really pissed off my elbows. Even though a naproxen did help noticeably, the bottom position still hurt a lot, and I ended up relying on a bounce from my chest more than I should have. Other than that, I'm quite happy with how bench is progressing.

[SeanHerbison]

I'm getting a new camera (hint: it can do 4K60 or 1080p240), a tripod, and the studio lights that Brandon Campbell uses (Home Gym Lighting video), but I'm not sure how much any of that will help if I can't get my head in frame (squat set 1) or set the camera at least roughly parallel to the ground. Actually, a tripod should help with that second issue. Cool. Here's today's video.



I've been busy (*cough*playingshadowofwar*cough*greatgame*cough*), so I haven't been doing as much as I should on learning new video editing stuff.

Sunday, 26 November

Comp Squat: 345x5x2
Press: 180x3x5
Comp Deadlift: 450x5x1
Chinup: BWx2x10

Squat: I was undecided about whether I should introduce light days or go one more week without, but my elbows decided it for me. It's a bit annoying, as it seems to stick around for a while once it's here, but I'll work around it.

Press: Speaking of working around it, I threw my Rehbands on around my elbows for press. They're obviously not sized right, and they change the angles a little bit, but they helped me get through presses anyway. Also, I switched to five sets of three. Is that ideal? Maybe, maybe not. But it's simple, and I can keep adding weight this way. Plus, it lets me hold the bar for a shorter period at one time, which is nice on my elbows at the moment. Also, once again I managed to forgot to shrug most of these. Dang it.

Deadlift: These were okay. I need to stop myself from reverting back to my old hook grip set up, which feels more secure at the start, but puts more pressure on my thumb in an unhelpful way. Formwise, I had a bit too much shifting in between reps, but nothing terrible. I mostly need to stop that so that I don't shift my grip and think about my thumbs at the start of each rep.

Chinup: Kept the same volume, but spread it out into manageable chunks for my elbows. They hurt at first, but around set seven my elbows really started to feel better. To be fair, this could just have been because more time had elapsed since squats and presses, but I tend to think the chinups played their part.

[mgil]

What’s going on with presses there? Didn’t you used to have a floating rack? If I’m being lazy and you noted this, I apologize. Regardless, you look painfully awkward at the bottom of the OHP ROM.

[unruhschuh]

What’s going on with presses there? Didn’t you used to have a floating rack? If I’m being lazy and you noted this, I apologize. Regardless, you look painfully awkward at the bottom of the OHP ROM.

I was also wondering. Looks a bit like the Feigenpress?

Whats up with the video gear upgrade? Are you planning to become a youtube star?

[SeanHerbison]

What’s going on with presses there? Didn’t you used to have a floating rack? If I’m being lazy and you noted this, I apologize. Regardless, you look painfully awkward at the bottom of the OHP ROM.

I was also wondering. Looks a bit like the Feigenpress?

I addressed it a bit in my other log:

Presses are still a work in progress, but they're getting there. As I've mentioned, I've been trying to work through it all in my head, and it's changed my technique a bit. What I'm doing now ends up looking a lot like what Jordan is calling the "classic press" (video/article). I didn't specifically mimic Jordan, but he was one of the models I was looking at, and along with Brian Shaw, was one of the more influential ones. So no surprise that it's similar, I guess.

But yeah, they were a mess there. Between my elbows hurting, wearing "elbow sleeves", and the fact that I'm chronically tweaking aspects of my technique (hands a little further in than before) to test things out, that's what I ended up with. Also, I usually don't end up with a straight horizontal bar at the top, which isn't surprising given that my shoulders aren't level, but that was bad even for me.

Honestly, if I can't get it set soon, I'm probably going to go back to the floating rack/press 2.0 and just hammer that in.

Whats up with the video gear upgrade? Are you planning to become a youtube star?

That doesn't really hold my interest, at least not at the moment, but being able to make good videos does. Mostly for my own personal right now, but that may branch out later. I will say that 1080 at 240 frames per second sounds awesome for slowing things down and really looking at specific aspects of technique. Wish I'd had that when I was throwing.

It's something I've been thinking about for a few years now, and now that I've got a beast of a computer, a 4k monitor, and understand cameras just a little bit better, I've decided to pull the trigger on it.

[SeanHerbison]

No video of bench today, otherwise pretty standard. I'd welcome some critiques on squats, if anyone has something to point out. I know what I think of them, but it's good to have other input.



I did pick up a GoPro Hero 6 Black after work, but I haven't unboxed it yet. It'll be another week or so before I get the memory card for it, but I might mess around with it before then.

Tuesday, 28 November

Comp Squat: 410x5x3
T&G Bench: 135x10x3
Comp Deadlift: 470x5x1
Chinup: BWx2x10

Squat: Still some bad reps, but much better than Friday.

Bench: Unfortunately, I did still end up with achy elbows after the second and third sets of squats. I didn't want to totally can bench, so I just lowered the weight down and did slow, controlled reps. I felt strong enough for 280, but I couldn't really handle the bottom couple inches. Elbow pain can be annoyingly hard to get rid of, but it seems to be getting better overall, so I didn't want to push it too much.

Deadlift: I was pretty happy with the pulls overall, but the grip for reps is brutal. I don't actually mind the pressure so much, but at the bottom of each rep when I set it down, my thumbs burn like they're on fire. Maybe I just need to set it down without taking pressure off my thumbs.

[SeanHerbison]

By the way, Jordan's all over the Tubes now. That's cool.

[unruhschuh]

Nice! All of it, the lifting, the video editing hobby and the pointer to Jordant@JuggLife. Thanks.

[SeanHerbison]

Well, that was a lot of work for today's video. I wanted some side by side video to compare footage (Go Pro vs phone), but that meant manually syncing it up for all nine clips.



Picked up my new camera and tested out some 1080p@120fps footage. Obviously doesn't matter if you're uploading to Youtube (capped at 60fps), or if you're watching at full speed without a 120Hz monitor, but it's nice for slowing it down to look at specifics. My new, faster micro SD card came in now as well, so I'll be trying out 4K@60fps tomorrow.

Friday, 1 December

Comp Squat: 415x5x3
Press: 185x3x5
Comp Deadlift: 490x5x1
Chinup: BWx2x11

Squat: Not bad, except the last one, which was crap. I started feeling my right elbow ache around the third rep of the third set, and you can see my trying to adjust my right hand a bit after that. All I ended up doing was applying uneven pressure and twisting a bit on the way up. Even so, my elbows weren't nearly as bad as last time. So I've got that going for me.

Press: A bit better. Not the ridiculous all-over-the-place form I had last time, but not really dialed in either. Some reps are touch and go, others are paused, and still others are somewhere in the middle. I really need to just pick one and stick with it.

Deadlift: I think the weight is starting to outpace my ability to endure hook grip. I'm planning on keeping this LP as simple as I can for the few workouts I've got left, but I may change deadlifts to be a top single with hook grip and then a backoff set with straps. I'm getting so distracted by the grip that it's affecting my ability to keep a flat(ish) back.

[SeanHerbison]

Nice! All of it, the lifting, the video editing hobby and the pointer to Jordant@JuggLife. Thanks.

Glad you like it. I'm enjoying learning new stuff, and I'm looking forward to getting the rest of my stuff and using my fancy new gear. I'm also realizing how much you can do in the wide world of video editing if you know how to use the tools that are available to you. Next up, LUTs.

[SeanHerbison]

This just in: codecs are a pain in the butt. Apparently at the settings I used today, my camera uses H.265, which works with approximately nothing and needs to be transcoded to H.264, which is apparently the video world's current lord and savior. Also, once you've spent an hour figuring out how to do that and going through three or four programs to find one that actually works, it turns out 4K@60fps still takes a while to render and upload. No one could have seen that coming.



Aside from that, I'm pretty happy with it. I turned off the lights for my second squat set, and the Go Pro performed pretty dang well in poor lighting, even without any color correction afterward. I haven't messed with the settings except for resolution and frame rate yet, but I'll start trying to figure those out too. Unfortunately, I'm stuck on wide (fish-eye) instead of flat unless I want to lower one of those two. Maybe I'll try 2.7K.

Sunday, 3 December

Comp Squat: 352.5x5x2
T&G Bench: 275x5x3
Comp Deadlift: 505x5x1
Chinup: BWx7x3

Squat: My weight was a bit forward for a few reps, but nothing exciting here.

Bench: Need to keep my butt down a bit more. I don't think it actually broke contact with the bench, but there was some shifting going on.

Deadlift: Somewhere in here I probably started hitting PRs for sets of five. I know that 505 isn't a very good 5RM with a 661 1RM, but I suck at deadlifting for reps. I've also never done much of it. Kind of a vicious cycle there. Anyway, I'm pretty sure 505 is a new 5RM, but that's the last one I'm doing with hook grip for a while. I'll do a top single (~10% more) with hook, then drop back down and use straps for the set. I'm dropping to ten lb jumps as well. Only did fifteen today so that I'd be back on a weight ending in 5 and I can be a little lazier with the plates.

Elbows: Much better today. Nothing on squat, only a little on bench, and they held up fine for my normal sets of chinups.

[unruhschuh]

For transcoding I like Handbrake if you haven't found it yet.