The hardest job in the world is the best job in the world. Happy mothers’ day!
A HARDER MARCO HARDER
This is the official strength training blog of Marco Harder. Expect articles, training logs and general collaterals about his personal forays into the world of strength training and strength sports.
Filipino athletes set new world and Asian powerlifting records in Udaipur, India!
(Source: themarcoharder)
3 weeks ago - 
1
1 Equipped squat [i.e. suit, wraps, belt] test day.
1st attempt: 155 kg - Lifted this easy.
2nd attempt:165 kg [bad lift] - The moment I set up, I knew something was wrong. My coach affirmed this as he was surprised when he thought that I would already give up at the middle when I suddenly brought the bar up. I wasn’t able to lock it out, though, but I knew it was really the set up of my feet when I unloaded the bar off the rack.
3rd attempt: 165 kg - Easy. Had the set up right this time and up went the bar without a pause. My coach estimated that I could have done 170kg given the bar speed, but we opted to stop at that point since I already broke my previous PR by 17.5 kg.
1 month ago - 1
1 Results from today’s Olympic lifts test day
Snatch: 50 kg
Clean and Jerk: 72 kg
Test results from my squat and deadlift max attempts at the gym.
Squat: stuck at 125 kg.
Deadlift: 160 kg.
(Source: muffintop-less, via barbellbabe)
A new bench press PR!
Bench Press:
1st attempt: 87.5 kg [3 white flags; good lift]
2nd attempt: 95.0 kg [3 white flags; good lift]
3rd attempt: 97.5 kg [3 red flags; no lift]
February 9, 2012. Thursday.
Squat, Deadlift and Weightlifting Day
Box Squat
20 kg x 6
60 kg x 2
80 kg x 2
90 kg x 1
90 kg x 2
95 kg x 2
100 kg x 2
Band-assisted Conventional Deadlift
85 kg x 8
87 kg x 8
92 kg x 8 x 3
Push Jerk
20 kg x 3
30 kg x 3
47 kg x 3 x 2
49 kg x 3 x 3
February 8, 2012. Wednesday.
Bench Press Day
Rotator Cuff Work [All directions]
Band x 25
Dumbbell Bench Press
10 lbs x 12
20 lbs x 8
30 lbs x 6
40 lbs x 6
45 lbs x 5
45 lbs x 6 x 2
Floor DB Bench Press
45 lbs x 8 x 3
Lying Barbell Shrug
82 kg x 20
85 kg x 20
Log Bar Bench Press
37 kg x 10 x 3
Seated Side Lateral Raise
10 lbs x 12 x 2
10 lbs x 11
Overhead Cable Shrug
75 lbs x 12
80 lbs x 12
85 lbs x 12
February 5, 2012. Sunday.
Squat and Weightlifting Day
Box Squat with Bands
40 kg x 2
60 kg x 2
70 kg x 2
75 kg x 2 x 6
Jump Squat with Bands
40 kg x 3 x 2
45 kg x 3 x 3
Snatch
20 kg x 3
25 kg x 3
30 kg x 3
35 kg x 3
37 kg x 3
39 kg x 3
39 kg x 2
39 kg x 1
Reverse Hypers
30 lbs x 31
Ab work [Flexion, Oblique work]
February 4, 2012. Saturday
Speed Bench Press Day
Rotator Cuff Work
Band (all directions) - 30 x 1
Speed Bench Press with bands
45 kg x 3 x 6
50 kg x 3 x 3
Lying Barbell Shrug
80 kg x 20
82 kg x 20
Cable Triceps Pushdown
40 lbs x 15
40 lbs x 14
40 lbs x 11
A new bench press program from my coach!
Competing at the end of the month at a single lift meet!
Results and reflections on my first powerlifting meet.
Squat:
1st attempt: 135 kg [2 white flags, 1 red flag; good lift]
2nd attempt: 147.5 kg [2 white flags, 1 red flag; good lift]
3rd attempt: 157.5 [2 red flags, 1 white flag; bad lift]
Bench Press:
1st attempt: 85 kg [3 red flags; no lift]
2nd attempt: 87.5 kg [3 white flags; good lift]
3rd attempt: 92.5 kg [3 white flags; good lift]
Deadlift:
1st attempt:140 kg [3 white flags; good lift]
2nd attempt: 152.5 kg [2 white flags, 1 red flag; good lift]
3rd attempt: 160 kg [3 red flags; no lift]
Official Total: 392.5 kg
Notes:
All in all, it was a great experience competing in my first powerlifting meet. While I didn’t get any medals for both categories that I competed in [novice and class B lifters, i.e. first-timers and lifters with a Wilk’s score below 340 or thereabouts, respectively], I’m still riding on a massive wave of personal good vibes. For one, I was able to exceed all the poundages that I had planned to lift. I went for a 135 kg first attempt in the squat which was a a good lift with two white flags. I was told that I wasn’t able to lock my knees well enough on the last part of the lift which was perhaps more obvious to the chief referee who was right in front of me. My second attempt at 147.5 kg was a good, but not perfect, lift. This time, it was due to depth issues which again might have appeared to be legal only from the two side referees’ vantage points. My third attempt was called as a bad lift, as two referees saw that it didn’t break parallel. It could have been because I found it difficult to judge my depth because I hadn’t trained extensively with the super-tight wraps I had today. But it is what it is and the best I can take from this is that I know that 152.5 kg is something I could easily and confidently lift as the squats felt really light even with the weight I had for my last squat attempt.
I strongly suspected that the bench press would be one of the more problematic areas. My prescience today did the very odd feat of being so accurate and so wrong at the same time. My 85 kg attempt was called with three red flags because my right shoulder gave way after kept on trying to make the bar go low enough to touch my chest. I suspected that this would happen, as I didn’t feel that it was enough to bring the bar to my chest when I tried to do it in training for reps. I asked my coach to bring the weight up to 87.5 kg just to make sure it drops easily and made adjustments on my shirt. My second attempt was a completely different experience: the weight practically flew off my chest! My coach pegged my 3rd attempt at 92.5 kg and we were just as surprised as I pressed it without a hitch at all.
The deadlift event turned out to be the most disappointing part of the meet for me. Looking back, I now think that this lift was neglected during my 8-week training cycle, as most of my missed workouts happened on the days when I was supposed to be training this lift. One of those days I failed to show up at the gym was when I was supposed to try lifting with a squat suit on, which could have meant a few extra kilos in this particular lift today. I told my coach that I’d just be lifting raw [i.e. belt only] and did so with relative ease at 140 kg. My coach suggested 152.5 kg and I was able to pull it with a bit of a struggle. We decided to go for 160 kg and while I had never ever tried that weight before, I kinda felt I could do it based on how I performed in my second deadlift attempt. I was able to take it off the floor with less difficulty than I expected but as I locked the bar at the top, my left glute cramped a bit and made the weight go down slightly. I shaked my head as I was in the lockout position, knowing full well that it was going to be given 3 red flags. I felt like this was a terrible way to end a moderately successful lifting day but now that I’m writing this, I can see how that lift can be counted as a minor victory; after all, I still pulled 7.5 kilos more than my last 1RM about two weeks ago.
This has been a great day for me, not just because of the personal triumphs I’ve earned for myself, but also because it’s given me specific points to focus on on the next training cycle. The events in powerlifting are by and large based on a single injunction, which is to get the bar from point A to point B. That being said, it becomes a confounding conflagration of all sorts of technicalities, each of which one has to be mindful of during attempts to lift maximal weights. It’s very easy to see how my red-flagged lifts today can be the cerulean night that dims a person’s road to self-actualization but one must realize that these very things are in fact the faint glows of knowledge that illuminate that same path so we don’t stumble on errors we’ve already made.
