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hunt0r's Starting Strength journal



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  #1  
Old 07-26-2007, 09:41 AM
EricT EricT is offline
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Here are the basic lower body ones I posted before. They're from all over the place...

CAT STRETCH: Start out on your hands and knees with a flat back. Your hands should be directly under your shoulders with fingers spread. Knees should be directly under the hips. Head is held loosely so that you are looking at the floor between your hands. Inhale, and as you exhale, arch your back toward the ceiling, tuck your chin in to your chest so that you are looking at your navel, and tuck your tailbone underneath. Hold, then release back into your original position.

SAGE TWIST: Warning for this pose—it involves twisting your back, so you should take particular care not to twist too far or you risk aggravating any existing back pain. This should be a gentle stretch; twist just as far as is comfortable. Sit on the floor with both legs out in front of you. Bend your right knee, lift your right leg over your left, and place your right foot on the floor next to your left knee. Sitting with spine straight, place your left elbow on the right side of your right knee. Bend your left arm so that your left fingertips are touching your right hip, while at the same time, twisting to look over your right shoulder. This is where you need to be careful not to twist too far. Hold for a few seconds, release, and repeat on the opposite side.

This stretch here is the best way I’ve found to actually get a good stretch in the spinal erectors. If you play with it you can modify the pressure on you knee and the postion of the shoulder to get a good stretch of the erectors and not so much just a twist of the back. You can also get a good stretch of the lumbar region and the middle back, lats etc by allowing the shoulders to relax and the shouler blades to protract. This is much more effective and safer for you shoulders than the dead hang stretch which is downright stupid since in order to get a stretch that way you have to put you shoulder joints in severe jeapordy.

Lying Buttock Stretch

This mainly stretches your buttocks (gluteal muscles) but also makes some demands on your groin and upper inner-thigh area. You must be very careful not to apply any stress to the knee joint when performing this stretch. Otherwise, serious injury (such as the tearing of cartilage) may occur.

Lie on your back again with both knees bent and in the air and with your feet on the floor. Take your right foot in your left hand (with your hand wrapping under your foot so that the fingertips are on its outside edge) and hold your leg (with your knee bent) in the air about 1-3 feet above your left breast (relax, we haven’t started to stretch the buttocks just yet). The leg you are holding should be in much the same position as it is when you start your groin stretch in the next exercise, only now it is in the air because you are on your back (see Section B.3 [groin and inner-thigh stretch]). Exhale and slowly pull your foot over to the side and up (toward your head) as if you were trying to touch your outstretched leg about 12 inches to the outside of your left shoulder. You should feel a good stretch in your buttocks about now. If you feel any stress at all on your knee then stop at once. You are probably pulling “up” too much and not enough to the side. You may wish to use your free hand to support your knee in some way. Hold this stretch for about 20 seconds (and stop if you feel any stress in the knee joint). Now repeat this same stretch with the other leg (using the other hand). Remember that the leg you are not holding should have the sole of its foot on the floor with the knee bent and in the air.

To make an isometric stretch out of this, when you are performing the passive stretch (above) and feel the stretch in your buttocks, continue trying to pull your foot to the outside of your shoulder while at the same time resisting with your leg so that it pushes agains your hand. No actual leg motion should take place, just the resistance. Stop immediately if you feel any undue stress to your knee.

Hamstring Stretch…whatever you would normally do for hamstrings.

Psoas Stretch

This stretch is sometimes called the “runner’s start” because the position you are in resembles that of a sprinter at the starting block. It mainly stretches the psoas muscle located just above the top of the thigh.
Crouch down on the floor with both hands and knees on the ground. Put one leg forward with your foot on the floor so that your front leg is bent at the knee at about a 90 degree angle. Now extend your rear leg in back of you so that it is almost completely straight (with just an ever so slight bend) and so that the weight of your rear leg is on the ball of your rear foot with the foot in a forced arch position. Now we are in the position to stretch (notice that your rear leg should be in pretty much the same position that it would assume if you were performing a front split).

Keeping your back straight and in line with your rear thigh, exhale and slowly try to bring your chest down to the floor (you shouldn’t need to bend much further than the line your front knee is on). You should feel the stretch primarily in the upper thigh of your rear leg but you should also feel some stretch in your front hamstring as well. Hold this position for at least 15 seconds. If you wish to also stretch your rear quadricep from this position, you can shift your weight back so that your rear leg makes a right angle with your knee pointing toward the floor (but don’t let it touch the floor). Now, without bending your rear leg any further, try to force your rear knee straight down to the floor.

Now repeat the same stretch(es) with your other leg in front.
For an isometric stretch, you can do this same stretch in front of a wall and instead of putting your hands on the floor, put them in front of you against the wall and then push against the wall with the ball of your foot (without decreasing the “stretch” in your psoas).

For HAMSTRINGS I will usually do the stretch which you could call a standing hurtler's strecth I guess where you put your leg up on something at around waist level or lower depending on you flexibility. Then you bend over it to stretch the hams. Grab you toes and pull them back and it gets the calves too. This is an ok stretch.

I also find that the most useful one for really getting the belly of the hamstrings is a "goodmorning stretch"
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If you act sanctimonious I will just list out your logical fallacies until you get pissed off and spew blasphemous remarks.
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  #2  
Old 07-27-2007, 02:50 PM
EricT EricT is offline
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Speaking of warmups, bro, those weight warmups need a little work. Also, when your having problems with back I would shy away from going for a warm up load higher than target. No use of increasing the load on the back unnecessarily. Althougt the technique does have benefits for some. Your warmups look more like ramp-ups. You may as well be doing a ramped sets of 5 or something.

(IK was posting at the same time.)
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  #3  
Old 07-27-2007, 02:52 PM
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My back is almost 100% so I wasnt too overly concerned. Also I used a weightbelt on my heavier sets and that really works well for me. Helps me keep perfect form and so I dont risk hurting the back.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Eric3237 View Post
Speaking of warmups, bro, those weight warmups need a little work. Also, when your having problems with back I would shy away from going for a warm up load higher than target. No use of increasing the load on the back unnecessarily. Althougt the technique does have benefits for some.

(IK was posting at the same time.)
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22 yrs old
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Goals: Add lean mass and cut body fat.
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  #4  
Old 07-27-2007, 02:55 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Eric3237 View Post
Speaking of warmups, bro, those weight warmups need a little work. Also, when your having problems with back I would shy away from going for a warm up load higher than target. No use of increasing the load on the back unnecessarily. Althougt the technique does have benefits for some. Your warmups look more like ramp-ups. You may as well be doing a ramped sets of 5 or something.

(IK was posting at the same time.)
Personally, I've found using a single rep at higher than working weight to be more beneficial. But that's *my* experience. The 5,3,1 sequencing is the best I've used, sometimes my single rep will be below working weight, sometimes higher, depending on how I feel that day.

I was PM'ing with him last night and threw out that kind of warmup as something for him to try and see what he liked as opposed to the minimal warmups he said he's been doing.

Good ol' trial and error ;)
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Old 07-27-2007, 02:58 PM
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Yeah my warmups prior to this were very minimal...like for squats I was doing 1x5 at 135lbs and then jumping into my working weight. Same with the bench, I would do 1x10 at 135lbs then right into 250lbs...so if this new warmup routine needs tweaking I will do that, but it was in the right direction then from what I was doing.
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  #6  
Old 07-27-2007, 02:59 PM
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Alright lets put our collective mass knowledge together (and when I say ours I mean yours ) and make some changes!
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  #7  
Old 07-27-2007, 02:56 PM
EricT EricT is offline
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Dude you should not be getting any kind of PUMP from a warm-up. They should not tax you. The deal is not that the warmups didn't warm you up but that they are more than necessary (weight wise). With what you are doing on squat, for instance, you may be able to put 10 lbs a session on instead of 5 because those warmups "count". They are basically a workout plus an additional three sets of 5.

IK, I like the 5,3,1 setup. It's the percentage of target weight I'm reacting too.

And I don't have any theoretical dislike for the single weight above (although it won't work for everyone). And frankly, with lower frequency it wouldn't matter as much. But on this setup a warmup like that is, in effect, increase the volume. Once you add up all the sets and the percentages you'll find a relative intensity that is quite high so the volume at that intensity will be contraindicated for Rippetoe's. It will require more resources as far as recovery and thus speed of progression and time in progress will suffer.
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Old 07-27-2007, 03:03 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Eric3237 View Post
IK, I like the 5,3,1 setup. It's the percentage of target weight I'm reacting too.
Yeah, the weighs used are gonna vary person to person. For *me* I tend to use along the lines of 65%, 85%, and 105% (roughly... as long as I'm making even weight jumps). But again, that's just *me* and he'll have to toy with percentages/poundages to find what's going to be the best neuromuscular rehearsal for him without getting pre-fatigue.

I just didn't like the thought of him doing maybe one warmup set with roughly 50% working poundages and then jumping into the working sets, especially with little to no dynamics done prior.
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  #9  
Old 07-27-2007, 03:08 PM
EricT EricT is offline
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Yeah, absolutely. I see why IK prescribed the way she did. Of course, everyone's warmup is going to be a little different. What I do and what you do should not be exactly the same once you tweak and experiment.

One thing I always do is start off with five or six with the empty bar. Now for me this is like having absolutely nothing on my back as far as how it feels but basically it's a test to see that all the parts are greased properly.

But if I was going to go for 220 AND keeping in mind the kind of thing that IK is talking about I might do something like this, which won't SEEM as minimal but in reality will be much less.

Keep in mind that for a relative novice the reactions to heavy neuro muscular stimulu is different than for a more advanced lifter. What would simply create undue fatigue in a novice due to the relative immaturity of the CNS might actually make the advanced lifter "stronger" due to the more immediate fitness effects from this kind of stimulus and their ability to work more comfortably in their upper ranges of ability. With that said, a too heavy warmup, is a too heavy warmup, and everyone must find what works best for them, as IK said.

(General warmup followed by some dynamic lunge stretches)

Empty Bar X 5 x 1 or 2
110X5
130x1 or 2
165X3
180X1

from there you could try the one rep a little higher than target or go straight to work sets.
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  #10  
Old 07-27-2007, 03:15 PM
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That's a nice setup Eric.

I see what you mean about increased vol with the Rippetoe's setup. I tend to think of differing programming being that I haven't worked that kind of setup in a while
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