Michigan Muscle Boy

New 1RMs

Nancy and I generated some new 1RMs today, during this remarkable midwestern heat wave.  We made gains, but I think we also see how much farther we have to go.  One thing is clear.  We have not been training for max strength, so our gains in mass strength have not been as good as our gains in volume.  That should correct itself as we go into a mixed hypertrophy/ max strength phase.

I'll post some video of all of this in the next couple of days on Muscle Ventures.

Here's my latest stats:

• Bench: 190 (beats 180).  I thought I could get more, but I think I tried to go up too fast.
• Deadlift: 270 (beat 220).  I have found my limit.  Form started to deteriorate.
• Squat: 230 (beat 220).  This came at the end, and we had to stop early.  Positives are that a quick review of the tape revealed much better depth than 6 weeks ago.  But, it still needs to go down more.  We'll keep on working on that.  My goal is to really get these down.

I think we need a squat program

Nancy and I completed our 1RM measurements.  You can watch our chronicle of events over at Muscle Ventures.  We talk about our strategy for measuring 1RMs and then show ourselves doing them.

I don't think we got down far enough on the squats, as yo can see in the picture of Nancy at the left.

My major takeaway from the 1RM exercise is that we have to work on both strength and technique.

Chris Dorr had a point about those 1RMs

Chris Dorr suggested this morning that trying to do 5 1RM measurements in one sitting would be a lot.  Well, he was right.  We managed two:  bench and deadlift.  We're going to do squat tomorrow.  Then, we're calling it a day on these.

Ralfe Sean also proved prophetic.  Nancy and I have not been pushing the 1RMs, and it shows in our numbers, particularly the bench.  Due to shoulder issues, I had not done a bench press in a while.  The thing I found was that it was difficult to get power off the bench.  I only did 180.  I could probably do more in a close grip 1RM.

Deadlifts were a somewhat better story.  I stopped at 220, but I thought I could get a lot more.  It's just that I started too low (180).  On that one, I have back fears.

So, it seems the task we have set ourselves is to focus on improving on these basic exercises.  We'll see how things measure up in a month or so.  Here's our 1RMs:

• Bud
  • Bench:  180
  • Deadlift:  220
• Nancy
  • Bench: 120
  • Deadlift:  125

1RM Periodization Madness

So, we're going to do our 1RM measurements tomorrow (Tuesday) as we start our periodization program.  I received a nice bit of advice on my last post on this topic.  First, as Chris D. points out, you can pretty much do 1RM on any exercise but some would be silly.  Second, you can approximate the 1RM based on what you can do at higher RMs as Ralph Shaw informed me, and one of my reference books, Serious Strength Training by Bompa and company, even includes a reference table for doing this.  Perhaps more important was Ralph's point was that you improve on what you train for.  We'll we're following the 1RM wonder Bompa now, and we're going to give this a shot and see where it leads.

So, now we've decided to do all of our 1RMs tomorrow.  We're going to train together Tuesday and Wendesday this week (maybe Friday).  It seemed we should just try to get it over with to have a performance benchmark to measure against.  I'm wondering if this is our smartest move as we want to do five (Nancy's wildly ambitious), and it seems warm-up and recovery are key.  Here are our 1RM exercises:

• Bench press
• Squat
• Deadlift
• T-bar row
• DB shoulder press

If you drop a note on the blog before 1:15 tomorrow, you can save us from ourselves.  Otherwise, you can read my report tomorrow.

How do you measure one rep max?

So, when I began this blog in December it was really the next step in trying to figure out my next step in training.  I was working with Nancy Arnold (aka The Big Girl) on her bodybuilding routine and learning a lot about bodybuilding nutrition and training regimens.

Looking a Jon Yeo's (now defunct) weblog and Scott Bird's Straight to the Bar, I noticed people mentioning  a lot of PRs (personal records).  Nancy and I started to report them to for our multi-rep bodybuilding routines.  Of course, nothing was comparable, and as Scott pointed out, it was hard to keep track.

So, now we're about to launch on this periodization routine, and we've decided to measure one rep max (1RM).  The question is: how do you measure 1RM and what for?  I think we are going to pick some benchmark exercises and do it for those.  Stay tuned.