Mark Brown
March 29, 2022
The first two months of 2022 were too cold to train in the garage. A big surprise in Iowa, I know. I spent 2021 from January to the middle of May and learned some valuable lessons from that time. Those were mostly things not to do. Instead of doing a recap of this years winter training, which while technically over has seen me already transition back to the garage for 3-4 days of lifting, I will just share some lessons learned from the gym these past 2+ months. I figured since my goals for the winter program were so general and vague that it would be pointless to make a detailed account of them. I did observe some things in my training that will be beneficial in the future or that were definitely worth noting for later discussion.
The first involves a better understanding of programming and how a focused program could be done about as efficiently at possible. It just required arranging the lifting days in a way that didn’t coincide with what I knew other people were doing. That knowledge came through learning it as I went this past winter and from past cycles. Not scheduling leg press on days where people are doing legs and not on days where a lot of bench pressing is going on is just an example of the learned gym knowledge to which I’m referring. I’ve mentioned this a couple of times already in other posts so if someone wants more specifics of this, I have a specific entry about it.
The second is a lift I’ve known about but never done before. Ever. I do a lot of pressing in my sessions. I’ve listened to podcasts and other media talk about floor presses but never added them to any program. I decided that January and February would be a good time to learn them as a supplemental. The first couple weeks were rough but I got it dialed in in and it became one of my go to supplemental lifts. I discovered the lift really emphasized pectoral muscular development in a way that other presses didn’t because the way the triceps are never allowed to fully get into the lift. That allows it to be an ideal lift to do for just getting as much work done as possible. The concept is the same for doing leg press after squats or deadlift. It’s also a pretty safe lift. I failed a few reps and just required a small amount of squirming to get out from under the bar. I really recommend the lift.
I’ve deadlifted a lot over the last 2 years and done lots of varieties of heavy pulls from the floor, blocks, pins or safety straps. This winter was my first experiment with sumo deadlifts. I’ve been aware of them but always passed on them. I even passed over them for the first couple weeks in lieu of trap bar deadlifts, which has always felt like a front squat to me. I gave them a try in January as a stand in for my block pulls I normally do because I thought that by bringing myself closer to the bar I could mimic the block pulls. I found over the weeks that sumo deadlifts really emphasized my hamstrings and glutei. That wasn’t unexpected. What did surprise me was that there was definitely more back involved in the sumo than other variations I’ve done. A lot of that comes from my hands being placed inside my feet right on the inner edge of the knurling. The resulting pull required more effort for me to complete the lift. I noticed the feeling in my back was up the middle of my back, rather than wider. I couldn’t deadlift as much using sumo as I could traditional and that’s fine because it’s a secondary deadlift movement under my program. I also saw a lot of other people doing it as well.
Overhead pressing with a barbell has never been one of my favorite movements. A lot of that comes from my front rack position being so wide. In the garage, I do standing overhead press with a log. I didn’t have that option at the gym so I decided to put a barbell overhead press into my program as the replacement for the log. I didn’t have high hopes because of how much I disliked it. While I am not a complete convert, I did see quite a bit of value in it over the last couple months. I was able to increase strength in my shoulders and the lift itself to just below my log press max. From that perspective, the carry over to the log was high. That has been proven in my weeks of log pressing lately. The other value I saw in was the way it helped upper back development. I’ve watched a lot of people do the lift since the new year and the vast majority of them had a very limited range of motion, mostly starting and stopping at forehead level. I found that going from my collarbone to fully locked out over my head really forced my upper back to do more work. It also required me to be more conscious of bar placement above my head at lock out. I rarely failed lifts, but I observed physically how much less power I had if the bar was ever so slightly in front of me instead of directly over my head. One of those facts I already knew not experienced it a lot. The last value is really important because of the main takeaway from January and February…
I ended up doing everything I could do to help my squat and leg strength. I thought I was helping my deadlift but it turns out it was my squat that was developing the most. I put so, so much effort into my squat and I was doing so mostly unaware that I was doing it. I found that changing programming to emphasize heavier lifts, upper back development through sumo deadlift and overhead press, emphasizing hamstring development, realizing better technique and isolation machines all were helping my squat the most. I’ve been really hammering my hamstrings for the better part of year because I wanted to make them stronger. I didn’t expect my squat to develop the way it did. A very nice surprise, in that way.
Life Through Lifting 