BPC April 10th

[Justin Hurley]

Great day out. I qualified for the British so I'm happy, I couldn't have done it without the help of Dai. Thanks Mate.

Chris broke the squat record with 340kg and was really close to breaking the deadlift record but was about 2" off lockout, he was a little spent after the huge squatting but there is always another day.

We met Alex (Golden Arrow) who is top fella and great lifter. He was a little unlucky with a few lifts but his equipment arrived on the Thursday before the comp and every missed lift he made was just barely, I think he is going to be making some new PB's with a bit of training in that gear.

I did see BadBoy but didn't get to speak with him as he was very busy spotting, I did look for you after mate but I couldn't find you.

I have lots of clips and pics of the day, so I'll try and get them up by tomorrow.

[AJ Roberts]

Congrats boys, can't wait to see the vids.

[Rob Thomas]

340kgs at that bodyweight - awesome squatting Chris!

[chris jenkins]

cheers rob mate, I have never felt anything as heavy as that ever!!!

[Rob Thomas]

And there's me thinking that your best lift was the deadlift :o
All you need to do now is keep plugging away at the bench and you'll be a world beater mate - no problem!

[badboy007]

hello guys,

was good to see u lot lift, had to shoot off as i was very hungover and got a throat infection, 1-2 weeks off lifting at least

Justin, ur squats looked some of the most solid of the day..

chris's 340kg squat was very fast and explosive.

alex was unlucky with his squats and must be equipment problems.. is a big guy tho and did a huge bench !

what did you guys think of the monolift? took a bit of getting used to from the spotting side of things, and there was some problems with rack height settings

[Justin Hurley]

I thought the monolift was good, I'd love to borrow it for a week or two so I can clone it.
When I set my rack height it was with an empty bar and it seemed right but with the weight on it and the bar bending a little, I needed it lowered a little.

[badboy007]

u just had the predator briefs on then justin?

[Justin Hurley]

No I haven't tried the predator briefs, they are supposed to be a bit better than the briefs I have but the briefs don't give a huge amount anyway so I'm not going to bother spending anymore on my credit card for a little gain.

AJ have you tried the predators yet????

[Alex Gold]

Cheers guys, good lifting all round from everyone apart from me (although I think 180 in a single ply isn't too bad)

I've watched the video of my squats back, and I've never seen anyone so totally collapse in the bottom as I did! I think it was a combination of my briefs throwing me out, putting my wraps on too early and just losing balance. Never mind, 250 next comp!

[chris jenkins]

cheers rob mate, Im going to re invent my bench change everything and then it will be time to take on the yanks, well done golden arrow good lifting.

[AJ Roberts]

AJ have you tried the predators yet????

We are still waiting for Inzer to get the design right, hopefully ill have some soon!

[badboy007]

what you going to do with ur bench justin?

[Justin Hurley]

What do you mean?

How am I going to get it to improve?

If that's what you mean, I'm just going to work more in the shirt. I only used it a few sessions before. I'm sure I can get 180kg out of it by the British, but I would like to get more, have you any suggestions?

My squat just seems to improve no matter what I do, my deadlift just chugs along with my squat, but my bench is really crap. I have always been shit at benching, I'm sure it's because my shoulders hurt so much off the chest. Now I have the shirt sitting nice and relieving some of the pain, It might just come along better.

[Alex Gold]

Are you training for shirted benching and working out how to best use the shirt?

[Justin Hurley]

Yeah. Trying to figure out how to incorporate shirted benching best into my training.
Whether to go westisde with ME in the shirt and DE raw. OR MM and do bottom end training raw, and top end training in the shirt.

[Justin Hurley]

Slowly putting the page together, it takes forever to upload the clips with ftp.

http://ukmuscle.co.uk/forum/BPCapril2005.php

[badboy007]

no mate,

im a naff bencher so trying to work it out myself

just trying to correlate ideas.

i think board presses are going to be important for me!

[Justin Hurley]

I have been doing quite a bit of board pressing since I got the shirt, definately hits the triceps hard. I think the 3 and 4 board works the rep range I need to work the best.

[Alex Gold]

I basically train westside, and it seems to be working for me. Mix up full range and partial movements for ME. I can give you what I've done for the past two mesocycles and what I'm planning if you're interested.

[Alex Gold]

Slowly putting the page together, it takes forever to upload the clips with ftp.

http://ukmuscle.co.uk/forum/BPCapril2005.php

I think you're sampling them at too high a rate, some of the videos are 6 meg! I think the biggest I've got is 900kb, I just used windows movie maker, and they're easily good enough quality.

[Alex Gold]

Slowly putting the page together, it takes forever to upload the clips with ftp.

http://ukmuscle.co.uk/forum/BPCapril2005.php

I think you're sampling at too high a rate, some of those clips are 6 meg!

I think the biggest I got was 900kb, and they're perfectly watchable. I just used windows movie maker to make .wmv files.

Hope that helps..

[Justin Hurley]

Yes mate. I'd love to see how you put it together.

I really need to do something better with my bench training.

[Alex Gold]

Alrighty then..

www.alex-gold-training.co.uk/shoddy-westside-attempt-v1.xls
www.alex-gold-training.co.uk/shoddy-westside-attempt-v2.xls
www.alex-gold-training.co.uk/shoddy-westside-attempt-v3.xls

[Alex Gold]

I should add on ME days the first exercise I work up to a 5, 3 or 1RM, the number of sets is the target minimum over 80%

DE days is 50%+ of 1RM.

Some things have been a learning experience (like equipped box squat - pointless) but most of it has worked. Mix up raw and shirted too.

What I'm planning now (number three) is basically working on raw strength, possibly putting on the equipment after the DE stuff and working up to an easy single or triple. Don't plan on competing again until september, so am doing ten weeks raw and ten concentrating on equipment.

Hope that helps.

[Rob Thomas]

Do you do much tricep and shoulder work Justin?
My shoulders and triceps are strong and I think that's a really big carry over into my benching.

[chris jenkins]

most def, triceps and shoulders are very important. I was just watching the clip of my bench and my arms are so long. I think Im going to have to take my arms out a bit. Rob you also have a big powerful back, your lats play an important role in pushing the weight up. Has anybody on here experimented with board pressing?

[Alex Gold]

Yes. I like it, good prep for the shirt, well mine seems to drop off about 3 board level so I need extra strength about there. Obviously if you can move your max from a stop here, keeping it moving through there with help from the shirt will be a lot easier.

[AJ Roberts]

Chris mate i have used boards for the last year, no chains no bands, and have added over 100lbs to my bench. Read all the MM articles and you will do fine. One thing to note though is if your drug free after about 3 weeks you have to take a deload week as your body gets pretty beat up.

[chris jenkins]

thanks aj mate, Im just starting to use the boards this week. will check out mm.

[Justin Hurley]

Slowly putting the page together, it takes forever to upload the clips with ftp.

http://ukmuscle.co.uk/forum/BPCapril2005.php

I think you're sampling at too high a rate, some of those clips are 6 meg!

I think the biggest I got was 900kb, and they're perfectly watchable. I just used windows movie maker to make .wmv files.

Hope that helps..

I think your right!!! I might bring them down in size a bit.

[Justin Hurley]

I should add on ME days the first exercise I work up to a 5, 3 or 1RM, the number of sets is the target minimum over 80%

DE days is 50%+ of 1RM.

Some things have been a learning experience (like equipped box squat - pointless) but most of it has worked. Mix up raw and shirted too.

What I'm planning now (number three) is basically working on raw strength, possibly putting on the equipment after the DE stuff and working up to an easy single or triple. Don't plan on competing again until september, so am doing ten weeks raw and ten concentrating on equipment.

Hope that helps.

Thanks mate, and the links above, I'll have a good read.

[Justin Hurley]

Do you do much tricep and shoulder work Justin?
My shoulders and triceps are strong and I think that's a really big carry over into my benching.

They are strong enough to bench raw, but no where near strong enough for shirted benching.

I have been doing board press for a while and they definately work well. I'm going to keep pluggin away at them and hopefully bring up my bench.

[Rob Thomas]

I had a go of this "new" seated shoulder press thing in the gym last night. I was too big to fit into it properly (it's a ponsy gym) and as a result couldn't get my hands in close enough for the handles so I had to hold on to the frame instead. This made my palms face each other, a bit like you would for the log press in strongman and I tell you what, my triceps haven't been worked so hard in ages - they are sore as fook today (my shoulders are fine though)!

[badboy007]

board presses are good, i like them alot,

do you follow the exact same setup as mm aj?

[AJ Roberts]

no i have modified it do suit the volumes my body can handle, see the discussion post.