Madcows - Week 3, Day 2

SQUAT

Barx10

40kgx5

60kgx5

70kgx5

80kgx5

80kgx5

NOTES: These felt like shit the first few sets, still really sore from 7 games of ultimate last Saturday. The 70 and 80kg sets felt great, nice and slow but strong. I like these recovery squat sets.

OVERHEAD PRESS

Barx10

35kgx5

42.5kgx5

50kgx5

55kgx5

DEADLIFT

60kgx5 

NOPE

NOTES: 50kgx5 was tougher than it should have been, but 55kgx5 was simple enough (probably had another 1-2 reps in me). Really good form today even though strength wasn't the best.

STANDING DB PRESS

22kgx5 PR

16kgx10

16kgx8

16kgx8

NOTES: These messed me up something good. Need to remember to not fully lockout and keep tension on the lateral delts, as well as not instinctively push me chest up as I would in regular OHP.

DB ROWS

36kgx8

38.5kgx6

38.5kgx6

38.5kgx10 PR

NOTES: These feel more locked in every time, the last set was touch and go until rep 8, great mind-muscle connection on these with my lats; now just need to engage my traps more.

WORKOUT NOTES: I wasn't feeling very strong because my hamstrings were sore from ultimate. The right one felt terrible just warming up for deadlifts, so I didn't see the point in attempting 130kgx5 and hurting myself. 

Actually most exercises went well, the standing DB press needs some form work but apart from that squats were smooth, OHP was solid and I went quite heavy on the rows and still smashed it so a good day overall. 

Time to start eating more carbs and stop this recomp silliness.

Upkeep

Madcows is a pretty brutal routine in terms of its longevity and the toll it takes on your body. The routine is set up so that you set your starting 5RM low (10kg lower than usual), and building up over 4-5 weeks eventually overtake them by adding 2.5kg a week to your lifts. Yes it's more complicated than that but you can find the routine explained in depth in yesterday's post. 

Essentially, the point is that Madcows is a routine that doesn't really start to pay any sort of reward until at least a month in. This means that it is a long term routine (as far as linear progression is concerned, with the other long-term LP routines being Starting Strength, 5/3/1, GreySkulls LP, The Texas Method and a few other less known ones), with it lasting anywhere between 8-16 weeks or more. If you think about it, if you're on the program successfully for 8 weeks, you've exceeded your previous PRs (personal record) by around 10kg, so by week 16 you may have put 20kg on your squat and much the same on your other lifts. I'm aiming for around 15kg on my squat, so hopefully by the end I might be at around 125kgx3 or so. 

However, the fact is that Madcows is a more demanding program the deeper you get into it (the difference in intensity between week 1 of the program and week 10 is unfathomable) means that if you don't recover properly you are done and dusted. When this happens you start getting things like:

• injuries
• muscle tightness
• tendon & joint pain

As well as general fatigue, these are bad for your progression. What if I get to week 7, have put 5kg on my previous squat PR, and then have to quit while I'm on a roll because I've got lower back pain or even elbow tendonitis that makes squatting impossible? I would end up losing that momentum, as well as the foundation laid for sustainable gains from the first 4 weeks of the program. 

So, I've decided to put some effort into the upkeep of my body. Not just eating right (I am now having a shake with breakfast that is 45g Protein, 15g Carbs and 2g Fat, come at me), but also supplementing and doing active recovery. I'm taking my fish oil and magnesium, which definitely help the joint and muscle pains a lot, but I've also decided to do 2 days a week of 1/2 an hour of foam rolling. I do some stretches during lunchtime at work, but the active release from foam rolling will be the real helper. I did a nice session last night, rolling my hip flexors, quads, ITB, back, lats and pec minor (which is a big problem in terms of holding back my thoracic mobility), and I felt much better after doing it. 

Hopefully I can stay niggle free until I've made my progress on this routine, stay tuned for bigweights in week 6 of the program.

Massage therapy 07/09/12

Went to see the massage therapist on Friday after what felt like a pinched nerve in my pelvis on Monday during front squats. It was indeed a pinched nerve, and things like this will continue to come up if I don't change a few things.

1. My quads and ITB have poor muscle length and tone, so it's creating a lateral turnout of my feet
2. This means I shove some of the work of the quads off onto the outside of my hamstrings, which got too tight and pinched the nerve.
3. This means I should be stretching my quads and rolling on my ITB more (ouch)

During the actual appointment, he got stuck into my psoas first just to see that they weren't too tight, then tried to release the nerve by painfully massaging my hamstrings, glutes and quads. He then helped me out on another level by really going into my back, particularly my spinal erectors to try and get rid of the'jarred' feeling in my lower back. 

On Saturday it was still feeling dodgy, but after my workout it felt loose and almost no pain, then Sunday the pain was gone. The plan from here is to really stretch my quads at least 3x per week, and then add in more rolling on my hip flexors and ITB to really take the slack off my hamstrings. Sounds like a good plan to me.