Strength / Weight Training

Yah, that's why they split classes by bodyweight in competition.

You can knock up an excel sheet to do it all for you and update as you track you weight gainz too

It’s just a way of ranking different sized athletes in competition in a way that’s more coherent than as a % of BW.

But also wilks is only really relevant when looking at in competition results. Or if you’re arguing with a pal who’s twice your size about who’s lifts are better.

It’s all made up and pointless, but we love to quantify shit.

On the bw point. Mass lifts mass. This can be see when Eddie Hall deadlifted 500kg. He bulked up to some made weight beforehand.
Edit. Google says he was 181kg.

https://youtu.be/Qnw8Qd6YWZk

Also see Glenn Ross - the Daddy! 215kg - not light. 😁

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glenn_Ross

I need an inverse wilks calculator to compensate for much of my body mass being prime chonk that provides no assistance to lifting weights 🤔

I think BW% is a good way to go, especially since it allows you to keep things in check a bit if you're gaining or losing weight (e.g. I have stacked on aforementioned reasonable amount of chonk, and even though my numbers aren't objectively good, the amount I am moving in every lift is better in terms of BW% than it was before. Pull ups are a lot harder at 115kg than they are at 80kg tho). And I'd like to cut back to 105 next year, so even if my lifts go down a bit I can keep them in check a bit with BW%.

wilks is great, but a lot of people don't (and IMO, unless it's important to you, shouldn't) test their 1rm so it becomes irrelevant. Estimated 1rm is acceptable but all of my estimated 1rms are lower than my actual ones because mentally I can try very hard for 1 rep, but for more than 3 I find it hard to properly dig in.

I used to get somewhat obsessive over EXRX / strengthlevel standards and where I fell on those and blah, but now I just try to get stronger than I used to be. I don't think I'm genetically gifted for strength sports so I'll always lag behind, but I'll never lag behind me not lifting weights.

I've heard this kind of thing a few times from people! Does it happen no matter low bar / high bar / front squat? Do you do any lower back specific stuff like good mornings?

Annoying about the finger. I keep envisioning some kind of captain hook type deadlift set up but don't think it's realistic.

but a lot of people don't (and IMO, unless it's important to you, shouldn't) test their 1rm

Hard disagree. Lol. I honestly can’t imagine doing weight training without attempting 1RMs - maxing out is literally the best bit, lol.

I absolutely love pushing a 1rm, but there's a difference between doing heavy PR singles and true 1rm attempts, and the injury risk in a true 1rm attempt is higher than a true 3rm or 5rm test, which are also good tests of strength.

However, if it's important to you, either for personal enjoyment, or because you are competing in a strength sport, all power to you (and me, I will probably do a peaking program and do some kind of mock meet around March).

Why not a real meet?

Honestly, not a bad point. I'm kinda scared but maybe that's a good thing. Excuse to wear a singlet too.

Just looked - oh wow the london powerlifting division website is very bad.

I was watching powerlifting on Eurosport yesterday evening, wtaf is the bench press position about?
Some of the camera angles when the lifters were getting set looked like something out of one of those niche bars where the waitress fires a ping pong ball at you.

It’s about shortening the range of movement to make the lift “easier”. I think the rules state that your arse and shoulders must be on the bench, which is why the contorted position looks like it does - arching the back as much as possible to raise the chest while keeping bum and shoulders on the bench to so the bar doesn’t have to go as low when compared to benching with a flat back on the bench.

The arch or the wide leg position?
Leg position is just whatever is best / most comfortable for the lifter to use leg drive to aid in the lift - trying to push yourself horizontally across the bench.

Arch is a combination of creating more overall tension in the body, putting the shoulder in a safer position, and reducing range of motion.

There is an argument in powerlifting atm for changing the rules around benching, not so much because of the arch, but the combination of the arch and the grip width rule meaning people can do a huge arch, and a massively wide grip for their stature, and have almost no range of motion. If their grip width had to be relevant to their stature, rather than the same for everyone, we wouldn't see these 0 ROM benches.

Cheers for the insights. The arching. Looked very uncomfortable but if it cuts the range of motion I can see why.
When I started benching decades ago for some reason I started with feet off the ground and bent at the knees, now I just can’t bench with feet on the floor so I probably look weird too

The arching is also said to better allow the use of the lower part of the pecs. At least I can lift more with some kind of an arch than without and it feels more stable too.

GZCLP is on the boostcamp app now, so if anyone wants an easy way to do it without faffing with spreadsheets then it's worth giving a go.

Had a gym session where 2 guys decided to have their session right next me... Everything else was empty... Couldn't even swap the weights out without asking them to move.

How's you finger? I trapped a thumb under a plate earlier. It hurt a lot. Nothing like yours though!

I'm on the mend. I bump it every now and then which hurts like a bitch but it's healing. Can't do any pull exercises at the moment, so no cobra-back work 😂

Cheers for checking in - sorry to hear yours...

I have to arc to get a decent bench in, long arms and not much upper body mass either.

Still renovating so no gym. Or weekend. Or hobbies...bar renovating :p

I think the years of deadlifting helps preventing back woes lugging around 25 kg bags of plaster / buckets of water / shoveling quarry dust / etc.

Time in the gym is never lost time :)

Nice work bro

Not managed gym since baby arrived couple weeks ago but had been making good progress before that but a lot of what I’ve been doing is single leg

All this deadlift chat got me wanting to get back on it!

I'm looking forward to getting back in there with my big new belt!

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Nice belt!

It's got a QR buckle and everything!