The couch thread

[Garm]

It's fitting that my avatar is a pussy.

[Fat Cat]

I certainly get more.

[Garm]

I certainly get more.

Ragina? Roontang?

[Fat Cat]

MsRarm reft a rickson on my rick.

[Garm]

That guy isn't really named Randjob, is he? I'd go 'Boy Named Sue' on my daddy were I him.

[Rif]

Hey, I'm the first one to say GS is seriously hard, too hard for me.But also way too boring I just dont like training like that.I prefer to flog myself in different way.Years of powerlifting barely lets me consider anything over five reps as tolerable but that is changing.

As far as what I can squat bench and dl right NOW, well, if I could stll do the powerlifts and still walk the next day i would still be training to compete. That said, I pulled 385 or so five months ago when i still though I could dl without problems with almost no training, I opened with 387 in the bench at my last comp last december and realized if I cant squat who cares about the bench. last time I benched.
Havent squatted in a few years as my shoulder wont let me get in the rack postiion I need. Still I could high bar squat 315-365 anytime I would care to, not that is anything resembling real weight.

Bill, as far as using other training modalities in"hardstyle" my problem is I CANT. KB's are the only thing I've found that lets me train hard with enough volume to kill the demons. If I could train with a barbell I would and use the KBS for GPP.The reason I love the kbs so much is that I CAN train hard again thanks to them . Otherwise I would be trying to still bench so I could do something.

[Rif]

"Doing a drill inefficiantly to make it harder is silly IMO"

Bill I dont look at HS as doing a drill inefficiently but using comp accelration and trying to maximize force output, or tension, as long as possible. Just like WSB style powerlifting.

[bill fox]

Rif

I get what you're saying but I think the WSB comparison isn't valid. Snatching a 24kg KB as "hard" as you can, although different from doing it as smooth as you can, isn't ever going to get harder. With WSB or Oly the speed, acceleration etc..is geared toward moving bigger weights.

I'm talking theory here and not about you because you can't, at this point, take out your aggression on a big weight. I saw what you had to do to get to the next day of the cert and if you're fixing that, then that's all that matters.

I think most of the "hardstylers" don't want to suffer the long sets that KBs are made for. Nothing like seeing a guy at the cert hardstyling a 16kg.

[Rif]

Bill,

Point taken for the snatch but I think more of the swing rather than the snatch for the Comp Acc .the swing is much harder for me( and I think most) because you can keep trying to keep rooting and creating acceleration all the way to the top. No float, like the snatch. Plus you can use a heavier bell or up the reps.

If you are truly trying to create as much accelerative forece as possible you wont get much reps as the white fibers you are trying to recruit will give out.you can also keep the rest periods down as well.

For me and the many who can no longer move big weights using more acceleration to increase"virtual" force is a good substitute.Louie alwyas said when you are using 50% of your max on the bar put 100% force on it, the bar wont know the difference.This works great with the kb.

ALthough I agree that kbs are made for strength endurance and not absolute strengh( use the right tool eh?) I think they are also great for powerlifters becasue of the ease with which you accelerate them. Of course you can use a db , just not as much fun.

Oh yeah, I'm down to just 2 hours of rehab for every hour of training,lol!

[The Evil Future Mutant]

"Doing a drill inefficiantly to make it harder is silly IMO".

That reminds me of the saying, "bodybuilders try to make an exercise as hard as they can while powerlifters try to make an exercise as easy as they can."

It's the old feel-the-burn and squeeze-the-contraction mentality versus the process improvement mindset of the powerlifter.

[Rif]

TEFM,

I was qouting Bill, thats not my line. BUT I remember being coached hard by Louie and others to flex the hell out of my lats,my erectors and push the abs out as hard as I could before my squat.Far beyond the existing resisitance required. Isnt that the same?

[Shafpocalypse Now]

Rif's probably one of the only people here who's talked to Louie, right Rif?

[Rif]

I spent a lot of time on the phone every week with Louie for years.He loved to talk training.Our gym was the first to have a reverse hyper in California and we flew Louie out to give us a seminar on how to do WSB correctly in 1993. We got to spend two days with him and it was insane.He told us everything we wanted to know about wsb and worked with us all day.very generous with his time and information.

I had ready his article on percent training and box squatting and was really interested.I had read plsua for years and been drawn to powerlifting l while I was bodybuilding but didnt like how "little" they trained.Louie's box squat 12 sets of 2 with timed rest periods seemed doable to this overtraining addict.

[bill fox]

Rif

I don't think it's the same. In the Louie instance you're developing the habbit and practicing the tension REQUIRED to do the big squat (like PTP)which is the whole focus of what he's doing at WSB, right? You're practicing tension with the "right tool" for eventual life and death use.

When you do it with a KB it's not required, unless you're really weak, which you're not. I snatch the 32kg as "loosely" as I do the 24kg. To tension up and explode a 54lb KB to me is not the same. It's practicing tension with the "wrong tool" because that tool is a relatively light fixed weight.

Bill

[Rif]

Bill,
Louie's tension requirements were a lot like Pavels feed forward tension technique.or Ernie Frantz's flexing every muscle as hard as possible. More tenison, more rigidity, less moving parts, better directed force and more "strength".So we agree on that, same as Ptp.

I dont think of it as tensioning up to explode into the 24 kg as much as do drinving into the ground as hard and as long as possible for each and every rep.Maybe I'm just weaker in these full body motions but the harder I push each rep the more I feel it.Its great to feel I can actually jump again that I look at each rep as just that.

Its not that is not required its just that I am so used to exploding as hard as possbile on every rep when we did wsb that its whats natural to me.squat bench or dl it didnt matter. all were tried to move as fast as possible no matter what the weight. That IS WSB as far as I'm concerned. That and knowing how to grind til your eyes bleed.

I used to train with 205 on speed day in the bench when I could push 450 around in the gym and try as hard as possble to put 450 pounds of force on that bar for the 30 reps I had to do. That WAS the idea. See no difference in how to approach kbs.

[Rif]

Bill,
Louie's tension requirements were a lot like Pavels feed forward tension technique.or Ernie Frantz's flexing every muscle as hard as possible. More tenison, more rigidity, less moving parts, better directed force and more "strength".So we agree on that, same as Ptp.

I dont think of it as tensioning up to explode into the 24 kg as much as do drinving into the ground as hard and as long as possible for each and every rep.Maybe I'm just weaker in these full body motions but the harder I push each rep the more I feel it.Its great to feel I can actually jump again that I look at each rep as just that.

Its not that is not required its just that I am so used to exploding as hard as possbile on every rep when we did wsb that its whats natural to me.squat bench or dl it didnt matter. all were tried to move as fast as possible no matter what the weight. That IS WSB as far as I'm concerned. That and knowing how to grind til your eyes bleed.

I used to train with 205 on speed day in the bench when I could push 450 around in the gym and try as hard as possble to put 450 pounds of force on that bar for the 30 reps I had to do. That WAS the idea. See no difference in how to approach kbs.

[The Evil Future Mutant]

No, I don't think that's the point.

The point is that if you could space your hands two inches wider to add 5lbs to your bench, you would, in fact, be making the exercise "easier", thus allowing you to lift more weight.

Not really a rip on either group really (although I leaned it towards the powerlifter's view) just a take on training approaches.

[Ross Hunt]

Maybe there is some middle ground between GS 'sloppiness' and WSBB speed work. Oly lifting doesn't involve max tension; even on back squats, you dive bomb all the way to the bottom and leave your hips loose to a certain extent to get as much bounce as you can out of the bottom. Tension is important, but lock up maximally and you lose all your speed.

I snatch KBs pretty much the same way; some tightness for certain parts of the pull and receiving the weight, but with an emphasis on speed rather than efficiency and without pausing much at either end of the ROM. I definitely wouldn't do this if I had to try to put up max reps, but this is good for circuits; the lower efficiency and lower strength-endurance limitation makes it easier to tax the 'wind.'

[szczepan]

Ross, you could achieve the same result of taxing the wind by doing snatches in the gs style but faster.

[Rif]

and I'm thinking more about the swing variations as the real beneficiaries of comp acc. with kbs, not necessarily the quick lifts as you have to alternated between tension and speed to do them correctly.

[Renegade Doughboy]

The genesis of Hard Style was the development of GS as a sport in the US. It quickly became apparent that to train successfully for GS one had to break all the party rules. RKC's were conflicted and confused that the secret TLT techniques were not effective. Hard Style was put forth as a way for them to feel better about themselves and their sub-optimal training.

And now we have the SSST and TSC.

[szczepan]

The genesis of Hard Style was the development of GS as a sport in the US. It quickly became apparent that to train successfully for GS one had to break all the party rules. RKC's were conflicted and confused that the secret TLT techniques were not effective. Hard Style was put forth as a way for them to feel better about themselves and their sub-optimal training.

And now we have the SSST and TSC.

You are correct again, sir. I always got a huge LOL out of the "GS ruined my strength" whining, many of those same people tried GS, sucked, and are still weak 2+years later. Maybe it wasn't the GS.

[Renegade Doughboy]

The genesis of Hard Style was the development of GS as a sport in the US. It quickly became apparent that to train successfully for GS one had to break all the party rules. RKC's were conflicted and confused that the secret TLT techniques were not effective. Hard Style was put forth as a way for them to feel better about themselves and their sub-optimal training.

And now we have the SSST and TSC.

You are correct again, sir. I always got a huge LOL out of the "GS ruined my strength" whining, many of those same people tried GS, sucked, and are still weak 2+years later. Maybe it wasn't the GS.

H@rd Style is almost as stupid as X@.

[Rif]

different methods for different goals. No one right way. so whats wrong with the tsc?

[Ross Hunt]

The genesis of Hard Style was the development of GS as a sport in the US. It quickly became apparent that to train successfully for GS one had to break all the party rules. RKC's were conflicted and confused that the secret TLT techniques were not effective. Hard Style was put forth as a way for them to feel better about themselves and their sub-optimal training.

And now we have the SSST and TSC.

You are correct again, sir. I always got a huge LOL out of the "GS ruined my strength" whining, many of those same people tried GS, sucked, and are still weak 2+years later. Maybe it wasn't the GS.

I thought that Steve Cotter and Rob Lawrence both said at this at one point or another.

Maybe GS saps speed more than it does grinding limit strength.

But speed contributes to limit strength, so...