My Back Story

Read this before you go further.

You will recall that I had some pain in my left leg due to some shit.  You'll be happy to know that there is no pain now.  I can even sit in the horrible chair at my job and not feel anything.  I don't sit, however.

In this post, I will share with you some shit that helped me out a lot in addition to what I wrote about in the above link.

Something I had not given a lot of thought to but decided to try was acupuncture.  If you live in the Tampa area and are generally fucked up and think it might help, go see Becky Rubright.  It is relatively inexpensive, and she will listen to you and work on you accordingly.  Since I had some ass and back pain, here is what I looked like during a session:

That is my ass, with several thin needles therein.  She stuck them in, and I didn't feel a thing, and I in fact asked her if she had even done anything yet.  The wires coming from the needles are even more awesome.  It is what they call electro-stem, and they work like jumper cables to pulsate the muscle.  It felt goddamn awesome, and the pain was immensely better after the first session.

Movement wise, there were quite a few things I did as well.  I ordered and Ironmind Rolling Thunder deadlift handle, and a Plateau Buster Swing Handle  for more variety.

For whatever reason, heavy partials with the form used here--left foot externally rotated about 45 degrees, right foot straight and my head to the right--tested extremely well compared to something more symmetrical, and they also resolved a fuckload of pain after each training session.  This particular video filmed 11 July is a 100lb PR on the first go around with it, wherein I hit 504lbs, somewhere around the end of may. In addition to that, using the Buster for one handed deadlifts resolved a fuckload of pain and tested well a lot too. 

Form is not much different than described above, other than that when I lifted with my right hand, looking down tested better than looking to the right.  Same goes for the rolling thunder deadlift handle. 

Same form.  More pain resolution, and because of the emphasis on grip training during those months, my masturbation sessions are way better than they used to be. One other aspect that lead me to resolve pain recently and hit better PRs in my bench and squat was taking the Smarter Strength course with Adam Glass.  During the course work, the material we discussed gave me the ideas to question things, like my stance.  Which is how I developed the fucked up, asymmetric stance you see in my first video of me lifting 604 on the buster.  This stance, derived from the course work, led me to be able to squat pain free, hit 25lbs more than my competition max on a parallel box for some singles, and eventually resolve the pain to where I can squat with a symmetrical stance again.. Which I did today, and managed to hit 335 on the Safety Squat Bar to a parallel box.  Last PR in that lift was 40lbs lighter on the Fourth of July for some singles.  It might not sound like much, but for me, to be able to squat symmetrically, sit cross legged, sit on a floor with my legs fully straight and experience no back pain means a fuck of a lot to me.  If you are fucked up and in pain, take the course if he offers it again. Good round table discussions, and a good way to get to know yourself and learn more about human movement. In addition to that, bench pressing has been testing well near daily, due to the course material and the focus on contra specific movements.  In short, the more contraspecificity you train, the better off you will be.  And likewise, I hit a pullup PR with 110 lbs strapped on to me the other day, for a few singles.  And lastly, I started tracking my body fat percentage with an omron.  Here are my latest measurements.

You can see the leaner me in the latest video (first one) compared to others on my youtube.

Lots of recent ups, a few downsides include not competing as often as I wanted to.  But the SPF Outlaw meet is coming back around in December.  I predict a fucking awesome showing.