Today's topic was certainly unintentional at best. It kinda came as an epiphany when I was working out on friday night. Coming out of my competition season with rowing, and triathlons, I began a lifting cycle programmed for over winter cycle. For those who know me, I train athletes, and I program with Laser guided precision. Have a goal, I can give you the path to get there. So naturally I spend a bunch of time programming my athletes, and I gave myself an equally as challenging program.
It was based with Multi-Joint olympic lifts, your traditional compound lifts, and isolated lifts. 4x a week schedule, typically 60-100 minutes in length. Week 9 in the program, shit is starting to get really really heavy, Im doing the work load, balanced in with heavy travel. Last week I was on an extended bout of travel, and when I came back, I sat down with Kim to watch the Biggest Loser, and my lumbar spine was bothering me. I was like hmm, whats up with that? Figured it must have been an anomaly and left it as that.
Then come friday night, I began with the standard fare Clean Pulls x 8, Power Clean 4 Sets of 6 @195, (no eccentric) Bench Press - 135 x 6, 245x5, 250x5, 265x5, 270x5 , Then comes squat.. Squat is something I take my grand old time working up to, with my previous knee operation its something I have to do with 105% good form. So I start 135x6, 225x4, 305x5 305x5, and then my final set of 305x5, on the 4th rep, I started to come up, I stalled midway through the rep, and my upper body began to lean forward, from there I basically good morning'ed it back into the rack.
I got really pissed off, and my lumbar pain kicked in again... I was like jesus I am going to have to start wearing a belt, which I don't advocate, when I figured i'd sit down and look at my programming like I would do with any athlete experiencing the same episode..
30 minutes into looking at the program, low and behold. No Core Exercises........ Anywhere, for 9 weeks. Somehow I had tricked myself into believing I would use core power with all my primary lifts, which is true, as I stay engaged through the body during my lifts, but apparently it wasn't enough to supplement my increase in loads, especially on the squat.
To put it through the test, I decided to take today, and workout doing nothing but conditioning, and core exercises, both of which i've ignored for the last 9 weeks.
Lesson learned today: Program Core assistance work in all your lift routines, because while in-season I was a core transfer powerhouse, as soon as I ditched them from my lifting program, They quickly became "The Biggest Loser".
Sometimes you have to look back at what you are doing, and seek room for improvement.. It goes to show that even at the Top of your Game, you are always susceptible to mistakes.
That's all for now.. Hopefully my traveling lets up a bit soon so I can put out some of my overdue articles.
-T
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