Ivan Abadjiev

I came across an interesting article on Ivan Abadjiev.

It basically says that his lifters concentrated all their efforts on the clean & jerk, snatch and front squat with near maximal (for the day) weights. Lifters also trained every day, several times a day. ”Assistance” exercises are not performed because a lifter only has limited recovery and needs to put all his efforts into the primary lifts.

But that is not the most interesting thing… the interesting thing is that at the end of the article thanks are given to amongst others, Brian Hamill – and here is a story which I will relate to you;

Hamill is a BAWLA fellow and many years ago (circa 1989) I was in one of Hamill’s classes where he was demonstrating ‘correct’ spotting technique for the front squat. Hamill seemed pretty clueless but was front squatting with about 50 lbs using an ordinary non-Olympic bar with cast iron plates of about an inch thickness.

His spotters consisted of a girl (a student) and a man (Hamill’s assistant) both of who clearly had no clue as to what they were doing. Hamill squatted down and then literally threw the barbell forward, the girl manage to catch one end allowing the other end to smash down with sledge hammer force so that the cast iron plate impacted directly onto the man’s toes.

We all felt the man’s horrifying pain as his toes were crushed to pulp and he screamed incoherently… I enquired of Hamill if this technique wasn’t in fact a bit dangerous.

Warm up

Bench with a rack – sure thing.

Respect the bench press. Last week decided that after squatting I could handle going straight into 100k benching . Stupid of me, next few days I thought I had done some major neck damage and I was unable to drive as I could hardly turn my head. I lost a couple of days work and was fearful that I was not going to recover for a very long time. It passed as all my training injuries have passed, but one day if I don’t learn from my mistakes my inner retard will knock me out big style and life without training would be horrible. Always warm up.
And do mobility work, stretch after training. you will plain feel better, recovery is so much faster. Stretching the chest after benching is a must, put your hands on both sides of doorway and stretch forward.

Little stuff, basic stuff,do it.

Use a Rack You Dumbass

I’d just like to point out why you should use a Power Rack when benching… http://powerandbulk.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=44011

It doesn’t matter if you are using 1000 lbs or a mere 200 lbs like me;

Use a power rack because each year people drop bars on their necks, faces, chests and suffer injury, death, disfigurement. Do a search of youtube and if that doesn’t convince you… get a hammer and hit yourself in the face and remember a hammer only weighs a fraction of what you bench.

The second thing is to check that you have set up the rack correctly and that all pins are locked in place or else suffer like this;

Poor Beef smashed his eye socket with 765 lbs and has lost the site in one eye – he was using a rack but through tiredness neglected to check his rack…

Use a rack for benchs, squats, etc… because no spotter in the world will catch a weight if you suddenly drop it.

BLACKFLAG

BLACKFLAG humps up 230 kg for a few reps in a style somewhat reminiscent of Vince Anello. Here is BLACKFLAG at 82 kg;

Here is Vince Anello at about 90 kg;

Dave Hoff

Dave Hoff totalling 2615 lbs at the SPF Powerstation Pro-Am in Sharonsville, Ohio.

There’s nothing under his shirt honest, its a medical condition, its photoshop, its aliens, its the light, its a shadow, its… something. I wonder when powerlifting will be in the Olympics?

http://powerandbulk.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=43542

http://www.powerliftingwatch.com/node/12273;