AJP BLOG:

02/03/16 I’ve been back in the UK a little under a week now and am struggling to readjust. I’m trying to get back into my regular training routine but after 3 weeks of training less frequently and at a lower intensity, it’s proving to be difficult. I know it is only a matter of time, but I’m finding it hard not to get frustrated with myself when I’m not hitting numbers that I would have been a month ago.

That aside, the above photos are from my favourite gym I trained at whilst in Melbourne, called PTC South Melbourne. I’ve never been to a dedicated powerlifting gym before or used a monolift, it was a great experience and made me feel like an actual powerlifter. Everything there is competition class and the owner and members couldn’t have been more helpful or welcoming. There are other PTC gyms around Australia, so if you live there or are visiting I couldn’t recommend them more highly.

10/02/2016

I’m visiting Melbourne, Australia at the moment, a place that I used to live back before I discovered powerlifting. I did a bit of research before I left the UK and it turns out there are a ton of really interesting powerlifting gyms here, so I headed out for the first time today. I went to Doherty’s in Brunswick which is a multifunctional gym, with a boxing area, cardio room and two weight lifting rooms, one geared towards upper body work and one for lower body, with a mixture of machines, free weights and barbells. 

I had a look around but spent all my time in the “legs” room, as I was hitting squats and deadlifts. They had three racks next to each other, as well as a monolift rack hidden in the corner, which I didn’t notice until I’d finished my sets! Pretty annoyed as I’ve never used one before, but I think I’ll go back there. There were two olympic platforms and enough plates to keep everyone happy, plus one wall was covered in pictures of the Austrian oak for ultimate motivation.

As far as my session went, it’s been exactly a week since I last trained and it’s amazing how much of a difference not lifting and not eating properly has made. I’m not in my usual routine out here and have been struggling to eat enough and regularly, I’ve tried getting to the gym before now too but other things have gotten in the way. On top of that, even though it wasn’t a particularly hot day (around 25 degrees) when your body has been used to it being winter for the last 3 months, training in heat is fucking exhausting! I hit some squats at 125kg and deadlifts at 150kg, both weights I should be comfortable with but found pretty heavy. Didn’t do any variations or accessory which I was pissed at myself for, but I need to ease myself in. Now I’ve broken the back of it I’ll train again later in the week and hopefully try somewhere different.

18/01/16: More Volume Week 6 of cube method and the volume and the weight just keeps going up. It’s by far the most exhausting program I’ve done, but I feel like I’m benefitting from it immensely.

The video is part of my working set of 3x5 at 160kg/353lbs, which was followed by block pulls 2x2 at 170kg/375lbs and deficits 2x7 at 150kg/330lbs AND some back accessory work. Exhausting.

Since I was a teenager I’ve tried to stay active and fit through a variety of different sports and activities; football, rugby, boxing, kickboxing, mma, swimming, running, cycling, I’ve tried most things in all honesty. One thing I just wasn’t interested in though, was gyms. Despite the fact that Arnold Schwarzenegger has been one of my heroes from a very young age, the idea of endless reps in an attempt to get shredded just didn’t and still doesn’t appeal to me. But when I moved to Norwich four years ago I joined a gym (for the first time in my life!) and that’s when things changed.

I wasn’t playing a sport at the time and wanted to find something new to get back into shape. I initially did the same boring isolation routines that most people do in a gym, until I stumbled across Stronglifts.com, which I couldn’t recommend highly enough for people starting out by the way. I instantly found heavy compound movements more fun and more gratifying and as soon as I realised that Arnie started out powerlifting and used a 5x5 routine to increase size and strength, I knew there was no turning back. If it’s good enough for the Austrian Oak it’s good enough for me right!? Since then I have trained stronglifts 5x5, madcow 5x5 and am currently in the middle of a cycle of Brandon Lilly’s cube method.

When it comes to powerlifting I’m very much an average joe, but I’m working on changing that. I’ve been doing this for roughly four years now and am still regularly asking others for advice, reading, watching and learning. I’ve started from scratch a couple of times to adjust my form, I’ve been through injury and frustration, it’s a constant learning process. I didn’t get into this to compete or try to turn pro, but the stronger I get, the more tempted I am. For now though, I’ve never enjoyed a fitness routine more.

Squat: 160kg/353lbs Bench: 100kg/240lbs Deadlift: 210kg/463lbs

My head went to a different gym than me today because everything sucked.

Firstly it took me about 3 years to warm up and loosen my shoulders and joints to be able to even get under the bar, got under there and warmed up with some high bar squats, which were fun. Got sick of  the warm ups so stuck 4 plates on and started my working sets. 3 sets of 5 reps at 115kg Everything felt like shit, the weight felt light but my body felt like a floppy bin, i had no confidence even though the weight was flying up. Got annoyed and decided to hit a few singles at 140kg, hit the first one it felt light as fuck but i missed depth by about 2 inches, which pissed me off so i set up quick and went for it again, drover it into the ground and might aswell have buried it, way too low and turned into a pointless grind and pointless waste of energy. Hit a few high bar sets at 120kg  Then called it a day on squats and sulked on the gym floor for a bit. Smashed out loads of acc work including leg raised, hamstring extensions, leg press and some straight leg deadlifts. The moral of this is, get your head in the fucking game because i am under the impression it was a shit session but i hit most of my numbers and 2 big singles, goes to show how much your head can fuck up your game.