Day 4: July 12-Restoration

Today, we said goodbye to Christian Burger. Woke up early and gave him a ride to the train station for a 3+ hour train ride to Helsinki. Christian, I really wish you could have stayed at least one more day. For good conversation over some beers, to hear more about your travels or to talk shop. And because of today's "restoration" workout.  If you do The Gathering 2010, stick around for it.

I was pretty sore and not too eager at first: legs and entire backside was shot.  But Kris said this would be good for me.  We set up the Buffalo Bar and a burst-proof ball (I asked Kris about that and he promised, but he promised the candies were tasty so, you know. . . . ) and basically squatted to the ball for reps with light weight.  This actually hit the spot: I had a more gradual stop at the bottom and a bit of bounce out of the bottom to help me up,  I had a good pump out of it, legs actually felt better.  Even after we started adding chains to it, and a bit more weight.  The Buffalo Bar is everything Louie Simmons says it is: not tlike the Safety Squat Bar, but it was definitely easier on the upper body.

We then started to do bench presses with weight releasers, which I have never done before.  For the uninitiated, look at the pictures: it is a rod that attaches to the bar, with weight attached at the bottom.  It essentially increases the eccentric portion of the lift and when the bottom part of the releaser touches the ground, it pops off, but your body still thinks that the extra weight is on so you explode AND THEN SOME.  Kris, Mans, and I did a few sets with just the weight releasers just to get a feel for it: I have got to get a pair of these.  And then we went gonzo with it, to the point where you wonder where the restorative part was.  We added monster minibands and chains to the setup: the article that describes this better than I ever could was written by Dave Tate for T-Nation and can be found at  Dave Tate's Tool Box #6. Essentially, you would be lifting with almost 140% of your max at the top, the weight at your chest before weight releaser drop-off will be around 80-85% of your raw max. After drop-off this will drop to around 55-60%. The reloaded weight at the end of the press will finish up around 70% of your best raw max (the reason for the chains).  The bands slow down the explosion from the bottom.

One of the pictures is the final setup that we worked up to.  Kris would have to tell me what the weight was on there because it was in Kilos.  I will tell you that, if memory serves me right, Mans might have been the only one to finish it and it didn't come easy.  I wish I had videotaped when I attempted it.  I needed a liftoff and when the bands engaged (HOLY CRAP!!!), I controlled it like a champ on the way down and that was it.  The funny part came when Kris and Mans where yelling at me to lift it and I squeaked out, "I CAN'T!!!"  The bar would not budge, and they had to take it off of me.

Note (posted today 24OCT2009): I grabbed this from the comments section, Kris just left it and it describes this setup (thanks Kris): The weight on the bench? Well, 70kg/154lbs straight weight, 10kg/22lbs on the weight releasers... each... for a total of about 25kg/55lbs, two pairs of these chains aside add about 6.5 kg/14 lbs according to my calculations... we had three pairs at each end so that's a total of 10kg/22lbs at lockout (and a few kilos at the bottom)... finally, the minis should add about 40kg/90lbs extra at the top (and about half that at the chest). So roughly 145kg/320lbs when unracking, about 93kg/205lbs at the chest after the releasers popped off and then 120kg/265lbs at lockout. Good isometrics right there.

The last thing we did was band rows from the top of the rack using the monster mni bands.  These felt great, too, not the asskicker that was the bench.

One of the other things notable about the day was a trip we took to Kris' old dojo.  If you ever sneaked around in the woods as a kid looking for treasure or playing Manhunt, this was like that with some SPEC OPS flavor thrown in.  As Kris and Mans explained, the remains of the dojo was a boat trip away at an old friend's house.  The family that owned the house was away and some people who were renovating the house was watching it.  They hadn't done too good of a job because it looked like it was in a state of disrepair but we had to make sure that they were not outside to see us.  So we made one pass to recon the area and after we found the coast to be clear, we went back.  As we approached the are, Kris put the engines on low and we gently coasted to a nice landing spot.  We carefully parked the boat, then snuck through the woods silently until we had reached the spot.  Wish I had my camera for the place: it was a makeshift tent made of tarp and lumber.  Time had taken it's toll on it, with so much  growth on the roof that I was afraid to step inside.  Kris went in and showed that a lot of the dojo stuff like posters still remained.  After that, we snuck out and carefully made our way back to the cottage for some dinner and for Kris to do some more coding work.