This is a topic which somehow still confuses people and there is a lot of seemingly contradicting advice. The main problem is that bodyweight fluctuates daily, but the best solution people came up with is doing weekly averages or, worse, only to step on the scale once a week. I …
morePeriodization for fun and profit
Most people somewhat involved in strength sports are familiar with the term periodiziation [1]. To cite the first sentence of Wikipedia on it, it is the systematic planning of athletic and physical training, but for the rest of the article, I assume that the reader is somewhat familiar with the …
moreman (3) weight prescriptions
As most trainees know there are different ways on how to prescribe or measure the weight on a bar. This is a small glossary of terms one encounters frequently, as it probably be also can be found elsewhere on the web, but well, now I have a link handy.
- Load …
How I currently think about Sheiko's programs
Boris Sheiko is currently the most renowned powerlifting coach in the world, having produced countless exceptional lifters, not only in Russia, but thanks to the internet all over the world. His programs often deem very complex, featuring his characteristic double sessions, where you perform a main lift twice in a …
moreWorking with the Juggernaut Method
Over the past two years the Juggernaut Method by Chad Wesley Smith has become the general strength training template of my choice. While Chad's book already has several pointers on how to modify the template to make it your own program, as well as exhaustive options for assistance work, I …
moreCreatine FAQ
Here is a quick FAQ about creatine. Few things create so much confusion as creatine – not because there is so much conflicting information, but mainly because it is something almost anyone at some point comes into contact with it and wonders what it is about, whether you are into sports …
moreLearning the Olympic lifts as a Powerlifter
Most of the ways people teach the Olympic lifts to lifters seem to be tailored to weak people, who are in the beginning of their lifting career, or really athletic people, who can already move challenging weights during the whole range of motion. I guess in the past this was …
moreWhen weekly progression stops working
It is popular to start strength training with some sort of linear program, like the aptly named Starting Strength program by Mark Rippetoe</a>` and in general, this is a good idea, as it produces consistent results across all age groups and genders. When these programs stop working, many people …
moreAdding Kernel-Firmware Blobs (for Radeon HD 4670)
After almost ten years I finally decided to upgrade my system. While my old AMD 5050e is still fast enough for most applications one needs in real life, it is too slow to display an image on some crappy javascript webpage.
As currently all AMD graphics cards are out of …
moreRandomization of tasks and issues
Some portage options I wish I had known earlier
The best tools are often those, which capabilities we will never quite exhaust. As it took years for me to discover the excellent tabbing capabilities of vim, I only found some of the nicer features of portage after years of use and sometimes struggle.
more--resume, --skipfirst Straightforward: If the last … Dead letter: My second Sheiko cycle
After my last run of sheiko I decided to try another succession of #37 and #31. While in theory the numbered programs are to be seen as peaking cycle, I know several people who ran #37 and #31 (or #30, for the lighter lifters) back to back with great success …
moreDead letter: My first Sheiko cycle
Although you never should change a running system, after my last successful experiment with block periodization, I tried out Sheiko's cookie cutter programs, namely #37 followed by #31. Mainly because my girlfriend made good progress on #37 and #30 (#31 being for people over 80kg) and was always asking when …
moreThe difference between the transition and the realization phase
As already noted in my deadletter posts of my first and second structured training cycle last year, I had problems transmuting the increased volume of the volume block into increased max lifts. Comparing the average volume session, where I did something from 30 to 50 repetitions with my working weight …
moreMinimal initramfs for LUKS and LVM
I think if you do not run your system on a fully encrypted disk, you might as well hand over your data directly. If your data partition is not encrypted, one can simply boot into a live system and take your data. If your system partition is not encrypted, one …
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