08 Jan Dan Dalenberg- Unscheduled deload, full video of last weeks squatting
Training for RUM 8 on February 8th. I will be lifting on the wrapped/monolift day, hoping to post another 2000+ raw total.
This week has been rough. I went in on Monday to try and do some accessory work but just couldn’t do it. Tuesday and Wednesday was worse, I think it is some kind of flu. Thankfully I am feeling better this morning and should be back to normal soon.
With a meet to run on Saturday I decided to not push it. Even if I’m feeling really good tonight or tomorrow I won’t be doing the heavy pulling I was supposed to do for week 5. Not the end of the world. My deadlift strength was great last meet and I think I only pulled from the floor 2 or 3 times. Probably better off to get healthy and rest than to try and push through a session.
Ken put together a good video of my squatting from last Friday. Last few sets are 515, 635. 725 and reverse band 820.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y7HCKMuY_BA&feature=share
Training is like football practice
Last weekend at the Flint Barbell clinic Brian and I both touched on training specifically for what you need to do, not just doing something because it looks cool or hard or so-and-so was doing it. This is the backbone of any training style, 10/20/Life or not. If you correctly identify your needs and tailor your style towards that, you will have a very good chance at getting stronger.
Along with that comes doing stuff that isn’t fun. Training isn’t always going to be fun. Brian went in depth about how a lot of times he doesn’t even really like training and how a lot of the time doing what you need to do is dull and painful. Sure, some of it is fun but a lot of training actually kind of sucks.
This made me think about playing football. I know a lot of lifters played as well and I think most people will be able to relate to this. A lot football practice sucked. Running what seemed like endless conditioning drills was awful and painful. Doing slow motion walk-throughs was super boring. All of the warm up crap, sprinting drills, simple blocking drills, whatever… all that stuff sucked. It wasn’t fun and it wasn’t cool. Tackling drills were fun. Full speed blocking drills were fun. But if all you did was the fun stuff, your team would probably really suck at actually playing football. Sure, they would hit well but without the conditioning work and all the boring fundamentals I’m positive that the team would never reach its potential.
Training for powerlifting is the same way. Hundreds of GHRs, thousands of McGill core reps, doing leg curls till I can’t walk.. None of that stuff is fun. Its sometimes painful and isn’t cool and definitely doesn’t make a good video for me to get e-dick sucked on. It’s way more fun to blast away at weights and hit huge single after huge single. But frankly that isn’t going to make me the strongest. I have to do all that not fun stuff to be good at the fun stuff- to be good at competing. Much like the football team had to do conditioning to be good on the playing field, powerlifters have to put in the crap work to be great on the platform.
Think about that for your next training cycle. Don’t do stuff just because it is fun or looks cool. Do the “conditioning work” and “blocking drills” that will make you better when it actually matters.

Daniel Dalenberg

Latest posts by Daniel Dalenberg (see all)
- A Binge for the Record Books - August 20, 2018
- Training on the Go - July 6, 2018
- Dan Dalenberg | Deload and 5k week! - June 18, 2018
Sorry, the comment form is closed at this time.