AGE:   32

HEIGHT:  5'10"

WEIGHT:  80kg

SLEEP SCHEDULE:  I usually get to sleep by 11 and wake up shortly after 6.  I'm a bit drowsy in the morning...until I get my coffee.  I've noticed I feel much better when I get a full 8hrs sleep.  I sleep well, no aids required.

BODY TYPE: relatively muscular,  top heavy, I'd guess body fat to be around 8%.

GOALS:    1) Dunk consistenly  (off 1  foot and off 2 feet...1 or 2 hands...without travelling...reverse / tomahawk)
               2) Squat 2x bodyweight
               3) Deadlift 2.5x bodyweight
               4) Bench Press 1.85x bodyweight
               5) Clean and Jerk 1.5x bodyweight
               6) Snatch 1.25x bodyweight


CURRENT ABILITY:  Dunking has been a life long goal, and I was finally starting to get it pretty consistently about 5 months ago. I had an injury 8wks ago and now I'm pretty limited...can't even grab the rim at the moment.  

INJURY HISTORY:  8 wks ago, high ankle sprain.  I'm trying to rehab it at the moment.  It's been pretty frustrating, very slow to heal.  My ankle feels weak, unstable, and I have a chronic achilles tendonitis since the sprain as well.  I can do some skipping, and some light jogging, but i can't handle sprinting or quick changes of direction.

Occasionally my low back will give me some minor problems and prevent me from going as heavy as I'd like, but there have not been any major injuries here - pretty self limiting.

TRAINING HISTORY & ACHIEVEMENTS:  I've been doing some type of training since I was a late teen.  Most of the time it was pretty typical bodybuilding type protocols.  For the vast majority of this time I trained upper body more regularly and with more intensity than lower...hence the chicken legs.  I've ventured into a bit of the crossfit stuff (mostly crossfit football) and some olympic lifts in the past year.  I've only done a little bit of plyo previously.

Being able to dunk was the biggest achievement.  I wanted it for so long (and now I desperately want it back, and better than ever).  The best I could do was a 2 hand dunk off of 2 feet without travelling, however, I only did that a few times.  

Other achievements:
30 pull ups  
Bench Press PR 165kg (...but my body weight was 105kg at the time)
Max squat is somewhere around 140-150kg at the moment
Deadlift 180kg x 3
Clean and Jerk 110kg
Snatch 87.5kg

CURRENT ACTIVITY LEVEL AND/OR TRAINING PROGRAM:
Currently I am doing Jim Wendler's 5/3/1. With my main goal of just getting progressively stronger - particularly in squat and deadlift.  If you're not familiar with it, it is pretty low volume and concentrates on making slow steady progress.  Let me know if you need anymore detail about it.  I've completed 2 months and I like it so far.

Other than that I will do a little bit of mobility stuff most mornings (few pull ups, overhead squat, handstand push ups).  And I am doing a some rehab for my ankle.

BRIEF OVERVIEW OF CURRENT DIET:  I eat pretty strict paleo (except I will get a bit of dairy).  So mainly meat, veg, eggs, and a little bit of fruit/nuts.  I don't eat any grains or any added sugar (outside of what I get from fruit/veg). My diet puts me pretty high in fats and pretty low in carbs. My body responds well to this in terms of performance and body comp.  

IMPORTANT ACTIVITIES:  I work a fair bit but I can make time for training.

I'm really looking forward to whatever programming guidance / advice you can provide.  I'm happy to put in the work, but I really appreciate you taking the time to help make it as efficient and effective as possible.

Cheers,
Clarence

ya, 8 is pretty much the magic number.. if you get 7 or less every day, you accumulate a "sleep debt", this can have an impact on how fresh you are for your intense training sessions. Really try and get 8, as much as possible.




good goals there!





damn :/




damn, how long have you been able to handle light jogging/skipping? How much skipping/light jogging can you handle? The achilles tendonitis thing is an issue for sure, you may have to continue to avoid activities that cause that achilles tendonitis to flare up.. does it bother you on jump rope? Jump rope is a great tool to help prepare that ankle for getting back into sprinting etc, but if it's flaring up that achilles then it becomes a problem.. if it isn't flaring up the achilles, you'd want to keep trying to gradually increase volume + intensity of the skipping sessions.. for example, going from 4 rounds of 200 turns (slower pace) to build up to 8 rounds of 300 turns at fast speed, over the next month or so..

Are you doing calf raises or anything like that? You're going to want to strengthen the calfs/ankles somehow, but you have to avoid placing too much strain on the achilles.. The idea behind direct ankle/calf work is to strengthen the musculature to PREVENT the achilles from being overwork.. I have a feeling your calfs are weak right now and the achilles has been taking too much of the load.. If you do any ankle work, keep it light and make sure you only feel it in the muscles themselves, you don't want to feel a pull in the tendon right now.. But you definitely want to get in some direct ankle work (mobility, eversion, inversion, all movements) and calf work (calf raises with feet neutral, externally rotated, internally rotated).. has to be light though and progress as you feel stronger.. you're looking at high rep (15+) to get all of that blood flow and you want everything strict and controlled.




prone cobra, prone superman, and low ab work helps a ton.. again, high rep, strict and controlled.




TRAINING HISTORY & ACHIEVEMENTS:  I've been doing some type of training since I was a late teen.  Most of the time it was pretty typical bodybuilding type protocols.  For the vast majority of this time I trained upper body more regularly and with more intensity than lower...hence the chicken legs.  I've ventured into a bit of the crossfit stuff (mostly crossfit football) and some olympic lifts in the past year.  I've only done a little bit of plyo previously.
[/quote]

how did you sprain your ankle? Being top heavy GREATLY increases the risk of knee/ankle injuries, picture a sledge hammer on it's head, on the ground, stable... then picture the sledge hammer trying to stand on the handle with the head in the air, ok that's a weird analogy but, the more top heavy you get in relation to lower, the more "torque" is going to be placed on the ankles/knees during dynamic movements.





that's pretty good man, congrats on that.




damn that's some strong pullups/bench!!!




nice! the 5/3/1 approach is solid!





nice, diet sounds very clean




my biggest concern right now is that ankle, I mean not much can be done in terms of performance until it's back to 100%.. So icing the ankles after training, focusing on low leg/ankle strength, and really rehabbing that ankle is very important right now.. achilles tendonitis is enough to inhibit you on any explosive effort, so we need to get that in control, I'd be willing to be alot of it has to do with a considerable loss in calf/peroneal/tibial strength which is overloading your achilles.

If you could post your ankle rehab workouts that'd be great, that way we can help try and intensify them safely and help get that issue corrected.. doing rim jumps or anything like that right now is only going to do more harm than good given the instability/achilles issues.

peace man!

ah.. not long at all




nice, how does everything feel when you do that? is there anything in particular that feels too intense on the ankle or achilles?

also who gave you that routine, did a PT give you that? ie, are you going in for rehab?




that would most likely be fine, just don't bounce and don't force yourself into "max plantar flexion" until you feel comfortable doing so.. if you go to a PT or whatever, i'd ask them first though.





that's good you scaled it back, that's exactly what you need to do.. each session you should very slightly be progressing the overload and or intensity, that's how you're going to build it back up to 100%.




Yeah I hear ya, I'm on it.



no problem man! ya and definitely, come 6 weeks it should be much stronger.. we've had a few people on here recently suffer ankle sprains in sport, gukl and leonel, both have rehabbed pretty good.. gukl dislocated his ankle actually, from what i remember, he's back to around 95% or so, had to rest it for 2-3 weeks and then he got back to rehabbing it, slowly getting it more and more aggressive.. so ya you will do it man just have to listen to it so to not OVERDO it, but also progressively try and cause it to get stronger and stronger with slowly increasing volume/intensities.

peace man!

Rehab work - all good...skipping 4x120 (no probs)

Shoulder Press Day:
40kg x 5
45 x 5
50 x 3
62.5 x 5
67.5 x 5
72.5 x 8  (goal was 10)

Lower back improved since last workout, but still sore and bit limiting.

Thanks dude.  Squat is definitely still a work in progress.

Once I get back to being able to dunk I'll post a vid.

Sure.  Here's what I'm doing (morning and night)...

1) Passive ROM  2 sets 20 reps (dorsi/plantar flexion  & inversion/eversion)
            - passive means the muscle is not contracting - so use your hands to take your ankle though full range of motion in
              different directions
2) Active ROM 2 sets of 50  (dorsi/plantar flexion, inversion/eversion, circles clockwise, circles anti-clockwise)
             - do the same exercises, this time using the muscles of your ankle to create the movement
3) Eccentric Calf Raises (5 secs on lowering phase) 3 sets of 20
             - Lower yourself slowly (I do these on 1 leg)
4) Calf/achilles stretch  2 sets 30sec hold
              - Just a basic stretch

If there's anything that doesn't make sense...just let me know.

Jan 1st, 2011

Ankle rehab is going pretty well.  Skipping is up to 150 reps per set.

Today was squat day.  I am still getting over that low back injury from deadlifts earlier in the week.

Warm up / Form work:
5x 60 kg
5x 70
3x 80

Workout:
5 x 100
5 x 107.5
0 x 115  (as soon as I put the weight on my shoulders my low back couldn't take it so I didn't attempt any reps)

Extra:  (was a bit frustrated I couldn't go do my workout as planned, so kept the weight light and did a bit more)
Front squats   2x8  60kg
Back squat 60kg  x 20reps


I expect my back to be feelin back to normal next wk.


I have been re-evaluating my program...given my ankle is still healing and I can't do any reactive stuff I think I would be best served by concentrating on increasing my squat.  I'm not too fussed about upper body, so I'm happy to put that on maintenance.  Currently I'm only squatting 1x/wk using the 5/3/1 format.  Anyone have any suggestions?

I've got a transitional L5 vertebra and I think the altered mechanics of the joint makes it cranky from time to time.  General mild ache/restriction when not lifting.  When lifting gets sharp, very localized.  No referral or anything.  I've got a good chiropractor taking care of things.

I had a look at my form when I aggravated my low back and see a few things I need to fix up.  My starting position had my back nearly parallel to the ground.  Also I got a little sloppy with spinal stabilization...which is very unusual for me.

Yeah I agree more squat frequency would be good for my goals.  I'm thinkin about either replacing the deadlift day with another squat day or doing Smolov. At the moment  I'm leaning towards Smolov simply because I've never tried and it seems pretty intense...and basketball season won't start again until March for me.

Back feeling really good today. Got a great adjustment from my chiropractor and did a few reverse hypers last night...does wonders for me. 

Ankle is feeling surprisingly good too.  The anterior aspect is much improved. Achilles still sore...but I expect that to take awhile.  I'm finally starting to feel more positive about my ankle - I was starting to get concerned because it has been taking so bloody long.

BP day:
Warm Up:
 5 x 60kg
 5 x 60
 3 x 75

Working Sets:
  3 x 95
  3 x 100
  12 x 107.5    (thought I could get 13 today...but I failed)

Extra:
3 x 10 Gorilla Chins