USAWA

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Sorry Tom – that story is just so good!!! It belongs as a USAWA Daily News Story – so it can be shared with the World! Your talents are being wasted just writing something that funny for the forum – I beg you to send me a picture of you doing those one arm presses in that recliner of yours. Please? Please? I promise if I get the picture I will make it front page news!! Al

My Uncle Wayne still trains even though his body keeps breaking down on him. He has a whole list of lifts he does seated! He even has a steel kitchen chair that he had me take to a welder and reinforce for him! He had bent the back of the chair back to a slight angle and liked it for doing inclines so we welded it in that position (it’s quite an eyesore..but works!) Some of the lifts are concentration curls, seated DB press, upright and incline, and one that he really enjoys…seated DB cleans. He told me that everytime he gets hurt he just finds other things to do and he plans to keep going even if it means all he can do is pinky curls!!

So, Tom’s story is true! My Uncle Wayne would love the idea of seated lifts because that’s all he can do now! If Wayne will let me, I’ll get a photo of him lifting in that chair…he told me years ago he was embarrassed to lift in front of people since he once pressed 370lbs and powercleaned 350lbs….but I admire his tenacity to keep lifting!

In all seriousness, seated lifts have been overlooked in the USAWA. We got a couple of clean and seated presses (in front and behind neck) and two seated presses taken from the rack (in front and behind neck). We have one db seated press – the clean and seated press with dumbbells. That’s it! I remember reading that Hermann Goerner did LOTS of exercises seated – cleans, snatches, curls. Also, our seated presses do NOT allow for a back support. All must be done on a flat seat, with no bracing allowed. That sure makes seated presses way harder!!! So for you Tom – we will have to call your new lift the Recliner Press!! haha Al

Not advocating any new lifts, however I find the “recliner press” interesting. Personally, I do quite a bit of lifting in a beat up recliner. I have a 3’+ piece of 1″ pvc (broken hammer hamdle) that I run through a kettle bell and do bench (more like a floor press), pullover, skull crushers and some other movements in the recline position. Don’t use a lot of weight, but high reps (up to 50). A nice thing is you can slide the KB a little off center and work a “weak” side or protect an injured or sore joint. I do this almost daily, as the lack of viable TV programming encourages this behavior. I call it my resting workout.

I also found John McKean’s reference to Isometric workouts interesting. I used to do a lot of these, and still do on occasion. I do more pushing against pins now, but not trying to push the bar thru the pin, just explode to the pin with 2-4″ movements. Did this with presses from chest, and eye level, a week or so ago, and worked up to 150% of my best press for sets of 5. Kicked my behind, the next day I was sore all over, and I do mean all over, calves, glutes, traps, and all else. It was great!

Murdock