After coming off my best meet performance of my career, I am now taking some time to focus on competing in bodybuilding over the spring of 2017. My nutrition coaching is through Cliff Wilson, and I have not yet determined the shows I'm competing in at this time.

For programming and coaching inquires, please email SmitleyPerformanceSystems@gmail.com or visit brandonsmitley.com


Well Saturday's training did not got as planned...not even close.

Unforunately I ended up tweaking my back, and pretty bad. It was a freak accident/occurance, so there is no blame or anything really going wrong, just a part of training. On my top end set of the day, my first rep I ended up hitting a plate that was sitting by the monolift with the plates that were on the cambered part of the bar (this is a problem with being short...). After the bar hit the plates, this somewhat rotated my body and caused a twisting motion under load (with bands also pulling in front). Not a good combo. This rep didn't cause my back to tweak, it was a few reps later when I really was having to grind out a rep, that it tweaked (don't worry, it's on my YouTube video which will be posted in a few days). It was just a huge audible pop, almost like getting a chiropractic adjustment.

I obviously pretty much shut it down for the day, and just called it there. I did some light accessory stuff just to see what I was able to do, and to keep some blood flow moving and begin the healing process as soon as possible, but it wasn't anything noteworthy.

I ended up icing, taking some anti-inflammatory pills, and then hit the TENS unit for over an hour before bed. I also did some PRI breathing stuff off and on the rest of the day to help keep the hip flexors relaxed as much as possible.

So, not the day I was hoping for. Off to the chiropractor I go again..


Items Used in this Training Session Cambered Bar Chains EZ Loaders Mini Band

Warm Up PRI Breathing Work - 5 min Hip Flexor Stretch - 30 sec per leg Leg Swings (forward and side to side) - 10 each Single Leg RDL - 10 per leg Bulgarian Split Squat - 10 per leg Goblet Squat - 10 Standing Band Crunch - 15

A1) Cambered Bar Squat vs 1.5 Chain Per Side and Forward Pulling Mini Bands 65x10 65x5 - add bands and chains 115x5 155x5 205x5 245x5 295x5 325x5 355x4 - PR (tweaked back on this set)

B1) Reverse Lunges 3x20 per leg

C1) Reverse Hyper Toes Pushes 2x25

D1) Bird Dogs 3x10 per side


Brandon Smitley
Tagged: Training Log
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