Thursday 5/14 (AM)
KB Medley (25 Minutes)
Assortment of snatches, goblet squats, cleans, and presses.
Thursday 5/14 (PM)
DB Medley (25 Minutes)
Traveling for a scientific conference, arrived at my hotel a bit early. Decided to check out the gym and work out the kinks from a day in the car. Just a random assortment of raises, curls, presses, and some 1-dumbbell clean and presses to simulate a KB.
Friday 5/15 (AM)
DB Medley (30 Minutes)
Started off with a full journey through the DB rack (5-50 pounds) doing “one set of something” with each.
Then did a dozen “waiter walks” with a 50-pound DB (clean and press, then walk) the lengt of the gym, probably about 50 feet.
Then the finisher:
DB Clean-N-Press 1x50 (each arm)
DB Clean-N-Press 2x50 (each arm)
DB Clean-N-Press 3x50 (each arm)
DB Clean-N-Press 4x50 (each arm)
DB Clean-N-Press 5x50 feach arm)
DB Clean-N-Press 6x50 (each arm)
DB Clean-N-Press 7x50 (each arm)
DB Clean-N-Press 8x50 (each arm)
Friday 5/15 (PM)
KB Snatch 20x30
1 Pull-up
KB Snatch 20x30
2 Pull-ups
KB Snatch 20x30
3 Pull-ups
KB Snatch 20x30
4 Pull-ups
KB Snatch 20x30
5 Pull-ups
Twice through this progression. Nice afternoon workout between scientific sessions. Rinsed and changed, heading back in for the evening presentations.
Saturday 5/16 (AM)
KB Snatch 20x30, 20x30, 20x30, 20x30, 20x30
DB Clean-N-Press 2x50, 4x50, 6x50, 8x50, 10x50
KB Snatch 20x30, 20x30, 20x30, 20x30, 20x30
DB Clean-N-Press 2x50, 4x50, 6x50, 8x50, 10x50
KB Snatch 20x30, 20x30
Nice morning session. I would love to do this at home with a little heavier weights (perhaps the 44 for snatches and 88 for clean and presses), but as an on-the-road workout it wasn’t bad at all. The 30-pound KB is the perfect travel size; light enough that I can pack it and carry it without looking too conspicuous, easy enough to carry that I don’t walk too lopsided moving it from my hotel room to the gym and vice versa, but juuuuust heavy enough that snatching it for reps is stil a workout. Any lighter and it would just be a bit silly, but the 30 has just enough to it that a few hundred snatches feels like a real workout, especially if I mix in push-ups or another movement of some kind.
Saturday 5/16 (PM)
Clean-N-Press 12 x 3 x 135
Tacked on a trip home after the conference (I was in Baltimore, just 2 hours from my parents). Drove home and did an evening lift with my dad, just some easy clean and presses with 135 while he did some hang cleans and RDL’s. More just to enjoy the old times’ sake feel of going into the old garage gym and working out with my dad.
Sunday 5/17 (AM)
Bikram Yoga Class (90 Minutes)
Monday 5/18 (AM)
KB Snatches 200x30
Monday 5/18 (PM)
A1. KB Swing 10x88
A2. Lat Pulldown 6x150
A3. Chest Press 6x150
Four rounds.
B1. KB Clean-N-Press 2x88
B2. Lat Pulldown 6x150
B3. Chest Press 6x150
Four rounds.
Tuesday 5/19 (AM)
Bike Ride (20 Minutes)
My GF will be living with me for the next 6 weeks (school year is over), so this morning I got up and went for a bike ride outside instead of riding the spin bike to avoid waking her. She will be heading off to yoga instructors’ training in early July, so she’ll be practicing yoga just about every day while I’m at work, and we’ll coordinate our schedules to do some kettlebell work in the evenings and the occasional yoga class together on weekends.
Tuesday 5/19 (PM)
A1. KB Swing 10x88 / KB Clean-N-Press 2x88
A2. Lat Pulldown 6x150
A3. Chest Press 6x110 → 6x200 (ramped)
Eight rounds. Mixed some exercises and ramped the chest press weights up to the full stack for the last set. Good workout.
Wednesday 5/20 (AM)
KB Swing 10 x 10 x 88
KB Clean-N-Press 3 x 2 x 88
Short morning session, but a tidy session for a quick get-up-and-moving-with-short-time situation (had to be in for an early meeting). I also imagine that in one of those hypothetical worlds where training has to be stripped down to the bare bones, this would do quite well in the “if you could do one workout only for the rest of your life to keep yourself physically fit and capable, what would you choose?”
Wednesday 5/20 (PM)
Bikram Yoga Class (90 Minutes)
Thursday 5/21 (AM)
1 Push-up
KB Swing 10 x 88
2 Push-ups
KB Swing 10 x 88
…
and so on…
…
10 Push-ups
KB Swing 10 x 88
KB Clean-N-Press 3 x 2 x 88
I like that workout and I like thinking about scenarios like that. I’ve never done it but I think a 10,000 swing style session with multiple strength movements would be awesome, say 1,2,3 kettlebell front squats, 1,2,3 dips and 1,2,3 pull-ups all supersetted with high rep swings.
Sorry I just saw your post from the previous page and then noticed the one above!
Thursday 5/21 (PM)
A1. KB Swing 10x88
A2. Lat Pulldown 8x110, 120, 130, 140
A3. Chest Press 8x110, 120, 130, 140
Four rounds.
B1. KB Clean-N-Press
B2. Lat Pulldown 6x150
B3. Chest Press 6x150, 160, 170, 180
Four rounds.
Friday 5/22 (AM)
Spinning Bike (16 Minutes)
Friday 5/22 (PM)
KB Snatches x 53
190 total reps, broken into a bunch of sets of 10-20 reps, about a minute rest between sets.
Saturday 5/23 (AM)
Bikram Yoga Class (90 Minutes)
Saturday 5/23 (PM)
A1. KB Swing 10x88
A2. Lat Pulldown 6x150
A3. Chest Press 6x150
Six rounds.
KB Clean-N-Press 2x88
KB Clean-N-Press 10x88 (ties PR)
KB Clean-N-Press 2x88
Haven’t stuck my head in here for a while. Seems like you’re making nice progress on your fitness/strength. How goes the body recomping?
Sunday 5/24
A1. KB Swing 10x88
A2. Lat Pulldown 8x110, 120, 130, 140, 150, 150, 150
A3. Chest Press 8x110, 120, 130, 140, 150, 160, 170
Seven rounds.
KB Clean-N-Press 2x88
KB Clean-N-Press 2x88
KB Clean-N-Press 2x88
KB Clean-N-Press 2x88
KB Clean-N-Press 2x88
KB Clean-N-Press 2x88
KB Clean-N-Press 2x88
Performed this yesterday morning before driving to a wedding.
EyeDentist, I’m very glad you bring this up because I’ve been thinking I ought to post a physique photo to compare to prior months.
I will snap a good selfie one morning this week.
A picture is worth a thousand words, but in general:
I am heavier than I would like to be (214.8 a few days ago)
I had gained a bit more than this (high of 217 on the scale last week)
I don’t feel TOO bad about this, but I would certainly like to be leaner
My only defense(s) are “I’ve been getting stronger” combined with a weak rationalization of caring about performance-over-looks
I can trace much of the weight gain to some (known) unnecessary snacking at work over the past few months. Meal choices remained generally good - smoked salmon, eggs, sweet potatoes, and/or kefir as breakfast choices, lunch always a big heap of greens and some vegetables from the salad bar, and dinner generally being meat and a vegetable (see below for a note on this, though). However, occasional long days at work have resulted in some afternoon runs to the cafeteria for a snack to hold me over, and for a little while I was making a suboptimal choice here with a rather junky “protein bar” that I probably should have never started with (it’s one of those soy-nugget-covered-in-chocolate things that I already knew was junk, but gave myself permission to eat antsy). Funny, I cut that out (and made no other changes) about two weeks ago and saw a slight but immediate dip from that disappointing 217 to a still-needs-work-but-better 214. I’ll keep an eye on this to see if the loss continues with a tighter leash on that snacking.
Mind you, my physique falls into the “poor by this site’s standards, but much better than the average Joe” category. My upper back and shoulders are reasonably developed and there’s an OK taper from my shoulders down to my waist (which would be a lot MORE noticeable if I shed the mini-spare-tire). I haven’t included legs in the progress photo at any point but they have certainly gotten more muscular over the last few months, which may account for some of the weight gain as well.
One other possibly helpful factor is that my GF will be staying with me for the next month and we will generally be eating dinner together. This is good because I have a nasty habit of making a one-pound portion of meat for dinner and eating the entire thing, whereas with her present she will double the amount of vegetables to fill out the meal while we split that same one-pound portion of meat, so I’ll be eating more like 8-10 ounces of meat as part of a better-rounded dinner.
FINALLY: I have been a little absentee from the site on account of being very busy at work, but I saw your recent post and photo from your physique show. Many kudos to you for stepping on stage, and regardless of the judging/placement, you looked fabulous. Real cover-model worthy physique you brought to the stage. I know that this site occasionally debates BB judging criteria and bemoans the shift from a symmetric, classical physique to mass monster, but hot damn, if women did the judging and used the “who would I want to sleep with” criterion, you would be placing VERY high in any competition!
Monday 5/25 (AM)
Dumbbell Workout (30 Minutes)
Fiddled around with the hotel dumbbell rack. Raises with the 5’s through 20’s, curls with 25’s through 35’s, presses with 40’s through 50’s, and then a few dozen 1-dumbbell clean and presses with a 50-pounder.
I have to say that I really like the explosion in medium-level hotel chains carrying a dumbbell rack. Nice to get “something” in hen traveling, and it turns out to be a nice change-up from my usual kettlebellery.
[quote]ActivitiesGuy wrote:
FINALLY: I have been a little absentee from the site on account of being very busy at work, but I saw your recent post and photo from your physique show. Many kudos to you for stepping on stage, and regardless of the judging/placement, you looked fabulous. Real cover-model worthy physique you brought to the stage. I know that this site occasionally debates BB judging criteria and bemoans the shift from a symmetric, classical physique to mass monster, but hot damn, if women did the judging and used the “who would I want to sleep with” criterion, you would be placing VERY high in any competition![/quote]
'preciate the kudos, man. And I would def compete in the Fed you’re proposing, so long as they had a ‘paper bag’ or ‘beer goggles’ division I could enter. (“And the winner of the ‘guy I would sleep with, but only if I were drunk as Cooter Brown’ division is…”) Take care.