Sunday 6/21
Pull-ups
8
7
6
6
5
Monday 6/22
Pull-ups
8
7
6
6
5
Tuesday 6/23
Pull-ups
10 (PR) @ BW 224.8
5
5
5
5
This is a bit of a milestone for me. I’m not sure that I’ve done 10 good strict pull-ups, ever. Morning weight of 224.8 today. I’ll try to repeat & get a video tomorrow. Good to be making progress on something while I give my lower back the full recovery period I had planned on (it’s feeling much better, but I want to actually commit to the full recovery period I planned on! I haven’t given my body a ‘real’ weeks-long break from heavy deadlifts for years).
EDIT: also, made a decision today to deviate slightly from the StrongFirst Fighter Pull-up program. For the next few weeks, I’ll do 10 on the first set and then follow with four more sets, progressively adding reps on the back end until I can do a straight 5x10. I have been doing this workout in 15 minutes, taking about three minutes rest between sets.
4 Likes
Wednesday 6/24
Pull-ups
10
5
5
5
5
Thursday 6/25
Pull-ups
5
5
5
5
5
Went a bit easy today, want to be a bit fresh and see if I can hit a picture-perfect 10+ set tomorrow.
2 Likes
Friday 6/26
Pull-ups
10
5
5
5
5
1 Like
Saturday 6/27
Pull-ups
6
6
6
6
6
Sunday 6/28
Box Squat
2x135
2x135
2x135
2x135
2x165
2x165
2x165
2x165
2x195
2x225
So we’ll see if I regret this tomorrow, but for today, after some playing around, I realized that even though my back still feels like it’s got a pinched nerve or something when I get into a deadlift stance, it actually doesn’t feel too bad when I descended into a squat with a very controlled descent and wore my belt low (as opposed to my historical high-belt position). I’ve been aching to train my legs again. So if tomorrow doesn’t feel too bad, I may try for the month of July to go with pull-ups Mon-Fri (following a very slightly modified variant of the StrongFirst Fighter Pull-up Program), a bunch of light-medium box squats on Saturday, and probably just mowing the lawn on Sunday. Still waiting on little man #2 to arrive; once he does I imagine that’s about all I will have the time and energy for a couple months.
3 Likes
Monday 6/29
Pull-ups
6
6
6
6
6
Good news: back seems to feel okay after the box squats yesterday. Symptoms are no worse than they were the day before doing them. If everything proceeds okay, I’ll do box squats once a week for the month of July; it will be so sweet to have some way to train my legs again.
1 Like
How’s the weight loss going?
That bit is going great! Weighed in at 223.8 the past two mornings; approaching five months into my journey, I’m down about 35 pounds from a starting weight of 258.6 on 2/4, and better still it’s been very steady (still holding at 1-2 pounds every week). I’ve surely lost some lower body strength since the back injury has prevented me from training nearly as hard for the last few months…but hopefully my strategy will have that mended soon & I will be able to resume at least, well, something resembling hard lower body training.
By the end of summer, though, I’d settle for being able to knock out 12+ pull-ups at a BW around 215 and simply being able to resume regular, solid kettlebell and barbell training. I’ll worry about getting the big deadlift back in the fall & winter. Yesterday’s box squat workout (and feeling no-worse-than-before today) does have me hopeful that I can at least do enough to maintain some leg muscle mass through that.
2 Likes
That’s a big weight loss, great job. I’m glad to see things going well.
Tuesday 6/30
Pull-ups
6
6
6
6
6
1 Like
Wednesday 7/1
Pull-ups
6
6
6
6
6
1 Like
Thursday 7/2
Box Squat
2x135
2x165
2x195
2x225
2x225
2x225
2x225
2x225
Encouraging again, though still not quite feeling like I can fully let it rip with heavy squats and deadlifts. But squatting to a high-ish box (well, it’s currently a stack of 7 bumper plates, about 15-16 inches) with a very slow and controlled descent seems to work okay…keeping my fingers crossed, it looks like I have a way to train legs again while my back continues to recover.
Also, my dad will be bringing out a squat box next time he visits. When I was a kid, we had an old wooden swingset made out of wooden 2x4’s, and when I was a teen we repurposed the whole thing into two squat boxes (one a bit taller than the other). He doesn’t need both right now so I asked if he could bring one out next time my parents visit. I always liked box squats as a teen and college football player, so this could be a good way to get my squatting in while reinforcing good technique and breaking some bad habits (I’m a bit of a dive-bomber in the squat, which is probably not as good for squatting longevity as some well-controlled box squats).
2 Likes
Friday 7/3
Mowed The Lawn
Saturday 7/4
Pull-ups
7
7
7
7
7
Sunday 7/5
Pull-ups
7
7
7
7
7
Monday 7/6
Pull-ups
7
7
7
7
7
Tuesday 7/7
Pull-ups
5
5
5
5
8
Had to work out a bit earlier than usual and wasn’t really “warm” at the start, so I did a few sets of 5 to get a little warmed up and then finished with a set of 8.