After The Flood: JDM135 Powersnatching In Paradise

[jdm135]

Weekend Update.
This was an incredible, and incredibly full, weekend. I mean really this weekend is off the chart in terms of just sheer VOLUME of doing stuff. Kids recital, several hours of side job work, projects at the house, cooked some really good veggie fried rice…
On the physical side: Sunday morning had about 3/4 mile on the road, setting myself up for a benchmark 1/4-mile uphill run. There’s this street in my neighborhood, uphill the whole way but flattens out at the top, almost exactly 1/4 mile. I ran up in in 1:58, and intend to use that as a benchmark to improve. (I haven’t run in a long time).

Also: Surfing on Sunday, loads of fun and a good endurance and conditioning hit.

[jdm135]

4/29/2024 Monday
Not on a program, but generally “push”.
-6 minutes stairmaster
-Smith machine BSS: 5x50, 5x100, 5x120, 5x70.
-Bench press: cluster of 10 “singles” at 185lb, just a few breaths between each.
Then 135lbs for about 16 reps.

-Smith machine shoulder press x lots.
-Pec Flye machine. Cable flyes. Cable shoulders. Cable triceps. Cable biceps. Cable everything around here, cable dicks. (inside joke.)
-Loaded carry: 130lb DB in each hand, that’s 260lbs to carry across the room and back - not very far, and barely made it back. I’d like to get back to loaded carries and this was a good start. I’ll need to go a little lighter to accumulate some volume though, not trying to kill myself here.

All in all: left the gym looking good, feeling good, and feeling like I look good - a really, really positive way to start Monday after a very productive and positive weekend.

[jdm135]

5/1/2024
Yesterday 4/30, 1 mile easy run. Up and down hills (pretty unavoidable running from my house).

Today:
Not on a program, but generally “pull”.
I should note that I love training this way, at least for a little while: I move quickly, I don’t think about numbers, just get some quality work in. There are basically no rest periods, or none over a minute anyway, and lots of supersets or drop sets to just KEEP MOVING.

-6 minutes stairmaster
-Smith machine BSS: 6x50, 6x100, 6x120.
During this, developed a terrible feeling in my right shoulder, front side along the collarbone. Not sure what caused it but it messed with me the whole time.
-Rows, rows, rows, and more rows. TRX, plate-loaded unsupported, plate-loaded chest-supported, smith machine… I rowed a lot.
-Straight-arm pulldowns. Really looking to use these a lot as it emulates the motion of swimming or paddling out on a surfboard, which is a movement I need to develop endurance on.
-Delt raises
-Biceps and triceps
-Loaded Carry: 120lb DBs each hand. Then, 100lb DBs in each hand for a couple rounds.

Felt great, off to a good start again today.

[jdm135]

5/3/2024 Friday
Not on a program, but generally “Leg”
-2 minutes on the stairmaster to warm up
-BSS: Smith machine was unavailable. 6x40, 6x65, 6x80. So much more work goes into balancing with a barbell or dumbbell, this sucked.

-Belt Squat: I’ve tried these before, never really got them to click. Tried again today and got more out of it, but still not what I was hoping for. Several sets.

-Pendulum squat: A high rep set going super deep, light; another set going regular squat depth, heavier.

-Deficit SLDL: 20x95lb, 12x145lb

-Hip thrust machine

-Leg curl machine

-Leg ext machine

-Shoulders, biceps, and triceps on cables

[jdm135]

5/6/2024 Monday
No program.
-8 minutes stairmaster
-BSS 8x40, 10x60, 8x80 (with fixed bars on back)
-DB Bench Press:
60lbs first set, then 70lbs for 2 sets, and after each set, single-arm-bench-press the 60lb for 4 reps each arm. Interesting thing to try.

16 rounds EMOM:
-two 3-pump burpees
-three chinups
That was a great little workout right there, and worth anyone’s time to replicate. Easily extendable for more pumps, more burpees, more chinups, more time, whatever suits your fancy. Good training for the upcoming Spartan race.

-Cables for delts, biceps, triceps.

[simo74]

@jdm135

-8 minutes stairmaster

Every time I read this, I picture you in an 80’s leotard

[jdm135]

5/8/2024
Sixteen Tons

you load sixteen tons, what do you get?
Another day older and deeper in debt

If you don’t know that old song, look it up, all the covers are good too.
I think sixteen tons is the weight of coal that a man could dig in a day. And those are tough men. So I decided to deadlift sixteen tons in a session.

205lbs, 10 reps per set, E2MOM, 16 sets.

Holy crap. As you’ll see below, I was doing poorly coming in to this, my right foot is lacerated, bruised and swollen, I have a burgeoning sinus infection, but I did this. By the last rep of the last set my fingers were slipping off the bar and I just had to hurry and finish the rep before it gave out completely.

Of note, this is less than the Deep Water 10x10 deadlifts. I think those are Rx at 50% of your 1RM, and this was more like 55% of mine (guessing 375 because I pulled 405 a year ago and haven’t come close since) - and a hell of a lot more sets.

Picture during the final set:

Picture of my foot:

Felt pretty badass about this. Did a set or two for delts on the cable, then left, work was blowing up my phone and I couldn’t concentrate.

I’d love to see how other people get to 16 tons - heavier and fewer? different timing? Lighter and more reps (god forbid)?

[simo74]

Looking good mate well other than your manky foot that is.

[jdm135]

Quick DOMS update:
I’ll list from the bottom up.
As you’d expect from 160 reps of deadlift, my hamstrings have a deep soreness. Not crippling, but deep.
Glutes? No soreness at all. As usual. Which is just nuts.
Abs? No.
Erectors, yes but it’s moderate.
My upper back, all the way across from right behind my shoulders, through my traps, my lats, rhomboids wherever those are - all the tiny muscles across the upper/mid back feel it. And that feels good.
Little bit of forearm soreness on the left.

[jdm135]

5/10/2024 Friday
Hill running, mostly.

I have a bad cold and my foot is still shredded and painful. So of course I should go run. I have work commitments also that prevented a regular gym trip.

From my house, it’s pretty steep down hill (with a quick uphill section at the end) 1.0 mile to a park with a playground “gym”. I ran there, did 5 rounds of:
5 knee raises
5 pullups
10 pushups
Then ran back. The uphill run is really, really hard but I made that mile in 11:15, and being relatively untrained, I think that’s pretty damn good.

[jdm135]

Weekend update.
Training your kids to ride bikes, when you have 3 biking-age kids and one toddler, isn’t easy. It was hard enough when we lived somewhere flat. Now it’s another job entirely living on a hillisde.
It’s primarily a logistics problem, but it takes a LOT of energy two because if you take one kid out for a quick trip around the block, best believe you’re going to have to run that block 3 times in succession. And each kid wants more, and the little one wants to be included, and…
So anyway there was a lot of that Friday.
Saturday we went surfing in the morning and then did more bike training.
Sunday we took a 2-mile walk, with me carrying the little one much of the time, then bought a grown-up bike, then in the afternoon took turns on the bike and of course put a lot more energy into training the kids.

The goal of course is that the entire family could eventually be on bikes together. But that’s a long way off and the logistical challenges are nightmarish - to say nothing of the storage space required for that many bikes (5 or 6). Or the cost. Etc.

---

5/13/2024 Monday
Stairmaster 8 minutes. BSS, a few sets of 8-10, nothing crazy. My injured foot is still hurting me when it’s in the rear position during BSS.

DB bench press, incline DB bench press, a few high rows, delts, biceps, triceps.

The session wasn’t bad but it was phoned in intentionally - I am WIPED OUT from the weekend.

---

Somewhere around 90 days until the Spartan race with my wife. We need to gear our training toward it. My focus area should be on distance/endurance, I think, and hers should be on upper body pulling. Possibly also on endurance when strength/lifting is added to the mix, but we haven’t really tested that. She can run for miles without issue though.

My work life has been insane. Can’t write about it right now but it’s taking a toll.

If it isn’t one thing, it’s another. I know @simo74 and @LoRez and I, and many others, have talked about having emotional issues with one or more of our kids. Lately one of my kids (not the one you’d think) is having extreme emotional issues. Can’t get into it right now but the burden it places on us is immense, combined with our nearly 100% loading as it is from other stressors.
I stress-eat nuts and trail mix during some of these periods, as that’s what we have on hand, and it’s a problem again.

[alex_uk]

Sorry to hear about the family stress, I can empathise, only my stress response is not to eat, then I get skinny, not fun. At least your stress eating isn’t donuts and pizza!

Glad to see despite everything you’ve got going on you still managing to get some training done, hopefully that’s a bit of light relief for you!

[simo74]

@jdm135

having extreme emotional issues.

Feel for you mate. Things have settled down a lot in our house. I find my son seems to have periods of being settled and periods of craziness. I really think it is hormone driven and likely due to growth spurts and higher testosterone. Any way I really hope it all settles down again soon. The one thing I am only just starting to understand is that shouting and fighting with them never works. Sometimes you just have to let them blow off some steam and be there for them. It is not easy.

[jdm135]

5/15/2024 Wednesday
Bad traffic early this morning cut my workout window short.
Regardless, I didn’t have any lofty expectations for today, just checking a box.
6 minutes stairmaster
BSS 3x8 50, 100, 50 (those were hard, and my left foot injury still a limiter)
BTN presses 3x12
Rows
Chest-supported rows
DBs for shoulders, biceps, triceps
Cables for shoulders, biceps, triceps
Out.

[LoRez]

We also started having issues with the other one. Calls from the school this week. A few things at home. I think the daycare thinks it must be us.

Other kid has been pretty good. Stuff they’ve been working on at school (positively rewarding ability to follow directions, maintain emotional stability and keep themselves and others safe), and with occupational therapy, have made a good dent.

I feel for you.

[jdm135]

Traveling but got a hotel fitness center workout on Saturday.
Airport food is a major challenge but being gluten free provides enough of a constraint that I err toward a deficit rather than surplus of junk.

It’s not lost on me that I used to be able to afford plenty of clean healthy airport food. Not any more.

[jdm135]

We’ve been traveling for days, back and forth across time zones, with all 4 kids. Eating at theme parks and airports.
So we show up at my in-laws house and MIL is shocked when I refuse her offer of a family-sized Rice Crispy treat (but it’s gluten free!).
Further shock when I stop her giving one to my daughter and instead let my daughter have half.
(These bars are 260cal; it isn’t mealtime; and she had a big, relatively wholesome breakfast a couple hours prior)

Apparently she felt a rice crispy was the pinnacle of nutrition or something.

Once we settle in I go to the grocery store while they hang out mainlining doritos.

I return and cook a pound of ground beef and heat a can of beans from their pantry. I mix a little of each and top with some avocado and sit down with them and eat it.

She’s amazed, awed, thrilled - tries it, loves it, has a bowl - this is so amazing! Clean eating! Ive always wanted to try this, i just don’t know how! Omg! Omg!

Which is effed on so many levels.

And now for better or worse i need to stay super clean the rest of the trip to not ruin this.

@T3hPwnisher i used the line about dead food and sticking to the perimeter of the grocery section. It won’t make a difference but i tried.

[simo74]

@jdm135

Which is effed on so many levels.

So many people have no idea what nutritious food looks like, hell in the UK you have breakfast cereal made to taste like chocolate bars FFS.

[LoRez]

@simo74

hell in the UK you have breakfast cereal made to taste like chocolate bars FFS.

We have plenty of stuff like that too.

At least the UK has some breakfast traditions that are at least somewhat healthy:

Unlike ours:

We do have breakfast sausage though. Meat + corn syrup.

[LoRez]

@jdm135

I return and cook a pound of ground beef and heat a can of beans from their pantry. I mix a little of each and top with some avocado and sit down with them and eat it.

She’s amazed, awed, thrilled - tries it, loves it, has a bowl - this is so amazing! Clean eating! Ive always wanted to try this, i just don’t know how! Omg! Omg!

One of my aunts sent me a cookbook one year, “a man, a can, a plan” that was pretty much that. Simple meals of canned food + a thing or two. No actual cooking skill required.

I’ll have to find it. It was basically a useless book to me at the time since I actually cooked. But there might be some recipes you could pass on. Sort of like a bridge between “super easy and convenient” and “kind of clean”. I’ll see if I find anything.

EDIT: I didn’t find the book. It’s either in a box or I got rid of it.

But I also found some photos of the recipes, and yeah, I pretty much wouldn’t recommend anything from it.

That said, I think the basic concept might be doable. Just some basic things like: Microwaved frozen peas and carrots mixed with minute rice and some rotisserie chicken.

Now I feel like I should figure this out. I have a niece who’s off on her own now, and a middle-school nephew who’s into lifting, who really ought to move on from mac & cheese and chef boyardee.