My daughter took 3rd overall in the 200-yard breaststroke finals last night after dropping another 1.33 seconds, and this morning she qualified for tonight’s 100-yard breaststroke finals.
Good work so far today: 12.2+ km and 254+ calories on the bike.
3 rounds of:
Leg ext - 90 lbs - 16
Leg curl - 75 lbs - 16
KB swing - 32 kg - 30
Assault bike - 59 calories
So ends Week 4, Block 2, and this run of Morgan’s Strength & Hypertrophy. I couldn’t be happier with how it went: I rebuilt the daily work habit, tied some 1RM squat and bench PRs, set a new one in deadlift, and slimmed down a bit (even though you absolutely cannot tell in yesterday’s video—I’m super-bloated from a week of eating everything in sight, so I’ll definitely be getting back to cleaner, deliberate eating next week).
My one complaint about this program is that it doesn’t include press as a main lift, only as an accessory, so my languishing strength there likely didn’t get any better. Beyond that, though, this one was fun and effective!
I’ll deload next week, but after that, I’m not sure: I’ll have another week at home before I leave for a work trip in Orlando that also overlaps a long weekend at Disney with the family. Once we return, I’ll have two weeks before Mrs. SvenG and I kick off the 2025 edition of Morgan’s Summer Shred through her gym, so there’s an interrupted 3-week period of “Just Do Something” that I’ll need to figure out—I mean, there’s always the 10K Swing Challenge, but… Been there, done that?
She is just on fire!! I love this for her and for you. Cheer super loud for her tonight for me and maybe see if you can’t get another hug this weekend.
Three championship weekends in a row finally caught up with her: She qualified for finals in the 100-yard breaststroke yesterday morning, despite adding 1.33 to her entry time. You could tell something was off, and she was not happy.
And, despite resting all day and trying to dig deep, there just wasn’t any gas left in the tank: she added another 1.58 in the finals last night. That was still good for third overall (!), so she came home with two medals, but she missed her goal of qualifying for the next level up (“zones”).
She took it well, and wasn’t unnecessarily hard on herself: Her self-awareness at age 14—here and in most other aspects of life—is pretty amazing. We will play things a little differently next year and make the hard choice to prioritize, but she knows she gave everything she had and, more importantly, that it was one hell of an IMPRESSIVE season.
I couldn’t be more proud of her!
Today starts the deload week. It won’t look too different, I’ll just be cutting things in half.
Late to the party but well done on the pull PR mate. Looked like it moved really easy. Any chance you think you could pull this without straps ? Reason I ask is that you spend a lot of time setting up with straps and are basically pulling with from a pause at the bottom. Rekon you would have have multiple reps with this weight easily with a more efficient set up.
@simo74 - Thanks, mate! I was pretty happy with it.
My grip strength is terrible: I’m not sure I actually could pull that for more than a few reps without straps. But I was slow in that video because I was setting up for a single—I wouldn’t need to reset the straps to get multiple reps (assuming I’m strong enough to do that). Maybe next time?
Terrible day: I was tired, my body was sore, and my mind was elsewhere. Called squats after 285 because they felt awful. Rest of it was fine, under the circumstances.
3 rounds of:
Leg ext - 90 lbs - 8
Leg curl - 75 lbs - 8
KB swing - 32 kg - 15
Assault bike - 30 calories
Still moving slowly, but I don’t care: Today is my son’s 12th birthday! I’ve commented elsewhere about his birthdays, so I’ll just leave it there for today.
Got greedy and went for 265x5: More or less slow and steady through rep 4, but then I started debating with myself about the 5th. Wasted time and energy, but ultimately went for it and let me tell you: It was a grinder. G-R-I-N-D-E-R. Definitely hit the Simo scale. But it went up, I racked it, and we all move on.
Rest of it was super solid. Took the first rep of each push press set from the floor, and I was pleased to find how easy the cleans with 135 were. Solid pressing, too, but not likely to get more than a few without the “push” part of the push press.
