Hammies are talking back today, and maybe even my glutes!
Mental inertia was high on this one, but I feel like I responded in kind: Took my time finding the right weights and didn’t take the easy way out (even though I wanted to).
Straps on for the 3rd, 4th, and 5th sets of 315. Lat pulldowns weren’t great, and the weights felt uneven: 90 and 100 were hard, 95 and 105 not so much. Weird. Can still feel the strain on the top side of my right forearm with pull-ups, and that didn’t help my weak showing there. Lat pullthroughs might be my new favorite way to blow up my whole freakin’ back, light weights and all. Rows had a twist from neutral-to-supinated grip, and I like what that did for MMC. Curls were super-solid, pump was amazing!
It wasn’t cheap, but it’s been a nice investment—it’s got fixed high and low cable settings, so it’s reasonably versatile.
I do miss a middle setting—or better yet, adjustable height settings—so if you’re looking to get one, I’d consider that. But even so, the high/low settings work well.
Looks good, I just don’t have the height in my shed for something like that unfortunately. I tried rigging something up over the top of my squat rack but it didn’t really work.
No doubt I was feeling last week’s work yesterday, but I woke up today with a massive congestion headache, then played that game where I move between the bed and the couch literally all day. Finally woke up about 5:15, ate a little, watched some TV with the family, and then crashed about 10:00.
Slept terribly, which isn’t surprising because that’s all I did yesterday. Headache is better, but body aches are still there: I can differentiate between the muscle soreness from last week and whatever’s got me down—that’s totally in my joints. Yuck.
Took my time with this one, but happy with how it went overall. I can push the weights on a few of these—and probably should’ve today—but really I’m just glad I got some work in.
If nothing else, I’m hoping this will help me sleep better tonight.
Hopefully you get some good rest tonight. I tell you one thing that helps me when I need sleep and am congested, Benadryl. 2 of those, guaranteed to knock your ass out.
I had a hard time engaging my glutes when squatting
something that’s helped me are lateral band walks and bodyweight bridges with a band around my knees before squatting.
@anna_5588 - I used to do exactly that… Might be time to bring those moves back, huh?
@ChickenLittle, @shaneinga, @throwawayfitness, @george220, @Friedrich - Thanks for the well wishes. Just for clarity, that was my T-Nation Cake Day, which I think is the anniversary of me joining the community. Definitely not my birthday—that’ll come in July. But I appreciate all of the kind sentiments regardless!
Yep, that’s my house! Trunk missed by just a few feet, but we sustained some reasonably serious damage from the limbs. Rest of the neighborhood looks similarly, trees like ours are down everywhere. Luckily no one was hurt—here or elsewhere in the nearby vicinity—so praise God for that!
We’ve been without power since about 1715 on Tuesday evening, with no ETA on restoration just yet.
I spent the remaining daylight hours on Tuesday working with neighbors to clear the streets as best we could, and tweaked my SI joint pretty bad in the process: Not sure what I did, and I don’t remember feeling anything, but I woke up Wednesday morning with it being really tender—if I move just the wrong way, I get debilitating pain throughout my whole backside. It aches just sitting here, but all of the major movement patterns seem to be fine…
In any case, that’s not the reason I’ve missed training: Despite there being no visible progress—that photo was from Tuesday evening and things look exactly the same here on Friday evening—and no power, etc., there’s been a surprising amount to do to make sure we can get back on track ASAP. Hopefully things really begin to move forward here soon!
Lots more thoughts I could share, but I’m outta time here. Onward and upward, folks!
