Went on about a 4 mile hike with the ladies, got a delicious deli sandwich, did a bit of work and laid down. Started reading lifting-focused reddit and decided I wanted to bench today.
Shoulder warmup
15 goblet squats (50 total now)
Axle bench: 120 x 10, 8, 210 x 5, 260 x 3, 300 x 3 (slingshot from here out), 320 x 3, 350 x 3, 375 x 1, 400 x 1, 210 x 10 (no ss, wide grip, paused), 210 x 10 (no ss, narrow grip, paused)
PM:
10 min abs (fack)
Sweating like a pig but happy I hit it, I’m getting worried about losing strength, particularly bench so getting some heavy reps in with the slingshot seemed like a good idea. This will probably make the presses harder tomorrow but that is lower priority. Going to try to keep the slingshot in the rotation for whatever I do next cycle.
Not really, I keep surprising myself with the times so I hope to do that, I guess sub 18 on the final set would be pretty sweet but more worried about the effort here.
Don’t have anything set in stone yet, plan is to do a slowish cut until I’m down another 10-20 lbs, so nothing with too much volume. I’ll probably run through a session of each of the big 4 before starting a program, just to grease the wheels. As far as programming, I was thinking about lifting a bit heavier and going with something like coffinworm but the layout is going to put me in the gym more often than I want, so probably won’t do that atm.
Driving to get Mexican food I thought 5s pro with optional joker sets and widowmakers sounds like a pretty efficient lowish-volume approach. Would probably go with an 85% TM just to give myself some ability to reach with Jokers.
As always, open to opinions and suggestions though.
This is just too many presses, holding the weight on each shoulder for long enough to stabilize then press the weight is miserable. Glad I’m not doing more than that, total of 5300 lbs pressed in that workout, still ended with a 25 second PR. I should be able to blow that time out of the water when going back to 1/2/3 on my next run.
Planning on doing a peloton and core workout later today along with goblet squats, then either swings + goblet squats tomorrow or I’ll take the day mostly off.
Peloton 30 min @ 164 watts
Goblet squats: 40 x 25, 53 x 15, 10
Pretty low effort on the bike for most of it but put in some strong efforts towards the end, held ~400 watts for nearly a minute. My legs are sore.
Need to do some abs tonight to stay on course with the program, it calls for 5x a week but I might drop it down to 4.
The humidity and heat have come, I’ve drenched like 4 shirts this weekend, which was very active for me. I saw @T3hPwnisher post a few articles on GFlux, so I’ve been upping activity to try to fall in line with that theory.
This weekend:
32k steps (includes 6 miles of hiking)
30 min peloton
10 min core
1000kb swings (50 push presses per side)
100 goblet squats
Bench session (including 400lb slingshot effort)
Diet hasn’t been perfect (still getting protein in) but the effort has been pretty much where I want it
Was exhausted/not feeling well mentally/emotionally/physically yesterday but got in 13k steps and my 50 goblet squats. I considered pulling a bit, the thought was to go to 4 plates and do a few singles to see how it felt, I did 5 reps with 135 and remembered my hamstrings felt like they’d been meat tenderized and stopped there.
Last 4 sessions of swings are on the menu the rest of the week.
Swings + goblet squats(2/3/5): 21:29
Came out of the gates real hot here and suffered because of it, my whole back was on fire after the first round, was breathing hard and the heat + relatively recent (1hr) ingestion of food had my stomach flipping. Those things kind of came and went throughout the next 4 sets but I managed a decent time anyway, feel like I could do better here but this was all I had today.
In any case, I knocked 7:28 off of my first effort 3 weeks ago which is roughly 25% improvement, I’ll take it.
I have a lot of work stuff to do and a concert tonight (which i’m pumped about), hoping to get more work in but we’ll see. Tomorrow is going to be a shitshow, meetings for half of the day and a dr’s appt, am going to try and have my swings + chins done by 9am to avoid all of that.
Knocked 7:04 off of my initial time. I paced this much more conservatively than yesterday, giving myself more little breaks; this is the right move I just took it too far. I pushed hard on the last set but left a little too much in the tank.
Didn’t end up doing any more work yesterday but got to almost 18k steps. Concert was super awesome, Samia’s music is great but her act needs work, Sylvan Esso’s act is fantastic (the singer is a beast).
Swings + press tomorrow, only 1k swings left!
Got my 50 goblet squats, the worst exercise ever, done.
Feel like I just about nailed pacing here, really got in the zone and just let the hurt live, the 3rd consecutive day of swings always hurts a little different. Knocked 9:58 off of my original time.
Owe 40 goblet squats and need to do core work.
Tomorrow is supposed to be off but I might jump the gun and just do my last 500 swings so I can start lifting again this weekend, we’ll see how sore I am tomorrow.
Went to Dr yesterday for a med checkup, his initial suggestion was to increase my current medicine’s dosage 12x, which I balked at. Doubled it instead with another potential doubling in 2 weeks. One of the major sides is weight gain and metabolic issues so I need to watch that but hopefully it won’t happen at this lowish dose. Weight was 282.8 with shoes, pockets full, and fully clothed at the drs office, 13lbs down from ~6 months ago. I fully expect to see 27x.x when I wake up tomorrow.
Friday morning weight: 279.2 (-0.8 from last Friday)
Thought I might’ve lost more, feeling pretty bloated, but I am happy to be back in the 270s, first time i’ve been this low since a drug-fueled rampage 4 years ago (which we’re not using as a cutting tool, again). Plan is to keep this going roughly as is until July 1, when I have a wedding and trip, will re-assess after that. I’m currently eating whatever I feel like but at lower quantities while trying to increase “good” food intake.
The doubled med dosage is knocking me out, pretty fuzzy when I wake up but manageable. Will keep an eye on that.
Going to hit my last swings sooner rather than later and update here
Ended up not getting them done yesterday, worked snuck up on me and I ended up in an unexpected but useful 3 hour working session, met up for a doggy date then grabbed dinner.
The original plan for this week was to do them today anyway, so I hammered them out this morning on a mostly empty stomach (I perform better without much in the stomach) in a cool room with the fan blowing, ideal conditions.
Shaved 3:09 off this original time but this is the effort I was most impressed by, stopped looking at the timer after the 3rd round and gritted it out. I was trying to keep a 3:30 per round pace and was hitting it every time I checked, so turned the brain off and went a bit harder. Very happy with the time and the effort
The 10k swing challenge inspiration was multi fold, I saw @boilerman crushing it, saw @T3hPwnisher using kettlebells to destroy himself, I needed a break from the barbell and Covid hit me, so I couldn’t go to the gym because I didn’t want to spread it further.
I’ll start by saying im glad I did it. It required discipline to hit 20 workouts in roughly 4 weeks, it required grit to push myself through the grip and back soreness, it required mental fortitude to fight the monotony of the swings, and it requires conditioning that, while decent for me, had regressed with Covid. All of those things are areas in which I struggle, doing this program was a fantastic way to get quick feedback. Im more fit, weigh less (-3.6lbs), and have pushed through a few mental barriers.
On the flip side, this felt like too long. I got about 90% of the conditioning benefit after 2 weeks and made small, incremental improvement from there. I don’t think I’ll ever run this again as written but I could definitely see myself doing a bastardized 5k swing challenge as an extended deload. Kettlebell swings just aren’t that fun and doing things exclusively for time, while motivating, isn’t exactly what I want out of the gym.
Going forward I’m going to do a week of greasing then wheels, then jump into a 5/3/1 variation which currently is planned to be 5s PRO, optional jokers, and widowmakers with 85% TM. The idea is to keep cutting slowly. Conditioning is awful but the benefits are amazing so it is staying in a primary position and I’m positive I’ll keep the kettlebell and swings in the rotation.
Great write up, I really enjoyed watching you run this and I see a lot of parallels in our approach to all of it as far as trying to conserve a little bit in the first few rounds.
I definitely agree that it was getting pretty monotonous by the end, but I’m glad I found out that I like the effect KB swings have on my body.
Aside from the weight loss (congrats, by the way!) did you notice any muscular gains?
I’m not sure I’m lean enough to be able to notice and also not sure how much I would be able to notice in 4 weeks. That being said, my whole backside from my hamstrings to my traps feels amazing. Lower back feels better than it has in years (probably helps that I’m not squatting), lats feel wider, traps seem a bit bigger. The most obvious portion though is forearms , the increase in vascularity seems far greater than would correspond with a 1.5% drop in body fat. Shoulders benefited from the 2x a week pressing too. I’ve also been doing 50+ KB goblet squats a day so my quads seem a bit more defined and hit bench a few times to keep the horizontal pressing strong.
All in all, probably small gains across the board, definitely don’t feel like I’ve lost any muscle size or really any capability.
The pressing kind of made me believe I should try higher frequency work, something I haven’t done in years, will probably leave that for a gaining cycle though.
Didn’t want to wait so I went and hit the gym after the swings, some breakfast, and a dog walk.
15 min warmup walk
Shoulder warmup
Pull-ups: 8 (n), 5(s), 5(p)
OHP: bar x 10, 95 x 10, 135 x 5, 155 x 5, 185 x 3, 205 x 2, 225 x 2, 235 x 1
Push press: 185 2 x 5, 195 2 x 5
Prowler (ss w/ push press): 3 rounds 180 x 100’ (50 push/50 pull)
Lateral raises: 20 x 15, 25 x 12, 30 x 10
DB shrugs: 45 x 20, 50 x 20
Smith high row: 65 x 30 (narrow, medium, wide)
Partial laterals: 45 x 15, 35 x 30
Facepulls: 60 3 x 10
