1 mile is no joke! I think the military people who opt out of running 1.5 miles have to swim 1 mile.
Keep squatting for me!!
I hate squatting, but now that I’m on a break from it I want to squat!
[quote]Cal Jones wrote:
And that’s quite enough shit talking.
[/quote]
Yes ma’am. Shall we commence with the pillow fighting?
Looking strong and the diet is spot on!
Saturday 13th August
Arms and shoulders.
Warm-up:
C2 Rower:
1000m - 2:17.9
500m - 1:56
3 x 30 second rows:
141m
139m
141m
These bring me to the edge of barfing. But if I can’t do hill sprints, I need another way to torch my lungs and rowing does it perfectly.
20 lateral raises
20 front raises
20 overhead presses
20 curls
20 hammer curls
20 L raises
20 bent over raises
Military Press
Bar x 10
25kg x 10
30kg x 7 (went for an eighth but failed. Still, this is my best for a while).
Meadows-style rear delt torture
6kg x 40 (swings only)
4kg x 20 (swings only)
2kg x 10 (full rear delt raises)
(non-stop)
This is nasty. Meadows calls for 60/30/15 reps but I decided to start more moderately, especially as I swam a mile yesterday
Lateral raises (breakdowns)
6kg x 15
4kg x 15
2kg x 15
(non-stop)
Ouch
My delts are piss poor - they need a kick.
Waiters Walks
2 x 1 lap of free weights room (20kg)
1 x 2 laps of free weights room (20kg)
These aren’t just good shoulder stabilisers - they also hammer my core.
Supserset
Skull Crushers: Bar +5kg x 20, Bar +7.5kg x 15, Bar +10kg x 12, Bar +12.5kg x 10
Hammer Curls: 4kg x 20, 6kg x 15, 8kg x 12, 10kg x 10
3 x Dips: 8, 7, 5
Last time I got 6, 5, 5 I think. So improvement!
Superset:
Rope Pushdowns: 10kg x 15, 12.5kg x 10
Dumbell Curls: 6kg x 15, 8kg x 10
Arms were smoked so I left it at two sets.
Did some stretching, backbends, a few handstand kick-ups and a couple of headstands to finish.
Eats:
11.30am 2 scoops whey, 2g fish oils, blackberries
4pm: Bacon wrapped chicken breast, broccoli
7.45pm 2 scoops whey, 2g fish oils
Weighed self: 10st 13lbs (153lbs). That’s a total of 5lbs lost since Tuesday 2nd.
It’s not that much considering diet and activity levels, actually - I’ve often lost 6-8lbs in the first week of a diet. However, I have just resumed using creatine so it may be holding water in my muscles. I’m OK with it anyway - I’ve lost an inch from my waist already.
Swimming AND rowing is genius. Good thinking to get around the no-run situation.
I’m also a fan of waiter’s walks but for some reason I’ve only done them one-armed. Is that how you do them, or is the 20 kg. a two armed weight?
Good job keeping up on the eats. Losing an inch already is a good beginning. I’m on a week of atonement eating myself.
One armed.
One armed at 20 kg is very awesome.
Ah who cares about weight if you are losing inches, its all about not buying a new wardrobe. Rowing sounds fun, especially with your lovely back. Not sure how much you are swimming, but I (& apparently a good few others) find swimming increases the appetite 10 fold.
Yeah, I used to find that but currently it’s not having that much effect. I guess the nicotine gum is doing its thing.
I’ve only been swimming three time so far. Aiming for 1-2 times a week, so really not that often - I didn’t run that often either.
yes, it is. i’ve been doing 10kg and sometimes 15kg waiters walks - and you’d think i’d be pretty strong at holding something overhead with all my oly lifting. i feel them mostly in my core, too. think it might be because of the one armed aspect.
would music help for your swimming? apparently you can get waterproof music these days. not sure how costly it is. you really are doing great with your diet and training.
Congrats on the weight loss. Swimming and rowing are hard core cardio substitutes! And I’m totally impressed by your mile swim.
I actually took a rest day today. I wasn’t actually too sore to train but I’ve been pushing myself lately and figured I’d do better next week if I rested more today.
I used the time to finish my lesson plans for next term (done - and a big weight off my mind since I can now enjoy the rest of the holiday without that hanging over me) and also to fire up the ancient, bluescreening PC that has sat gathering dust in the corner for three years and take all my old MP3s off it, which I neglected to do when I bought my new(er) PC. It isn’t as if I’ve been without music because I have a load of CDs, but I was missing some of the old tracks I’d downloaded and didn’t have elsewhere.
Also went shopping because (aside from chicken breasts and bacon) my fridge was empty. I found a load of discounted fruits and veggies, thought oh goodie, and then realised once I’d got home that I will have to eat them over the next couple of days. Consequently, I’ve had an extremely fruity day.
8.30am 2 scoops whey protein, 2g fish oils
11.45am 1 scoop whey protein, fruit salad (mostly melon, a few grapes and bits of orange), 2g fish oils
3.45pm Small punnet of strawberries
6pm Cod with salsa, salad with sundried tomato dressing, broccoli and cauliflower florets
7pm (dessert!) Black cherries
God those cherries were sweet.
I think I should lay off the carbs for a few days after that lot! Also, don’t know if it’s the fruit but I’ve been pissing like a racehorse. Grief.
How are your shoulders feeling with those swings?
I felt pumped all day but surprisingly wasn’t the next day but my shoulder hurt.
I need to do em again to test to see if it was indeed the swings and then not do them anymore. Maybe I went to heavy cause I chose 25s to start.
yay for weight/inches lost!
Surprisingly OK. I don’t know if I should go heavier and do less reps or lighter and do more. My delts are stubborn little fuckers - they have never wanted to grow. I read in an article somewhere (think it was here) that people either tend to muscle up in the arms and shoulders or the torso. I’m definitely a torso person - my pecs and back muscles respond well - arms and delts not so much. Which is annoying as I want arms like a hams. Hence the direct arm training - sticking to compounds is all well and good but it wasn’t doing what I wanted from an aesthetic standpoint.
go lighter and do the reps prescribed 
congrats on the improved dips and weight loss. How long do you plan to stay in this mode - what’s your goal weight?
I planned to diet during August but I’m going to reassess in September. Main goal is to fit into all my clothes comfortably. Scale weight is less important to me than how I look and feel. Back in January I set a goal of getting back to 140lbs but I haven’t actually been at that weight in years and wouldn’t know what I’d look like once I got there, so it was a bit daft, really.
Monday 15th August
Row:
1000m: 4:15.1
20m sprints:
#1 - 98m
#2 - 97m
#3 - 95m
#4 - 95m
#5 - 94m
1000m: 4:15
The sprints were hard because it takes a little time to get up to speed so you have to pull like a motherfucker.
The Second 1000m was brutual. Intially it seemed much easier after going flat out in the sprints, but once I got to around 500m I started feeling quite a little vomitous.
I think I could have left at this point and gone home and still counted it as a good workout but no, I’d decided today I would deadlift.
Warm-up:
20 hypers
20 reverse hypers with V at top
20 clams (per leg)
20 single leg hip thrusters (foot on high bench) (per leg)
20 lying twists (knees side to side thingy)
2 x 10 stepovers (someone was in the rack so I used the Smith machine). The bar was practically crotch height on the second set, I found it hard to keep my balance.
Deadlifts
I alternated conventional and sumo stances which I will mark as (C) and (S) respectively.
Bar x 10 (C)
Bar x 10 (S)
50kg x 10 (C)
50kg x 10 (S)
60kg x 5 (C)
60kg x 5 (S)
70kg x 5 (C)
70kg x 5 (S)
80kg x 3 (C)
80kg x 3 (S)
90kg x 1 (C)
90kg x 1 (S)
100kg x 1 (C)
105kg x 1 (C)
I wasn’t sure whether I favoured conventional or sumo, but once I got into near-max territory, I struggled with the sumo stance. I was using more back than with conventional style. I think it’s because of the restrictions in my hips. I’m getting better at recruiting my glutes (not recruiting my glutes would be like bringing a Magnum to a street fight and pulling out a nerf gun instead) but the mobility isn’t there - my leverages are all wrong.
Still, 100kg (220lbs) came up OK conventionally, so I decided to try for a new (recent) max. I haven’t deadlifted heavy for a long time. All time best was 117.5kg (I think about 254lbs) back in 2007, but then I got sick for about 8 months, plus low back trouble, and that was that.
Anyway, I’ve been sufficiently inspired by ladies here pulling such awesome numbers that I don’t want to get left behind.
Main trouble today wasn’t lack of strength but the fact I got light-headed after each set. I don’t think I could emulate Molly’s feat without falling on my face at some point. Heh.
Triset (x2)
Pulldowns (shoulder width, neutral grip): 40kg x 10
Straight arm pulldowns: 20kg x 10
Shoulder-width push-ups (elbows tucked) x 10
Close grip pulldowns (V-handle)
50kg x 10
55kg x 8
Happy with these, although my hands weren’t - after all that pulling they were sore as hell.
Finished with a few handstands (they were shitty today - but I’d been in the gym over two hours by that point so I guess I was fatigued), forward rolls, headstands and bridges (ugh I hate these) then worked on my split (painful!).
Eats:
11.30am 2 scoops whey, 2g fish oils
3.45pm bacon wrapped chicken breast, butternut squash, a LOT of broccoli
7.30pm 2 scoops whey, 2g fish oils
That’s some fine pulling Cal! you’re not that far off from your max. A couple weeks of training and I bet it was yours. Which means that despite the nagging physical issues, you haven’t lost that much strength.
I haven’t DL’d in a few weeks. oops.
Good for you though! your really sticking to it and NOT hurting!
I don’t care about the scale really. It lies anyway…
I’m more concerned on how big/small my butt is getting.
that is some nice deadlifting. i should give those step-overs a try. have heard good things about them. will start low since my balance isn’t so good.
Look at those deadlifts! Very nicely done. I hope nothing is groaning at you today, cause it certainly seems like you are healing up from some bustedness. The nerf gun line made me smile on this rainy, gloomy Monday morning.
Also, I’m liking the sprints on the rowing machine. You are probably working it harder rowing than you do running.