Work
I’m having to force myself to back off. Every time I provide some answers, I’m met with even more questions. It’s a good pattern, but it leads to a lot of decision-fatigue and takes effort to provide those answers.
So I need to back off on the intensity before I wear myself down too much. I’m enthusiastic but there’s no rush. I’m working on things that have never been done this way before, so slowing down the pace again isn’t necessarily a problem; there’s no race.
Knee pain
Right knee, for the first time in a few months, did not hurt at all today on the stairs. Was never a bad hurt, but it currently seems to be “gone”.
Shoulder pain
On the other hand, I’ve had shoulder pain outside the gym in both shoulders since last session. A bit unexpected since nothing has really changed.
Weight gain
It’s starting to look like I need to up the milk and/or eggs. Weight is staying a bit too stable. I took 153 as my starting weight but it’s probably a bit less than that.
Training
Barbell Curl: 65# x 5 - PR
Z Press: 65# x 9 - PR
Flared BB Bent Row: 75# x 9 - PR
BTN Press: 75# x 9 - PR
Pullovers: 26# x 18
Backbend Situps: 20# x 10 - PR
V Squats: 85# x 18 - PR
Jefferson Squats: 85# x 18 (9 per side)
DB Side Press: 40# x 6 (per side)
H2H KB Swings: 65# x 14 (28 total) - PR
Notes:
It’s a bit silly, but marking the technical PRs is motivational. Psychology is weird.
I accidentally skipped 14 reps with the squats and went straight to 16 last time. I might as well keep going from there.
Double progression is interesting. I went up in weight with my BB curls (yay) and yet it feels much easier because I’m back to 5 reps.
At this rate I won’t make it to 100# x 20 with the KB swings by the end of the t-ransformation. I’m working towards that goal though. (Right now it’s a 5 pound increase every 11 sessions, and there’s 20 weeks so 60 sessions. I should be working with 90# by then.)
End of the rep range for a number of lifts and increased the weight for a couple others.
Training
Barbell Curl: 65# x 5
Z Press: 65# x 10 - PR
Flared BB Bent Row: 75# x 10 - PR
BTN Press: 75# x 10 - PR
Pullovers: 26# x 20 - PR (probably)
Backbend Situps: 25# x 5 - PR
V Squats: 85# x 20 - PR
Jefferson Squats: 85# x 20 (10 per side)
DB Side Press: 45# x 3 (per side)
H2H KB Swings: 65# x 15 (30 total) - PR
Notes:
Did some “halos” with a 10lb dumbbell before the Z presses and seemed to be a good thing. Light warmup. Maybe 10-15 circles around my head each direction.
Proof of concept for “kettlebell alternating press” without using kettlebells also worked. Going to tweak it a bit before I get to this (it’s part of the Second Course, that’s still probably 2 months away)
Dropped a 10# plate (only a couple inches) on my right foot. Rolled a 10# plate over my left foot.
Yeah, absolutely, any changes already showing up since 1/1 are pretty superficial. But they can help us stay motivated! For example in the ~2 weeks since I shifted focus (temporarily) from PL to BB, have my arms really grown? Idk. maybe. But right after the gym my arms filled up my dress shirt sleeves, and that’s freaking motivating!
Barbell Curl: 65# x 6 - PR
Z Press: 70# x 5 - PR
Flared BB Bent Row: 80# x 5 - PR
BTN Press: 80# x 5 - PR
Pullovers: 26# x 20
Backbend Situps: 25# x 6 - PR
V Squats: 90# x 10 - PR
Jefferson Squats: 90# x 10 (5 per side)
DB Side Press: 45# x 4 (per side)
H2H KB Swings: 65# x 16 (32 total) - PR
Notes:
advanced a day to do a true EOD rather than MWF
5 weeks now without modifying the routine. Pretty happy with everything except Jefferson squats. They’re just crazy light compared to what I was doing before.
It’s rare to have snow here. Also rare to be this cold. 4 degrees F windchill yesterday, 6 degrees today, even colder tomorrow. 15 actual. Even up in the mountain snow it’s usually still warmer than this. Much windier though.
Gives me a chance to break out the serious cold weather gear though.
Barbell Curl: 65# x 6
Z Press: 70# x 6 - PR
Flared BB Bent Row: 80# x 6 - PR
BTN Press: 80# x 6 - PR
Pullovers: 31# x 10 - PR
Backbend Situps: 25# x 6
V Squats: 90# x 12 - PR
Jefferson Squats: 90# x 12 (6 per side)
DB Side Press: 45# x 5 (per side)
H2H KB Swings: 65# x 17 (34 total) - PR
Training notes:
I held back the sit-up progression by a day so that almost everything could be “6s” day, just for the symmetry of it all.
Right knee pain isn’t entirely gone and is back on the stairs. Been rolling the gracilis the past few days though, and seems to help temporarily at least.
Tangential notes:
I’m going to put some effort back into the online baguazhang course. I revisited the very first lesson yesterday and realize I have a lot of work I need to put in. Standing work is just hard; not the standing itself, but the mental work involved in releasing/stretching the right areas while holding a position.
I have no intention to ever call myself a martial artist or define any identity off of it. Much like I lift weights but don’t call myself a lifter.
With time off from work, my brain just spins. I got sucked into looking at various sword stuff, and I think it would be cool to learn to do. Because swords are cool (but insanely dangerous; some of my kitchen knives are scary enough). Online sword people are a strange breed though.
Anyway, bagua often uses oversized overweight weapons as a training modality, using the balance and momentum of the weapon to better train your own body and movement. That’s something I can get behind. Just like weightlifting uses barbells but it’s not really about the barbell, it’s just about using it as a tool to improve yourself.
The main thing I got was renewed motivation for getting my right arm, wrist, shoulder, back up to “normal”. It’s always been significantly weaker and impaired compared to the left. Going to keep rolling this one around in my head for awhile. Probably room for “mace”/“indian club” work.
Also renewed interest in improving overall mobility, but especially upper back and shoulders.
@T3hPwnisher Bagua’s pretty interesting, and I’m just scratching the surface right now. I don’t understand any of the internal power generation stuff (yet), but the external power seems to primarily in your ability to rotate the ribcage relative to the pelvis, and rotate the legs within the hip socket.
Just from an everyday movement standpoint, learning to rotate the legs at the hips was kind of life-changing. Took a lot of drilling to learn it though.
I’ve been effectively snowed in for most-of-a-week now. Snow, some melt-and-freeze cycles, and now freezing rain. Temperatures have been straddling freezing, so lots of ice.
Weather like this is still rare enough there’s been really no need to invest in equipment, so most things shut down. Plus road salt leeches into the local ecosystem and can affect the salmon supply.
I work from home, so I don’t care that much, except the kids have been home for most of it and my wife has cabin fever (but finally gets to go to work and the gym today).
Scooping the driveway made sense when we lived in the midwest snow, but with the ice, it’s much easier to walk on icy snow than icy concrete. I did end up dumping most of a 100# sandbag on our short driveway to get a bit more grip for the car. A sandbag carry on an icy slope was a unique challenge.
Also I’ve had less milk (because it’s cold) and more eggs (because they’re not). Kids also like my scrambled eggs, so that’s been a win.
Barbell Curl: 65# x 7 - PR
Z Press: 70# x 7 - PR
Flared BB Bent Row: 80# x 7 - PR
BTN Press: 80# x 7 - PR
Pullovers: 31# x 10
Backbend Situps: 25# x 7
V Squats: 90# x 14 - PR
Jefferson Squats: 90# x 14 (7 per side)
DB Side Press: 45# x 6 (per side)
H2H KB Swings: 65# x 18 (38 total) - PR
Notes:
“Sevens” day, for almost everything. Only a few more sessions and this will fall apart, but it’s a nice pattern for now.
Bodyweight seems to be trending up around 3-3.5 pounds a month. I don’t exactly trust that number, but I trust that it is going up. Hydration and digestion make it bounce around a lot.
Barbell curls are hurting a bit less these days in the right wrist, elbow and shoulder. Another positive trend.
I took a few days off from training. Frankly just don’t feel like it. Last week was juggling kids home from school and working from home and work deadlines. A bit of conflict about boundaries; namely around respecting the fact that just because I’m home, it’s still my work day. That blew up on Friday evening and hasn’t completely settled out yet.
Over the weekend, our heat pump decided to go out – the copper refrigerant line snapped somehow. We have a gas furnace backup, so heat is fine, but it’s an expensive fix.
This morning I hit a pothole at highway speeds and dented a rim. No blowout. Reported it to highway maintenance but haven’t done the whole rigamarole with insurance yet to get my car fixed.
At work, I have a few more eyes on my work from some senior leadership, a mix of skepticism and interest. Early results seem better than people expect. Also some people have this idea that we’re using some fancy advanced machine learning models, but we’re literally just using high school statistics… how much should I pull back the curtain?
As far as diet, this is hard but for weird reasons. This is my perception but: I think my protein intake has gone up; I think I’m eating more total food; but my calorie intake may have gone down. I seem to be getting leaner, and the scale isn’t budging much. The only thing I know that objectively changed is eating more eggs.
I’ll probably get back to training tomorrow or Wednesday.
Also my shoulders have been hurting (especially during/after sleeping), and I figured a few days rest may be a good thing.
I’ve been chasing this elusive idea called “restful sleep”, where you wake up and feel rested. Still seems mythical.
At least I can fall asleep fine, and I stay asleep. I’m just never rested when I wake up. Somewhat actually trying to figure this out.
Barbell Curl: 65# x 7
Z Press: 70# x 8 - PR
Flared BB Bent Row: 80# x 8 - PR
BTN Press: 80# x 8 - PR
Bent-knee Pullovers: 31# x 10
Backbend Situps: 25# x 8 - PR
V Squats: 90# x 16 - PR
Jefferson Squats: 90# x 16 (8 per side)
DB Side Press: 50# x 3 (per side) - getting closer to PR
H2H KB Swings: 65# x 20 (40 total) - PR
Notes:
For some reason, the “wider shoulders” thread from 7 years ago was resurrected, and so I’m thinking about that again. I think I’m at a crossroads with the pullovers. It seems like right now it splits into two main paths: 1) where the technique is focused on stretching and expanding the chest, 2) [the one I’m on] where it’s more of a pec and lat exercise.
I think I’m going to redirect a bit toward what works for 1. Form changes slightly, legs bent, lower back somewhat rounded and pressed hard against the ground. Focus on the stretch/pull at the sternum, and if it’s not at least slightly painful, adjust so it is. Also do this daily rather than eod.
Most of this is just to have a better skeletal base for pressing. The health benefits of “more lung room for breathing” seem hokey. I’m fairly certain I’ve actually had changes from doing this, but they’re unimpressive because the end result is things look “normal”. From a flat almost sunken chest, rounded upper back, rounded shoulders, to… not that. So “normal”.
Anyway, training.
Everything was fine. Low motivation but fine.
Did the called for 19 reps with the swings and decided I might as well do 20. Add some weight next time.
Well, I seem to have unlocked the secret to getting leaner. Increase protein intake, decrease overall calories, and use progressive overload in the gym. Imagine that.
Not quite what I’m trying to do, but I don’t hate it.
With respect to the “dedicated cardio training” conversation in @alex_uk’s log, I dug this up.
When I was training for mountain hiking, I cross referenced a lot of US Special Forces material because there’s some crossover… at least when it comes to carrying things and navigating and traveling across more or less rough terrain. Obviously everything else is different.
There’s a course that was put out by SORB, and I modeled some of my training off it. Called “Selected!”, not to be confused with the book “Get Selected!”.
Day 1: medium length run. Double progression: increase pace at a distance, then increase the distance and reset the pace.
Day 2: 1 hour ruck, unspecified distance. Increase the weight every 3 weeks.
Day 3: 4 x 400m “sprints” with a jog between them. Double progression: decrease rest time between sprints, then increase the pace and reset the rest.
Day 4: 2 mile run. Increase pace over time.
Day 5: off
Day 6: ruck march. Progress the pace, distance, and weight. Pace first, then distance, then weight.
Day 7: off
Somewhat different structure, but same basic idea as when I was running and doing races every week.
I used lighter weights than that (based on prior discussion with @Alpha), but it’s not too far from what I actually ended up doing. I was hiking in the mountains every weekend back then. Obviously “mountains” is a wide spectrum, but 5-15 mile hikes with 3k-8k feet total elevation change and several steeper sections.
Is there such a thing as a high calorie non-satiating food, that’s also high in protein? It seems easy to find things that meet two of those.
If I increase the protein and maintain the same fullness, I seem to drop in total calories. There are cheap and easy ways to increase calories (some even more or less healthy), but it comes at the expense of protein.
Maybe the solution is to replace some whole-food protein with less-satiating shakes and then increase the overall calories with fats and carbs.
Alternatively, are there any tricks for appetite stimulation that provide a net caloric surplus? (I know if I go back to hiking regularly my appetite will go up, but so does the calorie expenditure.)
In nature? No. What makes food hyperpalatable is a combination of salt, sweetness and fats. So you can definitely MAKE this happen with a combination of ingredients, but you won’t find A food like this.
Classic example: breakfast cereal mixed with protein powder. A common staple among the IIFYM bodybuilder crowd. You can eat a box of breakfast cereal post workout and still feel ready to eat an hour or two afterwards. I’ve also heard of dudes mixing ice cream and protein powder. Stan Efferding will put dextrose in rice to increase palatability, and then make a monster mash with that, mixing it with a lean ground beef. And Paul Anderson was famous for mixing milk with honey.
As you noted, exercise is an easy way to increase hunger, and you can undo 60 minutes of exercise with 30 seconds of eating, if you are strategic.
Just some spitballing there. It’s worth finding what works for you. I know I have a bottomless capacity for eggs, so I can put those away without issue, but for others, 2-3 eggs and they’re bloated.
