Nice work Cav. It’s nice to see the results of our efforts. Keep your head down and keep on truckin’.
You inspired me to do some OHP. Cav nice PR!!! Thats a hard one to get a PR in. You must feel like your just cruising now.
Congrats on the PR and the Golden Corral gift card!
Hawkman, thanks. Would love to keep head down, but trainer keeps yelling “Head up! Arch back! Chest up!!”
Dude, you’re too kind. My OHP is nothing to brag about, but it was one hell of a prolonged plateau and good to get it moving. Hope it keeps going.
Hi, Brett, thanks! Drop by anytime!
Asked trainer about my doing a PL meet. He recommends waiting till after September, I agree. Got a lot of work to do, muscle imbalances and stuff.
Upper body. Bench press with ordinary barbell - 110 lbs, I think. Not much. Three sets of 10, supersetted with pulldown (thick bar) to forehead. Hmm, that got my lats’ attention.
Another 3 sets, this time supersetted with T bar row machine. That was tough.
Another 3 sets, these supersetted with straight arm pulldowns, thick rope. Oh dear - this was starting to get hard.
One more set on bench, then he tosses me a band and tells me to do 20 pull aparts. I huff and puff, get to 15, then he stops me. Says if he had told me 15 reps, I would have conked out at 12. Hmm, the Jedi mind tricks he pulls on me.
Need to hit triceps, so 3 sets of one arm pulldowns. Why is my right arm weaker than my left??
Finally, he hands me a couple of 5 lb plates and tells me lat raises for one minute. Grunt, ugh, get them up. Then have to do it again.
I wanted to do grip machine, but he tells me limit it to once a week. He’s right, I guess.
Lower body today. Twice in one week? Maybe he thinks he’s not working me hard enough.
Warmup: 3 sets kettlebell swings, 53 lbs.
He’s starting me on exercises to work out imbalances. Cable pull: kneel on floor, pull down. Don’t move shoulders. Repeat, standing and pulling up.
Deadlift, heavy for fives. Worked with a couple of gals. They used almost as much weight as me.
135 x 5
185 x 5 he tells me squeeze butt, it’ll help get hips forward. I try it.
205 x 5
235 x 5
255 x 5
Pretty smooth, think I could have done a bit more weight, but heart & lungs were screaming for mercy. Damn my conditioning.
So he puts me to work on conditioning. Hitting tire with sledgehammer for a minute straight, then minute rest, then another minute. Would have been more fun if I wasn’t already exhausted. Die, tire, die. Damn, not as easy as it looks.
He says the girls get 2 mins rest, but guys (me) only get 1 min. Figures.
Then off to the decline bench. The girls and I take turns doing situps. While holding 8 kg (not 8 lb) kettlebell overhead. Seemed easy, but suddenly hit failure in the middle of the set. The girls, meanwhile, did every rep. Humilation city. Abs definitely too weak and need more work.
He let me do some grip machine. Really seems to be getting a bit easier. Recently noticed when shaking hands with guys I’m starting to crunch them pretty hard. Forearms seem a hair thicker too. Yeah.
So you’ve started lifting at a hardcore gym, you’re making amazing progress and now there’s girls there too?
Man your gym just keeps getting better and better.
Are the walls made out of steak? Does it have a beer moat?
LOL Brett, sorry but they don’t have steaks hanging from the ceiling. Yes, they do have girls there. In good shape. Friendly, too - one struck up a conversation with me during sets. Eat your heart out.
Seriously, the best part is having a trainer who’s very patient with me. Lots of encouragement, but makes sure I know my limitations. Even though these guys came from Westside, there’s none of the screaming, face slapping craziness I’ve heard of. Only times they raised their voice was when I was maxing out and grinding the weight up - “GET IT UP!!! DO IT!!!” Trainer says when I do a meet, I should be “pleasantly surprised”. Yes - I lucked out.
LOL!!! Brett you must have some freaky dreams.
Cav - I think I need a trainer for some motivation and guidence on form a least for a while till I get past this DL plateu. Wouldn’t be Kool if there was a Scotch moat.
Dude, I don’t drink, so a Scotch moat wouldn’t get my attention.
A trainer can be good to work with form issues and give a little kick to the rear. Downside, if I’m not careful, can start giving flashbacks to my days in Phys Ed in school, which to put it mildly, was hell on earth. So I have to keep fighting that.
(Side note - ran across a Canadian scientist who researched school PE programs. Discovered that bad experiences in PE are severely traumatizing, and last for life. No news to me.)
Did lower body. Three exercises just for warmup: hip thrusts, step ups, and many minutes on the treadmill they don’t plug in. Then the monolift with a weird bar and down to the box. Just about everything went wrong, couldn’t find the box, didn’t hold the bar right, you name it. He told me to push the knees apart, I said “I am”, and he went “Well, uh, do it harder.” Finally got up to a 5 lb plate on each side. Whoopee.
He says I’ll do better next week. Well, there’s nowhere to go but up.
[quote]cavalier wrote:
Discovered that bad experiences in PE are severely traumatizing, and last for life.
[/quote]
Dodgeball.
[quote]kpsnap wrote:
[quote]cavalier wrote:
Discovered that bad experiences in PE are severely traumatizing, and last for life.
[/quote]
Dodgeball.[/quote]
Oh dear God, don’t even say it. In my school, we called it “Murderball” . . . more appropriate.
Well, today made up for crappy Thursday. Upper body, all DB pressing.
40x5
45x5
50x5
55x5
was going at pretty good. So he has me get the 30s and get on the incline. Says I’ll probably get about 13 before hitting failure.
I did 22.
Pulldowns with thick bar. Five sets, kept hitting failure, but kept plowing at it.
Tri pulldowns with thick rope. Wow - tris HURT when I tried this. Kept running out of steam, couldn’t seem to complete the sets. On the last set, I got REALLY PO’d. Started thinking if pain is what it takes to make the damn things grow, then I’ll pile on the pain like you-aint-seen-nuthin-yet. Went at it, and did 12 perfect reps.
Then the taskmaster put me on the sledhammer. Whack the tire 50 times. That wears you out.
They told me it’s normal to have bad days - Christian said a bodybuilder told him expect to miss 90% of what you try. The important thing is keeping at it.
Back to lower body today. Warm up with kettlebell swings, 53 lbs.
Then the hip belt squat machine. Trainer had the other 2 guys do 20 reps, but only 10 reps for me. I just lag behind everyone else, story of my life.
Then monolift/safety bar/box squat. He had them do speed squats, I just did regular for 8 reps “till you build some muscle mass”. He’s so critical on these things “sit back further” (which seems to mean arch your back) “push knees apart” “keep head up” “chest up” over and over until you wonder if you’ll ever be able to squat. Just do rep after rep.
We did all the sets, then he asked me if I could do a little more. I said “sure, I can do a few reps”. So they put me on position, sneaked on a couple more small plates without telling me, and had me go at it. First 5 reps fine . . . wait, they wanted me to do all 8? OK, it was tough . . . then the bastards told me to do another . . . I did, but they DIDN’T LOWER THE RACK BAR, I had to do another . . . oh man, I was pounded, but I did it.
Couple of sets on the leg curl, both to failure. Seems a few more reps than last time. Then couple of sets of leg extension. I’m usually good at this one, but was so trashed from squats could barely get through them.
Quads and hams so wrecked, took about 15 minutes before I had enough strength to drive home. Got a hell of a pump, though.
glad to see you working hard at it cav and to see someone take interest in pushing you past your perceived limits. Hope it works out well for you and you find what you are looking for
Thanks very much Damutt. Have seen progress already, both strength and emotionally. The emotion may be the toughest, he sees I have psychological blocks, but I’m not sure he understand what’s going on. Oh well, I didn’t hire him to be a shrink.
Semester started. Got course shells set up much more easily than last semester. Classes started good, lots of serious students, even a few enthusiastic ones. One student already complimented me on my explaining Flash scripting, great to hear.
Got to meet the other instructors and said hi, how was holidays? One guy shook my hand and said “JEEEEZ, what a grip you’ve got!!!” (I barely squeezed, I thought.) I told him I was working out at a top notch gym. Next thing I know, he’s feeling my arm and telling everyone “Don’t piss him off!!” Nice little reminder that I’m getting results.
So what are you doing for grip? I could do with some pointers.
Hi, Brett. Well, they have me doing lots of thick bars for barbell stuff. They even have a thick rope for pulldowns. It’s about 2 inches thick, I’d say. They tell me that really gets grip going. Also, they have a grip machine. Rod slides up & down, plates loaded on bottom. Squeeze rods together. Nice, simple design. Last week, got 140 lbs of plates, squeezed a few reps, both hands. Not world class, but seem to be gaining. BTW, he won’t let me use the grip machine except on lower body days - ie, only once or twice a week.
Not that I’m a grip expert - have closed the Captain of Crush #1, that’s about it. But have had such a pansy grip, obsessed with it.
Q the Arnold ( soon he will be tearing puny phone books with those hands)
I prefer punny phone books.
Really enjoy reading your log Cav. The training seems to be elevating more than just your strength…
Well, Dude, if the town has 5000 residents or under, I might be able to do it.
Punnyguy, good to see you! Unfortunately, if you’re looking for inspiration, you might want to skip today’s post.
Walked into the gym feeling like a million bucks. Walked out feeling like I got ass whupped by Pee Wee Herman.
Warm up with DB presses. Easy. Then he sets up power rack for bench. We stretch reverse bands onto bar. I never benched that way before, but it looks like fun. Start with 95 for 3. So easy. Do 135 for 3. Ho hum. Up to 170. Grab the bar, take it out, comes down . . . and doesn’t feel like getting up. Get up for one, down, and then it just stood there. Straining with everything I had, but it doesn’t budge a hair. Finally he realizes I’m not faking and racks it.
I said it must have been a form problem, just got the bar out of the groove. Rest, then another set. Rep one - damn, this is heavy, is it really on bands?? Rep two, a grinder. Rep three - no way. It’s like pushing a grand piano. Impossible. Even without the bands, I should be getting this up.
Pulldowns. He sets to 12, which is what I usually do. Three or four reps OK, then BAMM - bar’s not moving. Strain, strain, barely moving. He takes weight down, same thing happens.
Floor press with DB. Those go OK. Up to 35 lb for 15 reps. So angry, I get them up.
Hammer curls to failure. I start with 30 lbs. About 4 reps, then the DBs just sit there in mid-air while I’ve shoving every scrap of effort into it. He has me go down to 20. Same thing - 4 reps, then ptooie. Go down to 15 lbs, and do 13 reps. Wait - 13???
“That doesn’t add up.”
“Well, that’s what I did.”
He thinks, then says “You’re a puzzle.”
OK, he has a Master’s in Exercise Science. Years of experience. He can bench 400 and squat 600. He says “It’s frustrating when you can’t help someone”.
Great. He’s as good as admitting my body is somehow so crippled it just can’t grow. He says “Don’t get frustrated, we’ll work this out.”
I sure hope so.
It may be any number of things, a specific food, a virus, bad recovery,medication interaction. Get back to it, look at your log something has been working isolate and duplicate it. My problem as of late has been motivational.