Do Meatheads Dream of Iron Sheep?

Training Over 35 Lifter
161

The mother of all cliches “it depends on your goal” is the mother of all cliches because it is true!

That said, the Dan John article I’m linking here is what I would follow (personally) in terms of what one should be able to do before “specializing” whether for strength or some other athletic or aesthetic goal:

I personally think the whole focus on always making PRs is what leads to shitty form (followed by injuries followed in the majority of cases by back on the couch), because that is a linear path, and progress is made via ups and downs imo…just an old guy talking…

Keep the end goal in mind, keep the effort and consistency, accept the mid-path minor setbacks.

More specifically, until one starts focusing on strength do the high bar squat because that will work the most leg musculature, and “force” you to maintain or acquire the most mobility. (I know I’m spouting powerlifting blasphemy here) Paused lifts that take the stretch reflex and/or momentum out of the movement will tell you whether you own the weight or not. Pause in the hole for the squat, just below the knee for the deadlift. From the videos, you look ok with the weight for the squat but honestly you don’t look in control on the deadlift, although the speed belies that (so could be more of a technique thing). There was a 56 yr old dude named Emskee who pulled 600 with low 200s bw on this site who gave some of the best descriptions of deadlift technique I’d read anywhere, see if you can find those.

Again, everything just my own .02, from a non-powerlifting perspective.

p.s. btw I own 2 or 3 Rippetoe books plus his DVD believe it or not.

162

I like Wendler’s 5-3-1 because of this. You start conservative and on the last set you push for as many reps as you can get. When you cycle back around you push to see if you can get the same reps on the next heavy weight. Its a great confidence builder - adjusting your head is one of the most important things to progress.

Admire your numbers. You are right to watch for the injuries ie the shoulder on the bench press. At 52 these have been the biggest block to my progress over the last year. Nothing more frustrating then skipping upper body for 2 months right?

I agree with the others on sustainability. Go to the gym bc its gym day (or rearrange the plan if life gets in the way) eat nutrition you can live with for the long haul (I keep my cheat day to Saturdays - beer is my downfall as well). You have to like what you are doing - lifting heavy and eating right.

I have used high intensity intervals for cardio - keeps the timing down and increases your breathing and endurance for heavy lifting. I especially like running bleachers once a week - builds calves and quads and crazy endurance.

163

Thanks for popping in, dhoke231. I have iron on my mind a lot, and I always appreciate hearing the thoughts of people who have been in the game for awhile.

Saturday 7/19/14

My mom is visiting Maine and my 3 and 4 year-old nieces are staying at my place. I still managed to get some very rushed work in with my home gym.

Bench press

135x12
205x8
255x5

Barbell rows

70x20
70x20
70x20

Barbell curl

70x10
70x10
70x8

Kettlebell swings

50x10
50x10
50x10
50x10

These were all supersetted. Wham bam done. Digging my new kettlebell, hoping to get many, many swings in with it, especially on my non-lifting days.

164

Some thoughts on mom’s visit and diet…

It was a bit startling to see just how easily I fell into my old behavior patterns when my mom came to visit. It started with her special request grocery list before she arrived.

Ice Cream Bars
Soda
Cookies
Chips

Okay. Now all of these things are in my house. Of course plenty of it ended up in my belly.

Then I had to show her all of the great restaurants we have here in Maine.

Italian food.
French food.
Deli food.
Bar food.

Then I was so busy with making sure she was comfortable and enjoying herself that I only got one home workout in on Saturday.

I was BAD this past week. It is like I was transported 10 years back in time. I am expecting 290 on the gym scale tonight. Alarm bells are going off.

She’s leaving today at noon. We had a great time and the great food was a big part of that. I will, of course, miss her dearly but I am CHOMPING AT THE BIT to get out of work and do some deadlifts. I am also being told that the pool area has been thoroughly scrubbed and disinfected, with no traces of human shit remaining from last week’s accident. For this I am very happy.

Back to work.

1 Like
165

[quote]twojarslave wrote:
It started with her special request grocery list before she arrived.

Ice Cream Bars
Soda
Cookies
Chips

Okay. Now all of these things are in my house. Of course plenty of it ended up in my belly.
[/quote]

I’m fortunate to have parents with healthy habits (both eat fairly well and exercise regularly: mom walks every day, dad lifts a bit, and they both do hot yoga a couple times a week), so this is not an issue that I’ve had to deal with. But, having said that, I think you need to be firm and just say “No, Mom, I don’t want to keep that stuff in my house anymore.”

I think we discussed Chris Shugart’s brief comment that “action offends the inactive” and you might have to be willing to suffer a bit of conflict here. Don’t just give in because Mom demands that stuff for her visit. Maybe it will piss Mom off that you won’t buy cookies, chips, and soda for her. Too bad. If she can’t go a whole week without those things on her visit, she can go buy them herself, but you are not obligated to provide that stuff for her. Much as the parents can make a child eat their vegetables, you can do that now that you’re an adult and have your own place.

(also, if she has bought it, or you bought it yourself…once she leaves, you are not obligated to keep that stuff - throw it away, even if it feels like a waste. You don’t have to eat the junk for another week just because it is there)

[quote]twojarslave wrote:
Then I had to show her all of the great restaurants we have here in Maine.

Italian food.
French food.
Deli food.
Bar food.
[/quote]

Here, I sympathize…to a point. I do think that experiencing the local cuisine is part of any good trip, and don’t blame you a bit for taking her to the best local places. WITH THAT SAID - almost any restaurant DOES offer an option that ought to be a pretty good, nutrient-dense meal (even if it’s a bit high in calories). For example, last weekend, my girlfriend and I went to a late dinner at a brewpub in Michigan after spending most of the day moving her into a new apartment. I ordered a 14-ounce steak with mashed sweet potatoes and a side salad. She ordered the barbecued beef brisket. We ate richly, indulgently…and still it wasn’t really any “cheat” at all.

Even most fine-dining restaurants offer some pretty great meals that are lifter-friendly: things like a lamb shank, short ribs, etc. You have to be smart enough to skip the extra bullshit (like the dinner rolls or bread they bring out before the meal) and focus on the good stuff, like the steak, or lamb, or duck, or whatever’s the meat of choice.

[quote]twojarslave wrote:
Then I was so busy with making sure she was comfortable and enjoying herself that I only got one home workout in on Saturday.
[/quote]

Again, I sympathize…to a point. You shouldn’t ignore family or friends in short visits, as we only get so much precious time with loved ones. But you should be able to get some workouts in during a week-long visit, either by waking up early and doing it before she’s awake, or by asking for a brief session (20-30 minutes), say, before showering and taking her out to dinner (perhaps while SHE is showering and dressing for dinner), which ought to be enough to get a nice warmup and a few quality sets of 1 core lift, followed by a fat-loss finisher with that new kettlebell of yours. Spend 5-10 minutes on the warmup, hit 2-3 top-end sets of squats or deadlifts, and then spend the remaining 5-10 minutes doing kettlebell swings.

Enough ranting. You know all this already. You’ve been talking about the need to hold yourself accountable and break this bodyweight plateau (your strength keeps going up, so it’s not ALL bad, but you have declared that you want to lose more weight and THEN focus on strength, which I happen to agree with as the best approach for your health and longevity). Get back to work.

166

I don’t really have any regrets about the visit besides eating junk at home and not getting more work in.

Weight and health are a very, very touchy subject in my family right now. My father passed away last November from lung cancer, which was severely complicated by his diabetes and heart disease, all of which were lifestyle-related. My 37 year-old brother (also visiting from Boston this weekend) is morbidly obese and on a cabinet full of medications. My mother has gained a ton of weight since Dad passed and is dealing with a number of lifestyle-related health complications of her own. My brother has also gained a lot of weight since Dad got sick.

The “Action Offends The Inactive” article rings very true. Nobody in my life (besides my new-ish lifting partner) is particularly enthusiastic about this process I am in the middle of. Not even my girlfriend, with whom I share a home (although she has come around to a stance I would describe as “neutral”). My brother will immediately change the subject if someone mentions how different I look. My mother continues to actively discourage me from lifting, going so far as to give me a 10 minute lecture on her perceived dangers of lifting when I told her about my mild trapezius strain last week. My girlfriend is a mix of agitated and uncomfortable anytime someone comments on my progress. I’ve learned to accept these things and not let them bother me.

That said, this was not a week to put a stake in the ground and say NO to mom, because my mother would honestly not have understood and would have likely taken offense by me refusing to stock up on her requested items. That is something we’ve always done when we visit each other, and now was not the time to change that ritual.

In short, nobody in my family has any desire to confront the terrifying implications of the lifestyle we were all raised with and, in the case of my brother and mother, continue to live with. Denial and ignoring the elephant in the room make our visits go much better. It is fucked up, but all I can do is keep my head down, avoid the pitfalls as best I can, keep myself accountable for my own behavior and continue working to improve.

On the positive side, this past week was a great reminder of how much better I eat day-in, day-out now vs 10 years ago. I’m even quite good about avoiding the junk food that my girlfriend keeps stashed around the house. It is really down to my willpower against the one remaining major variable in the calculus of body transformation - BEER!

Now that the whirlwind of company is gone I am getting back to work. I’m well-rested and have not deadlifted in two weeks. I can’t wait to see how I can perform tonight.

167

I definitely sympathize with your family experiences! If my mother had her way, I would be 5’4" and weigh about 250. Some women just love with food and some people use food as their primary entertainment. I’ve been struggling most of my adult life to not fall into those patterns, yet last night I had 3 draft beers and half a bag of potato chips. We’re human. Bang on the weights and keep moving.

168

[quote]LiftingStrumpet wrote:
I definitely sympathize with your family experiences! If my mother had her way, I would be 5’4" and weigh about 250. Some women just love with food and some people use food as their primary entertainment. I’ve been struggling most of my adult life to not fall into those patterns, yet last night I had 3 draft beers and half a bag of potato chips. We’re human. Bang on the weights and keep moving.[/quote]

I think that may have something to do with the awesomeness of beer. That’s my theory, anyway.

Keep banging on the weights, indeed.

I feel very, very lucky to have fallen in love with banging on the weights. I don’t think I am exaggerating to say that lifting has saved my life. Extra body fat aside, all of my health markers are looking very, very good. This was not the case 18 months ago. I was firmly on track to be in a similar situation to my brother, who gives me something of a 2.5 year crystal ball in an alternate universe where I never decided to make a change.

Not me. No thanks.

I’m still not sure why, but I dealt with my Dad’s cancer by furiously lifting weights, getting as strong as I could and, of course, with a little self-medicating beer consumption. My brother was an emotional wreck and he dealt with it in whatever way he did that ended up with him carrying an extra 30 or 40 lbs around. My mom lived it every day, so I can’t really fault her for anything she did to get through it.

Lifting is very special to me now. It terrifies me to think about what my personal journey with my father’s cancer would have been like without lifting. It exhausted me, helped me sleep, helped keep my emotions leveled out and kept me anchored to a healthy trajectory. It still does all of those things.

If breaking out of these shitty behavior patterns of ours were easy, everyone would be doing it. Luckily (strictly from a lifestyle perspective) I only see my mother a few times per year, so these complicated family ritual pitfalls are few and far between.

I cannot overstate how thankful I am for becoming one of the lucky few who truly loves lifting weights.

169

Wednesday 7/23/14

BW 289

Deadlift

I tried something different today…

135x5
225x5
315x4
405x2
495x1
495x1
495xFail
405x1

The idea was to take it easy on my warm-ups and put my work in with heavy singles at 495. I was expecting to get five but only got two.

Military press

115x5
145x5
180x4
180x3
180x2
135x8

BB Curl

77x10
77x10
77x8

Suprsetted with…

Standing calf raise

580x12
580x12

DB Bench Press

35x15
70x10
80x8
90x7

Front squat rep out

135x4

Legs did not follow brain’s instructions.

10 min sauna
5 min hot tub

My buddy is now bringing his GF to lift with him. I am a bit jealous, but very happy for them. It feels good to spread the gospel of the barbell.

170

Thursday 7/24/14

I took my new 50 lb kettlebell for a spin outside at dusk on a very nice 70 degree evening. I spent 15 minutes or so doing…

Two handed swings
One handed swings
Snatches
Cleans
Presses
Goblet squats
Rows

All with a bit of rest here and there.

I already like this thing. My heart rate has not been that high since my last serious hike. I like the rhythm of the swings and the way you can transition from one movement to the next. I like using it outside. I like that I can bang out a meaningful workout in a short period of time. I like that it is portable. I like that it is unusual.

Thanks for spreading the good word, ActivitiesGuy!

171

Friday 7/25/14

BW 289

Squat

135x5
225x5
315x5
365x4
365x2

Yesterday’s kettlebell workout took a toll on me. I expect that to pass as I grow accustomed to my new implement.

Bench Press

135x5
205x5
255x4
255x3
255x3

Power Clean

135x10
185x5
225xFail
225xFail
135x5

I need to work on technique, but liking this exercise.

Skipped the sauna, went home and did…

KB swings

10 min

172

[quote]twojarslave wrote:
Thursday 7/24/14

I took my new 50 lb kettlebell for a spin outside at dusk on a very nice 70 degree evening. I spent 15 minutes or so doing…

Two handed swings
One handed swings
Snatches
Cleans
Presses
Goblet squats
Rows

All with a bit of rest here and there.

I already like this thing. My heart rate has not been that high since my last serious hike. I like the rhythm of the swings and the way you can transition from one movement to the next. I like using it outside. I like that I can bang out a meaningful workout in a short period of time. I like that it is portable. I like that it is unusual.

Thanks for spreading the good word, ActivitiesGuy!
[/quote]

LOVE IT!

That’s exactly how I’d use it if I were you. Great way to a) get a workout outdoors, b) get some “cardio” on days off from lifting, c) mix “cardio” work with something that still builds a degree of strength. Fantastic!

173

Monday 7/28/14

BW 290

My hands were still sore today, presumably from tossing that kettlebell around last week. This should not hamper any current goals of mine, and I already climbed the Mount Everest of internet mastubating back in the 90’s, so no future goals should be impacted either. I just never expected lingering soreness in my hands…

Squat

135x5
225x5
275x5
Wrapped knees
315x5
365x5
385x5
405x3

Bench press

135x5
205x5
255x5
255x5
255x4

Probably could have grinded out a fifth rep on the last set, but kept one in the tank.

Lat PD

220x8
220x8
220x7

I have been working out with 210 for months. I am a 220 man now.

Weighted situp

5x15
5x15

Shrugs on the bench press machine.

Full stack x 15
Full stack x 15

I am not completely certain, but these may, in fact, be fucking worthless. I should just stick to farmers carries, which probably hit my traps harder than these.

10 min sauna
10 min hot tub

174

Tuesday 7/29/14

20 minutes kettlebell tossing 50 lb

Took it outside in the yard, focusing on swings but doing a variety of movements. Rest as needed. For now I am content to have fun and familiarize myself with this new object. I need to get a system to measure performance and progression. Time to do some homework on routines.

175

Wrt shrugs for traps, the famous Kirk Karwoski (barbell) and the not-as-famous John Meadows (dumbbells) both recommend a hold (2-3 seconds I think?) at the top of the shrug.

176

I reflected on my masturbation joke, and have concluded that it was in poor taste. This is supposed to be a log about lifting weights and not losing fat. A log with integrity and achievements. A log you can bring your family to. Not a log filled with crude toilet humor and low jests.

So, no more jokes about whacking off unless circumstances demand it. That is my commitment to you, dear readers.

Wednesday 7/30/14

BW 289

Deadlift

135x5
225x5
315x4
405x3
475x3
525x1
525xFail

Military press

115x5
155x5
180x3
180x2
180x3
165x4

Front squat

135x8
135x6
135x6

Supersetted with…

DB bench press

45x15
70x10
90x8

Skipped sauna and hot tub to shoot home and do…

Kettlebell swings, 50 pounder

About 100 of them in six sets.

177

[quote]twojarslave wrote:
Tuesday 7/29/14

20 minutes kettlebell tossing 50 lb

Took it outside in the yard, focusing on swings but doing a variety of movements. Rest as needed. For now I am content to have fun and familiarize myself with this new object. I need to get a system to measure performance and progression. Time to do some homework on routines.[/quote]

Since the load is fixed at 50 pounds, I think the best thing to do is seek to improve your “density” in a fixed time. For example, set a timer to 15 minutes and do as many swings as possible (with good form, of course). Maybe start with 10 swings EMOM, or something of that nature. Gradually increase the density. Eventually you might be knocking off 200 or more swings in 15 minutes. Progress accordingly.

I have this wacky goal of cranking out 100 KB clean-and-presses (each hand) in 20 minutes with my 45-pound 'bell. The best I’ve done so far is 21:45.

178

I’ve been adding KB swings to the end of my workouts. I have an interval timer and swing for 20 seconds, rest for 30 seconds, and repeat 8x. I’ve been reducing the rest period by five seconds each sessions. I started with 45 second rest.

179

[quote]albron wrote:
I’ve been adding KB swings to the end of my workouts. I have an interval timer and swing for 20 seconds, rest for 30 seconds, and repeat 8x. I’ve been reducing the rest period by five seconds each sessions. I started with 45 second rest.[/quote]

This, also, looks like a cool idea. Once you reach 1:1 rest-to-work ratio, then I guess you’ll start adding sets? Or will you just keep going until you’re full-on Tabata (20 seconds work, 10 seconds rest)?

180

Yep, that’s the general idea I’m going for. For now I’m going by feel and just pushing myself, but a simple density timing system is probably where I’ll end up at. More swings, less rest.

I’m also due for another hike, and I anticipate that the KB training and getting my heart rate up on a near-daily basis will make the next mountain easier to drag my ass up.

I’m also pleased to see that the KB work does not seem to be hindering my lifting at all, as I had a particularly good deadlift workout yesterday. Hell, maybe all that hip hinging will help me lift more. 525 went up pretty easy yesterday.