Deep Water: Beginner Program Week 1, Day 2
Pullups
12, 10, 9, 9+10
A quick explanation of these: my access to the pullup bar at my son’s school has obviously been cut off since they closed parks altogether, so I’m actually doing these on my squat stands. What I have to do is a concentric-only pullup, and once my chin clears the bar, I can’t descend without them starting to wobble too much, so I have to lightly touch my feet to the ground and do a slow eccentric to get the most out of it. It’s a bit of a nuisance, but the neat thing is - and this explains the “+10”, when I’m fully fatigued, which doesn’t take long with the slow negatives, I can use my feet to assist with the concentric, only as much as is needed. This means I can go pretty far beyond failure on them, and I certainly felt it. Probably got carried away, because BOR’s felt terrible afterwards, haha.
Bent Over Rows:
155 4x10
Did these with a pause at the top and a fairly slow eccentric. There’s not much of a guideline for how strict or how cheat-y these can be, but to save my lower back after doing deads/squats yesterday and in anticipation of the clean pulls next, I made them very strict. Not much weight needed to fire my lats up and work the grip with plenty of TUT. Between the last set of pullups beyond failure and these, I was sweating a good amount.
“Fortunately,” I told myself in a moment of extreme naivite, “clean pulls look pretty easy!”
Uhh…turns out, wearing my olympic shoes and with a much lower starting position than a deadlift, they’re probably more akin to a squat than a deadlift, and my quads were NOT happy with me. I only used 135 for them, and I can probably use more next time, but it was a good learning experience. I had a belt on for the first set, but found when I really used my hips to generate force that the bar would clip the belt, so I did them beltless for the rest of the time and really focused on leg drive and my shoulders.
Clean Pulls
135 3x10
And the ab circuit did not fail to be fucking miserable, either.
3 rounds of 60 second plank and 20 situps.
That’s just never going to get any better, I can tell.
Sorry for the novella folks, even with the baby weights it’s a tough session. It’s also really hard lifting in the same room as a 3 and a 4 year old - only my squats and bench and the pullups are done outside because of the squat stands, the platforms I threw together for the deads/clean pulls are infinitely better on my level floor inside.
Darn kids. I made 7 this morning and then my daughter walks in and goes yummy eggs. Have her two!! Now I have to up the protein at the next meal 
@simo74 it’s our fault- we know that we’re gonna lose some food to our little parasites, gotta factor it in beforehand!
PWO shake: 2 scoops whey (60g protein) and big spoonful of peanut butter
Lunch was 2 3/4 lb patties with cheese, sans bun, and a half packet of steamed mixed veggies.
Dinner:
A lot of salmon
Seasoned with salt and pepper and covered in a thin layer of this beautiful stuff
with a side salad of cucumbers, tomatoes, avocados and spring greens mix, topped with a delicious low-carb balsamic vinaigrette
Consciously cutting out carbs is really leaving room for fuel…
I’d love a slab of that
Finally, someone agrees with w- carbs are a distraction from the good stuff 
Yes and no - if you can keep fat in check, carbs can be pretty useful for gaining size, but they seem to have wildly different effects on different people. The problem is, I’m a New Yorker and I could live off of pizza, bagels, and egg sandwiches in kaiser rolls for the rest of my life if I had to. Plus a really good baguette is incredible. And french fries/potatoes in general. I’m actually a fuckin’ carbaholic through and through. Fortunately, I’m in Virginia where 99% of the bagels, pizza, egg sandwiches, and bread suck ass, AND I love meat enough to just eat it until I have no room for carbs.
Tell me about it. I can’t deal with fat much. Carbs I can eat till the cows come home, whether I’m dieting or gaining weight.
I have been really considering an All Meat All The Time diet lately, and if I do I will be able to blame you just a little.
I’ve been liking so many posts Flap.
I didn’t know you were former Marine, must have missed it somewhere. Thank you for your service.
Awesome job on the second day.
As much as I love carbs, I tend to function more predictably without them. I.e., having the “same” bowl of oatmeal for breakfast on two successive days might mean I’m super-energetic one day, and lethargic the other.
And thus, Fred Hatfield’s advice “Eat for what you’re going to be doing and not for what you’ve done” does not work that well for me as a general rule. Hence, I skew my carb-intake to be during/post-workout which pans out fine as I train after the end of the workday.
Eating butter gives me a buzz like caffeine, which is weird because I generally don’t digest fats well
Just so you all know, you’re making him twitch when you say “former” Marine - they’re for life
Hahah you know your stuff - but my views on that have shifted. Still got the work ethic, but I’m not a Marine anymore. Don’t yell at work, when I’m a supervisor I take a pretty soft hands-off approach, have a full beard, etc.
Some people never stop being Marines, and sometimes they just come off like douchebags. Maybe if I’d been in some crazy shit I’d see it differently, but my deployments, despite being with infantry, weren’t anything super scary, no PTSD or Purple Hearts for me, and I thoroughly enjoy being a civilian these days.
Still got a bit of a short fuse and a tendency to murder myself in workouts, so in that sense I’m still a Marine/grunt, but that’s probably more brainwashing than it is a lasting sense of duty, haha.
I’ve been doing this for breakfast and lunch the last couple weeks, only having carbs at dinner. I thought I would be like crap (and it may be a placebo), but I honestly feel pretty damn great.
My time was relatively busy, but I don’t think I’m any crazier than when I went in. I really liked that job, for the most part; unfortunately, you can’t do it forever. Well, I couldn’t do it forever.
If anything, my temperament is better. That’s age, though.
On the carbs discussion, my experience has always been that I feel “lighter” in the absence of carbs, even with high fats. Carbs just seem to bog me down, and it’s hard for me to put in a solid performance after having eaten them.
However, it’s also like being an Indy car vs a Honda Civic, because when I really slash the carbs and jack up the fats and proteins, I can put out one helluva single performance on a topset and then I am just hurting for the rest of the workout. During times when my carbs are higher, I feel sluggish and unable to give my best, but can train for longer periods at a sub-optimal output.
That actually makes a ton of sense: anecdotally, it seems like you see strongmen/ powerlifters err toward higher fat diets, and CrossFit athletes and bodybuilders preferring carbs
The glycogen needs between the different styles of training are substantially different. I’ve shared this comparison from an article before,
Yeah, I’m gonna keep to Jon’s recommendations during this, and until I finish I can’t say anything one way or the other, but thus far I perform best on a moderate amount of carbs centered around training.
Deep Water: Beginner Program Week 1, Day 3
Push Press
10x10
Sets 1, 8-10 with 95, sets 2-7 with 105. Upped the weight after set 1 and burned out by set 8, had to drop it back down.
Lateral Raises
With a 25 lb plate, 3x10 each arm, no rest between a
BB Curls
65 5x10
3 rounds of 20 Superman’s and 20 sit-ups, no rest.
Definitely harder after 10 hours at work, but got it done in a timely fashion. Will write up some thoughts on the workout later.