[quote]AngryVader wrote:
Does your company have an ‘ergonomic guy’? My upper back and neck would get sore all the time from sitting at my desk all day. After the ergonomic guy came by he totally changed my setup and now I don’t have any neck or upper back soreness. A lot of it was just simple shit, like my chair was too high and my monitors were too low, but it made a huge difference.[/quote]
Oh you have no idea how funny this is to me, at the expense of my company not you. See, the day job is with one of the very large telephone/internet/now cable TV corporations. So even though we constantly achieve record high profits, somehow they could no longer afford to have any luxuries like that, or even a lunch once in awhile. Hell, in a building with hundreds of desk jockey employees we can’t even get one on site IT person.
The most we get is a bullshit online ergonomics class that’s done once per year. Occasionally my team leader of all people will come by and check how we’re positioned, but mostly it’s to make sure we’re not slouched and sleeping.
Wouldn’t make much difference if we had those people anyway because nothing is adjustable on our chairs and desks. Yay corporate life!
[quote]Doug Adams wrote:
AngryVader wrote:
Does your company have an ‘ergonomic guy’? My upper back and neck would get sore all the time from sitting at my desk all day. After the ergonomic guy came by he totally changed my setup and now I don’t have any neck or upper back soreness.
A lot of it was just simple shit, like my chair was too high and my monitors were too low, but it made a huge difference.
Oh you have no idea how funny this is to me, at the expense of my company not you. See, the day job is with one of the very large telephone/internet/now cable TV corporations.
So even though we constantly achieve record high profits, somehow they could no longer afford to have any luxuries like that, or even a lunch once in awhile. Hell, in a building with hundreds of desk jockey employees we can’t even get one on site IT person.
The most we get is a bullshit online ergonomics class that’s done once per year. Occasionally my team leader of all people will come by and check how we’re positioned, but mostly it’s to make sure we’re not slouched and sleeping.
Wouldn’t make much difference if we had those people anyway because nothing is adjustable on our chairs and desks. Yay corporate life![/quote]
Wow! I should never be surprised when I hear stuff about large corporations being cheap and treating their employees like shit (especially since my company isn’t much different), but it still always blows me away to hear about stuff like this.
Sorry to hear that though. What can you do, right?
Thanks man. It’s one of the reasons why I looked around online for training advice and found this site. The advice I’d get from other people, even doctors, made absolutely no sense to me so I knew I’d have to find solutions myself.
Anyhoo, here’s today’s schtuff.
10/03: Chopper! Sic Balls!
A. Pullups: 6,5,5,5,4,3
B1. Rack Pulls: 225x10, 265x8,7,4 or 5 I think
B2. Shoulder Ext. Rotation(No Money Drill: 3x10
C. Fat Man Row Hold: 3 static holds @ full contraction
D1. One Arm Row: 60x8,8,8
D2. Pushup Holds: 3x30sec
E1. Concentration Curls: 30x8,6,6,5
E2. Seated External Rotations: 5x12,12,12
F. 22 minutes incline treadmill whilst watching “Stand By Me”. One of my absolute favorite movies growing up.
I cut the weight down on the one arm rows to get a better contraction in my back, and it worked. Normally on my right side I can feel my middle traps/rhomboids working but not on my left. Well that left side fired up nicely tonight so I’m happy.
I’ll probably do some intervals tomorrow for something to do. Then, I’ll knock back a couple cocktails and watch Ken Shamrock take a dive tomorrow night.
10/04 Good Buddy
Reverse Crunches: 3x12
Pullups: 5,4,3
8 minutes of intervals on elliptical machine
20 minutes incline treadmill
Just felt like doing something considering I wanted to have pizza and beer later. I planned on doing more intervals, but after making even more of an effort to use my hips and not just my quads, I was fried.
Legs should be fun tomorrow.
10/05: Hating Zebras
A. Swiss Ball Leg Curls: 20, 14
B. Broad Jumps: 5x5
C. Front Squats: 135x6,6,6,6,4
D. Lunges: 50sx8/side, 6/side
E. Standing Calf Raises: 170x20
F. Seated Calf Raises: 90x20,20
G. Swiss Ball Leg Curl: 20
H. 12 minutes incline treadmill
Pissed off about Ravens game today. One mistake, that shouldn’t have even counted, screwed everything up. Oh, and where’s this vaunted defense they supposedly have? Seems like it disappears when needed the most.
Oh yeah, training was tough and all that.
10/06: Cabbie Gimmie A Push
A1. Swiss Ball Pushups: 5 sets, 10 more total reps than last time.
A2. Kneeling Rockbacks: 4x8
B1. Pushups: 4 sets, 2 less reps than last time
B2. Miniband Pullaparts: 4x10
C. Pushup Holds: 30sec, 26sec, 24 sec
D. Dip Machine: 140x21,14
E. 10 minutes elliptical
Totally blew my wad on the ball pushups and it showed in the next couple exercises. I actually thought I was killing my regular pushup numbers too, until I looked at my last session.
I think the extra shoulder stretching/rolling is really helping me out because I felt stronger today.
I think I’ll add weight to the dip machine next time, with the goal of eventually scrapping the machine altogether and doing regular dips.
10/07: Debate Schmebate
I watched a couple minutes of the debate between the two possible candidates to lead my nation for the next 4 years. I then quickly realized I had more important things to do such as update this log, and take a shit. They really could replay the same debate every 4 years and photoshop the heads of the new candidates onto their respective party’s representative. Same old same old, especially since my state’s electoral votes are already Obama’s.
A. Pullups: 7,6,5,5,4
The last two sets were a little rough, so I’ll try to clean up the form a bit before going for more reps.
B. Trap Bar Deadlifts: 225x7, 275x5,4,4, 245x7,5
Had to settle for these because the racks were full again. Form was also a little off on these, so I’ll stay put on the weight whenever I do these again.
C. One Arm DB Rows: 60x9,10,15
The first two sets were controlled, while the last one was getting the reps in any way I could without going too nuts.
D1. Concentration curls: 30x8,6,7,5
D2. Seated External Rotations: 3x12 w/ 5
My shoulder is feeling a whole lot better. I’m thinking a couple more weeks of this and I may start benching again. High five!
10/09: Fairy Boy Edition
This was supposed to be front squat/lunge/whatever else day, but my left knee was bugging me and my hips didn’t feel quite right. So instead, I did a bunch of hamstring/post. chain and ab junk.
A1. Swiss Ball Leg Curls: 10,10,10,10
A2. Reverse Crunches: 12,12,12,10
B1. Pullthroughs: 45x10,10,10,15
B2. Kneeling Pallof Presses: 45x3 sets of 3 10 second holds/side
I really need to do more pullthroughs.
C1. Lying Leg Curl: 50x8,8,8
C2. Seated Calf Raises: 70x15, 90x15,20
C3. Split Squat Holds: 3x30sec/side
While I wasn’t fall-on-my-face exhausted after this session, my hips were feeling great so I consider it mission accomplished. In order to get a little more leg work in, I’ll do some walking lunges when I do my next upper push session tonight or tomorrow.
Diet Update/Rant:
I’ve been lo-carbing it for the past few weeks and lost a couple pounds which is cool. This week however, I’ve gone completely off the wagon. For some reason my boss bought pizza for every shift, and there were 5 whole pies left over in the fridge. Hearing Their call, I did my best to lay waste to those leftovers. I’m definitely not proud of myself, but what’s done is done.
Today I was trying to get back on the wagon, but some asshole making over $60k per year thought they needed to steal my can opener! Now I can’t have my fucking green beans and I’m not too happy about that. Cocksuckers.
10/11: I’ll Settle Out Of Court Right Now For 20 Bucks.
A1. Dips: 9,10,8,6,5
A2. Back Extensions: 3x15
B1. Pushups: 4 sets, forgot reps
B2. Back Extensions: 3x15
C1. Cable Machine Press: 30x8, 25x10,10
C2. Pallof Press: 70x8/side,8,8
D1. One Arm Floor Press: 70x4,4
D2. Prone Ys: 2.5s x 10
E. Cable Pushdowns: Drop sets on stack to failure
I know I said before I’d wait awhile on dips, but my shoulder has been feeling good so I gave them a shot. As long as I kept my abs braced and didn’t let my shoulders get loose, everything felt ok. Now it’s time to get those rep numbers up.
I was trying out the cable press, and came to the conclusion they’re retarded. The movement felt funny, and while letting go of the handles I managed to wrench my upper back real good. Not good times right now. Rack pulls are definitely out tomorrow, if I lift at all.
10/12: One For The Commandant! One For The Corps!
A1. Pullups: 10x3
A2. Various stretches and mobility shite betwixt pullup sets
B. Nautilus Pulldown: 90x15, 130x15, 140x15,7…4…3
C1. Cable Row: 120x7, 110x8,?,?
C2. Scap Pushups: 3x10
D1. Prone Shrugs: 25x10,10,10
D2. Hammer Curls: 30x6+35x4, 35x6,6,?
E1. Light Cable Straight Arm Pullovers: 20x12, 25x12,12
E2. Rope Cable Curls: 2 sets
F. 10 minutes incline treadmill
Since I wasn’t up to doing the rack pulls today, I figured I’d make up for the heavy weight by doing a whole lot more volume-wise. The shoulder seemed to hold up ok, with only the pullups giving any remote amount of trouble.
10/14: Home- My Lower Body Elba
Lunges: 101 total per leg, with 30 per leg elevated
Green Band Pullthroughs: 90 total reps
Swiss Ball Leg Curls: 10,8,7,6
And that’s it. On the last few sets of lunges I was wobbling around like a drunken sailor who still doesn’t have his land legs back. This should not be the case, and I can’t help but think being bad at this stuff is part of a reason why my lower body lifts suck in general.
So, the plan for now is to get all these numbers up. I want 100 total elevated reverse lunges per leg, 100 ball curls, and 100 blue band pullthroughs within 1 hour. I will not sacrifice form for better numbers. Since I can do all of this at home, I’m hearby exiling myself from the gym on lower body days. Once the numbers get to where I want them, I’ll go from there.
10/15: Way More Than Double Dippin’
A1. Dips: 10x5
A2. Back Extensions: 6x15
B1. Pushups: 50 total reps, consisting of sets of 6-8 reps
B2. Swiss Ball Ab Rollouts and Kneeling Rockbacks: One or the other done between pushups
C. Scap Pulldowns: 40x15,15,8
D. 11 minutes incline treadmill
The goal is to get to 100 reps of dips and pushups. Good news is my shoulder didn’t bother me, and my traps seem to work better during every workout.
Oh yeah, and I bought two bottles of the new supplement without even reading about it. It’s new so I have to have it. Don’t ask me to explain because I have no idea.
10/16: Go Directly To Jail…
A1. Pullups: 10x3, 1 set of 2
A2. Various Rotator Cuff Stretches
B1. Miniband Pullaparts: 10,12,10,12,12
B2. Foam Roll Pecs and Lats
C1. Side Lying External Rotations: 5x12, 7x12,10
C2. Reverse Crunch: 8,6,6
It gets incredibly frustrating to know you’ve put in work to get better and then find out later you were doing things wrong. Awhile back I was doing these pullaparts for 20 reps, but as it turns out I did them wrong- I wasn’t squeezing my traps like I should. So now to do them right I have to let half of the stupid thing go and use half the tension.
Same deal with abs. I wasn’t contracting correctly and now the reps I thought I gained were all for not. I know I’ll end up better off, but it sucks going back to square 1, for about the tenth time.
10/18: Like Building A Skyscraper On The Beach
During warmup: 100 miniband pullaparts, 40 overhead pullaparts
A1. 100 Split Squats per leg spread over 7 or 8 sets
A2. Static Neck Band Work: 4 sets of 30sec holds front/back/sides w/ purple band
B1. Green Band Pullthrough: 4x7
B2. Purple Band Face Pulls: a few sets for a few reps
C. Swiss Ball Leg Curl: 10,10,10,7ish
The reps on the pullthroughs went waaay down because I braced my abs harder than before, making my grossly underdeveloped hamstrings/glutes do more work. I didn’t realize my back was doing so much before. Yikes!
10/19: Demon In A Bottle
A1. Dips: 61 total reps over 10 sets, up 11 reps from last time
A2. Back Extensions: 6x15
B. Pushups: 52.5 over a bunch of sets, up 2.5 from last time
C. Face Pulls: 20x10 + 30x10, 40x12, 45x12,10,10
For the past couple weeks I’ve been indulging more than usual in the firewater, and I need to cut it out if I want to trim up a bit. Plus it’s starting to effect my sleep, so it’s gotta go for awhile. And by awhile, I of course mean until next weekend.
On the plus side my increased efforts to keep my abs braced seems to make me more efficient in these upper body movements as no force is wasted due to better structural integrity.
Well, Ravens are on in 10 so it’s time to go put my sobriety to the test…
10/20: For Better Accuracy, Don’t Pull The Trigger. Squeeze It.
A. Pullups: 35 total reps over 10 sets- up 3 total reps using 1 less set
B1. Seated Cable Rows: 80x10, 60x10,10, 50x10,10,10
B2. Seated External Rotations: 7.5x10/side,10,10
B3. (Done during the later 3 sets of rows) Behind The Neck Band Pullaparts: Red band 3x10
C. Arc Trainer x 12 minutes
I intentionally went light on the rows because I really wanted to feel my traps squeeze together at the end of the movement without shrugging up. It resulted in a nice little pump I can’t say I’ve really experienced before.
Earlier at work I did the 100 pullaparts and went on a 20 minute walk during lunch. I made myself a deal that I can’t use any more of my 11-T and the new ReceptorMax until I lose 10 pounds. I’m cutting back a bit with my food intake to help speed things up- smaller servings of nuts with each meal and no more cheese at night on the ground beef. I’ll see how it goes.
10/21: 20 minutes on the elliptical and some abs stuff
10/22: Insert Wounded Animal Noises
A1. Green Band Pullthroughs: 10,10, 7 w/ 5 sec holds at extension, 4 w/ holds
A2. Purple Band Iso Neck Holds: 4 sets x 4 positions x 20sec each
B1. Combo of Reverse Lunges and Split Squats for 100 reps
B2. Pullthrough Extension Holds For Time: 20 sec, 30sec, 30sec
C. Swiss Ball Leg Curls: 5,5,7
Doing the pullthroughs first made the split squats a whole lot harder. I was thinking at first “eh, I’ve done enough already”, but then realized I couldn’t do less work than I did last time. So I pressed on. That last set of curls was a crusher and I had to stay on the ground for about 5 minutes to collect myself.
I also did my pullaparts this morning and went for a 24 minute walk during my lunch break, with lots of hills.
10/23: Flap Those Wings
Potentially have movie junk to do tomorrow so I combined the pushin’ and pullin’ tonight
A1. Pullups: 7x3
A2. Dips: 10x6, 1x5
B1. Cable Rows: 60x10, 50x10
B2. Cubano External Rotations: 5x10,2.5x10,10,10
The rows just weren’t feeling right so I cut bait and moved on to something that worked very well-
C. Straight One Arm Lat Pulldowns: 5x12, 10x15, 15x12, 20x12,15
With these weights as low as they are, it’s pretty obvious my serratei (or serratuses?) and lats are ridiculously weak. This definitely isn’t helping my shoulders, as is the crappy ROM I have when doing external rotations for my left shoulder.
There’s a good 20 degree difference from left to right. I’m going to have to do some version of them everyday for awhile until it’s at least the same as my right side. Yeah, no benching until that’s fixed.
[quote]Doug Adams wrote:
Potentially have movie junk to do tomorrow so I combined the pushin’ and pullin’ tonight
B2. Cubano External Rotations: 5x10,2.5x10,10,10
[/quote]
Is this something different from Cuban presses? I could use some variety in my external rotation stuff.
How’s the movie coming along anyway?