yeah wow on the chin-ups. dumbbells between feet… i never thought of that.
Happy birthday
Cool workouts going on in here. Great work on the chinning - I absolutely love w8ted pulls. It is my opinion that you can never do enough pulling - ever. Keep it up!
Thanks n8, hkd, and kimba! Alexus, it can hurt the top of your feet at first but you get used to it quick.
Note to self, need an avi pic pulling more weight.
1/25 and 1/26/11
Sparring class (10/100). Tons of partner drills. Roundhouse, backkick, axe kick, doubles. Pushups. Burpees, etc. All good.
Skipped curriculum class because I forgot my belt. I probably could have stayed, but I think it’s just uncool for a blackbelt to attend class without full uniform.
Squat 5x5 90 (69% 1RM 78% bw) < There’ll be no more wimping out in favor of upper body and dl. These squats are not going to squat themselves, and I’ll never improve without hitting them. Moving up to 95 on Friday.
Bench 1x5 85 (85% 1RM 74% bw) < Almost failed on last rep. At least I am still squatting more than I’m benching.
DB row 2x5 (90% 1RM 39% bw) < I think if I can train 5x5 at 90% my 1RM is probably ready to go up.
Set of inverted rows in the smith machine.
A bunch of random warmups I didn’t record.
Breathing feels pretty damn good today. Taekwondo is really critical to my well-being. I’ve been lifting all year, but I don’t feel pleasure in my body unless I’m jumping around quickly on a regular basis. You cardio-lovers probably do it on your own, but I don’t really move unless someone’s yelling at me.
Happy lifting!
Bench, squats, rows…that looks like a very typical training for me too. Nice work!
I happen to think jumping around/running around/cycling around/skiing around etc. is SUPER important. Maybe not to strength, but to mental well-being and feeling present in one’s body. A pure strength focus is fine and well, but there really is more to it for me.
If TKD does it for you, then AWESOME!
you’re still a kid, who likes to play!
I like that about you, old lady!
30 lb chin up!!! hell yeah!!! happy belated bday. swear i posted but i don’t see it. =+)
I’m reading you!
Happy belated b-day…and awesome work all around. Solid training plus other stuff like Kimba mentioned is important as well. I need to get more ‘play time,’ in as well.
Kimba, 
Bear and Mim, I am lucky to have a family situation that allows me to play and pursue my obsessions. Yay!
deja likes my chins! happy dance
Quads really sore today, which confirms decision to suck it up and just squat already. How embarrassing is it that I am training squats at only 5 lbs less than bench? Pretty damn embarassing. This will not stand. 2011 will be the year of the squat.
For fun, I marked my progress against the strength standards at exrx.net
Lift 1RM intermediate advanced
Bench 100 85 109
Dead 200 142 200
Squat 130 114 150
MPress 72.5 58 76
That is an interesting site. I use it to find exercises to target certain muscles/muscle groups and have referred people to it in the past. I went through the process of determining where I fall on the standard for all my raw lifts. Interesting process for everyone to try.
I think I’m free Friday late afternoon, Arachne, if you wanna meet at the gym and mess around. Well, not like that. But you know what I mean.
I like that site because it has actual published references.
I just checked my calendar and I have the whole afternoon empty! The place up on Kipling? 2 PM?
Argy. Schedules. I could do 4 pm. Is that too late for you?
Maybe. I’m supposed to take a friend out for his birthday in the evening but I’m not sure when that starts. I’ll get back to you. I leave Saturday morning on a business trip.
I am very jealous that I’m missing out on a snapper-spider meetup.
Tragically, I was not able to get away from the office after all.
Very disappointed.
Another time, Ms. Spider.
Happy belated birthday Arachne
and play is vital.
…SCORE! i just found out snap and archane’s gym! 
…umm…but i 'll probably never get a chance to go! oh well…i can dream :{
Thanks main!
brute, some time I’m going to come over to your gym. It seemed pretty cool when they hosted the meet a year or so ago (where I met snapper, pmpm, and soldog)
Well, this past week has been a complete goat-rope. I was at a conference from Saturday to Tuesday and the gym at the schmantzy hotel cost $20/day and it didn’t even look worth it. Then I had an interview on Friday. It was my first interview in 13 years so I prepared on Wed and Thu. It went very well but after that I plunged into a pit of angst, insecurity, and dissatisfaction over my current job and spent the weekend in bed (and mostly not in a good way). By the time I was done, I had come up with a strategy for making my current job more satisfying. Weirdly spending two days in bed and barely eating caused me to gain 2 lbs. What’s up with that??
And here I am again. Don’t I sound whiny?
I’ll skip past Friday and Wednesday’s workouts and start again with today. Again, there’s some warmup I am not capturing, but it’s not extensive.
Squat 3x5 95 (1RM 130) < solid form. I feel good about this progress.
MPress 2x5 60 (1 RM 72.5) bullshit. This still feels heavy and I felt some weird rolling tendon thing so I stopped for the day. Advice appreciated. I managed 4x5 + 1x4 last time and was ready to move up.
Deadlift 1x4 180 (1 RM 200) < pretty awesome. I was shooting for 5 and I almost quit after 3 but my workout buddy told me it looked like i had one more in me. So I attacked the bar thinking “explode, explode” and it actually came up easy. I think this is a breakthrough!
Chinups 1x3 at 132.5 (117.5 bw + 15) (1 RM 148) < I feel great about this. I just reached the limit at which I can’t knock off 5 so here is where I’ll be training next time.
Keep on the heavy side.
Glad your training is going well even if last week was a wash for you.
Any plans to lift in the local meet next month? Sadly, neither PMPM nor Brutus is.