Cav - Yeah my knees were swaying a bit. I’ve had very tight ‘trouser hams’ (buttocks) since I came back from London. That wasn’t meant to be a boast BTW. I think it’s from all that walking on concrete. I often had to stop and do a standing piriformis stretch in the street to relieve it. Fortunately in London nothing looks weird! Of course that could all be me making excuses for bad form!
It’s still the same gym, just now 3/4 full of furniture. I realise the move thing must sound confusing, so I’ve attached a pic. It’s a few years old, but it shows the house on the left which we’ve sold with the field in the foreground and I now live in the building in the middle and still own the green bit of sloping field and everything to the right. My gym is the building to the left and slightly behind the polytunnel.
Alexus - Definitely get stuck into some 20 rep squatting, but go for back squats. The front squats are just too hard breathing wise. I know back squats are hard work too due to oxygen debt from the sheer amount of work, but the fronts are hard because they ‘physically’ restrict your breathing. Each time you breathe out you can’t expand your chest as much the next time. In the same way that people die benching by getting stuck under the bar, you gradually suffocate because of the weight on the chest.
Joe - Great avatar. The weather has been so shitty here of late I haven’t done any cardio, so I’m trying to kill two birds with one stone.
James - This w/o was just something to give me a bit of everything while I choose a goal. I’ve decided on the 20 rep squat target by the Spring. I think I’m done with low rep squatting. My knees just don’t like it anymore. I want to still be lifting in my seventies so I need to start being sensible.
Oh, so you moved . . . 50 ft? Well, I’m easily confused, I may be moving myself within the next couple of weeks . . . or maybe not . . . hard to think. Thought you were getting some cottage down in Portugal, maybe I’m thinking of someone else.
Chins @ bw x 13 and a quarter (that quarter is important)
Military Press @ 137.5 lbs x 10
One Arm DB Row @ 80 lbs x 9
Push Ups with feet elevated @ bw + 44 lbs x 12
Band Pullaparts x 22
Face Pulls @ 55 lbs x 15
EZ 21s @ 70.4 lbs x 1 set
Ab Rollouts (off knees) x 25
28 minutes.
Hadn’t back squatted in ages, so didn’t know quite how heavy to start. The 220 felt a bit light, not half as hard as the front squats, but I can barely get in and out of the car today. Just shows different = soreness.
Here is some good news. My wife has always had high cholesterol. It’s a family thing, both her Father and Brother died young from heart problems (that’s not the good news).
The first time she had it checked it was 7.2 and she was put on statins, but despite being on Lipitor for quite a few years it has never got lower than 5.4.
About 6 months ago we started a low carb diet together. It’s not quite Atkins, not quite Paleo. We call it a ‘natural’ diet, nothing processed. We eat plenty of meat, fish, eggs, dairy products (including cream and butter), nuts, vegetables, some fruit (not too much) and olive oil. We don’t attempt to eat as much fat as possible, a’la Atkins, but we don’t try to avoid it either. A normal day would be breakfast of full fat yoghurt and fruit with a bit of honey or eggs and bacon. Lunch would be fish; cured meat or cheese with salad and dinner is always fish or meat with vegetables. Hardly any bread, pasta or rice. We still eat a fair amount of potatoes, but Sandra less often than me.
She has been losing weight consistently throughout and does not even feel like she’s on a weight loss diet, no hunger pains, cravings or suffering at all. Anyway to get to the point, she had her cholesterol checked last week and it was…wait for it… 3.9!! The lowest it’s ever been and way lower than Lipitor has managed to get it. Take that you Pfizer bastards.
I think ‘real world’ proof that fat isn’t the villain. I thought I believed it wasn’t, but it’s hard to be sure when in this country our government and National Health Service are STILL telling us that high carb, low fat is the way to go, in spite of obesity and diabetes spiralling out of control.
Great news and great post FB. (not sure how the cholesterol #s correlate to the ones used here though, will have to google later)
The crazy thing is, I think people on those devilish statins probably are encouraged to eat like crap once their numbers are (artificially) lowered. Do those artificially lowered #s even actually lower the risk of disease???
edit to add: most “health conscious” people (including the diet guys on this site) seem to equate rice to potatoes in terms of “acceptability”
edit again to add: Wow! Those are awesome results!!!
James - TI think I’m done with low rep squatting. My knees just don’t like it anymore. I want to still be lifting in my seventies so I need to start being sensible.[/quote]
Good news about the wifes cholesterol. Just getting back to you on the 3 sec pause squat , my opinion is they don’t help your 1 rep max and may hurt it alot. Good to find your weak spot though, just not in fixing it. Like your WO as of late.
[quote]FarmerBrett wrote:
Alexus - Definitely get stuck into some 20 rep squatting, but go for back squats. The front squats are just too hard breathing wise. I know back squats are hard work too due to oxygen debt from the sheer amount of work, but the fronts are hard because they ‘physically’ restrict your breathing. Each time you breathe out you can’t expand your chest as much the next time. In the same way that people die benching by getting stuck under the bar, you gradually suffocate because of the weight on the chest.
[/quote]
but that is half the fun - right? i’d be worried about how my lower back would cope with the volume… i’ll see, though. might work the high rep trap bar deadlift for a bit just because it is easy on my lower back…
really wonderful to hear about your wifes cholesterol! phenomenal what diet can do. i’m experimenting with low gluten at the moment (fairly easy since my flatmate is nearly gluten free). will be interested to see what (if anything) that does for me.
About 6 months ago we started a low carb diet together. It’s not quite Atkins, not quite Paleo. We call it a ‘natural’ diet, nothing processed. We eat plenty of meat, fish, eggs, dairy products (including cream and butter), nuts, vegetables, some fruit (not too much) and olive oil. We don’t attempt to eat as much fat as possible, a’la Atkins, but we don’t try to avoid it either. A normal day would be breakfast of full fat yoghurt and fruit with a bit of honey or eggs and bacon. Lunch would be fish; cured meat or cheese with salad and dinner is always fish or meat with vegetables. Hardly any bread, pasta or rice. We still eat a fair amount of potatoes, but Sandra less often than me.
She has been losing weight consistently throughout and does not even feel like she’s on a weight loss diet, no hunger pains, cravings or suffering at all. Anyway to get to the point, she had her cholesterol checked last week and it was…wait for it… 3.9!! The lowest it’s ever been and way lower than Lipitor has managed to get it. Take that you Pfizer bastards.
[/quote]
Hmmph. I’ve been on Paleo and near Paleo for years, and they still have to put me on Lipitor. Lucky you.
[quote]punnyguy wrote:
Do those artificially lowered #s even actually lower the risk of disease???
[/quote]
PG - I did a lot of reading when they were first prescribed to her. I could find some evidence they work for people who already have heart disease, but very little for those who don’t and ABSOLUTELY NO EVIDENCE AT ALL that says they work for women. My wife asked me, after I’d shown her what I’d read, if she should still take them and I said yes. It’s one thing to make decisions about your own health but quite another to make them about your nearest and dearest.
BN - True, sensible is probably not the right word to describe 20 rep squats, but even though they are hard work, they aren’t hard on me old knees.
Dude - Thanks. Interesting what you say about the pause squats. I’ll bear that in mind.
dday - Thanks. Didn’t realise you were on holiday, that’s why I thought you’d had a relapse. Serves me right for skimming eh?
alexus - I think back squats, front squats, deadlifts or trap bar deadlifts would all work just as well. Big compound, multi joint exercise x heavy weight x 20 reps = RESULTS!
OG - Thanks buddy.
James - Plan is to do 20 rep squats 3 x a week. To start I’m going to add 10 lbs per session until it starts to get a bit difficult, then drop the increases to 5-10 lbs per WEEK with the other 2 sessions becoming ‘baseline’ workouts of 220 lbs x 20. I found having a baseline workout on the Russian Squat Routine (inbetween the harder sessions) left me feeling fresher than having no squat workout!
Moved the GHRs further back from the squats so they don’t suffer so much.
I was right, I couldn’t do one of those ab rollout thingies!! LOL. So I did a pause in the stretched position instead.
Might have to start leaving a bit more of a breather between exercises to keep up the quality. It’s hard to do some exercise when you’re puffing like a steam train.
DAMN!!! I might have a sore throat coming. Visited a friend the other day who is a ‘health freak’, all organic mung beans, tantric alfalfa sprouts and yoga bollocks, but everytime I see her she always has a runny nose or a cold.
Matty - Thanks. I keep meaning to go through it twice, but by the end of it I’m happy to just call it a day.
PG - Thanks. I really hated Benny Hill growing up (I still do). I was a little prude back then and found it very embarrassing to watch it with my family. That friend I mentioned takes being spiritual and alternative to the extreme. Normally I find it amusing, but once we were discussing medecine and she said if her child had cancer she would take him to a herbalist or acupuncturist rather than a hospital!! That I find very disturbing.
Came across these when moving. 20+ years worth of training diaries. I was intending to chuck them out, I never refer to them, but when it came down to it I couldn’t bring myself.
I am the only person in my family (siblings and parents) who eats full-fat foods and plenty of meat. I am also the only one who isn’t overweight. Hmm. The introduction of artificial sweeteners and low/no-fat foods has been a real crime, I believe.
20 reps! And I was proud of my 10. Always gotta one-up me, don’t you?
And about British humor: My daughter watched a Monty Python film at a friend’s house the other night. She said it was so “awkward” and asked why British people found those things funny. Quite honestly, though, I find you to be one of the funniest people on the site.
