hope your spine comes right soon.
- learn to walk
- weight it up
i’m looking forward to some overhead carries - but i’ll put them on the one day list for now.
hope gym #2 is a bit more inspiring for you.
[quote]alexus wrote:
hope your spine comes right soon.
- learn to walk
- weight it up
i’m looking forward to some overhead carries - but i’ll put them on the one day list for now.
hope gym #2 is a bit more inspiring for you.
[/quote]
Thanks Alexus! My spine is just fine, maybe a little weary after all the DL tonight that’s all. I’m a pro and I take pride in actually following my own advice. I’m laying on an ice pack this very moment. Also poured a few fingers of Glenfiddich. Can’t hurt. You know, for medicinal purposes. After I do some decompression tomorrow I’ll be as good as new!
WHOA. sigh i love your legs ms Veg!!! 
you keep those picts up and comin yo!
hope the wonky stiffness is gone for good!
you mentionned the G word.
it will get all the boys excited now! You should see my husband’s face when I use it for marinade. lol.
Whoa babe, you’ve been killing it in the gym while I wasn’t. Very awesome stuff, loving the back work especially.
Awesome pics as well, I should print them out to take to the gym with me for inspiration.
[quote]
After the first time, you think that they would stay clear, but that would’ve been entirely to sensible. [/quote]
Some things will be just too close to right to do =D
Jeez I miss ERRRRRYTHING.
Attempting to catch up on logs now that my work unblocked TNation and I seem to have full computer screen access. Um, you are NOM and STRONG.
[quote]Cal Jones wrote:
That’d be me. You can stick your elbows in my piriformis anytime, sugar.[/quote]
lol
nice work VEG!
Took yesterday off in the interest of not being an idiot and pushing while my back was less than 100%. I did get on the spinal decompression table at the office, I did ice my back a few times last evening/night, and I plan to get adjusted and do more decompression today if its still indicated.
The morning schedule ends pretty early, so I’m planning to head to the gym during my extra-long break and do some stretching, some pullups, some pushups, maybe some other BW stuff and then go lay in the sauna. That ALWAYS makes me feel better.
Hope you get back to 100% soon. I always find just hanging on the bar does my back good.
[quote]Nadia Comeandeat wrote:
Hope you get back to 100% soon. I always find just hanging on the bar does my back good. [/quote]
Yup that is definitely in the plan for today. Schedule at the office is brutally slow today, so I might go home for a siesta and then hit the gym tonight. Haven’t decided. My spine was, not suprisingly, a wreck. Got adjusted about an hour ago. Effectively, my mid-back was twisted in one direction and my low back in the other. Yowser! No wonder it’s been so tight!
Looking stong and sexy in those pics!
Hopefully that adjustment fixes things up and you can get back to hitting it hard!
Ok. So I am officially back in action. As I suspected, things were just irritated, no actual injury. After a personal interaction pissed me off at the beginning of my lunch break, the visit to the gym was as much for my mind and spirit as it was for my body. Oh, and I was hungry before I went to train, so I ate 2 vegetable rolls from the Chinese joint that’s down the strip from my office. Training went well, felt really good.
Pullups/chinups: ~25, different grips in sets of 3-5 (I didn’t count b/c I was still aggravated by what happened. Also, I hung from the bars to stretch my back.)
Pullovers (machine): 3x8x85
Medicine ball pushups (ball under each hand): 10x10
Side planks, planks for 30sec. each
Done
My back is feeling decent. The tightness is more in the thoraco-lumbar junction now. I’m confident that I’ll be ok to squat, etc. tomorrow. Tonight will be an early night at the office too, so I plan to rest up later.
It’s from all the dang farmers walks & OH carries… I know cause my back is oh so tight in the very region you talk of! Oh & good stuff per your usual standard. That is a pile of pushups.
Veg,
If you haven’t already, try to do some reverse hypers, they really help with lower back pain. It seems counter-intuitive, like the exercise should make your back hurt MORE but in reality it places your lumbar spine in traction, opens up the discs and gets some healing bloodflow in there. Also, it helps build up the strength/mass in the glutes, not that you need any help in that department!
If your gym doesn’t have a reverse hyper machine try this setup. Ideally you would have some weights/load on your ankles to help stretch at the bottom, so if you feel comfortable try to put a DB in there or something?
I sure wish I had your knowledge when I twang some body part or another. Great news that you are back in action!
Planks suck. They are certainly useful and appropriate, but I need to be made to do them.
Thank you well-wishers. I really am just fine. Only a minor one day setback. Probably should schedule in a little more rest from time to time. Problem is, I love to train. I can’t even express how much better I felt when I was in there working today. I didn’t push it, but the more I did the better I felt. Such an awesome thing.
N8tive- You’re right and yes, that was a pile of pushups. I like doing them like that b/c I can get some depth going, really stretch my pecs.
Most Major- My gym doesn’t have a reverse-hyper, but I’ve been on one at private PL/Strongman gym nearby. Feels great, but I had some crazy ASIS bruises, not too sexy, ya know?! I may attempt the version in the vid, but w/my luck I’d roll off the side. We’ll see.
Kimba- I’ll be honest, I can’t say I <3 planks. But, I do like them. The thrill of the challenge I guess. I also have some masochistic tendencies…
About the hypers: my commercial gym doesn’t have a reverse hyper either (what a surprise, huh) but I still do them, just not the way the video shows. I think I’d fall off the ball doing it that way.
I usually do them backwards off the 45 degree hyper. Set it high enough that your feet don’t touch the ground, put your hips on the top end of the bench and grab the ankle pads. I usually roll one of those yoga mats and put it over the top for a little extra cushioning and will put a db between my ankles. Not as good as the real thing but it feels pretty good.
[quote]buckeye girl wrote:
I usually do them backwards off the 45 degree hyper. Set it high enough that your feet don’t touch the ground, put your hips on the top end of the bench and grab the ankle pads. I usually roll one of those yoga mats and put it over the top for a little extra cushioning and will put a db between my ankles. Not as good as the real thing but it feels pretty good.[/quote]
This is brilliant! Never underestimate a motivated lifter. I’d love to see the frat curlers’ faces when you’re doing these.
[quote]Most Major wrote:
[quote]buckeye girl wrote:
I usually do them backwards off the 45 degree hyper. Set it high enough that your feet don’t touch the ground, put your hips on the top end of the bench and grab the ankle pads. I usually roll one of those yoga mats and put it over the top for a little extra cushioning and will put a db between my ankles. Not as good as the real thing but it feels pretty good.[/quote]
This is brilliant! Never underestimate a motivated lifter. I’d love to see the frat curlers’ faces when you’re doing these.[/quote]
X2 Super brilliant!
Thanks for the idea BG, I’ll have to try that one.
Woke up today with my back feeling normal. Hurray. Today is my scheduled squat/leg day, so this was a nice development. I went to the gym in the early afternoon to avoid the crowd. My plan was to reel myself in a bit on the intensity and do some higher rep work just to be sure that there wasn’t anything weird still going on anywhere along my spine. Success. I had the best leg session that I’ve put up in 2 weeks regarding feel and form. Weight was a little lighter than usual on the squats, but at least now I know that I’m fully functional. My iPod was kind to me too, it picked some good stuff while shuffling (I’m too lazy to make play lists.) Metallica to Mingus. My theme song, the one that was part of the inspiration for my given name came on right as I got under the bar to squat! It was the long, rockin’ version. I knew I was gonna have a good session.
Warmup: Usual wall squats and spiderman crawls, but I did 3x as much as usual. By the time I got under the bar, I was feeling nice and loose.
Squat: 1x10x95, 1x8x115, 1x8x125, 1x8x135, 1x8x145, 1x6x155 (Form started to suffer from all the reps, so I stopped.)
GM: 1x10x95 (Left wrist got sore, sometimes I have issues w/the wide grip necessary for these. My wrists take a beating at work, so I don’t fuck around.)
RDL: 1x10x145, 1x8x175, 1x8x195
Decided to try out the front-loaded bulgarians that have been floating around the logs. I stood around trying to figure out how/where to set them up. Considered doing them in the squat rack, but I had been using it for a while. Finally settled for a random space in between a pulldown machine and a smith machine. This is one of the few exercises that I actually like to watch myself do in the mirror. (You know, because I look cool! Actually, I like to be able to see the bench when I reach back with my leg to set up.) I also like to go way-deep, so I do them with my front foot on a step; Today I used 3 risers for the step. One more thing, I must admit that I NEVER use a clean grip for my front squats. Just cross my arms over that bar like a pussy. Again, why take the chance with my wrists. But, because of my set-up I didn’t have much choice but to clean the bar. No big deal, but I did use a pre-loaded ez-bar. Still pussy.
Front-loaded bulgarian split squat: 1x6x70, 1x10x70, 1x9x70 per leg
Core work: wipers w/swiss ball, jandas
Finished
A few notes/updates:
-
My brother has been in the gym 4 or 5 times since last Thursday. Very good news. He really needs something positive to do right now and training, even if it is on some of the machines, is the perfect activity. He actually showed up there while I was doing the bulgarians. I spotted him in the mirror. He’s hard to miss w/all of his tattoos.
-
The kinesiotaping experiment is going really well. Feeling good and some observed changes. Yesterday I got adjusted by a doc who was covering for my boss. He hasn’t adjusted me since late January. When he was palpating and doing his analysis he mentioned that my muscle tone along the posterior chain seemed more balanced, and my right hammie seemed much less tight than the last time he worked on me. To me, this is pretty good proof that what I’m trying to achieve w/the k-tape is working. No bias either because he had no idea that I had been getting taped. Nice.