I Like to Pick Heavy Things Up & Put Them Down Again

Hi

I had some really nice interactions with people here so I thought I’d start a training log.

About me:
35 years old
85ish kgs
6 foot 1
natty

Goals

  1. Fixing all the problems I’ve got from using computers 8+ hours a day for example
  2. looking good naked - I got married in the last year so this is more important than usual
  3. having fun/possibly one day coming back to strength or rings/gymnastic competitions

routine
I do a fairly generic full body workout 3 times a week, I’m always happy to get suggestions on how to improve. It’s got a bit of a pull bias because of the tendency for computer programmers to collapse in/forwards on themselves

Historically I’ve done a lot more, but married life means that my time is now less my own than it was. Notably, I’ve also spent some time as a gymnast so a lot of the last 6 years of training has been trying to balance work on rings with work with barbells. Current that split means taking breaks from work to use the Dream Machine and doing a fairly normal routine at a local
bodybuilding gym (their ceilings are too low for even a muscle up).

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Yesterdays Dream machine workout

the dream machine is sort of the bench shirt for rings. If you are good it makes you amazing, if you are bad it makes you mediocre. Most things require about half the force their normal versions do, and it shifts to some degree the muscles the strain is placed on.

I’ve built mine so I can also add weights to make my body heavier or lighter, but unless noted it’s just with bodyweight.

flow:
full planche
maltese cross
full planche
planche press to handstand
fall forward to front lever
front lever hold

I find victorian/ front lever really helpful for getting smaller muscles firing after too long sitting at my desk.

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Yesterdays gym workout

The last few months have been high stress at work so I felt fairly crappy/sore/demotivated at the start

Iyatwl
5kg x 4

I like these as a warmup for gym work generally. After that first set, it felt like i was ready to go!

3 front lever raises
these are basically harder version of the scap activation drill that people do before pull ups

I forgot to spend any time hanging from the bar so i will do that today

pull ups (shoulder width parallel grip)
8x bw+20kg
4 xbw + 20kg , 4x bw+0kg
My form wasn’t the best but I was really happy to finally hit 8 with a good weight.

Machine pull down drop set (shoulder width parallel grip)
135kg x 2+120x2 + 105x1 +85 x 4

I felt like my vertical pull was really coming together! I could certainly used a 15 rather than a 20 for the second set - but its just good to be getting heavy weight into a good rep range.

Natural grip bench with dBs suspended by bands
30kg x 6
30kg x 5
22.5 kg x 4
That was very hard. Currently, I’m hitting 100kg on machine bench and 95kg ish on free bench so this was pretty humbling. Holding bands that lift the dbs means they bounce about and you have to use the supporting muscles a lot more to make things work. This is in part based on advice from @FlatsFarmer as well as all the research that shows the benefit of training with unstable loads.

For the next three months , I think this will be a big part of my programming - but it’ll be interesting to see when i move back to stable weights how this affects my lifts. I am also optimistic about this being a useful joint prehab.

Horizontal row machine (narrow grip)
15 (90kg) x 2 ,13 (75) x 5
12(67.5kg) x 8
10 (52.5) x 10
I was over-optimistic in the first set.

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Hell yeah man, in for the programmer! We can’t all be looking like nerds

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@Andrewgen_Receptors
What do you do to avoid the nerd posture/ the ill effects of computers?

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I’ve always focused heavy on pull muscles, even before I rode a desk, so i never really had issues with posture (was also enlisted, which seems to solve most people’s posture issues lol).

If I were to name drop a single muscle to fix posture - it would be Traps (upper and lower). Past there, likely shoulders, lats, other back muscles. Band Pull-Aparts can do wonders if you just do like a million of them lol. Take like 5min breaks every hour or so and stretch out - do the pull-aparts during that time; they don’t need to be super tough, but enough to feel a good contraction.

You’re probably tuned-in to this, but ergonomics is kind of a bid deal too.

I’ll play around with band pull aparts next time I’m doing a full day. I’ve reschedualed things so i am mainly in meetings yesteerday/today - and now feeling a lot better.

Ergonomics are important. I am currently using a secret labs chair and one of those fancy electric standing desks - although long hours recently have had me to tired to stand at work.

Normally I use a pen mouse which minimises a lot of wrist movements - but I am going to switch back to a penguin for a little while.

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**today’s dream machine session **

I had shoulder pain yesterday so I spent 2 hours at the sauna to stretch and sweat it out (the science behind this is surprisingly good) my shoulder is ok today, but still bad enough i am trying to avoid my keyboard and mouse.

Today i was working on the victorian cross -debatably the most difficult strength element on rings that anyone has achieved, and still rare enough that a video showing everyone that has been recorded lasts 45ish seconds. It’s roughly the same as a reverse fly with your bodyweight - with some extra difficulty coming from what you have to do with your chest and anterior chain.

My impression is that although it’s been rare, improvements in training methods will mean it becomes a lot more common for people competing 5 years from now.

pull to victorian cross
bw/2 -23kg x 3
bw/2 -10kg x 3
bw/2 -5kg x 3
bw/2 -2.5kg 3 fails - i ended up pulling to a high ish front lever

those numbers tell you if i weighed 38ish kgs but still was as strong i’d have the more advanced form of it and probably be able to get an Olympic gold.

roll back to VC holds
bw/2 for 5s
bw/2 + 10kg for 5s x 3

ok so at 52 ish kgs i’d still be able to get the less advanced form of it.

I had no pain through any of that, but as i write this I am fighting to keep my right shoulder from rolling forward. Puts desk in standing mode

I find front lever and VC help with shoulder issues, they both put a lot of force through your rhomboids. I’ll definitely play around with some more direct work - because the shoulder girdle is complex enough that sometimes you can have muscles doing each others work in big compound movements.

Still I’ll be avoiding the keyboard most of today.

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yesterdays workout

Squat with plates suspended from the bar with elastic.
60kg x 8
60kg x 8
60kg x 8
An older guy came up to my wife and me (she was working on her leg press) and told us that I looked like (1) this.

I’ve had an interesting relationship with squats over the years, my guess is that restarting from lower weight and working up, especially with the weights bouncing and trying to push me off a good bar path could be a good idea.

This felt a lot easier than incorporating the elastic suspension into db press - I think the issue is here you have 40kg of plates bouncing around an 85kg+20kg object of me and the bar; whereas with the dbs is 20-30kg bouncing around an arm that weighs ~10kg so its a lot harder to stabilise.

At the time it felt harder than a 60kg squat should - but not really that different. The next day i felt it in my abs- I’ve never got doms from squats there so i am pretty interested in how this is going to unfold.

Pull-down machine slow abbs to bar
50kgx5
78kgx 5
71kg x 5
71kg x 5
39kg x 7
This was good, hopefully, when I’m at a gym with a higher ceiling this is going to translate into better muscle-up form.

Thinking about keyboards and phones I realised that my hands had maybe been spending more time than usual in the supine position - so i decided to throw in some db curls, holding the db off centre so that when I supinate it at the end it works the bit that constant supination stretches.

Db curl
16kg x8
16kg x8
16kg x 5
seemed to work pretty well. I had moved away from db curls as I thought it was better to put the time into compound movements that include the bicep (e.g. planche, pull ups) but as far as i can see they aren’t really doing anything for supination - so perhaps this will help.

I wanted to do this, less as an exercise, more to see if i could get 8 reps out if dropped the weight
Natural grip bench with dBs suspended by bands
25 kg x 5
25 kg x 5
25 kg x 4
the answer seems to be to drop the weight further. It’s crazy how hard this excercise is. I meant to do one set and then move on with a db overhead press - but i kept thinking there is no way i can’t get 8 reps with this weight, and kept failing.

Iyatwl
6kg x 3
We were traveling to a different city so I had to stop early.

I’m sort of thinking of this as play/ exploration of the new concept of suspending the weights rather than a proper workout. after spending the weekend away from keyboards i feel a lot better - and the next week should be much lower stress/ a lower volume of work so hopefully, the sources of shoulder pain are leaving as well as possibly better ways of dealing with it are emerging. I remain optimistic.

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Messing around on the dream machine yesterday and today

In 2019 I had learnt iron cross, but been away from the gymnasium and ended up getting injured because I hadn’t done enough tendon prep, and that’s a big theme in gymnastics. A lot of moves you wither do with body weight or no weight - and if you get your muscles strong enough to get into the right position your tendons might not be.

This made me want to get a dream machine because it lets you half your body weight and added weights either to make it harder or easier. This wasn’t a huge priority so what with marriage and moving house it took till the start of this year to build one, and it’s been great ever since.

It means you can do very gradual build-ups, and make sure you go slow enough that exercise is helping your joints rather than adding to the strain the keyboard gives.

So far this year my project was getting to planche with half body weight, and just practising levers. Eventually, I realised that I was able to do 1/2 bw victorian crosses - so I started training them rather than levers.

6 months in I am pretty confident on planche I really want to sort out my freestanding handstand press up. The dream machine looks like a good option for this - because you can start with whatever amount of assistance you like and then reduce it as you get stronger. Notably, if you have 2kg of resistance that’s quite unlike doing it on a wall where it will resist you horizontally as much as you like and vertically not at all because the 2kg is going to resist you equally in either direction.

Yesterday and today I’ve spent a decent amount of time doing HSPUs in various positions and with the dream machine in various setups to try and work out what is going to make sense at our house.

Currently, I am using palettes (see the image from google below) which means that there is a little less strain on my wrists, but a few extra inches of motion.

as well as a lot of reps to test the setup, the sets so far have been:

HSPU
bw- 26 kg x 3
bw- 26 kg x 5
bw -26 kg x 4
Victorian cross holds
1/2 bw x 3 ( i forget how long but <10 seconds)

I have a lot more strength in the diagonal plane than in the vertical plane so a lot of the difficulty with hspu is trying to keep my body vertical and balanced.

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continuing Dream machine training

due to work, I’ve had to cut down to a few sets whilst things compile a day. These are all at the same weight as above - I’ve been working hard on balance throughout the motion which is the hardest part for me, as well as alternately training 1/2 BW victorian holds

yesterdays gym session

I was hoping to train deadlift early this week, but my wife phone broke and we ended up spending a lot of time at fix it shops etc. I am doing some medical re enactment this weekend so I need my legs free of doms.

This meant i did an upper body session:

IYATWL
5KG X 3
5KG X3

Wife video one of these sets and i was happy to see nothin odd about how my scapula are moving. I’ve had a winged scap before and making sure everything around it is strong and healthy so that doesn’t;'t come back is a big priority.

parallel grip Pull ups
+20kgx 6 +0x 4
+20kg x 4 +0x 4
I was focusing on quality over quantity. I am thinking of putting 10s on the belt rather than a 20 so that if i fatigue i can continue with a 10 rather than 0 or 2.

Pull down machine drop set
135kg x 1,120 x2, 105x 1, 95 x 1 85 x 3

band suspended dumbbell bench press
17.5kg x 12 2 loops
20kg x 10 2 loops
20kg x 10 3 loops
ok - so finally getting decent numbers of reps!

SUPPORTED Horizontal machine row
105kg x8 wide grip not sure reps were deep enough
105 x 8shoulder/ neutral grip much deeper
80kg x 10 wide grip deep reps

Seated, band suspended dB press
15kg x 6 2 loops
15kg x6 2 loops

those were my favourite exercise. Unfortunately, I had to get home so didn’t do the third set - but having the dbs bounce around makes it so much harder. Doing HSPU, even on rings or inverted kettlebell presses don’t hit as hard as this.

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Last week I had a minor ish infection, and I had some time on antibiotics/ away from the gym after coming back from the reenactment event. Whilst I was there I noticed that my conditioning was not nearly as good as I expected - that might have been due to the infection or just the years of lockdowns taking their toll on me.

It was good to get back to the gym last night.

Yesterdays Gym Session
My shoulders weren’t feeling great after a lot of time at the computer so i started off with these

Iyatwl
2x 7.5 + 2 x 5 + 2 x 2.5
Pauses at top

(all weights in kgs)

My shoulders certainly weren’t as bad as when I started this log book - but it’s good to get all the little muscles woken up before you put any strain on them.

Deadlift
60kg x 2
100kg x 2
140kg x 2
160kg with belt x 1
170kg x1 forgot valsalva
150 x 2 valsalva
150x 2 valsalva belt in

This year i spent some time rethinking my deadlift, making sure my shoulder blades are being pulled towards the base of my spine and don’t drift forwards. In the midst of doing that really well, I forgot my Valsalva at one point and I think I may have made that rookie mistake of letting my butt move up before my head.

Seated Ohp with dumbells suspended with resistance bands
17.5kg x 8
17.5kg x 6 +2 without elastic
15kg x 8

I reached failure a little early in the second set so I continued that set without the bands, then reduced the weight and added back bands for the next.

This is probably my favourite exercise at the moment. OHP variations do really well at recruiting a lot of muscle around the shoulder girdle - but I’m feeling far more doms from this than I’ve ever felt from shoulder presses before.

Pull up
bw+20kg x 5
bw+20kg x 2 0kg x 6
I added these in at the end to counterbalance the compression from deadlifts so wasn’t that bothered about the numbers.

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yesterdays dream machine session

1/2 bw flow

Because these are skills and my weight varies day to day i thought it was worth having some fun and seeing what could do before i got back to training hspu and victorian

planche

i was supprised that i could hold it so i decided to try and initiate movement from that position

messy plance to handstand
had to press to handstand from a headstand position in the end
attempt at inverted cross
drop to attempted victorian corss ends in front lever
rotation to back lever

I can still do most things, just not very well. I’ve moved across the UK so it’s not easy for me to see my old coach. In the autumn I’d be interested in looking for one again depending on the other elements of my life.

yesterdays gym session

neutral grip Pull up
Bw+ 25x 3, x 2 bw +15 x 3
Bw +25 x 2, x1 bw +15 x 2, bw x 2

Pull down machine
135 x 0, 120x 0, 105 x 1 90 x4, 80 x 4

i started doing my last set of pull-ups as a drop set of lat pull-downs when I was finishing my PhD and didn’t have money for a dip belt. It made sense - because I wanted to always get a little high-weight training with all the volume. It’s starting to make less sense now as the higher weight pull-ups are now meaning I’ve got a lot less of that energy reserve for this movement.

So I think I’ll start doing 3 sets of pull ups. rather than including this on pull up days.

band Suspended Db bench
25kg x 8 2 loops
Huge contraction
touching floor :frowning:
25kg x 5 2 loops failure + 25 no suspension x3
20kg x 7

I was happy-ish with this - it’s taken a while for me to get to a place where I can do sets of this exercise, and i definitely feel a deep burn in my chest today as I write this. Notably, I have the dbs touching the floor at the bottom so I am losing some of the activation I could be getting with a different set-up, so there are still good reasons to play around with the loops.

Honestly I really like the fact that you can start with the dbs on the floor at the bottom of the movement though rather than awkwardly have them in your lap and fight to keep your back in a good position as you get them above you.

It may be just that this movement is new to me so i am getting a much bigger impact but i have never enjoyed db press this much.

Horizontal row machine
Supinated wide grip
8 x 87kg
8 x 87 kg
Feeling a bigger contraction in the lower portion of my lats
79kg x8

I started using a shoulder width grip on rows primarily to simulate Front Lever rows on rings which I love but struggle to hit any volume with. I really enjoyed doing this with a more classic grip

I had done horizontal push/pull, vertical pull but no vertical push - as I haven’t been doing HSPUs at home for a little while I wanted to get a quick experimental set in

suspended lat raise
7.5kg x 8
7.5kg x 8
7.5 kg x 8

My idea was that if my arm was at 90 degrees to the band the impact of the elastic would be much bigger because the lever arm would be bigger. Here is a video on the physics behind this

I was right, but this is probably not worth doing. Classicaly bodybuilding has you do a lat raise and lead with your little finger or at least have your hands horizontal. This puts your elbows in a position where they are vulnerable if you have to heavy a weight or extraneous bouncing (which is exactly what the elastic provides).

Inverted cross avoids this by having your palms face up relative to your body, which keeps them protected because you can use your biceps to resist the force that’s trying to dislocate your elbow.

Also, inverted cross is a much more favourable position because having hands face up brings in a ton of front delt.

I have a decent amount of straight arm strength, so my elbows are fine ( a lot of iron cross training is just doing things that would normally hurt your elbows in progression for a year or so until they are ready to not get destroyed by the final position) but I can see why none of the people who like doing things by suspending things by bands do this.

(please reply if you can find anyone else trying this on the internet, perhaps no one else is smart/dumb enough to try it)

Weirdly chest fly might actually be good with bands - because your elbows face the direction of motion it’s easier to bring your biceps in to protect your elbows. But i really like machine flies that give you resistance to bringing your hands together

one-handed farmers walk
3 walks with my gym heaviest db, 45kg

I used to do suitcase deadlifts a lot, so I was disappointed to find out I had more difficulty getting the DB off the floor than taking it for a walk. Ahh well, clearly that’s another thing that should be somewhere in my training

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Yesterdays Dream machine workout in the park

Seeing as it was a beautiful day, we cycled to a nearby park and worked out on the crest of a hill where a tree has a roughly horizontal branch.

It’s hard to remember what we did because we did so much. her highlights were holding a 1/2bw handstand for 30 seconds resting her feet on the ropes that hold the rings and some decent L sits.

I had a lot of fun with HSPUs, 1/2 bw negatives of the 90-Degree Push-up . I also realised that I was strong enough to do a slightly messy iron cross and explode up through support to a handstand.

This was really cool.

Part of the reason planche and HSPU are worth training is that they are static points that a lot of elements move through e.g. Straddle Press

Ohh I should mention, one of the things you do in iron cross prep is swing on the rings in a L sit or support position. Stabilising through acceleration helps build the tendons and muscles so they have the straight arm strength and durability that iron cross needs.

But at the same time, it’s a sort of childish fun movement.

Really if you can hold any position on the rings and swing that’s an achievement.

So once the wife got good at l-sits I pushed her like a kid. She pushed me as I tried to do a cheat handstand resting my feet on the ropes. Surprisingly I could do it.

We can’t do that when the rings are at home because there isn’t space, but it was a fun way to mess around

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Saturdays gym workout

I had slept in a funny position because of the heatwave so wanted to try and wake my shoulders up at the start even though it was squat day!

Iyaywl
2.5 x 2 7.5 x 2 5 x 2

Hang from bar
60s
some levers and pull up variations

repeating the L from Iyatwl

L
5kg x 10

Still stiff but after that all perhaps less stiff. I weighed myself when I got home and I was 5kg under my normal weight so perhaps my joints were just under lubricated.

I decided to ignore it and get started with squatting

Low Box squat with plates suspended by elastic
62.5kg x 8
70kg x 8
70kg x8

The first set was easy, so I jumped the weight up. My guess is that the last bouncy squat workout really hit whatever fibres were the limiting element in stabilizing my previous set of bouncy squats, and they had grown appropriately.

Honestly I am still enjoying this more than regular squats. However, I am also noticing how much you need to work on bar path as the weights increase - the swinging/bouncing plates try and push you this way and that.

This is illustrated by this video pretty well. If the bigger weight is established in its own motion, the little weight can bounce around chaotically and not really affect the bigger weight - but as the weight of the little weight goes up it quickly starts being able to yank the big weight this way and that.

Right now my head and torso (55kg) +the bar (20kg) are the big weight, but the 50kgs of plates are big enough to start moving me.

This isn’t an issue with bench or something like that because - your arm bones and leg bones are built to be pretty stable when yanked this way and that. Your spine doesn’t want to get yanked so much when it’s under load - so I’d be interested in looking up how other people use unstable loads in their squat workouts before I do my next squat day.

(my intuition is lighter weight and more speed might be great)

My wife was following me at the gym and she joined me on this exercise for the first time. She did 3 great sets of 60kg x 5 deep box squats. I was impressed, they are certainly not easy.

band suspended Db bench press
(3 wraps)
20kg x 8
22.5 x 5 failure, continuing holding the db x3
20kg x5 x 5

the way you wrap the band around the weight is weirdly important - previously i was wrapping it twice - which meant the dbs were touching the floor making it easier at the bottom, but with more band to swing on making it harder at the top.

This probably sounds pretty odd but my arms have grown noticeably since adding the bands in., even though at this stage i think I’ve made little progress on the weight.

Face pulls
6? x10
10?x 10
9? x10
I have no idea how much the plates on the machine weigh

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looking up how other people use unstable loads in their squat workouts before I do my next squat day.

has a random video on in the background whilst posting

BandBell’s RhinoFlex Bar - YouTube
these people are going up to ~130kg on squats with a flexible bar - but it’s much stiffer than the elastic I use. Later, they load the bar directly and also add weight via elastic for lunges, suggesting they are trying to avoid the situation that I’m thinking about.

also they are wearing belts

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Yesterdays gym session

My wife is really motivated and is following one of Bret Contreras’s programs

Pull up
bw+ 25kgx 5, bw x 3
bw+ 25kg x 4, bw x 4
bw+ 25kg x 2, bw x 3, bw x3

25 kg might be ambitious for sets of 8. Still, it’s not so long ago I was failing in the same way with 20kg. so I am not yet ready to drop the weight to 22.5 but I am torn between wanting to get that extra power for better muscle ups and wanting slightly wider lats.

Standing band suspended suspended ohp
17.5 kg x 8
17.5 x 3 +17.5 no suspension x2 + 15 x2
15kg x 8

I’ve never got on with standing presses. So I did it with a little less weight than the sitting variation, and tried to tighten my core for a stable base, but can’t help feeling I’m doing it wrong still!

During this set, I took a break to help my wife. She hit 90kg on the box squat for 6 i think. The box was set up a little high, but it was still great to see her pushing herself so hard.

Suspended Chest dB fly
2 wraps
15kg x 6
too cross over
12.5 kg x 8
15 x 5 no suspension +3

I really liked @FlatsFarmer s idea about flies, and because I am suspending the dbs with bands it was easy enough to incorporate them into my workout. (notably, I am using straight arms, though)

Weirdly 15kg was too hard so I ended the first set early, during the second set I realised that because of the ways the dbs move I could let my hands go past each other and still have the elastic and dbs try and rotate my arms out. Similar to what athleneX often say.

12.5kgs was far too easy - so after the set, I tried another set with the 15s but with my arms reaching their stopping point, instead of 90dsgrees fro the trunk of the body but 60 degrees from it (perhaps half way to the position that you use in maltese cross). The idea was that this would let me use a little more front delt to assist the movement.

My overall impression is that files are a lot harder with dumbells that are suspended. I am not convinced at all about the extra adduction i added on the chest- perhaps I’ll give that its own space in a future version of my program

Suspended db row
25 x5 too easy
30 x 8
30 x 8
30 x 8

Adding bands to a db row was worth trying, but ineffective. I think because you are pulling the weight towards you rather than the bands adding the chaotic movement you need to stabilise against in your most contracted position they add that movement at the bottom when your arm is extended. Or at least they would if the db didn’t just touch the floor.

This is probably a less useful version of this exercise, but its always worth experimenting in life.

Iyatwl suspended (2 wraps)
2.5 x 3

This added a lot to the exercise. At this stage, I was done, but it turned out my wife had 3 more exercises to do so I had time to kill.

I really like the approach to farmers’ walks in this video so I tried wrapping up 60kg of plates in bands and carrying them on one side. This didn’t work - they dragged on the floor, so I just walked around the gym with a 40kg db in one hand.

Eventually, I got bored. 40kg is not a lot for a farmers walk. So decided to try carrying a 20kg db in one hand overhead, and tried to get some benefit by giving the weight a bigger lever to us against my core. I got a nice shoulder pump from this, but it still seemed like a dumb approach to the exercise.

My gym is pretty cluttered so its not great for farmers’ walks. I am going to ask the owner if I can take a db into the car park and just walk there.

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Oh, and we went to KFC after. I am convinced it is the best fast food healthwise.

If you just can’t stop messing around with stuff, try some bands attached to the chest supported row. Brutal constant tension.
image

Or put some weight on the machine, and hang like 1/3 that much weight on a band, right next to the plates. You don’t get the same chaotic movement, but they way the band stretches at the bottom and bounces at the top makes you use a super steady, muscle focused, non- bouncey pace.

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2 weeks later

we went on holiday, and that meant I had less time to update this whilst we were preparing to go/ there. A brief summary of what I did was 3 weightlifting sessions at the gym - highlights are:

  • Suspending weights with bands is making my joints feel great, but the weights aren’t going up very fast
    *I have been getting some good pumps (i think this is partially to do with the fact that the bands mean you’re under tension at the top of presses as well), so maybe that means I am making progress, but I don’t really have a bodybuilding mindset
  • I finally got up to 6 pull-ups with 25kg of weight pulling me down
  • My wife is really getting into it. Last night she trained so hard that she basically collapsed at the end - I remember that happening to me in the early days before my nervous system had adapted to training aggressively.

Outside the gym
I spent a lot of time swimming in the sea. I regretted not bringing the body board with me on holiday because the weather/waves were perfect.

I think I’ve solved the problem with the dream machine that previously stopped me from doing half body weight + some plates for HSPUs. Hopefully, that means I can train with a weight that is light enough to balance well so i can do a lot more reps.

I should be starting a new programming contract this week- so we are very excited about that!

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