Think I’ll update this infrequently now. Training going much the same. I’ve hit a couple of PRs - 100kg bench press for 5x5 and 40kg get-ups for 5x1. All going well. Bodyweight is coming down quickly on the paleo diet - 95.7kg today.
Because of the new changes?
Congrats on the bench press PR. I’m not anywhere near that yet. Getting there though.
Also glad to hear the paleo stuff is working for you.
I’m reading through Jamie Lewis’ blog (chaos and pain) and I guess he ate something like 5 lbs of baked chicken wings every day back then. Pretty crazy.
But I’m thinking of taking my own eating more in the paleo direction, but probably not full out like you are.
A number of factors I guess. I miss a lot of the old crowd who don’t post here any more - Rattlehead, Spidey, Csulli, Spar4tee and Maazersmiit. You and theBird are the only guys on here that I’ve been interacting with from the beginning, and neither of you are around much. My log is dead these days. And there’s another forum out there that’s more suited to my particular style of training I suppose.
I’m not leaving this site, I’ve gained far too much from it and I’ll always be checking in on you, theBird, jblues, ActivitiesGuy etc. It’s just my log that I’m moving.
Thanks a lot about the bench press, I’m really glad to have got it back to where it was (especially as I didn’t have to train it that frequently to do so). It did take a tonne of work to get it there in the first place though. I guess that’s muscle memory.
Yeah I’m enjoying paleo, it’s certainly easier than I thought it would be. The main pitfall is how much you have to plan ahead (at least when doing it very strictly) as grabbing a snack on the go is just about impossible (I’m doing a very strict form just now so even stuff like beef jerky and dried fruits are out, due to the additives and oils used etc). I wouldn’t recommend it for anyone trying to gain weight, but it seems good for fatloss/maintenance. I think in your situation it would probably best to do something like paleo plus peri-workout extra. Heavy farmers walks are extremely exhausting, and it’s easy to accidentally go too low carb with paleo.
All the best man!
I broke my leg skiing yesterday. Displaced fracture of my right tibia, going into theatre in the next hour or so. Reckon it’ll be 2 months before I can start training my lower body again. Absolutely gutted.
Oh my goodness! That’s terrible, mate. Here’s hoping for a clean recovery. It will take some time, just gotta take the long view here. All the best.
Hate to hear that buddy!! Hope recovery goes well and keep us updated
Thanks a lot for the kind words guys, I really appreciate it.
Sorry to hear that; I can’t imagine what that must be like. Best of luck on the recovery.
I’d look at this as an opportunity to redouble your efforts on your upper body.
Thanks for the explanation on how you’re doing paleo, as well as the cautionary notes. I feel you on the old crowd “leaving”. I miss that group too. I certainly have learned a lot from the likes of Alpha and T3hPwnisher, but they’re so far out of my league, it’s not quite the same.
Did you move your log over to one of Pavel’s forums?
Edit: I found it.
Thanks a lot LoRez, it’s incredibly frustrating. They’ve said I won’t be able to weight-bear for 6 weeks, which feels like forever. Due to the nature of the surgery I can hardly move at my knee too, and it’s very painful, so I can’t think of a way to train my upper body just now. Everything I can think of requires lower body stabilisation to some degree, I can’t bench or row and I wouldn’t risk pull-ups going wrong. Regardless I’m at my parents house and have no equipment.
I think my best strategy right now is just to move as much as I can, and begin to rebuild when the pain is a little better.
Yes I agree, it’s nice to be surrounded by people at a similar level, rather than just superhuman.
Another thing I’m finding really frustrating how much the rest of my body is stiffening up. My lower back, which had improved so much, is really playing up just now. My hips are so tight, and my right glute keeps going to sleep.
Sorry for all of the moaning.
My plan going forward is to take a grease the groove approach to pistol squats on my left leg - concentric-only from just below parallel (the height of my armchair). I’ll need to be careful not to mess anything up, but they feel reasonably easy and I’ll stay far from failure. For my upper body I’ll get some bands and do a lot of pull-apart etc initially, until I feel comfortable about stabilising myself for things like dumbbell rows. I’ll obviously lose a fair amount of strength, but so long as I stay mobile I’m sure it’ll come back very quickly :).
Things seem to be going reasonably well. I had a lot of pain in my hip over the weekend, yesterday was much better and today was worse again. The overall trend is a positive one, I just have good days and bad days. I haven’t done anything in the way of training and to be honest I’m not too bothered about that. Previous experience has proven how real muscle memory is, and I’m confident I’ll get back in shape reasonably quickly once I can weight-bear. I just need to take things slow.
Edit: I should explain that I quickly gave up on the pistol squats as I developed excruciating pain in my right hip. I don’t know if it was related or due to something else (sitting too much perhaps) but I wanted to be safe as it was absolutely unbearable. Far worse than the pain of the break or the pain of the surgery.
Good day today. I had a follow-up appointment, got my stitches out and had some physio. Everything seems to be going well, although apparently there is a large vertical crack in the bone as well as the horizontal break so I’m going to have to take my recovery extra cautiously. The physio was generally happy with my knee and ankle mobility, although I have lost some ROM and she gave me some exercises to help with that.
Good day today - I did a lot of work on my physio exercises and also 5x10 push-ups which felt great. I was a bit nervous about getting off the floor, but it was all good. I took them easy because I’m home alone and it would be foolish to burn myself out in any way. In any case I’m in no rush, so I’m just going to gradually increase my volume.
Good to hear your recovery is going well. Take your time with recovery and you will be back to slinging bells around in no time!
Thanks a lot jblues85! Everything is going absolutely fine :). Also I should add that my neck issues have completely resolved! The wonders of bedrest!
The past week has been good. I’ve been doing push-ups and tonnes of physio every day, as well as experimenting with other exercises. One day I did a bunch of left leg pistol squats and another day I did a bunch of left leg single leg deadlifts (unweighted), but after these sessions my hips felt pretty uncomfortable. I guess they don’t like being trained asymmetrically. One thing that I have been having some success with is unweighted reverse hypers - I went through a phase of doing these a long time ago, but pwnisher has been doing them in his log and that inspired me to try them again. They are fantastic, as I don’t have to limit my right side.
Unfortunately I’m limited by the fact that I don’t have any equipment at my parent’s house and I’m obviously not able to get out and about (we stay in the countryside). I need to really start getting more creative.
Here’s a photo I took a few days ago to show the wasting so far…it’s pretty grim and it’s only going to get worse. I’ve been doing tonnes of unweighted leg extensions with my right leg, as suggested by my physio, and it really hasn’t helped at all (although my knee pain has improved a lot).
It sounds like things are recovering well though, and you’re figuring out what you can do.
It’s actually really interesting to watch how the body works, and I’m glad you’re sharing things.
Just another quick update - things are going well. I’ve been “training” daily - mostly push-ups, unweighted reverse hypers and band pull-aparts. My resistance bands and CoC grippers arrived last week and I’ve been having fun with them. I’ve tried a bunch of different variations of band rows, but none really work very well. Band pull-aparts seem to do a reasonable job of working my upper back, so I’m relying on them as my primary pulling movement. My physio has also been going really well - I’ve gone from sets of 10 unweighted leg extensions to sets of 100.