Health bro. Unless you are going to pull WR weights does it even matter other than the personal what if.
Even WR lifts who cares other than us other meatheads.
2 Likes
I know this. We all do. It’s still tough to accept lack of progress in terms of weight on the bar.
The reality is that I actually live this way already. I make progress. I get hurt or back off. I get back to my previous strength levels. Repeat. Someday I’ll figure this out. If I can accept maintenance in terms of physique then I can probably lift less and play basketball more… which could lead to more injuries 
3 Likes
I almost forgot that I worked out today.
Training
PUSH UPS
x 20
INCLINE BENCH 1.5 REPS
105 x 10 x 3 sets
SEATED OHP 1.5 REPS
30s x 8 x 3 sets
INCLINE CABLE FLY
50 x 10
30 x 10F/10T/10B x 2 sets
CABLE PRESS DOWN
100 x 10F/10B/10T
110 x 10F/10B/10T
120 x 7F/7B/7T
1 Like
@Frank_C you dont have to be so focused on getting stronger on the big 3, heck you could make a goal of trap bar deadlifting 7 plates. Strength isn’t exclusive to the big 3.
2 Likes
Yep I’d love to see you strict hammer curl 100lb dumbells 
2 Likes
1.28.19
Woke at 230.2 lbs!
I knew I’d hit a new low today. 
@duketheslaya, I know the big three are irrelevant unless I’m competing, but part of this entire gym culture is fueled by ego. I don’t have a huge ego, but it’s there. And my gym ego knows that the big three are the most commonly trained lifts and that makes them the easiest measuring stick to use when determining if I’m stronger than someone else.
Bench doesn’t concern me too much. But I wish I could squat. From a simplistic training perspective the squat just challenges so many muscles that it’s hard not to love.
I know you like the way you feel when you kick ass in the gym. I do too. And it’s really hard to find that feeling with a pump workout or killing yourself with lunges. I can wear myself out but the overall effect of deadlifting or squatting a big weight is unmatched by any other gym lift.
I’m sure I could get that feeling with some strongman stuff but I don’t think doing yoke walks would be good for my hip either.
I’ll find out tomorrow what’s going on (hopefully). Once I’m past this injury I’m still going to avoid squatting movements - all of them. I’ve had enough of this so it’s time to switch my focus to injury prevention and longevity. I’m hopeful that I’ll be able to Deadlift and power clean though. If I can have those then I can be happy in the gym.
2 Likes
Training
PULL UPS
10, 7, 5, 5
SIDE TO SIDES (some call these windshield wipers)
2 x 10 ea side
LYING LEG RAISE
2 x 15
SMITH BARBELL ROW
105 x 10
125 x 10
125 x 10F/10T/10B
This didn’t work out the way I had hoped.
45* CABLE ROW OR PULL DOWN
95 x 10F/10B/10T
95 x 10T/10B/10F
Lat insertions screaming at this one.
SA UPRIGHT CABLE ROW
40 x 12 x 2 sets
40 x 30
Didn’t get much out of this today. I’d rather do high pulls.
SA CABLE CURL (L ONLY)
30 x 10F/10T/10B x 2 sets
My left arm feels huge when I do this single arm cable work. I can really focus on that particular bicep and it gets a near painful pump. I love it!
1 Like
Nice work with the weight PR skinny
1 Like
1.29.19
Woke at 230.6 lbs again.
I’m starting to embrace hunger as a good thing. Hunger means fat loss. Hunger means I’m getting leaner. Hunger means I’m getting that much closer to being shredded (probably not, lol).
@Simo74, I’m not at skinny yet. That pre-surgery pic from 2017 is skinny. But I think it probably looks better than my 240 lb pic. I look bigger and fuller, but it’s not necessarily a better look. I think it’s time to embrace my age and accept that lighter means more comfortable and healthier. I’m not ready to give up basketball so I probably ought to at least lose weight to reduce the effects of the running and jumping on my joints.
2 Likes
I took the promotional exam for Detective just to practice. I don’t think I’m ready to be a Detective because there are other jobs I’d like to do as an officer. I won’t take a demotion to do those if I promote.
Well, my plan backfired just enough to give me a chance to make an ass of myself. I’m 34th out of 63 people and the top 40 get an interview (which seems like a lot). I didn’t want an interview. 
Oh, well. I’ll make the most of it!
1 Like
Hip Update
Well, the good news is that my labrum and everything looked good. There is a bone formation that Doc calls an H O. Bone dust from my surgery accumulated and formed a solid chunk of bone. It’s basically suspended in muscle on the front of my hip. It could be hitting multiple areas in my hip joint when I flex my hip.
Doc said it’s 50/50 as to whether or not this is my problem. He thinks there’s a small chance he hit this bone when he gave me my first injection. If he did then the medicine didn’t get to the desired spot and basically would have no effect.
I’m going to try another injection but this one will be guided by ultrasound to ensure they get past that bone. If it helps then I think that means the bone formation is the problem. If not then I don’t know where that leaves us.
We had a chat about modifying my lifestyle. Doc doesn’t like to tell people what to do. He wants to find a solution that fits my life. I told him I want to play basketball and he seemed to think that was perfectly reasonable. We both agreed that I don’t need to ever perform a squat again. I also told him I plan to lose weight. I don’t think 215 lbs is an unreasonable weight for me. I’ll have my six pack and it’ll put less wear and tear on my joints. Hopefully I’ll keep my strength and it’ll improve my vertical too.
Lastly, they looked at my right hip in the MRI for comparison. My right hip labrum appears to have an anterior tear.
I’m not even mad. I knew it was coming. We’re going to ignore it until it causes me problems. Doc didn’t even tell me about it. I read the report while waiting for him. He just said my left hip looked better than the right. I kind of chuckled and said “I know. I was nosy.”
I might have to go back to my old ways of training. No deadlifts. No squats. But there will be power cleans!
4 Likes
Hey, @adarqui - back when you were trying to increase your vertical, did you ever find a way to do it? I feel like we’re stuck with our genetics. We have a ceiling and training can help us reach it, but there’s nothing that will add to it.
What do you think?
I could touch 11’ flat footed a couple times in my life but I’ve never beat that. I would say I was stronger the second time but I still couldn’t get past the 11’ mark. I think I touched the top of the backboard square with an approach when I played college ball for one semester (I was a 22 year old walk-on. 23 when the season started).
1 Like
yo!
Yea. I increased it a few times:
- Initial LR-DLRVJ (left-right plant, double leg running vertical jump) was around 10’3"
- Got that up pretty quick to ~10’7 (31")
- Took a year or so to get it up to 11’0.5" (36.5")
- Took another few years to get it up above that (no vertec during this period, just forearm hits on rim etc). (11’2"+, ~38-40-ish max, depending on which vert-addicts you ask, which doesn’t include me).
So a few pseudo-ceilings there. The first one is the easy one, getting passed those noob gains. The next set of pseudo-ceilings always take a ton of work.
So yea, I believe we have an absolute ceiling, based entirely on our physical structure & neuro-musculo-skeletal properties. But, I don’t think most of us come anywhere close to those physical/absolute ceilings. I feel like the only way for you to know, would be if you were to obsess (mentally and physically) about increasing your jumps (SVJ/RVJ etc) for several consecutive years, while training very hard, AND mostly staying healthy. Not easy to do, especially with vert.
It’s like me with running. What’s my ceiling? Seems pretty hard to get under 17 min 5k, couldn’t do it last year. But, I haven’t really trained hard enough. If I can’t break 17 minutes for 5k after say, a year of throwing in 100 mile weeks, or 120 mile weeks etc, and even hitting 150 mile weeks, then i’d say i’ve come close to my ceiling - which I can still end up improving but, this would be the realization that i’d be close to some physical/structural limits.
I’d agree that we can’t “add to a ceiling” - an absolute ceiling, but like I mentioned above, I don’t think most of us ever come close to it. Olympic athletes and such probably come pretty close. People who achieve “age graded efforts” at 90+%, are probably pretty close. Folks like us who consistently train hard, but “don’t give up everything to achieve it” - whatever “it” is, are probably much further away from our ceilings than we realize: which is good news!
I guess in the end, I believe the only way we’ll find out is if we reach some level of manic obsession, and just grind hard on basically one single goal, over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over… and over, and over. Just has to be relentless, for many years. That can get especially “demoralizing” with something like vert, since there’s not really “vert competitions” and such one can just compete in: that’s the beauty of something like running. Also “progress” in vert is very difficult to comprehend, it’s a game of inches but, it really isn’t. It’s a game of nanometers, but we can’t really comprehend it. Taking you for example, I imagine you could surpass your previous best, but you’d have to go all in - and that itself is not easy.
That’s an awesome vert right there. Touching 11’ via SVJ/CMJ is nuts. Most I think I touched off of SVJ was 10’6" (30" hah). My reactive strength is way higher than my starting/explosive strength.
As for me, I stopped “verting” in 2012. There were several reasons, but a major one was: I started to see it more like “boxing”, ie - am I going to be able to do this my whole life? The answer was “no”. There’s no “old people” verting. Plus, I did a dunk contest in 2011 and really didn’t enjoy it. The idea of doing a “judged sport” makes no sense to me, and I never really enjoyed doing trick dunks - I just wanted to jump higher and crush simple dunks. So I drifted from it & knew eventually i’d channel my efforts into something like running: something with lots of competitions and certified results etc.
Rambled quick, about to sleep. Hope that makes some sense hah!
peace man!
2 Likes
That made sense. I think I’d like to get back to my college vert but I’m not sure if it’s realistic. I could post up, make a move, shoot, and dunk my own miss two handed. My teammates teased me that I missed on purpose.
I’m 6’4" and change. I’d like to think it takes a bit of bounce to do stuff like that but I’ve never had a big vertical by today’s standards. The only trick I could do was a windmill or 360. I’ve always settled (or strived) for power. It’s easier for my build.
I compare myself to college athletes so I feel inferior. It’s funny how many younger people think my abilities are impressive. I guess the bar isn’t set very high for rec ball even though some of the guys played pro ball.
1 Like
1.30.19
Woke at 231.6 lbs. I expected to bounce back over 231 after two days in a row of 230.6.
I also drank four beers last night.
Well, it seems that surgery is temporarily off the table for my hip. That’s great but I still don’t know what to do with my shoulder. I think I’ll start trying to do some cleans again in the near future to see how it feels.
Doc wasn’t so sure that complete rest was the best thing for my hip. He didn’t want things to atrophy or get out of balance. I’m not going to start lifting again but I might use the recumbent bike and do some hip specific stuff (more like rehab).
1 Like
Training
10 MIN LIGHT SHOOTAROUND IN THE GYM
REHAB STUFF
GLUTE EXTENSION MACHINE
50 x 20 ea x 2 sets Feel the burn!
HIP ABDUCTION/ADDUCTION MACHINE
90 x 20 ea x 2 sets
INCLINE BENCH 1.5 REPS
115 x 10, 10, 7
MACHINE OHP
80 x 7F/7T/7B
65 - 50 - 40 - 30 - 20 - 10
7 - 5 - 4 - 4 - 4 - 5
Was supposed to be F/T/B but I failed to get one rep after the 7 full reps so it turned into a drop set. I literally laughed at myself after struggling to get 5 reps with 10 lbs.
REAR DELT MACHINE
50 x 12F/12T/12B
80 x 8F/8T/8B
TRICEP EXTENSION MACHINE (HATE THIS)
80 x 10F/10B/10T
95 x 10F/10B/10T
The new version of this machine has a backrest that is about 4 inches tall. It does nothing so this turns into an isometric ab exercise more than a tricep exercise. It’s dumb.
I decided I need to work my glutes, abductors, adductors, and probably hamstrings again. Doc is right; I can’t just quit. He seemed to think basketball wasn’t a problematic thing either so I decided to shoot around today. I enjoy it and I’d like to be able to make a shot when I step back on the court. I was awful when I played a couple of weeks ago.
I’ve also decided to go back to The Best Damn Workout Plan for Naturals. Well, mostly. I hated, absolutely hated, the slow eccentrics. I’ve adopted a similar mindset to CT in believing that intensification techniques are needed, but I’m not limited to the ones he uses. I’ll adopt the plan and use a push/pull split. I won’t be doing it six days a week. I’ll be doing however many days I can but I’m not set on any particular schedule. I might add some actual leg work but nothing too taxing on my hip. Leg extensions, leg curls, the glute machine (which is awesome, by the way!), etc.
3 Likes
I love checking your log and am annoyed about how much more action yours gets than mine lol. I guess bc you comment on everyone else’s.
Looks like you’re making good progress.
What do you think about me switching out (my version of) 5-3-1 for awhile and just pushing sets of 1 or 2 like crazy for a few months w recovery being track stuff or conditioning? Go super simple and see how it progresses?
1 Like
I learned that you have to give to receive so I stay active on other logs.
It depends on your total volume and intensity. Have you seen the 10 x 3 for strength program? I think you’d like something like that based on how you like to train. I could see you doing an EMOM style program for your major lifts.
There’s also one for fat loss that uses less weight. There will be a link to it at the bottom of this article.
I think you could push heavier weights for a bit. You have to be careful with your track work though. Some of that is too intense to use for recovery.
2 Likes
cool! only one way to find out 
sounds like you had & still have some solid bounce. go for it, or at least ease back into it for a while and see if you want to eventually focus on it intensely.
I miss dunking/jumping but, not enough to have it tap into my running obsession. If I could dunk without working on it that hard, i’d definitely go dunk once in a while, great way to get rid of some aggression.
ha.
2 Likes
Yeah - I think I will go another round or so through 5-3-1 - but then a 10x3 or 20x1 sort of thing could be great. Work through 2 exercises on each of 2-3 heavy days and then do pump work on another day and running/throws on another day (once it warms up above 10 degrees in NYC!)
1 Like