Well, I’m fading. I can’t control my eating, my training has been modified for a year, and I’m just not excited about lifting. I did half my workout tonight. I ate too much at the free Christmas meal at the station (pulled pork, baked beans, and cookies) and couldn’t force myself to do anything difficult like brace.
Work has been good, though. We’ve moved our focus to the mall. Yesterday I spotted a familiar face and followed her car in the lot. We looked her up and saw that she’d been banned earlier this year. She parked and went inside to return some clothes that were probably stolen. She wanted a cash refund but got an exchange instead. She then decided to stay in the store and add a few items to her bag while her 13 year old daughter played lookout. We stopped her when she exited for trespassing and pieced together the theft. She was charged for theft and trespassing.
I figured out why I recognized her while she was inside. I had personally visited her at her house to ban her from three big stores in town because she’s on our list of habitual thieves. It felt good to catch her in the act.
Road to 500 Full Body Session 5 of 16
EXERCISE BIKE
20 min warm up
UNDERHAND ROW
150 x 12 x 3 sets
DB INCLINE
65 x 12, 10, 8
6 WAY RAISES
7.5s x 12 x 2 sets
OH ROPE EXT
100 x 10F/10T
100 x 10
100 x 6
I’ll have to do squats and RDLs tomorrow. I’m enjoying doing less leg work in any given session but not enjoying doing legs every trip to the gym.
The other mistake California made was planting large numbers of eucalypts. They didn’t realise that not only do they burn, they explode with great violence when on fire. Their sap ignites and turns them into a cross between an incendiary bomb and a flamethrower.
I know the feeling. Similar to @TrainForPain’s ambivalence about his second upper body workout day, do any lifts, combos of lifts, or type of training particularly interest you?
Keep us updated about whatever’s going on with your shoulder! I’ll pray for it.
Feeling your pain here. Seems to be a seasonal thing. I was doing great with my weight got it down 5 lbs only to destroy it over the past few days. I bet the diet doesn’t get much better until after the holidays either.
Edit: this got me to thinking that my sleep and fire to get in the gym have both been lacking. That it’s probably all tied in together along with the crap nutrition right now. Personally, and this may not be your problem, but for me I know I’m not getting enough protein in my diet right now. The damn cookies and cakes are taking up too much room in my gut. Need to not worry so much about gaining weight and make sure I’m putting away enough protein.
Yeah, deadlifts and the stuff I can’t do because of my shoulder.
The food is definitely connected to my mood. It doesn’t take much for me to just think “Screw it. I don’t care.”
I know. I know that there are good sessions, bad sessions, and average sessions. Most are supposed to be average but mine have been about 75% bad lately.
Had a hiccup with insurance but guy it approved. It’s tomorrow at 11:30.
@Frank_C
I find that I’m either on an upward trajectory or a downward one… for me maintenance simply doesn’t exist. Maintenance is a downward spiral. I loose my fire completely if there’s no goal in mind. I find it hard to have the motivation to put on the work if there’s not a reason for it. Just my two cents but thought I’d chime in.
This may change with time. For many years I chased numbers, especially the elusive 500+ dead lift. I got all those things but I spent about 6 days a week in the gym. It became my sanctuary.
Now, many years and injuries later, I’m currently in the gym 3 times a week for about an hour. Very recently, I’ve decided to do whole body workouts each time, focusing on stimulating all the major muscle groups and keeping rest periods at a minimum. I do know the GH helps my recovery but I’ve found that I’m much more excited to get to the gym these days.
Well, I never got around to finishing Wednesday’s workout. Thursday was busy. I had time yesterday before work, but decided to be lazy and just skip squats and RDLs altogether.
Man, am I glad i skipped those two exercises.
The stomach flu hit me last night. Fever, shakes, and violent puking. I’m so glad I didn’t have sore legs to go along with that fever.
It wasn’t the worst bout I’ve experienced, but that didn’t make it any more enjoyable. I’m down and out for today. I’ll probably miss my work Christmas party tonight. Tomorrow is a full day so I need to rest up.
I just ate a bagel so now I’m enjoying that familiar slightly nauseous feeling.
Consider the fact that you deal with the scumbag general public all day, you have the mental and physical stress of your injury/rehab, the family get-togethers and shopping stresses, better to recover so you can enjoy Christmas.
I heard Batman never skips leg day. But come to think of it that was Lego Batman. Either way we aren’t him.
It sucks when the body doesn’t act like it should, it gives one way to many worries.
You’ve had the MRI now, when do you expect an answer?
Anyways I hope you’ll have a great christmas and that you’ll and your family can relax and enjoy it fully. Remember that your kids are only kids one time in their life, so make every year special.
I’m hoping to hear something by the end of the week. Christmas might push that back a bit.
I’m feeling better today - as normal as one can after stomach flu. My heart rate nearly hit 100 bpm after I walked up the stairs to get to our second floor. I’ll probably skip the gym til after Christmas. My body won’t benefit from any more punishment this week.
Today was a full day of family. We went to church this morning and then lunch at my grandparents’. After that, we went to my parents’ house for our Christmas with them. Luckily, they live less than half a mile from my grandparents’ so it was a short trip.
I’m off work til Thursday but I picked up some side work at a bank. 12:30-5:00 tomorrow and 8:00-12:00 on Tuesday. At $40/hr, it’s tough to pass up.
On a training related note, I’ve been trying to figure out a minimalist approach. My new work schedule doesn’t go well with two hour sessions.
Part of me thinks that my physique will be fine if I can get strong on a few compound lifts. My chest and shoulders should be decent if I’m repping 100 lb DBs on incline. My back should be fine if I deadlift and build up my underhand row. If that’s accurate then there’s no reason I couldn’t do a simple full body routine and get results. And then there’s the other part of my brain that sees big people doing more…
I also don’t know if I’d prefer to do a set progression like SGSS or go with less structure and just wear myself out. I know that program hopping can limit progress but I’m beginning to wonder if program hopping with enthusiasm is better than following one thing without it.
I’m running a program now with my friends, it looked good on paper, but we’re all unhappy. We could choose “discipline” over “motivation” here and just grit our teeth and continue to grind but seeing as there are other ways to progress towards our goals without feeling this way.
We’re continuing with it this week, but when everyone is back from the holidays rest assured that we are making a change.
I find that changing the main training method can spark some enthusiasm, or changing main lift for a while. This is exactly what we’ll do (abbreviated),
Block 1: double progression (front squat and push press as main lifts on Squat/press day) where we change rep ranges after successfully adding weight three times.
Block 2: ramping, the target rep count changes every three weeks (starting high, moving to lower reps)
Block 3: waves (starting with hypertrophy waves in the first two phases and then going for strength the final two).
