My injury is much less significant than his. I have a co-worker who just had the same procedure and he was back to work in 2 months. I’ll listen to my physical therapist but I’ll still be working hard until I’m fully recovered. Now I have an excuse to hang out on the leg press! Leg press (single leg) happens to be one of my favorite leg exercises but I force myself to squat for egotistical purposes.
I couldn’t help but notice how great I felt after my bench workout this morning. I never feel “great” after squats or deadlifts; they just take so much out of me. I feel accomplished after those workouts but I’m never really hyped up mentally.
Yesterday’s Nutrition
3532 calories, 407g carbs, 94g fat, 208g protein
I have a weird work week ahead of me. I’m going to training all day on Tues, Wed, and Thurs. It’s out of town so they’ll be 11-12 hour days and I doubt I work out. To prepare for that I did my usual Monday workout today and tomorrow will be my typical Wednesday workout. I’ll be off Friday so I’ll do Thursday’s workout then.
Moving my deadlift day up by one day sucked. I did a little conditioning before my workout and I was struggling to catch my breath. I think it was a combination of having sore legs from squats on Thursday and the cooler air. Whatever it was, it carried over to lifting. Instead of taking my usual 1-2 minutes rest between sets I had to take 2-4 minutes. I also used straps for the last three sets of deadlifts to take the grip out of it. It was a rough day but I got through it and hit all of my reps.
I intended to use the power bar this week but I knew that I wouldn’t get my reps with that so I cheated and used the deadlift bar. Another strange thing I learned/experienced today is how I load the bar impacts the lift. I used a 25 lb bumper plate on the outside of two regular plates for the first two sets (so 45lb bumper, 2-45’s that are smaller than the bumper, & the 25 lb bumper). I was attempting to do touch and go reps because it’s easier than losing all tension and momentum. The bar had no bounce. I swapped the bumpers for regular 25’s so the only plate making contact with the platform was the 45. Physics at work. By decreasing the surface area making contact with the ground I increased the force and it bounced a bit more–making my touch and go reps possible.
So basically I did everything I could to cheat today. I could probably achieve similar results by just dropping the weight. I don’t feel bad about using the deadlift bar because I used that for my maxes and that’s the weight from which I based my percentages.
Complete Power Look Week 3
Conditioning
2 lap warm-up and 4 laps of running the straightaway and walking the curves.
Neutral Pull-ups
10, 10, 8
Deadlift
135 x 5
185 x 5
225 x 5
275 x 5
315 x 5
365 x 5 x 5 sets
Deficit Deadlift (2.25")
275 x 6 x 4 sets
Hammer Plate Loaded Row
270 x 6 x 4 sets
180 x 10F/10T/10B
Yesterday’s Nutrition
2814 calories, 339g carbs, 82g fat, 140g protein
Training
Warm-Up
3 lap dynamic warm-up with 3 build-up runs finishing at about 95% effort.
In case you’ve wondered what my “dynamic warm-up” actually is, here’s the typical day:
jog 1 lap
1/2 a lap doing 10-20 walking knee hug stretch, walking lunges, quad stretch, high knees, butt kicks, leg swings, forward and backward hurdle walk
one build up run, walk the curve and that finishes lap 2
if I do 3 or 4 laps then I continue running the straightaway and walking the curve increasing my speed on each one
Push Press
115 x 5
135 x 5
165 x 5 x 5 sets
OHP
105 x 6 x 4 sets
High Incline DB Press
70 x 6 x 2
70 x 5 x 2
and back to running…
Conditioning
Run 1 lap in 1:10 or less, rest 2 minutes, repeat for 6 laps (6 laps=1 mile) each lap is about 270 meters and I actually hit all of them in about 1 minute.
more lifting…
Side to Sides
2 x 15 ea side
Tricep Press-Down
140 x 15
150 x 10
100 x 10T/10B/10F x 2 sets
Decline DB Crunch (lowest setting)
50 x 10B/10T/10F
50 x 10 regular
Lateral DB Raise (run the rack)
20 x 10
15 x 10
12 x 10
10 x 8
8 x 10 (single-arm because there was only one 8 lb DB)
The goal was to hit my delts but I’m not sure if I succeeded. By the time I finished this the only thing I felt was my upper traps burning.
I’ve officially decided that I’m cutting the rest of the year. I read an article by CT from his ThibArmy site and it made sense. I’d link it but it’s not allowed.
My training class for work ended early so I got to go to the gym and not be rushed. Unfortunately, I don’t have much gusto today so I didn’t really do much.
Squat
135 x 10 x 2
185 x 5 x 2
225 x 5
245 x 5 x 5 I set the safety bars at #8 and I recorded the last set and it turns out that was too high. The goal was to limit my depth and I thought setting up a stop might make it a bit easier.
Paused Squats
155 x 6 x 4
SL Squat Press
290 x 6 ea x 4
Recumbent Bike
30 min fat loss program at L10. 7.76 miles.
The gym has a few but I was lazy and also thinking about being at home. I have my bench but I think it’s too short. I’ll figure it out.
I think my natural depth is at parallel or just barely below so I might be alright without making any adjustments; however, both hips were a bit cranky today. Hopefully that’s just a side effect of sitting in a chair that was too low to the ground for three days.
Power Clean (12 reps at 75%)
135 x 3
155 x 3
185 x 3
205 x 4 x 3 sets
Bench (Training Maximally)
135 x 5
185 x 5
225 x 3
245 x 1
265 x 1
275 x 1
295 x 0 - - - 275 felt great so I went for a 2017 PR, and failed.
225 x 5 x 2 sets
Seated OHP (Smith Machine)
85 x 10
105 x 10
125 x 10 x 2 sets
superset with
Pull-ups
10, 10, 8, 7
Cable Row
180 x 6 x 2
180 x 8 x 2
superset with
Squat (Training Maximally)
135 x 5
185 x 5
225 x 3
255 x 2
285 x 1
305 x 1
315 x 1 - - - this is a 2017 PR. Good grief, I’m pathetic.
Conditioning
Run 1 lap (270m) in 1:05, rest 2 min x 3
Run 1.5 laps in 1:34 - - - pretty sure my HR exceeded my age predicted max
Should have done abs and arms but I was spent. Great workout.
Woke at 229.4 lbs—back under 230! I don’t think it’ll take me long to get back to 220 but I’m wanting to get down to 10 or even 9% body fat before I start my “gain” phase. I’m guessing this will require that I drop below 220 which will be a mental challenge for me. 220 has always been my low end (since I gained weight during my newb phase). When I drift towards 215 or lower I start to panic and feel like I’m headed towards the skinny physique…and no one wants that.
I’m beginning to regret hitting legs on Thursday and then squatting again yesterday. The leg soreness is creeping up on me. Normally I don’t mind this, but I’m at work. Every time I get out of the car (Tahoe) I hurt a little bit more. I can also tell that my body is trying to repair itself because my energy level is in the tank.
No training today. For the near future I’m lifting M/W/F with a total body program. Tuesday will be a bonus day and I’ll probably do some extra cardio/conditioning. There’s a small chance that I’ll do something on Thursdays but I doubt it. The reason I’m switching to full body is so I only train three days a week. I’m off Mon-Wed so I know the first two workouts of the week will be great. Fridays will be hit and miss. I’m sure I’ll get the work done but it’ll be either morning (which I dislike), evening (also not my preference), or during my 30 minute lunch break. Either way I’ll be in a time crunch and it’s likely that things get skipped or at the very least the intensity will drop.
With my previous set-up of four or even six days a week I was having the same trouble. It stresses me out to have to force workouts during my work days so it’s not worth it. The way I see it, if two out of three workouts are awesome then I’m succeeding 67% of the time. With my other splits I can only guarantee that two of four or three of six workouts are awesome which is only a success rate of 50%.
Daylight savings sucks. My stupid phone app that I use as my backup alarm failed me. It didn’t reset for daylight savings. I got up and did my usual morning routine. I sat on the bed and grabbed my phone and saw that it was 5:15 instead of 6:15. Not happy. There was no reason to go back to bed and go through the struggle of waking up again so I just got around and drank some coffee until it was time to go to work.
