Really strong stuff, not sure I’ve got a 300lb bench in me at the moment and I wouldn’t describe my conditioning as good!
2 Likes
you took the words out of my mouth
1 Like
6.19.25 W3 D3
Smith Machine Rev Lunge
65 x 5 ea
85 x 5
105 x 5
125 x 5, 5
Machine Underhand Row
190 x 10
205 x 10
220 x 10
220 x 7
Incline DB Press
70 x 10, 10, 10, 8
45 Deg Back Extension
BW x 15, 15
I can’t ignore my back forever. I’m trying these to see if they help me start the rebuilding process of my lower back.
Sled
10 x 25 meter trips for time
Alternate between pulling and pushing
Ethos Sled + 90 lbs
Total Time: 10:17
I don’t know how effective these sessions are. Time will tell. I didn’t want to do my usual circuit or exercises today. I figured the sled work is my conditioning, so I don’t need to put that training goal on my lifting every session. I feel like I challenged my pressing muscles with the incline press and did the same on the machine rows (which felt awesome today). The reverse lunges checked the box for legs (nothing like heavy squats, but they keep the muscles alive). I might play basketball tomorrow. That will really tell me where I’m at. My performance in the staff vs student game back in April was depressing. I don’t expect much improvement in my vertical since I haven’t been doing much jumping, but I’ll be able to assess my conditioning pretty fast.
4 Likes
6.20.25
I played some pick-up basketball today. My team managed to win so I got to play three games in a row and then called it. I’m slow. I can’t jump for crap. Can’t shoot because I haven’t practiced in ages. And some movements flat out hurt but in a new place in my right knee. Fortunately it only happened a couple times and isn’t chronic pain.
In other news, the bathtub drain in one of our bathrooms started leaking through the ceiling two nights ago. Plumber couldn’t fix it this morning due to being scheduled only two hours for our call. He said it’ll probably be at least $1000… And then I get to pay someone else to fix the ceiling.
Our house has two A/C units - one for the basement and 1st floor and one got the 2nd and 3rd floor. The one that controls the lower half is low on freon and it’s the stuff that’s banned. It froze up last night. I got it to thaw out and kick back in but it’s on borrowed time.
Being an adult sucks sometimes. We’re going to the pool and I’m sneaking in an adult beverage.
2 Likes
6.22.25
No training. I was asked to volunteer in the coffee shop at church this morning. I went to Home Depot after that and came home to attempt to fix my drain leak. I failed. I’ve tried all the YouTube tricks to remove the tub drain, but no luck. It has who knows how many decades of build-up and corrosion on it. I guess I’m at my last attempt - let WD-40 try to work through it until tomorrow.
I had time to train, but don’t feel like it. I cooked some smash burgers and chicken breasts on my new griddle and now we’re about to go watch some professional softball down the street at the Athlete’s Unlimited Softball League. It’s 90+, sunny, and windy as heck. Let’s go get cooked!
2 Likes
Since your ceiling is toast. I would pull it off and work from under the tub. Also it will be much easier to what is leaking.
Fixing the ceiling is a bitch with a badshoulder. But with enough scaffolding and the use of way too many days. It can be done.
1 Like
I just cleaned off my ladder so I can bring it inside without tracking more dirt and debris into the room. I’ve been looking at everything from underneath and it doesn’t look much better. I might be going to work with my reciprocating saw and cutting everything I can to make room for the stubborn piece. Here’s a nice snapshot from underneath. I’m pretty sure green is good on your pipes!
6.23.25 W4 D1 of Something
Squat (High Bar)
Thought I’d try it since my back hurts from basketball anyway.
135 x 5
165 x 5
195 x 5
Nope, nope, dangit, nope. Not worth it.
5 Rounds
- Split Squat: 55 x 5 ea (round 1), 60 x 5 ea for the rest
- Seated DB OHP: 55 x 10
- Chin-Up: BW x 9, 9, 8, 8, 6+1+1
Not sure if it’s good or bad, but my biceps started to feel a bit pumped on the chins. Possibly good because who doesn’t like a biceps pump, but possibly bad because this small amount of work feels like a lot on my body due to my low volume as of late.
Ab Crunch Machine
130 x 10 x 2 sets
Back Ext Machine
145 x 20
Meh
Sled
People in the way. Guy on a ladder messing with air vents and a guy playing with the battle ropes.
Assault Bike
Back-up workout I’ve had in mind for a few weeks. Didn’t disappoint aka it wasn’t very fun.
10 rounds of 30 sec work, 30 sec rest
Covered 2.2 miles and burned 93 cals according to the bike (burned a lot more according to my Garmin watch). Took the elevator down to the main level.
2 Likes
Well, this is kind of vintage. Is there any type of plastic or all your dwv is steel.
Fast cheap butch job would be to use some flexseal paint. Not great but it can work.
Removing the bath drain without breaking the tub might be a bit of a pita. Also new “modern” drain may not fit your’s.
As a general rule of thumb, I prefer to remove a fair part of the old pipe and make a good new section using what ever type of pipe you need.
Last note. Don’t close the ceiling to quickly. Just in case your work decide to not work after a few days.
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I think the drain assembly is copper hence the green. The actual drain pipe is cast iron. I think the bathroom was added in the late 70s or early 80s based on decor in other parts of the house. The house was built in 1910.
I have a second opinion plumber coming Wednesday. I could fix it if I could get anything to come apart. I’m hoping the tub lets go of the drain without breaking. It’s already been an expensive summer with more on the way without a bathroom remodel.
It reminds me of the old joke/story about an old engine on a ship. Owner can’t get it to start and has tried everything. He finally finds a guy familiar with the old engine. He looks for a bit, thinks about it, and taps it with a hammer. It starts!
He gives the guy a bill for $10,000 and the owner is furious. How can this be? All you did was tap it once with a hammer. So the old guy gives him an itemized invoice:
- Tap it with a hammer: $10
- Knowing where to tap: $ 9,990.
2 Likes
6.24.25 Basketball
I found out last week that the old man pick-up ball is Tuesdays and Thursdays at noon. I arrived today just before noon and was the 8th person so we ran 4 on 4 for a bit. A couple others showed up so we made it 5 on 5 and I ended up playing six games straight. These are obviously slow with lots of walking, but it was still good to get out there. My vertical was better today. I was able to dunk easier than back in April when I had the painful realization that my physical abilities are fading. The best part (for now) is that I had zero knee pain in the anterior part of the joint. It almost always hurts there when I jump a bunch. I think the sled is what deserves the credit for that, so I will definitely continue to use it.
2 Likes
6.25.25
Probably not training today. I’m due for another lifting workout with the main lift being bench, but I’m feeling the effects of basketball. I’m stiff, sore, and kind of feel a little beat up all over. I also have a plumber coming over to look at my ceiling hole and I’m hopeful he can get everything figured out without damaging the bathtub.
1 Like
6.26.25 W4 D2
Lying Leg Curl
80 x 10
95 x 6
110 x 6
125 x 6
Leg Extension
85 x 6
100 x 6
115 x 6
130 x 6
145 x 6
Bench
Back to the chart. Same step as before (300 lb max) but the reps increased. If you look back, I did these weights for 8, 5, 3, 1, 1+ before I maxed.
135 x 10
170 x 8
205 x 6
240 x 4
270 x 2
Superset
- Lat Pull-Down: 180 x 10, 10, 10, 8, 160 x 10
- Bench: 210 x 5
Sled
Pull 25m, rest as needed, push 25m for 10 total trips. Time - 9:47. The goal is under 10 so that’s a win. First two laps felt terrible and then I loosened up and the sled started to move better.
And I’m still sore from basketball.
2 Likes
6.28.25
Well, it’s Saturday. It’s been four complete days since my basketball session and I can finally go down the stairs without feeling awful. It’s strange; my knees felt a lot of pressure and discomfort, but none of the old stabbing pain in my patellar tendon.
We own a rental house and we are between tenants. My wife spent all day cleaning yesterday and is there now. That leaves me home with the three year old which means I’m sitting on my rear a lot. It’s dangerous to leave her in a room alone so I can’t go off and do anything productive. I have completed some school work for my online graduate course so it hasn’t been a total loss. I still feel lazy, though. I’m a full workout behind on my three days per week program. I’m working my part-time police job tomorrow, so I’m going to wait another day to train and make sure I hit my legs hard (by my standards). My Chief encourages us to train on duty, so I’m going to do that.
In reference to training, that includes firearms training. We’ve been attending a monthly law enforcement drills night at a local firearms academy. The first thing we do at every session is some sort of federal shooting qualification. We stand at 10 yards and the target is a circle that’s about 8 inches in diameter. The course of fire is the following:
- 8 rounds with the rifle
- transition to pistol and fire 8 rounds
- reload pistol with second mag and fire 2 rounds
- transition back to rifle, reload and fire 2 rounds
20 rounds and you can miss one round with each firearm and still ‘pass’. The time limit is 24 seconds. If you’ve ever fired a gun, then you know that’s fast. Well, I had my best performance this past week by only missing two rifle rounds high and my time was 30 seconds. I think that was my fastest time combined with my most accurate shooting. We later did a drill from 20 yards and my rifle was firing high. Based on the distance and what it is supposed to be zero’d at (where point of aim matches point of impact), that was about 4-6 inches high. With that knowledge, I could argue my misses were to blame on a sight that needed some adjustment. But I don’t really care about that part. I was excited to go 10 for 10 with the pistol.
We’re all attending my 12 year old daughter’s final softball practice today. It’s a rec league team and they’re awful. They can’t even throw and catch consistently. The coach wanted to have a fun practice with a parent vs player scrimmage. I’m not sure how to go about this. On one hand, I’m competitive and don’t believe in letting people win so they feel good. On the other hand, if I try to hit a homerun and hit a line drive instead, then I could kill one of those kids. I’m one of those people who think parents should show their kids how it’s done and show no mercy, but I have a feeling the rest of the players’ parents don’t share my values.
Here’s an example of an actual in-game play:
- Pitcher can’t throw a strike so every batter walk, steals 2nd, steals 3rd, then steals home on a wild pitch.
- Girl steals 3rd, catcher finally throws it to 3rd where my daughters is playing.
- My daughter moves out of the way of the ball so it goes into left field and the runner scores.
- Left fielder backs up the throw and throws it to my daughter.
- She catches it, throws it to the pitcher, and the coach yells “Good job!” to my daughter.
What? Good job? She allowed a run to score by moving out of the way. Not good job.
On a separate occasion, my wife about lost her mind when she heard a coach tell one of the girls to “Use your smile”.
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Well, the parent vs team game revealed the root of the problem. Parents intentionally let girls get on base and ran into outs when we were batting. There was no competitiveness. These girls are in middle school! We’re past letting them win even though they fail. I’m not sure how we’re going to do it, but it’s time to find a new team.
6.29.25 W4 D3
RFESS
BW x 5 ea
30s x 5
40s x 5
50s x 5
55s x 5
60s x 5
SUPERSET
RDL
135 x 10 x 3
Ab Wheel
x 10 x 3
SUPERSET
Did 5 sets of DB Incline and alternated between the two pulls for three sets of each.
Hang SGHP
95 x 8
105 x 8
115 x 8
DB Incline
70s x 10, 10, 10, 10, 7
Wide Grip Cable Row
150 x 10
160 x 10, 10
Plumbing Update
I almost forgot! Had a third plumber come take a look at my mess. He’s not with one of the big companies and I am lucky he was referred to me by my sister-in-law. He and his associate will be back tomorrow to fix it for about $350. To clarify, that is the cost to do the same work the first company quoted me $1800+ to do.
6 Likes
7.1.25
I decided to switch to barbell OHP and use the same method as bench.
OHP
75 x 10
95 x 8
110 x 6
125 x 4
140 x 2
Finished all reps, so I move to the next row, but I wondered if I started too heavy throughout this.
Superset With
Smith Crunch
85 x 10, 10, 10
65 x 10
Machine Lat Pull-Down
110 x 10
150 x 10
170 x 10
190 x 10
210 x 8
Machine Leg Press
210 x 10
250 x 10
290 x 10
330 x 10, 10
330 felt decent on my quads so I called it good there. I still wanted to be able to push the sled.
OHP
100 x 5 x 5 sets
Kind of like FSL, but no real structure as to selecting the weight. We’ll just progress from here by about 5 lbs per week.
Sled
Ethos sled + 90 lbs
10 x 25ish meters
Total Time: 9:29
I guess it’s time to add some weight. I don’t really care to push this much past 10 minutes so I think it’s best to make it harder and try to stay within the time limit. I like to use my resting heart rate as my “fitness” metric. I don’t know if it’s the sled workouts or the new drugs I’m taking (enclomiphene, boron, nitric oxide, anastrozole) but I’m attributing it to the sled. My resting HR is 48 bpm for the last 7 days and I often find my HR in the 50s even when I feel stressed.
5 Likes
7.3.25 - 7.7.25
Lake Trip
Lots of floating, beer drinking, fireworks, and a little bit of wakeboarding and slalom skiing. Being the holiday weekend here in the States, the lake was crowded with people who like to tube. If you’re not familiar with lake activities, that’s the one where you lie on an inflated tube and the boat drags you along. It requires no skill whatsoever. It also results in the boats driving in circles and zig zag paths which absolutely wrecks the water. Skiing, wakeboarding, and knee boarding all require smooth water to be enjoyable. Smooth water can only be found early in the morning or in the evening after everyone goes in for dinner. This resulted in me not doing a whole lot because I’m not that motivated to get up early and motivation to be active in the evening drained with every hour I spent floating off the swim dock.
I did ski twice and wakeboard twice. The accomplishment being skiing because I’ve probably only done that about 10 times in my life. I was forced to learn how to slalom ski (one ski) before I could try wakeboarding. I learned and immediately switched to wakeboarding and never did it again…until about 10 years ago. I decided to try it and although it’s kind of brutal, I’ve started to enjoy it. It’s less fatiguing since I’m square to the boat and I’m not tempted to do something stupid like jump the wake like I am on the wakeboard. The reason it’s tough is that I just use my dad’s ski and it’s not rated for my bodyweight. One of his skis tops out around 185 lbs and the other around 200 lbs and here I am at 230+. It makes it tough to get out of the water at the start and makes the ski a bit squirrely once I’m up.
I’ve been shopping skis online and the used market is scarce at my size. It’s looking like the best deal I can find if $400 for the ski and bindings, but the ski I think would be even better for me is around $480. I’m having a hard time pulling the trigger since I spent a similar amount on a new wakeboard two years ago and I’ve only used it about eight times.
2 Likes
7.8.25 Back to the gym
OHP
80 x 10
100 x 8
115 x 6
130 x 4
140 x 5
superset with
Chin-Ups
BW x 8 x 5 sets
Reverse Lunge on the Smith
85 x 5 ea
105 x 5 ea x 3 sets
Hang SGHP
115 x 8 x 3 sets
Sled
Ethos Sled + 90 lbs
Alternate pulling 25m and pushing 25m
Time: 9:21
That beats my last time and I thought I was moving slow. Time to add weight.
3 Likes
7.10.25 W5 D2?
I guess I’m still following the rough outline of Krypteia Redux
Well, this didn’t age well…
Bench
135 x 10
175 x 8
210 x 6
245 x 4
270 x 2
superset with
Lying Leg Raise
4 sets of 10
Circuit - 5 Rounds
- Cable Row: 140 x 10 full lumbar stretch on every rep
- Bench: 210 x 5
- Walking Lunges: BW x 10 ea
Sled
Ethos sled + 100 lbs
Push 25m x 10
Time: 12:36
This sucked. Not sure what happened here, but I guess I have plenty of room for progress since the goal is 10 minutes.
2 Likes