My right knee has started to feel cranky from doing both overhead squats and sotts press, but only right after I finish them. I’m starting to think that it’s not pain but rather just sore because it’s getting used to those movements. Knee felt 100% during squats today.
Weight loss is going fine. One week in and I’m down ~4lb.
Back squat- 145/175/205/235lbx5, 265lb 1x10, (~15 second later) 1x2, 205lb, 1x13
Came so close to hitting the goal today. The overhead squat and sotts press are paying off. The warm-up sets felt easy and bar positioning on the back felt better as well. I previously thought I had to squat heavy frequently to keep myself limber, but what I really need is just the act of squatting some weights. This is a good discovery.
205lb still felt really hard. I’m pretty sure I forgot to breathe with the last 2-3 reps.
DB OHP- 30lb, 1x14, 2x12, 1x8 (~15 seconds later) 1x4
14 reps is too much for now.
Tried 85lb overhead squats yesterday. Quite a bit more difficult and felt like it verged into “unwise” territory, so I did 1x13 and 1x12 with the bar today.
OHP- 95lbx5, 115lb, 2x8, 1x9 (push-pressed last rep)
One huge grindy rep on the eight rep of set three but I got it! And I felt good enough to do a push-press afterwards too.
Forward lunge-1x25
Reverse lunge- 1x25
Push-up- 2x20, 6x10
No flat bench open so I did push-ups instead.
Incline bench DB chest supported row- 3x12, 1x14
Hanging leg raise (to parallel)-5x10
This hurt, and I don’t even know if you can call many of these proper reps.
Good session in spite of feeling deflated going into it for no clear reason.
I’m deviating from the pull-up program since I don’t think maxing out while fasting every other day is a good idea. Instead I’m now doing 11 pull-ups.
Deadlift- 135/225lbx5, 315lbx2, 355lb, 3x6
Ok, so today ended up being a mess. Pulled 225lb double overhand and I immediately felt the bar peeling from my hand… which messed with my confidence. 315lb didn’t feel that great either. Got aggressive with the first work set and it went really well. Rep 1-4 of the second set went good as well. Seemingly ran out of steam on the third rep of the third set, so started taking mini-rests. Last rep felt grindy. Then I noticed that I tore a callus; fortunately it didn’t tear deep and so barely bled, but I couldn’t put strength into my hands anymore.
DB OHP- 30lb, 3x13, 1x11
Last couple reps of set 3/4 felt difficult.
~20 or so minutes of waiting later~
Back squat- 175lb- 3x15, 1x5
2 minute rest for the third set- I wanted to try 20 reps but unfortunately this began to feel significantly more difficult around the 9-10th rep.
Cable row- 3x15, 1x5
These felt really good. I don’t recall feeling my back actually work on cable rows often but I clearly felt them today.
Push-up- 2x25
Did these at home because I didn’t want my hands to touch the presumably unsanitary gym floor with a torn callus. Lots of resting at the top for the second set.
Overhead squatted 85lb for 5x5 again yesterday. Felt much more stable than last time.
Didn’t do any pull-ups or the daily overhead squats today because I “forgot”.
OHP- 95/115lbx5, 135lbx5 (push-pressed the last two reps)
push-press- 135lb, 2x8, 1x4
Decided out of the blue to see how 135lb felt… Didn’t feel that good. The push-presses felt hard.
Lunges with 30lb DBs-4x12
Alternated between forward and reverse lunges. I need to make an effort to tuck my chin in when I do these because I tend to relax my upper back and slouch when I get tired with these. Upper back felt a lot more tired on this today, I assume because of the push-presses.
Flat bench- 125lb, 3x12, 1x6, 1x7
Yup, my chest is the only bodypart that gets tired on this.
Incline bench chest supported rows- 4x12
Hanging leg raise (to parallel)- 4x12
Much better.
Forgot to mention that I had a status update on the weight loss-
Weight is below 180lb now- currently ~179.5lb. Hunger is very annoying right now. I feel full really quickly but then start feeling hungry again an hour or so later. I’ve been eating a lot of pork for protein and… man, pork sucks. It’s cheap but gets tiring very quickly. I’ve been buying those big pork butts and then pressure cooking them in the Instant Pot. It’s tasty (when I’m feeling very hungry) but the fat content is far too much.
I am moving soon to a brand new house with my very own freezer. I am looking forward to trying those Piedmontese beef that T3hPwnisher keeps raving about.
BB row- 135lb, 3x10. First two set paused for 3 second at top.
Went to the gym early today because it closes at 2PM and we have Thanksgiving dinner planned at ~4-4:30PM. So I ended up only having a handful of nuts to break the fast… I definitely didn’t have enough food because I started to feel starving hungry on the superset.
I think the lack of food + lifting way earlier than normal had an impact on the squats. They felt pretty good up to the 245lb set. 275lb felt ok till the fifth rep and I gave up because I just couldn’t be bothered to put the effort in today. Right knee felt a bit aggravated but I think that’s because I lifted on the “bad” rack, where I can’t get a good position before unracking.
Supersetted the main assistance movements to save time. This really sucked. I haven’t done supersets or anything that remotely comes close to this kind of stuff in months and I felt it today. In hindsight I should have grabbed the DBs and superset them, cause changing the weights on the bar felt like it took more time than just doing these two movements separately. The stiff legged deadlifts felt challenging on the last two sets.
Weighed myself right before showering and found myself at a whopping 176lb naked. Too fast. I need to eat a lot today.
Switched things up a bit yesterday and did-
power snatch and then overhead squat- 95lb, 10x1
Felt good. Power generation got better as I tired and needed to put more effort into it. I’m pretty sure this is a PR for overhead squats.
Today-
OHP- 95lbx5, 115lb, 1x9, 2x8 (push pressed last two reps)
Set of 9 felt pretty good. Started tiring out afterwards.
Lunges- Alternated between 10 reps of forward, side, and back lunges adding up to 60 reps total.
Flat bench- 125lb, 2x12, 115lb, 1x12, 1x9, 1x4
Incline bench chest supported row- 4x15
Toe to bar- 5x5
Rebuilding these over the course of several weeks worked- I can finally do these again. Last set felt pretty hard though. I used to have stabbing and burning pains in my left shoulder blades while doing these and leg raises to parallels. They disappeared since I started doing the sotts press.
Did 50 burpees after I returned home. Chest felt really fatigued but otherwise felt easy up till the last 5 or so reps, when I started to sweat a bit and felt warm.
I am going to move soon and I think my lifting schedule may change a lot in the next couple of weeks, so I decided to see where I am with a max deadlift. Plus I am sick of repping deadlifts again and want to move heavier stuff. I got my chalk out for the occasion too!
No grip issues at all, and it’s fun to use chalk because it seems to add an extra layer of mental prep. 405lb felt fine. 435lb felt like a massive grind and my body felt funny.
DB OHP- 30lb, 3x13, 1x11
Last couple of reps of set 3/4 felt difficult.
Back squat- 185lb, 4x12
Two min rest for the last set. This kicked my ass, My lower back started to move poorly on the last two sets, probably because it got fatigued by the max deadlift.
BB row- 155lb, 2x15
I wanted to do DB rows but found all the flat bench occupied by people. I decided to do BB rows instead of waiting, but I found that I made the wrong choice. My lower back felt horrible.
50 burpees and then some walking after returning home. I think I would have accelerated the fat loss a bit if I had done these 50 burpees earlier. 50 is enough to not feel tired while still feeling like I did something that got me warm.
Diet-wise, I fasted till night on Sunday and then ate 3/4 of a very large pizza, then fasted till night on Monday and then ate a very large bowl of pho + what really amounts to an extra heaping helping of noodles from my parent’s bowls… and I gained zero weight. Normally I temporarily put on 7-8lb after eating so much carbs but that didn’t happen the last two days. I think this is great.
Bench- 95/115/135/155lbx5, 175lbx2, 145lb, 1x10/1x8
More maxes.
Probably could have done more reps with 175lb but I got scared because it felt quite a bit more difficult than I expected.
No legs because my legs felt like shit. I just stretched them a bit and did a couple stationary lunges instead.
Back squat- 155/185/215/245lbx5, 275lb, 1x5, 1x2, 245lb, 1x6
My left leg again felt a lot of strain on 275lb and I guess my hip felt very fatigued by rep 5 of 275lb. I’m starting to realize that I am using way too heavy of a weight. I think this also proved to be unfeasible when I’m trying to lose weight. Oh well.
What’s not good is that my right knee felt painful after I went past 185lb.
OHP- 95lbx5, 115lb, 1x9, 3x6
This felt difficult today. Possible factors- barely ate anything and drove 5+ hours beforehand. But the rest of my assistance stuff felt really easy. So… I dunno.
Lunges- Alternated between 10 reps of forward, side, and back lunges adding up to 60 reps total.
Flat bench- 115lb, 5x10
Went conservative on the reps cause the OHP felt so hard.
Incline bench chest supported row- 4x12
Hanging leg raise (to parallel)- 3x15, 1x5
These felt solid. I’m very surprised by how quickly I got better at these.
And that is probably the last dedicated strength workout I’m doing this year. I’m busy moving and will be off on a vacation trip next week. I plan on joining a Crossfit gym that is near my new home after I return and will be getting my ass kicked by WODs for the foreseeable future. I plan on finally achieving my dream of having a home gym as well, probably by Feb/Mar? Depends on when my new neighborhood shows up on a map.
Overall I’m ok with progress this year. More or less regained my overall strength while getting stronger in some lifts and, judging by my 100 burpee time, I should be better conditioned now than pre-pandemic me. Mobility, especially hip mobility, has gone to shit though and I don’t know how to bring that back short of doing dedicated mobility workouts everyday, which I loath doing. I’ll literally have a massive empty place to do mobility stuff at my new house though, so my previous excuse of not having enough space will no longer apply. If I can’t find the time to do mobility work then I’m just being incredibly stupid.
I am done fasting, so I’m going to be doing a variety of bodyweight movements (probably lightly loaded here and there with some gallon bottles in my backpack too) for the next couple of days and go much higher on volume.
yesterday
5 sets of-
10 chin-up
20 push-up
30 squats
2 min rest in between. Had to rest-pause the pull-ups on set 4 and 5. Felt fine otherwise.
Today-
100 burpee + chin-up.
Took ~22 minutes. I did this off those bars you hang on a doorframe, so I went very careful and that probably slowed me down a bit. That being said… that’s a good thing because otherwise I probably couldn’t complete the chin-ups. + I believe the only reason I managed to finish 100 chin-ups is because I started every rep with my feet touching the floor. I cheated whenever necessary and didn’t bother attempting to go into a deadhang before initiating the rep either, and I still hit a wall on the chin-ups around rep 70. The actual burpees felt like a breeze cause this took 22 minutes to do.
10 rounds of-
5 chin-up
10 push-up
15 squat
with ~10lb backpack.
Took ~21 minutes, which has to be a PR of some sort for doing this weighted. I tried taking as few a rest as possible between sets, going from 10 seconds to 30 to eventually a minute. As expected I slowed down dramatically near the end.
100 “breathing” burpees. Took slightly less than 8 minutes. Ok time since I wasn’t trying to go fast at all. My abs started to actually hurt around rep 70ish? That was a new sensation on these.
My goodness. An AM and PM workout today. Not having to work is making me crazy.
50 chin-up, done as 10x5 with 30 second rests in between. RP on the eighth set.
100 push-up, done as 6x15 and 1x10 with 30 second rests in between, RP on the fourth set I think?
150 squats, done straight. Took mini-rests here and there to catch my breath.
Ate Dominos pizza, and specifically their hot wings, for the first time in over two years. I really enjoyed their hot wings before but good God the wings I had today tasted incredibly salty. It killed my palate and left me feeling ill.
I’m on vacation. Was supposed to leave yesterday but the storm that blew into the Bay Area made me leave a day earlier. Lots of walking. I am working out because I feel obligated to use the hotel gym simply because of the required resort fee, so still doing something everyday.
What I did the last couple of days-
Last Saturday-
10 rounds of-
5 chin-up
5 dip
5 walking lunges
with an ~20lb backpack.
Chin-ups felt easy and dips got pretty hard near the end. Weighted backpacks feel a lot easier than having the weight on a dip belt.
Last Monday-
10x10 burpees in EMOM sets. Fantastic way to wake up.
I wanted to do 25 chin-ups but gave up after 10. My mask’s structure broke down and kept obstructing my mouth, so breathing became very difficult.
Today-
I wanted to do WOD Fran, but I found that the bar kept running into the mask I brought for the trip when I do the thrusters. So I modified this by doing a power snatch into a overhead squat with the bar instead. I have zero idea how to kip, so the pull-ups took a while. Eventually compensated on that by limiting ROM.
I learned yesterday that I cannot handle hard liquor anymore. Had just one mixed drink + a shot of whiskey and woke up feeling hungover and with a headache that still refuses to go away. No more hard liquor for me anymore, or limit to a single shot with a meal. Thank goodness I have an excuse to chill in the hotel today because of the nasty weather outside.
I wanted to log today because I had fun and wanted to share what I accomplished.
I did all the Judo breakfalls I’d normally do before a Judo session without feeling anything ache today.
I did 18 chin-ups (not deadhang) in a single set, which is a decent PR.
I did 55 push-ups in a single set, which is a massive PR for me and my incredibly weak horizontal pressing strength.
Pleasantly surprised by both of these. I did 40 push-ups just last week, so I definitely didn’t expect this.
Hit 64 push-ups in a single set yesterday and ended up doing 100 push-ups in last than 5 minutes. Horizontal pressing strength is no longer absolute garbage. I’m curious to see what I can bench and OHP now with a couple weeks of getting back to it.
Weighed myself at my parent’s house over the weekend and found that I weigh 173lb now, which is cool.
I somehow injured my right ankle this Saturday and I have no idea what caused it. Felt fine when I woke up and drove to my parent’s place, but then found that it started hurting immediately afterwards? Hopefully this doesn’t stop me from doing my current things.