Condolences my man. By most accounts, things are going as well as they can on my end. I tend to only write about the negatives, since the negatives for me are about how I’m eating, but I don’t want to give the impression that I’m in a state of darkness.
Good to hear you have balance my friend. I’m not really in a dark place per se but at times I feel close to the edge of the abyss and sneaking a peak. Last 2 weeks have been particularly bad mostly bought on my work stress which then tends to boil over into how I behave at home. I really need to pull myself together. No idea why I felt the need to share that with you or anyone really. Sorry to put a downer on your thread.
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Never sweat it dude. You’re a poster I respect and appreciate around here: if I can provide any sort of help, even by just having a spot where you can vent, I’m happy to do so. This year has just absolutely sucked for everyone. I came into work today, put on my mask leaving my car, and had a mini-meltdown over the fact that it’s goddamn November and I’m STILL wearing a mask everywhere I go, wondering if life will ever be the way it was before. We’ll all come through it stronger, but that doesn’t mean we have to pretend like it doesn’t suck.
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Thanks pwn. You are spot on about this year totally sucking. It’s really odd how people you have never met in person seem to understand parts of you that even those closest to you never understand. Having somewhere to vent where people can say I’m happy to listen and I get it is cathartic in an odd sort of way.
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Bit of a grab bag today. Got home at 0630, slept until 1145, had 3 whole eggs and some greek yogurt with PBfit and then did 3 hours of yardwork. Started off with the 80lb vest on but it was just getting in the way, so took it off and finished up the chores. Got a meal after that (what would you call that? Evening lunch?), did my daily training 5 round circuit of chins, swings and ab wheel, had a snack, then hit Tabata high handle trap bar pulls before coming to work. Does this count as a down day?
This is my last night shift for this rotation, so I’m going to come home and stay up all day so my clock resets. Gonna try to get in a bench workout tomorrow and then wake up early to walk the dogs and get in my front squat/ssb workout. I’m contemplating including some log viper presses in that workout to get in some more shoulder volume.
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LUNCHTIME WORKOUT: HOUR 29 OF BEING AWAKE
Axle bench press 215+chains
1x10
1x8
1x7
Close grip incline bench 190
3x10
DB Bench 105
1x8
DROPSET (no rest between sets)
7x105
3x105 w/reactive slingshot
3x105 w/Metal Catapult (Metal’s take on the slingshot, heavier duty)
13x50
Reps of 50 with the slingshot
Reps of 25s
50x10lbs
6 push ups
30x50lbs
Chins (underhand) between sets of benching
2x12
A bunch of sets of 11
Dips w/rest pause
50+25+20+15+25+15
Poundstone curls
133xAxle
CONDITIONING
Stone to shoulder w/unloaded Stone of Steel: 6 reps per side in 3:50
Notes: 3:00 between sets of benching. Helluva workout. Sweated out a ton. Humidity came back with a vengeance. Feeling strong, and first time benching in the new rack. I like it. It’s solid. Doesn’t rattle around as much as my old one. J-hooks are a little deeper, and I clipped them on the first set of benching, but I got it sorted out pretty quick. All the sweat made it a bit tough to work the stripset the way I wanted on the DB benching, as I got caught up on the material, but the idea is sound.
EDIT: meant to log thst I got my daily training done as soon as I got home at 0630 this morning.
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AM WORKOUT (0700ish, with a 0535 wake up via alarm)
EMOM workout. Odd minute was 3x190 front squats, Even minute was 3x255 SSB squats. Went for 32 rounds total.
90 second rest
Front squat immediately to SSB squat
23x135+10x135
90 second rest
CONDITIONING
85lb circus dumbbell clean (alternate arms each rep)
30 reps in 2:30
1000 WORKOUT
50 minute weighted vest walk
Notes: Good to get back to the EMOM workout. Sucks in a different way than Litvinov. My hamstrings are still screaming from my squat workout a few days ago, so hopefully this will get recovery moving again. Circus Dumbbell was just something I’d kicked around as an idea for a while: simple to set up and execute. That weighted vest walk after the squat workout was suddenly very challenging.
I will get in my daily training later. I think I’m going to scrap KB swings, or do them every other day. I’ve noticed my hip started acting up as soon as I started doing them daily again. I also haven’t done any real stretching in a LONG time.
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Thought about doing DC-type stretching after certain movements? I’ve been doing it fairly regularly over the last 6-ish months, and while I don’t know if it’s added much in terms of gains, my joints certainly feel great.
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One of the many millions of cool things I could fit in if I had unlimited training time, haha. For me, it is primarily the groin, hips and hamstrings I try to keep limber. I stretch at work while waiting on the microwave these days, but was doing half hour sessions when COVID first hit.
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It’s a slippery slope.
@simo74 I don’t know what your particular struggles are but if they at all relate to food I can empathise
This confused the fuck out of me for a solid 5 minutes. Good work as always.
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My struggles are mostly just related to the daily pressures of life itself. As a boss, a husband and a father of 3, I tend to take on a lot and don’t have a reliable way to release the pressure valse when things are getting too much. This causes the occasional explosion !!
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Gotcha. Well, I ended up drowning in stress for vastly different reasons. Whether or not what you are doing is sustainable, if anyone could determine that, that’d be you. But sometimes we ourselves aren’t even equipped to do that. I imagine much like we do band pull-aparts there are habits you could try to adopt to pre-empt “injuries” down the road.
If you can’t stop taking on a lot, maybe the Eisenhower method could be a tool for determining how much a thing matters
And the mantra “If it’s not a hell yeah, it’s a no” might be a decent guide for what to take on or not 
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Unfortunately it’s not as simple as deciding whether to take on things or not. When it’s part of your job or it involves your family there is no choice, you just take it on. Usually I am able to find a balance and most of the time not everything comes at once. Sometimes however all aspects go to shite at the same time and you just have to deal with it. We have 2 sayings down here that cover it pretty well.
- “Suck it up princess”
- “Take a spoon of concrete and harden the fk up”
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Sorry, I misinterpreted or perhaps viewed it through my own personal bias in that I’ll take on things on top of work/family and mistakenly assumed you were referring to this habit too. When it all is urgent/important then yeah, there’s very little one can do when that square becomes overwhelmingly huge.
All good mate don’t apologise it’s good to talk this through with people. I get what you mean about taking other stuff on and this can be a problem for me too. During COVID and the lockdowns I have kind of seperate myself from a lot of those other distractions because it would have been self detonation to take on more.
I like that, I’m stealing it.
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AM WORKOUT (0430 wake up via dog)
DELOAD
GIANT SETS (press or BtN press-dip-raise-pull apart)
Axle strict press 136/dips
1x10/failure
2x9/failure
BtN press 120/dips
1x10/failure
2x8/failure
DB lateral raise 20s
1x11
5x10
Band pull aparts
6x15
Weighted dips stripset
2x130
3x105
3x80
4x55
5x30
5xBodyweight
CONDITIONING
Fran-esque Strongman WOD (100lb log clean and push press away to chins)
21
15
9
5
Time: 7min 41 sec
0900 WORKOUT
45 min weighted vest walk w/o dogs
Notes: 90 second rests between giant sets. THe instant I took the axle out for the first set, I knew that this was EXACTLY what was missing in my programming and what needed to come back. BtN presses are cool, weighted dips are awesome, but strict pressing is what makes me strong and it needs to stay in the supplemental work in SOME capacity. Good to learn that lesson. Be great to come back with all the strength I’ve built on the other movements. The dip stripset was challenging, and in general coming into this workout first thing in the morning without the main work to “prime” me was interesting.
Weather was too crummy to take the dogs, so I went solo. Covered the same distance in 15 fewer minutes: good data point.
I liked the fran thing I came up with. Good way to get in a little more pressing volume. I may try thrusters with the log sometime, but the diameter makes it a pain.
On the mental health side, been feeling a lot more like my old self these past few weeks. Sleep is much better, and I have far less apathy. All positive trends.
For my American readers: Titan fitness is having a 1 day flash sale on their trap bar, which is the one I use. Highly recommend it. For all others: Louie Simmon’s book “Iron Samurai” is $40 off right now on Westside Barbell’s website. I just bought it. 306 pages. I’ll do a review when I’m through it.
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Glad to read this
Thanks man. I appreciate that.
Was setting up the garage for tomorrow’s workout and like what I came up with for a row variation
This was one of the big driving factors in the new rack: being able to play with bands some more. And the straps will keep my bars from warping. Should be pretty intense. I didn’t need any bar weight to make this challenging.
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