isn’t it great when you find someone who understands your own type of crazy…
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I’m very upset by this post, because I had the great idea to make a hobbit reference and then saw that some other nerd had beaten me to it lol.
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Sleep is freaking magical - each day is better than the last. Why wasn’t I doing this all along? Ranger school would be a lot more enjoyable; someone should tell the RIs.
Today ended up running way long because I talked to some new folks that are signing up. One is an Army recruiter and is going to start trying to use the gym to train some of the recruits to prep them for Basic - this obviously holds a special place in my heart; well worth running over.
I also pulled off an absolute genius move today. The chains in this gym are 35# each (pretty heavy!), but they’re the ones that are attached to a collar that slips over the barbell sleeve so it’s a very linear load/ unload from weight to floor. I wasn’t getting the complete unload at the bottom of squats that I wanted, and the top of the lift wasn’t as heavy. I grabbed some polypro rope (no stretch) and made a couple 32" loops; I slipped one end over the sleeve and doubled the chains and put them through the bottom end. It worked absolutely perfectly - I was able to create a much greater delta between the top and bottom, which is what I wanted.
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Seated Leg Curls
Did a bunch of warmups working up. In between warmups, I held the bottom of a squat to start loosening up my cranky adductors. Then:
160/8 + 115/8 + 10 partials + 30s hold
The key on the partials and the hold is to not try to hold it, but instead try to complete the rep - let the fatigue dictate whats a partial/ hold vs. a rep. Good pumpity pump here. -
Squats
Did a few warmup sets, practicing with my new chain set up. Ended up using two chains that nearly completely unloaded at the bottom on each side and just scraped the floor at the top - so they were worth maybe a few pounds at the bottom and 140 - a couple pounds at the top.
185/8
225/8 -
Leg Press
4pps/5
6pps/10 x 2 -
BSS
This is a death set. You do a 3s negative, come up halfway and hold for 3s, then finish the rep. Do that for 90s per leg. I draped a chain over my neck and did one set each leg. -
RDL
Threw a couple chains over the bar, because chains are cool.
135/4
185/10
225/8
Then it was time to eat breakfast and see what I’ve screwed up at work this week - nothing world-ending, but I have created myself a couple headaches. Whoops.
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Alright, homies, another one in the books!
My daughter asked if she could invite her friend to spend the night yesterday when she got home from school. Obviously I said “yes” and then ate pizza with them because before picture! This friend is an academic and, instead of talking about whose clothes were better or who was thin or whatever, they talked about which advanced classes they’re in - definitely a win! It sounds like they stayed up until 3am, so it’s been a pretty amusing morning with them trying to stay awake.
I decided I have nothing but free time and I want to more legitimately train folks, so I signed up for the NASM CPT certification yesterday evening and am knocking chapters out this morning. My sign-up person/ student counselor said she’s a natural figure pro, so I invited her to come start contributing here… so I’m sure she’s added me to whatever creep/ do not answer list they have.
This morning I really wanted to lean into @T3hPwnisher’s recent blog post about give it your all at 80%, so I took everyone to breakfast before the gym, where I had a gallon of coffee and biscuits and gravy. The early sets were a gamble and I got my conditioning in with bathroom sprint repeats. As General MacArthur told us, " in [the bathroom], there is no subsitute for victory!" In seriousness, I did like the blog post. One of my self-aggrandizing phrases has long been that my 80% will always beat your 100%.
Today I did the secondary pull workout (still can’t bring myself to say “pull/ push pump”) and then played basketball with my son (always a huge win when he’s willing to go and be active). I was as powerful as a lion with the weights and as graceful as a gazelle on the court.
Everything is 60s (or less) breaks on these secondary workouts, and to “easy” failure; basically I go until I can’t really do another good rep, but it’s not like serious poop-my-pants, burst-a-blood-vessel real failure.
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Started with the lat activations and light pulldowns. I can get some awesome lat cramps doing these - way more fun than some goofy mobility work… who needs to move when you can stretch out a t-shirt??
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Assisted Pullups: 3 sets
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Supinated Pulldowns: 2 sets
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C/S Row: 3 sets
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Hyperextensions: 2 sets
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Preacher Curl: 2 sets
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EZ Reverse Curl: 2 sets
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Crunch Machine: 3 sets
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20-ish minutes of basketball with the boy
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Glad you dug the post dude! You’re absolutely living it.
Yes! Oh my goodness yes. I am not at all afraid to bring this up to people who try to razz me about getting injured.
“You train too stupidly: you’re always getting injured!”
“You train too meekly: I am stronger injured than you are healthy”
Brian Alsurhe is on my mind when I think of stuff like that. Brian was more dangerous while DYING than most humans could ever LIVE up to. Brian could be unstrapping himself from a hospital bed, taking IVs out of his arm, dressed in a hospital gown, and if he were looking at me with bad intent in his eyes, I’d sigh and say to myself “Oh f**k me…”
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It’s the “so what” game.
“I’d get hurt.”
“So what? You’re no use now.”
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This made me laugh hard. So many people who don’t do any exercise want to tell me that I train too hard for my age, or that lifting heavy hurts your back or that blacking out lifting a sandbag is dangerous. Whilst they can barely carry the shopping from the car or walk up a few flights of stairs. Better to be sore or injured and still useful than completely useless to start with.
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One of my very good friends for years and years (we started in the military together) is on the other end of the spectrum from me on this. He’s always worried that he might get hurt if he does anything or wondering why I do anything after I got hurt. My thought was always what’s the difference in not squatting or running or whatever between I can’t vs I won’t? At least in the former, I actually get to do the activity up until the injury. What are you saving it for?
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Me & my old tree buddy were grumping and groaning a few weeks ago and he says “I’m probably only about 50% as capable as I used to be”. I laughed and responded “Either one of our 50% is better than most peoples 100.”.
He has some lingering aches & pains from a 50 foot fall, and more metal in his frame than most modern cars.
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Robocop managed alright too!
I love this stuff - “tough” is a lost art
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Squeezed in a quick one in between dropping the kids at their activities and getting some work done!
Push secondary
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Did the chest activations. I still think, intellectually, this concept is ridiculous. In practice, I get a crazy pump to the point I’m cramping before I even do any lifting.
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Incline DB: 3 sets of 12
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Hex Press: 3 sets of 10
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Stretch Pushups: 2 sets
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Superset 2 rounds:
- DB Side Raise Partials x 20
- Seated DB OHP x 8
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Dual Handle Pushdown: 2 sets
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Machine Extension: 2 sets
Peaced out like a ninja in the night!
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Whoa, I haven’t been in here for a few days. I’ve been busy; when I’m making choices, I’d rather hang in the other parts of the forum.
Anyway, I liked @T3hPwnisher thoughts about prioritizing in another thread. I’ve also liked how he talks about sticking some of the stuff you want to fit in into your conditioning (I’m sure I’m butchering and putting words in his mouth there). So I was thinking what are my priorities?
I’ll digress a bit for context: I have been taking medication to sleep pretty consistently (by which I mean every night). It is magical and I feel like a new human being. So I really want to attack sleeping. I followed @Andrewgen_Receptors’s advice and got additional bloodwork done. In the initial consultation, they are more of the TRT mindset than GH. I don’t know how much detail I’ll go into, because it feels icky, but if it’s helpful to anyone I guess I will. Anyway, the moral of the story is I’ll likely end up even freakier as a major steroid user here soon. I jest, but if we can keep my heart healthy I am certainly willing to try something that lets me sleep at least every day.
Anyway, with that, what are my priorities (aside from creating an amazing before picture)?
- I’d like to see if there’s any muscle mass left to put onto these old bones. I’m pretty happy with my bloodwork, blood pressure, and RHR, so this is a good time to get after it. I’m not very lean, in fact I’m a bit chubby still, but whatevs.
- I want to improve my work capacity. Let’s ramp that mess up and maybe get some old man rec league balling in there too. If I can get in a fistfight with another working parent, all my lifelong dreams will be fulfilled; I wish that was a joke.
- I like the deadline concept. So let’s work on muscle until around my birthday and the Arnold (March) and then lean out until Memorial Day. Maybe I’ll even have the stones (that means “man junk”) to put up some pics for the transformation challenge.
So, for now, we are:
- Muscle massing - being fat is ok (I’ll have to remind myself often) so long as we’re getting stronger in moderate rep ranges.
- Building work capacity - here we do the stuff I just feel like doing, but the dual goals are continuing to tolerate volume and keep my heart strong because we’re probably about to throw it a variable.
We’re sticking with our Meadows’ PPL-ish split, because I respect the roll of fate, but as long as I can recover I’m going to add in secondary workouts and arm days. I like the frequency and I still think it makes sense that I can go after a single bodypart, for a block at a time, with frequency while also building conditioning. I just can’t do everything at once.
That was a freaking diatribe. At work I swear I’m a strong communicator. Which reminds me of the time… kidding.
Onto today. I must be a dreamboat, because this was a rowing nightmare:
- In: 4 rounds of
- 5 med ball slams
- 30m prowler
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Meadows Rows
Chain for all sets
-/6
25/4
50/4
75/8 x 3
The chain really feels good on rows -
One-arm BB Row
Chain still!
50/8 x 3 -
Straight-arm Pulldown
3 x 10 -
Pulldowns
Emphasize Stretch
3 x 12 -
Crunch Machine
4 sets -
Standing Calves
10 + 10 partials + 10s stretch x 4
Tibia raises in between -
Assault bike x 10 minutes
This was absolutely brutal. They call it an “assault” bike for a reason - I’m pressing felony charges after what it did to me.
In other news, 3 of my former classmates are now US Congressmen. Congrats to them! I sometimes wonder if I should go that route, or forever be a disappointment to my nation, but I don’t think I’d put my kids through that; disappointment it is.
Now I need to wrap up some work and get to my son’s play - he’s pumped; they practice (my bad, rehearse) for a whole season and this is like the big game.
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B@d@ss!
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My son is in musical theatre, and you’re right, they put a LOT into rehearsals. I get nervous going to watch because I worry that someone will mess up a line or something, but they always nail it perfectly. I feel like I am more anxious than the performers lol.
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Not looking for details here but I am a little slow today and didn’t really understand a lot of this.
Are you saying that you got tested after some bad sleep and TRT is the solution??
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It was really cute. It was Aladdin. I was very impressed with some of the singing!
Well, slightly longer story than that. My test has been low and my E2 high for like 2 years (at least that I’ve done bloodwork consistently enough to know). I haven’t really cared and, like I’ve joked before, it’s still more than 5x as high as our resident tough guy’s. My sleep has gotten bad enough over the last year or so I have cared and started searching for solutions. To date, I just take sleeping pills; they work, but I wake up pretty groggy and I’m sure it’s not awesome to be addicted to them. @Andrewgen_Receptors suggested a couple blood tests and I did those (and another draw of the full panel). He anticipated they’d suggest GH, but they are more interested in my testosterone numbers and think that could be a culprit.
Sorry you asked?
The play? I mean, it was ok.
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I really find this interesting. I am well past my prime and I am also from an era where men don’t go to the doctor (stupid I know). Going to a doctor and getting some blood tests done and them suggesting testosterone therapy seems a little odd to me. Not sure down here my doctor would even consider that as a likely cause and definitely not suggest it as a treatment option. @wiseman83 @kleinhound Is it just me or does sit feel like other countries are on a different level when it comes to this stuff ?
Not judging by the way, just making an observation.
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Sorry, a tad swamped here. Going to respond to you when i have time to give my full attention.
@simo74 i recommended getting some hormones tested with the intent of checking IGF-1 as a derivative of GH levels. Whether in range or not, TRT mills won’t be averse to prescribing GH producing peptides like Sermorelin, BPC-157, CJC, etc. Increased GH levels can help with sleep and recovery, among a litany of other items. Alongside recommending getting IGF-1 checked, i recommended getting a baseline of Test, Free Test and some other hormones for years down the road… if you feel good now, get checked and save results for a time when age eventually catches up to our local fountain of youth and longevity - @TrainForPain. It just gives you something to get back to for the sake of health and quality of life when eventually both go downhill.
Not a surprise that TRT doctors are interested in prescribing TRT, for obvious reasons.
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Thanks for jumping in and taking the time to spell that out. My understanding of biology with respect to hormones is close to zero, that this is all Russian to me.
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I’ll say, from my limited time, my sleep definitely seems to be improving in terms of quantity. I’m actually SEEKING sleep these days, whereas before it was more something I endured.
Hopefully you see some good out of this.
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