I keep thinking I’d like to put in some work on the track again. Then I try it and realize I’m wrong.
I never, ever, even think I want to get on the stepmill, you psychopath
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I hear you about track work. I’ll get a burst of inspiration to run, only to find I really dislike gasping and dry heaves. For some reason, the stepmill doesn’t fill me with despair like running can…
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7/26/20, Sunday
Dog walk, 1 mile, quick
I took the weekend off lifting to go to my girlfriend’s dad’s (potential father-in-law’s) birthday lunch and to continue a legal research project I’m doing for a lawyer. It was a pleasant weekend, and I’m excited for another week of training.
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Nice. I’ll be happy when the puppy walks without stopping every 30 feet !! 
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Right? My dog’s now 2 1/3 years old, and he still wants to stop and sniff frequently. I let him have two or three good, brief sniffs each walk, but we’re primarily out there for exercise. He’s learning.
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Mine was a real nightmare about walks, as I got him as an untrained 3 year old who had been crated 12 hours a day and he had tons of energy, so he was just tug and sniff the whole time. Now he walks at heel, finally - with no leash slack. Took hours and hours of stopping every time he tugged and bringing him gently back to heel, and occasionally doing a random 180 in the middle of the walk, away from him and into him, until he started paying attention to where I am. When we come up to a piece of grass and I want to let him forage/sniff, I make him WAIT, then SIT, and once he’s sitting, he waits until I tell him FREE DOG, which is a really important command that I didn’t know about before owning a dog and researching all of this stuff. Free Dog, or whatever command you choose, is the command that lets him know he’s temporarily NOT under your command. Some dogs are just all or nothing - if they can pull you over to an area to sniff once, then he wants to do it every time. This way, your word is the law, until you let him know, he’s a free dog, he can go and do what he wants for a while, until you say come or whistle, then it’s back to heel and back to the walk.
I genuinely don’t know if all of this is necessary for other dogs, though - mine’s a certified brat, and definitely needs the extra structure. He’s doing so well though. I make it a half mile with half the leash dragging on the ground - 0 slack and no pulls.
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Thanks Flap, that’s excellent information to have! I’ve been teaching my dog “let’s go” and “stop”, but I haven’t learned how to get him to stop pulling. I’ll start coming to a complete halt when he pulls, too. Right now, all our walks are on the streets in my neighborhood, so he’s on-leash 100% during the walks. He has a nearly acre sized yard for free running and sniffing, but I’d like to teach him the “free dog” command too, in hopes of hiking in the near ish future.
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Yeah, and the most important thing is, when he’s at heel, let up ALL leash slack. If there’s a constant tug, then he won’t really respond to heavy tug vs light tug. With no leash pressure at heel, very light pressure will get him to notice. When you apply pressure to bring him back, bend down so the leash is parallel to the ground - that way, the pressure is directional and not just up and back. And finally, the lesson starts from the moment you open the door. My dog will sit until the door is open - if he jumps when the door is opening, it closes, he sits again until I can open it. You step out first, do not let him crowd you or rush past you.
By the way, most of this is from Larry Krohn, who is a K9 trainer and awesome dog trainer on YT, lest I sound like I’m an expert. I didn’t know SHIT a year ago and spent hours researching online and filtering through shitty info. He does use an e-collar (not a shock collar, like the type of stim you get at the chiropractor, no pain, just communication) on a lot of his dogs, but he has plenty of videos just about regular walking and commands and positive reinforcement that are worth watching, plus some great videos showing dogs that were basically beyond hope being rehabbed by him.
Also: for the free dog command, I got a 25 foot training leash and would let him roam, say come, reward with a treat, and then say free dog and ignore him til he got the point and went away. Worked pretty quickly that way. For treats, I have a medium sized dog, and didn’t wanna pay for expensive treats so I bought one gourmet bag of hard dog food for super mini dogs and give him those - like tiny little niblets, not filling, healthy, and a 12 dollar bag has lasted me months.
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Again, this is excellent advice. Thank you! It addresses the exact issue I’m working on. I’m fairly ignorant about how to teach a dog to leash walk, so you posts are perfectly timed. I’ll check out Larry Krohn’s videos, too.
My dog is a large dog, so he’s subject to bloat and can’t eat much when exercising. Tiny, nibble-sized training treats are exactly what he’ll need.
From your posts, it looks like you’ve done an excellent job training Alfie 
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7/27/20, Monday, Back! at the gym
Warm-up
Treadmill, 5 minutes, incline, multi-directional
Face pulls - 15 x 2 x 15
Seated leg curls
115 x 10
130 x 8
145 x 8, 115 x 6
I took a page from @TrainForPain’s Meadows programs and smashed out some hammies before deadlifts. I’ve got a sneaking suspicion my hams are gonna be sore for days again.
Pullups
bw x 3 x 5
Smith machine low rack pulls
135 x 10
185 x 5
225 x 5
275 x 3
295 x 1
315 x 5 x 2
225 x 10
I don’t know if I’ve ever paired deadlifts with a full back workout, so it’ll be interesting to see how I recover this week. I’ve not deadlifted in months, so I took it slow. My wrist and everything else felt good. Except my ego; doggone, I’ve lost strength!
Seated cable rows, wide neutral grip
100 x 5
120 x 5
140 x 3 x 8
Hammer Strength MTS pulldowns
80 x 2 x 10
Dumbbell rows, unsupported
60 x 2 x 10
Twisting dumbbell curls
25 x 2 x 10
A smashing back sesh. I’m curious to learn whether I like this whole bro-split thing. I still plan to get at least a few sets of exercise to each muscle group twice a week, like legs during the Smith pulls today or dip machine for pecs on arm day.
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Would love to be able to do this, and did exactly this with our last dog (many years ago). Unfortunately we are fostering the pup for the Australian Border Force and he will eventually become a sniffer dog for border control. This limits the amount of training we can do with him and exactly what commands we can and can not do. Walking to heel or teaching the dog to walk to heel is strictly NOT allowed. The want the dog to learn to walk correctly on the lead, which means in front, slightly slack lead and on your left side. But we cant use heel commands or any of that.
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Excellent, but it’s a bro split - we pretend deadlifts don’t involve the legs!
Leg curls before squats, lats before deadlifts.
How did it feel,though? I’ll bet you do have some cramps!
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Aha, I’m learning already! Glad to clear that up at the beginning.
Oops, I did leg curls AND lats before the deadlifts. And it worked well - my problem hip feels great, so I’m gonna hafta keep bending that rule. Definitely will be doing leg curls again before leg presses or Smith squats, whichever I settle on.
Freakin’ fantastic! I was all systems - go for the rack pulls. My hamstring are surprisingly not sore yet, either.
In the past, I’ve followed deadlifts with weighted pullups. In a few weeks, I might weight the pullups before deads; pulls on the Smith are a more malleable beast than with a free bar. I can emphasize or deemphasize various muscles by changing form and pulling harder on the bar.
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Excellent! If it felt good, it’s the right answer. Something I really took away from Meadows’ stuff was to put the big barbell lift later - it just feels better.
Another fun combo is to superset the pull-ups with the deads. As you’re working up, the pull-ups are kind of a pre-exhaust; as you get into your working weight, they decompress your spine a bit.
Looks like it’s going well!
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Nice and sore throughout my traps, middle back, biceps, and a bit in my lats. No hamstring soreness to speak of! Clearly, @TrainForPain was right about deadlifts not being a leg exercise. Chest and delts tonight or tomorrow, depending on how case research goes.
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Delaying the barbell lift seems counterintuitive, but I didn’t lift any less weight after pullups and leg curls, and I feel great today, so Meadows is onto something for sure.
In future workouts, I’ll try bodyweight pullups between deadlift sets and see how it feels. I used to tri-set deadlifts, pullups, and standing overhead presses. That worked better with lower weights and higher reps.
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That makes sense but also raises the question of why they aren’t keeping the puppy and training him from the get-go.
They breed too many pups to keep all of them. People foster the pups from 9weeks. They have to live outside and you are expected to care for them, walk them and do a number of training activities each week. This might me specific games they want you to play or taking them out to get them used to sights and sounds. Example this weekend I took ours to the train station so he could see trains coming and going and also go through tunnels and up and down stairs.
They take the pups back for 1 week every 2 months and do specific training with them. When they are 12 months they are then assessed. Those that show the best aptitude then go through the full training program.
They would need way too many staff to care for, walk, feed and take all the pups out for learning outings three days a week.
The guide dogs for the blind association do exactly the same thing. Pups with foster parents for 12 months then the real training starts.
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7/28/20, Tuesday, Moobs
Seated chest press
40 x 10
50 x 5
60 x 5
70 x 2 x 12
Dip machine
120, 135, 150, 165 x 8
bw x 5 (real dips)
- wrist isn’t ready for real dips yet, which is ok, because the dip machine feels great
- oops, just realized these were 10 pounds too light. Oh well, next time.
Rear delt flyes / pec deck
80 x 3 x 15 / 90 x 3 x 12
- dropped the pec flye weight and got a much better MMC. Shou out to @Frank_C, who pointed out the MMC benefits of flyes.
Standing DB OHP
25 x 5
35 x 5
45 x 8, 9, 10
- felt better on my wrist than the shoulder press machine; better angle. Slow negatives, rebuilding strength.
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A way I’ve always looked at it is that if I can tire out say, my legs/back doing something and then still go squat/deadlift/clean a heavy weight, then I know I’m capable of being strong even when tired and that I should be able to lift an even heavier weight when I’m feeling fresh.
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