Twenty by 40 by 2020 - Journey Back to Where I Was 20 Years Ago

3/8 - off - 12 hour day in the office, and then one of my former clients called and was in town, so met him up for a drink (3). Was tired, and then ate shitty dinner. Stayed up too late (with some more beers) with my wife and a friend of hers. Got up at 221.0 this morning - felt okay this morning, but hit about 3700 calories yesterday (big working lunch - eggs, bacon, toast, brisket hash as well) - but all that food and drink and sodium definitely affected my weigh in this AM.

3/9 - good session, especially for at 10 AM

  1. Easy warm-up with calisthenics, mobility, light weight stuff working up to working weight.
  2. Hang Snatch Grip High Pulls - 5x3 at 195 - pulling to clavicles (probably only mid chest by last set).
  3. Ten Box Jumps: 5 with no counter movement and 5 with a counter movement - landing straight leg on 20" box with plenty of room to spare.
  4. Snatch Grip Deadlifts - 7x2 doubles working up to 355: 195-225-275-295-315-335-355
  5. SLJ: Mixed these in between deadlift sets - 8-8’6" with very soft landing. Didn’t push myself here.

Dead lifts were not hard, but moving more slowly than I like. Think this was probably due to being at gym in my condo building with no dropping weights, so my eccentric was slow and also 2 eccentric reps per set. Pretty happy with today, especially for it being 10 AM still.

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3/10 - just a bunch of curls and triceps and lat raises and some suitcase carries w 100# KB

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3/11 - REALLY good session middle of the day (3-4 PM)

  1. Warm-up muscle cleans and step-ups
  2. Power Cleans - 10x2 at 210
  3. 2 Step Pause Squats, A2G - 5x5 at 205
  4. RDL - 3x10 at 155
  5. Pull-ups - 30 total at 7-6-6-5-4-2

Cleans went great today. Bar flying up. Squats - look, I got all 5 sets. And it was hell. Give today a 9/10. Feel awesome.

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3/12 hypertrophy day

  1. Plate raises - 25# - 130 reps
  2. Triceps ext - 27.5 - 130 reps
  3. Curls - 45# - 130 reps
  4. Lunges - 130 reps
  5. Pushups 65 reps

Basic - good pump

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That’s a solid all around session right there.

Pretty happy with it. And in spite of how weak the pull-ups look, am pleased with making progress there. My lats are growing a tiny bit too (another muscle group besides biceps that has always lagged) - as evidenced by shirts feeling tighter through back/lats.

3/13 - Feeling pretty sore from heavy day Monday, and high volume on shoulders, biceps, triceps, lunges yesterday - left me deciding to skip planned metcon workout today. Will do swings and/or SS easy cardio tonight. Won’t post. Body feeling okay, but stress levels seem to be running high bc of long work-days, bad sleep, my wife is sick - so I’m trying to avoid the flu, etc.

Also felt the kind of short-circuiting in my concentration that I get before seizures this morning, so figured maybe just avoid dropping 200# on my head, lol.

Also might just be that in keeping calories low, I’m just recovering a little more slowly and have a little less juice for workouts.

Hopefully this is the cause of your low energy and not something else.

Haha. An ominous comment lol. What else might it be?!

Illness…or your seizure problem to which you alluded.

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Yeah - fair. I’ve had the seizure thing awhile which doesn’t seem to affect things mostly and pretty sure I’m not sick. But we will see.

3/14 - Lunchtime workout

  1. Rowing Warm-up
  2. Complex - 3 rounds of 4 (with 1-2’ rest between rounds - maybe 3’ on top weight) 115-135-155
    a. Hang Power Clean
    b. A2G Front Squat
    c. Push Press
    d. Bent Row

Talk about a good quick session. That kind of complex you could go heavy for doubles or singles and longer rest, could make it more of a power workout.

Humbling today - Looked through some of my workout logs in 2011-2014 before I blew out my need, and damn I was a lot fitter, faster, stronger - at a lighter weight.

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3/15 - Upper Body Strength

Warm-up, then:

  1. Paused Bench Press: 5x5 (180)
  2. Weighted Pull-Ups: 5x2 (+20)
  3. Dips: 5x2
  4. Seated Rows: 5x5

Really babying the dips. They actually seem to help the shoulder a bit, and bench isn’t really bothering it much (though paused bench is tough period).

3/16 St Paddy’s day

My neighborhood is a drunk zoo - I’m midtown Manhattan, so everybody is in green and walking up and down the street doing shots and drinking beer.

Woke up at 217.8 today, but am doing my best to drink it back up to 220 by tomorrow AM LOL.

Did a track workout today.

  1. Long warm up with a bunch of strides, short sprints, standing LJs etc
  2. Shot put and discus - probably 20 throws of each. Solid, not great - but first time doing them in a couple months.
  3. Sprint intervals to see if my heel worked. Did ok, but felt super slow. Need to get back running more often.
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Succeeded. 220 on the dot - but that was before using the toilet - which I usually do before weigh in.

Oh - and on way home from workout, I carried my shot out and discus and shoes back. Total weight of 25# - for 2.4 miles. Which is a long suitcase carry. Am very sore today

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3/17-18: travel and meetings. Skipped both days although plenty of walking in airports both days.

3/19 - Lower Body Power Day

  1. Warm-up - stretched for time, so just did gradual weight progression for warm-up - maybe 15-20 reps. When stretched for time, this works really well for me.
  2. Hang Snatch Grip High Pulls - 5x3 at 205
  3. Snatch Grip Deadlifts - 6x2 up to 365
  4. Plyos - 10 jumps

High Pulls felt a little clunky today. Deadlifts just flew up.

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3/20 - Lunchtime workout (well, 230-330). Love it when I can do this time of day.

  1. Plate Raises (25#): 135 reps (65-50-20)
  2. Lunges (bw): 135 reps (60-50-25)
  3. Bicep Curls (25# dumbbell) 110 reps (25-20-15-10-15-10-8-7)
  4. Triceps Ext (25# DB) 135 reps (50-40-30-15)

Planning to do push-ups tonight. Really like that sort of workout. Don’t need a warm-up, arms and quads all filled up w blood.

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3/21

Just not feeling it today. Got into gym and worked through warmup sets for clean and decided to call it a day. So up to a 215 hang clean. Then quit. Probably got 5-6 good reps of split snatch and 4-5 hang clean - but just not into it. Will probably chill tomorrow (push-ups and pull-ups or something) due to work and travel, and then get a good session on Sat and Sunday.

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