Good to have you back dude.
Thanks to everyone for welcoming me back, planning to be using the support to get things moving in the right direction again. No training today, just a few thoughts about goal setting and what Iām doing this for.
Short term goals are simple: Yesterdays session made it abundantly clear that the next few weeks/months need to be focused on increasing my work capacity/conditioning to the point where I can lift with purpose and intensity without reducing my effectiveness at work or at home. That means no crippling my legs, and specifically my quads. Iām not quite sure what that means in numbers, which grates against my geekdom slightly, but Iāll know when Iāll get there and since I hate that kind of work, Iām fairly confident I wonāt stay in that mode for any longer than necessary.
Long terms goals are slightly more cloudy:
Firstly I want to be a good father, I know, crazy right? What that means from a fitness point of view is firstly to demonstrate good habits, both in eating and exercise. Secondly, I need to be fit enough to give him an active childhood, so basic mobility and conditioning are a must. Thirdly, I would like my little boy to be able to win any and all of the āmy dad could beat up your dadā arguments that will inevitably head his way as he makes his way through school. That means visible muscle and, maybe long term, a few powerlifting/strongman meets.
The second part is rather more selfish, but if Game of Thrones has taught me anything itās that forgetting about self interest and self preservation gets you killed before the season finale. Iāve always had a fear of being the āsit-com dadā, that pathetic creature you see on so many shows who spends his days working soullessly at a dead end job only to come home to the bosom of his uncaring family. In the past that was always a distant possibility and something I assumed would just never happen, but as a new dad knocking on the door of 30 and in a job where Iām no longer a shoe in for promotion and advancement, it seems like a very real possibility. With that in mind, my training needs to be focused on fitness and visible muscle. I canāt help feeling Ross Gellar (no, I donāt know any more recent sitcom references) might have commanded a bit more respect with some traps popping out his shirt.
So, more specific long term goals, with numbers to be attached later:
Visible muscle: that means fore arms, shoulders, traps and a wide back. At 30, no-one cares what I look like naked, they care what I look like with a proper shirt on.
Conditioning: I need to be in reasonable shape. Enough to play football (real football) in the park with my boy, and train hard enough to meet my other goals. Not enough to run a marathon, I have no interest in that kind of thing yet.
Mobile and healthy: My job involves movement, as does being a parent. That means I canāt struggle with stairs the day after a heavy squat session or struggle with picking stuff up off the floor. Luckily, mobility has never been a big issue for me, but I need to make sure that remains the case, especially as I get older.
Strong: Strong is fun. The big 3 are likely to slip way down my list as goals, particularly bench, but strength helps with all other goals and is just plain fun.
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Welcome back. So beach body challenge?
Possibly not a bad idea, I might have to have a look to refresh. Iāve ordered some Captain of Crush grippers as a starting point
Nice. Which ones? I got the #1s and tbh i wish i had gotten the trainers too.
Morning blast:
21-15-9 kB swings and push ups.
Quick conditioning session.
Note to self: kB swings donāt work well early in the morning. The āpopā just isnāt there.
The trainer is the one I ordered. The 100lb ones I think. Been a long time since Iāve trained grip so better start at the bottom.
I meant to comment earlier, but I dig this post and your goals. Becoming a dad makes you want to be the best dad you can be, and the role model you are trying to become is great.
I also agree with the conclusions youāve reached on the āimageā of success. I legitimately feel that I have made it far in life simply by being physically large and in shape, along with speaking loudly, clearly, and confidently. It may be unfair, but itās one of the immediate ways we are judged, and that impression can carry you very far in any career. Itās dandy to look good naked, with abs and striations and stuff, but filling out a shirt with a large back and shoulders will carry you far.
Looking forward to seeing how things go for you.
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Absolutely. Itās the ultimate accountability in the beat possible way.
Spot on. I just need to remember little man doesnāt care about my abs or powerlifting total.
last nights lifts:
weighted box jumps: 3x3 had to go for lower weighted jumps because the higher boxes were in use. Never anticipated having to queue for plyo boxes at 1am. I blame crossfit.
Rack pulls: worked up to a heavy single at 180kg. Never done rack pulls before so I thought Iād try them out before I settle on a final program. Not very impressed, feels like the same issues I had with partial ROM movements in that itās really difficult to simulate the top half of the full movement. It was nice to feel some real weight in my hands again.
One armed lat pull down: 12,10,8,6,50. Remembered this nice little rep scheme from a CT article. Love this movement too
Incline dB bench: 12,10,8,6,50. supersetted with plate pinches
Really enjoyed this entire post.
We a share very similar persona and similar goals.
Carry on.
Push Press:
worked up to 65kg x 3
Arnold press/biceps curl superset:
12/10/8/6 with some tiny weights. I think some of them were pink and plastic.
Squats:
5 x 5 @80kg.
Saw some dude chest pressing with a plate squeezed between flat palms on the way out which seems like something worth a try next session.
Last week of āpissing aboutā workouts. Next week I plan to start a more focused plan to prepare for a real lifting program:
Dynamic lift geared towards 5/3/1 lift (~3x3)
Vanilla 5/3/1 sets and reps (low TM)
Work capacity work: complexes, circuits and lots and lots of loaded carries
Direct ab/grip work.
New plan. Was rereading one of Dan Johns books and stumbled across the 10,000 kb swing program which claims to do literally everything I want the next month or so of training to do. Sold. It does mean these logs are likely to be unbelievably boring for the next few weeks so I may have to find ways around that.
24kg kB swings: lots of
push ups: a few
Swings: lots
Suitcase carries: some. Seems irrelevant really. Wonāt use them like this I donāt think.
Since this log is likely to get real boring, real quick, I might use this space for a rant or two. Tonightās installment: functional muscle/exercises. Can we please give this a rest? The phrase is as meaningless and pointless as they come. Surely it should be obvious that you cannot define whether something is functional or not without first defining the function? It would be like trying to decide someoneās value as a player without first finding out what sport they are playing. Tiger Woods might be one of the greatest players of his generation, but no-ones putting him in the Super Bowl.
So functional exercise then; exercise that performs a function, sounds kind of meaningless doesnāt it? I challenge you to find exercise that doesnāt perform a function of some kind. It may not be the desired function, but it is a function none the less. Countless reps of side bends with the pink dumbbells may not be fulfilling the function the user expects or that the glossy mag said it would, but itās certainly doing something and therefore has a function.
It should be clear by now then that whether an exercise or muscle is āfunctionalā is a function of, well, function. If the reason you lift is to look good creosoted up on a stage in a man thong, the function of an exercise is going to be radically different from someone training to hit their first 3 hour marathon. Lets extend this logic a little bit. The majority of people on this site lift weights to get bigger and stronger, so this is the lens through which we must decide whether an exercise is āfunctionalā. This being the case, why do I keep hearing statements like āthe bench press isnāt functionalā? Is your goal to get bigger and stronger? Does the bench press help you to get bigger and stronger? If your answer is yes to both of these questions, then the bench press is functional.
This being said, we arrive at the actual issue, that people need a get out clause for why they are not as successful at getting bigger and stronger than someone else. Itās a way of moving the goal posts, in the same vein as the great ānattyā debate. Sure, he may be bigger than me, but itās not functional muscle so it doesnāt count. And he was on roids. And probably genetically gifted. I bet his parents where more supportive too. And my gym doesnāt even open on Sundays, how could I possibly be as strong as him? Grow up. āfunctional muscleā is as bullshit logic as food thatās āgood for youā or āsnow still exists so global warming is wrongā, you should have grown out of these points of view by the time you get into double digits, if you havenāt, maybe itās time to apply some actual thought to your beliefs and see which hold water.
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Swings: lots
Goblet squats: some.
I enjoyed this entire rant.
A deadlift is about as āfunctionalā as it gets. What could be more āfunctionalā than lifting something very, very heavy off the ground? Yet it seems that much of the āfunctional strengthā crowd steers clear in favor of things like deadlifts in favor of jumping lungesā¦because, I guess, that people are more likely to do jumping lunges in real life than lift something heavy?
After spending a long time as a āstrengthā athlete (American football), then spending awhile as more of an endurance athlete (running & cycling), then doing some P90X-and-other-stupid-stuff, and coming back to real strength work, Iām pretty firmly in the camp that increasing your limit strength makes almost everything easier. Carrying a book bag or a suitcase becomes easier. Moving furniture around becomes easier. Of course there comes a point of diminishing returns, but unless youāre competing at a very high level, youāre probably not at that point just yet. Most āfunctionalā activities will be enhanced by gaining strength.
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Itās a good rant. I simply donāt give a fuck how anyone else trains any more. Iāll explain how I train if anyone asks, and I might kind of defend it a bit if pushed but otherwise I wonāt get involved in this training vs that training.
Iāve taken this kind of logic throughout most of my life, to be honest. Iām very selective whoās opinion I care about. Iām not quite arrogant enough to think I donāt have to care about what other people think, I still have a long, long way to go and a lot to learn in many areas, but in my opinion Iām most likely to learn this by drowning out a lot of the ānoiseā of the age of distraction.
Pobably missed logging some workouts, which is fine I guess because Iāve also been butchering the workouts. Will likely start from scratch on Monday, in an effort to teach myself a bit of discipline of really really boring programs.
Nice rant. Folks seem to confuse necessity with function all too often. I havenāt done barbell flat bench in a while because it simply isnāt necessary for my goals right now. Is it functional? In the specific sense, perhaps not, but in a gpp sense horizontal pressing is a basic movement pattern so if course itās functional!