Another moderate day, exercise-wise.
Last night I did destroy most of my concrete floor in the first floor bathroom. There was some lifting of heavy bags of debris involved.
This morning:
Complex: DBSw50#, STw2PsU / WGPlU: 12 / 7, 11 / 7, 2/2. Six minutes.
Ab work: Wheel from knees. Six minutes.
I’ll add a full workout sometime this weekend, and the gym opens next week.
It’s funny, this is the place I go with what’s really going on in my life. I think it’s the anonymity and the community. I trust that whoever might be reading this is into the health and fitness lifestyle and can relate to what I’m writing about. So, this next post isn’t something I’d put on facebook as facebook seems to be about putting on a shiny, happy face (no pun intended).
So, I haven’t been working out much lately. I just haven’t felt like it. Part of the reason was the abdominal strain and wanting to be fully recovered from it before getting back to the weights. The other thing was a bunch of lethargy. As part of addressing the lethargy, I stopped eating sugar on the 27th of December.
I’ve done this before, but had been playing with eating junk food as my post workout nutrition. I knew it flew in the face of conventional wisdom, but if I’m about anything I’m about flying in the face of conventional wisdom. Plus I like to take my mistakes to their logical conclusion. Anyway, I had been eating a bunch of refined sugar and justifying it by seeing my body composition change, become more and more lean. However, the lethargy and fatigue were getting to be too prevalent and inhibiting me from doing things I enjoy.
In the past, when I’d cut out refined sugar, I always got a bump in energy. I noticed an initial bump in energy, like in the first day or so, and then I was feeling sluggish again. I wasn’t sure what was going on until getting that I’m detoxing from sugar. Luckily, I’m not feeling a lot of cravings. I guess that means the rest of my diet is pretty solid.
Today I woke up feeling pretty crappy. Fortunately, this feeling cleared an hour or so ago and I’m feeling like a generator spinning up to speed. I have no idea how many cycles of detox crappiness I’m going to move through, but I’m confident I’m going to look and feel a lot better and have more consistent energy throughout and later into the day.
Thanks for listening. Happy New Year and best wishes with your health and fitness.
Weaker and Lighter But Healthier
Okay, the first workout of the new year went pretty well. Here it is:
BW: 175
Leg Press: 225 X 5, 5, 5, 5, 5.
WGPlU: BW X 5, 5, 5, 5, 5.
IBP: 135X 5, 5, 3, 3, 3.
DB Curl 50#/X5, 5, 5, 5, 5.
Sprints: 3
The weights and reps were lower. I’ll evaluate tomorrow whether I irritated the abdominal strain and adjust from there. Otherwise, I felt like I was weaker in the Inclined Bench Press; much weaker.
On the nutritional and energy fronts, things are improving. I had much better alertness into the night and actually woke up feeling rested this morning. I’ve had no downswings in energy and no carb cravings. I’ll see how this afternoon unfolds. All signs, to this point, are indicating I’m heading in a better direction with my nutrition. Oh, yeah, my post-workout nutrition was a banana. This is very different from the junk food I used to eat.
Ramping Up
BW: 176
FS: 45X10, 55X10, 65X10, 75X10, 85X10.
DBMP: 50#/X3, 3, 3, 3, 3.
LP: 275X10, 10, 10, 10, 10.
BOR: 80# X 10, 5, 3, 2, 10, 5, 3, 2.
Sprints: 4.
It all felt pretty good. I’ll track my energy though the rest of the day and soreness tomorrow.
1-13-12
BW: 176
BS 135X8, 8, 8, 8, 8, 8, 8, 8.
WGPlU: BW X 8, 8, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3.
BP: 125X4. Stopped due to shoulder pain.
Sprints: 5
1-18-12
BW: 176
DL: 45 X 5, 135 X 5, 225 x 5, 275 X4, 320 X 3, 3, 3, 3, 3.
WGIBP: 145 X 3, 3, 3, 3, 3.
WGPlU: BW 20 X 3, 3, 3, 3, 3.
1-20-12
FS: 45 X 10, 65 X 10, 85 X 10, 95 X 10, 105 X 10.
DBMP: 50#/X 3, 3, 3, 3, 3; 35#/ X 8, 8, 8, 8.
L-Sits: 13, 15, 17, 10, 10.
BW: 174.
FS: 45X10; 95X10; 135X10; 140x10, 10.
DBMP: 50#/ X 4, 4, 4, 4, 4.
Curl: 50#/ X 6, 6, 6, 6, 6.
Sprints: 6.
Missed Friday’s workout due to a private tango lesson.
Monday:
BW: 173
DL: 45X5; 135X5; 225X5; 315X4; 345X3; 350X3, 355X3, 3, 3; 175X10, 10, 10, 10, 10.
Sprints: 6.
Today (Wednesday):
FS: 45X10; 95X10; 135X10; 145X10, 10, 10, 10, 10.
DBMP: 50#/X5, 5, 4, 3, 3, 2, 2, 1.
Curl: 50#/X10, 8, 7, 6, 6, 5, 4, 3.
Sprints: 5.
BW: 174
DL: 45X5; 135X5; 225X5; 315X4; 355X3; 360X3, 3, 3, 3. 180X10, 10 , 10, 10 ,10.
Sprints: 4.
BW: 174
FS: 45 X 5, 135X5
DL: 225 X 5, 315X5, 325 X 3, 3, 3, 1.
DBMP: 60#/ X 1 p, 1 p, 1 p, 1 p, 1, 1.
Amazing how adding ten pounds to the MP can staple me. I did two sets of five on Wednesday.
Pull-up: BW 40 X 5, 3, 2; BW X 8, 10, 7, 5, 5.
DBS: 60# X 30, 20.
BBMP: 80 X 10, 10 7, 6, 5.
Flag: BW X 5, 5, 5, 5, 5.
18/40
BW: 173
FS: 45 X 5, 135 X5
DL: 225 X 5, 315 X 5, 330 X 3, 3, 3, 1.
DBMP: 60#/ X 1, 1, 1, 2, 1, 2, 1.
Pull-Up: BW 40# X 4, 3, 3; BW X 9, 9, 8, 6.
DBS: 60# X 35, 15.
Flags: BW X 6, 6, 6, 6, 6.
Sprints: 3.
19/40
BW: 173
FS: 45X5, 135X5.
DL: 225X5, 315X5, 335X3, 3, 3, 1.
DBMP: 60#/X2, 1, 2, 2, 1, 2.
Pull-Up: BW 40 X 5, 2 P, 3; BWX 8, 9, 7, 6, 5.
BBMP: 80#X 10, 10, 10, 7, 7.
DBS: 60#X30, 20.
Flags: 6, 6, 6, 6, 6.
BW: 173
FS: 45X5, 135X5; DL: 225X5, 315X5; 315X5; 330X 3, 3, 3, 1.
DBMP: 60#/ X 2, 2, 3, 2, 1; 40#/ X 10, 10, 10, 9, 7
Pull-Up: BW 40 X 5, 5,; BW X 10, 8, 6, 8, 7, 5.
DBS: 60# X 16.
Flag: BW X 7, 7, 7, 7, 7.
Bi-Pump: 25# X 10, 10, 10, 10.
Interesting… I like your exercise choices. Why haven’t you included a horizontal pulling movement? And why did you decide to abandon the initial set/rep scheme from the beginning of the log?
Hi Brian,
Thanks for the note. I haven’t included horizontal pulling for a couple reasons. The first is I’m trying the Dan John 40 workouts in a row to develop strength in the DL and military press. That protocol didn’t have any horizontal pulling in it. The second reason is what I’m doing now takes about an hour in the gym. I don’t have more time to add other exercises. My current plan is once I’m done with the 40 workouts, and hopefully my DL is at 400 for reps, then I’ll switch to a different program. That one will include Kroc rows about once every five days. I know I need them as my grip is my weakest link the DL right now.
I abandoned the initial set/rep scheme because I’m easily distracted by shiney objects. I had a few things happen. I’ve been on a quest to improve my overhead pressing strength so that I can actually pull off hand balancing moves. I’ve tried a bunch of stuff with varying degrees of success. The set/rep scheme was one of those attempts. However, a couple things happened last summer while using that scheme which caused me to explore other options. The first was getting to the point where a 5 pound bump in the dumb bells caused me to get stapled. Without pouring through my logs, I think I moved to 60# in each hand after being able to do 55# in each hand for several sets of 5 reps. I got completely stapled. I couldn’t even do one rep with the 60#s. I’ve never experienced such a complete fall off in ability for such a small increase in weight. It was clear to me that for overhead pressing, the system wasn’t working at that time. The second thing that happened was I woke up in the middle of the night sometime last July with my right shoulder in agony. I had been following that scheme and doing some auxiliary eccentric hand-stand push-ups earlier that day, and it turned out to be too much. I evaluated my logs after that, saw I had had a very long run of about three or four months with decent gains with random deloads, and decided it was time to change things up.
So. Here I am today. I’m now doing two different approaches which are a combination of Dan John’s 40 workout program and something, I think, Jim Wendler mentioned in an article. Every workout, I do high weight, for me, low rep military presses. Currently I’m running with 60# DBs. Every other workout, I try to do five sets of ten with lighter weight. The last workout was 40# DBs X 10, 10, 10, 9, 7. I’ve been on this for a while, but here’s the progression I’ve seen:
High Weight, Low Reps Low weight, high reps
5/9/12 55# DBs X 5, 5
5/11/12 60# DBs X 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1. 80# X 10, 10, 7, 6, 5.
5/13/12 60# DBs X 1, 1, 1, 2, 1, 2, 1.
5/16/12 60# DBs X 2, 1, 2, 2, 1, 2. 80# X 10, 10, 10, 7, 7.
5/21/12 60# DBs X 2, 2, 3, 2, 1. 40# DBs X 10, 10, 10, 9, 7.
Note: I missed my 5/18/12 workout because I was meeting with a plumber who was helping me fix my tankless water heater.
As you can see, I got more or less stapled when I jumped up 5# per dumbbell, but I’m seeing decent progress. And the progress is strongly mirrored in the lighter weight, higher rep situation. I’m thinking
the two are working well for me at this time. I don’t know when, but I should get to two sets of five reps with the 60#s before the next twenty workouts are up.
Alright, that’s the method to my madness. Thanks for asking.
Best wishes with your training,
Craig
BW: 173
1A. FS: 45X5, 135X5.
1A. DL: 225X5, 315 X5, 330 X 4, 3, 3.
1B. DBMP: 60#/X 2, 1 p, 2, 2, 2, 1.
1B. Pull-Up BW 45 X 3, 3, 3, 2; BW X 8, 7.
2. DBS: 60# X 15, 11.
3A. Flag: 7, 7, 7, 7, 7.
3B. Bi-Pump: 25# X 10, 10 , 10, 10 ,10.
Sprints: 3.
5-25-12
BW: 174
FS: 45X5, 135X5; DL: 225X5; 315X5; 335X4, 3, 3.
DBMP 60#/X 1, 2, 1, 2, 2, 2. 40#/X10, 10, 10, 10, 10.
Pull-Up: BW 45X 4, 2, 2, 1. BW X 8, 8, 8,8, 6, 2.
DBS: 60#X200.
5-30-12
BW: 174
FS: 45 X 5, 135X5; DL: 225X5; 315X5; 340X 4, 3, 3.
DBMP: 60#/X2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 1 and a partial.
BBMP: 85# X 8, 7, 6, 6, 5.
DBS: 60# X 13.
Flags: BW X 8, 8, 8, 8, 8.
Pull-Up: BW X 7, 6, 5, 4, 3,2 ,1.
BW: 172
FS: 45X5; 135X5.
DL: 225X5; 315X5; 345X4, 3, 3.
Pull-Up: BW 45 X 4, 4, 2; BW X 10, 6, 6, 3, 4, 5.
DBS: 60#X14.
Pull-Down Pump Attempt: 100X10.
Flags: BW X 8, 8, 8, 7, 7.
BW: 170
FS: 45X5; 135X5.
DL: 225X5, 315X5, 350X4, 3, 3.
DBMP: 60#/X3, 2, 2, 2, 2; 85# X 10, 9, 6, 6, 5, 4.
DBS: 60# X 12.
Flag: BW X 8, 8, 8, 8, 8.
I think I’m finally on track with shoulder work. Once every five days with a combination of heavy weight, low reps and moderate weight with moderate reps. This is the first time been able to do a triple with 60# in almost a year. Yeah, I’m that much of a beast.
The rapid loss of body weight is a signal to me that I need to eat a bit more. I ate pretty light this weekend. Perhaps I shouldn’t change much given the improvement in strength with the military press and how I felt with the dead lifts.
6/6/12
BW: 171 (26/40)
FS: 45 X5; 135X5; DL: 225X5, 315X5, 355X4, 4, 4.
Pull-Ups: BW 45 X 5, 4, 2; BW X 9, 9, 5, 6, 5.
Flags: BW X 9, 9, 9, 9, 7.
DBS: 60#X10.
6/8/12
BW: 170 (27/40)
FS: 45X5, 135X5; DL 225X5, 315X5, 355X 4, 3, 3.
DBMP: 60#/ X 2, 2, 2, 2, 2. BBMP: 85X 10, 10 7, 7, 6, 5.
DBS: 60# X 12
Flags: BW X 9, 9, 9, 9, 9.
6/11/12
BW: 169(28/40)
FS: 45x5, 135X5
DL: 225X5, 315X5, 340X 5, 5.
Pull-UP: BW 45 X 4, 3, 3; BW X 8, 7,5, 4,4.
DBS: 45X20.
Flags: BW X 10, 7, 7, 6, 4.
BW: 171.5
Leptin Fasted DB Swings: 50# x 52 in 2:00.
Noon Workout
FS: 45x5, 135X5.
DL: 225X5, 315X5, 345X5, 3 2 (Right hand minor bleeding).
DBMP: 60#/X 3, 2, 2, 2, 1. 85# X 10, 10, 10, 6, 7.
Flags: BW X 10, 10, 10, 10, 10.