Decisions

Since the TBT ( “total body training”) thing I’ve been noodling with for the first/last few weeks since I was cleared to lift is insufficiently structured to work for me; I’m getting my form back, but not making any kind of coherent progress. So, with that in mind, I’m poring through my training logs and previous programs to figure out what to hitch my wagon to.

Objectives:

Regain strength and size without undue risk of re-injuring my repaired shoulder. Improve conditioning.

Candidates:

• My own push/pull/stand act (whether that’s my 15/9/3+ thing or a more TBT-style 3×20/15/8 rep system)
• 5/3/1’s “Boring But Big” variant
• Starting Strength / Stronglifts / similar 5×5
• Smolov-style single-lift focus (probably squats, with a beginning 1RM of 335 to play it safe)

Suggestions from the readership are welcomed, with greater consideration given to documented, first-hand performance improvement by the advocate.

Objects in selfie may not be as buff as they apppear.

Back in the saddle

As of 12/3/13,  I have again got medical clearance, twelve weeks after my shoulder surgery to repair a torn labrum, frayed rotator cuff, and clavicular & acromial bone spurs, to lift.

Batshit

 

My friend Batty put out the call for some real-people versions of those ubiquitous facebook fitness motivational posters.

So, yeah. You knew this was coming.

February Fotos

Sue me, I just got done with a two-hour upper body workout, followed by some heavy logistics planning for hypothetical renovations; clever titular wordsmithing is not in the goddamned cards at the moment.

Anyways, here’s the state of the meat seven weeks into the year.

By the numbers

Yes, it’s the first of the month/year/thing, and I actually woke the fuck up and busted out the tape measure. Timeliness and shit, not to mention taking full advantage of all the resolutionist momentum that everyone else in the world is going to be bandwagoning the living fuck out of.

So, hey, here’s the state of the meat at the dawn of 2012, going into a de-load week before testing my maxes and moving into the next phase of things.

And, if you’re good, there will be Yet Another Phone Shot (YAPS) to go with each of these updates moving forward. Nothing spectacular, just me, standing around in my office wearing a pair of shorts. No lighting tricks, no flexing, nada. Those conditions are not the case in the photo at left; that’s racking 165 after doing some head-supported rows with the flattering (but very fucking hot) halogen in my garage overhead.

T totalling

Some things are easy to gauge — strength and endurance and weight — because we have the tools at our disposal to measure them. Other things are trickier — sleep quality, or various nutritional balances — but still within the realm of doable for someone who is attentive and attuned to how their body works. But for some things, there’s no real substitute for professional diagnostics and evaluation.

And this brings us to today’s subject, which is going to come as something of a surprise to most readers.

Your not so humble scribe has what has somewhat coyly become known as “Low T.”

Nemesis

“I’m an easy thing to hurt yourself against.”

– Uisgebaugh, Blood and Iron (Elizabeth Bear)

I joke with an old friend (that is, a friend of long acquaintance, not one of advanced years. She is STILL twenty-nine, some-fucking-how) about being her “sexy nemesis,” because I don’t pull any rhetorical punches in our friendship, and gleefully fuck with her when I think she’s getting too complacent.

This is my standard modus operandi in many things; my younger, more pretentious self wrote a first-person essay from Satan’s POV about trafficking in doubt, for instance. Be that as it may, presenting a challenge, an obstacle, or a target is something I tend to do whether I mean to or not.

Going to Eleven

That's one louder, innit?

So, my overall theme for the year, “I can do better,” has finally started to bear more fruit. Some of it was expected, some of it is coming as a pleasant surprise, but pretty much all of it is welcomed.

Gimme some sugar, baby.

I can’t in good conscience make any kind of self-aggrandizing remarks about being the “king” – especially with around. :-) However, at ‘s urging, I did try to do some “King” deadlifts. These are basically a one-legged variant, where the non-working leg kind of waves around behind you as if in an unsupported lunge; my form is, in a word, abysmal, but will hopefully suck less with practice and stretching.

I began with bodyweight, then +45 pounds, and finally +95 pounds. Obviously, my balance needs work and my hip flexibility is lacking, but I think they’re going to be interesting. Video here. (On a side note, I’m both pleased and kind of freaked out that my camera’s audio was good enough to catch the stereo’s music well enough for Youtube to identify and flag it.)

Following that, I moved on to conventional ones, and, for a taste of cinema verite, here’s the unedited entirety (note: this hardly makes for thrilling theater, and is currently being gnawed on processed by YouTube after uploading, if it doesn’t show up just yet) of that portion of my workout (doing heavy triples and doubles up to a 2RM, which was, gratifyingly, within 5% of where I was before I broke my hand in August).

CWC 2011

Here’s the list of events (weather permitting):

• Pullups
• Pushups
• Situps
• Medicine Ball Toss
• Standing Long Jump
• 50 Yard Dash
• 1 Mile Run

Note: We will not be doing thumb-extension presses as part of the new regime.

As you can see, we’re taking things up a notch for 2011, so we should all be freshly challenged in new and exicing (and, yes, probably unpleasant) ways. :-)