Truckin’

So, after some entertaining yoga with a local friend, and helping her test her OHP, Bench, and Deadlift out, as well as show her some kettlebell basics, I wanted to do some strength work of my own. I had hoped to have my new plan in hand today, but it’s the holiday weekend and I only got my 1RM info to my coach the day before yesterday; I should have it soon and will begin attacking it presently.

Weekend Workouts

15/9/3: Overhead Press (Friday) | Deadlifts (Sunday)

It’s also “weigh and measure weekend,” though I don’t know if I’ll snap some progress pictures to share or not. Feeling a little squidgy after entirely too much coffee and some much-needed beer.

OHP Friday frankly kind of sucked.  Deadlifting on Sunday went better.

Pressing

I skipped recapping a few workouts in all the “excitement,” but really, running two miles or doing a mile and a third of Fartleks isn’t really all that thrilling.  I did, prior to my mishap, do a couple of upper body workouts, which I have been able to modify somewhat to facilitate the current gimp status.

One-armed “suitcase” deadlifts are challenging and relatively evil, even at 110-160 pounds. Walking the bench down from fully vertical to fully horizontal in seven steps, ten reps of the Arnold press is a relatively unpleasant experience. So is walking up the stack on the leg extension (20# steps from 140 to 280) and leg curl (120-200) for five reps per set.

[WotD] Saturday, August 14

Nothing too exciting happened late in the week, so after the 2RM testing, it was more or less an unofficial deload and reset to recalibrate. That will begin tomorrow, with squats, so today was “just do something.” It turned out that “a whole lot of deadlifts after digging a couple holes in the yard” was the something in question.

Warmup:

Dig: 2×36″ deep 16″x16″ holes

Deadlift: 1×10 @ 135 / 1×10 @ 185

Work Sets:

Deadlift: 10×10 @ 225

Boned

15/9/3+ Overhead Press

In any case, Tuesday was the day I got to see my thoracic/lumbar/pelvic x-rays with the chiropractor. Call it geeky, or nerdy, or dorky, or maybe just morbidly curious, but I was really looking forward to it.

The bad news isn’t all that bad – slight constriction/compression of a couple of disks, and three vertebrae (L2 & 3, T10) are slightly rotated out of proper alignment, and just a hint of asymmetry, bowing towards one side.

The good news was pretty good – other than the above twist and squish, the fore and aft curvature is textbook perfect, my bone density is good (thank you, weightlifting, for both of these) and my hips, despite making interesting popping noises when I move just so, are in perfect alignment.
Having donated blood (double red cells, via the ALYX machine*) yesterday, I got a couple of other positive medical statistics thrown at me as well: BP was 113/63, and my resting pulse, at 1230 in the afternoon, was 51. They haven’t run my cholesterol level yet.

[WotD] Tuesday, August 3

15/9/3 – Squats

Tried something a little bit different this evening, in the form of box squats. Naturally, I don’t have a real, formal squatting box, this being my first go at these, so I improvised – my old subwoofer enclosure, with one layer of the same high-density foam padding that I laid on the floor on top of it (there were six edge pieces that I didn’t use; these hooked together into three pairs, which were almost exactly the width of the top of the box, and 18″ or so wide – plenty to aim my butt at).

Lunchtime was spent similarly to yesterday – medicine ball slams for a minute, with a 30 second break, some overhead squats with the 10# bar, KB overhead presses, L-sits, back extensions, and assorted other hip and shoulder mobility work. Also did some front tuck levers, and tried descending to a full front lever from being upside-down, and while I wasn’t able to hold it for more than a second, I could feel all kinds of muscles in my mid-back firing that aren’t nearly as engaged in the tuck variant. Definitely bears further work.

Take a hike

Not the off-road, trailblazing sort, unless you consider a couple of trips across the lawn at the office.

Took The Long Walk for lunchtime’s workout.

25:30

I’ll take it, especially since the weather page says: “91F (feels like 106)“

Ow, my ass

This is not a direct reflection on the DOMS incurred from Tuesday’s squat session, but is instead a reaction to getting several CCs of antibiotics injected to begin the fight against some unwanted microbial interlopers.

Don’t have to take any time off, other than missing the last two evenings.

Overhead press will happen tomorrow, deadlifts Saturday, and bench as usual on Sunday.

Not sure if I’ll do anything special with the deads for my birthday, but we’ll see.

Today’s lunchtime workout was stolen straight from T-Nat.

Maneater, revisited

In the course of reviewing the archives in the interest of gauging my progress, I rediscovered some of the eccentric and challenging things that people threw at the wall, or I stumbled across, and subsequently tried.

Today, being more or less a hole in my schedule (no softball tonight, official lifting yesterday and tomorrow), it seemed like a good day to take another shot at one of them. In this case, “Maneater,” from last May 8th.

Lagniappe

I’m going to quote one of my other blogs for a moment here.

Lagniappe: A small gift given to a customer by a merchant. Basically, “a little something extra.”

Cheap Philosophy: The extra mile is always paved with broken glass, and it’s full of potholes.

In that context, I was bitching, but it occurred to me today that, in a very real sense, the “+” in my workout regimen is also a bit of lagniappe, and, at the time it’s taking place, it sucks a fair bit. However, there is a very immediate reward, especially when that little something extra turns into a PR. If that’s not an incentive that someone can get behind, I’m not sure what other carrots can be dangled in front of them. I think it’s pretty fucking cool to be better today than I was yesterday, and be better tomorrow than I am today.