Signs

In and among the various diagnostic bits of conversation I shared with the folks at the orthopedist’s office, some nice things were said about my phisical health and general wellness, which was nice to hear, and reassuring. However, what struck me most at the time was when, in the course of the examination, the doctor said, “You have a lot of callouses.”

“I lift weights.”

It was, at the time, nothing but the simple truth (or the simple iron truth – the fellow who does that site is a kindred spirit; worth the read). Upon further reflection, it seems to suggest a bit more than that.

In other news, I still hate overhead presses

15/9/3+  Overhead Press Day

It was weigh-in day for my company’s weight-loss challenge, and while my team didn’t place in the money, all three of us lost a few pounds (I was down about nine, the other guys, being slightly bigger, lost a bit more). Maybe all of my bitching about the rampant inaccuracy of hand-held body fat resistance testers is starting to be heard – they clocked me at 18.9, 17.9 and 17.0 % this week (or something similar). Obviously, even if they’re skewing a couple percent high, I still have a little ways to go to get where I want to be.

For entertainment value, I weighed in both before and after doing an interval run of the 2.25 course at lunchtime; I sweated off about three pounds, but somehow went up in terms of reported body fat percentage. Yeahhhhh….

On the upside, going out quickly and doing light-post intervals for the first mile and a half put me on a very fast pace, such that, even walking a fair bit of the backstretch to loosen up a calf cramp, I still finished in 16:50, for a PR/CR.

Once home, it was time to lift.

Warmup:

Overhead Press: 1×10 @ 45 / 1×10 @ 65

Work Sets:

Overhead Press: 3×3 @ 95 / 3×3 @ 115 / 3×3 @ 120 / 1×12 @ 80

Supplemental:

Pullups: 4×10

Speaking of workout supplements, Affordablesupplements.com threw in a boatload of freebie packets with my order of fish oil this time around. I haven’t bothered digging through all of them to see what’s what, but there seems to be a decent assortment of various powders to be mixed with water for pre-, peri-, or post-workout consumption. Guess I’ll be doing some research on those.

Today also saw the delivery of a weight belt from EliteFTS; they got some mis-ordered two-prong belts, which they were going to sell at a loss, so for the price, I thought it would be a decent investment. Going to take some breaking in (it’s very circular from shipping, and, thankfully, I’m much more of an oval in cross-section), and practice to unbuckle, because, damn, was it a struggle to get the second prong out.

[WotD] Tuesday, July 21

I put a few days’ frustration to work — along with my new used iPod, stuffed with industrial and metal – Velvet Acid Christ and Prong are excellent lifting music — for tonight’s foolishness:

German Volume Training (GVT) Deadlifts – 225# – 9×10 + 1×5