Stuffed Superdud: Bumpy road to respectable lifting

[stuffedsuperdud]

Eeeeehhhhhh. Had fun today trying to see if I could whittle my stuff down to fit entirely in my Camry. Answer: Almost there! I found that clothes clogged things up the worst, and the stupidest part is, I don't fit most of them (unlike you guys, my pre-lifting clothes are actually too big, because I was chubby from age 8 - 21, and thought, fuck it, XXL 4 lyfe!), so I gave most of it away. Hopefully, the Salvation Army will see to it that some fat guy somewhere can make use my old clothes.

So that worked, but training sucked. I was feeling kind of queasy all day, but tried to suck it up anyway. Only one exercise though, snatch high pulls at 95kg for billions of reps, to try to get those hips working as they should.

Yesterday I ate 2lbs of shawarma with garlic sauce and tiny bit of bread, right before lifting. After, I attended a birthday party for one of CG's friends, and CG had made a huge cake.....so there was no saying no to a small piece. Later I got the runs, which might very well cancel out all of the above.

Today, I ate 2lbs of kabob and salad and a few spoonfuls of rice before lifting.

BW: 219, probably more due to the hungry than actual fat loss.

[idlehands]

Eeeeehhhhhh. Had fun today trying to see if I could whittle my stuff down to fit entirely in my Camry. Answer: Almost there! I found that clothes clogged things up the worst, and the stupidest part is, I don't fit most of them (unlike you guys, my pre-lifting clothes are actually too big, because I was chubby from age 8 - 21, and thought, fuck it, XXL 4 lyfe!), so I gave most of it away. Hopefully, the Salvation Army will see to it that some fat guy somewhere can make use my old clothes.

So that worked, but training sucked. I was feeling kind of queasy all day, but tried to suck it up anyway. Only one exercise though, snatch high pulls at 95kg for billions of reps, to try to get those hips working as they should.

Yesterday I ate 2lbs of shawarma with garlic sauce and tiny bit of bread, right before lifting. After, I attended a birthday party for one of CG's friends, and CG had made a huge cake.....so there was no saying no to a small piece. Later I got the runs, which might very well cancel out all of the above.

Today, I ate 2lbs of kabob and salad and a few spoonfuls of rice before lifting.

BW: 219, probably more due to the hungry than actual fat loss.

Ha! You could have said no. Easy peasy. Orthorexia 4 life!

Where you looking on the east coast?

[stuffedsuperdud]

Yargh so things got interesting since Thursday. Remember how I was renting a room from my old boss's cougary personal trainer? Well, I was at my old place gathering my things to permanently move over to her side when she calls me and goes, "Yea.........funny thing.........I don't think I can have you over anymore..... boiler plate boiler plate .........there's this guy........ he needs a place........ you're nice to have around but he's a good guy........get back together................we all deserve second chances....etc etc etc........" TLDR suddenly I was homeless.

So it's kind of miraculous that I was already playing around with moving everything into my car anyway, because suddenly, I had to. So I hurried over to her place and put my hobo survival gear (sleeping bag, duffel, inflatable mattress) into my car, and then I had to go back to my old place to gather all the rest of my crap because the lease on that end was ending Saturday morning...which I had forgotten until then.

So Thursday night saw me doing epic conditioning runs between my apartment, the dumpster, and my car. Exercises included light variants of Atlas stones, farmers walks, and truck pushes, all during an epic heat wave. It wasn't just me, either. Lots of college students live in my complex, and I guess they all timed their 1-year leases for September-August, because everywhere I ran, folks slinked around, dragging couches onto sidewalks and

The washer/dryer was running constantly: after each load, I culled anything that didn't fit into a trash bag. Whenever a bag filled, I took a "break" by driving it over to the Salvation Army bin a mile away, located in the back of an extremely spooky parking lot, stopping at a 7-11 on the way back for coffee.

Around 6AM, I took a badly needed shower and fell asleep on the couch. At 10AM, I was jolted awake by the building manager, who kicked down the door to remind me to be out in 24 hours. Thanks boss.

At 5PM I finally went to lift. Had an assload of Chinese food beforehand. Sorry, Idlehands. I was dying, and we were supposed to do a mock competition today, 2 minute intervals, 10:00 between snatch and cj, etc etc.

I did:

Snatch:
40kgx3
60x2
67x2
76x0x2...ruh roh..
81x1
86x1
Coach was like, "A miracle!! Your hips are low! your beeeeg pull is easy! Okay just remember to finish your pull and we gonna get maybe 100 kilo today!"..............And then shit hit the fan.
90x0x2
95x0x2
90x0x2
All missed behind. Coach was flying off the walls. "FUCK! FUCK FUCK FUCK! What is the problem?!?! TELL ME what the problem is! Are you hurt? No? Then lock those elbows! In my eyes I have for you 105 kilo today, and you gonna lose me 90?! Go up is like a feather! And then the feather crush you!"

Pan-Am was more reasonable, and intervened with, "Wait....hold on....Snatch the bar and stay at the bottom." I did that, and she noticed that I tend to catch the weight a touch behind, and then pull it into position over my CoM, and was probably getting away with it until the weight hit 90kg. Coach was beside himself. "I notice this all this year! Is bad habit from when you begin to train, and no one fixed it. I was hoping it is not a big problem, just how you lift, but if it is a big problem then we cannot open at 90! And after competition, we gonna do SO MANY snatch balance, overhead squat, and press, you gonna want to die!"

CJ: (when it rains it pours)
40kgx2
60x2
80x2
After I jerked 80 I noticed my right quad was super duper cramped. Told coach. "I don't give a fuck!"

I tried to roll it out and when it didn't it occurred to me that the dysfunction I had been complaining about these past few weeks might have finally culminated in a minor tear. WTF?

I CJ'ed
90x1
100x1 with possible pressout
110x0 => very hard and painful clean, pressed the jerk
110x0 => pressed the jerk
110x1

Coach was like, "okay don't worry about lifting for now.Take care of moving, ice your thing, next week we train."

All I had left to pack was my desk, but it's pretty much the Final Boss: all the electronics were purchased a long period of time and were Frankensteined together, the cables fused into a horrific Lovecraftian beast, and by that, I mean that in addition to any tentacular connotation, the mere sight of the beast in its entirety could drive a man insane. Just to rub it in, the parts located in difficult-to-reach corners were caked in detritus-encrusted dust, much to my revulsion.

Naturally, instead of carving into the mess, I gathered all the spare change found in the upturned furniture, on the laundry room floor, in my closet, etc. and took the pile to a Coinstar machine, where cashed it in for a $8.43 voucher to Coldstone.

SSD: "Hey wanna go to Coldstone?"
CG: "I need to lose weight."
SSD: "Right, but wanna go to Coldstone first?"
CG: "Sure."

One strawberry banana rendezvous later, we were reading horrible romance novels out loud at the Barnes and Noble next door. I got back to my old place at 12AM. It was that I realized that I still had a mountain of unfolded shirts on the living room floor and probably not enough room in the car for all of it, even after vacuum packing.

12:00AM: "Okay 12 hours to pack up a desk and some shirts? How hard can it be?"
1:00AM: "Fuuuuck gonna kill myself."

I had no idea tangled wires could be so nightmarish, and I still had to bubble-wrap and haul all the heavier awkward stuff into my car (janky quad and all), where the real hard part began: vehicle Tetris. Also, wouldn't it be hilarious of people saw the commotion and robbed me in street?

I'll spare the gorier details, but suffice it to say, my car was nearly at capacity and I still had two duffels and a surprise luggage I had forgotten about, stuffed with winter clothes untouched since I moved down here. Fuark. I put it off till later; in the meantime, I sprayed myself with cologne and passed out on the couch.

This is when CG came through like a boss. At 9AM she's kicking down my door asking if I'm good to go. Upon witnessing the pile of crap that wouldn't fit into my car, she kicked it up three notches; this was her zone. First, she had me lug all my stuff down to where her car was parked next to mine. Second, she Tetris'ed nearly everything together ("Bitch, please. Putting tons of crap into a small space is my THING." She even had the good sense to bring her "backup car," which was larger than the littel red one in which she usually zips around. A toast, to princesses everywhere.).

Somehow, against all odds, we finished, with half an hour to spare. She even found a Shop Vac and we used the tornado force to clean the entire place up in a flash. As we were driving over to her place, I get a call from a buddy of mine, the dude I am best manning later this month, letting me know that he found out I got screwed and inviting me to crash at his parents' vacation home. He's there with his fiance, but there was room for ten more people if needed. Saved! Bonus points: he's not charging me. WIN WIN WIN.

So now I just have to worry about not falling on my face come next Saturday. Will resume training Tuesday.

[IlPrincipeBrutto]

Well...

I've finally reached this point, having started from page one last week. I initially thought I would pay a quick visit, the least I could given the time you have spent on my inane technique rantings in the other section, but, as many others, ended up captivated by your assorted musings.
I expected advice on how to pick chicks; failing that, on how to pick chicken, and there is plenty. I hoped to find some tips to improve my jerks but, strangely, you don't mention them at all. Ok, your lock was not great to start with, but it seems you never had problems with your dip and drive; it's a different story if we only consider the drive part, but that was not your fault. I am genuinely gobsmacked by your resilience. You get knocked down by life's vagaries, and you get up again, and again and again and keep improving your lifts, like a Baththumping chambawamba with a nuclear fuel battery (and a longer career, I hope). Seriously, your persistence in the face of what seems to be a cruel and farcical fate is beyond inspiring, and almost verges on the pathological. I suppose being free as a bird helps: how long do you spend in the gym for each session? it's a genuine question. I bet the list of lifts for each gym visit is longer than the shopping one, although at least when you visit your local supermarket you don't have a crazed ex-Communist bloc oldtimer shouting in your ears.
After reading the first twenty pages I thought about re-opening my log. After another twenty I realised it would a pointless exercise; you have cornered the market for witty, geeky and saucy weightlifting narrative; a loner on a balcony is just not going to provide any competition, unless I start ogling the girls walking down the road in the morning.
There is only one disappointment in all this, and I am being serious (again) for once: you've been logging for two years, and there isn't a single video, not even a picture of the ladies you train with. Given that they seem to be better than you, we could at least have picked up some good lines. And I'm talking bar paths.

Four full stars, will definitely read again. And good luck with you accomodation and your meet, in that order.

IPB

[Oldman]

I have been catching up again on the logs, and was relieved to find that, despite the tribulations and entropic forces confronting you, in the end, you have once more triumphed. Looking forward to your return to training and hitting the big lifts!

[stuffedsuperdud]

You guys embarrass me with this praise! Especially, you, OM: you've gone two rounds with the Big C on top of your job and parenting and are stronger than almost every 20-something male on Earth, while I just have fun Internet-whining about life's daily annoyances.

IPB: Training on MWF takes about 2:30, including warmup. Some folks finish in as little as 1:30, but right now I just don't have the stamina for their pace. On TTh, it's shorter, maybe 1:30 or so. Indeed, it's nice that currently, I have no critical responsibilities except to pay the bills of a single 29-year-old. My neurotic mother reminds me that it's closing in on marriage o'clock, and when that comes, I'll probably have to be much more careful about time management but hey, until it actually tolls for me, this is what it is. Re: videos: I tried to take my first one the other day to watch my hips during snatches but my old phone finally gave out on me. Let me see if coach has any footage; he films occasionally, but mostly for PR attempts only, and only Pan-Am regularly attempts them in training.

Weekend activities:
I moved into my buddy's guest room on Saturday, right? Been there since. I'm grateful to have a roof over my head, but physically, this is not an ideal situation.* For starters, i'm kind of worried about the dietary side of things; he and his fiance are cool and all, but they're two fatties who don't give a fuck, i.e. high-carb, medium-alcohol, low-protein, zero training is the norm. Example: Sunday night, we had cookies and whiskey for dinner. Sleeping on an air mattress is probably cutting into recovery; I'm waking up tired every morning. Also, the fiancee has to get up at 5AM to go to work so we all get up at 5AM. Finally, dietary and physical shortcomings aside, the fiancee reminds me way too much of Reese Witherspoon's character from Election, i.e. it's only a matter of time before she kicks me out of my buddy's house for some minor offense.

Tuesday training:
Snatch:
40kgx3
50x3
60x3
70x3
80x1
90x0x3

90 felt REALLY heavy. I threw it overhead once, and then missed the next two badly in front.

To compensate, I had a big-ass pile of Chinese food and then CG and I got froyo. I think with the events of the past week or so, and the stubborn heat wave, I'm going to have to carb up just to survive the Saturday meet.


Wednesday training:
After carbing up, I felt noticeably stronger today.

Snatch:
40kgx3
50x3
60x2
70x2
78x1x2
70x2

I made a big show of the 78's, because I really didn't want to miss any sub-openers this close to the meet. Coach was like, "Aww man such a fucking drama queen. Is only 78!"

CJ:
40kgx3
60x3
80x1x2
88x1x2
95x1x2
88x1

Squat:
60kgx5
100x4
140x4x2

*Actually, believe it or not, this is probably the first time in my life I've lived with people who couldn't care less about physical fitness, and it's been a little surprising. Their daily routine seems to be to shove a few frozen waffles and instant coffee down, go to work, come back, eat random junk for dinner, and then watch Netflix for 6 hours, until they get sleepy. I floated the notion of them not getting enough protein and probably overdoing the carbs, and just received blank stares. Showed them my protein powder and they just went, "Eh it's fine, we don't need that stuff. They mix steroids in there too, right? It's why bodybuilders get so big?" I get that this is the norm and we're the weirdos, but I never really appreciated just how little most people care about this stuff. Ehh.

[ud2o]

Netflix rec: Longmire. Recovering alcoholic Wyoming sheriff. Racial and ethnic tension between town locals and Native Americans. Ongoing investigation into who murdered sheriff's wife years ago woven in to each episode's plot. All that drama plus awesome views of the West. A great show.

I have nothing to add related to strength training at this time.

EDIT: Also, your situation with your buddy and his woman kind of reminds me of You, Me and Dupree. By the way, that's a great movie if you haven't seen it. Don't know if it's on Netflix.

[stuffedsuperdud]

Heh. CG was like, "But Dupree is an asshole! And you're...oh, right I guess it IS like that movie." This chick is a Dunning-Kruger Type A trip, and that's when she's not in bridezilla mode. The other day, she actually volunteered to write my best man toast for me so that there aren't any variables in this thing she's been planning since she was nine. Am I going to roast them? Oh yea, you bet your ass.

Okay let's see, lots of catchup logging:

Thursday:
Didn't train, on coach's orders. Marathoned the original Star Wars trilogy with CG, who had never seen any of the movies but wanted to get caught up for the new one. More on this later.

Friday:
Snatch:
40kgx3
50x3
60x2
68x1x6

Power clean + jerk:
60x3
70x2
80x1x6

Squat:
120kg x2x4

That's it.

Coach talked a new girl into trying snatch/CJ. She's built exactly like Lidia Valentin, i.e. thick, shortish legs and jacked shoulders, and took to it right away despite never having done any sort of barbell training before. After she left, coach was like, "Heh heh hey you're looking for a woman, right? You should talk to her! She seems like nice girl, so who knows! Maybe she thinks you're nice too?!?!? OKAY SEE YOU TOMORROW. DON'T BUM ME OUT!"


Saturday: finally justifying my place in this part of the forum

My session didn't start till like 7PM, but I got there around 4 to get settled and weigh in. It was hot and humid as balls all day, and twice as bad inside the venue. Reference: I brought with me a gallon of water with about 10 scoops of Amino Energy in it, finished the whole thing over the course of my time there (4PM-10PM), and did not pee once. Not ideal lifting conditions.

Twas a CF gym with mostly CF lifters, so of course I was the only one not tatted all over, and the place was crawling with sweaty girlfriends in lululemon yoga pants and every form of flipflop imaginable. Birkenstocks are back, apparently. Eww. I was the only one from my gym to lift, but a few others showed up for fun, and yes, we wore dorky matching t-shirts that coach drew up and had printed at the shop next to the gym. Good times.

I weighed in at 100kg, but the meet was casual about folks not having to make weight, and 85kg and up were all in one ubersession anyway; my bumping up threw off the announcer during introductions though, which was kind of funny. My listed openers were a conservative 80/100

Warmup:
Warmup area smelled like a giant fetid asshole. It's fine. I noticed that I was by far the luckiest person there in that I had with me a professional coach with 40+ years in the iron game and experience coaching at the national/international level, while everyone else had only their CF box's weightlifting guru. Almost all of them did not have any sense of timing their warmups, rushed through the routine, and then got cold in the 10-15 minute between their last rep and their opener. Others came out gassed, and missed their openers due to simple fatigue. Lucky me though, coach was in his ZONE, and timed everything just right, so that I was lifting at the exact same pace as the competition, i.e. when the platform lifter did 70kg, I did the same, only in the warmup area, and for both snatch and CJ, as soon as I caught my breath after the last warmup, the announcer called me for my opener. The adrenaline rush was in full swing, and FELT GREAT. Related: I am a poor athlete in general but one thing I do manage to get right is to channel adrenaline into a slight performance boost. This was no exception.

I did:
Snatch:
Warmup
bar x billions
40kgx3
50x3
60x2
70x2
80x1
"How did 80 feel?"
"Pretty easy."
"Okay I bump you to 85. DO NOT FUCK WITH ME!"

Attempt 1:
85kg x1 easy.

Attempt 2:
90kg x1 had to take a step forward. 2-1 in favor. Middle judge redlighted me for pressout

Attempt 3:
95kg x1 had to sit at the bottom for a second to stabilize the weight, then stood up easily.

All were comp PRs. 95 ties my lifetime PR.

WHEW. Coach sent me outside to chillax at this point. The strongest snatch was a -105 guy who did like 125kg.


CJ:
Warmup:
40kg 3+3
60kg 3+2
75kg 2+1
90kg 1+1
Had a bit of difficulty shifting the front rack for the jerk. Coach was like "!!!!!! NO! Do not do that on stage! This is some stupid. fucking. shit. You mess up the hands and then you miss the jerk and then I gonna fucking kill you.
100kg 1+1 got it clean. "Okay I bump you up to 105."

As I sat on the on-deck area he yelled at me loud enough for everyone to hear: "Okay don't fuck up. Just don't be fucking stupid and boom you gonna hit that jerk! You listening to me? Don't be stupid!"

Attempt 1:
105kg x1 Got it easy but center judge redlighted me for a pressout that no one saw. I got the lift 2-1, he got a stink eye from me, I got a wry smile back from him.

Attempt 2:
110kg x1 No doubt about this one.

Attempt 3:
116kg x0 Lifetime PR attempt by 1kg. I could feel myself getting lightheaded after the clean and rushed the jerk a bit. Redlighted 2-1 against for a pressout. I wasn't too upset since I knew it wasn't a totally clean lift, but it was kind of annoying that they were passing other even more blatant pressouts.

The guy who snatched 120-ish CJed like 150 for the biggest total of the day. Lots of folks bombed out on CJ for some reason, and a few passed out too. Not their day, I guess.

TL;DR 5/6 205kg total, beat my previous total by nearly 40kg. I'll take it, I guess, esp. given the inconsistent prep and the stress leading up to this.

On the way out, coach was like, "Hey thank you for giving me a good competition! But on Monday we gonna start a new cycle. We need more strength! [winking at you, Rip]. You gonna give me squat, snatch press, and overhead squat until you die. You gonna hate me!"

Oh, and remember how local meets used to be full of CF douchebags talking big and lifting badly? Fun's over, guys. Even the worst lifters had reasonable strength/technique (and therefore, perhaps, reasonable coaching, exciting given that the coaching corps is the most important long-term parameter for a country's international success), #s are going up across the board, and everyone has a pretty good respect/appreciation for what good lifting is, e.g. you don't have guys with "Your workout is my warmup!" shirts opening at 60kg anymore, and folks know that at 105kg, there are guys totaling 420, so if you're at 200, just STFU and keep lifting.

Hold on to your asses, Russia. It's probably safe to say the American comeback is no flash in a pan.

[DV]

As always a great writeup. I would say that this performance given current life conditions was awesome. Hell, even getting in there with current stuff going on is impressive!

Looking forward to seeing how the strength cycle will go.

[Chris McCarthy]

Good work.

Equalling one PR and having a crack at another....that is a pretty good day.