My Wife’s Birthday Weekend
Quote:
Originally Posted by
K.Diesel
The plan is to go in tomorrow, and do some goofing around with pressing and rows. Starting on Sunday/Monday, a lot of the fluff gets cut out for 5 weeks. I know - I’m at Planet Fitness, so it’s all fluff. ;) But really, I’ll be doing much fewer movements as I go into the meet (November 14).
So... the above referenced “tomorrow” was Friday, October 2, which was also my wife’s 41st birthday. I had managed to convince myself that I would still be able to get in the gym and squeeze something in, but it didn’t happen. But after eating a lot of calorie dense, high protein foods over the weekend, I was ready to get in there yesterday. This was also at a PF on my mother’s side of town, since we were having dinner there yesterday.
Sun. 10/4 - weighed 211.2 lbs upon waking (-0.4 lbs from last week)
Smith Machine Pause Squat - paused for a 2-3 count at the bottom of each rep
bar/5, 5
90+/5
180+/5
270+/3
320+/3 - started using belt
360+/3 @9 RPE - started using mouth guard
360+/2 @9 RPE
360+/2 @9.5 RPE
Smith Machine Squat
360+/5
I essentially did a normal set of squats as a back-off set for the pause squats.
Smith Machine Sumo DL - standing on 2 stacked 25 lbs plates (each leg)
bar/5
90+/5
180+/5
270+/5 - started using Versa Gripps. My low back didn’t feel so good at this point.
360+/1 - started using belt.
I aborted this experiment after one rep with 4 plates because I didn’t like how my lower back was feeling. I haven’t had any trouble with it doing conventional DL on the Smith machine, so I don’t know if it’s my back angle while doing sumo, or something else. But it’s no big deal. I haven’t pulled sumo in several months - maybe longer - and I just wanted to see how it might work on this setup. I’ll stick with conventional. When I can get back to real DL from the floor, maybe I’ll try sumo again.
Smith Machine Romanian Deadlift - Versa Gripps and belt both sets
180+/10
270+/10
Prone Leg Curl Machine
60/10
105/10 - started using mouth guard
drop set: 150/7 + 135/3
As I’ve mentioned in a previous log entry, I love this machine and I wish the PF closest to me had one.
I switched my work schedule so I could surprise my wife and take her out this morning to conclude her birthday weekend. I’m also going to take advantage of not having delivered mail for 2 days, and go to bench press and do more upper body work in a few hours.
A Literal Pain In The Neck
Today’s weigh-in: 211.6 lbs (basically unchanged)
My plan after Monday was to rest 2 days, train at PF on Thursday, rest 2 more days, then train at my brother’s with a real barbell today. Unfortunately, my teenage daughter had a serious asthma attack, and ended up being admitted to the hospital on Thursday morning. Fortunately, she was home by late Friday night. We had to juggle some things at home (this isn’t new for us), and I planned to train after work on Friday, then keep the plan for today.
On Friday morning, I woke up with a pain in my chest (sternum), as well as a pain at the base of my neck that seemed to radiate up and down my spine, as well as across the back of my shoulders. I took some non-opioid pain relievers and went to work, delivered my route, and went to the gym with plans for Smith machine deadlifts, RDL, presses and either rows or pull downs. Here’s how it went:
Fri. 10/9
Smith Machine Deadlifts (standing on 2 stacked 25 lbs plates)
bar/10
90+/6 + 6 RDL
180+/5 - started feeling a little more aching in my neck
270+/2 + 2 - used alternating grip, and took maybe 5-6 deep breaths between doubles
320+/2 - started using mouth guard, pain in my neck started flaring up more
370+/2 - started using Versa Gripps, double overhand grip
420+/1 - started using belt
450+/1 - seriously thinking about quitting here
475+/1 - convinced myself that it wasn’t that bad
475+/1 - wanted to go up to 500 in plate weight, but it felt like I was pushing off of my toes on the previous set, so I repeated the weight
420+/3
420+/3
After that last set, I stripped it down to 270+ with the intention of doing 1-2 sets of RDL. Then I sat down and looked at the video of the last few sets. By the time I got up, my the back of my neck and shoulders were so achy and stiff when I moved that I said forget it, and stripped all the plates off. I thought that maybe some machine presses might not be too bad...
Hammer Strength Incline Press
60 per side/10
90 per side/3 - aborted mission
I don’t think the presses hurt my neck any worse. But I felt like I wasn’t able to generate much force for them, and decided to call it a day.
So the good thing is that I got some decent deadlifts in. The bad thing is that I may have made a problem with my neck worse. Remember, I don’t know why it hurts in the first place.
I also realize that I’ve been burning the candle at both ends for far too long. I didn’t work yesterday. My wife and I went to a local bodybuilding show, and I ended up going to sleep at 9:30 pm last night. I woke up around 10 or 11 am this morning. I actually feel well rested for once.
I wouldn’t describe my neck and shoulders as painful this morning and afternoon, but stiff. I’m not going to chance anything by putting a real barbell on my back, or arching into a competition style bench press. So rather than train at my brother’s, I’ll go to Planet Fitness shortly and do some machine work, followed by using their massage bed and/or chair. With just 34 days until the meet, I hope this isn’t anything major.
Video From 10/18 - Squat & Deadlift (REAL WEIGHTS!)
As I mentioned in my last entry, I left my brother’s house yesterday feeling optimistic about my prospects for the meet. Here’s the video from my squat/deadlift session. I topped out at 475 on the squat and 500 on the bench, weighing 210-211.
https://youtu.be/t0z89CfrR0Q
Right now, the plan for this week is to train twice between tomorrow (or today at this point) and Friday at PF, then back to his house on Sunday.
Fri. 10/23 - Short & Sweet
Planet Fitness in Baltimore City is open continuously from Monday morning through Friday at 10pm, then 7am - 7pm on weekends. I didn’t get home from work tonight until after 8pm, so I knew I’d have to try to cram a lot into less time than I wanted. Here’s how things went...
Work: 9.5 hours, 9.0 miles, 19,432 steps, 6 flights climbed
*Reminder* - on Smith machine exercises, I only list the weight of the plates, and the bar is represented by “+”. There’s a label on the machine saying the bar equals 20 or 25 lbs (I don’t remember), but I don’t trust it.
Smith Machine Squat
bar/6 x 2 sets
90+/6
180+/5
270+/4
310+/3 - started using mouth guard
340+/2 - started using wrist wraps, first time using them at PF
370+/2 - started using belt
400+/2
425+/2
450+/2 @9.5 RPE, heaviest squat at Planet Fitness so far
410+/4
In terms of controlling my depth, this might have been the best session I’ve done either at PF or at my brother’s. I tend to go extra deep on squats, which is better than struggling to hit legal competition depth. But I would prefer to stay tight and remove some ROM to make my squat more efficient. Hopefully, I can keep this going at my brother’s over the weekend.
Smith Machine Bench Press
bar/10 (maybe more, I lost count)
90+/8
140+/6
180+/4
210+/2 - started using mouth guard
230+/2 - started using wrist wraps
250+/2
260+/2 @9.5 RPE
drop set: 260+/2 + 230+/3 @10 RPE
Seated Dual-Handle Cable Row - these sets were actually alternated with BP after the 230+ set
50/10
90/10
130 (whole stack)/8 @10 RPE
The weight on this stack was deceptive. I’ve rowed much more than 130 on several machines, so maybe the number on this stack means the resistance for each hand. I don’t know, but it feels like it worked well enough as a substitute for the Smith machine barbell rows I ran out of time to do.
The entire workout was done in 1 hour 15 minutes. 22 days to go until the meet.
10/26, Short & Sweet, Again
I got off work early yesterday because I had an appointment with an optometrist. Not only did I walk less than I normally would, I ended up training in contacts for possibly the first time ever. It has been so long since the last time I wore contacts, I don’t know if I’ve ever lifted in them, and I’ve been in the gym for about 16 years now. I won’t be wearing them everyday, but not having glasses in the gym can be helpful, especially wearing a mask.
Work yesterday, 10/26: 6 hours, 6.3 miles, 14,185 steps, 9 floors climbed
Work today, 10/27: 11.5 hours, 10.2 miles, 22,076 steps, 8 floors climbed
Mon. 10/26
NOTE: on Smith machine exercises, I only list the weight of the plates with a + to represent whatever the bar adds (i.e. “90+” looks like 135)
Smith Machine Deadlift
90+/6
180+/3 x 2 sets
270+/3-4 - I don’t know how I forgot the number of reps I did by the time I went to write it down. Old man problems, I suppose.
340+/2 - started using mouth guard, as well as alternating grip
390+/2
430+/1 - started using Versa Gripps
460+/1 - started using belt
480+/1
500+/1 + 1 @9.5 RPE
On that set, I did one, stood up to take a breath, and started setting up a second rep. I was recording the set, and I noticed someone walk over and stand right in front of my phone. So I asked him to move, and went back through my set up. It was about 30-40 seconds between reps. That’s not enough for me to call it 2 sets, but too long to call it “2 reps”, so I’ll count it like a cluster of 2 singles.
450+/3 @9 RPE - did the backoff sets double overhand with the Versa Gripps
450+/3 @9.5 RPE
Smith Machine Barbell Row
180+/8
230+/8 - started using Versa Gripps
270+/6 - cheated a little more than I would have liked on these, but I’ve seen worse
230+/10 - cheated some of these too, but that was by design
Hammer Ab Crunch Machine
5 sets total, 10 reps each w/30, 50, 70, 60, 40
Did this in just under an hour. I only plan to deadlift one more time - twice at the most - before the meet (November 14), and that will be with a real barbell.