No problem. Pretty simple stuff, really. But you have a long way to go in this cycle before your gains start to slow down!
Thanks for the advice. I have a number of obligations that will sap my free time until early June. After that, I'll probably be where I want to be in terms of strength, and I will have the time to look around more carefully. I don't have the eye that you do for belt mills or the "creeping TKD influence."
Belt mills are pretty easy to spot. They have big ads in the paper and lots of trophies in the window with big brightly colored signs. Don't get me wrong, I got no beef with competing, but after a certain point of self-promotion and marketing of "Boy we're great here!" you get a clear sense that something other than martial arts and self defense is going on there. The clearest indication of a belt mill comes when there are long term contracts pushed hard and promotion fees with lots and lots of belts and stripes for each promotion fee. It's part the business model. Also things like early teen black belts. Creeping TKD influence can be spotted by watching the drills and techniques that are taught. If they spend more than 30% of their time on kicks, they are at least marginally so influenced. Kicks do have their place, they are just one more tool in the kit though, and not the be-all end-all.
Now for the latest ironing report. Medium day.
5 minute warm up on the bike.
Bench Press: 205 x 5 x 5
Hammer Row: 370 x 5 x 5
Pinch Grip: 132 for 40 seconds PR! Thanks to the discrete use of a lot of chalk.
Foam roller and stretched with a lot of snap-crackle-pop.
Got it. Thanks again for all of the help.
You're welcome RobCor. Glad I can be of assistance. Let me know if you have questions subsequent to this as you get closer to making a choice or decision on the matter.
Jujitsu last night. The iddy-biddy little kids (under 6) class was the biggest I've ever seen when I walked in at the end of it. Full of both sets of parents too, which was really unusual. Normally it's primarily the moms by themselves. The ritalin brothers were ping ponging around in the kids class last night. We immediately separated them and I got one of them to teach. The younger one is so smart but getting and keeping him focused is very challenging. He'd perform the techniques flawlessly twice and then just go nuts and start screwing around. He's too small to give him a half strength throw to rattle some sense back into him like his older brother, so it was constantly, "No, not like that, remember? It's done like this." The adult class had me paired up with a blue belt male in his early 40's who tries so hard and clearly was never really athletic his entire life. He has very little sense of how to move efficiently or effectively but you gotta give him an "A" for effort, sincerity, and dedication as he tries to get it right. He finally got the foot movements down for an ulna press takedown from an arm bar. He always thanks you for teaching him as the class bows off the mat.
No jujitsu at Torrance last night, there's one of the periodic one week breaks between sessions, so no huge kids class to herd cats at.
Did a GXP this morning and finished off with lots of foam rolling and stretching. The low back is getting a little tight for reasons and causes unknown. It's OK now that I'm up and around though. I'm having a hard time getting adapted to needing less sleep now. My brain wakes up and my body thinks, no lets just kick back for a while longer. The minute I get and moving around everything else wakes up fine, so I think I am just having to re-adjust to getting out of old habits of rest.
5 minute warmup on the bike.
Overhead Press: 175 x 5 x 3 + 115 x 10. These are getting hard on the last rep, but not threatening to cause a failure yet. (heavy)
Bench Press: 155 x 8 x 3 + 10. (light and fast) It was an interesting application of your tip to pull the bar forcefully down for speed, Oldster. When I read that, I figured "Oh yeah, just like I learned in shorei goju karate at 15 to pull the let arm back in to the hip when the right arm punches." I've been doing that for the various and sundry other martial arts I've done ever since so how hard could it be, right? It turns out not exactly hard, but required some kinesthetic trickery and reprogramming of the software on the fly. When the arms are pulling back under load like they are with a barbell it's much different (duh!). It went OK, but was not quite the piece of cake I thought it might be. That last fast set of 10 was slowing down by rep 7 though. The eccentric portion of this imposed it's own set of novelty, because my pecs are a little sore which is unusual. Delts and triceps are fine though.
Back Extension: 90 x 3 x 10.
Take your time learning Mark. Don't injure yourself getting in too big of a hurry. It should take about the same amount of energy when done correctly to pull the bar down as it does to press it back up. You'll get it quicker than most I would guess. But your post did make me giggle just a bit..... Now, don't know if I mentioned it before but are you using different grip widths? I prefer to start with a close grip and work my way outward set after set for 3 sets. The third set should be 'about' where your regular bench grip is, or slightly inside. Then start back with a close grip and do it again. For all 9 sets. That way you get 3 sets of light close grips, 3 of a medium grip and then 3 of a wide(r) grip. Really works well at thickening up that area around your elbows and sets the triceps up for some fantastic growth.
Also, don't worry about speed on that last set of 10. This is just something to flush the blood through the area that was just worked, more than anything. And if you are doing the 10 reps pretty easily, up the reps until you are doing 15 or even 20 reps. Then start increasing the weight a bit until you are working very hard to get 10 or 12 reps. DON'T increase the weight so that it is tough to get 10 or 12 reps, get the 15 or 20 reps first and then start adding weight week after week until you are just barely able to handle 10-12 reps. Make sense?
Oh I will, not to worry Oldster. A cautionary note is always a good idea though, thanks. You know I think you did say something about grip widths in your log, I just didn't remember. I will try that next week. I figured the speed might not be critical on the last set of 10 but mentioned it just in case I was wrong. I'll keep the intensity and weight increase legerdemain in mind too for the future. Thanks for the advice.
Off the 80 mile round trip to the main dojo in Northridge today. Worth every penny of the $3.50 gas is here in CA. I got paired up with a 14 year old 1st degree blue belt today. He's a good kid who pays attention and works hard which he has to with me since he is 130 lbs. and 5'7". It was cold this morning for SoCal at 50 F so we didn't do a lot falling and takedowns. I was happy for that. One of the techniques called for a vertical fist strike to the chin to a wrist lock that flattens the attacker on the deck. After that we worked on a wrist grab that ends with the attacker's wrist rotated outward and held on the shoulder. The kid had some trouble with this and we went from rough carpentry to the fine finish woodwork as we went. We were overseen by two women black belts who kept both of us in line. At one point one of them demonstrated the technique on me to get the kid on the right track. She pulled my hand over her head and down to her chest. Oh, did I mention she has has big boobs? She pointed out that I (Mark) was copping a feel and that he (me) surely thought that was a good thing (I did). BUT the hand should be higher up on the shoulder and trap to really put on the hurt. She was absolutely right.
The after action report on this was well, yeah I did think that keeping my fingertips retracted when she pulled my hand to her (cough) boob was important as a matter of respect. I said as much when we dissected the technique and we all had a good laugh out of it. I told this tale to Dearly Beloved and she too had a good laugh from it. I'm a very lucky man to be able to be honest and share these stories with a great woman like her. She said, "Were you blushing this much when you were at the dojo as you are now when you told me this story?" No doubt I was. She so has my number. I have blushed easily ever since we were dating well over 30 years ago and she thought it was cute and endearing then. I still do and she still thinks so. It took me three proposals before she consented to marry me. She was (and still is) one hard-assed woman and her own strength caused me rise to up to be a better man. You should all be so fortunate.