Geezer's Long March Toward the Elite Sneaking Up On the Finish Line

[Mark E. Hurling]

5 minute warmup on the bike. (Medium Day)

Bench Press: 155 x 5 x 5.

One Arm Dumbbell Row: 100 x 5 x 5. Did these back to back in a superset.

Pinch Grip: 150 for 30 seconds. PR!

Foam roller and stretching. The delt is feeling good today.

[mike391]

Best of luck with the shoulder Mark, as others have said...take it easy and give it some rest. I've heard somewhere that a setback really an opportunity for a comeback!! When you get to be our age (45+) the comebacks in life are important!

[Mark E. Hurling]

Thanks Mike. The shoulder continues to improve apace. Now my ankles are giving me Hell. Tuesday night my right ankle, the one I've broken twice, in high school football and as a senior in college at the NCAA regionals in judo started pinging and aching as it does out of nowhere from time to time. I had to use a cane at work all day and was in the miserable position of having to undergo an internal review of our site that required a lot of walking. It got better yesterday but then today my left ankle started hurting no doubt from sympathetic compensation for the disturbed gait of the right's problems. So back to the cane today.

In spite of that I got a GXP in. Annoying, because I wanted to try another one running intervals on the 8-9% grade ramp down the bluff to the beach near our house. Next week.

[tertius]

My knees did that, early this week. Just started hurting for no good reason at all, popping link gunshots any time I squatted down...

and now they're fine.

[Mark E. Hurling]

My left ankle continued to give me nothing but misery yesterday, so no jujitsu. Damn! I woke with it feeling better but not completely so off to Golds.

5 minute warmup on the bike. (Medium Day)

Overhead Press: 155 x 5 x 5. Delt is holding up well as I cycle up the poundage in pursuit of the whale. Arrrggh. So far this alternating bench and overhead press protocol seems to be the ticket.

Sumo Deadlift: 345 x 2 3/4. I never realized how a bum ankle can turn into a weak link while deadlifting. Right as the knees begin to lock straight, all the weight gets transmitted right down the femurs, through the ankles, and into the heels. That transit through the left ankle was unpleasant and I noticed it in a big way during warmup sets at 225. I didn't quite make the 3rd rep because I locked out my knees too soon to get the pain over with ASAP. Then I was stuck a stiff leg DL and I couldn't get my shoulders back. Live and learn.

I was wearing my heart rate monitor again for the GXP I do at the end and by the time I finished the DL's it was galloping along at 143 bpm, 86% of MHR. The whole session of lifting had me at 130 bpm at 80%+ of MHR. Cardio indeed. I did a GXP with the geezer dude bro's behind me doing lots of crunches on a machine and racketing away like the noisy rock apes they are. Finished off with foam rolling and stretching.

[Oldster]

An ultra-geezer figuring out how to lift even when something hurts. Badly.

Nice 'un, old man!

[Mark E. Hurling]

Thanks Oldster.

It's been very warm and humid here at 80 degrees and %. I know spoiled by easy beach living, but when it gets like this I don't sleep well and haven't for the last several days. Fireworks at odd intervals in the darkness don't help either.

5 minute warmup on the bike. (Light Day with speed sets done as supersets)

Bench Press: 135 x 8 x 3 +10. Delt is holding up just fine as I recycle back up to 155 where I left off before things went to Hell on me.

Hammer High Row: 230 x 8 x 3 +10.

Squats: 295 x 3. For some reason I was apprehensive about this even though I had owned this weight before. Maybe because my back while OK started feeling a little fatigue maybe left over from the DL's. The first rep was barely low enough and out of disgust with myself I dropped lower than usual on the next two. Verdict: much ado about nothing. Then again, I noticed a trend this morning on my weight. I have dropped four more pounds to 201 over the last few weeks. I'm not watching my eating to try to lose any more, so this seems odd to me. Also my Tanita scale has shown me as low as 9% a few times during this period. I know Greg, it could be no more than a flawed weight algorithm programmed in, but it does strike me as odd along with the weight loss. I really need to get dunked in a hydrostatic test to get some alternate form of measurement rather than live in fantasy land.

Foam roller and stretching.

[Mark E. Hurling]

No jujitsu last night as the YMCA used our room for summer camp indoctrination for prospective parents, and none this Saturday for me since it's a black belt class. sigh.

Along with that, I got a nasty shock yesterday at the doctor's office on the scale when I went in for a routine blood test for my cholesterol and blood pressure meds. It read 250 lbs! I told the doc I though his scale must be off. "Well lets see," he said and stepped on himself. "I weigh 220 on my scale at home. This one shows me at 218." So this morning I stepped on the scale at Golds. 250 lbs. Well son of a bitch! My scale at home has been getting further out of whack over the course of nearly a year or more maybe even before I started this log. Assuming the scale was right then, and I'm not at all sure that it was, I have actually gained weight. So, now to work for real with a new scale to measure progress with. Damn!

I did a GXP with foam rolling and stretched.

[Oldster]

So you 'thought' you were 201lbs and it turns out you are actually 250lbs? And at 250lbs you are at 9% BF?

MARK IS 'DA MAN! A BODY BUILDER MAN! Whew!

I'm just a li'l feller next to you....

[Mark E. Hurling]

Ah, if only Oldster. I've tossed out that piece of shit Tanita scale. I don't trust a damn thing it has to say on anything. I got pretty OCD on this scale over the years I had it. Weigh in the am for weight, weigh in the pm for bodyfat, and all BS I'm sure. Just like Greg C has been telling me. I didn't expect the weight to be so damn for aoof though. God knows, there enough anamolous indicators to show something was out of whack, but I liked the numbers so damn the conflicting data. Idiot! So henceforth my emphasis is shifting. I'm still going for all I can lift, but now in the context of getting my weight down to 220 just like when I began this log last year, so progress or improvement may be slow to nonexistent. I'll see from there, with a better scale. I'm using the one at Gold's until I get a new one at home. 250 is way to much for me. No wonder I have blood pressure problems.

Weight: 250.2 down from 250.8 yesterday, so there's some small progress already.

5 minute warmup on the bike (Light day with speed sets done as supersets)

OHP: 135 x 8 x 3 +10 Delt is holding up just fine since I did that self adjustment on my first rib. My left ankle flared up again though.

One Arm Dumbbell Row: 90 x 8 x 3 +10

Claw Grip: 175 x 2 x 5 PR! The only positive thing to report this week.

Foam roller and stretching.