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

[Mark E. Hurling]

I had over 11 hours of sleep last night and still woke up feeling like the living dead. It's all aboard the cortisol express, so time to hang on for the ride. I need to amend my previous past life pain reference from my 40th birthday to high school. This is like I felt during week 2 of pre-season football 2 a days. We used to say you'd be afraid of dying during week 1 and then being afraid you wouldn't die during week 2. And I was teenager then. Man getting old is hell.

Off to the gym for 30+ minutes of low intensity cardio, foam rolling, and stretching. I just wanted to get things warmed up and moving to see if it would help. It did a little. The upper back is a little better from spending more time on the roller in accordance with Oldster's wise counsel. Thank you, sir. Better by increments. I've been reviewing PPST for advice on the elderly (Rip called us Masters) and advanced trainers. Now I'm certainly not an elite competitor but given my working poundages and age I'm pretty confident I'm at the upper right end of the graph for potential. So that's how I need to plan. I took some extra vitamin D, C, and flax oil for better recovery and to damp down the inflammation running riot just now. Oldster had some good advice for someone else regarding when to push lifts for PR's and I've decided to go after the overhead press and let the bench press coast for now.

After breakfast Dearly Beloved and I drove by the Pacific and saw the dolphins leaping entirely out of the water in opposite directions. Free look at a Sea World show; neat. Dearly Beloved has noticed bruises on my arms from the excessive enthusiasm of the purple belt yesterday. She has that quiet look of amusement and bemusement she gets when she knows I have done/am doing/about to do what she thinks is dumb. I'm lucky she puts up with me. She has kept me from the worst of my stupidity by transforming into She Who Must Be Obeyed when I have gotten up or out the car to punch someone's lights out more than once since we began dating over 30 years ago. Right now she recognizes that this is just me determined to not go quietly into that good night.

[Mark E. Hurling]

I took a layoff from lifting Sunday and will do so tomorrow as well just to catch up on some recovery here. I slept so hard and deep last night I managed to overcome my wake up at O-dark 30 programming and overslept for over 9 hours of time in the rack. A clear signal I needed it, but it screwed me for my morning GXP. So I used my lunch hour for it, something I haven't done since I started this log. Finished off with a very abbreviated session of stretching.

A review of Wendler's 5/3/1 book indicates that he recommends Max PR efforts at 3-4 cycle intervals. This translates to 12-16 weeks per PR attempt. I have done several at 8 week intervals so I guess I'm lucky to have done this well so far. Well, no more of that for a while. My next shot at a PR will be in late winter or early spring. Time for some patience and self discipline here if I want to keep making progress, even if at a slower rate than I would like.

In spite of the sleep, I am still dragging a little today, so it's highly likely I'll forego jujitsu tonight and save my energy for the big kids class tomorrow. God knows we'll need all the adults there we can get to keep the savage hordes in check. The forearms are feeling OK from the bashing they got on Saturday and although still a little tired, my back is still feeling solid and the crushing fatigue and owwieness reported over the weekend are dissipating.

[Mark E. Hurling]

Kid's class in jujitsu last night was a study in class disruption by just one kid in my group. I got all the 3rd degree orange belts to teach the new beginner's instruction method so that they can in turn begin teaching that way themselves to lower ranking kids. Unlike the painstaking hand craftmanship of careful, slow demonstration with lots of verbal pointers, we now are using very general and fast pantomime and repetition to keep the kids moving a la wax-on, wax-off. Once they have the technique roughed-in, we follow up some weeks later by fine tuning it. My group had 3 of the worst goofers in the whole class, but all of them fell in line pretty well from the novelty of the method. The one who didn't just derailed the rest for a while. Very frustrating.

The adult class had us practicing blocking drills again like Saturday's session. I was paired up with a 4th degree black belt who is one of the 2 or 3 who is older than me. My forearm bruises are in full bloom again and worse than ever. Typing is even something of a challenge this morning. Along with the blocking we worked on how to quickly ricochet off a cross block to a back knife hand or hammer fist strike to the neck or head which was interesting. Finally we did some immobilization techniques after a takedown where you hyperextend the lower back with your knees and draw the head and neck backward with one arm and using the elbow of the opposite arm to keep the legs pulled back. You absolutely can't move from that kind of a disjointed position.

My right deltoid is giving me grief this morning and for the life of me I can't ID what might have happened last night to cause it. Other than the gripes of advancing age.

[JM3]

you go big dog.

[Mark E. Hurling]

Thanks JM3, after the last couple of weeks of taking my increasingly old ass to my current limits I need all the pep talk I can get.

[Mark E. Hurling]

Dragged self out of bed this morning and off to Gold's for a GXP on an elliptical. Nothing greatly detailed here, just some cardio maintenance to keep the circulatory system healthy. This was followed by the foam roller and stretching that did not tax my shoulder. It's feeling better today, but I have some lingering discomfort around the A/C joint in my clavicle. No point in aggravating it.

I have gotten inspired by the articles this week about competing by Matt Reynolds and Andy Baker. I will be revising my log to replace hip belt squats with back squats and moving back into them after a long, long time to see how I can do. I'll also need to practice benching from a pause on the chest and getting to legal depth on the squats. Even if the squats prove beyond my abilities to do safely I can compete in a push/pull meet with benches and deadlifts. I do know that I can improve my deadlifts by a good deal more and do so safely. I'll be leaving this log right where it is for now as I reintroduce myself to squats, but if things go as well as I hope I may move to the Competitive Lifter section of the site.

I am pretty excited about this and I know having checked raw age and weight class meets for geezers that I can win a match or two before I try bench pressing the lid off my coffin.

[fiftyfit]

YOU GO MARK!! I should be switching over to the competition logs, myself, after New Year's, and I'll look forward to following your posts, and providing what encouragement I can. My first meet back following my injury should be the Upstate New York meet in April, and I'm planning on lifting in the 220 lb class. I'm hoping to hit at least a 380 squat, 250 bench, and 450 deadlift. Take care, and good luck to you.

[Oldster]

The upper back is a little better from spending more time on the roller in accordance with Oldster's wise counsel. Thank you, sir. Better by increments.

Excellent! It IS painful for a while until you get used to using them. I use them once per week and I feel little to no pain after about 10 years of using them.

[Mark E. Hurling]

JM3, fiftyfit, and Oldster I really can't thank you guys enough for your encouragement and support. It makes the risk of showing my ass in public worthwhile when I can't my cape on in the phone booth.

OK, public service announcement over and time for the latest rumors behind the news. I woke up and checked my blood pressure for the morning and damn it was high. Again. I can't seem to find the right med for the overnight pressure and it has me increasingly concerned. My Dad and his father both had strokes and I know I sure as hell don't want one of my own. So off to jujitsu. I turned on the smooth jazz station in the car to try to keep relaxed. One of my big issues is to keep loose and not tighten up. It slows me down in everything on the mat. The thing is that it is counter-intuitive for me because the strength training does nothing to encourage relaxing into a movement. Because of course then the weight wouldn't move. I also got hardwired by judo to stay strong and lock up most especially around the arms from the way competitions direct the grip at the collar and sleeve. It's quite a contrast that I struggle with all the time.

I got paired up with a 2nd degree black belt that I confess I have no use for. He's very good, but he has hurt me a few times in the past and has asshole tendencies. He seems to be getting better lately but . . . My bruises and forearms are more sore than ever after punching and blocking drills today. The drills are designed to develop very close in fighting abilities and it is easy to see that Master Bellman is injecting more kempo into what we do. Good, because the synthesis works well and complements the danzan ryu our style grew from. The retired LAPD black belt I gave my women's self defense book draft to mentioned that he is halfway through it and thought it was good. This is really an ego boost because he has a 30+ year career and was and still is deeply respected by LAPD.

Later I went to the gym and did some low intensity cardio. This included a 40 second thick bar hold of 205 lbs. PR! I did some squats with an empty bar in the power rack to figure out where to adjust the safety bars. I finished off with the foam roller and stretched.

Oh! And I bought a 4" belt yesterday to use in raw competitions. I haven't used or worn a belt for over 10 years, at the same time I quit wearing the fingerless gloves. These items of apparel were the "serious" weightlifter signal gear all through the 70's and 80's. No gloves for me though any more.

[JM3]

Mark, as you listen to smooth jazz, I cant be your friend anymore.

seriously- are you getting massages? If you are on meds and the blood pressure is under control then massages have been 'proven' to lower blood pressure generally. During the sessions the pressure goes up - for aprox 2 hours after- so it's important that your blood pressure be under control- but the after effect is supposedly a net lowering. My info is old, and if it's like many things I learned in school, may not be reliable - but Its worth a try. Good luck on that. Also- if you are using music therapy - listen to waltzes- the heartbeats in 3/4 time so anything in that signature is less stimulating than even smooth jazz- where the offbeats will be emphasized and thus are stimulating- sorry to geek out on the subject- but I think a lot of people dont realize that about heart rhythm.


ok edit- I did a quick search- all the glowing stuff was, you guessed it, from the trade pubs- this is the most objective thing I found.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18315516