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

  1. #321
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    May 2010
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    • starting strength seminar april 2024
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    I just couldn't stay completely idle. My activity OCD kicked in (1-2-3, 1-2-3, 1-2-3) and I went to Gold's and did a GXP on the cross country ski type elliptical. I couldn't get up to better the 75% of MHR on the usual #12 setting so I had to boost it to #14 to get to the 85% target. This is in keeping with something I noticed this week while checking my resting heart rate. It has been hovering around 72 bpm for the last year or so and this week it dropped to 64 bpm. I'm not sure if this is an indication of recovery from chronic overtraining or what. Maybe one less GXP per week? Don't know at this point, but it's hard to lose the VO2 max numbers I've managed to retain and achieve. Experimentation may be in order. Hit the foam roller and stretched.

    Ran into one of the younger engineers in the printer room at work this morning. He's a martial arts and lifting type too and we hadn't run into each other for a few weeks so were chatting. I was telling him about straightening out the teens at the dojo on how to do clap push ups. We got a chuckle out of it as a couple of other people drifted through the printer room who know both of us. One them expressed some teasing disbelief about my ability to do clap push-ups. To which I responded, "Don't ever challenge an old guy without the ass to back it up." So dropped and knocked out 10 which ended up drawing a small crowd of passers-by. Icing on the cake? I'm fortuitously wearing my Old Guys Rule polo shirt today. Priceless.

  2. #322
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    Back to lifting this morning. Low back felt a little dodgy and the shoulders keep waking me up when I lay on one side or the other too long.

    5 minute warmup on the bike.

    Bench Press: 240 x 3-3-3-3-2. Filled in two of the three sets for reps of 3. Last one to go. Once I own 240 with 5 sets of 3 I'll dig out my 2 1/2 lb. soft wrist weights to make smaller jumps. If I git 'er done next week it will have taken me 3 weeks to transition from 235 to 240. If I can do 2 1/2 lb. jumps every week I'll come out ahead. Time and experience will tell.

    Sumo Deadlifts: 335 x 3. All 3 reps got slowly hauled up. It wasn't a walk in the park, but they were all accomplished without too much strain.

    Did a GXP on the elliptical and finished off with the foam roller and stretching. The shoulders and back still feel a little worn but not hurting or too bad.

  3. #323
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    Quote Originally Posted by Mark E. Hurling View Post
    Bench Press: 240 x 3-3-3-3-2. Filled in two of the three sets for reps of 3. Last one to go. Once I own 240 with 5 sets of 3 I'll dig out my 2 1/2 lb. soft wrist weights to make smaller jumps. If I git 'er done next week it will have taken me 3 weeks to transition from 235 to 240. If I can do 2 1/2 lb. jumps every week I'll come out ahead. Time and experience will tell.
    I'm not a big fan of microloading, except for the absolute beginner whose strength can't handle much. Instead, stay with a weight for a few weeks after you initially 'own it' and then make your next jump. If you can keep that going on for a few extra months you gain quite a lot of strength, especially in the stabilizing muscles. Holding at a weight until you own it and not increasing in weight at all allows one to gain substantial strength. *I* believe it is because of the strengthening of the smaller stabilizers during that time.

    That is just my theory...........!

  4. #324
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    OK then, and as usual thanks. I've gotten this far by breaking with my past go to practices and following your advice. I'll stay the course.

  5. #325
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    5 minute warm up on the bike. (medium day)

    Bench Press: 205 5 x 5.

    Pull Ups: Bodyweight (210) 5 x 3. Moving from 5 x 3 this week to 5 x 4, next week, to 5 x 5 gradually this time.

    Pinch Grip: 145 for 10 seconds. I couldn't hang to this to save my life this morning, with 30 seconds as my goal. Even the chalk didn't help.

    Foam roller and stretched.

    I was at the doc's yesterday for my episodic review for my blood pressure meds and blood draw. All was well and the doc asked how I had been feeling. I told him about my 215 PR in the overhead press. He laughed and asked if the next time I did that I could get a photo for his waiting room. He has them of sports teams and athletes he has treated, which is why I go to him although he's only a block from my house which is convenient too. He wants to frame the photo and have me sign it, "Thanks for keeping me healthy and active, Doc!" Called me the 6 million dollar man. Now that's really funny because I worked with an engineer at Northrop who was the test pilot on the Northrop HL 10 which was the aircraft shown spinning out of control in the opening of the old TV show. That was real and boy it crash big time according to the engineer. He survived the crash (obviously) but lost an eye just like Steve Austin did in the TV show. This guy had a cool looking eye patch instead of a bionic eye, though.

  6. #326
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    I did a running GXP today and it felt just great. Finished out with the usual foam rolling and stretched.

  7. #327
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    Quote Originally Posted by Mark E. Hurling View Post
    I told him about my 215 PR in the overhead press. He laughed and asked if the next time I did that I could get a photo for his waiting room. He has them of sports teams and athletes he has treated, which is why I go to him although he's only a block from my house which is convenient too. He wants to frame the photo and have me sign it,
    That's cool!

  8. #328
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    I think my arms would shear clean off my shoulders if I put 215lbs over my head.

  9. #329
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    Nah, the remnant shreds of your delts would hold both of the humeruses (humeri?) fairly close to your clavicles. Oldster, the Doc is pretty good at his stuff. Besides knowing what I won't stop trying to do, he has a far better grip on the whole strength training, exercise, and cardio thing than I hear so many others on this and other boards gripe about with their own saw bones.
    Last edited by Mark E. Hurling; 04-13-2011 at 04:05 PM.

  10. #330
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    starting strength coach development program
    Back to jujitsu last night after a week's respite to let all the vertebrae get settled into place for a while. The kids were back after the layoff and while a few seemed to have forgotten nearly everything after a week of not doing jujitsu, they all did well enough once we got them herded and headed more or less in the same direction. The adult class had me teaching two new hispanic guys in their mid to late 20's. These were a couple of good humored types with lots of questions that mostly centered around the all too typical "what if." I have to admit though, they had better questions than any others I usually hear getting posed and answering them and demonstrating made me realize the inherent strength and difficulty in countering even our basic entry level escape techniques. That's one of the great things about the teaching experience, it makes you think and then realize what is really happening when we do what we do out there. One of the guys, although he looked and moved athletically pretty well, was having a bad time getting his feet moving in concert with his hands. It struck me as odd, so I asked him if he danced as a way of conveying the foot thing. He said "Yeah, and I dance pretty good." So that opportunity for movement metaphor was a little foreclosed without insulting his self proclaimed danceability. I said that was unusual, because while it was common for beginners to have foot coordination problems, people who dance usually don't. I added that I had a terrible time with my feet myself when I started and couldn't and still can't dance worth a damn. They got a chuckle out of that and he seemed to get with things a little better after that, so humor works again. Good night overall. Nearly a great one.

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