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Thread: A marathon swimmer lifts so he can swim long

  1. #61
    Join Date
    Mar 2018
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    • starting strength seminar april 2024
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    On Saturday went back to the beach. It was a rare sunny day here. Unlike Thursday, the water was colder. 56-58F. 58F near the shore but 56F out deeper. Had all my gear on so swam for real. Only did a kilometer and bobbed around for a while. Got a good 36 minutes of acclimatization.

    Lifting yesterday didn't go so well. My OHP felt weird. Almost like I overloaded the bar on the right. No reason for it to feel so heavy.

    OHP: 6x1 @98#, 1x3 @92#.
    Squat: Supposed to be 3x5 @207.5#, but warm-up felt hard so did 205#. But could only do 3 reps. Yikes. Deloaded to 185 and did 2x5.
    DL: Supposed to be 3x5 @250#. First two reps felt crap. Did one more and called it a day.

    My throat felt raw. My daughter woke up sick. Figured I must be getting sick. Dammit.

    Yards this week: 5600
    Current bests:
    Squat: 225 (3RM)
    OHP: 115 (1RM)
    DL: 325 (1RM)
    Best thing watched while writing this: Midsomer Murders

  2. #62
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    Mar 2018
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    I've officially started my swim season, so I've switched to twice a week weights. Here's the general plan:

    Monday:
    OHP; Squat; DL

    Thursday:
    Squat; OHP; something supplementary to help my OHP (like Bradford or Cuban Press); LPD; shoulder isolation exercise.

    Tuesday spent the day home waiting for this cold to show up. Turned out to be very low-grade. Felt better already on Wednesday, so I did a nice 2500 yards swim. Today I lifted.

    Squat: 3x5 @205#. From here on out gonna go up by 2.5#. Quads are hurting.
    OHP: main set was 1x3 @86.25#, 1x3 @98, 1x1 @103.5#, and 1 x max @109#. Managed one of those!
    Cuban press: 3x4 with 10# dumbbells
    LPD: 5x6 @150#
    db front raise: 4x8 with 10# dumbbells

    Yards this week: 2500
    Current bests:
    Squat: 225 (3RM)
    OHP: 115 (1RM)
    DL: 325 (1RM)
    Best thing heard today: Dance Yrself Clean by LCD Soundsystem

  3. #63
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    Mar 2018
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    Besides the supposed cold this week, it's been a great fitness week. Went to the beach yesterday. Colder water, 54-55F the entire time, and it took a while till my head got over the cold-headache, but got a good 47 minutes of cold water- and salt-acclimatization in.

    DSC04991JPG - Edited.jpg

    Got 5000 yards in the pool (need more) and 0.9 mile in the ocean. Not too bad. Got back to doing 3x5 in squats. Did a nice 109# OHP. Overall great week!

    Yards this week: 6600
    Current bests:
    Squat: 225 (3RM)
    OHP: 115 (1RM)
    DL: 325 (1RM)
    Best thing heard today: French Cafe Songs playlist on Amazon Music

  4. #64
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    Mar 2018
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    Good workout today, except for squat.

    OHP: 7x1 @98#
    Squat: main set sked for 3x5 @207.5#. Only managed 3, 4, 3.
    DL: 3x3 @265#

    Yards this week: 0
    Current bests:
    Squat: 225 (3RM)
    OHP: 115 (1RM)
    DL: 325 (1RM)
    Best thing watched today: James kicking a$$ on Jeopardy!

  5. #65
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    Mar 2018
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    Swam a nice long workout on Tuesday, 4000 yards. Then the best of the week, my 1.5 miles in Walden Pond, yeah that Walden Pond, a la Thoreau. Such a beautiful day and wonderful lake to swim in.

    IMG_1695.jpg

    Got back from travel today and went to the gym with the wife.

    Squat: Sked to try 207.5# again, but the gym doesn't have 1.25# plates and all mine are at work. So did 3x5 @205#
    OHP: 1RM attempt. Decided to try 125#. No joy. Got it to about my nose. Waited 5 minutes then tried 120#. Nope, burned out trying 125#. My 1RM remains 115#.
    Cuban press: This gym has 12# dumbbells! Did 3x4.
    LPD: 5x6 @150#. Hard!
    Dumbbell Front raise: Used the 12# db. Did 4x8.

    Good week. Might swim again at Walden tomorrow. We'll see what the weather brings.

    Yards this week: 6658
    Current bests:
    Squat: 225 (3RM)
    OHP: 115 (1RM)
    DL: 325 (1RM)
    Best thing watched today: The Book of Love by The Magnetic Fields

  6. #66
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    Mar 2018
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    This past weekend was awesome, weather- and swim-wise. I went back to Walden on Saturday for a nice 2.35 mile swim. Then over to Winthrop, MA, for some ocean swimming on Sunday. Oy, that was a mistake. Both the entry, which was incredibly rocky and hard to walk on, and the water temp. I couldn't do my gradual entry because by the time I got to mid thigh, the tiny, sharp rocks killed my feet and to survive the huge waves coming in, I had to dunk myself so I could swim above those damn rocks. Unfortunately, the water was 50-51F. Holy sh!t that was cold. In fact, the last time I was in that cold of water (51F) was last Halloween. And that time all I did was stand mid-thigh depth for 10 minutes, then jump in to swim, but got out 6 strokes later. This time I spent 34 minutes and 0.65 mile out in that cold! And on Monday went to my old stand-by, Revere Beach, for a 1.4 mile swim in 54-57F and an hour and ten minutes of cold water and salt-water acclimatization.

    Today, no swimming. Went to the gym.

    Squat: Supposed to be 3x5 @207.5#. Nope. But did 3x3.
    OHP: 5x5 @80#. No issues.
    DL: 3x1 @280#. Phew! That was hard.

    Yards this week: 3600
    Current bests:
    Squat: 225 (3RM)
    OHP: 115 (1RM)
    DL: 325 (1RM)
    Best thing listened to today: All the David Lee Roth-era Van Halen

  7. #67
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    Mar 2018
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    So much since Tuesday.

    Wednesday was down in Rhode Island and swam at McCorrie Point. 1.12 miles in 61F water. Very rough with the wind, and air temp was about 10 degrees colder. So felt great.

    Thursday did nothing. Lazy bastard.

    Friday did the following workout. I've put squat on hold for the swim season. My knee has been killing me the past few weeks. Gonna do leg press instead. Maybe my knee will like it better. Haven't done it in years so today was pretty simple.

    Leg press: 3x10 @150#. Next time 150# will be my warm up and I'll move up till I find a nice and heavy 3x5.
    OHP: main set of 1x5 @80#, 1x5 @92#, 1xmax (5) @98#. Did 5 @98#.
    Bradford press: last time I did this (4 weeks ago) I did 50# barbell. Managed 1x6 at that, but my elbow started acting up, so finished with 2x6 @40#.
    LPD: 5x6 @150#
    Seated db clean & jerk: was supposed to be 3x8 @25# dumbbells. Decided on 20#. Did 1x8 @20#, then 1x4, then the pain in the elbow made me stop. Workout complete.

    Then a couple hours later, met a friend at Revere Beach for a 1:17 swim in 60F water. 1.77 miles. Felt great till I got out and froze. Had the heat on in the car (no wife to complain) the entire way home, despite 70F air temp.

    Then today tried to do a swim at Breakheart Reservation here in Boston. Walked the mile or so from parking to the stupid lake. Got there, donned my safety buoy and all that crap in full view of the lifeguards. Wife hung out till I was in the water, then she was off on a long hike. As soon as I got to the roped off area and lifted the rope to go under it, immersed up past the cockles, the damn lifeguard blew his whistle. "No swimming outside the swim area!" he screeched. WTF? You watched me put all my crap on. Did you think I was gonna do laps in this tiny, 50' by 10' area? So, in the end, did a whopping 36 feet today. Dammit.

  8. #68
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    Mar 2018
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    Crap, been a while!

    I'm still alive. Been swimming a lot, building up my salt-water tolerance. Water's been fine, temperature-wise. Mid-to-upper 60s mostly. I hope the water is as nice for Boston Light next month.

    Lifting has been reduced. Swimming's taking up my time. I'm down to about once per week now, maintenance mode. Just went today with the wife.

    Leg press: (not included the weight of the sled) 90 x 8, 140 x 8, 160 x 8 all warm-up. Then the following straight through, my wife removing the weights so I could stay seated: 200 x 8, 190 x 8, 180 x 8, 160 x 8, 140 x 8, 90 x 8. Burned out!
    OHP: main set was 3 x 5 @ 85
    DL: main set after a healthy w/u was 5 x 225

    Going to go swim at the beach at 1700 tonight, will try to fit in 4-5km. We'll see.

  9. #69
    Join Date
    Mar 2018
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    I'm back! Again...

    Pretty much dumped the lifting in July. Increased the swimming. Summer's over, so reviewed my swimming. Not too bad, for me. Did about 75 miles over the summer. Did a couple competitions, too.

    Beavertail 10K. Really about 10.5K. This was a last minute swim I found down in Rhode Island. Was looking for a nice, salt-water swim prior to Boston Light. I managed to get in to the extremely limited (8/12) field. Eight of us took off from Mackerel Cove and swam around Beavertail peninsula to Ft. Getty. Took me freaking forever. Current and wind was heavy on the out, but that meant I got to ride the current back. Still took me forever, and despite my salt-water acclimatization, I got sick. Really slowed me down. Finished in a very slow 4:37. In fact, this race proved to me I didn't have the speed or salt-water tolerance for Boston Light, and I withdrew from that race later that night. Fast forward two weeks, and Boston Light got canceled due to heavy fog in Boston Harbor! No matter, saved me over $400 for the boat.

    67500560_121659155790845_1480612283632582656_o.jpg

    Wild Fish. This was the same 2-miler I did last year in Salem. I swam this fast and straight. At least, that's what it felt like to me. Swam it almost 10 minutes slower than last year. WTF? Water was a lot colder than expected, at around 57-58F. I was one of four who swam the 2-miler not in a wetsuit. Four swimmers in wetsuits quit the race before the first buoy (maybe 300m away) because of the cold water! Happy to have swum this but really thought I was faster than the clock showed.

    Still have one more long swim coming up in October, Swim the Suck, the 10+ mile swim in Chattanooga. This will be my third time doing it and I'm aiming for sub 5:00. We'll see.

    Went back to the gym yesterday and stupidly went too heavy. Too heavy for me, that is.

    Squat: Thought I'd do a main set of 3x5 @ 165#. A few sets into the warm up changed that to 150#. Damn, that hurt. Today I'm still feeling it.
    OHP: Sked a main set of 3x5 @ 85#. Did the first two sets no issue, but the last set only did one and the second barely made it past my nose.
    DL: Decided to not kill myself and set the main set at 1x5 @ 185#. No issues. Weight came up easy.

    I will do as I was doing last year. I'll stick to Squat, OHP, DL until I stall at each. Once I stall at OHP and/or DL, I'll move over to those programs I was doing before the summer. The Simple Deadlift program and Smashing an OHP Plateau program. I'll do Squat each time.

    As for number of sessions, I'll do 2 a week until after Swim the Suck, then I'll switch to 3/week.

  10. #70
    Join Date
    Mar 2018
    Posts
    189

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    starting strength coach development program
    Holy crap. Where am I? Three and a half years since I wrote anything here. So much has happened...

    COVID happened, of course. In Boston, all gyms closed. Not just gyms; they closed the damned beaches. Because, you know, you could catch it somehow swimming alone in the Atlantic. Anyway, I'm over it. Work became boring, what with most of the office out and working from home. I really couldn't do much, so I volunteered to deploy. Spent 6+ months in Djibouti, which was great. Lots of work, lots of overtime.

    COVID affected the base different ways. When I first got there, you could swim 3x a week no more than 30 min each time. And you had to reserve your times. The gyms were harder. 45-min sessions, limited to 20 people at a time. It was easier to get pool time, which was what I did. A couple weeks after I got there, they lifted the 3 day restriction, thankfully. I ended up swimming six days a week. Further, if the next person didn't show up, they'd let me stay in and swim more. I ended up swimming over 150 miles while there, despite 3 weeks off due to an injury. I also managed 3 open water swims there (damn the water was hot) and a 10-hour swim in the tiny 20-m pool there (28 km).

    Got back to Boston and the gyms were back open. Wife was happy about that. Me too. Started back lifting slowly. Then we moved to DC in summer 2021. And the lifting started back seriously. Wife and I learned one thing from COVID: we needed a home gym. So that's what we got! So nice to be able to just walk into the gym and work-out, and not worry about other people.

    Slowly get back up in weights. Last summer I went back to 2x lifting a week so I could swim more. Big mistake. My 1RMs went down. Not gonna do that this coming summer.

    Here's my 3x workout:

    Day 1:
    Squat heavy
    OHP medium

    Day 2:
    Squat light
    OHP heavy

    Day 3:
    Squat medium
    OHP light
    DL

    So that's about it for now.

    Current 1RMs
    Squat: 235#
    OHP: 125#
    DL: 260#
    Best song listened to while writing this: Timeless Melody by The La's.
    Last edited by IronMike; 02-18-2023 at 07:52 AM.

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