Chebass88 gets stronger day by day.

[strong_over_matter]

Glad you are feeling better and nice work on the DL PR. I need to get unbroken quickly to keep up in our race!

[Chebass88]

Thanks! Remembering the race added a little extra fire before I lifted yesterday. I've already started focusing my mind to get 565x1 next monday.

[Chebass88]

Tuesday, June 10, 2014

I was able to get some pressing done today.

Press: 95x5, 145x3, 167.5 x 5x5
Curl: 45x5, 75x3, 95x1, 115x1, 125x1, 135x1, 145xF, 135x1,1
KB Press: 32kg: 8,6,5,4 24kg: 8,8,6

BW: 254.0
Time: 63min

Today's lunch is one half of a rotisserie chicken, with some brown rice & spinach on the side. A tasty meal indeed. And some grapefruit to wash it all down. Delicious.

[Chebass88]

Thursday, June 12, 2014

Squat: 135x5, 225x3, 315x1, 365x1, 405x1, 450x1, 475x1*, 500xF,F, 315x15** (*,** - see notes below)
Bench: 135x20 (a fun little competition after squatting)

Time: 82 minutes (woof.)
BW: 252.0lb

Ouch. I haven't had a squat failure in a year and a half. I had planned on getting the single at 500 & then three backoff sets at 405. Here are all of the reasons why I missed today.

1. Training history. When I squatted over 500 last summer, I had not missed a squat workout in months. I skipped squats last week due to being sick. This is the major drawback to the one-lift-per-day training method. If you miss a day, you miss a LOT. This also proves that if the work wasn't done, progress isn't made. No matter how big of a psyche-up there is.

2. Eating. Since I got sick last week, I haven't been eating a whole lot. I feel better, but eating drives recovery.

3. Sleep. This is deficient. By far. Caring for 8 month old infant twins who have sinus infections does not jive with the amount of sleep needed to recovery completely for serious weightlifting. I can't afford a "Night Nurse", so when the monitor goes off - it is diaper changing time. Doodie calls. When one or the other wakes up after 45 minutes because their nose is stuffed up & they don't know how to breathe through their mouths yet - it is frustrating, but they need our help.

4. Greed. Last summer, I made EXCELLENT progress on the Iron Sport Strength method with 10lb/month increases on the squat & deadlift. A 10 lb (conservative) increase would have put today's maximum at 495, with backoff sets at 395. I decided to push things & go for 500. Twice. Slow & steady wins the race, EVERY TIME.

5. Depth failure at 475. I asked one of my gym buddies to assess depth to Rippetoe standards (hip crease below top of knee). I missed depth by a little bit on my 475 single. Instead of repeating the 475 (as I likely should have done), I jumped up another 25lbs. I made sure I hit depth (my buddy described it as "plenty deep") with the 500. That extra little bit resulted in the bar stopping halfway up. The second attempt at 500 didn't really come out of the hole.

6. Environment. I am training in the gym at work. I'm surrounded by other engineers, management types, etc. It is NOT a black iron gym. There are conference rooms and test laboratories on the other sides of the walls. When I'm done my LUNCH BREAK, I have to go back to the real reason I'm there (chemical engineering). I find it very difficult to achieve a "Refusal to fail" mindset here. I always need to hold some in reserve. I always have a conference call, or a set of calculations, or something to do afterwards. Something to improve upon.

Not to brag either, I think I'm the strongest person in that gym. I've never seen anyone else go 3-wheeling on any lift, let alone 5-wheeling. When time & money allows, I'll be at Iron Sport Gym (Steve Pulcinella's gym), where I'll be a weakling amongst the strong. That is some incentive.

7. After the attempts at 500, I decided to try for a set of 20 at 315. I got 15. Once again, I abandoned the planned sets, and wasn't pleased with the results.

8. One guy was benching & a challenge was thrown out to see how many reps at 135 we could get on the bench. I got 20 & decided I was done. The accumulated mind-**** of a depth failure, two failed attempts, and then only getting 15 instead of 20 meant my concentration was done. It is my new 20RM. Fiddleedee.


So, today wasn't a good training session. I know where I went wrong, and what I need to do to fix it. It is a temporary setback. In two years, I'll be using 500 as one of my warmup sets.

ian

P.S. I offered $500 cash to my boys if they would sleep through the night. They haven't taken the offer yet...

[Chebass88]

Friday, June 13, 2014

I was able to get a little pressing & curling in at lunch today.

Press: 95x5, 135x3, 155x1, 185x1, 190x1, 195x1, 200x1, 205xF, 182.5x2
Curl: 45x5, 65x5, 85x3, 102.5x5x5

Time: 60 minutes
BW: 252.0lb

Nothing to write home about, but I moved the bar around.

[Chebass88]

Tuesday, June 17, 2014.

Warmup: 24kg KB swings x 20
Deadlift: 245x5, 335x3, 425x1, 475x1, 490x1, 535x1, 565x1, 455x5,5,5; PR - 1RM

Time: 60 minutes
BW: 253.0

Only 20 more pounds until a major goal of 2014 is reached (6-wheeling). And a mere 35 lbs until the big 600. Today is a great day to be alive.

[strong_over_matter]

565X1 is huge! Glad to see you are bouncing back from being sick and the squat workout that did not go as planned.

[Chebass88]

Thanks, David! I hope you are healing nicely so we can continue our race!

[Chebass88]

Wednesday, June 18, 2014

A quick one after work.

Curls: 45x5, 75x3, 95x1, 115x3, 120x3, 125x3,2,2
Press: 95x5, 145x3, 170x5, 167.5x5,5, 165x4,3

Time: 40 minutes

I think I need to spend a lot more time warming up on the upper body lifts. That rep scheme works for the squat & deadlift, but I don't feel warmed up for the press & curl lifts. Perhaps I could use my deadlift warmup of 20 KB swings.

Today at work, we had "In Service Day", where there are guest speakers, and engineers within the organization speak about their projects. My projects were selected for a topic, so a colleague and I had to prepare a presentation. The event is held inside an industrial test site (no AC), but there ARE several VERY LARGE FANS. So, not only is it really hot, but also incredibly noisy. They use little PA systems all over the place, but they are barely effective beyond the first row. When I got up to give my portion of the talk, I noticed that over half the audience was sleeping (the first session after lunch). About halfway through, the projector display went dark. I couldn't figure it out. No combination of button pressing made it work. So I kept talking anyway (read: yelling into the microphone). At one point I invited the audience to "imagine a piece of machinery about 10'x10'x20'", as I couldn't show them a picture. It turns out I had knocked the monitor cable out of the side. At least I was loud enough - everyone commented that they were able to hear what I was saying.

Oh well. Next time I'll make sure to get an intern to change the slides for me, so I can pontificate nicely without worry.

[Chebass88]

Friday, June 20, 2014

I was able to get some quick squats in today.

Squat: 135x5, 225x3, 315x1, 365x1, 405x3, 425x3, 445x2, 405x3, 255x20

BW: 253.0
Time: 44 min

I had a nice little treat after squatting. My wife came to visit me at work & brought our little guys. We had a picnic lunch under a tree.