Reply With QuoteWhy I feel down right ashamed that I enjoyed 70 degrees inside and out today...wait...no I'm not. Haha!
BP...229x5...very nice.
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2/22/22 - Tuesday
OP @ 1'
45x5x3
75x3
105x1
125x1
143x1x5
BP @ 1'
45x5x2
95x3
135x1
175x1
205x1
229x1x5
Music — Top picks from SiriusXM's Marky Ramone's 1st Wave Blitzkreig, 2/8/22 - Bad Brains, Pay to Cum; Green Day, Brain Stew; The Vandals, Pat Brown; The Damned, Smash It Up, Parts 1 & 2; Link Wray, Ace of Spades.
Notes — Arctic outbreak, cold enough that the local mountains are either closed entirely or limited ops. Temp at 4pm - 18°F, Wind chill 0°F, Garage 36°F (a lot warmer than some of you are "enjoying" in your home gyms).
- OP - all good.
- BP - all good.
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Why I feel down right ashamed that I enjoyed 70 degrees inside and out today...wait...no I'm not. Haha!
BP...229x5...very nice.
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No need to feel ashamed. Enjoy it.Originally Posted by Fred J
Just like I'll enjoy our dry 85 degree days while you spend six months in that humid hell that you have to deal with every year. This arctic blast will only be a couple of days, and I actually enjoy all of the benefits it brings (good for the snowpack, etc.).
re: "BP...229x5...very nice." Thanks! I'm pleased with this maintenance season and trying to keep the frequency up with 2x/week presses. I just compared yesterday's 229x1x5 singles and last week's 209x5x3 to where I was at this time last year, which was a 200x2x3 + 182.5x3x3. Not massive gains over the year, which is understandable with my frequent breaks in training, but the needle keeps moving in the right direction.
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As far as the weather I totally agree with you. If I had the option and no family here I had rather be somewhere more like you are. A friend at work years ago had 2 daughters that lived in Colorado for a while and he said himself nor any of them wanted to come back after being there. I hate this area for more and more reasons every month. Just watch the news!
229x5...my bad...still good but I thought that was a set of 5 reps.
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Over the decades, my family moved, for various reasons, from this side of the Continental Divide out to Florida, where we also lived for a short time. They couldn't understand why that, when I retired from the Air Force and could live anywhere I wanted, we moved back to this side of the Divide and have stayed. I think they've finally caught on as they've come back out west to visit but are too comfortable in their situations to change.
re: bench, nope, not there yet. The closest was right after Christmas with a 217.5x5x3, then a "get 15 reps any way possible" 220 on New Years Eve Eve. But working these sessions during my winter season means that a 229x5(x3) is well within reach this year.
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Did you totally retire after the Air Force? If so that's pretty nice at your age! You must have been a general...Ha!
On the bench at your age you should be able to reach that goal. I feel like if I had restarted even 10 years ago I could have done much better than now. Now my shoulders and back have kinda gone down too far. BUT that does not stop all of us from trying to be the best we can be. Shit...that sounds like a damn Army slogan...Haha!
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I did, but nowhere close to being a general. After a decade (my 20's) of completely screwing off, I realized that I didn't want to be locked into a life of payments. Luckily, about the same time, I met my bride, who is of the same mindset. So we have a comfortable, yet meager, lifestyle that we both enjoy. And while we both have part-time jobs, we enjoy the immense flexibility that we have to schedule things when we want and where we want.
No doubt that I'll get that 229x5. I know that if I just focused on training, I could probably get to a 300 single this year. But life's too short and the lifting is meant to augment, not define, my life.
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It sounds like you have a great setup for living...congrats! You were lucky and smart to be able to accomplish it earlier in life.
Yes...lift to live! Your issues would probably be recovery and consistency with the things you do but as you say that's by choice.
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Recovery is always the trick, isn't it? After decades of chasing ultra-endurance events and living the whole "I'll sleep when I'm dead" lifestyle, I was slow to realize how crucial recovery is. Now I have a firm understanding of all of the things that impact it, including the multiple cycles (short- and long-term), and work pretty hard to make sure that I'm doing it well. And when I'm not, it's easy to figure it out and thankfully I have the flexibility to make recovery happen.
We're also very, very protective of our time now. It's funny how much the mindset of "oh, you're retired, so you have all the time in the world to dedicate solely to our pet project" spreads throughout the organizations that we like to help with. And we've run across many that say "Oh, I could never retire that early. I wouldn't know what to do with myself," which is odd to us, since there's always something to do.
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I agree with you about retirement...I don't see how I had time to work. It goes by fast!
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