Lifting to Live

I always do. Even, or especially, on the really hard days. The "office" views really make it worthwhile.

re: the presses — it will be interesting to see how far I can get with them once I can train them without a break, which right now looks to be about a month mid-August to mid-September. Until then, it'll be similar to this past week, where I reset and run each lift NLP (except deads). When I come back from this break, I won't do a 90% reset off of these numbers, instead dropping back to around where I started last week. I know I'm losing ground from my early June numbers, but I'm not worried about that. And as I progress, I already know how Nick's plan works, so it will be easier to jump into it instead of beating myself up over "missed" reps.

re: cues — funny enough, I mentioned it to someone else a while back, but kept looking at my white board and never thinking about it once. It was your talk about the cues and my remembering how I will focus on one cue for a while, only to gradually forget others, then start to have issues that those cues would prevent. So, for the press, it's not just "elbows", but "tight armpits/elbows", which reminds me to lock the upper back before the drive, then drive with the elbows.

Time to get back into maintenance mode for the next week+ before I take another week+ break.

I tried to post/link a picture of my "office space" last week, a fantastic panoramic of the area of the Washington Cascades that I was working in, but it just wouldn't work. Either the native posting in this forum required too small of a pic (400x400) and a link to Google Drive pic location just wouldn't show the image, so I deleted it. But over 7 days, we cut/cleared 93 trees in a 7.75 mile stretch (including one massive one that took 1.5 days to clear completely), hiked just under 50 miles total, including 2 days of 9.5-10 miles with 3,400' of elevation gain (thankfully it was downhill back to the camp each day). That was enough work to melt 9lbs off my frame in that week. That has made it easier to get that hole pegged in the belt for my work sets.

7/29/21 - Thursday

SQ
45x10x2
95x5
135x3
185x1
225x1
245x1
260x5x3

BP
45x5
95x3
135x1
155x1
185x5x3

PC
65x5
85x3
115x1
125x1
140x3x5

Music — The Cramps Human Fly & The Cult Love Removal Machine

Notes
- First reset day after ~2 week break (see entry above). DOMS was already kicking in during the squat warmups. Overall, I let myself get too distracted leading up to and throughout the workout. Just no real motivation to do this workout, although I did not want to put it off another day. The nice surprise was getting out to the rack and finding that the bench was put in backwards. That means my bride did some work while I was gone.
- SQ - slow and steady. All good.
- BP - slow and steady. All good.
- PC - not slow, typically unsteady. All good.

7/31/21 - Saturday

SQ - L
45x10x2
95x5
135x3
185x1
210x1
235x5x3

OP
45x5
75x3
100x1
115x5x3

DL
135x4
185x2
225x1
275x1
305x5

Music - Top choices from SiriusXM, Liquid Metal's Corridor of Covers, Corridor of Anthrax Covers, 7/22/21 - Life of Agony vs SOD, March of the SOD & Anthrax vs Joe Jackson, Got the Time

Notes
- Still a reset after the recent 13-day break. DOMS set in nicely after Thursday's session, especially in the adductors. The lighter squats worked that out, but I'm sure it will be back this afternoon.
- It's a hot one. Pushing towards record highs ~105F today, with humidity. It's already 10F warmer than the same time yesterday. So much for getting a morning session in the garage before it got too hot.
- SQ - all good.
- OP - all good.
- DL - The first 3 sailed up comfortably, the 4th slowed to the point that I had concerns about the 5th, which was a slow, slow grind, but no hitching, so it's good. I was drenched in sweat before this set, which is not normal, so it might be that heat.

Welcome back! Good luck with the return!

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Hooper

Welcome back! Good luck with the return!

---

Thanks! The return is a bit halting, though. Weird schedule this week, then away next week. So it will be mid-month before I get back to a consistent schedule for a while.

8/3/21 - Tuesday

SQ
45x10x2
95x5
135x3
185x1
225x1
250x1
270x5x2
230x5

BP
45x5
95x3
135x1
165x1
195x2 (was programmed to be 195x5x3, see note below)
175x5x3

PC
65x5
85x3
115x1
125x1
145x3x5

Music - Top choices from SiriusXM, Liquid Metal's Corridor of Covers, The Metal Tour of the Year, 7/29/21 - Carnifex vs Slipknot, The Heretic Anthem (RIP Joey); Trivium vs Dream Theater, I Don't Wanna Be Me; Lamb of God vs Bad Brains, I Against I

Notes
-Our fifth season is upon us - Smoke! Air quality has been steady in the Unhealthy (for everyone) range [4 on a scale rising from 1-6] for days now, which completely screws my sinuses, which completely saps my energy. I should have done this workout yesterday, but just didn't have it in me. I really don't today, either, but I needed to get it done. The results are listed above and below. But I won't complain; throughout my workout, I could hear the line crews working out on the street, replacing power poles in the 95F heat and thick smoke.
- SQ - DOMS flared up with a vengeance during the warmups. That's not a surprise, as I haven't been consistent over the past 2 months, but it wasn't pleasant. Set 1/ went well, then 2/4-5 were real grinds, almost to failure on 2/5 with a bit of a back tweak. I knew that 3/ was not going to go, so I did a back-off set. Since I'm in maintenance mode this week, I'm not worried about it.
- BP - Poor programming on my part, considering how I'm feeling. This was a 10lb jump over last week's 185, which was a bit of a grind. This was heavy from the hooks and 1/1-2 went OK, but really heavy, then 1/3 wouldn't come off the chest. So I dropped to 175 to get these done.
- PC - The little back tweak from the squats settled in nicely, which made the change from squat to regular shoes a touch spicy, yet it didn't present itself too much throughout the warmups. All went up, although a few got out in front of me and I had to half-step forward to make sure I caught it.

All in all, not a great session. But I got something done.

8/5/21 - Thursday

SQ
45x10x2
95x5
135x3
185x1
210x1
240x5x3

OP
45x5
75x3
100x1
117.5x5x3

DL
135x4
185x2
225x1
275x1
310x5 310x1

Music - Top choices from SiriusXM, Liquid Metal's Bloody Roots, Roots of Japanese Metal, 7/31/21 - Outo, Distortion Faith; Doom, Complicated Mind; & Church of Misery, Brother Bishop.

Notes
- Much better air quality today, holding steady in the Moderate range [2 on a scale rising from 1-6] with thunderstorms in the area helping to clean things up (and hopefully not start more fires) while the cloud cover kept things cooler.
- SQ - just a hint of the minor back tweak from the other day. Slow and steady, focusing on locking the knees in place and eliminating any slide. All good.
- OP - All good here, even a bit of fun after watching the coverage of Lasha Talakhadze's Gold medal performance, lifting a combined world record total of 488kg (1,074lbs) over his head in the snatch (223kg/491lbs) and clean & jerk (265kg/583lbs). Amazing!
- DL - Warmups felt great. That first 310 took forever to get above the knee, the second was glued to the floor. I walked it off, took off my belt and tried again with the same result. I sure have lost a fair bit more than I expected with this lift over the past 2 months, but that's what not being consistent and training will do, I guess. Another week+ before I can get back to a consistent training schedule for a while, so I'll reset this to below 300 and start working my way back up, perhaps resetting to a NLP 2x week frequency for as long as my back with tolerate.

8/7/21 - Saturday

SQ
45x10x2
95x5
135x3
185x1
225x1
250x1
275x5x3

BP
45x5
95x3
135x1
165x1
195x5x3 4 (F5), 3 (F4), 2 (F3), 2, 2, 1 (F2), 1

PC
65x5
85x3
115x1
125x1
147.5x3x5

Music - Top choices from SiriusXM, Billy Idol's Live Transmission, Punk & New Wave Covers, 8/3/21 - Generation X vs John Lennon, Gimme Some Truth; Blondie vs The Paragons, The Tide is High; & Pretenders vs The Kinks, Stop Your Sobbing.

Notes
- Great air quality today, the first day in over a week.
- SQ - Sets 2&3 were a bit grindy, but no issues.
- BP - A repeat from Tuesday, where I failed on set 1/rep 3(1/3). Today, at the same weight, it was 1/5, but instead of dumping 20lbs off the bar, I just ran these out following Nick's press protocol, except I pushed sets 2&3 to failure on 2/4 and 3/3; after that I stuck to doubles as I was running out of time for today; then rep #15 stuck about midway between the chest and lockout, and no amount of yelling elbows would help. I'm not concerned about these, as I know it reflects my lack of consistency over the past 2 months with unplanned and planned breaks and vacations. Another one is coming, too.
- PC - rushed, but all good.

Now it's time for another week+ break before I can train a bit more consistently than I have for the past two months.

Well, that was a pleasant break. A few days with good friends, followed by a couple of concerts — Billy Idol, followed the next night by Primus, who brilliantly played Rush's A Farewell to Kings in its entirety, plus many of their own tunes.

A few steps back on the weights, which is just fine. I'm in no rush to get to any specific weight for any specific lift. I just hope to do it smarter than the last time. These first few weeks (or more) will be strictly NLP.

8/15/21 - Sunday

SQ

45x10x2
95x5
135x3
185x1
225x1
245x1
260x5x3

BP
45x5
95x3
135x1
155x1
185x5x3

DL
135x4
185x2
225x1
275x1
295x5

Music - None today, as I had left the speaker with my bride as she worked on her projects. I was busy fighting with a software "upgrade" on the computer that looked as if it was going to break everything [it didn't], so I was already preoccupied.

Notes
- SQ - all good. No doubt that I will feel the DOMS tomorrow.
- BP - all good.
- DL - all good.