Sync and Spouse Training Log(s)

[synchronicity]

8/30/18

I effectively missed a session. Tuesday and Wednesday schedules got messed up, so I wasn’t able to lift either day. So today I decided it would be best to repeat my previous Squat/Bench/Deadlift weights rather than increase. Probably not the world’s worst idea anyway. Oldster once commented about "owning" a weight, and when one gets beyond a certain age that can be even better advice.

Squats: 44x5x3, 65x5, 85x3, 105x2, 125x5x3
Bench: 44x5x2, 69x5, 94x3, 119x2, 139x5x3
Deads: 95x5, 120x3, 145x2, 170x1, 195x5

No surprise my shoulders were very stiff after 100+ hours away from the bar, so 3 sets with the empty bar to loosen them up. Squats went up easier than last time. Deads…went up a little easier than last time. Bench, if anything, may have been slightly more difficult than last time.

Sunday afternoon should be next session if I don’t fuck up. Planning for 130 squat, 90 press, and chin-up protocol.

[synchronicity]

back again:

Squats: 44x5x3, 70x5, 90x3, 110x2, 130x5x3
Press: 33x5x2, 50x5, 65x3, 80x2, 90x5x3

Again with very tight shoulders because I'm doing nothing in between training sessions. Also, I NEED to make an appointment with an orthopedist to check out my left shoulder. Other than that, squats went up and down fairly well.

Press: I need to be careful not to mess up my back on the initial "push hips forward" bit. Too much layback is a bad idea on multiple levels.

I did a couple of the hang things for chin protocol, but did NOT like the way it made my left shoulder feel. I am seriously tempted to get a pulley system for my rack and do lat pulldowns to build up to doing chins. I'd also want a lat bar for that, but NOT the $165 special from Rogue (I mean, REALLY Rogue?) I can justify $35 for a deadlift jack, but c'mon.

Any suggestions from anyone reading this (is there anyone out there?) are much appreciated. Yes, I'm doing other chin up things - hangs and "walk the planks" for now, and I also have those assistance bands, but a lat pulldown would be easily scalable. I know both Rogue and Tital sell pulley systems. Titan allegedly has a $30 lat pull bar, but it's out of stock right now. Haven't checked other places yet. Again, any ideas from the group would be great.

Next session is planned for Tuesday evening: 135 squat, 144 bench, 205 deadlift, if all goes well.

[Gene61]

Sync! Glad to see you back at it! I hadn't noticed because I'm way behind on my logging. Work has gotten VERY busy. But I have (mostly) kept up my training.

You are on the brink of putting up the "Big Wheels" for your squats! That is a major accomplishment!

Sorry to hear about your shoulder. If its a bone spur it will have to be addressed, but if its soft tissue issues, try Trigger Point Therapy. Buy the book,

The Trigger Point Therapy Workbook: Your Self-Treatment Guide for Pain Relief (A New Harbinger Self-Help Workbook): Clair Davies NCTMB, Amber Davies CMTPT LMT, David G. Simons MD: 8601404240331: Amazon.com: Books

And a Theracane:

Amazon.com: Thera Cane Massager (Black): Health & Personal Care

And start working all the trigger points which are hurting.

As for cable pull downs, that is the ticket. I worked up to 80% of my body weight at 8x5 and then I could do 3 chins x 3. I now alternate between 8x3 cable pull downs and AMRAPx3 chins. Here is a typical warmup for cable pull downs: 100 lbsx10, 120 lbs x 5, 140 lbs x 3, 150 lbs x 2, 160 lbs x1, 165 lbs x 8 x 3. Adjust as necessary.

Great to have you back at it!

Gene

[synchronicity]

GENE! Great to hear from you. I hope most of those trips were for fun and not for work.

I'm still refining everything, but that's the story of my life - everything's a mess and I'm just trying to straighten some stuff out, somehow. I REALLY want to keep at LP and blow through my old PRs instead of wussing out somewhere along the way. I will say that having the equipment at home is a powerful motivator - it stares me in the face every day, challenging me to get my sh!t together, and it takes away many excuses.

I'm going to pull the trigger on a pulley purchase, and get a cheap lat pulldown bar from...somewhere. I can work that in with the assistance bands and the other stuff (I'll reread the Niki Sims articles about pullups and chinups as well), because my goal is, in the words of Gunnery Sergeant Hartman, to do "One Godd@mn pullup!" It WILL happen.

Of course, cleaning up my diet and getting enough sleep wouldn't hurt, either!

[synchronicity]

So, figured I should post again...

I'm back at it. Have been since last September, but started at the local gym (SS Plano, same distance as SS Dallas but an easier drive) since January. I was slow-walking it at home.

Long story not quite as long, I'm older and fatter (now 57 years old, weighed 257 at 5' 7.5" with about 43% body fat). No major medical issues yet, but blood pressure is high and A1c has been creeping towards pre-diabetic. Also, everything doesn't work quite as well as it used to.

Daughter headed off to college (!!!) end of August last year, and after some "leadership changes" at my last job I became an unemployed bum, so a great time to finally initiate a slew of lifestyle changes.

And...I've been consistent on maybe a third of those. :-)

Anyway, lifting. Literally started at home mid-September with a 5 kilo bar (and deads with that and two full diameter 10lb bumpers on each side). Slow walked it up and had a shoulder issue that stopped me for 3 weeks, too. In early January the gym started me at
Squat: 125
Press: 70
Bench: 125 (the disproportionately high bench of the Old Fat Guy!)
Deads: 135

(all 3x5 save Deads at 1x5)

By February 22, that had increased to:
Squat: 230
Press: 115
Bench: 170
Deads: 245

Bench and Deads were over my workset PRs back in 2012, and Press matched it. My 2012 PR in squat was 180.

I then missed two weeks (went out of town). I also decided (in an echo of my 2012 work) to attend the May Strengthlifting competition at WFAC! By the end April, my workset highs were:

Squat: 255 (1x5, with back off sets)
Press: 127.5 (heavy singles)
Bench: 175 (5x3)
Deads: 255

Missing those two weeks meant resetting and working back up, sadly.

The meet May 11 was 3 new PRs: 126 kilos (277.8) on squat, 62 kilos (136.7) on press, and 130 kilos (286.6) on deadlift! Funny thing: they have the results from the first ever meet posted on a small card on one of the walls at WFAC. And yes, there was my name in there! It was 11.5 years earlier...and my press and deadlift results were about 11.5 pounds higher! I was joking "great, I'm going up a pound a year!"

My coach has me at intermediate programming now. Tuesday is intensity squat (1x5, coach JUST removed 2x5 backoff sets at 90%), volume press (4x4, ~90% of intensity), and rack pulls (2x5). Thursday is light squat (2x5 @ 80%), volume bench (4x4 @ ~95%) and deadlift (1x5). Saturday is volume squat (3x5 @ 90%, intensity press (5x1) and intensity bench (2x3).

Currently (through yesterday!) my workset highs are at:
Squat: 280 (!!!)
Press: 137.5
Bench: 187.5 (did 190 2x3 but missed last rep of second set)
Deadlift: 270

EVERY time I do intensity squat, I wonder if it'll go up (I was exhausted yesterday), but so far...it has. Huge shout out to my coach Morgan at SS Plano for enduring me.

My near-ish term lifting goals are probably 3 plate squat and deadlift and 2 plate bench.

[synchronicity]

Other stuff...

My "goals" are to lose a bunch of my excess fat and get "healthier". I've been very fortunate professionally and personally (cute wife who works for an airline AND has Greek citizenship so we can travel a lot and even live overseas). I want to be physically capable of enjoying as much of this as possible for as long as possible.

On diet, I should really be focusing on cutting out a lot of excess junk carbs, eating more vegetables and of course lots of high quality protein. I...still eat more carbs and less veggies than I should. You'd think with a Greek wife I should be able to "Mediterranean diet", right?

I'm also trying to walk daily - once around my subdivision (1.5 miles) on lifting days, twice on non-lifting. I've been less-then-stellar in that regard. I'm looking at working in once a week HIIT on a rowing machine at one of the local globo-gyms.

My shoulders have gotten even worse over the last 12 years, so I'm really trying to commit to stretches so I can have the proper grip on Squats. It's getting better but I still get that inner elbow tendonitis pain. Not as awful as 2012 (well, not most of the time), but it's a hassle.

My sleep sucks. I FINALLY don't have to wake up early - and yet I wake up multiple times each night. Some is physical (old guy bladder), some is mental. I'm working on this, but not as well as I should.

There's a lot of other little health-related things that I'm trying to implement, with...mixed success.

At SOME point, "getting stronger" will deviate from "getting 'healthier", but the analogy I use is trying to travel to the North Pole using a compass. Eventually you reach a point where the deviation between true north and magnetic north is significant...but I started from near the equator and now am somewhere in Central America. When I reach northern Alberta I'll start thinking about that more seriously.

[synchronicity]

Last thing - MY WIFE IS FINALLY LIFTING!!!
It's at home, and she should really get at least some good coaching (I am NOT knowledgeable enough to be a good coach), but she's committed to regular lifting and is doing well!

Literally as I was typing this, she squatted 81.5 pounds for 5 sets of 3. She's also doing 5x3 on Press (32), Bench (42) and 2x3 on Deads (98).

She's 5'3" and has dropped over 20 pounds in the last 9 months (other health reasons not weight related, but it happened anyway) and now weighs about 125, which is slightly LESS than when I first met her almost 29 years ago. She looks fantastic. She knows she needs to take in sufficient protein and other macros to gain strength.

So, it's all good. I'm financially secure with a hot wife with whom I can fly anywhere in the world for free and live anywhere in the EU. That's a LOT of motivation to stay healthy!

And...daughter seems to be doing well off at college and is much happier than she was at any time during high school, so staying around a long time for her is also part of the plan.

[synchronicity]

Thursday 6/26/24. Maybe I should move this to intermediate (where I'm at now), although my wife is still on NLP.

Sleep (per Fitbit): 3:59, trailing 7 day average 5:01.
Yes, you read that right. Granted, my fitbit doesn't pick up all my sleep, but that's because I can doze off into a very light sleep for 30 minutes and then wake up, repeat a few times. Yes, I know that's awful for recovery.

Today's Weight 251.8, BF: 43.4%. 7 day trailing average 253.6/39.6%.
Today's BF% is an outlier - highest since April, only 3rd over 43 since mid-January.
sidenote - had a Dexa scan a month ago, which put me at 37.8% BF. That morning my scale had me at 38.1-38.5% BF. I weigh myself three times every AM just after waking and voiding, and take the median value. My scale seems to be "close enough" overall, but I take individual daily results with a grain of salt.

No walk this AM (*sigh*)

Weight belt was at 46.5". I've lost...at least two inches off my midsection since last September. LONG way to go, but it's a start.
Squats (light squat day): 45x5x2, 115x5, 165x3, 205x1, 225x5x2
Bench (volume bench day): 45x5, 95x3, 135x1, 165x1, 182.5x4x4
Deadlifts: 135x5, 205x3, 245x1, 275x5

Squats were fine. Slight inner elbow pain during/after. I really need to do crucifix stretches and other stretches regularly so I can hold the bar properly for the squat (thumbs over bar, hands fairly close). Right now I have my thumbs under the bar and my hands are still quite far apart. Better than it was a few months ago, but...

Bench went up well. Last two sets probably better than first two. This is a repeat of last week's weight, as I failed a few reps then.

I'm still getting used to using straps on my deadlift workset. I was able to do double overhand for all warm ups including 245. Coach said my workset went up fast so it's +10 for next week. I know he'd like to see my deadlift get ahead of my squat, and it's probably more form and grip issues that have held me back more than weight on the bar.

Lunch before lifting was homemade fried rice - 2.5 cups of cooked rice, a pound of shrimp, a pound of chicken, 4 eggs, a couple cups of mushrooms and maybe one cup green onions (and of course soy sauce and naam pla). I ate...dunno, maybe 40% of it.

My dessert tonight was a nectarine and half a Kanzi apple.

Wife lifts at home tomorrow. I'll report her results as well. Suffice to say that she pressed 34 for 5 sets of 3 and deadlifted 101 for 2 sets of 3 last night. She's MWF, while I'm on a Tues-Thurs-Sat schedule.

[synchronicity]

Wife did squat and bench yesterday. She's doing deadlift tonight.
Squat: 33x5x2, 46x5, 58.5x3, 71x2, 83.5x3x5
Went up OK but a little grindy near the end. +1 next time
Bench: 11x5x2, 19x5, 27x3, 35x2, 43x3x5
Last time at 42 only the last rep of the 4th and 5th set were slow. This time they were all grinding until the last set, when I realized "hey, don't forget, really dig your shoulders into the bench". Last set all 3 went up fast.
We'll increase +1.5 next time and see how it goes.

[synchronicity]

End of another week.
Sleep 3:16, trailing 7 day 4:06. Once again, I know I got more, but the fact my fitbit doesn't pick it all up shows how choppy and Not Good it is.
Today's weight and fat 256/36.7%. No, I did not lose 7% body fat since Thursday. Hence mainly using 7 day average: 253.8/39.7%

weight belt still at 46.5" (it's a Pioneer belt so it's double tracked with holes at half inch increments. Strongly recommend their belts! Not cheap but excellent quality)

Squat (volume day): 45x5x2, 135x5, 190x3, 230x2, 255x5x3
Felt heavy, but they went up. mild to light moderate inner elbow pain afterwards. REALLY need to do shoulder stretches most days. +5 to intensity day next week

Press (intensity day): 45x5, 75x3, 105x1, 125x1, 140x1x5
New PR. Elbow pain got a little worse before getting a little better. Need to work on keeping layback and staying under the bar. Lower back was a little sore afterwards. +2.5 next week

Bench (intensity day): 45x5, 95x3, 145x1, 170x1, 190x3x2
Pretty good. 3rd rep second set a little slow, second set all went up pretty well. +2.5 next week.

Elbows felt fine by end of workout.

May look at starting some HIIT tomorrow (concept3 rower intervals). As with anything added to the routine, I'll only add a little at first and titrate up from there.

Also...next week will be unusual with 4th of July off. Coach originally said do Thursday workout on Saturday, so I won't have bench or press intensity day next week. I may just do light squat at home Thursday and then do volume on Saturday...but deadlift would then also be Saturday. Oh well, that's a convo for Tuesday.