03/09/24 - Week 10, Day 3 - "Take the Hog to Market"

1. Press
Warm-Up Sets:
45 x 5 x 2
95 x 5
135 x 3
155 x 1
Work Sets:
192.5 x 5
192.5 x 5
192.5 x 10 - AMRAP

2. SQUAT!
Warm-Up Sets:
45 x 5 x 2
135 x 5
225 x 5
315 x 3
405 x 1
Work Sets:
435 x 5
435 x 5
435 x 7 - AMRAP (New Rep Record)

3. Palms-facing pull-downs
50 x 3(5 second bottom hold), 75 x 5(5 second bottom hold), 100 x 5(5 second bottom hold)
120 x 6 x 2(5 second eccentric)

4. Neck Extensions
20lb x 25 x 4(did these much slower tonight than I have been doing them)

5. Negative chin-ups: Rep #1 - I fought it for 15 seconds. Rep #2 and #3 I was able to do 10 seconds on each one. I took about a 2 minute break in between each attempt.

Tabata Interval - 1 round - 4 minutes total
thrusters with 10lb DBs in each hand for cycles 1 - 3
thrusters with 5lb plates in each hand for cycle 4
jumping jacks for the final 4 cycles

Notes:
A great big long session, or so it felt, maybe it wasn't that long I have no idea. I get lost in my head sometimes when I'm lifting and who knows how long it really took until I look at the Garmin data sheet later. But it was a great session in terms of performance. I felt very good. Felt like a machine with the press and the SQUAT! Even though I felt mighty strong I did get out over my toes real bad on 2 reps with my squat and the second time it happened it was the 7th rep of that AMRAP set and I decided to just rack it and not risk an injury. I don't often get out over my toes like that, but it happens from time to time.
I very much enjoy doing assistance work now. I'm almost there on chin-ups, I feel by the end of March or the beginning of April I'll be able to do a single chin.
The Tabata intervals were intense. My mind started to leave me towards the end, so I just kept doing the jumping jacks like some mindless zombie. I lost complete track of all time and just kept listening/feeling for my watch to beep/vibrate to tell me where I was at. What sweet relief when it said I was done and I was actually surprised because I thought I had 1 more cycle to go. Max HR was a little higher than last time, but the overall average HR for the 4 minutes was 143. The average HR for yesterday's Tabata was 152. I wonder if that means anything.

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Posted by DrDenim

By the airport

Member since Sep 2022

970 posts

Posted on 3/12/24 at 2:23 am to DrDenim

03/11/24: Week 11, Day 1

1. Bench Press
Warm-Up Sets:
45 x 5 x 2
135 x 5
185 x 3
225 x 2
275 x 1
Work Sets:
325 x 5
325 x 5
325 x 9 - AMRAP (New Rep Record!)

2. SQUAT! - Tempo/Pause(3-3-0)
Warm-Up Sets:
45 x 5 x 2
135 x 5
225 x 5
315 x 3
405 x 1
Work Sets:
325 x 5
325 x 5
325 x 8 - AMRAP

3. Neck Extensions
20lb x 25 x 4 sets

Notes:
Wonderful session. I once again listened to Track #9(The Unnamed Feeling) off of Metallica's St. Anger album on repeat for the entire workout session. In the past 3 days I've listened to that song exactly 60 times according to MediaMonkey. This is really slowing me down in my training sessions but I just can't resist the riff in that song. Over and over and over. I spend so much time playing air guitar and singing along, it's not good for getting in the gym and getting done, but that's not what I'm about. My garage gym is my temple and I do my thang in there.
I called an audible with the SQUAT! session tonight because I was too wobbly during my last heavy SQUAT! session. I did the Tempo/Pause squats and it felt fricking great. I got 8 on the AMRAP set with 10lbs more than the last time I did this workout where I got 315lb x 6reps. I also beat my AMRAP total from my last BP session, also @ 325lb, got 8 last time, got 9 tonight so I beat it and get to go up to 327.5lb next session. Next SQUAT! session I will jump up to 440lbs.
I'm starting to get sad about ending this LP on 03/31 because I feel like I could keep getting stronger all damn year, but I need to give my body a break from the heavy barbell lifting for a while. I'll come back with gasoline in my veins come August when I resume some form of LP.

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Posted by DrDenim

By the airport

Member since Sep 2022

970 posts

Posted on 3/13/24 at 9:01 pm to DrDenim

Week #10 Recap - BW Homework & Steps/Walking/Rucking/Cardio
March 4th - March 10th

Dead Hangs: Goal = 8 minutes total, completed 8 minutes.
Air Squats: Goal = 300 total/week, completed 310 reps.
Push-Ups: Goal = 300 total/week, completed 300 reps.
Pass Thrus: Goal = 50/day-350/week, completed 50/day over 6 days = 300 total.
Get down & up: Goal = 1 time a day, completed 5 days this week.

I met or exceeded goals for all of my homework tasks this week. The pass thrus and get down & ups aren't 2 things I'm concerned about being that strict about so I'm more relaxed. I want to do them daily, but they're maintenance/mobility work so I'll do them when I can. I just don't want to forget to do them. I'd rather not do them if I didn't find time to do them instead of not doing them because I forgot to do them. Forgetting means I don't care or don't feel they're important, and I don't feel that way. I usually do the pass thrus in 2 sets of 25, and I get down on the ground to do push-ups so getting up from the ground where I did push-ups completes that task, but part of that task is doing something valuable while down on the ground. I always do some kind of ankle stretches and other lower body stretches once a day.

Steps/Walking
Daily Goal - 10,000
Weekly Goal - 90,000
Intensity Minutes Goal - 420/week

Monday - 11,656
Tuesday - 7,891
Wednesday - 10,321
Thursday - 10,945
Friday - 11,620
Saturday - 12,074
Sunday - 6,831

Weekly Total - 71,338, not even 75,000, I don't like to see that.
Daily Average - 10,191, good overall walking/step effort this week, only balked on 2 days.
Intensity Minutes - 547 minutes completed, again this is never a problem.
Ruck - Didn't happen this week.

The only thing missing this week was my long (5-6 miles) ruck. If I had got that done I would have definitely reached my weekly step goal. I missed my step goal on a few days, this is a sign of my poor time management and procrastination. Still bad habits I'm trying to remedy. The weekly average steps shows that I get my 10K steps every day, but sometimes I don't start walking until too late in the day and my walk gets split over the midnight hour and I don't reach 10K for Tuesday but I get a little headstart for Wednesday. This is all due to my sleep schedule falling apart repeatedly. I can never stay on a consistent sleep schedule of getting up in the AM at a typical time and going to bed in the PM at a typical time. I tend to go to bed somewhere between 0300 and 0600 and I get up in the afternoon. Such is the life of a famous novelist.

Next week I'm gonna start adding burpees and negative chins in as homework and I'm gonna start pushing for doing 60 seconds long dead hangs, the ultimate goal is to do a 60 second dead hang once a day and that's it. Air squats are pretty easy for me to accomplish 300 per week, push-ups still challenge me, I just don't like doing them that much but I'm going to start doing the ladder method instead of what I was doing (pyramid style 5, 10, 15, 10, 5=45 reps and done for the day). So I'll be doing two ladders of 15(5, 10, 15) for a daily total of 60. I feel good with that.

Overall fatigue was still higher than I need and I just couldn't get myself to do my ruck this week. I may still be feeling the effects of my overzealous efforts of the previous week. I'm pleased with how I chopped up my homework this week and got it done. Gotta focus on better time management and I'll be 100% perfect on those daily step goals, BUT I must be mindful that I don't let "the measurement become the goal" because I love to track stuff and collect the data and analyze it later and I sometimes get lost in all of that. Tracking and all of that satisfaction of "checking the box" and saying "I did it" because you surpassed some benchmark is not the goal, it is not the focus.....well, it shouldn't be anyway. I have to keep my mind focused on the real prize.

When I look at myself these days I know that I am the guy I want to be, just like James Clear talks about in Atomic Habits, I've set my mind on an identity and instead of focusing on goals I am focusing on an identity and I am honoring that. I may not be perfect on some things but I am living a life that reflects the identity that I choose. That makes me feel good. I know me and I know I will always push for more and push myself to do better, no matter how well I may do with completing tasks and goals, I will always say "Give me more" and that's who I want to be.

This post was edited on 3/14/24 at 8:14 am

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