Oof

Eating: Mr. Softee small vanilla cone with rainbow sprinkles
Drinking: not enough water
Listening: nothing

seated row 60# 15 3:00

chest press 100# 8 1:50

pulldown 100# 7 1:38

OH press 40# 6 1:31

leg press 180# 12 2:35

I think the seated row really hit me hard or something. Either my TUL or reps dropped for all except leg press and both dropped for the dread OH press. I had a lot to drink plus five cigarettes yesterday. Right now I feel kind of buzzed but completely wiped. I am having trouble typing.

Not seeing the progression I would like, but otherwise I feel good. Maybe I'm boxing too much?

Edit: it occurred to me last night that I actually did a couple of these exercises differently from how I've done them in the past. I had my palms out on the pulldown, and grips aligned (rather than parallel) on the chest press and OH press. That might be why I found them so god damned hard.

Natation

Eating: belonging to my gym is worth it for the free apples alone

Drinking: some water when I get around to it

Listening: album version of La Femme d'Argent

 

I did breaststroke for a continuous 15 minutes, which was the plan.  I feel fine, although actually swimming felt kind of sluggish and my hands fatigued.  The plan is to work the time up a bit and then start mixing in some crawl.  My form is ass so I am going to watch some Expert Village videos.  I have low expectations though, which is a nice feeling.  I am never going to do a swim race or a triathlon.  Swimming is strictly for the beach, the kid and not dying if I fall out of a boat.  And I suppose for conditioning on days when I don't feel like hitting something or running.

 

I had a bizarre dream last night about Hans Appelqvist and teenagers jumping off of really high structures, kind of like large radio towers, into really small, shallow tubs of water.  One missed and injured both his ankles. 

More Boxing

Eating: I had an apple an hour ago

Drinking:  tieguanyin

Listening:  shakuhachi

 

I hit the heavy bag while listening to "Mattress" by Fela Kuti, about 13 minutes.  More breaks / rests than last time.  I didn't have a lot of intensity, but it was still a good practice.  I worked on keeping my feet quiet, and practiced left jabs and straight rights in isolation, then some combos, and a couple punches from a hands-down start.  It felt like I was getting a pretty good rotation, and I was moving the bag quite a bit on the combos.  I should review the video for left jab alone.  There is no reason why I can't make this a 20-minute or half-hour workout; on the other hand the original idea was to have a very intense 10- to 15-minute session.  That will probably become easier as I get more skilled and can get a rhythm going. 

 

My shoulders feel pretty tight and sore, and did yesterday too.  My neck is pretty stiff too.  I don't know if this is from the machines or what.  I have been sleeping really well, 8 hours, so it's not that.  I hit the steam room and took a cold shower afterwards, which felt great.  I am most concerned about possible injury to my wrists or thumbs (I don't use real gloves, I just use the slip-on kickboxing ones; I don't think I should be hitting any harder than my hands can take unwrapped) but they seem fine. 

BBS 2

Eating: apple

Drinking: water

Listening: nothing

 

seated row 60# 17 2:18

chest press 100# 9 1:53

pulldown 100# 7 1:42

OH press 40# 7 1:47

leg press 180# 8 2:10

 

I was vaguely aware as I was doing the upper body exercises that I was not putting everything I had into the workout, but the leg press changed all that.  I could barely walk when I was done, and I feel totally buzzed now.  My reps were sped up slightly from last time.  TUL was about the same, with an extra rep or two on each exercise.  I need to go harder on the upper body stuff.  That might mean slowing it down again, as I did get to failure (maybe I could have tried harder) on most of the exercises.  Getting the right speed is kind of an art that I haven't mastered yet.  Keeping count is also really tricky.  I am really accustomed to counting once per breath. 

Neu!

Eating: apple

Drinking: water

Listening: nothing

 

Another quick visit to the gym for ten minutes of boxing.  Felt pretty good - a little weakness in my right wrist.  I watched some of these videos first.  Helped keep me thinking about technique when I was in there.  I definitely had some ok punches although I'm really way too weak to even move the bag that much. 

 

I tried some getups and the like last night, very half-heartedly.  They were significantly harder than I had anticipated - three minutes of lying down and getting back up is hard work.  Another kind of odd thing is I still feel a little sore, and I think it has to be from my workout three days ago.  I'm really looking forward to getting into this program and seeing how far it will go. 

Ideas

So, the BBS protocol is going to have me doing far fewer conventional gym workouts, and I have spent some time this morning trying to think of other stuff to do to keep active and motivated.  Group activities are mostly out because my schedule is totally unpredictable.  Otherwise, a martial art would be ideal.  I spent some time reading up on Movement Naturelle, and that is appealing but I'm not interested in the social stigma of climbing trees etc in the park.  However, it gave me some ideas I can use.  First, work on weaknesses.  I can barely swim, and I belong to a gym with a pool, so that is something I can do.  Also, I could do 20-minute sessions of bodyweight stuff - getups, jumps etc - in my apartment after work.  So here is some stuff I can do:

• Conventional runs with a focus on technique (I still want to be able to run long distances).
• Unconventional runs with built-in sprints, jumps, detours through the forest, pullups, etc.
• Swimming - set a time, like 20 or 25 minutes, and stay occupied in the pool for that length of time.  Do some laps, see how far I can go underwater, practice holding my breath, practice diving and surfacing, etc.
• Boxing.  The easiest.  Watch one of the hundreds of excellent instructional videos on YouTube and go hit the bag for the length of time it takes to listen to Fur Immer or Beat Bop or whatever. 
• Timed workouts in the apartment.  Spend 3 or 4 minutes doing each of the following: lying down and getting up (front and back), getting under the coffee table and out the other side (crawling or rolling), jumping on the stairs, up and down the ladder to the roof, burpees (with or without the jump), tuck squats, one-leg squats (no help for balance), walking hands out and then feet to hands, plank to side plank, crab walking, in and out window to balcony ... this is getting a little absurd. 

First BBS workout

Eating: lots of chocolate
Drinking: water
Listening: nothing

seated row 50# 15 3:00
chest press 100# 7 2:00
pulldown 100# 6 1:56
OH press 50# 4 1:15
leg press 180# 5 2:00

All the times are kind of approximate, because I am timing myself, and the rep counts got a little mangled too because I am not used to multiple breaths per rep.

So, this was my first go at a Body by Science workout. It was fucking tough. The impulse to give up after a couple reps was incredibly strong, and I think I really only got to true positive failure on the chest press and leg press. I feel amazing though, really buzzed. In terms of changing weights from workout to workout, I am going to go up in weight if I am at or over 3:00 and down if under 90".

I don't understand how this is going to work my hamstrings.

Also, what do you do if you want to empasize a certain group? My shoulders, for instance, are incredibly weak. The answer seems to be: nothing. In fairness, they weren't getting much stronger under my old regime, so maybe I should just give it a month and not worry about it.

Planning to re-read Body by Science over the next week.

Punch Punch

Eating: an apple and some chocolate

Drinking: pu'er

Listening: The True Wheel

 

I am stupid busy right now.  I had a very annoying day so far, I was here until 3:30 last night, and I'll probably be here until 3 tonight.  So, I ducked out at 4 and hit the heavy bag for exactly 11 minutes (Fur Immer).  I tried to stay very focused on form and timing.  It was great.  Only now I'm kind of relaxed and tired and I have to work for another nine hours. 

CT run

Ran 2.8 miles at a very slow (wife) pace today.  It felt really, really good.  No pain whatsoever.  I ran the big hill twice. 

Reading "Body By Science" on the Kindle.  It's superb.  I am going to try the machine method for four weeks or so.  I need to give myself time to recover from Friday so first session will be Wednesday or Thursday.  We are supposed to close on Wednesday so probably Thursday.  I skipped ahead to the chapter on training for athletes and it said train specific skills, so I am going to try to do one HIT workout a week, one Tabata (could do treadmill, thruster, rowing) and spend the rest of the time on skill development, which for now means boxing or running.  If I can get to the gym tomorrow, I was thinking of a warmup run and then 10 or so continuous minutes (Fur Immer I think is 11 minutes) on the heavy bag.

Dumbbell Day

Eating: nothing

Drinking: water

Listening: nothing

 

Ran 5' at 5.5mph

 

DB OH press 20# 12/side

DL 155# 12

squat 185# 10

WA pullups 50# 8

DB benchpress 40# 12/side

WG pulldowns 120# 6

 

A weird workout.  I have been meaning to do dumbbell versions of everything for some time, and I enjoyed it, so I might make it a regular Friday thing.  I didn't eat so well this morning (GM, bowl of cereal, and some kind of super sugary cookie) and I was kind of in insulin shock when I hit the office.  I had a normal-sized coffee, as usual.  Lunch was a steak and some roasted veggies.  Around 4 I noticed that I smelled the way I smell when I have too much coffee, only I hadn't.  Odd.  Then I had a matcha and went to the gym.  On the treadmill I felt kind of weak and hot, and the squats were a real struggle.  Everything after that was kind of a wash.  I was running around a lot today, so that might have had something to do with it too. 

 

I also have figured out what is wrong with my OH and bench press - very weak left arm.  Not a huge surprise.  Dumbbells should be good for that, right?