More Violence

Drinking: 1996 water blue label 7542

 

Hit the bag, then sparred, with BK for about 25-30 minutes

 

5 x (4 pullups (grips different each time), 6 pushups (looking to alternating sides), 10 straight-leg deadlifts

 

Boxing is so much better with someone else.  We went for a much longer time and higher intensity than I usually do.  The bag is so old and crappy that I actually broke the metal ring that it hangs from, causing it to thud to the ground.  The sparring was fun, but because BK a) is shorter than I am (although not by much) and b) ducks down about six inches every time he throws his lead hand, I couldn't really get any openings other than his face, and that was off limits, with good reason.  We are going to get face protectors.  Really fun and a really good workout.

 

The exercises were good too.  On the last two sets of pullups I stopped after 3, rested about 30 seconds, and did the final one.  It made sense at the time because my form was going and I didn't want to go to failure.  The looking to alternate sides thing for the pushups is a nice twist and it lets me check my form (which is perfect, by the way, but then I am doing sets of six, so it fucking better be) on every second rep.  This is a tip from DM via BK. 

Not much to report

Tea comments are going to be a part of this blog again.  So: drinking XZH 2007 8582 replica - very nice, thinking about buying a cake - and testing the 2008 Mengku Zen label competition style, 1.5 gm for 5 minutes.  Very strong qi. 

 

I just went down for a quick swim - 12'.  I felt pretty tired and clumsy after the BBS workout and then working until midnight yesterday.  I did manage a couple laps of crawl, quite the departure from my usual plodding breast stroke.  Hit the steam room (for longer than usual) and took a cold shower after that.

 

I read this today (4. Train Arms With High Frequency).  Found this particularly interesting:

 

Being a relatively small muscle group, arms recover fast and can take it. Performing a full arm day once or twice a week gives them too much recovery for optimal growth. This method keeps the arms more full and vascular all week long, and let's face it…that's pretty much what we're all after anyway.

 

I don't know that keeping my arms full and vascular is what I'm after personally - getting stronger arms is more of my goal - but the point is a good one, and fits with my limited experience.  I've been thinking for a while that BBS is ideal for the legs, less so for the arms, and now the internets are confirming that, so good.  I am going to throw lots of short sets of pushups and pullups into the rotation, making sure that I don't go to failure and that I have at least a full day to recover in between. 

 

 

BBS

seated row 90# 12

chest press 110# 11

leg press 260# 13

pulldown 190# 9

overhead press 60# 7

 

Progress on all fronts!  I feel like Superman.  I did a full no-weight warmup again, including sumo squats.  The OHP felt really easy, so I think I'll progress quickly on that one.  I think the hardest exercise - qualitatively - is now the seated row.  This is kind of weird because I don't recall feeling that way two months ago. 

Sprint Sprint Barf Barf

Ran 1 mile
Tabata sprints in the park

I need to listen to my Tabata mp3 under controlled conditions and count how many work periods it has, because I counted 8 tonight and there was another one left. Despite the title of the post, I am out of practice completely for sprinting and didn't manage the effort that is needed to get the puky feeling. I was very fast on the first two and slow / stumbling thereafter. I was kind of in a weird distracting area of the park too.

Still, it felt good to actually do some sprints.

Success

5 x
 
10 60# deadlifts
8 30# overhead squats
6 pushups
4 pullups
2 dips
 
Steam, hot shower, cold shower.
 
This is the routine for me.  Hard enough to be interesting, easy enough to complete with good form (I think - not sure about lifting heels on the squats).  I certainly stopped to catch my breath a lot (probably after every third set?) but I didn't need to lower weights or reps and I didn't pause during the sets once.  A very good feeling. 
 
One tweak for next time: I should lower weights on the deadlifts to almost nothing until I am sure about my form.  30# or less, I think. 
 
Off to the caf for some food. 

BBS plus

pulldown 120# 15

overhead press 50# 15

seated row 90# 10

chest press 110# 8

leg press 260# 12

 

As a warm-up, I did very light weights, 10 reps of each of the upper body plus ten very wide stance squats with the bar; another change is that I rested slightly longer (about one minute) between exercises.  Both are definitely going to be part of the plan going forward.  It felt like they made a big difference in terms of how panicked I got during the actual workout - I was calmer throughout.  Very disappointed with the chest press, but that may be a result of accidentally going to failure on pushups last week.  I am not going to drop the pushups, maybe just do one set of ten and then sets of five next time, or something like 10-9-8-7-6-5-4-3-2-1.  As for weights, I don't see how I can't go up on PD and OHP, even if they were done first.  LP was a pleasant surprise - I can smell 300.  Next week, LP should go between the two groups of upper body exercises. 

 

I NEED TO DO SOME SPRINTS.  Fuck.  I feel like I'm taking crazy pills. 

Some Kind of Cross-Fit Type Thing

only easier.  I wanted to spar today, but BK has actually had to seek medical attention because of his last sparring experience, so he nixed it.  So I thought: some repetitive, low-weight lifting plus a swim is in order.

 

This was the plan:

 

5 x 4 pullups (different grip each time), 5 OH squats (20#), 10 pushups, 10 deadlifts (50#), 5 dips, swim

 

The reality: on round 3, I realized that I wasn't going to be able to do another set of 10 pushups, so I dropped to 5.  I also realized that I wasn't going to be able to do 5 dips, so I dropped to 1.  Man, do I suck at dips.  I did a penalty set of 5 pushups, 1 dip at the end and I could barely do it - I actually tried to do an extra dip and totally failed.

 

The pullups were surprisingly easy.  I did one set each of pullups, switched grip left, switched grip right, parallel grip, and chinups.  The OH squats were fun too, although i can't even remotely do them without my heels coming up.  The deadlifts were not straight-leg but true deadlifts, also fun. 

 

As for the swim, on lap two I could feel the tape that holds my toenail to my toe starting to detach.  I got some kind of soft tape by mistake.  I suspended the swimming and did 5 rounds of holding my breath underwater for a count of 10.  I got the panic reaction twice but on the final round I stayed under to a count of 16.  Then I spent 5 minutes in the hot tub. 

 

It was liberating lifting weights even though it's a violation of BBS.  I completely get off on doing pullups (makes me want to rock climb, then I remember that rock climbing scares the living shit out of me) and I feel all-around great now.

Back to BBS

Compare to this.

 

seated row 90# 9

chest press 110# 10

pulldown 120# 11

overhead press 50# 8

leg press 240# 14

 

steam, hot shower, cold shower

 

Purchase of BBS for my little sister, plus Matt Metzgar's timely observations, plus the fact that I worked very intensely today, planned to work out earlier in the day, and had half an hour before I had to leave for the ball game, inspired me to give the formal BBS workout another try.  It was a fantastic workout and I am so glad that I made the time.  My impressions vis-a-vis EF, discussed previously I think, were borne out - I feel that very pleasant "drained" feeling much more acutely than with EF.  I am considering a stretch of BBS intermixed with "easier" lifting, like circuits, kind of like what Mark Sisson just proposed - 5 x 5s on Friday or something like that.  I need to get back into sprinting, particularly Tabata sprinting.

 

So, back to the actual workout.  My numbers dropped by one on the SR and CP and were up by one on the others.  I am frankly very surprised by the consistency.  In this workout, however, I made a point of breathing through the nose, and my motions were much smoother and slower than they were a month ago, so I think the EF interlude had the desired effect of increasing "control".  In fact, I think the drops on the first two exercises are probably due to lack of warmup alone - a month ago, I led off with three minutes on the rower.  Next time, I plan to do a full circuit of 10-12 reps at a much, much lower weight as a warmup. 

boxing again

Ran into BK in the gym.  The two of us spent about 40 minutes alternately hitting the heavy bag, while listening to music.  Fun.  I kept gloves on the whole time.  Hitting really hard (for me) is getting more and more effortless.

 

I'm tired and very spacy now. 

EF again

pulldown 90/15 110/8 130/6
overhead press 20/15 40/8 60/6
seated row 60/15 80/8 100/2
chest press 70/15 90/7 110/2
leg press 200/15 240/8 280/5

 hot shower, cold shower

 An interesting little experiment on the effect of order.  I went up on everything except the seated row, that and I kind of choked on the chest press.  Subjectively, SR and PD feel the closest to one another - they have a similar effect on forearms and biceps, I think.  The only other things I did differently today were 1) smoke approximately ten cigarettes over the weekend and 2) deliberately breathed through my nose (per Matt Metzgar, also here) for at least the first two sets of each exercise.  Again, subjectively, the sets felt MUCH easier, way less panicked spazzing at the end of each set. 

 Almost blacked out (browned out?) at 3pt on Friday, but that is a tale for another time.