Yesterday evening:

Log clean and press

142.5 x 5

175 x 5

202.5 x 8 (PR)

Close-grip bench press

240 x 3 x 10

205 x 7

Chin-ups

4 x 15, 1 x 12

In uncharted territory here and making log PRs every session. To be clear, these weren't all rapid fire reps and I rest-paused a little, but still reasonable enough to be a set. It'd be interesting to start going for time.

I would have liked to do curls but it was getting late so this morning before breakfast and work I hit a 15 rep set of kettlebell double cleans and presses (basically, ABCs without the squat portion) to get some bicep work in.

Currently listening Teddy Atlas' memoir as an audiobook and it's one of the most engrossing audiobooks I've ever "read". Just got to the part where he met Mike Tyson.

 Squats

340 x 5
395 x 5
445 x 5
315 x 20

Reverse-hyper single leg curls
270 x 30

First weak-feeling day in awhile. I had actually set-up the evening before but saved this for the next day since my left knee was bugging me from standing still at work for a period of time in the morning while engrossed with something at my standing desk. Knee felt better after a night's rest, but only slept for 5 hours before I couldn't go back to sleep. Come gym time, I was tired and let out a big yawn just before the top-set while I was trying to excite myself. 445 felt incredibly heavy and I did the minimum 5. A good showing of "bad day strength". 

I started to feel a little bit better later in the day. I planned to do some home boxing but ended up having to deal with a plumbing situation with our dishwasher leaking. Turned out to be the best-case scenario and it was just the P-trap coming loose so it cost $3 to get a replacement washer and tighten the pipes. But diagnosing it and researching dishwasher leaks ate into my evening time. I managed to get in a 5 minute round on the bag, which still felt awesome.

The leak turned out to be a blessing in disguise. When I went to Home Depot I randomly stumbled across some gym flooring and decided to ritz up my patio gym with them. Definitely going back for more. I still have plans to extend that indoors, but for now the free space is remaining as a memorial to my dad with his old desk still around so my siblings can visit and sit there.

 Bench press

225 x 5

255 x 5

290 x 6

Axle clean once and strict press

142.5 x 4 x 10

Super-set with  lying dumbbell rows

115s x 4 x 10

Dumbbell curls

50s x 10, 10

Super-set with lateral raises

15s x 10, 10 

Steady 5 lb gain on bench press every month, but notably, these 6 reps felt much stronger than 285 x 6 last go around. Last rep wasn't a total grind this time. My shoulders and connective tissue have just been feeling much better under the bar lately, too.

I really like the strategy of pairing different assistance work from the main lift. It has me benching and pressing overhead twice a week but with more variety per session and my joints feel better that way.

 Deadlifts

Work-up to 550 x 1

Sandbag squats

200 x 20

I missed the first few attempts at 550 but after tightening my belt, which was feeling loose, I had the mental confidence to fully commit and pull a strong rep. I thought about putting 575 on the bar but since it's been several months since I've pulled over 500 and I forgot that bumper plates quickly take up all the barbell space, I didn't feel like unloading and reloading that many plates after I'd already hit my goal.

Later in the evening I went on a 2-mile run.

 Log clean and press
167.5 x 3
187.5 x 3
212.5 x 5 (PR)
Last set super-set with 15 chin-ups 

Close-grip bench press
235 x 4 x 10
Super-set with chin-ups: 4 x 15

Band pressdowns: 20

Axle curls: 40 x 50

Pretty significant PR. The 5 reps went up far stronger than last month's PR of 207.5 x 4 and none of them were a grind; the weight just kept shooting up overhead.

Boxing was another good class on Wednesday. Didn't do sparring but did the shoulder touching drill, which I always find fun. Did partner combos the rest of the class based on what the coach calls out. Afterwards the coach gave me a fist bump and said it was good to see me, as it's been awhile since I've been here on Wednesday.

It's been a wild time since Thursday morning. At about 5:30 AM I woke to my cat messing around by my head and trying to get at the window. This was unusual because he’s on my sleep schedule and usually sleeps through the night until my alarm goes off. When I picked him up to to take him outside of the room, he immediately started writhing around in my hands, which is even more unusual because he always goes limp when I pick him up before settling in my arms as a perch. As soon as I set him down outside the room, he sprinted back in before I could close the door. Finally, when I closed the door fast enough to keep him out, he started yowling loudly from behind the door, which is completely unprecedented, and that’s when I realized something is in the room he’s fixated on.

That something turned out to be a bat that slipped in through a gap in the window screen. The cat ended up chasing the bat out of the room and I found it flying in circles in the kitchen. I quickly emptied the last remnants of a protein tub and managed to catch it after it stopped to rest.

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Animal control picked up when I rang them and said an officer would be out later to pick it up if I leave it outside, which led to this funny scene of a live bat trapped in a jar of protein left out on my porch.

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In my haste to get through all of this and make it to work, I realized I hadn’t even marked that there was a live bat inside. I joked that any porch pirates were going to get a nasty surprise… And then realized shit, that WOULD be really effing bad if the bat has rabies and we couldn’t test for it, which is the whole point of trapping it and not just releasing it outside. Luckily at around 3 PM an officer left a message on my phone that he was at my property and he wasn’t sure if the bat was in the protein case because dispatch hadn’t left detailed instructions: “I see a creatine or protein container and don’t want to steal your delivery by accident.” We got it cleared up and he ended up taking it for testing.

The next day we got the very good news that it was negative for rabies. The officer still wanted to meet with me on Saturday to fill out paperwork. Meeting him in person, I found him to be a very nice guy but holy shit, the process is wack! I ended up having to pay $130 for the county’s services, which one would assume is what tax dollars are for and and is a great way to encourage people NOT to undergo the proper process and report rabies exposure incidents. Throughout this whole conversation, the cat in question came next to me and the officer and sat down as if he was part of the meeting and he totally charmed the guy.

At least I got an interesting story out of it. The officer also mentioned that the bat was completely covered in protein dust when they took it out.

Also, kudos to my cat, who would not give up. If he hadn’t woken me up, I’d have been sound asleep with a possibly-rabid bat messing around in my bedroom. But what’s shitty is I found out they were on the verge of taking my cat away to quarantine him and “decided” not to, which is infuriating. How is that a decision after the test came back negative? The officer was real nice personally, but the process left a very bad taste in my mouth

 Squats

365 x 3

420 x 3

470 x 4

Strip-sets of 405x5, 315x8, 225x8

Reverse-hyper leg curls

270 x 30

Came into the gym feeling like crap (tired with a headache) and told myself I'd set-up, warm-up, and if I bailed after that then I really needed it. I was dragging during warm-ups and working-up to the 300s, but by 365 I got a burst of energy and sailed through the actual workout.

 Boxing was a big class yesterday. I notice that class size swells when the weather gets a little cooler. 

Although I don't log the 3 rounds of jumping rope every single class, I have to mention something really interesting. My back has grown from doing more strongman training this year while I've gained weight, and as a result my arms are further out from my sides. This is making me miss more from the rope not clearing my feet. I can easily adjust the handles to give me more rope to skip with, but it's an awesome problem to encounter.

We dove right into light sparring next. I had just watched a video of Dmitry Bivol so I practiced circling constantly while keeping distance control via a constant jab and an outstretched arm. This seemed to flummox people and they'd block the first jab or two only to get caught when another one landed. I'm also getting proficient at tracking people side-stepping or pivoting to my left and having them run into my left hook. And I threw more bodyshots this time because I noticed that I was headhunting last week. 

Rest of the class were partner combos. I partnered with a friend who's on the master's boxing team and he likes to drill hard and fast, which is great. My conditioning was getting tested during these drills, although I didn't gas out.

In work news, we hired a new driver so I will not be running deliveries except on Fridays. I'm back to being a desk jockey.

Bench press

240 x 3

275 x 3

305 x 4

240 x 13

Axle press (clean once to get in position)

140 x 10, 10, 10, 8

Kroc rows

125 x 30

Axle curls

40 x 30

I would have been fine with 3 reps of 305 given that I did an upper-body workout the day before yesterday and have been doing a lot of lifting at work, but 4 reps came strong.

I've been continuing to run the delivery routes at work in lieu of our normal driver, who's on medical leave, and it's eaten into my normal downtime at the office to write log updates. I see this as a positive: it spurs me to write during and after the workouts, which I'd fallen off from doing. We are interviewing for new drivers this week so this is a temporary gig, but I've been enjoying the screen break. 

On Friday I delivered protein shakes to an old-school bodybuilding gym about 2 hours away in Santa Rosa complete with framed pictures of Dorian Yates, Ronnie Coleman, Arnold, Mike Mentzer, and others on the wall. I offered a compliment about the gym to the lady at the front desk and she told me a bunch of their lifters just did a local bodybuilding show. I told her I'll come take advantage of their day pass next time I'm in the area.

I've been delivering to Gold's Gyms and they have pictures of Arnold and Franco on a mosaic of the front wall of every gym, which has been cool to encounter while working, but it's not quite the same: it looks corporate and samey. Still dope, but something about seeing framed pictures someone actually took the time to hang on a gym wall really appeals to me.

I've got boxing later in the evening today. Looking forward to the light Monday sparring.

Found my last log workout from Thursday in the Drafts section of my writing app without it being uploaded. It was a good workout, so here it is.

Log clean and press
177.5 x 5
197.5 x 3
217.5 x 3 (PR)

Weighted dips
80 x 3 x 10

Weighted decline push-ups
80 x 8, 7, 6

Kroc rows
125 x 30

Got to shadowbox spar or make spar with light contact in boxing on Monday across 3 rounds with 3 different people, the second partner being a complete beginner whom my gloves barely touched while the first and third were skilled and we let ourselves make contact. Blocked a few bodyshots with my lead elbow, which is always satisfying. My defense and in-fighting feels worlds better than last year, but it will take hard sparring to really test that. Rest of the class was standard partner combo drills, with footwork drills on the floor ladders and then some medicine ball work at the end.

Tuesday deload workout:

Bench press

135 x 5

185 x 5

225 x 5

Close-grip bench press

205 x 3x 8

Super-set with lying dumbbell rows

80s x 3 x 15

Reverse hyper

270 x 2 x 15

Carter curls

35s x 3 x 10 

Deadlifts

475 x 8

ABCs: 50s x 16 in 5:05

Bar hit the gnarled tree root twice again despite moving the set-up forward to avoid that. Ended up pulling from a deadstop for the last 2 reps. Interesting that this was never a problem when deadlifting regularly in this spot but when pulling touch-and-go the bar moves in a path that hits it. Happy with this all things considered: I didn't lose any reps between pulling from 7 mats and the floor.

ABCs after deadlifts were a special kind of hell. I let myself off at 16. I'm looking at another week of lifting drink boxes (Gatorade, energy drinks) at work since our delivery driver is out for the week again and I'll be doing his deliveries to help out, so my back will be getting lots of work. I also have boxing later today. I haven't gone running in a long time, which is by design to let my foot heal, but the conditioning I've gotten from skipping rope and ABCs has helped ensure I don't get gassed at the gym. 

Work has been hectic. Our delivery driver unexpectedly called out due to a medical issue that he may not recover soon from, so I've been running his routes. Monday in particular had me driving the big truck, but I killed it for the most part. Lots of light but repetitive back lifting throughout the week but my body has held up well.

Yesterday we went to Chinatown for a meet-and-greet + viewing of Big Trouble In Little China with James Pax, who played Lightning - the inspiration for Raiden in Mortal Kombat. He couldn't have been nicer or cooler.

I also did not know that Bruce Lee had his first acting role here as an infant in 1941.

Did a lot of walking around Chinatown and little Italy afterwards and decided to get Italian for dinner.