Woke-up and did 3 minutes on the bike and 40 straight burpees. About 5 minutes total before going to work.
Back is more or less recovered from the injured state and back to its everyday levels of discomfort and pain. Just did a bunch of stretches and yoga poses at the office, which always helps.
My schedule is getting a bit tighter. My boss wants me in the office more hours. There's a lot of fat in my normal schedule to trim that will afford me time to hit the goals I need. An obvious one is to not eat and chill at home before training; that will be done at the office and I'll train when I get home. I also don't take proper breaks at work; I eat at my desk and stand-up or stretch as needed, but actually walking away and coming back makes a big difference.
Working with my client remotely at 7:00 today, so will train after work and before then.
I haven't taken the time to jot down the measures I'm taking during this weight gain phase that differ from how I've approached gaining before, but I think it's worth noting.
* Goal is to no longer stuff myself with reckless abandon on anything and everything. It's fine to not be on the verge of puking after every meal. I'm no longer a lanky 18-year-old and don't NEED that approach to put on weight, it's easy enough falling short of that.
* Making more of an effort to increase food quality. Grass-fed beef, bison, grass-fed lamb, organic veggies. In fact, I eat bison now much more than I eat beef. Less junk like greasy pizza or burgers.
*Still allow for dessert here and there but not every meal.
* I don't make an effort to eat carbs late in the day. If they're already in what I'm eating then fine but the trend is lower carbs at night. This is something I'd like to be more strict about actually.
On that note, I recently discovered that the Safeway by my house has good deals on grass-fed lamb, and is competitive with other stores like Costco for bison and beef. I don't usually shop at Safeway so this was a nice find.
Axle clean once and push-press
180 x 2 x 5
* I recently did 180x3x5 strict pressing, but that was a grind and my sore shoulders wouldn't have been able to replicate that this time.
Dumbbell clean once for every 3 Arnold press reps
50s x 12
35s x 12
All super-set with chins x 10-12
Dumbbell SLDLs
125s x 17, 15
2 hill sprints backwards
Did this in 109 degree weather. The heat doesn't bother me - anything past 90 degrees all feels the same to me when training, you're hot and sweaty regardless of 95 vs 105 - but trying to stay hydrated was a killer. Lips and throat felt parched despite drinking water.
Squats
405 x 1, 2
Drop-down to 315 x 10, 225 x 10, 135 x 10, 45 x 10
* Continuing to improve but my hip pain didn't let me do the high reps I was anticipating with 405. Still glad I managed to move 405 some.
Bench press
295 x 3
Drop-down to 265 x 3, 225 x 7, 185 x 8, 135 x 10, 95 x10, 45 x 20
* Much better than last week. Was breathing hard after this.
Dumbell rows
115s x 10, 10, 15
I'm interested to see how these drop-down sets will help with my bench press while losing or maintaining weight. They're how I brought my squat up in the past.
Took about an hour altogether.
Weight is down to 198. Part of that is probably from deloading off creatine.
SSB narrow stance squats
240 x 15
290 x 10
330 x 7
Bench press
275 x 6
Drop-sets of 225 x 7, 185 x 8. 135 x 10, 95 x 15, push-ups x 7, bar x 15
Dumbbell rows
125s x 8, 8, 9
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Super-set with facepulls
My goal was to rep 240, knowing my hip pain wouldn't let me approach max weights. Realized after I could probably keep going. There was pain but manageable. Knee hurt on the first attempt at 225 but more warming-up and keeping tight remedied that.
Experimenting with drop-sets on the bench press since they work so well with squats on a calorie deficit.
I'm thinking about returning in the evening to do heavy belt squats and get in some curls. Keg runs too. I have in mind to do both ATG narrow squats and heavy belt squats to cover all my bases in absence of my normal heavy squats.
Shoulders were a little sore from VR boxing yesterday. That's OK, prepares me for actual martial arts training again. It's IMPOSSIBLE for me to go light in that game. The opponent throwing knockout blows just causes me to react in kind. I was delivering bombs.
OH, something I'm not sure I mentioned. I bench wider now. It's harder for me. I've always been a fairly close-grip bencher, with pinkies in the ring or inside that even. Now it's ring finger, or a little past that approaching middle. Took advice from Louie Simmons on benching wider as a way to progress on the bench. Interesting how that coincides with squatting narrower (advice I've heard from Dave Tate or Matt Wenning, can't remember which).
Workout was finished in one hour, pleased with the pace and difficulty level that brought me. The gift of injury.
Woke-up today and did 5 minutes on the bike, 30 burpees, and some Muay Thai kicks to open up my legs and hips.
I have two different styles of burpees. The first is using my knuckles on the floor and not squatting all the way down (those two traits don't have any relation or bearing on each other, it's just how I've done them. The knuckle support is just from my martial arts background).
The second is more contractile and less ballistic, squatting all the way and doing a push-up.
Both are hard in different ways but I can definitely do more the first way. Today I did the second, and felt a little knee tenderness but no pain.
My thigh pain has been bothering me to the point that I could not squat without pain yesterday, and that was a light day. After a lot of experimenting and some knee pain I was able to do high, narrow-stance SSB box squats with 225 for 20 reps. Still had thigh pain but it was manageable. I will always find a way.
Super-setted that with 225x20 deadlifts. First 10 regular, last 10 stiff-legged. Attacked next the upper-body with heavy band presses for 4 sets of 15-20 and super-set that with pull-ups. At the end, I did a 40-second pull-up. I have a minute in me, but the eccentric part started to strain my biceps as they lengthened and that'd be the dumbest thing to injure one of them on.
