Blawgin' on

Let's see here: i did do an hour run sometime this last week. i s'pose it went well. Very nice to head out in shorts and short sleeves without freezing my intestines. 1h 15m ish. Pretty nice.

Thursday (i believe) i went to the gym for some grippy work. Did 5/3/1 day on the RT. i'm starting to like that thing. i still can't wrap my Gehirn around a 200lb pull, but i am starting to like the workouts. Still working on a 130 max, so the weights were 100/ 115/ 125. Got a decent double with 125. Tried locking 140, and i can't really say i got it with my left. But i'm a use that for my next max and see if i can do the workouts. Seems to be working. Then i did the hub thang. Again, i'm just squeezing for time on that. Did 20 secs with 25#, 15 secs with 30#, think i got eight secs with 35#, and that pretty much sucked the life outta me. i got 40 off the ground on the right side, but not so much on the left. Then i clumb, and my hands were hard-boiled.

Guess it was last monday i did some chest. Got up to a max of 215, and gloriously didn't hurt my shoulder. Even if that ain't big weights, i at least have a solid something to go in and chip away at. Then i did 4 sets of 12 DB flyes with 35s and 40s. Ummm...and then 4x12 dips with bodyweight.

i thought i was gonna get to go to Purg on tuesday, so i didn't kill it on abs on monday. Just did a few sets of 30ish on decline bench. Didn't end up going boarding though. :-(

Got 5/3/1 day looming on deads this week. i will pull 500. Or i will be disappointed. Otherwise i'm on call for most of the remainder of the month, and i'm just hoping to catch glimpses of sunlight.

Summer's coming suckas. When yas gonna come up and see us eh?

High Functioning Cripple

i'll try to recap the last few workouts. Last monday (i think) i went in for a quick abs/ chest workout. I did some light bench--few sets of 10 with 135, then a set of 4 or 5 with 185. i'm still real anxious about jacking my shoulder up again. i really wanted to do db flyes, but there were swarms of folk on every flattish bench and i took a pass.  Abs was...painful. This time i did straight leg raises first: a set of 30, then a couple sets of maybe 20. Then i did decline crunches. Much harder after the straight legs.

For the remainder of the week i thought i might have hip arthritis. i just tore the poopey-doodey outta my left hip flexors. Only today do i feel like there might someday be hope that i might ever run again.

And on that note, if you have the opportunity to avoid putting Tiger Balm on yer yamsack, i would seize it. You'll sleep better.

Friday i went in for back and grippy. 3/3/3 day for both. Deads was 350, 400, and 450. i went in feeling a li'l anxious about how it was gonna go, seeing as i still couldn't actively flex my hip to 90 degrees. In the end i locked out 3 with 450 reasonably easily, although it took some teeth-grittin' and a growl on the last rep. But i think i could'a picked up a fourth; only i didn't try. And i regret that.

But dang! that's a weird sport, deadlifting. Not 4 weeks prior, i went in fairly rested and couldn't lock 4 reps with 50 lbs less. i've honestly come to believe that pre-workout Tums is the answer to pulling hard.

Finished back off with 4 sets of 12 on Good-mornings (1 x 95, then 3 x 105), and some bent o'er BB Rows (10 x 135, and 6 x 185). Only did a li'l of the rows, and skipped p'lups cuz i've been fighting biceps tendonitis for a very long time now.

On the Rolling Thunder, as mentioned above, it was 3/3/3 day. i'm working off of a 130 max, and rounded to the next highest nickle. Think it was 95, 105, and 120. That went well enough, so i tried a new ME and got 135 on each hand. That 5/3/1 thang applies pretty cleanly to the RT weights. i have a feeling that i'll keep bumping up on max weights for a while just cuz the movement/ muscle patterns are so different. But i gotta say that 200lbs on that thing seems like a boat-ride to Africa from here.

Also took the Hub with me. Still haven't quite figured out a proper workout on that thing. But i sorta like it. i've been doing a "workout" with timed hangs. So i'll put, say, 25 lbs on and hold for 20 secs on each hand. One or so reps of that, then add 5 lbs and hangs for maybe ten or 15 secs. (i try to keep 'em sorta symmetrical). Think i got somewhere in the vicinity of 8 secs on 35 lbs, so i tried 40. Definitely got 40# up on the right hand, and i got it off the ground on the left. Can't say i "locked it out" or had particularly good control of it, but she did relinquish hold of Terra Firma for a bit. So i'm gonna say the timed hangs are working for now.

So anyhow, i'm truly hoping to pull 5C on deads before i succumb to TB. i still have an indurated nodule on m' forearm from that ppd. i'd cherish your prayers that i don't actually have a disease. That'd be just fine.

Uphills

Think i'll just post up a quickie just to mark the last couple o weeks. This last week i did an hour run and a half-hour run. The week before i did two one-hour runs. This has worked out to be less than beneficial, because i've done all the runs on a very steep hill, and now i have something like a peroneal nerve palsy, and am having some trouble with dorsiflexion. Foot drop notwithstanding, i'm probably in mildly better shape than i was two weeks ago.

Climbing-wise, i've developed something like a biceps/brachioradialis tendonitis that i've yet to shake. i am not climbing well; but i've been on the wall several times, and'm trying to keep at it with what vigor i can muster.

Lifting-wise, there's a mixed bag. Three weeks ago (i believe) i got a double on deads with 470 on 5/3/1 day. About a week later i did a "deload" day, and cranked out 405 for 5 or 6 reps. About a week after that, i tried starting up with 5/5/5 day off of a 500# max, which calls for a final set with 425. i got maybe 2 or 3 reps into the second set with 400, and called it. Just nothin'. i think this owed partially at least to my having acquired the Rolling Thunder just some days before. i do believe the one-handed deads jack with my dorsum more than i wanted to think. i did finish out with 20 pullups, Good-mornings, and a 5/5/5 day on the RT. i forwent the rows in deference to my fiery biceps.

Last Saturday i went in for a first ab workout in many, many, many moons. Did a couple sets of 30 crunches on a decline bench. And they hurt. Then i did two sets of (i think) straight leg raises--the first with 20 reps and the second with 15ish bad, grimacing reps. i tried valiantly not to cry. To think a year or so ago i could rip out 90 of those with ankle weights on... Got a goal to work toward there. No ab muscle is screwing with my climbing and pulling. This i'm certain of. Yesterday we went to a fitness store thingy, and i got to try out some inversion boots. Gunna get me some of them ther'. That is a wicked ab workout, and it kinda feels lovely to just hang upside down.

Respecting the grippy trainy, i've (for whatever reason) decided to do a two-per-week version of the 5/3/1 thang. So last week i did the 5/5/5 day on RT on a 120# max twice, sundered by a few days (weights being 85/100/105, i think). This go round, i waited for the #2 gripper and the hub to come in for 3/3/3 day, and made a grip-only sesh of it. Surprisingly, i'm super close to closing the #2 straight outta the package. i wish i could find my #1 for comparison and to train. i made myself wait to try out the hub till i did 3/3/3 on RT. Weights there were 85/100/110. Then i've been trying for an ME at the end just for fun, and i locked 130 right pretty clean, and got real close to lock on the left. 200# on that thing seems a loooong ways away. But a brother'd have some fetching, waxable, stage-ready foreguns to show for it.

Then i thought i'd just go ahead and throw a plate on ol' hub for our maiden workout. And i might as well ha' clipped 'er to a tree for all the movement i got. So--humbled--i started with a dime, and worked my way back to a max with 35# which i got right and left. That's gonna take some work, but it's doable.

i think you people should get in the ring on this grip thang. It's kindof a nice mental change up, 'cuz the difference between a really respectable lift and an anemic li'l girl lift is really not all that much weight by any other standard.

i pray you all are well.

The Thunder

Did an hour run today. Tried to keep 'er in the mid-150s for a heart rate. And it was a seriously pretty day for once. As much as i'd like to get on a snowboard, i hafta say i wouldn't mind some sunshine and not having to scrape my windows every morning.

On a somewhat oblique note, we've basically shut down the looking-for-a-house thing. i knew we'd hafta pay "mortgage insurance" until we'd paid down 20%; but it turns out that would cost us around 300 quid the month. i was thinking, "Hey yeah i could also take 4K each year out onto the lawn and burn it." That way at least we'd get some heat out of it. Piss. On. That. That is piracy. Why would anyone in their right mind pay that? So anyhow, i guess we'll just be on a holding pattern 'til we've a 20% dp. As such, i went ahead and purchased the rolling thunder from ironmind. Sounds like a good workout. Next i'm a get some gravity boots. But i'm gunna get down below 200lbs this year.

"She's little, but she's Strooooong"

Well if even you are gunna go posting up, then i guess i should. Plus i need a benchmark. i've been hanging at just over 215lbs, weight-wise. And that's gross. i think i can get a bit more motivated to shave some fluff off when we stop averaging a daily temp high of 19ish. Just finished up a 5/3/1 cycle on deads, and i get to bump the max up, so i'll record that for future reference. Weights were based on a 490 max and went 370, 420, and 470. Got a double with the 470 which--kinda strangely--went up fairly easily, so i thought i'd try to lock 500. But i missed. Got 'er to the top of my shins, but my head wasn't in it for some reason. Funny really: i'm getting set up on the bar, and Annie starts asking me if she can do something-or-another, then i shake that off and i got a text from one of you as i was squatting, and by the time i started pulling i was thinking about birds or Tahiti or something. Ah well. i think 5 Cs'll lock up for me in the near future. i do like the idea of that Iron Mind thing. And i'd bet Annie would get into that too. All right: i've posted. Peace.