Efforts of an Aging Ectomorph (lifting)

02/25/2007 (later):
20 minutes of punching alternating with some more stretching as "rest". I'll be generous and say it was a 3:1 ratio. Basic Jab-cross combination on the heavy bag, and tried jab drills with my shoulder against the wall just to see how it went. Two sets of fifty jabs for both arms. Don't use the southpaw stance often, and have a slightly abraded right elbow as a result. Nothing special, just had some extra energy to burn last night.
 
02/27/2007:
Warmup: Rowing machine for 10 minutes @ resistance 10 @ c. 23 strokes/minute

Bench Press: 85x14, 165x5, 165x5 (all done with arched back and tucked elbows)

Military Press: 80x7, 80x7

Dips: 7, 6

Incline Bench Press: 115x8, 115x8

DB Lateral Raise: 20'sx5, 20'sx6

Wrist Roller (Extension): 12.5x1

Wrist Roller (Flexion): 15x1 (okay, but something along my left forearm popped and then stung for the remainder of the workout)

Wrist Roller (Extension): 12.5x.5 (left forearm didn't do so well here, I got the weight all the way up, but towards the end, I had real trouble bending my left wrist past parallel with my forearm)

Wrist Roller (Flexion): 15x1 (left arm didn't seem to be much of an issue here)

Total Lift time: 55 minutes
"Cool down": 5 minute jog, HIIT: 15:60 sprint:jog x 5, 5 minute walk/trudge/stumble.
Stretch: None. Not after the running. I'm just glad I got back to the locker room.
Bodyweight: 200

Notes:
The only lifting note is that the arched/tucked bench position remains foreign and a bit more difficult for me right now: 165x5x2 wasn't easy, and I did 165x6x2 ten days ago flat/flared without noting that it was particularly hard for me. I'll get accustomed to it in time, I suppose.

The cardio is a different story. I wanted to try interval running when I had something like an actual track (even a little 90-meter one) available to better gauge what to do with that damned recumbent bike for my regular cardio days. In retrospect, I made two mistakes: 1. Assuming that I could still do what was meant to be a stand-alone cardio session after I'd just spent an hour lifting, and 2. that I am in "good" cardiovascular shape by any imaginable standard. I tried the "Week 1, Good condition" run from the Running Man article I was looking at over in the Conditioning forum, which called for 5 "reps" of 30:60 sprint:jog. I did one, and knew before my first 60-second "rest" jog was done that it just wasn't meant to be. I dropped back to 15-second sprints, and still made it through the fifth interval mostly because I knew it was the last one. I meant to jog out another five minutes to cool down, but said jog rapidly deteriorated into what was little better than a brisk walk.

Looking back at the article, what I actually did was Week 1 for "Bad" conditioning. Week 1 for "Average" was just one more rep/interval. I probably could have done that if I'd started fresh, but it still was a somewhat painful and disgruntling experience. None of the fiddling with the recumbent bike that I'd done previously came even close to what I had just inflicted on myself. If the interval running program is at all adaptable to what I have available when I'm able to do cardio, then I'm going to need to really experiment to find out how to replicate what I just did to myself. So I can do it to myself again. :)

Dear God, the last time I wheezed like that, I was a pack-a-day smoker a week into a bout with bronchitis.
 
02/28/2007:
Warmup: TB Elliptical for 10 minutes @ resistance 7 @ 132 strides/minute

Deadlift: 145x14, 285x5, 285x4 (and that fourth rep was just plain ugly)

Chin ups: 7, 5

High Pull: 100x8, 100x8

BB Bent-over row: 100x6, 100x5

Straight-Backed, Straight-Leg Deadlift: 80x7, 80x8

Incline Twist Situps (@2): 20, 16

Total Lift time: 54 minutes
Cool down: Skipped.
Stretch: Skipped.
Bodyweight: 201

Notes:
This week's schedule is a mite messed up, so deadlifting day came a day early, and had to be squeezed into a tighter than usual time-slot. Said scheduling fun meant that I've lifted on three of the last four days, and I figured that my workout would suffer as a result. It did, but not as badly as it could have, I think. Banged my shin doing DL's again: same spot for the third time in three weeks. Wearing pants instead of shorts doesn't seem to have helped any, but at least it keeps everyone from having to look at the blood running down my shin for the rest of the workout. The only conclusion that I can draw is that my pull or my foot position is somewhat uneven, or I'd hit both shins, or alternate shins, instead of consistently hitting the left one. One more thing to work on, I suppose.

Pullups have been flat-lining. Will try switching to chin ups for a while and see if that makes and difference.

That's about it. I'm tired and sore as hell. The odds of continuing my experimentation with HIIT cardio tonight are low. Maybe some nice, steady endurance work....
 
Stonebreaker said:
Pullups have been flat-lining. Will try switching to chin ups for a while and see if that makes and difference.
Have you tried, adding weight, doing pyramids, grease the groove training and adding negatives?
 
I'd thought about adding weight, but as my BW rep-range was on the low side, I wasn't sure how well doing even fewer reps at higher weight would work for me. Adding negatives (pulling up and holding there as long as possible, yes?) sounds like it would work hand-in-hand with adding additional weight.

I should smack myself for not thinking of "grease the groove" training earlier; it's not like it isn't mentioned every time chinups/pullups are the subject of a forum thread, now is it? :)

I have a nice overhang in my house that should work just fine for a few pullups several times a day. Will throw that in there, too. Stickler for logging everything that I am, I'll probably put up a piece of paper or something right by it so I can keep track of how well I'm sticking to it.

Thanks, Smashius.
 
03/01/2007:
Recumbent bike at low resistence at moderate speed for 30 minutes.

That's it. No intervals, no marathons, just enough work to try to get the soreness out of my legs, and I'm just fine with that.
 
I need to get my ass back on the recumbent bike...but it makes such a good clothes hanger. :icon_chee

Keep up the hard work man!
 
It's a shitty piece of equipment, and the one in question is a certifiable antique by the standards of exercise equipment, but it's all I have available to me on the nights I can most reasonably do cardio. I'm going with a "inefficient exercise is better than none at all" philosophy on this one... it's all I've got. :(
 
03/04/2007:
Warmup: Arc Trainer: 10 minutes @ resistance 20 @ c. 130 strides/minute

Full Squat: 80x14

OH Squat: 90x8, 90x8

Hanging Leg-Hip Raise: 8, 7

Seated Calf Raise: 165x8, 165x6

DB Lunges: 35'sx8, 35'sx8

Full Squat: 175x3, 175x1 (fail on 2)

Leg Extensions: 100x6, 100x6

Total lift time: 65 minutes
Cool-down: TB Elliptical for 15 minutes @ resistance 7 @ 117 strides/minutes
Stretch: Skipped
Bodyweight: 200

Notes:
Same day, same time that I normally lift, only today the weight room was packed instead of nearly empty. Couldn't do anything in it's normal order, and, not surprisingly, there's world of difference between doing "heavy" squats right after you've warmed up and doing them essentially at the end of the workout. Annoying in the extreme, but it's one workout out of who knows how many dozens that I've done and will yet do, so I'll just write this one off and move on.

Started "greasing the groove" for pullups; I need to put a log-sheet or something down by the stairs where I'm doing them, but over this weekend it's been a set of 3-4 pullups, probably around four times a day.

MMA Notes:
My cable bill is going to be flat ugly this month, but watching Pride 33 and UFC 68 as they unfolded was worth it, I think.

I like Sobral as a fighter, but have to give credit to Lambert for surviving the initial onslaught and coming back to win. I fear that loss means that Sobral's headed back to the minor leagues for a while, though.

Not sure if I'd thought I'd ever see the day when a Matt Hughes fight was the second fight shown, but he got in there and did what he needed to do. I really hope Lytle wasn't serious when he said this was a "make or break" fight for him: he stepped into the cage with a champion and Hughes couldn't put him away; that counts for something in my book. I'm not sure what Joe Silva and the UFC is thinking for the immediate future of the WW belt, though. With Penn dropping back to LW, there are two very qualified challengers at WW right now (Hughes and Sanchez), and I don't know who should get first crack at St. Pierre. Sure, you could have a Hughes/Sanchez match (and I'd enjoy that one, I think), but who would St. Pierre fight in the meantime?

I've always been kind of indifferent to Franklin, and would have cheered if Jason "I'm nobody's stepping stone" MacDonald had pulled off the upset. I won't count that loss against him any more than for Lytle, though.

I wasn't that impressed with Kampmann when he fought Leites, and thought he was done for when McFedries was beating him on his feet. Then he took it to the ground, and turned what I thought was an attempt to move to mount into a very slick choke. I'll watch his next fight with renewed interest.

There's nothing I can say about Sylvia/Couture that hasn't already been said, I think. 25-minute decisions are usually painful to watch, but the two that haven't been agony for me were both Couture fights. I probably looked kind of foolish jumping up off the couch and bellowing when Couture put Sylvia down on his butt with that opening combo, but I really don't care. It was a hell of a fight. I don't know what Filipovic thought when he watched that fight, but if I were him, I'd be giving serious consideration to cutting a tiny bit of weight and going after Liddell's belt instead.
 
Stonebreaker said:
I probably looked kind of foolish jumping up off the couch and bellowing when Couture put Sylvia down on his butt with that opening combo,
You and me both, scared the hell out of the cat sat on my lap at the time.
 
I can only imagine what it was like at the arena. One man jumping up and yelling is one thing; 19,000 doing the same thing had to be unbelievable. I can't think of many MMA moments that have grabbed me by the guts like that first 30 seconds, and the rest of the fight was a slightly calmer, slack-jawed amazement as Couture completely denied Sylvia any chance of victory. Unbelievable.
 
03/06/2007:
Today's regularly-scheduled bench-pressing has been replaced with cardio work. I'm finding a kind of morbid fascination in watching how one small change in my regular weekly life schedule causes changes in just about every other day. Fun times. Anyhow...

Recumbent bike: 45 minutes, decent resistence, fairly high pace. Enough to work up a heck of a sweat.

Scheduling fun means that I will be able to go to the gym tonight. Instead of yesterday's benchpressing, I'll be doing tomorrow's deadlifting, because I won't be able to get back to the gym until Saturday, when I can do Tuesday's bench work and still (hopefully) be able to squat on Sunday. Fun!
 
Stonebreaker said:
slack-jawed amazement as Couture completely denied Sylvia any chance of victory. Unbelievable.
Pretty decent description of the fight, the third round when Randy decided to add insult to a beating by completly out-striking him was a thing of beauty, didn't know whether to laugh or cheer, ended up doing both.
 
If I hadn't been quite so amazed at Couture's performance, I might have felt sorry for Sylvia. He spent the whole fight completely off his game, dancing to whatever tune Couture felt like playing at the moment, and I can't imagine the pure shock he must have felt after getting floored barely 30 seconds into the match.

Nothing like an immediate knockdown from a man you're supposed to dominate on your feet to let you know that the evening isn't going to go as you'd planned.
 
Stonebreaker said:
If I hadn't been quite so amazed at Couture's performance, I might have felt sorry for Sylvia. He spent the whole fight completely off his game, dancing to whatever tune Couture felt like playing at the moment, and I can't imagine the pure shock he must have felt after getting floored barely 30 seconds into the match.

Nothing like an immediate knockdown from a man you're supposed to dominate on your feet to let you know that the evening isn't going to go as you'd planned.
It was the way he walked back to his corner at the end of the third that let me know the fight was done, poor guy looked like something had broken inside him and he wasn't able to understand what the hell he was supposed to do.
 
03/07/2007:
Warmup: Row machine for 10 minutes @ resistance 10 @ 22 strokes/minute

Deadlift: 145x14, 315x3 (questionalbe lockout on 3rd0), 315x1 (felt something in my lower back pop, put the weight down in a hurry)

Weighted Pullups: +25x3, +25x2 (held for as long as I could on 2nd rep)

High Pull: 110x7 (clipped my knee on 6th, sloppy of me), 110x6

BB Bent-over row: 110x5, 110x5

Straight-Backed, Straight-Leg Deadlift: 80x8, 80x6

Incline Twist Situps (@2): 17 (stopped due to repeated stabbing pains where I felt my erector spinae pop earlier).

Total Lift time: 61 minutes
Cool down: Skipped. Bad me.
Stretch: 3 or 4 minutes basic static stretching before discovering that my back hurt like hell when I stretched it, too.
Bodyweight: 199

Notes:
This was a shitty workout.
 
03/09/2007:
Warmup: Arc Trainer for 10 minutes @ resistance 25 @ c. 130 strides/minute

Bench Press: 85x14, 175x4, 175x3 (failed on 4th. No spotter. Crap.)

Military Press: 80x9, 90x6

Dips: 8, 5

Incline Bench Press: 115x6, 115x5

DB Lateral Raise: 20'sx5, 20'sx4

Wrist Roller (Extension): 12.5x1

Wrist Roller (Flexion): 17.5x3/4's (crapped out on last half of descent)

Wrist Roller (Extension): 12.5x1 (ugly descent, but finished the rep)

Wrist Roller (Flexion): 17.5x1/2 (got it all the way up, barely, and gave up.)

Total Lift time: 61 minutes
Cool down: Arc Trainer for 20 minutes at 20 resistence at c. 120 strides/minute
Stretch: 10 minutes basic static stretches.
Bodyweight: 200

Notes:
This one went better than the last two.

All benching was done with a good 1-second pause on my chest, and at least started with my elbows tucked. It feels like I'm noticably weaker in this position, and the bar kept drifting "north" towards my head (and elbows flared) as the reps got harder. Then I crapped out on my last rep and was busy rolling the bar down to my waist when some well-intentioned soul came and yanked the bar off of me. Can't fault him for wanting to help, but I hate the feeling of being "rescued."

Umm... yup. That's about it. Back is still tender, but nothing I did today put any strain on it, and it felt okay-ish when I streched out. With any luck, I'll be fine for squatting on Sunday.
 
03/11/2007:
Warmup: TB Elliptical: 10 minutes @ resistance 7 @ 138 strides/minute

Full Squat: 85x14, 185x2 (fail on 3), 185x1 (fail on 2), 185x1 (rerack, rest), 185x0 (complete, total, abject failure)

OH Squat: 95x8 (fail on 4th, immediate restart), 95x8 (fail on 7th, immediate restart)

DB Lunges: 35'sx8, 35'sx8

Seated Calf Raise: 165x7, 165x6

Leg Extensions: 100x8

Hanging Leg-Hip Raise: 5

Leg Extensions: 100x8

Hanging Leg-Hip Raise: 5

Total lift time: 72 minutes
Cool-down: Arc Trainer for 20 minutes @ resistance 20 @ c. 115 strides/minutes
Stretch: 10 minutes basic static stretches.
Bodyweight: 198

Notes:
Disappointing. Squat should have been 2x185x3 today. Grew frustrated after the second set failed even more miserably than the first, and thought "I came here for a measly six reps, and I'm going to do six reps even if they're all singles." Then, after one single, I failed to get even one rep. Then my form/balance sucked balls on the OHS. Disappointing.

S&P Notes:
After not checking in over the weekend, I come in this morning to find two pages worth of threads with new posts, nearly all of which were started by people I'd never heard of. I don't know if it's actually getting crowded in here or if it's just me, but I really wish there was some way of quickly determining which threads are worth reading and which just aren't. :)

Misc. Notes:
I'm sure that someone could do a fascinating study on how individual weights migrate from one place to another in a weight room (future episode of Numb3rs, perhaps), but I really can't think of a reasonable scenario that results in all the 5lb plates winding up on the power rack. That's where they were, though. Odd.

Oh, and (like so many other people), I went to see "300." Don't regret going, but it just wasn't a good movie. Oh well.
 
Nice lifting. You are probably the most analytical person of this forum. LOL

I would just set up a bit further away from the bar to prevent shin scrapes. I have never had it happen to me.

Glad to see you started adding weight to your pull ups/chins....I dont go above 3 reps most ofmy workouts for these. Hell anything over 3 reps is cardio to me.

I'd get rid of the leg extensions from your workout. Makes my knees hurt just reading it....

good luck dude
 
DEVILsSON said:
Nice lifting. You are probably the most analytical person of this forum. LOL

Last I checked, I'm also the weakest. Coincidence? :)

DEVILsSON said:
I would just set up a bit further away from the bar to prevent shin scrapes. I have never had it happen to me.
I'm not sure if "scraping" is quite the right word for what's been happening on my DL's recently, now that I look at it. It's more like the bar is banging into one spot almost exactly halfway up my shin, leaving more of a pressure-cut than a scrape. No clue why it started happening in this last month or so; too much pulling back and not enough lifting up, perhaps.

DEVILsSON said:
I'd get rid of the leg extensions from your workout. Makes my knees hurt just reading it....
Those are in there on doctor's recomendation, specifically to help my knees. After years of knowing that I had bad knees and just neglecting my legs to keep them from getting worse, I finally went and asked a doctor about them. A referal to an osteopath and a couple of X-Ray's later, and I find out that my knees aren't damaged so much as just poorly made (patella maltracking), and am told that balancing out my quad development (inner vs. outer) will help. The doctor recommends leg extensions with my toes pointed inward (feet like /\), and off I go. My pipe-cleaner legs are still by far and away my weakest link, but my knees don't bother me much at all these days. The moral of the story? Umm... talk to your doctor before giving up on any portion of your exercise program. :)

DEVILsSON said:
good luck dude
Thanks!
 
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