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Strength in Interesting Places

please don't post logs in picture form, it just makes your log larger in size than it needs to be - pictures are larger in kb than text by a considerable margin, which means there is more to load, which puts stress on the servers, which is the whole point of locking the logs at 1k.

the pictures are stored in another server, how is sherdog's server affected?
 
I notice that some guys mention in their sigs that they are a proud owner of Jauntypoints. What is it and how may I go about attaining such a prestigious token?
 
I notice that some guys mention in their sigs that they are a proud owner of Jauntypoints. What is it and how may I go about attaining such a prestigious token?

You must become worthy. Tradition dictates offering 5 virgins at once (hot virgins too, nothing below a 9) or something of equal merit.
 
I notice that some guys mention in their sigs that they are a proud owner of Jauntypoints. What is it and how may I go about attaining such a prestigious token?

JauntyPoints are an award for an exceptional achievement in the field of awesomeness, given by the IJC (International JauntyPoint Committee), of which I am chair. They are given out from time to time on no particular schedule. Basically, the committee is always monitoring the awesomeness of the various forum members, and if anyone reaches the required level, they may get a point. If several people reach it, there may be a shortlisting process. Haven't awarded any for ages, actually, although I guess that activity will probably need to move to the Pub thread.

* * * * *

Anyway, to keep my log on topic, thought I'd review what I've done in the gym since I've been back:

18th Sep: AM weights (main lifts + assistance), PM 40 mins LISS on treadmill
20th Sep: PM weights (main lifts + assistance)
21st Sep: PM- 60 minute incline treadmill walk
22nd Sep PM weights (main lifts only)
23rd Sep: PM weights (assistance), 45-50 mins LISS on treadmill, SMR
24th Sep: PM 45 minutes LISS on stationary bike, 25-30 minutes yoga
25th Sep: PM weights (main lifts + assistance)
27th Sep: AM weights (main lifts + assistance + six-back); PM 40 mins LISS on stationary bike
29th Sep: PM weights (main lifts + assistance)
30th Sep: PM 50 minutes LISS on treadilll, 25-30 minutes yoga
1st Oct: PM 30 minutes on C2 rower, goofing about with OHS
2nd Oct: AM weights (main lifts only), PM weights (assistance, six-back, abs), SMR
3rd Oct: PM 60 mins LISS on treadmill, some light DB rows and incline bench
4th Oct: PM Weights (main lifts + assistance)

I think this is pretty good. I've been very consistent with the weights. The conditioning/LISS has been much less consistent, which was mainly because my back got tight the first time I ran, and probably because of my inner ear infection, which wiped me out a couple of days. I'm happy that I was able to do yoga and also my six-back isoholds a couple of times, but these are things that will only really have any value if I can keep them up for some time, especially the yoga. Also no pain or achiness in any of the usual places (with the sole exception of one of the six-back isoholds) which bodes quite well. But of course I need to see how things develop as the weights start to get heavy, which I am still some distance away from.
 
I notice that some guys mention in their sigs that they are a proud owner of Jauntypoints. What is it and how may I go about attaining such a prestigious token?

Jelly? :D
 
Conditioning

LISS: Treadmill jog, 50 minutes

Had a plan to do some fun weights, but my friend who is just starting Starting Strength turned up at the gym so I spent a while giving him pointers on bench, squat and deadlift technique. Although he is tall and gangly, he has good lumbar flexibility and mobility and was able to get the hang of proper back position quite easily. I showed him the holy trinity of overhead squats, strict good mornings and reverse hypers too. By the time we were done, I didn't feel like doing anything else.

Tomorrow, the plan is stationary bike and yoga.
 
"Outside of a dog, a gym is a man's best friend: inside of a dog, there's no room for a squat rack"

- Groucho Marx, with a little help from Jaunty


Did I say today was stationary bike and yoga? That wasn't true. Today was weights day. And not a bad day it was...

Warmup
5 mins on the rower, then my basic squat stretches: reverse hypers, bodyweight GMs, bodyweight squats, overhead squats

Lower body: back squats
20kg x5, x5
40kg x3, x3
60kg x2, x2
80kg x1, x1
97kg x3, x3, x3, x3, x3

Upper body press: bench press
Shoulder prehab
15lb db x10, x10
20kg x5, x5
25kg x3, x3
30kg x2, x2
35kg x1, x1
40kg x5, x5, x5, x5, x5

Assistance: double "50/20"
Bodyweight ghetto "assisted" GHRs: 10 sets of 4; 2, 2, 2, 1
Bodyweight chins: 10 sets of 4; 2, 2, 2, 3, 2
= 47 GHRs and 51 chins in 19:45

Upper body pull: barbell rows
50kg x3
60kg x2
67kg x5, x5, x5, x5, x5

* * * * * * * * * *
Notes
- Squats were okay, although the first set was bizarre. Did something not quite right on the first rep, second rep I went shallow for some reason, third didn't quite have my balance. So every rep was different, every rep was wrong. I guess because now the weight is just starting to feel a bit heavy (oh how the non-mighty are fallen). After the debacle of the first set I concentrated on executing the form I know I can do, and they were all fine after that. I did realize today that I going a bit wider makes me feel quite a bit stronger.
- Not much to report on bench. Still light and pain free. Pausing somewhat at the bottom, doing them in a fairly measured way, just speeding up a bit on the last few reps of the last two sets.
- The mats I row off were being used, so I did my assistance before the rows. Today was tough... but I got the 50 reps on chins and almost got there on GHRs. The GHRs are done "ghetto", turned round on a situp bench, and with a bit of a pushoff; when fresh I only need a small one, and I can at least do a controlled negative now. My work capacity has gone up quite a bit- this is the end of my third week doing this, and I think I got my chins and GHRs from about 24 to very close to 50. Doing it as I am doing it, with small numbers of reps, there is no time for breaks other than going to get a drink of water, and when I started I was done by about 12 minutes. I'm not sure if I have ever done 50 reps of chins in 20 minutes- I rather doubt it.
- Barbell rows were not heavy, but they were a real slog after 50/20.
 
Thats a lot of GHRs, well done. Your ankles are flexed when you do them, as in foot and toes flexed closer to shins, right?
 
Thats a lot of GHRs, well done. Your ankles are flexed when you do them, as in foot and toes flexed closer to shins, right?

I modestly submit that it is a particularly large number of GHRs in under 20 minutes!

My feet are indeed dorsiflexed. What difference does it make?
 
In praise of... "50/20"

So, not everyone reads every page of my log (for some reason), so I wanted to post once again explaining 50/20 and how I am using it for assistance. Because I *love* it, and hardly anyone does it. Here goes.

What is it?

"50/20", which I did not invent, is a really simple approach to assistance: you have 20 minutes to do as many reps as possible. Do it in whatever sets and reps you like. If you can make 50 reps in those 20 minutes, next time you do it, use a slightly heavier weight.


What's it like to do?

Well, once you get to any kind of weight, your work capacity has to be high to do it. Exercises like squats and lunges are particularly nasty. 20 minutes is just not a long time for 50 barbell squats or 100 lunges (I do 50 in each side for asymmetrical exercises). And over that time frame, I always find that with a lot of the lower body exercises there is a significant element of anaerobic conditioning too. It really reminds me of a brutal circuit-type exercise. Anyway, a lot of the time what happens is that you start off doing sets of 10, and then fall off a little at the end: so you might do four sets of 10, with a few minutes between, and then two sets of 5. With harder exercises, though, you often have to a lot of much smaller sets: this is how it has been for me with Glute Ham Raises, and also chins, as when I started off my chins were at a low point and if I had tried to do 10 reps I would have gone to failure and wouldn't have been able to do more. When you do a few big sets, you tend to have a decent amount of time to rest, when you do lots of small sets the rests are very short- presuming that you are taking time setting up, putting the bar down, noting how many reps you did, getting some water.


Why is it good?

Personally, there are several things I like about it.

First, as I see it and understand it, it is a very pure hypertrophy type programme. It has you doing high total reps (which is what is important, apparently, not necessarily being in the 8-12 rep range for a set). And it steadily increases the work done, either reps or weight, in constant time. These seem to be basic requirements for hypertrophy.

Second, it combines two training approaches I really like: parts of T3, and my approach to "greasing the groove". The resemblance to T3 is to 10s day, when you do a reverse ramped 5x10, and have to get it done within a time limit that you always use for that day. 10s day is brutal but is effective for hypertrophy and really increases your work capacity. "Greasing the groove" as explained by Pavel Tsatsouline is more like doing a bunch of reps every time you walk past the bar, but my approach has always been to just go to the gym and steadily increase the volume of work done while staying away from failure. I've found the idea of just doing lots of manageable sets, and squeezing out more and more reps (of progressively smaller sets if needed) to be effective, and also very do-able psychologically.

Third, I like systems that have simple and fairly informal rules. Structured progression is very important, but I prefer not to have to have to use a complex spreadsheet. "50/20" is one of the simpler progressions out there, I think.


How I am doing it

So I am actually doing what I call "double 50/20"- I have 20 minutes to get 50 reps of two exercises. This means that there is almost no rest time, especially with exercises where I can't do long sets. But it does make assistance really compact: it feels like in just 20 minutes I can get really good quality assistance work done. At the moment I am doing a "double 50/20" after each of my three lifting sessions in the week. At the moment, I am doing the following three sessions:

1. Glute Ham Raises and Chins
2. Barbell Lunges/Spit Squats and Lying Tricep Extensions
3. Good Mornings and Curls

I am doing curls because (i) they are awesome, and (ii) I am still rehabbing my shoulder and don't want to add much extra work that would stress it, so a lot of other candidates like incline bench or shoulder raises are off the cards for now.

Although I have been doing it for only three weeks, my work capacity in the selected exercises has gone up quite a bit (e.g. first week I only managed about 24 GHRs, third week I managed 47), and most importantly my legs are feeling super-swolt. Because I have been working all my main lifts back from various injuries, '50/20' is actually by far the hardest part of my programme at the moment. Main lifts a breeze, assistance kills me.

I'd actually like to do more work in this format. Can't decide between an extra day, or possibly doing three exercises (probably with a bit of extra time- might make it "triple 50/25"). If I do three exercises I can combine a lower body/PC, upper body pull and upper body press. At some point when my shoulder is 100%, I can also spend a while focusing on that area in the same way that I am currently focusing on my glutes and hams- I am sure that my shoulder strength has always been lagging and is what has been holding back my pressing. Plus, of course, cannonball delts FTW.

Hmmm... wonder if I should post this in the main forum too...
 
I took a day off yesterday. It was good. I guess I had done something every day for 7-8 days or more, and the day before yesterday was especially hard. Feel better for it.

I leave Kabul this afternoon for Thailand, so the programme will be a bit disrupted today and tomorrow. It's going to be a bit tough with the family situation, but I am looking forward to being able to run in Chiang Mai a few times.
 
One time while I was training in Chiang Mai, one of the morning runs was up Doi Suthep. Everyone was running really slow so I passed them and took the lead. I had never done this run before, mind you. I had no idea where I was going, I just kept running to where I thought I'd see an obvious place where we all met. Well, that never came and I ended up running up the mountain for about an hour and a half before I figured I should probably turn around.

At this point, the gym had sent out all the coaches on their motorbikes looking for me and I was met near the foot of the mountain by one of the coaches on his motorbike. Apparently I gave them quite the scare and my nipples were not happy, either.

I did the run again the next week but kept with the pack and it turns out that you reach the turn within about 10 minutes of getting on the mountain and then run back through a steep little street to a waterfall.

Have you ever done that run?
 
One time while I was training in Chiang Mai, one of the morning runs was up Doi Suthep. Everyone was running really slow so I passed them and took the lead. I had never done this run before, mind you. I had no idea where I was going, I just kept running to where I thought I'd see an obvious place where we all met. Well, that never came and I ended up running up the mountain for about an hour and a half before I figured I should probably turn around.

At this point, the gym had sent out all the coaches on their motorbikes looking for me and I was met near the foot of the mountain by one of the coaches on his motorbike. Apparently I gave them quite the scare and my nipples were not happy, either.

I did the run again the next week but kept with the pack and it turns out that you reach the turn within about 10 minutes of getting on the mountain and then run back through a steep little street to a waterfall.

Have you ever done that run?

I live close to Doi Suthep, so what I normally do is run up there either directly or though the Univeristy. I then go up to the first turning on the hill, which takes you to one of the waterfalls, run up to the waterfall and then come back.

There's another turning about 1km up from there, which takes you to the river/waterfall at a higher point. There is a trail down from there which I *think* takes you to the lake at the top of Suthep Road (the next main road along from the one that goes to the mountain, on the other side of the University). One of my projects is to go and check it out- if it does go as I think it does, it will make an awesome loop for maybe a 12k run.

But you definitely need to turn- apparently it is 16km to the top of the mountain!
 
I am fairly certain that first turn is the first one that we took. I think I was close to the observatory when I decided I'd gone too far. I didn't even get to train that day because by time I got back, I was already late for class and had to get back to the school.
 
Chiang Mai: Workout One

Journey home was a pain- missed my flight in Dubai, had to buy a new ticket, missed my flight from Bangkok to Chiang Mai, had to wait 4 hours for new flight to CM... but I made it. Neither time or energy to do anything yesterday, so strength training resumed today. And this is what I did...

Warmup
5 minutes on cross-trainer, some overhead squats, reverse hypers etc etc

Squats
20kg x5, x5
40kg x3, x3
60kg x2, x2
80kg x1
90kg x1
98.5kg x3, x3, x3, x3, x3

Bench
20kg x5, x5
30kg x3, x3
35kg x2, x2
40kg x1, x1
45kg x5, x5, x5, x5, x5

Barbell row
50kg x5, x5
68.5kg x5, x5, x5, x5, x5

"50/20" Assistance
DB lunges (40lb DBs): 8, 8, 6, 6, 6, 6, 6, 3
Lying tricep extensions 30kg: 8, 8, 8, 6, 6, 8
(Total 43 lunges (each side) and 42 LTEs in 19:50)

Misc
Quick "pump circuit"- 5x10 front raises, bicep curls and pec deck, very light, very fast
Ab wheel roll-out: 10 reps

* * * * * * * * *
Notes
- I don't know why, but when I come back to Chiang Mai, squatting always feels super-smooth and comfortable. This time my knees also weren't clicking in the slightest. These were not especially easy: first rep was always fine, but second rep slowed down and third rep was increasingly a grind. I would guess that they didn't slow down *that* much, I just haven't really squatted heavy for a long time and have forgotten what it feels like. So I probably need to slow my progression slightly, and I guess will not be on Linear Progression much past 100kg.
- 50/20 was vile today. The power rack was in use so I used DB lunges instead of BB lunges/split squats. Went slightly lighter, but these were a notch or two harder than BB/split, even with slightly less weight. Possibly squats being a little tough didn't help. After the first two sets of 8 my legs were screaming at me and I was feeling like (i) I would never get 50 reps, and (ii) I was setting a date for DOMs with myself. I was going to cut it off at 3x8 then thought "fuck it" and decided to do my best to keep going, shortening the sets if I needed to. In the end I got to 43 reps, which was not bad as it was really horrible. I do think part of that is how you count them: they are asymmetric, so I feel like one rep should be each leg: but actually both legs work quite hard each rep- the front leg stabilizing and the second leg flexing and then extending; while the front leg is probably not working as hard as the back, it's a different ball game from, say, kroc rows which really are unilateral. Anyway, now my legs are blasted.
- Finished up with a very quick super-circuit for teh pump, and the ab wheel. Did some light shoulder raises, and found that lateral raises cause a slight pain, front raises don't. The pain from the lateral raises went away after 1-2 reps, but anyway I switched over to front raises after the first set. No pain doing overhead press or bench- don't know what is going on here. Maybe I will ice & ibuprofen it a bit. Went easy on the ab wheel as I haven't done it for such a long time.

I'm probably only going to have time for one other proper weights session while I am here. A may squat and bench again, and do some light deadlifts and overhead work. Then 50/20 for chins and GHRs again.
 
That looks like a very good session there Jaunty. You'll be bigger, stronger and more jakt than ever in no time.
 
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