Our Physical Fitness

Scribe said:

Yeah I probably paraphrased it incorrectly but the whole back is engaged in that stabilizing which at least marginally is going to suck up your reserves. Since I go Chest, Legs, Back, Legs, Chest, generally, this probably is delaying back development.

My legs and Chest are pumping so I really just need to shake it up.

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for a long time I did squat/bench/dead on the same day three days a week and ran right into a plateau. Stubbornly just kept doing it for way to long.

darjr said:

for a long time I did squat/bench/dead on the same day three days a week and ran right into a plateau. Stubbornly just kept doing it for way to long.

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Yeah I get stuck in things like that as I'm pretty resistant to change.

So what I'm going to do.

Swap to a different pull down bar. Like this one, but not as wide.



I'll have that going on Mon/Wed/Fri

I'm going to drop Squats on Tuesday, and do a different Leg press machine to replace it. I'll still have Deadlifts, but thats because I dont really have anything else smashing the Glute/Hamstring, and I'm hesitant to swap to the various machines that work that area because I'm an immature child in a middle age body.

Back (Wed) will change.

Single Arm Cable Row - Out (Stay's in on Mon/Fri)
Bent over Single Arm Dumbbell - In

Lat Pull Down - Moved to later in workout.
BBoR - In as 'Primary Ego Lift' in the workout.

Thursday, Squat comes in, essentially same as now.

See how that goes.

Tonights Chest workout was good, I did do a bit more core yesterday and felt a twinge on my last set (I had a sport hernia 20 years ago...) but thats somewhat normal.

I just watched the video for Dips, as I've been a lifelong fan of Dips, and it blew my mind. I may need to rethink all I'm doing.

Aaaaaand that was the final straw. I planned my workouts over break accounting for the student gym's limited hours. I went today and discovered that the lot was closed for a game they didn't bother to announce. Again.

I went back to the townie gym and reactivated my membership. The equipment isn't as good, the dumbbells only go to 100, it's a bit more of a drive, and it's a bit more expensive, but I don't care anymore. At least I'll be able to use it reliably.

So now I'm trying to decide if I want to go back to a 5 day/week U-L-P-P-L again or stay with the 4 day/week U-L-U-L. I'll also have to change things around to account for differences in equipment. In particular, I'm bummed about legs as I really REALLY like the hack squat machine at the student gym. The townie's hack squat is a tragedy. If nothing else, one of my pressing movements will be the perfectly adequate horizontal leg press, and the other would be...split squats (I'm already crying inside). I just don't trust barbell squats anymore at my age, and they're easily the movement I've injured myself the most often and severely.

TBH, I'm not too broken up about it as I'm just lifting recreationally anway. I just wish there was some dimension of my university that wasn't a clownshow of some flavor or another.

Evaniel said:

Aaaaaand that was the final straw. I planned my workouts over break accounting for the student gym's limited hours. I went today and discovered that the lot was closed for a game they didn't bother to announce. Again.

I went back to the townie gym and reactivated my membership. The equipment isn't as good, the dumbbells only go to 100, it's a bit more of a drive, and it's a bit more expensive, but I don't care anymore. At least I'll be able to use it reliably.

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That does sound frustrating. I hope things go better at your new (old) gym. And maybe, they'll upgrade their gear at some point.

Woke up and weighed in 185.

As I wait for my son.

I'm going to try this single set method next week and see how it feels.

Mon - Chest and Back
Tue - Legs
Wed - Arms

See how I feel.

We did half armor dominance workout Saturday and grapple drills then full armor melees at about 15-25%. Pacing myself is difficult, I think I almost passed out at one point.



Today we did a Dominance workout, grapple drills and we did softkit melees.

Dunno why the image is rotated....

Mannahnin said:

• Machine biceps curls 60x30, 70x22, 70x20, 70x16 +60x5. Fewer reps on every set than on my last heavy session (the 7th) for these exercises. But I think I had fewer pauses/smoother tempo.
• Smith inclined barbell bench 90x11+80x6, 90x11 +80x7, 90x9 +80x5, 70x12. Dropped the opening set at 70 and replaced it with another working set + drop set. Did a couple more reps at the working set weights compared to the 7th, dropped 3 reps on the bonus closing set.
• Machine rear delt flies 70x20, 80x16, 80x14. A little less than where I left off on the 7th.

This wound up again taking close to an hour again for just three exercises. Failure + drop sets still requires lots of rest, whodathunk it?

As previously mentioned my sleep has been a bit better in recent weeks, so I'm trying also to force myself to get more calories to support growth. Fingers crossed for my progressive overload over the next 3-4 weeks!

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Saturday night my sleep was pretty crappy, but I did get a decent breakfast, and I still forced myself to go in late Sunday morning. Limited time and not feeling great meant I didn't do legs. Probably hit those tonight.

• Smith inclined barbell bench 90x12+80x6, 90x10 +80x5 +pause & 2 more, 90x9 +80x5 +pause & 70x5, 70x12. Added a rep on set one, dropped 1 and paused on set two, added a drop set back on set 3. Pretty steady.
• Machine biceps curls 62.5x26, 70x24, 70x21, 70x16 +60x6. Added 2.5lb and dropped 4 reps back on opener, added 2 reps on set two, 1 rep set three, 1 drop set rep set four. Tempo suffering a little. Trying to keep it smooth.
• Machine rear delt flies 70x22, 80x12 +70x6, 80x14 +70x5. Added 2 reps back set one, had to break set two into a shorter opener and a drop set, then added a drop set to set three. This was pretty comparable to last time, but less apples-to-apples probably in part because I was rushing so had a little less rest between sets.

Overall not bad, and I did it in closer to 45min than an hour, so mostly holding steady and progressing a little on biceps feels decent.

I'm already second-guessing myself a bit and wondering whether I should try a mesocycle or two without the drop sets, or alternately, do the drop sets but give myself a rest day between my bench/biceps/rear delts day and my pulldowns/triceps/overhead press day. But I know consistency is important, so I at least want to finish out this mesocycle on this same plan as the last one. Stalling a bit could also be a result of just not eating enough to feed the growth, and the scale actually showed a bit of gain this morning, so I want to put more effort into the eating and see if that makes a difference.

So Mondays are my 'official' weekly weigh ins, and I was 186 on the gym scale. Highest ever.

I did the single or 1.5 set approach so most numbers higher.

Total time was 45-55 min instead of an 1.5 hour.

Half set means I did 6 to 8 of a low weight to warm up or get my body right.

Bike
2 set Curl
2 face pull

1.5 Bench 300 x 8, last rep was sketchy lol
2 Dips 90 x 8. I'm going to go to 100 next time.
1.5 Pull Down 180 x 8. Lats disappoint.
1.5 BBoR at 185 x 8. First time in a long time I tried this, so need to find right weight. This was OK.
1.5 Pec Deck, 235 x 8.
1.5 Cable Row, 200 x 10. This goes up next time.
1.5 Incline Bench, 200 x 8.
1.5 Incline Dumbell Press, 85s x 10. I think I could have done 95s.
1 Delt Raise 30s x 8.
1 Standing Curls, 35s x 10
1 Tricep Press, 87.5 x 8

Feel a lot harder than I thought. Feel warm, right elbow a bit unhappy.

Wish I had put 1 set of Dumbell Rows in, and that would have been perfect.

See how I feel tomorrow.