What is this strange feeling? It is almost like warmth.

It was actually warm enough to go hiking today, so I went for a four-and-a-half mile one.  It didn't seem that long.  I still huffed and puffed going up the steeper trails, but overall it didn't feel like that much distance.

Still, it reminded me why I powerlift.  If you want a twenty-second burst of maximal effort, I'm all over it.  Sustaining even 75% effort for more than about thirty seconds?  That is a lot of effort and huffing and puffing and cursing everything.  No wonder I was never any good at PE as a child.  Well, that and my inherent distaste for team sports and pointlessly chasing a ball around a field.

After resting a while post-hike, I did S&S.  The swings I got down to 4:37, though holy crap, was I smoked.  If I can keep up that time for the next few sessions I'll move to one-handed swings with the 25lb.  TGUs - again, with the 25lb - came in at 8:09, but they felt awfully wobbly.  I want to wait to move up weight on that one until I really feel like I own the 25lb bell for every stage of all ten reps.  Oddly enough, they get easier on the last couple of reps, so maybe it's the technique I'm having trouble with more than the weight.  Either way, I'm not putting 35 pounds over my face until I'm stable with the 25.  Probably this will happen by the time I get one-armed swings down  below 5 minutes, so I can move everything up at once.

By the way - if you, like me, just started wondering why the hell lb is the abbreviation for pound, World Wide Words via The Google tells me it's because lb stands for libra, which is a shorter reference to libra pondo or "pound weight"; the English pound comes from the second word, but the abbreviation comes from the first.

Bad week for my PRs.

So I implemented the strategy of doing heavy singles before my work sets.  Well, "heavy."  They're ten pounds over my top work weight.  I might have to boost that up a little.

Monday was squat day, and my heavy set of 90 went up and down like a well-oiled machine but didn't top my all-time heavy lift of 100.

Thursday was bench press day.  I pressed 70 pounds for a single pretty easily despite the fact that it was after work and I hadn't eaten since breakfast; and my blood sugar level was at that point where you start tingling in all your limbs and become half convinced that you've evolved to a transcendent spiritual plane where Eternal Gainz can be yours if you only live on sunlight, water, and communion with the Divine.  (What, is that just me?  Well, I did pull a bench PR in that state, so.)

Today was deadlift day.  I pulled 160 for a single, which was a PR, and my top set was 150x5.  When I started 5/3/1, 150 was my 1RM.

Now if I just didn't have 35% body fat covering all these developing muscles.  I need to be more conscientious about doing S&S twice a week, and also about my diet.


Earlier this week, I realized why "my" power cage is always the one that's empty: it's the only one that doesn't face a mirror.  Today, some poor guy got stuck in the mirrorless power cage and was forced to actually turn sideways in the rack so he could watch his deadlifts in the mirror behind the dumbbell rack.

A good day squatting, on the other hand...

Awesome workout today.  I usually don't get the same endorphin rush from lifting that I do from a really good yoga class, but today I did, and left the gym totally energized.  The weights felt totally manageable and even light on the top set of triples; they'd probably have felt light on the extra set of five across too, if I'd rested longer between sets.

Today's workout:
Squats: 45x5x2, 50x3, 60x3, 70x3, 80x3, 80x5
Front squats: 45x5x3
Seated dumbbell press: 20x5x5
Kettlebell windmills: 20x5x5

Well, I say "kettlebell windmills."  I was doing them wrong.  Apparently you're supposed to bend forward a little in a way that is exactly not how you're supposed to do triangle pose, so basically I was doing triangle pose with a 20-pound weight held over my head.  I did a few reps after I'd gotten home and watched YouTube tutorials, though, so I feel a little better about my technique now.

Tiredness, S&S, and a music rec

Today's workout: S&S.  I didn't time it because for a number of reasons, mostly medication-related, today was a super low energy day.

I did start alternating sets of one-arm swings with two-arm swings.  Wow, the one-arm swings are heavy.  They definitely make the two-arm swings feel easy, though.

In non-fitness-related news, David Lang, of Little Match Girl Passion fame, has an incredible work called World to Come for voice and cello, which I just discovered today and I am in love with it:

TFW everyone else in the class is doing it differently.

No workouts were done this weekend.  That's because the DOMS from Friday's overdoing-it were epic.  This weekend was a recovery weekend.

Today's workout:

Kettlebell class, an hour of intervals.  Exercises included one-armed swings, clean and press, snatch, really difficult plank variants, and I don't even know what all else.

And goblet squats.

Now, goblet squats during intervals - yay, right?  By the time the squats rolled around I was about to die and would pretty much take any chance I could get to sit the hell down and see how close to the floor I could get my tailbone.  When I do goblet squats I go ATG because why not?  The weight's light and it stretches out my hips and lower back.  At that point my only concern was staying at the bottom long enough to get my breath back without drawing the instructor's attention and making him think I was a slacker.

But then I look around, and everyone else is at or above parallel.

Now, on one hand, oop and all that.  On the other hand, as mentioned before, I was about to die, and fuck everyone - I was sitting my middle-aged ass down between my ankles for a couple of breaths.  Also, the instructor came by and gave me a cue for getting rid of my lumbar slouch, which I've been worried about but haven't quite known how to fix, so bonus.

On the other hand, I still wonder if all those people doing kettlebell squats at parallel know something I don't.  Maybe it's a better workout that way?  Or at least harder to use it as an excuse to catch your breath.

Oop, turns out I'm pretty girly after all.

Today's workout:
Chins, 5x5, 70lbs assistance.
Dips, 5x5, 70lbs assistance
Squats, 45x5x2, 50x5, 55x5, 65x5, 75x5
Bench, 45x5x4, 50x5, 55x5
Deadlift, 45x5, 65x5, 80x5, 95x5, 105x5, 120x5, 135x5

Today I wore my neoprene knee sleeves to the gym for the first time.  Also, the gym was hot today for some reason.

Now, the thing to understand is that I almost never sweat from any part of my body but my hands and underarms.  It's not unheard of, but I really pretty much have to be in sauna-like conditions.  Or, apparently, wearing knee sleeves, because I have never sweat so much from the legs in my entire life.

I'm not even joking.  I was leaving actual drops on the floor.  Drops of sweat were running down my calves.  After every set I had to stop and mop up my legs from sleeve to sock.  It was gross and horrifying and the next time I wear them I am going to chalk the insides until I strew white powder all over the gym like Pig Pen wherever I go.  I just want to squat my body weight, I don't want to drip sweat from my knees while I'm doing it.

TL;DR: Today I sweat at the gym and it was gross and I was kind of traumatized.

On the bright side, 75 pounds on the squats were way easier today than they were on Monday.  And my knees are the one part of my body that don't feel like they've been run over by a truck.  On the not-so-bright side, I struggled with the deadlift on the heavy set, mostly because of grip strength, so I need to do Farmer's Walks.

It also doesn't help that the plates at my gym are 12-sided and tend to jump if not set down just right; so any deadlifts over 135 require you to leap back out of the way to avoid taking 135+ pounds straight to the shin, which makes deadlifting look like some strange hybrid of weight training and Highland dance.  Please buy circular plates for your gyms, people.

In other news, this article on genetics and weightlifting is required reading, though a little disheartening.

Progress on S&S

Today's workout:

S&S warmup, 15 pounds for halos, 25 for goblet squats.  I feel the goblet squats should be getting easier, but they do not agree.

2-handed swings:  25 pounds, 1x10, 6x15, 11 minutes.

TGUs, 5 per side, 15 pounds, 8 minutes.

My times aren't too far off the goal times, but there's a lot of progress to be made before I start thinking about moving up weights.

Swings: no arm pain this time, and I can definitely get farther into each set, and farther into sets as a whole, before my hip drive starts giving out.  Taking in a sharp breath on the hike definitely helps, and the "breathe behind the shield" cue seems useful for pretty much everything.

TGUs:  Going well on the right side, but my left side is way weak.  I can't lever up onto my elbow without bringing my leg off the ground and flailing like an upended turtle.  I've noticed this in my squats too - when the weight gets heavy I tend to push more through the right side.  Maybe TGUs will help even out my squats, to the extent that anything but a miracle can help my squats.

Overall: exhausted today for some reason.  Took a personal day to run some errands, fed the cats early, went back to bed, and dozed off and on until almost 11, and I'm still worn out.  Ugh.  Fairly sure I've lost some body fat, since I can actually sort of feel my hipbones, but I'm not checking my weight again for a few weeks at least.

The worst day squatting is better than... well, not too damn much, to be quite honest.

A training log is kept by every serious trainee as a record of his history under the bar.  It is an important source of data for determinations regarding staleness, overtraining, the effectiveness of newly added exercises, and the overall effectiveness of the training program... It should include the athlete's impressions of that day's workout, useful cues discovered, and any other subjective information that might serve a purpose later... It is an essential tool for both trainee and coach, and as such is not optional. 

 - Rippetoe & Baker, Practical Programming for Strength Training, Third Edition. 

Today's workout: 5/3/1, Cycle 2, Week 1

 Squats: 45x5, 45x5, 55x5, 60x5, 70x5, 75x6, 75x5, 75x4, 75x1
Good Mornings: 50x5x3, 55x5x2
Hanging leg raise: 10x5

It's so awesome how a really bad squat day can just ruin your entire workout.  And by "awesome" I mean "Fuck you, squats, it's the first day of my period, don't make me cry in the power rack."

My squats were a mess tonight.  The last few reps had every possible form issue - knees collapsing, egregious good-morning-ness, instability, you name it.  And now my knee hurts.  I'm glad my knee sleeves will be here in a couple of days.

I had problems getting past 75 pounds last time too.  I don't know what it is about that weight that hangs me up.  Maybe it's the first weight that the bar really starts feeling heavy, I don't know.  What I do know is that I'm going to repeat the squat sequence all three lifting days this week, because I will force an adaptation or die trying.

Seventy-five pounds.  I owe the Blessed Virgin about a hundred candles for making Baby Jesus cry like he has colic.

One good thing about squatting with weights, though - it makes your body weight feel pretty negligible.  I squatted up from sitting on the power-cage base recovering from a heavy set, and nearly bloodied my nose on the uprights and the Buddhist concept of the illusory nature of physical existence at the same time.

Deload week. FEELS BAD, MAN.

Deload week is exactly the opposite of donuts.  My body really wants it but my brain hates every minute.

Today's workout:

Deadlift, 60x5, 75x5, 90x5.
OHP, 25x5, 25x5, 35x5.  No, that is not a typo.  My upper body strength really is that lacking.
Squats, 45x5x3
Power cleans, 45x5.

Today at the gym, a guy was very enthusiastic about how cool my shoes were.  I gave my feet the side-eye in case that last set of deadlifts had caused my shoes to evolve into Romaleos, but no, they were still my beat-up twenty-dollar Chucks.  It was very strange and I finally put a stop to it by grabbing the 25-pound baby barbell and sticking it over my head.  To his credit, he did not commit the sin of trying to talk to me while iron was in play.

I may go this weekend and get a 16kg kettlebell.  I doubt I can do anything with it yet, but it can sit in my carillon and be inspirational.