DOMS Day

I had a pretty long workout yesterday. I was tired when I got home, and though I stayed up rather late I wanted to enjoy some non-DOMS time. I knew as soon as I woke up I’d be sore and ache all over. I am.

From a pure-strength perspective, yesterday’s workout was a little… meh. I still had a belly full of Christmas foods, and I think this compromised my benching form. When I activated my pecs I think it interacted unfavorably with this food, and I subconsciously began benching with my arms. It wasn’t until my second set of incline benches (incline bench is always where I really start to feel my chest anyway) that I realized my elbows were tucking in. I dropped the weight and did a third set and deliberately jutted my elbows out. I felt like an idiot for not having caught this sooner.

Wasted session.

After the strength maintenance work I went about the depletion routine. I’ve been eating a lot of carbs in the latter half of the week (though surprisingly few at the beginning of, which nearly balances me calorically.) I either wanted to burn the sugar already saturating my muscles, or I hoped that if I hadn’t fully digested all of that food yet that I could get some tardy partitioning on my side.

Onto the numbers:

Body Weight: 159lbs
Body Fat%: 18.6% (fully loaded; still made me a little grouchy with myself.)

Flat Bench

1. 45lbs. x  5
2. 60lbs. x 4
3. 80lbs. x 2 (machine) ~ end of warm-up
4. 100lbs. x 3 (machine)
5. 95lbs. x 1

I moved to the machine because the first two warm-ups seemed unusually difficult. I attribute this to lack of adequate rest between warm-ups which I ordinarily afford myself. Lack of patience lead to lack of reps, though I did hit my goal of three reps on the top set. My elbows always do what they’re supposed to on the machines but I had two major problems which led me back to the bar for the final set: hand spacing is horrendous/hurts my wrists; nasty sweaty prick stole the machine while I was getting a drink of water.

He was really gross. He didn’t offer to let me work in or anything, and I probably would have barfed on him if he had. Ugh. He came over while I was using it, asked me how long I had on it (“about three more sets, I just got here”) and after one set I put my workout log on the seat and went to the nearest water fountain to sip some water. Come back, he’s dripping all over the seat. Notebook’s on the floor. I grab my book, snicker at his calves, and go back to the floor.

Incline Bench

1. 85lbs. x 4
2. 70lbs. x 5
3. 65lbs. x 5

The top set I arguably shortchanged myself on. I don’t know where the failure was coming from, arms or chest (I didn’t know under stress of the bar, I didn’t think about it on the spot while I was writing in the log, and I can’t remember besides) but I could have probably screamed out a fifth rep on the top set. I had a lot more working out to do, and my goal was 4 reps for today, so I just left it to that.

Second set, as I said, was the “oh shit I’ve been doing it wrong” set, verified by the light final set I used solely to check form. I’m a doofus.

Incline Fly

25lbs. x 4, 4, 2

Nothing changed from last week.

I didn’t have my glasses on, so I got to play “who’s that look like?“:

• Had Alton Brown doing strict curls and rear lateral raises
• Pee-Wee Power Curls (with calf raise)
• My ex standing above my head (if you look at the mirror from the bench I was on) doing whatever she was doing. She had cool yellow short shorts, though, so I knew it wasn’t actually the ex. Still couldn’t look at her directly though. MIRRORS ONLY, COWARD!

Nautilus Abs

3 x 5 @ 60lbs.

I checked the other machine, it’s a “Life Fitness” brand ab worker. I love my gym. It has abs, biceps, and triceps in its own “wing” of the gym, near the pool, squash, and basketball courts. It’s also the closest section of machines (though to be fair it has benches with the vertical handles so you can do reverse crunches, and a mat with medicine balls) to the locker rooms. Presumably so you can pump up your abs/guns and run to the mirrors/pool as quickly as possible.

Speaking of, still playing the celebrity lookalike game: Alec Baldwin was doing some combination of limited ROM shoulder press + tricep extension with a cable machine, further down the line than the Life Fitness ab destructinator.

Oh, and I finally heard that “Poker Face” song while I was working abs. I was not amused. But, abs were the only thing I progressed on for-reals this session. So whatever.

RELATIVELY HIGH VOLUME TIME, GOOO~!

Round One

1. Horizontal Row: 3 x 15 @ 45lbs.
2. Dumbbell Lateral Raise: 13 @ 10lbs; 2 x 15 @ 5lbs.
3. Squats: 3 x 15 @ 45lbs.
4. Standing Calf Raise Machine: 3 x 15 @ 30lbs.
5. Dumbbell Curl: 2 x 15 @ 8lbs. (Pee Wee came by and did his power curls to show me how to lift 65lbs. Thanks bro. This weight was perfect for me, though.)
6. Cable Tricep Pushdowns (w/rope): 2 x 15 @ 30lbs. (Could have done 35, but probably not 40lbs., but the station didn’t have 5lbs. jumps.)

7 minute rest. Each numbered item was done straight through, so all the rows and then all the raises, and then all the squats, etc. 30-60 seconds between sets, no more than 2 minutes between exercises.

Round Two

1. Horizontal Row: 3 x 15 @ 45lbs.
2. Squats: 2 x 15 @ 45lbs.
3. Calf Raise: 3 x 15 @ 30lbs.

My shoulders are fried. I was starting to feel mighty nauseous before my second set of squats this round, and on the ninth rep vertigo hit me. I completed the set but decided not to risk a final one.

Overall, it was a good workout. Took me a total of about three hours to complete. Went to Barnes & Noble afterward and read some comics for a few hours. My arms were all pumped, and it turns out I have traps. I got some interesting looks when I took my coat off. Should have worn a bigger shirt.

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Thanksgiving Damage

So. Let’s see the damage Thanksgiving did.

Weight: 159lbs. – Pretty smoothed out from the carby fare lately.

I’m not really liking how much less I’m eating on would-be maintenance days. I’m losing weight too quickly. On maintenance days I don’t really care too much about my macronutrient split, but on fasting days I’m thinking of bumping up the amount of protein I’m having.

Today I’ve officially stalled on deadlifts, misloaded my chin assists, and regressed on my rows. The weights I’ve lifted today are what I am considering my functional ability. I will not be expecting these numbers to go up much, if at all, through the rest of the diet.

If they go backward, though, then I’ll know I’m doing something wrong and I will be officially risking lean mass. Which honestly, I don’t care about, but I want to maintain STRENGTH and drop FAT.

Here are today’s numbers:
Deadlift

1. 200lbs. x 2
2. 180lbs x 3
3. 160lbs x 5 (the only improvement this workout)

Chin Assist

1. 60lbs. x 6 (felt suspiciously easy, checked the stack, was supposed to load 50lbs.)
2. 40lbs. x 1 (just pissed off because I screwed up my reverse pyramid, so I overcompensated by the same amount I undershot. Surprisingly good form despite not being able to do another one.)

Horizontal Rows
3×5 @ 55lbs. – This one irritated me the most. Down from 85lbs. I couldn’t do 70lbs. either. I maybe could have, barely, but I’m trying to do this exercise explosively so I had to bump it down another plate. Saddens me.

A PROPS, though, go to my new friend Jake. He is the first person to use the squat rack next to me for something that was not only NOT curls, but POWER CLEANS! I shook his hand and told him to continue the good work.

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Raisin Bran Bench

I ate so much Raisin Bran and other carby shit yesterday that I completely negated the fast I did on Wednesday. I’m really pissed with myself. I let boredom and nerves get to me, control me, and overfeed me considerably. Today’s fast it to 5AM Saturday. I wanted to fast throughout Saturday since I’m not really there, mentally, to soldier through another day of no food so early on.

But it’s the last day of the week, so whatever. Doing it.

Here is yesterday’s workout:

Bench Press

1. 100lbs. x 2 (my right middle finger was infected when I worked out, I think my lack of right hand grip and just losing focus cost me the third rep)
2. 90lbs. x 3
3. 80lbs. x 4

Incline Bench

1. 65lbs. x 8
2. 55lbs. x 9
3. 45lbs. x 10 (how fortunate I am that my bottom set is the empty bar, haha!)

I had a much more difficult time with these sets than I was anticipating.

Incline Fly, 3 x 5 @ 15lbs.

Cardio: 30 minutes of 90s walk / 30s jog on the treadmill. 2 and 4 mph, respectively.

I really didn’t feel like doing cardio, but I was already in the gym, already sweaty, and figured I less didn’t-want-to-do-it-now that I would…n’t… want to… in the future. “Do it now so less need be done at a later date,” I felt.

I’m going lay out my workout for next week so I’m not in a rush to figure it out before I leave the house in the morning.

Bench Press

1. 100lbs. x 3-5
2. 90lbs. x +1 previous set
3. 80lbs. x +1 previous set

Incline Bench

1. 70lbs. x 5-8
2. 60lbs. x +1 previous set
3. 55lbs. x +1 previous set

Incline Fly

3 x 5 @ 20lbs. dumbbells

Gym Radio Tracks I enjoyed: “Hip to be Square” (Huey Lewis and the News); “Working My Way Back to You” (The Spinners); “The One I Love” (R.E.M.); “Just Can’t Get Enough” (The Saturdays)

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