Workout for Friday, August 6, 2010

I went out to my cabin after I went to the gym on Friday, so I didn’t get a chance to upload my workout.

I don’t really remember what I was going to rant about so this is going to be pretty bare-bones.

Workout for Friday, August 6, 2010

Weight: 167.5lbs
Body Fat %: 16.2%

Start: 10AM
Finish: 12:09PM

Bench Press

1. 45lbs x 5
2. 45 x 5
3. 55 x 5
4. 75 x 3
5. 95 x 2
6. 110 x 1 (the second rep was horribly dirty and the third didn’t reach lockout, obviously staying)
7. 95 x 5 (increase)
8. 80 x 7 (increase)

I’m not horribly concerned. My chest is probably still pretty fucked from the depletion workout that I over-volumed on. I felt pretty fucked yet from that coming into this workout. I don’t know how I’m going to sort out my B workout just yet, but at the time what I knew was that I wasn’t ready to be doing deadlifts and I didn’t have time to sort out an alternative program aside from the one I had readily available.

Incline Bench

1. 50lbs x 5
2. 90 x 2
3. 100 x 4 (one less than what I was going for, stay)
4. 85 x 7 (increase)
5. 70 x 8 (increase)

ChinAss (bodyweight = 172)

1. 42lbs x 5
2. 42 x 5
3. 72 x 5
4. 87 x 3
5. 107 x 5 (this pissed me off, I really have to keep the work set on the same line in my notebook as the exercise name)
6. 127 x 3 (fortunately I didn’t lose a rep over it, stay weight)
7. 107 x 5 (increase)
8. 87 x 7 (increase)
9. 77 x 9 (increase)

Overall this exercise went pretty well, though I was ready for a nap by the time I finished here.

Stationary Bike

3.17 miles, 22:11

Level 1 intensity. Just too tired to go the distance this day, really.

Notes

I’m pretty solidly 20lbs away from being 5% bodyfat. I mean, of course I should be taking these measurements as dry as possible. But I’ve started my proper LeanGains-inspired fasting protocol on Sunday (August 8) and I’ve gotten my yohimbine and BCAAs in the mail, along with complimentary fat caliper (“free gift” for spending an excessive amount of money on supplements.) On Tuesday I’m going to take measurements with both the bio-impedance meter at the gym, as well as taking a skinfold measurement of my gut.

There’s a three-site measurement method with the calipers as well, but having tried to measure my chest on my own made me realize I only measuredly care about the fat loss around my navel, so, that’s what I’ll be pinching.

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Simply Depleted

Eh.

I managed to knock my head during a seizure since last I updated. Kind of weird what things I lose from my mind when that happens. I’m looking back on everything and feeling it’s too complicated.

I’m going to stop with the notation crap.

Tomorrow I have a photo test for an agency in Chicago, so today I’ve done a massive workout and spent some time in the sauna to shed some water.

Depletion Workout for Tuesday, August 3, 2010

Block One

Leg Press: 12 sets of 15 @ 50lbs. (going to add weight to this one next time)
Chest Press: 6 x 15 @ 50lbs.
Row: 6 x 15 @ 45lbs.

Block Two

Leg Curl: 12 x 15 @ 45lbs. (…ow)
Incline Press: 6 x 15 @ 45lbs.
Pulldown: 6 x 15 @ 50lbs.

Block Three

Chest Press: 1 x 15 @ 50lbs.; 2 x 15 @ 40lbs.
Pec Fly: 2 x 15 @ 40lbs. (felt I was using my arms too much on the chest press, but then realized I did entirely too much volume on chest anyway and THAT was why my arms hurt…)
Calf Raise: 3 x 15 @ 45lbs.
Bicep Curl: 2 x 15 @ 8lbs.

Block Four

Lateral Raise: 3 x 15 @ 35lbs.; 1 x 15 @ 20lbs. (BARELY)
Crunch Machine: 3 x 15 @ 30lbs.
Calf Raise: 1 x 15 @ 45lbs.

Block Five

Bicep Curl: 4 x 15 @ 8lbs.; 2 x 15 @ 5lbs.
Cable Twist: 6 x 15 @ 30lbs.

Block Six

Pushdown: 8 x 15 @ 17.5lbs (going to add weight to this one next time, guess I was wrong about my arms…)
Calf Raise: 8 x 15 @ 45lbs.
Cable Twist: 3 x 15 @ 30lbs.
Crunch Machine: 5 x 15 @ 30lbs. (will add weight)
Lateral Raise: 1 x 15 @ 20lbs.

The exercises were not necessarily done in the order shown, and definitely not straight across. I’m just noting volume because it’d be a huge hassle to delineate the order… and largely unnecessary besides.

Cardio

Stationary Cycle: 7.44 miles in 35 minutes (majority intensity: 2)
[26 minute break]
Treadmill: 1.65 miles in 35:46 (majority intensity = 3 incline, 3.3 mph)

There were slower warm-up/cooldown periods I’m not noting. Next time I’m going to start the machines at the listed intensities to get things going quicker.

Workout Timeline

8AM – EC1, bs275
9:17 – Block 1
9:41-9:47 – Five minute break leading into Block 2
10:15-10:20 – Break to Block 3
10:39-10:47 – Break to Block 4
11:02-11:07 – Break to Block 5
11:36-11:40 – Break to Block 6
12:20PM – Finished weight portion of the day
12:36 – EC2, bs322
1:05 – bs315
1:48 – Finished 35 minutes of cycling
2:50 – Finished 35 minutes of walking
5 – EC3
6 – bs257

EC = Ephedrine/Caffeine (25mg/400mg)
bs = blood sugar. It’s always been a concern of mine that my sugars get too low during high-volume lifting… clearly not as much of an issue as I expected. I took my usual amount of slow-acting insulin but none of my ‘fix yer damn sugars’ insulin, just to get a gauge of exercise-related impact.

Bodyweight Timeline

8:55AM – Body Weight: 174.5lbs
9:10 – MASSIVE CRAP, BW – 172.5lbs., Body Fat: 17.9% (sad day)
12:30PM – 169lbs.
1:03 – Not quite so much crap. 168.5lbs.
2 – 166.5lbs
3 – 166lbs
3:50 – Finished shower. 165.75lbs.
4:11 – 10 minutes in whirlpool. 165lbs.
4:35 – 7 minutes in dry sauna. 164.5lbs.
4:55 – Spent another 5 minutes in the dry sauna and started to get lightheaded, so I decided to stop. 164.5lbs.
5 – Final weigh-in before I left, having air-dried a bit. 164lbs.

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Some Other Measures

I was paging through this food log I’ve been writing since I started on Friday.

I don’t have any of the macro information yet (aside for maybe some of the stuff I’ve eaten outside of the house, because I looked it up on my phone so I knew how much insulin to take.)

Apparently the day after my first training session on the fasting scheme of LeanGains, I took some circumference measurements. I really want to make clear that the only portion of his program I’m really aping is his 16 hours of fasting, 8 hours of feeding, roughly the same times every day. My macronutrient splits are nonsense and my calories are not yet in order (look for that post on Friday when I look back on this first week, doing a dietary audit, hah.)

Now, I barely remember doing this. Certainly not what day this all was done, specifically, but I do remember being astounded that my chest was even a quarter of an inch larger than my waist. I intentionally pushed out my gut but relaxed my chest. I wanted to see my absolute worst relative measurements in these regards…

And I definitely remember being irritated that I couldn’t properly measure my shoulders because I didn’t have anyone to help me and my wrists wouldn’t bend enough to do it myself.

As Posted in the Workout Log, July 16, 2010

Weight: 171lbs.
Body Fat Percentage: 17.2%

Fat Weight: 29.241lbs
Lean Body Mass: 141.759lbs

July 17, 2010

Chest: 35.75″
Waist: 35″
Hips: 40″
Thighs: 22.5″ (they’re the same size)
Calf (L): 15″
Calf (R): 14.5″
Neck: 15.25″

And then, Today, because I forgot to do my arms, July 21, 2010

Wrist: 6.25″
Forearm (R): 9.5″
Forearm (L): 9.25″
Upper Arm (R): 13″
Upper Arm (L): 12.5″
Shoulders: 44″

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Ow, My Everything (P3C4D1)

Tuesday I decided to run a depletion workout to “make up” for the Independence Day Eat Like a Moronathon.

And, well… holy fucking ow.

The routine I’m following for this cycle is based off of Lyle McDonald’s Ultimate Diet 2. The nomenclature for the, uh, callsign stuff, is changed as follows:

• Phase and Cycle numbering will press on linearly. It’s a different diet set-up, and the workout is different, but it’s still “the next in line.”
• The workout LETTERING, however, will change. A and B will be reserved for when I return to a LeanGains-inspired routine. For Lyle, I’m using D, T, and P: Depletion, Tension, and Power workouts as inspired by him.

I’m not actually running UD2, because I lack the autism for that. But a lot of the principles will be recognizable to those who have read it, and utter nonsense to those who have not.

If you haven’t read it, tough. I’m not going to go out of my way explaining what I’m doing beyond this: the depletion workout day(s) are exactly as it sounds. It’s high-volume, low-nutrition (specifically carbs), and murders my muscles. The tension workout primes me for a carb refeed, which in turn fuels me for a power (strength-retention) workout. I only plan for the poundages to go up on the power workouts and POSSIBLY tension (meaning: I’ll decide when I get there.)

The marker for improvement with the depletion workouts will be that I get them done faster.

I wasn’t used to such high volume, and I found myself winded and needing to rest way more than I would have liked with this type of workout. I had to drop poundages several times to be able to continue working. I’m going to use the lowest numbers that I found in this workout in the next depletion workout to be the weight across all sets in the next attempt at this workout. I was time-restricted to begin with, taking so long get through this workout had an exaggerated annoyance factor for this reason as well (I need to be done by 11:30AM to have time to shower and be on a bus to visit a friend an hour-and-a-half away, on time.)

So, not having time for the full four-hour workout I would have “liked,” I did two rounds, one of each depletion. The distinction between the two is purely hitting chest, back, and midsection from different angles. This will be obvious when you look at the routine itself.

Depletion Workout for July 6, 2010

Round One

• Leg Extension / Leg Curl Superset (no rest)
  • 65lbs x 15 / 55lbs x 15
  • 50 x 13 / 45 x 15
  • 30 x 15 / 25 x 15
• Chest Press / Row Superset (no rest, except *five minute break)
  • 75lbs x 12 / 75lbs x 12
  • 65 x 12 / 60 x 6*
  • 50 x 15 / 45 x 15
• Lateral Raise / Calf Raise Superset (no rest, except *five minute break)
  • 50lbs x 12 / 45lbs x 15
  • 35 x 15* / 45 x 15
  • 35 x 15 / 45 x 15
• Dumbbell Curl / Cable Pushdown Superset (no rest)
  • 10lbs x 15 / 27.5lbs x 15
  • 10 x 15 / 27.5 x 15
• Cable Torso Twist
  • 30lbs x 15
  • 30lbs x 15

Ten minute break, then on to the next round.

Round Two

• Leg Extension / Leg Curl Superset (no rest)
  • 30lbs x 15 / 25lbs x 15
  • 30 x 13 / 25 x 15
  • 30 x 15 / 25 x 15
• Incline Press / Pulldown Superset (no rest, except *five minute break)
  • 45lbs x 15 / 75lbs x 15
  • 45 x 15 / 75 x 12*
  • (should have done a third set, but I didn’t)
• Lateral Raise / Calf Raise Superset (no rest)
  • 35lbs x 15 / 45lbs x 15
  • 35 x 12 / 45 x 15
  • (only two sets on shoulders, did the third set of Calf Raises later)
• Dumbbell Curl / Cable Pushdown Superset (no rest)
  • 8lbs x 15 / 27.5lbs x 15
  • 8 x 15 / 27.5 x 15 ~ really had to push for the last couple reps on the left arm curls
• Crunch Machine
  • 30lbs x 15
• Calf Raise
  • 45lbs x 15
• Crunch Machine
  • 30lbs x 15
  • 30 x 15
  • 30 x 15

While I never sat around and ‘rested’ like I ordinarily would, I certainly didn’t make any effort to rush from one machine to the next. The extent of my rest periods would probably be the 20 seconds or so it takes walking from one machine to the next.

Workout Start: 9:05AM
Round 1 Finish: 10AM
Workout End: 11:20AM

Weight: 169.5lbs
Body Fat Percentage: 16.9%

I ate somewhere in the neighborhood of 175g protein since that workout. Presently fasting until pre-workout tomorrow barring any wonky blood sugar issues or free lean protein.

Seeya then!

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GANKUTSUOU (P2C3B1)

Going to Lynyrd Skynyrd today.

Here’s yesterday’s workout.

My legs are very, very sore, even though I skipped the direct ham/quad lifts. I didn’t over-use my back in deadlifts today, finally, so it’s only barely feeling it. I think sprinting after a bus to get to Jeanette’s house fully failed my legs.

Workout B1 for Monday, June 28, 2010

RDL

1. 65lbs x 5
2. 100 x 3

Hook-grip for both.

Deadlift

1. 135lbs x 2 (hook-grip)
2. 170 x 3 (left / right grip)
3. 150 x 3 (right / left grip)

Increasing by 10lbs next workout.

Lateral Raise Machine

1. 35lbs x 5
2. 55 x 3
3. 70 x 2
4. 90 x 2

I was just GASSED by the time I got to my work set here. Side-effect of proper deadlifting, or just not resting enough because of time crunch. Dunno. This usually comes after the legwork of curls and extensions, so possibly that as well.

Asschins – Bodyweight 167lbs

1. 42lbs x 5
2. 72 x 3
3. 92 x 2
4. 120 x 3

Preworkout Weight: 165.5lbs

Body Fat Percentage: 15.7% (does anyone just want to buy me a caliper or something? FML.)

9:15A-10:10A ~ Then entirely too much time shaving in the shower. Yep.

Good day, though. I hate leg curls anyway.

Gankutsuou is a fun show, also :D

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Notation Notsure (Workout A1)

Yesterday was the beginning of my 26-week quest to sub-10% bodyfat.

TONETONETONE

I’m not really sure how to title these posts based upon what I’m doing. I was thinking something like “Cycle 1, Workout A1″ but then I realized that doesn’t really cover my dieting phases.

Phases: periods of dieting (DIETING IS A PHASE HURR)
Cycles: periods of training (since this is infinitely continuous)
Workout: eponymous

Phase 1 Cycle 1 Workout A1 just seems really cumbersome. P1C1WA1, aside from looking hilarious, just sounds a little clinical to me.

Maybe what I’ll do is have a normal post title and just try to cram that stuff in in parentheses. Almost like I did here with this post. I’d go back and change it but I’m too lazy to update the permalink too.

Workout for Monday, May 24, 2010

Something different that I did was walk on the treadmill between exercises.

T(readmill): incline/mph; time @ approx HR

Bench Press (free weight)

1. 45lbs. x 5
2. 50 x 3
3. 70 x 2
4. 85 x 8 (not bad)
5. 85 x 8 (last rep was slow as hell but I didn’t want to stop at 6)

Going to keep the weight here until it just ‘feels’ easier.

T: 2/2; 5min @ ~100bpm

Incline Press (machine)

1. 45lbs. x 5
2. 75 x 3
3. 90 x 2
4. 120 x 1 (SLOOOW, felt like I was choking!)

Obviously staying the weight.

T: 2.5/2; 5min @ ~90bpm

Hammer-Grip Horizontal Press

1. 50lbs. x 3
2. 70 x 2
3. 85 x 8 (pretty easy)

This exercise I definitely want to increase weight on.

T: 2.5/2.5; 5min @ ~105bpm

Pushdown

1. 27.5lbs. x 5
2. 32.5 x 2
3. 37.5 x 12

Again, pretty easy. Probably will increase next workout as well.

T: 3/2.5, 5min @ ~105bpm

Pulldown

1. 45lbs. x 5
2. 65 x 3
3. 85 x 2
4. 110lbs x 8

I could have done more probably, but my grip was failing. Especially on my right wrist which felt like my hand was being pulled out of the joint.

I’m going to increase the weight.

T: 3/3, 10min @ ~120bpm

Workout Time: 108 minutes

Body Weight: 167.5lbs
Body Fat Percentage: 17.4%

Condition: C+. Intention to come into this workout fasted went in the completely opposite direction of coming in carb-loaded. Didn’t get a full night’s sleep (too excited to work out, was anticipating a hair cut that I didn’t get.) I had a decently recuperative power nap pre-workout though. Had some peanut squares (kind of like peanut brittle, from Old Dominion) and a plain blueberry bagel about two hours preworkout due to a blood sugar crash.

Took EC about an hour preworkout and nearly two hours post, due to sauna (and just because that’s when it would have been timed, anyway.)

Pre-sauna weight: 168.5lbs
After 3 sessions, 20/10/10 = 40 minutes: 165.25lbs.

My goal was to try to drop three pounds and I did so, though it was more to lose the water from around my face to help gauge how my hair was going to look when I become leaner.

I ate a little under 1500kcal over the entire day, which is roughly half maintenance. I’ll be trying for maintenance today (should be pretty easy) and then fasting tomorrow.

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Panda Bull

I woke up on my own in time to check my email and get my stuff for the gym ready. I went out, made my protein shake, and as I was drinking it noticed that my mom (ride to the gym) had left without me.

Mother…

So I called my dad and we ran a side errand and he dropped me off at the gym.

I get into the locker room, open my bag: didn’t put my notebook (workout log) in the bag.

…Fucker.

I decided to strike a balance between volume and intensity by testing my 5RM. I figured that today I’m ‘primed,’ carb-loaded but not weighed down, not tired, and only a little stressed/pissed off… which may have actually helped my cause anyway. I beat the shit out of myself in lieu of being capable of kicking anyone else’s ass.

I basically did straight sets until I couldn’t perform five reps. Then de-loaded for the following two sets as though I was reverse pyramiding as usual.

The top set weight is what I’ll be striving to MAINTAIN as I go further into my diet.

Workout for Tuesday, March 9, 2010

Pulldown

• Sets of 5: 45, 55, 70, 85, 100lbs.
• Set of 3: 115lbs. (form not so good, but adequate, I got it below my chin without curling it)
• Set of 5: 105lbs.
• Set of 7.5: 95lbs. (5-second hold on the half-rep)

Incline Press (Nautilus)

• Sets of 5: 20, 25, 30, 35, 45lbs.
• 1 rep: 60lbs.
• Set of 3: 50lbs.

I didn’t like the way my shoulders were feeling on this machine. It felt like I was activating too much of my lateral delts and not my pecs. I switched over to the machine next to it, which looked more like a wide-grip incline press setup. The weights weren’t as minutely customizable (no 5 or 10-pound jumps) but, form is key! The whole reason I’m switching over to machines is so that I can let form concerns be less on my ass than they otherwise would be.

Incline Press (Star Trac)

• 8 reps: 45lbs.
• Sets of 5: 60, 75lbs.
• 3 reps: 90lbs.
• 7 reps: 75lbs.
• 12 reps: 60lbs.

And so you see, only my top set can stay where it is. However, being that the jumps are only in 15-lb increments, the two deload sets have nowhere to go. I guess I’ll just rep it out like a madman, hah.

I decided to do some crunch machine to give my shoulders a bit a break. I don’t think that I’ll be doing abs on a regular basis, or, if I do, I want to see if I can find that ‘twist’ machine so I don’t just work this part of my core, and so that I don’t totally rape my shoulders trying to do them with cables.

Nautilus Crunch

• Sets of 5: 20, 35, 50, 65, 80, 95lbs. (the last set I noticed that the handgrips were too high and caused too much of my arms assist in the pull, so I raised the seat)
• Not even a rep: 100lbs.
• 5 reps: 95lbs.
• 6 reps: 90lbs.
• 11 reps: 85lbs. (WHEW!)

Lateral Raise

• Sets of 5: 20, 25, 30, 35, 40, 45, 50, 55, 60, 65, 70
• 1.5 reps: 75lbs.
• 3 reps: 70lbs.
• 4.5 reps: 65lbs. (held at halfway for a bit, didn’t count the length of the hold)

I skipped cardio for today. I was pretty beat and the workout already took about two hours. I don’t think I want to spend longer than two hours at a time in the gym if I don’t REALLY have to.

Weight: 164lbs.
Body Fat: 17.6% (I’m starting to get irritated by trying to get my hydration levels right!)

Condition: PRIMED! (new factor I’m recording, I don’t think I could have felt more ‘ready’ to work out than I did this morning.)

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Ignoring The Stopwatch

I did something yesterday while I was working out that I have never done since I started training five years ago. Rather, I didn’t do something.

I didn’t time my rest periods.

In the past I’ve certainly NOT RECORDED my rest periods, or been NOT ANAL about them (oh my god, I’ve rested thirty seconds over two minutes, WHAT AM I SUPPOSED TO WRITE DOWN!?) but I’ve never been totally unaware of generally how long it was since my last set.

When my dad got me started with lifting when I was fourteen, he didn’t lord over me on the machines. He was right next to me working antagonist groups, but he never said: GO NOW. DO THE SET RIGHT NOW. END OF THE WORLD IN FIVE MINUTES AND YOU STILL HAVE THREE SETS.

Nope. Just “when you’re done with your set, look at the clock. After two minutes, do your next set.” So I did.

Sometimes a set would take longer than another because I recently bumped weight, or whatever. He had his own workout going on and would peek over from time to time to make sure I was using my biceps and not my ass when I did curls, but he didn’t count my reps for me. He didn’t count my rest periods for me. He kept it simple and chimed in if I was doing something horribly wrong.

In all my recent efforts to reduce complexity in my program, I’ve just found that I’m still programming my rest periods as though they really mean something. So I decided to leave the watch in the locker and just go whenever I’m ready.

Just as I thought I would, I recovered from warm-up sets quickly (in many cases, significantly less than the two minutes I prescribe myself on my workout tearsheets) and needed an undetermined longer amount of time to recover from the top sets on down.

What was once pushing three hours to do got knocked out in about an hour-and-a-quarter. Accounting for the additional 30 minutes of steady cardio I tacked on as part of a “moar srs” fat loss effort and it’s still roughly an hour of time saved.

I’m certainly feeling the after-effects of the workout now, more than I did when I took those extra minutes, but I LIKE that. It’s not a debilitating level of soreness, just “hey man, take it easy.” Which is what I want to feel on my rest days!

Speaking of rest days: I’m reconsidering my approach to frequency as well, meaning the number of times per week I work out. I can get by on one or two workouts a week, and it really isn’t a broken or horribly rigid scheme to begin with.

But MAYBE I could do more, and I’d like to allow myself the opportunities to try, should they present themselves.

Simply, my approach to rest intervals, both between sets and between workouts, is this:

“Wait until you’re comfortable, without getting RELAXED, and go again.”

That was my subvocalization yesterday, talking to myself so I wouldn’t feel obligated to check the clock.

Workout for Tuesday, February 23, 2010

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Sans Bullshit

I received an ankh for my birthday; I've wanted one since I was very young.

Lots of horeshitastic nonsense in January, I mean ta tells ya!

But rather than get into all of that, suffice to say I’ve been binging rather orgasmically. The only record I’m obliged to place at the moment, is Thursday’s workout.

Depletion workout on Monday, with a return to fasting as well.

Birthday Lifts

Deadlift

1. 65lbs. x 5 (from hang; hook grip)
2. 65lbs. x 5 (hang-hook)
3. 95lbs. x 3 (hang-hook)
4. 140lbs. x 2 (from floor; hook grip)
5. 165lbs. x 5 (from floor; left hand under; increase next week)

Incline Bench

1. 45lbs. x 5
2. 45lbs. x 5
3. 60lbs. x 3
4. 80lbs. x 2
5. 90lbs. x 3 (stay-at next week)
6. 80lbs. x 5

Hi-Low Twist

1. 20lbs. x 5
2. 30lbs. x 5
3. 40lbs. x 3
4. 50lbs. x 2
5. 60lbs. x none! half-way, static hold (staying the weight)
6. 50lbs. x 1 (keeping in mind the goal of the de-loaded sets is to get one more rep than the previous set…)

Weight: 161lbs.
Body Fat Percentage: 15.8%

Obviously, I didn’t make my birthday goal. My goal by the end of May is sub -9% body fat. Let’s get to it.

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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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