531 W1 C4

I decided to skip the deload and venture right into the next wave of 531. So, I've kinda been eating like a beast along with lifting like a beast for this last wave. It's actually been pretty good to my body. I feel like I've added mass in good places, le ass and shoulders. (I'm going to show off le ass a bit)

What it hasn't done is made me more comfortable in a bathing suit. We've got some beach time planned for the 4th of July, so for this wave, I'm going to ramp it up a bit. I don't like cardio, so my ramp it up is going to be BBB. I know BBB squats feels like cardio, so adding it in for bench and DL should be enough. I'll keep the BW stuff in too. We'll see how it goes, if it sucks/ doesn't work, I'll adjust next wave.

Todays gym time was a little off the norm. I slept in and missed my morning, so instead went at lunch. Remind me to never do that again. I'm not really comfortable with BBB for MP so I'm not doing it. 


Warm up- shoulder focused


MP
5x45lbs
5x45
5x45
5x50
5x65

Face pulls
2 sets of 12 at whatever weight the machine is at

Then I did a yoga class. My hips are still super tight from Friday's squats, and I was there at the right time, so why not? It was fun, and helped the hip situation a lot.

531 W3 C3

It took a few days for me to be able to get into the squat rack. I think the kids are all home from college now and apparently some of them are motivated enough to come shrug in my squat rack (yes, I claim it as mine) at 5am.

So, wends and thurs I mostly worked on accessory stuff. I spent some time working on single leg squats where you hold your leg off the ground in front of you. Uh, yeah, that's super hard. I mostly just tried sit on the bench using just one leg. There was a lot of plopping around and giggling to myself. Sometimes when you're learning something new, you just have to embrace the sillyness of it. I look like a drunk toddler now, but how awesome will it be when I'm actually knocking out pistols? I also lowered my push up incline. I've been doing my pushups off the bench, and 5 was gettting a bit easy so I moved to a stair step to push up off of. It's about mid shin height on me. Hopefully this rate means that by the end of the summer I'll be able to get them off the floor.

I did finally make it to the squat rack last night. There are no college kids curling in the squat rack on Friday night! I've been having squat issues and think volume might help that, so I've decided to do BBB. I think next wave I'll do it for bench and DL too, just too see what it's like. It's a hell of a cardio workout too. Maybe I'll have a little less fluff, if I can manage to keep the appetite in check. Not that I've been doing too badly. I have my little belly, but my profile is looking pretty good.

Warm up, focused on hips
Squatz, took about 45 min

5x50lbs
5x65
3x75
5x95
3x105
2x120
1x135 - I wasn't supposed to do this, but I wanted to, so I did
10x65
10x65
10x65
10x65
10x65

Walking and moving today is a bit rough, but I went to yoga and it's helped. I'm going to have to really focus on mobility with this next wave.

531 C3 W3 Benching

Did a bit of benching today, and I wore a cute new shirt, so we'll see if I can figure out how to post pictures on here. It's a nice light material. Lately I've been a sweaty monster in the gym, and have been rethinking the cotton t-shirts in the summer. It's always disconcerting to realize that you're the smelly one in the gym.

Went with the usual start of moseying on the treadmill with my coffee for 10 min. It was hot though, so I did really feel the need to warm up a lot. So, I skipped a lot of it. Probably not the best idea, but meh. Did a few shoulder dislocates and got to benching.


5x45lbs
5x50
3x60
5x75
3x85
3x95 (!)

Reps with 95lbs! This is why I'm liking 531. That's a little over half of bodyweight (170lbs) and I got to put 25s on the bar. I've been focusing a lot on good form and keeping my whole body tight even if the weight isn't heavy. It's really easy to just lay there and knock out the weights below 60 without being mindful of what I'm doing, but I think if I can get the form locked in when I don't have to, it'll be there when I need it. That last rep of 95 really did take my entire body to finish. Who knew legs were so important to benching?

Then I did a bit of ab stuff. I have never been big on ab work, but I think it's affecting my squats and also I'm a bit concerned that I may chip away at all my fat and find nothing but organs under there. I'm sticking to stabilizing movements.

Supersetted for just 2 rounds cause I'm weak and form is shot to hell after more:

Ab wheel x 10 off knees
Paloff press x 10 ea side

Then I didn't want to do anything, so I found a treadmill in the corner and climbed a little hill. 10 min at 3mph with a 5 incline then 10 min with a 10 incline.

531 C3 W3

The picking stuff up and moving it about. I've been doing it.

I'm almost at the end of my third wave of 531! I've been following the book for my main lifts and adding weight with each wave, so for this wave my starting maxes were:

OHP 75lbs

BP 110

Squat 135 - I've been having issues, so didn't bump this

DL 250

Not to say I've moved those numbers about, I just use them for the math.

What that's meant for this week is that yesterday:

OHP 

5x45lbs

5x55

3x65

1x70 (!)

70lbs over my head felt freaking awesome. I also did some shoulder saver stuff and walked the mile and back to the gym. I've kinda slacked on the accessory work. I'm going to maybe try BBB next wave. I played with it a bit for squats and it sucked in a good way.

I'm not going to make it to the gym tonite, so I lifted this morning. After a bit of time on the treadmill with my coffee, I did a nice long warm up and then deadlifts.

DLs

5x90lbs

5x115

3x135

5x170

3x195

2x215(!)

More freaking awesome! 215! I really want 300, and 215 puts me that much closer. It was a great way to start the week. 

Oh and I'll leave you with  a bit of SCIENCE! 

(A bit of clarification, the title is misleading, working out doesn't change the sequence of your DNA. Your genes stay the same, rather it changes how your DNA is expressed. In super simplified terms, working out changes what genes are on, and what are off. If any of it is confusing, let me know and I'll explain)

http://www.npr.org/2012/03/09/148306989/a-workout-can-change-your-dna

A Workout Can Change Your DNA

"Reporting in Cell Metabolism, researchers write that when people who lead relatively sedentary lives worked out the DNA in their muscle fibers changed almost immediately. Scientists also found caffeine had the same effect on isolated rodent muscles. Study co-author Juleen Zierath discusses the DNA modifications"

Why?

And once again, a bunch of time has passed. I'm feeling like logging again though, so hopefully the trend will stick for a while. 


First some unfinished business. My last post (if anyone can remember that far back) was about feelings and I was being reflective about why I was doing things. My friend Nadia wrote this response:


"I've been back and forth on the log/no log question. As I became more conscious of my reader, the value of logging went down. But, if I write just for me, unafraid of what others will think, but still open--I think there's lots of value there. 
And I can so relate to your statements about feelings. I hate when I'm having an emotional response that is not rational and recognize it as such, but still feel the feeling as strongly....what to do? Must emotion always give way to reason?"


I wanted to reply to her answer here, but, uh, never did. So, better late then never... right?


To try to tackle the first issue, or at least put my ideas about it out there, and see if they can smush together to make some sort of sense. 


I think I'd like to start with the idea of who I want to be. I'm working towards being someone that is open. I believe that everyone has the same few themes running through them. I do not think I am a special snowflake in that what I feel is unique and no one has ever had the same thoughts as me. By sharing those thoughts, even the ones that seem silly or make me feel weak, I feel like I am able to connect with other people and (to sound all hippy dippy) through those connections, I feel a little stronger.


If I know my friend is just as worried about the same little thing, it's a bit less lonely and a bit easier to deal with. I'm not the only one that panics when the bar feels too heavy. By sharing that sense of panic, I was able to see how other people dealt with it, and what they did and thought. Without that, I probably just would have passed on the back squatting thing as a whole. That's a lifting example, but I think the same theme runs true through life. 


Also, I'm conscious of my reader, yet I still want to be open. I am working towards being the same person regardless of the situation. I'm not saying that being open is the same as having no discretion. There are things that should be private, , but I'm working on making that circle a bit smaller and not letting a fear of vulnerability masquerade as being private. Also, there are different facets of ourselves that we present in different situations but, the person I want to be in general is open and strong enough to deal with a bit of judgement when I believe in something.


So, I guess my goal is to both be unafraid of what others think and still be open. I hope that made some sort of sense. I'm still (and think I will always be) working on it. 


Feelings! Lets talk more about feelings! (at this point 90% of readers run away) 


I am a scientist. I have years of training that have enforced that nothing means anything without logic, consistently reproduceable, statistically significant peer reviewed proof. But I do not think emotion should always give way to reason. I don't even know that the two are that different. 


I don't know that there are emotions that are not rational, but rather that we don't always know the ration behind an emotion. There's a reason you're feeling whatever you're feeling, you just may not be clued into it. There is a lot we don't know about ourselves. I think that's where the being reflective part comes in. While an emotion might superficially seem not rational, there's usually a reason somewhere. Maybe with enough digging we can find the reasons. There's not always time for digging though, I totally get that. Sometimes I just ignore what I'm feeling because I know that rationally shit's gotta get done. I can cry and panic later, now, we're doing work.


Or sometimes it's the opposite. If the emotional response is strong, or unique, I go with it. If something feels wrong, and there's no way to be assured that it's not, then it's wrong. We take in a lot of information that we can't consciously process. There is plenty of work out there on it.That's the information that drives feelings, and sometimes that's the information that you should go with. Like all of life, it's complicated and situational.


Damn, I hope that wall of text makes some sense. I'll post workouts in a different post. 

531 C2

I haven't felt very much like logging lately. I've been doing stuff, I've just felt rambly and thus haven't posted, but I think I may indulge myself in rambles.

Is is even possible to have a log that's only about one thing, don't all the parts of life encroach on each other? If I have a good workout, it can make the whole day better. A crappy one can leave me in a terrible mood. I'm finding the reverse can be true too. A crappy mood can easily turn a workout crappy.

I've actually been thinking a lot about feelings lately. Which sounds a bit silly at first I suppose, but I've been having a lot of conversations (Hi Mark!) about being introspective and paying attention to why I'm feeling the way I'm feeling. While I still embrace whatever feeling it is, maybe knowing why it is will help recreate it if it's a good feeling and keep it at bay if it's not.

Which brings us to workouts of last week. I did a lot of yoga last week; four classes. And I was incredibly pissed off for 3 of them. Yeah, nice relaxing yoga, making me angry. One class was an instructor that just called out position names in rapid fire. I've done enough yoga that I know what to do, but it was constant movement.  Another was too slow and held positions for too long. The third, I'm not quite Goldilocks, was barely a yoga class. In my book a bosu ball and weights do not belong in yoga. They all got me sweaty, they were workouts, but it took me three classes to figure out why they were so upsetting. Working out is hard, of course there's stuff to bitch about. But what it was is that I wasn't getting what I expected out of the class. For me, yoga is active recovery. I go there to stretch, to move, to relax. I don't want a workout, I want relaxation.

It seems a bit obvious and trivial, but it actually felt like a growing moment. Rather then leave when that third class was making me angry, I made adjustments and got what I wanted out of class. That wouldn't have been possible if I hadn't first come to the realization of what I did want. Knowing why you're doing something, is vital to keep doing it. I don't really want to spend any of my life going through the motions.

I do a lot of motions though (see what I did there?) and just finished up the second wave of 531. I'm feeling really good about bench, OHP (overhead pressing) and DLs (deadlifts). Highlights:

Bench 95x3, I'm starting to understand leg drive more and it's paying off. I'm going to have to start thinking about arching. Which I don't really do, but is going to have to get into why I bench. If it's for numbers, I'm going to have to arch.

OHP 70 x 3, I'm getting this form down, this will go up a lot more soon

DLs 195x3 Chalk is totally worth the hassle and hand prints

And now we're to squats. They're just not feeling good. I think I'll pull them out of 531 and do something else. I'm thinking a bit of time light weight, high rep. Grease the groove as they say. I got some really good suggestions on google+ that I need to play with. I'm deloading this week, so by next week I'll have to have it figured out.

Thanks for reading if you've made it this far :)

531 W2

Well, updating more often went to the wayside last week. I guess I'm actually going to have to a schedule a time to do so. There's something about the accountability and the sharing of little victories that I think makes having a log worth it.

Scheduling last week turned into a game of knowing myself and not letting my inherent laziness take over. I knew at the start of the week that I was going to be out of town for the weekend, and that while I always intend to work out when not home, I never do. I know a lot of guys that travel and make the time to get gym sessions in, but I am not that person. Which means I loaded everything into 4 days in a row. What's the opposite of a weekend warrior? That's me.

Sunday (3/25)
I didn't do much, just went for a walk with my mom. I've really been trying to get my mom to do more lately. I mention it because I got her a Wii and the whole fit board thing. It's great! While of course getting to the gym and doing actual yoga or tennis or whatever is better, but I'm a big believer in baby steps and that something is better than nothing. It's not too hard, and gets her to jump around without her having to move out of her comfort zone. I really recommend it if you know some one that likes games and needs to make the transition off the sofa into some activity.

M (3/26)
AM
Spent a lot of time on shoulder stuff, YTLW, dislocates, band pull aparts, face pulls, etc. I've noticed that my shoulder range of motion (ROM) on my right side is way less than on the left. I think it's a result of not tapping to shoulder locks, but I notice it a lot during yoga. Also, last time I took a progress shot of my back my lack of rear delts was pointed out by more than one person. So, while they aren't primary goals, extending my ROM and adding mass to my rear delts are in the 'do want' pile.

Then I got in some band assisted pull ups. I can pretty much get in 4 sets of 5 before even the band can't help me.

PM
Warm up
100 mountain climbers - my calves don't take to running well and were super sore, jumping rope wasn't happening.
MP
reps x weight
5x45
5x45
3x45
3x50
5x55

Played with dips a bit. I think I'm going to just use the assisted machine for a while. I'm not sure where I'd set up bands.

Tues (3/27)
AM
Spin
Assisted Pull Ups 4 x 5
Incline Push Ups 4 x 5

PM
Warm
75 30lb KB Swings - I'm really like these for getting glutes going before deadlifting. I really think about making it a hip hinge motion. I try to keep my shins perpendicular to the ground and not really moving them, letting all of the motion of the KB come from the momentum created by my hips.
DL
reps x weight
5x85
5x105
3x125
3x145
3x165
3x185

I love pulling sumo, love it. I think I'm going to have to start chalking soon. As it gets warmer, my hands get sweatier. I don't think the gym will mind if I take in my little climbing chalk bag.

75 Hip Thrusts
75 Swiss Ball Pike

W (3/28)
PM
Hula Hoop Class

Jump Rope x450
BP
5x45
5x50
3x60
3x70
3x80
4x90

Benching 90 for reps left me feeling like a boss. I can't wait until I get to the big boy plates.

Th (3/29)

AM
Spent some quality time with the foam roller and LX ball.
Assisted Pull Ups 4x5
Incline Push Ups 4x5
BSS 2x20 each leg

So when I do these I super set them, but a little oddly. I do 5 pullups, a set of BSS, then 5 pull ups, until I can't do pull ups any more, then I flank the BSS with push ups.


PM
Warm Up
Jump Rope x450
Squat
5x55
5x65
3x80
3x105
3x120

Man that 120 was a grind, but I got through it. There's comfort in knowing that I should be able to according to the program. This was a quick session since I had to get to class.

Fri (3/30)
Finished off the BW stuff so totals for the week:
75 Pull ups
75 Incline Pushups
75 BSS each leg
75 Swiss Ball pike
75 Hip thrusts
Still feeling out dips, but they'll get done this week.

I ended up favoring weight stuff for cardio, which is something I need to watch for. I may try to do one of those couch to 5k programs for running accountability.

Sorry for another long ass post.