Training Log: Entry 2405

MONDAY

AFTERNOON WORKOUT (1500)

Axle bench press

5xAxle (superset w/20 chins)

5x196 (ss 15 chins)

5x226 (ss 15 chins)

9x251 (ss 25 band pull aparts)

17x196 (ss 25 band pull aparts)

SUPERSETS (bench/rows) 90 second rest between first 2 sets: 60 second rest for final 3

(3) High incline DB bench 75s

5x10-final set finished w/25 miniband pushdowns

Axle rows against light bands

5x10

Poundstone curls

145xAxle

20 min rest (pick up kid from school)

BW dips (rest pause)

31+14+5

30 GHRs

20 standing ab wheels

PM WORKOUT (2100)

Stone of steel to shoulder

30 reps in 8:10

40 BW reverse hypers

Notes: (Settle in: it’s a long one) Unplanned SVR II bench workout, which was a bonus. Full plan was to not lift today and spend time with the Mrs on her day off, but she wanted to grab a nap at one point so I booked it to the garage and busted this out in the span of 50 minutes. I am really appreciating these shorter training sessions: it’s nice to have “permission” to not make them such epics, while at the same time they’re intense by cramming in as much as I can under the constraints. I mixed in my daily work as part of the assistance work and otherwise picked high speed/low drag stuff that required minimal set up.

You can see that I rushed the warm-ups, but it’s one of the blessings of being a dude that rarely warms up in the first place. In truth, I pretty much just use warm-ups as volume builders, so when push comes to shove they can just be cut out. I’m satisfied with my bench performance only insomuch as it means I’ve got the right TM selected, but that’s a far cry from where I’ve been. Gives me some room to climb up.

These ironmaster dumbbells continue to be a great purchase. Having something between 50 and 105lbs has opened up a lot of avenues. Short rest periods helped make things suck more, but I also got some tips from Marty Gallagher’s “Purposeful Primitive” I’ll be looking to employ in the future. Primarily effective use of pausing on the DB bench. Axle rows against bands are still a favorite of mine.

I’m doing “internet approved dips” these days: super duper full ROM and strict lockout, similar to how I do them when I have a weighted load. If I’m only going to do 50 a day, I wanna make them suck.

The PM workout is something I’ve wanted to do for a while:it’s effectively “stone Grace”. Answered the mail.

Last night of night shift, so I’m gonna stay up for about 36 hours and get to sleep Tuesday night.

On the “woe is me” nutrition front, I made some better decisions today as far as they relate to my goals. Mrs wanted to get breakfast burritos. I did my typical “no potatoes/no cheese” modification to mine, BUT I went for steak instead of ham. I’ve been avoiding beef a bunch these past few months, and making a conscious decision to eat it instead of an alternative is a victory. Had something similar at dinner: went back for 3rds. I’m forcing myself to shift mental gears here. And I was wondering why the hell this is so hard for me compared to every other time I’ve done it and it dawned on me:

I don’t have a goal.

Yeah, I know I’ve said “I need to put on bodyfat and regain my health”, but the thing is, that’s a personal goal, and those haven’t really been great for me to make big sweeping changes. When I got my 265lb strict press, it’s because I had a competition coming up that needed me to be able to press a 250lb keg. When I got as lean as I ever did, it initially started off as just “let’s cut away some fluff”, but in the middle of it I had a doc that decided my health was bad and threatened me with drugs unless I fixed it, so suddenly I had numbers to chase and beat. I always do my best when I have something set in front of me with a deadline, and now that it’s gone, it’s been very hard to shift away from what I WAS doing to something different. Intellectually, I know it’s something I need to do, but my instincts are still stuck on “we need to beat the medical numbers” mode. It’s like I have old software installed. Recognizing this has been huge, and I’m glad I did it: now I need to address it. I’m going to continue to force myself to do things I don’t “want” to do, but my hope is that eventually the instincts shift and align like they typically do when I’m chasing a goal, because that’s when I see my best results and experience significantly less cognitive dissonance. I have an amazing capacity to convince myself to do things that are ridiculous, but employing it can be exhausting when it’s ALL the goddamn time.