Squat

Hit the gym for squats yesterday. Things were actually going really well until this big dude decided to show off for his two girlfriends (they were actually girls, not just sissies) by trying to squat along with me. He was doing ok until I got past 300 and he wanted to do 1/4 squats. I am not a fan of quarter squats. I ended up having to spot the quy and talk him through hislift for the last set. Then he was complaining about hisback hurting from it, to which I suggested trying it without a belt next time. After that he was convinced I knew something special and wanted in on every lift I did. His girlfriends were relegated to watching. It was incredibly lame.

squat
400X0, got distracted and ended up putting it down
300X5 just reurned to a warmup weight to get my focus back
400X3

zercher squat
225 X3X5
I love these they are a real challenge to me and get the heart going really fast.

Straight leg dead
225 X 3 X 8

Lock outs up
405
495
585
675

Sunday, Day Of Rest

No gym going today but I got a nice thing going at home. First bending: I actually wrote it down and measured before I started. 3/16 6″ and 4 1/2″ went down easy. Then I did 7 1/2 piece of Home Depot (HD) 1/4 that also went down easy. I then got over zealous and got beat by a 6″ piece of HD 1/4. I went back and tried a 7″ piece of Lukes stock, again no luck. I quite with that mess for a while and did some other things. wrist roller 10lbs did extensors, flexors, extensors, flexors with a pretty good break in between. I have been thinking about buying some 3″ PVC and making a thick roller and giving one to each of my training partners. I suspect they already have these so it may be a waste plus I am temporarily freezing my workout spending cause I have been going a little crazy lately. I think I have probably spent $500 in the last two months. Outer limit loops, 10 lbs with each hand for a ten count. I did about four reps. I would do my wrist roller one direct then the loops the roller the other direction and back to loops. Right now I am just getting used to these. After I got done with all that I returned to do another bend. I went for a 7 1/4″ piece of HD. It didn’t go at first, but I felt a lot better being warm. This one came down to a matter of conviction. I decided I could and would do it. I started to really lay into it. It sat content under my strain for a second or two. Then it bent and it bent fast. So fast I was a little thrown by it. I let go to see what the hell had just happend. When I looked it was at a 90 degree angle. I hate when they stop at a 90 degree angle, it’s really ahrd to get it going again. I messed about with it for a good few minutes thinking I would find an angle on it. I didn’t finally I realized I had to gut it out. I set up for the crush down, fingers interlaced and crushed. It acted just like before, it sat there for a couple seconds and suddenly gave in. In a second it had fallen. I had it under two inches. I think I learned a valuable lesson in bending today. First, the people (Dan) who told me that you have to overcome your own pain threshold in order to bend well, were right. I didn’t get it until today but, damn it that hurt, yet here I type unscathed but with bent steel. Second, sometimes you have to grind a bend. Some times it doesn’t just go. You have to build up that potential energy in the steel to make it quite. That doesn’t mean you don’t go all out right away, it just means you keep going until the steel quits or you do. I believe that is the part that causes people to say that it is not a matter of if but when you get injured. I hope t put it off as long as possible. I also want to add that I spend part of today cutting the handle off the other half of a dumbell I have. I have a hex head 70 and 80 (actually weighing more like 32ish and 37ish). I also have pinched four tens in one hand, two twenty fives in one hand and two forty fives in two. The plates I bought are a lot rougher than the ones I use at the gym and it made a huge difference. It was a great grip day now I am just waiting for my dumbells to arrive and I will be as happy as a pig in…..

Plates

I made it to the gym yet again. I did 25 minutes on the hills setting on the treadmill. I was sweating my ass off and was pretty “worked out” by then. I was glad I made it through though. I didn’t really have time to work in any real lifting.
The good news is that I got is a pretty decent workut earlier moving plates around. It took a lot of effort to carry 400lbs of plates from Play It Again Sports to the car and the car to my apartment, then to put them away. Yup, I bought weight plates today, 400 and some odd pounds. They gave me a pretty good deal. I got
2 X 45
2 X 35
8 X 25
6 X 10
4 X 5
4 X 2.5
lets see…90,70, 160,200, 360,60, 420, 20, 440, 20, 450
450lbs plus 4 collars for $205, that comes out to $0.46/lb. If you remove the cost of the brand new collars it’s probably .45/lb. A steal.
Now I am just waiting for the arrival of my lovely dumbell handles from Fat bastard.
I have also spent more than I would normally spend in a year in a matter of a month. I think I will have to lay off buying toys for a while.

Doin’ It Dead Style

I got some deadlifts in yesterday

405 X 2
425 X 0
405 X 2

Front squat 3 X 8 X 135
Push press 3 X 8 X 135
Lockouts out 405, 495, 585
Reverse wrist curl 3 X 10 X 65

I got some swings in when i got home too.
I found the deadlift really frustrating because I felt like I had more to give but my grip strenght is still the limiting factor. Between that experience and the farmer walks a week ago, I realize that I haven’t invested as much time as I should in supporting grip. It’s the reason I came to this site and Ihave forgotten that often. The good news is that I already have the thickhandled dumbells on their way. It’s a matter of time before I can start in with those. I’m hoping to go out this weekend and try to find some plates for the dumbells when they get here.

Weird Week

It’s almost over. I have been tired every morning and not wanted to get up. Usually I’m up at 5, this week it has been past 6 every day. Ihave only gone to the gym once but I have done the kettlebell almost every day, including last night. Today I am not taking my usual for lunch nor am I having my usual for breakfast. I’m still trying to stay within reasonable bound for my diet but I’m too lazy this morning to whip something up.
It hasn’t been bad or anything. I have done kettlebell daily. Yesterday I got my North American Strongman card. I’ve also been rushing around trying to squeak past the deadlines to apply to nursing school for the fall.
Either way, I’m kind of glad it is over. I’ll try to rest up and clean up over the weekend and it’ll be back to the grind come Monday.

Back Like And Ox

I guess this entry goes back to just after the last entr. I had just done some wrist roller and some that stuff. I did another round after that posting. Then I went digging for some stuff I had laying around. I have a tool from Iron Mind, I think they are called outer limit loops. Basically it’s five loops that you have to open your hand against to hold weight up. It’s really akward and kind of fun. So I did some reps with those with a whopping eight pounds. I think that would go up with practice because it is such an akward lift.
Last night I went in for a heavy squat workout, boy did I like that. worked up to 405 and thought I might go for 3 reps. My second reps was ugly so I racked the weight and went back for a third just a little bit later. Looked like a good rep and all. There were no huge surprises there. I went on to do straight leg dealifts with 225, zercher squats with 225 and barbel rows with 225. It’s the same workout that had previously left me aching and having trouble walking out of the gym. My back felt and feels awesome. I am not sure what made the difference. I’ve had my kettlebell for like a week, I don’t think that is long enough to do it. I have been using it for a few reps each night to try and wake up my back when I get home. It could also be the super heavy strongman workout from Sunday that I spent the last two days recovering from. I have no idea but it was nice to have back to spare for once.
I went on to do some wrist curls, because I have totally neglected those for months. I was only able to do 65 for 3X5 on reverse curls. Since it was just a tryout exercise I left the same weight on there when I went for curls and burned through three sets of twenty with no trouble. I need to do these again.Everyone else and their mother has a formulator these days. I can still do wrist curls so I’m gonna bring them back for me.

Day Off?

Skipped the gym today, cause I’m a slacker.

In penance I just did my kettlebell routine with 2 swings on each set of swings (totalling 75). I seriously thought I might lose it out of my left hand on the last set. Had to get way back from the TV. Then true to my word, I did wrist roller and it smoked me.12lb dumbell pulling with the extensors and down controlled. Had to take two breaks on the trip up with the flexors. I forgot how bad ass this thing is, for me anyway. My muscles are all swollen like the first week of grip training (My ulna is hiding between two thick cables of muscle {yes, I know it’s only in my head}) and I am making a lot more typos than usual. I think I may go for one more rep on that thing before I am done.

I also dug out my grippers which iss rare for me, man does my gripper strength suck. I struggled to get the #1 closed with my left hand. Ineed to reintroduce those to my life. I will finally order the #2 next month some time.

Tomorrow I’m doing some squats and I’ll still try to kettlebell when I get home but I’ll go based on feel.

So Tired

Ugh, I am so tired from yesterday. We aren’t going to the gym tonight, I think I will make a run on the kettlebell later. I did a short bending workout, I really shouldn’t have.

3/16 I bent two of these one over 7″ one under.
1/4 10, 8, 7, 6 1/4 (FAIL) – all home depot stock
1/4 8 (FAIL) Luke’s stock
5/16 HRS 10″ (FAIL)

It was okay, it’s pretty much the same stuff I can always bend. I really should have been doing it at all. It did put me in mind of something Dan said yesterday. He brought his formulator and was talking about how much stronger he felt in the forearms than before he got it and how he felt his lifts would get stronger because he felt that his wrist strength with thelimiting factor. I’ll be honest, at first I kind of blew it off but while I tried these bends and watched my wrist buckle under the pressure I thought, I really need to work on my wrist strength.
I’m not gonna race out and get a formulator right now, but I think I understand it better now. I will try to get after the wrist more, my wrist roller has sat , untouched, for too long now. I have been levering on a regular basis. The balance between no gain and overtrained will be tough but, as always, I will try.

Did I mention in my last post that I couldn’t resist getting a bender’s bag. I don’t know which thing I am more anxious to get, the bag or the bells. It’s all very exciting for me. I think I’ll let Dan and Luke take a shot at the horseshoe, to show me how it is done. After I finish off the bag I’ll have to order from Luke and Dan’s steel supplier, that shoulg keep me bending for while.
maybe I should see if they think I am strong enough to try the long steel..?
I’ll save that for later, maybe a phone book or something else is in order first…
Now I’m just rambling, I am tired. I’ll save you all the pain of the rest of it.

Stones

Strongman was yesterday and wow! Seriously, I think we all did more than ever. Luke carried 272lb for about 30 feet on the farmer carry. I got it for about four steps. We both moved something int the 700s, Luke for 20 feet, me for about two steps. I tried to lock out 800 but failed. I managed to lift the stone to my lap like four times. I still can’t shoulder the damn thing though. I played with the formulator, an okay tool for wrist building. I understand it is great for those who can’t do barbell wrist curls. managed to clean something like 155 on a 2″ barbell.
Luke and Dan were able tohelp me a lot on technique here. I apparently pull more than highenoug, I just have crap for, which is probably why I have injured myself doing this in the past. It’s amazing, when get it, it feels so easy and right and when I miss it , it seems so hard.
I never think it sounds like as much when I think about it after I am done, but my body is sore and in a good way. It was a great time and I will be all that much stronger for it.

In other news, I am finallymaking good on all my talk about thickbars. I just requested shipping info from John onfour dumbell handles 2″ and 3″. I also ordered a benders bag because I’m a bastard like that, or at least want to be (sorry, saw the pun after I typed it and had to go for it).
Great day, grwat training

Joggin’

No bell tonight. I’m giving the back break. Tomorrow is strongman.

I made it to the gym for a jog, 20 minutes on the hills setting on icline level 2. I have no idea what the incline level is supposed to mean because it seems to do the same thing if I set it on 2 or on 4. I will have to look into it more and figure it out.

I have not been doing any bench for a while so I decided to do a bit
135 X 6
185 X 6
225 X 6 X 4

barbell rows
135 X 8 X 3

That’s ot for today but look for good fun tomorrow.