Month: August 2011

2011-08-12 workout

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I like deadlifting!

  • 5/3/1 – Deadlift (working max 265#)
    • 1x5x105 (warmup)
    • 1x5x135
    • 1x3x160
    • 1x3x190 (work)
    • 1x3x215
    • 1x6x240
  • Asst. #1 – Deadlift
    • 5x10x95
  • Asst. #2 – Hanging leg raise
    • 5x5xbw
  • Metcon – jumping rope
    • 1 Tabata set, all single hop

I’m starting to wonder… this is “week 2”, meaning “3 reps” on the work sets. On paper I’m not doing as much volume as I did “last week”, and I don’t feel like I’m working myself as hard. I mean, I do feel work, I just don’t feel as “worked out”… as drained, as exhausted. Is that a good thing? Could it be because of the lower volume? Maybe adapting to the routine? I’m not sure. The question is, should I perhaps be bumping up my assistance work a bit? like instead of 95# on the assistance deadlifts do 105# or something? I’m not sure, but I’m not going to. Assistance work is just that: assistance. I don’t need it to interfere with the main lifts and work, and recovery is still paramount. So, I’m going to leave things alone for now. There’s no hard, fast rule here that I’m aware of — do what works for you, do what you need. But, its my first time on the Wendler 5/3/1 so, I’ll just ride things out and see how it all goes. Long term steady progress is more important.

Anyways, deadlift did feel good. On the last set I have to do at least 3, but do as many as I can (tho not to failure). I told myself to do 5… and then I did one more. That felt about right, certainly left 1-2 in the tank. Very good. I like deadlifting.

On the leg raises, I added a small swing to allow me to work through a greater range of motion, and that was good, but it also didn’t feel as difficult — my abs didn’t feel as worked, tho they did get a greater range. What I think I may do, if I keep the swing (and I likely will), is slowly increase the reps here, so like next time instead of 5×5 do 5×6.

Rope jumping is getting smoother. I’ll keep up the single hop and now work to get my body adapted to that, then increase 1. the speed/intensity, 2. eventually add a second Tabata set.

Good stuff! Feeling good. No where near as drained as I was on the Rippetoe program.

Jani Lane, dead

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Jani Lane, best known as the (former/original) lead singer of the hair metal band Warrant was found dead at age 47.

Googling for more information, there isn’t any… other than he was found dead in a hotel room.

Jani’s been struggling with drugs and alcohol for quite some time, lapsing in and out. Following all his ups and downs via Metal Sludge over the years, you wondered when this was going to happen… you hoped that it wouldn’t, you hoped he’d pull things together. But alas. 😦  Even if the cause of death isn’t substance-related, you could see how it was all taking a huge toll on him.

R.I.P. Jani.

Here’s my favorite Warrant song, “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” (tho I’ll agree that “Dog Eat Dog” was an underrated album)

Critters

/ hsoi

This exceptional, history-making drought in Texas is causing massive pressure on critters.

There’s a muscovy duck that laid her eggs in our bushes. Two days ago they finally hatched and we now have 14 ducklings, which seem to be doing fine. However hopeful I am of their survival to adulthood, I’m not expecting it. They have decent shelter, they will have water and food, but it’s predators that I’m betting will reduce their numbers. There just isn’t much food around, and ducklings are food.

The other morning I saw a doe in the backyard that I’ve never seen before, distinctive by the fact her face was much blacker than any whitetail I’ve ever seen. I’m sure she’s from around these parts, but pushing further than her normal range in search of food. The greenbelt no longer has the natural food supply because there’s no rain, and the heat’s drying everything up.

Over the past some months we’ve had stories of feral hogs coming into neighborhoods, tearing up lawns. Not surprising because they’re just trying to find food and water. But these reports have usually been from neighborhoods on the outskirts of town.

Now we’re getting reports of coyotes coming into town, going after pets. Hey, they’re pets to us, food to a yote.

And now, there’s news reports of a bison on the loose.

Yes, a bison. This is actually in my general area and depending where he travels it’s possible I could look out the back of my house some morning and see him. I hope they’re able to catch him, but I reckon it’ll be tough because he too he going to keep pressing on as much and as hard as he can in search of food and water.

Something’s gotta give…. *sigh*

2011-08-10 workout

/ hsoi

You just keep pressing through the pain.

  • 5/3/1 Press (training max 110#)
    • 2x5x45 (warmup)
    • 1x5x45
    • 1x5x55
    • 1x3x65
    • 1x3x80 (work)
    • 1x3x90
    • 1x7x100
  • Asst. #1 – Press
    • 5x10x45
  • Asst. #2 – Chinups
    • 1 x almost 1 x bw, then 3 negatives
    • 4 x 3 negatives x bw
  • Metcon
    • 1 Tabata set, jump rope — all 8 reps single hop

This was an interesting workout. First, it’s “week 2” of the 5/3/1 cycle, so the working weight goes up and the reps go to 3. Overall work volume is lower, of course, but strength feels good… 7 reps at the max work weight for today wasn’t too shabby for me, and as always a couple were left in the tank. Going to the assistance press work, certainly the 60 seconds of rest this time around was better than 30 last time but… is it perhaps because of the longer rest period? is it because the work volume wasn’t as intense? because I’m getting used to things? stronger? Hard to tell for sure right now. Point is, should my assistance weights remain the same during the entire cycle? or should they also increase as the weeks progress? Not sure. I don’t think there’s any formal rule here, just what works for me. My feeling is, it’s assistance work, I don’t need it to exhaust me and impact recovery, so just keep it stable for the cycle then up it next cycle. But we’ll see as we go along… probably need numerous 5/3/1 cycles under my belt before I can say for sure.

Chins… geez… I am a wuss. But I know my shortcomings and am willing to work on them. 🙂 I worked to hold myself up at the top a little longer, at least for a count of 1 before I started my descent… hold myself up high! then lower for a count of 7. But that’s a big bump from last chin session and I’m not sure if that was more stress or what but on the last rep of the last couple sets I just couldn’t… I’d step off the bench and immediately start a controlled drop to the ground, maybe 2 seconds… resisting as best I could but I couldn’t resist much… the muscles were tapped. I’ll keep this up for the rest of the cycle but I am thinking that since my weak point seems to be the last half of the eccentric motion that next cycle maybe I’ll move to using the lat pulldown machine but in a chin-style grip and work it hard to ensure that last half of the motion is worked… I might even only do partial reps from the half-way point to the “chinned-up” point to just work that part out. Don’t know, we’ll see. But if there’s a weak point, that’s what needs to be specifically addressed.

Jump rope was cool. Previously I was thinking to bump this session to alternating single and double hops on each rep, debating if I should start with single (i.e. fresh) or double (i.e. end with a single when I’m pooped). I opted to start with a single so I got things pumping from the get go, but then changed my mind — I did all 8 reps as single hop. That pumped things up for me for sure… my feet and calves and lower quads were hating it (the quads and adductors and such are sore as heck from Monday’s squat workout). My body wanted to quit but no…. I just kept pushing, because it’s all in my head.

That’s really the big thing that’s coming out of so much of this: keep going. There’s so many reasons I want to quit, be it my mind saying “the body is tapped” but knowing that I’m still physically able to — because if I’m truly tapped then my body will stop on its own — to ego things, because hey… when the gym is packed this morning with a bunch of the strongest guys in the gym and you can’t do a fucking chin-up and your muscles are tapped and you don’t want to do that last rep…. you do it anyways, because you have to. Because you know you won’t get stronger, you won’t overcome the obstacles, unless you forge ahead. Like anything in life.

namespace constants in C

/ hsoi / 4 Comments

Saw this on mikeash’s Twitter. Namespace constants in C.

#import <Foundation/Foundation.h>

// .h file
struct MyConstantsStruct
{
    NSString *foo;
    NSString *bar;
    int baz;
};

extern const struct MyConstantsStruct MyConstants;

// .m file
const struct MyConstantsStruct MyConstants = {
    .foo = @"foo",
    .bar = @"bar",
    .baz = 42
};

// user
int main(int argc, char **argv)
{
    [NSAutoreleasePool new];
    
    NSLog(@"%@ %@ %d", MyConstants.foo, MyConstants.bar, MyConstants.baz);
}

So obvious once you see it… why did it take us this long to think about it? 🙂

Something doesn’t smell right

/ hsoi / 3 Comments

Hillsborough County Sheriff’s deputies answered a 911 call in Tampa Friday night. When they arrived at the couple’s apartment, they found Robin Martin suffering from a gunshot wound to her stomach. She is listed in stable condition.

Oscar Dean told authorities he was cleaning his revolver when one round discharged.

Full story. (h/t Fark)

Uh…. given the way a revolver works, given the fact there’s no reason ammunition should be around when cleaning a gun, given the only way to make a gun go bang is to press the trigger… uh… cleaning? Methinks the story stinks.

Sure, all we have to go on is what the article reports, but still… it doesn’t add up.

Failure of the victim selection process

/ hsoi

Police say Raven Smith and Lesley Tanner were exiting their vehicle to go into the restaurant when 17-year-old Anthony Hauser, wearing a ski mask and armed with a handgun, confronted Tanner.

Smith — who possesses a concealed weapons permit — drew his own handgun and fired at the suspect multiple times.

Hauser was struck four times and yelled at Smith to stop shooting. He pulled the mask off his face and claimed the gun he was holding was a “fake.” Investigators later learned Hauser’s gun was actually a fully loaded and operational 25 cal. auto.

Full story.

2011-08-08 workout

/ hsoi

My first squat day on 5/3/1 and it went alright.

  • 5/3/1 Squat (training max 220#)
    • 2x5x45 (warmup)
    • 1x5x90
    • 1x5x110
    • 1x3x135
    • 1x5x145 (work)
    • 1x5x165
    • 1x7x190
  • Asst. #1 – Squat
    • 5x10x65
  • Asst. #2 – Leg curl
    • 1x10x30
    • 4x10x25
  • Metcon
    • 1 Tabata set, jump rope.

(Aside, I see why my indented lists are getting screwed up… the WordPress.com editor is inserting the /li after the li line, instead of after the nested /ul… I fixed it manually but let’s see if the editor retains it. And they still keep inserting a div after finishing a ul…. *sigh*)

Anyways, the workout was my first squat day since I started 5/3/1. I wasn’t looking forward to it because I’m not really looking forward to squats right now. Burnout? Relative unhappiness? I don’t know, mixture of things. But I figured this being the “5” week it would work me well but not kill me. In the end, it did feel alright. The weight felt appropriate, enough to make me work but not kill me. I was able to get 7 reps out on the last work set and left a couple in the tank, especially since I could feel I’d only do them if I sacrificed form. The assistance set of squats wasn’t heavy-hard, but it really drained me because that’s a lot of body and muscle involvement… gets you breathing and your heart pumping, especially with a strict 1 minute rest between sets. It’s kinda cool to see the quad and ham pump in the mirror. 🙂

On the leg curls, I had no idea where to start for a weight, so I just picked 30# and figured we’ll see from there. That first set wasn’t bad, but I wanted to make sure I could get through all 5 sets and 50 total reps without really killing myself. Every workout, being as it’s new and higher volume, has left me rather sore. I didn’t want to be so sore I couldn’t walk (Wife still cracks up at the time I worked my calves so hard they were sore for a week and for a couple days I couldn’t walk straight), but I just wanted to be worked. Wendler says to really start light, so I dropped down to 25# and was happy I did. That gave me enough work, the last few reps of the sets required some extra squeeze, but nothing was just balls-out killing me. I wanted to ensure the curls went through as full a range a motion as I could move. So, 25# is good for now.

Rope jumping… ha ha. Hard to do when your legs are tired. 🙂 But you press on because you have to. Certainly wasn’t a glorious session, but I’m trying to amp it up some. Tried to have every 3rd “rep” be a “single hop” set, with the 8th also being single hop. The goal is to add a single hop every rope session or two, so I can work my way to have every rep be single hop. Once I get 4 (single-double, 4x), I’ll start to add the single hops at the rear. So if I have reps 2, 4, 6, and 8 being single hop, then next it’ll be 2, 4, 6, 7, 8, then 2, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, and so on. Put them back when I’m tired, to push me more. For a giggle I tried doing the “jogging” technique on my 8th rep today and just failed hard. 🙂 Not quite ready for that.

So “week 1” of Wendler 5/3/1 is down. Next up, the “3” week. So far, I’m liking the program.

Keiko Fukuda, 10th degree black belt

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She is the highest ranking woman in Judo history, the only woman to be promoted by Kodokan to 9th dan, and the last living student of Judo’s founder, Jigoro Kano.

Keiko Fukuda.

An article on Nerve. Another at the SFGate.

A longer clip

Her motto: Be strong, be gentle, be beautiful. She is.