Improvement, and more experiments.

“Week 2”

• “3 reps” – Press (working max: 145#)
  • 2x5x45 (warmup)
  • 1x5x60
  • 1x5x75
  • 1x3x90
  • 1x3x105 (work)
  • 1x3x115
  • 1x7x130
• Asst. #1 – Press
  • 4 x 10 x 70
  • 1 x 10/7/5 x 70 (rest-pause set)
  • Performed 1 chin-up after sets 1 and 2, with a slow negative. Set 3’s chin didn’t clear the bar, but still got a negative. Sets 4 and 5 just got a negative.
• Asst. #2 – Supinated Close-grip Pulldowns
  • 4 x 10 x 130
  • 1 x 10/5/4 x 130 (rest-pause set)
• GPP – Elliptical
  • Tabata style (20 sec. sprint, 10 sec. walk)
  • 2 minutes “walking”, around 100 strides per minute (warmup)
  • 5 “Tabata reps”, about 200-220 strides per minute

Much to go over.

Pressing. I generally feel strong with this movement and today was no exception. I cranked out 7 reps, which is more than I’ve done before at this weight. Not a pure PR, but most acceptable.

Assistance pressing felt much stronger too, as you can see with the rest-pause set, doing more reps this time around and with less rest. I believe last time I did 15 breaths during the pauses, only did 10 today. I’ll take that.

As I stated before, after each assistance press set I’ll do a chin-up with a nice slow negative. I wasn’t able to hit all sets with a chin, but I did get some. Huzzah! As long as I make progress, I’m happy. Another guy at the gym saw me doing this and mentioned there was a band to assist with chins. He found it for me, but I’m not sure I can use it. The band requires the use of the foot, and I’m too tall to get a full extension (I have to curl my legs behind me in order to do a full dead hang from the bar). I’ll probably play with it some and see if I can make it work. May not try this tho until next cycle.

I didn’t know how much the chins would affect the lat pulldowns, and it didn’t affect much, but towards the end I was hurting a bit more. 🙂 If I keep this routine up, I may try to make larger jumps per cycle (e.g. 10#) and allow my reps to go down to say the 5-8 range to again focus on building up the strength. I really want to be able to do chins with enough sets/reps (e.g. 5×5, then 5×10). I’ll get there. Just have to admit my wussiness and strive to grow stronger (and shed some flab, which is happening too).

As for GPP….

Sprints were killing my knees from the impact. Stationary bike? Just can’t get the resistance. But they recently got some new ellipticals. They’re heavy-duty and they can adjust the incline. Hrm. Could that simulate hill sprints? It was worth a shot. I got on the machine, fiddled with the settings and just picked “12” for an incline and “5” for resistance. I set out on a Tabata set and didn’t get far. My lower thighs and calves were killing me after about rep 5, but I wasn’t that winded. Hrm. Not sure. Plus it felt weird being on the machine. There is zero impact, which isn’t like normal walking around. Plus I felt like I was floating because there just wasn’t the same resistance you feel when you say walk up a hill or stairs. I’m going to keep trying it tho because there’s potential here towards a GPP solution that won’t kill my knees but could still give me a reasonable workout. I am going to first play with the resistance level, then the incline, and also my pace. We’ll see how it goes, I’ll keep fiddling with it.

Didn’t do the Agile 8 today. Had to scoot.

Quick note on diet.

I’m trying to work on simplifying. I’ve toyed around, up and down, this and that, and observed what it’s done to my body. My present approach? 200-250 grams of protein a day. About 100g will come from 2 whey drinks during the day (one as soon as I wake up, the other typically mid-afternoon). The other 100-150g will come via 3 regular meals with the family, about 35-50g per meal. That’ll be about a 6-8oz portion of meat, which isn’t as much as I think it is. I have to retrain my brain to say “no, you don’t need a mountain of meat, just enough”. Fats? I don’t worry about it. I’m not drinking a vat of lard, but I need some fats to work right and I’m just not sweating it much… we’re fairly low fat around here, but if I want to have that 3rd slice of thick-cut bacon I will because overall it doesn’t add up to much in my diet (due to Wife’s cooking). Carbs… fruit, veggies, grains. Strive to have at least 1 serving of fruit a day, whole fruit, not juice. All the cruciferous veggies I can handle; that CSA box from Johnson’s Backyard Garden does wonders here to fill this bill. Grains? breads, rices, beans, etc… In general I’m cutting them out of my diet, but because they are used to feed the rest of the family, and because I still enjoy a good Wife-made cookie, I can have some, just very small portion. Take my one hand, cup it, and it has to fit in that.

And I wonder if it’s already working. I generally float between 235-240# depending on the time of day, less in the morning, more in the evening. The past few weeks I’ve hovered more towards the 240 end of things. Last night I got on the scale before bed and was at 235#. That’s odd. This morning I checked again, and was about 233 or so. Not enough data points, but I still raised an eye brow.

FWIW, supplements are running as follows: the whey (referenced above); 2 NOW Adam men’s multivitamin, the softgel versions; 6g vitamin C, spread over the day; 6g fish oil, spread over the day; 3 Citrical at lunch (for some extra calcium and D3). Any other supps I’m pretty much giving up on because it’s all a waste of money.