Month: February 2012

2012-02-03 workout – Wendler 5/3/1 program, cycle 6, bench press 1

/ hsoi

Started strong, ended… meh

“Week 1”

  • 5 reps – Bench Press (working max: 220#)
    • 2x5x45 (warmup)
    • 1x5x95
    • 1x5x110
    • 1x3x135
    • 1x5x145 (work)
    • 1x5x165
    • 1x9x190
  • Asst. #1 – Bench Press
    • 5 x 10 x 135
  • Asst. #2 – 1-Arm Dumbbell Rows
    • 5 x 10 x 60
  • GPP – Elliptical
    • 6 minutes steady at 120 spm, 10 incline, 14 resistance

As in other exercises, I’m modifying the weights on the warmups just slightly. The weights will be just under some plate threshold and gee, it’s just a warmup weight so who cares. If it makes it easier to (un)load the bar, fine. Thus why 95 instead of 90 on the warmups set. But… whatever.

Worked my way up to 190×9. I felt good, especially in my form. Getting the whole body tight and into the press, improving form over past workouts. So, good thing. I didn’t feel on the work set like suddenly everything went shaky — it was just another set. Doing the numbers it didn’t feel like a strength increase, but that’s ok. I think the improved form and over the course of this cycle I’ll still perform just fine.

On assistance bench pressing, I should have gone to 130, but again it was a plate thing. Going to 135 keeps it simple. And 5# does make a difference. It worked me well, the last couple reps of the last set were a bit of a struggle but not much. So it was good to have bumped things up a bit. You know what else? There was a nice ego stroke here. I remember when I couldn’t bench 135 at all. I remember when I broke the 135 barrier. Now it’s just light assistance work for me. I am pleased.

Speaking of light, going to 60 on rows felt really light today for some reason. But here’s a place I’m not going to crank it up. I think I could get away with 65, but let’s just be slow and steady.

Then came time for the GPP work, and I just did NOT feel it today. I just did a few minutes of steady pace stuff. Lame, I know.

I need to buy a foam roller to have at the house. Makes my back feel so good.

Dear lady driving the Kia Soul

/ hsoi / 15 Comments

To the lady driving the Kia Soul.

I know you didn’t see what I saw. Your car is small, my truck is large and blocked your view of what was ahead. You may have seen the large tractors mowing the expansive median area on the South Mo-Pac Expressway around the 290/360 interchange, but I know you didn’t see the one that I saw. That as I came around that corner at the bottom of the hill, that one of the mowers was in the left lane of traffic. That I had to hit my brakes to ensure I didn’t hit it. But you couldn’t have seen it because 1. my truck was in your face, 2. the mower was off the road within seconds of me seeing it.

Of course, the only reason my truck was in your face was because you were tailgating me.

Perhaps if you weren’t tailgating me, you might have seen the mower. Certainly if you weren’t tailgating me, you wouldn’t have almost ended up going up my tailpipe.

I look back at the situation and I guess all that reckless “revenge” driving was trying to make a point to me. You must have thought my sudden application of the brakes was to tell you to back off; no, it wasn’t but I can see how you would have taken it that way. All that honking. All the reckless zooming in and out of other cars in an effort to “teach me a lesson”. Then your final “fuck you asshole” move of aggressively cutting me off, of course flipping me the bird as you did so. It’s evident you weren’t thinking straight, because just before you cut me off it was evident you were going to do that, so I applied my brakes to slow down. Had I not, your rear bumper would have clipped my car — your judgment was off in many ways — and you would have been pushed sideways and likely you and the little doggie in your lap would have been t-boned and probably end up in the hospital, at best. That’s not a threat; that’s physics.

Yes my initial reaction was one of anger, because you put me and my son’s life in danger for no good reason. I let the anger go, because I realized there was no point in holding it. I did however get your license plate and reported you to 911 as a reckless driver. I don’t know if anything came of it, but it was the best I could do.

Actually I can do better. There are lessons to be learned from your mistakes.

Don’t be an asshole.

Don’t tailgate.

Don’t put yourself in dangerous situations. If you do, don’t blame someone else if things go pear shaped.

Before blaming someone else for all your problems, look first at yourself to see what you may have done wrong and could have done better.

Be slow to anger — not just on the road, but anywhere in life. The immediate situation may not be something you appreciate, but perhaps it was keeping you from a greater danger.

And I need to buy a hitch ball and mount. Bought one. 🙂

The Best Improvised Weapons

/ hsoi / 7 Comments

Low Tech Combat has an article about the 5 best improvised weapons.

What I like about the article is Adam first defines criteria of what makes a good improvised weapon — and what doesn’t. This includes dispelling some things commonly put forth as good improvised weapons (like car keys).

Then of course, they discuss the weapons and WHY they are good. I’d like to add a few comments:

#5 – loose change
#4 – backpack
#3 – a drink

Indeed these are good. They may not be damaging, but the key advantage (as a weapon) is it forces your attacker to reset their OODA loop. It doesn’t have to be loose change either. Consider Caleb Giddings’ coffee incident as an example of #3 (a drink) . Throwing things at your attacker makes them have to react to what you did —  their OODA resets, your OODA progresses.

#2 – a MagLite

I can’t deny a MagLite makes one hell of a club. But it’s a pretty crappy flashlight. 🙂 You could consider a model like the SureFire “Defender” (they have a few models in this flavor), which comes with a crenellated bezel made for striking things. Of course, that starts to make the flashlight look more like a weapon. I carry a SureFire E2L which has a mildly crenellated bezel, doesn’t look aggressive or weapon-like at all, but I wouldn’t want to get struck by it. And it makes a great EDC flashlight.

I tried using a MagLite in the past as a dan bong (Korean martial arts weapon, a short stick), but it’s just too heavy. Maybe a “C” cell version might work better. But the thing is, a MagLite is heavy. That’s an advantage, but it’s also a disadvantage (momentum).

#1 – umbrella

Even a small, compact umbrella could be usable (again, see dan bong). But yes, this makes a good weapon. There’s a lot these days about using canes and walking sticks for self-defense. You could use an umbrella, you could use a cane… maybe even have both, one for sunny days one for rainy (so you don’t look too out of place). Sometimes if I must enter a NPE, I’ll bring my cane.

That’s something else to consider: why carry an improvised weapon? If you’re a gun person, why would you want this? Well again, consider Caleb’s situation. Flinging the coffee into his attacker’s face bought him time — the OODA loop reset. As well, one point Adam stresses is sometimes situations dictate it and an improvised weapon is a fair choice due to situation or camouflage. A friend of mine likes to say “You don’t play golf with only one club in the bag.” That one gun may not be right for all situations.

Good stuff. Read the article for full details.

2012-02-01 workout – Wendler 5/3/1 program, cycle 6, deadlift 1

/ hsoi / 8 Comments

I’ll take today.

“Week 1”

  • 5 reps – Deadlift (working max: 315#)
    • 1x5x135 (warmup)
    • 1x5x160
    • 1x3x190
    • 1x5x205 (work)
    • 1x5x240
    • 1x10x270
  • Asst. #1 – Good Mornings
    • 5 x 10 x 75
  • Asst. #2 – Hanging LegHip Raise
    • 5 x 5 x BW
  • GPP – Elliptical
    • Tabata style (20 sec. 160-ish strides per min., 10 sec. 100-ish strides per min)
    • 2 minutes slow (warmup)
    • 1 Tabata set
    • 2 minutes slow (cooldown)
  • Foam rolling
  • Grip
    • 3x10xT, 2 sec. hold between reps
    • 3x3x1, 2 sec. hold between reps, 10 sec. hold on the last rep

I can take today.

Deadleft felt fine. I ended up stopping at 10 reps because I was just out of breath… the brain was saying “stop damnit! I need oxygen!” Sure I breathe properly, but still, it’s a lot of exertion. My body felt like it could have done maybe 5 more if I let it. But fine, this is no problem. I’m nicely on track to break 300.

On the raises I opted to keep low reps. I’m working to keep my shoulders tight and “in socket” instead of a total dead hang, which was killing my shoulders. It’s having a nice side-effect of making things more strict and involving a lot more of the body, so this is cool. 5×5 was alright so I can probably go to 5×6 next workout and just slowly work myself up and see how things go. I’m also finding a good “ritual” when coming up to the bar to ensure my shoulders stay happy. I’d rather take 2 steps back and have a healthy shoulder than plow ahead and regret it someday.

On grip… I dunno… off day? or just already pretty exhausted? But I had a hell of a time on the grippers, couldn’t hold the 10 seconds… forearms just said “hell no”. 🙂

All in all, felt alright.